Conference Handout 4

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The future

of millennial studiesTrinity College Dublin

2-3 September 2010

Hosted by the Trinity Millennialism Project,

Trinity College Dublin,

and the Centre for Millennialism Studies,

Liverpool Hope University

Organised by Crawford Gribben ([email protected])and Joshua Searle ([email protected])

mailto:[email protected]








[This conference will be held in Room 6009, Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin]

Thursday 2 September 2010

18:00-18:15 Welcome (Kenneth Newport and Joshua Searle)

18:15-19:15 Keynote address chaired by Crawford Gribben (Trinity College Dublin)

Timothy Stunt (Wooster School, Danbury, CT)

“Trinity College, John Darby and the Powerscourt milieu”

This paper is an attempt to place John Darby and the first formulations of dispensationalism in

the broader context of the eschatological thinking of some of his contemporaries at Trinity

College and the participants at Powerscourt. It considers the extent of his (and the Plymouth

Brethren’) connection with John Walker and with the Walkerite, Whitley Stoke. It examines

the millennialim of Darby’ near contemporarie, Hugh McNeile, George Croly, Samuel Roffey

Maitland, James Henthorn Todd, John Clarke Crosthwaite, Robert Daly and William de Burgh. In

particular it establishes the close proximity of the last of these to the circles in which Darby was

moving during his formative years, and revisits the way in which Darby was linked with both the

ecclesiastical and echatological thinking of the Tractarian’ predeceor. In a final postscript it

evaluate the work of George Thoma Stoke, one of the firt cholar to invetigate Darby’

career. All but one of the figures mentioned above were alumni of Trinity College, Dublin and

the way in which their careers and thinking resemble and contrast with that of Darby, may be a

useful starting point for recovering the circumstantial subjectivity of much millennial thinking

and interpretation.

19:30 Conference dinner

Fallon & Byrne Restaurant, 2 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2

Friday 3 September 2010

Session 1 – Chaired by Kenneth Newport (Liverpool Hope University)

9:00-9:45 Andrew Crome (University of Manchester)

“Historical Understandings in Millennial Studies: A Case Study”

This paper examines the role of different understandings of history in millennial studies through

the cae tudy on recent tudie on “Judeo-centric” millenarianim in the early modern period.

The tudy of “Judeo-centric millenarianim” focuses on the belief in a physical restoration of the

Jews to Palestine at the onset of the millennium in seventeenth century England and America.Several studies, from monographs by James Shapiro and Douglas Culver to recent articles by

Richard W. Cogley, Philip Almond and myself, have attempted to analyse this strand of

millenarian thought. Several of these studies have found parallels between Judeo-centrism and

contemporary dispensational millennialism, leading to the concern that research into early

millenarianism could be used to justify contemporary politico-theological movements. In this

paper I will argue that the use of historical studies by contemporary millenarians to justify their

theological positions represents a fundamental misuse of the historical tradition. Paradoxically,

those who attempt to use historical millenarianism in this way displays a fundamentally anti-

apocalyptic understanding of history.



9:45-10:30 Mark Sweetnam (University of Aberdeen)

“Digital Darby: Exploiting the Digital Greek New Testament”

The Trinity Millennialism Project was recently responsible for the digitisation of John Nelson

Darby's interleaver Greek New Testament. This customised and heavily annoted 'blank Bible' is

a unique resource for scholars attempting to understand the development of Darby's

interpretation of prophetic Scripture. This paper will examine what the annotations tell us

about Darby's understanding of key prophetic scriptures, and will attempt to delineate the

usefulness of this newly availible digital resource for scholars of Darby, dispensationalism, and

the nexus of areas that relate to evangelical millennialism. 10:30-11:00 – Coffee

Session 2 – Chaired by Joshua Searle (Trinity College Dublin)

11:00-11:45 Andrew Pierce (Trinity College Dublin)

“The Modernist Millennium”

In 1907, Pope Pius X issued the encyclical letter Pascendi Domenici gregis, in which he defined

and condemned the herey of ‘Modernim.’ Modernim, according to Piu and hi entourage,

was nothing less than the gathering together in one movement of ‘all the hereie.’ Againt the

threat of modernism – and its many constituent -isms, such as historical criticism, evolutionism,

symbolism, immanentism, vitalism, and so forth – Piu enforced the return to a ‘medievalim’ (a

term devised by the Irish-born modernist George Tyrrell, 1861-1909) that had been set in place

by his predecessor, Leo XIII, for whom the eternal philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas was the

sole key to keeping modernity at bay. The extent to which millennial hopes and fears suffused

the modernist crisis is insufficiently acknowledged in the current literature on the period. This

lend trength to Troeltch’ famou remark that, at the end of the nineteenth century, thing

were quiet at the eschatological bureau. By focusing on the twin contested terms – modernist

and medievalist – this paper will show how the conflict between resisting and enforcing a

return to the medieval suggests that matters were not as quiet as Troeltsch supposed. 11:45-12:30 Katie Sturm (Liverpool Hope University)

“From Millennial Conversion to Conversation: How two letters make all the

difference”

One of the core values of United States Evangelicalism is evangelism – the pursuit to bring

others into the faith of Christianity. One of the leading popular voices of US Evangelicalism, Hal

Lindsey, reflects this core value throughout his numerous works. Lindsey also presents a

position of strong support for the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. While not problematic

in themselves, the combination of Lindey’ paion for evangelim and hi relationhip with

Irael preent a conundrum. Thi paper will examine the relationhip between Lindey’ co-

existent values of evangelism and support for Israel. This paper will also look at several of the

claims of Lindsey regarding not only the role of Jews in the forthcoming apocalypse and events

leading to the millennium, but also the conversion of Jews to his brand of dispensational

doctrine during that period.

12:30-14:00 – Lunch



Session 3 – Chaired by Jennie Chapman (University of Manchester)

14:00-14:45 Jennifer Trieu (Trinity College Dublin)

“Cultural Complexities: Racial Representation in the Left Behind Series”

For my dissertation, I plan on exploring the connections between the representations of race,

specifically the depiction of Asian-Americans, and the notion of a threatened American culturalsecurity in the Left Behind series. It is imperative to note that while both the protagonists and

antagonit in LaHaye and Jenkin’ apocalyptic series are all of varying ethnic and cultural

backgrounds, there are no instances where a character of a visible ethnic minority is explicitly

mocked, criticized or represented in a particularly negative way based on their race alone; there

are however, instances throughout the series where subtle and implicit racism does occur:

characters including the tech-savvy Chinese-American Chang-Wong, an African-American

character called T.M. Delanty and several others are often represented as individuals who

affirm some of the stereotypes of their respective ethnicities. Though there are instances where

implicit and subtle racism occurs throughout the series, it is not always entirely clear where

subtle jabs at a particular minority group ends and over-sensitivity of readers and critics begin—

the somewhat ambiguous and indirect comments about race in the series complicate the

reasons as to why Left Behind remains popular amongst a vast array of socio-economic, cultural

and ethnic groups—I hope to further analyse the various reasons why this series is popular inmy dissertation. I plan on dividing my dissertation into roughly two sections: in the first section,

I hope to ditinguih the covert mirepreentation of race in LaHaye and Jenkin’ text and

examine how these representations of race problematise the seemingly racially liberal and

highly multicultural cast of characters. In the second section, I want to explore how, despite the

implicit racism of the text, Left Behind has been translated into numerous languages and is

popular amongst visible ethnic minorities in America. I plan on analysing how the absence of

intellectual rigor prevalent amongst both Caucasian-American and also Asian-American

Christian communities provides an explanation as to why the Left Behind series, a series that

expresses a subtle racism, remains popular in Evangelical circles today.

14:45-15:30 Marisa Ronan (University College Dublin)

“Periodisation and Preservation from Apocalypticism to ProgressiveEvangelicalism”

This paper is a study of evangelical accommodation and identity preservation that fastens the

twenty-first century utilization of prevailing philosophies of postmodernism, evident in

progressive evangelical movements, to an eighteenth century heritage of Protestantism's

appropriation of Scottish Common Sense Realism. It places the American Enlightenment as the

progenitor of reactionary evangelical separatism of the twentieth century and subsequent

twenty-first century evangelical philosophical accommodation. I interrogate the foundation of

evangelical anti-modernism formed in and against the Enlightenment which I map within

evangelical intellectual and literary patterns more broadly. In short I argue that the current use

of postmodern philosophy by the Emergent Church is predicated upon the belief that the

postmodern age will offer a new Reformation in which the ills of modernity can be rejected.Evangelical philosophical appropriation can, I contend, be traced from the American

Enlightenment through to postmodernism wherein evangelical theology works to expand

notions of Christian progress within diverging philosophies. Vital to my study is the exploration

of the evangelical emphasis on historical periodisation, evident in the framing of evangelical

theology primarily in opposition to modernity and notably the recent positioning of evangelical

theology in and against postmodernity. Historical periodisation offers a mode on which to pin

the trajectory of evangelicalism, serving to distil the complexity of modernism and

postmodernism. For evangelicals, this facilitates their views on the ills of modernism and the

benefits of postmodernism. Christianity by its very nature is structured by notions of historical



periodisation and concepts of genealogy. As such, by similarly viewing modernism and

postmodernism in this vein, evangelicalism seeks to unite Christian tradition to contemporary

notions of socio-historic progress. This paper uses the fiction of evangelical theologian Brian

McLaren to explore these themes within the wider historiographic metafictional tradition that

place McLaren’ theological imperative at it centre. I explore how the elf -awareness of

history, fiction and theology acts as a defining focal point of the New Kind of Christian series.

15:30-16:00 – Coffee

Session 4 – Chaired by Andrew Pierce (Trinity College Dublin)

16:00-16:45 Jennie Chapman (University of Manchester)

“‘Everything moves toward the end, when the outcome will be known’:

Apocalypse, Narrative and Genre in Dispensational Fiction”

Frank Kermode argues that apocalypse and narrative are intimately connected; that the ways in

which human make meaning are predicated upon a ‘ene of an ending’ that both reveal and

clarifies that which precedes it. If this is the case, then it should not be surprising that beliefs

concerning the end times have found their most salient cultural expression in fiction, with theLeft Behind series of premillennial novels offering a potent concoction of dispensational

hermeneutics and popular narrative that incorporates generic devices found in sci-fi, action

fiction, and the detective story. While the imperatives of eschatology and narrative fiction are

consonant in several ways, however, the ways in which they diverge and conflict are perhaps

more numerous and, arguably, more consequential. The placing of theological tenets within a

popular fiction framework has significant ramifications for the dispensational tradition within

which the Left Behind text are ituated: a Crawford Gribben note, “*t+he element of a

convincing novel, even a convincing prophetic novel, are quite different from the elements of a

persuasive scholarly or pseudo-scholarly text.” This paper will examine, therefore, what

happen when the ‘raw data’ of biblical exegei i communicated via a medium – the novel –

with very different objectives and exigencies. How do the demands of genre mitigate the aims

of exegesis? How does the medium inflect the message?

16:45-17:30 Joshua Searle (Trinity College Dublin)

“The Future of Millennial Studies and the Hermeneutics of Hope: A

Theological Reflection”

Is there more to millennialism and apocalypticism than fire, smoke and blood? Does not the

circumference of the orbit of millennial studies need to be expanded beyond the seditious

schemes of pseudo-scientific suicide cults, the bizarre and bewildering beliefs of UFO religions

and the speculative sensationalism of so-called ‘rapture fiction’? Anwering in the affirmative,

this paper offers a theological reflection on the salient points of creative convergence between

millennial tudie and echatological hope. Seeking to how how “apocalypse transforms the

object of fear into the ite of hope” (C. Keller), the aim will be to provoke a debate andstimulate creative thinking with the aim of expanding the eschatological horizon of millennial

studies. This paper is directed towards the elucidation of a robust theology of hope with the

aim of stimulating fresh thinking in the field of millennial studies. This field of research, I will

argue, can be enriched and enlivened through a proper grasp of the nature and implications of

the biblical narrative of hope from which many of the salient millennial discourses either are –

or purport to be – derived. In the final reckoning, apocalypticism and millennialism are not

about blood, hell-fire, violence, wrath and doomsday but present an evocative vision of human

flourishing and fulfilment depicted in the Christian tradition in the metaphor of the

eschatological city, the New Jerusalem.



Biographies of speakers

Jennie Chapman

Jennie Chapman is a teaching fellow in American Literature at the University of Manchester. She received her

PhD in English and American Studies from the University of Manchester in January 2010. Her doctoral project,

entitled “Paradoxe of Power: Apocalyptic Agency in the Left Behind Serie,” wa funded by the Art and

Humanities Research Council. She has published her research in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

(21:3, Fall 2009) , and in two edited collections: John Walliss and Kenneth G.C. Newport’ The End all Around Us:

Apocalyptic Texts and Popular Culture (Equinox, 2009) and Crawford Gribben and Mark Sweetnam’ Left Behind

and the Evangelical Imagination (Sheffield Phoenix, 2010). She is also a reviewer for Utopian Studies. She has

presented her research at several major conferences including the British Association for American Studies

(2008, 2010) and the American Culture Association (2009). She is currently working on developing her doctoral

thesis into a monograph.

Andrew Crome

Andrew Crome is Lecturer in Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester. He has published on early

modern millenarianism and Jewish-Christian relations, with research interests including eschatology and

Biblical hermeneutics in seventeenth century England and contemporary apocalyptic thought. He holds a PhD

in Theology from the University of Manchester and a BA in Theology and Ancient History from the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Andrew Pierce

Andrew Pierce is Lecturer in Ecumenics at the Irish School of Ecumenics, where he co-ordinates the MPhil

course in Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, both as an

undergraduate and postgraduate student, before becoming lecturer in Church History and Theology at the

Anglican seminary in Dublin. His principal research interests focus on late nineteenth and early twentieth

century theology, and in particular on the interrelationships between nascent ecumenism, fundamentalism,

liberalism and integralist religiosity. He has published a number of articles on this theme, and is currently

writing a book in which these issues are explored in greater

detail.

Marisa Ronan

Marisa Ronan is currently Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clinton Institute for American Studies. An IRCHSS scholar

Marisa successfully completed a PhD in American Studies in 2008; her thesis explored an intellectual and

literary history of American Evangelicalism from Puritanism to postmodernism entitled, ‘Evangeliing

Postmodernism: Christian Fiction and the Puruit of a New Evangelical Chritianity’. Her publications include:

‘Evangelical Chritian Fiction: Reflection of a 'Culture in Tranition’, in The Journal of the British Association for

American Studies 60, 2007; ‘Left Behind and Evangelical Literary Culture’ (forthcoming in Left Behind and the

Evangelical Imagination, Mark Sweetnam and Crawford Gribben (eds), Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010);

‘Chritian Literature after the American Century: Periodisation and the Re-writing of Christian Fiction’

(forthcoming in the Journal of American Studies). She is currently working on turning her PhD into a book

length project entitled “Evangelical Literature in America: From the Pulpit to Potmodernim”.

Joshua Searle

Joshua Searle is a part of the first generation of the Texts, Contexts and Cultures PhD programme at Trinity

College Dublin. He graduated from Oxford University in 2006. In 2008 he was awarded an MTh with double

distinction from the Mezinárodní Baptistický Teologický Seminás in the Czech Republic where he tudied before

moving to Ireland. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in the School of English at Trinity College and

is supervised by Dr Crawford Gribben. His thesis is focusing on the cultural manifestations of apocalyptic

eschatology, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland during the ‘Trouble’. His article on the ethics of the



Sermon on the Mount was published by the Journal of European Baptist Studies in January 2009. In July 2009,

he was awarded €400 for an essay on eschatological hope in a competition organised by the Conference of

European Churches. Since 2008, he has been a member of the Trinity Millennialism Project.

Timothy Stunt

Timothy Stunt is a graduate of Cambridge University and has taught history, for some forty-five years, in

secondary schools in Britain, Switzerland and the United States. He was awarded a PhD from Cambridge

University for his book From Awakening to Secession: Radical Evangelicals in Switzerland and Britain 1815-1835

(T&T Clark, 2000). He has contributed some forty articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and

has recently published papers on the development and significance of the work of John Nelson Darby and

Anthony Norris Groves. He currently teaches at Wooster School, Danbury, Connecticut.

Katie Sturm

Katie Sturm currently resides in Dublin as an overseas PhD student at Liverpool Hope University and colleague

of the Centre for Millennialism Studies. She completed her B.A. at Westmont College in the US, where she

began her involvement with both interfaith and religious studies. After completing a Masters of Theology at

Fuller Theological Seminary, she moved to Dublin to pursue and complete her Masters in Ecumenics at Trinity

College Dublin. Her dissertation on Evangelical Identity received distinction, and a portion of the dissertation

was used as the foundation for a chapter in Sweetnam and Gribben’s forthcoming book from Sheffield PhoenixPress. Her current research focuses on the role of Hal Lindsey in US Evangelical contemporary millennialism

and its engagement with interfaith dialogue.

Mark Sweetnam

Mark Sweetnam is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Aberbeen, where he is working on the application

of natural language processing to corpus linguistic. He has wide-ranging research interests in the area of

literature and theology. He completed his PhD research on religious authority in the work of John Donne at

Trinity College Dublin. Since then he has published widely on early modern literature and evangelical popular

culture. His history of the Scofield Reference Bible, co-authored with Todd Mangum, was published in late

2009, and a major article addressing the challenges of defining dispensationalism for the purposes of cultural

studies recently appeared in the Journal of Religious Studies. He has previously worked as a post-doctoralfellow on the Trinity Millennialism Project, and has published research on Darby's Irish context and his

hermeneutics.

Jennifer Trieu

Jennifer Trieu is currently enrolled in the M.Phil in Popular Literature programme at Trinity College Dublin and

graduated with a BA in English at the University of Calgary in 2009. At present, her research for her Masters

dissertation examines cultural and racial representation in the Left Behind Series.

Documents

Conference Handout 4