Queensland Police and misunderstanding premillennialism
As a citizen of this country, I was shocked and profoundly disturbed by the murder of two police officers and an innocent civilian by the Trains in Wieambilla in December 2022. This was a heinous crime that should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. As a Christian theologian, I was also startled to hear the Queensland Police describe this crime as “a religiously-motivated terrorist attack” on the basis that Nathaniel, Gareth, and Stacey Train subscribed to “a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system, known as premillennialism.” Listening to last week’s press conference conducted by Deputy Police Commissioner Tracy Linford , it was hard to resist the impression that she was struggling to understand the belief system she had been tasked with explaining. For instance, she stated that “premillennialism” is the belief: "that Christ will return to the earth for a thousand days and provide peace and prosperity, but it will be preceded by … a period of time of tribulat