The End Times
" Meme Complex"
FreeChristians

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"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."
Carl Sandburg

Meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. [By analogy with "gene"] Richard Dawkins's term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating them much as viruses do. Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through, for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea. The term is used especially in the phrase "meme complex" denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organised belief system, such as a religion... ( sources: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language © 1993-2003 Denis Howe )

The Pagan Myth of Apocalypse

"I saw heaven open and there before me was a white horse who is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war...He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is the word of God...Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the Nations. And I saw an angel standing in the sun who cried in a low voice to all the birds flying in midair... come gather together for the great supper of God, so you may eat the flesh of kings, generals and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." (Revelation 19)

The "apocalyptic" myth that a divine intervention will violently bring the end of the world and usher in a utopia for the "good guys"  is older than Christianity, and even Judaism. It goes back to the days of old when the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia longed for a magical solution to their problems. Commenting on Revelation 19, Michael Ortiz Hill, explains that "as humans we live within stories. Some stories, like apocalypse are thousands of years old... Revelations 19 depicts Christ returning as the Heavenly Avenger. Revelations is the only New Testament book that justifies violence of any kind, and this it takes to the limit: Christ himself the agent of mass murder... Such is "the glory of the coming of the Lord." Truth, carnage, and the ecstasy of vultures. In a ruined world the Messiah slays the antichrist and creates "a new heaven and a new earth." The dead are judged, the Christians saved and the rest damned to eternal torment. The New Jerusalem is established and the Lord rules it "with an iron scepter."... It dishonors the profundity of the Christian tradition if one doesn't note that Revelations has always been a rogue text. Because of its association with the Montanist heresy (which like contemporary fundamentalists took it to be literal rather than allegorical) it was with great reluctance that it was made scripture three centuries after the death of Christ. Traditionally attributed to St. John, most Biblical scholars now recognize its literary style and its theology has little in common with John's gospel or his epistles and was likely written after his death. Martin Luther found the vindictive God of Revelations incompatible with the gospels and relegated it to the appendix of his German translation of the New Testament instead of the body of scripture. All the Protestant reformers except Calvin regarded apocalyptic millennialism to be heresy..."

Michael Ortiz Hill reminds us of the ancient (pagan) origins of apocalyptic thought: "Revelations is also a rogue text because it is unmoored from its origins, which are far from Christian. It is a late variant on a story that was pervasive in the ancient world: the defeat of the wild and the uncivilized by a superior order upon which a New World would be established. Two thousand years before Revelations depicted Christ slaying the antichrist and laying out the New Jerusalem, Marduk slayed Tiamat and founded Babylon. This pagan myth recycled as a suspiciously unchristian Biblical test found new credence in the 19th century when John Darby virtually revived the Montanist heresy of investing it with a passionate literalism..."

Voltaire once said: "Men who believe absurdities will commit atrocities..". History is filled with examples of religiously inspired atrocities. The author of Dreaming the End of the World then goes on to warn us about the dangerousness of apocalyptic mentality, especially when it becomes mixed with politics: "Revelations is much beloved by Muslim fundamentalists and like their Christian compatriots they also thrill to redemption through apocalypse. Jewish fundamentalists of course do not believe in Revelations but have nonetheless made common cause with the Christian Right. "It's a very tragic situation in which Christian fundamentalists, certain groups of them that focus on Armageddon and the Rapture and the role of a war between Muslims and Jews in bringing about the Second Coming, are involved in a folie a deux with extremist Jews," said Ian Lustick, the author of For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition (and yes it is a single tradition) is being led by its fringe into the abyss and the rest of us with it. The world has been readied for the fire but the critical element is the Bush Administration. Never in the history of Christendom has there been a moment when this rogue element has carried anything like the credibility and political power that it carries now"

The recent war at Iraq was supported by many American Christians who fantasise about the end of the world: ""Rev. Jerry Falwell believes fully, and unequivocally that we must go to war with Iraq to set in motion the cataclysmic events that will ensure the second coming of Jesus Christ," says Dr. Morgan Strong, former professor of Middle East History at State University of New York and a consultant to news programs and magazines" (See: APOCALYPSE SOON: IRAQ WAR FUELS VISIONS OF ARMAGEDDON END TIMES)

David Hopewell warns us of the dangerous "end-times" mindset of fundamentalist religions: "Fundamentalists believe that the present is a glorious time in which to live because Christ will return shortly to destroy everything and kill almost everyone. What interests fundamentalists to the exclusion of everything else is not the paradisal happiness of the saints, but rather the horrors other people are going to have to suffer for their skepticism." ('Christian Fundamentalism: A Journey into The Heart of Darkness.' by David Hopewell Ph.D. Source: ARMAGEDDON THEOLOGY )

How the "End Times"
Myth entered Christian thought

In his great classic "The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment", Thomas Thayer traced religious ideas like "Hell" and "End of the World" to historical developments within the emerging Judaic religion as it mingled with other cultures like Babylon and Egypt. He sites Brucker (Hist. Philos. Judaica. Tom. ii 703) saying that "after the times of Esdras, Zachariah, Malachi, and the inspired men, the Jews began to forsake the sacred doctrine, and turned aside to the dreams of human invention (humani ingenii somnia); though up to this time they had preserved pure the Hebrew wisdom received from the fathers." 

Thayer adds: "The last part of this statement is, perhaps, too strongly worded. They did not, certainly, preserve the wisdom of their ancestors, and the sacred doctrine pure, till after the times of Malachi and the close of the prophetic period. Their departure from the simplicity of the law dates further back than this, even to the time of the Babylonian captivity. The oriental philosophy made considerable impression on the general as well as on the speculative mind, and by degrees crumbled down the walls that guarded the sanctuary of the ancient faith, and prepared the way for the general corruption which followed the death of the last of the prophets. A careful study of the later books of the Old Testament will show this very plainly...". Again he sites a fellow scholar, this time Guizot, who wrote: "The Jews had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and their theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse. We find in Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon, and the later prophets, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus, God represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy."

Oriental philosophy of course included Zoroastrianism, a religious system that taught an "apocalyptic" cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. This "meme" infected Jewish thought, and subsequently the early Christian movement which in turn interpreted Jesus' "larger than life" historical presence in apocalyptic terms. 

During the Maccabean period (the centuries immediately preceding Christ), the suffering Jews begun fantasizing about God sending His Messiah to destroy the enemies of God's people and establish a New World Order of Peace ( Messianic Kingdom ). The imaginative Jewish literature that was produced during the troubled Maccabean period  period clearly reflects these apocalyptic expectations. 

During this period Jewish teachers produced the Apocrypha, which as Edward Beecher wrote were "mainly historical and ethical compositions of Jews, to whom the Old Testament was the supreme standard of religious truth.  Besides these there were works of religious fiction, intended to develop religious and patriotic enthusiasm for the institutions of the Jews. At the same time they were under the influence of ideas which of necessity had come in through the thinking of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, to whom their nation was subjected in successive centuries..." ( see: The Doctrine of Scriptural Retribution by Dr. Edward Beecher, 1878 )

At the same time flourished a genre called Apocalyptic Literature "such as the early parts of the Sibylline Oracles, the book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Ezra, and the like"... The "apocalyptic" book of Daniel, which is included in the Bible Canon, is also believed by scholars to have been a product of the same school of thought. All these writings expressed the collective desire of persecuted Jews to be supernaturally delivered from their enemies. Thus was further developed the theme of a warrior-Messiah who would come to earth as the avenger of "God's people". 

R. Brinsmead explains how the Apocalyptic "meme" entered the early Christian movement: "In Joshua's (Jesus') day apocalyptic expectation was white hot. The New Testament says "all men were in expectation". People were standing on tiptoe watching for signs and omens of the end. John the Baptist believed in apocalyptic too. He spoke of the imminent day of wrath which would "bum up the chaff with unquenchable fire".Joshua's disciples too were incurably apocalyptic. They were bent on looking for signs of the end of the world. They never gave it up. Christ's death - resurrection event was interpreted by Paul and others as an end of the world event, the first stage of a two-stage end of the world. This apocalyptic belief was projected back to Joshua as if he taught the near end of the world too. The moralistic parable of the Ten Virgins, so utterly unlike his authentic parables, was put into his mouth to teach vigilant waiting for the end of history..."

"When we examine Joshua Ben Adam's (Jesus, Son of Man) core (authentic) sayings and parables however, the kingdom of which he speaks is not a future kingdom but something already present in the midst of his listeners. There is no apocalyptic talk. He declares there are no signs and no outward show to announce its arrival. Silent as a seed that is growing, hidden as yeast which is leavening the dough, the kingdom is a present reality, says Joshua, and those who respond to his teaching are entering it now... In the authentic voice of this historical man there is no speculation about the end of the world or life after death. This is not to say that Joshua did not believe in life after death, but our looking in this direction misses the whole thrust of his teaching. He does not talk about life after death, only about life before death. In his terminology, finding life and entering the kingdom are the same thing..."

The authentic voice of Jesus

Jesus and his teaching has been severely distorted by the Christian religion. The distortion is evident even in the so-called Christian Scriptures. On the one hand we have the Jesus who loves His enemies and prays for them, but on the other side we have the "other Jesus" the blood stained warrior-king we read about in places like the Book of Revelation. This distortion has plagued the Church since the time the Christian Scriptures were written. It has caused unspeakable pain and misery (W. Krossa, Joshua Versus Jesus). 

R. Brinsmead makes the point that "scholars today generally agree that the historical Jesus (Joshua ben Adam) did not actually say everything accredited to him in the New Testament. The post Easter beliefs which developed around this central figure got projected back onto the historical-person. This is called retrojection. This immediately raises the problem of how we are going to identify the authentic voice of the historical man. The simplest solution is to follow the lead given to us by James Breech in The Silence of Jesus. He takes eight sayings and twelve parables, which are what he calls 'core material' whose 'authenticity is far beyond reasonable doubt as is possible in historical research'. (p9)... Then he adds this remarkable statement "This material ....... is remarkably free of the language and concepts of the early Christian movement and also remarkably free of the language known to us from the contemporary literature of the period". (1bid) Now this 'core material' (and it doesn't have to precisely correspond to that identified by James Breech) consists of aphorisms (pithy one-liners) and parables which have a ring in them that is quite unique. The one liners are characterized by hyperbole (outrageous exaggeration) like straining gnats and swallowing camels, or getting a log out of your own eye so you can get a fleck of sawdust out of your partner's eye. All authentic parables have a real sting in their tails. They turn conventional wisdom on its head and call accepted values and practices into question. Breech claims that this 'core material' gives a very definable outline of the man and his message"

"Breech is right. From the 'core material' it leaps out at you that Joshua ben Adam ( Jesus, Son of Man ) is so original he could not have been a literary invention. No author is going to invent material, which doesn't match his own agenda. And just as surely as the writers were not capable of creating a person so incorrigibly original, they were not capable of destroying him either... It's as if a great painting has been touched up and embellished by lesser mortals who thought they could improve on the original masterpiece. It then lays around for centuries. Then keen art critics begin to see outlines of the original masterpiece behind all the embellishments. Bit by bit, layer by layer, they scrape away the accretions until the simple, stunning masterpiece appears in its original glory"   ( See: "The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam" )

It is easy to understand why the average Christian is blissfully unaware of what Biblical researchers talk about when they refer to "the Jesus of History". Richard Heinberg writes: "The search for the historical Jesus has been going on for more than a century now, and anyone who embarks on even a cursory study of the findings of New Testament scholars quickly discovers a glaring disparity: while the scholars have been making important discoveries about the gospels, their sources, and the history of first-century Palestine, the average church-going layman knows virtually nothing at all about these findings. It is easy enough to find parties to blame for this situation — the clergy, for wishing to spare their parishioners the possibility of confusion or loss of faith; the flock themselves, for preferring comfortable beliefs over unfamiliar new information; and the scholars themselves, for maintaining an aloof position that says to the layman, “You have no right to an opinion about the historical Jesus because you have not acquired the necessary intellectual tools; only specialists are entitled to pass judgment in this matter.” And so we have two groups growing ever further apart as time goes on: on one hand, millions of faithful Christians for whom evidence is irrelevant and faith is everything, of whom many regard every word of the Bible as historically accurate; and on the other, a small coterie of academics, and their readers, who are intent on following the evidence wherever it leads regardless of its agreement or disagreement with received teachings"

James Still ( "The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission: Who Was the Historical Jesus?" writes: "We can see a clear theme in the early sayings of Jesus... voluntary poverty, humbleness, total pacifism, and complete reliance on God rather than family or tradition". 

Renown scholar Gregory C. Jenks Honest to Jesus: Giving the historical Jesus a say in our future makes pretty much the same point, that is, that the historical Jesus had nothing to do with the violent/apocalyptic images that were later added to the Christian tradition: "Apocalyptic speculation with future punishments for the wicked and rewards for the virtuous played no part in Jesus’ teaching..."

This is all very interesting, especially when we consider the embarrassment felt by Christian apologists throughout the ages as they attempted to explain away the apparent "false prophesies" of Jesus regarding the end of the world. No one can dispute that the gospels portray Jesus as predicting the end of the world during His generation: "For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with His angels; and will recompense every man according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" ( See: Mat 16:27-28, Mark 8:38-9:1, etc ). Elsewhere we read: "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place..." ( See: Mat 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32, etc ) and "That upon you (the Pharisees) may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth. Truly, I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation" (Mat 23:35-36). These sayings however were never uttered by the Jesus of History ( the true Jesus ), but were added by the authors of the gospels as they attempted to explain the great catastrophe that took place in 70 AD.  

Critics of Christianity have always seized on these "failed predictions" attributed to Jesus by the gospels as "proof" that Jesus was a failed Messiah. For example, the great scholar David F. Strauss (1808-1874) wrote: "in these discourses Jesus announces that shortly after that calamity, which (especially according to the representation in Luke's gospel) we must identify with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and within the term of his own generation, he would visibly make his second advent in the clouds, and terminate the existing dispensation. Now as it will soon be eighteen centuries since the destruction of Jerusalem, and an equally long period since the generation contemporary with Jesus disappeared from the earth, while his visible return and the end of the world which he associated with it, have not taken place: the announcement of Jesus appears so far to have been erroneous... Such inferences from the discourse before us would inflict a fatal wound on Christianity; hence it is natural that exegetists should endeavor by all means to obviate them" (Taken from: David F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, ch. 115, source: The Lowdown on God's Showdown
by Ed. Babinski ). 

Babinski dismisses the lame argument used by Evangelical apologists to explain away the words "this generation" as referring to "that generation," i.e., to say that Jesus was addressing a much later generation, not his own. He then cites Christian theologian, Dewey M. Beegle as he refutes the "End Time" theology of "Hal Lindsay fans": "If Jesus was referring to a distant future, the least he could have done was to say "that generation" and thus give his hearers a clue that the events he was discussing would occur in some future generation, not theirs. But "this" is close to "that," and so (Hal Lindsey fans) just add a little filler. Cover things from this end and do not worry too much about how the disciples and early Christians understood things" ( Dewey M. Beegle, Prophecy and Prediction (Ann Arbor, MI: Pryor Pettengill, 1978), pp. 212-213, source: ibid). Babinski adds: "C. S. Lewis, the evangelical Christian apologist, agreed that Jesus made a mistake in predicting that his generation would live to see the coming of the Son of Man in final judgment: The answer of the theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true, though it cannot be imagined. Nor indeed can the unconsciousness of Christ in sleep be imagined, not the twilight of reason in his infancy; still less his merely organic life in his mother's womb" (See: C.S. Lewis, "The World's Last Night" in The World's Last Night and Other Essays, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960, source: ibid )

No, the Jesus of history, the real Jesus, was not infected by the "End Times" virus. He taught other things about the Kingdom of God. He taught that the Kingdom of God is within us all.

The Kingdom of God is Within

"The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed: nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'there!' 'for behold the kingdom of God is in  you" (Luke 17:20-21)

Rather than teaching people to wait for an apocalyptic end of the world and the violent establishment of God's Kingdom by a warrior-Messiah, the historical Jesus, that is, the real Jesus, taught about the Kingdom ( realm ) of God as an inner (spiritual) reality to which all people are invited to enter in the here and now. Going back to Heinberg's thesis we read: "Again and again, Jesus exhorts his followers to seek the kingdom of God — a metaphor for an alternative social order in which people live according to nature, free and equal. The idea of God in the earliest core of sayings is of a universal power — or “father” — that “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good,” that “sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” “Be merciful even as your Father is merciful”; “If God puts beautiful clothes on the grass ... won’t he put clothes on you? Your father knows that you need these things.” Jesus was, according to Crossan, “neither broker nor mediator but, somewhat paradoxically, the announcer that neither should exist between humanity and divinity or between humanity and itself. Miracle and parable, healing and eating were calculated to force individuals into unmediated physical and spiritual contact with God and unmediated physical and spiritual contact with one another. He announced, in other words, the brokerless kingdom of God.” Most scholars agree that some of the sayings attributed to Jesus are later additions; these include apocalyptic warnings about the Final Judgment, pronouncements against the Pharisees, pronouncements against towns that reject the movement, congratulations to those that accept the movement, the lament over Jerusalem, and the story of the temptations in the wilderness"

"In the earliest level of sayings ( recognized by scholars as more authentic ) we hear Jesus preaching, “How fortunate are the poor; they have the kingdom”; “Everyone who glorifies himself will be humiliated, and the one who humbles himself will be praised.” He is proposing a social experiment — a classless society in which all are equal in the sight of God. It is a society governed not by power and wealth, nor by rigid laws, but by charity and kindness.... Jesus' egalitarian social philosophy has special relevance for us now, living as we do in one of the most polarised and stratified societies in history. Indeed, today’s multinational corporate-dominated industrial system owes much to institutions and practices pioneered by the Roman empire. Like twentieth-century America and Europe, first-century Rome was at a pinnacle of economic and technological “progress.” It was a colonial power, the centre of a far-flung trade network. It was also an urban centre in which extremes of wealth and poverty coexisted. Like the European colonists of the past five centuries, the Romans were destroyers of indigenous cultures and voracious consumers of natural “raw materials” (such as forests); and like us, they relied upon unsustainable, soil-killing farming practices. While the earliest reconstructed collection of Jesus' sayings does not mention Satan, it does suggest the idea that the pursuit of power and glory is at the heart of social evils. And in later additions to the sayings gospel, in which the devil (literally, “the accuser”) makes his first appearance, he clearly serves as the personification of institutionalised social dominance"

"The new scholarship portrays the historical Jesus as an anti-authoritarian, a primitivist, and an anarchist. According to Crossan, the earliest Jesus people were the equivalent of “hippies among the Augustinian yuppies.” Jesus' message was a challenge to social power in all its manifestations. Yet within only a few generations that message had been twisted and co-opted almost beyond recognition. Through a gradual process of subversion, Christian teachings were first mythologised and then appropriated by the ruling elite of the Empire... It is surely fair to say that most of this is virtually the opposite of what Jesus originally had in mind"

"Of course, through it all the words of the Galilean sage have continued to shine: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” And, where individuals or groups have drawn inspiration from this earliest layer of teachings, a St. Francis or a St. Clair has come forward to propose the sort of “liberation” or “creation” theology that Jesus himself might have embraced. But as an institution, Christianity eventually became the handmaiden of the capitalist industrial state, supplying the theological justification for colonialism and a work ethic for the factory system. Today, “fundamentalists” claiming to represent the true teachings of the Galilean promote an anti-environmental, anti-feminist, anti-gay, pro-corporate, pro-technology agenda utterly opposed to the message of modern-day prophets of social justice and voluntary simplicity. Surely this constitutes one of the bitterest ironies in all of history"

"At the end of the twentieth century we stand on the brink of a global civilisation whose might and sophistication would have delighted a Roman emperor to no end. The wealthiest one percent of the world’s population live in unimaginable opulence while hundreds of millions exist near the point of starvation. If we are to understand the devil as being not an otherworldly malevolent being, but as the tendency toward the accumulation of political and economic power, then it appears that in our generation virtually the whole world is coming to be possessed by the devil... In such circumstances, one cannot help but yearn for a new Christianity that would pay attention to the discoveries of the scholars and focus its interest on the lifestyle and social program that Jesus taught and exemplified, rather than the theology his later followers adopted" (  In Search of the Historical Jesus, by RICHARD HEINBERG, New Dawn Magazine )

Brinsmead also emphasizes the fact that Jesus did not teach any apocalyptic nonsense: "Joshua ben Adam taught that God's kingdom comes neither in a show of force or with signs compelling us to believe. That his kingdom could have been discounted for so long by a triumphalistic church is testimony enough that God's way is not arbitrarily imposed on humanity. Always respectful of our rights to be human, he waits for us to work toward making the earth a more human place... It is hard for Christians to get used to the idea that Joshua ben Adam did not talk about the near end of the world... If the arrival of human consciousness marked the beginning of human history, perhaps it may be useful to see Joshua ben Adam in terms of the end of that human beginning. The arrival of his kingdom would therefore mark the tree beginning of a true human history..."

 Why the End Times " Meme Complex"
is no good

"This ridiculous idea survived century after century. If the world did not end under the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, it had to end under Theodosius; if the end had not come under Theodosius, it had to occur under Attila the Hun. And up to the twelfth century this idea enriched the monasteries. A great many of the charters and donations to the monasteries began thus: "Christ reigning, the end of the world approaching, I, for the remedy of my soul, etc." (Voltaire, "An Important Study by Lord Bolingbroke, or, the Fall of Fanaticism")

If we apply the truism that a tree may be judged by its fruit, The "End Times" meme has been proven as a bad tree in many different ways. Here are some:

1. It devalues humanity. As Brinsmead explains, "Apocalyptic, back then or now, is part of a religion which sacralizes time" turning into "an authoritarian icon to be served by man rather than serving man (see Mark 2:27,28)... Pre-occupation with the imminent end of the world is accompanied by speculation about "signs of the times" and time tables of events leading up to the End ( The Great Tribulation, Armageddon, Millennium, Mark of the Beast, 666, etc.)... It becomes an unhealthy, dehumanizing obsession... It can become so domineering that living in the future and for the future devalues the present. It becomes a cop-out from present responsibility and opportunities. ("Why polish brass on a sinking ship." "This world is doomed". "There is no hope, etc )... If this Armageddon is not about to happen apocalyptic people become despondent, sad and disappointed. One Christian sect even celebrates an event known as "The Great Disappointment." The founders of this group were devastated because the end of the world didn't take place as they predicted. When they found they had to go on living here, it was a heavy disappointment to take up the dull burdens of living in the here and now. In the early church some people actually stopped working so they could be ready for the "Second Coming."... ( See: "The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam" )

2. It is a dangerous delusion: "In Joshua's day the Zealots were so deluded by apocalyptic that they thought they could precipitate the fiery, eschatological deluge by a fanatical revolt against Rome. Apocalyptic did precipitate the End, not the End of the world, but the end of the Jewish state, first in the 70 AD and finally in the disastrous Bar Cochra revolt in the AD 130's. The slaughter was awful. All surviving Jews were banished from their homeland forever on pain of death. The leaders of Judaism, surveying the final devastation, pronounced a curse on anyone who taught apocalyptic again... Within the American "Christian Right" are the apocalyptic Zealots of our time. They are absolutely confident what is going to happen and therefore should happen in the Middle East as part of the End-time scenario. Their political influence in the affairs of Palestine has been considerable. Their inside literature speaks of "blood up to the horses bridle" (from the book of Revelation), and they actually long for the battle of Armageddon to get under away. They too will be sad, glum and disappointed to learn that this final conflagration is not just around the comer, or even on the horizon. And the very suggestion there will be no hell or barbecue of the wicked is enough to make them as mad as their mythical hell..." (ibid). The concept of a warrior-Messiah who mercilessly crushes his enemies has been emulated by various Christian leaders throughout the blood-stained history of Christianity.

3. It makes people irresponsible: "The other side of this macabre preoccupation with the celestial fireworks is an overwhelming personal interest in getting to heaven, being "saved" and life after death. This overwhelming religious focus on life in the hereafter seriously devalues human life in the here and now..." (ibid). Moreover: "If Jesus is to rule through the nation of Israel, Jerusalem will become a giant bureaucracy. The saints will not really be ruling: they will just be cogs in a giant machine. They will not need to use initiative or exercise their talents, but will just take orders from Jerusalem. This is unnecessary because the Spirit lives in every believer. Jesus can rule through Christians now, if they will submit to his Word and the Spirit. There is no need for an earthly bureaucracy. Man was created to exercise authority, use initiative, and be creative. He would not be fulfilled, and his ability would be wasted, if Jesus ruled through a giant bureaucracy. We live in a bureaucratic age, and this idea may appeal to men who do not wish to take responsibility, but God would prefer men to be responsible, and exercise authority in obedience to the Word and the Spirit..." (See: The Millenium)

4. It generates distorted views about God: "Apocalyptic is characterized by an extremely authoritarian view of God. He is represented as solving all the problems of the world by one act of overpowering intervention or omnipotent coercion. Here is the vertical order of domination and submission at its worst. This kind of theism has also been reflected in the worst features of the Christian West... apocalyptic is the apex of a religiously constructed vertical order. In this world of apocalyptic an empty shell of a man has no say, no choice and no real humanity..." ( See: "The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam" ). Karen Armstrong writes: "A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, "he" becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified" ( See: A History of God, p. 383 )

5. When Christians put their hope in a future Messianic "Millennium" rule by Christ, they inevitably reject the present power of the Gospel to transform the world: "It has made the church very defeatist. If Satan is not bound until Jesus returns, then he rules in the present age. This would mean that the church has no hope of being victorious. This belief has caused the church to retreat from the world. It has become a hiding place, when it should be a launching ground for building the Kingdom. As a result evil as increased in the world. This has not happened because it was part of God’s plan, but because the church has allowed it" (See: The Millenium)

6. "The church has been given responsibility for establishing the Kingdom. It should not pass the buck to Jesus... God’s people are to establish the Kingdom. Jesus taught the church to pray, "Thy Kingdom come". He gave this command because he intended the church to bring in his Kingdom. If the Kingdom does not come until Christ returns, the church is destined to be a failure. Its prayer cannot be answered (or can only be answered by Jesus returning)... The apostle Paul... taught ( in his more mature epistles ) that God would bring the church to victory: "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph 3:10,11)... Christ will not have to return to display his glory, for his glory will be displayed through the victories of the church. These victories will take place "now" in the present age. Psalm 149:6-9 also says that bringing in the Kingdom is the "glory of the saints"... The teaching that the church will be raptured out, and that Christ will return to establish the Kingdom, is contrary to these scriptures. It makes the church a failure..." (See: The Millenium)

7. "This teaching also makes the Holy Spirit a failure. This age is the age of the Spirit. In our time God is working in the world through the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would ‘convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment"" (Jn 16:8). We can expect him to be successful in this task. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the church means that it has dynamic power. Because he has all the infinite power of God, we should expect the Spirit to bring the church to victory..." (ibid)

8. "The second coming of Jesus will not achieve anything spiritually that would destroy the forces of evil... Those who teach a "millennium" after the second coming often imply that Jesus will establish the Kingdom by force. It is hard to imagine how Jesus would do this... The Jews expected Jesus to establish the Kingdom of God by force. He refused to do this, and said, My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest… (John 18:36)... He said this to show that his Kingdom would not be established by worldly means. Yet this is what many Christians are wanting him to do. Jesus refused to use force, even though he could have called on his Father to send a whole host of angels to his aid (Matt 26:52,53). His Kingdom is not to be established by the sword. Jesus knew that true converts cannot be won by force. God has a much better way; to win the hearts of men through the inner work of the Holy Spirit, as the church proclaims the gospel..."(ibid)

Many more reasons could be given as to why the Apocalyptic "End of the World" meme is a dangerous virus that has infected the Christian religion for centuries. It is time for Christians everywhere to reject it. 

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