Adventist Origins

Great Awakening

Did you know that early Adventists were sometimes accused of being Mormons, including Ellen and James White? This is because the Seventh-day Adventist Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Jehovah’s Witnesses all have ties to the Second Great Awakening.

The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that swept through the United States from around 1790 to 1840. It was a strong reaction by Protestant Christians to the American Enlightenment and people’s growing acceptance of Deism, atheism, and science.

This movement came shortly after the First Great Awakening—Christian revivals in Britain and the thirteen colonies that became the United States. Similar to the Second Great Awakening, the First Great Awakening was a reaction by Christians to the Age of Enlightenment and increasing acceptance of atheism and Deism.

In his 2016 book The First Great Awakening: Redefining Religion in British America, Texas A&M University Professor of History John Howard Smith described the motivations for this religious revival:

A heightened lack of public piety and personal religious devotion led many ministers to worry about spiritual declension, while the educated classes found themselves attracted to atheism, Deism, Unitarianism, and Universalism, thus confirming the clergy's growing concerns. Church attendance and membership among white colonists appeared to shrink dramatically, unable to keep pace with the explosive population growth through natural increase and immigration from Europe. The spread of religious indifference, the popularity of "folk religion," rampant sectarianism, and contentious denominational rivalries led some ministers to call for a renewal of what they believed to be the far greater spiritual devotion of the previous century. (Smith 2)

During both the First and Second Great Awakenings, many educated Americans did not hold traditional Christian beliefs. Instead, they embraced Deism and a more secular worldview.

Fearing that society was becoming morally corrupt, Protestant preachers and church members reacted with a renewed, personal, and intense commitment to evangelism. Biblical literalism was also an active and relatively new topic of debate, partly because of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment.

While some early Christian theologians did not believe all major Biblical accounts should be taken literally, many Protestants did interpret them literally, including William Miller—the founder of the Millerite movement.

When Miller began preaching, the Second Great Awakening was still going strong. New religious movements, including Mormonism, were just getting started. While preachers from mainstream denominations viewed these movements with suspicion or disdain, many Christians were attracted to these new and exciting groups. According to The Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism:

Whereas the First Great Awakening occurred largely within the established... churches, the Second Great Awakening shifted power away from older confessional churches in favor of quickly growing denominations that fully embraced the revival model—most significantly the Methodists and the Baptists... The first four decades of the nineteenth century, therefore, constituted the greatest period of religious growth and innovation in American history... Widespread commitment to disestablishment, theological populism, common-sense hermeneutics, restorationism, and eschatological fervor provided fertile ground for the creation of new religious groups. (Campbell et al. 8-9)

Many Christians left their older established churches to join the Methodists, Baptists, and new religious movements like Mormonism and Millerism. In other words, the Millerites were just one of many groups that emerged and gained followers during the Second Great Awakening.

New religious groups weren't the only ones gaining followers—the temperance movement in the U.S. also happened during the Second Great Awakening, encouraging people to reject alcohol and eat a healthy diet. Miller claimed drinking alcohol meant you were not ready for the second coming and later Adventists, including John Harvey Kellogg and Ellen White, were influenced by Sylvester Graham's emphasis on being vegetarian.

Great Disappointment

William Miller was an American farmer-turned-preacher who was homeschooled, fought in the War of 1812, and wrestled with his faith because of the war. Despite growing up Baptist, Miller became a deist before eventually returning to Christianity and starting an intense two-year search for answers in the Bible.

In addition to being a deist, Miller was a freemason who "advanced to the highest degree" offered by the masonic lodges in the U.S. According to Miller's own diary, he joined the Morning Star Lodge and eventually reached the rank of Grand Master. Masonic records affirm that Miller likely "became Master of his Lodge."

Even after leaving deism and returning to the Baptist denomination, William Miller remained a freemason until September 1831, when he reluctantly resigned from his local lodge. Professor David L. Rowe wrote the following in his 2008 book God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World:

Miller's Masonic connection could not have gone unnoticed. As a longtime Mason and onetime Grand Master, he found himself on the defensive in the church and community. For fifteen years after becoming a Baptist he had remained a Mason, but in September 1831 he wrote a grudging letter of resignation from the local lodge, not because belonging to the Masons was wrong but "to concilliate the feelings of my Brethren in Christ" and to avoid "fellowship with any practice that may be incompatible with the Word of God among masons." (Rowe 93-94)

Starting around August 1831, just before leaving freemasonry, Miller began to preach about the second coming and initially predicted that Jesus would come back "sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844." Despite pressure from his followers, Miller avoided predicting just one specific date for the second coming.

Some Millerites, not supported by Miller, predicted the date of February 14, 1843. When that prediction failed, they changed the date to April 14, 1843. According to a news report, some Millerites waited on April 23, 1843; even more dates can be found in the book Miller and the Rise of Adventism by SDA historian George R. Knight:

...the less stable elements among the Millerites began to set specific dates in 1843. Some were apparently looking toward April 3 on the basis that Christ was crucified on that day. Others set their hope on February 10, the forty-fifth anniversary of the French victory over Rome in 1798. Still others hoped for February 15 (the anniversary of the abolition of the papal government), April 14 (the Passover), the Day of Pentecost in May, the autumnal equinox in September, and so on. (Knight 109)

Many of the Millerites kept their faith after William Miller's predictions failed, and April 18, 1844 was briefly chosen as the new date for the second coming, until that date was also proved wrong.

As each prediction turned out to be false, the Millerites became desperate for answers. Eventually, a Millerite named Samuel Snow predicted October 22, 1844 as the real date of the second coming (this was called the "seventh-month message" and "true midnight cry").

Before Snow read one of Miller’s books and became "impressed with its truth," he had been a fierce skeptic and said the Bible is "filled with nothing but gross absurdities."

Samuel Snow was an eccentric man and began calling himself "Elijah" in 1845, claiming he had "the spirit and power of Elijah," and that he was called "by the special favor of God… as His Prime Minister." Lest We Forget, a book published by the Adventist Pioneer Library, quotes Samuel Snow on page 119:

By the special favor of God, through Jesus Christ... I have been called and commissioned to go before the face of the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare the way for His descent from heaven.... as His Prime Minister, I demand of all Kings, Presidents, Magistrates, and Rulers, civil or ecclesiastical, a full surrender of all power and authority, into my hands, on behalf of King Jesus the Coming One.... WAR, FAMINE, PESTILENCE, and DESTRUCTION... shall go forth among the nations more and more, till the earth be utterly desolate. Then shall ye know that a prophet hath been among you.

Samuel Snow never accepted the leadership of James or Ellen White and continued in his self-delusion until his death in 1870 at the age of 84. But before and after the Great Disappointment, both James and Ellen White endorsed Samuel Snow's prediction. According to the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists:

James White, who would become a Seventh-day Adventist co-founder, observed that the message of Christ’s return in October 1844 was attended by a "power almost irresistible." The vigorous support of George Storrs, a prominent Millerite leader, boosted dissemination of the new message. The foremost leaders, Miller and Himes, viewed the development with caution, but they too eventually embraced the message, and intense expectation focused on October 22, 1844.

An estimated 50,000-100,000 people were part of the Millerite movement, also called Second Adventists. When October 22, 1844 came and went, they were devastated. Outsiders mocked them, and some Millerites were even tortured. Their great disappointment led to intense cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive Dissonance

In 1956, a group of social psychologists published the book When Prophecy Fails, followed by the publication of the theory of cognitive dissonance in 1957. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that humans experience when we have inconsistencies in our beliefs and actions.

Thanks to advances in technology, the 1957 theory has been supported by fMRI scans in a 2009 study called Neural Activity Predicts Attitude Change in Cognitive Dissonance. This study visually demonstrates the brain’s neural activity in real time as it reacts to the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance.

But what is cognitive dissonance? Social psychologist Andy Luttrel gave a good example in a 2016 video. Someone who smokes cigarettes may hold the following thoughts at the same time: (1) I smoke cigarettes and (2) smoking cigarettes is unhealthy. Having both of these conflicting thoughts creates a feeling of dissonance.

To resolve this uncomfortable feeling, the person might do any one of the following:

• Change one of their thoughts — They may say, "Smoking is not that bad."
• Change one of their behaviors — They may stop smoking because they know it's unhealthy.
• Add new thoughts — They may rationalize and say, "My healthy habits offset my smoking."
• Trivialize the inconsistency — They may say "Smoking is bad, but I don't care."
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When people receive new information that causes them to experience cognitive dissonance, they may accept the information and change their beliefs or behaviors. But changing deeply-held beliefs can be extremely uncomfortable, so people often use various coping methods to avoid changing. Here are a few examples:

• Confirmation bias — People may search only for information and other people that will confirm their existing beliefs to reduce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. Confirmation bias can lead to a lack of critical thinking and being closed-minded.
  
  
• Rationalization — People may try to justify their actions or beliefs by coming up with rationalizations or excuses, even if they are completely illogical. This can lead to self-deception and an inability to acknowledge mistakes or wrongdoing.
  
  
• Defensiveness — People may become defensive and resistant to change when their beliefs or actions are challenged, and may even become more committed to their existing beliefs or behaviors. Defensiveness can lead to conflict and difficulty in resolving differences with others.
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• Proselytizing — People may try to convince and convert others to believe the same things they do. As more people believe the same thing and support each other, the discomfort from cognitive dissonance tends to decrease, resulting in even more proselytizing and evangelistic efforts.

To relieve their cognitive dissonance, many Millerites used some or all of the coping methods we just covered. While some left the movement entirely, many searched for information in the Bible to confirm their existing beliefs. Some came up with various rationalizations, others became defensive and insisted the millennium had already started, and many were proselytizing to convince others of their new theories.

It is undeniable that the Millerites and early Adventists experienced intense cognitive dissonance. In fact, the first book written about cognitive dissonance, When Prophecy Fails, prominently features the Millerites and describes how their failed predictions led to greater expectations and more evangelism:

The two partial disconfirmations (April 23, 1843, and the end of the calendar year 1843) and one complete and unequivocal disconfirmation (March 21, 1844) served simply to strengthen conviction that the Coming was near at hand and to increase the time and energy that Miller’s adherents spent trying to convince others... Such conviction naturally prepared men to give a sympathetic ear to the proclamation that the day of the Lord would come on October 22. (Festinger et al. 19)

Even though the term didn't exist back then, William Miller witnessed this cognitive dissonance and wrote about the Millerites who went into "fanaticism of every kind" after the Great Disappointment. Some kept waiting while others proposed alternative dates. Some fanatical Millerites followed an extremely literal interpretation of Mark 10:15 and acted like children, "crawling around their houses, or even sometimes in the streets."

In the very first chapter of When Prophecy Fails, the authors perfectly captured the behavior of the Millerites:

Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view. (3)

This describes the essence of the Millerites' reactions to the Great Disappointment. While some questioned the credibility of the Bible or Miller’s interpretations, many still believed. Some believed they had the right event but the wrong date, and others believed they had the right date, but the wrong event.

All of these are examples of reacting to cognitive dissonance, and this is why we stated in our introduction that the Adventist movement was literally founded on cognitive dissonance.

Instead of engaging in rational inquiry, many Millerites attempted to explain away their failed predictions while keeping their original belief: that something happened on October 22, 1844. In order to numb the pain of cognitive dissonance, they just needed to find evidence that confirmed their existing beliefs.

Investigative Judgment

One of the most important examples of Millerites rationalizing away their cognitive dissonance comes from three men: Hiram Edson, Franklin B. Hahn, and Owen R. L. Crosier. They studied the Bible together and invented a unique Adventist doctrine that was eventually called the Investigative Judgment.

While this doctrine is foundational to Adventism—and is the only completely original Adventist doctrine—it is also one of the least accepted and most controversial teachings within the SDA church. Understanding its origins is crucial for understanding Ellen White and the theological debates that still continue to this day.

Hiram Edson

Hiram Edson was a farmer and Millerite who lived just four miles away from Joseph Smith's childhood home in Palmyra, New York (Smith was the first Mormon prophet and founder of Mormonism). Hiram Edson claimed to practice faith healing and, similar to Joseph Smith, he claimed to have multiple vision-like experiences. Edson called them "presentments," but for simplicity we’ll refer to them as visions.

During one of these events, Edson claimed he heard an audible voice telling him to heal his sick neighbor. After refusing, he thought the floor beneath him was dropping and saw himself falling down toward hell.

Edson cried out for God to save him, and heard the voice again telling him to heal his neighbor, so he went that night. The neighbor was "deathly ill," but was supposedly healed instantly after Edson placed hands on him and prayed. In a handwritten autobiographical manuscript, Edson wrote: 

God was ready and willing to hear and answer prayer for the sick, and to stretch forth his hand to heal and raise them up, and restore them to health. Since that time, I have shared in, and witnessed many incidents of like character.

In addition to having visions and practicing faith healing, Edson worked with another Millerite named Richard Ralph, who spoke in tongues at a Millerite prayer meeting.

Edson and Ralph traveled together to convince a former Millerite man to rejoin the movement. During their meeting, Ralph spoke in tongues again, assuring the man that God forgave him.

As Adventists, many of us were taught that charismatic practices of faith healing and speaking in tongues are not biblical, but early Adventists (including Edson) were surrounded by and even participated in events like this as they were reportedly common in some areas during the late 1800s.

The Cornfield

On the early morning of October 23, 1844—immediately after the Great Disappointment, struggling with cognitive dissonance and sleep deprivation from awaiting the second coming—Hiram Edson walked through a cornfield and had a vision explaining what happened the day before.

It's not an exaggeration to say Edson was sleep deprived and struggling with cognitive dissonance. In the same handwritten manuscript we quoted from earlier, Edson wrote that "We wept, and wept, till the day dawn" and that he was so shaken he even questioned "Is there no God?"

Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.

I mused in my own heart, saying, My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my christian experience. If this had proved a failure, what was the rest of my christian experience worth? Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God—no heaven—no golden home city—no paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hopes and expectation of these things? And thus we had something to grieve and weep over, if all our fond hopes were lost. And as I said, we wept till the day dawn.

So, while experiencing intense cognitive dissonance and sleep deprivation, Edson said he "distinctly, and clearly," saw Jesus entering the Most Holy Place in the heavenly sanctuary. This claim is one of the central aspects of the Investigative Judgment’s origin story, and here is how Edson described what happened:

We started, and while passing through a large field I was stopped midway of the field. Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly, and clearly, that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, that he, for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that he had a work to perform in the Most Holy before coming to this earth.

The SDA General Conference article Varieties of Adventists after 1844: Emerging from "fanaticism of every kind" into "the order of heaven" says the following:

What if the sanctuary in Daniel 8 was not a figure for the earth? What if it referred to an actual sanctuary in heaven, on which the ancient Israelite sanctuary had been modeled? …But this implied "that he [Jesus] had a work to perform in the Most Holy before coming to this earth." What that "work" was, however, needed further consideration.

Hiram Edson’s vision provided a very convenient explanation for why Jesus did not physically come back the day before. Edson's claim satisfied some of the Millerites who believed they had predicted the right date but the wrong event, and this helped relieve their cognitive dissonance.

Group Project

After his vision, Hiram Edson wasn’t exactly sure why Jesus would enter the Most Holy Place. So Edson, Hahn, and Crosier worked together to strengthen the theory. Over one year after Edson’s vision, Crosier published a detailed article on February 7, 1846 which was endorsed by Edson and Hahn.

Edson and Hahn included a note "To the Brethren and Sisters Scattered Abroad" saying if Crosier’s article was "properly examined and understood," it would "settle many difficulties in the minds of many brethren at this time." This is a clear and direct example of attempting to relieve the Millerites’ cognitive dissonance.

Edson, Hahn, and Crosier’s theory wasn’t the only one proposed during that time. Other Millerites believed Jesus did actually return, but that it was a spiritual return—not a literal, physical return. This concept later influenced Charles Taze Russell and the group that led to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Side note:The Millerites aren't the only group that believed they predicted the right date but the wrong event. Jehovah's Witnesses predicted that the resurrection would happen in 1914. That didn't happen, so they now claim that in October 1914, Jesus had an invisible return and started his reign in heaven.

Hiram Edson’s cornfield vision is not well-known by all modern Adventists, but it’s been referred to as "the theological birthplace of Adventism." To put it bluntly, this theological birthplace began with a sleep deprived charismatic farmer from the 1800s, struggling with cognitive dissonance in a cornfield.

It is tempting to fall back on platitudes such as "God can use anyone," or "God works in mysterious ways." But take a moment to really think about the implications of Edson's own written statements. Could such a vision be genuine, or was he just rationalizing away his grief and great disappointment?

If Hiram Edson had been a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon, would you believe his story?

Belief #24

For over a decade, the early Adventists worked to invent what became known as the Investigative Judgment. Owen R. L. Crosier’s original article from February 1846 did not use the term "investigative judgment;" Hiram Edson and Franklin B. Hahn didn’t create the term either, and it wasn't explicitly clear in Ellen White's first vision.

11 years passed before Elon Everts took their ideas and published the name "Investigative Judgement" in January 1857. Everts also invented the idea that on October 22, 1844, Jesus began judging the dead while in the heavenly sanctuary. One month later, James White published his own article titled "The Judgment."

Today, the Investigative Judgment is #24 of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist church. According to official church teachings, one reason for the Investigative Judgment is that it "vindicates the justice of God in saving those who believe in Jesus."

Would an all-powerful, all-knowing God need a literal sanctuary in heaven to keep track of who is righteous and who isn’t? Aside from the implausibility of using a literal sanctuary for recordkeeping, Christians can point to John 10:14 and 2 Timothy 2:19 which state that God already knows, along with Romans 1:18-21 and Psalm 19 which argue that God's character is self-evident.

Understandably, various Adventist theologians and pastors have questioned the Investigative Judgment, most notably Desmond Ford in 1979. An estimated 182 Adventist pastors in Australia and New Zealand left the church from 1980–1988, about 40% of the total SDA ministerial workforce across both countries.

Today, many Adventists do not believe in this doctrine and it is not often preached in some SDA churches. Survey results published in 2020 by Adventist professor Robert K. McIver show the Investigative Judgment doctrine is the least accepted of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs among some Adventist teachers.

‍Only 65% of the 90 surveyed teachers within the Australian Union Conference and 75% of the 84 surveyed teachers within the Solomon Islands Mission accept this doctrine. McIver explains this acceptance includes a wide range of possible responses, varying in degrees of certainty and the reason for accepting it:

"strongly agree", "agree", "embrace it wholeheartedly", "accept it because the church teaches it", and "accept it because I think it is probably correct".

While these are very small sample sizes, the results help provide insight on how some Adventist educators view this doctrine. Anecdotally, we've heard of professors in various Adventist universities who outright reject the Investigative Judgment.

However, this doctrine continues to be defended by the General Conference, which is understandable since Ellen White claimed to see it in a vision and wrote about it extensively. Adventists may also have difficulty rejecting this doctrine because it's their only original and unique doctrine. Matthew J. Lucio, Adventist pastor and host of the Adventist History Podcast, explained this in a video:

We didn't invent the Sabbath, we got it from the Seventh-day Baptists. We didn't invent quarterly communion. We didn't even invent this idea of the moral government of God, which is kind of the seed for the Great Controversy. We did not invent these things. The only thing that we really truly invented was the sanctuary. The idea of a prophet? Did not invent that. She's not even the only prophet in the 1800s, right? So, I think when we realize we've borrowed from other churches, truth that they had, I think that should help us to realize we don't have all the truth. We would have one truth if it was up to us to create it. Everything else we borrowed, and we modified, obviously.

Inventing this doctrine was truly a team effort. It was started by Millerites attempting to cope with their cognitive dissonance and went through multiple people and revisions for over a decade. Additionally, Ellen White claimed to have a vision of the Investigative Judgment happening in heaven.

This remains the one truly unique Adventist doctrine, thanks in large part to Hiram Edson's cornfield vision, and yet it is also one of the most controversial and questioned doctrines among Adventists.

• The Adventists are just one of several groups that came from the Second Great Awakening, along with the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. This "awakening" and embrace of Biblical literalism was a reaction to secularism, as educated Americans tended to accept Deism, atheism, and science.
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• After numerous failed predictions for the second coming of Jesus, the Millerites finally experienced the Great Disappointment on October 22, 1844. This immediately led to intense cognitive dissonance and various attempts to cope with the fallout.
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• After the Great Disappointment, some Millerites left the movement and even doubted the Bible’s credibility, but many stayed and tried coping with their cognitive dissonance through rationalization and proselytizing. Many insisted they were still right about the date or the event.
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• Cognitive dissonance theory was inspired in part by the great disappointment of the Millerites and early Adventists. In 1956, social psychologists documented how the Millerites used coping mechanisms like rationalization, defensiveness, and proselytizing to numb the pain of their cognitive dissonance.
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• Hiram Edson was a charismatic Millerite farmer who lived near the childhood home of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. Edson claimed to experience and witness visions, faith healings, and speaking in tongues. On October 23, 1844, grappling with cognitive dissonance and sleep deprivation, Edson said he "saw distinctly" that Jesus entered the Most Holy Place. This is the origin of the Investigative Judgement doctrine and has been referred to as "the theological birthplace of Adventism."
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• Ellen White’s first vision in December 1844 supported the Millerites who believed they had the right date, but the wrong event. At the time, she did not know what the event was supposed to be, likely because the doctrine was still being invented by Hiram Edson and his collaborators.
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• Between 1980 and 1988, about 40% of the pastors in Australia and New Zealand left the church over the Investigative Judgment doctrine. This doctrine is not regularly preached in many SDA churches, and many Adventist theologians and professors have questioned or rejected it. As of 2020, only 65% of surveyed teachers within the Australian Union Conference accept the doctrine.
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• The Investigative Judgment is still one of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is understandable, as both James and Ellen White wrote about it extensively. Ellen White even claimed to have a vision of the Investigative Judgment happening in heaven, where she saw Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary and heard the tinkling bells on his priestly garment.
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• The Investigative Judgment and sanctuary doctrine is the only original Adventist doctrine. All other doctrines, such as observing the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, were borrowed and adapted from other Christian denominations like the Seventh-day Baptists.