I thought I would post this excellent essay on William Miller and the Apocalyptic Sects he spawned, including the Watchtower Society & the Branch Davidians.
Expatbrit
Prophecy Failed
From the Great Disappointment
to Apocalypse Ranch
Conrad F. Goeringer
Human history abounds with records of unsuccessful predictions concerning the end of the world. But in the American experience, perhaps the best known example of the failure of alleged biblical prophecy is the Millerite movement, named after a New York farmer, William Miller (1782-1849). Despite predicting Armageddon and the Second Coming on three separate occasions, Miller’s organizational legacy endured, giving rise to religious sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. Both have become enduring symbols of the millennialist, apocalyptic impulse in American culture. Even more surprising is that it is possible to trace groups like the Branch Davidian sect (Waco) back to Millerite origins. Indeed, the bloody assault on the Davidian compound has become an apocalyptic rallying cry for dissatisfied groups throughout the country. That group’s leader, David Koresh, saw the BATF and FBI raid on “Apocalypse Ranch” as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
The End is Near--
It's Miller Time!William Miller was born on Feb. 15, 1782, into an impoverished Pittsfield Massachusetts family. He was the oldest of sixteen children and was raised in a Baptist environment. Although Miller had little formal education, he was apparently a voracious reader; some biographical accounts say that his studies of Enlightenment thinkers led him to deism, a philosophical position that was popular among certain intellectuals of the period. Deism posited the existence of a god, but one who established a clock-work universe that operated according to natural laws. The notion of “Nature, and Nature’s God” excluded most of the tenets of Christianity, including the divinity of Jesus or the literal truth of the Bible.
While a Captain in the army during the War of 1812, Miller gradually became convinced that America was a predestined nation. In the battle of Plattsburg in 1814, 15,000 British troops were defeated by a US force about one-third the size. Miller considered this evidence of divine intervention, and began to reconcile himself again with Christianity. Religious historians note that even though he rejoined the Baptist faith, he also embarked on an intense study of the Bible in order to defend his religious views against the rationalism and deism of his former friends.
The Enlightenment assault on superstition was having a profound impact in the United States, on both government and religious movements. The “official” churches of the former colonies were “disestablished.” One no longer had to belong to this state-church in order to exercise basic rights such as voting or ownership of property. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey passed laws to this effect in 1776; and New York, North Carolina, and Georgia followed in 1777. All former colonies disestablished their churches by 1818, with the exception of Massachusetts, which delayed until 1833.
From the beginning of this process, the churches resisted disestablishment. Preachers also condemned the failure to establish Christianity as an officially recognized state religion. In 1803, for instance, the Rev. Samuel Wylie, Doctor of Divinity at the University of Pennsylvania, asked, “Did not the framers of this instrument (the Constitution) in this...resemble the fool mentioned in Psalms 14:1-3 who said in his heart, ‘There is no God’?” Others like Rev. Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) began to deliver sermons which suggested that the country was falling victim to a godless, European conspiracy of Freemasons, illuminists, and devil-worshippers.
This anxiety, though, coexisted with an emerging doctrine in religious ranks that the United States was nevertheless a divinely-ordained nation which would fulfill biblical prophecy. After all, early colonists who fled religious orthodoxy in Britain and Europe (only to “establish” their own churches here!) saw this new land as a “New Jerusalem” in its own right. With only about five percent of postrevolution Americans being regular church attendees, a doctrine which bestowed celestial sanction on the new Republic and its people could serve not only to revitalize religion, but provide an ideological rationale for political decisions. The religious roots of future ideas such as Manifest Destiny were being implanted.
William Miller’s biblical study led him through the apocalyptic texts of Daniel and Revelation. He became especially fascinated with Daniel 8:14 which declared “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” He soon began to construct a biblical chronology fixing the creation of the world, the birth of Jesus, and the subsequent return of the messiah. Miller completed his initial calculations in 1823, and gradually began to share his findings with a close circle of friends.
It wasn’t until 1831 that he began to establish a career as a speaker in churches throughout New England and Canada. Two years later he was granted a permit to preach by the Baptist Church. His rhetorical style improved, and “eager listeners hung on his words, spellbound for two hours at a time, and packed houses were the rule,” according to one history. Miller’s apocalyptic message concerning the imminence of the second coming also began to attract clergy as well, including Josiah Litch of the New England Methodist Episcopal Conference and the Congregationalist minister Charles Fitch.
One follower was Joshua Himes, a promoter, who established two Millerite publications: Signs of the Times (later called The Advent Herald) and The Midnight Cry. Other independent papers which echoed Miller’s message began to appear, such as the Philadelphia Alarm, and by 1842-1843, his “Second Advent” movement was organizing conferences, camp meetings, and public lecturers.
Miller’s initial prediction fixing the end was for March 21, 1843. There are different accounts of this time frame, though, and some insist that it covered a one-year period (March 21, 1843, to March 24, 1844). One fixed date was April 3, 1843. Over 3,500 of the faithful jammed the Boston Advent Temple, only to be disappointed. Ironically, the movement continued to grow, and a second date of April 18, 1844 was publicized. When the messiah did not appear, there was again frustration and some followers left the Advent ranks. But Miller continued to preach the imminent return of Christ, and declared that the world was in a “tarrying time” or waiting period. A third date of October 22, 1844, was promptly set, relying mostly on the refined calculations of a Millerite believer named Samuel S. Snow. This prediction was considered the result of something called “the new light,” a term which over a century later would be used by another apocalyptician with historical roots in the Millerite phenomenon – David Koresh – to justify some of his eschatological doctrines. The new date was publicized as the True Midnight Cry, and had the somewhat unpredictable effect of actually rallying the ranks of the Millerites. They began to spread word of this new second coming with an enthusiasm not seen before. Churches which did not accept this message were denounced as agents of “Babylon.” And despite opposition from established, mainline religious groups, thousands of members – and even many clergy – began to defect to the Millerite cult.
As doomsday approached, Millerites began to prepare. One account notes that “Fields were left unharvested, shops were closed, people quit their jobs, paid their debts, and freely gave away their possessions with no thought of repayment.” Huge press runs of Advent publications like The Midnight Cry warned the public that “The Time Is Short. Prepare to Meet Thy God!” and “The Lord is Coming!” William Miller began peddling white “ascension robes” to the faithful, many of whom waited for the miraculous event in freshly dug graves.
Sexual imagery was employed throughout the Millerite prognostication of the end times, especially as the date of October 22 approached. Most Christians were skeptical of the impending apocalypse. Advent believers quickly labeled them “harlots,” and quoted from Chapter 25 of the new testament book of Matthew. Says one account: “The Bridegroom had supposedly come to the marriage in heaven instead of on earth, and He had shut the door on those ‘foolish’ virgins.” Ironically, Matthew 25:13 reminds the faithful that “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”
October 22, 1843, came and passed; Miller’s followers called it “The Great Disappointment.” Many began to leave the Second Advent movement, even as explanations were proposed to explain why Jesus had not returned. Some claimed that Christ had indeed arrived, but in a “spiritual” way. For two years, the movement languished, and on April 29, 1845, Miller, Himes, and the remaining membership of the movement organized the Mutual Conference of Adventists in Albany, New York.
In retrospect, the Millerite movement became a paradigm of what happens “when prophecy fails.” The failure of prophetical realization does not dissuade all believers from belief in their creed’s validity. It often serves to create a galvanizing effect amongst followers, and the individual often emerges from an experience such as “The Great Disappointment” even more unshaken in his or her beliefs, and more energized about converting others. Indeed, this is what happened with the Millerite cause.
One convert to Miller’s Advent eschatology had been Ellen G. Harmon. By all accounts, she was a remarkable if not bizarre women. She was born on November 26, 1827, and raised in the Methodist faith. At the age of nine, she suffered a concussion which caused permanent disfigurement, and she went through “an agonizing period of spiritual struggle concerning her physical condition and eternal salvation.”
In 1840, after hearing a sermon by William Miller, Harmon fell in with the burgeoning Second Advent movement. Following “The Great Disappointment,” she began to experience public visions which supposedly confirmed the righteousness of the Advent doctrines. Three years later, she married an Adventist minister named James White, and the two began elaborating the Millerite teachings into a formal religious system.
Unencumbered by the failure of prophetic vision, many of William Miller’s flock adopted the doctrinal teachings of Ellen White, including the keeping of the Ten Commandments, the Jewish Sabbath, and the acceptance of contemporary prophets. By 1850, mainstream Christian doctrines had been incorporated into the Advent message; and in October, 1860, the Seventh Day Adventist church was officially founded. The following year, a membership structure was established at the group’s conference in Battle Creek, Michigan, and by 1863 Seventh Day Adventism became a formal, separate denomination.
The Long Road To Waco
The American penchant for “date setting” to fix that time when the world would end certainly did not die with “The Great Disappointment.” During a period of widespread industrialization and expansion, old patterns of social, political and economic organization were being disrupted. Many sought succor and refuge in the embrace of religious certainty, and the knowledge that their suffering in the world would be rewarded. The post-Civil War era saw the rise of other prophetic groups, including Charles Taze Russell’s International Bible Students Association and the Watchtower Society. Russell (1852-1916) had been a Congregationalist minister whose preaching became increasingly apocalyptic: he taught that the second coming had actually occurred invisibly in 1874, and that the end of the millennial age would take place in 1914. He was also enamored of Pyramidism, a belief that the physical dimensions of the Great Pyramid recounted biblical history, and foretold future events including Armageddon and the end of the world. When Russell’s 1914 prediction did not occur, Joseph Rutherford (1869-1942) – who had succeeded Russell as head of the movement – began setting new dates for Armageddon. The Watchtower movement became the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious sect that can boast perhaps the worst record of prophetic accuracy the world has known. Dates for the Parousia or Second Coming have included 1920, 1925, various dates in the 1940’s (having to do with World War II), and even 1975.
Still another influence on Russell and the later Witness movement was George Storrs, publisher of The Bible Examiner. He came from a long line of Congregational preachers, and in 1843 he began championing the Millerite doctrine, even though The Great Disappointment had already occurred.
Ellen White continued to lead the Seventh Day Adventist movement until her death in 1915. She left behind an enormous collection of doctrinal writings, said to consist of “over forty-six books totaling more than 25 million words.” Although much of her writing was supposed to be a report of visions – or at least the result of “inspiration” – it is now known that most of her “heavenly messages” were really secular tales retold. Walter T. Rea, in his book aptly named The White Lie (M & R Publications, 1982), has established beyond doubt that the would-be prophetess was one of the most prodigious plagiarists of all time, being able to convert entire history books into what would become tantamount to scripture.
The Adventist message became more institutionalized, and some followers felt that White’s moves toward doctrinal orthodoxy had gutted the Advent message. Even so, the Seventh Day Adventists were firmly established on the American religious scene.
One convert to Adventism was Victor T. Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant who had abandoned his Eastern Orthodox faith and converted to Seventh Day Adventism in May of 1919. After settling in Wisconsin and then moving to Illinois, he migrated to Los Angeles in 1923 and became an assistant superintendent of an Adventist school.
In 1929 Houteff began to have serious doctrinal differences with the Seventh Day Adventists, specifically over interpretations of passages of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation. He left the Adventists, insisting that the group had compromised excessively with the world, especially since it allowed members to attend ball games, movies, and wear make-up. By 1934, he formed a group known as “The Shepherd’s Rod,” and with a small group of followers who had been disfellowshipped from the SDA, relocated to an area near the small town of Waco, Texas. The small religious community became known as Mount Carmel.
By 1940, the Waco settlement had 64 residents and a number of buildings including a school, laundry, dormitories, garages and a common kitchen and dining area. The Shepherd’s Rod members were relatively self-sufficient; they grew their own food and raised cows. In 1942, Houteff changed the name of the community to the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, which reflected his belief in the imminent restoration of the temple of King David’s dynasty in Palestine.
By the 1950s, the Davidian’s had over ten thousand members world wide, with about 125 living full time at Mt. Carmel. An internal crisis occurred in 1955 when Victor Houteff died. His wife, Florence, assumed leadership of the group, and promptly announced through a prophetic vision that Judgment Day was imminent.
A number of apocalyptic events were to take place, including war in the Middle East and the establishment of God’s Kingdom in Jerusalem. There would be tribulation and “purification” of both the Seventh day Adventist church and the rest of the world. Prophetic events would culminate in 1260 days following her revelation, or April 22, 1959 – coincidentally, the Jewish Passover.
In order to prepare, the Branch sold their property near Waco (it is said because of encroachment by the city), and purchased 940 acres nine miles to the east. This apocalyptic redoubt was christened New Mount Carmel. In the pages of the Symbolic Code, the Davidian magazine, Florence Houteff also called upon members of the church to gather on April 16, 1959. In Students of the Seven Seals: An Organizational History (undated), Cary R. W. Voss of the Communications Studies Dept. of the University of Kansas at Lawrence described the scene:
It was also during this interim (the move to New Mt. Carmel) that Florence Houteff also issued a call for the faithful to gather...in anticipation of moving to Israel. The call was effective, and about nine-hundred people sold their homes and businesses, and moved to Texas to wait for signs of the end. It took over seventy-five tents to accommodate the pilgrims at the site. It has also been reported that many Davidians felt that Victor Houteff would be raised from the dead as a sign that the Kingdom of God was near...
Houteff’s failed prophecy didn’t receive so lofty a title as “The Great Disappointment.” Some referred to it as “the fiasco.” As a result, many left to form splinter groups. By 1962, it appears that Florence admitted her failure as a prophetess and formally dissolved the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. The property was sold and the profits distributed among the few remaining members.
The “Waco connection,” though, would again be made through Benjamin Roden, a trucking contractor who had been a Davidian since 1946. According to Ross and others, Roden believed that he had been instructed by God to write a series of seven letters to Florence Houteff, including instructions to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. This reconstruction of the Temple is a necessary precondition for the Parousia in most Christian religions. Roden also stated that God had informed him to sign these letters “The Branch,” a reference to biblical texts believed to prophesy that a man by that name would rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.Roden’s message was rejected by many of the Davidians, including Florence Houteff. It was a clear challenge to her prophetic and doctrinal leadership. In 1958, Roden led his wife Lois and a small group of Davidians to Israel in hopes of building a utopian community while awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple and the Parousia. But Houteff’s failed prophecy drew him back to Waco. In 1962, he purchased seventy-seven acres of the original New Mount Carmel land, and christened his group the “Branch Davidians.”
Along with communal work and religious instruction, biblical prophecy became a core element in Branch Davidian life. Roden labored to fit world events into an eschatological framework, and in a series of publications he wrote of the significance of everything from the energy crisis of the 70s to war in the Middle East. Curiously, Lois Roden began to report visions of her own, including revelations about the “feminine nature of the Holy Spirit.” When Ben Roden died in 1978, Lois assumed the mantle of leadership, ostensibly based on her role as the “sixth angel of Revelation.” At this point in the Branch Davidian chronology – one that stretched back through over a century of doctrinal splits and metamorphoses –a man named Vernon Howell appeared.
He would later call himself David Koresh.
Howell was born in Houston, Texas in 1959, and was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist religion of his mother. Biographical accounts show that in addition to being fascinated by biblical texts, especially the eschatological verses of Revelation and Daniel, he was also familiar with the writings of both William Miller and Ellen White. In 1981, he was working at Mt. Carmel as a handyman, but it was not until 1983 that he was disfellowshipped from the Seventh Day Adventists. Notes Voss:
This began an intense period of spiritual growth and soul searching, including long crying spells and physical denials of food, as he absorbed the teachings of Lois Roden.. He also became popular for his musical contributions to the group. He became Lois Roden’s protégé…
Lois Roden selected Howell to become her eventual successor. But rumors that the two were romantically involved reignited an earlier feud which existed between Lois and her son, George, who thought that he, not his mother, should have succeeded Benjamin Roden as head of the Branch Davidians. Things got worse when Howell decided to marry fourteen year old Rachel Jones, the daughter of a long-time member of the sect. By 1985, George Roden had temporarily won the struggle for power within the Davidian movement, and took over the Mt. Carmel compound. Vernon Howell and his young wife headed for Israel, and while there decided to change his name to David Koresh. The moniker was laden with apocalyptic significance. Koresh, a form of the name “Cyrus,” referred to the only non-Israelite to have been “anointed” (“messiah” in the Hebrew of Isaiah 45:1). Koresh “saw his role as that of the Lamb mentioned in Revelation,” and believed that he would be able to decipher the eschatological enigmas of the “seven seals.”
A string of bizarre encounters and confrontations followed that would eventually lead to the events of March, 1993, and the televised images of a burning Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas. Howell-Koresh and his followers regained control of the Mt. Carmel property, and George Roden ended up in a mental institution. Under Koresh’s leadership, the Branch Davidian compound grew, and by 1993 some 100 members were living on the grounds or nearby. The structure of life reflected the authoritarian and Millerite nature of the group’s apocalyptic philosophy. Koresh taught that the Davidians were the “wavesheaf,” a spiritual elite who would ascend to heaven prior to the rapture of the 144,000 faithful souls who would reign with the Messiah during the millennium. He also believed that Armageddon would begin with an attack on the Branch Davidians in the United States: his sermons referred to the settlement as “Ranch Apocalypse.”Flashback
The parallels linking the doomsday vision of the Millerites and that of the Branch Davidians have not escaped a range of religious, political, and cultural observers. Both were apocalyptic movements which used biblical interpretations as a template in understand events. To a great extent, they were also authoritarian: the prophetic insights of a leader are used as the basis for organizing the collective lives of followers. The millennial vision often demands the surrender not only of critical judgment and intellectual independence, but of personal autonomy as well. The sect, compound, bunker, or church community is transformed into an information-filter to shape the consciousness of followers, and assure their loyalty.The apocalyptic teachings of the Branch Davidians – combined with an array of miscalculations and, ultimately, disastrous moves by the FBI and government officials – have created an aura of pop-culture folklore which surrounds the disastrous events that took place in Waco. For many, those televised images of burning buildings symbolize apocalypse, or certainly that an apocalypse of some kind is about to happen. It is perhaps significant that once the people died and the buildings crumbled, the only thing standing at Ranch Apocalypse was the Branch Davidian flag, a black banner with the white outline of the Star of David. It had been designed by a man who called himself David Koresh.
Conrad F. Goeringer is director of American Atheists On-line Services and a contributing editor of American Atheist.