Notes from a Plenary Presentation to
to NCC Communication Week
September 14,1998

The speaker, Dr. Richard Landes, is co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies in Brookline, Mass., which is documenting, analyzing and archiving materials that chart the current rise of "millennial fever." Dr. Landes, who is also associate professor of history at Boston University, is a historian of medieval times and especially of the 1000.

Our responders were the Rev. Mariah A. Britton, Youth Pastor of The Riverside Church, New York City, and Imam Alfred Mohammed, also of new York City. Imam Mohammed has served under Imam W.D. Mohammed and is currently majoring in Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary. He is a frequent lecturer and workshop leader in interfaith settings.

A condensed version or Dr. Landes’ remarks follows:

Four aspects of millennialism:

	Millennialism mobilizes some of the most noble, generous and spiritual sentiments known to humankind. These include following the paths of justice, egalitarian politics, tolerance, and a voluntary collective wave of enthusiasm for this great new world of peace and fellowship, of abundance and generosity.
	Millennial moments pose a radical challenge to the representatives of the status quo in a culture, forcing major reappraisals of the way things are—working from the premise that the way things are is irretrievably evil. As such, millennial movements have found much opposition historically form the ruling elites.
	Millennialism feeds some of the most megalomaniac tendencies in people. Under millennial conditions, this enthusiasm spreads to the largest number of people, leading to serious excesses—deeply irrational self-destructive and violent behavior. Partly because of the built-in hostility between the forces of social order and millennialism, the more radical movements have a tendency toward paranoia and violence. It is hard to get enthused—as millennialists do—to commit to so radical and demanding an ethic without at the same time considering yourself as part of a new elite, of the vanguard of God’s Kingdom. When such people actually gain political power, the consequences can be catastrophic. Totalitarianism is the great temptation of any millennial group that takes power.
	Millennial moments offer some of the most extraordinary conditions for affecting broad-based social change. Large numbers of people can be mobilized, permitting a kind of social compact among the participants—as happened in the great open-field assemblies of the Peace of God movement in Europe at the turn of the Year 1000. People are not ashamed to feel altruistic, to openly express ideals that under ordinary circumstances would seem like the prattling of fools. It is also a time when relationships between elites and commoners sometimes change in profound ways. Millennial moments in the last 1,000 years have given rise to modern civil society.

A Challenge to Mainline Christians

Instead of the most progressive and liberal minds jumping on this gold mine of social imagination and emotion, we find precisely that group sitting on its hands, downplaying the date. Among Christians, this attitude is most dangerous. Others will use this moment for dangerous enthusiasms—such as forms of Christian apocalyptic expectation. It would be disastrous for both Christendom and the global community—in which it has over the past half a millennium played such a dominant role—to let such millennial tendencies go unchecked and unchallenged.

Let us use the Y2K phenomenon as a metaphor in the world of religion. Programmers have coined the term "millennially compliant" for software and hardware that will survive the passage of Year 2000 without crashing. What is the most dangerous "embedded program" of any religion about to undergo a millennial moment? My answer to that is a claim to monopoly on salvation. Here the apocalyptic "other" becomes either the convert who must be made over into the image of the self—or roadkill on the road through Armageddon. If any single factor accounts for some of the most violent, merciless wars in history, then this ranks high. Today we find it in the curious confidence of Rapture enthusiasts. Such an emphasis on right belief can be contrasted with right actions toward fellow human beings, especially how we treat the "other," the stranger.

Any millennially compliant Christianity needs to come to terms with this aspect of the Christian message—to grapple with the famous phrase from John’s Gospel: "No one comes unto the Father except through me." This brings us to the great religious conundrum of modernity: By and large, religious tolerance has come at the price of religious passion. This is our challenge in the next millennium: to be both tolerant and passionate to discover the "other." This is true not only of Christianity, but also of Islam, Judaism and all world religions.

Do not leave public space and discourse at this millennial moment in the hands of denominational zealots. Help them in their certain disappointment at the non-advent of the Rapture. Use the time between now and 2033 to help transform our world into a sustainable assembly of communities that can usher us through the next millennium of our life on this planet.

Responses:

Mariah Britton responded out of her conversations with youth—those among us who will come of age in the next millennium. For them, church is important but their overarching sense of connection is through the media. How does media "treat the other?" If youth are hearing about the Apocalypse in movies, books, etc., how do we offer a sense of hope, so important for every life decision? With youth, she emphasizes "mindfulness"—everything you do and say has meaning. When all around points to doom, we need to hold out biblical messages about faith as "evidence of things not seen," and about how our faith teaches us to recognize grace and holiness in all human beings. "Adults, you need to watch how you treat the ‘other,’ the stranger, the young people who come before you," she said. "How you act toward them gives young people a message about how to be in the world."

Among other points, Imam Mohammed addressed the phenomenon of megalomania in millennial moments, saying that such paranoia feeds on feelings of powerlessness. This can be addressed in congregations by turning to a theology of reconciliation. In times of crisis and mass confusion we can look to our traditions for guidance on how to deal with the "other." When we feel empowered by faith, when we feel sacred, then it is not necessary to go about "othering" people.

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