End of the World (again…)
Here in CA, we’re being informed by a local pastor of the imminent end of the world:
Of course, the sentiment isn’t universally shared:
And yes, previous determinations of the end of the world have proven to be, well, inaccurate. (The fellow behind this iteration, Christian radio personality Harold Camping, had previously predicted that Christ would return Sept. 6, 1994. Oops.)
Myself, I’m fond of the comment attributed, (apocryphally, alas!) to Martin Luther: “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today.” And my garden’s just planted, with all the anxious anticipation that goes with entrusting seeds to soil and hoping for the best. So not an apple tree, but some tomatoes zucchini, and a few other veggies. Same idea.
Any plans for May 22?
Apocalypticism is interesting, and very American these days. Cognitive dissonance was a term coined out of a failed prophecy, and the denominations that grew out of the Millerites and the burnt-over district in New York state are still going strong.
I grew up with Hal Lindsay and the Late Great Planet Earth and “Thief in the Night” from Moody Bible Institute and such, and it seemed pretty hollow after age 12 or 13, and I was probably late on that pitch, too.
But as Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye have found (“Left Behind,” recently updated), you can still take the Rapture to the bank.
And there is a secular version as well, I think, with visions of nuclear winters and climate catastrophes and the like.
Frost probably had it right:
What arrogance (Camping and his ilk)–if (by one way of reading it) Jesus got it wrong, why would they be any better at predicting the End/Return?
Hello Lisa (and All),
I have to admit I don’t take predictions of the rapture or the end of the world by Protestant public figures seriously. But maybe at least I am an equal opportunity scoffer, because I also don’t take predictions associated with reported Marian apparitions or other alleged Catholic prophecies seriously. Some Catholics think I am just being close minded (or maybe pig headed) because I deliberately ignore the predictions associated with the Medjugorje and Garabandal phenomena and the like, although I don’t see why I should take these predictions proclaimed by some Catholics to heart but dismiss predictions of the rapture by Protestants.
I also have to be honest and admit I no longer take any of these alleged Catholic or Protestant prophecies with either good grace or good humor. At this point I get quite annoyed when I’m exposed to them. Just so we’re clear, the following is my opinion only (and I simply don’t know if there is a relevant Church teaching that goes against my opinion): I think trying to predict the exact moment of the rapture, the end of the world, the announcement of a certain Medjugorje priest to start praying the rosary or die, or any other such future events people associate with the end times is a poor use of time. And I think spreading such predictions is simply a bad witness to the Christian faith. I think Jesus called me to do my best to love my neighbor as myself, which includes doing my best to obey the commandments. I don’t think Jesus wants me to spend my time trying to figure out exactly when the tribulation is supposed to start, or the day that millions will experience a miraculous warning and revelation of all their sins, or any other like phenomena. And I expect that if I were to spend my energy learning about and spreading such alleged prophecies, no one would be more changed for the better as a result. Including especially me.
I wonder what the evolutionary psychologists have to say about the need of some people for such beliefs. How might they enhance survival or even hope of survival? Even people who expect the apocalypse are not going to escape it when it comes. Or do the charlatans promise them that some will escape?
Peter, I could not agree more. A few weeks ago one of my students told me that the Blessed Virgin herself had warned of 911 at Fatima or Medjugoria (they couldn’t remember) but said that the recipients could not reveal the message.
I countered that a) Catholics are not required to believe private revelation and b) that seemed to make Mary a jerk. What kid on person withholds valuable information with the ability to save thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of lives and two (3?) wars?
I was told I was narrow minded. Kids these days have hutzpah! I suppose it is better to be narrow minded than so open minded one’s brain falls out.
And Ann, I suppose the need to certainty, belief, belonging, meaning etc. all enables group survival and discourages societal isolation. Ask Neitzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Newton et al. I love the Erasmus quote: “Those men devoted to the study of wisdom are the most unfortunate, but particularly with the begetting of children. It seems that Nature herself has ordered it so, lest the evils of wisdom spread further throughout mankind.”
@Adam, yeah, guess the “Mary wanted it kept a secret” part is why the Portuguese didn’t get a “heads up” regarding Salazar’s dictatorship…
Adam –
Yes, I can see that overwhelming (if irrational) certainty yields a certain group cohesiveness. But when the predictions don’t materialize you’d think that the former believers would have rationality enough to see that their worldview is defective.
Himm.
The people who assign specific dates to the apocalypse really haven’t quite got the knack of how this racket works. You can only monetize the event until midnight the day you’ve set for the End. Then you either have to take your winnings and run, or set another date, which will lose you half your followers and cut your revenues.
Jack Van Impe and other apocalypts have grown wealthy giving pseudo-scientific reports and seminars about the signs to look for that the Rapture is coming and how to survive the End Times, keeping the event always in view, but never setting any dates. These folks are very savvy about how they ratchet up the anticipation and then ease off for a few years.
Jesus said it well. We do not know the day nor the hour … of our own death … or of the end of the world. The only certainty is that the day will come….
Like my grandma used to say; “Never mind about the end of the world. Just try to keep your soul in good shape, because you never know. If you step out into the street and get hit by a truck, that’ll be it for you.”
Easy to dismiss it all, but the phenomenon of apocalypticism is so pervasive–the world burning up because of our environmental sins, e.g.
In the Catholic context, I tend to think of papal elections as our version of the Second Coming, with various camps expecting a messiah-pope (the Second Coming of John XXIII or Pius IX or whatever) to cast down the faithless and raise up the faithful.
BTW, ReligionLink, which I edit, focuses on this topic this week:
http://www.religionlink.com/tip_110427.php
Some interesting polling data, and of course link to the indispensable Rapture Index:
http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html
I think that we need to broaden the scope of this subject to discuss the role of eschatology in Catholic thought. Berdyaev, although a Russian Orthodox philosopher, had some excellent insights into this very subject in his book “The Beginning and the End”.
Eschatological themes figure prominently in “secular” thinking. Consider the environment and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, the reaction of the BP oil spill. Individual people’s lives, corporate policy (how many people work in places that now have green policies – I do), and international accords such as the Kyoto protocol. Along with these you have your debunkers and iconoclasts castigating global warming research, etc.
Still, the fact is that as human beings we require these kinds of events to correct our behaviour both personally and politically. Even before Gloria Steinem, Berdyaev noted that there is only ONE morality for both personal and public virtue – the personal is indeed political and vice versa.
For those who have eyes to see, apocalyptic events are indeed God’s corrective measure but they need to be conveyed appropriately and not through these incorrect and uncritical rapture theologies or new age mayan calendar predictions.
@David,
Of course you’re right we shouldn’t dismiss it–though if we ever needed a good illustration of Poe’s Law, the Rapture Index is it!
The strong correlation between right-wing political beliefs and Rapture thinking, especially of the premillenial kind, is very troubling. The Index you link to notes the Anti-Semitism category has been downgraded due to lack of activity. Go figure. Unemployment increases are considered an indicator, but maybe we don’t need Congress to pass extension of benefits if we want to speed things up a bit. Who needs catastrophic insurance or a long-term fix for Social Security if a bunch of us are Heading Upstairs, leaving the rest of us with a lot more resources and too much time fighting the Armies of Evil to worry about prescription drug coverage and donut holes. Didn’t Bush argue to Chirac justifying involvement in Iraq by saying it we really about the armies of Gog and Magog? We know there are believers who argue Obama is the literal Anti-Christ–now they have the long form birth certificate, they can move on to subpoena his barber to disclose the presence of a 666 on his scalp. Fundigelicals take positions on support for Isreal based on whether it’ll get that Temple prophecy fulfilled. I’ve mentioned before hearing a Mom drill her kids on what to do if the Rapture hits while they’re at school (talk about child abuse). We already have people taking political positions, making decisions based on the belief we in or approaching the End Times. I find it chilling to contemplate what everyday life could devolve into if a critical mass of Americans decided it was Go-Time, (although, given those apocalpyts I’ve met and talked to, I think I’d rather be Left Behind).
As I always tell my students, apocalyptic literature is the most dangerous literature in the Bible because it is misunderstood by most Christians. Its dualism easily divides people into the saved and the damned fostering an insider/outsider view of Christianity that is exclusivist rather than universal.
A small issue: Is there not a very crucial distinction that must be drawn–say, one between evidence and not-evidence–between End Time apocalypicism and predictions of the ill effects of climate change? I agree that jeremiadic rhetoric is associated with the persuasive efforts of both those who believe in the Rapture and those who believe in climate change. However, one of those claims is a set of faith-based beliefs–no matter how the Rapture Index attempts to rationalize it–and has nothing to do with science, empiricism, peer reviewed research, data that can be subjected to neutral analysis, verification, falsification of hypotheses, etc. Assent to the global scientific consensus regarding the reality of climate change (regardless of whether there are legit differences in how we should address it) does not require an act of faith. Belief in End Time/Rapture is grounded in (some people’s) faith, but not in science. I think conflating the two is a bad idea for science AND religion.
Mary:
I will preface this by saying that my intention is not to get bogged down into a shroud styled debate around the science of climate change. I am simply trying to frame the issue in the context of eschatology and how the eschatological impulse is deeply embedded in human beings and expressed in modern culture.
It is easy to charicature eschatological and apocalyptic themes when they framed as the rapture, etc. But when looked at in a different lens (environment) people hang on to the science with a religious fervour and are threatened both emotionally, psychologically and spiritually when it is threatened.
Science is not immune to the forces of postmodernity (or hypermodernity) meaning that there is a crisis of truth and representation even among the physical sciences. The hard sciences when forced to scrutinize the implications or even the conclusion of their findings eventually become much more modest than the representation of those findings appear in the media which influences behaviour.
In the case of the environment, Ivan Illich (another person I admire) said twenty years ago that environmentalists eventually would become terrorists because they are gripped by an almost religious fervour supported by supposedly hard empirical science.
The fear of climate change, ice caps melting spurs change in moral behaviour and the imagination of young people.
I grew up fearing nuclear destruction, my daughter fearing that the planet will not be able to sustain us and there will be huge catastrophe. I became involved in peace and justic work while my daughter is very interested in healing mother earth, etc.
That’s my point. Eschatological or apocalyptic warnings are an integral aspect of political life and are not necessarily a bad thing.
George, I agree 100% with your 2nd comment. No worries–I also didn’t intend to derail the thread (or to quarantine Big Science as immune from politics and rhetoric). I just object to religious folk saying that their claim that Jesus is coming back to lead a global battle is evidentially warranted in the same way that other claims (like climate change) are grounded. I would just say claims should be evaluated and some are more justified than others (even if we have to agree about the criteria we use for evaluating their truth status). However, that’s a different task from assessing the political, psychological, and sociological effects of apocalyptic thinking, which is an equally important undertaking. Cheers!
Interesting piece by Peter Laarman:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/4543/prophets_of_the_environmental_apocalypse/
I don’t understand getting irritated by this. Let them believe what they want.
I believe the Son of God was born, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will come again. According to a lot of people that the posters on this blog salivate over, that makes me delusional.
Mary,
There is a correlation between “right wing” views and religion period. Among almost all religions, the more religious one is the more conservative they are likely to be. Half of weekly church goers identify themselves as conservative, and only 15% liberal. Only 14% of people who say that their faith is an important part of thier lives identify as liberal while nearly 50% say they are conservative.
Anyway – I don’t get what this had to do with the post in the first place.
Adam -
As for Mary being a “jerk” in your scenario – Why does any evil happen? Why did Christ lounge about for two days while Lazarus rotted in his grave? (If you believe in that sort of nonsense) Pretty mean SOB if you ask me to put his family through that.
@Sean,
(I don’t consider you delusional and didn’t say anything of the kind. Haven’t been salivating either, thanks, so I’ll assume I wasn’t one of the posters to whom you refer.)
You say, “Let them believe what they want.” Then after sharing some stats, say, “I don’t get what this had to do with the post in the first place.” It’s precisely the first inclination–to see Rapture believers as simply entitled to be left alone with their particular version of christian eschatology, even if it strikes some as eccentric–that led me to note that an awful lot of these believers think their apocalypticism demands particular politcal actions (many of which cohere with the politics of the Right), which make their beliefs no longer private and arguably not harmless. My point was that once those religious beliefs enter the public sphere and begin to inform advocacy of specific policy choices, they become fair game for critique and evaluation. I’m no longer willing to “live and let live” when someone’s claims about the Rapture become a reason we should take military action, build settlements in contested territories, cut poverty programs, or villify a President. Maybe all those things can be justified on other grounds, but they aren’t warranted based on some obscure passage from Daniel.
I shared and understood Adam’s point regarding apparitions to be about retaining some semblance of a reasonable Mariology, not about theodicy. Theodicy aside, the idea that the Virgin Mary would waste her time pissing and moaning to “seers” about infighting between a bishop and some Franciscans but would skip over impending ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is insulting to Mary. And any human with basic intelligence, in my opinion.
Cheers!
Ken’s grandmother said: “If you step out into the street and get hit by a truck, that’ll be it for you.” Didn’t she also tell you that’s why you had to wear clean underwear every day? My mother did!
“reasonable Mariology” Isn’t that an oxymoron?
@Jimmy Mac: touche!
Not only is the so-called “Rapture” NOT going to occur on May 21st, it isn’t going to occur EVER. And I can promise you this with absolute 100% certainty. There will be no “Rapture,” no “Second Coming,” no “End Of Days.” There most certainly will continue to be wars, plagues, and natural disasters as there have always been, but there won’t be anything supernatural about them. And most importantly there is no such thing as “prophecy” … except for the self-fulfilling kind.
In a perverse sort of way, I actually WISH that Harold Camping was right! What an interesting day that would be! What would be even more interesting is if the Apocalypse were to occur in a more spectacular fashion, not in the anthropomorphical sense the authors of the “Left Behind” series have portrayed, but as more of a Stephen Spielberg production, with boiling clouds, trumpets, angels descending out of the sky, Moon turned to blood, the whole nine yards. Imagine coming to the realization that it was all coming true, just as the evangelists had been warning for years, and that there was something more awesome than just the cold, hard, physical reality we inhabit. Imagine actually watching people disappear into thin air! Wouldn’t THAT be something???
Yet in the final analysis, it’s that cold, hard, physical reality that I will content myself with. My life is not so meaningless that I need the fear of a “Rapture” and the “End Times” to make sense of it all … nor do I need Heaven or Hell to bribe me into behaving decently, thank you very much.
Since the death of Jesus, people in every generation for over 2,000 years and hundreds of generations have wanted to be the one that experiences the end of days. None has. There must be a clue in there somewhere for you.
If you waited at a bus stop for 2,000 years, at what point would you conclude that the bus wasn’t coming? Or would you just stand there … FOREVER … because somebody had stuck up a “bus stop” sign?
This is a great string. David, thank you for the rapture index. You learn something everyday. This reminds me of the old Millerites, who sold everything due to Miller’s prediction of the end of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerism And so, there is a deeply disctructive element to these types of theologies. By the way, they are the original Seventh Day Adventists.
But this has been going on as long as the church has been around. There were chiliast predictions by preachers around the year 1000 and during the Hussite uprising in the 15th C, and many other times in church history as well.
I also like how Peter brought in the idea of Marian appartions, because I think they fit in here nicely.
The bottom line is that we as Christians are not satisfied with a God who reveals himself in scripture. No, we want a God we can touch. A God who tells us what to do in the here and now. An experiential God. Thus – end of the world prophecies, Mary in a pancake, and charismatics.
Part of the faith is realizing that God will probably never speak audibly to us, no matter how much we want him to. And I do want him to.
Interesting –
“an awful lot of these believers think their apocalypticism demands particular politcal actions (many of which cohere with the politics of the Right), which make their beliefs no longer private and arguably not harmless.”
If you said something like this about, oh let’s say Islam, and you’d be considered a a bigot.
Good Morning, Sean. “If you said something like this about, oh let’s say Islam, and you’d be considered a a bigot.” So? Oh, and I do happen to hold that standard for any set of beliefs, religious or not. (It’s a rare example of me being consistent, but there it is.) I don’t see anything bigoted in the sentence you quote, but whatevs.
Cheers!
Mary and Sean,
I hear a lot in the media about Republican fundamentalist politicians who supposedly feel that we should not be supporting any peace deals in the Middle East b/c it goes against God’s plan for Armageddon. (Jerry Walls, Research Fellow in religion at ND refer’d this a couple of years ago on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120988099)
I’m not sure what to make of this and wonder if you have thoughts about it.
My Baptist in-laws generally subscribe to this notion a la Jack Chick (who believes the Pope is the Anti-Christ). But, I’m not ready to assume that all fundamentalists are like my in-laws.
Moreover, despite the fact that it seems to be assumed that certain politicians DO have these notions, I’ve never heard any specific politicians named as subscribing to this view. It seems to me to be a story that needs to be substantiated or an assumption in some media that needs to be dropped.
[I ran into this "rapture" web item; it's the same view Harold Camping holds to!]
OPEN LETTER TO TODD STRANDBERG (2001)
Sergeant Strandberg (of “Rapture Ready” fame):
It has come to my attention here at this Air Force base that you, as a supply sergeant, have been accepting items of inferior and even dangerous quality!
Now, it’s true that your actions are far from deserving a court-martial. But let me remind you, Sergeant, that your reputation is in jeopardy, and if you don’t improve the quality of the items you distribute, the Commander-in-Chief who’s over both of us may have some words with you one of these days!
Sergeant, now where in the world did you get some of those substandard items that are in your “Margaret MacDonald Who?” article that’s in the “Pretribulation Rapture” section of your “Rapture Ready” website?
You maintain that I “have never been able to prove that Darby ever heard of MacDonald or her vision.”
FACTS: In John Darby’s book The Irrationalism of Infidelity (1853), pp. 283-5, he described in great detail his visit with her in her home in Scotland in mid-1830 and even talked about her endtime outlook and the Scriptural texts she used for support! (All this is in my book The Incredible Cover-up.)
Then you claim that Darby’s pretrib view was derived from “the distinction between Israel and the church.”
FACTS: Darby’s first clear pretrib teaching, in his “Notes on the Revelation” (1839), p. 206, was based on only the symbol (!) of the man child “caught up” in Rev. 12:5—-and this was his pretrib basis for 30 years (from the 1830′s to the 1860′s)! Interestingly, this symbol was Edward Irving’s pretrib basis in his “Interpretation of the Old-Testament Prophecies quoted in the New” (The Morning Watch, June, 1831, p. 301)—-a full eight years before Darby “appropriated” Irving’s idea!
You then assert that Darby discovered the pretrib rapture concept in 1827.
FACTS: Darby himself wrote in his “Short but serious Examination of…’Daniel the Prophet’” (1850), p. 67, that he came to “understand” pretrib in 1830 and not 1827—-an understanding that came to him only after the Irvingite journal The Morning Watch (which he regularly read) began to clearly teach pretrib in its Sep., 1830 issue (which saw “Philadelphia” raptured, in a partial rapture scheme, before “the great tribulation,” pp. 510, 514!).
And you foolishly declare that Margaret Macdonald (it was spelled this way) couldn’t have been a pretrib because she taught that the “Church” will be persecuted by the Antichrist.
FACTS: For more than 30 years I’ve emphasized, in my books and articles and while guesting on worldwide talk shows, that the Irvingites, as well as Margaret, taught pretrib before Darby did.
My critics, wishing to divert attention away from unmistakably clear pretrib teaching by Irvingites, have focused instead on uneducated Margaret and her brief and somewhat unclear revelation account. They also know that she held to partial rapturism which sees PART of the “church” taken in a pretrib rapture and the REST of the “church” enduring the trib. By covering up her pretrib rapture (“one taken and the other left” before “THE WICKED” is “revealed”) and emphasizing her posttrib-flavored statements like “The trial of the Church is from Antichrist,” they can hopefully discredit her as the originator and give that honor to someone else who seems to have a better reputation! Incidentally, all partial rapturists including Pember and Govett have always described the ones “left behind” as the “Church” (the way Margaret talked) and even John Walvoord’s books classify partial rapturists as “pretribulationists”!
Since some of the emotional and spiritual cripples (with potty mouths) on your Rapture Ready message board have gotten the impression from someone with little conscience (I wonder who!) that I am a heretical (and even Satanic) liar that no one should ever listen to, I am forced to tell you that since the early 1970′s my research on pretrib history has been endorsed by a galaxy of leading evangelical theologians as well as church history experts who haven’t had an axe to grind either for or against a pretrib rapture—-scholars like Loraine Boettner, F. F. Bruce, Robert Gundry, R. K. Harrison, Francis Nigel Lee, Peter Marshall, Walter Martin, Harold Ockenga, J. I. Packer, J. Barton Payne, and Merrill Tenney.
Finally, Sergeant, in order to shore up your collapsing pillar of pretrib sand, you seem to enjoy dropping names like Thomas Ice, Pseudo-Ephraem, Morgan Edwards, and Manuel Lacunza.
FACTS: Whenever I see a photo of Ice, I’m reminded that your site considers him the “heavy” artillery who constantly shoots off his mouth about the “pretrib” outlook of the last three names. I wonder, Sergeant, what your fans will think when they discover my “Deceiving and Being Deceived” article (on many sites) which exposes the plagiarism, document revisionism, phony “Dr.” degrees, cover-ups and other pretrib dishonesty, and which also proves that Pseudo-Ephraem, Edwards, and Lacunza all had the historical habit of blending together the rapture and the final advent!
Sergeant, since you are dedicated to the Commander-in-Chief and His love of truth and want His promotion, I expect you to wipe that grin off your face and clean up your site!
Rapturously,
“Colonel” Dave MacPherson
PS – Google “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology).”
[Also Google "Stamping Out Harold Camping."]