Why is millennialism a hot topic?
Western culture is especially interested (one might even say obsessed) with timekeeping. The tradition of commemorations held in honor of a chronologically round number (e.g. the bicentennial) is more widespread here than in any culture in world history. So large a number leads many, often completely secular, people to reflect on the previous and the coming era, an activity one cannot do without some ãbigä thinking (what characterizes the last 1000 years? how can we survive another 1000?). Moreover, the enduring presence of the sabbatical millennium in Christian apocalyptic circles leads many Westerners to anticipate the coming of the messianic millennium (chiliasm) at the end of the current one. Jews and Muslims have similar relations to their round numbers. As Hillel Schwartz has shown (Centuryâs End), even the ends of centuries have important social effects.
