Contemporary American millenarian activity surpasses the 1830s peak and shows no sign of fading

Evidence

It has become a commonplace that America is in the throes of an unrivaled period of millenarian activity. In 1978, William McLoughlin spoke of a religious resurgence that constituted a new “great awakening.” He expected it to end by about 1990. Instead, it intensifi ed, driven in part by the proximity of the year 2000. Even the heyday of the Millerites, Shakers, Mormons, and Oneida Perfectionists in the 1830s and 1840s cannot compare to it, and there is no sign that millenarian anticipation will diminish anytime soon. The uneventful passage from 1999 to 2000 has had little effect on many millenarians, who merely set the date of the apocalypse ever further in the future. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 123

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the frame of millenarian/apocalyptic thought shared with Barkun’s broader conspiracy-culture scholarship and with studies of failed-prophecy date-resetting.