Adventists
As Adventists (of Latin adventus , Arrival ' ) or Millerites followers were a Christian revival movement of the 19th century in the United States referred, for the doctrine of the second Advent , d. H. of the imminent return of Jesus Christ , played a central role at that time.
introduction
The Baptist preacher William Miller (1782–1849) from Pittsfield , Massachusetts, calculated on the basis of the apocalyptic times of the Book of Daniel and some words of Jesus in the New Testament (especially Matthew 24 LUT ) the time of Christ's return first for the fall of 1843, then for March 21, 1844 and finally October 22, 1844. He found many followers in various churches. Many have had to leave their ancestral churches because of their belief in the imminent Second Coming. When this event did not materialize, the movement named after him split up into different groups, which also took different theological directions. After 1851 had passed without a parousia of Christ as announced by the Millerites, further concrete dates were generally refrained from, but continued until well into the 20th century that Jesus would return before the last Witnesses of a great meteor shower in 1833, which Miller related to Matthew 24, died.
Adventist churches and denominations (selection)
The Adventist movement has produced a large number of different faith communities throughout its history. Not all refer to it in their name. Some of the newly formed communities are trying to return to the original teachings; they see themselves as Reform Adventists. Others distance themselves from the old Adventist faith and see themselves today as one of the many Protestant free churches. Some of the groups that emerged from Adventism have developed into exclusive religious communities. These include the Jehovah's Witnesses .
Communities that can be historically associated with Adventists include:
- Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA): among others, by the visionary gifted Ellen G. White church with today (end of 2016) about 20 million (baptized adult) members, founded in 1863. Their distinguishing feature compared to other religious communities is primarily the attitude to the Sabbath (Saturday).
- Worldwide Church of God (WKG) or United Church of God : Churches that can be traced back to the work of Herbert W. Armstrong and have around 100,000 members, founded in 1933. In the mid-1990s, the Worldwide Church of God had most of its typical special teachings such as the Sabbath , Jewish festivals , tithing abandoned.
- Church of God on the seventh day : non-Trinitarian fellowship; they did not accept Ellen G. White as a prophet and therefore split off from the Seventh-day Adventists.
- Bible Students' Movement : In 1881 Charles Taze Russell founded the Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society, from which the ministry of the community now known as Jehovah's Witnesses grew . Prior to that, he edited the missionary journal Herald of the Morning with Adventist Nelson Homer Barbour , which spread the teaching of an invisible return of Christ.
- Reformadventisten , built at the beginning of World War I, in which the head of the Mother Church called for military service and Bible believers who maintained the previous Adventist position on the question of war, excluded and partly state organs surrendered for punishment. These excluded founded their own organization after the war.
- Mission Society for the Preservation and Promotion of Adventist Beliefs (MEFAG), an Adventist splinter group based in Berlin.
literature
- Martin Schmidt , Josef Butscher: Adventists . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 1, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1977, ISBN 3-11-006944-X , pp. 454-462.
- Friedrich Loofs : Adventists . In: Realencyklopadie for Protestant Theology and Church (RE). 3. Edition. Volume 1, Hinrichs, Leipzig 1896, pp. 191-198.
Web links
- Link catalog on the subject of Adventists at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
- Anna Giordano: Adventists in the online dossier Religions from A to Z. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk . July 12, 2016