AboutJon Bond Expertise Will answer all questions regarding Unitarian Universalist (UU)church; including ancient history (Universalists go back to at least 250 A.D.) and medieval history (Unitarians look to 1553 A.D. as their beginning) up to merger of the two movements in 1961 and continuing up to present. Am familiar with Christian church organizations and relationship of UUs to traditional churches.
Experience Currently member of Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado. Past vice-president of Board of Trustees and currently on Membership Committee. Have taught UU history for over 20 years. Have attended Unitarian Universalist General Assemblies (annual meetings held in June) for past 15 years.
Organizations Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado
Expert: Jon Bond Date: 11/5/2000 Subject: The Millennium
Question Because we are approaching the year 2001, which some hold is the "true" beginning of the Third Millennium, and because there has been a great deal of unfulfilled prophecy (or hysteria) about the Millennium, do you as a Unitarian Universalist, have some words of wisdom to offer? For example, do UU`s feel that we are living in apocalyptic times at this stage of world history?
Answer Hello Ralph -
What a good (and timely) question. In my (and, I would imagine, a good many Unitarian Universalists - UUs) opinion, we are not living in apocalyptic times.
According to some research that I've done, we're already living in the third millennium. Although it may come as a shock to doomsday cultists who believed the world would come to a catastrophic end at the start of 2000, that date actually was passed years ago. The new millennium really arrived at least two years ago. All of this comes from a mistake made by a Greek cleric named Dionysius Exiguus. Dionysius, a monk living in the ancient province of Scythia around 532 A.D., earned an important niche in history when he produced a table of dates to tell Christians when to celebrate Easter. He followed a precedent set by previous clerics and extended an existing table back when it was common to set calendars according to the beginning of the rule of a prominent king or emperor. Bottom line, his date clearly was wrong, based upon many clues contained in Biblical references and upon Roman and Greek records. If that's not proof enough, a lot of people say the end of the millennium will be at the conclusion of this year (2000.)
In fact, this is what I believe; that the end of the current millenium will occur at midnight on December 31, 2000.
