In general, there are three main theories: Premillennialism,
Postmillennialism, and Amillennialism.
(32) By the 1840s, the "great day" of the advent of the new millennial age had receded to the distant future, and
postmillennialism became a more passive religious dimension of the wider middle-class pursuit of reform and progress.
(2.) This optimism also connects to eschatology, where
postmillennialism was a dominant view (15).
Two of its key pillars,
postmillennialism and the civilizing/Christianizing consensus, were crumbling.
He rejects utopian views as a form of
postmillennialism, and despairing views as incompatible with the understanding that the potential for technology is part of a world which God both created good and is now redeeming through the work of Christ.
I'm not suggesting that people in the pews need to know how to compare and contrast the many theories of atone-mentor be able to discuss in detail the differences among amillennialism, pre-millennialism or
postmillennialism.
But New England Puritanism was dead after three generations, and each of the three generations fought bitterly with their children to stay within the bounds of the covenant, or "halfway covenant." Yet it doesn't matter that most modern conservatives don't explicitly espouse
postmillennialism. Without much effort, we instinctively seek to build our New Jerusalems.
Within Tarry's book also are discussions of controversial topics such as the rapture, the battle of Har-Magedon, and end-times theology (
postmillennialism, amillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, and historical premillennialism).
One whose grounding in premillennialism,
postmillennialism, dispensational millennialism, amillennialism, the pretribulation or posttribulation or midtribulation rapture, and other such topics is shaky will benefit from the book's introduction, which provides an excellent survey of them.
This view has been labeled
postmillennialism, and its modern origin is ascribed to Daniel Whitby, a clergyman in the Church of England.
Stephens connects this radicalization and fractiousness with an eschatological shift among southern holiness proponents from
postmillennialism to dispensational premillennialism.