The Great Disappointment
Posted: 14 Aug 2016
” The Great Disappointment
The Great Disappointment was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth in 1844 and began the Millerite movement . His study of the Book of Daniel led him to the conclusion that Daniel’s “cleansing of the sanctuary” was cleansing of the earth from sin when Christ would come. He and many others prepared, but October 22, 1844 came and they were disappointed.
Millerite leaders and followers were left generally bewildered and disillusioned. Responses varied: some continued to look daily for Christ's return, while others predicted different dates. Some theorized that the world had entered the seventh millennium—the "Great Sabbath", and that therefore, the saved should not work.
Others acted as children, basing their belief on Jesus' words in Mark 10:15: "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Millerite O. J. D. Pickands used Revelation to teach that Christ was now sitting on a white cloud and must be 'prayed down'. Probably the majority, however, simply gave up their beliefs and attempted to rebuild their lives. Some members rejoined their previous denominations. A substantial number joined the Shakers.
By mid-1845, doctrinal lines among the various Millerite groups began to solidify, and the groups emphasized their differences, in a process George R. Knight terms "sect building". During this time, there were three main Millerite groups—in addition to those who had simply given up their beliefs.
However it paved the way for the Adventist who formed the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, who came to the understanding that what had happened on Oct. 22 was not of Jesus’ return, as Miller had thought, but the start of Jesus’ final work of atonement, the cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary, leading up to the Second Coming.
Repercussions of this ”Great Disappointment”: - as well as the founding the of the Seventh-day Adventist Church by some of the ‘disappointed” it was a major influence on those who became founders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even the Ba’hai faith.
The Ba'hai used the Millerite beliefs to validate their own at the time. They believe that the fulfillment of biblical prophecies of the coming of Christ came through a forerunner of their own religion, the Báb, who declared that he was the "Promised One" on May 23, 1844, and began openly teaching in Persia in October 1844. Several Bahá'í books and pamphlets make mention of the Millerites, the prophecies used by Miller and the Great Disappointment.
The Great Disappointment is viewed by some scholars as an example of the psychological phenomenon of cognitive dissonance and True-believer syndrome. The theory was proposed by Leon Festinger to describe " the formation of new beliefs and increased proselytizing in order to reduce the tension, or dissonance, that results from failed prophecies. According to the theory, Millerite believers experienced tension following the failure of Jesus' reappearance in 1844, which led to a variety of new explanations. The various solutions form a part of the teachings of the different groups that outlived the disappointment."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Z5beM0RqA