Religion_Christianity_Advent

One of several Adventist churches that evolved from the teachings in the late 1840s of William Miller. It was organized in 1860. Doctrinal emphasis is placed on the anticipated Second Coming of Christ and on the Last Judgment, after which the wicked will be destroyed and the chosen will be resurrected to live in a restored paradise on Earth. The church is congregational in polity and, unlike the Seventh-day Adventists, holds services on Sunday. In 1964 the former Life and Advent Union merged with the Advent Christian Church.

Adventist, member of any of a group of Protestant Christian churches arising in the United States in the 19th century and distinguished by their doctrinal belief that the personal, visible return of Christ in glory (i.e., the Second Coming) is close at hand. Adventism is rooted in Hebrew and Christian prophetism, messianism, and millennial expectations recorded in the Bible. Adventists believe that at Christ's Second Coming he will separate the saints from the wicked and inaugurate his millennial (1,000-year) kingdom. See millennium.

It was in an atmosphere of millennialist revival in the United States that William Miller (1782-1849), a founder of the Adventists, began to preach. Miller, while an officer in the U.S. Army in the War of 1812, had become a skeptic. After a conversion, he began to study the books of Daniel and Revelation and to preach as a Baptist, the faith of his father. He concluded that Christ would come sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, and was encouraged in his views by a number of clergymen and numerous followers.

Miller was accused of fanaticism because of his millenarianism, and he stressed the coming of Christ in conjunction with a fiery conflagration, which distressed his hearers. Christ, however, did not return on the first appointed date, so Miller and his followers set a second date, Oct. 22, 1844. The quiet passing of this day led to what is called the "Great Disappointment" among Adventists and the convening of a Mutual Conference of Adventists in 1845 to sort out problems. Those who met, however, found it difficult to shape a confession and form a permanent organization.

Among those who persisted after the failure of Miller's prophecy were Joseph Bates, James White, and his wife, Ellen Harmon White. These Adventists, called Millerites in the press, believed that Miller had set the right date, but that they had interpreted what had happened incorrectly. Reading Daniel, chapters 8 and 9, they concluded that God had begun the "cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary"--i.e., an investigative judgment that would be followed by the pronouncing and then the execution of the sentence of judgment. What actually began in 1844, then, in their view, was an examination of all of the names in the Book of Life. Only after this was completed would Christ appear and begin his millennial reign. Though they did not set a new date, they insisted that Christ's advent was imminent. They also believed that observance of the seventh day, Saturday, rather than Sunday, would help to bring about the Second Coming. These Millerites founded an official denomination, the Seventh-day Adventists, in 1863. Mrs. White was thought to have the gift of prophecy, and she traveled and lectured widely in America, Europe, and Australia and wrote prolifically.

Other Adventist bodies emerged in the 19th century as a direct or indirect result of the prophecy of William Miller. These include the Evangelical Adventists (1845), Life and Advent Union (1862), Church of God (Seventh Day, 1866), Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith, 1888), and the Advent Christian Church. These Advent Christians do not accept the teachings of Mrs. White as in any way prophetic. They also reject the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventists about sabbath observance and dietary laws. They are congregational in polity and coordinate work in the United States and throughout the world through the Advent Christian General Conference of America. In 1964 the Advent Christian Church united with the Life and Advent Union.

Seventh-day Adventists share many basic beliefs held by most Christians. They accept the authority of the Old and New Testaments. They are Arminian (emphasizing human choice and God's election) rather than Calvinist (emphasizing God's sovereignty) in their interpretation of Christ's atonement, and they argue that his death was "provisionally and potentially for all men," yet efficacious only for those who avail themselves of its benefits.

In addition to the emphasis upon the Second Advent of Christ, two other matters set them apart from other Christians. First, they observe the seventh day of the week, rather than the first day, as the sabbath. This day, according to the Bible, was instituted by God since the Creation, and the commandment concerning sabbath rest is a part of God's eternal law. Second, they also avoid eating meat and taking narcotics and stimulants, which they consider to be harmful. Though they appeal to the Bible for the justification of these dietary practices, they maintain that these are based upon the broad theological consideration that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and should be protected.

Sending out its first missionary, John Nevins Andrews, in 1874, Seventh-day Adventism eventually expanded into a worldwide movement, with churches in nearly every country by the late 20th century. The Seventh-day Adventists' emphasis on missionary work won their church many new adherents in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa, so that by the late 20th century the church had more than 9,500,000 members.

The General Conference, the church's main governing body, has its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., where it was moved in 1989 from Washington, D.C. The meeting of the General Conference is held quadrennially and is made up of delegates from divisions, union and local, that are also called conferences. These local conferences provide pastoral oversight for the local congregations, which are governed by elected lay elders and deacons. The General Conference supervises the work of evangelism in more than 500 languages, a large parochial school system, and numerous medical institutions called sanitariums, of which the first was established in Battle Creek, Mich., in 1866. Publishing houses are operated in many countries, and Adventist literature is distributed door to door by volunteers. (J.H.Sm.)

Second Coming, also called SECOND ADVENT, OR PAROUSIA, in Christianity, the future return of Christ in glory, when it is understood that he will set up his kingdom, judge his enemies, and reward the faithful, living and dead. Early Christians believed the Advent to be imminent (see millennium), and those who have later professed what is known as Adventism have believed that the visible appearance of Jesus may occur at any moment and that Christians should be ever ready for it. Such believers find evidence for the Second Coming in the Gospels (Matthew 24,25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5-26; John 14:25-29), in the Book of Revelations, and in other biblical and traditional sources. See also Last Judgment.

Last Judgment, a general, or sometimes individual, judging of the thoughts, words, and deeds of persons by God, the gods, or by the laws of cause and effect. In some religions (e.g., Christianity) the judgment is of both the living and the dead; in others (e.g., certain primitive religions in Africa) the judgment in which God rewards or punishes men according to their actions occurs only after death.

The Western prophetic religions (i.e., Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) developed concepts of the Last Judgment that are rich in imagery. Zoroastrianism, founded by the 6th-century-bc Iranian prophet Zoroaster, teaches that after death the soul waits for three nights by the grave and on the fourth day goes to the Bridge of the Requiter, where his deeds are weighed. If the good outweigh the bad, the soul is able to cross the bridge to heaven; if the bad outweigh the good deeds, the bridge becomes too narrow for the soul to cross, and it plunges into the cold and dark abyss of hell. This is not the end, however, for there will be a final overthrow of Ahriman, the prince of demons, by Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who will resurrect all men, preside over a Last Judgment, and restore the world to goodness.

Christianity, further developing the concept of the Last Judgment, teaches that it will occur at the Parousia (the Second Coming, or Second Advent, of Christ in glory), when all men will stand before a judging God. In early Christian art the scene is one of Christ the judge, the resurrection of the dead, the weighing of souls, the separation of the saved and the damned, and representations of paradise and hell. Romanesque artists produced a more terrible vision of the Last Judgment: Christ is shown as a stern judge, sometimes carrying a sword and surrounded by the four mystical beasts--eagle, lion, ox, and winged man--of the apocalypse; the contrast between paradise and hell is between the awesome and the ferocious. In the gentler, more humanistic art of the Gothic period, a beautiful Christ is shown as the Redeemer, his right side undraped to reveal the wound of the lance, and both wounded hands raised high in a gesture that emphasizes his sacrifice. He is surrounded by the instruments of his Passion--cross, nails, lance, and crown of thorns. The intercessors are restored, and the scene of the Judgment is treated with optimism. In the 16th century, Michelangelo produced a radically different version of the Last Judgment in his fresco in the Sistine Chapel in Rome (1533-41): a vengeful Christ, nude like a pagan god, gestures menacingly toward the damned.

Islam likewise is rich in its imagery and conceptual expansion of the doctrine of the Last Judgment. The Day of Judgment is one of the five cardinal beliefs of Muslims. After death, persons are questioned about their faith by two angels: Munkar and Nakir. If a person has been a martyr, his soul immediately goes to paradise; others go through a type of purgatory. At doomsday all persons will die and then be resurrected to be judged according to the records kept in two books, one containing a person's good deeds, and the other his evil deeds. According to the weight of the book that is tied around a person's neck, he will be consigned to paradise or hell.

In addition to the Western religions and some primitive religions, ancient Near Eastern religions had developed beliefs in a Last Judgment. In ancient Egyptian religion, for example, a dead person's heart was judged by being placed on a balance held by the god Anubis. If the heart was light, thus indicating a person's comparative goodness, the soul was allowed to go to the blessed region ruled by Osiris, god of the dead. If the heart was heavy, the soul might be destroyed by a hybrid creature called the Devouress.

In Christian theology, the 1,000-year period when Jesus Christ will return and establish his kingdom on Earth. Among early Christians the idea of millennialism, or millenarianism, derived chiefly from Jewish eschatological expectations and usually implied the nearness of the triumph of Christians over the world.

The doctrine of the millennium is clearly present in the New Testament only in Rev. 20. According to the account of the vision there, Satan was bound and thrown into a pit for 1,000 years. Martyrs were resurrected and reigned with Christ for the millennium. At the end of the period, Satan was loosed for a time to deceive the nations, but he was subsequently defeated. All the dead were then gathered for the final judgment.

Many different interpretations of the millennium have been given. Those Christians who believe that the Second Coming of Christ will begin the 1,000-year period of righteousness in the world have been called premillennialists. Others, known as postmillennialists, believe that eventually Christianity will be accepted throughout the world, and a 1,000-year period of Christian righteousness will be climaxed by the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment.

The more general use of the term to include expectations of material benefits to be enjoyed on earth in the near future means that a number of early Christian writers, especially those close to Jewish Christianity, can be called millenarians. Among such writers are the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, and the Jewish-Christian Gnostic Cerinthus. Many Christians first became aware of the dangers of this kind of doctrine only with the rise of the movement known as Montanism. The Montanists believed that the heavenly Jerusalem would soon be manifested in Phrygia and that their leader was the Paraclete promised in the Gospel of John. At the same time, more orthodox teachers continued to share a similar hope; Hippolytus tells of bishops in Syria and Pontus who led their flocks out into the desert to await Christ's coming.

By the time of the triumph of the church in the reign of Constantine such hopes were on the wane. The great Western theologian Augustine was a millenarian early in his career, but he later changed his views. At the Council of Ephesus (431) millenarian views were not condemned; but they were mentioned only to be ignored. In later times they arose sporadically when they could be used against the authority of the church; thus they flourished among spiritual enthusiasts during the Middle Ages and particularly at the time of the Reformation, when social and religious ferment worked together, especially among the various groups loosely denominated Anabaptist. The more conservative Reformers shared the Catholic view of the coming of Christ as primarily past rather than future, thus identifying the Kingdom of God on earth with the church, even though such an identification was hardly ever regarded as complete.

Throughout later Western history, the appeal of millennialism has tended to resurge in times of great social change or crisis. Sects arising out of the industrialization of the West include the Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).

Also called KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, in Christianity, the spiritual realm over which God reigns as king, or the fulfillment on Earth of God's will. The phrase occurs frequently in the New Testament, primarily used by Jesus Christ in the first three Gospels. It is generally considered to be the central theme of Jesus' teaching, but widely differing views have been held about Jesus' teaching on the Kingdom of God and its relation to the developed view of the church.

Though the phrase itself rarely occurs in pre-Christian Jewish literature, the idea of God as king was fundamental to Judaism, and Jewish ideas on the subject undoubtedly underlie, and to some extent determine, the New Testament usage. Behind the Greek word for kingdom (basileia) lies the Aramaic term malkut, which Jesus may have used. Malkut refers primarily not to a geographical area or realm nor to the people inhabiting the realm but, rather, to the activity of the king himself, his exercise of sovereign power. The idea might better be conveyed in English by an expression such as kingship, rule, or sovereignty.

To most Jews of Jesus' time the world seemed so completely alienated from God that nothing would deal with the situation short of direct divine intervention on a cosmic scale. The details were variously conceived, but it was widely expected that God would send a supernatural, or supernaturally endowed, intermediary (the Messiah or Son of Man), whose functions would include a judgment to decide who was worthy to "inherit the Kingdom," an expression which emphasizes that the Kingdom was thought of as a divine gift, not a human achievement.

According to the first three Gospels, most of Jesus' miraculous actions are to be understood as prophetic symbols of the coming of the Kingdom, and his teaching was concerned with the right response to the crisis of its coming. The nationalistic tone of much of the Jewish expectation is absent from the teaching of Jesus.

Scholarly opinion is divided on the question as to whether Jesus taught that the Kingdom had actually arrived during his lifetime. Possibly, he recognized in his ministry the signs of its imminence, but he nevertheless looked to the future for its arrival "with power." He may well have regarded his own death as the providential condition of its full establishment. Nevertheless, he seems to have expected the final consummation in a relatively short time (Mark 9:1). Thus, Christians were perplexed when the end of the world did not occur within a generation, as Paul, for example, expected. Christian experience soon suggested, however, that, as the result of Christ's Resurrection, many of the blessings traditionally reserved until the life of the age to come were already accessible to the believer in this age. Thus, though the phrase Kingdom of God was used with decreasing frequency, that for which it stood was thought of as partly realized here and now in the life of the church, which at various periods has been virtually identified with the Kingdom; the Kingdom of God, however, would be fully realized only after the end of the world and the accompanying Last Judgment. The Johannine writings in the New Testament played a large part in the transition to this traditional Christian understanding of the Kingdom of God.



	Advent Christian Church One of several Adventist churches that evolved from the teachings in the late 1840s of William Miller. It was organized in 1860. Doctrinal emphasis is placed on the anticipated Second Coming of Christ and on the Last Judgment, after which the wicked will be destroyed and the chosen will be resurrected to live in a restored paradise on Earth. The church is congregational in polity and, unlike the Seventh-day Adventists, holds services on Sunday. In 1964 the former Life and Advent Union merged with the Advent Christian Church. Adventist, member of any of a group of Protestant Christian churches arising in the United States in the 19th century and distinguished by their doctrinal belief that the personal, visible return of Christ in glory (i.e., the Second Coming) is close at hand. Adventism is rooted in Hebrew and Christian prophetism, messianism, and millennial expectations recorded in the Bible. Adventists believe that at Christ's Second Coming he will separate the saints from the wicked and inaugurate his millennial (1,000-year) kingdom. See millennium. History It was in an atmosphere of millennialist revival in the United States that William Miller (1782-1849), a founder of the Adventists, began to preach. Miller, while an officer in the U.S. Army in the War of 1812, had become a skeptic. After a conversion, he began to study the books of Daniel and Revelation and to preach as a Baptist, the faith of his father. He concluded that Christ would come sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, and was encouraged in his views by a number of clergymen and numerous followers. Miller was accused of fanaticism because of his millenarianism, and he stressed the coming of Christ in conjunction with a fiery conflagration, which distressed his hearers. Christ, however, did not return on the first appointed date, so Miller and his followers set a second date, Oct. 22, 1844. The quiet passing of this day led to what is called the "Great Disappointment" among Adventists and the convening of a Mutual Conference of Adventists in 1845 to sort out problems. Those who met, however, found it difficult to shape a confession and form a permanent organization. Among those who persisted after the failure of Miller's prophecy were Joseph Bates, James White, and his wife, Ellen Harmon White. These Adventists, called Millerites in the press, believed that Miller had set the right date, but that they had interpreted what had happened incorrectly. Reading Daniel, chapters 8 and 9, they concluded that God had begun the "cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary"--i.e., an investigative judgment that would be followed by the pronouncing and then the execution of the sentence of judgment. What actually began in 1844, then, in their view, was an examination of all of the names in the Book of Life. Only after this was completed would Christ appear and begin his millennial reign. Though they did not set a new date, they insisted that Christ's advent was imminent. They also believed that observance of the seventh day, Saturday, rather than Sunday, would help to bring about the Second Coming. These Millerites founded an official denomination, the Seventh-day Adventists, in 1863. Mrs. White was thought to have the gift of prophecy, and she traveled and lectured widely in America, Europe, and Australia and wrote prolifically. Other Adventist bodies emerged in the 19th century as a direct or indirect result of the prophecy of William Miller. These include the Evangelical Adventists (1845), Life and Advent Union (1862), Church of God (Seventh Day, 1866), Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith, 1888), and the Advent Christian Church. These Advent Christians do not accept the teachings of Mrs. White as in any way prophetic. They also reject the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventists about sabbath observance and dietary laws. They are congregational in polity and coordinate work in the United States and throughout the world through the Advent Christian General Conference of America. In 1964 the Advent Christian Church united with the Life and Advent Union. Beliefs and practices Seventh-day Adventists share many basic beliefs held by most Christians. They accept the authority of the Old and New Testaments. They are Arminian (emphasizing human choice and God's election) rather than Calvinist (emphasizing God's sovereignty) in their interpretation of Christ's atonement, and they argue that his death was "provisionally and potentially for all men," yet efficacious only for those who avail themselves of its benefits. In addition to the emphasis upon the Second Advent of Christ, two other matters set them apart from other Christians. First, they observe the seventh day of the week, rather than the first day, as the sabbath. This day, according to the Bible, was instituted by God since the Creation, and the commandment concerning sabbath rest is a part of God's eternal law. Second, they also avoid eating meat and taking narcotics and stimulants, which they consider to be harmful. Though they appeal to the Bible for the justification of these dietary practices, they maintain that these are based upon the broad theological consideration that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and should be protected. Adventists stress tithing and therefore have a high annual giving per capita that allows them to carry on worldwide missionary and welfare programs. Because of their unwillingness to work on Saturday, they have suffered some job discrimination. Institutions Sending out its first missionary, John Nevins Andrews, in 1874, Seventh-day Adventism eventually expanded into a worldwide movement, with churches in nearly every country by the late 20th century. The Seventh-day Adventists' emphasis on missionary work won their church many new adherents in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa, so that by the late 20th century the church had more than 9,500,000 members. The General Conference, the church's main governing body, has its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., where it was moved in 1989 from Washington, D.C. The meeting of the General Conference is held quadrennially and is made up of delegates from divisions, union and local, that are also called conferences. These local conferences provide pastoral oversight for the local congregations, which are governed by elected lay elders and deacons. The General Conference supervises the work of evangelism in more than 500 languages, a large parochial school system, and numerous medical institutions called sanitariums, of which the first was established in Battle Creek, Mich., in 1866. Publishing houses are operated in many countries, and Adventist literature is distributed door to door by volunteers. (J.H.Sm.) Second Coming Second Coming, also called SECOND ADVENT, OR PAROUSIA, in Christianity, the future return of Christ in glory, when it is understood that he will set up his kingdom, judge his enemies, and reward the faithful, living and dead. Early Christians believed the Advent to be imminent (see millennium), and those who have later professed what is known as Adventism have believed that the visible appearance of Jesus may occur at any moment and that Christians should be ever ready for it. Such believers find evidence for the Second Coming in the Gospels (Matthew 24,25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5-26; John 14:25-29), in the Book of Revelations, and in other biblical and traditional sources. See also Last Judgment. Last Judgment, a general, or sometimes individual, judging of the thoughts, words, and deeds of persons by God, the gods, or by the laws of cause and effect. In some religions (e.g., Christianity) the judgment is of both the living and the dead; in others (e.g., certain primitive religions in Africa) the judgment in which God rewards or punishes men according to their actions occurs only after death. The Western prophetic religions (i.e., Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) developed concepts of the Last Judgment that are rich in imagery. Zoroastrianism, founded by the 6th-century-bc Iranian prophet Zoroaster, teaches that after death the soul waits for three nights by the grave and on the fourth day goes to the Bridge of the Requiter, where his deeds are weighed. If the good outweigh the bad, the soul is able to cross the bridge to heaven; if the bad outweigh the good deeds, the bridge becomes too narrow for the soul to cross, and it plunges into the cold and dark abyss of hell. This is not the end, however, for there will be a final overthrow of Ahriman, the prince of demons, by Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who will resurrect all men, preside over a Last Judgment, and restore the world to goodness. Early Judaic writers emphasized a day of Yahweh, the God of Israel, which is also called the day of the Lord. This day, which will be a day of judgment of Israel and all nations, will inaugurate the Kingdom of God. Christianity, further developing the concept of the Last Judgment, teaches that it will occur at the Parousia (the Second Coming, or Second Advent, of Christ in glory), when all men will stand before a judging God. In early Christian art the scene is one of Christ the judge, the resurrection of the dead, the weighing of souls, the separation of the saved and the damned, and representations of paradise and hell. Romanesque artists produced a more terrible vision of the Last Judgment: Christ is shown as a stern judge, sometimes carrying a sword and surrounded by the four mystical beasts--eagle, lion, ox, and winged man--of the apocalypse; the contrast between paradise and hell is between the awesome and the ferocious. In the gentler, more humanistic art of the Gothic period, a beautiful Christ is shown as the Redeemer, his right side undraped to reveal the wound of the lance, and both wounded hands raised high in a gesture that emphasizes his sacrifice. He is surrounded by the instruments of his Passion--cross, nails, lance, and crown of thorns. The intercessors are restored, and the scene of the Judgment is treated with optimism. In the 16th century, Michelangelo produced a radically different version of the Last Judgment in his fresco in the Sistine Chapel in Rome (1533-41): a vengeful Christ, nude like a pagan god, gestures menacingly toward the damned. Islam likewise is rich in its imagery and conceptual expansion of the doctrine of the Last Judgment. The Day of Judgment is one of the five cardinal beliefs of Muslims. After death, persons are questioned about their faith by two angels: Munkar and Nakir. If a person has been a martyr, his soul immediately goes to paradise; others go through a type of purgatory. At doomsday all persons will die and then be resurrected to be judged according to the records kept in two books, one containing a person's good deeds, and the other his evil deeds. According to the weight of the book that is tied around a person's neck, he will be consigned to paradise or hell. In addition to the Western religions and some primitive religions, ancient Near Eastern religions had developed beliefs in a Last Judgment. In ancient Egyptian religion, for example, a dead person's heart was judged by being placed on a balance held by the god Anubis. If the heart was light, thus indicating a person's comparative goodness, the soul was allowed to go to the blessed region ruled by Osiris, god of the dead. If the heart was heavy, the soul might be destroyed by a hybrid creature called the Devouress. In the Asian religions (e.g., Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) that believe in reincarnation , the concept of a Last Judgment is not uncommon. a) Millennium In Christian theology, the 1,000-year period when Jesus Christ will return and establish his kingdom on Earth. Among early Christians the idea of millennialism, or millenarianism, derived chiefly from Jewish eschatological expectations and usually implied the nearness of the triumph of Christians over the world. The doctrine of the millennium is clearly present in the New Testament only in Rev. 20. According to the account of the vision there, Satan was bound and thrown into a pit for 1,000 years. Martyrs were resurrected and reigned with Christ for the millennium. At the end of the period, Satan was loosed for a time to deceive the nations, but he was subsequently defeated. All the dead were then gathered for the final judgment. Many different interpretations of the millennium have been given. Those Christians who believe that the Second Coming of Christ will begin the 1,000-year period of righteousness in the world have been called premillennialists. Others, known as postmillennialists, believe that eventually Christianity will be accepted throughout the world, and a 1,000-year period of Christian righteousness will be climaxed by the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. The more general use of the term to include expectations of material benefits to be enjoyed on earth in the near future means that a number of early Christian writers, especially those close to Jewish Christianity, can be called millenarians. Among such writers are the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, and the Jewish-Christian Gnostic Cerinthus. Many Christians first became aware of the dangers of this kind of doctrine only with the rise of the movement known as Montanism. The Montanists believed that the heavenly Jerusalem would soon be manifested in Phrygia and that their leader was the Paraclete promised in the Gospel of John. At the same time, more orthodox teachers continued to share a similar hope; Hippolytus tells of bishops in Syria and Pontus who led their flocks out into the desert to await Christ's coming. By the time of the triumph of the church in the reign of Constantine such hopes were on the wane. The great Western theologian Augustine was a millenarian early in his career, but he later changed his views. At the Council of Ephesus (431) millenarian views were not condemned; but they were mentioned only to be ignored. In later times they arose sporadically when they could be used against the authority of the church; thus they flourished among spiritual enthusiasts during the Middle Ages and particularly at the time of the Reformation, when social and religious ferment worked together, especially among the various groups loosely denominated Anabaptist. The more conservative Reformers shared the Catholic view of the coming of Christ as primarily past rather than future, thus identifying the Kingdom of God on earth with the church, even though such an identification was hardly ever regarded as complete. Throughout later Western history, the appeal of millennialism has tended to resurge in times of great social change or crisis. Sects arising out of the industrialization of the West include the Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). b) Kingdom of God Also called KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, in Christianity, the spiritual realm over which God reigns as king, or the fulfillment on Earth of God's will. The phrase occurs frequently in the New Testament, primarily used by Jesus Christ in the first three Gospels. It is generally considered to be the central theme of Jesus' teaching, but widely differing views have been held about Jesus' teaching on the Kingdom of God and its relation to the developed view of the church. Though the phrase itself rarely occurs in pre-Christian Jewish literature, the idea of God as king was fundamental to Judaism, and Jewish ideas on the subject undoubtedly underlie, and to some extent determine, the New Testament usage. Behind the Greek word for kingdom (basileia) lies the Aramaic term malkut, which Jesus may have used. Malkut refers primarily not to a geographical area or realm nor to the people inhabiting the realm but, rather, to the activity of the king himself, his exercise of sovereign power. The idea might better be conveyed in English by an expression such as kingship, rule, or sovereignty. To most Jews of Jesus' time the world seemed so completely alienated from God that nothing would deal with the situation short of direct divine intervention on a cosmic scale. The details were variously conceived, but it was widely expected that God would send a supernatural, or supernaturally endowed, intermediary (the Messiah or Son of Man), whose functions would include a judgment to decide who was worthy to "inherit the Kingdom," an expression which emphasizes that the Kingdom was thought of as a divine gift, not a human achievement. According to the first three Gospels, most of Jesus' miraculous actions are to be understood as prophetic symbols of the coming of the Kingdom, and his teaching was concerned with the right response to the crisis of its coming. The nationalistic tone of much of the Jewish expectation is absent from the teaching of Jesus. Scholarly opinion is divided on the question as to whether Jesus taught that the Kingdom had actually arrived during his lifetime. Possibly, he recognized in his ministry the signs of its imminence, but he nevertheless looked to the future for its arrival "with power." He may well have regarded his own death as the providential condition of its full establishment. Nevertheless, he seems to have expected the final consummation in a relatively short time (Mark 9:1). Thus, Christians were perplexed when the end of the world did not occur within a generation, as Paul, for example, expected. Christian experience soon suggested, however, that, as the result of Christ's Resurrection, many of the blessings traditionally reserved until the life of the age to come were already accessible to the believer in this age. Thus, though the phrase Kingdom of God was used with decreasing frequency, that for which it stood was thought of as partly realized here and now in the life of the church, which at various periods has been virtually identified with the Kingdom; the Kingdom of God, however, would be fully realized only after the end of the world and the accompanying Last Judgment. The Johannine writings in the New Testament played a large part in the transition to this traditional Christian understanding of the Kingdom of God.