The Great Disappointment

The Great Disappointment 

He was only 19 but already a Methodist preacher for two years. He and his mother looked up at the New York night sky and witnessed the great meteor shower of 1833. Moved to prophesy, his mother stated, "Gilbert, the day of judgment is at hand." This was enough to convince him that he had just witnessed the fulfillment of Matthew 24:29 and Jesus was on His way.

"When October 22nd dawned in the Cranmer household, Gilbert was busy preparing to join his Adventist friends at a nearby schoolhouse to await the Advent. His wife, Betsy, had no intention of accompanying her husband. She sympathized with her family, the Heaths, and did not believe Miller's doctrine. When Cranmer was ready to leave the house, he prayed with her. She said, 'Gilbert, you will be back.' He left her with a heavy heart, feeling he probably would not see Betsy and their young daughter, Mary Ann, again. 

 

He and his Adventist friends read Scripture, prayed, and sang hymns while they waited for the great event. Their spirits ran high throughout the afternoon and early evening, as they were sure they were on the verge of seeing the face of their Lord and Savior. But apprehensions grew as midnight approached and no Advent. After midnight, their hearts grew heavy as Jesus' appearance seemed less likely with every passing hour. By sunrise, their expectations turned into bitter disappointment. That is the reason October 22nd, 1844, is called the Great Disappointment. 

 

As the early morning sun began to shine on October 23rd, Cranmer bid his Adventist colleagues farewell and started home with a heavy heart. On his way he was accosted by some non-Adventist neighbors who joked and shouted, 'I thought that you were going up last night.' When Cranmer arrived home, Betsy met him at the door with a smile and reminded him, 'I told you, you would be back.' 

 

After October 22 most Millerite Adventists were harassed in one manner or another but in New England especially some were jailed and others incarcerated in asylums." --The Journey: A History of the Church of God (Seventh Day) by Robert Coulter, pg. 45

Qanon conspiracy theorists and Trump Savior optimists are beside themselves now that their prophecies of a January 20th coup has come and gone. I don't know about you but I got my fair share of links sent to me by folks I know who just a year ago I thought were rational beings. Christians sharing videos from wild-eyed strangers around the country claiming their inside sources are guaranteeing a bloodbath of communists and the jailing of everyone that has been determined to be part of the swamp by Trump, Savior of the free world.

On Inauguration Day, there was supposed to be a blackout. Trump would use the National Guard and the Navy and announce Martial Law through the Emergency Alert System. Make sure you have a CB radio and stock up on toilet paper (here we go again) and food. There would be mass arrests to cleanse our Christian nation of commie scum.

Many across their forums were calling the event "The Great Awakening." Some have resigned quickly to the reality that they have been duped, it was all just a cruel hoax. Still, others are holding on to continued narratives over the following days and weeks.

Intelligence has revealed that since the Capitol riots on January 6th, white supremacists raided Parler and other alternative social media platforms in hopes of recruiting the disenfranchised. One Neo-Nazi recruiter was advising other recruiters to not focus their message on WWII but instead on Democrats and injustice toward white Christians. While many people are angry at Twitter and Facebook for a 'cancel culture', Facebook has pointed out that they removed over 60,000 pages of shit just like this starting in November.

This was such a bizarre year. It makes me wonder if the Churches of God in particular with so many years of pent up yearning and waiting for the end of the age, just finally used Savior Trump as a release. For so many years, duped people have put their whole lives on hold and sent in their hard-earned money to these serpents claiming to be doing God's Work.

It also makes me wonder why it is so much of humanity has sought Saviors down through time. I know there are any number of psychological and sociological explanations. Whatever the reasons, it seems to me that it only harms people and robs them of living a complete and fulfilling life now. And there are no shortage of thieves all too willing to take their money for the assurance that a Savior is surely coming in 'your lifetime.'

I see single people who never marry because they refuse to marry outside their tiny organizations. Smart young people deciding against higher education because they think, what's the use? Struggling families with multiple children who live paycheck to paycheck because after paying three tithes, there just isn't anything left to get their teeth fixed, let alone save or invest for retirement. What will they have to live on in their retirement years when they gave it to a ministry to send their kids to college and retire on?

Ryan Bell is a writer, speaker, and ex-Seventh Day Adventist pastor of 19 years. While I don't necessarily agree with his atheist stance on life now, he does make some poignant observations about Christianity and the need of a Savior:

Popular Christian theology...renders this lifeless meaningful by anchoring all notions of value and purpose to a paradise somewhere in the future, in a place other than where we are right now. Ironically, my Christian upbringing taught me that ultimately this life doesn’t matter, which tends to make believers apathetic about suffering and think that things will only get worse before God suddenly solves everything on the last day.

Without the dependency on a cosmic savior who is coming to rescue us, we are free to recognize that we are the ones we’re waiting for. If we don’t make the world a fair and habitable place, no one else is going to do it for us. Our lives matter because our choices affect others and our children’s future.

I don't think we need to embrace atheism to understand and embrace what it is he is saying. As I pointed out in my last post concerning Wally Smith's response to supporting causes in this world, the Churches of God have a "preach alone" dogma that excuses us from living life in the here and now. It stops us from being neighbors and helping others. That is not what Jesus taught. Matthew 25:31-46 should be the emphasis of any Christian worth his or her salt. The Churches of God are full of priests and Levites, literally stopping brethren from being samaritans. The Armstrong legacy creates an us vs them that dehumanizes humanity from the rest of us. This isn't natural or normal and eventually begins to create individual and group psychosis that pushes us further and further from reality.

As we sit on the sidelines, waiting and waiting and waiting as life passes us by, we get antsy. Something isn't right. We are waiting for a battle that never comes. So now we go looking for it. And maybe some of us find it in politics. And for the first time in a long time, we feel alive. And the next thing you know, you are a Church of God member at the Capitol on January 6th. And like Gilbert, your Great Awakening turns into a Great Disappointment.

I'm not even saying it's wrong to be involved in politics. What I am saying is that Armstrongism and possibly to a lesser degree, American style Christianity, poisons minds in a way that moves people to the unhinged fringe extremes.

This waiting on a Savior and being told that you just have to pay, pray, and stay. This feeds into delusions, distortions of reality. Convincing people to live life on pause seems to me to be one of the cruelest hoaxes in the world. New England arrested and even threw people in the asylums after the Great Disappointment! Maybe it's time we get the authorities attention on these cults so we can get the leaders like Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry, and the rest of them thrown in jail and into rubber rooms.

THINK! If Jesus is coming back, it will only be ONCE and probably not in your lifetime. These Adventist peddlers, whoring for money in the name of religion have been doing this for 180 years! Take your life back. Save yourself.

Stoned Stephen Society

See: The Great Disappointment