Prophetic chiliasm : a clarion call for the Bride of Christ or a call to enlist in hell's armies? Re-evaluating the political significance of prophetic chiliasm in Pentecostal thinking

Abstract

Most Pentecostals of the early 20th century accepted Darbyist dispensationalism and pre-millennial chiliasm. GR Wessels was the first Pentecostal to link dispensationalism to pro-apartheid ideology. Kleynhans took the political agenda further. He gave the apartheid regime a messianic position. Communism hates God. Therefore they hate the Jewish state and Christian South Africa. The Iraqi war was the catalyst for a dispensationalism in the USA that resembles the South African Pentecostal dispensationalism. After 9/11 the American people suffered a sense of loss and anger. Terrorist attacks are in a sense even more frustrating than conventional war. During September 2006 several pre-millenial pastors encouraged the USA to invade Iran on TBN. The messages sounded very similar to that of Kleynhans: The USA and Israel are God’s elect, the Muslim world is the enemy. Suggested further research should look at the effects of conservative dispensationalism on the lives of the ordinary believer.