Category Archives: September

Moral Absolutism & the End of the World

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Reading the Strozier essays and Glorious Appearing one after the other was a strange experience to say the least. On the one hand, reading Glorious Appearing felt like watching a particularly bad action movie. We know who the good guys are, we know who the bad guys are, and we know what the final outcome will be – we are just waiting for things to blow up and people to die. On the other hand, considering the influential role that fundamentalist Christians play in American politics, Strozier’s analysis of the fundamentalist mindset is frightening, particularly the natural progression from rigid dualistic thinking to the legitimization of violence against others. Furthermore, when I consider how many weeks that the Left Behind series spent on the New York Times Best Sellers list, it is even more disturbing to realize that there are people out there consuming the books’ moral message uncritically.

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Skepticism and Shadows

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It took quite some time to get used to the tone of Glorious Appearing. As a liberal New Yorker without strong religious affiliations, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop (so to speak). This can’t be serious, I kept thinking, even though I knew the premise of the series. Continue reading →

Unwavering Faith Stemming from Unclear Motivation

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I find myself struggling with the idea that apocalyptic thinkers are able to abandon their fears and sense of responsibility because their time construct, according to The Fundamentalist Mindset, has been dissolved by the notion of the end of days (30). While I understand why this seems to make sense, it’s difficult to believe that this shifted perspective of time manages to remove a sense of accountability to a degree that justifies or even motivates publically or individually harmful actions.

The reading mentions that these apocalyptic believers have “no fear of future consequences (except from a judging deity)…”(30). This particular passage calls attention to why the general theory seems to be flawed. The “exception” to this seemingly boundless loss of fear is the wrath and judgment of God- a pretty significant force to be reckoned with. True believers trust completely in God’s plan for them, so why, then wouldn’t the wrath and judgment of their one true object of faith be enough to dissuade them from acting recklessly against others? Continue reading →

Was the Swastika the WWII Era Mark of the Beast?

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Over the past couple weeks we’ve alluded to Hitler and the Holocaust a few times. With this week’s reading, it was really all I could think about. Hitler is directly analogous to Carpathia who, in Glorious Appearing and the rest of the Left Behind series, is the Antichrist. Then in Strozier’s essays, the description of how the fundamentalist mindset exhibits violent potentials seems to resonate with Hitler’s actions towards the Jews in the Holocaust. Because of our fixation with the end of times and our curiosity in psychological reasoning, we are left to analyze his actions from a purely apocalyptic standpoint. Continue reading →

A Violent Means to An End

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As presented in Strozier’s essays, apocalyptic fundamentalism has had a great impact on human psychology. Strong Christian believers have experienced immense changes in their mentality, as well as in their attitudes toward other ways of thought. We can say that such changes in mindset definitely alter the ways in which fundamentalist groups approach the apocalyptic phenomenon, and how accepting they are of other beliefs. It is exactly these alterations that have redefined the psychology and malevolence of doomsday culture.

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What makes a life meaningful?

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One theme running through the posts has to do with what makes a life meaningful. And, lo and behold, the Philosopher’s Stone series in the Times has an article today on that topic. It strikes me as a good example of non-apocalyptic thinking. Take a look: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-meaningfulness-of-lives/?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tya1

Apocalyptic Suffering Recast

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When one reads the Book of Revelation, as was our task last week, it would seem that at the end times, everyone will suffer.  Yet a peculiar recasting of this apocalyptic scenario took place in the Western world between the time of John’s strange visions and our modern moment, to the point of which only some suffer, while great numbers of others are totally excluded from the apocalyptic horror, and instead given something akin to a stadium box seat above the action, as the are “raptured” into heaven just before the things which must shortly come to pass, actually do (Kirsch 190). Continue reading →

Accepting Anticipation, Ecstatic Expectation, Purposeful Planning: Attitudes towards the (Inevitable?) End

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Is the word “apocalypse” overused? Has it become a part of our lexicon in a way that degrades its meaning? These questions, touched upon in both class and Kirsch, seems especially relevant today, the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The New York Times special collection of articles and media on the attacks is entitled “The Reckoning.” One of their articles, a sampling of first hand accounts from September 11, 2001, is called “Witness to Apocalypse.” Continue reading →

Interpreting Revelation

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For two thousand years, people have attempted to uncover the true meaning behind the Book of Revelation. Yet can there really be just one “true” meaning that takes precedence over anything else? In A History of the End of The World, Jonathan Kirsch reviews several dozen different interpretations of Revelation that each have their own followers and critics. These interpretations seem to change as the centuries progress and often reflect upon societal conflicts. When all we have left to go on is a piece of literature (if some even dare to call the Book of Revelation literature), we must accept that each reader creates his or her own interpretation, which becomes their own “true” meaning. Continue reading →