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Transcript Episode 2 the Millerites Official Podcast Script: Charlie Group *Church bells1 chiming, thunder2 rolling* “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake.The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.” Revelation 6:12-14 (King James Version) CHRIS: Wow, that’s dark. Was that a prophecy or a poem or something? and did people really believe that something like that was going to happen on earth? NICK: Yeah, people did believe this biblical prophecy. Christians across the United States in the 1800s believed in this apocalyptic vision of the end of humanity. JULIANA: But, the Millerites were the only Christian group at this time to give their followers an exact date for the end of the world. CHRIS: The who? NICK: The Millerites! They were a religious movement based in the Northeastern United States in the 1800s.3 They followed the teachings of William Miller, who led them to believe that in 1843, they would ascend to heaven to live a blissful existence in an eternal paradise alongside their lord and saviour Jesus Christ. CHRIS: Really? That sounds like… a lot. JULIANA: It does, but you have to understand that in the early 1800s, religion dominated people’s worlds. It dictated how they lived, what they did, even who they married. Religion then is a lot like politics now. Politics affect how people imagine themselves as citizens, and contribute to how we live. CHRIS: Okay…..so maybe what they believed wasn’t so ridiculous. But I mean, it sounds kind of silly looking back since they were so wrong. We’re all still here living our lives, right? Their world never actually ended. 1 https://soundcloud.com/champignonsdesbois/church-bells-in-mont-louis-pyr 2 https://freesound.org/people/BlueDelta/sounds/446753/ 3 McNamara, Robert. "History of the Millerites." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2018, thoughtco.com/millerites- definition-1773334. 1 NICK: You’re right that the Millerites were wrong. On their predicted days of doom, the apocalypse they envisioned never occurred. Their physical world didn’t come to an end. But does that mean that their world, one that revolved around intense devotion to their firmly held religious beliefs, didn’t actually end? CHRIS: Well... I don’t know, does it? I mean, when I think of the end of the world I think of a meteor or a plague or a bomb, you know something that leaves nothing behind, something like the fiery apocalypse that Miller predicted. NICK: And you’re right those are potentially world-ending scenarios. But worlds can also be social, forged around a shared set of beliefs and experiences. An end to a social world can actually be just as, if not more devastating than a tangible sort of apocalypse that William Miller imagined. You see, the complete and utter shattering of one’s worldview can feel like the end of the, well, world. Imagine that there was one event, one watershed moment that caused you to rethink completely how you see your world and made you question your place in it. CHRIS: Like when Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson broke up. JULIANA: *laughs* You’re on the right track. CHRIS: That was pretty devastating for me. But, nyways, I see your point, even though their physical world didn’t come crashing down, the social world that they inhabited did. NICK: Exactly. What’s even more interesting is that social worlds are created and destroyed all the time! Just think about the recent presidential election. You could say that for Democrats, their world ended with the election of Donald Trump. Just listen to this: *Montage of news clips4 after the 2016 election* CHRIS: Wow that’s some pretty intense stuff. JULIANA: Yeah... so just like the Millerites were living in their own world, one where an apocalypse was set to occur between 1843-1844, in our present day, Democrats were living in their own world just before the 2016 election — as you know, their world was characterized by social progress, where history was stained with inequality and oppression, but they saw themselves in the midst of a period of sweeping change, a world where the first female American president would vanquish a man who, in their eyes, stood as a symbol of sexism and racism...but then, it didn’t happen. 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtJvYdX4GKM 2 CHRIS: Okay, I think I’m starting to get it… so Millerites lived in their own Biblical world that was shattered and Democrats lived in their own world of social progress right? NICK: Yeah, pretty much. In fact, the way Millerites reacted to the end of their world is very similar the way that Democrats reacted to the end of theirs! CHRIS: Oooooh interesting. NICK: And we’ll explore that more right after this short break. *Library advertisement* This episode of Final Examination is brought to you by the UMass Amherst Libraries, comprised of the W. E. B. Du Bois Library, the tallest academic research library in the world, named after the famous African-American scholar and activist, and the Science and Engineering Library, located in the Lederle Low-rise. The Libraries are accessible to all 5-College students, faculty, staff, and the public, with spaces for students to study and collaborate, top-of-the-line research materials and databases, and even a Digital Media Lab with 3D printers, Virtual Reality, and audiovisual production equipment and technology. For more information, visit the Libraries’ website at LIBRARY DOT UMASS DOT EDU. NICK: Welcome back everyone, I’m Nick Edwards JULIANA: I’m Juliana Madden CHRIS: And I’m Chris Kosteva, and we are students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst exploring the connections between a religious movement from the 1800s, and the way that we think about politics today. Juliana and Nick are all read up on the Millerites, so I decided to pick their brains and learn some more. NICK: Now, let’s get back to our discussion about the Millerites’ so called end of the world and how it might relate to modern day politics. JULIANA: But before that, I think we need to get to know the Millerites and their founder William Miller a little more. So we invited Harvard Professor, David F. Holland, to speak with us. NICK: Professor Holland is a renowned scholar of American religious history at Harvard Divinity School, and is THE John A Bartlett Professor of Church History in New England, and has studied the Millerites as well as Seventh Day Adventism, which is, a major christian 3 denomination that was founded by several former Millerites, and is partially based on the teachings of William Miller. Prof David F. Holland: Millerites begin with William Miller’s own biblical discoveries. Miller had lost his religious faith early in his life until some experiences during the war of 1812 where he was brought to consider his own mortality and the purpose of his existence and rediscovered his baptist faith. Emm, he began a careful examination of the Bible. In the early nineteenth century, one of the major commitments of the surging evangelical movements, was that the Bible could be interpreted by just about anybody. It didn’t require a degree in theology, it didn’t require high social standing, the bible was accessible to everybody who picked it up and read it with true intent. It is one of the democratizing forces of the period is to see this sacred text in those terms. And Miller took that to heart and began thinking about history and the way the Bible describes the past and the way it predicts the future. NICK: Wow that’s fascinating. But you know what’s also fascinating? They were so committed to their beliefs that they refused to harvest their crops and even climbed trees and fell out to try and get closer to God.5 CHRIS: Wow, they were really committed. NICK: But let’s fast forward to the 2016 presidential election. Democrats at that time were living in their own world, characterized by social progress. They saw Hillary Clinton as the next logical step in our progression toward a more just society. When Donald Trump was elected, their world ended. CHRIS: Okay but hold on, elections happen all the time in this country. You can’t just say that the world ended just because your candidate lost. JULIANA: Ya, you’re right. But this election was different. Many progressives see the world as a march toward social progress. They see history as being stained with inequality and oppression, and they see us in the middle of a progression toward justice. Some people’s lives were affected more so than ever before from this election. I mean, just listen to the types of things that Trump was saying *Montage of offensive Trump comments6* 5 Miller, Perry. “The End of the World.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 2, 1951, p. 171., doi:10.2307/1916901. 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIfU5RBBso 4 NICK: We spoke to Basileus Zeno, a Political Science Graduate Student at UMass Amherst. Basileus is not only an Asylum seeker from Syria, he was also a political dissident and the co- founder of an opposition blog that took a brave stance against the Assad regime. He shared with us his feelings on the 2016 election, and how he, as a believer in social progress, has had to contend with a new Trumpian world.
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