The End Times is Old News: but it's really good for blog traffic! And about the Great Disappointment of 1844

Another in a long line of hysterical stories from The Obtuse Blogger (TOB).

There is really a website called the End Times Headlines: "News and Headlines from a Prophetic Perspective". Lake Worth pastor Olive was featured there when he was promoting his 'war on religion'.

The End Times is good for generating blog traffic. You can't have a serious discussion about the End Times though without a little dose of hysteria. It's sort of a package deal; you can't have one without the other. The Wikipedia page dealing with the End Times is a very long one starting well before the New Testament. 

On the Wikipedia page is a very interesting article about William Miller's Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844, when the world failed to come to an end as hoped for:

Both Millerite [followers of William Miller] leaders and followers were left generally bewildered and disillusioned. Responses varied: some continued to look daily for Christ's return, while others predicted different dates—among them April, July, and October 1845. Some theorized that the world had entered the seventh millennium—the "Great Sabbath", and that therefore, the saved should not work. Others acted as children, basing their belief on Jesus' words in Mark 10:15: "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Millerite O. J. D. Pickands used Revelation to teach that Christ was now sitting on a white cloud and must be prayed down. Probably the majority, however, simply gave up their beliefs and attempted to rebuild their lives. Some members rejoined their previous denominations. A substantial number joined the Shakers.

PBS' Paul Boyer on Frontline did a story on believers of the End Times (also called 'apocalypticism'), specifically about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians:

     I think doomsday cults are very significant. I see them in some ways like the canaries that used to be taken down into coal mines. If the canary died, you knew that there was a buildup of dangerous gases and you'd better be careful. It seems to me that doomsday cults tell us something about a contemporary cultural climate of anxiety, of apprehension, of uneasiness about trends in our contemporary world. And some groups, usually under the influence of a very charismatic and potent sort of leader, withdraw from the larger society and act on their belief system in a quite literal and sometimes catastrophic fashion. [emphasis added]

The End Times, apocalypticism, or the 'doomsday', whatever you wish to call it is nothing new. It's a "climate of anxiety" being manipulated by some very clever people.