Shamain
Webster, who lives in the suburbs outside of Dallas, has seen the signs
of a coming apocalypse for a while now, just as the Bible foretold.
Kingdom
would rise against kingdom, Jesus taught his disciples in the Book of
Luke. Ms. Webster sees widespread political division in this country.
There will be fearful events, and great signs from heaven, he said. She
sees biblical values slipping away. A government not acting in the
people’s best interest. And now this — a pandemic.
But
Ms. Webster, 42 and an evangelical Christian, is unafraid. She has been
listening online to one of her favorite preachers, who has called the
coronavirus pandemic a “divine reset.”
“These
kinds of moments really get you to re-evaluate everything,” she said.
As everyone goes through a period of isolation, she added, God is using
it for good, “to teach us and train us on how to live life better.”
For
people of many faiths, and even none at all, it can feel lately like
the end of the world is near. Not only is there a plague, but hundreds
of billions of locusts are swarming East Africa. Wildfires have ravaged Australia, killing an untold number of animals. A recent earthquake in Utah
even shook the Salt Lake Temple to the top of its iconic spire, causing
the golden trumpet to fall from the angel Moroni’s right hand.
But
the story of apocalypse is an old one, one of the oldest humans tell.
In ancient religious traditions beyond Christianity — including Judaism,
Islam and Buddhism — it is a common narrative that arises in moments of
social and political crisis, as people try to process unprecedented or
shocking events.
Image
The angel Moroni statue atop the Salt Lake Temple in Utah dropped its trumpet in a recent earthquake.Credit...George Frey/Getty Images
The original word in Greek — apokalypsis — means an unveiling, a revelation.
“It’s
not just about the end of the world,” said Jacqueline Hidalgo, chair of
religion at Williams College. “It helps us see something that is hidden
before.”
As
a pandemic thrusts the United States and much of the world into a new
economic and social order, those who study and practice religion see
deeper truths being unveiled.
The
crisis is revealing health care inequalities, class divisions and the
fact that the most important workers in American society are among the
least paid, said Jorge Juan Rodríguez V, a doctoral candidate in the
history of religion at Union Theological Seminary.
“What is
being revealed are the fault lines in the system that always existed,”
he said. “We are just noticing it now because the system is stressed.”
About
44 percent of likely voters in the United States see the coronavirus
pandemic and economic meltdown as either a wake-up call to faith, a sign
of God’s coming judgment or both, according to a poll commissioned by
the Joshua Fund, an evangelical group run by Joel C. Rosenberg, who
writes about the end of the world, and conducted last week by McLaughlin
& Associates, pollsters for President Trump and other Republicans.
David
Jeremiah, a pastor who has been one of President Trump’s informal
evangelical advisers, asked in a sermon recently if the coronavirus was
biblical prophecy, and called the pandemic “the most apocalyptic thing
that has ever happened to us.”
Among
Christians, one of the most well-known apocalyptic narratives is the
Book of Revelation in the New Testament, which tells the story of the
defeat of an evil beast, a final divine judgment and the coming of a New
Jerusalem.
While many biblical
scholars read the book as a story about the destruction of corrupt
political systems, many evangelical Christians believe it describes the
rapture, Jesus’ return to save believers from a period of tribulation.
He wonders if Jesus will return by 2028, 10 years after Mr. Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem,
which he saw as a prophetic sign. “I tell my children, I think we are
that generation,” said Mr. Johnson, who attends Gateway Church, one of
the country’s most prominent evangelical churches.
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the United States, where Christianity is by far the dominant religion,
about 40 percent of American adults believe that Jesus is definitely or
probably going to return to earth by 2050, including one in five
religiously unaffiliated people, according to the Pew Research Center.Some
evangelical Christians are finding hope in a divine promise that God
has saved them for eternity, a feeling of security in the midst of so
much uncertainty.
“For me personally
it is just a reminder that God is sovereign,” said Mark Lovvorn, 65, who
attends First Baptist Dallas and is chairman of Providence Bank of
Texas. “Regardless of what happens in the world, we have that
confidence.”
For
centuries, religious traditions have not only offered a way for human
beings to understand apocalyptic moments. Over time, these hours of
crisis have also shaped religion itself.
Some
of the earliest apocalyptic speculation is found in Jewish scriptures,
in stories like the Book of Daniel, as the Hellenistic age gave way to
the Romans around the second and first centuries B.C. and Jewish
communities experienced violent persecution. Some Jews speculated again
about the end of time when the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple in
Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
As the early
Christians turned to an external savior and as the Romans continued to
crush rebellions, Jewish leaders realized they needed to survive in the
world as they knew it, explained David Kraemer, head librarian and
professor of Talmud and rabbinics at Jewish Theological Seminary.
The
rabbis developed a system where Jews could live anywhere, under any
government and live meaningful lives connected to neighbors and to God.
“That
was the Judaism that enabled Jews to live through persecution, plagues,
medieval centuries and on through early modernity, which was in some
ways the most difficult periods,” Dr. Kraemer said.
Every
year the celebration of Passover, which begins next week and recounts
10 plagues from the Book of Exodus, is a reminder of God’s redemption.
The Passover Seder “says we have been in difficult circumstances before
and we will get beyond them,” Dr. Kraemer said.
In
the Islamic tradition, the Quran tells stories of plagues and of a
final earthquake that will tear the earth apart, as well as stories of
finding God in the created world.
In
mainstream Islamic thought there is a distinction between the end of the
world and the concept of apocalypse, Amir Hussain, professor of
theology at Loyola Marymount University, said. Apocalypse also includes
what happens when one’s eyes are opened.
“Look
at the creation, look at the oceans,” Dr. Hussain said, reflecting on a
favorite passage in the Quran about God’s mercy. “How much better is it
to have that realization in this lifetime?”
In
Buddhism, time is cyclical, not linear, making apocalypse both an end
and a beginning. “Apocalypse happens and then a new order starts, a new
social order, new moral order,” said Vesna Wallace, professor of
Buddhism at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “The story
repeats itself.”
Apocalyptic stories
in Buddhist scriptures share similar themes, often including an unjust
ruler, social inequality, plagues and fruits that do not ripen, she
explained, referring to texts from the fifth and 11th centuries A.D.
Blades of grass become like swords — and even the sense of taste
disappears (like a suspected symptom of the coronavirus infection).
In
Buddhist traditions, apocalypse comes as a result of collective karma —
everyone’s actions toward one another and the world — which means its
outcome can change, even in the present circumstance. “Now people are
kinder to each other, they are spending more time with families,” Dr.
Wallace said. “It’s like a warning to change the course of actions, to
bring back compassion, empathy, develop social equality.”
Image
“The Rapture: One at the Mill,” from the Bowyer’s Bible, was etched by the Dutch artist Jan Luyken in 1795.
Modern,
secular American life is filled with its own apocalyptic visions.
Movies and television shows depict civilization on the brink of
extinction. “The Walking Dead” explores life amid the zombie apocalypse.
“The Hunger Games” presents a dystopian future after conflict and
ecological disasters have destroyed much of the world.
A
stark, binary structure — a clear good and evil, a clear before and
after — appeals when society is fractured, said Dr. Hidalgo, the
religion professor from Williams.
“Apocalypse is a flexible script,” she said. “A sense of shared external evil can really bring folks together.”
It is also a reminder that across several traditions, the memory of past crises can of
fer hope — that human beings have survived such moments before, and that the truths being revealed can become a call to action.
“The
country’s idols are being exposed,” said Ekemini Uwan, a public
theologian and co-host of the podcast “Truth’s Table.” “People are
advocating that we throw our grandparents to the slaughter, sacrifice
them on the altar of capitalism,” she added, referring to Republican
leaders who have suggested that older Americans might be willing to sacrifice themselves to save jobs.
For too long America has been on “spiritual life support,” trusting its own invincibility, she said.
“Is
it the end of the world? Maybe it is, maybe it is isn’t,” she said.
“But we need to be ready. We need to learn to number our days because we
really do not know when our last breath will be.”
Elizabeth Dias covers faith and politics from Washington. She previously covered a similar beat for Time magazine. @elizabethjdias
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: For People of Many Religions, Crisis Has Signs of Apocalypse.
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