Russian Spies, Post-Millennialism, and the National Prayer Breakfast

Tara Burton posted an article for Vox today suggesting that Maria Butina (the young Russian woman recently indicted as a spy) used the National Prayer Breakfast to gain access to US Governmental leaders. Burton interviewed Jeff Sharlet regarding one of the most secret and influential Christian organizations in the world. They call themselves The Fellowship and organized in 1935 to reach and influence governmental, industrial and social leaders worldwide. Burton and Sharlet go on in the article to present The Fellowship as a secret and potentially dangerous Christian power group. I do not know enough about The Fellowship to know what is real and what is not about them. They have one official public function a year–the National Prayer Breakfast.  Supposedly they have much more activity going behind the scenes.

What really struck me was the comment (in the last paragraph) about the eschatology of the group.

Most Rapture believers [and most evangelicals] are premillennial. They believe there’s going to be the sort of apocalyptic moment and then Christ is going to come and rule for a thousand years. The Family fits into a different point of view, called postmillenialism. And this is this idea that Christ isn’t coming back until we establish a world Christian order for a thousand years. The Family uses it to pursue what they describe as the long-term goal of 200 world leaders, united quietly through the Family and their devotion to Jesus as the Family understands him.

Post-millennialism and Theonomy seem to be on the rise in this country and that is not a good thing. Post-millennialism has gained traction in some charismatic circles and also among strands of the home-schooling culture. The basic premise of Post-millennialism is that Jesus Christ will return AFTER the millennium that it is the responsibility of God’s people to set up the millennium on this earth in preparation for Christ’s return. Theonomy is an extreme philosophical and practical outworking of that theology. In the early 1970’s Rousas Rushdoony and the Chalcedon Foundation published The Institutes in Biblical Law, which laid out a foundation for developing an entire government based upon these ideas.

There is danger in this movement and I want to briefly explain why.

Its premise is unbiblical.

The simple reading of Revelation 19 and 20 clearly follows a timeline. There is a time of Great Tribulation followed by a 1000 year reign of the Messiah. After that Satan is loosed for a time and then the Great White Throne Judgement marks the beginning of eternity future as we know it. The Second Coming of Christ is clearly BEFORE the millennial reign and it is Christ who sets up his own kingdom. This short blog article is not intended to be a refutation of post-millennial theology but rather to note its presence and potential danger.

It puts its hope in human institutions.

While there is nothing wrong with seeking to win people who are in power, and Christians should be good stewards of their civic responsibilities (and even occupy public office if so led by God), our hope has never been and never will be in civic institutions. Our commission is to win the world not take over governments. The power of God in this age is the gospel, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the local church that He established.

It will require Christian despotism.

The only way such a government could be established, if it were to be established at all, is through a despotic Christian government that forces Christian living on the unbelieving masses. There are two kinds of people most miserable in the world. The first is a Christian who seeks to live as an unbeliever. The second is the unbeliever who seeks to live as a Christian. There should be a Christian influence on society, but when it is forced by a government it backfires. Our best political hope is a system that allows freedom of religion so that our churches and mission agencies can compete for souls in the free market of religious thinking. We believe that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of transforming hearts without the coercion of a despotic Christian government. Hearts and minds must be transformed before the culture can be changed.

It will bring backlash and persecution.

Persecution may come anyway, but we would be wise to avoid bringing it upon ourselves by coercing a Christian society on an unbelieving world. The effort for Christians to take over governments, the entertainment industry, and the arts is already in motion. You see and hear such wording as “redeeming the culture.” The unredeemed heart will fight against these restrictions—hard. There will be a backlash.

David Chilton suggests establishing “biblical republics” worldwide (Chilton, David, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion, Appendix A). Gary North advocates the exclusion of all non-Christians from voting or citizenship (Political Polytheism, p. 87). Others advocate Old Testament punishments for adultery, homosexuality, and idolatry.

Yet the New Testament gives us no such instructions. The most severe punishment required of the local church is the responsibility to dismiss from the church body any professing believer who is guilty of a list of gross public sins (1 Corinthians 5:11). The more severe New Testament disciplines are supernatural works done by God Himself and without human instrumentation (Acts 5;1-10, 1 Corinthians 11:30). In fact, the New Testament commands believers to reach such unbelievers with the gospel and let the transforming power of the Holy Spirit change them for his glory (“and such were some of you” 1 Corinthians 6:11). The law did not work for Old Testament Israel. It eventually became a political tool for one group to dominate others. Such a system today, without Christ bodily reigning as its Head, will do the same–again.

We need to be wise (and careful) about the ambitions and political/theological motivations of the Christians with whom we align ourselves. They may not be going where we think they are going. Win souls, disciple believers, build churches and be good participating citizens until He comes.