The End of the World (As We Know It)

Religious Beliefs

Judaism is a covenantal religion with no central authority to rule on creed. However, many Jews regard God’s promise to Noah as meaning that there will be no end.

("And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:21-22)

Hindus believe that the universe undergoes endless cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution. Earlier forms of Hinduism emphasized that there is a kingdom of the dead under the rule of Yama, with distinct realms for the good and the wicked. Contemporary Hinduism focuses on personal immortality through cycles of reincarnation.

"Evangelicals, and even more so fundamentalists, have generally embraced an eschatology that is fundamentally pessimistic regarding … human history. Uniformly … there is the belief that at the end of the Millennium, after evil's final revolt against God, the creation as we know it will be destroyed by God, and will be replaced by a new heaven and a new Earth absolutely free of sin and evil influences.

…

"Evangelicals are predominantly committed to an eschatology that makes it religiously unnecessary and logically impossible to engage in the long-range commitments to the environment required by a truly serious attitude of ecological stewardship."

(Al Truesdale, Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Christian Ethics,

Nazarene Theological Seminary, 1994.)

The Catholic Church generally appears to be anti-millenarian (that is, it opposes attempting to guess when the end will come). However, at least one prominent Cardinal appears to believe, based on a 19^th century Russian prophecy, that the Anti-Christ may already be at work. (Cardinal Biffi, address on Vladimir Soloviev, March 2000)

There is a stumbling block, however. "One of the most overlooked signs that the Second Coming is approaching is the corporate conversion of the Jewish people. This is something that Paul is very clear about." (James Akins, Catholic Answers, Jan. 2000)

a) Hal Lindsey – The Late, Great Planet Earth. Published in 1970, considered the founding of modern state of Israel as the key event initiating the End Times. Considered the Soviet Union "Gog and Magog." Predicted the end of the world in 1988. Today, he’s pushing a book with the bizarre idea that Muslims have been hating Jews, and later Christians, for 4,000 years.

c) Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days. Published in 1995, the first of a series of bestsellers. Nicolae Carpathia turns the United Nations into a one-world government with himself as dictator. In his palace in New Babylon, capital of the world, Carpathia -- alias the Antichrist – calls for the destruction of the Jews. Some escape by converting to Christianity, fulfilling the Paulian prophecy.

Other Sources:

(Please note: Clay Farris Naff takes full responsibility for any errors or distortions in summarizing various religious positions in this document.)

Marcelo Gleiser, The Prophet and the Astronomer: A Scientific Journey to the End of Time. (New York: W.W. Norton: 2001)

Too many web sites to list!

Thanks to Rabbi Michael Weisser for insights on Judaism.

It must be emphasized that millenarianism is not confined to Christianity or the West. The nineteenth century was particularly rich in millenarian activity of every description. The Plains Indians "Ghost Dance" cult was a millenarian phenomenon; the Indians danced in hope of the end of European settlement and the return of the Buffalo. A generation earlier, the Millerites of western New York State bravely announced a date certain for the Second Coming (two, in fact), thereby producing the Great Disappointment of 1843. By far the bloodiest war of the nineteenth century was the "Tai Ping" rebellion in China in the 1850s and 60s, which sought to install the Age of Highest Peace on Earth. One of the curiosities of colonial history was the career of Charles Stuart Gordon, the British general who made his reputation helping the Manchu government of China put down the Tai Ping. So great was his fame that 20 year later he got the assignment to hold Khartoum in the Sudan against the Mahdi Rebellion, another millenarian uprising, this time inspired by Muslim eschatology. This posting was less successful, since it terminated with the fall of the city and the loss of Gordon’s head. The Mahdi’s Jihad was only one of a number of similar uprisings in Africa, Asia and Polynesia.

The endtime scenario of popular American apocalyptic reached its mature phase just after the Civil War. It has been remarkably stable ever since. It involves a period of growing crisis, culminating in some universal threat or disaster. The chaos of the times affords a charismatic person the opportunity to seize control of the world by promising to restore order. This tyrant, who turns out to be no one other than the Antichrist himself, is often the current pope, or is supported by the pope. Before his period of misrule can begin, however, the true Church (various defined) is wonderfully withdrawn from the world in an event called the Rapture. Some people remaining on earth can still hope to be saved, but they must suffer persecution by the Antichrist, who will gradually turn his government into a religious cult, with himself as an object of worship. The period of his reign is normally coincident with the Tribulation, which in most narratives lasts seven years. By the end it, the Antichrist seems poised to snuff out the remnant of the Tribulation Saints. However, then the Second Coming occurs, the Antichrist is destroyed, and the Millennium begins.

John J. Reilly, conservative writer and lawyer

TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack.

Some of that interest is fueled by faith, some by fear, some by imagination, but all three are fed by the Left Behind series. The books offer readers a vivid, violent and utterly detailed description of just what happens to those who are left behind on earth to fight the Antichrist after Jesus raptures, or lifts, the faithful up to heaven. At the start of Book 1, on a 747 bound for Heathrow from Chicago, the flight attendants suddenly find about half the seats empty, except for the clothes and wedding rings and dental fillings of the believers who have suddenly been swept up to heaven. Down on the ground, cars are crashing, husbands are waking up to find only a nightgown in bed next to them, and all children under 12 have disappeared as well. The next nine books chronicle the tribulations suffered by those left behind and their struggle to be saved.

The series has sold some 32 million copies—50 million if you count the graphic novels and children's versions—and sales jumped 60% after Sept. 11. Book 9, published in October, was the best-selling novel of 2001. Evangelical pastors promote the books as devotional reading; mainline pastors read them to find out what their congregations are thinking, as do politicians and scholars and people whose job it is to know what fears and hopes are settling in the back of people's minds in a time of deep uncertainty. TIME, June 23, 2002