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Sermon: Apocalypse. Not

Rev. David Robins

 

 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