The End Timers Doomsday Beliefs

The Christian End-Times Doomsday Beliefs
Michael Shermer, in his book How We Believe,2000, describes the recycling of messiah myths throughout the disparate cultures and ages of human history as a response to the suffering of human existence. When social conditions include oppression of a people, there is a good chance that the response will be the belief in a rescuing messiah delivering redemption.
In this Channel 4 Documentary Tony Robinson presents evidence from America, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa about Christian beliefs in the prophecies contained within the Book of Revelation. He interviews people who believe millions will be spirited up to Heaven, Israel will fight a nuclear war, that the Secretary General of the UN will be unmasked as the Anti-Christ and the world will end after the Battle of Armageddon.

There appear to be two camps of end-time believers: the premillenialists, and the postmillenialists, both dangerous in my view.

The premillenialists believe that the only mechanism for change is through the destruction that will be wrought by the apocalypse. In an unusual alliance, evangelical Christians are supporting Israeli settlement expansion and the rebuilding of the Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem in order to bring about war between Islam and Judaism. The ensuing bloody conflict will be in accordance with biblical prophesy and thereby ensure the second coming of Christ. Exhausting the earth's resources also serves to hasten the end-times.

The postmillenialists, in contrast, believe that the second coming of Christ will occur only when God's kingdom has been established on earth. This means that the entire human race must be converted to Christianity and secularism in government eliminated. As a consequence they are promoting an aggressive global evangelization. Bibles come before food and other aid for underdeveloped nations. There already exists in America a powerful Dominionist, Theocratic Christian Reconstructionist Movement that reaches into the highest levels of government. The White House frequently consults with the Religious Right on both domestic and foreign policy issues. George Bush has placed more than 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's School of Law into high ranking position in his administration. (For those of you that don't know, Christian Televangelist Pat Robertson's Law School is one of the lowest ranked law schools in the entire country!) In its most extreme forms, Dominionism, as proposed by R.J. Rushdooney, will institute Mosaic law in the United States. Only Christians will be allowed as citizens; adulterers, fornicators and homosexuals will be stoned to death.

Are our times so full of existential angst that these beliefs are flourishing? Are the threats of terrorism, environmental degradation, species loss, depletion of non-renewable energy sources, climate change or over-population fueling our fears?
These are questions that, unfortunately, this documentary does not answer.