Someone asked me recently if I miss my job. I said I miss my colleagues more than anything. A big part of that, of course, included using giphys via Slack to communicate our emotions and responses to any number of things facing us in a given day.
One of my favorites was from The Simpsons Movie and it was a shot of the community church next door to Moe’s Bar. A dark shadow covers the sky in what’s thought to be the beginning of the apocalypse. In a panic, all the people flee the church and disappear into the bar, while all the people in the bar flee for the church. Hilarious.
I don’t know if the end of the world is an innate fear that we have as individuals or societies, or if it’s largely something that’s been propagated by religion. I suspect the latter.
To that point, the other night, my kids and I were finishing dinner and we were discussing some of the new norms of dealing with the current coronavirus pandemic.
At one point, they started talking about all the claims being spouted on social media about how we’re in the end times. Talk of the rapture. The mark of the beast. Punishment by God. The return of Jesus.
And all the other visually compelling and irresistable stuff that’s rooted largely in the Bible’s climactic book of Revelation.
Oh boy.
In recent years, we’ve had a number of conversations about the Bible. What it is. What it isn’t. How it should and should not be approached. How these perspectives differ vastly from many Christian communities, and why they differ.
These chats were meant to help them navigate the variety of backgrounds in their own social circles, but also to provide some context as to the rather abrupt departure years ago from the church we attended.
All of that said, I was pretty sure that my kids weren’t likely to be negatively impacted by all this talk of the end times, but I didn’t want to make assumptions or take chances.
After all, kids are impressionable.
I was a bit younger than my daughter when some proselytizers left a cartoon evangelism tract at my house that depicted a man being thrown into a lake of fire because his name wasn’t written in the Book of Life.
And my oldest brother was somewhere between my daughter’s and my son’s age when the youth group he attended watched an “end times” movie in which he distinctly recalls people letting out blood-curdling screams as they were hauled off to be beheaded after refusing to accept the mark of the beast.
Two vivid images emblazoned for a lifetime into the psyches of impressionable kids.
Did they paralyze us for life? Of course not. But the thing is, fear can seep – or be pounded – into our psyches. It can find its way into our cells.
So yeah, my kids and I had a talk. Or perhaps more accurately, I talked and they mostly listened. And in the case of my daughter, it was somewhat begrudgingly.
“There are some things that are important to understand…”
Now, the church that I spent many years in wasn’t into End Times theology, but, institutionally and individually, we did hold the rather traditional Christian perspective that the Bible is God’s inerrant word. I don’t think anyone really knew what to do with the book of Revelation, though, so we generally just avoided it altogether.
Thankfully, quite a few years ago, I ended up rather unexpectedly learning quite a bit about the history of Revelation, including how its apocalyptic style of writing was very common at the time. In fact, there were all kinds of similar writings floating around the Christian communities back in the day. This one simply isn’t as unique as most people might think.
It was all hugely insightful to me and allowed me to step into this conversation with some confidence. And most notably, with zero fear.
“The book of Revelation was never meant to be taken literally and it does not predict the future.”
Much to my daughter’s dismay, this led to a tangential conversation when my son asked why people think that the Bible does predict the future. We kept that one brief because it’s a complex topic and I knew there wouldn’t be patience for a deep dive.
Returning to Revelation, I went on to explain that it’s an imagery-laden text full of symbolism that’s reflective of the political turmoil from the time when it was written. Beasts and dragons and whores – all symbolic representations.
“Dragons and what?” my son asked, perplexed, eyebrows raised.
“Whores,” I repeated.
“That’s what I thought you said.” He turned to my daughter and they exchanged curious glances.
And the Number of the Beast? It’s simply a reference to the Roman Emperor, Nero. Somewhat anticlimactic, for sure, but true.
“There was this thing called ‘Gematria’ and it was a way to assign numbers for letters. 666 was how you spelled ‘Nero.’”
At this point, my son’s interest was really piqued, but my daughter was beyond ready to be done.
I tried to wrap up the conversation quickly, telling them that it was a super tumultuous time the people were living in and that all the symbolism was essentially a way to talk discreetly about the government and the things that were going on. Also, it was a way to give the people hope.
The kids started talking over each other.
“How do you spell that word?” my son asked, as he went for his phone so he could Google “Gematria,” while my daughter asked with exasperation, “Whyyyyy are we having this conversation?”
I spelled the word for him and then answered her.
“Because there are a lot of things in the world that can cause fear and anxiety. And the last thing any of us needs to be dealing with is fear that’s being caused by religious beliefs.”
We wrapped up the conversation and moved on for the evening, but not before the kids showed me a few video clips of various people – including a pastor – speaking of these dire times and warning the return of Jesus.
In the day or two following the dinnertime conversation, I started to think that maybe I was overreacting to the whole thing. Maybe I was being overly sensitive.
Then I happened across an online discussion relating to the flick that my brother had told me about. I perused the comments from people who had seen it as kids. Turns out my brother wasn’t the only one it wreaked havoc on.
Some choice highlights included people who recalled it as an element of an “effed up childhood,” the source of unbelievable childhood trauma, something that scared “the living shit” out of them.
Good stuff, huh?
One girl credited her most vivid childhood memories to the night she saw that movie (and the others in its series) at an all-nighter at her church.
And yet another person said that the films, coupled with the book of Revelation itself, served as “nightmare fodder” for the remainder of her youth.
Okay, so even though my kids weren’t subject to this movie or any of the subsequent films in this genre over the last several decades, I guess I’m not overreacting. This stuff can have a powerful impact.
The thing that’s ironic – unfortunately ironic, in my opinion – is that the only reason the book of Revelation made it into the Bible to begin with is because there was a theory at the time that it was written by one of the disciples who walked with Jesus (a theory that’s long been discarded by nearly everyone in that field of studies).
And it was only included somewhat reluctantly, it seems. Some churches – I think maybe Eastern Orthodox? – actually excluded it from their canon of scripture because they knew it didn’t belong there and that it was being misused.
Yet here we are. Sigh.
It’s unlikely that the book of Revelation is going anywhere. Maybe someday evangelical America will be able to approach it a bit more responsibly.
In the meantime, I guess we can all rely on Simpsons giphys to make light of something that really doesn’t warrant the fear and power that it’s wielded over the years.
(Side note: At the time of this post, said giphy can be seen here.)
