Adventism

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Adventism

In the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, emphasis is placed on the promise that Jesus Christ will return to earth again. What is called "the blessed hope" has received varying focus in the Christian church through the centuries. At the end of the first millennium there was a wave of apocalyptic fever. Reformation leaders also believed that they were near the end of time. Through the influence of Jonathan Edwards, America's early Christian communities often adopted the view that the world would get better, leading to a thousand-year time of peace (the millennium) climaxed by the second coming of Christ.

Political tumult at the end of the eighteenth century led to doubts about Edwards's postmillennial views, first in Europe and then in the United States. This set the stage for the birth of Adventism (referring to the Second Advent of Jesus) in the middle decades of the last century. Modern Adventism owes its birth to the writings and ministry of William Miller (1782–1849), a Baptist preacher whose main claim to fame is three false predictions of the visible return of Jesus.

Miller was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He had an evangelical conversion experience in 1816 but did not begin preaching the message of Christ's near return until 1831. A pamphlet on prophecy in 1833 was expanded into book form in 1836, both under the title Evidences from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ About the Year 1843, and of His Personal Reign of a Thousand Years. Miller devoted himself to the study of key texts in Daniel, Revelation, and Matthew, combined with application to the major "signs of the times" that pointed to the "end of the age." The bit of uncertainty in the title of his book gave way to specific predictions of the return of Jesus between March 21, 1843, and the same date the next year. Failing this prophecy, Miller confessed his error but then accepted arguments from other Adventists that Jesus would come back to earth on October 22, 1844. That failed prophecy is known as "the Great Disappointment," one of the most famous nonevents in history.

Miller's Adventist views were spread through the periodical Signs of the Times and through a network of preachers in Congregational, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, extending from Maine to Michigan. Early Adventist leaders Joshua Himes (d. 1895), Josiah Litch (d. 1886), and Charles Fitch (d. 1844) aided Miller in the urgent task of warning the churches about the coming Judgment Day. In the end Miller acknowledged the dangers of date setting but comforted himself with the positive aspects of preparation for the Lord's return.

As is well known to historians, Miller's approach to Bible prophecy and his focus on the Second Advent of Christ was foundational to the rise of both Seventh-Day Adventism and the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Seventh-Day Adventists, under Ellen G. White (one of the most famous American female religious leaders), labored under the burden of dealing with "the Great Disappointment." They argued that the 1844 date was a correct deduction from Bible study but that Miller failed to understand that it concerned a pivotal event in Christ's ministry in the heavenly realm, not the date of Christ's return to earth.

Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses, duplicated Miller's penchant for date setting, though he was never quite so dogmatic as to cite a single day for the return of Jesus. Witnesses have suggested through the twentieth century that the end of the world would take place in 1914, 1918, 1925, the early 1940s, and 1975. Both Seventh-Day Adventists and the Witnesses inherited the sectarian impulses in Miller's later Adventist ideology. Thus both groups have been isolated from mainstream American religious life. The Witnesses, in particular, have been victims of religious and political persecution, especially in the United States during World War I and in Germany under Hitler.

The Adventist message under William Miller is forever linked to his failed prophecies. In a general sense, however, what he would regard as his positive focus on Christ's Second Advent has been a constant theme in American evangelicalism since the start of the twentieth century. Prophecy books are often the best-selling books from evangelical publishers. The classic in modern times is Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth, a work that has sold millions of copies in both religious and secular bookstores.