I come from a culture that is very excited to see the end of the world, and expects it after watching the six o’clock news. I guess Utah isn’t the only one, as I was listening to NPR the other day as they were interviewing Christian fiction writers who have found a lucrative theme in eschatology.

No, that is a word that means “the end of the world”… silly.

Then today as I was wandering around the virtual world, I ran across this paragraph from website of The Believer:

Someone should make a documentary film about current apocalyptic cults in the United States. The documentary could focus on how different groups have dealt with what millennial scholars and writers call “disconfirmation.” How did groups adjust when the world did not end with the millennium? Have events like 9-11 and the war in Iraq contributed to the resuscitation of faltering and discredited apocalyptic mysticism? Have millenarians and assorted eschatological new-agers rationalized some kind of ongoing process with the year 2000 marking a beginning, thereby saving their belief systems?

Good question. I remember back in school studying about how the Christians of the middle ages dealt with the impending first millenium and how upset and relieved they were after it passed quietly. (They liked to quote Revelations 20:3 as proof of their expectation). I found it quite funny that the Nordic peoples also thought the end of the world would occur in a fiery catastrophe (Ragnarok), and some pointed to the Christian missionaries of 900AD as a sign of the end.

But the Mormon culture (and I suppose many other Christian groups) take the inaccuracies of dating Jesus’ birth as well as comments that “of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (see Matthew 24:36) to mean that it could occur anytime … at least, anytime after all of his predictions are fulfilled.

Granted, the original Christians expected the end of the world in their lifetime, and thought Jesus was just “wrapping things up” … not setting up a saga (see Hebrews 9:26 as an example). You can understand this since Jesus said the end of the world would occur in one generation: “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (see Matthew 24).

So, in Utah and probably in a lot of other eschatological American cultures, just because 2000 passed doesn’t mean the world won’t. So here is my issue with all this end of the world stuff…

I see (and have actually heard) people comment that why should they “fix” the current world when it is just going to be destroyed in a fiery cataclysm.

Why indeed.

It is as if their fatalistic expectation is self-fulfilling. Why saved the environment? Why clean up our yards? Why fight the seven-headed beast that resides in the White House?

Why indeed.

I’m sure that God could come down and clean up our mess, but why would she want to? A parent that nags their children to clean up their room, and then goes in and does it, isn’t helping their children learn responsibility for their actions. So, let’s throw away our Left Behind books and our apocalyptic expectations, and clean up our room.