Apocalyptic Politics
Dateline: December 30, 1999
"APOCALYPTIC POLITICS" > Page 1 , 2 , 3, 4
Backpeddling
As should be expected, the millenarians who have long regaled us with how the world will end on December 31, 1999 have begun to backpeddle from their earlier claims. The fast approach of the date has obviously made them rethink their beliefs, sometimes causing a complete and total reversal from previous positions. At first, the anticipated Y2K technological bug was well suited to Christian mythology, coming about 6000 years after the alleged creation of Earth. Evangelicals, fundamentalists and various fringe denominatios eagerly adopted the bug, looking forward the the world wide calamaties which would herald the second coming of Christ (even though people who actually knew Jesus while he was alive expected much the same and were also disappointed).
Some are just hedging their bets - altering their predictions by adding words like "maybe" to what they have been saying. This would have been more legitimate had they done that from the very beginning and not tried so hard to scare people. With others, however, the change is much more dramatic - none more so perhaps than Gary North.
North has long been one of the more extreme of millennial apocalyptical predictions, having claimed on his website that we are facing the end of the world and a financial crisis that would cause a world wide political and economic meltdown the like of which humanity has never seen. Worse yet, he predicted that the fall would begin before the actual turn of the millennium - but strangely enough, history and society has not cooperated with North. As we approach the fabled Doomsday, America and much of the world are experiencing economic upswings. North has, naturally enough, edited his website to change the predictions - but it is worth noting that he hasn't actually deleted the old pages, just buried them deeply. Now he is saying that society will not fall apart all at once on January 1, 2000 but that there will be a domino effect which will cause increasing problems throughout the year.
Grant H. Jeffrey, author of books like The Millennium Meltdown and Armageddon: Earth's Last Days has also adopted a more relaxed attitude. Earlier this year, he wrote that the Y2K bug would "set the stage for the creation of the coming world government that was prophesized to arise in the last days." Now he has significantly altered his expectations, saying that there would be computer errors creating frustrations and annoyance, but nothing earth-shattering. But he, like North, adds that the problem would build up over time. The Apocalypse is thus not only downsized, but pushed farther into the future.
Some millenarians seems ready to abandon their apocalyptic expectations altogether. Earlier this year, Jerry Falwell distributed a video on the "Y2K Time Bomb" which included a millennium "readiness checklist telling people what they need to stock up on. In a television broadcast last year, Falwell asserted that "Y2K is God's instrument to shake this nation, to humble this nation. He may be preparing to confound our language, to jam our communications, scatter our efforts, and judge us for our sin and rebellion for going against his lordship." Ignoring the positively medieval view of life and the universe which this statement assumes, it now appears that our nation is no longer in line to be humbled by Falwell's god. At least, not right now. A few weeks ago, he withdrew his millennium packet and started toning down his rhetoric.
At the beginning of the year, Tim LeHaye (no stranger to unfulfilled predictions) and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the insipid Left Behind book series describing how awful life will be for people not taken up to heaven in the Rapture, were saying that the Y2K bug would cause a "financial meltdown" around the world. According to them, we were destined to experience a global upheaval through which "the Antichrist or his emissaries" would come to "dominate the world commerically until it is destroyed." It is curious the these prophets of doom think first of the world being detroyed in a financial or commercial sense - whatever happened to good old fashioned earthquakes, famine, and plagues? It is also worth noting that LeHay and Jenkins have a unique financial interest in the apocalypse, considering their scribblings on the matter. In any event, they are now "bemused" by anyone who thinks that Y2K problems are related to Christian apocalyptic expectations. When reminded about their earlier statements, they "regret" ever having talked about it. Yes, I'll bet they regret making public predictions which aren't coming true! But at least they can sleep easy in the knowledge that their book series will continue, enriching them financially for years to come.
Coming back to the question of financial rather than natural disasters: isn't it interesting how deeply influenced these prophets of doom have been by the evil, secular world? Typically evangelicals and fundamentalists like to claim that their Bible is their sole souce of wisdom and, on matters like The End, of information. They don't subscribe to ideas like living traditions and continuing revelation like we see in Roman Catholicism and Mormonism. Yet these biblical literalists have shown a strong propensity to bend with the winds of secular concerns. When questions about the Y2K bug first arose, Christian millenarians were quick to sieze upon that as the sign of a coming technological and financial collapse - even though Revelations mentions nothing about failures at Amazon.com or air traffic control systems. Similar secular-based fears can be seen in the common insistence that the feared "Mark of the Beast" will be technological: a UPC code or, implausibly enough, a computer chip embedded under the skin.
Now that Y2K concerns are generally answered, the same millenarians are retreating from their fear-mongering and insisting that everything will be fine. I think that readers will be able to predict just where Christian apocalyptic fears will turn by paying attention to what happens in the secular rather than religious realm. But don't try and tell them that - just as they won't learn their lesson about making predictions like these, they won't realize that their influences are not entirely religious - or holy.
Do we have anything to fear in the next weeks or even years? Yes, years: apocalyptic predictions are set up for the next several decades from various Christian groups. This isn't the real end of the millennium, after all - next year is. Millenarians will seize upon this convenient fact when their predictions fail and many will surely announce that the apocalypse will come on January 1, 2001. Others will claim that it will come 2033, the supposed anniversary of Jesus' death. The same exact thing happened during the last millennium when predictions failed.
Some would definitely like to play a role in starting the apocalypse and creating a hell on earth for everyone else. Others, however, will pretend that all the predictions actually came true, just allegorically. They will hide themselves in their comforting beliefs and perhaps start new religious sects, like the Millerites (who became Seventh-Day Adventists) or Jehovah's Witnesses. They aren't crazy, just irrational. But at least there is little chance of them blowing up buildings.
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