which is a perfect excuse to talk about the best named historical event of all time

The Great Disappointment

Starting after 1815 a Baptist minister named William Miller slowly became convicted that the Bible was full of a numerical code which, if unlocked, could show the exact date of the return of Jesus (and you know the Rapture).

Miller first published the idea that he had unlocked the code and that the second coming was just 21 years away (1843) in 1822. He started publicly preaching on the subject in 1831.

It wasn't till 1840 that it went from one crackpot and a few fans to a truly huge national religious movement, Millerism. Ironically belief in the Christian apocalypse is the similar sounding "millenarianism".

any ways in 1843 Miller stated the second coming would happen between March 21st 1843 and March 21st 1844. When that failed to happen the movement reached a fever pitch. A new definite date, of October 22nd 1844 was set.

Many Millerites sold all their worldly goods in the lead up to the day and Miller himself gathered a large group of followers with him to wait.

well day turned into night turned into October 23rd and well... the world did not end.

This was known to the hundreds of thousands of Millerites as "The Great Disappointment" the best name for anything ever honestly.

Miller was understandably discredited and the whole thing became a massive laughing stock joke in 1840s and 50s America

Most Millerites left the movement and rejoined mainstream Christian Churches however not all of them did. Those that didn't might be broken into 3 groups

Those who felt that the idea was correct but the date wrong, these people would evolve into Advent Christian Church, and through a few twists and turns, also the Jehovah's Witnesses

people who felt that a spiritual rather than physical second coming had in fact happened, this movement was short lived before they largely merged into the Shakers who are now pretty much all dead.

Those who felt like the date was correct but Miller misunderstood what was going to happen, rather than the second coming happening on October 22nd 1844, it was the start of the process that would lead to the second coming and readying the earth for that event. These people today are the Seventh-day Adventist

It was on this day in 1844 that William Miller originally predicted the return of Jesus and the end of the world. Using the Bible and his understanding of math, he calculated the exact date as the second coming of Jesus. Obviously, the date came and went, and still no Jesus.

It was then that he saw what he believed to be an angel. It walked up to him saying that the second coming of Jesus was going to be on October 22nd, 1844. It was all he needed to keep going forward. He had simply done a miscalculation by some months. He had to tell the people the great news.

He told everyone he knew, and he found is group begin to grow. They were the followers of Millerism and they were fully prepared for the end to come. They sold their belongings. They told people how they really felt about them. They canceled their Netflix subscription. They wrapped up all lose ends.

On October 22nd, a large group of Millerites gathered in a field to await the second coming of Jesus. Excitement was in the air as they all looked up to the sky. Just then, Leto walked up behind them.

“Hey everyone. What you all looking at?”

“Today is the day.” Miller spoke up, looking back at the Leto, which he recognized as the angel that spoke to him. “The second coming of Jesus is today.”

“Who told you that?”

“You! You told me that the second coming of Jesus was on October 22nd!”

“What?” The Leto looked confused. “No. I didn’t say that the second coming of Jesus on October 22nd. I said I was sending a couple of Jesses on October 22nd.”

The Leto motioned behind him to two people — a man and a woman. “I brought an uncle Jesse and a Jessie Spano.”

The Jessie Spano was dancing around screaming that she was so excited and so scared. The uncle Jesse was just walking around telling everything he saw to have mercy.

“One, I saved by a bell, and the other, I pulled from a full house. I thought they would be fun. You can catch them on Netflix.”

        The survival over time of millenarian movements typically depends on their ability to modify their outlook into an institutionalized revision of the traditions they challenge. Modern-day Christian millenarians, for instance, are found among the less institutionalized Protestant denominations. Anthropologist Kenelm Burridge presents a set of phases through which millenarian groups typically pass. If they reach the last phase, it signifies a higher likelihood of their survival. These phases can be summarized as such: “old rules” of a religious tradition are reconsidered, a millenarian movement with “no rules” emerges, and then “new rules” are implemented to regulate or institutionalize an ideology. According to Burridge, the first phase usually involves doubt and uncertainty in regard to relying on a stable tradition. This sparks the beginning of millenarian activities justified by the need for drastic measures to supplant the “old rules.” According to Burridge, “a millenarian movement is a new religion in the making. New assumptions are being ordered into what may become a new orthodoxy.”[1] The way these new assumptions of a tradition transform into a new religion is dependent on the prospects of stabilization.

The Anabaptists, for example, who were active in Europe during the 16th century Reformation, rejected the Catholic Church’s notion of infant baptism. Instead, they believed in rebaptism of an individual upon their conscious confession of faith. Because of their opposition to Catholic tradition, the Anabaptists, like many other Christian Reformist groups of that time, were heavily persecuted. As they entered into Burridge’s second phase, they developed militant tendencies based on a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.[2] This type of behavior did not provide means for the movement’s survival, but several present day religious communities such as the Mennonites later adopted the Anabaptists’ core beliefs, especially their views on baptismal practices.[3] The continued existence of the Mennonites owes primarily to their commitment to pacifism.

Millenarian movements are not always militant, however. For instance, the Millerite movement during the 19th century was primarily based on a calculated date of the Second Coming. According to the Baptist preacher William Miller’s interpretations of the prophecies, especially from Daniel 8:14, Jesus would return to earth in 1844, specifically October 22.[4] Thousands of followers were let down when Jesus did not appear, and the date became known as the Great Disappointment. Frantically, many Millerites attempted to calculate different dates and explain Christ’s absence, while others abandoned their beliefs and moved on to other denominations, hoping to find explanations elsewhere. A religion that successfully derived from Millerism is Seventh Day Adventism. Rather than obsessing over the end-times and being distracted by a specific date of Jesus’s return, Seventh Day Adventists believe that they should live in joyful anticipation. While technically still millenarian, they do not allow the Second Coming to distract them from their lives on Earth. This reworking of “no rules” into “new rules” has allowed an essence of Millerism to survive through Seventh Day Adventism.

NOTES

[1] In Burridge’s discussion of a quest for new ideals in these situations, he states, “…’periods of social unrest’ and the ‘weakening or disruption of the old social order’ refer to situations where the relevant assumptions about power are weakening and no longer enable individuals to perceive the truth of things. They cannot project  asatisfactory redemptive process. Hence the ‘new and often bizarre ideals’” (Burridge 1969, 8-9).

[2] “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

[3] Norman Cohn 1957, 280.