Two items of relevance to the millennium and millennial cults:
1. A short section from my chapter on the millennium regarding pre and post millennial cults (the Concerned Christians are a pre-millennial cult).
2. A news release on a tape found from the Concerned Christians, forwarded to me by Richard Abanes, Director of the Religious Information Center and the author of End-Times Visions (an excellent and skeptical look at doomsday cults). This is scary stuff. Anyone who holds up Charlie Manson as a role model and guide for action has got to be really off the screen of normalcy. I hope they find this guy soon before he strikes.
Skeptic will feature a special issue on the millennium this year. The millennium doesn't "really" begin until Jan. 1, 2001, but virtually everyone is going to be celebrating (and some, unfortunately, blowing things up) at the end of this year, so we'll need to focus our efforts soon.
The millennium (literally in Latin mille thousand, annus year) is a thousand year block of time that grabs us because we like to cleave the world into tidy categories. Given the average human life span of less than a century, triple- zero increments in a chronology especially stand out. In 248 A.D., for example, Romans celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of the mythical founding of the empire by Romulus and Remus with considerable pageantry and fanfare, singing hymns to Apollo and Diana, dancing in the streets and in the hills, and looking forward to being freed from the Barbarian peril. But the millennium takes on deep meaning, and becomes a phenomenon, when associated with the apocalypse (from the Greek apo un, kalypsis veiling, or revelation)--the catastrophic destruction of evil forces in the world followed by the resurrection of the righteous. And this, in turn, is a form of the larger genre of eschatology, or the study of final events and the end of history.
There are two types of apocalyptic scenarios: religious, where God destroys Satan and sinners and resurrects the virtuous; and secular, where the destruction of evil comes about by natural or historical forces, and good triumphs over evil. Either way it plays out the same: destruction followed by redemption, with the fatalistic twist that The End, or some major break in human history, is inevitable. This apocalyptic millennium is a variation on the destruction-redemption and messiah myths considered in the previous chapter, as well as the still broader categories of renewal and eschatology myths reviewed in Chapter 7. These stories of the end resonate deeply in the human breast for the simple reason that we are all aware of the passing of time, that we are locked into that chronology, and that the end of our time must come. This is true whether one is religious or not: everyone who ever lived has died, and so will we, and so will our ancestors. Even if all the religious end-times scenarios prove hallow, the earth itself will be engulfed by the Red Giant the sun will become in 4.5 billion years. Even if our ancestors colonize the galaxy, or other galaxies, the universe will either collapse into a giant black hole destroying everything in it, or continue expanding until every star in every galaxy runs out of nuclear fuel and is snuffed out like the candles at the end of a liturgical ceremony. Either way, the end is coming.
The connection between the millennium and the apocalypse was made most poignantly by the St. John the divine in a vision recounted in Revelation 20:1-10, where he "saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit," where he threw Satan "and bound him for a thousand years." According to Revelation, this post-Armageddon event is to be followed by the judgment of sinners and resurrection of the saved, who then "reigned with Christ a thousand years." After this millennium, "Satan will be loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations," join forces with Gog and Magog in one final epic battle--Armageddon--but will be defeated and "thrown into the lake of fire" where he and all of his servants, including all false prophets, "will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."
To some doomsday prophets, this fatidic vision will be played out at the end of human history. But how will we know when we are nearing it? Jesus told his disciples (Luke 21:10-11). "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven." Herein lies the problem of interpretation, and one reason why millennial phenomena are so widespread. Since nations and kingdoms have always risen against one another; and great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences are common throughout history; and heavenly signs like comets and eclipses abound in every age, whoever is doing the interpreting sees themselves as the chosen generation. From Jesus' first-century disciples who took him literally when he said "There shall be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16:28), to Carlulaire de Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes' warning in 964 that "As the century passes, the end of the world approaches," to Ronald Reagan's 1971 admonition "For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ," the end is always nigh (Abanes, 1998). Whether it is Satan who brings about the final clash that leads to the terminus of history, or human stupidity through nuclear war, or a chance encounter with an asteroid, the mythic theme of the apocalypse has become a staple of both popular and high culture.
To complicate matters, there are a number of widely divergent beliefs concerning the end-times, especially within Christianity. Premillennial Christians, for example, believe that Christ must first return to usher in the millennium. Postmillennial Christians, however, believe that Christ will return after humans have already setup God's kingdom on earth. Of course, some individuals have chosen a more moderate middle ground by worrying very little about the precise timing of eschatological events, concentrating simply on the foundational hope of their faith; i.e., that someday Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.
For secular millennialists a similar typology can be constructed. Premillennial secularists tend to be pessimistic in their view of humanity and history, where change can only come about after a catastrophe. Postmillennial secularists tend to be optimistic and try to work toward a better world before disaster strikes. Folklorist Daniel Wojcik, in his compelling history of The End of the World as We Know It (1997), makes a similar distinction between unconditional apocalypticism, where the end of the world is "imminent and unalterable" and "irredeemable by human effort," and conditional apocalypticism, where "within the broad constraints of history's inevitable progression, human beings may forestall worldly catastrophes if they act in accordance with divine will or a superhuman plan" (209-210). Hal Lindsey, in such bestsellers as The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon (1981), is a prime example of unconditional apocalypticism. In There's a New World Coming (1984), he addressed skeptics directly: "To the skeptic who says that Christ is not coming soon, I would ask him to put the book of Revelation in one hand, and the daily newspaper in the other, and then sincerely ask God to show him where we are on His prophetic time-clock." The Montana-based Church Universal and Triumphant headed by Elizabeth Claire Prophet is an example of conditional apocalypticism, where they prepare for the worst by stockpiling foodstuffs and constructing bomb shelters, but pray for the best (so far so good).
JERUSALEM -- An audiotaped "Time of the End" message, found on the doorstep of a house rented by alleged members of the doomsday sect Concerned Christians, provides a graphic insight into the group's beliefs.
The "Time of the End" message, dated June 25, 1997, bears the title "I am the Lawmaker" -- a reference to a phrase convicted murderer Charles Manson used in a 1988 interview to describe his 1969 killing spree.
An Israeli expert on millennium groups said the tape resembles other messages issued from time to time by the Denver-based sect's leader, Monte Kim Miller, who is said to have predicted his death and resurrection on the streets of Jerusalem sometime in the coming year.
Fourteen cult members, including six children, were deported from Israel early today. Suspected by Israel of plotting violence in Jerusalem to bring about the second coming of Christ, they denied wrongdoing and no charges were filed.
The taped message, delivered by an unidentified voice, offers an intricate and frightening insight into the sect's beliefs and teachings, which appear in large part to be centered around the personal history of Manson and his supposed role as a divine "lawmaker," or "son of man."
In the message, the United States is described as a "dragon kingdom" that will receive "double the judgment" Japan incurred when it was hit with two atomic bombs at the end of World War II. President Clinton is described as a "counterfeit son of man" -- false messenger -- for his involvement in the Israel-Jordan peace accords.
The message was accompanied by printed materials illustrating the tape's points.
Throughout the past century, according to the tape, false messengers and "counterfeit" religious and political figures have clouded the true meaning of biblical prophecy about God's final judgment of the earth.
The message seems to equate the life of Manson with that of Jesus. Manson is repeatedly referred to as the "Man Son," an apparent allusion to the biblical reference to Jesus as the "Son of Man."
"The Charles Manson murders connect to the son of man judgments, that is the return of Jesus Christ," the message says.
The 1969 Manson family killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four friends is said to have rendered a kind of divine judgment by killing a fetus said on the tape to represent the "Antichrist."
"The killing of Sharon Tate's baby represents a killing of Rosemary's baby (the Roman Antichrists) by the Lord," explains the tape.
Underlying the message is the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 2:3, which foresees a final end of the days of judgment followed by an era of peace in which "men will beat their swords into plowshares."
The tape also assigns a mystical significance to the number 23.
"The NUMBER 23 and LAW is continually connected with the Charles Manson murders representing the return of the Lord and judgment day because of Isaiah 2:3, `for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,' " the printed message says.
The timing of key historical events -- from the closing days of World War II to the 1992 Hurricane Andrew and the 1993 Oslo peace accords -- is linked by a 23-year span to various events in the life and saga of the Manson family.
For instance, the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki occured 23 years before Charles Manson's first record album was taped.
Copyright 1999, The Salt Lake Tribune