1. Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses, insisted that a spiritual translation had indeed occurred in 1878. At that moment those among the elect who had died were raised into heaven, and thereafter anyone of the elect still living in 1878 would be translated immediately upon death into Christ's presence; they would not linger in the grave. See Rogerson, Alan, Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah's Witnesses (London: Constable, 1969)Google Scholar; Vandenberg, Albert V.. “Charles Taze Russell: Pittsburgh Prophet, 1879–1909,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 69 (01 1986): 3–20Google Scholar; Gaustad, Edwin Scott, Dissent in American Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 114–16Google Scholar. On the Good Friday vigil, see Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti, Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 51Google Scholar; Rogerson, , Millions Now Living, p. 9.Google Scholar

2. Signs of the Times, 04 15, 1840, p. 14Google Scholar. Much of Miller's biographical details are taken from Dick, Everett N., “The Millerite Movement, 1830–1845,” in Adventism in America, ed. Land, Gary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), ch.1.Google Scholar

3. Dick, , “Millerite Movement,” pp. 9, 13–15.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 18.

5. Ibid., pp. 29–30; on the “ascension robes,” see pp. 21–22.

6. On this rather tortuous transition, see Butler, Jonathan, “From Millerism to Seventh-Day Adventism: ‘Boundlessness to Consolidation,’” Church History 55 (03 1986): 50–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Seventh-day Adventist membership statistics, see Land, ed., Adventism in America, appendix 2.

7. See Watts, Pauline Moffitt, “Prophecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus's ‘Enterprise of the Indies,’” American Historical Review 90 (02 1985): 73–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Watts argues that, although the historiography (especially Samuel Eliot Morison's The Admiral of the Ocean Sea) has portrayed Columbus as a man of science and rationality, Columbus was increasingly consumed by apocalyptic ideology and his own destiny.

8. Carl Whorley, who describes himself as pastor/teacher at the Tanglewood Baptist Church, Roanoke, Virginia, offers a fairly standard evangelical definition for rapture. He defines it as a “special event when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will come down from heaven and hover over the earth. He will call the dead, bornagain Christians out of the grave, and then after that the saints who are alive and still on this earth at this event. He will then take them off of the earth as well and take them back to heaven to be with Him” (transcription taken from cassette tape entitled “The Rapture of the Church,” distributed by Tanglewood Baptist Church, Roanoke, Virginia).

9. Some evangelicals have even suggested Ronald Wilson Reagan as the Antichrist, in part because there are six letters in each of his names, corresponding to the mark of the beast, 666, foretold in Revelation 13:18.

10. For a survey of various views, see Clouse, Robert G., ed., The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity Press, 1977)Google Scholar. Timothy P. Weber has diagrammed some of the various possibilities; see Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1982 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 2nd ed., p. 10.Google Scholar

11. For Edwards's apocalyptic views, see The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 5. Apocalyptic Writings, ed. Stein, Stephen J. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), esp. pp. 27–29.Google Scholar

12. Quoted in Fogarty, Robert S., ed., American Utopianism (Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock, 1972), p. 18Google Scholar. For an explication of complex marriage and its millennial justification, see Robertson, Constance Noyes, Oneida Community: An Autobiography, 1851–1876 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1970), ch. 9.Google Scholar

13. Hatch, Nathan O., The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Bloch, Ruth, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), chs. 2–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the connection between New Light evangelicalism and patriotism, see also Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind from the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966)Google Scholar. Melvin B. Endy, Jr., takes issue with interpretations of the American Revolution that posit strong undercurrents of millennialism in the patriot rhetoric. Endy insists that evangelicals more often cast their rationalizations for revolution in the language of justwar theory. See “Just War, Holy War, and Millennialism in Revolutionary America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 42 (01 1985): 3–25.Google Scholar

14. Quoted in Moore, Peter N., “Westward the Course of Empire: Hermon Husband and the Frontier Millennium,”Google Scholar typescript of a paper lent by the author. On Husband, see also Bloch, , Visionary Republic, pp. 72–74, 113–14, 182–84.Google Scholar

15. This latter point is made by Frank, Douglas W., Less Than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), p. 67Google Scholar. Hatch, Nathan O. touches on this as well in “Millennialism and Popular Religion in the Early Republic,” The Evangelical Tradition in America, ed. Sweet, Leonard I. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984), pp. 113–30.Google Scholar

16. On millennial themes in early American history, see Davidson, James West, The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth-Century New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Hatch, , Sacred Cause of LibertyGoogle Scholar; Bloch, , Visionary RepublicGoogle Scholar; Moorhead, James H., “Between Progress and Apocalypse: A Reassessment of Millennialism in American Religious Thought, 1800–1880,” Journal of American History 71 (12 1984): 524–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tuveson, Ernest Lee, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).Google Scholar Regarding the various social-reform movements arising out of the Second Great Awakening, see Smith, Timothy L., Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (Nashville: Abingdon Press: 1967)Google Scholar; Foster, Charles I., An Errand of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790–1837 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960)Google Scholar; and Boylan, Anne M., “Women in Groups: An Analysis of Women's Benevolent Organizations in New York and Boston, 1797–1840,”- Journal of American History 71 (12 1984): 497–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. William G. McLoughlin says that the message of this song is “one of millennial faith and optimistic conviction that God has chosen the United States of America to lead the way to the redemption of the world for Christian freedom” (idem, ed., The American Evangelicals, 1800–1900: An Anthology [New York: Harper & Row, 1968], p. 28Google Scholar; “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is reproduced on pp. 28–29).Google Scholar

18. Quoted in Moorehead, James H., American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860–1869 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), p. ix.Google Scholar Moorehead's book is an excellent, extended study of the millennial views of Northern Protestants during the Civil War.

19. Robbins, William, “Mormons Go Back to a Sacred Valley in Missouri,” New York Times, 08 14, 1985.Google Scholar On Mormon millennialism, see Hansen, Klaus, Quest for Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Underwood, Grant, “Early Mormon Millenarianism: Another Look,” Church History 54 (06 1985): 215–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Quoted in Foner, Eric, ed., Great Lives Observed: Nat Turner (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), p. 45.Google Scholar

21. Quoted in Sernett, Milton C., ed., Afro-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness (Durham, N. C: Duke University Press, 1985), p. 95.Google Scholar

22. On the eclipse of postmillennialism in the late 19th Century, see Weber, , Living in the ShadowGoogle Scholar, ch. 2; Moorehead, James H., “The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865–1925,” Church History 53 (03 1984): 61–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Moorehead argues that postmillennialism collapsed, in effect, beneath its own weight, that it could be sustained only in a culture dominated by evangelical values.

23. For a discussion of Darby's views and their implications, see Weber, , Living in the Shadow, ch. 1.Google Scholar

24. On the transition from postmillennialism to premillennialism and its importance to American evangelicals, see Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 48–55Google Scholar; Moorehead, , “Erosion of Postmillennialism”Google Scholar; Frank, , Less Than ConquerorsGoogle Scholar, ch. 3. Frank sees the evangelical shift to premillennialism as an attempt to “recapture their control of history” (ibid., p. 67). On the influence of British millennial ideas in 19th-century America, see Sandeen, Ernest R., The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).Google Scholar

25. Quoted in McLoughlin, , ed., American Evangelicals, 1800–1900, p. 184.Google Scholar

26. Wacker, Grant, “Marching to Zion: Religion in a Modern Utopian Community,” Church History 54 (12 1985): 496–511, esp. p. 505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Quoted in Weber, , Living in the Shadow, p. 88.Google Scholar

28. The Scofield Reference Bible remains popular. Oxford, according to Cynthia Read, religion editor, has sold over two million copies since 1967, 85% of them leatherbound (an indication that the overwhelming majority of copies sold are for personal, devotional use, rather than for use in libraries).

29. Evangelicals see the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 as the fulfillment of the prophecy found in Jeremiah 29:14: “I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (RSV).

30. Quoted in Martin, William, “Waiting for the End: The Growing Interest in Apocalyptic Prophecy,” Atlantic Monthly 251 (06 1982): 35Google Scholar; cf. Marsden, George, “Lord of the Interior,” Reformed Journal 31 (06 1981): 2–3.Google Scholar

31. Evangelical hymns are replete with references to the coming millennium. Fanny Crosby's hymn, “Will Jesus Find Us Watching?” provides one example:

When Jesus comes to reward His servants, Whether it be noon or night, Faithful to Him will He find us watching With our lamps all trimmed and bright?

Blessed are those whom the Lord finds watching, In His glory they shall share; If He shall come at dawn or midnight, Will He find us watching there?

(Quoted in Weber, , Living in the Shadow, p. 60.)Google Scholar Another, more recent, song written by Andre Crouch, reads in part:

It won't be long till we'll be leaving here. It won't be long. We'll be going home.

32. Martin, , “Waiting for the End,” p. 31.Google Scholar

33. As in the 19th Century, 20th-century black visions of the apocalypse take a slightly different form. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught that after 6,000 years of white dominance, the “spook civilization” would come to an end about the year 2000. For the most compelling exposition of these ideas, see X, Malcolm, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove, 1964), chs. 10–11.Google Scholar

34. Grant, W. V., Creative Miracles (Dallas: Faith Clinic, n.d.), p. 18.Google Scholar This booklet purports to be Frisby's biography, written by Grant, but it consists of three chapters: a kind of introduction by Grant and two autobiographical chapters written by Frisby.

35. Rev. 8:1; 10:1–11 (RSV).

36. The Seventh Seal was released in 1957.Google Scholar

37. Frisby, Neal, The Revelation of the Written Scrolls as the Word of God as Given to Neal Vincent Frisby (Phoenix: n.p., n.d.), p. 55.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., p. 146.

39. Rev. 21:1 (RSV).

40. Frisby, , Revelation of the Written Scrolls, p. 137.Google Scholar

41. Elsewhere, Frisby writes: “According to Gods true time it would seem almost impossible for the world to continue after 1986” (ibid., p. 137). Frisby's new calculations were discovered during a personal visit by the author to Frisby's crusade in Phoenix in February 1987.

42. Because the movie is shown in churches, an accurate count is impossible. I was able to pry this number from Russell Doughten, coproducer of A Thief in the Night, only after much cajoling. He was careful to give what he thought was a conservative estimate, but he hastened to add that that figure included those who had seen it more than once. Even if you cut the figure in half to account for hyperbole, fifty million for a non-Hollywood film is formidable.

43. From “I Wish We'd All Been Ready,” words and music by Larry Norman.

44. A Thief in the Night was produced and released by Mark IV Pictures, Des Moines, Iowa, 1973.

45. Interview with Doughten, Russell S. Jr., president of Mark IV Pictures, Des Moines, Iowa, 09 26, 1986.Google Scholar

46. Vandenberg, , “Charles Taze Russell,” pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

47. Quoted in Dick, , “Millerite Movement,” p. 31.Google Scholar

48. Quoted in McLoughlin, , ed., American Evangelicals, 1800–1900, pp. 184–185.Google Scholar