The end is upon us! No really, it is!!!

There has always been a certain fashion in predicting the end of the world.  Christians (or groups claiming some association with Christianity) of course don't own the marketplace on end of the predictions, but we are sort of the Walmart of apocalypticism - the largest and most diverse selection (and also some of the strangest clientele?).  Apocalyptic predictions have remained so pervasive through the years for a variety of reasons.  Many of those reasons are cultural and sociological.  There will always be those within any society who are longing for an escape and a community as there will also always be those who are drawn to special and eccentric knowledge.  There will also always be those who desire to accumulate their own group of devoted followers.  When this social atmosphere is combined with biblical prophecy - a notoriously flexible genre of scripture - an apocalyptic playground is created.  In the end, being wrong doesn't even matter.  Most of these types of groups will simply lick their wounds and reinterpret their failure as some sort of perverse victory or as some sort of mathematical miscalculation (It's a little known fact, but apocalyptic nutjobs are notoriously bad at math which is tragic because so much of their livelihood depends on a specific kind of math, "prophetic algebra." You thought trigonometry was bad.  You have no idea!) 

Anyway, there is yet another group proclaiming that they have crunched the numbers (literally, they've got the multiplication all figured out) and have discovered that the end will come on precisely May 21 of this year!  Maybe finishing that term paper isn't all that important after all.  You can read the article here.  This is a great demonstration of the ridiculous and laughable (and tragic) inconsistency of "Bible literalists."  They enjoy taking a passage from 2 Peter 3:8-9 out of its context and treating it hyper-literally (one has to wonder if they actually have read verse 10!!) while ignoring clear statements made by Jesus himself about calculating dates and times (as in Matthew 24:36 to name just one place).  This passage from 2 Peter 3 has been consistently misinterpreted.  This particular interpretation was extremely popular in the Middle Ages.  This band of merry travelers are by no means the first or the last group (unfortunately) to make a splash off of apocalyptic paranoia (see below).  They really aren't even worth mentioning except that the biggest shame of it all is that Jesus' name is mocked and even dismissed in the midst of this craziness.  When asked, this group couldn't even articulate how to get to heaven.  How about...wait for it...Jesus?!

For those of you interested in such things, here is a summary from a book by Richard Kyle titled The Last Days are Here Again.  This is not an exhaustive list of apocalyptic predictions, but it does serve as a good illustration of just how pervasive (and wrong) these predictions have been.  These are all years in which some group or individual has predicted the end of the world.  Notice there are several repeat offenders (I'm looking at you, Jehovah's Witnesses).

70         Preterism

John Humphrey Noyes (Oneida Community), Christ returned spiritually

500       Hippolytus

800       Sextus Julius Africanus

999

1013

1184     Coming the Antichrist

1229     Coming the Antichrist

1260     Coming the Antichrist

1300     Coming the Antichrist

1325     Coming the Antichrist

1335     Coming the Antichrist

1346     Coming the Antichrist

1365     Coming the Antichrist

1387     Coming the Antichrist

1396     Coming the Antichrist

1400     Coming the Antichrist

1533     Melchior Hoffmann

1600

1666

1689     Camisards

1694     John Mason

1697     Thomas Beverly

            Cotton Mather

1700     The Puritans

1705     Camisards

1706     Camisards

1708     Camisards

1716     Cotton Mather

1736     Cotton Mather

Christ returns in the form of Ann Lee Stanley (the Shakers)

1757     Emanuel Swedenborg

1814     Joanna Southcott is reportedly

pregnant with the Christ

1843     William Miller; specifically between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844

1844

1845     Adventists

1846     Adventists

1849     Adventists

1851     Adventists

1866     Jonathan Edwards predicts that the beast (Pope) will fall.

1874     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1878     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1881     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1910     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1914     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1918     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1925     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1965     Elijah Muhammad (Black Muslims); the fall of white America

1967     Sun Myung Moon (Unification Church)

1975     Jehovah’s Witnesses

Herbert Armstrong (Worldwide Church of God)

1980     The Baha’i’s Under the Provision of the Covenant said on April 29^th, the world will end in nuclear holocaust.

1981     Some dispensationalists

Sun Myung Moon

1984     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1988     Hal Lindsey

Edgar Whisenant (88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988);

WWIII will begin on October 3, 1988.

1990     The Church Universal and Triumphant said on March 15^th, the world will end in nuclear holocaust.

1991     Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Lubavitchers); the Messiah would come in September

1992     The Dami sect of South Korea; specifically October 20 or 28

The 11:11 Doorway Movement; a doorway will be open for humanity between January 11, 1992 and December 31, 2011

1993     David Berg (Children of God)

1994     Harold Camping; specifically in September

1997     Mary Stewart Relfe

2000     Convulsionaries

            Timothy Dwight

Sun Myung Moon         

David Spangler and Ken Carey (New Agers)

            Elijah Muhammad (Black Muslims)

            Jacques-Joseph Duguet

2007     Some dispensationalists

2012     Jose Arguelles

2040     Occultist Max Toth; Christ will be reincarnated