The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium. This item is unavailable.The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium

As the year 2000 approaches, the world is witnessing a disturbing resurgence of apocalyptic belief. Across the globe apparitions of the Virgin Mary prophesy the collapse of evil and the triumph of the Papacy, while in Latin America and the Far East a fundamentalist Protestantism is forecasting the Second Coming. In the Texas desert and the Tokyo subway, apocalyptic believers have already resorted to violence, raising the spectre of worldwide millenial panic as hundreds of cults await the end of time. Meanwhile, the secular world is increasingly fascinated by reports of UFOs, angelic visitors and the mysteries of a Mayan calendar - apparently unrelated occurrences which seem to point to the dawn of time. This study of the roots of apocalyptic belief and its often unrecognized role in modern society aims to redefine our concepts of time and faith. .

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