The Gospel as “Transformationalism”
I have been having a pleasant conversation with a brother over at the HOUSE OF CARDS: Thoughts and Musings. According to him, the mandate of the Church is “the conversion of the person, not the culture.”
To that, I offer a simple syllogism to prove that every Christian, even amillennialists, want to transform the culture.
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Even amillennialists want the gospel to be preached to everyone in hopes that they will embrace Jesus (though, they do not think everyone will).
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The embracing of Jesus by everyone in a given culture would certainly transform said culture.
Conclusion: Even amillennialists want to transform the culture.
The difference is, “transformationalists“, as we postmillennialists have been called, say this will happen before Jesus defeats the last enemy: death, while the amillennialist says it will not. But he only says this because of what is seen.
The sweet pic, “An old hanging oil-lamp“, is property of Chris Sofopoulos, © 2005-2007, used without permission, but I gave him props and linked to his gallery, so I hope it’s ok.
Sola Fidelity 
March 5, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Say it ain’t so! You’re a “postmillennialist” 😉
March 5, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Yeah, I pretty much believe that Jesus will return to finish off death. But all His other enemies will be subjected to Him in history through the spread of the Gospel.
March 6, 2008 at 3:06 am
End times theology is something that I barely have a grasp of, but I’m wondering how similar (or unsimilar) Amillenialism is to postmillenialism.
March 6, 2008 at 6:54 am
Amillennialism tends to spiritualize the prophecies like this one:
Postmillennialism believes this will happen in history as the gospel spreads, while amillennialism believes this is speaking of the new earth.
Another way to look at it would be to say that the amil view sees the Church wandering about the wilderness until the final advent of Jesus, while the postmil view sees the Church conquring the nations (with the sword of the WORD, of course), and when all the world is Christian, Jesus will return to consumate history.
March 6, 2008 at 7:27 am
Ron has made some good, fair distinctions there. Another way to think of the “three Mills” is etymologically. Premil sees Christ’s second coming before (“pre”) a Millenial Golden Age (of Christ’s physical, literal rule on this earth). Postmil sees Christ’s second coming after (“post”) a Millenial Golden Age (I suppose, where Christ’s spiritual rule over this earth is physically, literally realized by global Christendom). The “A” in Amil means no, like the A in a-moral (no, I’m obviously not trying to draw a parallel there!), so Amil says “There ain’t gonna be no Millenial Golden Age”.
However, there is a non-golden Millenial Age, and this is it. The Kingdom of God (not being of this world, or of this Age), is spiritual, and Christ exercises all power and authority which has been given to him in heaven and on earth, selectively — until his second coming in judgment and re-creation.
March 6, 2008 at 7:36 am
I wasn’t going to say anything 🙂
On fair distinctions – Yes, I try. I was going to say that amillennialism thinks the Messianic project an utter failure :), but that wouldn’t be an honest assessment of what they actually believe, just my belief imposed on their belief. That is, I would consider the gospel a failure if the world continued in its present godlessness until Jesus finally came back and said, “What the heck is going on here?!?” But I know the amillennialists wouldn’t consider that a failure because they believe that is God’s goal, to save “many”, but not “all”; to create a new earth, not regenerate the current one.
March 6, 2008 at 9:40 am
This is very interesting. I always find it fascinating, and yet really humbling that there is SO much we learning; it’s just a testament to the depth and the riches of the wisdom of God.