The “Adventist” or “Latter-day” churches arose during the same period as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and share some comparable features of doctrine and history, but there is no conclusive evidence that the Millerites and Mormons directly influenced one another. The two movements do have in common some connection with the Restoration Movement. Many Millerites and Mormons including prominent Millerite and Mormon leaders, were Campbellites or belonged to other Restoration Movement sects before converting…
The Millerite tradition is a diverse family of denominations and Bible study movements that have arisen since the middle of the 19th century, traceable to the Adventist movement sparked by the apocalyptic teachings of William Miller. Miller was a profitable farmer, a Baptist layman and amateur student of the Bible, living in northern New York, in the region of that state which has come to be known as the Burned-over district.
Anti-traditional tendencies
Jesus did not appear as expected. Following this Great Disappointment, although many adherents returned to their traditions, a number of followers continued to believe in the accuracy of Miller’s date, or recalculated to arrive at a new date. Sometimes with the help of visions and visitations by angels, or reformers whose message was identified with Bible prophecy, post-Disappointment Millerites arrived at various reinterpretations of the meaning of the Disappointment, often constructing alternative history, theology, politics and science, sometimes showing openness to rejected knowledge and conspiracy theories; and to the extent that these developed in a particular group, a concomitant tendency toward withdrawal also developed.
The Millerite movement originally had adherents across denominational lines, especially from Baptist, Prebyterian, Methodist and Campbellite churches, forming distinct denominations only after the Great Disappointment. Some modern Millerite branches identify themselves as Evangelical Protestant Christians, although others teach that their latter-day church is the only faithful remnant, and the replacement of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Jewish Israel. Typical of the post-Disappointment Millerite perspective is the belief that genuine Christianity had been lost to the world through a Great Apostasy
knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Millerite
The Seeker Movement
Seekerism existed at the radical end of the Reformation spectrum. Scholars have generally emphasized “the primitive gospel movement” in ante-bellum America, but diverse versions of Christian primitivism already existed in post-Reformation Europe and in England after Henry VIII severed the English churches from the papacy. Justification for reform was usually couched in Primitivistic rhetoric, accusing the Roman church of corrupting the pure gospel, for example. Thus Seekerism–whether in Europe, England, or America–existed within a larger primitive gospel movement.
Although the Primitivist movement began in Europe and England, it flourished in the freer environment of post-Revolutionary America.
At first widely scattered, by 1850 the American Primitivists had produced two sects with significant followings: the Disciples of Christ and the Mormons.4 However, these two groups shared competing approaches to the problem of the perceived apostasy from primitive Christianity.
Those in Europe and England who held more radical views–such as Anabaptists, Seekers, Familiests (those in “The Family of Love”), Ranters, and Quakers–were entirely overshadowed by the state churches. The leading Reformers–Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin–attacked the views of the Anabaptists (literally “rebaptizer”), who repudiated infant baptism and Calvinistic predestination, and believed in new revelations, the imminent appearance of Christ, and the establishment of the New Jerusalem.6
The use of Primitivist theology by one Church of England divine demonstrates how those in the “right-wing” incorporated radical tenets. When Charles II married the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, for political purposes, English churchmen were outraged by the alliance with a Catholic nation. In 1662 Charles’s chaplain, Thomas Pierce, delivered a sermon before the king in which he defended the Protestant church and attacked Catholicism
When their goal to transform the Church of England was frustrated, some Puritans formed their own “Separatist” congregations. These Separatist Puritans were eventually driven from England to Holland. However, those who carried the Puritan vision to the shores of New England in 1620 were nonseparating Puritans who had little tolerance for Separatist dissenters.13
signaturebookslibrary.org/seekers/chapter1.htm#movement
