Apolcalypse

APOCALYPSE, NOT
Rev. David Robins
February 22, 2009
 
            A Time magazine poll found that 59% of Americans believe that the cataclysmic events in the Biblical book of Revelation are going to come true. In America, people have the right to believe what they like. I would normally think that this belief would not affect me, but it does.
            Bill McKibben, an environmentalist who spoke at the Lyceum this summer, is upset by these figures because most of these millions of people also think that the sooner we ruin the environment, cut down the last tree and invade all the Middle East countries, the sooner Jesus will come again.
            Beside making preserving the environment more difficult, how does this affect us? Forty-five senators and 186 members of Congress (in 2002), think that the environment does not matter and the sooner the Apocalypse comes the better. These members of the House and the Senate, our senior senator included, received a near 100% positive rating from the Eagle Forum, the Christian Coalition, and the Family Resource Council, three groups that think preserving the environment does not matter, and that the Apocalypse, helped along by our military involvement in the Middle East, is coming, because it is in the Bible, and their voting record reflects this belief.
            Modern day Unitarian Universalists on the other hand, do not have much of an eschatology around the Apocalypse. That is, we don’t have much of a belief in or doctrine of a supernatural power intervening to determine how and when the end of the world will take place.
UU’s tend to find themselves more comfortable in the category of religious naturalism, looking away from supernaturalism and more toward science, experience, observation, and reason as a way to explain life and faith. If we do have a natural eschatology, it is based upon our understanding of how climate change will adversely affect our world. Thus, our salvation is more about the work of reducing our carbon footprint rather than in faith. Its saving mantra is reduce and recycle.
Likewise, our natural eschatology stems from our revulsion toward using nuclear weapons because of the mass destruction they would cause. Our salvation lies in the work of diplomacy, peacemaking, and arms control.
Our natural eschatology stems from the reasonable question of the impact on resources and social order from population explosion. Our salvation is the work of family planning and sexual education, and women’s economic empowerment.
            If you read the sheet in the pew with our UU principles, you will find a spirit of optimism and hope that gives no heed to thought of the end of time, but gives life and energy and fidelity to human dignity, justice, compassion, encouragement, the search for truth, perfecting democracy, peace, and respect for our earth. We are an unduly hopeful people, and that is our faith.
            This is not to say that we do not have our personal end-time moments. Every person I know has had at least one moment in their life when crisis brings us face to face with what feels in the bottom of our souls to be the end of everything good, and kind and hopeful.
            I once asked a young woman who was new to the church, what she thought summed up the heart of Unitarian Universalism as she experienced it. She said, without hesitation, “We don’t give up.” Our principles speak the language of not giving up on each other or our world. 
            Traditional religious doctrines of eschatology, on the other hand, reflect the prophecies of people who believe that God will give up on our puny human efforts to bring more love and fairness into the world. Instead, traditional religious doctrines predict times of tribulation and suffering.
            That is why, even in the days when Unitarians and Universalists were thoroughly Christian, they were not big fans of the book of Revelation, which is a book that describes the apocalyptic vision of an early Christian named John. It is where we get the phrase, “the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” war, famine, pestilence and disease . The author of this prophecy looked out on his world 2000 years ago, a world of war, disease, starvation, and oppression, and concluded that the end of the world must be coming. Similar dire, end of world prophecies have been made over thousands of years in cultures on every continent. But not all end-time prophecies have been about bad things coming.
            In the 1960’s the song, “Age of Aquarius” was about a new age coming of love and peace. It was based upon astrological predictions. Likewise, the recent flurry of attention to the Mayan calendar, and its end on the winter solstice, December 21, in the year 2012, is a prophecy of a new age of peace and higher consciousness. These prophecies fall under the heading of be aware, be open to goodness and love.
            While none of these religious prophecies have come true in the last 2-5000 years, there is no reason why people cannot go on making prophecies.
            The order of service has a web site address, www.skepdic.com run by a retired philosophy professor named Robert T. Carroll. This web site is a rational, critically thinking approach to the many strange prophecies of our age, from the Mayan calendar, to St. Malachy, and from the book of Revelation to Edgar Cayce. You may recall the doom and gloom prophecies that circulated just prior to the year 2000. None came true.
            In ancient Judaism, eschatology was focused on a Messianic king who would come to rule. The early Christians were certain that Jesus would return, there would be a world-wide battle, with a new age of heaven and earth the final outcome. Christian Zionists believe that the current unrest in the Middle East is a sign of a future apocalyptic battle.
            American millennialism takes many forms, the most notable being the Shakers, Seventh Day Adventists, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Latter Day Saints had a strong millennial flavor that was lost once the church settled Utah and gained financial wealth.
            Hal Lindsey has sold millions of books outlining the apocalyptic forces of good and evil and what is to come. On the best seller list you will often find the latest from the Left Behind series, in which people are supernaturally teleported out of their cars at rush hour, and out of meetings into heaven.
            Apocalyptic fervor stems from a combination of economic alienation, social anxiety, religious warnings, and political unease. Sound familiar? Apocalyptic fervor carries the danger of scape-goating and blaming others for today’s ills. Apocalyptic fervor provides a personal group identity that is based upon demonizing others.
Into this brew of angst, the human imagination sometimes conjures up a new age of peace and love along with terrible tribulation along the way. Science fiction often plays with these themes, such as the Star Wars and Matrix series of movies.
            Contrary to the apocalyptic imagination, one can lead a meaningful life even without a conversion experience. Contrary to imaginative science fiction, human beings are not doomed and one can lead a meaningful life even without a light saber or a superhero who can dodge bullets.
            As popular as the apocalyptic imagination can be, the little fable we learned as children about Chicken Little, who claimed the sky was falling, invites us to be more discerning. In fact, Chicken Little teaches us that doomsayers tend to get people all worked up for nothing. The story of Chicken Little teaches us that a bit of observation and critical thinking among from one person or from even a small group can often get to the facts surrounding dire warnings, and mitigate the fears.
            The Unitarians of the 1800’s believed that God endowed us with the powerful tool of reason that would allow us to have a go at being open-minded but not gullible…at being critical thinkers but not dogmatic. These are often narrow beams to walk when someone is yelling ‘fire’, or ‘the end is near’, or ‘change everything.’
            Believing that human beings can change ourselves for the better in the face of possible disaster is probably an unmerited optimism, but it is what we do as religious people. We don’t give up, and that too is probably an unmerited optimism, if not stubbornness. It is how we do not give up that is important, and our religious tradition asks us to do so without being dogmatic or gullible, but with as much compassion as we can muster.
            Most of all, I am reminded that it is the person with deep spiritual roots and practice who is best able to look fear and doom in the eyes and offer it compassion and a steady hand out of the current turmoil.
            The recent elections may have raised hopes of a kind of political new age of cooperation and mutuality. We have seen that this will not be the case. Still, there is a strong breeze about in the world that we may be able to supersede ancient rivalries, and help each other to cross the gap between where we are and the vision of who we could be.