Times of crisis tend to engender apocalyptic thinking. We’re seeing that today during the coronavirus pandemic. Conspiracy theories abound, and some people are talking about the end of the world. Could the current crisis be God’s judgment for sinfulness or our persistent abuse of the environment? Is an apocalyptic reckoning at hand?
In our description of the long declension from evangelical social activism in the 19th century — social reform almost invariably directed toward those on the margins — to the evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, we encounter the speed bump of apocalypticism beginning in the late 19th century and continuing well into the 20th. The story, albeit in abbreviated form, looks something like this.
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