How Eschatology Affects Missions: Reviewing Pierson’s Impact

EMQ » Oct – Dec 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 4

Summary: Eschatology has influenced the way that Christians understand the mission of the church and the trajectory of the world. Within the Student Volunteer Movement, assumptions of Christ’s return urged thousands to pursue “the evangelization of the world in this generation.” A. T. Pierson, an early SVM pioneer, demonstrated an “eschatological evangelism” based on his millennial views. Reviewing Pierson’s perspective and actions shows us how end-times beliefs can influence missions practice.

By Jacob V. Hines

Missions and evangelism are affected by every aspect of theology. While eschatology and the millennium are often dismissed because of their mystery or complexity, these doctrines have influenced the way that Christians understand God, their lives, the mission of the church, and the trajectory of the world. End-times debates are not for mere speculation or theological exercise; rather, they shape the missionary task and motivate evangelistic activity. One notable era in modern missions history, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), was eschatological at its core, as thousands sought “the evangelization of the world in this generation.” A. T. Pierson, an early pioneer of the movement, demonstrated an “eschatological evangelism” based on his millennial views. By examining Pierson’s perspective, we can see how end-times beliefs influence evangelistic practice.

Missions and the Millennium

The three major millennial views (premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism) have fluctuated throughout church history. Each leads to different emphases in evangelism and missions. Postmillennialism is characterized by its optimism about the future and the church’s influence on the world. Proponents envision the kingdom of God gradually spreading among the nations through the preaching of the gospel. They believe that missionary efforts will commence a period of peace and the return of Christ. During colonial expansion, postmillennialists anticipated that Christian cultures would reign over pagan, barbarous ones and lead to more civilized societies.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, postmillennialism was propagated by Great Awakening revivalists like Jonathan Edwards.[i] This view even influenced leaders in international contexts. For instance, William Carey’s Baptist Missionary Society displayed a postmillennial missions strategy through both evangelism and social transformation.[ii] Though integral to the founding of the modern missions movement, postmillennialism began to wane toward the middle of the nineteenth century. American optimism was replaced with pessimism following the Civil War. Believers began to doubt their ability to usher in the thousand-year reign of Christ.[iii]

In the decades following, premillennialism became the dominant eschatology in America. Premillennialists believe that Christ will return and subsequently reign for a thousand-year period. In contrast to postmillennial optimism, premillennialists assume that society will worsen until the return of Christ. Following the American Civil War, this view was popularized by John Nelson Darby, the leader of the Plymouth Brethren. Departing from historic premillennialism, Darby’s new dispensationalism made a sharp distinction between Israel and the church. He taught of a great tribulation accompanied by signs of the kingdom and was urgent about the evangelization of the world. Darby’s views were disseminated with the Scofield Reference Bible and caused dispensationalism to become the dominant eschatological view by the 1870s.[iv] Premillennialists, unlike their postmillennial predecessors, viewed widespread evangelism as the church’s most necessary task in expectation of Christ’s coming.

An Urgent Crisis

The rise of dispensationalism influenced two fathers of the SVM, D. L. Moody and A. T. Pierson. This view shaped both their evangelism and missions mobilization. Most notably, Moody’s “College Students’ Summer School for Bible Study” at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts became the birthplace of the SVM where 100 students committed their lives to missionary service.[v] One of Moody’s closest colleagues, Arthur Tappan Pierson, became the spokesman for the theological identity of the SVM. Dispensational eschatology became an underlying tenet.

Though he never served as a missionary, Pierson altered the missions landscape of the late 1800s. Pierson was born in New York and pastored Fort Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.^[vi] Though formerly a postmillennialist, Pierson altered his eschatology after interacting with George Müller, of the Plymouth Brethren.^[vii] In response to the hardships of the Civil War, Müller stressed the worsening state of the world, which contrasted with Pierson’s triumphalist view of God’s kingdom. Pierson’s theological conversion was not only theoretical in nature but had significant implications on his evangelism and missions mobilization. Because of his new premillennial eschatology, Pierson no longer held that the kingdom of God would be gradually inaugurated through cultural transformation. Instead, he believed that Christ was coming soon and that something urgent must be done about it.

Pierson did not abandon his social activism, but he began to emphasize the urgency of evangelism in light of Christ’s return. When Pierson was invited to Moody’s 1886 Mount Hermon Meeting, he spoke to students on “The Bible and Prophecy.”[viii] Later, at the request of student leader Robert Wilder, Pierson also lectured on “God’s Providence in Modern Missions.” He drew the countries of the world on a chalkboard and called students to pursue “the evangelization of the world in this generation.”[ix] As Pierson mobilized students, he kept eschatology as an underlying motivation for evangelism and missions.

The SVM watchword, “the evangelization of the world in this generation,” provides a summary of the movement’s belief and practice. At the core of the SVM was a desire to urgently proclaim the gospel to as many people as possible. Though not explicit in the watchword, implicit is its premillennialism that assumes the return of Christ after the completion of world evangelization. With its emphasis on the tribulation and the signs of the last days, the dispensational view held by SVM leaders demanded that Christ be made known to a perishing world. Pierson became a leading advocate of this eschatology and encouraged students – and the church at-large – to pursue widespread, urgent evangelism in anticipation of Christ’s coming.

In The Missionary Review of the World, Pierson published his thoughts on the relationship between world evangelization and the return of Christ.His landmark article asked the provocative question: “Can This World Be Evangelized in Twenty Years?” Pierson gave an equally provocative answer and proposed, “Why not! … I wish by voice and by aid of the press to set forth a practicable business proposition, namely, that before the year 1900, the gospel shall be preached to every living soul!”^[x] He believed that world evangelization was possible and formed what he thought to be a reasonable strategy to achieve it by 1900. Pierson’s plan included details concerning the personnel and finances needed to proclaim Christ to all people. He desired to raise 50 million dollars, five from each of the ten million Christians in the United States, which would fund the ten thousand missionaries he sought to recruit.^[xi] Regarding Pierson’s strategy, Johnson claims, “Pierson used statistics in his left hand and the Biblical mandate in his right to keep the church constantly aware that bringing the gospel to every creature was a distinct possibility if only it would wake up to the opportunity.”^[xii] Pierson’s eschatological beliefs fueled this rapid pace of evangelism in anticipation of the twentieth century and the presumed return of Christ.

Pierson knew that world evangelization would require a large force of missionaries representing Christians from all backgrounds. Decades before the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, he called believers to unite and divide up the world according to their denominations. This strategy would inhibit any infighting that might slow down the rapid progression of the gospel. While he did not suppose that all hearers would repent and believe, Pierson expected that his plan to proclaim the gospel to all people was feasible. He once declared, “If we could depend on each one of this whole number to do his or her share of this work, how easily it could be done!”^[xiii] Pierson’s eschatology gave him great hope in what God could do through the church’s evangelistic efforts.

Pierson further clarified his eschatological views in his book The Crisis of Missions. Within it, he describes the near return of Christ, examines the opportunities for gospel ministry around the globe, and exhorts his readers to action. Pierson wrote of the imminence of Christ’s second coming: “The fulness of time has come, and the end seems at hand, which is also the beginning of the last and greatest age.”[xiv] Robert claims that The Crisis of Missions made Pierson the most influential promoter of missions in the late nineteenth century, as the book “hinted of prophecies fulfilled, and the implied Second coming of Jesus Christ. To all groups, it gave marching orders for action – typically American, optimistic, progressive activism.”[xv]

Beneath Pierson’s strategy was a sense of eschatological urgency. While he valued discipleship and social aspects of ministry, Pierson saw rapid evangelism as the primary component of the missionary task. He emphasized diffusion over concentration, asking missionaries to spread widely rather than gather in one place.^[xvi] When discussing the speed required to finish the mission, Pierson stated, “The open doors demand immediate entrance and occupation. Delay is not only danger but disaster.”^[xvii] Once the anticipated year 1900 had passed, Pierson lamented that, despite his urgent pleas, the church had failed her task of world evangelization. However, “the idea of closure lived on” with other SVM leaders like John Mott who would follow in Pierson’s hopes of completing the Great Commission in a generation.^[xviii]

Pierson’s Perspective: Action and Expectation

Christ’s commission for the church is closely connected to eschatology. Therefore, the Second coming can and should be used as a proper motivation for evangelism and missions. In his Olivet Discourse, Jesus described events that will take place before the end, including the worldwide proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 24:14).^[xix] When he sent out his disciples, Jesus promised that he would be with them until the end of the age, signifying a time when the task would be completed (Matthew 28:20). Yet, he called them not to speculate the timing of the Second coming but to wait for the Holy Spirit and to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:6–8).

Believers should evangelize with the end in mind as they follow Christ’s commands. However, they should not let specifics regarding eschatology lead them into speculation that exceeds scriptural intent. Contrary to the beliefs of some leaders throughout missions history, “not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son” knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return (Matt. 24:36). Thus, believers should submit to Christ’s clear teaching on the mystery of the parousia rather than setting precise deadlines related to world evangelization. Hesselgrave argues against the use of eschatological countdowns in preference of prophetic alerts.^[xx] Just as the prophets called Israel to obey the Law, so the church is called toward faithfulness to the Great Commission. Believers must not cause conjecture over the timeline that only God knows, but they should trust and obey as they anticipate the return of Christ.

Scripture has made evident the urgency of evangelism that draws believers to proclaim the gospel among the nations until Christ returns. With this biblical basis in mind, believers should consider how eschatology will affect their practice of evangelism and missions. Pierson’s historical perspective serves as a case study that both aligns with and departs from biblical teaching. His example displays action and expectation as important values to be held in tension in the church’s evangelistic endeavors.

Believers can learn from Pierson’s urgent action that resulted from his eschatological views. He once stated that prophecy should be used “not as sedative and narcotic, but as a tonic and stimulant.”^[xxi] For Pierson, eschatology was not a reason to wait idly for the Lord’s return but a motivation to inaugurate it. Andrew Walls even labels Pierson with “an eschatology of hurry” where he saw evangelism as a “matter of urgency – that is, the acceptance of the gospel before the Lord comes.” ^[xxii] Pierson’s desire for action sometimes caused him to ignore wisdom in his strategy, as his overemphasis on eschatology led him to overlook longer-term ministries like church planting. J. H. Bavinck describes the missions strategies of those who exaggerate the end-times: “Many were deeply concerned with eschatology. Time is running out…. All question of national culture, of adaptation, and the like were, therefore, pushed aside, and the entire work was dominated by the powerful and gripping idea of saving individual souls.”^[xxiii] At its worst, the influence of eschatology in missions and evangelism can lead to pragmatism and dangerous practices.^[xxiv]

While Pierson’s eschatology could be considered hyperbolic, it clearly inspired him to action through bold, widespread proclamation. His millennial views did not remain theoretical but permeated his personal evangelism along with the ministries of thousands of other college students that he influenced. In light of Pierson’s example, believers should consider how their vision of the future motivates them to present, active obedience. Unlike Pierson, this eschatological urgency should not lead the church to frantic or reckless work that denies wisdom or strategy. Believers do not know the exact details of the future, but God has revealed his clear intentions for his people. After the prophet Daniel received an eschatological vision from God, he was given a clear directive: “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end” (Daniel 12:9). In the same way, believers should apply their eschatology through action in faithful evangelism.

Pierson’s eschatology was marked not only by action but also by expectation. As the church was faithful to evangelize, Pierson believed, so God would be faithful to bless their efforts and bring about mass conversions. Pierson’s end-times views led him to expect a rapid, worldwide harvest where gospel proclamation would result in the nations coming to know Christ before 1900. Building upon the revivalist mentality of their time, SVM leaders like Pierson believed that conversions could be worked up rather than prayed down.[xxv] They assumed that, if they strategized correctly and worked diligently enough, they could accomplish world evangelization and “bring back the King.”[xxvi] Pierson was right in calling students to work toward the evangelization of the nations, but he did so while presuming that Christ would return based on their effort alone.

While modern believers might scoff at Pierson’s grandiose expectations, they should acknowledge his faith in God’s power and desire to save. As Christians anticipate the eschaton, they should do so in expectation. God’s plans will be completed, even if not on the specific timeline that they have set. Eschatology should provide believers with great hope in their evangelism, knowing that every tongue will one day confess that Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). Oftentimes, evangelistic efforts can be arduous, tedious, or fruitless. Though many seeds will fall on rocky soil, a proper eschatology reminds believers that the gospel will take root and multiply thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold (Matthew 13:8). Pierson’s eschatological expectation should lead Christians to look to God “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

Conclusion

Many Christians are quick to dismiss doctrines regarding the end-times because of their complexity and mystery. However, the influence of millennial views on the SVM displays the relevance of eschatology on Christian life and evangelistic practice. Fielder claims that the eschatology of faith missions like the SVM was “not speculative, but applied.”[xxvii] Pierson applied his millennial views through widespread evangelism and expectance of completing the Great Commission. Modern believers should critically examine his historical perspective and the many others that have contributed to modern missiology. They can then filter these views through scriptural teaching, weigh their cultural relevance, and connect them to contemporary practice. Rather than undervaluing end-times beliefs or speculating over the details, Christians should apply their eschatology by actively obeying the Great Commission and patiently expecting God’s promise of every tribe, nation, and tongue worshiping the Lamb for eternity (Revelation 7:9–10).

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[i] Stanley N. Gundry, Love Them In: The Proclamation Theology of D. L. Moody (Moody, 1976), 175.

[ii] Thomas P. Schirrmacher, “Eschatology,” in Dictionary of Mission Theology: Evangelical Foundations, ed. John Corrie (InterVarsity, 2007), 108.

[iii] Don Fanning, “Eschatology and Missions,” Themes of Theology that Impacts Missions 8 (2009): 25.

[iv] David J. Hesselgrave, Paradigms in Conflict: 15 Key Questions in Christian Missions, 2nd ed., ed. Keith E. Eitel (Kregel Academic, 2018), 256.

[v] William McKinley Beahm, “Factors in the Development of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1941), 50.

[vi] Dana Lee Robert, “Pierson, Arthur Tappan,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (McMillan References, 1998), 536.

[vii] Dana Lee Robert, Occupy Until I Come: A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World (Eerdmans, 2003), 105.

[viii] Delevan Leonard Pierson, Arthur T. Pierson: A Spiritual Warrior, Might in the Scriptures; A Leader in the Modern Missionary Crusade (Revell, 1912), 197.

[ix] Delevan Leonard Pierson, 197

[x] Arthur T. Pierson, “Can This World Be Evangelized in Twenty Years?” The Missionary Review 4, no. 6 (November-December 1881): 437. Emphasis original.

[xi] Arthur T. Pierson, “Can This World Be Evangelized in Twenty Years?” 438.

[xii] Todd M. Johnson, “The Crisis of Missions: The Historical Development of the World Idea of Evangelization of the World by the Year 1900,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 5, no. 1–4 (1988): 5.

[xiii] Arthur T. Pierson, “Can This World Be Evangelized in Twenty Years?” 438.

[xiv] Arthur T. Pierson, The Crisis of Missions (University Press, 1892), 27.

[xv] Robert, Occupy Until I Come, 143.

[xvi] Todd M. Johnson, Countdown to 1900: A History of World Evangelism (New Hope, 1988), 33.

[xvii] Arthur T. Pierson, “Our Opportunity and Our Risk,” The Missionary Review of the World 10, no. 4 (April 1887): 192. Emphasis original.

[xviii] Hesselgrave, 258.

[xix] This verse has been used by numerous missions leaders to advocate for varying interpretations of the church’s role in the end-times. Matthew Bennett argues for viewing this passage as a promise of God’s role in the end rather than a command that will invoke the parousia if obeyed. Instead of an objective to be reached, Bennett calls Christians to participate in the story of the Great Commissions through faithfulness to sustainable strategies. See Matthew Bennett, “Finishing the Task? A Cautionary Analysis of Missionary Language,” Southeastern Theological Review 9, no. 2 (Fall 2018): 33–53.

[xx] Hesselgrave, 266.

[xxi] A. T. Pierson, The Crisis of Missions, 200.

[xxii] Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement from the West: A Biography from Birth to Old Age (Eerdmans, 2023), 93–95.

[xxiii] J. H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1960), 295.

[xxiv] C. J. Moore, “Can We Hasten the Parousia? An Examination of Matt 24:14 and Its Implications for Missional Practice,” Themelios 44, no 2. (2019): 292.

[xxv] Michael Parker, The Kingdom of Character: The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Misions (1886–1926) (University Press, 1982), 4.

[xxvi] Frank Kaleb Jansen, “When Theology, Missiology, and Futurology Clash,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 12, no. 1 (Jan–Feb 1995): 3.

[xxvii] Klaus Fielder, The Story of Faith Missions (Regnum, 1994), 276–277.

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EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 4. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: [email protected].