Bill Berkowitz: '2012' -- Religious Right Leader Excoriates His Own for Aiding and Abetting 'End Of Times' Hype and Hysteria

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Berkowitz

Move over Nostradamus, "Rapture" kings and queens, "End Times" prophets, and Y2K hucksters. Here comes the real "end of days" brought to you by the Mayan calendar: Not! In its first weekend, the film "2012" was a box office sensation; it took in $225 million -- $65 million domestically and $160 million internationally. "2012" is an special effects spectacular, combining the star power of its cast with the kind of doomsday scenario -- derived from the end of the Mayan Calendar –- that apparently is being lapped up by movie audiences everywhere. Talk about going global!

In attempt to both explain and neutralize both the hype and the hysteria generated by the film's doomsday scenario, Gary DeMar, president of an organization called American Vision ("Exercising Servanthood Dominion"), recently wrote a column titled "Avoiding Doomsday Hype and Hysteria." In the piece, DeMar –- who is not so well-known amongst the general public -- excoriates those Religious Right leaders that have consistently set a date for the end of time, the rapture, etc.

While he praises Mark Hitchcock, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, who is the author of "2012: The Bible and the End of the World," for, among other things, "offer[ing] a critical evaluation of the supposed Mayan prophecy," he is critical of Hitchcock's end of the age theorizing.

According to DeMar -- a member of Midway Presbyterian Church, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America and the author of 25 books -- in describing the film, Hitchcock told Christianity Today that "It's the eschatology of the New Age. It's basically a mystical, New Age belief system that I believe is spiritual deception. I want to take 2012 and bend the curve to God's purposes, and use this as a springboard to tell people what the Bible says."  

DeMar pointed out that Tim LaHaye, the longtime Religious Right leader, and co-author -- along with Jerry Jenkins –- of "Left Behind" the mega-best-selling series of apocalyptic novels, "offers a similar evaluation." LaHaye "believes the 2012 mania is distracting people from what the Bible predicts regarding the Rapture, Tribulation and Second Coming. 'The date has been picked up by so many groups and cults that you have to conclude that someone or something inspired all these writers to come to essentially the same period -- and that would be divination or spiritism,' LaHaye says."

"'It's probably satanic because there is nothing in the Bible about it. In fact, the Bible forbids us to even think about a day and an hour,'" LaHaye pointed out.  

DeMar finds all of this fairly amusing and, at the same time, hypocritical: "Now the dispensational prophetic sensationalists have to compete with the crazy New Agers and secular fright mongers."

"How many decades have we had to endure predictions of an imminent end from Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, and many others?", DeMar, the president of American Vision, which maintains that its "mission has been to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation -- from Genesis to Revelation since 1978," asks.

"Falwell … stated on a December 27, 1992, television broadcast, 'I do not believe there will be another millennium . . . or another century.' He was wrong. John F. Walvoord, described as 'the world's foremost interpreter of biblical prophecy . . . [expected] the Rapture to occur in his own lifetime.' It didn't. Walvoord died in 2002 at the age of 92. These men claim to reject specific date setting, but they have no trouble and see nothing wrong with identifying the last generation. But even in this, their track record has been dismal, and yet they want respect from the non-believing world when they speak on Bible prophecy."

While the likes of Falwell and LaHaye "decry date setting, … some don't seem to have a problem identifying what generation will be the 'last generation,'" DeMar writes. In this regard, DeMar is especially critical of LaHaye:

"Here's how LaHaye explains it: 'I refuse to set any date limits, for the Lord didn't, but he did specify a generation's experiences and said that he would return during that period. We are in the twilight of that generation -- that I firmly believe.' He wrote this nearly 20 years ago! Moreover, Hal Lindsey and Chuck Smith, who made some very definite predictions about 'last generation' (that it would end with a 'rapture' no later than 1988), seem to get a pass by their fellow dispensationalists who claim to condemn date setting." 

In a June 2000 interview with CNN's Larry King, LaHaye said that "people recognize that something is about to happen":

King: But weren't people saying this in 1890 and 1790? "It's coming. Boy, the apocalypse is coming. The end is near." They've always been saying it.

LaHaye: Well, we have more reason to believe that. Until Israel went back into the promised land, we couldn't really claim that the end times were coming. But ever since 1948, in subsequent years, we've realized that things are getting set up. It's stage setting for these momentous events.

King: Do you believe that some sort of end is coming?

LaHaye: Yes.

King: You believe that that will happen?

LaHaye: In fact, I believe there are a number of signs in Scripture that indicate it's going to come pretty soon. We say maybe within our lifetime.

DeMar points out that "Making predictions has been the stock and trade of prophecy writers like LaHaye. Of course, they don't pick a specific date, but they use words like 'pretty soon' and 'within our lifetime.' If they didn't make these concessions, their books would not sell."

In 2003, Jerry Jenkins, LaHaye's co-author of the "Left Behind" series, wrote a book titled "Soon: The Beginning of the End." In May of next year, LaHaye and Craig Parshall, senior vice-president and general counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters who has authored seven bestseller suspense novels, will publish "Edge of Apocalypse," another apocalyptic novel, the first book in a new series called 'The End." In its pre-publication promo, Zondervan, the book's publisher calls it "an adrenaline-fueled political thriller laced with End Times prophecy."

"Don't these guys know when to stop?" asks DeMar. "Like those who are attracted to the prophecies of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar, there is a steady stream of gullible Christians who know nothing about the failed predictions of some of their favorite Christian prophecy writers but are willing to shell out money for prophecy books that in the end fail to deliver."

DeMar concludes by quoting New Testament scholar Ben Witherington: "The Mayans no more knew when the end would come than anyone else does. It's time for theological weather forecasting to be given up entirely. Even TV weathermen predicting ordinary events are more accurate."

And, writes DeMar, "this includes the 'we know the generation' prophecy writers like LaHaye, Jenkins, Hitchcock, and Parshall."

While DeMar stews, cine-plexians have more doomsday films to look forward to including "The Road," a tale about a father and son attempting to survive in post apocalyptic America, based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, which opens next week. And, for those that eschew doomsday fare, James Cameron's long-awaited 500 million-dollar 3-D science-fiction film "Avatar," will premiere in December.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement and a frequent writer for Z Magazine, Religion Dispatches and other online publications. He documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories, and defeats of the American Right from a progressive perspective.

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