Millennial Madness: An Ethical Crisis
By Richard V. Pierard
- The Obsession with Prophecy and Temptation to Engage in "Date-setting"
- Sensationalism
- The Quest for Commercial Gain
- What Does This All Mean?
[Dr. Richard V. Pierard is professor of History at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. He is a co-author of The New Millennium manual just published by Baker books and reviewed elsewhere in this issue of Christian Ethics Today.]
Millennial madness is sweeping the land. It`s the end of the world as we know it, so the prophets of the end times tell us. Forecasts of doom and despair fill the airwaves as Christian radio and television preachers work overtime to warn people of the wrath of God that is about to be poured out on the earth. Best-selling books and videos, both Christian and secular, and Hollywood movies herald the impending catastrophe. Public attention is riveted on the expected Y2K computer meltdown, and survivalists stockpile food, water, generators, and weapons in preparation for the imminent collapse of technological civilization. In other words, what really is nothing more than an artificial calendar change–from 1999 to 2000 in the Western calendar–has been transformed into an apocalyptic event of unprecedented proportions.
Newspapers are full of stories about the silliness that is occurring in this next to the last year of the twentieth century and second millennium of the "common era." Just to cite one example, an article in the April 5, 1999 issue of my local newspaper, the Terre Haute Tribune- Star, described the "millennium baby" craze. The writer pointed out that some medical experts had declared Friday, April 9 to be the best date for a woman to conceive a baby that would be born on New Year`s Day 2000. In Chicago some hotels were even sponsoring packages with special rates for couples who wanted a room that night. There were Internet sites with conception tips, and one offered a $49.99 millennium conception kit, complete with fertility and ovulation predictor, pregnancy test, scented massage oil, and hand-dipped red candles. The staffs at the two hospitals in my community were developing plans to insure that adequate personnel would be on hand to take care of the New Year`s Eve rush.
It is easy to dismiss the millennial madness as simply another fad. However, thoughtful Christians have every reason to be concerned about what is taking place. The untrammeled apocalypticism of our times has infiltrated the Christian doctrine of eschatology or "the last things" and egregiously perverted it. Jesus had promised his disciples even before his departure from the earth that he would come again, and the New Testament letters are full of references to his imminent appearing. As the church came under increasing persecution, the Book of Revelation was written to assure the faithful that the forces of good would surely triumph over those of evil and the divine purpose would be fulfilled. Christ would be victorious over all his foes, and his people would live and reign with him on earth. Thus, the return of Christ has been the "blessed hope" (Tit. 2:13) for believers in all places and times. The unfortunate linkage of the Second Coming with the millennial fever of our days by many in the conservative or evangelical community raises some important ethical questions.
The Obsession with Prophecy and Temptation to Engage in "Date-setting"
The last decade of the twentieth century has seen an obsession with biblical prophecy and the imminent return of Christ. Just as Eve could not resist the temptation of the forbidden fruit in the Garden, so likewise preachers and writers throughout the ages have succumbed to the temptation to set a date for the Second Coming, even though Jesus said in the plainest speech possible in Matthew 24:36 that no one knows the day and hour of his return, not even he himself. Many people remember the prediction of William Miller that Christ would come on October 22, 1844 and the "Great Disappointment," as Adventist historians named it, that resulted when Jesus did not appear; and of course there were the repeated efforts of Jehovah`s Witnesses to set a specific date for the return. The fact that date-setters have had a one hundred percent failure rate seems not to deter others from giving it a try, such as the Bible teacher Leonard Sale-Harrison who in the interwar years identified Mussolini as the Antichrist and placed the return in his own generation.
The post-war resurgence of Protestant evangelicalism has spawned a whole new crop of preachers and writers who are convinced that the Second Coming is around the comer. They reach this conclusion by playing games with numbers in Scripture, a.k.a. numerology, and squeezing concrete details out of obscure texts in Daniel, Revelation, Ezekiel, and other biblical books, much as interpreters of the sixteenth-century French writer Michel Nostradamus do with his materials. Hal Lindsey, the author of the prophecy blockbuster The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and numerous subsequent works that essentially recycled the ideas (and often the material) he laid out in this first book, predicted that Christ would return for his church in 1988. (Evangelical prophecy aficionados call this pre-Second Coming event the "rapture.") When that did not happen, he conveniently shelved his forecast and discovered new apocalyptic meanings in the old texts. He confidently assured his readers that they described modern warfare and stressed that we today are living at the end of the age and are truly the "terminal generation."
Since Lindsey and nearly all other writers had identified the Soviet Union as the monolithic fountainhead of all evil and the communist bloc as an evil empire engaged in a Manichaean struggle with the free world that would consummate in the Antichrist`s world rule, the fall of communism presented them with a monumental problem. This was quickly resolved by finding a new all-purpose enemy, the New World Order, as described in televangelist Pat Robertson`s 1991 book of the same title. The grand design includes the triumph of New Age religion, the collapse of the U.S. financial system and the turning over of its defense and sovereignty to the United Nations, and the establishment of a one-world government. The new rulers will use computer technology and satellites to control and monitor the actions and movements of all people and introduce a world currency and cashless society that enable them to control all wealth. The next step in this scenario of doom is the appearance of a demonized madman who will seize power in the world-wide, homogenized government and force life into the mold of the New World Order in a manner that communism was never able to achieve. He will even pass himself off as a savior of the people. This period is known as the "Great Tribulation" and here is fulfilled the prophecy of the Antichrist. But just when all seems to be lost, Christ comes down out of the sky in power and glory, destroys this evil world-system at the battle of Armageddon, and establishes his millennial kingdom of peace and righteousness. The saints who have been raptured will accompany him back to earth and those who found Christ as savior during the Tribulation will join them.
Some evangelical writers were even more specific about when Christ would come. Edgar Whisenant created a major prophetic stir in 1988 with his book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, in which he speculated that Christ would come for his church around September 11-13, 1988. Harold Camping, president of a network of Christian radio stations, published the books 1994? and Are You Ready which forecasted the return on September 6, 1994. When that did not occur, he subsequently set other dates–September 29, October 2, and finally March 3 1, 1995–each time backpedaling because of a prophetic miscalculation. He had developed a chronological blueprint that combined sophisticated system of dating and numerology.
This year a new crop of date-setting prophets have concluded that Jesus will come on January 1, 2000. They calculate, from the reference in ll Peter 3:8, "with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day," that 6,000 years have passed since the creation of humanity. Now it is time for the seventh day, the Sabbath rest, the one thousand year reign of Christ on earth. An article in a recent issue of USA Today reported that the hotels in Jerusalem have been booked to overflowing by gullible Christians who believe they will be there to welcome Jesus when the skies open and he descends upon the Mount of Olives (the traditional site of the Ascension). They then expect to rule with him in the millennial kingdom. Some are so confident of the event that they bought one-way tickets to Israel. They don`t expect to be going back home. Look for a scramble at the Tel Aviv airport on January 2!
Most evangelical prophecy buffs operate from the standpoint of dispensational premillennialism, a complex system of biblical interpretation which sees God dealing with humankind in different ways at various periods in time. We are currently living in the age of "grace" or the "church age." However, when the church is raptured from the earth, God will resume his dealings with Israel, which had been suspended when his chosen people rejected their Messiah. By this time Israel will have returned to the land in unbelief. During this Tribulation period the false savior, the Antichrist, will usurp power in Israel, rule the world from Jerusalem, and eventually be overthrown by Christ himself in the apocalyptic conflict at Armageddon. This means Israel occupies a central role in prophecy; and evangelicals have a special love for this nation. They welcomed the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, as that meant the keystone was now in place in the prophetic structure. The Israeli government, of course, welcomed the unqualified support evangelicals were giving to its existence on the dubious principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and overlooked the prophetic reasons for this backing.
However, the excesses that can arise from such an interpretation were well-demonstrated when on January 14, 1999 televangelist Jerry Falwell, in an unguarded moment, said the Antichrist would be Jewish and male, because that was what Jesus was. As Falwell told a crowd in Kingsport, Tennessee: "Is he alive and here today? Probably. Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course, he`ll be Jewish. Of course, he`ll pretend to be Christ. And if in fact the Lord is coming soon, and he`ll [the Antichrist] be an adult at the presentation of himself, he must be alive somewhere today." This statement evoked a storm of protest from Jewish leaders who declared that calling the Antichrist a Jew could fan the flames of anti-Semitism, and the wily evangelist who for years has courted the Jewish community had to back down and apologize for his tactless comment.
As has been shown, the intense desire of Christians to experience the Lord`s return in their own lifetimes has often led to hasty and rash predictions. We are seeing this phenomenon again in the millennial madness of this year. The inevitable failure of the specifically forecasted events resulted in embarrassment and disappointment in the past, yet people keep making new predictions for the future. The temptation to set dates for Christ`s coming is just too great to resist for many earnest believers.
Sensationalism
The second ethical problem facing Christians this year is sensationalism. Some of it is a by-product of the prophetic excesses, but more important is its "chicken little" interpretation of the Y2K computer problem. The doom and gloom reports are flooding the airways and bookstores. The pessimists suggest that computer clocks will jump back to 1900 at midnight, January 1, 2000, because of the universal use of two-digit dates in programs (the last two digits of the year) and computer-governed equipment will simply shut down. All sorts of horror scenarios have been envisioned–planes crashing, electrical power and water systems failing, bank computers crashing, the stock market in turmoil, an economic recession, and so on. As one of the most popular prophets of doom, Michael S. Hyatt, warned in the January 11, 1999 Christianity Today: "We`ve a digital hurricane coming that`s got the potential for simultaneous, multiple disruptions. I am more pessimistic today than I was. That this hasn`t been raised to a national emergency is amazing." His best-selling non-fiction book, The Millennium Bug, and novel, Y2K: The Day the World Shut Down, are regularly featured on the evangelicalism`s most popular radio show, that of James Dobson.
Religious right activists believe that the Y2K meltdown will paralyze the country and turn it into a battle zone. When America and the rest of the corrupt Western world is plunged into anarchy, the way will be open for fundamentalist leaders to seize control, set up a theocratic government, and usher in the kingdom of God. This is clearly the belief of financial guru Gary North, an exponent of Christian Reconstructionism, the idea that the Old Testament legal codes should be made normative in our society and that will reorient it toward God. In contrast to the premillennialists, he rejects the idea of a great tribulation and believes that Christians can overpower the forces of evil and implement the reign of Christ.
Many Y2K alarmists believe that the breakdown is purposively planned by liberals or nefarious characters to bring in a one-world government. When the social collapse occurs, people will look to some global realignment, some leader, who will restore order and care for us. Perhaps this will mean the rule of the Antichrist is at hand. In fact, the dire predictions of the Y2K hysteria hawkers could become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. People may begin to panic, withdraw their money from banks, and destabilize the economic system, thus forcing the Federal government to take firm action to shore up the economy. In doing this, individual freedoms could be jeopardized as the regime moved to combat social chaos.
Others are taking no chances and making preparations for this possibility. They are the survivalists who are stockpiling freeze-dried and canned food, storing up wood and coal, drawing money out of the bank, purchasing generators and hand mills, and even gathering weapons to drive off those who had not prepared for the crisis. Some survivalists even have taken to the woods, as they anticipate life in the cities will come to a complete standstill and urban chaos will be the order of the day. They even have a proof text, Proverbs 27:12: "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."
This needless fear and alarmism flies in the face of the message of Jesus who taught his disciples to "fear not." Yes, humankind should fear God`s wrath, but it will not be experienced if one has turned to Christ in faith and received him as Savior. Our mission is to spread the gospel, the good news of Christ who died for our sins that we might live with him throughout all time and eternity, not to encourage people to hunker down for a millennial crisis, real or imagined.
The Quest for Commercial Gain
The millennial madness has opened the way for enormous profit-making. All one has to do is run some of the millennial sites on the world-wide web or read the ads in an average evangelical magazine in order to see what is for sale. One can find preserved foods, generators, wood stoves, food mills, medical supplies, multipurpose soap, fuel tanks, and all sorts of other survival gear for sale. Others will help you to accumulate gold, the only thing that will have value when the money system collapses.
Even worse is the shameless exploitation of the Y2K fear and the hope of Christ`s imminent return by the evangelical media. For example, Michael Hyatt is marketing The Millennium Bug Personal Survival Kit: Everything You and Your Family Must Know to Get from One Side of the Crisis to the Other, which includes audio tapes, a resource manual, and a copy of his non-fiction book on the topic, all for a limited time price of $89, a fifty percent savings, so the advertisement in a leading evangelical newsmagazine says. Shaunti Christine Feldhahn, who claims to be a former Federal Reserve Board analyst, recently published the book Y2K: The Millennium Bug–A Balanced Christian Response, which shows Christians how God can use the turmoil and crisis to accomplish his ultimate purposes. To make sure the profits keep flowing, the 31-year old author started a "ministry" called the Joseph Project 2000. She travels around the country speaking and holding conferences to show churches how they can work across denominational and racial lines to prepare for the crisis by checking out their computers, buying and storing food, working with utility companies to see that they are Y2K compliant, and even digging wells where emergency water might be needed.
The January-February 1999 catalog of the Christian Book Distributors (Peabody, Mass.) is a good indicator of just how much is out there. It contains two full pages of books, videos and audio tapes on "Prophecy & End Times," and I counted 131 titles by such authors as Steve Farrar, Michael Hyatt, Tim LaHaye, Jim Bakker, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, John Hagee, and Grant Jeffrey, all currently big names on the millennial circuit. Books on these topics are such hot items that CBD`s 1999 Winter Closeout Catalog only listed four items in its "prophecy" section, and two of these were scholarly works. One could never accuse end times devotees of having scholarly interests. Sensationalism sells books; carefully thought out ideas do not.
Perhaps the biggest bucks of all currently being made on end times themes are the Left Behind novels, co-authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Succinctly described by Christianity Today as a "seven-volume post-Rapture, dispensational soap opera," they center on the lives of people left behind on planet earth after the Rapture. The first four titles that had been published by the end of 1998 had sold in excess of three million copies, and at one point the novels held the top three positions on Publishers Weekly`s religion best-sellers` paperback list as well as number one on the hardcover list–a first-time publishing feat. The newest title even made the New York Times list in spring 1999. For children ages 10 to 14 there was Left Behind: The Kids, a series of brief paperback novels about four children who had missed the Rapture but then found Christ and realized how urgent it was to tell others. Hal Lindsey, the all-time money-maker on the prophecy circuit, has had to take a back seat to this series of end times blockbusters.
What Does This All Mean?
Speculation about the events surrounding the Second Coming and its timing have fascinated people since time immemorial, and it will continue into the new millennium. In fact, the apocalypticists manifest a "have your cake and eat it too" state of mind. As Christian computer expert Steve Hewitt points out in the online version of his magazine Christian Computing, an enormous amount of progress has been made solving the Y2K problem. Yet those who are on the speaking circuit around the nation have books and videos to sell, and they continue to instill fear and panic about the upcoming crisis. Many of them feel that technology has been made into a god, and thus the anticipated Y2K meltdown is a good thing that will bring us back to the old-time religion and the values of yesteryear.
They see this as a punishment for America because of the decline of moral values. They are like Jeremiah, warning us that disaster is coming as a result of our sins. Thus with Y2K becoming less and less of a threat to disrupting our society, they are starting to feel like Jonah who was sent to tell Nineveh to repent or be destroyed. After the people of the city repented and the destruction was averted, he was depressed and angry.
Hewitt notes that another reason for the difficulty in letting go of Y2K as a national or worldwide disaster is that these prophets have seen it as a "sign of the times," that is, of the soon coming of the Lord. The end of technology will be the beginning of the Tribulation. One could argue just as easily that the increase of technology–the ability to track every person and for all of our money to be kept electronically–as a sign of the soon coming of Christ. However, if one has made Y2K a "sign of the times," then he or she cannot go back and say that we are actually solving the computer problem without in some way saying that the Second Coming has been delayed.
What the prophets of doom tell us is: "It`s the end of the world as we know it." But what if it is not? What if life continues into the twenty-first century with no significant disruption other than hangovers from the big millennium parties that will be occurring around the world from Times Square in New York to the Great Pyramid in Egypt to Sydney Harbour in Australia? Will the preachers of hysteria apologize to the rest of us for having been wrong, for having misread the signs of the times? No, of course not. They will tell us that God heard the prayers of his people and stayed the hand of judgment–at this time. Still the apocalypse will occur. It has only been postponed, but they will come up with new predictions of disaster.
In January 2000 the remainder tables in the Christian bookstores will be piled with unsold books prophesying that which did not happen. But the ideas and emotive descriptions will be recycled into new books proclaiming new disasters. After all, sensation sells. Once the millennial madness has passed, the ethical problems of profiting from the return of Christ and building up false expectations among sincere believers will remain. It is unlikely that conservative evangelicals will learn much from the millennial washout.
