Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

48robin-bobin Rapture, Revelation, and the End Timesthat God intends it as the beginning or forerunner of somethingvastly great.” 16 This optimistic view harkened back to thePuritan idea of America as God’s elect nation and anticipated afar different kind of end times than had Luther.The religious revivals that gave Edwards such hope weregrounded in a humanistically centered idea called Arminianism:the belief that individuals themselves could influence their salvationby placing their faith in Christ. This view had beenchallenging the Calvinist view of predestination for over acentury, but it was only in the 1740s and 1750s that it gainedwide currency as preachers like the British evangelists GeorgeWhitefield and John Wesley staged religious revivals aimed atgaining converts to Christianity. During revivals, ministerspreached, faithful Christians told stories about their ownconversions to Christianity, and large numbers of individualsexperienced their own conversions (now more commonly knownas being born again). As revivals spread, Edwards’s belief thatthese public religious activities heralded a new day was echoed bymany religious leaders, who similarly thought that not only wasthe end imminent but that the ultimate fulfillment of Christ andRevelation probably would begin in America. “The Kingdom ofGod is come to us at this Day,” Whitefield proclaimed. A new agehad arrived.These evangelical revivalists shared an optimistic view of theprogression of divine history toward the millennium. Thisperspective, called “postmillennialism,” asserted that divine historywas occurring in the present time and was working towardhuman perfection, which, when achieved, would prompt thereturn of Christ. In other words Christ, they thought, wouldreturn after society had achieved a period of peace and humanperfection—that is, after the millennium was established.Postmillennialism corresponded with other philosophicalviews popular during the eighteenth century. Enlightenmentthinkers stressed human rationality, free will, and individualrights. In a political context, this perspective informed a growingdissatisfaction with colonial rule and contributed, by the1770s, to the American war with England. The old authority ofrobin-bobin