As I turned to the last page of Glorious Appearing, I let out a sigh of relief that it was finally over. But lo and behold, the one-lined epilogue stated otherwise. After four hundred pages of waiting to read about a perfect ending to the world and the destruction of evil, the epilogue leaves us waiting again for another ending to come. Christ came, punished the sinners, and all seemed well, “But after these things [Satan] must be released for a little while” (399). All the protagonists just spent seven years waiting for this moment to be reunited in a perfect society under the kingdom of Jesus. And yet Rayford’s last statement was “We’ve only got a thousand years” (398). Must they always anticipate an end?
In his essay, Strozier discusses the convoluted sense of time that gives us an insight into the fundamentalist mindset. “In the apocalyptic, time is forever running out, which accounts for the terrible urgency one finds in Revelation and in the lives of fundamentalists in all faiths” (112). We can see this effect throughout the course of history. Kirsch mentioned countless stories about men who tried to predict the date of the apocalypse, fearful with anticipation that their time on Earth would soon end. It’s easier to think about/relate to the theme of time running out on an individual scale (i.e. individual death). The fundamentalists live with a philosophy that seems to say that each day one lives is one day closer to the day one dies. With that ideology hanging in the back of their mind, they create a heightened anxiety about death. “Dread of endings becomes a denial of death in the myth of the final judgment that kills death, and time, while bringing eternal and timeless life to the faithful” (113). What seems like an outlandish fabrication at first can be simply explained as a defense mechanism (i.e. denial) in the fundamentalist mind that seeks to destroy the rational sense of time and transform it into the eternal.
This idea of apocalyptic time is literalized in a new movie scheduled to release next month called “In Time” (a clip from the movie can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZb2EU8NNw&NR=1). In this science fictional world, money is literally replaced with time. This story not only symbolizes the dependency our capitalistic society has on money, but also emphasizes and exaggerates the apocalyptic fear of death and time. Death and time become so inextricably interwoven in the apocalyptic, that you can’t theoretically escape one without the other. So it’s no wonder Strozier had to include time in his “Seven Seals of Fundamentalism.” Through Fundamentalists’ inevitable paranoia, their fear of death manifests. If one escapes death, one escapes time. The movie “In Time” once again literalizes this idea such that the characters are able to live as long as they want, as long as they still have time left. Therefore, the fundamentalist attempt to escape death must include the creation of a timeless and eternal future.
Wow Emily – we were really thinking on the same wavelength this week! Your introductory paragraph really mirrors how I felt about the “end” of the book (as I wrote in my post).
While I agree with Strozier’s explanation of the desire to kill time as a sort of defense mechanism against death, I almost find this too simple to be the whole story. The contradiction that I see in endism makes me think that there must be something more guiding this belief system at its core. I think that perhaps the fundamentalist idea of “re-birth” may play a part: I’ve been thinking alot about more secular apocalypses in comparison to the religious one we’ve been studying up until this point. Many of these more secular apocalypses don’t aim to “kill time” but rather reset the clock, give humans a second chance, start time anew. It’s still something I’m puzzled about however.
In Time embodies this contradiction for me: the rich continue to buy time so that they can live “forever,” but really the time wouldn’t mean anything if it wasn’t, at some point (even a point far in the future) going to run out.
Hi Emily,
You have a good handle here on the paradox of time within the fundamentalist mindset, so for tomorrow, please lead the discussion on time for us. It’s crucial–and it’s seeming contradictions are hard to get one’s mind around, as Kaitlyn has said in her post and in this comment. She’s right that the the concept of rebirth is integral to the mythical time that Strozier explains, so that will need to be addressed as well.
I think the use of the movie In Time is great to make your point! I remember seeing the previews for this movie a few months ago, and it’s great that you brought it back to our attention. The sense of time that Fundamentalist’s have is frustrating because it goes far beyond any rational/scientific concept of time. The Fundamentalists’ entire system of beliefs is based on the history of a future anticipated based on stories/imaginings of the past. It’s interesting because the religion is so deeply invested in the future, but at the same time would not exist without a strong dependence on the past. My concern with this is the loss of awareness of the present, which Strozier explains as a way in which radical Fundamentalists abandon ethical responsibility. They have no investment in the present because it is simply a place to wait for the future.