A Sermon by the Reverend Ellen Rowse Spero
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church,
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
April 10, 2005
Reading: by Joseph Richey in Prayers for a Thousand Years, Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, eds. HarperCollins.
Copyright 2005, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
Since the beginning of human consciousness, we have wondered how the world began. Creation stories from ancient civilizations and religions all around the globe reveal the scope of imagination about how life may have begun. Science has offered us thoughtful theories and amazing insights into how the universe, the earth, and life may have come into being. Their studies and theories suggest a genesis that is just as awe-inspiring and miraculous as any myth our ancient ancestors could imagine.
But just as long as human beings have wondered how the world began, we have also wondered how it will end. In religious thinking, this is called eschatology, the theology of the end times. The eschatological stories of many cultures and religions speak of a cataclysmic event that brings an end to the world. In some cases this terrible destruction is followed by the creation of a whole new world, perfect in every way, healed of death and destruction, and minus the sinners, unbelievers, and other riff-raff. And now scientists, environmentalists, and some political and religious leaders are talking about the end of the world from a scientific point of view. Global warming, pollution, overpopulation, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the fear of chemical or biological terrorist attacks, virulent viral epidemics…only in these scenarios, there is no new heaven and no new earth, no golden age of justice and righteousness. The idea of an end-time feels less mythological.
One eschatology that has carried through since ancient times is the Apocalypse. Apocalypse means "revelation," and is from the Greek apokalypsis meaning "to uncover." During the period between 200 bce and 150 ce , apocalyptic thinking was prevalent amongst many Jewish groups, laboring under the oppressive rule of one empire after another, and amongst the newly forming religion of Christianity, whose followers were severely persecuted. Prophecies of a cosmic battle between good and evil, light and dark, God and the Devil, abounded. Followers of these prophecies believed that the chaos and violence they were witnessing on earth were shadows of the cosmic war happening in the heavens. Ultimately, God would prevail and a new order, "…a new heaven and a new earth…" to quote the Book of Revelation, would come into being. Those who had fought on the side of God would be united with God in this new paradise. Apocalyptic writings are very clear and unambiguous in their worldview. A person is either on the side of good or on the side of evil, a believer or an unbeliever, one of the righteous or one of the wicked. While their visions of the world to come are very beautiful and appealing, they also are very violent in their description of the events that will bring such a paradise into being. Most of the apocalyptic writings only made it into the Apocrypha: a set of books considered part of the Jewish and Christian literature but not sacred so as to make it into the Bible: the Apocalypse of Abraham, 1, 2 and 3 Enoch, the Revelation of Ezra to name a few. Some Christian and Jewish traditions include the Book of Daniel in the Bible while others put it in the apocrypha. Only one apocalyptic text, and thus the most famous, the Book of Revelation of John of Patmos, made it in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, but only barely. Some of the Church Fathers involved in negotiating what should and should not be in the canon in the early history of Christianity did not want this wild and weird text to be included. But the early Christian church expected the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ imminently and the Book of Revelation supported this theology. They could not have imagined that two thousand years or so later, that this world would still exist.
The idea that the end of the world is imminent, and the vision of how this would happen outlined in the Book of Revelation have never totally gone away. Most of the time, such apocalyptic thinking has been considered on the fringe, like that of the Branch Davidians. However, periodically, some significant date, like the eve of a new millennium, or a time of cataclysmic disaster or violence give apocalyptic movements and groups more popular support and credence. We seem to be in such a time now. There is a general increase in religious fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, a religious fundamentalism woven in with nationalism and visions of a "pure" state, grounded in the fundamentalist version of their religious tradition the group embraces. And particularly amongst some Christian and Islamicist fundamentalists, the sooner the end time comes, the better. And while these religious fundamentalists adhere to literal and close-minded interpretations of the Bible or the Koran, they are very willing and savvy about using modern means and modern technology to further their causes.
So, I am alarmed about this growing fundamentalism because I believe such thinking combined with access to power, to resources, to information, and to weapons has serious global consequences, for our human community and for our environment. If one group of people believe others are sinful and wicked because they do not share the same religious beliefs and can weave a few passages, out of context, from their holy scriptures to justify maltreating, exiling, imprisoning or even killing them, then they will. This happens all the time, even without the religious justification. We human beings are very good at seeing our fellows as "other", as less than human because of our differences and our diversity. However, apocalyptic thinking takes this sense of "otherness" to a new level. Everyone and everything is "other" and total destruction is a holy thing. If this world does not matter, then there is no reason not to use any means possible, whether it is biochemical or nuclear devices, a passenger airplane or one’s own body loaded with explosives. In fact, it is good to destroy this world. It brings the believers one step closer to the world they want, the one they claim God wants. We are well-acquainted with this amongst Islamicist fundamentalists, followers of Hamas or Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda. But such thinking is also embraced by many Christian fundamentalists. Bill Moyers, in an awards acceptance speech at the Center for the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School described this group:
"They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true--one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the poll believing in the rapture index…Google it and you will find the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captured the imagination of millions of Americans. Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre...once Israel has occupied the rest of its ’biblical lands’, legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God they will watch their religious and political opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation to follow. I am not making this up…I’ve read the literature. I’ve reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you how they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That’s why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It’s why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels ’which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.’ A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but to be welcomed--an essential conflagration on the road to redemption."
Apocalyptic thinking does more than just divide people into the chosen and the damned. It puts the whole creation at risk. As Moyers points out, if one has no stake in this world, there is no point in taking care of it: "…people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected…to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued from the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billions of light crude for the world?" Moyers voices his concerns because he sees the people who think this way, members of the religious right, as being significant supporters of key leaders in Congress and the White House. He fears the joining of such religious extremism with political power will result in the destruction of the environment, through a deliberate neglect, a total disregard for this world and all life that inhabits it.
I would like to temper Moyers’ alarming observation with my recognition that a significant number of Christians do not think this way. In fact, many Evangelical Christians view care for the environment and the earth as part of their faith, a fulfillment of God’s commandment in Genesis for humanity’s stewardship of God’s creation. They also recognize the connection between the destruction of the environment and the scourge of poverty. As followers of Jesus, they feel they have special call to care for the poor and alleviate poverty. But because of a lack of trust between these generally conservative Christians and more liberal environmentalists, these environmentalist Evangelicals have been hesitant to join with the environmentalists or to speak out against the political leadership. That is changing, as they have recognized the urgency of the problems and have formed several Christian environmental advocacy groups (see "Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming", Laurie Goodstein, The Boston Globe, March 10, 2005).
As Unitarian Universalists, even if our underlying theologies differ from the Evangelicals, we share in this belief that earth and all her creatures are sacred, and that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the creation. Because we cherish this world and this life as sacred gifts, any idea of wanting the apocalypse or speeding up its advent is an anathema. But we cannot simply dismiss such thinking as stupidity and ignorance. Apocalyptic visions came into being when people felt that there was no hope left, that this world had nothing to offer, that healing and wholeness, peace and justice, were impossibilities. They continue to speak to people today for these same reasons. Apocalyptic theology feeds off fear and anger, off despair and hopelessness, off poverty and deprivation. It resonates with people not because they are crazy and ignorant but because they are vulnerable and powerless. Our best response to apocalyptic teachings with its violent visions and its either/or thinking, with its focus on the end of this world and its hope in the next, is to work to make this world a safe and hospitable home for all. It is to work to make it more just, more compassionate, and more peaceful. It is to share resources equitably so as to alleviate poverty, illness and suffering. So many of you are already doing so, in the work you do through the church or through other means. And others of you are exploring ways we as a congregation can add our voices to the choir of courageous angels. Listen to each other over the next few months as we talk about the possibilities of how we can live more justly, more compassionately, and more hospitably for the sake of one another and the earth. How we name the source of Life, its Spirit does not call us to end the world to but to do justice, to embrace kindness and to attentively with the Holy for here, for now.
Quotes from Bill Moyers from
"Battlefield Earth"
By Bill Moyers at Harvard Medical School
AlterNet. Posted December 4, 2004.