Is 2012 the end of the line?

2012 is here, and with it a host of dire prognostications about the end times, most recently in this Los Angeles Times article: Will the year 2012 be a game-changer?

What startles me, in researching 19th century Cleveland, is the number of game-changing religions afoot in Ohio’s Western Reserve.

Everyone, then and now, loves to make fun of the Millerites. Here is a picture of a round (8-sided) church built by the good people who followed William Miller, a preacher who foretold the end of the world by March 21, 1843, no wait, April 22, 1844, no wait, October 18, 1844 …

In 1833, construction began on a Mormon Temple (still standing) in Kirtland, Ohio, a little northeast of Cleveland, where many new revelations occurred, and Joseph Smith was named President.

It was also an era when Mary Baker Eddy founded the first Church of Christ, Scientist (1866 in Boston). According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, General Erastus N. Bates “secured 2 rooms in a downtown building and formed a ministry based on the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science church.” Eddy writes in the preface to Science and Health: “The time for thinkers has come.”

In these 21st century times, we the people continue to explore spiritual frontiers.