ABSTRACT
Speculation about the future has been a perennial preoccupation of evangelicals since the eighteenth century. This chapter explores some of the ways in which evangelicals have thought about their own future prospects and the future of the world itself. It begins with an examination of the various millennial options favoured by evangelicals, before arguing that during the eighteenth century evangelical views about the future were largely postmillennial. Focusing on J. N. Darby, the chapter argues that the early nineteenth century saw the triumph of premillennial eschatology, a view that became dominant when allied to dispensationalism in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, becoming mainstream in the pages of the highly influential Scofield Reference Bible. The chapter concludes with an examination of the popularization of dispensationalism in the later twentieth century through Hal Lindsey's, Late Great Planet Earth and the 'Left Behind' fictional series.
