Tuesday, January 31
Monday, January 30
Wednesday, December 21
The Study Of The History Of The End Of The World, Part 8
Though history is linear in that it is moving towards an ultimate destination rather than circular in the sense of rigid absolute recurrence, it cannot be denied that the dynamics of human development and unfolding events do often follow a cyclical path over time. For example, eventually the sects of the nineteenth century that began with considerable apocalyptic and utopian fervor such as the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses tempered these impulses to an extent in favor of the stabilization brought about by leadership focusing more upon continuity of organization rather than the cessation of human affairs as presently known. The cultural change of the nineteenth century continued onward well into the twentieth. As such, it was to be expected that fringe movements outside the mainstream of conventional American religious life would continue to increase. But given the exaggerated pace of contemporary life, a number of these would prove to be far deadlier than their counterparts originating in what might be considered more tranquil bygone eras. In his analysis of the fringe groups embracing a form of apocalypticism arising from the tumult of the counterculture, Richard Kyle categorizes these as Western, occult, or racist.
The groups described as Western would be those that would be described as cults deriving inspiration from Christian theological terminology even if these sects no longer imbued the words with their original meanings. A number of these ended tragically in episodes of dramatic violence. Foremost among these ranked Jonestown in the jungles of Guyana and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
In the early days of his ministry, one would not have necessarily thought that the name Jim Jones would become synonymous with cultic violence and abuse. Jones began his ministry loosely affiliated with the Disciples of Christ with a concern regarding what he perceived as the racism of his day. Eventually, Jones' apocalyptic views focused more upon pending disaster rather than Christ's actual return. Initially, this prompted Jones to uproot his congregation from Indiana to settle in California where Jones thought it would be more likely to survive an inevitable nuclear catastrophe. However, it was this desire to protect his flock from the perils of the world through the fanatical withdrawal from society without relying on the power of Christ that would ultimately doom this experiment in integrated communal living.
As a result of increasing allegations of abuse within the People's Temple and out of a fear that even California would not prove to be a refuge from the pending tribulation, Jones relocated to the sect's compound in the Guyanese wilderness known as Jonestown where he descended into deeper levels of insanity and evil. The straw that broke the camel's back occurred when Senator Leo Ryan and an NBC news crew arrived to investigate claims of abuse alleged by families of group members as well as those residing at the compound. The desperate there reached out to the legislator after an initial meeting actually seemed to go well. These souls confided that they had not found a sanctuary from the hardships of the world but had actually become trapped in a Hell on earth.
Fearing retaliation on the part of authorities for assassinating the Senator along with others at the remote jungle airstrip, Jones attempted to convince his followers to commit what he categorized as an act of revolutionary suicide. It is often assumed that the residents of Jonestown embraced death in this manner willingly as it is what comes to mind when admonishing someone not to drink the Kool Aid, a reference to the toxic potion concocted to bring about this disturbing end. However, many only relented at gunpoint and others were actually shot. And though Jonestown no doubt stands as perhaps the most infamous example of the tragedy likely to result when people surrender good judgment and discernment for promises of a blissful tomorrow if all they do is surrender in total to a leader claiming direct revelation from or a unique understanding of God to which other believers are not privy, it would certainly not be the last.
Another example of such a group meeting a tragic demise as a result of an out of control belief in the Apocalypse was the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas. The Branch Davidians were themselves derived from Seventh Adventism, which adherents of this splinter group believed had grown lax in doctrine over the years as the emphasis of the mother movement switched from eagerly awaiting the pending Advent to organizational expansion. Deadbeat Vernon Howell was able to smooth talk his way into the sect's leadership by pitching woo at the elderly matriarch. With his knack for quoting Scripture (even if pulling it out of context), Howell was able to rebrand himself as David Koresh, claiming that he was the Lamb referenced in the Book of Revelation who would open the seven seals described in that prophetic text. As a result of a series of tactical blunders on the part of both Koresh and the government, eighty-eight Branch Davidians died in this attempt at actualized eschatology when the compound caught fire after a siege lasting well over a month.
Another form of fringe eschatology to gain a foothold towards the close of the twentieth century was noticeably racialist in nature. One of the early forms of what might be categorized as genetic apocalypticism could be found in the Worldwide Church of God as established by Herbert W. Armstrong. Central to the teaching of Armstrongism was the doctrine of Anglo-Israelism, the belief that the Anglo peoples of the world such as Great Britain and the United States were the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. As such, these nations were as every bit as eligible for the promises made to the Chosen People as were the Jews. Like the Jews that Armstrong hoped to mimic, his sect also held to Old Testament dietary laws, Sabbatarianism, and the rejection of the Trinity. In terms of his eschatology, Armstrong was influenced by dispensationalist notions of history spanning roughly for six thousand years with Christ returning at the Second Advent to establish the Millennial Kingdom which would follow the Tribulation during which the Antichrist would rule the world from his power base of a European confederacy consisting of ten nations.
But whereas Armstrong's form of ethnic millennialism might have admired the Jews a little too enthusiastically to the point of wanting to be part of a pan-Israelite family, the other forms of End Times speculation focused upon ethnicity actually went to the other extreme of explicit hostility towards the Jews and the exclusion of those not belonging to a preferred racial group. These movements were Christian Identity and the Black Muslims.
Christian Identity was similar to Anglo-Israelism in that both believed that the Caucasians of northern Europe were the true Chosen People of God. However, Christian Identity parted ways with the Worldwide Church of God in insisting that those now categorizing themselves as Jews in fact had no connection to Biblical Israel genetically. Instead, the vast majority now identified as part of that nation or ethnicity are actually descendants of a group known as the Khazars that converted to Judaism in the seventh century (Kyle, 160). Unlike traditionalist Christians who (despite instances of racial animosity or misgivings) admit that all humanity shares a common ancestry back to Adam and Eve and most directly from Noah following the Deluge, Christian Identity believed that non-Whites are not fully human in that such groups are the result of carnal relations between Satan and Eve in the case of the Jews or the result of a creation prior to the divine intervention resulting in Adam and Eve.
Interestingly, the tyrannical government known as the New World Order warned of by adherents of Christian Identity sounds quite similar to that of the Tribulation period under the Antichrist probably described in the greatest detail by dispensationalist scholars. However, beyond that, the two schools of eschatological interpretation have little else in common. For example, Christian Identity rejects the Pretribulational Rapture outright. Perhaps most disturbingly, in order to being about the Kingdom of God the faithful will be required to wage a race war, a prospect most often eagerly anticipated rather than dreaded by those mired in this spiritual delusion. The hope of the practitioner of Christian Identity is not that the Jew will be brought to Christ during the time of upheaval but will instead be eliminated so that the Earth and the surviving bloodlines might be spared genetic contamination or purified.
At the other end of the spectrum of racialist Armageddon could be found the Black Muslim movement. Despite being called the Nation of Islam, the sect was rather more of a cult than an expression of of orthodox or mainstream Islam. The Nation of Islam was founded in the 1920's by Wallace Farad, a mysterious figure many within the sect believed to be a theophany or God manifested in human form. His chief prophet and successor as leader was Elijah Muhammad.
In terms of eschatology and doctrine, the Nation of Islam advocated a militant anti-Caucasian Afrosupremacism. Whites are believed to be a genetically engineered inferior subspecies that will be obliterated when pious Blacks are taken up in a Rapture-like event to the Motherwheel --- a craft reminiscent of a UFO inspired in part by the Book of Ezekiel --- which will rain nuclear annihilation down upon those remaining upon the Earth at that time. Unlike orthodox Islam, the Nation of Islam held that there was no life after death and thus no literal Heaven or Hell. The religion's golden age would consist of the Black subjugation of the planet Earth.
The third variety of apocalyptic group to arise in the contemporary world could be categorized as New Age or occult. The groups, sects, and teachers falling into this particular category foretold of a pending golden age often proceeded by cataclysmic upheaval. However, unlike those drawing their prophetic inspiration from Christian sources, the primary focus of those in the occult or New Age was not so much the Second Coming of Christ but rather more about communal or personal transformation. Richard Kyle writes, “The coming New Age will be based not on some doomsday scenario but on a paradigm shift (154).” Through this paradigm shift, humanity will actualize the deity within. The result will be a new order characterized by equality, ecological restoration, international cooperation and galactic harmony.
Unlike strict Marxist Communism with its absolutist materialism, the New Age movement allowed for the existence of higher order intelligences or spirit beings it believed would guide humanity along the path to cosmic awareness. Most often now such entities are depicted as extraterrestrials like those their proponents believe responsible for UFO phenomena. The movement that developed surrounding the study of encounters began to take on characteristics noticeably beyond that of mere scientific curiosity and more like those of a religion or form of spirituality following George Adamski's claim in 1952 that he had met and talked with an extraterrestrial (Kyle, 157). Soon a sort of gospel affirmed by a number of others also claiming to be contactees developed professing for the need of our species to move beyond crass materialism and hostility into a more comprehensive awareness of reality if we wanted to avoid widespread destruction such as that embodied by nuclear weapons the recent development of which on Earth brought the planet to the attention of interstellar authorities.
At this point, Christian and New Age eschatology seem to parallel one another but diverge in distinct interpretative directions. In Dispensationalism, prior to the Tribulation, Christ catches His saints both the living and the dead into the air so that they might escape the judgments about to be poured out upon the Earth. In the spin placed on events by adherents of the New Age, Christians are still the the ones removed from the Earth at that time. However, that action on the part of extraterrestrials is not seen as a reward for dedication to Christ but rather as punishment. For it is the tendency of the true Christian to stick to morality as described in the pages of the Bible and that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to gain access to Heaven. These notions are perceived as a profound impediment to the kinds of changes that need to take place in order for this utopian golden age to be actualized. Likewise, the cataclysms described in passages such as the Book of Revelation will not so much be viewed as God deliberately instigating the judgments. Instead, these disasters will be viewed as the Earth repairing itself after centuries of neglect at the hands of a culture based on Judeo-Christian principles rather than the balance claimed to be found in pantheism.
by Frederick Meekins
Bibibliography
Abanes, Richard. End-Times Visions: The Doomsday Obsession. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1988.
Kirsch, Jonathan. A History Of The End Of The World: How The Most Controversial Book In The Bible Changed The Course Of Western Civilization. San Francisco, California: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006.
Kagan, Donald, Ozment, Steven and Turner, Frank. The Western Heritage Since 1789 (Fourth Edition). New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991.
Kyle, Richard. The Last Days Are Here Again: A History Of The End Times. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1988. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1996.
Ladd, George. The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of The Second Advent and The Rapture. Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1956.
Thompson, Damian. The End Of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium.
Tuesday, December 6
Does Disputatious Nature Of Fundamentalist Movement Leave Vacant Pulpits Empty?
In a sermon, an independent fundamentalist Baptist pastor lamented that he heard more than 75 churches needed pastors.
Even more troubling to the pastor was that, when a class was asked who among the assembled was ready to fill these vacancies, only two raised their hands.
But isn’t the nature of the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement in part at fault?
For often if a potential applicant disagreed with a congregation or more likely a pastoral search committee over a minor peculiarity or secondary doctrine, the individual often ends up being viewed as little better than an outright unbeliever.
As to the class where most did not respond in the affirmative, they probably figured if they had, they were likely to get a verbal reaming about the sins of presumption, pride, how no one is really good enough, and how the truly pious wait upon the moving of the Lord but to claim you hear from Him would then disqualify you as a crypto-Charismatic.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, November 17
Scanners Set To Discernment: The Progression Of Worldviews Leading To The Acceptance Of Extraterrestrials (Part 2)
Julius Caesar, in his account of his escapades in Gaul, noted how that region was divided into three parts. Something similar might be said of the major epochs of the prevailing cultural currents in the West. Before the revelation of the one true God radiated outward towards the uttermost parts of the Earth from the Holy Land, for the most part with the exception of the Jewish people the West would be what would broadly be considered pagan. The next phase following the pagan was the Christian. The Christian was in turn followed by the Modern and the Postmodern.
To the contemporary Christian ear, the term "pagan" carries with it connotations of gratuitous violence and depraved sexuality. In part, such a reputation is justified on the grounds of the infamous excesses such as those noted in the declining days of Greece and Rome. For example, during that era, it was not uncommon to make sport of the shedding of human blood as epitomized by the Roman gladiatorial games.
Paganism did, however, go beyond that. Though existing prior to Christianity as the predominate form of religious belief and expression among Gentiles, paganism was not conceptually formulated as such until the rise of and in antithesis to Christianity. According to Glenn Sunshine in Why You Think The Way You Do: The Story Of Western Worldviews From Rome To Home, the term "pagan" is derived from the Latin words "pagus" meaning "the countryside" and "pagni" meaning "rural people" (20). This particular dichotomy came about because, at the time, Christianity was a religion concentrated in urban centers whereas those living in the countryside were more likely to hold on to the traditional ways a bit longer as the process of Christianization fanned out across the face of the Mediterranean and eventually into Europe.
Often, those not accustomed to the shades and intricacies of Christianity are bewildered by its sheer number of denominations and various theological interpretations. Technically, the same can be said of beliefs classified under the banner of paganism. Before the rise of Christianity, each culture had its own distinct set of gods (though there was often an intriguing degree of similarity in these figures and the myths about them transcending particular societies). Even within these cultures, there was a myriad of gods with particular cults and schools of devotion drawn to the adoration of specific deities presiding over a particular aspect of nature or existence.
It was this connection between the forces of nature to which man was subject to the whims of and this realm of the spirit that led to the establishment of imperial or national systems of religion. The purpose of these rituals was not so much about preparing the individual for the next world or to make them a better person per say but rather about placating the entities believed to be behind the phenomena manifesting in the physical world. Glenn Sunshine writes, "Crops could be destroyed or not ripen...volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, and storms could end their lives or condemn...to a slow death by starvation...Is it any wonder, then, that they saw in nature a source of transcendence, which they needed to appease in order to survive (21).” An individual’s relationship with the divine as we now understand such a notion in light of Christian theological assumptions did not enter all that significantly into the religious equation of that day.
With official religious belief so intertwined with social well-being or misfortune in the clash of empires, kingdoms and tribes, it came to be seen that those powers prevailing in arenas such as the battlefield must (it was reasoned) possess the greater favor of the more powerful gods. Thus, when a weaker nation was conquered, it was only natural that they would come to accept these new gods into their respective pantheons. For example, it has been hypothesized that the Olympians were the deities brought with tribes moving into the Greek peninsula that displaced the Titans who had been believed in by the original inhabitants of the region. The Greek and Roman pantheons so meshed together in their intertwining that today students of the Classical world often refer to these characters from these legends and myths with interchangeable names. For example, Zeus (Greek) is identified with Jupiter (Roman), Ares (Greek) with Mars (Roman), and Hermes (Greek) with Mercury (Roman).
Recognition of the multiplicity of deities came to be thought of as an essential component of a good social order to such an extent that not only did Rome require conquered people to bow to or burn a pinch of incense to the emperor as a god on earth but often Rome in turn would extend a degree of recognition to the spirits honored by these subject nations as well. Glenn Sunshine writes, “Adding one or more deities to the religious system was not a problem; in fact more educated people thought of this as being broadminded ...virtuous...cosmopolitan... People saw this inclusiveness as a source of strength for the Roman Empire...the more deities that supported Rome, the better (23).”
The thing was, this kind of system did not do all that much to fulfill the spiritual and emotional needs of the individual as a person. In fact, often these deities were little better than mere mortals in terms of personal conduct. In certain ways, these divinities may have even been worse than the average workaday pagan who, according to Romans 2:14-15, at least had the law written upon his heart to an extent to prick the conscience in cases where internal witness had not been muted through repeated violation. For example, Zeus hardly served as an example of marital fidelity towards his wife Hera. For this deity had numerous affairs with mortals catching his fancy resulting in numerous elicit hybrid offspring, the most famous of which was probably Hercules.
As a result of such an existential crisis of the spirit, a complex cultural process came into play that would result in the next great worldview epoch. Not unlike what is transpiring in our own day, the prosperity that accrued to Rome as a result of an ethos built upon early virtues such as duty and prudence eventually came to undermine the character especially of those in social classes with considerable time for leisure unprepared for the temptations brought about as a result of abundance. Rome became an extremely oversexed society. Gluttony and debauchery were rampant. What would be considered carnal pornographic images adorned nearly every conceivable artifact of material culture from pottery to the walls of domiciles. Despite the libidinous activity going on all around, one would have thought the population would have expanded. However, quite the opposite was true.
The Romans became so engrossed in the pursuit of these lusts that they had little desire to put up with the consequences of such unbridled virility. Abortion became rampant and the population plummeted. Yet at what seemed one of the dimmest periods of the light of the West, things were about to brighten in ways they never had before.
The Christian philosophy of history holds that often God works through the vilest of situations that have resulted from man’s depravity in order to bring about the fulfillment of His higher purpose. As such, the world was primed for the expanse of God’s revelation beyond the Jewish people of Israel by the time of Rome's decline as a source of spiritual strength and cultural vitality. Whereas the Romans valued administrative acumen, the Greeks intellectual aptitude and the Jewish identity based itself upon belonging to the chosen nation of God, the Christian worldview at its finest balanced each of these in a way with the potential to transcend them all in a universal manner that still respected these broad categories of cultural organization and endeavor. At first, this new creed appealed to those on the periphery of how success was construed at the time.
Borrowing heavily from the Jewish tradition in which its founder and His earliest disciples were steeped, the Christian worldview emphasized the value of each individual created in the image of the one true God. And since man was a reflection of this image and bought with the righteousness of Christ who shed His blood, died, and rose from the dead so that the redeemed might enjoy an eternity with Him in Heaven, the pleasures of the flesh were not something to be wallowed in like an animal unable to control itself no matter how strong these temptations might be to all born with a sin nature. Instead, such delights were to be enjoyed as God intended within the confines of matrimony for the sake of the children brought about as a result of such physical couplings, the emotional well being of the partners involved, and to serve as an example of the profound union between Christ and His bride known as the Church composed of all professing belief in Him.
Unlike Judaism, one did not have to belong theoretically to a particular ethnic group or to adopt its culture wholesale to become part of the new covenant open to any who would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Granted, things would not be perfect under a civilization that took for part of its ultimate foundation the building blocks of the Christian worldview. In time, a number of the things done in its name, often though as a result of a misapplication of these principles, would be one of the justifications invoked by the critics and opponents of the faith for abandoning the creed altogether.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, October 27
Scanners Set To Discernment: The Progression Of Worldviews Leading To The Acceptance Of Extraterrestrials (Part 1)
For example, the Raelians revel (one might say wallow) in man’s nature as a sexual being while the Heaven’s Gate loathed the physical component of the species to such an extent that the group will be remembered in the pages of history for at first mutilating their bodily organs specifically identified with carnal pleasure through self-castration and then by ultimately destroying their earthly lives altogether through ritual suicide. The Nation of Islam has traditionally been an Afrosupremacist, anti-White sect. The Mormons are often denigrated as the whitest of the White. At one time early in its history, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints looked down its nose at those of darker pigmentation for not having sided with God in the preincarnate war against Satan.
However, as in the case of greater ecumenical cooperation between a number of the major religions of the world, under certain circumstances there could very well come a time when assorted belief systems centered upon UFO's and extraterrestrials could set aside doctrinal differences and emphasize commonalities for the purposes of providing the planetary community a sense of perspective and assurance amidst a crisis that might be described as nothing short of apocalyptic. Even now, among the movements described there exists evidence of this kind of framework and dialog being set in place. For example, Louis Farrakhan is not only the head of the Nation of Islam but he has also had an association with the Church of Scientology.
If the wider ecumenical movement is being used as a framework as to what might happen among those groups that look to life beyond the Earth as a source of spiritual inspiration, one should also expect to see at least two approaches manifest themselves as to how adherents of these sects might respond to the melding and interaction of their respective interpretations as these kinds of worldviews fan out across the cultural and intellectual landscapes. As in the case of the ecumenical movement seeking cooperation and dialog between the traditional religions of the world, there will be members of these respective UFO belief systems that will deemphasize their dogmatic particulars for the sake of broadening the perceptions of humanity to the metaphysical meaning provided by the prospect of life from beyond the Earth.
On the other hand, scholars, academics, and assorted religious professionals should also expect a number within established UFO sects to remain aloof from any amorphous "exo-spirituality" that might develop. As in the case of more literal or fundamentalist adherents of established world religions, a number might prefer --- to borrow Christian phraseology --- the distinctives of the faith handed down to the saints or, in this case perhaps, more technically space cadets. Such devotees might come to view a cosmic universalism as a dilution of the specific creeds they held to so tenaciously in times when the broader public did not herald those looking to the stars as honored prophets with a message rescuing humanity from pending destruction but rather as borderline mental cases one evaluation away from being committed to a psychiatric institution. Furthermore, from what has been presented thus far, those embracing alternative spirituality are often as every bit as much denominationally partisan as religious enthusiasts whose beliefs could be categorized as "Terra-centric".
As fascinating as an examination of the squabbles likely to erupt among the highly-detailed interpretations of extraterrestrial spirituality might be such as to whether Greys, Nordics, or whatever other variety of alien might be humanity's interplanetary savior, going much further into that discussion alters the trajectory of this chapter's intended purpose of detailing how the intellectual and cultural climates are now such that a once fringe perspective could be on the verge of becoming one of civilization's most influential worldviews. To better understand where the world in general and the West in particular might be headed it might be a good idea to examine where we came from in terms of worldviews as a society and the path taken bringing us to where we are today in terms of the philosophical landscape. It has been said that those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it. By examining these peeks and valleys, the apologist has a better chance of arresting the downward trend most discerning Americans believe the nation to be on or to rescue a number of individuals from eternal damnation before the decay all around reaches a critical mass of no return.
By Frederick Meekins