A History of the Second Coming Issue 61 | 1999

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At a Christian bookstore near the Christian History offices, the "prophecy" section is more than twice as large as the "history" section, and that doesn't count the apocalyptic fiction books. And even the history section is populated with prophecy; every publishing house, it seems, is publishing at least one history of eschatology. The year 2000 is apparently a boon for historians of millennialism.

Richard Kyle's The Last Days Are Here Again (Baker, 1998) offers a scholar's brief overview of 2,000 years of millennialism, in both Christian and secular circles. Another Baker book, The New Millennium Manual (1999), by Robert Clouse, Robert Hosack, and Richard Pierard, is a unique and successful blend of playfulness and expert scholarship (Clouse and Pierard are history professors at Indiana State University).

The journalists who have surveyed the history of apocalypticism typically spend most of their time on the "sexier" movements, like the Millerites or Branch Davidians, but they cover more mainstream beliefs too. Richard Abanes's End-Time Visions (Broadman and Holman, 1998) and Russell Chandler's Doomsday (Servant, 1993) are two of the better histories (though the latter lacks an index).

The two-part video Millennial Madness (Plain Truth, 1997) tries to calm those with high end-times expectations. It's especially interesting for its publisher: the Worldwide Church of God, until recently famous for apocalyptic fervor.

While most online searches for apocalyptic studies will turn up some very strange Web sites, there is at least one out there with some scholarly integrity: The Center for Millennial Studies (www.mille.org), directed by Boston University medieval history professor Richard Landes. It is full of useful articles ...