The Evangelical Free Church of America has voted to drop the term "premillenialism" from the denomination’s statement of faith.

In an effort to "major on the majors and minor on the minors." the denomination no longer considers that doctrine essential to the gospel, reports Christianity Today.

350,000 people who belong to EFCA churches still believe Jesus will return to earth to reign as king for 1,000 years, but now the revised statement says, “We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is now up to each church member's personal discretion whether or not Jesus will set up a literal kingdom on earth for a millennium.

The denominations prefers to not be known for what is against, but rather what it is for and does not take a stance on several issues like the Reformed versus Arminian view of conversion, the age of the earth, infant versus adult baptism, and whether the gifts of the spirit had ceased or were still active.

The EFCA states, “!e believe there is a significant inconsistency in continuing to include premillennialism as a required theological position when it is clear that the nature of the millennium is one of those doctrines over which theologians, equally knowledgeable, equally committed to the Bible, and equally Evangelical, have disagreed through the history of the church.”

Bill Taylor, the executive direcory of the Evangelical Free Church of Canada, says the decision came a lot easier for them: “There’s a stronger dispensationalist history in the US than we have in Canada."

Taylor says the change was good for the Canadian evangelicals and, “We’ve had no slippery slope to an allegorical approach to the Word.

“There’s no pull toward liberalism, so there’s no negative impact in that way.”