Adventism
The Adventist movement, based on the belief that Christ would soon return to earth, represents one of the more radical tendencies of nineteenth-century Christian thought. By midcentury a number of Adventist denominations became increasingly prominent in American religious life.
The first of these groups gathered around a Baptist minister named William Miller (1782-1849), whose experience at a revival meeting led him to undertake the study of biblical prophecy. In 1835, Miller announced that Christ would return to earth between March 21,1843, and March 21,1844, to preside over a final judgment, destroy the world, and inaugurate a new heaven and a new earth. The failure of this Second Coming to materialize prompted recalculations and predictions of new dates, but when these, too, passed without incident, many Millerites gave up their hope of seeing Christ’s return. Others, sometimes scorned and ridiculed in their churches, emulated Miller by forming new ones, most of which were organized as part of the Evangelical Adventist Association.The largest of the Adventist churches to emerge from what the Millerites called The Great Disappointment was that of the Seventh-day Adventists, founded by Ellen White (1827- 1915). White became a follower of Miller in 1842, but after the Great Disappointment of 1844 White taught that the Second Coming of Christ had been delayed by the failure of Christians to obey the Ten Commandments—especially the fourth commandment, which requires observance of the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week (that is, Saturday). In addition, White believed (like her counterparts in Christian Science) that scripture contains rules for physical, as well as spiritual, health: “Disease,” she wrote, “is the result of violating God’s laws, both natural and spiritual,” and would not exist if people lived “in harmony with the Creator’s plan.” For this reason, and because they consider the body a “temple” of the Holy Spirit, Seventh-day Adventists practice vegetarianism, abstain from alcohol and tobacco, and prefer natural remedies to drugs when ill.
It was in hope of creating a health food that would meet the standards White discerned in scripture that Dr. John Kellogg, one of her disciples, invented his famous cornflakes.Today there are more than 10 million Seventh-day Adventists worldwide, the great majority of whom live outside of North America (principally in Africa and Central and South America). Emphasizing the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation in the Bible, they preach that the world must be prepared for the Second Coming, which will occur after the gospel has been spread to all parts of the world. The returning Christ will raise the faithful from their present state of unconsciousness, make them immortal, and bring them back to heaven for his millennial reign. At the conclusion of the millennium, Satan will be destroyed, along with sinners who indicate they have no wish to live in Christ’s presence. The saints will then descend from heaven to live forever on an earth restored to its original perfection.
Most Christian denominations consider the Seventh-day Adventist Church to be a genuine Christian church, although they may not share its preoccupation with Christ’s Second Coming or recognize the legitimacy of a Saturday Sabbath worship tradition. However, some groups with roots in Seventh-day Adventism are much further from the Christian mainstream. The Worldwide Church of God, for example, urges its members to observe the dietary laws and many of the other commandments found in the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, its leaders (Herbert Armstrong [1892-1986] and his son Garner Ted Armstrong [1930-2003]) believed that the English-speaking peoples were the literal descendants of the “lost tribes” of ancient Israel. The Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, founded in the 1930s by a Bulgarian immigrant, Victor
Houteff, also observe many of the ritual requirements found in the Hebrew Bible; however, they criticize traditional Seventh-day Adventists for claiming that prophecy came to an end with the death of Ellen White. God, the Davidians say, continues to guide their church through the prophets he sends. One particular splinter group, the Branch Davidian Church (founded by Benjamin Roden in the 1960s), achieved tragic notoriety in 1993 when David Koresh (born Vernon Howell in 1959), who had taken control of a Branch Davidian community located in Waco, Texas, in the 1980s, convinced his followers that he was the Messiah and that Armageddon would take place in the United States rather than in Israel. When federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound on February 28,1993, a shootout and fifty-one-day siege followed, culminating in an assault and fire that left eighty members of the Waco community (including Koresh himself) dead.