Failed Mormon Second Coming Predictions

[bill4long]

Watching the Afore argue that a few angry guys in Illinois successfully derailed God’s entire apocalyptic timeline is pure comedy. Folks, you really can’t make this stuff up.

Do you have a link for this? Thanks.

[IWMP]

This is apparently a sore subject for Daniel Peterson in the recent comment section of his blog. Not surprising, seeing as how these end time predictions are (in my opinion) merely low brow superstitions. They don’t exactly elevate Mormonism to the soaring sophisticated heights that DCP wants to loft his quaint, provincial religion into.

Joseph Smith told a group of elders on Feb. 14, 1835, that they were “called to go forth and prune the vineyard for the last time, before the coming of Christ, even 56 years should wind up the scene” (History of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 182, and quoted by B.H. Roberts in the October 1890 General conference). Many church members believed Smith and marked their calendars for 1891. They did not forget. They came to the October 1890 General Conference looking for guidance on how to prepare for the end.

This was not a fringe group. George Q. Cannon said: “A great many anticipations have been indulged in connection with that year.” The stress level prompted 10 speakers to talk on the Second Coming. They used various tactics to downplay and dismiss Smith’s 1835 statement. Cannon even attempted to conflate the 1835 statement with a separate, more ambiguous statement that Smith made on April 2, 1843, recorded in D&C 130:14-17. Yet these statements were made eight years apart and are not the same.

By the end of the conference, Cannon stated explicitly that Jesus would not come in 1891 or 1892. Still, Lorenzo Snow said the Second Coming would be “soon.”

Dans answer to this is that Joseph Smith’s prophesy was conditional on his survival. Implying that the mob which killed him literally prevented the second coming of Christ. Quite the feat for a few yokels.

Even as recently as the 1980s, the church has been dabbing in predictions:

On April 6, 1983, Elder Featherstone drafted a letter addressed to twenty- first century members of the Church. It would be deposited in a time capsule at the dedication of the Atlanta Georgia Temple presumably, like other Church time capsules, to be opened fifty years later. This powerful document predicts the millennial ministry of the Savior and the future success of the Saints’ missionary labors in the American South. The opening paragraph describes what Featherstone believed the experience of these future Latter-day Saints would be like fifty years in the future.
Those of you who read this letter have witnessed the second coming of Christ, the day for which we have long awaited. What a glorious experience to live in the day when our Lord, our Redeemer, the very Son of God is reigning personally upon the earth. We can imagine what General Conference must be like, to have the Savior address the people. … Oh what a blessed generation you are and must be.2
Featherstone notes that in his own time the Church was facing great adversity. “I believe we are on the very threshold of great trials. The darkest clouds in the history of the world are on the horizon.”3

The church really should stick to telling teenagers in the temple baptismal font that they’re the chosen generation who will see Christ return. When they put it in writing like this, they’re just begging to be mocked.

Reminds me of patriarchal blessings. The amount of people around me when I had mine who were told they would meet Jesus or they would be alive when he returns is wild. Mind you, I think they are all still alive so you never know.

[drumdude]

Reminds me of patriarchal blessings. The amount of people around me when I had mine who were told they would meet Jesus or they would be alive when he returns is wild. Mind you, I think they are all still alive so you never know.

Yep! During my first baptism for the dead session as a teen, I was told we were the special generation who would see Christ return.

Yay us!

[Abaddon]

Reminds me of patriarchal blessings. The amount of people around me when I had mine who were told they would meet Jesus or they would be alive when he returns is wild. Mind you, I think they are all still alive so you never know.

Yep! During my first baptism for the dead session as a teen, I was told we were the special generation who would see Christ return.

Yay us!

I knew a guy from my old ward who related that his patriarchal blessing confirmed he would witness the 2nd coming in the mortal flesh.

Sadly, he committed suicide a few years ago.

[Gadianton]

Steuss quoted this, "I think that an earlier second coming might well have occurred in a world unlike ours." but wasn't sure who it's attributed to.

Whoever said it has a questionable understanding of Mormon doctrine. The obvious objection is all the prophecies that must happen before he returns. Is this person saying the battle of Armageddon and the the lost ten tribes coming forth from the arctic ice -- from deep within the interior of the earth -- would have happened within Joseph Smith's lifetime?

The deeper problem is having your cake and eating it too with the effects of critics on the Lord's plans. The implication seems to be that if people were more righteous and didn't question the far-fetched claims of the restoration (that no apologist would have accepted had they not been born into it) then Jesus would have been more welcome and already came. But we already know from Joseph Field Smith that Jesus died for all of the Fathers worlds on this world because this world is the only one wicked enough to have killed their Lord and Savior in the first place.

[I Have Questions]

Yep! During my first baptism for the dead session as a teen, I was told we were the special generation who would see Christ return.

Yay us!

I knew a guy from my old ward who related that his patriarchal blessing confirmed he would witness the 2nd coming in the mortal flesh.

Sadly, he committed suicide a few years ago.

I would imagine there are generations worth of patriarchal blessings that contain the promise that the recipient would see the second coming during their lifetime. In fact, someone has conducted an analysis of common promises across numbers of patriarchal blessings Here. Here is an example of a commonly used phrase in blessings...

The Lord has given his angels charge over you that you may live long upon the Earth and shall live until the coming of the Son of God and sit in counsel with the Ancient of Days, with Adam your father, and all the ancient prophets.

And

Thou shalt see the coming of the Messiah and have joy and rejoicing.

Those two examples are from blessings given in the 1800's...so...didn't happen. More recently they've become a little more ambiguous, this from 2025

Great responsibilities will be yours as this lineage is to prepare the earth for the Savior's Second Coming by sharing the gospel. As you do, you will be blessed to join the Hosts of Heaven, to rejoice with them, as our Savior comes to rule again on this earth.

The headline statement from the analysis

15% of blessings since 1950 included the promise of Living until the Second Coming.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I knew a guy from my old ward who related that his patriarchal blessing confirmed he would witness the 2nd coming in the mortal flesh.

Many people have patriarchal blessings that share that exact same promise, including my father, who passed away from a heart attack about 40 years ago.

[Limnor]

Steuss quoted this, "I think that an earlier second coming might well have occurred in a world unlike ours." but wasn't sure who it's attributed to.

Whoever said it has a questionable understanding of Mormon doctrine. The obvious objection is all the prophecies that must happen before he returns. Is this person saying the battle of Armageddon and the the lost ten tribes coming forth from the arctic ice -- from deep within the interior of the earth -- would have happened within Joseph Smith's lifetime?

Count me among those with questionable understanding.

Maybe Jesus returned to one of the other “worlds without number.” Would each world have its own timeline? Do they have to be synched? Are there multiple versions of Armageddon? The speculation could be endless.

[Gadianton]

I've never heard that and I'd think it unlikely. That would make one of those other worlds more special then the current dispensation on this world. Nobody in the universe is allowed to be more important than Dan.

[Limnor]

I've never heard that and I'd think it unlikely. That would make one of those other worlds more special then the current dispensation on this world. Nobody in the universe is allowed to be more important than Dan.

I apologize gad. That was intended to be sarcasm.