End of Days Prophecies
Apocalyptic Beliefs May Support a Flourishing End Times Industry
May 28, 2009
When the Puritans first arrived and established the first American Colony, they brought along with them a strict adherence to the exact letter of the Holy scriptures. Steeped in literalism, they saw themselves as bringing into reality the New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21:10.
Since in Revelations the scriptures refer to the end times, the Puritans believed the end of days was upon them. But the first generation passed and still the end had not come. And so the second generation of Puritans witnessed the First Great Awakening, which was founded largely upon their belief that the second generation was not as good as their founding father's.
These early days saw an even greater renewal of religious fervor with the arrival of the American Revolution. The Puritan founders thus viewed the birth of political and civil liberties as the birthright of a nation born of religious conviction. They truly believed they would see the end days as the realization and culmination of biblical prophecy.
The Second Great Awakening; Expansion of the End Times Industry
According to L. Michael White in Apocalypse! Apocalypticism Explained: Prophetic Belief in the United States; William Miller and the Second Great Awakening, in the early 1800s following the Revolutionary War, a bible reading farmer named William Miller brought to prominence his own new interpretation regarding the unfolding of future events.
Although Miller was hardly a great evangelist, he had the advantage of the then emerging technology on his side. The high- speed printing press with its ability to produce pamphlets, newspapers and other printed material for mass dissemination of his ideas, effectively served as a conduit for Miller's rather complicated system.
Miller was not a particularly good preacher, but he was a great teacher. He, like others in the Millerite movement were just ordinary Americans. In his ordinariness, he appealed to most people's basic sensibilities, although he still did have his skeptics. Whenever Miller incorrectly predicted an end time date, though, he clearly made a big mistake. Some of his followers literally wept in disbelief at what came to be known as the Great Disappointment.
John Darby; A New Interpretation of Prophecy - Premillennial Dispensationalism
Darby was a brilliant theologian who foresaw history unfolding in a series of prophetic stages. He and his followers carefully made note of the signs of the times. His system, which began with the Rapture was the stuff of high drama. His system suggested that Christians remain always at the ready. But he was careful to studiously avoid predicting an end date as did many of his predecessors.
Darby's system focused on predicting events that lie in the future, thereby making it virtually impossible to prove his system false. Yet in terms of prophetic belief, his system even now continues to dominate today. Darby's arguments can be powerfully appealing to believers because of his believable description of unfolding dramatic events.
The considerable history behind both the First and Second Great Awakenings, when combined with today's mass market culture, which sells millions of books and the now widely available digital media, assures that the deep theological roots and cultural forces driving this still popular belief system is unlikely to soon die.
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