“You, dear reader, are no more responsible for slavery than German millennials are for the Holocaust. Understand how it works? To suggest, as some overpaid politicians now do, that Western people today are somehow tainted by the enslavement of Africans by some of their ancestors, is an idea so extraordinarily backward that even the Old Testament – not exactly a hippie manifesto at the best of times – prohibits it.”

Regrettably, slavery has always been with us. Basically all cultures throughout human history have been involved in slavery. Yet Westerners today tend to think it ONLY happened in Western countries and was perpetrated by whites on non-whites.
Slavery is wrong, but telling lies about it is wrong as well. Like most topics being discussed in the West today, we are being sold a bill of goods along with plenty of self-loathing and political correctness. Indeed, the whole point of things like Critical Race Theory is to convince us that racism is purely the result and domain of white people, and only whites are the ones that need to grovel in remorse and make continuous apologies for all this.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, whites were involved in enslaving non-whites, but every other colour combination is also a reality – even today. Thus non-whites have enslaved whites and other non-whites. Plenty of fact-based discussions on these matters exist.
The Black American economist and intellectual Thomas Sowell for example has written often on this. See a recent article that I wrote on him and the issue of slavery here: link
Many others can be appealed to in this regard. A few days ago I discussed a recent book by Konstantin Kisin – a writer who left Russia and now lives in Britain. The book is this: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (Constable, 2022). My piece is found here: link
I want to utilise this book once more, since he devotes an entire chapter to this topic. Chapter 3 is titled, “Stop Feeling Guilty About Race, Whiteness and Slavery.” It is well worth quoting from. And I should emphasise at the outset that he does NOT make any apologies for slavery – he condemns it. But he seeks to bring some moral and mental clarity to the issue and refute the reverse racism and identity politics we see being pushed throughout the West.
He begins by stating that his paternal great-grandfather was a slave. He then says this:
He wasn’t black or involved in the transatlantic slave trade. He was a white, communist immigrant from Poland. This combination of facts either offends people, gets misconstrued as a provocation or acts as a conversation stopper. Sometimes all three – I don’t get invited to a lot of dinner parties these days! Many react by shaking their head, some respond by scoffing, while countless others simply walk away, unable to discuss the matter further. As if their brains had been tasered.
Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re victims of bad thinking – especially when it comes to the scope and scale of slavery, which has become one of the biggest hot-button issues of our time. To some extent, I understand this impassioned rush to judgement. After all, the subject is a highly emotive and contentious one. There’s no doubt that human trafficking is one of the most shameful episodes of the world’s past – and present. According to the United Nations, there are 40 million people estimated to be trapped in modern slavery across the globe, whether that’s men who are forced to work in factories, women traded as sex objects or minors trapped in child labour.
Geographically, the breadth of the problem is vast and spreads across the planet. A 2018 report suggests that India is home to the largest number of slaves globally, with 8 million people of all ages, followed by China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64 million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Iran (1.29 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines (784,000). In case you hadn’t noticed, none of these places is big on white privilege. (pp. 49-50)
He speaks more to his own family’s past history with slavery. And he reminds us that Soviet slavery – the gulags – was just as bad as the Nazi concentration camps, but far more extensive. While the Nazis had over 1,000 concentration camps, the Communists had over 30,000 in Siberia and the Russian Far East.
Kisin goes on to offer a few hard truths about the reality of slavery throughout human history:
The politically incorrect truth is that in every corner of the world, from the earliest human societies up until the present day, slavery has been a universal, abominable phenomenon. It has been conducted by people of every race against every other race, as well as their own.
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Postmillennialism misconstrues the primary purpose of God for the Era of Gospel Proclamation, which is not to Christianize the Domain of Darkness, but rather to rescue a chosen people out of it, and to transfer them into the Kingdom of his beloved Son…[and] distorts the believer’s Blessed Hope, focusing it upon an illusory stage of Church history, rather than upon the true signs of the times and the Consummation at Christ’s return (Titus 2:13; 1 Peter 1:13).

This article is an extract from my book, The Great End Time Debate: Issues, Options and Amillennial Answers. Because a number of contemporary postmillennarians also embrace Partial Preterism, you may also wish to read my article on Preterism, available here.
Here is a key to some of the abbreviations you will encounter as you read:
GETD = Great End Time DebateDNT = Didactic New Testament (i.e., the teaching portions of the gospels, the book of Acts, and the epistles)OTKP = OT Kingdom Prophecy (OT prophecies of the coming Kingdom of God)NCH = New Covenant Hermeneutic (the NT method for interpreting the OT in general, and OTKP in particular)
Exposition
(To view a timeline for Postmillennialism, please click here)
The word postmillennialism means after the millennium. Thus, like Amillennialism, Postmillennialism teaches that Christ will come again after the “1000 years” of Revelation 20. Nevertheless, the two schools differ, primarily because postmillennarians are highly optimistic about the progress and societal impact of the Gospel during the Era of Proclamation. The seeds of this persuasion were first planted by Augustine, who was quite confident about the redemptive power and future growth of the City of God (i.e., the Church). In Reformation times certain Dutch theologians modified his view, asserting that the thousand years symbolize a later portion of the Era of Proclamation, during which time large numbers of Jews will be converted and the world will become largely Christian.
Though hardly the majority report of the Church, Postmillennialism has had some astute defenders. Most of the American Puritans were postmillennarians. They believed that God would use the American experiment in a special way to advance his universal Kingdom. More recent postmillennarians include Charles Hodge, Benjamin Warfield, Lorraine Boettner, John Jefferson Davis, Jeff Durbin, Marcellus Kik, Keith Mathison, James White, and Doug Wilson. The disciples of Rousas Rushdoony—the founder of a theological school called Christian Reconstructionism—are also postmillennial. They include Greg Bahnsen, Ken Gentry, Gary North, and Martin Selbrede.
Very briefly, here is the postmillennarian position on the four underlying issues of the GETD.
The Kingdom of God
Postmillennarians agree with their amillennarian brothers that the Kingdom of God is a direct spiritual reign of the triune God, and that it enters history in two fundamental stages: the purely spiritual Kingdom of the Son, followed by the spiritual and physical Kingdom of the Father. But again, some postmillennarians think of the Millennium as a distinct phase of the Kingdom of Son, in which Christ suddenly binds Satan and then triumphantly extends his spiritual reign over the face of the whole earth. Thus, for these interpreters, postmillennialism is not really a species of present-millennialism, since here the Millennium is present with some, but not all, Christians who live in the Era of Proclamation.
The Interpretation of OTKP
Once again postmillennarians agree with their amillennarian brethren in interpreting OTKPs typologically and figuratively, as being fulfilled under the New Covenant and among its people, the Church. There is, however, a crucial difference: In OT texts where amillennarians find the prophets speaking of the World to Come, most postmillennarians find them speaking of the triumphs of the Era of Gospel Proclamation. More on this in a moment.
The Meaning of the Millennium
On this issue postmillennarians differ among themselves. Some identify the 1000 years of Revelation 20 with the entire Era of Proclamation, others with its final thousand years, still others with a season of indeterminate length situated towards the end of the present evil age. In the latter case, this season is held to commence with a special, latter-day binding of Satan, possibly leading to the conversion of ethnic Israel at large (the view I have pictured in the time-line above). All agree, however, that the basic trajectory of Church history, despite occasional setbacks, is one of Gospel triumph.
The Consummation
Regarding the Consummation, postmillennarians concede that Revelation 20:7-10 does indeed anticipate a final, global rebellion against Christ and his faithful people (i.e., the Last Battle). This painful interlude—so out of character with the preceding years of triumph and blessing—will quickly lead to the Parousia, the several other elements of the Consummation, and the advent of the World to Come.
We find, then, that for most postmillennarians the true locus of Christ’s victory over the powers of evil is the Era of Proclamation itself, with Christ’s Second Coming serving largely as a glorious capstone upon all that he was able previously to accomplish through the faithful preaching of his Church and the activism of Christian citizens.
Does Scripture justify this optimistic scenario? Does the course of Church History to date confirm it? In the following critique we will seek to answer these important questions.
Critique
With the help of the time line above, let us critically examine the postmillennarian understanding of Salvation History, paying special attention to the four underlying issues we have just identified and discussed.
View of the Kingdom
Amillennarians divide the Kingdom of God into two simple stages: the temporary Kingdom of the Son, followed by the perfect and eternal Kingdom of the Father (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43; Col. 1:13). But as we have seen, most postmillennarians go on to divide the Kingdom of the Son into two sub-stages: an initial stage of real, difficult, and partial Gospel progress, followed by a millennial stage of enormous Gospel progress. Postmillennarian Ken Gentry speaks for many when he says of the Millennium: “The Kingdom will grow and develop until eventually it exercises a dominant and universal gracious influence in a long era of righteousness, peace, and prosperity on the earth and in history.”
But this view of the Kingdom of the Son is not supported in Scripture. Nowhere in the DNT do we find any suggestion that it is divided into two stages, or that it includes a long, future Golden Era. Quite to the contrary, we find both Christ and the apostles repeatedly girding the loins of the saints for constant opposition and persecution, though also for a real measure of success as God gathers together his little flock through the faithful preaching of the Gospel (Matt. 24:9-14; John 10:16; Rom. 8:30; 1 Thess. 2:2; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 4:12; 1 John 3:13, 5:19).
On this score, the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares is paradigmatic (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). Here the Lord clearly assumes that throughout the entire Era of Proclamation the tares will grow up alongside the wheat. Indeed, so abundant are the tares that the angels regard them as a threat to the safety of God’s crop (Matt. 13:27-28). This is the template of all NT eschatology. Believers ever live and serve in the present evil age (Gal. 1:4). They constantly struggle against the world-forces of this present darkness (Eph. 6:12). To the very end, the world-system lies in the grip of the evil one (1 John 5:19). Always and everywhere the Church is a light shining in the deepening darkness of the world-system (Matt. 5:14; John 1:5; Phil. 2:15). Her ongoing experience is one of Great Tribulation (Rev. 7:14). She is constantly making a hard pilgrimage through the wilderness of a hostile world (Rev. 12:6, 13-17). The Last Battle is simply the final and most extreme engagement of this perennial war. Where, in all of this, is there room for a Golden Era of peace, righteousness, and prosperity?
View of OTKP
Postmillennarians argue that many OTKP’s predict a global triumph of the Gospel in the Era of Proclamation (see Psalms 72, 110; Is. 2:1-4, 45:2-3, 65:17-25; Mic. 4:1-3; Zech. 9:10, etc.). But here we encounter some serious confusion. Yes, postmillennarians are correct when they assert that these prophecies are fulfilled under the New Covenant, and that we must therefore interpret them typologically and figuratively. But they err when they assert that the prophecies are largely fulfilled in the Era of Proclamation, and not at all in the World to Come.
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We must not ignore the Old Testament and think it unimportant. Moses and Elijah, and the rest of the Old Testament, are the background for Jesus. If we want to understand Jesus better, we need to know the Old Testament. It is there we read of creation and sin, of sacrifice, of covenant promises, of God’s presence, and so much more.

The Old Testament is rich and full of useful things for Christians to think about. We see how God relates to his people, his faithfulness to the promises, and instructions about how to live. All of that is true. Yet there is a real danger that we don’t see the Old Testament in the right light. The transfiguration of Jesus helps us to avoid a few fundamental mistakes that it is easy to make.
In the transfiguration, Jesus was transformed with his face and clothes glowing. And while he was in this transformed state, Moses and Elijah appeared beside him.
(As an aside, this raises all kinds of issues for us. How did the disciples know they were Moses and Elijah? Were there nametags or subtitles or something? Were they really there or some kind of vision? This is one of those passages we wish we had more detail in, but we are told what we need to know.)
Why Moses and Elijah? Well, together they symbolise the Old Testament. Jesus often referred to the Old Testament as the Law and the Prophets (as in Matt 5:17, 7:12). Moses wrote the Law, the first five books of the Old Testament. Elijah didn’t write any books, but he is the greatest of the prophets in the Former Prophets. So these two men represent the Old Testament.
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