Ancient Church

Sometimes I’m not crazy about going to my mail box — hostile letters, overblown pleadings, unpleasant things of every ilk can land in a lawyer’s mailbox. Sometimes, though, you find something fun. Something unexpected. Something totally entertaining. Like today, where among all the letters from other lawyers and what not was a gaudy full color brochure trumpeting a ten day end-times seminar, coming to my town this Saturday.

This particular seminar comes around once or twice a year, and I always look forward to the brochures. This one is actually fairly low key, lacking the usual hellfire and roasting sinners being skewered by demons. Instead, it shows the planet against a sunset — an unlikely juxtaposition, to be sure — and pictures of regular yet attractive people looking concerned. “WHAT ON EARTH WILL HAPPEN NEXT!” the brochure cover breathlessly asks, and you can tell that must be what these people are pondering. And what will happen next?

For starters, this particular denomination seems a bad one to turn to for answers to that question. Since their founding 150 years or so ago, they have predicted the end of the world — right down to a specific date — at least twice. The fact that I’m sitting here writing this suggests they might have been off, but hope springs eternal, so they continue to market these seminars. I am privy to the fact that by the final day of it, they are ready to spring the big secret on you: the Pope is the anti-Christ and, by the way, the world will end soon. Sorry. I don’t know if they have come up with another date yet.

(As a historical aside, it is an amusing fact that before the end of the world, the believers sold all they had. I have always wondered why. Does it matter that you had reduced your holdings to cash? Were they going to take it with them, in case Heaven has vending machines? I never figured that one out.)

Of course, lots of Protestants believe this Pope is the anti-Christ bit, even, I guess, when there was no pope, like up until earlier today. The truth of the matter is that at one time or another we are all the anti-Christ, at least in a small “a” kind of sense. Or at least me. I have days where to the casual observer I might appear to be pure evil, and should probably be checked for horns and a tail. But that is just my passions bursting out. My regular readers know I have an ongoing battle with those things.

But now, even though you have not attended my seven day seminar, or even congratulated me on my splashy full color brochure, on which I have pictures of twice as many regular yet attractive people looking concerned, I’ll still tell you the two big secrets about the end of the world:

Big Secret number one: the correct theological school regarding the end times is the Doris Day School of Eschatology, as in “What will be, will be.” I should note that my wife and I are bitterly divided over this. She subscribes to the pan-millenial school of eschatology, as in “it will all pan out in the end”. Silly girl.

Big secret number two: It doesn’t matter.

“Whoa!”, you cry. ” We’re talking end of the world here! Of course it matters.”

No, it doesn’t, and I’ll tell you why.

First, it is true that the world will end. Yes, there will be a second coming. It might be tonight. It might be next year. It might be a kazillion years from now. It will happen.

But what are you and I going to do about it? If, like the denomination holding the seminar, I could tell you the day and hour of the end, what good does that do for you? Does it allow you to live a hedonistic life up to, say 24 hours before hand, and then run off and make the fateful decision? Does it give you something to look forward to? Does it tell you when to hold that yard sale? Why is it important?

Even when I was a Protestant, I could never quite figure that out. Yet the multitude of books, seminars and TV preachers harping on it must mean something. The first one I remember much of was Hal Lindsay’s shrill The Late Great Planet Earth, which terrified people several decades ago. I saw recently that he has another book out. You would think the man would have some self-respect, but, hey, it’s a living.

Yet I suspect that only those who are completely certain of their salvation — either by virtue of being one of the pre-ordained elect or by having made the fateful walk down the aisle — have the luxury of being able to speculate endlessly about the end. By necessity, speculation about the end times means searching for the signs of the end times which means watching other people for bad behavior which means the focus is on the sinners and not on, like, me.

All of this is not to say that the Orthodox don’t believe in the end times. We just recognize that for most of us, it will occur at our death, our own personal, private end time, as it were. Until that happens, we are commanded to love God, and to love our neighbor. That’s plenty to keep a person busy, if we can just take it to heart.

So in our Churches, you won’t hear all that much about the subject by and large. In fact, even though during the course of the year virtually all of the New Testament is read during services in the Church, the lone book that will not be read is Revelations. The reason is two fold: not only does it distract from our individual salvation, it is simply too oblique to have much meaning. I can think of at least a half dozen eschatological schools that support themselves by reference to the Book of Revelations. All of them are almost certainly completely wrong.

So, my advice, which you will find inside my full color brochure, is this: Stop looking up for the sky breaking open. Stop looking at other people to identify behavior that is a sign of the end. Start looking inward, at your own heart, at your own soul. That is the only way to prepare for the end, however we may meet it.