A survey by Time Magazine found that 36% of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal world of God. 59% believe the prophecies in the Book of Revelation will come true. And 35% pay close attention to news headlines thinking that these are clues to the end of the world, including the attack on September 11, 2001. Furthermore, 36% support Israel because they believe in the biblical prophecies that Jews must control Israel before Christ will come again and 17% of Americans believe the end of the world will happen in their lifetime. (Time Magazine, July 1, 2002)

          Evangelical leaders have declared that their support for Israel has moved to the very top of their agenda. Christian groups are spending millions on everything from armored school busses for Israeli children to halogen lights for the army's emergency rescue service." (Time, July 1,2002) This effort is related to the belief that the Jews must be in control of Israel when Jesus comes again. Some Jews are skeptical since in end-time theology, two thirds of the Jews perish and the rest must accept Jesus as Messiah or be damned.

          Interest in the end of the world theories has always been popular in America. Throughout my lifetime, I recall that various groups have declared the end of the world. One group in particular in California went to the top of a mountain in the San Bernadino chain. We said to one another, "Oh, no, not again!" The end was to come on a Saturday and so I decided to do my weekly washing on Sunday!

          At the time of Jesus, there were many itinerant preachers wandering around preaching gloom and doom. One gospel has Jesus preach a bit on hell and Doomsday. St. Paul was convinced that the end of the world was near. He urged all the churches to purify themselves to prepare for the return of Jesus "in the twinkling of an eye." It was a bit of an embarrassment to Paul and the early church when the world just kept on going.

          I remember also that the Jehovah's Witnesses were sure the world would end when their membership reached 144,000, a number out of the Book of Revelation. Since their membership exceeded this number a few years ago and nothing happened, they pushed out the number for the end times. I have to admit that I find end time theology fascinating. Some ministers have reported that when they have a sermon topic with apocalypse in it, attendance jumps 20 per cent! (How is our attendance today? Ah, about the same as last week!)

          When I was in seminary, the Book of Revelation was the only book of the Christian texts that we did not study at all. You will hardly find any scholarly books about Revelation in liberal Theological School libraries. It is considered by some the ranting of a brilliant but misguided writer of the ancient world. It is likely that the author, John of Patmos, was jailed for his preaching. Nevertheless, by careful consideration of several councils of bishops and other scholars in the fourth century, the Book of Revelation was accepted as part of the canon. Clearly, the ancients felt that these teachings fit in with the other scriptures, like the Book of Daniel and the words of the prophets. Perhaps they considered that a teaching about the end of history and the world was logical since in the beginning the world was made and history began. Why shouldn't it end and tie up the story neatly?

          Last week I told you of a series of ten books written by a novelist and a minister specializing in end time theology and these books have all been best sellers. The first one called, Left Behind, was the most popular, with more than 7 million copies sold. Left Behind begins with an airline pilot called Rayford Steele who is flying a 747 from Chicago to London. He discovered that many people on his plane had disappeared, including all the children and this is the same across the western world. Because many of the people who disappeared were driving cars, buses, trains, and planes, chaos ensues. The hero of the story decided that "He wanted to believe something that tied everything together and made it make sense." (Time, p. 50) When Rayford got home, he found that all that remained of his wife and son was their clothes in their beds as if they had just faded away.

          Because his wife and son were so devoted to their new church, Rayford decided to go to the church. He found the junior pastor there. This man tells him that he was left behind because he was dishonest and did not truly believe the teachings of the church. When his own wife and three children disappeared, he realized they had been taken up in what is called The Rapture of the church, or the "taking up" to heaven of the faithful. The senior pastor had left a videotape, to be played in the event something like this would happen. The tape explained that those who were left behind were to purify their lives and of course, dedicate their lives to Christ to be ready for the seven years of tribulation. They were to be on alert for a highly charismatic person who would become a world leader and convince everyone that he could solve all the problems of the world. This would be the Great Deceiver, the Antichrist, an evil person who would take over the world and eventually be defeated by Christ in the battle of Armageddon. All the faithful should be ready to martyr themselves for the sake of the world and their own salvation.

          Another heroic character is Buck Williams, a famous magazine reporter. Just before the Rapture, he had witnessed a life-changing event. Buck was in Jerusalem when Russian bombers dropped tons of bombs on Israel but not a single Israeli was killed and every Russian plane crashed. Buck had always been a skeptic but this experience shook him to the core. Buck had interviewed a famous Jewish scientist/philosopher and peacemaker Chaim Rosenzweig who told Buck that he wanted him to meet a special person who he thought would bring peace to the world, a very young, wise and compassionate man from Romania. Buck meets him and is equally taken by him. When Rayford and Buck meet, they realize that Nicolae is probably the Great Deceiver. Nicolae eventually becomes the leader of the United Nations. The rest of the series deals with Nicolae's takeover of the world, 144,00 Jews become witnesses to Christ. Disasters, plague and famine tear the world The Antichrist dies in battle only to rise again, but not before he "marks" much of the population and prepares for the last battle, Armageddon. I haven't read these other nine books but millions have. A whole series of books and movies and board games have been published for children.

          In the 1980's, many in the Reagan Administration believed whole-heartedly in these ideas. It was no accident that Reagan called the Soviet Union the Evil Empire. More recently, we witnessed another term, the Axis of Evil, proposed by the present administration. End time ideas don't alarm me. What does alarm me is that our elected officials seem to be making their decisions as if the End Times were a fact instead of a myth that grew out of the fears of human kind. Such thinking can cloud their decision-making and render them incapable of envisioning a future of cooperation and peace. Distortion and fear can rule instead of reason and courage. I am relieved and encouraged that some of our politicians are beginning to speak out for working with other nations regarding Iraq.

          What is the liberal perspective? We view the Bible as a collection of wisdom that is flawed, like all scripture of the world's religions. We use our reason to determine what can guide our lives. In 1811, our first great Unitarian leader, the Reverend William Ellery Channing said, "We [Unitarians] are particularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to God's. . . .We feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon [the Bible] … to look beyond the letter to the spirit. . . and [to discover] new truths." (Channing, "Unitarian Christianity") But also, liberal religionists believe that revelation is ongoing. We can hear wisdom from our friends, in our studies, in our own reflection, from the mouths of children.

          Mass fear can certainly bring about what can look like the end of the world. I am more concerned about how our modern life is poisoning our soil and ground water, despoiling our oceans, heating up the planet so that the polar caps are melting. The quality of the air we breathe declines each year, and most of the peoples of the world live in poverty. These conditions, if not checked, can bring about the end of the world as we know it.

          If we want to save ourselves, we must live more simply: use less, reuse more, and share what we have. One person cannot solve our problems. Only we can, collectively. So far as end-time theology is concerned, let us send love to those who are embracing such fear that they may be strengthened and turn their enormous energy to solving the problems of the earth and sharing what we have. May we save the world and ourselves by living more simply and may the world's people embrace justice and mercy and sharing.

References

The following have informed and inspired this sermon:

Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much about the Bible, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, 1998.

Dulling, Dennis C., Perrin, Norman. The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History, Third Edition, New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1994.

The HarperCollins Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, 1993.

LaHaye, Tim and Jenkins, Jerry B. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days, Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 1995.

Time Magazine, July 1, 2002, published by Time Warner, Inc.

www.uua.org/uucf/chan-uni.html From William Ellery Channing's "Unitarian Christianity" (1811).

Reading: From the Book of Revelation (Rev. 21)

         You have heard of the Apocalypse, the end of the world and Armagedden, the last battle between good and evil. These ideas are from the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. It is significant that Genesis, the story of creation, is the first book, and Revelation is the last book, the story of the destruction of the creation. The author of the Book of Revelation is John of Patmos, an itinerant preacher who was confined to a prison island in the Aegean around the year 90. He tells us that angels and Jesus revealed the story of the end times to him. The story describes every natural disaster imaginable: plagues, earthquakes, floods, fires, large-scale slaughter of human beings, heavenly battles between good and bad angels, mysterious number symbols, and of course a woman representing the sins of the world. There is a tiny bit of hope, however, in the last chapter. Here are some excerpts from the last chapter of Revelation. (For those of you who are biblical scholars, you might like to also read the book of the prophet Ezekiel, who was with the Jews in exile in Babylon. The images are from Babylonian myth, as are the ones in the Book of Revelation.)

         Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying…"See, I am making all things new…. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."…. One of the seven angels said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." …he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven… [It has] a radiance like a very rare jewel…The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel…And the twelve gates are twelve pearls…I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God and the Lamb….The nations will walk by its light…Its gates will never be shut. [And He--said to me], "See I am coming soon.I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end….I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star."