Thinking About End Times

I was waking back from The Dollar General thinking about something I had listened to on C-Span2's History TV about Trump. The writer who was giving his talk mentioned he thought the radical right is bound on self-destruction. Which led to me revisiting an idea I have had for some time now: the Protestant love for the Apocalypse. Not all of Christianity does not emphasize the End in such ecstatic ways (certainly not the Orthodox, and, I suppose, the Roman Catholics or the Anglicans) It seems to me the same thinking applies to the MAGA crowd. There is something ecstatic in the rhetoric of both groups revolving around destruction and violence. Of both groups, I think they look to evade engagement with the cares and duties of the world as-it-is with the escape into immolation. The only good thing I can see about them is finding my own nihilism was not such an outlier.

In connection with, I think the essay Is Christianity a ‘luxury belief’? relevant:

Sometimes a seemingly minor story speaks volumes about this Government.   Last week The House, Parliament’s in-house magazine, reported that “a former senior adviser to the [Church of England’s] bishops in the House of Lords” had said that bishops were coming away from encounters with junior Home Office staff “feeling like lepers”.  Relations with the Home Office had become “toxic” and “unfixable”.   Might then Christianity be one of those “luxury beliefs”, shared with the “woke elite”, which Home Secretary Suella Braverman, during her 3 October Conservative Party Conference speech, positioned herself as opposing?

During the Lords debates on the Illegal Migration Act of July 2023, the Archbishop of Canterbury described its key measures as “morally unacceptable and politically impractical”.  Justin Welby’s condemnation seems to be the reason why, when he “reached out” to the Home Secretary – Americanisms seem to have reached into Lambeth Palace – he was rebuffed.

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Church leaders make different choices.  They hold a “luxury belief” in a just society and in values derived from a two thousand year-old tradition rooted in the Gospels.  They wish to see the common good flourish.  Some of their beliefs and the demands of the common good will be costly and inconvenient to implement. Some will be contentious.   But what is most contentious is a Government that promotes the views and values of an extreme right-wing minority, and, like Suella Braverman, dismisses compassion as squeamishness. This is a Government that rejects dialogue with the established Church over matters of national importance, including Britain’s global standing.

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