Unfulfilled religious prophecies

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.

Claims by members of mainstream churches

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." ["Reformation Principles and Practice: Essays in Honor of Arthur Geoffrey Dickens", p 169]

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." ["Luther's View of Church History", John M. Headley, Yale University Press, 1963, pp 13,14] 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." ["Prophecy and Gnosis — Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation", Robin Bruce Barnes, p 64]

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." ["The Signs of the Times", Isaac Massey Haldeman, pages 452, 453]

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

Anabaptist Church

Certain Anabaptists of the early sixteenth century believed that the Millennium would occur in 1533. ["When Prophecy Fails, Festinger", Riecken and Schaeter, page 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." ["Soothsayers Of The Second Advent", William Alnor, page 57.]

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." ["A Great Expectation — Eschatological Thought in English Protestantism to 1660" by Bryan W. Ball and E.J. Brill, page 117] 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. ["The Logic of Millennial Thought" by James West Davidson, page 200]

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." [April 10, 1917 edition, page 3] Other editions speculated that the end would come no later than 1934 or 1935. [May 13, 1916 pp 6-9 etc]

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.'" ["The Prophetic Faith of our Fathers", pages 417, 419.]

Mennonites

Russian Mennonite minister Claas Epp, Jr. predicted that Christ would return on March 8, 1889 and, when that date passed uneventfully, 1891. [Bartsch, Franz and Richard D. Thiessen. " [http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/E6595.html Epp, Claas (1838–1913)] ". Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. April 2005. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 3 November 2006.]

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:

This same viewpoint was published by the popular Pastor Hal Lindsey in his widely published book entitled "The Late Great Planet Earth". [see page 43]

Claims by other groups

Jehovah's Witnesses

Charles Taze Russell, the first president of what is now the Watchtower Society, calculated 1874 to be the year of Christ's Second Coming, and until his death taught that Christ was invisibly present, and ruling from the heavens from that date prophesied. [ [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404705638.html Charles Taze Russell – FREE Charles Taze Russell Information | Encyclopedia.com: Find Charles Taze Russell Research ] ] ["The writer, among many others now interested, was sound asleep, in profound ignorance of the cry, etc., until 1876, when being awakened he trimmed his lamp (for it is still very early in the morning.) It showed him clearly that the Bridegroom had come and that he is living "in the days of the Son of Man." cite journal|journal=Zion's Watch Tower|author=C.T. Russell|title=From and To The Wedding|url=http://www.mostholyfaith.com/bible/Reprints/Z1880APR.asp|month=April | year=1880|pages=2] [Russell explained how he accepted the idea of an invisible return of Christ from N.H. Barbour in [http://www.agsconsulting.com/htdbv5/r3820.htm "Harvest Gatherings and Siftings"] in the July 15, 1906 "Watch Tower", "Reprints" page 3822.] ["The Three Worlds and The Harvest of This World" by N.H. Barbour and C.T. Russell (1877). Text available online at: [http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/contents/history/3worlds.pdf http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/contents/history/3worlds.pdf] [http://tjliberte.free.fr/Library/Watchtower_Publications/Other_books/1877_The_Three_Worlds.pdf Scan of book in PDF format] ] Russell proclaimed Christ's invisible return in 1874, ["The Three Worlds", p. 175] the resurrection of the saints in 1875, ["The Three Worlds", pp. 104-108] and predicted the end of the "harvest" and a rapture of the saints to heaven for 1878, [See pages 68, 89-93, 124, 125-126, 143 of "The Three Worlds".] and the final end of "the day of wrath" in 1914. [ The year 1914 was seen as the final end of the "day of wrath": "...the 'times of the Gentiles,' reach from B.C. 606 to A.D. 1914, or forty years beyond 1874. And the time of trouble, conquest of the nations, and events connected with the day of wrath, have only ample time, during the balance of this forty years, for their fulfillment." "The Three Worlds", p. 189.] 1874 was considered the end of 6,000 years of human history and the beginning of judgment by Christ. [In 1935, the idea that the 6,000 years ran out in 1874 was moved forward 100 years. cite journal|journal=The Golden Age|title=The Second Hand in the Timepiece of God|pages=412–413|date=March 27, 1935|url=http://www.a2z.org/wtarchive/docs/1935_Calendar_Golden_Age.pdf.]
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. [Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 7, 1917, p. 485.] 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. [ "The Watchtower", May 15, 1922; Sep. 1, 1922; Apr. 1, 1923; Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1925, p. 110 ]

"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." [Finished Mystery p. 485]

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:

Other claims by period

Third century to eighteenth century

Twenty-first century

See also

* List of messiah claimants
* Second Coming
* Six ages of the world
* Middle Ages
* Earth Changes

References