Abstract / DOI
Chiliastic Forms of Christianity. With a certain simultaneity to de-eschatologizing tendencies in church and theology during the 19th and 20th centuries there were also counter-movements. In end-time movements highest attention was paid to the apocalyptic imagery of the Bible. The focus was less on the expectation of a new heaven and a new earth than on the destruction of the existing world in cosmic catastrophes. This eclectic reception of apocalyptic texts of the Bible took place on the one hand in revival movements of Protestantism, from which evangelical and pentecostal-charismatic forms of piety grew, which also found response in the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, this development took place in numerous Christian communities, which understood themselves as firm counterparts to the existing Christian churches, such as the Advent Movement, from which the Seventh-day Adventists emerged, or the Bible Student Movement, from which the organization Jehovah’s Witnesses developed. Of particular interest was the interpretation of events in view of the end of the world, which included the appearance of the Antichrist, the millennial kingdom as well as the expectation of doomsday scenarios.