Y2K as an endtime sign: apocalypticism in America at the fin-de-millennium.

 
  {God} may be preparing to confound our language, to jam our 
  communications, scatter our efforts, and judge us for our sin and 
  rebellion against His Lordship. We are hearing from many sources that 
  January 1, 2000, will be a fateful day in the history of the world 
  --Jerry Falwell, Old Time Gospel Hour TV show. 
  (qtd. in Kellner, "Secular") 

IT IS PARADOXICAL THAT IN THE UNITED STATES--ONE OF THE MOST technologically advanced industrialized economies in the world today--a significant minority of the population are biblical literalists who contend that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, Jonah survived in the belly of a fish, and the world will be destroyed in a series of catastrophic events as foretold in the Bible (Bruce 1; Halsell; Mojtabai). Moreover, eschatological beliefs about the end of the world, while more pronounced among conservative Protestant Christians, pervade the wider cultural landscape. And as the new millennium approached, apocalypticism gained momentum. Televangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, among other evangelical elites, warned that the Y2K computer problem was a likely omen that foreshadowed impending disaster. Pundits predicted that widespread computer failures could lead to massive disruptions ("chaos"), or even Armageddon, the final cataclysmic battle between good and evil portended in the Bible. Trusting that God would save his faithful remnant, born-again believers prepared for the possibility of societal collapse by hoarding food and water, stockpiling gold and cash, and acquiring handguns.

Premillennial tension is not a new phenomenon, of course, nor are fundamentalist fears about expanding technologies, reflecting deep-seated anxieties about modernity and secularization (Wuthnow, Restructuring; Marsden). However, what is intriguing about the responses to Y2K among evangelicals (1) and fundamentalists (2) is the extent to which a potential computer glitch heated up endtime speculation, and the actions taken by some prophecy believers in accordance with their convictions. Thus, the aptly named "millennium bug" had an unexpected side effect: exposing the pervasiveness of apocalyptic thinking in contemporary American society in the countdown to January 1, 2000 (Wojcik 3; Boyer x, 338-39).

Apocalyptic Nightmares/Millennialist Dreams

From the Greek meaning "veiled," an apocalypse initially referred to passages of text in which the events leading up to the Day of Judgment could be deciphered (Boyer 23). Over time, "apocalypse" came to connote "disaster," becoming a core tenet of eschatology (E. Weber 29). Biblical apocalypticism, derived from ancient Hebraic thought, is found primarily in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. Moreover, "apocalypse" became associated with "millennium," the thousand-year period of peace and justice when Christ would return (parousia or "second coming") to reign over his earthly kingdom. Afterward, the dead would be resurrected and the Last Judgment unleashed (Cohn 24-25).

Although apocalypticism was rejected officially by the rabbinate, and later by the Catholic Church, biblical literalism regarding the endtimes survived in the folkways of both Jewish and Christian traditions (Cohn 23, 29; Luebbers; Wojcik). (3) Alongside eschatological visions of calamitous destruction, millenarism (4)--the view of salvation as collective, this-worldly, imminent, total, and miraculous--persisted, sparking movements from the Middle Ages onward (Cohn 13; Barkun, "Language" 159). (5) Promoted outside the sanction of clerical authority, popular belief in apocalypticism thrived, and in fact is part of America's founding myth. An avid student of biblical prophecy, Christopher Columbus interpreted his New World "discovery" as part of a divine script. And the Puritans, animated by the idea that they had been chosen by God to carve out a New Jerusalem in the wilderness, likewise held apocalyptic beliefs, striving to build a Godly society in anticipation of Christ's return (Wojcik 21).

During the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, postmillennial optimism about the progressive march of history toward a more just and humane society, linked to positive beliefs about modernity, lost ground against premillennial pessimism. In contrast with the reform movement of Social Gospellers that put social improvement above individual piety, premillennialists saw society as irreversibly evil. Interpreting social problems in light of apocalyptic prophecies, they focused on proselytizing and "soul saving" strategies (Smith 8). Thus, the dispute over the meaning of millennialism helped to fuel growing doctrinal divisions between liberal and conservative Protestants, out of which a fundamentalist movement emerged.