Under Joseph Meachem, beliefs concerning God coming to destroy the Anti-Christ and create a better world grew more pronounced.
Shakers appeared for the time to be radical on women's issues, and the elevation of Mother Ann Lee as a crucial part of the Second Coming outraged mainstream Christians as being blasphemous.
[citation needed] They also tended to believe in racial equality and harmony although in ways that may be regarded as condescending today.
(notebook from their Golden Harvest CD) Still these beliefs caused them the most violence as it encouraged them to harbor fugitive slaves or American Indians.
[citation needed] A strong source of literature hostile to a religion or group comes from former members or apostates.
This began in the 1860s, as toward the end of her life Mary Dyer had difficulty making friends among apostate Shakers.
As the group declined further most viewed them as being, at worst, sexually repressed eccentrics who at least made nice furniture.
[citation needed] There remain small elements of the Christian countercult movement that still hold Shakers as an example of a cult.
[citation needed] As part of its open canon of Doctrine and Covenants, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints retains an 1831 revelation of Joseph Smith that denounces Shaker beliefs.