Why Christians are Obsessed with the End of the World

And the moment I realized it was all nonsense

I’ll admit.

I am a recovering sucker.

I used to believe that one day a trumpet would sound, Jesus would appear in a flash of light, riding on the clouds and announce the end of the world as we know it! That’s what I was taught in church.

Ever since my childhood, well-meaning Christian people have pointed to certain happenings in world history and confidently announced that “This is a sure sign that the end is near!”

World War 2 was a sure sign that the end was near. The Cold War was a sure sign that the end was near. September 11 was a sure sign that the end was near. All the blood moons were a sign straight from Scripture that the end was near. Now, COVID is a sure sign that the end is near.

As Sadaam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, my small group Bible study discussed how he was definitely the anti-Christ and searched Scriptures to prove that point. We really wanted the end times to begin so we could be “caught up in the air and be with Jesus” and avoid all the pain and suffering that was sure to come.

But it didn’t come.

There was one other event about twenty years ago that finally woke me up to the fact that I was susceptible to being duped into believing absolute nonsense about the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world. The year was 1999… and the world was going crazy about the Y2K Bug.

Why Y2K?

To refresh your memory, Y2K was:

Y2K is the shorthand term for “the year 2000.” Y2K was commonly used to refer to a widespread computer programming shortcut that was expected to cause extensive havoc as the year changed from 1999 to 2000. Instead of allowing four digits for the year, many computer programs only allowed two digits (e.g., 99 instead of 1999). As a result, there was immense panic that computers would be unable to operate at the turn of the millennium when the date descended from “99” to “00”.

Major booksellers were lining their shelves and prominently displaying authors who were “experts” in computers and with the certainty that as the clocks turned12:01 am around the world, computers would shut down, wreaking massive havoc. We all needed to be prepared.

Stores, both online and brick and mortar, played into the hysteria. Making money hand over fist, they sold dried food, generators, guns, batteries, and all the manner of paraphernalia needed to survive what was sure to be a complete breakdown of society.

Some of my friends took it up a notch and further freaked me out.

One of those friends, convinced of Jesus’s imminent return, bought a generator, lots of water and stocked up on dried food. She advised me to do the same… because if Jesus came back, you’d need a generator, right?

She was convinced that Y2K would herald the beginning of the Tribulation, a seven-year era of worldwide conflict where non-believers would suffer horrendously for the crime of rejecting Christ. This was supposed to be an object lesson that would lead to repentance. For the inner circle of faithful, though, Christ would rapture them out of the ensuing chaos.

Ya right.

I came to the painful conclusion I could no longer wholly trust the Christian culture around me — they were the worst offenders. It was a distressing experience to go through, and Y2K drove that lesson home.

Thankfully, I have become less susceptible to fake news and over the years have shed friends or acquaintances that lean towards conspiracy theories or fearmongering. For me, though, the hardest lesson was when I had to face the fact that I was susceptible to being duped.

The fear of being “Left Behind”

Beginning in 1995, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins co-authored the first book in the Left Behind series that sold more than 65 million books worldwide and spawned a film series. The Christian world was primed to look for evidence of the end times when Y2K hit. Here’s a description of the books’ impact:

As the series unfolded, usually with a book every year, interest in “end times” surged around the turn of the millennium, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, tsunamis and earthquakes.

The pastor of the church I attended during that time was convinced of Christ’s impending return. Teaching from Matthew 24, he warned us to be watchful for it because all the signs were there: wars and rumors of wars, nation against nation, famines, earthquakes, solar and lunar eclipses — all pointing to the end times being upon us.

Adding an extra sense of urgency, this pastor, quoting Jesus from Matthew 24:34, Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place, interpreted this to mean that it was our generation that would not pass away since it had been roughly 40 years — a generation — since Israel was founded as a nation, so Jesus’ words could finally be fulfilled. Therefore, we needed to be on our best behavior and watchful so as not to be caught unawares.

To sum up: the secular world was lining bookshelves warning of possible global economic collapse. Christian authors were writing and producing movies that warned of imminent destruction for all those who were not “faithful.” The pastor and a small church group I was in believed the end times were upon us. Friends were buying generators and stocking up on food.

I was primed to go off the deep end.

A turning point

While still believing the end times were about to begin, the church I attended did not buy into the hysteria surrounding computers shutting down. In an effort to instill a measure of sanity amid all the chaos and misinformation, they invited a speaker to allay our fears. However, the meeting was marred by a woman being forcibly removed while she continued screaming that we were all going to burn in hell since we did not believe the world would descend into chaos so Jesus could come back.

Some time later, something occurred that finally made me see how nonsensical and crazy the whole notion was of Christ returning to rapture the “saved” and rescue them from evil actually was.

We had invited a family over for a meal whose teenagers babysat our kids. We got on to the subject of Y2K when the mom proudly informed us that they had bought an off-the-grid cabin in the mountains to shelter them from the looming anarchy and social breakdown.

I thought, “Ok, awesome for you that you have that kind of privilege to take that step. We are not so lucky.” However, with the next thing she said, I thought, “Good lord. I need to pick better friends.” She hit me with Matthew 24: 37–39, which says:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Taken aback, I wondered, did she mean me? My husband? Our kids whom her teenagers babysat? She basically implied I was as wicked as those in the Bible who did not heed the warnings and would be swept away by the flood.

I was confused because she knew us to be faithful Christians. But still, we were all evil and deserving of death and would suffer grave consequences because we didn’t go out and buy a cabin in the woods to hide away from the world.

WTF?

It went beyond the pale — and it hurt.

Have we learned?

Now, over 20 years later, I continue to hear echoes of those same fears. Some Christians seem to have such glee and self-righteousness at the possible destruction of humankind — it boggles my mind at the callousness. Don’t they see how hurtful, divisive, and obnoxious that is?

Every year, another person I know claims that someone in power they despise is the anti-Christ. Newsflash: this has been happening for centuries. Nero. Adolf Hitler. Saddam Hussein. Gorbachev. Obama — to name a few.

I wonder, though. Could the “anti-Christ” be those who live the antithesis of Christ’s teaching and example? Divisive. Judgemental. Liars. Vilifying the poor. Maligning the immigrant. Smearing the marginalized. Denigrating non-whites.

Perhaps it’s simply the outcome of decades of Christian indoctrination pointing out the speck in the world’s eye while ignoring the log in our own.

I hope to do better.

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