What Tomorrow Brings

Of the movies we had to watch for class, the only one I had never seen before was Apocalypto. I found it to be the least entertaining, due to, I think, a combination of subtitles (whose tone sometimes seemed mismatched with the dialogue) and a fairly traditional, predictable plot with unexplained and unaddressed supernatural elements made the film seem slightly ridiculous at times. Indeed, while the scene of the young girl prophesizing is well done, evoking feelings of fear and foreboding, scenes such as Jaguar Paw impossibly surviving a jump off a waterfall or Seven’s child shooting out of her womb discouraged my suspension of disbelief and removed me from the world of the movie. Continue reading

Violence, Paranoia, and a Dualistic Mindset

 

For me, finishing Glorious Appearing segued into Strozier’s discussion of paranoia and violence in “The Apocalyptic Other.” According to Strozier, one of the characteristics of a paranoid is the belief that he “lives in a world of shame and humiliation, of suspiciousness, aggression, and dualisms” (63) as well as deep-seated feelings of persecution and victimization. While Strozier, through his example of his patient Harriet clarifies that these feelings are usually a product of their minds, in Glorious Appearing, the protagonists do in fact live in a world that closely matches that description. They are a tiny rebel army trying to defeat an enemy that is millions strong. If they are captured by the enemy, they are tortured and then executed. Many of the main characters from the previous books have already been killed. In this world, the persecution is real, and therefore the divine vengeance is justified.

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Mercy, Revised

Last week, I did not write about Glorious Appearing, which makes me feel the task all the more necessary, if unfortunate.  Firstly, the overall structure of the book must be noted: I felt like I had whiplash from the constantly changing storylines, one moment with this person, next page with another, then a third introduced, then full circle and back to the first character. Continue reading

Enjoying Violence, Avoiding Dualism and Endism without an End

Much of what Strozier wrote in this week’s set of essays seemed to respond to my concern about how easily the “saved” characters in Glorious Appearing accept the punishment of the surrounding sinners. It is no less appalling to me that they could simply sit and watch, and even enjoy, the mass murder of most of the remaining population by Jesus – especially considering the gruesome manner in which the deaths were carried out. Continue reading

Killing Time

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? Continue reading

Fundamentalism: The Be All and End All

In his concluding essays, Strozier presents a very thorough analysis of the various tenets of apocalyptic fundamentalism and how they influence the overall doomsday mindset that has prevailed in society. It is interesting to trace Strozier’s didactic approach to understanding the fundamentalist way of thought. His previous readings writings introudced us to the dualism and particular psychology associated with apocalyptic violence. In his later essays, Strozier narrows his argument by linking the root of violence to paranoia.
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Skepticism and Shadows

It took quite some time to get used to the tone of Glorious Appearing. As a liberal New Yorker without strong religious affiliations, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop (so to speak). This can’t be serious, I kept thinking, even though I knew the premise of the series. Continue reading

Was the Swastika the WWII Era Mark of the Beast?

Over the past couple weeks we’ve alluded to Hitler and the Holocaust a few times. With this week’s reading, it was really all I could think about. Hitler is directly analogous to Carpathia who, in Glorious Appearing and the rest of the Left Behind series, is the Antichrist. Then in Strozier’s essays, the description of how the fundamentalist mindset exhibits violent potentials seems to resonate with Hitler’s actions towards the Jews in the Holocaust. Because of our fixation with the end of times and our curiosity in psychological reasoning, we are left to analyze his actions from a purely apocalyptic standpoint. Continue reading

A Violent Means to An End

As presented in Strozier’s essays, apocalyptic fundamentalism has had a great impact on human psychology. Strong Christian believers have experienced immense changes in their mentality, as well as in their attitudes toward other ways of thought. We can say that such changes in mindset definitely alter the ways in which fundamentalist groups approach the apocalyptic phenomenon, and how accepting they are of other beliefs. It is exactly these alterations that have redefined the psychology and malevolence of doomsday culture.

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