Millerites

ORIGINS

Miller was a prosperous farmer, a Baptist layman and amateur student of the Bible , living in northern New York , in the region of that state which has come to be known as the Burned-over District . Beginning with a strictly literal reading of the ages of people mentioned in the first chapters of Genesis and the dating of other events mentioned in the Bible, Miller believed that precise calculations were possible, full of Prophetic importance. Setting these calculations alongside the prophetic numbering systems that appear in the books of Daniel , Ezekiel and the Book Of Revelation , by 1830, Miller became fully convinced that the dates of the birth of Jesus and the fall of the Temple Of Jerusalem were foretold in prophecy, and that the date of the return of the Messiah could be known with precision. The following assumptions figured prominently in Miller's calculations:

# In prophetic writings, a "day" always represents a year.
# The 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24 and the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14 began at the same time.
# Based on Bishop Ussher 's chronology, the countdown starts at 457 B.C.
# Daniel 8:14 speaks prophetically of Christ's return to earth, when it refers to the cleansing of the sanctuary.

Based on his calculations, the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the Millennial kingdom should be expected somewhere around 1843. After releasing his findings in print, he began disseminating the view on speaking tours. Later, he adjusted his calculations to conform to the "Jewish calendar", to finally arrive at the confidence that 1844 would be the last year of the present age and the beginning of the "seventh day of the creation". The date October 22 , 1844 , was the date commonly accepted throughout the Millerite movement as the exact date of the anticipated return of Jesus, although Miller himself was uncertain of the day. Perhaps more than 100,000 Millerites were awaiting this "Blessed Hope", some who abandoned their farms or sold their homes and left their employment, to propagate the gospel of the last days chronology.

ANTI-TRADITIONAL TENDENCIES

Jesus did not appear as expected. Following this Great Disappointment , although many adherents returned to their traditions, a number of followers continued to believe in the accuracy of Miller's date, or recalculated to arrive at a new date. Sometimes with the help of visions and visitations by angels, or reformers whose message was identified with Bible prophecy, post-Disappointment Millerites arrived at various reinterpretations of the meaning of the Disappointment, often constructing Alternative History , Theology , Politics and Science , sometimes showing openness to rejected knowledge and Conspiracy Theories ; and to the extent that these developed in a particular group, a concomitant tendency toward withdrawal also developed.

The Millerite movement originally had adherents across denominational lines, especially from Baptist , Presbyterian , Methodist and Campbellite churches, forming distinct denominations only after the Great Disappointment. Some modern Millerite branches identify themselves as Evangelical Protestant Christians, although others teach that their latter-day church is the only faithful remnant, and the replacement of Protestantism , Catholicism , and Jewish Israel. Typical of the post-Disappointment Millerite perspective is the belief that genuine Christianity had been lost to the world through a Great Apostasy , but is restored in these last days by a new outpouring of prophecy or spiritual insight. Therefore, traditional teachings provide no reliable help, and it should be no surprise if a traditional doctrine such as the Trinity would be corrected by the spirit of prophecy. For this reason, Millerites have professed or have tolerated profession of some form of Unitarian belief, denying the Trinity. Seventh-day Adventists, although not trinitarian throughout the nineteenth century,became a trinitarian church around the turn of the century. A significant number of other Millerite branches are unitarian or non-trinitarian. Nearly all Millerites speak of "present truth" and "new light", by which the faithful are called out from the less enlightened or apostate traditions of Christianity. Some such groups place particularly strong emphasis on some element of lost truth, such as dietary laws, the conditional immortality of the soul (nonexistence of a disembodied soul), the seventh day sabbath, the historical method of interpreting biblical prophecy, etc. By no means are all of these distinctions typical of all post-Disappointment Millerites. The Millerites were a part of the restoration period of American religious history, and as such, sought to restore the earliest Christian church, complete with beliefs that had been lost or changed in some fashion.

APOCALYPTIC TENDENCIES

The return of Christ is believed to signal the inauguration of the Millennium, rather than the conclusion of the Church age and the end of the world. The Second Great Awakening was generally productive of very optimistic ideas of progress and Eschatology , expecting the kingdom of God to be realized through an historical process. In contrast to this optimism, Millerites anticipated that the coming of Christ would be cataclysmic, replacing the old order of things. Even among those Millerite groups which continue to believe that the Parousia actually occurred in some spiritual sense, in 1844 or at some later time, the present time is seen as full of impending wonder and imminent catastrophe prior to the full dawning of the new age, the final stage of which is the personal and visible return of Jesus. The Book Of Revelation continues to have a prominent place in nearly all segments of the Millerite movement, and the differences between the sects often resolve to differences in the interpretation of passages which Christians generally would consider more obscure and therefore less important to understand.

Several branches believe that a world-wide conflict is approaching, when the .

These churches and groups generally claim to adhere to a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, with distinctively strong interest in the present fulfillment of prophecy, sometimes with emphasis on sciences, health practices and philanthropic ventures based on the Bible. Their non-traditional beliefs and practices typically motivate particularly strong commitment to the Separation Of Church And State . The prophecies of Scripture are generally regarded as having historical, as well as future significance; and some regard themselves specifically as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. In addition some teach that special, miraculous visions or divine insight are needed in order to understand the present significance of the Bible. The largest Millerite group at the present time is the Seventh Day Adventist General Conference (the Seventh-day Adventist Church ), with approximately 11 million members, world-wide. The Jehovah's Witnesses are another large group with descendent lineage from the Millerite movement.

DISTINGUISHED FROM THE OTHER GROUPS AND MOVEMENTS

Interest in the "Second Advent" of Christ arose during a time when many other religious movements were beginning in New England, and upstate New York, in particular. Historians attribute the Millerite revival as an outgrowth of applying the principles of American democracy to religion.

There is little evidence of interaction between Adventists and the Latter Day Saint Movement that arose about the same time. What little evidence exists shows that Millerite leaders viewed Mormonism as heretical, and Joshua V. Himes, one of the most prominent leaders of the Millerite movement after William Miller, reprinted Alexander Campbell's 1832 pamphlet against Mormonism with a preface of his own in which he abhorred the Mormon "delusion" ("Mormon Delusions and Monstrosities," J. V. Himes, 1842 ).

Many Millerites were affiliated with the 19th-century Restoration Movement . Many leaders of Millerism had also been leaders in the New England Christian Connexion. The anti-organizational tendencies of Restorationism resulted in the hesitancy of Millerite groups to organize into a denomination, and when Christ did not return in 1844, contributed to the many sects. Most of the descendants of Adventism are generally regarded as Evangelical in nature.

Similarly, dispensational Premillennialism is a trans- Denominational movement, that is sometimes mistakenly connected directly with the Millerites. Dispensationalism arose during the final third of the 19th century, and unlike the Millerites interprets Prophecy in a primarily futurist fashion. This movement developed independently, borrowing heavily but indirectly from earlier Millerites, with radical re-interpretation, so that dispensationalists rarely if ever display unitarian tendencies. Sabbatarianism is excluded, along with British Israelism , and in general End Times Dispensationalism is considered Protestant and mainstream Evangelical , being a very common belief among Christian Fundamentalists . Some dispensationalist groups, upon venturing to calculate the date of Christ's return or interpreting the signs of the times, take on many of the apocalyptic characteristics of Millerite pioneers, but strictly speaking none of them are part of the Millerite Adventist movement.

The followers of the self-proclaimed prophetess, Englishwoman Joanna Southcott , are frequently listed in the Millerite tradition, for lack of a similar place to put them, chiefly because of interesting parallels in the careers of Ms. Southcott and the Adventist Ellen G. White . Ms. Southcott is believed by her followers to be, in fact, the woman clothed with the sun, in the Book of Revelation. She prophesied that she herself was pregnant with the true Messiah, who was to be born on October 19, 1814 — these particular beliefs have no representation among Millerites. Ms Southcott died of dropsy in December of that year, but her followers continued to believe in the truth of her published prophecies and in the soon coming of Shiloh (a prophetic name for the Messiah). Her visions beginning in 1792 have strong affinity with Adventism, but are stylistically very unlike the writings of Mrs. White. The post-Disappointment Adventist Movement is frequently compared to the followers of Ms. Southcott, and there are some superficial resemblances of language and theme. The leaders of some branches of Southcottites are believed to have been post-Disappointment Millerites. Swedenborgianism and The United Order of Believers ( Shakers ), two other earlier millennial movements begun by ecstatic visionaries, have comparable similarities to the Millerites, and like the Mormons these groups had some influence on the religious climate of northwest New York state and territories to the west — but direct borrowing is not acknowledged, and after all, they are distinct movements. It is notable that a number of post-Disappointment Millerites joined the Shaker communities.

INFLUENCES

Charles Taze Russell 's Bible Student Movement (which eventually gave birth to the Jehovah's Witnesses ) also traces its roots to the Millerite movement. Baha'i s also credit his analysis of the time of the return of Christ.¹

REFERENCES

SEE ALSO

Information About

Millerites