A History of the End of the World (39 page)

Not every apocalyptic cult, of course, expresses itself in the familiar words and phrases of Revelation. The so-called Ghost Dance movement, which arose among the Native American tribes on the western frontier in the late nineteenth century, focused on a home-grown version of the millennial kingdom: “The spirits of the dead would return, the buffalo would once again be plentiful, and the earth would tremble.”
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At its peak, the self-styled prophet of the Ghost Dancers, a messianic figure called Wovoka, taught his followers that their exertions would inspire the ancestral spirits to drive off the white settlers who threatened the Native Americans with both cultural and physical extermination.

Even the Ghost Dancers, however, owed something to the apocalyptic and messianic traditions of Judaism and Christian ity, which they apparently picked up from the preaching of Christian missionaries and then translated into their own spiritual vernacular. And, notably, the Ghost Dancers discovered for themselves the peril that has always threatened apocalyptic preachers and their followers, including the Maccabees, the Zealots, and the early Christians. The military authorities who were charged with maintaining law and order on the frontier regarded the Ghost Dance movement as a spooky and dangerous form of insurrection, and they resolved to wipe it out in a series of punitive expeditions that culminated in the notorious massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

The Ghost Dancers, in fact, fit neatly into the theoretical model that has been applied to Daniel, Revelation, and the other ancient apocalyptic writings. The promise that the end of the world is nigh, as we have seen, is supposedly intended to “hearten the faithful in the time of affliction and persecution” and to console “those engulfed by suffering and overwhelmed by dread.”
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And these words accurately describe the predicament of the Native Americans who performed the Ghost Dance to drive off the white settlers who were conducting not merely a culture war but a war of extermination. Indeed, the Ghost Dancers are far more appropriately described as the victims of affliction and persecution than, say, the Puritans, the Millerites, or the Christian fundamentalists of our own era, all of whom have been privileged to live their lives in perfect comfort and safety.

That is why scholars have found it necessary to fine-tune the apocalyptic model by pointing out that persecution may be entirely in the mind of the beholder. “Whatever his actual economic situation,” writes Adela Yarbro Collins about the man who wrote the book of Revelation, “the author or editor seems to
feel
that he is a victim of injustice.”
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Or the self-imagined victim seethes with resentment toward someone he regards as better off than himself, a phenomenon that scholars call “relative deprivation” or “status anxiety.”
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Or the victim is unsettled by some cultural or political change that her zealous true belief will not allow her to accommodate, a description that probably best describes the first readers and hearers of Revelation as well as the otherwise comfortable Christian fundamentalists in modern America. And sometimes the whole apocalyptic phenomenon is more nearly a psychiatric disorder than a spiritual calling.

“Classic millenarians, from self-flagellating medieval peasants to Sioux Ghost Dancers,” quips Damian Thomson, “are often people who, if not clinically mad, have reached what George Rosen has called ‘the wilder shores of sanity.’”
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Thus, for example, the members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in Southern California came to believe that a spacecraft was hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, full of aliens on a mission to destroy the world, and they convinced themselves that they would be able to escape the apocalypse by elevating themselves to a higher plane. Thirty-nine members of the cult packed their bags, put on new tennis shoes, stuffed their pockets with five-dollar bills and rolls of quarters, and then supped on applesauce spiced with phenobarbital before putting plastic bags over their heads to ensure death by suffocation if the self-administered poison did not kill them first. Their source of inspiration was science fiction rather than scripture, of course, but Heaven’s Gate, too, demonstrates the terrible power of the apocalyptic idea (and the mass media) on a disordered mind.

“We watch a lot of
Star Trek,
a lot of
Star Wars,
” says one cheerful member of Heaven’s Gate in the videotaped messages that they left behind in 1997. “It’s time to put into practice what we have learned.”
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Now and then, it is simply impossible to make any meaningful distinction between apocalyptic vision, psychological dysfunction, and mass murder. The Japanese cult called Aum Shinrikyo, for example, embraces a strange blend of Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist beliefs along with “predictions from the book of Revelation and a dose of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.”
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The founder, Shoko Asahara, reportedly taught his followers that Armageddon was fast approaching, and ordered them to assemble their own arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. In 1995, they put their weaponry to a practical test by setting off canisters of sarin nerve gas in the subways of Tokyo, thus taking the lives of twelve victims and injuring thousands more.

“For ye have the poor with you always,” says Jesus, and he might have said the same of the doomsayers.
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Most of them will remain invisible to the rest of us, caught up in their own complicated and impenetrable fancies about the coded meanings of the Bible. Many others will continue to advertise their own visions in the public prints, on radio and television, and over the Internet; a Google search for “Book of Revelation,” for example, retrieves more than 1.6 million “hits.” And a few, of course, will always succeed in claiming the attention of the whole world, if only for fifteen minutes, because of some ghastly act, whether suicidal or homicidal, that is meant to hasten the end of the world.

I know the ending, to paraphrase the credo that appears in the very first sentence of the book you are now reading, but whether or not God wins is somewhat less certain nowadays.

The world will end, or so are assured with absolute certainty by the findings of modern astrophysics. One day, sooner or later, the sun will run out of hydrogen, its primary solar fuel. When it does, the sun will turn into what scientists call a red giant as its superheated atmosphere expands across open space to embrace the near planets, including our own, thereby incinerating every living thing on earth. At that moment, perhaps 5 billion years from now, history as we understand it will be over and done. Then the sun will turn into a white dwarf, cold and dark, but human beings will be long gone from the cosmos.

The sure and precise knowledge of when and how the world will end can be terrifying to contemplate, as I mused out loud to a friend and colleague of mine, science writer K. C. Cole, on an otherwise bright and cheerful day in sunny Southern California.

“Oh, I can tell you about much worse things,” remarked Cole with a laugh, “that could happen much sooner.”
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With the insistent truth telling that is the stock-in-trade of science, Cole reminded me of the whole catalog of God-less apocalypses that are worth worrying about. If we survive the accidental or intentional use of the tens of thousands of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons that are stockpiled in arsenals around the world, we might still suffer the catastrophic consequences of pandemic disease, climatic catastrophe, or overpopulation of Malthusian proportions. And even if we manage to survive all of these potential doomsdays, some stray asteroid might still collide with our little planet and put an end to life on earth while the solar furnace is still fully functional.

Scientific doomsaying changes nothing at all for apocalyptic true believers. The end of the world, whether caused by accident, error, disaster, or the slow but sure process of solar combustion, is still seen as the fulfillment of the divine prophecies that are described in Revelation. If God is capable of creating the earth, the argument goes, then God is also capable of destroying it, whether by means of nuclear weaponry, infectious disease, global warming, or the exhaustion of the solar fuel that allows the sun to shine. That’s exactly why the Christian scriptures begin with Genesis and end with Revelation, and that’s what the Lamb of God means when he is quoted as saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending.”
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But any contemplation of the end-times, whether it is rooted in religion or science or some combination of the two, poses the same moral risk that has always confronted human beings who seek a revelation in the original sense of unveiling what is concealed. The apocalyptic texts of both Judaism and Christian ity tempt us to occupy ourselves with fantasies of revenge and redemption while watching for signs and wonders that augur the end of the world. And more than a few readers and hearers of these texts have taken it upon themselves to do God’s work of revenge and to hasten the end-times. But the most exalted and exalting passages of the Bible, both in its Jewish and Christian redactions, plainly instruct us to put aside the pursuit of “secret things” and call on us to answer the urgent needs of the hungry and the homeless, the prisoner and the patient, all in the here and now.
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Some true believers, as we have seen throughout the history of the end of the world, are willing to stand and fight over the right way and the wrong way to understand the Bible. The rest of us, however, still regard ourselves as free to choose how to read the scriptures or, for that matter, whether to read them at all. But the choice is not without consequences. That is one way to understand what the biblical author means by the oft-quoted and highly provocative words of Deuteronomy: “I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse, therefore choose life.”
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Some Bible readers, of course, are instructed by the book of Revelation to read these words as a death sentence pronounced by God himself against men and women who make the wrong choice. Others read the same words as a challenge to “do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God,” according to Micah, and they ignore the apocalyptic preachers in favor of the biblical prophets who, like Isaiah, urge us “to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home.”
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The fact that both teachings—and many others, too—can be extracted from between the covers of the same book is what has always made Bible reading such a crazy-making experience.

Nowadays, of course, the apocalyptic idea works its powerful magic on plenty of people who never open a Bible, and for them, God is no longer necessary or sufficient to solve the mystery of when and how the end will come. On one point, however, we all seem to agree: somehow and someday, sooner or later, whether by the hand of God or the hand of humankind or the mindless workings of the cosmos, the earth itself and all living things upon it will pass away. Ultimately, we are compelled to decide for ourselves how to make sense of our lives as we continue to wait—as men and women have always waited—for the world to end on time.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
: The entire text of the book of Revelation, exactly as it appears in the King James Version with conventional divisions into chapters and verses, is reproduced here. For the convenience of the reader, I have added headings to indicate major themes, figures, and incidents.

CHAPTER 1
[Things Which Must Shortly Come to Pass]

1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

1:2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.

1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

[John’s Greetings to the Seven Churches of Asia]

1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

[I am Alpha and Omega]

1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

1:9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

[One like unto the Son of Man]

1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;

1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:

1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

1:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;

1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

CHAPTER 2
[Letter to the Church of Ephesus]

2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

2:3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

[The Nicolaitans]

2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Letter to the Church in Smyrna

2:8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

[The Synagogue of Satan]

2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

2:10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

[Letter to the Church in Pergamos]

2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

2:13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

[Balaam]

2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

2:15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

[Letter to the Church in Thyatira]

2:18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;

2:19 I know thy works, and charity, and ser vice, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

[Jezebel]

2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

2:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

2:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

2:24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.

2:25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.

2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

2:28 And I will give him the morning star.

2:29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

CHAPTER 3
[Letter to the Church in Sardis]

3:1 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

3:2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.

3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.

3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.

3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

3:6 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

[Letter to the Church in Philadelphia]

3:7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

3:8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

3:9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

3:11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

3:13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

[Letter to the Church in Laodicea]

3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

CHAPTER 4
[I Will Show Thee Things Which Must Be Hereafter]

4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

4:2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

4:3 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

[Twenty-Four Elders]

4:4 And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.

4:5 And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

[Four Beasts]

4:6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

4:7 And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

4:8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.