What is in Kelvin's Head?

You’ll have had your apocalypse

18/12/2013
So, Mr Harold Camping has died. Do you remember him? Sure you do. He was one of the most prominent predictors of the end of the world in recent years. There was quite a worldwide sensation in May 2011 when he predicted that all the true believers in the world would be taken up to heaven – raptured in other words. This would be followed by a pretty grim time for all those left on earth who would have fire, and plague to deal with on their own without the true believers. This would be followed by the end of the world which was scheduled for October 2011. This was the first apocalypse of the twitter generation. The rapture quickly became the #rapture and Mr Camping was mocked, relentlessly mocked all around the world, not least when the end times did not appear. Mr Camping had the media on his side. Well, he had his own media empire on his own side anyway. He appears to have genuinely believed his folly and committed his radio network (Family Radio) to spread the word.

Well apocalypses and their prophets come and go. One of the things that was interesting about the whole affair was how interested the world suddenly became in eschatology (that’s talking about the end of the world to those who don’t like theological words). With twitter going full pelt, all of a sudden, pretty technical theological words were being bandied about in jokes by the most surprising people.

Of course, some used the whole thing to mock Christianity. For many detractors we are never going to be seen as anything other than an amalgam of the nutters and Mr Camping became symptomatic of all that seemed silly about religious faith in general and about Christianity in particular.

It is worth pausing though as Advent makes its tumultuous way into the feast that follows, thinking about what Christians do really believe about all this.

Firstly – most Christians would say that anyone claiming to know the exact date and time of the end of the world is neither to be believed nor indulged. Jesus himself led the way here saying that no-one knew the day or the hour. However, there is a great presumption in that – which is that there is a date and time for the eschaton in the first place.

For me, it seems a shame for eschatology to be mixed up in all the cartoon buffoonery of mocking Mr Camping and his followers.

Talk about the end times in Christianity is not, for me, all about some spooky day and hour that is just around the corner like a great cosmic bogey man. Some Christians, from voices in the new testament like Saul/Paul of Tarsus to Larry Norman appear to have believed precisely that. However, I think that is to miss the point. The apocalypse has failed to materialise often enough for Christians to make their peace with it and use it to inform the life of today.

Here’s what I think the great stories and images of the bible have to teach people today:
- Firstly, live as though you’ve not much time left. How much generosity, love, compassion and justice can you build into what you do today.
- Secondly, life is fragile. Live with gratitude and thanksgiving for what you have.
- Thirdly, learn the lesson that some sincere, devout, often holy people have got things wrong – even voices that appear in the bible.
There are building blocks for a great experience of the world in that little list. Building blocks that make faith work and can help one to connect to a God worth knowing.
advent, end times, eschatology

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
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Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

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Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply