The End of Time: Faith and the Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium - Hardcover

Thompson, Damian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0749386096 ISBN 13: 9780749386092

Publisher: Minerva, 1997

Synopsis

As the year 2000 approaches, the world is witnessing a disturbing resurgence of apocalyptic belief. In Latin America and the Far East, millions of people are converting every year to a fundamentalist Protestantism which teaches that the Second Coming is at hand. In this text, the author examines the roots of this apocalyptic belief and its often unrecognised role in the development of modern society. He looks at the phenomenon of millennarianism - a belief in the end of the world which can lead to terrifying extremes of behaviour - and seeks to answer a number of important questions, such as: Why do calender changes have such a profound effect upon the human psyche? Why does the Catholic church, which is perfectly aware that Christ was not born in 1 AD, attach such mystical significance to the year 2000? And why do the disembodied spirits channelled by New Age mediums point to the end of the millennium as a time of astonishing "earth changes"?

About this title

Review

The end of yet another millennium is fast approaching, and all kinds of squirrelly people are coming out of the woodwork. Members of Aum Shinrikyo set off poisoned gas in Tokyo subways while members of Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate bid farewell to this world via lethal pudding, headed for that great mother ship in the sky. Meanwhile, the whole world fearfully anticipates 2000--the year when computers everywhere will trigger mass confusion over the double zero and set us all back a century. Lest you think that our generation is alone in its end-of- the-millennium craziness, Damian Thompson has written a history of millenarianism through the ages, The End of Time.

Technically speaking, the millennium refers to Christ's Second Coming and his thousand-year reign on earth; however, long before Christianity, various people in various corners of the earth have predicted the end of the world--everyone from the ancient Mesopotamians and Persians right up through the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Thompson provides an engrossing survey of four millenarian movements, taking a more in-depth look at the end of the 20th century, a time in which fundamentalism and New Age theology are simultaneously on the rise as people scramble for meaning in these fast-changing times. What better way to prepare for the end of yet another millennium than by reading The End of Time? --Amazon.com

Book Description

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Edition details

• Publisher: Minerva
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0749386096
• ISBN 13: 9780749386092
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 384