The Book of Revelations. A question.

[Purpleice]

I have a Christian friend who strongly believes that the world is going to end with one superpower in charge of everything in the world and that humanity is doomed. The rise in drugs and drinking and superpower governments make her feel it may happen soon and it’s all in the Book of Revelations. Is this a usual Christian belief?

My family are very religious- they think we are already in the end times- Corona virus global warming etc.
I have several family members who have stockpiled- food, water, batteries, candles etc.

Thanks @speakout - that answers the question - she really seems quite worried about it.

No, I would say that isn’t a common opinion. There may be a (perhaps vocal?) group that believe in that interpretation, but most Christians I know don’t have that view.

No. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic in a tradition of Judeo Christian writing that goes back a long way and includes the book of Daniel and some of the prophets in the Old Testament. It is trying to make sense of the world in which it was written, first century after the death of Jesus, and not a world 1600 or 2000 years later.

I remember something about end times being when the lion lies down with the lamb.

Which I was told meant that the the Middle East would make peace.

So when that happens I’ll be expecting it to be game over. Be interesting to see if there is a rapture or not.

some people take revelation literally where others interpret it differently. (a sort of picture that shit things happen in the world, God is holy, the world will end at some point, jesus will come back to earth) There are lots of different beliefs with swanky names based around revelation some to do with a1000 year period.

Many Christians believe that the world will end with the return of Christ, when God will judge everyone. how, when and what precedes it is disputed.

Some things are clearer... Jesus said no-one knows when it will happen. I suspect that people have believed it is sometime next week for the last 2000 years.

Perhaps in America it is but not here.

I’d say it’s a usual Christian belief in the sense that for the last 2000 years there have been Christians convinced that they are living in end times.

Is it so unusual?
My mother has been a member of three different types of curches- all in the UK, and talk of the "end times" featured significantly in all their services and bibe study classes.

Yes. The mainstream denominations in the UK would have some thing to say about eschatology, which is the belief that there will be a judgement at the end time, but they would not be treating the book of Revelation as a blow by blow prophesy of how that all works out. My experience is that it is the more conservative Protestant parts of Christianity that get obsessed with Revelation. I suspect this is because of Biblical literalism and no acknowledgement of different literary genres within the text. I could go to three conservative or fundamentalist churches and hear tales of the end times each week and three liberal or inclusive churches and never hear Revelation preached on at all.

Maybe the world has already ended and what we are now experiencing is judgement?

mostlydrinkstea interesting.
My mother has been part of a Scottish Protestant church ( quite fire and brimstone) , a Mormon church and she is now a Baptist.
All three seem quite hung up on Revelations.
I assumed all churches are the same- but obviously not.

Churches really aren't the same which is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. I used to live in a town where there were around 40 versions of conservative churches. Some where full on charismatic and speaking in tongues and others were stripped back Protestant where any Scottish Presbyterian would have felt right at home. I was brought up in choral and floral churches C of E churches so it was all a bit of a shock to find so many versions of C of E and non conformist churches where there were no women in leadership and the word of the minister was the same as God's. The RC church in that town was pretty liberal, the URC was not as liberal as some and I never really worked the Methodists out as they were between ministers but their singing was fabulous. There was one small baptist church that wouldn't speak to the moderately conservative baptist church as they regarded them as hell bound liberals. We had lots of Orthodox come along to us as it was miles to nearest Orthodox Church but they weren't allowed to take communion as Orthodox don't recognise C of E ordination. Oh and lots of Hindus, again no temple locally so they left offerings on the altar.

Fascinating from the inside but probably very confusing from the outside!

I don't think so.

Well if the end of the works follows Middle East peace then depressingly we’re a long way of the end.
Also not sure about that interpretation given that at the time of writing one of the religions involved in the Middle East conflict didn’t exist and one has barely started

@mostlydrinkstea

Churches really aren't the same which is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. I used to live in a town where there were around 40 versions of conservative churches. Some where full on charismatic and speaking in tongues and others were stripped back Protestant where any Scottish Presbyterian would have felt right at home. I was brought up in choral and floral churches C of E churches so it was all a bit of a shock to find so many versions of C of E and non conformist churches where there were no women in leadership and the word of the minister was the same as God's. The RC church in that town was pretty liberal, the URC was not as liberal as some and I never really worked the Methodists out as they were between ministers but their singing was fabulous. There was one small baptist church that wouldn't speak to the moderately conservative baptist church as they regarded them as hell bound liberals. We had lots of Orthodox come along to us as it was miles to nearest Orthodox Church but they weren't allowed to take communion as Orthodox don't recognise C of E ordination. Oh and lots of Hindus, again no temple locally so they left offerings on the altar.

Fascinating from the inside but probably very confusing from the outside!

The joke is that a Christian is stranded on a desert island. Over time he builds himself a village from driftwood and scraps. A pub, club, shop and two chapels. When he’s eventually rescued they ask him why two chapels? ‘Well you see that’s the one I go to and that’s the one I don’t go to’

my colleague who is Muslim also believes we are in the end times
I haven't asked her much about it but was surprised this featured in Islam too

Your friend may be a Jehovahs Witness which are a very fringe sect of Christianity. So fringe they are more than half cultist.

This has been interesting, many thanks. My friend is a Methodist. However, I don’t think they are getting their information from their church (which is just online services at the moment).

There are definitely some groups within Christianity who take every word of Revelation seriously and so interpret everything around them to try and fit it into that narrative - the 'Left Behind' series of books encapsulates this kind of thinking which is often ultra conservative republicans in the US, with various factions of differing flavours who go full on end times in their thinking. I've seen some of it in the whole conspiracy theory thing around Covid - that Covid is a scam perpetuated by 'them', them being those who want to microchip you with 666 and control you in order to set up a New World Order. I have seen this kind of thinking quite a bit, though only know one person who thinks this way, and I know hundreds of Christians. Most of us see Revelation as apocalyptic literature, as generally metaphorical language used by the writer as inspired by God to communicate something of how one day Jesus will return, but don't tend to take the words as literal in and of themselves. Literalists tend to get tied up in a whole load of knots when it comes to apocalyptic literature because it is so very out there. I believe as a Christian (full on charismatic variety, sorry @mostlydrinkstea (although you know me well enough )) that God will renew the earth, that Christ will return, that all tears will be wiped away, all sickness will be gone etc etc, there's a load of really beautiful language in revelation about how death will be no more, the old things will pass away. Literalists tend to forget that the Bible is a whole load of genres, a rich library full of poetry and metaphor and history and prophecy, and that God can inspire the words in all of these genres without having to be held to each one as completely literal. We owe it to the text to employ the tools of hermeneutics in order to understand what the author was trying to communicate to what audience, and to mine the riches of it for ourselves and one another.

I find Revelation bizarre but exciting, challenging and motivating. It fires me with hope as well for what will be, but I am miles from taking it as literal. It's too rich for that.

My friend thinks that Covid started in a lab in Wuhan and mutated. I’ve known her for a long time, but the Idea of taking Revelations as actually happening now I found rather extreme. For reference am an atheist, but interested in hearing different ideas. I also felt a bit sad that she had no hope for my future.

Oddly enough it took a module on a MTh course to make me read the book of Revelation in depth as I was brought up in a very liberal church that didn't 'do' that book of the Bible. As well as all the bonkers stuff, which made a lot more sense in its historical context, there is this underlying idea of the renewal of creation and which gives me hope on dark days. I've requested Revelation 21 v 1-4 at my funeral as the imagery of God being with his people and wiping away every tear and there being no more mourning is a powerful one.

In my blundering, novice biblical scholarship I have read some interesting readings of Revelation in the context of the all encompassing might of Rome and the hope that there will be retribution for the fall of the temple in Jerusalem. Since then Revelation has been read over and over again in the context of the main superpower of the day. Tonnes of writing on this subject.

There's even a load of wiki on the subject of historical interpretation

I'm planning on reading Nick Page "Revelation Road" on this subject. He's an entertaining (believe it or not) Christian historian. It's not top of my list because understand Revelation isn't a priority right now. Lots of other stuff to understand first.

I believe in God but shy away from judgement day. I feel like I'm stuck in a more Buddhist eschatology of becoming one with the divine. Still, I don't take God's love and God's justice lightly.

If I hear someone say we are in end times I think they are a bit crazy. But I understand why people think that with war, famine, pestilence etc raging across the earth. Global warming, floods, extreme weather, Donald Trump, red skies, plagues of locusts etc. It all looks a bit apocalyptic. Eventually some who thinks they are living in end times is going to be right!

I find it sad that the apostles thought that they were going to see Jesus again in their lifetime and it didn't happen for them.