Sergei Borisov: living in the “end times”

After September 11thm Americans buy much less than before. However, there is a sector of the economy that not only was unhurt after the terrorist attacks but even started to boom. The worse the news is for Americans, the better things are with preachers prophesying another apocalypse. Best selling is literature devoted to the “signs of the end times.”

Frankly speaking, the world already generated in the last century a whole lot of such omens, so the advent of something extraordinary in 2000 seemed imminent.

However, humanity has successfully passed the dangerous landmark only to encounter more spectacular signs at the very start of the 3d millennium. Many Americans believe that there is no way to go any further, as all the signs have come true, and it is only left to be waiting for the Second Coming.

Preachers have come up to capitalize on this popular sentiment (they have nearly become desperate: one predicted apocalypse comes after the other without being actually materialized). People were earlier taught that humanity will have to go through ordeals, wars, disasters, tribulations, and suffering. Those will be meant to show that the humanity has come to face its end, and the “end times” will come.

When the terrible events took happened in New York and Washington, many started to guess: qui prodest? All the names of terrorist groups were looked through. Osama bin Laden was made the terminator then. The preachers, of course, have nothing to do with the September attacks. Still, they have surely benefited form them. Literally, profits from the preaching business amount to millions of dollars. According to The New York Times, the advent of the year 2000 and the September 11th “breathed new energy” into the apocalyptic branch of theology. The preachers say that all that happened was no accident. The destruction of the World Trade Center towers became the last harbinger of the “end times.” Theologists warn of the Second Coming happening in the nearest future. Some pastors, starting their sermons, mention it may prove the last one.

Americans have really changed. They are more engaged in soul searching. They seek to interpret the secret meaning of what happened and more often turn to the Bible. A recent survey shows that the selling of documentary books of prophesies has increased by 71% since the September events.

Other theologists disapprove of their colleagues, saying they are going to extremes. Generally speaking, theology has always been subject to literal nterpretations of prophesies. Some of those interpretations were just erroneous. Still, it is difficult to change anything now. Americans keep on wondering if what is happening in Afghanistan and in the Middle East is the terminal war on earth and whether the times we are witnessing are the “end times.”

Sergei Borisov PRAVDA.Ru

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/26/34224.html