A significant percentage of the population sees these looming crises through a specific lens: a belief that humanity is waging the opening skirmishes of a cosmic war between Good and Evil that will usher in the Kingdom of God. Such belief enables an ever-escalating sense of urgency - very real threats to the middle and lower classes (outsourcing, rising fuel and food costs, etc) combine with perceived threats (secularism, homosexuality, ethnic/religious others) to become overwhelming evidence of the tribulations that signal apocalypse."
I find this amusing considering how often I hear the proclamation either that eschatology doesn't really have any practical significance on the day-to-day, or that those who disagree with a particular popular book-generating eschatology are false teachers sent by Satan.
When I look at the degree of superficiality in some of contemporary Western Christian culture, I'm scared too :)
I find this amusing considering how often I hear the proclamation either that eschatology doesn't really have any practical significance on the day-to-day, or that those who disagree with a particular popular book-generating eschatology are false teachers sent by Satan.
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet."
A sagging 401K is not to be compared with having the Assyrians outside your city walls, or having Nero as your Emperor.