premillennialism

Noun

premillennialism (uncountable)

1. A concept in Christian eschatology that the Second Coming of Christ will happen before the millennium.
   • In America before the Civil War premillennialism of a traditional variety was an important minority position held by some mainline Protestant leaders. It did not differ greatly from the postmillenialism of the same era. Both saw history as controlled by a cosmic struggle, both allowed for...1980, George M. Marsden, “Prologue: The Paradox of Revivalist Fundamentalism”, in Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925, Oxford University...
   • Premillennialism stressed division and separation within society, to gather in the elect, and its frostiness to Enlightenment projects of social reform contributed to that peculiar process by which ‘liberal’ has become a word of abuse in the United States, in sharp contrast to its esteem in...2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 912