I heard a lot of talk about the “end times” and Armageddon when I was growing up. The old bromide that we live in an increasingly wicked and doomed world could pop up in conversation at any time. Adults would warn about this, and TV preachers would spew scary sermons about how we had better be prepared because it could happen at any moment.
Armageddon talk was usually triggered by something the doomsayer didn’t like…a TV show with a gay character, a movie showing naked people, music that wasn’t considered wholesome, women wearing pants. It was an accusation. The underlying message was that this world was going along pretty good until these nasty people messed things up.
Armageddon talk was usually triggered by something the doomsayer didn’t like…a TV show with a gay character, a movie showing naked people, music that wasn’t considered wholesome, women wearing pants. It was an accusation. The underlying message was that this world was going along pretty good until these nasty people messed things up.
But the world hadn’t been going along pretty good. The world has always been pretty shitty for a large number of people, and the things the fundamentalists were complaining about seemed pretty petty. Is seeing a naked ass on the big screen really all that horrible compared to slavery and genocide?
They used it as an excuse to turn their back on everything and everyone they didn’t like or understand, while proclaiming themselves to be morally superior. It was the fundamentalist equivalent of a “humph.”
Back then, when they got into the specifics, they were sure, absolutely sure, that it would all come to a showdown between the United States (the good guys) and the Soviet Union (the bad guys).
Now that the Cold War has been resolved, they plug in new conflicts and recycle the same old bullshit and pretend they never made those earlier bad predictions.
I’ve been hearing about the “signs” since I was a baby, and I figured out early on that if I strayed too far from their aesthetic, I might become a “sign” myself. I lived in fear of the putdown, the humph, the rejection, and when I figured out I was gay at age 11, I was sure that many in my family and community would insist that I was one of those nasty so-and-sos who was going to cause God to destroy the world if they found out about me.
The funny thing is, the people who continuously made the dire predictions never actually seemed to prepare for them. They continued to buy stuff and make plans for upcoming weddings and vacations.
And aren’t the fundamentalists supposed to be looking forward to this cataclysmic event where all of us sinners get our just desserts while they float up in the sky to be with Jesus?
They used it as an excuse to turn their back on everything and everyone they didn’t like or understand, while proclaiming themselves to be morally superior. It was the fundamentalist equivalent of a “humph.”
Back then, when they got into the specifics, they were sure, absolutely sure, that it would all come to a showdown between the United States (the good guys) and the Soviet Union (the bad guys).
Now that the Cold War has been resolved, they plug in new conflicts and recycle the same old bullshit and pretend they never made those earlier bad predictions.
I’ve been hearing about the “signs” since I was a baby, and I figured out early on that if I strayed too far from their aesthetic, I might become a “sign” myself. I lived in fear of the putdown, the humph, the rejection, and when I figured out I was gay at age 11, I was sure that many in my family and community would insist that I was one of those nasty so-and-sos who was going to cause God to destroy the world if they found out about me.
The funny thing is, the people who continuously made the dire predictions never actually seemed to prepare for them. They continued to buy stuff and make plans for upcoming weddings and vacations.
And aren’t the fundamentalists supposed to be looking forward to this cataclysmic event where all of us sinners get our just desserts while they float up in the sky to be with Jesus?
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