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Heaven Can't Wait

By Elesha Coffman, assistant editor of CHRISTIAN HISTORY

Last week's mass suicide in Uganda inevitably dredged up memories of similar incidents in the past. One Reuters report, dubbed "Mass suicides a recurrent world phenomenon," cited deaths spurred by the Solar Temple sect, a Vietnamese scam artist, a misguided Mexican pastor, David Koresh, and of course the People's Temple, led by "paranoid U.S. pastor" Jim Jones in Guyana, 1978. But groups have been gathering to await—or escape to—the next world since long before 1978.

In the second century A.D., when it was clear Christ's coming had not signaled the imminent end of the world, early theologians started speculating about concepts like the Millennium, the Antichrist, and the Second Coming. Most, like Justin Martyr (c. 100-c. 165), acknowledged the theories were just theories: "I and many others are of this opinion, and believe that such will take place … but, on the other hand, many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise." Montanus, however, declared around 172 that the Millennium had begun, that he had been given authority over the church, and that Jerusalem would soon descend near Phrygia (western Asia Minor). He was eventually condemned by the church, though not for his eschatology.

In the early 200s, a church leader in northern Asia Minor predicted Christ would come again within a year and told his followers to prepare. When the year passed uneventfully, "The virgins got married; the men withdrew to their farms; and those who had recklessly sold all their possessions were eventually to be found begging." Thoughts of the end flared again in 303, when the Roman Emperor Diocletian (whom some believed to be the first beast of Revelation 13) began the Great Persecution of the church, but the thoughts largely subsided when Emperor Constantine began restoring the church in 312. Times were so good for Christians, some believed the Millennium had already arrived.

The year 1000 seems to have passed with relatively little millennial fever, probably because anno Domini dating was fairly new and most people didn't know what year it was. However, all manner of events during the Middle Ages were assigned apocalyptic significance: attempts at church reform, plagues, wars, martyrdoms, and the ascendence of a new ruler. All of this turbulence, roiled even more by the Reformation, set the stage for one of history's most gruesome failed kingdoms, initiated in 1530 by the fiery Anabaptist Melchoir Hoffman.

Hoffman declared Strasbourg to be the New Jerusalem, and though he never advocated violence, he was deemed a threat to society and imprisoned. But his ideas had already spread, and they were soon taken up by a Dutch baker named Jan Matthys. Matthys, proclaiming himself to be Enoch (the second witness in Revelation) adjusted the New Jerusalem site to Munster and declared it a "city of refuge" from the coming destruction. As Anabaptists filled the city, Matthys took despotic control, fortified the city heavily, and prepared for battle with Munster's Roman Catholic bishop. When the battle finally came, on May 25, 1535, the bishop's army slaughtered the Anabaptists. After two days, the pile of bodies filled the cathedral square.

Fast-forward to the nineteenth century, when New England farmer William Miller, relying on prophecies from the book of Daniel and cosmic chronology supplied by James Ussher, predicted the end of the world between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. Miller's preaching drew enormous crowds, and more than 50,000 people believed him. As 1844 began, he wrote to the "second advent believers," asking, "Does your heart begin to quail? Or are you waiting for your blessed hope in the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ?" When March 21 came and went, Miller confessed his error, but one of his followers found in other verses a predicted "tarrying time" that adjusted the date to October 22. This, too, came and went, prompting a "great disappointment." Many people became bitter and disillusioned with Miller, who died a forgotten man. A small group reinterpreted his prophecy and organized themselves as the Seventh-Day Adventists.

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