Properly understood, apocalyptic rhetoric is not the language of despair, but the language of hope. In theological terms, the apocalyptic is not so much the end of the world as the beginning of the breaking through of truth and justice into the world we live in. To say that “we are living in the end of the world” — whether because of economic exploitation, environmental collapse, or devastating consumerism — is not to say that everything is dying but that everything must change. To employ apocalyptic rhetoric is not to say that the world is doomed but that another world is possible.
Again, in religious terms: The apocalyptic task has always been the work of the prophets, not the priests. The priests say that if the current system ended, everything would be over; the prophets say that if the current system ended, the new one could at last begin. Perhaps the prophets are “unrealistic”; perhaps they are “naïve”. That’s what was said of MLK, of Gandhi, of Milk — but these men and others like them, though dismissed as ignorant and idealistic and unworthy of being taken seriously, are the very prophets who have given us hope and brought us change. It takes an act of daring and dreaming to listen to their visions; but when we do, we see suddenly not the end of the world, but the true beginning.
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20 July 2010 at 14:55
Joey Sittler
Have you posted this somewhere else, Matt? I feel like I’ve read it before…
“To say that “we are living in the end of the world”… is not to say that everything is dying but that everything must change.”
Is this not the same basic concept, stated in more optimistic terms? As the adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So the necessity for change implies, to me at least, that everything IS dying, or at least is in a state that is not viable in the long term.
I think that whichever way you look at it, apocalyptic rhetoric is, if not filled with despair, certainly not language with which anyone would attach positive feelings. And to use said rhetoric to employ change in society, which is how I take that you mean to use it, doesn’t seem very apocalyptic to me. Human history has always been in need of change, has always been filled with us doing horrible things to each other. The fact that we have finally reached an age where the internet allows us to be aware of everything that we as humans are inflicting on each other at the same time does not mean that today is any more in the state of apocalypse than any other period in human history. And if we’ve always been in the end of the world, then that kind of devalues the concept, does it not?
Maybe I just hate eschatology…
21 July 2010 at 02:32
Simon Cozens
This idea is very, very similar to what Jonathan Ingleby says in “Christians and Catastrophe”:
“While the Bible speaks only sparingly about the ‘end of the world’ – and a great deal of our Biblical exegesis, it seems to me, is wrong precisely because we are confusing the end of space and time in some very final sense with civilisational disaster which means an end in a more limited sense – it is very familiar with the idea of imminent disaster and the need to respond to it in God’s way. The Book of Lamentations provides one example. The author, or editor, does not try to spiritualise away the catastrophe which has befallen Jerusalem, and which he (or she) almost certainly witnessed first hand. The fall of Jerusalem and the Exile that followed created a profound theological crisis for Israel, but one which the Biblical authors were determined to deal with. It is because of this that they can help us today…. Even at the worst times, the prophetic testimony was that existential optimism could rightly undergird civilisational pessimism, and this can be our experience too. What awaits us may be as shattering as the Exile was to the Jewish nation, but it does not mean that God has forgotten us. Nor does it necessarily mean the end of space and time. The ruins of our civilisation may yet be restored – in God’s good time.”
21 July 2010 at 11:35
Carole Denton
Very profound, Matt, and a very ancient template upon which our universe was created.
19 March 2011 at 12:21
Brian Hager
I read this post “The End of the World is Nigh” with a great deal of interest. It seems more and more Christians are finally coming around to recognize that the end of the world doesn’t necessarily mean its destruction. The term most often used by millenialists is “Apocalypse” and it is evident that they really don’t know what the word means.
A friend of mine, Felix Just, S.J., on his website gave the definition for the term APOCALYPSE. It is from a greek term which means to literally “pull aside the veil.” Ergo, the original name of the last book of the New Testament, the book of the Apocalypse was later changed to the “book of Revelation.” Now I would agree that for some God’s final revelation may be a very bad experience, but for many it will be a source of joy. Those who have been empty enough and poor in spirit enough to rely on God in this life will more likely find eternity with Him to be paradise. However, those too full of themselves and too proud of their own spiritual prowess in this life will no doubt discover eternity with God to be very “hellish.”
It is the reason why I have come to view Heaven and Hell as being states of relationship with God and not literal places. That either Heaven or Hell could be physical places in eternity is a bit absurd. This life; this world is finite and limited. Most Christians who profess belief in heaven or hell think of it in terms of what they know here and now. That transposition of what the now to the never ending is impossible.
I look forward to reading through your blog in the days and weeks ahead.