This topic contains 29 replies, has 17 voices, and was last updated by 
Danielle 4 months, 3 weeks ago.
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Unlike many of you, I was raised in less theologically conservative churches (variously methodist, ucc, others) that typically focused more on the prosperity gospel than the doom and gloom interpretation. Still, I come in contact with many more conservative folks, and I do hear a lot about Satan, the second coming, etc.
Apologies for taking this thread in a slightly different direction. My problem with these philosophies is that people tend to see what they are looking for. For example, when you buy a new car, you start to notice that model all over the place. In the case of satan, a lot can be blamed on him that is better placed on human stupidity. I do a lot of music, and one band constantly talks about satan in the equipment (especially in their failing cables). Their life is a constant battle (spiritual warfare anyone?). After a while I started to notice that they really do not properly care for their cables. They are strung right across the stage and walked on all the time. Cables do not like this, and they quickly fail. Yet the blame is on satan, who is always between them and their mission. These are not bad people, but they live their lives this way every day.
My real concern with constantly looking for explanations involving satan is that you will often miss much of the good in the world. Because it works the other way too. Good people doing good things all of the time. Without debating the actual source of that Good (that’s another thread), it seems to me that one’s time and energy is much better spent looking for that good instead of always identifying the evil.
The thing is, I grew up at a time when the most likely and expected future involved a nuclear holocaust and the resultant devastation. As a teenager this was the message constantly pushed by the secular authorities as well as the religious ones.
Putting a religious slant on this, and relating it to Armageddon and Revelation was just a natural development – a way of interpreting the events in the world from a “biblical” perspective. I can fully understand this, and films like “A thief in the night” were the bread and butter of this.
We have survived, so far. Today, there are similar fears being expounded, mainly about an environmental catastrophe. And there are those who are taking this fear of the future and exploiting it using apocalyptic language to put a religious slant on it.
In the end, there is too much fear in religion. Actually, I do believe that Jesus is coming back, but who knows when. Focusing on this is a distortion of the biblical message, which is as much about living and being here and now, and sorting the environmental problems, not just dismissing them “Yes I drive an SUV”.
Anonymousscared to death as a teenager in high school – attended a Seventh Day Adventist church / lived in their dorm on campus (when I wasn’t living w/ my foster family, who were also SDA)–very end times (Revelation) focused, mark of the Beast, Christians not being able to buy or sell and we’d all have to go live in the bush and eat berries and twigs, everything worldly at the time pointed to end times coming soon. I’d hoped I would die before the prophecies in Revelation started coming true on earth as SDA’s believed that Christians would be forced to live through all of this vs. “the Rapture”. I believed all of that for years even after I stopped attending an SDA church.
I do believe in Christ’s return.
I think it was my husband that said there’s 3 schools of thought on the tribulation: Pan-Trib, Post-Trib and Pre-Trib. I like Pan-Trib as like @Jo White said “It will all pan out in the end.”
AnonymousGrowing up, my family and church did not believe in any of the end-times events. They believed that Jesus would just appear in the clouds, then everyone would go to be judged and sent to heaven or hell. However, my dad has always kept a collection of guns in case there’s ever total anarchy or a police state. He admits that being armed wouldn’t help too much in that situation, but he still finds comfort in guns. Ever since I can remember, he’s obsessively worried about something bad happening, anything from a robbery to a complete societal breakdown. My mother has a more generalized pessimistic attitude.
Even though I never feared the tribulation or apocalypse, I was often worried about Jesus coming back when I wasn’t spiritually ready to meet him. As a preteen, there were countless times when I would hear music randomly and panic for a moment because I was convinced it was angelic music announcing Jesus’ arrival, then I would feel silly because it turned out to be something mundane like a radio playing. Now I’m fairly confidant he won’t come back in my lifetime, even though I have nothing to base that on. Really I doubt whether he is coming back at all.
In two paragraphs @Alyson you had me in your grip. Great story and great writing.
I am beginning to think there is something not right about Jesus prediction of the end of the world. The indications were that it would happen during the lifetime of his generation. It looks like a failed prophecy that was incorporated into the fall of Jerusalem by the Romans around 70 AD. Every empire/civilization eventually falls and can be seen as an ‘end of the world’ to some observers.
When christianity took over the Roman Empire it was a whole new ball game, and a new reworked theology was needed. We seem to have inherited a whole lot of spin-doctoring.
It is not hard for our generation to find doom and gloom for our future as we look at what is happening around us. I am not optimistic that religion is going to save us, it’s track record is not good.
I am so grateful to all who have contributed here, it stirred up memories and I relate to everything you have said. @Hugh – interesting. I was studying the social philosophy ‘buen vivir’ last week (in Educador and Bolivia and called other names in other countries eg in Africa) – I like its post-development hopefulness, it stirred something in me. Escobar gave it a solid critique, and described it as a horizon, something you look towards. First time in a long time I got excited !
Like Helene I can relate to just about everything that has been said although fear has never been part of the story for me despite being part of the Worldwide Church of God for some 20 years (a church with similar teachings to the SDA). I first came in contact with WCG in 1975 (when I was 40) after having previously been treasurer of an Anglican church for 8 years in the 1960’s. It was only years later that I found out what WCG had been teaching about prophecied events in 1975. As a Brit the teachings of the rise and fall of empires made a lot of sense. Even at the age of 15 I was in trouble at school for suggesting that the British Empire had been built on greed and selfishness. In 1980 when I changed my job I didn’t bother to transfer some pension rights because I ‘knew’ that Christ would return before 2000 when I would have been 65 (nothing to do with Y2K). I can relate to Gary’s thoughts about not getting married (thinking of my own children – who were encouraged to think in terms of living in three different worlds). Is it any wonder that my two children and their families consider themselves to be atheists? Part of the teaching revolved around moving to the place of safety which was at one time thought might be Petra in Jordan. Some people even had packets of seeds that they could take with them. There was talk of the mark of the beast.
Last year I watched a series on BBC entitled ‘A History of the World’. It showed something of the part that religion had played – and how violent life had been. It had occurred to me then that civilisation as we know it has only existed for a little over 10,000 years. If as I believe life is a progressive transition, it could take a long time for mankind in general to recognise that progress comes through peace and not war. I found the suggestion that we now live in the least violent times in history very significant.
I can relate to Dave’s thoughts about satan. In ‘What I actually believe’ by Bob Greaves – The Unconventional Pastor – he writes, Lucifer is spoken of as an angelic spirit-being, and it is unclear to me if as such he is a personified figment of our powerful imagination or an actual creation of God. . . Satan represents the selfish rebellion of the quest for personal superiority. Having experienced people who feel that satan lurked behind every door I would agree with Dave that people often see what they are looking for (and that I would suggest is often true of comments about answered prayer).
As someone who ‘knew’ that Christ was shortly going to return I now find myself drawn to the possibility of some form of Preterism – that Christ returned in AD 70 at the time of the fall of Jerusalem (but I have a completely open mind on this).
With my background I could especially relate to Hugh’s comment about every empire / civilisation eventually falls and that when Christianity took over the Roman Empire there was a new re-worked theology. I would go further than that. I have long said that there is an enormous difference between the Christian FAITH and the Christian RELIGION (or CHRISTENDOM). Christendom has been described as an alliance between church and state that dominated Europe for over a 1000 years and still impacts the way Christians think and act. There are two opposite assessments of what happened in the 4th century:
that this was a God given opportunity which the church rightly seized and which ensured the triumph of the church and Christianity in Europe.
that this was a disaster that perverted the church, compromised its calling and hindered its mission, achieving through infiltration what 300 years of persecution had failed to achieve. That this was not the triumph of the church over the empire but the triumph of the empire over the church.I sense that there is another aspect to consider – to what extent did God recognise that something like this would happen? Perhaps God gave people what they thought they wanted.
As Hugh said, it’s easy to see gloom ahead – not optimistic that religion is going to save us. I sense that is true about all religions including Christendom.
Helene asked for our thoughts on the end times. I cannot remember ever doubting the existence of God but I find it easy to empathise with some atheists who are asking some of those questions for which the various churches just do not have satisfactory answers. I can understand those who have rejected a fear based Christianity. I have a faith based on a very different perspective – a progressive revelation of the nature of God that will lead to peace and harmony and an end of military warfare, and an end of selfishness and self-centredness – that will lead to peace on earth – not in heaven.
That’s my story after having been forced on two occasions some 25 years apart to reconsider just about everything I had ever been taught, and then as an introvert having some 18 years free from the responsibilities of earning a living, to reconsider the meaning of life – and then especially over the last ten years to share with several hundred people the stories of how they had been drawn away from churches that they may have attended for many years. It was from Bob Greaves that I first heard the expression agnostic theist – and that’s something I relate to – someone who has no doubt that God exists but who has many questions about the details.
The whole idea of the end of the world is very confusing. To me the end is complete obliteration and I don’t want to survive that. I don’t plan on knowing what end times look like b/c I will be dead.But I think for many the end of the world involves them surviving which makes no sense to me. I do now want to live in some cellar with a finite supply of food or frantically try to protect my property from desperate people also trying to survive. That is not the end; that is simply chaos. One could argue that it is the end for Greece, but the country moves on. They may be crippled but the country and the people still exists.
I have taken several Bible studies and my understanding is that apocalyptic writing was popular during times of strife. The prophets and others were predicting the inevitable future based on what they were seeing at the time and the hope that they would be taken to Heaven. Please correct me if I am wrong but again this is an issue of context and the use of symbolism to illustrate what was going on at the time.
AnonymousAgnosticBeliever – A few years ago I was into stocking up on extra food, water, camping equipment, etc. to prepare for the end, and one day I just decided I needed to stop buying all that stuff. Like you said, the more you have, the more other people will want to take it from you and I decided I wasn’t willing to shoot anyone who might try to take it. If they take it, they probably need it more than I do anyhow and I will just have to trust God to provide what I need to survive. But I hope I won’t have to go through that either.
I have read that some theologians feel the Book of Revelation was written for the people of that day and all the chaos they were going through and it has nothing to do with future events. Like you, I think they’re probably right. The church has capitalized on this whole end time/rapture thing for two reasons: 1) to control people by making them afraid, and 2) to keep the dollars rolling into church coffers – not to mention the financial windfall it has been for people who write books and make movies about it, and all the rapture-related T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.
Jo-It is scary how easily people buy all of that. Fear is one amazing motivator. I remember seeing a story about a family who was preparing for the end of the world on December 22, 2012. The whole family was armed and they thought they were being slick by purchasing a bunch of funiture with ZERO financing until 2013….boy I bet they were pissed when! LOL
AnonymousAgnosticBeliever – That is too funny! Talk about a rude awakening!!
Oops did not finish that thought….*I bet they were pissed when the 22nd came and went and no end of the world.
AnonymousAgnosticBeliever – I knew that’s what you meant.
Oh yeah, I was so scared of the “end times”. And that verse you talk about – how hard it will be for women with small children… I used to think of that every time someone had a baby and would hope it wasn’t them that would have to go through that.
But now they’ve been replaced by other fears… if Jesus hasn’t got this plan to save us all in the nick of time, that means we ARE destroying the planet and might self destruct if we don’t get our act together pretty soon. Haha – doom and gloom indeed.
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