Beatnik Christianity Begrudgingly Tolerates Just a Dash of Apocalyptic Rumination

First century Christians genuinely believed the Lord would return in their lifetime, including the New Testament authors. Can we go ahead and agree they got that one wrong without it seeming irreverent? For that matter, can we please acknowledge it’s unlikely Jesus is coming back this year or this century? Now that we’re a couple millennia out, who’s to say the Second Coming won’t happen until 3,000 or 300,000 CE? Yes, we should live with a sense of carpe diem faithfulness as though it could happen at any moment, but can we cut the anxious fearmongering about it?1

A fun read is Francis X. Gumerlock’s book, The Day and the Hour. It’s a chronological list of dates with descriptions of Christians who’ve felt certain they were witnessing the fulfillment of biblical prophecy in the “Last Days.”2 My question is, doesn’t there eventually come a point where each and every generation being convinced they’re living in the End Times and then dying off anyway while the world goes on stops being cute? Those who are obsessed with eschatological speculation sound like quacks. And if I seem a tad uncharitable, it’s because my patience has worn thin.3

As much as I wish it were possible as a recovering Pentecostal, there’s no avoiding the reality that apocalypticism is part of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. There’s a smattering of it all throughout both the Old and New Testaments before culminating in John’s Revelation. The question I think we need to be asking ourselves is how these texts are intended to orient us. Are they supposed to direct us toward joyful anticipation of Christ’s return or sorrowful dread of an Anti-Christ’s rule, hopeful redemption of a good world or fearful escapism from a bad world?4

Take 1 Thessalonians 4 as one example. Putting aside the fact that nobody believed in a rapture until the 1830s, that nonsense is based on a terribly wooden interpretation. It’s not about literally Superman-ing up to meet Jesus in the air. It’s a cultural-political imperial metaphor.5 The custom was for the visiting emperor to be peacefully met outside the walled gates by the masses and graciously welcomed into the city. This passage shouldn’t traumatize children with fear of being left behind. It’s about the King’s jubilant return to fully inaugurate His Kingdom of shalom.

The original beatniks weren’t immune to apocalypticism. Biblical apocalyptic literature wasn’t their jam, but they were influenced by Oswald Spengler’s apocalyptic vision of history in his book, The Decline of the West. Combining that and the biblical tradition, it seems fair for beatnik Christianity to have a dash of apocalyptic rumination as part of the recipe for a countercultural, Jesus-centered spirituality.6 The parts I reject are the awful biblical interpretations, conspiracy theories, eschatological speculation, and fearmongering. Get that Christian culture shit outta here.