Editing Church Universal and Triumphant (section)

===Millenarianism===
The Church was millenarian,{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=xii}} having displayed millenarian tendencies from its formation in 1958.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=7}} Like other millenarian groups, the CUT blended religious and political concerns.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=8}} 
It was also characterised as being utopian.{{sfn|Starrs|Wright|2005|p=98}}

From the early 1960s, the group was claiming that the Ascended Masters' plan for humanity was being countered by those the Prophets called "Dark Forces" or "Fallen Ones."{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=31}} Mark Prophet believed that the agents of darkness were most apparent in world communism, left-wing groups, and elite power brokers.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=8}} Believing that elite power brokers and communists worked in collaboration, Elizabeth referred to "an International Capitalist/Communist Conspiracy of the power elite."{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=96}} The political scientist Bradley C. Whitsel described this particular stance as having "a far-right political tone".{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=93}}

{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=12}} This trouble would be cause, the group claimed, by a global growth in negative karma.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=12}} The group linked this belief in end times to the close of the Piscean Age and its replacement with the subsequent Aquarian Age.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=12}}

Elizabeth Prophet regarded American society as existing in a state of decay, comparing it to the last days of the [[Roman Empire]].{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=82}} Elizabeth Prophet used the myth of [[Atlantis]] to highlight the fate of a society that deviates from God's plan. She claimed that the Atlanteans had become wicked and so God destroyed them to prevent this wickedness from spreading.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=86}} She saw the spread of the [[AIDS]] virus during the 1980s as further evidence of an apocalyptic scenario, suspecting that it had been deliberately manufactured and was used to try and harm the genetics of "Lightbearers" so as to prevent the evolution of "a golden age race".{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|pp=100-101}}

The Church did not welcome this nuclear catastrophe and hoped that it could be averted.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=114}} They did this through prayers and decrees, although also adopted a survivalist strategy as an attempt to survive such a cataclysm.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=84}} The Church hoped that they would be able to emerge from the apocalypse to build a new age.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=85}}