Emphasis Preaching Journal

Is America heaven on earth? According to Mark Holloway, in his book Heavens on Earth, many people thought so during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the development of the "new world. The author chronicles the arrival of many immigrant groups who came to America looking for paradise.
After years of persecution, Mother Ann left England with her family to begin the Shaker community in America. One community established by fellow Shakers was called "Jerusalem. Their goal was to reflect the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation in their common life together.
Out of Germany came George Rapp and a number of followers, who built the Harmony Society in Indiana. It became a very prosperous community, awaiting the Second Coming while everyone shared everything in common and practiced celibacy.
The Frenchman Charles Fourier had a "sublime madness about him in which he believed that he alone understood God`s plan on how people should live together. He imagined how his minutely detailed ideal societies would spread over the entire globe.
None of these movements finally ushered in "a new heaven and a new earth, for only God can do that.
- Molldrem