Unfulfilled religious prophecies

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This page attempts to list time-specific historical predictions (or prophecy) by claimed prophets or leaders within various churches whose predictions failed to happen. Biblical prophecy is not included, and is dealt with in separate articles. The "prophets" listed here include anyone who has predicted or prophesied about the future within visible religions.

Contents 1 Claims by members of mainstream churches 1.1 Lutheran Church 1.2 Roman Catholic Church 1.3 Baptist Church 1.4 Anabaptist Church 1.5 Presbyterian Church 1.6 Assemblies of God Church 1.7 The Anglican Church 1.8 Mennonites 1.9 Calvary Chapel 2 Claims by other groups 2.1 Jehovah's Witnesses 2.2 Catholic Apostolic Church 3 Other claims by period 3.1 Third century to eighteenth century 3.2 Nineteenth century 3.3 Twentieth century 3.4 Twenty-first century 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Claims by members of mainstream churches

[edit] Lutheran Church

The founder of the Lutheran Church was the reformer, Martin Luther (1483–1546 A.D.). According to one authority, Luther ventured to predict: "For my part, I am sure that the Day of Judgment is just around the corner. It doesn't matter that we don't know the precise day... perhaps someone else can figure it out. But it is certain that time is now at an end."^[1]

Some take the position that this would not be a failed prediction, because on the larger scale of time, "near" can be centuries in God's eyes. The reason for Martin Luther to say that the time is near, is to urge all people to examine themselves and ask themselves if they are sure they would be saved if the World were to end at any moment. However, his words indicate that he believed the end was near based on human understanding. Another work says: "In all of his [Luther's] work there was a sense of urgency for the time was short... the world was heading for Armageddon in the war with the Turk."^[2] Even after his death in 1546, Lutheran leaders kept up the claim of the nearness of the end. About the year 1584, A zealous Lutheran named Adam Nachenmoser wrote a large volume entitled Prognosticum Theologicum in which he predicted: "In 1590 the Gospel would be preached to all nations and a wonderful unity would be achieved. The last days would then be close at hand. Nachenmoser offered numerous conjectures about the date; 1635 seemed most likely."^[3]

[edit] Roman Catholic Church

Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa (1401–1464 A.D.) was "a cardinal of great learning...At the age of 23 Nicholas became a doctor of law, but when he lost his first lawsuit he left the profession of law for the study of theology. Possessing a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages, and a rare degree of eloquence, soon attracted attention... was made a cardinal (1449 A.D.)"^[4] Another Catholic scholar, Arnald of Villanova predicted that an Antichrist would appear in 1378 A.D.^[5]

[edit] Baptist Church

Some Baptists also have a history of date and time predictions that have failed. In the early 1900s, the well-known Dr. Isaac M. Haldeman, pastor of the First Baptist Church in New York City, predicted that before the Jews returned to Palestine to establish a Jewish State — an event that happened in 1948 — that the Antichrist would appear. Haldeman explained: "The Scriptures teach that this man (the Antichrist) will be the prime factor in bringing the Jews back, as a body into their own land; that he will be the power that shall make Zionism a success; that through him the nationalism of the Jews shall be accomplished." There is still a group of believers that continue to believe that Haldeman was correct; and that in truth, Adolf Hitler was the Antichrist predicted in the Bible (or perhaps one antichrist of many). They offer as "proof" the fact that the end result of WWII and the holocaust drove many Jews out of Europe to their new Israel. The fact that Hitler's Holocaust killed millions of Jewish believers (called "saints" in many Old Testament prophetic passages) would correlate positively with several Bible predictions that the Antichrist will seek to murder multitudes of "saints."^[6]

The "one of many" Antichrist theory has some stability within Biblical limits. In 1 John 2:18, John writes that "many Antichrists have come."

[edit] Anabaptist Church

Certain Anabaptists of the early sixteenth century believed that the Millennium would occur in 1533.^[7] Another source reports: "When the prophecy failed, the Anabaptists became more zealous and claimed that two witnesses (Enoch and Elijah) had come in the form of Jan Matthys and Jan Bockelson; they would set up the New Jerusalem in Münster. Münster became a frightening dictatorship under Bockelson's control. Although all Lutherans and Catholics were expelled from that city, the millennium never came."^[8]

[edit] Presbyterian Church

Thomas Brightman, who lived from 1562 to 1607, has been called "one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in England." He predicted that "between 1650 and 1695 [we] would see the conversion of the many Jews and a revival of their nation in Palestine...the destruction of the Papacy...the marriage of the Lamb and his wife."^[9] This did not happen.

Christopher Love who lived from 1618–1651 was a bright graduate of Oxford and a strong Presbyterian. Love predicted that: (1) Babylon would fall in 1758 (2) God's anger against the wicked would be demonstrated in 1759 and (3) in 1763 there would occur a great earthquake all over the world.^[10]

[edit] Assemblies of God Church

During World War I, The Weekly Evangel, an official publication of the Assemblies of God, carried this prediction: "We are not yet in the Armageddon struggle proper, but at its commencement, and it may be, if students of prophecy read the signs aright, that Christ will come before the present war closes, and before Armageddon...The war preliminary to Armageddon, it seems, has commenced."^[11] Other editions speculated that the end would come no later than 1934 or 1935.^[12]

[edit] The Anglican Church

In volume II of The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, author Leroy Edwin Froom tells us about a prominent Anglican prelate, who made a relevant prediction: "Edwin Sandys (1519–1588), Archbishop of York and Primate of England was born in Lancashire... Sandys says, 'Now, as we know not the day and time, so let us be assured that this coming of the Lord is near. He is not slack, as we do count slackness. That it is at hand, it may be probably gathered out of the Scriptures in diverse places. The signs mentioned by Christ in the Gospel which should be the foreshewers of this terrible day, are almost all fulfilled.'"^[13]

[edit] Mennonites

Russian Mennonite minister Claas Epp, Jr. predicted that Christ would return on 1889-03-08 and, when that date passed uneventfully, 1891.^[14]

[edit] Calvary Chapel

The founder of the Calvary Chapel system is the charismatic Pastor Chuck Smith. Some years ago, he published a book entitled End Times. On the jacket of his book, Smith is called a "well known Bible scholar and prophecy teacher." In this book he wrote:

As we look at the world scene today, it would appear that the coming of the Lord is very, very, close. Yet, we do not know when it will be. It could be that the Lord will wait for a time longer. If I understand Scripture correctly, Jesus taught us that the generation which sees the 'budding of the fig tree', the birth of the nation Israel, will be the generation that sees the Lord's return; I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation. Since a generation of judgment is forty years and the tribulation lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for his church anytime before the tribulation starts, which would mean anytime before 1981. (1948 + 40 − 7 = 1981) However, it is possible that Jesus is dating the beginning of the generation from 1967, when Jerusalem was again under Israeli control for the first time since 587 B.C. We don't know for sure which year actually marks the beginning of the last generation.^[15]

This same viewpoint was published by the popular Pastor Hal Lindsey in his widely published book entitled The Late Great Planet Earth.^[16]

[edit] Claims by other groups

[edit] Jehovah's Witnesses

Main article: Controversies regarding Jehovah's Witnesses' Unfulfilled predictions

Charles Taze Russell, the first president of what is now the Watchtower Society, prophesied that Armageddon would break out in 1904.^{[citation needed]}

Joseph Franklin Rutherford, the second president of the Watchtower Society, predicted that in 1918, God would begin to destroy churches and millions of its members.^[17] He also predicted that in 1925, the Millennium would begin, with Biblical figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David coming back to life. The Watchtower even bought property and built a house in California for their return.^[18]

"In the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and the church members by the millions, it shall be that any that escape shall come to the works of Pastor Russell."^[19]

[edit] Catholic Apostolic Church

The well known Scottish cleric, Edward Irving, is the founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church and a forerunner of the Pentecostal movement. In 1828 he wrote a work headed The Last Days: A Discourse on the Evil Character of These Our Times, Proving Them to be the 'Perilous Times' and the 'Last Days'. On pages 10-22 we find some telling information which includes the following:

I conclude, therefore, that the last days... will begin to run from the time of God's appearing for his ancient people, and gathering them together to the work of destroying all Antichristian nations, of evangelising the world, and of governing it during the Millennium... The times and fullness of the times, so often mentioned in the New Testament, I consider as referring to the great period numbered by times...Now if this reasoning be correct, as there can be little doubt that the one thousand two hundred and sixty days concluded in the year 1792, and the thirty additional days in the year 1823, we are already entered upon the last days, and the ordinary life of a man will carry many of us to the end of them. If this be so, it gives to the subject with which we have introduced this year's ministry a very great importance indeed.

[edit] Other claims by period

[edit] Third century to eighteenth century

Date	Author/Predicter	Prediction/Notes
200	Montanus	Christ returns and sets up the New Jerusalem in the small town of Pepuza in Phrygia.

[edit] Nineteenth century

Date	Author/Predicter	Prediction/Notes
1843	William Miller	William Miller, an important figure whose major surviving offshoot is the Seventh-day Adventist Church, used the Book of Daniel to predict the Second Coming, and said it would be between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.[20]
1844 October 22	William Miller	William Miller revised the Return of Christ to this date, which is known as the Great Disappointment.[20] Members of the Bahá'í Faith believe that Christ did return on May 23 1844 as the Báb (the Gate), the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh (Glory of God).

[edit] Twentieth century

Date	Author/Predicter	Prediction/Notes
1973 January 11-January 21	David Berg	Colossal doomsday event in USA heralded by comet Kohoutek (David Berg)[21][22]
1975	Herbert W. Armstrong	A number of predictions, most of them dire, such as drought causing population of America to fall by one-third. See 1975 in Prophecy! (Herbert W. Armstrong)[23]
1980s	Hal Lindsey	A United States of Europe forms with its own central government and is in control of its own military and political structures. (Hal Lindsey). [24]
1988 September 11-September 13	Edgar C. Whisenant	Return of Christ. (Edgar C. Whisenant, in the book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988)
1989	Benny Hinn	A short man appears within a "few" years who will rule the world as the Antichrist. (Benny Hinn)[25]
1990s	Benny Hinn	America's first female President will be appointed "in the next few years". Unfortunately, she ends up destroying the nation. (Benny Hinn)[26]
1990s	Oral Roberts	Televangelist Jim Bakker is put on trial for fraud but is found completely innocent. Prediction by Oral Roberts.[27]
1993	David Berg	Christ returns (David Berg — Children of God)[28]
1994	William Kamm	The island of Guam is sunk after being hit by a tidal wave from an Earthquake in Japan and a subsequent volcanic eruption. (William Kamm)[29]
September 6, 1994	Harold Camping	Second Coming of Christ occurs September 6 (Harold Camping, in the book 1994?)
1995	Benny Hinn	God destroys America's Homosexual community. Benny Hinn.[25]
1996	William Kann	Canadian Civil War (William Kann).[29]
October 2000	Jim Searcy	Jesus returns and defeats HRH The Prince of Wales, who is the Antichrist (Jim Searcy)[30]

[edit] Twenty-first century

Date	Author/Predicter	Prediction/Notes
2007	Shelby Corbitt	Shelby Corbitt says God told her the Rapture would happen in mid-2007.[31]

[edit] See also

• List of messiah claimants
• Second Coming
• Six Ages of the World
• Middle Ages
• Earth Changes

[edit] References