By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
It’s the Big Day. Perhaps you’re reading this just prior to the 6 pm upheaval-slash-earthquake-cum-devastation heading our way. Well, prepare yourself for another of those impending “last” days for the True Believers. Surprisingly, a lot of otherwise-reasonable people seem anxious to jump ship today, anticipating that glorious grand-slam of religious extravaganzas, the Rapture.
With a Disneyesque panache that reminds me of Mary Poppins, bumbershoot in hand, the saved (both dead and alive) will be lifted up into heaven to side-step the horrors of the five-month tribulation ahead. As I traded my fundamentalist credentials for an ephemeris decades ago, I don’t expect to be leaving, myself, but then again, from the larger perspective, it’s doubtful that anyone else will be either.
This is another of the end-of-days prophecies that we seem to delight in, a-twitch with secret shivers of anticipation. I don’t understand the need for such things-that-go-bump fear-mongering, but it’s easy enough to recognize what ignites it. We knew the heat would be turned up under that scenario when the fish began to die mysteriously and birds dropped out of the sky by the thousands. These qualify as signs and portents, especially to a culture that has scrapped its respect for scientific theory; such dramatic signs and portents dovetail nicely with the latest prediction for doomsday, despite an earlier version (1994) that failed to manifest due to “fuzzy math.”
An elderly radio-preacher in Oakland, CA named Harold Camping has reconfigured the calculations according to his own version of Bible code and convinced his followers that today’s the day, to be followed by five excruciatingly hellish months until the world’s final end on October 21, 2011. Maybe he’s just trying to best the 2012 predictions. Today’s prophecy is not officially sanctioned by mainstream fundies, who are more in line with Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth — the apocalyptic vision that jump-started the evangelical movement in 1970 and can justifiably be blamed for much Christocratic politics today – as well as with Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of end-times fictions. Hal and Tim won’t give an exact time for Christ’s return, although they do suggest you purchase After The Rapture Pet Care insurance so your household critters will be well-attended by the newly-damned in post-rapture America. (Yes, seriously, and consider that your WTF for the day.)