464 - Paul Tillich and the Millenialist Heritage

Paul Tillich and the Millenialist Heritage
By Raymond F. Bulman

As we fast approach the year 2000, it is interesting to note that this will be only the second time since the founding of Christianity that we face the prospect and the challenge of celebrating the end of a millennium. There is strong historical evidence to support the findings of historian Henri Focillon that at the approach of the "fateful date" of the year 1000, "a nameless fear gripped all of Europe." ¹ Following Augustine, Christian Europe assumed that the end of the Christian millennium (the age of the church) was now at hand and that this world was about to be destroyed. Church documents from the middle of the tenth century abound with expressions such as "With the approach of the end of the world and the ever-increasing catastrophes . . ." (Appropinquante etenim mundi termino et ruinis crescentibus . . .).²

Umberto Eco assures us that throughout Europe, the years leading up to the second millennium were apocalyptic indeed: a time of failing harvests, recurrent famines, regular pestilences, droughts, floods, petty warfare, and lawlessness. It is little wonder that many read these phenomena as signs that the world was about to reach its apocalyptic destruction. ³ It was a time when people repented in preparation for the coming day of judgment. People donated land, homes, and goods to the poor. They canceled debts, forgave injuries, neglected businesses, and left homes unrepaired and fields unplowed. Flagellants were in abundance, mortifying their flesh before the

Raymond F. Bulman is Professor of Systematic Theology at St. John's University. He is the author of A Blueprint for Humanity: Paul Tillich's Theology of Culture (1981) and co-editor (with Frederick J. Parrella) of Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment (1994).
¹ Henri Focillon, The Year 1000 (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1952), p. 40.
² lbid., p. 53.
³ Umberto Eco, "Waiting for the Millennium," FMR Mensile Culturale 2 (July, 1981), pp. 70-73.

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day of reckoning. ⁴ While historians cannot be certain, there are many stories that describe the eve of 1000 as a night of fear and terror, followed by an overwhelming sense of joy and euphoria, as well as unbelief, as the new year dawned and the world went on as before.

Historians have to struggle to piece together the fragments from our medieval past in order to reconstruct the picture of religious millennialism at the dawn of the year 1000. By way of contrast, all of us are eyewitnesses to the heightening millenarian consciousness in the closing years of the twentieth century. ⁵ Christian fundamentalists are proclaiming with ever more confidence the coming firestorm of destruction that must precede the triumphant return of the Lord in glory. Fifty percent of U.S. college graduates "await Jesus Christ's return." ⁶ Forty percent of Americans believe in the literal truth of Bible prophecies, and one-third of Americans expect the coming rapture. ⁷ Referring to the overall indifference of mainline scholars to these millennial concerns, Gary Wills has remarked that "it seems careless for scholars to keep misplacing such a large body of people. " ⁸

At times, the rising millennial fever produces rather bizarre and amusing results, such as a twenty-four-hour millennial hotline in Houston, Texas for late-breaking developments or signs of the Lord's return. End-time wrist watches are being sold quite successfully in the Southwest. They indicate every sixty minutes that the bearer is "one hour nearer to the Lord's return." ⁹ A Washington, D.C. theater conducts "apocalyptic symposia," and a number of evangelical communities have already taken up residence in Israel in anticipation of the coming parousia. ¹⁰

⁴ Russell Chandler, Doomsday: The End of the World: A View through Time (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1993), pp. 47-48.
⁵ In this article, I use the term millenarianism to refer to the broad category of beliefs, both religious and secular, that emphasize the imminent end of the present order in the hope for a new, harmonious and just world. (For this usage, see The Encyclopedia of Religion [New York: Macmillan, 19871, vol. 9, pp. 521-536). This study, however, is primarily interested in the specifically Christian version of this same basic pattern, for which I reserve the term millennialism. Millennialism, in this sense, necessarily includes an expectation that culminates in the second coming of Christ and the inauguration of his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Some authors give these terms very different connotations, and others simply use the terms interchangeably. For details, see J.F.C. Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979), p. 231 n. 4; and Robert E. Lerner, "The Medieval Return to the Thousand Year Sabbath," in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, edited by Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 51 n. 3.
⁶ Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge: Belknap, Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 15.
⁷ Charles B. Strozier, Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America (Boston: Beacon, 1994), p. 5.
⁸ Quoted in Strozier, Apocalypse, p. 5.
⁹ John Judis, "The Great Awakening," The New Republic 208 (February l, 1993), p. 12.
¹⁰ See Travis Charbeneau, "Millennium Meditations," The Futurist 27 (January/February, 1993), pp. 49-50; and Allen Lesser, "Waiting for the End of the World," The Humanist 52 (September/October, 1992), p. 23.

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On the other hand, recent events make it all too evident that the millenarian impulse can also exercise a very destructive force. In 1990, Elizabeth Clare Prophet convinced thousands of followers that the final Battle of Armageddon was about to take place and that they should sell their homes and enter underground shelters in Paradise Valley, Montana in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust. ¹¹

The pastor of Dami Mission Church in Seoul, South Korea recently persuaded church members to quit jobs and sell or destroy their property in preparation for the rapture, which was to take place on October 28, 1992. When the day passed without event, four members of the congregation committed suicide. ¹² The pastor was indicted for embezzlement.

By far the most devastating and controversial millennial misadventure of recent times is the fiery death of members of the Branch Davidians in February Ely of 1993 at Waco, Texas. David Koresh, the charismatic leader of the community, had declared himself to be the Lamb of the Apocalypse and proclaimed that the prophecies of the seven seals were in, the process of being fulfilled. After a drawn-out conflict with federal agents, the group's compound was burnt to the ground with the tragic loss of many lives. While the federal government is hardly free of blame, there is still no doubt that the event points to the "lethal potential" of a misguided millenarian impulse. ¹³

Finally, lest we should complacently conclude that we must surely have reached the end of apocalyptic catastrophes for this century, even more recently Dr. Luc Jouret and fifty members of the Order of the Solar Temple took their lives in a synchronized mass suicide in Switzerland and in Quebec. The cult had also taken up arms in preparation for the Battle of Armageddon. ¹⁴ A similar apocalyptic mind-set is also suspected in the case of the notorious Aum Shinrikyo sect in Japan.

Unfortunately, such tragic events are not at all very exceptional in the long, checkered history of Christian millennial movements.

MILLENNIALISM IN THE BIBLE AND IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Before turning our attention to this history, something should be said about the biblical origins of Christian millennialism. While millennial movements have at times depended heavily on interpretations of Old Testament prophetic and apocalyptic books, such as the Book of Daniel, they are rooted most directly in the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse). Even today, as throughout the course of history, scholarly and popular interpretations of the controversial book vary greatly. But if this

¹¹ Michael St. Clair, Millenarian Movements in Historical Context (New York: Garland, 1992), pp. 3-4.
¹² Erik Vaughn, "Where's the Rapture?" The Skeptical Inquirer 17 (Summer, 1993), pp. 3, 7.
¹³ Arthur W. Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse: Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), pp. 101-102.
¹⁴ See "Mass Suicide," Newsday (October 6, 1994), pp. 5, 69; and "Forty-Eight from Sect Die," New York Times (October 6, 1994), pp. 1, 12.

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plurality of interpretations has not changed, neither has the powerful allure of this book and its prophetic vision for so many types of millenarian movements.

Interestingly enough for millennialism, the thousand-year reign is mentioned only once in the entire book, and for that matter, in the whole Bible. The classical millennial passage is Revelation 20:1-10, where the visionary author proclaims that in the last days, Satan will be bound "for a thousand years" (v. 2) and that during this time, the risen saints will reign "with Christ" (v. 4).

The most likely origin of the idea of a thousand-year period is the ancient Jewish belief that the seven days of creation represent seven periods of a thousand years each. The scheme is clearly delineated in the apocalyptic work 2 Enoch (33:1). The thousand-year period is symbolic, therefore, and evokes the image of a thousand-year Sabbath-a return to the very pattern of creation. It suggests both a "recommencement and recapitulation" of the original creation. ¹⁵ For this reason, the millennial vision ought to be neither catastrophic nor pessimistic; it is rather a vision of hope, in defiance of the negativity of the historical moment.

Another New Testament passage that is very dear to many millennialists is 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which describes the meeting of the faithful with the Lord in the clouds upon his return-the famous image of the rapture. This is often combined with Revelation 20 to give a total picture of the coming millennium.

If millenarian beliefs are ignored, dismissed, or ridiculed in mainstream Christian theology today, this was not the case in the early Christian centuries. At least during the first four centuries, chiliasm (as the Greeks called it) or millennialism was normative in both East and West. Probably the most significant and sophisticated chiliast of this period was Irenaeus (second century), who was conspicuous for his balanced, consistent, and thoroughly christological understanding of millennial hope. His conflict with the Gnostics helped him to see the importance of chiliasm or millennialism as a way of defending "the material side of creation in the unified plan of Clod's salvation." ¹⁶ Unfortunately, however, this balanced chiliasm was not to perdure. With the teaching of Augustine, millennialism loses all contact with the symbol of the thousand-year sabbath and, with it, the notion of "the regeneration of both the spiritual and material creation." ¹⁷ Jerome joined in the antimillenarian chorus when he wrote: "The saints, will never have a terrestrial rule, but only a heavenly one. So let's stop with this whole fable of a thousand years" (Sancti autem nequaquam

¹⁵ Second Enoch 33:1 speaks of the days of creation as a period of seven thousand years to be followed by an eight-thousand-year period "with neither years nor months nor days nor hours." For the relation of 2 Enoch to the early Christian theme of recapitulation, see Frank K. Flinn, "Millennial Hermeneutics: 2000 Minus 20," in The Coming Kingdom: Essays in American Millennialism and Eschatology (Barrytown, NY: International Religious Foundation, 1983), p. 3.
¹⁶ Brian Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 31.
¹⁷ Flinn, "Millennial Hermeneutics," p. 8.

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habebunt terrenum regnum, sed coelestem. Cesset ergo mille annorum fabula) ¹⁸

Augustine's emphasis on "church-historical" hermeneutics finally achieved the identification of the millennium with the age of the church: There is no future millennium but only a final day of judgment. Augustine's success pushed millennialism to the fringes and even the underground of official church thought for the next seven hundred years. But millennial hope could not be suppressed indefinitely, "as it belonged to the very core of apostolic preaching." ¹⁹

THE RESURGENCE OF MILLENNIALISM

History makes it clear that the masses of Christian believers never abandoned the hope for a millennial kingdom. Periodically, the millenarian impulse erupted with turbulence and ardor, especially in times of natural catastrophe, devastating wars, or political upheavals. The year 1000, for example, not only had powerful symbolic significance but pretty well marked the collapse of the Carolingian empire and the rise of the new feudal order. ²⁰ Earlier events, such as the invasion of the Goths, the plague of the Black Death, the Viking raids, and the threat of Muslim conquest had also reawakened the hope for a millennial kingdom.

The periodic resurfacing of millennialism has taken many different forms and is based on different interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the whole millennial myth. One approach to interpretation has been called preterist because it emphasizes the past, that is, that the prophecies of Rev have all been fulfilled in the past. In order to make the preterist point on millennialism, Luther once insisted that "we have nothing to. wait for now except the Last Day." ²¹ At the opposite end of the . hermeneutical spectrum was futurism, which looked to the future fulfillment of all the prophecies found in Revelation. Futurism had a special appeal to Catholics as a way of combatting the Protestant tendency to identify the Antichrist with various popes. The majority of millennialists, however, emphasized neither past nor future but rather a contemporary interpretation that related the prophecies to their own times. This approach has been on the upswing since the twelfth century; it is alive and well in the work of contemporary prophets, such as Hal Lindsey, and had significant political clout during the Reagan years ²²

¹⁸ Quoted in Lerner, "The Medieval Return," p. 51.
¹⁹ Flinn, "Millennial Hermeneutics," p. 8.
²⁰ This position is persuasively argued by French historian Guy Bois in his groundbreaking historical study The Transformation of the Year One Thousand: The Village of Lournand from Antiquity to Feudalism (Manchester: St. Martin's; 1992), especially pp. 155-165.
²¹ Martin Luther, Works, vol. 35 (Philadelphia: Muhlenburg, 1960), pp. 300,409; cited in Wainwright Mysterious Apocalypse, p. 55.
²² On futurism, see Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, pp. 12-14, 62-66, 81-86. For the impact on the Reagan administration, see Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, pp. 142-144. Lindseys work The Late Great Planet Earth (New York: Bantam, 1978) sold about two million copies.

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Since the nineteenth century, however, the most important distinction that has prevailed is between premillennialism and postmillennialism. The premillennialist believes in the bodily return of Christ prior to the start of his glorious reign. Postmillennialists maintain that the second coming will occur only after the millennium and that a thousand-year spiritual reign of Christ prepares for his bodily return by spreading righteousness over the earth. Premillenialists tend to emphasize trials and tribulations as punishment for the wicked and to stress the exclusive role of divine action. Postmillennialists are inclined to hold for a gradual appearance of God's kingdom through a process to which the Christian faithful can at least lend assistance. Historically, premillennialists have been more likely to be revolutionary and postmillennianists to be conformist. ²³ While this terminology is relatively recent, it can sometimes be used in helping to sort out the broad panoply of millennial movements through history. On the other hand, these categories are hardly exhaustive and fail to capture the historical specificity of so long and diverse a tradition. A select look at some of this diversity might best make the point.

As a result of the Augustinian identification of the millennium with the time of the church, the millennial fervor of the early church all but disappeared. The millennial hope was, for the most part, internalized and dehistoricized. Yet, the historical dimension of millennialism remained present in the text of Revelation itself. It took the work and the insight of a very creative biblical exegete-the twelfth-century Calabrian Abbot, Joachim of Fiore-to uncover this forgotten dimension. Joachim's ingenious fusion of exegetical method with an original trinitarian theology of history produced a new reading of the Book of Revelation as a "chart of history." ²⁴ Drawing on the eschatology of the Cappadocian Fathers, Joachim had effectively arrived at a powerful prophetic vision of the history of the world as divided into three ages: the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Spirit. While respectfully safeguarding the structure of Augustine's ecclesiastical millennialism, he radically recast its meaning and thrust by insisting that Satan has been only partially bound and that his complete defeat will only occur in the age of the Spirit.

Basing his claim on his new exegetical method of concordia (harmony of the testaments) for interpreting the Book of Revelation, Joachim concluded that his own generation was on the brink of the third and final epoch of human history. ²⁵ The new age would be one of spiritual fulfillment, a world of monasticism free from any kind of ecclesiastical or political bondage. This was Joachim's version of the millennium; it

²³ Harrison, The Second Coming, pp. 4-5. See also Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, pp. 66-68. There is also amillennialism or nonmillennialism, which identifies the thousand year reign with the present age of the church, marked by "the power of the gospel" and "the daily conquering of sin" (Ted Peters, Futures: Human and Divine [Atlanta: John Knox, 19781, p. 30).
²⁴ Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, pp. 49-66.
²⁵ E. Randolph Daniel, "Joachim of Fiore: Patterns of History in the Apocalypse," in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, edited by Emmerson and McGinn, pp. 73-79.

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provided a powerful symbolic frame for the reform of a corrupt and restless society. ²⁶

Applying this vision to contemporary events, Joachim was able to identify contemporary figures as diverse as the emperor Henry IV and the Egyptian sultan Saladin with the heads of the beast in Revelation. While for Joachim, this had the immediate effect of providing a religious defense of church politics, it also set in motion a whole new approach to the Book of Revelation, which would guide future millennialists to interpret world events as harbingers of the last days. ²⁷ Joachim's millennial vision had an enormous influence on subsequent religious reform movements, such as those of the Spiritual Franciscans and the radical Anabaptists, and his prophetic scheme was later taken over in secularized form by Vico, Lessing Saint-Simon, August Comte, and Karl Marx.

MODERN MILLENNIAL MOVEMENTS

The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit in interpreting the Scriptures, opened up a wide, unanticipated range of millenarian ideas. At times, these were translated into violent revolutionary and antinomian movements, such as that of the radical 'peasants under Thomas Munster (1524) in Thuringia and the anarchical millennial kingdom of John of Leyden at Munster (1532-35). (Commentators are already comparing David Koresh with John of Leyden, who was clearly a crazed visionary and prophet of violence).²⁸ Yet, the same millennial hope could also inspire such peaceful sectarians as Mennonites, Hutterites, Quakers, Shakers, and even Baptists in the New World.

The English Civil War of 1642-48 combined an unusually militant millennialism with the political goals of democracy, tolerance, and middleclass opportunity. Puritans and independents under the leadership of Cromwell took up arms against the king, using apocalyptic imagery to identify the royalist cause with that of the papal Antichrist. With the beheading of the Stuart king, Charles 1, and the establishment of the Republic in 1649, many millenarians were thoroughly convinced that the beginning of Christ's kingdom on earth was now at hand. The most radical of these, such as the Men of the Fifth Monarchy (imagery from the Book of Daniel), soon lost confidence in Cromwell and the Rump Parliament as instruments for bringing about the second coming and turned to intimidation, violence, and insurrectional plots to achieve their millennial goals. After the execution or arrest of their leaders and the restoration of the Stuart "monarchy, the movement fell apart, and many former members were absorbed into more peaceful millenarian groups, such as the Quakers. ²⁹

²⁶ Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, P. 53.
²⁷ Ibid., pp. 49-53. See also St. Clair, Millenarian Movements, pp. 99-101.
²⁸ Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, pp. 91-92, 102.
²⁹ St. Clair, Millenarian Movements, pp. 191-217. See also Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, p. 72.

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As in the case of the Fifth Monarchy Men, millennial expectations often led to disappointment. Perhaps this is seen nowhere more clearly than in the case of American millennialism. From colonial days on, apocalyptic and millenarian expectations have been intricately linked to American culture. Postmillennialism found expression in colonial divines, such as Jonathan Edwards, who taught that the millennium would come about by "a gradual progress of religion." ³⁰ Premillennialism, on the other hand, was more inclined to set dates for the Lord's return and, therefore, more likely to suffer disappointment.

No doubt, one of the most dramatic cases of millennial disappointment is that of the mid-nineteenth-century prophet William Miller (1782-1849). Miller, a visionary farmer from Vermont, predicted the second coming for October 1844. Because of the heightened expectation of more than 100,000 followers, the failed prophecy created the "Great Disappointment," which split the Millerites into several groups-including the Seventh Day Adventists and the International Bible Students' Association (later known as Jehovah's Witnesses). The latter would soon have to deal with its own failed prophecies made by the founder, Charles Taze Russell, author of the best seller Millennial Dawn (5.5 million copies sold). The same pattern was continued by Joseph Franklin Rutherford, his successor, who had predicted, for example, "that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and other faithful Israelites would return to earth in 1925." ³¹ Failed prophecies of this sort have never seemed to daunt the Jehovah's Witnesses, who, in the words of Russell Chandler, simply "reschedule doomsday and hit reset. ³²

"Lindsey, who has been dubbed the Geraldo Rivera of millennialism, has almost single-handedly changed the Book of Revelation into a guide for the nuclear age."

Finally, to complete my picture of the millenarian heritage, it should be noted that millennial movements often arise in response to major political and social upheavals. Such an event was the French Revolution, which shook the very Foundations of European society. Its repercussions were immeasurable in Britain, on the continent, and even in America, where history shows a sudden and noticeable rise in millenarian fever. In nineteenth-century England, this took the form of dispensationalism-a premillennial belief that divides God's activities in history into seven periods or dispensations. The position was originally espoused by John Nelson Darby (1300-82) and a group called the Plymouth Brethren. Darby had been shocked by the French Revolution and the secularism that

³⁰ Jonathan Edwards, Apocalyptic Writings, edited by Stephen J. Stein (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 410.
³¹ Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, p. 101.
³² Chandler, Doomsday, p. 99.

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followed in its wake. He identified Louis Napoleon with the seventh head of the beast of Revelation and stressed the role of the Jewish people in fulfilling God's plan. He took literally the apocalyptic passage of 1 Thessalonians 4;17, making the doctrine of the rapture an earmark of his theological system. ³³

Dispensationalism received a good deal of publicity from the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. For his notes to the Bible, C. 1. Scofield used the general pattern of Darby's dispensationalist interpretation. By 1967, the Reference Bible had sold about ten million copies and "became a major conduit for disseminating premillennial dispensationalism throughout the world." ³⁴ During the last half of this century, it has become even more popular through the work of such best-selling authors as John F. Walvoord and Hal Lindsey. Lindsey, who has been dubbed the Geraldo Rivera of millennialism, has almost single-handedly changed the Book of Revelation into a guide for the nuclear age. ³⁵

The French Revolution as well as the Napoleonic era had also deeply affected the lives of German villagers and farmers in the southern province of Württemberg. Upheavals in political and religious life contributed to the decision of the prophetic leader George Rapp and his Harmonist Society to establish an eschatological community at New Harmonie, Indiana in 1814. While they patiently awaited the imminent return of Christ along the Wabash River, they lived their communal life as a sign to the world of the harmony they awaited in Christ's future kingdom on earth. Due to eventual disillusionment with the delay of the parousia, as well as a gradual dwindling of numbers by reason of voluntary celibacy, the Harmony Society eventually fell apart, but not before leaving to this country the powerful witness of a small but deeply committed millennial community. ³⁶ Today, If the mortal remains of Paul Tillich; one of the most important Christian theologians of the twentieth century, lie at rest in New Harmony. In the rest of this article, I will try to show that this connection between Tillich and a millennial community is far more appropriate than has hitherto been believed.

TILLICH ON MILLINNIALISM

Although Paul Tillich died in 1965 and his theological works addressed the concerns of a previous generation, he "continues," in the words of Tom Driver) "to be a major resource for modern, even postmodern theology." ³⁷ Of course, postmodern Christians are so taken with the plurality of distinct theological voices and the diversity of human perspectives that they might

³³ Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, pp. 82-83.
³⁴ Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, p. 98.
³⁵ See Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse, p. 85; and Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, p. 128.
³⁶ Donald E. Pitzer and Josephine M. Elliot, "New Harmony's First Utopians, 1814-1824," Indiana Magazine of History (September, 1979), p. 257.
³⁷ Tom Driver, "Testimony," in Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment, edited by Raymond F. Bulman and Frederick J. Parrella (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1994).

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be tempted to relegate the work of universalist systematicians, such as Tillich, to the dustbins of a past epoch. They do so, however, certainly in the case of Tillich, only to their own theological peril.

Today, perhaps more than ever before, Christian theology faces the challenge of relating the eternal message of the gospel to the experience and realities of the present age. While writing in a different historical situation, Tillich, nevertheless, seems to have anticipated much of our present cultural situation in calling for a "depth of reason" to counteract the one-sided domination of "technical reason" in our time. ³⁸ In an age of unprecedented technological advances and dazzling developments in communications, Tillich's insights and vision deserve our very careful attention, for he still remains the undisputed master of theological dialogue with the secular culture. ³⁹ His methods of cultural analysis might well serve not only to deepen our understanding of Western secular society but also to increase our comprehension and appreciation of the many other cultures with which we interact in today's global society. ⁴⁰

In terms of our present cultural situation, the last decades of the twentieth century have witnessed an astounding growth of interest in apocalyptic concerns and millennial expectations-both religious and secular. ⁴¹ At least for the time being, millennialism has returned as an important factor in the cultural scene. It is fortunate that for Tillich, millennialism was never a peripheral issue.

There is no doubt that Tillich is to be counted among those theologians who were committed to bringing eschatology (the Christian doctrine of the last things) to the forefront of theological concern. In view of this conviction, he took all eschatological symbols very seriously, including the controversial and much abused symbol of the millennium. Tillich's millenarian sympathy is immediately evident in his frequent positive references to the work of the visionary reformer Joachim of Fiore and in his consistent use of Fiore's "three stages" in the interpretation of historical and political realities. ⁴² Tillich admits quite frankly that his involvement with religious

³⁸ Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951-63), vol. 1, pp.. 72-81.
³⁹ This conviction clearly inspired the participants at the International Conference for the Centenary of Tillich's birth, held at Laval University, Quebec, in 1986. For scholarly contributions to the Conference, see Michel Despland, Jean-Claude Petit, and Jean Richard, eds., Religion et Culture (Quebec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1987).
⁴⁰ On the cross-cultural significance of Tillich's theology, see Langdon Gilkey, Gilkey on Tillich (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 196.
⁴¹ The growth of religious millennialism has already been documented at the beginning of this essay. For a sample of secular studies with a millennial thrust, see Gerald O. Barney, Global 2000 Revisited: What Shall We Do? (Arlington: Millennium Institute, 1993); Paul Kennedy, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Random House, 1993); and Immanuel Wallerstein "Peace, Stability and Legitimacy, 1990-2025/2050," Unpublished paper prepared for Nobel Symposium, The Fall of Great Powers: Peace, Stability and Legitimacy (Det Norske Nobelinstitutt, Tromso, July 31-August 4, 1993).
⁴² See Raymond F. Bulman, "Tillich's Eschatology of the Late American Period (19451965)," in New Creation or Eternal Now, edited by Gert Hummel (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), p. 142.

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socialism was part of his religious, prophetic critique of culture-in continuity with the millenarian thought of the Calabrian Abbot. ⁴³

In volume 2 of his Systematic Theology, Tillich relates the doctrine of the last things to the core doctrines of Christian faith. He does this by treating the eschatological assertions as "symbols corroborating the symbol Resurrection of the Christ." ⁴⁴ In this, he continues the holistic and Christ-centered theological tradition of Irenaeus. He regrets that the symbol of the millennium has been so wantonly neglected in traditional theology and argues that it deserves to be taken seriously because "it is decisive for the Christian interpretation of history. In contrast to a final catastrophe in the sense of the apocalyptic visions, the symbol of the thousand-year reign of Christ 'continues the ancient prophetic tradition, in which an innerhistorical fulfillment of history is envisaged." ⁴⁵ As Tillich tells us elsewhere, the "Kingdom of God has an inner-historical as well as transhistorical side. " ⁴⁶ The millennial imagery preserves the "inner-historical" against the purely transcendent or "other-worldly" distortions of Christian eschatological hope.

While the symbol of the millennium preserves an essential dimension of the concept of the kingdom of God, it is not simply to be identified with that concept, for the eschatological image of the kingdom is the answer to the ultimate meaning of history, and as such, it is transhistorical, that is, it lies beyond history. ⁴⁷ The image of the millennium, as pictured in Revelation 20:1-10, by way of contrast, suggests only a partial conquest of the demonic within history: Satan has indeed been chained, but he is yet to be released from his prison. Ironically, Tillich tells us that despite the fact that millennialism has "produced many utopian movements ... it actually has in it a genuine warning against utopianism." ⁴⁸

There is no doubt that for Tillich, the "thousand-year reign" is symbolic. ⁴⁹ If taken literally and viewed as absolute fulfillment, the millennial symbol becomes utopian and sets the stage for profound disillusionment. The thousand years are before the end-before the kingdom of God. They are still "within history" and "signify that at some point in history human expectation will be given to us." ⁵⁰

Tillich nicely sums up his view of millennialism in his 1938 article on "The Kingdom of God and History":

Accordingly, the doctrine of the millennium should not be interpreted as a static final condition, and certainly not in Augustine's sense of the sovereignty of the hierarchy. The millennium should be interpreted as the symbol of the victory over concrete demonic forces within history. The demonic is subdued

⁴³ Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 60.
⁴⁴ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 159.
⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 163.
⁴⁶ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, p. 357.
⁴⁷ Paul Tillich, "The Kingdom of God and History," in Theology of Peace: Paul Tillich, edited by Ronald H. Stone (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), p. 32.
⁴⁸ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 163.
⁴⁹ Paul Tillich, Political Expectation (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 138.
⁵⁰ Ibid.

475 - Paul Tillich and the Millenialist Heritage

in actual victories from time to time-but it is not extirpated. When the power of a particular form of the demonic is broken, the kairos of a particular period is fulfilled. To expect not only that the power of concrete demonic forces will be broken at definite periods in history, but that in some future age the demonic as a whole will be utterly destroyed, is a religious utopianism which should be regarded as quite untenable. ⁵¹

In claiming that a kairos of a period is fulfilled in partial victories over the demonic, Tillich is giving us a hint as to the way in which he is taking seriously (but not literally) the symbol of the millennium. Kairos is, for Tillich, the breakthrough of the divine into history, "a new inner-historical manifestation of the Kingdom of God." ⁵² It is an act of the prophetic spirit, driven by the enthusiasm of eschatological expectation. "To recognize a kairos," says Tillich, "is to be grasped by the power of the Spiritual Presence." ⁵³ Tillich tells us explicitly that whenever in the course of history the prophetic Spirit arose in the churches, and they spoke of the "third stage," "the coming rule of Christ," or the "one-thousand year period," they were actually describing the experience of a kairos. ⁵⁴ In a word, kairos is Tillich's theological and functional equivalent of the symbol of the millennium.

CONCLUSION

Kairos was for Tillich a tool for "reading the signs of the times"-a necessary category for a Christian interpretation of history. ⁵⁵ As we quickly approach the dawn of the third millennium, we may well expect to hear many readings of prophetic signs. Tillich's notion of kairos is a useful concept for preserving the passion and enthusiasm of millennial hope, while avoiding the pitfalls of prophetic literalism, the radicalism of misguided utopianism, and the pessimistic catastrophism of premillennial dispensationalism. While a kairos cannot be brought about by human effort, it does present us with a moment of free decision. It is "the time in which something, can be done" and provides a way of showing that present historical commitment and action really have something to contribute to the " suprahistorical meaning of history." ⁵⁶

A number of contemporary Christian theologians, such as Jürgen Moltmann in Germany and Bruno Forte in Italy, are currently attempting to retrieve the core Christian truth preserved in the millennial heritage in the context of a trinitarian understanding of history. ⁵⁷ Paul Tillich, it would

⁵¹ Tillich, "The Kingdom of God and History," pp. 43-44.
⁵² Paul Tillich, "Kairos and Utopie," in Gesammelte Werke, edited by Renate Albrecht, 14 vols. (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1959-75), vol. 6, p. 155.
⁵³ Ibid., p. 152.
⁵⁴ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, p. 370.
⁵⁵ Ibid., pp. 369-372.
⁵⁶ Tillich, "The Kingdom of God and History," p. 55.
⁵⁷ See Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981); and Bruno Forte, The Trinity as History: Saga of the Christian God (Staten Island: Alba House, 1989).

476 - Paul Tillich and the Millenialist Heritage

seem, had already anticipated this need, and his contributions deserve the careful consideration of interested systematic theologians. Indeed, in the best sense of the word, Tillich himself deserves to be called a millennialist in the tradition of Irenaeus' recapitulation or new creation. For this reason, I find it fitting that his mortal remains await the Lord's return amid the quiet groves of the millennial community of New Harmony, Indiana.