Purveyors of doom have been around a long time. I don’t recall, however, when the public, or the press, has given this much attention to the most recent doomsday predictions.  I think it’s the billboards that have done it. Brilliant. Targeted. Urgent.  Effective.  I was returning a few nights ago from a speaking gig somewhere between Appleton, Wisconsin and Milwaukee and I passed by two or three of the billboard reminders.  It was a clear night, too. Full moon. Eerie. I felt duly warned.

If you haven’t seen the CDC’s action plan for surviving doomsday, here’s a last-minute reminder for those of you who’ll like me will be Left Behind. Yes, and I’m even a Christian, too.  But, since I’m a proponent of all faith traditions and believe with my Ba’hai friends there are many paths and one destination, I’ve been deservedly banned by some believers.  Just as well, I suppose.  We’d probably have a hard time getting along in the world beyond.

1. Prepare an emergency kit – standard stuff to start with – The Walgreens, corner of Poplar Level and Trevillian, Louisville, still has a generous supply of bottled water, flashlights, and first-aid supplies.  I stocked up on Charmin – still the softest, in my humble opinion, and a few creature comforts will be nice.  Sam’s Warehouse has flats of Charmin everywhere.  Soap, too.  You’ve got to have a membership there. I think they’re still accepting new customers. Oh, and I’d stock up on guns. Should be plenty of those around since the Pre-millenial rapturists will have left theirs behind. I have a neighbor who’s sure he’ll be among the raptured, so I’ve asked him to leave his arsenal he hides under the mattress.
2. Stock up on a supply of drugs, too.  For me, I’ve got several bottles of Zyrtec for my allergies and a generous supply of Ambian. What has been an occasional sleepless night, since I turned fifty, is likely to get worse after doomsday.  Sleeping through some of the anticipated madness will be a needed respite.
3. Don’t forget the documentation—driver’s license, passport, birth certificate. Too late for visas.
4. Devise an emergency plan.  I’m in New York City today.  But, since my flight from New York to Cincinnati is not until early afternoon on Doomsday, it would be nice to know what time the Rapture is to occur tomorrow.  Looks like these predictors of the end could be a bit more specific, doesn’t it?  You’d think if they alone know the date, they could clue the rest of us in on the actual time.  Don’t want to be late for the party. Don’t want to be too early either. So, if anybody knows, would you be so kind as to inform the rest of us? That way, I’ll know whether to hail a cab to LaGuardia or flee to the Poconos Mountains instead. I love New York but I don’t want to be caught on this lone island when chaos ensues.  Now, what would really be cool would be to fly over the Rapture as it occurs. If you don’t know, the faithful are to be caught up into the clouds. So, I’m thinking, at 33,000 feet, well above the spectacle, it should be spectacular—better than orchestra seating at the Radio City Music Hall.
5. Set a meeting place.  Too late for me on this one.  Since I’m in New York and the family is in Kentucky, I’ll have to pass on this one.  As a backup however, I think I’ll call Hertz and rent a car just in case my plane is canceled.  Unlike Hilton, Hertz won’t charge your credit card if you don’t show up.   I should add an XM radio. A Never-Lost system, too.  Might come in handy.
6. Plan your evacuation route.  I’ll have to let this one go.  I’ve been to NYC dozens of times and I still can’t figure out the difference between uptown and downtown or the blue line from the red line.
7. Or, stay put.  Now, that sounds like my only option, especially if the Rapture occurs early in the morning.  Which is why I asked the night clerk for the top floor at the Doubletree.  If I’m going to be stuck here in NYC during the fireworks, I wanted to make sure I had a good view of the city and the sights.  To my right is the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden to the left.  In between, nothing but open sky and the streets way down below.  Perfect.
8. Identify emergency contacts.  Our entire family has iPhone 4’s, except for one. He has a hand-me-down 3GS.  But, it works well.  Two of us even have iPads.  I’d say we’re good to go.  Since I don’t know any of the police force here, I was a little concerned at first.  But then, I remembered, New York is known for its firefighters.  They’re the best.  Need I say more?
9. Finally, stay cool.  It is actually. But, I think the CDC means “Don’t lose your cool.”  I won’t.  Pretty good chance you won’t either.  In fact, I’d say there’s a good chance life tomorrow will be much like life today.  Which is why I’m looking forward to going home.  Seems the mother robin we’ve been watching sit on her nest for weeks just hatched three baby robins this morning.  I can’t wait to see them.

Meanwhile, it would be nice if the sky would stop raining so much and the sun would come out. I wanted to take a stroll through Central Park. They say it’s beautiful at spring.  Later today, I thought about visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I hear it’s a favorite of many.  Ever since I arrived in the city, however, raindrops keep fallin’ on my head.

Which reminds me of the song B J used to sing…

Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head

But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red

Cryin’s not for me

‘Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’

Because I’m free, nothin’s worryin’ me.

Nothing.  Really?  Yep, nothing.  Not even Doomsday.

Recently, my wife and I saw the movie 2012. It reminded me of the doomsday nonsense that fundamentalist Christians (and I was once one of them) have been saying about the RAPTURE – the return of Jesus to catch-up all his followers into the clouds and whisk them away to a kind of benign judgment while those LEFT BEHIND reel in the madness of a world that spirals out of control – necessitating the appearance of an Antichrist who rules the world.
What do they have in common? Both are fiction and for entertainment purposes only.
There two fundamental reasons why the Christians and Christian leaders become rigid and narrow in their beliefs, separated from others and the world, and develop a neurotic obsession with future events. First, the church has failed in fulfilling its mission. Furthermore, the longer this failure is denied, the closer to radical fundamentalism these churches and their followers become. If the church’s failure is not faced, and very, very soon, the church will continue its present spiral downward and become more isolated, marginalized, and eccentric in its beliefs, as well as more violent than it is already toward perceived enemies.
Already, there is very little difference between radical, Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and some branches of Christianity in the U.S. The only real difference is in the methods each uses to express displeasure toward a world—a world each has failed to convert to its own way of thinking and living. The former use weapons, the latter use words. Some Christians would prefer to use weapons, too, and, were it not for the laws in this land that forbid it, they likely would.
So, instead, it has been the history of these radical little egos to turn to the government to give them the world their evangelical efforts have failed to create. Over the years, church and church leaders have sought to influence government to take action against its perceived enemies. I recently read in The Christian Post that, among all the varied interests groups in the U.S., the one group most supportive of the war in Iraq or, at a minimum, interested in a continued military presence there, are the Christians.
A second reason for the rigidity in beliefs, the separateness from the world, and the obsession of the church with future world events is that the collective church ego feeds on fear. Since Christians are afraid the world is out-of-control, their appetite for prophecies pertaining to the end of the world is voracious. The appetite is most prevalent whenever there is moral unrest, as well as social, political, and international discord and tension. That is to say, there is a direct correlation between the degree of moral chaos and political unrest in the world and the frequency with which churches and church leaders talk about the end of the world, especially in terms of the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus.
The Rapture is a belief system about how human history will end. At its core, it proponents believe that believers in Jesus, or the church, will be “raptured,” or snatched up from the surface of the earth and gathered together in the clouds, just prior to the Great Tribulation and the rise of the Antichrist. What “Rapturist” proponents do not tell you, however, most likely because they do not know, is that the Rapture is not taught anywhere in Bible.
Nowhere. Nada. The only vague reference to anything remotely close to the idea of Rapture is found in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians. But there Saint Paul is trying to reassure people that they were eternal, since most of them had grown up in a world that had little or no confidence in an afterlife.
Given the preoccupation of people in the west with thoughts about and a belief in an afterlife, it is impossible to imagine living in a culture that did not believe in such things. But, this was the situation Saint Paul addresses. His purpose in writing these words was to reassure the Thessalonian followers of Jesus that there is life beyond this one.
Apart from this purpose, however, the differences in interpretations about future events, known as eschatology, as well as the type and timing of those events, quickly morphs into an incomprehensible pattern of nonsense. There are those, for example, who are known as Pre-millennialists, others who are Post-millennialists, and still others who identify themselves as Amillennialists.
But, even this only scratches the surface of eschatological conjecture. Among the Pre-millennialists, there are Historic Pre-millennialists and Dispensational Pre-millennialists. And, if that were not confusing enough, among the Dispensational Pre-millennialists, there are Progressive Dispensational Pre-millennialists as well as the Pre-Tribulation Dispensational Pre-millennialists.
It’s confusing. It’s nonsense. And, it is insane.