The Thousand-Year Reign.

As conservative Protestants became ever more strident in their insistence on the inerrancy of Scriptures, millennial speculation could not help but enjoy a renewed vigor as well. The term millennialism comes from the last book of the Bible, Revelation, and refers specifically to the thousand-year reign of peace that is predicted in connection with other events of the apocalypse, or "end days," of human time. In a general sense millennialism includes a wide range of beliefs about the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Since its inception America has proved itself to be a fertile ground for the proliferation of variant and often competing millennial visions. Many of the most vigorous religious movements at the turn of the century were steeped in millennialism, even if their doctrines remained somewhat vague and confusing. The growing sectarian movements Seventh-Day Adventism and Jehovah's...