Colonial Religion and End of Time Prophecy Beliefs

Aug 5, 2010 Michael Streich

Colonial Religious Beliefs in the End of the World - Mike Streich Photo Image

Colonial religious views included strong notions of apocalyptic belief that charted the end of time, identified Antichrists, and fostered revivalism.

Protestant American religious tradition has always included a strong belief in the Second Coming of Christ. Although different denominations treat the Second Coming from the perspectives of their own theological belief systems, core elements of apocalyptic understanding are the same. The belief that the existing world would end, ushering in a Utopia, as well as the belief in an Antichrist was already prevalent among Colonial Christians, notably those faith traditions tied to the teachings of John Calvin. In Massachusetts, Puritans firmly believed that New England would be the capital of the “New Earth” of biblical prophecy, and that America had been chosen by God to redeem a lost world.

Common Core Elements of Millennialism in Colonial Religion

Puritans, like all American Protestants until the 20th Century, were post-millennial. They believed that Christ’s return would occur at the end of the final 1,000 year period. The closer to the end of time also meant an increase in Satan’s attacks upon the righteous. The Puritans of New England shared several core elements of apocalyptic belief that are still accepted by post-modern Protestants living in the 21st Century. These include:

• Speculating on the exact or tentative date of Christ’s return
• Interpreting contemporary events in light of biblical prophecy signs
• Identifying Antichrists
• Assigning a special role to America in God’s End of Time plan

Setting the Date for the “Day of the Lord”

Puritan minister and theologian Cotton Mather assigned three different dates for the end of time, beginning with 1697. Earlier, Increase Mather gave 1676 as the date the New Jerusalem would be established in America and another Puritan minister, John Cotton, believed 1655 marked the year that the Antichrist would be defeated.

Identifying the Antichrist in Colonial Religious Belief

From the first decade of the early church in Jerusalem, Christians have attempted to identify the biblical Antichrist who would appear in the end times to do battle with Christ and his church. Early colonial Christians were no different. Potential Antichrists included:

• The pope
• King Charles I
• King George III
• The Catholic French during the Seven Years’ War
• Proponents of Enlightenment Rationalism
• 
  

This view of a coming Antichrist also helped to explain why Satan appeared to be working so hard to attack God’s faithful. The Salem witch trials of 1692 represented a direct assault by Satan upon the Puritan community already threatened by outside influences. Cotton Mather had warned the theocratic community that Satan was at the door.

The Special Role of America in the Imminent Coming of Christ

Historian Paul Boyer writes that, “From the early 17th Century through the late 18th, the entire span of American colonial history was marked by speculation about America’s role in God’s plan.” John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill” became a metaphor defining the special mission God had for America.

The revivalism of the Great Awakening in the early to mid 18th Century further highlighted this notion of a divine or providential purpose. Jonathan Edwards, famously known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” pointed to the Great Awakening as a sign of the coming of Christ and the establishment of the new heaven and earth.

This would be repeated in the 19th Century during the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense revivalism that produced several new faith traditions originally rooted in the belief in the imminent coming of Christ. This includes the Seventh Day Adventist church – coming, in part, out of the Millerite Movement, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Impact of Apocalyptic Belief on American History

The “chosen people” or “chosen nation” aspect of millennial belief helped to justify expansionism and Manifest Destiny. It added to the national self-identity as a people blessed for a special purpose. Political Scientist James Morone writes that, “Evangelical fervor for Christ’s Second Coming led the way to both revolution and civil war; it ran deep in 19th Century black religion and reached its soaring apotheosis in Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.”

This legacy still motivates 21st Century Americans seeking to spread democracy throughout the world and baptize global cultures in egalitarian principles. Although many American evangelical faiths now hold to a pre-millennial Second Coming, the self-identity rooted in apocalyptic mission held to by Colonial Christians is still there.

Sources:

• Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992)
• David D. Hall, World of Wonder; Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989)
• James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)
• Richard Weisman, Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1984)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication