Proclaiming the Midnight Cry

A Survey of the Millerite Adventist Awakening in the Nineteenth Century

By: G. Michael Saunders, David Dean

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Among most Christians today William Miller is a little-known and much maligned religious leader from the 19th century. The significant movement he founded, the Adventist Awakening, provided what was probably the last major thrust of the Second Great Awakening. But it was a movement with a near fatal flaw – a specific date for the return of Jesus Christ.

In spite of that the Millerites, spurred to evangelism by their fervent expectation of the soon return of the Savior, brought the salvation message to several hundred thousand people with professed conversion numbering about 50,000. Dr. Saunders presents an overview of the historical context of William Miller, a survey of his life and the movement until the day of great disappointment. He concludes with the fragmentation of the Adventists into multiple denominations and the development of the Advent Christian Church, the only extant evangelical denomination to grow out of the movement.

Why then learn about this obscure movement? Dr. David A. Dean in the article “Rediscovering Millerism: Modern Evangelicalism’s Debe to the Adventist Movement” in Our Destiny We know discusses five aspects of Millerism which mark Evangelicalism today. 1) The elevation of premillennialism to its position of prominence by undermining the influence of post-millennialism. 2) Refocusing the church to a Christocentric presentation of Christ as the only hope for real solutions to environmental, individual, and social problems. 3) Reaffirming a Biblical literalism and challenging the accepted allegorizing and spiritualization of the day. 4) Emphasizing revivalism as a key factor in evangelism and church health. 5) Elevating publications of newspaper, tracts, visual aids, and books as a major tool for evangelism and Christian education. Few Christian movements produced as great a volume of literature as did the Millerites for any comparable time frame (the height of Millerite publications was 1840-1844). For these reason Christians today benefit from learning about this dynamic movement.

Dr. Saunders presents his information as a survey of the movement, not a comprehensive historical analysis. The pictures he provided enhance the reading experience and help bring the movement and its leaders into perspective.
Unfortunately the full original manuscript has been lost. This involves some of the appendices and the footnotes for chapters three and four. Aside from some minor changes to assist readability, rearranging some of the sections in the latter chapters to cluster the information regarding the Advent Christian Denomination, and moving one section “An Erroneous Claim” to the appendix, the book is essentially as my friend Mike, Dr. Saunders, presented to his mentor Dr. Freundt in seminary.

I commend this book to anyone interested in the Millerite Adventist Awakening and/or the Advent Christian Church.