Southern Baptists and millennialism, 1900-2000: conceptual patterns and historical expressions.

The word "millennium" means thousand. While the word "thousand" appears frequently in the Bible, the actual word millennium does not. Revelation 20:1-6 refers to a thousand years as the period of time of Christ's future rule on earth. This single passage has generated substantial debate regarding conditions to be met that usher in Christ's reign. How significantly has this idea influenced Baptist thought? What is the place of millennialism in Baptist belief?

This article will survey leading trends relating to Southern Baptist understandings of millennialism in the twentieth century.

Part I: Conceptual Patterns

The evidence suggests that millennialism has never been the central idea defining Southern Baptists. They have never been adventists with a major focus on the return of Christ. On the other hand, Baptists have never completely marginalized the idea. In the twentieth century, differences in interpreting millennial views have been significant enough to generate conflict. Our task is to explore various millennial positions and the debate's nature.

Several interpretations of millennialism emerged early in the church's history, and most Baptists adopted one of four interpretations in the twentieth century. The postmillennialists affirmed that the world was getting better and that Christ would come to rule for a thousand years after it reached a desired level of improvement: it is an optimistic position. The premillennialists were pessimistic; they argued that the world was getting progressively worse and that Christ would come to defeat the last enemy (Anti-Christ) and rule over an earth cleansed of evil people and evil forces. In the nineteenth century, John Nelson Darby elaborated the premillennial view, creating a third distinct option. He divided history into seven ages and taught that God dealt with people differently in each of these periods or "dispensations." These positions represent much more than aligning differing texts to support a particular way of timing the new epoch. They represent profoundly different world views: one is world-affirming; the other is anti-establishment. The postmillennial position was popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was compatible with the positive outlook of liberal theology and the optimism of the social gospel. Dispensational premillennialism gained much influence in the late nineteenth century, however, and it has appealed to Fundamentalists and other conservatives pessimistic about twentieth-century society. (1) A fourth position, the amillennial view, argues that the texts cited in this debate did not originally refer to a future reign of Christ at all and that the entire debate is therefore misguided. Augustine interpreted the millennium as the period between the first and second advent of Christ, not a future period yet to begin. (2) His influence was decisive in the history of the church. Although the early creeds of the church refer to Christ's return, neither they nor later confessions of faith supported either premillenialism or postmillennialism, and dispensationalism was not articulated until the nineteenth century. (3) Historian Robert Close noted that "most of the leading churches of the twentieth century follow amillennial eschatology." (4)

Quantifying millennial positions among Baptists is impossible for most of the century. It was not until recent polls canvassed Baptist ministers that we learned what percentage held what opinion regarding millennialism, how important these ideas were to them, or whether they were indifferent to millennial thought and debate. The question of the influence of millennial views among Baptist life needs work by historians.

The study of the Christian heritage is subdivided a variety of ways for purposes of analysis. One useful categorization is to examine theological, biblical, and historical components of an idea or a Christian movement. I employ these categories and explore what Baptist theologians, biblical interpreters, and historians have said about millennialism. I will then examine major stages in twentieth-century Baptist discussions surrounding millennialism. (5) The paper explores both conceptual patterns and historical expressions of Baptist millennial interpretation.

The biblical materials provide the ideas that shape millennial views. However, the biblical texts must be interpreted. Readers select certain biblical passages for emphasis, often depending on their outlook and the conclusion they wish to reach. Diversity of views of the bible interpretation shapes divergent millennial interpretation among Baptists. Theological constructs account for the biblical materials, but the theologian must also show how millennial views fit into the overall scheme of a half-dozen other great theological concepts, including the doctrines of God, sin, Christ, redemption, and the church. Historians must recognize the biblical and theological patterns that emerge, but also they must account for their salience and their changing interpretations. We begin with theological summaries.

Theological Interpretations

Baptist theologians have the responsibility of reflecting on the totality of ideas that comprise Baptist theology. What has been the role of millennialism for them in the larger spectrum of theological ideas?

Baptist Confessions of Faith

Confessions of faith are generally conceived of as summaries of all the essential teachings of a denomination. When the Protestant Reformation splintered Christendom, group after group set forth statements of their beliefs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Lutherans summarized their views in the Augsburg Confession, Presbyterians in the Westminster Confession, and Quakers in the Apology. Baptists, too, explained their positions in confessions. Lumpkin's fine collection of confessions demonstrates Baptists' use of confessions from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century. (6) New confessions of faith have been produced and old ones have been modified from time to time to respond to new circumstances faced by the churches, but a core of doctrinal categories remains. One of these is the cluster of ideas that relate to the end of time and are collectively called "eschatology." The confessions of faith consistently include articles on this doctrine. (7)

Identity Studies/ Baptist Distinctives 

Baptists have been fond of producing self-identity books referred to as "Baptist distinctives" studies. Ernest A. Payne, Henry Cook, and Brownlow Hastings have all published studies probing Baptist identity. They typically include such ideas as authority of the Bible, priesthood of the believer, separation of church and state, believer's baptism, and world missions. (8)

William H. Brackney's recent interpretation, The Baptists, provides a current attempt to define Baptist identity. (9) For him the key points for Baptists are their views of the Bible, church, ordinances, religious liberty and voluntary organization. The list of interpreters could be extended. In none of these four representative Baptist interpreters of Baptist mentality does eschatology or the millennial notion appear as a key feature in the Baptist tradition. Perhaps they ignored the idea, or perhaps they believed that a specific millennial position had never been a defining component of Baptist identity. Whereas the confessions officially include it, mid- and late-twentieth century interpreters treat millennialism as a dormant doctrine among Baptists or at best as a secondary doctrine. It never makes the list of a half-dozen key Baptist doctrines.

Millennial doctrines have not been totally ignored, however, and Baptist theologians have regularly addressed the issue of millennial interpretation.

Southern Baptist Theologians I: Mullins and Conner

Southern Baptists have not produced many systematic theologians. The most influential Baptist theologians of the first half of this century were probably Edgar Y. Mullins and Walter T. Conner. Hundreds of Baptist pastors were taught by these two personally or used their books as texts in their seminary courses in theology.

Soteriology was the center of Conner's theology Christian Doctrine (1937). He devoted over one-third of the book to sin and salvation. Repentance and faith were the critical issues for him. Conner reflected the Baptist focus on the conversion experience. This is how Southern Baptists understood the Christian faith in the middle of the twentieth century. For Conner, theology must be experientially based: salvation was "a matter of spiritual experience." (10) Conner supported his theology with much Scriptural quotation, and he relied heavily on Mullins's work. He closed his work with a thirty-five page discussion titled "The Consummation of Salvation; the Coming of the Kingdom of God." (11)

Edgar Young Mullins's The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression (1917) preceded Conner's work by twenty years. Mullins defined the Christian religion as the experience of Jesus Christ and doctrine as the "systematic and scientific explanation of this order of facts." (12) Experience for him, too, was primary. (13)

Mullins entitled his sixty-four page chapter on eschatological matters simply "Last Things." He took up such issues as death, the second coming of Christ, the millennium, resurrection, judgment, heaven, hell, and punishment. (14) Conner addresses a similar list of eschatological topics. (15) When twentieth century Baptists found time for lively disagreement on eschatological interpretation, they did not seem to focus their debate on the doctrines of heaven, hell, resurrection, or judgment, and the theologians do not say why. The fight, instead, centered on the return of Christ and the conditions in the world that would signal the new era.

In his book of 500 pages, Mullins devoted only six pages to the millennium. In this brief discussion, he focused his attention on the conflict among Baptists between premillennialism and postmillennialism. He reconstructed the central teachings and arguments for each position and then supplied a critique for each. (16)

Northern Baptist Augustus Hopkins Strong had already rejected the premillennial interpretation in 1907. (17) He noted that premillennialists base their views on a literal reading of Revelation 20, but it is "an obscure passage of one of the most figurative books of scripture." (18) He appealed to other passages and de-emphasized the premillennial end-time scenario, and emphasized "the spiritual nature of the resurrection-body and of the coming reign of Christ." (19) Both Mullins and Conner relied heavily on Strong. The millennial problem did not vanish by the time of Conner. He also grappled with it in 1937 and explicitly critiques premillennial interpretation. (20)

Southern Baptist Theologians II: Moody, Hobbs, and Stagg

In the second half of the century, Southern Baptist seminary professors continued to address the issue of millennialism. Dale Moody had a deep interest in eschatological questions. In 1964, he developed his ideas in The Hope of Glory. (21) In his systematic theology, The Word of Truth (1981), Moody's longest chapter is "The Consummation." (22) Moody addressed four interpretative positions: amillennialism, premillennialism, postmillennialism, and dispensationalism. (23)

Herschel Hobbs, theologian for the laity, had wide-reaching influence on Southern Baptists. He chaired the committee that produced the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message. He influenced the thought of the laity by publishing in state Baptist papers brief word studies of key biblical terms. Moreover, he produced simplified explanations of Baptist thought such as are found in Fundamentals of Our Faith (1960). Here he addresses the millennial question in traditional Baptist fashion--ever so briefly summarizing the key arguments of postmillennialism, premillennialism and amillennialism. (24)

In 1982, Frank Stagg, New Testament theologian, noted that eschatology is "largely in the hands of sensationalists who find ready markets for their words." (25) He observed that "today apocalyptic eschatology is big business." (26) Stagg explained the premillennial interpretation of history but dismissed it because it was so otherworldly that it had nothing to offer to the real needs of people. (27)

All three of these theologians represented establishment Southern Baptist thought, and they resisted allowing premillennial views to achieve centrality in Baptist theological reflection. Yet Moody, Hobbs, and Stagg addressed the premillennial question precisely because it was an ongoing issue in the Southern Baptist Convention. Years before, reflecting on Baptists in the 1950s, Robert Baker had suggested that "in practically every general body of Baptists in America today there are many premillennial Baptists." (28) The question, of course, is how many is "many"? Who held which position--postmillennial, premillennial dispensational or amillennial--and how important was the belief in the total theological perception of Southern Baptists?

Scriptural Interpretations

The appeal to Scripture, especially to the New Testament, by both Mullins and Conner, is extensive and impressive. The appeal of premillennialists and postmillennialists to support their systems of thought and visions of the future likewise relies heavily on scriptural quotation and documentation.

Darby and Scofield

In the nineteenth century, John Nelson Darby founded a new denomination called the Plymouth Brethren. But his influence was much more extensive through the view of history that he developed. Darby constructed a theological interpretation of history. Like many millennialists before him, he thought in terms of seven distinct epochs. Most millennialists place themselves in the sixth age, thereby lending urgency to their message: the beginning of the final stage is near. Darby's special contribution was to teach that in each of these ages of humankind, God provided a different mode of salvation. Each age was called a dispensation. Many premillennialists adopted this interpretation and premillennialist dispensationalism, a nineteenth-century construction of the end of things, had profound influence on twentieth century fundamentalism and other conservative theologies.

C. I. Scofield, teacher at Dallas Theological Seminary, codified the Darby interpretation and made it accessible to the laity through his widely disseminated Scofield Reference Bible. The book sold two million copies in its first generation. (29) The dissemination of dispensational ideas was due to a stroke of marketing genius. Instead of publishing a separate volume of his views, Scofield incorporated his notes into an edition of the King James Version of the Bible. Conservative Christians revered the Bible. Many of them bought Scofield Reference Bibles, and thereby were introduced to premillennial ideas. He popularized the notion that there would be a great period of suffering or "tribulation" and that the saints would escape by being taken into heaven or "raptured." "Rapture" means to be transported from one level of existence to another. It is based on the biblical language of being "caught up together with them in the clouds" (1 Thess. 4:17). Increase Mather cited this passage. Paul Boyer sees Mather's use of it as "an early formulation of the rapture doctrine more fully elaborated in the nineteenth century." (30) The Scofield influence has remained strong. In her 1987 survey of Baptist ministers, Helen Lee Turner found that for over 40% of her respondents, the Scofield Bible was the single most influential source on their views of the millennium. (31) Other influences included seminary training and the apocalyptic rhetoric in Billy Graham's sermons and books.

Ray Summers

New Testament scholar Ray Summers challenged premillennial use of the New Testament. His widely read Worthy Is the Lamb is probably the most influential Southern Baptist interpretation of the book of Revelation. Summers's book provides an interpretation of Revelation, but what is arresting in his study is his review of approaches to the book. He evaluates leading methods of interpretation, forcing readers to grapple seriously with presuppositions behind each interpretation. (32)

Summers especially critiques the futurist assumptions of the premillennialists. Their approach assumes that Revelation was written to describe the end of history, and that the events described in chapters 4-19 will take place in the last seven years of the world's existence. (33) Summers argues instead that the writer expected events to come to pass "shortly," not in the distant future. (34) Second, futurists separate the Book of Revelation from the needs of the churches to which it was first addressed. It was meant for Christians persecuted by Domitian; therefore, it is not a "forecast of Roman Catholic apostasy or a chronology for the Lord's return." (35) Summers frequently reiterated his basic principle of interpreting Revelation: "no interpretation can be regarded as the correct one if it would have been meaningless to those who first received the book." (36)

Summers's own position is to anchor his interpretation in the first century when the church was being persecuted. In critiquing futuristic positions, he explicitly rejected both premillennialism and dispensationalism and implicitly rejected postmillennialism as well. He arrived at a position that de-emphasized the use of Scripture as a blueprint for the future. This historical position appealed to many within the establishment of Baptist colleges and seminaries.

Historical Interpretations

The historian's task is, in part, to measure the level of salience of an idea within the group studied. How important was millennialism among Southern Baptists?

Baptist Historians

Indices of major Baptist histories and Southern Baptist histories indicate scant interest in any form of millennialism--premillennialism, postmillennialism or amillennialism--which suggests either that it has been an insignificant factor in Southern Baptist experience or that historians are guilty of oversight of a significant idea in the minds of Baptists. American Baptist Torbet mentioned the Millerites briefly but indexed no other related topic. (37) For McBeth, premillennialism is important for understanding Fundamentalists among Baptists. After describing several Fundamentalist Baptist groups, he declared that "for the Baptist version of fundamentalism the bedrock doctrine is premillennialism." (38) His discussion of premillennialism centered especially on his discussions of J. Frank Norris and Baptist fundamentalism. McBeth holds that Norris differed from other Southern Baptists by holding a "firmer commitment to premillennialism," anti-denominationalism, and a meaner spirit. (39)

Southern Baptist Historians

Major SBC historians--Barnes, Baker, and Fletcher--gave little attention to millennialism. They did, however, make reference to premillennialism in the context of the Norris controversy. The words "millennial," "advent," and "eschatology" do not appear in the index of Barnes's survey, The Southern Baptist Convention. (40) Robert Baker's The Southern Baptist Convention and Its People, 1607-1972, indexes no reference to millennialism. (41) However, his article on premillennialism in the Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists showed his keen awareness of its presence in Baptist life. (42) Jesse Fletcher produced the most recent history of The Southern Baptist Convention. (43) Again the millennial language is almost completely absent from the index, but he did mention the Premillennial Fundamental Missionary Fellowship (later the Premillennial Baptist Missionary Fellowship), the name J. Frank Norris used to identify his organization.

Current Studies

Nor do current studies give much attention to millennialism. Defining Baptist Convictions: Guidelines for the Twenty-first Century (1996), edited by Charles Deweese, treats twenty-one topics vital to the Baptist experience. (44) Millennialism is not among the issues treated. In short, historians have not given millennialism much visibility in the overall history of Southern Baptists. Judging from the historians, one could argue that millennialism is marginalized and inconsequential in Southern Baptist life. Did the historians hope that millennial doctrinal influence would diminish after the Norris controversy? Were they unable to write from the perspective of average lay believers or disenfranchised preachers? Did they unconsciously suppress its presence? Did it simmer below the surface of Southern Baptist life? Or was it, in fact, a doctrine that was of little concern to most Southern Baptists in the twentieth century?

PART II: HISTORICAL EXPRESSIONS: BAPTISTS AND MILLENNIALISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Baptist theologians, historians, and biblical scholars have addressed the interpretation of millennialism from their particular perspectives. A survey of actual historical developments reveals half a dozen ways millennial interpretation has influenced Baptists in the twentieth century.

Postmillennialism

Postmillennialism has had a limited number of Southern Baptist advocates in the twentieth century. (45) Dale Moody notes that B. H. Carroll was the last ardent Southern Baptist postmillennialist. Carroll was pastor of the First Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, professor at Baylor University, and instrumental organizer in founding Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Carroll optimistically taught that the kingdom of God would be established by evangelism, missions, and social reform. (46)

The American Baptist Association 

In 1905, the American Baptist Association (ABA) separated from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This split early in the century involved churches located primarily in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They were influenced especially by Landmarkism, which taught that there was no scriptural basis for organization beyond the local church. Therefore, they opposed collaboration with other churches to form conventions or missionary societies. Baker noted that other points of tension existed as well, and that premillennialism was a critical issue in the separation of the ABA from the SBC. (47) Since the ABA separated from the SBC early in the century, Baker warned of premillennialism's tendency to foster schism. He feared further schism centered around the emergence of premillennial fellowships at both state and national levels.

J. Frank Norris

By the 1920s, J. Frank Norris was one of the most visible figures in Baptist life. Norris was highly critical of the institutional structures of the Southern Baptist and Texas conventions. He criticized denominationalism for its control of churches. He attacked the instruction offered by the seminary and openly criticized the greatest of the establishment's preachers--George W. Truett. He generated enormous levels of controversy within the denomination. The denomination eventually ousted Norris, and he established himself as an independent Baptist in Fort Worth. Norris adopted Fundamentalist theology and premillennialism. He used it as a test of orthodoxy. Norris's two papers, The Searchlight and The Fundamentalist, referred to premillennialism "in almost every issue." (48) It was inevitable that seminary students in Fort Worth were exposed to the idea. McBeth wrote that "the refusal of Southern Baptists to embrace premillennialism, or to write that view into their first major confession of 1925, was one reason for the final split between Norris and the SBC." (49) Norris's premillennialism was associated with the position of an outsider. Norris forced discussion of premillennialism, but the seminary's leaders and faculty refused to be diverted and kept the educational agenda focused on other interests, notably evangelism and missions. (50)

Premillennial Fellowships

Premillennial fellowships began to flourish at mid-century. They began in 1946 and reached 10,000 in membership by 1953. (51) The fellowships represented a small percentage of Baptist ministers--fewer than ten percent. (52) In the 1950s, the Eastern Oklahoma Premillennial Fellowship published the Baptist Beacon. Analysis of the extant copies of the Beacon in the SBC archives in Nashville reveals a small group of marginalized pastors who formed this organization. They had difficulty funding the paper and tried to solicit financial support by promising to print the names of contributors. Although their masthead proclaimed them to be a premillennial fellowship, much of their writing focused on criticism of the Oklahoma State Baptist offices in Oklahoma City. The writers asked repeatedly in editorials why the state leaders collected so much money for state convention projects but failed to distribute funds to rural and smaller churches. (53) In short, what passed for a theological movement seems instead to have served as a tiny but organized challenge to the establishment by outsiders.

Joe Barnhart noted the growing popularity of premillennialism among Southern Baptists in the 1940s and 1950s and interprets the movement as a protest to the modern world's rapid surrender to secularism. (54) Martin Marty also understood the growth of premillennialism to be a reaction against modernism. The theme of Marty's first volume of Modern American Religion was Modernism. He found the countervailing theme of protest to the modern in Fundamentalism, premillennialism, and biblical inerrancy. (55)

The credibility of the premillennial position was enhanced above all by the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Premillennialists taught that the Bible prophesied the restoration of Israel. The temple would be rebuilt, and Israel would become the site of a great war. This must all transpire before the return of Christ. Fundamentalists have therefore been motivated by this set of teachings to offer support for United States diplomatic and economic measures that help guarantee Israel's survival. This event was an essential step in premillennialists' reconstruction of the end of time. The anxiety created by the Communist Revolution in China (1949), Russia's successful detonation of the atomic bomb (1950) and the ensuing Cold War doubtless fueled the pessimism ingrained in premillennialism.

In a 1958 summary article, historian Robert Baker assessed premillennialism in Baptist life. Citing the examples of the ABA and Norris, he observed that premillennialism contributed to Baptist schism. (56) But Baptist energies were diverted to other issues in the late 1950s. Division would come, but its source was not debate over millennial interpretation.

The Baptist Faith and Message, 1963

Controversy arose in the Convention in the late 1950s over Ralph Elliott's The Message of Genesis, prompting leaders to rewrite the denomination's confession of faith. The 1925 confession, whose chair was E. Y. Mullins, devoted three articles to last things: "XV. The Righteous and the Wicked"; "XVI. The Resurrection"; and "XVII. The Return of the Lord." These subjects reflect concerns expressed by Mullins in his systematic theology (1917). The 1963 committee compressed all three article into a single one: "X. Last Things." (57) Millennial interpretation seemed to be a low priority for shapers of the 1963 document that guided Baptist thought for the next thirty-five years. Instead, Baptists debated the nature, authority and interpretation of the Bible.

Fundamentalists, Evangelical Culture, and Baptists

Laurence Moore has argued that it is the nature of American religion for the outsider to maintain distinctive identity, win allegiance of new followers and thereby become the insider. (58) When Fundamentalism took over the SBC in the 1980s the anti-establishment became establishment. Premillennialism, traditional companion to Fundamentalism, was no longer on the fringe. Fundamentalism had embraced dispensational premillennialism in its early stages as historians of Fundamentalism Ernest Sandeen and George Marsden have shown. Sandeen argued that the two ideas on which the movement rests are premillennialism and the inerrancy of the Bible. George Marsden wrote that Fundamentalism was more complex; he identified its social as well as theological sources. Nevertheless, he also found premillennialism to be central in the movement. (59) Fundamentalists in the 1920s made their attack on the religious establishment through the issues of Darwinian evolution and biblical inerrancy. These two issues remained central for resurgent Fundamentalism in the SBC of the 1980s. Premillennialism was part of the Fundamentalist package that many Baptists accepted. Millennialism began to flourish in new ways among Baptists.

Evangelical culture in general was premillennial. Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth (1970) was a best-selling title of the decade, and it was welcomed by many Southern Baptists. Dale Moody wrote a devastating critique of the book in 1975. (60) But in 1986-87, Helen Lee Turner found that 85 percent of Baptist pastors had heard of the book and that over 40 percent of those surveyed liked the book, while only 25 percent did not. (61) Billy Graham's influence must not be discounted. For fifty years he has preached the imminent return of Christ. Graham is still respected by Baptists and his books and sermons on the Apocalypse have doubtless had their impact. (62)

Twentieth-century evangelical culture in general has made an important place for the millennial question--as is clear in the researches of Timothy Weber, Randall Balmer, Paul Boyer and Joel Carpenter. (63)

In their statistical surveys of Baptist ministers' opinions in the late 1980s, Nancy Ammerman, Helen Lee Turner, and James Z. Gatz fortunately included questions about views on millennialism so that we have a way to gauge the presence of premillennial thought among Southern Baptist pastors. Ammerman found that while 41 percent disagreed or were unsure about premillennialism, a substantial majority of 59 percent agreed or agreed strongly that "the Bible teaches a premillennial view of history and the future." (64) Clearly the tide had turned; outsider became insider. Acceptance of premillennial thought is now a majority position in the thought of Southern Baptist ministers. The Southern Baptist Convention has changed by embracing Fundamentalism. Its ministers have redefined not only their views of Scripture and women but also of millennialism.

Millennialism as Rhetoric of Change

Classic Christian apocalyptic thought is characterized by a titanic struggle at the end of history between the superhuman forces of good and evil; Christ and the angels contend with Anti-Christ, Satan, and demons. Evil loses its power and the new age begins. In apocalyptic literature, the new age is peopled by God's followers, society is changed, and some mixture of a new heaven and a new earth emerges. Without evidence of a visible war between good and evil, many interpreters have nevertheless used their set of teachings to pronounce that a new era has dawned. They call it the kingdom of God even if they have merely devised a new social order. The Shakers taught that Christ had come again in female form and that the kingdom had been established. Oneida believers legitimated revolutionary sexual practice by sharing multiple husbands and multiple wives; John Humphrey Noyes announced that the quest for perfectionism led to this practice. These groups believed that they were part of the new epoch, but no one outside their small numbers recognized in them any coming of Christ or victory over Satan. Thus apocalyptic/millennial rhetoric can be used to justify social changes--a departure from the norm--without a visibly antecedent cosmic struggle. This use of "millennial" is not otherworldly in the sense of a battle of the forces of good and evil; its followers nevertheless affirm that God has inaugurated a new age and justified the changes that have been put in place.

Helen Lee Turner sees the millennium as metaphor for social change among Baptists; that is, many who preach the dawn of a new divine order are simply denouncing the present in order to legitimate changes in society or in a denomination. This, of course, refocuses the meaning of millennial thought from the metahistorical to the historical and focuses on social change or, in the case of the Southern Baptist Convention, on denominational restructuring. She saw W. A. Criswell and R. G. Lee as premillennial "prophets" of this revised Southern Baptist Convention. In the Fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, there was no second coming of Christ; there was destruction or transformation of the old Southern Baptist Convention, depending on one's point of view. The rhetorical description of conflict between good and evil in millennial thought was translated into a power struggle and mutual hostility within the Convention between the forces of "good" and the forces of "evil." Turner saw millennialism as being significant in recent Baptist life because it supplied the justifying rhetoric of change to a new SBC. (65)

CONCLUSION

Many factors shape the identity of an individual or an institution. Moreover, individuals and institutions change. Baptists in the South have changed in this century. Millennial views are merely one aspect of the total Baptist tradition, but they provide a clue to changes among Baptists.

This study suggests three conclusions. First, during the early part of the century the majority of Southern Baptists and their ministers refused to adopt a dogmatic position on interpreting the millennium. They seem to have left open speculation about the end of time. Baptist theologians early and late in the century pointed out weaknesses of various millennial interpretations, and were especially critical of dispensationalism. Ray Summers's work articulated one of the strongest biblical defenses for amillennialism. He insisted that the millennial text of Revelation 20 cannot legitimately be interpreted as a prediction of the distant future; it was addressed to first-century Christians. Baptist historians documented the schism among premillennialists and warned against it.

Second, during the latter half of the century, premillennialism has moved from the fringes of Baptist thought to the respectable. With Norris and the Fellowships throughout the 1950s, premillennialism was a mark of the disgruntled and the outsider. The seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention resisted premillennialist dispensationalism. The establishment wanted to avoid schism and focus on evangelism. However, Evangelical-Fundamentalist culture grew rapidly in the 1980s. One of its greatest successes was to incorporate the Southern Baptist Convention under its broad umbrella. Thus, premillennialism, handmaiden to Fundamentalism, also became the acceptable position of many Southern Baptist pastors in the 1980s and 1990s.

Third, although the Southern Baptist Convention has changed in many respects, it would be erroneous to argue that millennialism has become central to Baptist self-identity. In a survey of thirty-three Baptist theologians published in 1990 by Southern Baptists, neither the Introduction nor the Conclusion to any of the books mentions the word "millennial" once. This evidence suggests that millennialism of whatever type is a marginal, not a central doctrine for Southern Baptist self-identity. (66) It can also suggest a wide and important gap between the ideas held by the elite theologians on the one hand and the masses of the laity on the other hand. Although the views of millennialism have shifted among Baptists in the South during the twentieth century, the core identity of the Baptist tradition seems relatively untouched by changing opinion about millennial interpretation. In short, millennial views at the end of the day are not the criteria by which Baptists tend to shape their self-definition.

Endnotes

William A. Pitts is professor of religion, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

(1.) For current discussions of the development of millennial positions, consult the excellent essays in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (New York: Continnum, 1998), volume 3: Apocalypticism in the Modern Period and the Contemporary Age, edited by Stephen J. Stein. See especially James H. Moorhead, "Apocalypticism in Mainstream Protestantism: 1800 to the Present" (72-107) and Paul Boyer, "The Growth of Fundamentalist Apocalyptic in the United States" (140-78).

(2.) Arthur W. Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse: Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), 36-39.

(3.) James Leo Garrett, "The Millennium" in Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995) 2: 764-65, 757.

(4.) Robert G. Close, "Amillennialism," Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1990): 57.

(5.) James Leo Garrett suggests that millennial interpretation was not a major doctrinal issue among Baptists until the twentieth century. See James Leo Garrett, "Millennialism," in Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists 2 (1958): 857-58.

(6.) William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1957).

(7.) See Lumpkin, pages 367, 376, 397, 409-10, passim.

(8.) See, for example, the works by English Baptist Ernest A. Payne, The Fellowship of Believers (London: The Carey Kingsgate Press, 1944) who had chapters on the "Visible Church," "The Lord's Table," "Baptism, Worship," and "Spiritual Discipline." Another English Baptist, Henry Cook, focused on the "Supremacy of Scripture," "The Nature of the Church," "The Place of Baptism," and "The Principle of Liberty." See his What Baptists Stand For (London: the Carey Kingsgate Press, 1947). C. Brownlow Hastings, in Introducing Southern Baptists: Their Faith and Their Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), focused on the "Lordship of Christ," "Competency of the Soul," "Salvation," "The Church," "The Ordinances," "Cooperation and Religious Liberty" in his attempt to explain Baptist identity.

(9.) William H. Brackney, The Baptists (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994).

(10.) W. T. Conner, Christian Doctrine (Nashville: Broadman, 1937), 278.

(11.) Conner, "The Consummation of Salvation: The Coming of the Kingdom of God" in Christian Doctrine, 293-331.

(12.) Edgar Y. Mullins, The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1917), 2.

(13.) Mullins, The Christian Religion, 1-34.

(14.) Ibid., 439-503.

(15.) Conner, Christian Doctrine; see his chapter "The Consummation of Salvation: the Coming of the Kingdom of God," 293-331.

(16.) Mullins, The Christian Religion, 466-72.

(17.) Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, (Philadelphia: Judson, 1907), 1010-15.

(18.) Ibid., 1011.

(19.) Ibid., 1012.

(20.) Conner, Christian Doctrine, 312.

(21.) Dale Moody, The Hope of Glory, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964).

(22.) Dale Moody, The Word of Truth: A Summary of Christian Doctrine Based on Biblical Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 481-594.

(23.) Moody, The Word of Truth, 548-57.

(24.) Herschel Hobbs, Fundamentals of Our Faith, (Nashville: Broadman, 1960), 154-56. See also his commentary, The Baptist Faith and Message (Nashville: Convention Press, 1971).

(25.) Frank Stagg, "Eschatology: A Southern Baptist Perspective," Review and Expositor, 79 (1982): 390.

(26.) Stagg, 391.

(27.) Stagg, 392.

(28.) Robert Baker, "Premillennial Baptist Groups," in Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists 2 (1958): 1110. Many Baptists are familiar with the language and ideas of premillennialism, but for many others the premillennial vocabulary has little meaning. It was not a part of Sunday School literature in mid-century. The decisive factor would seem to be whether or not one's pastor was convinced by and regularly preached premillennialism.

(29.) Martin Marty, Modern American Religion, Vol. 1, The Irony of It All (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 220.

(30.) Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), 75. For a full exposition of the Mathers's position, see Robert Middlekauff, The Mathers (New York: Oxford, 1971). For eighteenth-century development, consult James West Davidson, The Logic Of Millennial Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).

(31.) Helen Lee Turner, "Myths: Stories of this World and the World to Come" in Southern Baptists Observed, ed. Nancy Tatom Ammerman (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993), 102.

(32.) Ray Summers, Worthy Is the Lamb, (Nashville: Broadman, 1951), 27. See chapter 2, "Methods of Interpreting the Book of Revelation."

(33.) Ibid., 28, 30.

(34.) Ibid., 32.

(35.) Ibid., 34.

(36.) Ibid., 38.

(37.) Robert C. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson, 1950), 277, 296.

(38.) McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1954), 768.

(39.) McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 578.

(40.) William Wright Barnes, The Southern Baptist Convention, 1845-1953 (Nashville: Broadman, 1954).

(41.) Robert A. Baker, The Southern Baptist Convention and It's People, 1607-1972 (Nashville: Broadman 1974).

(42.) Robert A. Baker, "Premillennial Baptist Groups," Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists 2 (1958): 1110-11.

(43.) Jesse C. Fletcher, The Southern Baptist Convention: A Sesquicentennial History (Nashville: Broadman, 1994), 166, 189.

(44.) Charles Deweese, ed. Defining Baptist Convictions: Guidelines for the Twenty-first Century (Franklin, Tennessee: Providence House Publishers, 1996).

(45.) Whereas the Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists carries a rather extensive article on premillennialism, it has no entry at all on postmillennialism. The twentieth-century debate would center on premillennialism rather than postmillennialism.

(46.) B. H. Carroll, An Interpretation of the English Bible, 1948 ed. (Nashville: Broadman Press) 6: 279; 17: 1-12, 209-44.

(47.) Baker, Premillennial Baptist Groups., 1111. See the "Doctrinal Statement of the American Baptist Association" in Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 378-79, especially Article 8 on the second coming of Christ.

(48.) Baker, Premillennial Baptist Groups, 1111.

(49.) McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 768.

(50.) See the development of this theme in Glenn Thomas Carson, "L. R. Scarborough and the Southwestern Dream," Journal of Texas Baptist History 14 (1994), 70-86. Carson argues persuasively that Scarborough's controlling aim for the seminary was to promote evangelism above any other objective.

(51.) Baker, Premillennial Baptist Groups, 1111.

(52.) Helen Lee Turner, "Myths: Stories of this World and the World to Come" in Southern Baptists Observed, ed. Ammerman, 102.

(53.) Dero Jeter, "Missing the Mother Lode," Baptist Beacon, 1, no. 3 (September, 1949): 1, and J. Harvey Scott, "Lost a Head," Baptist Beacon, 2, no. 3 (September, 1950): 1, 4. For the group's views on millennialism, see J. Harvey Scott, "The Difference Between Premillennial and Postmillennial Doctrine," Baptist Beacon, 2, no. 2 (June, 1950): 1, 4.

(54.) Joe Edward Barnhart, The Southern Baptist Holy War (Austin: Monthly Press, 1986): 56.

(55.) Marty, Modern American Religion, vol. 1, The Irony of It All, 218-37.

(56.) Baker, Premillennial Baptist Groups, 1110.

(57.) For comparative parallel texts comparing the articles in these two confessions, consult Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1990), 513-14.

(58.) Laurence Moore, Religion Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

(59.) Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) and George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 201.

(60.) Dale Moody, "The Eschatology of Hal Lindsey," Review and Expositor, 72 (Summer 1975): 271-78.

(61.) Turner, Southern Baptists Observed, 106.

(62.) See Billy Graham, World Aflame (New York: Penguin, 1967) and Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1983).

(63.) See Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992); and Joel Carpenter, Revive Us Again: the Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

(64.) Nancy T. Ammerman, Baptists Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 75-76. Several ministers are currently capitalizing on the year 2000 fears. They preach that computers will collapse, and with them our economic, political, military, and transportation systems. It is easy to manipulate this technological problem into an apocalyptic message.

(65.) Turner in Ammerman, especially page 109. Her arguments are spelled out in detail in her dissertation "Fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist Convention: The Crystallization of a Millennialist Movement," Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1990.

(66.) Timothy George and David Dockery, eds., Baptist Theologians (Nashville: Broadman, 1990).