While in Africa the past month I heard only two bits of news. The first was that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Good riddance. The second was that Harold Camping and his followers were preparing for the end of the world on May 21.
This concerned me given that I was in a plane for [...]
Tags:Billy Graham·Christian history·doomsday·end times·eschatology·Harold Camping·Osama bin Laden·rapture·Will Graham
The recent creation and capture of antimatter by scientists at the CERN Hadron Collider may not have any immediate practical implications, but it is the coolest thing in physics in quite some time.
And speaking of the collider, you may recall that someone sued CERN because he thought its operation would create a black hole that [...]
Tags:666·Angels & Demons·antichrist·antimatter·antipope·CERN·end times·eschatology·Hadron Collider·Maxwell's Demon·physics·the Beast
Watching Germany grapple with its rough beast is sort of like cultural voyeurism — outsiders are weirdly fascinated even as Germans seem unsure of how to proceed. Two recent articles in Spiegel offer powerful reminders that gawking, a paradoxical product of attraction and revulsion, can be unsettling.
The first, by Frank Hornig and Michael Sontheimer, discusses [...]
Tags:Berlin·Bethlehem·Civil Religion·eschatology·Frank Hornig·Fuhrer·German History Museum·Germany·Hitler·Ian Kershaw·Jews·Michael Sontheimer·Muslims·National Socialism·nationalism·Nazi·Ole Reissmann·racism·rough beast·salvation·schadenfreude·The Second Coming·uncivil religion·W.B. Yeats·weltanschauung·xenophobia
A recent article in the UK’s Telegraph notes that forty one percent — yes, 41% — of Americans believe that Jesus will return by the year 2050. With wry understatement, the Brits observe that American “optimism” is irrepressible.
What most of these eager and apocalyptic Americans do not know is that beginning almost immediately after the [...]
Tags:apocalypse·Christianity·disciples·end times·eschatology·Jesus·medieval Christianity·prophecy·rapture·Reformation·Revelations·Roman Church
To learn more about the Native American Ghost Dance movement and the conflagration at Wounded Knee in 1890, over the weekend I read Rex Alan Smith’s Moon of the Popping Trees: The Tragedy at Wounded Knee and the End of the Indian Wars. Smith has constructed a crisp narrative that will hold your attention.
For those [...]
Tags:apocalyptic·battle·Big Foot·eschatological·eschatology·Ghost Dance·Lakota·massacre·millenarian·Moon of the Popping Trees·Paiute shaman·Rex Alan Smith·Wounded Knee·Wovoka
