How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [121]
To some doomsday prophets, this fatidic vision will be played out at the end of human history. But how will we know when we are nearing it? Jesus told his disciples (Luke 21:1011): “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.” Herein lies the problem of interpretation, and one reason why millennial phenomena are so widespread. Since nations and kingdoms have always risen against one another; and great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences are common throughout history; and heavenly signs like comets and eclipses abound in every age, whoever is doing the interpreting sees themselves as the chosen generation. For some, the end is always nigh, from Jesus’ first-century disciples who took him literally when he said “there shall be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28), to Carlulaire de Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes’ warning in 964 that “as the century passes, the end of the world approaches,” to Ronald Reagan’s 1971 admonition that “for the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.” Whether it is Satan who brings about the final clash that leads to the terminus of history, or human stupidity through nuclear war, or a chance encounter with an asteroid, the mythic theme of the apocalypse has become a staple of both popular and high culture.
To complicate matters, there are a number of widely divergent beliefs concerning the end-times, especially within Christianity. Premillennial Christians, for example, believe that Christ must first return to usher in the millennium. Postmillennial Christians, however, believe that Christ will return after humans have already set up God’s kingdom on earth. Of course, some individuals have chosen a more moderate middle ground by worrying very little about the precise timing of eschatological events, concentrating simply on the foundational hope of their faith, that is, that someday (who knows when?) Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.
For secular millennialists a similar typology can be constructed. Premillennial secularists tend to be pessimistic in their view of humanity and history, where change can only come about after a catastrophe. Postmillennial secularists tend to be optimistic and try to work toward a better world before disaster strikes. Folklorist Daniel Wojcik, in his compelling history of The End of the World as We Know It, makes a similar distinction between unconditional apocalypticism, where the end of the world is “imminent and unalterable” and “irredeemable by human effort,” and conditional apocalypticism, where “within the broad constraints of history’s inevitable progression, human beings may forestall worldly catastrophes if they act in accordance with divine will or a superhuman plan.” Hal Lindsey offered a prime example of unconditional apocalypticism in There’s a New World Coming, when he addressed skeptics directly: “To the skeptic who says that Christ is not coming soon, I would ask him to put the book of Revelation in one hand, and the daily newspaper in the other, and then sincerely ask God to show him where we are on His prophetic time-clock.” The Montana-based Church Universal and Triumphant, headed by Elizabeth Claire Prophet, is an example of conditional apocalypticism, where they prepare for the worst by stockpiling foodstuffs and constructing bomb shelters, but pray for the best (so far so good).
Calculating precisely when the end will come has generated a mini-publishing industry at the end of this millennium, but it has a long and honored history. Numerous thinkers over the last 2,000 years—from Church Fathers of early Christendom, to theologians of the Middle Ages, to philosophers of