Pós-Milenismo

por

Loraine Boettner D.D.a

Capítulo 5 - O Mundo Está Crescendo Melhor

A redenção do mundo é um longo e lento processo, extendendo-se através de séculos, todavia aproximando-se de um objetivo fixado. Nós vivemos no dia de avançante vitória, embora haja muitos aparentes regressos. Como visto do ponto de vista humano, freqüentemente parece que as forças do mal estão a ponto de ganhar supremacia. Os períodos de avanço e prosperidade espiritual alternam com os períodos de declínio e depressão espiritual. Mas como uma era sucede outra, há um progresso. Olhando para trás, através dos quase dois mil anos que têm passado desde a vinda de Cristo, nós podemos ver que houve certamente um progresso maravilhoso. Este Processo finalmente será completado, e antes que Cristo venha outra vez veremos um mundo Cristianizado. Isto não significa que em algum tempo todo pecado será erradicado. Sempre haverá alguns joios entre o trigo até a época da colheita - e a colheita, nos diz o Senhor, é o fim do mundo. Até mesmo o justo cai, às vezes gravemente, em tentação e pecado. Porém, isto significa que os princípios Cristãos de vida e conduta se tornarão os padrões aceitáveis na vida pública e privada.

Este grande avanço espiritual tem sido feito claro para todos. Considere, por exemplo, as terríveis condições morais e espirituais que existiam na terra antes da vinda de Cristo, - o mundo de forma geral tateando desamparadamente na escuridão pagã, com escravidão, poligamia, as condições oprimidas de mulheres e crianças, a quase completa falta de liberdade política, e a ignorância, pobreza, e extremamente primitivo cuidado médico que foi a porção de muitos, exceto daqueles que pertenciam às classes governamentais. Hoje o mundo de forma geral está em um plano bem mais elevado. Os princípio Cristãos são os padrões aceitáveis em muitas nações embora eles não sejam consistentemente praticados. A escravidão e poligamia têm praticamente desaparecido. O status das mulheres e crianças tem sido melhorado imensuravelmente. As condições sociais e econômicas em quase todas as nações têm alcançado um novo alto padrão. Um espírito de cooperação está muito mais manifesto entre as nações do que havia sido antes. Incidentes internacionais, que somente uns poucos anos atrás tiveram resultado em guerras são agora usualmente resolvidos pela arbitragem. Como uma evidência de boa vontade internacional testemunha o fato que os Estados Unidos neste ano fiscal (Julho, 1957 à Julho, 1958) destinou mais do que três bilhões de dólares para o programa de ajuda e segurança mútua estrangeira, e desde o fim da Segunda Guerra II foi dado a outras nações mais de sessenta (60) bilhões de dólares para estes propósitos. Visto que nossa população é de aproximadamente 170.000.000, isto significa uma contribuição média de U$350 por cada homem, mulher e criança nos Estados Unidos. E isto não inclui as outras consideráveis somas que tem sido dadas por indivíduos, igrejas e outras organizações. Esta quantia de enorme de mercadorias e serviços tem sido dadas livremente por esta iluminada e predominantemente Protestante nação para as nações de outras raças e religiões, que não tinham jamais expectativa de pagar de volta, uma efetiva expressão de generosidade e boa vontade internacional. Este registro não tem sido jamais remotamente aproximado antes por esta ou qualquer outra nação em toda a história do mundo.

Recentemente o London Times, o principal jornal na Inglaterra, depois de elogiar a sabedoria e generosidade com a qual os Estados Unidos agiu, disse: 'Há outras coisas que são tão óbvias para nós que não lhes damos o devido valor. Mas porque o silêncio pode ser mal entendido, vale a pena dizer de novo que nenhuma nação jamais existiu com tal poder para o bem ou mau, para a liberdade ou tirania, para a amizade ou inimizade entre os povos do mundo, e que nenhuma nação na história usou aqueles poderes, em geral, com grande visão, restrição, responsabilidade e coragem" (Edição de 23 de Março, 1954).

Hoje há muita mais riqueza consagrada ao serviço da Igreja do que jamais existiu antes; e, apesar da deserção para o Modernismo em alguns lugares, nós cremos que há realmente muito mais evangélicos fervorosos e atividade missionária do que em qualquer época no passado. Isto é indicado por um número de desenvolvmentos. Nós citamos particularmente o seguinte:

Até o tempo da Reforma a Bíblia tinha sido um livro para os sacerdotes somente.

Up until the time of the Reformation the Bible had been a book for priests only. It was written in Latin, and the Roman Church refused to allow it to be translated into the languages of the common people. But when the Reformers came on the scene all that was changed. The Bible was soon translated into all of the vernacular tongues of Europe, and wherever the light of the Reformation went it became the book of the common people. Decrees of popes and church councils gave way to the Word of life. Luther translated the entire Bible into German for the people of his native land, and within 25 years of its appearance one hundred editions of the German Bible came off the press. The same was true in France, Holland, England, and Scotland. Protestant Bible societies now circulate more Bibles each year than were circulated in the fifteen centuries that preceded the Reformation.

Acima até da época do reformation o bible tinha sido um livro para priests somente. Escreveu-se o latin no, e a igreja roman recusada permitir que seja traduzida nas línguas dos povos comuns. Mas quando o Reformers veio toda na cena que foi mudada. O bible foi traduzido logo em todas as lingüetas vernacular de Europa, e onde quer que a luz do reformation foi transformou-se o livro dos povos comuns. Os decrees dos papas e dos conselhos da igreja deram a maneira à palavra da vida. Luther traduziu o bible inteiro no alemão para os povos de sua terra nativa, e dentro de 25 anos de suas edições da aparência cem do bible alemão veio fora da imprensa. O mesmo era verdadeiro em France, em Holland, em Inglaterra, e em Scotland. As sociedades protestant do bible circulam agora mais bibles cada ano do que foram circulados nos quinze séculos que precedeu o reformation.

Publishers report that more than 8,000,000 copies of the complete Bible were sold in the United States in 1956. Sales were up about 10 per cent from 1955, which was the previous record year. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that of the above number the King James Version easily held its place as the popular favorite, its total sales being more than 6,000,000 copies. The Revised Standard Version sold nearly 1,000,000 copies; the Douay Version, the standard Bible for American Roman Catholics, about 750,000; Jewish Bibles about 70,000; modern speech translations such as Moffatt, Goodspeed, etc., about 25,000; the American Standard Version of 1901 and others about 150,000. In addition to the above total many millions of copies of the New Testament and of portions of the Bible were sold.

During the last 150 years the Bible has been translated into all of the major languages of the world. According to the report given at the 1957 annual meeting of the American Bible Society the complete Bible, Old and New Testament, is now available in 210 languages and dialects, the complete New Testament is available in 270 more, and at least one book of the Bible, usually one of the gospels, has been translated into 629 more, for a total of 1109 languages and dialects into which the Bible has been translated in whole or in part. (United Press report, Jan. 12, 1957).

Today the Bible is available in whole or in part in the native tongue of 98 per cent of the people of the world. Surely that must be acknowledged as great progress and as a very broad and substantial basis on which to rear the future structure of Christianity. None of the so-called "best seller" books attain more than a small fraction of the number of Bibles sold.

Furthermore, the Christian message is being broadcast by radio and television in all the principal languages of the world. Several evangelical programs, with nation-wide or world-wide coverage have been launched within recent years-e.g, The Lutheran Hour, Missouri Synod (broadcasting in more than 50 languages); Coral Ridge Ministries (Presbyterian); The Back To God Hour (Christian Reformed, broadcasting in 8 languages); and Family Radio (independent), to name only a few. There are literally hundreds of other radio and television programs, many of which are heard daily. The gospel is thus brought into many a home and into many a sick room where it would not otherwise be heard, and to many a distant farm or lonely mining or lumber camp, to people on the highways and to ships at sea. How marvelous that is, compared with the very limited proclamation that prevailed for so many centuries! The over-all result is that for the first time in history the people of the entire world have the evangelical Christian message made available to them.

The number of theological seminaries, Bible institutes and Christian colleges in which the Bible is studied systematically is growing faster than the population, and the enrollment is increasing steadily. Numerous Christian magazines with very wide circulations have been established within recent years. A considerable proportion of the new books that come from the press either deal directly with Christianity or with some phase of religion .

During the past two centuries the Christian Church has made great progress and has established thousands upon thousands of local churches. It has become customary in the United States to think of the Colonial period as an age of deep faith. Yet the fact is that a large number of the people who came to these shores during that time did so to escape religious oppression in European countries, and they were slow in establishing new churches, Many had no church connection to begin with, or dropped the connection they did have, as has so often been the case in frontier or pioneer settlements. The Pilgrims and Puritans were the exception to the rule, but while they were strong in some sections other sections were quite different. Professor Leonard Verduin, of the Department of History in the University of Michigan has this to say regarding church membership in the colonial period:
"The first century and a half of American history was a mere elongation of European establishmentism. Throughout the colonies by and large there was a favored church. And, contrary to a legend which one often hears that those were golden days, America was never so near to being post-Christian as it was at the end of those 150 years. Competent historians find not more than 8 per cent of the adult population church-related. Then came the Revolution, and out of it was born the federal constitution. As by a divine economy it was laid down once and for all in the First Amendment that establishment was to be 'out' in this new commonwealth. And, even as a patient sometimes rallies in an amazing fashion at the injection of sulfa, so did this new commonwealth from that moment on witness the return of religion. Steadily, without fluctuation, the figure of the percentage of church membership rises, until today we stand at an all time high-not far below 60 per cent of the population today holding church membership" (The Reformed Journal, Jan. 1953).

We may add that in 1870 church membership in the United States stood at 18 per cent, a percentage increase three times that of the Revolutionary War period. Today it stands at an all time high of 61 per cent, an increase of 4 per cent within the last five years. Of these, 35 per cent are members of Protestant churches, 20 per cent are Roman Catholics (Year Book of American Churches, 1956). So-called Modernism or Liberalism has indeed risen in some quarters to deny a greater or lesser portion of the faith. But Modernism has nothing positive to offer. Its leading advocates set forth conflicting systems, and in effect acknowledge that the system is bankrupt. We are confident that after the present season of criticism and testing of the foundations is over we shall have a grander and stronger edifice of theology than the ages have yet seen.

Statistics indicate that the world over Christianity has grown more in the last one hundred years than in the preceding eighteen hundred, and that it now has a considerably larger number of nominal adherents than the combined total of any other two world religions. These figures show that of a total world population of about two and one-half billion there are approximately 800,000,000 Christians, 350,000,000 Confucianists (including Taoists), 320,000,000 Moslems, 310,000,000 Hindus, 150,000,000 Buddhists, 20,000,000 Shintoists, and 12,000,000 Jews. And while many of those who are counted as Christians are only "nominally" such, the proportion of true Christians probably is as great or greater than is the proportion of true adherents in any of the pagan religions. All of the other religions, with the exception of Muhammadanism, are much older than Christianity. All of the false religions are dying. Christianity alone is able to grow and flourish under modern civilization, while all of the others soon disintegrate when brought under its glaring light.

We feet perfectly confident in asserting that all of the anti-Christian religions and anti-Christian philosophies of our day are demonstrably false. Their histories show what complete failures they have been so far as raising the moral, spiritual and intellectual standards of their adherents is concerned. They await only the coup de grace of an aroused and energetic Christianity to send them into oblivion. In this connection Dr. Albertus Pieters has well said: "In the early church Ebionitism, Gnosticism, Montanism, Arianism and Pelagianism endangered the life of the church. They are remembered now only by church historians. Later it was Romanism and Socinianism. In modern life it is Unitarianism, Modernism, Mormonism, Russelism, Christian Science, Spiritualism, etc.,-a long list of movements of Satanic origin that comes on like a flood, and for a time make timid believers afraid that the church will be overwhelmed and the gospel permanently lost to the world-- but it never comes to pass. The present heresies will disappear as did those of the past" (Studies in the Revelation of St. John, p. 165).

Only within the last one hundred years have foreign missions really come into their own. As they have recently been developed, with great church organizations behind them and with extensive facilities for translating and publishing Christian literature in many languages, they are in a position to carry on a work of evangelism in foreign lands such as the world has never seen before. It is safe to say that the present generation living in India, China, Japan, Korea, Indo-China and the Near East have seen greater changes in religion, society and government than occurred in the preceding two thousand years. Not only has the foundation been laid in most of these countries for a further evangelical advance, but under the benign influence of the Church innumerable local churches, schools and hospitals have been founded, ethical culture and social services have advanced greatly, and moral standards are much higher today than when the Church was first established. That we may get a truer view of the progress that has been made we cite the following picture of the early world into which Christianity came, as given by Dr. William Hendriksen:
"Let us transplant ourselves to the world of John the apostle, and imagine that the slow finger of history's clock is pointing to the first century A. D. Now, look around you in every direction. What a picture of spiritual darkness and desolation! Try to count the many idols that disgrace the streets and sanctuaries of imperial Rome. The abominations, the filth and corruption attendant upon the celebration of pagan festivals, the superstitions, vices, etc., are very staggering. Temples and shrines throughout the world are crowded with ignorant, half-despairing worshippers. We see a few scattered churches established by the efforts of Paul and others. For the rest, heathendom is everywhere triumphant. All the nations -- with the exception of the Jews-- are under the thraldom of Satan!" (More Than Conquerors, p. 224).

When we contrast the rapid spread of Christianity in recent years with the rapid disintegration that is taking place in all of the other world religions, it becomes very clear that Christianity is the future world religion. There are, however, some who tell us in all seriousness that the world is getting worse. Surely they are prompted to do so only in defense of a theory that clearly is contradicted by the facts. In response to such reasoning Dr. Snowden says:
"The true way of judging the world is to compare its present with its past condition and note in which direction it is moving. Is it going backward, or forward, is it getting worse or better? It may be wrapped in gloomy twilight, but is it the twilight of the evening, or of the morning? Are the shadows deepening into starless night, or are they fleeing before the rising sun? One glance at the world as it is today compared with what it was ten or twenty centuries ago shows us that it has swept through a wide arc and is moving toward the morning" ( The Coming of the Lord, p. 250).

But while great progress has been made as the Church has extended her witness to the far corners of the earth, much the greater part of the work yet remains to be accomplished. Adherents of the pagan religions still outnumber those of the Christian faith, and even within the Church there is a crying need for a fuller knowledge of the contents of the Christian faith and for a much more consistent living in accordance with those principles on the part of professing Christian people. The binding of Satan, described in Revelation 20:1-3, we now perceive to be not a sudden event, but a very long, slow process. It has been in process of accomplishment for more than nineteen centuries, and much progress has been made. But no time limit can be set as to how much longer the process may have to be continued before it is crowned with success, nor how long the era of righteousness will prevail over the earth before the Lord returns. The nineteen centuries that have elapsed since the Christian era began may well indicate that several more centuries, perhaps even millenniums, may be required, particularly if devastating wars yet remain to be fought, as is of course perfectly possible.

Skeptics sometimes point to present day evils and tell us that we are living in a post-Christian age. But, no, there has never yet been a truly Christian age, nor has so much as one nation ever been consistently Christian. The age in which we are living is still pre-Christian.

That the progress of the Church through these years has been slow is due to the fact that Christians in general have not taken seriously Christ's command to evangelize the world. The Great Commission is addressed not merely to ministers and missionaries, but to all Christians everywhere. No distinction is made in this command between ministers and laymen. The command applies to parents rearing their children, to children in regard to their parents, to individuals in whatever relationship they stand to their neighbors or business or social companions, to those who teach in the schools, to employers and employees in their mutual relationships, to writers, newsmen, statesmen, to Christians in general regardless of occupation or station in life. The Gospel is the "good news" of the salvation that God has provided for sinful men, and it should be given out by all who have it,-- given out by word of mouth, through the example of a Christian life, and by the effective and generous use of money or property or time as opportunity affords. Oftentimes a word sincerely spoken by a friend or neighbor to one who is outside the Church is more persuasive than what is said by the minister. It has been said: "No one can perform a higher service than this -- to make more accessible the riches that are in Christ Jesus." Let Christians everywhere take seriously the command to evangelize the world and the work will be accomplished in a comparatively short time.

Roderick Campbell has well said:
"Some day the Christian church will learn to profit by the bitter experience of the church and nation of the Old Covenant. Two very pointed and useful lessons may be learned from the records of the past. Israel had been commanded by God to march in and take possession of the Promised Land. About one year after they JUSTIFY Egypt they reached the borders of the land. Then their faith and their courage failed. 'Let us make a captain,' they say, 'and let us return into Egypt.' What is the result? -- forty weary years of wandering among the rocks and the sand of the desert, and the death of that entire adult generation with the exception of two men of faith ( cf. Nu. 14; 32:10-13).

"The other lesson is equally profitable and clear. A new army under Joshua entered the land. It won its first signal victory at Jericho. It then met bitter and humiliating defeat. Why? Israel had sinned. The guilty party must be punished and every forbidden thing destroyed before victory could be achieved. When this was done Israel found itself on the side of the Almighty ( Joshua 7). God fought for Israel with a mighty hand. The fulfillment of prophecy awaits the day when the church will really believe that God will do all that He has promised to do, and when the church will sincerely aim at entire conformity to the revealed will of God. Then, by the agency of imperfect but faithful men, we may expect God to do what He has promised to do" (Israel and the New Covenant, p. 162).

Premillennialists sometimes try to refute this general view by citing the question asked in Luke 18:8, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" And they infer that the answer must be "No." But in order to give a negative answer to this question it is necessary to ignore the many statements in Scripture which describe the latter day glory of the Church. Surely an answer which at first might seem to be implied but which is not given in Scripture should not be allowed to overweigh the many references which speak of the triumph of righteousness in the earth. We submit that a question such as that in Luke 18:8 does not necessarily require a negative answer. When in the farewell discourse to the disciples Jesus asked, "Do ye now believe?" (John 16:31), no answer is given, but we do not believe that the implied answer is "No." When Paul asked, "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?" (Acts 26:27), the implied answer might seem to be "No," for there was little to indicate that Agrippa did believe. But Paul quickly adds, "I know that thou believest."

In closing this chapter we should point out that some postmillennial writers, as well as others, have fallen into the error of assuming too rapid progress. Dr. Snowden, for instance, after showing so clearly the error of the Premillennialists in date-setting and in assuming the near return of Christ, went on to make the same kind of an error in assuming that the Millennium was just about to dawn. In his book, The Coming of the Lord, written while the First World War was in progress, he assumed that the successful conclusion of the war, which he saw as in the near future, would put an end to militarism forever, and that it would be followed by a rapid development toward the millennial era. That the lessons learned from the First World War should have had that effect we readily agree. But whether the time will be long or short we have no way of knowing. This we can say: Postmillennialism does not despair of the power of the Gospel to convert the world, but holds rather that it cannot be defeated, that over the centuries it will win its way, and that eventually the goal will be achieved.

À luz desses fatos, olhamos para o futuro confiantes de que o melhor ainda está por vir. Que os Cristãos em todos os lugares agradeçam a Deus pelo progresso que tem sido feito e tomem coragem. Seu futuro é tão brilhante como as promessas de Deus.

Traduzido por: Felipe Sabino de Araújo Neto
Cuiabá-MT, 20 de Novembro de 2002.