I was recently reading a discussion on reddit (that I can’t find now) in which someone claimed that a relative who is somewhat higher up in the Church was telling them that top Church leaders are frequently going back and forth to Adam-ondi-Amman in preparation for the second coming, which they expect to occur during Nelson’s reign. One piece of evidence they cited was the belief / observation that Nelson is getting younger, not older. This sounded like a crazypants convo to me.
Years ago, I did a post about the Millerites and what happened in the wake of their failed predictions of the second coming. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that it didn’t completely kill the movement that the date of the second coming that their sect was based on came and went without fanfare, even though many followers had sold all their goods in anticipation of this event. So, who were the Millerites, and what did they believe?
The Millerites were a religious sect that emerged in the United States in the 1830s and 1840s, led by the preacher William Miller. They believed in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world, which they believed would occur in the year 1843 or 1844.
The Millerites arrived at this prediction by interpreting the Bible, particularly the book of Daniel, and calculating the timing of events described in the text. Miller believed that the date of the Second Coming was encoded in the Bible and that he had unlocked the code.
Many people were attracted to the Millerite movement and their message of hope and salvation, and the sect grew rapidly. However, when the predicted date of the end of the world passed without incident, the Millerites became disillusioned and many left the movement. This event, known as the Great Disappointment, was a significant setback for the Millerites and their cause. Quite a few of them went on to the next big thing, the Shakers.
Despite the disappointment, some Millerites continued to believe in the Second Coming and formed new sects, such as the Seventh-day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which still exist today.
How do you justify continued belief in something that is demonstrably false? It’s actually much easier to find ways to continue to believe than it is to let go, especially due to sunk cost. Remember, a lot of these people had sold everything in anticipation of not needing that stuff when Jesus came back. (No rainy day funds, I guess!) The justifications that prevailed may sound familiar:
“We misunderstood the date.” These folks assumed that the prophecy was right about the second coming, but the math was wrong. They just cracked the code incorrectly. Some of them recalculated to new dates, which didn’t work out either.
“We weren’t ready.” Others, in a move that made it easier to preserve their belief, instead focused on a list of things that believers had to do to prepare for the second coming; the preparation was the important part, not the event. It might have happened if only they had been more ready. Mea culpa.
“It did happen, but differently than we expected.” This one’s a little mind-blowing, but let’s go with it. These folks claimed that the second coming did happen, but it was not Jesus returning to earth so much as to earth’s waiting room, an intermediate stage between Heaven and Earth. To get him to come the rest of the way, believers had to do better, do more, really want it.
“It happened, but if you didn’t see it, you aren’t one of the chosen.” Let’s get real, at the risk of insulting a bunch of religious sects, this one sounds like straight up Emperor’s New Clothes. But, it’s accurate that some of the sects that emerged after the Great Depression believe that only 144,000 are “chosen.” The rest of us can pound sand. Whatevs.
“I have a new vision!” This one actually worked in conjunction with others on this list. Hiram Edson had a new vision of Christ’s partial return to explain why Jesus didn’t actually show up, and many found the fact that it was a vision compelling (not just the idea that it revealed).
“The date wasn’t core doctrine.” This one sure sounds familiar to me as a Mormon. Things that were preached as doctrines but later deemed stupid or false are either downgraded to policies, God changing His mind, or leaders speaking as men. Psychologically, this seems like the most tenable approach when you preach an idea (as the Millerites did with the specific date of the second coming) that is demonstrably wrong. Bear in mind, people joined the Millerites because of the date. They could get a to-do list of commandments anywhere. The sect only happened because of the date. No date, no Millerites.
If you search online to see which sects are millenarian (believing in the second coming), LDS are right up there, and yet I’m not sure that the emphasis on this has been super strong in the last twenty years. If you’ve ever read the Watchtower magazine the Jehovah’s Witnesses give out, it is all lambs and lions lying down together during the millenial reign. It’s their core doctrine. Until Nelson’s rule, I would have said we were not very focused on it, but maybe that’s just been my experience.
Many early Saints received Patriarchal blessings (hundreds of them, it seems) that claimed that the second coming would occur before they died, and yet, they’ve been dead for a long time now. It doesn’t seem to have hampered the Church’s ability to grow. In fact, the Church seems to have been more successful in the decades since this has been less of a focus. As I recall, Bruce R. McConkie fooled around with second coming dates a bit, but also was wise enough not to claim too much either. Once you start putting dates out there, you can be disproven. Deadlines only work to increase productivity and sense of purpose until people see that they are made up. The Millerites who clung to dates lost faith. The ones who shifted to things more in their own control stuck around and formed new faiths.
Personally, I was shocked when Pres. Eyring hinted that the Church’s amassed fortune was in anticipation of the second coming (when the Ensign Peak whisteblower’s story first surfaced). I guess I was shocked on a few fronts: 1) because we hadn’t been talking much about the second coming, 2) I always have a vague sense that second coming talk is fanatical wishful thinking, something unsavory and embarrassing, and 3) why would Jesus need a buttload of money? Since when was Jesus about money? Are we just really bad gift-givers? But in serious, having read Jesus’ parables as many times as I have, it seems nuts to me that Jesus would find this kind of hoarding copascetic. I mean, yes, we grew our talents (because talents are money and not talents) through investing, and yes, we always have the poor with us, but for the love of Pete, why aren’t we doing more to help the poor?? I can only conclude that it’s not important to top leaders to do so, that the charitable endeavor is to prop up the Church’s power and wealth and political influence, particularly in the wrong side of culture wars. As Biden says, show me your budget, and I’ll show you your values.
But I digress. My point is that maybe the Church is more millenarian than I am (it is, if it is at all), and that our current top leaders are probably more into this than prior ones were. I don’t put a lot of stock in the story that was shared on reddit about them travelling to Missouri to put hospitality chocolates on the pillow for the Savior because wild-eyed believers who claim to have the inside scoop are a dime a dozen, even with inflation. Everyone knows someone who wants to bolster their Mormon cred by claiming to have hidden knowledge. It could be true, but it could also be one guy’s self-aggrandizing fantasy.
- Do you think the Church is more or less focused on the second coming than it was a few decades ago? If more, why?
- Have you seen examples of these Millerite post-disillusionment strategies play out in the Church? Can you cite examples?
- Do you (or did you) find second coming talk compelling and important? Is it a core doctrine or a hobby horse for people who should probably just take up Sudoku?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
“It did happen, but differently than we expected.”
The Baha’s say Miller was right, and that Christ “returned” in Qajar Dynasty Persia in the person of the Bab (forerunner of the Baha’i founder).
My favorite prophecy is from the Church of the SubGenius, which teaches that the pleasure saucers will rupture true SubGenii away on July 5, 1998 (“X-Day”), so long as their dues are paid up. Afterwards some SubGenii thought that maybe numbers get turned upside-down in the spiritual plane, so that the real year is actually 8661. But others think that the Conspiracy has confused us about what year this is. Maybe this year the saucers will come.
Wouldn’t we know if our top church leaders were constantly visiting Missouri? And what would they be doing there? That claim seems ridiculous.
I know people who get very focused on the second coming and spend a lot of time “studying” scriptures and reading fundie type commentaries. They are good people but I think it’s a hobbyhorse that seems misguided. Honestly I don’t see this type of focus as bearing good fruit but I think it may be feeding some psychological need to feel “in the know” or special in some way.
Having completed a study regarding the rise of the SDA and LDS faiths, an interesting note is that JS said William Miller was correct in his calculations regarding the then soon return of Christ. He also mocked William Miller for such beliefs.
How did the two polar opposite positions occur? Quite simply, JS stated the Miller was right according to the Bible, but since the Bible contained errors and mistranslations….
P.S. If Wheat and Tares is interested in my study, I’m glad to forward it on at no charge and no restrictions in its use.
Ah, yes…the ever recurring faith promoting rumor story. A favorite go to for bored missionaries, over zealous seminary teachers and second cousins of second tier GAs.
That might be an interesting topic itself. “Top 10 FPRSs” I would expext at least two “3 Nephite tales” and one J”esus walks the temple after hours” stories to make it in.
References at General Conference to the Second Coming seem cyclical. There is a really cool website called LDS Conference Corpus where you can search how often a word or phrase was used at all LDS general conferences since 1850 (by decade). If you search the term “second coming,” you find that there was a large use of that term in the general conferences in the 1870s (including 1875 where Wilford Woodroof mocked the “Millerites” and their predictions of the second coming that you refer to above). Then the popularity of that phrase kind of dies out. Then starting in 1930, the use of “second coming” in general conference increases each year to its all time high usage in the 1970s (on the website you can actually reach the context of the usage, and there was a lot of dire predicting going on in the 1970s, none of which, of course, has come to pass as predicted). But then usage of “second coming” at general conference dies out again– for a while. But, in the 2020s, use of the term has greatly increased (and is on record decade pace so far!). The data says: it is cyclical. (I believe the term “covenant path”, which first was used in conference by Elaine Dalton in 2007 October General Conference and has spread like wildfire through the leadership and vocabulary of the church, will also see a life cycle and eventually die out– it is a language usage cycle)(let’s hope so, at least!).
I believe that no one knows when the second coming is, and that people who speak authoritatively about it are fearful, or speculative, or attention-seeking. Far too many church members seem to look forward to that time as a day of retribution and vengeance and “I told you so.” That is not consistent with my view of God’s love. Shouldn’t we just try to live loving and kind lives every day, no matter what? Wondering about the Second Coming seems like a waste of time.
My wife and I moved to a small rural Utah town 7 years ago. Although millennial talk has been a hot topic as long as I can remember (I’m 65), it has definitely increase in the last few years. In our small town it seems to be a given that Christ is coming in the next 5-10 years. For the first 6 years here the drought was a sign of the second coming. Now this spring we are worried about floods because of all the snow we received. Excess snow and floods are now a sign of the second coming. In 2018 an older gentleman in our ward told us we were wasting our time planting fruit trees, cause Christ would return before the trees would be mature. Apparently Christ doesn’t eat fruit.
One small event in 2020 seemed to be all the proof some ward members needed that Christ was returning and returning now! When a small earthquake caused Moroni to drop his trumpet from atop the SL Temple, you would have thought Christ was there to catch it before it hit the ground.
I retired after 25+ years of church employment in SLC. I started my employment during the Benson tenure and there was talk even back then of the brethren visiting Adam-ondi-Amman often in preparation of Christ’s return. For some of the hardcore Adam-ondi-Amman preppers the irrefutable clincher was that port-a-potties had been put in place. Personally, I hope Christ finds better facilities when he arrives.
I am currently reading a fascinating book who’s subtitle is “Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”. There is a chapter on dooms day, millennial predictions. It’s worth the read. It’s called “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)” by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson.
What’s going on is a simple quid pro quo (please note, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek):
LDS leaders are coming to Missouri to show Community of Christ leaders how to grow an investment portfolio, while CofC leaders are teaching their LDS counterparts how to share the peace of Jesus Christ. A win/win for everybody.
Seriously, though, all branches of latter-day saints have found it increasingly difficult to maintain millenialist ideas as we’ve moved from a pre-modern to modern to postmodern world. Why limit a returned Jesus to one place at a time when the Spirit of the Resurrected Christ is already everywhere? In the meantime, as a resident of Jackson County, Missouri, I’ll keep an eye out for construction crews tearing down the LDS Visitors Center across the street from the CofC Auditorium and Temple (and Church of Christ, Temple Lot headquarters) in Independence in order to make way for the biggest and most glorious LDS temple ever.
In the meantime the KC Temple, about 10 miles north and across the Missouri River in Clay County, will no doubt remain open for business.
What’s really sad is the families that get uprooted and moved to Missouri, as close to the site as possible, in one or both parents’ zealous prep for the Terrible & Glorious Day. I’ve heard the locals are not particularly welcoming or amused.
While it’s true Wilford Woodruff was critical of the Millerites and subsequent Seventh-day Adventist, please note he observed Saturday-Sabbath before joining the LDS Church. He then said he would rather lay aside the Bible if it meant not believing JS was a prophet.
Not really the post of the OP, but if I really expected the 2nd coming to arrive soon, I wouldn’t invest in stocks, which are typically considered long term investments, which is what the church seems to have done.
I grew up in the Benson era and I remember talking about the 2nd coming frequently. As a teenager once I asked my seminary teacher if a particular sin would result in my burning at the 2nd coming. It’s scary to kids and but can be great fun for some fundamentalists because they can plan to be among the few remaining after the purge.
It’s interesting and paradoxical. I know prolly a dozen people, including close family, who are the nicest people if you meet them in the store, but they have a mini arsenal and a respectable cache of food and gold at home ready to defend themselves and survive at all costs. I guess during the separation of wheat from tares we are exempt from caring for our fellow man.
I never know how to prepare for the Second Coming, because no one can seem to be very specific about what is going to happen. The CoJCoLDS website says “it will be a day of peace for the righteous,” so I take that to mean that I won’t need any guns. If I need guns to protect myself, that is definitely not a day of peace. (Clearly, I’m presuming that I’m righteous. If not, whether I have guns or not will be the least of my worries, right?) If all the bad people just get burned up, I shouldn’t need any food storage, because I can just go to my wicked neighbors homes and take their food. It’s not stealing, because they’re dead. Also, if a sizable segment of the human population is wiped out, we should have short term over supply of food. I’ll just go the the (righteous) grocery store and buy everything. With demand way down, prices should also come down. They’ll practically be begging me to take perishable food because they wouldn’t have room to throw it all out. The resurrected people don’t need to eat food (cuz they can’t die), but maybe they’ll want to eat food? But they shouldn’t need it, and if their body is perfect, they can’t even get physically tired (because that doesn’t sound perfect to me) which means we should have a healthy number of people that are capable and willing to work, but that don’t even need to eat. (Do they sleep? Doesn’t sound like heaven if there aren’t naps. But maybe, like food, it isn’t required, but still a fun option for the resurrected?) Anyway, huge boon to the work force, because the resurrected should all be able to work. Unless of course all those parents get to raise every single one of their resurrected children. And since every child that has ever died should get resurrected, and because infant mortality rates were really high in the past, is it possible that the majority of all resurrected people are going to be babies that still need raising?
But really, the point is, before I can make any concrete plans for how I’ll be spending the second coming (again, presuming my own righteousness) I can’t begin to know how to prepare. Do I need guns? Or should I be stockpiling cribs for all those babies? (Will the babies sleep through the night?) (Maybe all those babies are why we have those “nursing fathers” bits in the bible?) Until we get at least a full session of General Conference to clear some things up, I think my best course is to just keep on living a normal life like I have been, and doing my best to learn to be nice to other people, like Jesus told me to.
According to some LDS, Jesus is coming soon, and Donald Trump was sent to usher in the great day. Argh.
Mormon eschatology seems rather dark in its imagery (the righteous–faithful LDS–will be saved while everyone else will burn) and seems to have lost some of the attention it used to be afforded by church leaders and followers compared to a quarter of a century ago, at least according to my understanding and observations.
When I was a boy in the early 1980’s, this topic seemed to received a lot of attention in my rural area that was located a ways outside of the Mormon trail. High council speakers seemed to talk about it more, and it was discussed routinely in my household. That was also a time in which Cleon Skousen was asserting the general time frame when the Savior would return to the earth. I remember my parent’s watching a video series he produced about the Middle East that was full of esoterica and mysticism. It seems to me, at least where I grew up, more members were captivated by Mormon mysticism than I see today, including all things related to the mysteries of the second coming. Most of the rehortic certainly fell within the category of religious crazytown/fundamentalism. My parents were extremely orthodox, but my father always had this vein of cynicism in him that would pop out from time-to-time, and he recognized how unhinged some of the talk in our stake was and called it out in our home, adding much needed religious balance to our family. Once, after my mom was done with a monologue about the second coming and our need to be worthy to be one of the elect, my dad sneered that’s fine but until then the garden still needs to be weeded, lawn mowed and cars repaired. I really appreciated that about him.
We did have some real excitement during that time in the mid 1980s. My mom came home one day to tell us three families from a neighboring ward had up and moved in the night to Missouri, and rumors were they received a phone call telling them they were needed and to pack their station wagons and head east immediately. Almost as quickly, a letter went out from the stake president saying those families had fallen prey to an apostate group and that no member would ever receive a secret call telling them they need to pull out on short notice. The stake president carefully explained how any instructions regarding the second coming would come from Salt Lake City, directly from the prophet. It was during this time that the entire idea of Zion started to shift away from a physical place (in Missouri) and be redefined as wherever saints were gathered: your home, your ward, your stake whether in the US or abroad, was Zion. My recollection is that sermonizing about the literal gathering, of Zion in Missouri and the second coming started to fade in the 1990s–it just wasn’t talked about like it had been.
Today, the only members I know who seem to be preoccupied with the literal second coming are those who do so for reasons of escape. It’s a great idea that stands in contrast to the problems of life they struggle to confront. Naturally, religion in general plays this kind of role, but for these people I know, it’s something more, and includes their being able to satiate their desire to see the wicked burn (or those they don’t like). Their yearning for the second coming seems as motivated as much by spite and warped justice as it does to see the lamb and the lion napping together in a pasture on a warm day.
I doubt there is credence to the rumors of GA’s making round trips to Missouri…but then again I wouldn’t put it past RMN to want to further cement his legacy with sometime big, like increased land holdings around the American Garden of Eden, of the LDS Zion, possibly even a grand temple there to welcome back the Savior.
My brother-in-law is ready for the 2nd coming. He has expressed concern for me and my family living overseas, and suggested that we move to Utah so we can be protected with the righteous saints there when the crap hits the fan (presumably during Biden’s presidency) and all the calamities preceding the 2nd coming happen. He’s a gem. I still feel living safe overseas, and I plan on staying overseas until retirement, and possibly beyond. I don’t anticipate the 2nd coming happening in my lifetime. (Side note: I also think that if the 2nd coming were to happen, it won’t just be the righteous people in Utah that are protected while the rest of the world perishes).
Another interesting sidenote: Zla’od posted a comment about a year ago about the Baha’i faith, which led me into a deep study of the Baha’is. The year 1844 is the year the Baha’u’llah proclaimed himself to be the promised redeemer of Islam, and ultimately, the return of Jesus Christ as the new Manifestation of God for this dispensation. A Baha’i interpretation of the Millerite prediction that the 2nd coming would happen in 1844 would be that “It did happen, but differently than we expected.”
My perception is that President Nelson believes the Second Coming is imminent. Here’s one example:
“As President of His Church, I plead with you who have distanced yourselves from the Church and with you who have not yet really sought to know that the Savior’s Church has been restored. Do the spiritual work to find out for yourselves, and please do it now. Time is running out,” he said.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/time-is-running-out-do-the-necessary-spiritual-work-president-nelson-says?lang=eng
Of course, it may be that he is saying time is running out because we’re all getting older.
Christians have believed that Christ would return soon for somewhere around 2000 years. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have believed that Christ would return soon for somewhere around 200 years. I was told in the 60’s and 70’s that we were the elect saved for the last days immediately prior to the Second Coming. My children were taught the same thing in the early 2000s. And now my grandchildren are being taught the same thing.
I find it hard to be either very excited or very upset about the entire issue. We’ve misunderstood so much and for so long that I pretty much assume we’re still misunderstanding. (Though I could well be wrong. LOL) My focus is on being the best person I can be and trying to continue growth and improvement.
There are two Mormonisms. There is the public one, as displayed in General Conference, and then there is the actual Mormonism that you find in Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society lessons and everywhere else. That second version is the one everybody believes, and yes, they all know that Jesus is just around the corner.
When the Church says second coming, doesn’t LDS beliefs include multiple mini-second comings in various world locations just before the grand second coming? Just which one are we talking about here?
I think the Church is slightly less focused on the Millennium and the time leading up to it than they were in decades past, largely because it doesn’t make a ton of difference in the Church’s counsel and purpose. I can prepare for bad times, whether that be job loss, depression, government instability, etc., even if it’s only temporary. Being prepared is common sense, no matter what impending form the threat comes in. Likewise, if I’m preparing spiritually to be like God and His Son, it has the same effect of not being burned (something I tend to think more as figurative, as in the Holy Ghost burning out our imperfections and the burning we might feel from the flush of embarrassment—we’ll all be burned to an extent). So basically, if you live the Lord’s/Church’s teachings of looking outside yourself and making yourself useful for the future, you’ve essentially prepared for the Millennium and the time leading up.
As a Primary kid in the 80s and 90s, I pictured time leading up to the millennium as chaotic, as in avoiding Indiana Jones-ish cracks opening up in the road on my way to school. Nowadays, when I look at things, I think one could argue that most of the signs and prophecies have happened. I don’t think the Second Coming will occur on a day much different than today.
It’s a slight tangent, but one thing about millenarianism that does bug be a bit is those members who prepare spiritually and physically, but more or less give up in the fight against evil because “that’s just supposed to happen.” Looking at a few teachings from early prophets, you get the sense that although things are going to get bad, they have to get good again for the Savior to return. We have to prepare the way. Although I do think there will be a noticeable date in which one can pinpoint the start of the Millennium, I think we’ll phase into it far more early than many members think. It will take a lot of work, but it also instills in me a fair amount of optimism (stocks would probably be one of the least of my concerns in this case, but with this mindset, I could see why a person or organization would continue to invest, even if the millennial monetary system gets a huge revamp).
I personally enjoy discussing it on occasion. I’m of the mindset it will be later, rather than sooner, but I’ve never been interested in trying to pinpoint a date.
I also know a number of people with a cache of guns and food to supply a small army. Nearly all of them are more than willing to share too, just not with those who would harm others to take it by force. I have a feeling that at least in Utah, we’ll be giving it all to the Stake for distribution should it come to that.
I’m aware of a former Q70 released in 2018 who is/was on a mission thereafter at the church sites in Missouri; I heard through the grapevine it was sort of secret (and possibly sacred).
I’m also aware of people still feeling compared to move now to Missouri for these end-of-days scenarios. Seems a bit presumptuous, almost like arranging your own 2nd anointing.
I have a secret desire to move to Branson !! Also, I could just put a tiny house in the backyard of my Methodist relatives in KCMO.
Maybe the Church leaders talk less about the second coming nowadays because the comments would go viral on the Internet and get mocked in a way that wasn’t as readily available as in previous, less technological, decades. My teen years were in the 80s, and we were assured we were the ones who would “usher in the Second Coming.” That verb was used a lot. I don’t know what else we usher around, but the Second Coming gets ushered.
I am a Second Coming skeptic. Christ hasn’t come back in 2000 years, and it’s just not something I think about anymore.
Jesus is coming soon but only to escort Russell M. Nelson home.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I remember being fascinated with the second coming. I think there was a Sunday school lesson about the second coming every year straight from the manuals. Each time we would make three lists of signs of the times: signs that had happened, signs currently happening, and signs that were yet to happen.
The excitement ramped up when Mormon Doctrine was reprinted and everyone had to get a copy and consult it before every lesson and talk. I remember pouring over the entry of signs of the times over and over again.
Sometimes I was a full believer, and sometimes I had serious doubts, but I was always super interested in what was supposed to happen.
Eventually I realized that the there was a lot of confusion about what the signs mean and whether they had happened or were happening. And, all the contradictions. There will be wars and rumors of wars, but the lion will lie down with the lamb. No man knows the day or the hour, but the righteous will see the signs and understand.
And of course, no rainbows for a year. What?
My parents are still into it. When a family friend who had run a successful green house business was called to a mission to run church farm and green house like operations in the Missouri area, my parents tried to convince me that this was The Big Deal, like any day now the righteous will get their special invitation to go to Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and I should start getting ready. Sigh. This was not super long ago.
We don’t hear as much about it now. I don’t know but I doubt that Come Follow Me lesson schedule has much on the second coming. But the kind of thing in the culture doesn’t go away quickly just by not talking about it. I still think the church is quite Millenarian.
The Millennium has been completely erased from “Preach My Gospel” — or actually, it was never included in book in the first place. I don’t understand why, because the thousand-year period is a wonderful aspect of the gospel that sets everything right that was wrong in this life.
When I was in YW girls’ camp was very different than it is now. Back in the day we actually learned real skills like orienteering, knot tying, making different kinds of fires, cooking in the outdoors, how to lash latrines and showers, pitching tents, etc. As someone who was raised to love camping and hiking I was in happy heaven with the idea of camp until our stake YW president and our SP told us on our second night at camp my first year that we were learning these skills now because we’d need them when we were called back to Jackson County, MO when the Savior returned. According to them, we would have to walk back there because the roads would somehow already be destroyed. They managed to freak out every girl at camp and even our leaders. Who needed to tell scary stories at night to the first year girls (a time honored girls’ camp tradition from back in the time when my grandmother went to one of the church’s first girls’ camps back in 1920 for her first time) after our SP scared us to death with the Rapture and the terrifying and dangerous trek back to MO? I can guarantee you that the thought of being instantly fried while our more righteous family members and friends were caught up to meet Jesus while the entire earth was in a state of conflagration everywhere kept us up at night because we were absolutely terrified that the call to Missouri or the Rapture would happen when we were asleep. Girls’ camp was suddenly fully fraught with the fear that we wouldn’t learn the skills we were supposed to learn in preparation for the trek to MO well enough so that we’d be left behind-with the sinners. I remember telling my dad about my fears because I began to have terrible nightmares after my first year at camp. He was angry that we girls had been emotionally manipulated in such an abusive way by our stake leaders. After talking to my mom and his sister he discovered that they’d received the same kind of stories at girls’ camp. He was surprised because he’d never heard that kind of garbage at scout camp.
I was so grateful when the talk about the Rapture and the terrible trek to Missouri died out. It dismays me to think that it’s beginning again. Personally, I think that talk like that is emotionally abusive and unproductive. Jackson County isn’t big enough for the entire church to gather there to begin with. Jesus said that even He didn’t know when the Second Coming was supposed to happen. Are we really so much more in tune with God than He is? Besides, I have a strong feeling that when He does come there will be a lot of people who will be surprised by who the Savior chooses to associate with. IMHO many of those people who now are considered by themselves and others to be oh such “righteous” members and leaders of the our church along with other churches and spiritual communities will find themselves on the outside. Many of the “lesser” folks will be Christ’s companions. It’s going to be a very different experience than we’ve been taught. Using fear to scare people into “being good” is just plain wrong and it eventually backfires when people wise up to it. God and Jesus don’t operate that way. That’s just my opinion.
The Church leaders must be all in on Millennialism and the Second Coming. Otherwise, why would they be sitting on $236B in assets (Widow’s Mite report)? The world needs help. Time to share in the wealth.
It seems like anytime the church is struggling with activity and growth or especially attrition, they start talking second coming and start pushing missions again. Combine that with Nelson being such a huge narcissist that he may believe he was chosen to be the prophet at the second coming and you get triple down on the second coming. And they are pushing missions heavy again (going after 50+ year old’s now, that demographic must be suffering).
In an October 2011 General Conference talk, Boyd K. Packer said to the young people of the Church, “Sometimes you might be tempted to think as I did from time to time in my youth: ‘The way things are going, the world’s going to be over with. The end of the world is going to come before I get to where I should be.’ Not so! You can look forward to doing it right—getting married, having a family, seeing your children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren.”
So, was he speaking as a prophet (in which case it’s going to be a LONG wait for the Second Coming, given that a 15-year-old in 2011 may just now be having a child and a grandchild is at least 25 years away); or as a man?
Two months ago at BYU Elder Neil L Andersen spoke and told the students to think about the next 50 years of life, “if the Savior has not returned yet.”
A sure thing just like my college hoops bracket picks…
aporetic1, ” The year 1844 is the year the Baha’u’llah proclaimed himself to be the promised redeemer of Islam, and ultimately, the return of Jesus Christ as the new Manifestation of God for this dispensation.”
Not quite. 1844 was the Declaration of the Bab (Baha’u’llah’s predecessor, as Baha’is understand things). The Declaration of Baha’u’llah was in 1863, but not made public until 1866. This was in the context of factional fighting among Babi exiles, between supporters of Baha’u’llah and supporters of his half-brother Subh-i-Azal (the actual person whom the Bab had appointed as his successor). The religious claims being made by the Bab and Baha’u’llah evolved and are a bit murky–Baha’is depict both as independent religious founders, like Christ or Muhammad, but this is anachronistic, and both movements were effectively Shi’ite sects. Interestingly, Westerners who joined in the 1890s often did so because they were told that Christ had returned–in the person of Baha’u’llah’s son ‘Abdu’l-Baha. (He later denied this.) I think the reasoning was that Baha’u’llah was God, so his son must be the son of God. Plus he lived in Galilee!
There is a recent Baha’i movie, “The Miller Prediction,” which dramatizes their view (with Utah or Arizona standing in for Ottoman Palestine). Check out the trailer! Pure bulldada:
(The whole movie is on YouTube too.)
Does your brother-in-law understand that Utah is a desert? I also wonder why people think they will need guns at the Second Coming. Are they planning to shoot angels?
I think that your lack of exposure to this kind of thinking is likely due to growing up on the east coast. In Utah growing up, I heard about the second coming all the time. All. The. Time. We talked about adam-ondi-amman all the time, and how we’d be asked to leave everything to go. We had firesides linking up how events occurring in the middle east were fulfilling prophesy and showing us that the second coming was around the corner. We talked about how the prophets that would be killed in Jerusalem (there’s some prophesy about this?!?!) were already born and maybe it was one of the boys in the room! I know people whose patriarchal blessings said that they’d be alive for the second coming. I also know some whose said they wouldn’t, so then they knew it wouldn’t come till grandma was dead.
In more recent years, I think the talk has toned down (my kids prob don’t know what adam-ondi-amman is) but it’s still very much there under the surface. I always find myself surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be, when I hear people talk about the second coming as if it is literal and imminent. I realize oh yeah, the Mormons all around me actually still think that! Even really smart ones. Many people who feel we are just slogging out a sinful world and hoping that Jesus comes and makes everything better soon goshdarnit.
Also, even if Nelson doesn’t talk about it a whole lot, he and his ilk all grew up with this belief and I highly doubt it’s changed. I think all the talk about “the gathering” is very much second-coming related. That story from Andersen is nuts.
So yeah. It’s for sure there, and I believe it motivates much of the way the Church deals with (by which I mean, refuses to deal with) problems.
NYAnn,
I think another way think about what Boyd K. Packer said is to assume that even if the Lord returned today we’d still have things to do. We’d carry on with the raising of our families and other essential activities of mortal life.
That said, I’m of the opinion that the Second Coming won’t happen for a while yet. Even so, whether we meet the Lord when he returns or when we pass on to the other side–it’s the same. Both the Second Coming and the death of the mortal body are always imminent.
@Zla’od, thank you for that clarification… and for that movie trailer. I’ve never fully understood their truth claims about the Bab and Baha’u’llah, and Abdu’l-Baha or the difference between a “Manifestation of God” and a “Prophet”. But besides some of their more supernatural claims, they seem to have really good teachings and values. And they seem to be sincere people trying to follow God’s will… (kind of like the Mormons).
They also seem to be preparing for Zion (or a for a time when all nations come together and there will be no wars, and we will be of one heart and one mind) so maybe one day we can team up with them on that. But they don’t expect another return of a Manifestation of God for about another 1,000 years or so- they think this unity of mankind will come because we will make it so, not because of supernatural forces coming to make it so. (Again, please correct me if I’m wrong in my understanding).
I always understood “the gathering” to be related to the immortals in Highlander…
Regardless of whether you think the Second Coming is, well, coming, it remains an important aspect of LDS teachings. It helps to reinforce the kinds of sacrifices that are expected of the “elect” in mortality in anticipation of the Savior’s arrival, not to mention underscoring the need to remain separate and distinct from “the world.”
That being said, however, there was definitely a noticeable drop-off in Second Coming/apocalyptic references (not to mention a de-emphasis of a two-year supply of food, urging members to garden, etc.) in the 1990s and early 2000s compared to the 1970s and 1980s. I cannot count how many Elders Quorum lessons I sat through where people would make lists of the “signs of the times” in the scriptures and then figure out how many still needed to happen before the Second Coming could happen. I would imagine that the end of the Cold War–and the omnipresent threat of potential nuclear annihilation that went with it–had something to do with that…not to mention the fact that the Second Coming did not happen at the end of the 6th 1000 years in 2000 (as some members anticipated).
The urban legends of members being called to move to Missouri, the secret preparations underway for the Second Coming, and other millenialist stories have a long history. My favorite–which had a great deal of currency during my mission in the Midwest in the late 1980s–was that there was a pre-fab temple already in storage near Independence that could be erected in a matter of hours when the big day occurred.
aporetic1, Islam distinguishes between major and minor prophets–not based on book length, as in Judaism, but primarily on whether they reveal new laws and/or found a new religious dispensation. The Arabic words are rasul and nabi, although they do blend, and Muhammad gets called a rasul in the shahada but a nabi in the name of Medina, al-medinat al-nabi (the “City of the Prophet,” formerly Yathrib). In Shi’ism, the prophets and imams are thought to be…I don’t want to say “divine,” but at least to reflect God more directly (like mirrors), and be his first creations and his living proofs. In other words, “manifestations of God” (mazhar illahji). So this is the (neo-Platonic) tradition the Baha’is inherited. In English they do write “Manifestations “(of God), but also call Baha’u’llah the “Prophet-Founder” of their faith (since not all prophets are religious founders). No, the next one cannot appear before the 29th century.
In their belief, world unity has been willed by God and will definitely come to pass, through human processes (think of the UN) that are divinely guided on some level, (In the 20th century there were Baha’i books predicting world peace by the end of that century, but they’ve walked this back!) They distinguish between the Lesser Peace (effective multilateral arrangements preventing war) and after that, the Greater Peace (a global civilization in which war is unthinkable).
PS. Before world peace, Baha’is expect “the Calamit.y.” This is more of a folk belief than a formal teaching, and the details are not well defined, but Baha’u’llah’s great-grandson Shoghi Effendi used to warn pilgrims to flee the cities. I think he expected a third World War:
https://bahai-library.com/wwwboard/messages00/626.html
Not picking on certain apostles but per the Church News here is a recent quote from Andersen, minus any speculative millenial timeline:
“Brazil is going to play an important part to help prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Savior…We are preparing a people worthy to welcome the Savior at His Second Coming.”
Elisa, yes there is a prophecy about 2 prophets lying dead in the streets of Jerusalem for 3 days, then being resurrected, prior to the second coming. I know it fairly well, and have my mom’s voice quoting it in my memory file, explaining how it could refer to apostles or missionaries. (But not women, so we dodged that bullet.) It’s in Revelations 11, which is a pretty good read for folks who can hardly wait for punishment to fall upon the godless lib’ruhls.
I don’t dispute the prophecy of a second coming simply because -perhaps- it’s possible, but we don’t know the future. Not even the most ardent believer knows. And I think there’s a boatload of specific details paraded around as fact, without ever (yet) having happened. I guess that pushes me over a line into skeptic territory.
I do remember people talking about the signs of the times when I was growing up, but there have always been earthquakes and wars, so it’s all so vague. Even the thing about two apostles or missionaries or whatever lying dead in the street could mean just about anything. Is a journalist a sort of prophet? Is a sassy best friend?
I always wondered about the JS prediction that there would be no rainbows in the year before the second coming because it just seemed so nutty. I always breathed a sigh of relief (as a teen) when I’d see a rainbow because between you & me, I didn’t really want Jesus gate-crashing my graduation parties and school dances. Like, I didn’t want my senior year to get cancelled for the Rapture, for example. Of course, my own daughter ended up having hers cancelled for a pandemic (and my mom’s was impacted by WW2), so I guess it skipped a generation. But the one question I always had about the rainbows was about when you see a prism in an oil spill–did that count? What about when you make a rainbow in the spray from the garden hose? I used to occasionally do that just in case.
We should just cancel the book of revelation. It’s baloney.
Angela, I love those superstitious things you did. I would totally have done the same thing. And I’m pretty sure we interpreted the prophet as literally someone in the first presidency or quorum of the twelve.
So, can one be a “good” Mormon and believe in Postmillennialism, or even that He won’t be coming back in any way that we imagine? Just askin’.