In my last post I made mention of the apocalyptic imagination, an imagination fired by a sense of foreboding and impending doom. Although conspiracy theorism among Christian fundamentalists has spread like wild fire across the internet in recent times, a nutrient bed of apocalyptic fear (which helps catalyse conspiracy theorism) has been with us for a long while.
To prove the point: I was recently going through my back copies of the Christian magazine Buzz (which eventually evolved into Premier Christianity) and at the back of the June 1984 edition of Buzz I found this short article:
100 Years Back
That alarmist tendency in Christian culture will always be part of our make up.
It is fascinating that a century ago, with the great American evangelist D L Moody bringing the biggest wave of revival to the country for decades, the Life of Faith magazine of June 1884 still wrote: "This day is a day of trouble....attacks on the truth of God and on Christian institutions are growing more persistent and determined.....The very foundations of all that has seemed stable and permanent are out of course"
.... here we have Buzz, like Premier Christianity, showing admirable self-awareness and self reflection! They were never put off by some of the complaints on the letters page they got from uptight and trussed up Christians!
This constant crying of 'wolf!' has a desensitizing effect and squanders the capital of trust. The Watchtower did something similar with their date fixing. However, short memories usually mean that all this gets forgotten!
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