The prospect of The Millennium has become connected with Doomsdaying in the history of certain lines of theological thought and of popular culture.
Today, this connection is played upon in novels, newspaper culture, films and other media. And not without reason. At the turn into the Third Millennium (calendrically-speaking) there is much to be anxious about - nuclear war, massive degradation of the environment, global population growth apparently out of control, epidemics,increasing gaps between rich and poor within nations and across the board,etc. - and structurally all this could be perceived to square with religious talkabout what conditions are expected to be life before the Great Transformation. In the Bible, especially in the "little apocalypses" of thesynoptic Gospels (Mk 13 and parallels), there are images of what common theological parlance calls the Time of Troubles, signalling the End. The language of the Qur'an is portentous with language about imminent Divine Judgement. And in Hindu language, which has become quite well known in New Age and other Western circles, the idea of declining down into a Dark Age (of the Kali Yuga) runs fascinating parallel to Biblical pictures (even though Hindu ideas of the return of a Golden Age are traditionally about the winding up of a great cosmic cycle). There are also certain Indo-European threads (from Norse materials about Ragnarok, that interest neo-pagan minds) and some Indian ideas about the end of time (in the Ramayana) that contribute to the doomsdaying complex.
The Centre for Millennial Studies naturally has an interest in the extent of such pessmism's prevalence, in movements and popular culture reflecting it, and what any agitants preparing for tragic developments before the Last Things have in mind doing. This is because people need to understand this side to religious life, and be aware of what may be going on - even next door (wherewthere might be a Mormon family, for instance, stockpiling cans to last a year, as encouraged by their church).