Fun With the End of the World
Why is predicting the end of the
world so popular?
I had this question asked of me by a
young Christian who was a new convert. He’s a very intelligent fellow, and it
didn’t take him long to see that there was a top-heavy focus on the “end of the
world” concerns out there, as any trip down the aisle of your local Family
Bookstore will also suggest, both in the fiction and the non-fiction section.
As he also noted, though, it’s not
just Christians sucking up all this end of the world hype. The Mayan calendar
phenomenon had its own run for a while, and as part of my studies on that
subject I found plenty of apocalyptic scenarios presented by people who
wouldn’t know the book of Revelation from a Julia Child recipe book.
So back to the question: Why is
predicting the end of the world so popular?
To be sure, some make a big deal out
of it because it’s a cash cow for them. John Hagee seems to me the classic
example of this: Every year or two he hauls out some new scenario for the end
of the world, shifting out one scenario for another with the same basic
end-times message at the core. Years ago it was the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin that was at the center of Hagee’s end times model. Then it was the Y2K
bug. Later it was the 2008 recession. The world has ended so many times under
Hagee’s inspiration that he’s given new life to the steady state model for the
origins of the universe.
But for most people, I think the
fascination is more basic. End of the world scenarios are their version of the
emergency exit, the ultimate airlift out of Dodge and away from the humdrum.
Easier to look forward to than that sink of dirty dishes, you might say. And of
course a much more pleasant prospect for tomorrow than many things that are
truly horrible in life.
Christians of course believe in some
sort of eschatological endgame, no matter whether you’re a preterist like me,
or whether you put the millennial reign somewhere else along the chronological
highway. But it seems to be more comforting to be able to appeal to a fixed
deadline where the end might be found; it enables better planning, and tells
you exactly when might be a good time to sell your house (answer: two weeks
before Rosh Hashanah, 1988! – get it?). Put it on your calendar: Jesus comes
back May 21, 2011 (so don’t make that June root canal appointment)!
The appeal of end times prediction
is the appeal of avoiding our scheduled and expected unpleasantries. I’d say
that’s a bad recipe for discipleship.
Comments
Back when I was 5 or 6 and started reading the Bible more directly, RevJohn was my favorite book to study; and at that time Lindsey's original Late Great Planet Earth was still popular -- although I didn't get around to reading him until a little later in the 80s. Being a critical little cuss even back then, I naturally went back to read and compare his prior book, to see what had changed and what had stayed the same and how far he had properly criticized his own mistakes in what had changed. I don't recall any specifics -- the material was fun and dramatically interesting either way -- but I know ever since then I've been somewhat amusedly suspicious about subsequent attempts, which I read rather like fan-fiction. I was even reading a series of lectures from the Revolutionary Era Baptist evangelist Winchester recently, where I ran across a number of interesting things I hadn't seen before; but of course his strong conviction that Napoleon, currently marching around taking over continental Europe, was the ultimate anti-Christ, was... well... distractedly amusing, let's say!
Not that I keep up with such things as much as some people do (like our local ex-postmaster who has made a bit of a retirement cottage industry writing and speaking on end-time prophecy), but I've been at it a long time; long enough that I also wryly enjoy the blank looks I get from advocates when I ask them how their current impressive author compares and contrasts his current theories with prior obviously-incorrect ones, to show why his are clearly better!
(Which I know sounds harsh, so I'll add as a qualifier that I do actually go with some version of the popular 7 year final trib + millennium reign + general res theory, with or without a pre-trib rapture, although I lean slightly in favor of pre-trib. I'm just agnostic about the specific specifics.)
JRP
JRP
Thanks for all the help Mr Holding. Keep trucking.
PS. Annals of hearthstone rocks
Brussell Sprout: Gigantic Wrecking Ball Headed Toward Earth
This guy keeps pushing back the date, as people of his ilk tend to do.
Thanks for adding that bit JRP. I am pretty much with you there. Eschatological calendars and end times prophets will pass away (just as JP has made so clear) but the promise of everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven will not.