“Presidency of the Church of the Firstborn,” the couple’s fourth mission, concerns the presidency of the Church of the Firstborn. Chad and Lori would be appointed to organize the camps in northeast Arizona, just as other visionaries have seen themselves organizing camps in other regions. Several authors, including Chad Daybell himself, have described how these camps would be organized after the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issue a “call out,” directing the church’s membership to leave their homes. This concept of “gathering,” in the Latter-day Saint tradition, is how God protects the righteous during the apocalypse.
The idea of locating a site to weather the difficult time period preceding the Second Coming of Christ is a revival of nineteenth century efforts to gather in the Rocky Mountains for safety. The term “white camps” likely refers to the white tents that are often seen in visions, thoughit might also refer to the divine protection these tent cities will receive. The reference to a book that explains the “translation process,” probably indicates that Chad planned to continue to produce apocalyptic literature, in this case about how some individuals would become immortal before the Second Coming.įor the third mission, Chad and Lori were to find “locations in northeast Arizona for white camps.” The idea of “tent cities” or “cities of light” are a common theme in the literature of the Latter-day Saint prophecy subculture. In his novel, The Great Gathering, the first installment in his Stand in Holy Places series, Chad wrote about the discovery of these ancient plates in Guatemala. The most likely scenario is that Chad and Lori expected to translate the “sealed portion” of the Book of Mormon, a part of this quintessential LDS scripture that’s been held back for the Last Days. Since Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from an ancient record in 1830, Latter-day Saints have looked forward to further scriptures. For Chad and Lori to translate ancient records would be a feat capable of proving their prophetic bona-fides. Latter-day Saints acknowledge Joseph Smith, the founder of their faith, with the four-part title Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator. The first two missions, to “Translate ancient records,” and to “Write the book about the translation process,” clue us in to how Chad and Lori Daybell perceive themselves.
#Doomsday couple series#
Through a series of books, the earliest of which gained popularity during the Y2K panic, the LDS prophecy subculture developed its own unique expectations for the end that would become increasingly foreign to that of their fellow Latter-day Saints. This is not to say that the average Latter-day Saint doesn’t believe in an approaching second coming-they do-but such beliefs are vaguer and set to occur in a remote future. In the digital age, a network of authors, visionaries, conferences, and internet communities have forged a unique subculture immersed in prophecy and prepping for imminent disasters. Apocalypticism was once part of the mainstream of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but, as was the case with polygamy a few years prior, Church leaders successfully pushed it to the periphery of the faith in the early twentieth century.
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