After the first reading of A History of the End of the World, by Jonathan Kirsch, I was surprised by the presence of the Bible in our modern (seemingly) secular culture. The ideals of the “end-times” are ever present in Western civilization, but there are also themes present in the Book of Revelation that shed light on particular beliefs held today.
One of the most continuous themes in the Book of Revelation is the negative portrayal of women. While there is one incident of a positive illustration, the woman bathed in the sun, most women depicted in Revelation are evil temptresses attempting to make those who are pure, impure. The occurrences of these radical beliefs are still present in modern society, however; thankfully a minority of society follows such beliefs. But the mere existence of these notions leads me to believe that despite progress, archaic ways of thinking still remain. Despite the resistance of avid protesters to the Book of Revelation, the symbols and themes within the book remain entrenched in the modern world.
Kirsch indicates that modern followers of this apocalyptic view are mainly mentally unstable and dangerous lunatics. Many, usually with some source of persuasive power, present a threatening force that poses the question as to how the prophecy has an impact on modern society. However the most dangerous point Kirsch alludes to is the interconnection of political power and the Revelation. While the symbolic meanings within Revelation are open for debate, the fear mongering within the Bible is quite clear. Those who are “true believers” will be saved, while everyone else will burn in hell. And unfortunately, if intersected with political power, this influential reevaluation of how life should be lived may cause catastrophic disagreements. It is both interesting and frightening to realize that the Book of Revelation is entrenched within our history, politics and social belief systems.
Especially being in an election year (and my first time, on a Presidential level, to be elegible to vote) I found myself thinking of all the people I know who viewed “Obama as Satan,” or “Romney as Satan,” or all the extremes therein. It is strange to think that, especially when we have such a bi-polarized political system, “Red” vs “Blue,” “Heaven” vs “Hell” (not to say that those colors actually are representative of those parallels) analogies are so frequent and not so hard to parallel and link up to certain modern political debates.
The issue of women being corrupt, or corrupters, is also very prevalent politically when all of the birth control, breast-feeding, and pro-choice, anti-choice debates are going on — especially since, for the most part, one side abides highly by a more religious stand point compared to the general tendencies of the other side.