So, I promised you a story in my last post – one that shows the interconnections between religious groups in history. Theology isn’t done in a vacuum and many of the groups that we assume are totally unrelated often have had a significant impact on the other. So let’s talk about how an 19th century Baptist farmer influenced a cult leader in Waco, Texas…
William Miller, upon returning from military service after the War of 1812, began to predict the end of the world. He was convinced of his findings by 1818 though he kept them private until the mid-1820s: the second coming of Christ will occur in 1844. By the 1830s, Miller’s prediction had created quite a buzz in the New England area and became a national phenomenon by 1840. March 21 was the date. It came and went and a new date was set for April 18. Nothing happened on that day either. At this point, Miller began to apologize to his followers. But just then, another Millerite came up with a new date: October 22. The thousands of Millerites rallied again for the new date only to experience the “Great Disappointment” at that time. Many became disillusioned and walked away from the church for good. Others split off into other groups while those faithful to Miller formed the Advent Christian Church.
Another group came from Miller’s followers: The Seventh Day Adventist Church. Hiram Edson, a former Methodist brought hope to thousands by explaining how Jesus could have “returned” without us seeing him – Edson spiritualized Christ’s return. Christ had come to cleanse the “Temple” by beginning the process of judgment in the heavens but had not yet come to earth. Eventually, prophetess Ellen G. White came to lead the group and placed emphasis on keep Old Testament laws, hence the name Seventh Day Adventist. The Seventh Day Adventist Church formally came into being in the 1860s.
Things rocked along for a while until the 20th century. In 1930, Victor Houteff wrote a pamphlet that criticized the SDA church. He also said that Christ was going to purge the church again by raising up another lineage of David. The number counted in this lineage? 144,000, of course. In 1942, Houteff and his followers broke away from the Seventh Day Adventist Church to form the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. They founded a religious center named Mt. Carmel near Waco, Texas. Bored yet? Come on, you know this is interesting stuff…
In the next several decades, the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists experienced another miscalculated date for the end of the world and their leader, Benjamin Roden, was sentenced to an insane asylum. Around this same time, they changed their name to the “Branch” Davidians. Vernon
Howell showed up on the scene, changed his name to David (in honor of King David) Koresh and began to preach that Armageddon was near. It was…in the form of the ATF.
Interesting story huh? There was no way that anyone could predict that the date-setting attempts of a Baptist farmer in the 1840s would play a part in the origins of one of the most sensational religious fringe movements in American history. That’s what’s so interesting about it. We can rarely predict anything much less the end of the world. And for every religious “river” flowing through our history, there are thousands of tributaries that flow from them. And then those tributaries turn into a river…as a movement, denomination, or sect – some famous and others infamous. No one group stands alone and the marginalized group of today could easily become the mainstay of the next century.
I hope you enjoyed your apocalyptic bedtime story. Goodnight, kids…
