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The End of the World For Dummies
25 May 2005
A call from a radio producer friend about a week-long "End of the World" special his show is planning (all scenarios discussed) reminded me of an odd and entertaining little book I've had on my desk for some time now, Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse: The Official Field Manual of the End of the World, by Jason Boyett. Doomsayers, religion writers, and religion snickerers alike will benefit from Boyett's "Apocalyptionary," which is an A-Z, slightly snarky glossary of the language with which we know our cosmic comeuppance.
"Eschatology" -- "the theological study of the end of human history" -- may be familiar to many, but most of us could use a primer on premillenialism, postmillenialism, and preterism, not to mention dispensationalism, "a Protestant theological system developed in the mid 1800s by English theologian John Nelson Darby, later popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible." There's more on dispensationalism, if you care, but the "Please Use It In a Sentence" section of Boyett's Apocalyptionary gets right to the most salient point about the term: "A majority of evangelical believers probably agree with the main tenets of dispensationalism, even though they don't have the slightest idea what the word means."
Boyett can say that, just like I can talk about my mama but you can't, because he's an evangelical himself. The book, in fact, may be an amusing bit of stealth evangelism. It's published by Relevant, a conservative evangelical publisher that embraces pop culture. In its Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse, pop culture hugs it back, and squeezes.
--Jeff Sharlet
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