Fire and brimstone, raging winds, earthquakes, hail falling from the sky, the world's water turning into blood, the end is near. Ok, so the conditions in our world might not be as catastrophic as they are portrayed in the Book of Revelations, but as author Charles Strozier tells us the belief in the coming end or endism is brewing in the minds of people. Endism is the belief the Book of Revelations' description of the end of the world is true and must occur for God's plan to be completed. In his book Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America Strozier goes about the task of interviewing Christian fundamentalists in New York City and analyzing their views on religion and the apocalypse from a psychological perspective. Strozier writes that people see endism in two lights: how it can affect then on a personal level and how it can affect humanity as a whole.
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FUNDAMENTALISMEveryone, no matter what their religion may be experiences a type of endism whether they know it or not. The one thing that every person in the world has in common, the one thing that is unchanging is death. We all die, as depressing as that might sound, but through religion and personal exploration we attempt to understand death and what it means. The Christian fundamentalist belief is that once a Christian dies and ascend to the gates of heaven they will be judged by God. If found righteous will be given the right to pass through the gates and enter heaven. However if a person is found to be impious then he or she would be cast down into hell.
The two main concerns of people today when it comes to a collective death are the nuclear threat and the environmental problems. As...