Transnational Crime in the Americas: An Inter-American Dialogue BookThe expectation of an end to time and the yearning for a millennial paradise have been recurring themes in Western religious thought. But when we speak of expectation of the world's end we are mindful of the fact that generation after generation of millenarians have been disappointed. Their endtime hopes and prophecies have not come true. What happens, one might ask, when prophecies fail? Does failure spell the end of the very movements that embrace such expectations? The aim of this anthology is to gather together in one volume the essential research from the fields of sociology and psychology that seeks to answer this intriguing question as first raised by Festinger in his 1956 work, When Prophecy Fails. Cross-cultural and comparative, this collection chronicles forty years of research into failed prophecy and response to the attending cognitive dissonance it produces that is at once timely and informative. |
Contents
Spiritualization and Reaffirmation | 28 |
Unfulfilled Prophecies and Disappointed Messiahs 31 331 | 31 |
Prophecy Fails Again | 55 |
When Prophecies Fail | 87 |
The Effects of Prophetic Disconfirmation of the Committed | 105 |
Prophecy Continues to Fail | 119 |
Had Prophecy Failed? | 159 |
How Do Movements Survive Failures of Prophecy? | 175 |
It Separated the Wheat from the Chaff | 191 |
Coping with Apocalypse in Canada | 211 |
When Festinger Fails | 233 |
When Prophecy Is Not Validated | 251 |
Fifteen Years of Failed Prophecy | 269 |
Common terms and phrases
action Advent Adventists Apocalypse April 29 Armageddon Baha'i Balch behavior belief system Bible and Tract BUPC Burridge Chicago chiliastic Christ Christian Church claimed cognitive dissonance collective committed continued converts conviction cult disappointment disciples Doc's Earth earthly endtime example expected fact failed prophecy faith Festinger Festinger's followers God's Hardyck and Braden Ibid identity ideological imminent increased individual interpretation Jehovah's Witnesses Jesus Jewish Messiah Keech Kingdom Lake City group Lanternari leader Leon Festinger Lubavitch Messiah millenar millenarian millenarian groups millenarian movements millennial Millennium Millerites mission Moshiach occur organization organizational prediction Prophecy Fails prophetic disconfirmation prophetic failure prophetic fulfillment prophetic movement proselytizing rationalization Rebbe reduce dissonance reinterpretation Religion religious response Riecken ritual Russell Sabbatai Sabbatai Zevi Schachter Second Coming sect sect's Shaker shelters social support Sociological specific spiritual Stanley Schachter supernatural symbolic theory tion Tract Society True Word group Watchtower Bible Worsley York Zygmunt
References to this book
Bearing False Witness?: An Introduction to the Christian Countercult Douglas E. Cowan No preview available - 2003 |
Bearing False Witness?: An Introduction to the Christian Countercult Douglas E. Cowan No preview available - 2003 |