I just finished Kim Riddlebarger's "A Case for Amillennialism", an introduction to the Christian understanding of the end of the world particularly focusing on the issue of how we should interpret the "thousand years" of Revelation 20. I would highly recommend it.
But as I read it, something struck me that Dr Riddlebarger did not address.
What struck me is this: advocates of both pre- and postmillennialism both get to avoid tribulation. Dispensationalist premillennialists get whisked off to glory before there's serious suffering; postmillennialists believe that the world will be thoroughly Christianised, meaning it never really gets bad.
1. Isn't that a desire for glory and ease now? I love the idea that the Bible tells me I will never suffer for my faith, but it does in fact say that.
2. What does that mean about the Christians in the Islamic world whose faith is suppressed, or, if they are converts from Islam, liable to severe punishment? What about the 20+ pastors the Chinese have locked up as they try to crush the House Churches pre-Olympics? What about the Christians mistreated by Hindu militants across India whilst the police do nothing?
If believers need anything from the Bible now, it is an explanation of why being a Christian is, in external and material terms, pretty awful; only us relatively few Western Christians could ever dream up millennialistic fantasies, surely?
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