13 Adventist Family

APOCALYPTICISM IN HISTORY

MILLENNIALISM IN AMERICA

THE SACRED NAME MOVEMENT

CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL’S BIBLE STUDENTS

THE SOUTHCOTTITES

BRITISH ISRAELISM

THE MILLENNIAL IMPULSE

SOURCES

Intrafaith Organizations

Sunday Adventists

Seventh Day Adventists

Church of God Adventists

Bible Student Groups

Sacred Name Groups

Southcottites

Other Adventists

British Israelism

During its first generation, Christians believed that the risen Christ would soon return to finish the changes begun during his public ministry. When his return was delayed, many stopped looking, but some in each generation believed they were living in the last days and expected Christ to return in their lifetime. Increasingly over the last two centuries, since the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) and the secularization of church-state relations he heralded, each generation has produced a variety of groups who preach a type of faith that has been called apocalyptic, chiliastic, or millennial. The movements have been characterized by the expectation of the immediate return of Christ to bring a final end to “this evil order” and replace it with a new world of supreme happiness and goodness. At every turning point in the history of Christianity, people supporting such movements appeared, sometimes within the mainstream of church activities as disturbers of accepted patterns of life and sometimes at the outer edge of church activities as critics and reformers. Always their presence is felt because they promote an idea that orthodox Christians have said to be integral to the faith.

Adventists and millennialists have, however, usually gone beyond the mere affirmation that Christ will return in the future. They actually predict the time of his imminent appearance, either by setting a definite date or suggesting that it will occur in the present generation. Such a definite projection of the climax of history thus becomes a great motivation for members to both reform their lives and act in appropriate ways in light of that event. If history is to end in a few years, life decisions must be made in light of that event, from major decisions about career or marriage to lesser decisions about the use of resources, one’s choice of friends, and activity during leisure time.

APOCALYPTICISM IN HISTORY

Christianity inherited its bent toward apocalypticism from its Jewish forefathers. Both the book of Daniel in the Jewish Bible and the apocryphal works of Jewish apocalypticism, such as the Assumption of Moses and the Books of Enoch, were part of the thought-world in which early Christians lived. For later generations, however, the book of Daniel was to be the important text. Penned in the second century b.c.e., Daniel purports to be a product of the sixth century b.c.e. The first half of the book tells the story of Daniel and some friends, who were faithful to God while living under foreign political control. The last half details visions of future history, stretching from sixth-century Babylon to the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century. These visions, in and of themselves apocalyptic, provided the material from which future apocalyptics would draw.

Apocalypticism was integrated into the lifestyle of the early church. Many expected the imminent return of Jesus to finish what was begun on Calvary. Such a belief sustained them in times of persecution and gave them hope for the improvement of their lot in life in the near future. The sign-posts of this belief are found in such biblical passages as Mark 13, Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 4:13–18, and, preeminently, in the vision of John the Revelator. Just as Daniel emerged as the central piece of Jewish apocalypticism, so Revelation soon pushed aside other Christian apocalypses and became the one book of the vast literature to be canonized (included in the Bible).

Revelation purports to be the ecstatic vision of John, an official in the Church of Asia Minor (now Turkey). His vision has a special message for each of seven churches and contains a lengthy scenario of the future course of history, which centers on the church. The vision culminates with a picture of the end of time and the establishment of the kingdom of God in its totality.

A vast amount of scholarly work describes the nature of apocalyptic literature, with a surprising degree of unanimity in scholarly understanding. The apocalyptist has a particular view of time and history, evil, God’s relation to the world, the groups of which the apocalyptist is a part, and the value of human activity in the world. The apocalyptist sees history and time as lineal. History, begun at some point in the distant past, has continued on a more or less steady course to the present. The present is just short of the climax of the whole scheme of time. The climax will be a great supernatural happening that will destroy the present system and replace it with a new and better divine system.

The cosmic struggle of good and evil, of God and the devil, determines the course of history, and good is losing. The believer feels this loss on a personal level as persecution, deprivation, or moral indignation. But while evil seems to be progressing to an ultimate victory, it will be stopped short by the intervention of God, who will completely eliminate its power in the world.

God has a close and personal relationship to the world. He began the course of history and has never ceased to intervene. He caused the formation of a remnant of his people to witness to him. And he will step in to crush the evil forces before they completely conquer the good.

The course of history is personalized and internalized by the apocalyptist. He sees history as made for and centering upon himself and his in-group. His group has been chosen; although they are on the bottom of the social ladder now, they will be on top as soon as God acts. This reversal of position will take place in the near future.

The nearness of the end of this age puts a new perspective on human activity in the world. As the date for the end closes in upon people, the value of normal activity decreases. Attention might be given to such biblical admonitions as, “For the future, men who have wives should live as though they had none, and those that mourn as though they did not, and those who are glad as though they were not glad, and those who buy as though they did not own a thing … For the outward order of things is passing away” (I Corinthians 7:29–31). Normal activity is now replaced with a stepped-up campaign to spread the message of the coming cataclysm, for “the gospel must first be published among all nations.” Often, though not always, an intense moral imperative is associated with the end-time as apocalyptists join reformers who look to moral and social reform as a means to hold back an impending doom. This type of moral apocalypticism is seen most pointedly in the teachings of such men as the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, Thomas Müntzer (c. 1490–1525), and George Storrs (1796–1879).

The apostle Paul, himself, had to deal with Christians who fell away from the apocalyptic stance of the early church. In his letter to the Thessalonians, he had to answer those who were questioning why so many had died before Christ returned. But as the church grew, what for Paul was a minor issue became for the church a major problem, leading the church to redefine its conception of faith. As the distance between the believers and Calvary grew, the sensibleness of an apocalyptic lifestyle diminished. So, during the second, third, and fourth centuries, a battle raged—a theological battle over the approach and stance of the church toward the world.

Symbolic of this fight is the issue of the canonization of the book of Revelation. During the second century, this visionary masterpiece circulated from Asia Minor to Antioch and Rome. It found its earliest exponent in the second-century Christian leader Justin Martyr, and about the year 200, the Muratonian Canon lists the book of Revelation as scripture. Irenaeus in Gaul and Tertullian in North Africa accepted and reflected Revelation in their writings.

One of the first millennial sects, the second-century Montanists, picked up the apocalyptic stance and made it a central part of its message. Montanus tried to gather in his movement some of the spiritual, prophetic, and visionary attributes of the early church, in what was considered by many a heretical stance. The movement spread from Phrygia and eventually claimed Tertullian as an adherent in North Africa.

The first works rejecting Revelation as scriptural and of apostolic authorship were produced by the anti-Montanists. So effective were these writings that, about 215 c.e., Hippolytus wrote a carefully worded defense of the controversial book. In the mid-third century, the great scholar Origen convinced the Alexandrians to support the canonicity of the book of Revelation. Origen’s allegorizing and spiritualizing of the text gave the church a means of accepting the work while strongly rejecting its literal millennialism (the belief that Christ would literally reign on earth with his saints for 1,000 years). Even though the status of Revelation remained open until the fifth century, Origen’s acceptance of it, followed a century later by that of Athanasius, assured Revelation a place in the Bible.

By the early fifth century, with few exceptions, the canon was set. There needed only to be stated an authoritative position that the church would accept that would reconcile its four hundred years of waiting for Christ to return, the existence of Revelation in the canon, and the refutation of millennialism. Such a position was advanced by Augustine of Hippo (354–430) in his magnum opus, The City of God. He pointed out that some had misunderstood John’s Revelation and had construed it so as to produce “ridiculous fancies.” Augustine reworked the literal eschatology of John in such a way that the church, while still remaining in God’s history, did not live in the imminent expectation of the climax of history. God still operates in history with his chosen ones, and he is holding back evil even now. In effect, Augustine was saying that John was not painting a picture of the end of time, but rather of the manner in which the church progresses as it moves through both time and space. Thus, Augustine gave the faithful hope of Christ’s coming, but pushed the event into the distant future. That Augustine’s view became acceptable to the church as a whole reflects not only Augustine’s scholarship but also the change of position the church had undergone during its early centuries, from a persecuted sect to the state religion of the Roman Empire. From Augustine’s time to the present, any group that projected an immediate Second Coming was to find itself on the fringe of the church and, because the church was closely tied to the state, a persecuted minority.

But millennialists continued to arise, and although their leaders were usually educated, and hence of the upper classes, members of millennial groups were usually from the disinherited classes who combined their millennialism with a social protest movement. For example, in seventh-century Syria, the early Christian form of the Sibylline Oracles appeared to bring consolation to Syrian Christians living under Muslim oppression. According to these oracles, an emperor, Methodius, was to arise and begin the final battle with the Antichrist. This battle would result in an Antichrist victory, but the victory would be short-lived because of the return of Christ for the final judgment.

In the Middle Ages, millennial movements arose and then disappeared on numerous occasions, reflecting the high degree of social turmoil that resulted from the social revolutions of the sixteenth century. The eleventh century saw several mass millennial movements, particularly the First

Crusade in 1095. Led by popular leaders such as Peter the Hermit (d. 1115), large armies were formed to Christianize Jerusalem. One army stopped at the Rhine Valley and performed the first massacre of European Jews. The movement itself died, partly due to exhaustion and partly on the battlefields near Constantinople.

Between 1190 and 1195, a Cistercian monk, Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135–1202), produced an eschatological scheme that became the most influential apocalyptic understanding of the Middle Ages. He identified his new vision of history as the everlasting gospel that according to Revelation was to be preached in the last days. Joachim’s scheme pictured history as an ascent in three stages, the Father’s law, Christ’s gospel, and the Spirit’s culmination of history. Taking Matthew 1 as his starting point, Joachim counted 42 generations from Abraham to Christ and saw this as a type of gospel age. Assuming a generation is 30 years, Joachim reasoned that the movement from the gospel to the Spirit must take place between 1200 and 1260. A new order of monks must form to preach this message and prepare the way. Joachim believed 12 patriarchs would arise to convert the Jews. The Antichrist would reign for three and one-half years, after which he would be overthrown, and the age of the Spirit would begin.

Popular leaders embraced Joachim’s ideas and tied them to the popular fallen hero, Frederick I, the Holy Roman emperor, who was killed on the third crusade in 1190. A new Frederick was to arise, and he was seen as the “emperor of the last days.” This movement grew when Frederick I’s grandson became Frederick II, who did much to foster the growing messianism surrounding him. In 1229 he went on a crusade and crowned himself king of Jerusalem, which he had temporarily recaptured. When Pope Innocent IV (d. 1254) put Frederick and Germany under interdict, Frederick retorted by expanding his role to include chastisement of the church. Because Innocent was immoral himself, his interdict had no effect. In 1240 the writings of Joachim’s disciples inflamed the masses, which were heading for a major break with papal power in Europe. The movement ended suddenly when Frederick died in 1250. The ideas that started with Joachim were reinterpreted, and for several hundred years the dream of a resurrected Frederick was the vision that supported protest in central Europe.

One of the more famous of the chiliastic sects were the Taborites, the radical wing of the Hussite movement in fifteenth-century Czechoslovakia. These followers of the martyred John Hus (c. 1373–1415) united a political and economic revolt with their millennial aspirations soon after Hus’s death. They went beyond Hus in their adherence to literal biblical authority. The bitter struggle for control of Czechoslovakia helped precipitate doomsday concerns. In 1519 a group of former Catholic priests began to preach openly about the coming of the last days and the destruction in February 1520 of every town by fire (like Sodom). Everyone was directed to flee to five towns, Taborite strongholds, destined to be saved. When the destruction did not occur, the Taborite leaders called upon their followers to take up the sword in a holy war. It was not until 1534 that the Taborites were finally defeated and, with them, their millennial hopes.

It seems more than coincidence that the Reformation occurred in Frederick’s Germany, and that out of the social upheaval caused by the Reformation, the next great movement of popular millennialism was to arise. Its leader was Thomas Müntzer. He was only one of many who saw the social and religious turmoil of the Reformation era as a sign of the end of an age. Others espousing the vision of the millennium were John Hut (c. 1490–1527), Melchior Hofmann (c. 1500-c. 1544), and Augustin Bader (d. 1530).

Müntzer came by his millennialist views when he studied with Nicholas Storch (d. 1525), a weaver in Zwickau and a former resident of the old Taborite lands. Müntzer believed that the Turks (or the Antichrist) would soon rule the world, but that the elect would then rise up and annihilate all the godless, and the millennium would begin. In his famous 1524 sermon, he called upon the princes of Germany to join him in this righteous war. Rejected by the princes, he turned to the poor. His League of the Elect became a power base from which was built a proletarian army at Mühlhausen and Frankenhausen. In two battles, the princes defeated Müntzer’s army and captured and executed Müntzer, thus ending another phase of millennialism.

England also had its share of millennial movements. Anti-Cromwellian forces found an ally in the Fifth Monarchy Men, a movement that crystallized in the 1650s. This group looked to Jesus to establish a “fifth-world” monarchy. The previous four worlds, following the image in Daniel 2, were Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome (which still existed as the Roman Catholic Church). After spending time in evangelical work, the Fifth Monarchy Men concluded that it was time for them to take up the sword of the Lord. In 1657 and 1661, they attempted two uprisings, both unsuccessful. Their military defeats eventually led to their annihilation.

Various millennial, chiliastic, and messianic movements continued to arise, and date-setting for Christ’s Second Coming continued to be a popular activity. With the arrival of religious pluralism, toleration, and freedom, few millennialists fell victim to the sword, as violence was gradually replaced with public ridicule. The early nineteenth century saw a renewal of expectation of the Second Coming of Jesus. Edward Irving (1792–1834), founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church in the 1830s, proclaimed the Second Coming in England, setting the date as 1864. Joseph Wolff (1795–1862), a converted Jew, toured England and the United States, lecturing on the Second Coming. Both men had been spurred to action by the French Revolution and Napoleon. Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844), founder of the Mormons, established locale after locale as the headquarters of the kingdom of God. It was, however, a poor farmer in upper New York state who founded the movement that still exists as America’s main Adventist movement, and thereby originated the uniquely American brand of millennial hope.

MILLENNIALISM IN AMERICA

The American millennial movement known as Adventism had its beginnings in New York, where it was started by William Miller (1782– 1849), a Baptist layman. Miller had settled in New York after the War of 1812. He was a deist for a period, denying that God interferes with the laws of the universe and stressing morality and reason rather than religious belief. Then Miller began to study the Bible. This study, which lasted about two years, satisfied his major doubts, but also convinced him that he was living near the end of his age. Further study convinced him not only that the end was near, but also that he had to tell the world about it. His first efforts took place in Dresden, New York, where a revival followed his speaking in 1831.

He continued to speak in the area as pulpits opened to him. Within a year, he was able to accept no more than half of his speaking invitations. In 1832 the Vermont Telegraph published a series of 16 articles written by Miller, the first of many works he was to write. The next year, his 64-page pamphlet was widely circulated.

In September 1833, Miller was given a license to preach by the Baptists. For the next 10 years, Miller lived the life of an itinerant evangelist, preaching his message of the imminent return of Jesus. The Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists were eager to hear Miller’s words. In 1836 Miller published his lecture in his first book, Evidences from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ about the Year 1843: Exhibited in a Course of Lectures. This book, plus a new edition of the earlier pamphlet, gave great impetus to the movement. Others began to join Miller and preach his doctrine. Most notably, in 1839, Joshua Himes (1805–1895) invited Miller to preach in his Boston church. Himes had the promotional and organizational talent to lift the movement into national prominence. In March of 1840, Himes began publication of the movement’s first periodical, Signs of the Times. By autumn, the movement had grown to the extent that a decision was made to hold a conference on the Second Coming of the Christ. This conference opened October 13, 1840, at Chardon Street Church in Boston. Early leaders were among those in attendance—Josiah Litch (1809–1886), Joseph Bates (1792–1872), and Henry Dana Ward (1797– 1884). The conference spent its time discussing the views that Miller had expounded in his pamphlets and book.

Miller believed that “God has set bounds, determined times, and revealed unto his prophets the events long before they were accomplished.” These times were revealed by both plain declaration and by figurative language. From his study of Daniel and Revelation, Miller believed that he had deciphered the chronology concerning the end of the age. He began with the principle that a prophetic day is equal to a year (Ezekiel 4:6). The key passages were Daniel 8:14 (“unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed, or justified”) and Daniel 9:24 (“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people … to make an end of sins”). Miller calculated the end of the 70 weeks (490 days or 490 years) to be 33 c.e., the year of the crucifixion of Jesus. From this date, he drew a line back to 457 b.c.e. (“the going forth of the commandment to Ezra to restore the law and the people of Jerusalem”) as the beginning. Since, as Miller argued, the 70 weeks were part of the 2,300 days, the 2,300 days could be seen to begin also in 457 b.c.e. Thus, the cleansing of the sanctuary would be in 1843. Though Miller bolstered this chronology with several other figures that also ended in 1843, this set of figures was the basic one.

From these figures, Miller and his associates could build a history based on the events described in Revelation and Daniel, and this chronology of prophetic history worked out mathematically. Miller published such a work covering the Old Testament period and showing that 1843 was the end of the sixth millennium since creation. In his books, he also pointed the way for his followers to fill in the history from 33 c.e. to the present.

The Boston conference was so successful that in the ensuing weeks other conferences in other cities were held to explain and discuss Miller’s message, which Himes had now renamed “the midnight cry.” As the movement grew, opposition

increased, and the established denominations began to take action to counteract Miller’s influence. Formerly cooperative churches closed their doors to Miller and his associates. Numerous accounts arose of ministers and laypeople being expelled from their churches. In one famous case, L. S. Stockman was tried for heresy before his presiding elders in the Maine Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was later expelled. In 1843 the New York Christian Advocate, the principle organ of the Methodists, carried a series of articles against “Millerism,” which vied for space with anti-Romanist articles attacking the Roman Catholic Church.

Miller’s movement took on a more definite shape in this period. Before the end in 1843, the first camp meeting was held at East Kingston, New Hampshire. In November, a second periodical, The Midnight Cry, began publication. Miller also sharpened his views. Until 1843, Miller had been vague about the Second Coming occurring “about the year 1843.” But on January 1, he committed himself to a more definite date: “I am fully convinced that somewhere between March 21st, 1843, and March 21st, 1844, according to the Jewish mode of computation of time, Christ will come.”

With tension running high as March approached, a large comet appeared in the late February sky. Its appearance was a complete surprise, without warning from astronomers. The comet was among a number of spectacular night-sky events that found their way into print. March 21, 1843, came and went. Now, new issues began to emerge. The increased opposition of the churches made meeting houses difficult to secure. In addition, large numbers of Adventists had no prior religious connection to nourish them. These factors, plus the growing size of the movement, led Charles Fitch (1805–1844) to start the inevitable “come out” movement, urging those who believed in Christ’s imminent return to come out of their denominational churches and form their own churches. Fitch was opposed by Miller, but the pressure to “come out” only increased.

By 1844, as the March 21 deadline passed without the Second Coming, Miller had approximately 50,000 followers across the East and Midwest. Miller had earlier written of his views, “If this chronology is not correct, I shall despair of ever getting from the Bible and history a true account of the age of the world.” In May 1844, Miller wrote to his followers, “I confess my error and acknowledge my disappointment.”

But 50,000 enthusiastic followers could not be so easily turned away. Although a few dropped out, most would not. In a short time, adjustments in Miller’s chronology were made. In August, Samuel S. Snow (1806–1870) put forth the “seventh month” scheme, which designated October 22, 1844, as the real date of return. Tension reached a new high. On October 22, the Adventists gathered to await the Lord, but the day passed without event.

The Great Disappointment, as the Adventists have termed the reaction to the nonhappening of October 22, 1844, left the movement in chaos. Miller again acknowledged the error, but remained confident of the imminent return of Jesus. Other millennialist leaders found themselves in the same boat. Miller refuted any further attempts to set dates, and gradually retired from active leadership in the movement. But forces already in operation were now prepared to weld these organized believers into a number of denominational bodies. These are treated below.

Adventist theology is usually built upon and accepts the theological perspectives of its parent bodies, making the necessary apocalyptic adjustments. Since almost all American Adventist bodies can be traced directly to Miller, a Baptist lay preacher, it is not surprising that popular Baptist theology has had a great influence on Adventism. There is general agreement on the doctrines concerning the Bible, God, Christ, and the sacraments. The idea of ordinances (instead of sacraments), baptism by immersion, and the practice of foot washing further manifest Baptist origins. Sabbatarianism was transmitted directly by the Seventh-day Baptists.

Eschatology took up two articles in the Baptists’ 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith and provided a base from which Miller could speculate that “the end of this world is approaching.” The Adventists, however, went far beyond the Baptists in speculations. The Adventists also raised the issue of man’s innate immortality by denying it and, in the twentieth century, have been in the forefront of groups proposing a view that has been accepted by many biblical scholars.

Ethical positions among Adventists have shown two seemingly divergent trends. An emphasis on the Old Testament and on the law as mandatory for Christians has developed out of the acceptance of the Sabbath. Some groups have gone so far as to celebrate Jewish holidays and dietary laws. The celebration of the Sabbath has been promoted by the ecumenical Bible Sabbath Association, which was formed as a counterpart of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States. Formed in 1945, the Bible Sabbath Association promotes the observance of the Sabbath and publishes a directory of Sabbath-keeping organizations.

A second ethical trend emerged as the Adventists became involved in the great social crusades of the two decades preceding the Civil War (1861–1865). Many Adventists were vocal abolitionists and ardent supporters of the peace movement. Pacifism remains a common Adventist position; the well-publicized refusal of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be drafted is derived from their Millerite heritage.

THE SACRED NAME MOVEMENT

No one knows exactly who first raised the issue of God’s name as being an important doctrinal consideration. Certainly, in the 1920s the International Bible Students, on their way to becoming the Jehovah’s Witnesses, raised the issue forcefully. Twentieth-century scholarship had, however, begun to emphasize belief that “Yahweh” was the correct pronunciation of YHWH, the spelling of God’s name in Hebrew. There were slight variations in spelling and pronunciation, as will be noted. By the mid-1930s, there were church members and ministers, primarily of the Church of God (Seventh-day), who were beginning to use the “sacred name” and to promote the cause actively. One person associated with these efforts was Elder J. D. Bagwell of Warrior, Alabama. By the end of 1938, the Faith Bible and Tract Society had been organized. In July 1939 the Assembly of YHWH was chartered in the state of Michigan. About the same time, the Assembly of Yahweh Beth Israel was also formed.

No single force was as important in spreading the Sacred Name movement as The Faith magazine, founded in 1937. This magazine was formed to support the Old Testament festivals as being valid in contemporary times. Gradually the editor, Elder C. O. Dodd (d. 1955), began to use the name Jehovah, then Jahoveh, Yahovah, Yahavah, and Yahweh.

During the 1940s, several assemblies were formed and new periodicals were launched. Some of these became substantial movements and continue today as primary religious bodies. Having come primarily out of the Church of God (Seventh-day), the assemblies follow the Adventist and Old Testament emphases, including the observance of the Jewish festivals. The main divergence is over the name issue, including the exact spelling and pronunciation. The common designation for local gatherings is “assembly,” a literal translation of the Greek ecclesia. The Sacred Name movement is often referred to as the Elijah Message, a reference to Elijah’s words in I Kings 18:36 that extol Yahweh as the Elohim of Israel.

CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL’S BIBLE STUDENTS

After an apocalyptic failure, such as the Millerite disappointment of 1844, followers have several options. The disbanding of the group and a return to pre-excitement existence is a minority option. Spiritualization—the process of claiming that the prophecy was in error to the extent of its being seen as a visible historical event, and the attempt to reinterpret it as a cosmic, inner, invisible, or heavenly event— is most common. A third option for disappointed apocalyptics is to return to the source of revelation (e.g., the Bible, a psychic-prophet, or an analysis of contemporary events) and seek a new date. (An obvious, less-committed option is to set a vague date, usually verbalized as “the near future.”)

After the 1844 disappointment, leaders and periodicals rose and fell as they projected new dates and had to live with their failures. Few millennialist movements spawned groups that lasted beyond the projected dates. Speculations on the winter of 1853 to 1854 lay behind the formation of the Advent Christian Church. A small group led by Jonas Wendell (1815–1873) projected an 1874 date. Disappointed followers spiritualized the 1874 date and projected a new date, 1914. In 1876 Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) came across an issue of The Herald of the Morning, a magazine edited by Nelson H. Barbour (1824–1905), which extolled the views of Wendell, and a new era in Adventist thought began.

Russell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and was reared in his father’s clothing store chain. Shaken by “infidel claims,” he began a religious quest that led, in 1870, to Wendell. He joined Wendell’s group, but soon disagreed on the manner of Christ’s return. Then, in 1876, he met Barbour and joined him in beginning anew the suspended Herald of the Morning and coauthoring Three Worlds or Plan of Redemption.

By the time of his association with Barbour, Russell had come to accept three ideas that are thoroughly ingrained in the movement he began and are characteristic of it. First, he rejected a belief in hell as a place of eternal torment. Second, he left the Wendell Adventists because he had discovered the true meaning of parousia (the Greek word usually translated as “return”). Russell believed that it meant presence, and he arrived at the conclusion that, in 1874, the Lord’s presence had begun. Finally, Russell began to arrive at a new doctrine of the atonement, or ransom. The biblical Adam, he believed, received death as a just sentence, but his offspring received death by inheritance. Jesus’ act of sacrifice counteracted the death penalty. Because of Adam, all were born without the right to live. Because of Jesus, everyone’s inherited sin was canceled. Thus, all people were guaranteed a second chance, a trial in which enlightenment and experience would be followed by a choice either to belong to God or be a rebel deserving of death. This “second chance” would be offered during the millennium, Christ’s reign on earth with his saints for one thousand years.

Russell’s doctrine of the ransom also included a role for the church as an atoning force. Derived in part from Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians 1:24 and from an allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew sacrifice of the bull (i.e., Christ) and the goat (i.e., the church) on the day of atonement described in Leviticus 16, Russell taught that the church as the body of Christ is by its present suffering offering a spiritual sacrifice to God. Inherent in Russell’s beliefs was a denial of certain orthodox ideas, such as the Trinity. He outlined a personal lineage that began with Arius (fourth century) whose atonement idea was close to Russell’s; the lineage included the ecclesiastical rebels Martin Luther (1483–1546), Peter Waldo (c.1140–c.1218), and John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384).

After meeting Barbour, Russell drew support from other Adventists, such as J. H. Paton, A. P. Adams, and A. D. Jones. This coalition lasted until 1878, when Barbour, who had set April as the month when the church would go to heaven, suffered a loss of support by the disconfirmation of his prophecy. (He further deviated with some speculations on the atonement.) Russell, Paton, and Jones withdrew their support of Barbour, and Russell began, with the assistance of Paton and Jones, a new periodical, Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, which was sent free to all of Barbour’s subscribers. Paton soon was to join the ranks of dissenters, and he left Russell to expound his own speculations in his periodical, Zion’s Day Star.

The first issue of the Watch Tower in 1879 is a convenient date to begin the history of Russell’s movement. To the Watch Tower was soon added abundant literature to help a growing number of Bible students who were popularly called Millennial Dawn Bible Students. They came together to study the scriptures with the help of Russell’s writings. Russell began to publish tracts, a number of which were combined into Food for Thinking Christians. He also called for a thousand preachers to spread the gospel by distributing the Watch Tower and his tracts.

In 1881 Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society was set up. In 1886 the first of six volumes of Studies in the Scripture appeared. The publishing of the first volume, The Plan of the Ages, marked a turning point in the development of the movement, as it provided a substantial ideological base for Watch Tower readers. By 1889 more than 100,000 copies of The Plan of the Ages were in print.

The pattern of the Bible student movement’s growth was typical of the growth of a number of loosely affiliated religious groups. Local congregations were formed by people impressed by Russell’s views and writings. They were related directly to Russell primarily through the Watch Tower. The teaching was spread mostly by volunteers. Gradually, there arose colporteurs, who spent from half to all of their time in religious work and who earned their living by selling Russell’s books (with a 64 percent discount). In 1894 pilgrims, paid by the central office, were added to the organization as traveling preachers and teachers to local congregations. A plan for local elders or leaders to sell their ideas to new areas was begun in 1911.

Extension of the work also occurred through a number of events that generated a great deal of publicity. In particular, Russell enjoyed debates, at which he was a master. His 1903 debate with E. L. Eaton, a Methodist minister, and with Elder L. S. White of the Disciples of Christ did much to spread the movement.

As the movement expanded, certain ideas came to the fore; none were so prominent as the chronology and the 1914 date. The Plan of the Ages was God’s calendar for dealing with men. Reminiscent of the perspective on biblical and Christian history offered by the fundamentalist leader John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) was Russell’s division of history into a number of eras. According to Russell’s chart in The Plan of the Ages, the first dispensation from Adam to the flood demonstrated the inability of angels to improve the world. The patriarchal age (from the flood to Jacob’s death) was followed by the Jewish age, which lasted until Christ’s death. The gospel age of 1845 years ended in 1874. That year marked the dawning of the millennial age, which would begin with a “harvest period” or millennial dawn period of forty years.

The millennial dawn period (1874–1914) would be marked by a return of the Jews to Palestine and the gradual overthrow of the Gentile nations. All would climax in 1914 with the glorification of the saints, the establishment of God’s direct rule on earth, and the restoration of man to perfection. The coincidence of the apocalyptic date with the beginning of World War I (1914–1918) was viewed by Russell’s followers as a cause for great hope, sharply contrasting the disappointments that had followed other predictions. The war was interpreted as God’s direct intervention in the affairs of humanity and a signal of the beginning of the world’s end. (Russell later revised the date to 1918, and died in 1916, before the second disconfirmation.)

A final significant idea was the doctrine of the future church. Russell believed from his reading of Revelation 7:4–9 that the church consisted of 144,000 saints from the time of Christ to 1914. These saints would receive the ultimate reward of becoming “priests and kings in heaven.” Others would make up a class of heavenly servants termed “the great company.” The idea of two classes of believers was illustrated by numerous biblical characters (most notably Elijah, taken to heaven, and Elisha, his servant), who were seen as types of the classes.

Russell and his ideas would become the subject of much controversy after his death. Some leaders ascribed to him a cosmic role and identify him with the good and faithful servant of Matthew 25:21. Others argued over the significance of the harvest, which supposedly ended in 1914. Some argued that the harvest closed in 1914 and that the 144,000 were all chosen by then. Others considered the harvest to be open, with the gathering of the 144,000 continuing. Similar to the differences on the harvest were differences on the identification of the Elijah and Elisha classes.

When Russell died, he left a charismatically run organization in the hands of a board of directors and an editorial committee. The next decade was marked by controversy, schism, the rise to power of Judge J. F. Rutherford (1869– 1942), and the emergence of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

THE SOUTHCOTTITES

Before William Miller created an Adventist movement in the United States in the 1830s and 1840s, such a movement flowered in England. The focus of the English movement was Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), who in the 1790s began to experience visions, to write about them in prose and verse, and to gather a following. Southcott became convinced that she was a prophetess. Several predictions, including France’s conquest of Italy under the unknown general Napoleon Bonaparte, generated attention.

Her message fell within an orthodox Christian framework and centered upon the imminent return of Christ. What made the prophecy distinctive was the peculiar “doctrine of the bride.” A feminist, Joanna began to speculate on the crucial role of women in the Bible and the role of the “woman clothed with the sun” (Revelation 12:1), who would bring forth the male child who would rule the nations with a rod of iron. She identified the woman with the bride of the lamb (Revelation 19:7), and then identified both of them with herself.

Southcott began a movement to mobilize England. Her real impact dates from 1801, when she first published her prophecies abroad in several booklets. These booklets brought her disciples, among whom she began a practice of “sealing.” Accepting the apocalyptic vision of a world delivered into the hands of Satan, she believed that the key to the devil’s overthrow was to have a sufficient number of people renounce him and be “sealed” as of the Lord. She distributed seals to all who would sign up for them. They were written on square sheets of paper upon which a circle was drawn. Inside the circle Joanna wrote “The sealed of the Lord, the Elect and Precious, Man’s Redemption to Inherit the Tree of Life, to be made Heirs of God and Joint Heirs with Jesus Christ.” The paper would be folded and sealed with wax, with the monogram I. C. (for Jesus Christ) and two stars. Critics accused Joanna of selling the seals, but she denied it.

In 1814, at 64 years of age, she had a climactic revelation. Having identified herself with the woman in Revelation 12, she was concerned with the child the woman was to bear. Joanna’s voice told her to prepare for the birth of a son. This child was identified in Joanna’s thinking with Shiloh (Genesis 49:10). She began to show signs of pregnancy and was declared pregnant by several doctors. Her followers prepared for a new virgin birth. As the time of the delivery approached, she took an earthly husband. When the baby failed to arrive and the symptoms of the hysteric pregnancy left, Joanna’s strength ebbed and she died in December 1814.

Followers and leaders alike were thrown into confusion. Among those who did not leave the movement, there were attempts to regroup, and a number of separate churches resulted. Most were confined to England, but a few found their way to America.

BRITISH ISRAELISM

Growing up largely in Adventist circles, and picking ideas from them at random—nontrinitarian theology, Sabbatarianism, Sacred Name emphases, and dispensationalism—the British Israelite Bible students emerged as a distinct group in American religion during the decade after World War I. They experienced a steady growth into the 1940s, but waned in the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1970s, however, the movement experienced a revival in its most militant wing, popularly called the Identity movement.

Though only visible in the United States since World War I, British Israelism, the Identity movement, traces its history to ancient Israel. In actual fact, its history began in the late eighteenth century in England, where one of the more popular avocations of Bible students was the attempt to discover the present-day identity of the so-called 10 lost tribes of Israel—the 10 tribes carried into captivity by Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria in 721 b.c.e. (II Kings 17). Since 1800, numerous explanations have been advanced, but only two, apart from the generally accepted view that the tribes were assimilated into the peoples of the Middle East, gained a wide following. The first of these speculations identified the American Indians as the tribes. That view was promulgated by Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844), the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The second speculation was the British Israelites’ identification of the tribes with Anglo-Saxon peoples.

Scotsman John Wilson (1799–1870), who in 1840 published his theories in Our Israelitish Origins, is generally regarded as the founder of the British Israelites. His appearance of scholarship and his oratorical abilities were enough to sell his notion to the public. Wilson was by no means the first to make the British-Israelite identification. As early as 1649, John Sadler (b. 1615) speculated on the idea in his Rights to the Kingdom and may have advised Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) on readmitting the Jews to England. In the eighteenth century, Dr. Abade of Amsterdam, a Protestant theologian, is reported to have said: “Unless the ten tribes have flown into the air, or have been plunged into the center of the earth, they must be sought for in the north and west, and in the British Isles” (Darms, The Delusion of British Israel, 1938, p. 15).

The real originator of the idea, however, was Canadian Richard Brothers (b. 1757), a psychic visionary who settled in London in the 1780s. He began to publish the content of revelations that identified him as a descendant of King David and demanded the crown of England. He was found guilty of treason, but insane, and was sent to an asylum. Brothers’s ideas caught on with some influential men, including Orientalist Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751–1830), Quaker psychic William Bryan, and Scottish lawyer John Finleyson. The defeat of Napoleon was the marked confirmation of their ideas.

The basics of British Israelite theology are simple, although a working knowledge of the Old Testament is required to trace the intricacies of the logic. The premise is that Israel and Judah were two entities, the former comprising the northern 10 tribes and the latter the two southern ones after 922 b.c.e. Members of the northern kingdom, after being freed from captivity, wandered into Europe and settled in northwest Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. Jeremiah, the prophet, is believed to have transported TeaTephi, the daughter of King Zedekiah, to Ireland to marry Prince Herremon, thus continuing Israel’s royal lineage. James I (1566–1625) was thought to be the first descendant of this union to reign in London.

Different countries are identified with the different tribes; Britain and the United States are descendants of Joseph’s two sons Ephraim and Manasseh, and, as such, are particularly blessed (Genesis 48). The tribe of Dan has, in fulfillment of prophecy (Genesis 49:17), left numerous signposts of its tribal meanderings—Dan River, Denmark, Danube River, and others.

From this basic theology, other observations are made in correlating biblical quotes with isolated facts of archaeology, legendary materials, history, and philology. Wilson was the first to note the correlation between the Hebrew word for covenant, brith, and Britain. The Stone of Scone, upon which English monarchs are crowned, is believed to have been from the throne in Jerusalem, brought to Ireland by Jeremiah. (Actually, it was quarried in Scotland.)

British Israelism has attracted much attention because of its racist overtones, especially in the United States. Implicit in the theory is the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, which is presented as religious superiority, much as with any chosen-people doctrine. The Jews are considered to be “kin” to the Anglo-Saxons. In a famous quote, one of the movement’s leaders, J. H. Allen (1847–1930), said:

Understand us: we do not say that the Jews are not Israelites; they belong to the posterity of Jacob, who was called Israel; hence they are all Israelites. But the great bulk of Israelites are not the Jews, just as the great bulk of Americans are not Californians, and yet all Californians are Americans; also, as in writing the history of America we must of necessity write the history of California, because California is a part of America; but we could write a history of California without writing a history of America.

Allen, Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright [1902] 1930, p. 71.

Numerous refutations of British Israelism have been written from a perspective of orthodox history and theology. These have, in spite of their often vitriolic nature, conclusively refuted the majority of British Israelite speculations. However, they have missed the point: British Israelism’s success has been as a religious and emotional expression of British imperialism and American manifest destiny. There is a definite correlation between the rise and fall of those ideas and the popularity of British Israelism. The dismantling of the British Empire has had a devastating effect upon the movement.

John Wilson’s Our Israelitish Origins was published in the United States in 1850 and found isolated disciples but no real following until after World War I. In 1886 Matthew M. Eshelman (1844–1921), a Church of the Brethren minister, was introduced to British Israelism by an 80-year-old immigrant to Illinois, William Montgomery. In the pages of The Gospel Messenger, published at Mt. Morris, Illinois, Eshelman began to write of his ideas. In 1887 he published a book, Two Sticks, or, the Lost Tribes of Israel Discovered, which, along with Allen’s Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright (1902), helped sell British Israelism to an American audience.

The British Israel movement reached its height in the 1930s and 1940s. It never attained the degree of development or popularity in the United States that it had in England, but in the late 1940s, the movement could boast a national audience among both congregational members and radio listeners. Two British Israel seminaries were in operation in 1950. The British Israel hypothesis—that Anglo-Saxons are descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel—was finding support among people who would by no means identify themselves with the movement itself. What remains today are the remnants of that once-strong national movement.

One of the important early structures created by the movement was Dayton Theological Seminary, which was open from 1947 into the early 1950s. It was founded by Millard J. Flenner, an former Congregational minister and pastor of the Church of the Covenants in Dayton. Among the teachers was Conrad Gaard, who was pastor for many years of the Christian Chapel Church in Tacoma. As head of the Destiny of America Foundation, he was an important writer and radio minister until his death in 1969. Gaard helped Dayton graduates keep in touch through his travels and tours.

Apart from the mainline of the British Israel movement, one Church of God Adventist radio minister, Herbert W. Armstrong (1892–1986), integrated British Israelism into his thought and wrote a paraphrase of Allen’s Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright. His small ministry, begun in Eugene, Oregon, in the 1930s, blossomed after his move to Pasadena, California, in 1947. By the time of Armstrong’s death, the church—Worldwide Church of God—had introduced millions of people to British Israelism and claimed more than 100,000 members, the single most successful such group ever to exist. In the 1990s, however, under Armstrong’s successors, Joseph W. Tkach Sr. (1927–1995) and Joseph W. Tkach Jr., the church not only dropped its British-Israel ideology, but all of Armstrong’s ideas that had made it distinctive, and adopted an orthodox Evangelical Christian theological perspective. The changes led to more than half the membership withdrawing and forming splinter groups, most of which retain the British Israel orientation.

THE MODERN IDENTITY MOVEMENT

British Israelism is implicitly anti-Semitic and antiblack. However, in the middle of the twentieth century, the movement became associated with several groups that were actively and explicitly anti-Semitic and antiblack, such as the Ku Klux Klan, and, after World War II (1937–1945), the neo-Nazi movement. Among those generally credited with bringing these two forces together is the Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith (1898– 1976), founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade. Besides publishing pro-Anglo-Saxon materials, Smith published and freely circulated a large amount of defamatory material on blacks and Jews. The work of Smith and of his former lieutenant, Wesley Swift (1913–1970), gave rise in the 1970s to a recognizable group within the larger British Israel community.

The Identity movement, a name taken from the idea of “identifying” modern white people as the literal ancestors of the ancient Israelites, has become increasingly controversial because of its identification with violent and illegal actions and the growing opposition it has provoked within the more established American religious community, both Christians and Jews. While various watchdog organizations developed a concern for the emerging movement in previous decades, in the early 1980s public attention began to focus on one center, called the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), located on the Arkansas-Missouri border. In 1983 Gordon Kahl, a leader with the Posse Comitatus, an antitax group associated with the larger Identity movement, killed two U.S. marshals in North Dakota. Fleeing the scene of the crime, he was later killed resisting arrest in Arkansas not far from CSA. A year later, an Arkansas state trooper was killed by a man identified as a former resident of CSA. Then, in 1985, the leader of CSA was arrested for racketeering and was sentenced to 20 years in jail, an event that led to the dissolution of the group.

As events at CSA were unfolding, authorities were also moving against another Identity group known as the Order. The group was composed primarily of former members of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Aryan Nations, headquartered in Hayden Lake, Idaho, which had grown out of the church founded by Wesley Swift in southern California. Members of the group were believed responsible for a series of robberies in 1983 and 1984, as well as the death of Alan Berg, an outspoken Jewish radio talk-show host in Denver, who was shot in 1984. One leader of the order, Robert Jay Matthews, was killed in a shootout as law officers attempted to arrest him. Ten others were convicted in 1985 of racketeering.

In 1987, 15 leaders of the Identity movement were indicted on a series of charges ranging from conspiracy to kill government officials to violating Alan Berg’s civil rights. However, the fifteen were found not guilty in a trial the following year. A more successful assault upon the movement occurred in 2000 when a jury awarded Victoria and Jason Keenan $6.3 million in a lawsuit stemming from a shooting/beating attack outside the Aryan Nations Church. The twenty-acre national headquarters was sold to satisfy the judgment. In 2001 the Keenan’s sold the property to the Gregory C. Carr Foundation, an organization created by Gregory C. Carr (b. 1959), founder and chairman of the Internet company Prodigy Inc. The foundation announced plans to turn the property into a human-rights center.

THE MILLENNIAL IMPULSE

Scholarship on the Adventist tradition was stimulated by several incidents in which groups advocating a change in humanity’s earthly existence were at the center of clashes involving members of the group and at times outsiders. One of these incidents, the death of most members of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, in 1993, involved a group in the Adventist tradition. A 1995 incident—the release of poisonous gas on subways in Tokyo—was attributed to Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist group whose leader had imbibed of Christian prophetic literature. Several further incidents in the 1990s raised the specter of the sixteenth-century violence that had given apocalyptic groups a bad name in Western religious history. Many scholars began to discuss the relationship of violence and millennial groups, a discussion that was given added urgency by the approaching end of the second millennium c.e.

The arrival of the year 2000 provided grounds for much speculation by religious leaders fascinated with the triple zeros in the new year. A number of books, primarily written by fundamentalist and very conservative Evangelical Protestants, highlighted an expectation of significant change as the new century approached. Those expectations were countered by many voices in the Evangelical community who firmly believed in an imminent Second Coming of Christ, but just as strongly resisted any attempt at date-setting around the end of the millennium. The religious speculations found completion in predictions of a computer meltdown because many clocks installed in computers were seen as unable to accommodate the change in settings required for the year 2000 (Y2K). The new century arrived, however, with neither set of predictions bringing either any major change or violent reaction. Within months, the books that had predicted such happenings disappeared from the marketplace, and those who had made the predictions offered revised visions of the future.

The highly publicized events of the 1990s and the disappointments surrounding the nonevent of the arrival of 2000 did not stop the emergence of new predictions of the end of the world, and millennial studies has continued to attract scholarly interest and debate. Besides new predictions derived from reading the Christian Bible, a group of post–New Agers have compiled a set of predictions around the ancient Mayan calendar and the year 2012.

SOURCES

The Seventh-day Adventists have archives at several of their schools, but the most prominent collections are at the church’s headquarters, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600, and at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI. The Advent Christian Church supports the Adventists Archives at Aurora College, Aurora, IL.

Adventism, Millennialism, and Apocalypticism

Bull, Malcolm, ed. Apocalypse Theory and the Ends of the World. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. 297 pp.

Case, Shirley Jackson. The Millennial Hope: A Phase of War-time Thinking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. 253 pp.

Chamberlin, E. R. Antichrist and the Millennium. New York: Dutton, 1975. 244 pp.

Cook, Stephen L. Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1995. 260 pp.

Froom, Edwin Leroy. The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers. 4 vols. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1950–1954.

———. The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers: The Conflict of the Ages Over the Nature and Destiny of Man. 2 vols. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1966.

Grosso, Michael. Millennium Myth: Love and Death at the End of Time. Wheaton, IL: Quest, 1995.

Harrison, J. F. C. The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780–1850. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. 277 pp.

Hunter, Anthony. The Last Days. London: Blond, 1958. 232 pp.

Kyle, Richard. The Last Day Are Here Again: A History of the End Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998. 255 pp.

Landes, Richard, ed. Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. New York: Routledge, 2000. 478 pp.

McGinn, Bernard. The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Vol. 2: Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture. New York: Continuum International, 2000. 548 pp.

O’Leary, Stephen. Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 314 pp.

Rist, Martin. “Introduction to the Revelation of St. John the Divine.” In The Interpreters Bible. Vol. 12, 617–627. New York: Abingdon, 1974.

St. Clair, Michael. Millenarian Movements in Historical Context. New York: Garland, 1992. 373 pp.

Schmithals, Walter. The Apocalyptic Movement: Introduction & Interpretation. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1975. 255 pp.

Stein, Stephen J. The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Vol. 3: Apocalypticism in the Modern Period and the Contemporary Age. New York: Continuum International, 2000. 524 pp.

Stone, Jon R. Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy. New York: Routledge, 2000. 296 pp.

Wallis, John. Apocalyptic Trajectories: Millenarianism and Violence in the Contemporary World. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004. 271 pp.

Wessinger, Catherine. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000. 305 pp.

Adventism in America

Directory of Sabbath-Observing Groups. Fairview, OK: Bible Sabbath Association, 2001. 246 pp.

Gaustad, Edwin Scott, ed. The Rise of Adventism: Religion and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Nichol, Francis D. The Midnight Cry: A Defense of William Miller and the Millerites. Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1944. 576 pp.

Sears, Clara Endicott. Days of Delusion: A Strange Bit of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924. 264 pp.

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. 2nd rev. ed. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1996. 1454 pp.

William Miller

Bliss, Sylvester. Memoirs of William Miller. Boston: Himes, 1853. 426 pp.

A Brief History of William Miller, the Great Pioneer in Adventist Faith. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1915.

Gale, Robert. The Urgent Call. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1975. 158 pp.

White, James. Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of William Miller. Battle Creek, MI: Steam Press, 1875. 413 pp.

Ellen G. White and the Seventh-day Adventists

Bull, Malcolm. Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989. 319 pp.

A Critique of Prophetess of Health. Washington, DC: Ellen G. White Estate, General Conference of S.D.A., 1976. 127 pp.

Damsteegt, P. Gerard. Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977. 348 pp.

Delafield, D. A. Ellen G. White and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1963. 90 pp.

Noobergen, Rene. Ellen G. White: Prophet of Destiny. New Canaan, CT: Keats, 1972. 241 pp.

Numbers, Ronald L. Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

Churches of God (Seventh Day)

Bjorling, Joel. The Churches of God, Seventh Day: A Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1987. 296 pp.

Hopkins, Joseph. The Armstrong Empire: A Look at the Worldwide Church of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974. 304 pp.

Nickels, Richard C. A History of the Seventh Day Church of God. Vol. 1. Sheridan, WY: Author, 1977. 397 pp.

———. Six Papers on the History of the Church of God. Sheridan, WY: Giving & Sharing, 1977.

Sabbatarianism

Armstrong, Herbert W. Which Day Is the Sabbath of the New Testament? Pasadena, CA: Worldwide Church of God, 1971. 23 pp.

———. The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday. Pasadena, CA: Ambassador College, 1972. 14 pp.

Dellinger, George. A History of the Sabbath Resurrection Doctrine. Westfield, IN: Sabbath Research Center, 1982. 33 pp.

Haynes, Carlyle B. From Sabbath to Sunday. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing, 1928. 128 pp.

Love, William Deloss. Sabbath and Sunday. Chicago: Revell, 1896. 325 pp.

Sacred Name Movement

Dugger, Andrew N., and Clarence O. Dodd. A History of the True Church (1936). Neck City, MO: Giving & Sharing, 1996. 318 pp.

“Let Your Name Be Sanctified.” New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1961. 382 pp.

Meyer, Jacob O. The Memorial Name—Yahweh. Bethel, PA: Assemblies of Yahweh, 1978. 76 pp.

Rutherford, J. F. Vindication. Vol. 1. New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Association, 1931. 346 pp.

Snow, L. D. “A Brief History of the Name Movement in America.” Eliyah Messenger and Field Reporter (May 1966): 1, 4, 7, 12.

Traina, A. B. The Holy Name Bible. Brandywine, MD: Scripture Research Association, 1980. 346 pp.

Charles Taze Russell and the Bible Students

Beckford, James A. The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Oxford: Blackwell, 1975. 244 pp.

Bergman, Jerry. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Kindred Groups: An Historical Compendium and Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1984. 370 pp.

Cole, Marley. Triumphant Kingdom. New York: Criterion, 1957. 256 pp.

Gruss, Edmond Charles. Apostles of Denial. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1970. 324 pp.

Holden, Andrew. Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement. New York: Routledge, 2002. 224 pp.

Penton, M. James. Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. 444 pp.

———. Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Third Reich: Sectarian Politics under Persecution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. 420 pp.

Rogerson, Alan. Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah’s Witnesses. London: Constable, 1969. 216 pp.

Stafford, Greg D. Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and Critics. Murietta, CA: Elihu, 2007.

White, Timothy (Timothy Willis). A People for His Name: History of Jehovah’s Witnesses and an Evaluation. New York: Vantage Press, 1967. 418 pp.

Joanna Southcott

Balleiene, G. R. Past Finding Out: The Tragic Story of Joanna Southcott and Her Successors. New York: Macmillan, 1956. 151 pp.

The Life and Journal of John Wroe. Ashton-under-Lyne: Trustees of the Society of Christian Israelites, 1900. 639 pp.

Matthews, Ronald. English Messiahs. London: Methuen, 1936. 230 pp.

British Israelism

Allen, J. H. Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright: An Analysis of the Prophecies of Scripture in Regard to the Regard to the Royal Family of Judah and the Many Nations of Israel (1902). Boston: Beauchamp, 1930. 377 pp.

Armstrong, Herbert W. The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Pasadena, CA: Worldwide Church of God, 1980. 163 pp.

Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 290 pp.

Coates, James. Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right. New York: Hill and Wang, 1987. 294 pp.

Darms, Anton. The Delusion of British Israel: A Comprehensive Treatise. New York: Loizeaux Brothers, Bible Truth Depot, 1938. 224 pp.

Haberman, Frederick. The Climax of the Ages Is Near. St. Petersburg, FL: Kingdom Press, 1940. 94 pp.

Hate Groups in America: A Record of Bigotry and Violence. Rev. ed. New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1988. 107 pp.

Kaplan, Jeffrey. Radical Religion in America: Millenarian Movements from the Far Right to the Children of Noah. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997. 245 pp.

Mackendrick, W. G. The Roadbuilder: The Destiny of the British Empire and the U.S.A. London: Covenant, 1931. 213 pp.

Roy, Ralph Lord. Apostles of Discord: A Study of Organized Bigotry and Disruption on the Fringes of Protestantism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1953. 437 pp.

Schwartz, Alan M., et al. “The ‘Identity Churches’: A Theology of Hate.” ADL Facts 28, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 116.

Swift, Wesley A. Testimony of Tradition and the Origin of Races. Hollywood, CA: New Christian Crusade Church, n.d. 34 pp.

Wilson, J. Our Israelitish Origins. Philadelphia: Daniels & Smith, 1850. 237 pp.