Approaching the Apocalypse: A Short History of Christian Millenarianism (review)

There are always good reasons for penning a book on the theme of Christian millenarianism, and there has been a glut of such books in recent years, some more journalistic than academic. Hence, any scholarly additions are to be welcomed. Undoubtedly, as the end of the second Christian millennium came to an end, the attraction for exploring the topic was perhaps irresistible from either a sociological or historical perspective (or both). The premillennial tension that gave rise to millenarian sects and movements was an intriguing subject for many (even if such sects and movements proved to be comparatively few when compared to the turn of the first Christian millennium). Eight years after the psychologically relevant date of the year 2000 came and went, the justification of the author of Approaching the Apocalypse, John M. Court, is: "Now that the fervor of excitement and the threat of fanaticism associated with the new Millennium has practically subsided, it is a good time to attempt an overview of millenarian expectation over the two millennia of Christian history" (p. xviii). I'm not convinced of his timing, but his book should be judged accordingly.

The volume has eighteen chapters plus an epilogue. The early chapters take the reader through an exploration of the key terms related to millenarianism, presents a general outline of the concept within the history of ideas, and its biblical basis and pre- and postmillenarian frameworks (but not, curiously, amillenarianism). Subsequent early chapters survey millenarians among the Church Fathers, Montanism, the impact of Joachimite ideas, apocalypticism around the year 1000, and the millenarian expectations through the medieval period up until the English Civil War. After something of an epochal historical jump, the analysis is brought to bear on the distinct millenarianism of Edward Irving's Catholic Apostolic Church, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Later chapters include modern utopias, cargo cults within the missionary setting, the ever-popular story of the Branch Davidians and the Waco tragedy, and the "Apocalypse Now" syndrome on or after 2000 AD. All in all, this amounts to a compelling treatment of the subject in a fairly slim edition—breadth without a great deal of depth. This makes the volume an easy read, although I am not sure that it constitutes, as claimed on the back cover, "… the definitive handbook to Doomsday."

Despite that reservation, there is much to commend about the volume. This is a wide-ranging and accessible study of millennial thought and its implication for Christian history—part of the intellectual history of the faith that has often been marginalized, despite the proliferation of such volumes in recent times. Christian theologians throughout the centuries have tended to think that they could dispense with or at least marginalize the doctrine of the millennium by showing how it misrepresented the New Testament. The widespread influence of such ideas only demonstrates the impossibility of pinning down such an allusive apocalyptic image and the pervasiveness of themes with millennial resonance in the foundation texts of the faith. Such an image and accompanying themes continue to stalk religious and secular consciousness, passing into popular Christian books such as the Left Behind novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that indicate the continuation of a powerful and startling idea of the end of days within Western cultural history.