Immanentize the eschaton

{{Short description|Pejorative term for attempts to bring about utopian conditions}} In political theory and theology, to '''immanentize the eschaton''' is a generally pejorative phrase referring to attempts to bring about utopian conditions in the world, and to effectively create heaven on earth.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/to_immanentize_the_eschaton |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026013204/https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/to_immanentize_the_eschaton |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 26, 2020 |title=To Immanentize the Eschaton - English definition and meaning |access-date=2022-03-05 |website=Lexico}}</ref> Theologically, the belief is akin to postmillennialism as reflected in the Social Gospel of the 1880–1930 era,<ref>{{cite book|author=David W. Miller |title=God at Work : The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jeyqcbS6xx0C&pg=PA28|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=28|isbn=9780198042983}}</ref> as well as Protestant reform movements during the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s and 1840s such as abolitionism.<ref>{{cite book|author=Douglas M. Strong|title=Perfectionist Politics: Abolitionism and the Religious Tensions of American Democracy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J5T2tGOKYOMC&pg=PA30|date= 2002|publisher=Syracuse U.P.|page=30|isbn=9780815629245}}</ref>

==Origin== {{Conservatism US}} Usage of the phrase started with Eric Voegelin in ''The New Science of Politics'' in 1952. Conservative spokesman William F. Buckley popularized Voegelin's phrase as "Don't immanentize the eschaton!". Buckley's version became a political slogan of Young Americans for Freedom during the 1960s and 1970s.<ref name="JGoldberg">{{cite web | title = Immanent Corrections | author = Jonah Goldberg | url = https://www.nationalreview.com/2002/01/immanent-corrections-jonah-goldberg/ | publisher = National Review | date = 2002-01-16 | access-date = 2008-11-06}}</ref>

One of the more frequently quoted passages from Voegelin's work on Gnosticism is that "The problem of an ''eidos'' in history, hence, arises only when a Christian transcendental fulfillment becomes immanentized. Such an immanentist hypostasis of the eschaton, however, is a theoretical fallacy."<ref>Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, 1952, in: The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Volume 5, Modernity Without Restraint, edited and introduced by Manfred Henningsen, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri, 1999, page 185. {{ISBN|978-0826212450}}.</ref>

==Theology== At the end of the 12th century, Joachim of Fiore theorized the coming of an age of earthly bliss right before the end of time. Although not a full immanentization, Joachim opened the way to an anticipation of the eschaton in the course of time. His ideas have influenced the thoughts on an immanentized eschaton.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gioacchino da Fiore nella cultura contemporanea: atti del 6 Congresso Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, San Giovanni in Fiore, 23 - 25 settembre 2004|editor-last=Potestà|editor-first=Gian Luca |publisher=Viella|year=2005|isbn=8883341872|location=Roma}}</ref>

In contemporary terminology, this process is sometimes described as "hastening the eschaton" or "hastening the apocalypse". In this sense it refers to a phenomenon related to millenarianism and the specific Christian form of millennialism which is based on a particular reading of the Christian Bible's Book of Revelation especially popular among evangelicals in the United States.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Landes |first1=Richard Allen |title=Heaven on Earth: The varieties of the Millennial experience |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford |location=England}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Immanentize The Eschaton}} Category:Eschatology Category:Premillennialism Category:Discordianism Category:Political pejoratives Category:1952 quotations