page_title: Apocalypticism
section_title: Millerites and The Great Disappointment
hierarchical_section_title: Apocalypticism / Religions / Christianity / Millerites and The Great Disappointment
caption_attribution_description: English: William Miller, American Baptist preacher
context_page_description: Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation, but now it usually refers to the belief that the end of the world is imminent, even within one's own lifetime. This belief is usually accompanied by the idea that civilization will soon come to a tumultuous end due to some sort of catastrophic global event.
  These views and movements often focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and earth. Arising initially in Zoroastrianism, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic eschatological speculation.
  Apocalypticism is often conjoined with the belief that esoteric knowledge will likely be revealed in a major confrontation between good and evil forces, destined to change the course of history. Apocalypses can be viewed as good, evil, ambiguous or neutral, depending on the particular religion or belief system promoting them.
context_section_description: The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, what he called the Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to the conclusion that Daniel's "cleansing of the sanctuary" was cleansing of the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared, but October 22, 1844, came and they were disappointed.
  These events paved the way for the Adventists who formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They contended that what had happened on October 22 was not Jesus' return, as Miller had thought, but the start of Jesus' final work of atonement, the cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary, leading up to the Second Coming.
caption: Preacher William Miller, who led his followers to the Great Disappointment of 1844.
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