Faith, the Future and 2011

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/01/11-faith-based-predictions-for-2011/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/04/more-atheists-to-come-out-in-2011-leader-predicts
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-01/bay-area/17466332_1_east-bay-bay-area-first-time-camping

This article will be all over the place, since the topic is the possibilities of the future instead of precise judgments in the present with such uncertainty assailing us. Belief Blog consulted 11 different contributors, with a 12th extra chiming in a bit late, each bringing something to the table as to what 2011’s potential for faith is. Let’s try to boil these down to categories instead of each individual story.

Selena Fox, who I referenced when speaking on Christine O’Donnell’s alleged connections to witchcraft and Wicca, predicted that more Wiccans will become involved in interfaith dialogue, which would certainly line up with a previous prediction by both Steve Wohlberg, author of Hour of the Witch and Marla Alupoaicei, co author of Generation Hex (http://shatteredparadigm.blogspot.com/2008/09/wicca-will-be-3rd-largest-religion-in.html) that Wicca will become the third largest religion in the U.S. It doesn’t seem unlikely, though one wonders what would count as a Wiccan under this notion. Also, David Silverman, head of American Atheists, thinks that coming out as an atheist might be considered cool in 2011, or as some people put it, accepted. This seems a bit more difficult to believe, though America has at least allowed an atheist in Congress, which is a step in the right direction towards a sense of cooperation. In relation to atheism in the U.S., there is the notion in the wake of the Christmas billboard and bus advertisement wars between atheists and theists that there will be a call to ally both believers and non believers in God under a common good of human flourishing. Orson Scott Card, popular science fiction Mormon author, thinks that Mike Huckabee, noted for his anti Mormon statements in the 2008 campaigns, might have to change his tone if he wants to win over the Mormons that stand in some opposition to his nomination for 2012 in contrast to Mitt Romney, a popular Republican nominee as well in 2008. And one can hope that the prediction concerning GLBT dialogue with religion will come to fruition, with the recent repeal on some level of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military.

Concerning Muslims, we have a suggestion that Muslim/Jew dialogue may become more proactive from a moderate Muslim perspective, more than likely in America to start with. Without getting into the issues of the Middle East and the state of Israel, there will instead be more focus on common ground and a sense of spiritual community that exists between them. Also, there will probably be an upsurge of advocates for religious pluralism as an issue for the 2012 presidential race, such as from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, in the face of the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy that still seems to kindle hatred and vitriol towards Muslims. And the Park51 controversy will hopefully be little more than a minority griping about supposed insults to their sensitivities, most people seeing the bridge-building potential of a community center with Muslim undertones with New York’s religious diversity. Not to mention by this point people have probably realized that it’s just a passing memory in the back of one’s mind, since it’s going to be hidden behind all the buildings between it and the memorial actually being built at Ground Zero.

And since the Christian majority of the country always seems to feel various levels of frustration and fear, there are predictions surrounding their development. The Tea Party and religious conservatives of various stripes will no doubt be pressuring Republicans to remain consistent to the party agenda, particularly fiscal responsibility and cultural conservativism. And with the increase in attacks on Christian churches in the Middle East, the coining of the term “Christianophobia” will start competing for space with “Islamaphobia”, which was a strong buzzword in 2010. And with people feeling like the U.S. is becoming less like their ideal “Christian nation”, evangelicals, along with triumphalists and dominionists of the Christian variety, will focus their efforts in a more radical direction, which one Christian author notes might steer more people away from the conservative flavor of Christianity and into the liberal threads that exist. In short, Christianity can be said to be going through a radical transition phase of one side accepting their potential loss of influence in some sense in an increasingly diverse religious culture and those that will continue to push for more influence that they think they deserve with the infection of historical revisionism in favor of Christianity further polluting their minds.

And what is most common in terms of predictions for 2011 is actually not far from my birthday. May 21, 2011 has been predicted by one Harold Camping to be the date for the oft spoken about Rapture, where all the good Christians will be teleported somewhere while all the bad people like me will stick around for about 7 years or so suffering at the hands of some Antichrist, from what I recall. Ironically, though, Mr. Camping had predicted the end of days 16 years or so ago, to happen on September 6th, 1994. Not unlike the Great Disappointment in 1844, people hoped for Judgment Day and were sorely disappointed; though I wonder how many people were so willing to sell all their possessions and otherwise separate themselves from the profane world in the hopes of whatever is promised in scriptures. I find more agreement with most Christians on this topic, contrasting with my common ground to the minority of Christians on celebrating Jesus’ supposed birthday. It is said in scriptures by Jesus himself that only God knows the day or the hour when the final judgment and rapture will occur (Matthew 24: 36, Mark 13:32). I won’t even get into details about how the Rapture doctrine was only formalized in the late 1700s; but suffice it to say, eschatology in Christianity has probably been one of the more contentious aspects next to soteriology. In layman’s terms, the only thing that gets people more mad at each other than whether one group will go to heaven or hell is when God’s judgment will actually happen.

So here’s hoping I’ll still be celebrating my 24th year when the date comes. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

The World's End Reimagined

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/23/doomsday-leader-flabbergasted-that-the-end-didnt-arrive/

First off, I imagine everyone’s happy that I was able to celebrate my 24th birthday. But it’s been a week since Harold Camping’s failed prediction of the beginning of the end, and he’s already long since initiated his contingency plan, now saying the world will end in October, even though the catastrophic earthquake he said would happen May 21 didn’t occur anywhere in the world. In his own words, it was an “error of interpretation, not of fact,” In short he’s bought himself about 5 months to gather as much profit as he can to spread his Christian message in the meantime. He qualified, however, that his ministry won’t use their time to change their message and warn people that the end is coming conclusively at the new date. Instead, they’re doing everything else to spread the gospel across the U.S., or whatever else they’re doing with what amounts to about 18 million dollars just from 2009 in earnings Some have said Camping is just using these people to amass all this money and it wouldn’t surprise me, though people can do very disturbing and unsympathetic things in the name of some greater good. In the case of our elderly preacher here, he thinks gathering all this money is to a greater good of spreading God’s word, even at the cost of people putting themselves into bankruptcy because they trust in his charismatic teachings about biblical eschatology. It’s that charisma that can make people think Camping might just be a sociopath feigning his religious beliefs in order to manipulate people into giving him money and praise and then just abandoning them to their own devices when things go bad.

He tried to soften the blow of disappointment to his followers by saying that God decided not to make the world suffer with 5 months of tribulation, which is an odd amount of time compared to what seems to be a much longer stretch in Revelation, where he’s no doubt drawing some of his inspiration about Armageddon from. Of course, this could just be more psychological tactics to keep the people following him in spite of such despair. A lot of the followers were apparently not in a huge panic over this, but merely humbled by their own human arrogance to even think that they could predict the end of the world at all. But I wonder if everyone that followed Camping before will continue to do so when he hasn’t exactly succeeded in his message the last time in 1994 and now he has a second failure under his belt. If it were me, I’d probably have developed some stronger skepticism, but then, my mind might be wired differently enough that I wouldn’t have ever conceivably been sucked into this conspiracy. The combination of saying God is merciful and that God is faithful is probably what’s keeping these people from falling into utter despondency after many of them have sold a great deal of their belongings and devoted a good portion of their lives this year with energy that could have been directed towards their families and other more practical affairs compared to this fiasco of biblical numerological superstition. Not to mention there’s the whole reinforcement that your faith must be strong in times of trouble, so people will persist even after bankrupting themselves at times, having isolated themselves from their families for months or more and otherwise wasting their life hoping for the afterlife to come.

Lorenzo DiTommaso, associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Canada, who’s writing a book titled The Architecture of Apocalypticism, says this change in plans for Camping’s warning of God’s impending judgment is not unusual, especially when you consider it’s observable across history that these sorts of movements have caught themselves before they completely crash and reinterpret things as spiritual instead of physical, such as what happened with certain groups that split off from the Millerites after the Great Disappointment of 1844, saying Jesus returned spiritually instead of physically in a flash of clouds and light. I’m curious on that one though, because wasn’t Jesus already in heaven and the spiritual realm by association? So how did he spiritually return, unless you’re referring to the spiritual realm on earth? Maybe they thought Jesus would do some great revival? That technically could be argued to have happened about 40 years or so after the Great Disappointment, called the Third Great Awakening. Resulting denominations from this period included Christian Science and the Holiness movements. This period was at the very least a likely response to the failure of the Millerites and a reinterpretation of Jesus’ second coming to require that people reform the entire earth, which of course meant people had to spread the Gospel with more vigor than they had before. DiTomasso also notes that in these kinds of movements, faith supersedes theory and theory serves only to interpret the evidence. To simplify this, it means that your belief that the end is coming will always override the failures of predictions based on “human” methods, like mathematics and such. And any theory, or model if you will, only serves to reinterpret the evidence as is necessary, such as Camping now saying that his May 21st date was seemingly superfluous or incorrect to begin with and that October 21st is the real final date. The general message seems to be that the spiritual end of the earth was May 21 and that the physical end of the earth is October 21. So if this is indeed Camping’s beliefs, he’s following neatly along with post-Millerite reactions over a century ago; what a concept!

Overall, this doesn’t surprise me, and yet, I wonder what will happen in the far future when October comes and goes and nothing happens at all; no earthquakes, no firestorms, no meteors, nothing at all. Will the date be recalculated a third time or will it just be surrendered to God’s plan and forgiveness will be begged for, because he’s only a lowly human? Either way, I won’t bother myself the least over it, except of course in this brief article. I’d much rather expend my energy on fruitful pursuits instead of worrying about the end of the world creeping up on us slowly over the next billion years or so. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.