Christian History articles from February 1999

Christian History archives from February 1999

Hall of Infamy.
February 1, 1999... The Bible teaches that before Christ comes, the Antichrist must come. Here are nine (of many) who have earned that title in history. Nero (d. 68): "He will descend from his firmament in the form of a man, a king of iniquity, a murderer of...

LETTERS FROM THE READERS.
February 1, 1999... Great debt When St. Patrick's Day comes around, I emphasize the greatness of Patrick and the early Christian missionaries. It was they who abolished human sacrifice, freed the slaves, and introduced the Latin alphabet, Greco-Latin culture,...

Taking the Long View.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 135 Justin Marty places the Millennium after the Second Coming. Most early Christian thinkers weren't troubled by the delay of Jesus' return. They were troubled by those who thought he was coming soon. The days will come in which...

Millennium Today.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 425 Augustine finishes his City of God. Augustine changed his mind--and that of the church in the West for the next 1,500 years. One of the interesting things about Augustine of Hippo, the famous North African who converted in...

Looking for "the Last Emperor".
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1183 Joachim of Fiore begins having apocalyptic visions. The late Middle Ages was no tranquil era of religious harmony, but a hotbed of dissent and extreme speculation. Because anno Domini dating (setting the annual calendar from...

Columbu's Millennial Voyage.
February 1, 1999... The famous explorer was driven across the Atlantic by more than a quest for gold and glory. What could Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) have to do with a study of millennialism? When we think of the great explorer, we remember him for...

Salvation Now, Salvation Forever.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1520 Martin Luther intensifies his attack on the papacy, calling it the Antichrist. Luther and Calvin challenged the Catholic church on many key teachings--but not on the doctrine of last things. Though radical apocalyptic...

Munster's Monster.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1530 Anabaptist Melchoir Hoffman begins preaching the imminent return of Christ. What began as prophetic fervor ended in dictatorship and blood. The year is 1530. Protestant thought sweeps like a tornado across a European terrain...

Seeing the Glory.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1739 Jonathan Edwards preaches a sermon series published as A History of the Work of Redemption. Once upon a time, most American Christians were optimistic about the end. During most of the nineteenth century, American Protestants...

The Great Disappointment.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1843 William Miller predicts the Second Coming within this year. When a New York farmer announced the date of Jesus' return, thousands of Americans believed him. In recent years, we have almost come to expect the well-publicized...

The Dispensationalist Era.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1878 Fundamentalists sign the "Niagara Creed," which includes premillenial teachings. How a once-mocked idea began its domination of the evangelical world. Belief in Christ's personal return to set up his earthly...

The "Second Comers".
February 1, 1999... At first, the gift of tongues meant one thing: Jesus was returning soon. In the very first day of the twentieth century, a group of Kansas Bible school students laid hands on Agnes Ozman, praying that she would be baptized in the Holy...

Late Great Predictions.
February 1, 1999... A.D. 1970 Hal Lindsey publishers The Late Great Planet Earth. The events of recent decades have fired the imagination of a host of premillennialists, especially Hal Lindsey. After World War II, premillennialism reached an eschatological...

Hope Beyond the Details.(Interview)
February 1, 1999... Christians have hardly agreed about how and when Christ will return--only that he will. In this issue we've dipped into every era and shown how Christians have thought and acted about the last days. The variety is surprising and the...

Judgment Day on the Big Screen.
February 1, 1999... The end of the world according to filmmakers. Sandwiched exactly between the lives of John Nelson Darby and Steven Spielberg, Abel Gance directed La fin du monde (1931), France's first feature-length talking picture. In it, a comet...

The End of the World As We Know It.
February 1, 1999... At a Christian bookstore near the Christian History offices, the "prophecy" section is more than twice as large as the "history" section, and that doesn't count the apocalyptic fiction books. And even the history section is populated with...