Environmental and Religious Apocalypse - Essay Example

Environmental Apocalypse Religious Apocalypse: Christianity: This Abrahamic religion made revelations about the apocalypse or the end of the world thousands of years ago when there was no such human activity which made any sensational news about damaging the environment to the point of crashing down the entire world. In theological thinking, the world will not come to an end on grounds of human negligence, but because God has meant for it to end one day to reconstruct Christian doctrine (Pannenberg 2004, p. 257). We come into this world to play our part and the world will end one day because of religious reasons so that human beings could be judged for how they acted during their lives. If the apocalypse was environmental in nature and not religious, the last book of the New Testament titled the Book of Revelation would have hinted on disastrous events like global pollution resulting in the end of the world. But, it instead speaks of God’s will and His decision (Dewey 2013) instead of popularizing environmental pollution, population growth, or global warming as plausible reasons for the end of the age. Each of these issues surely has affected both the earth and our environment inflicting damage on both humans and natural beauty of the world. But, this does not mean that they are to blamed for the looming prospect of an apocalypse. Environmental issues, however damaging they are, do not synonym with apocalyptic events. According to the book of Revelation, real apocalyptic events bringing the cataclysmic end of the world will occur to exercise God’s justice and fulfill His ultimate objectives (O’Day & Petersen 2009, p. 472). Advocates of environmental apocalypse tend to overlook the significance of religion and concentrate all their efforts on blaming the negligence of mankind for ending of the world. In contrast to this Christian belief that apocalypse will occur “as a result of God’s direct activity” (Amanat 2002, p. 61), the scientific argument claims that the world will meet a tragic demise at hands of an unbelievably chaotic environmental event. People in the name of modernity refuse to register this reality that the human civilization will end one day because God has simply meant for things to go that way. Post-modern Christianity has compromised the authority of the Bible (Newton 2015, p. 22). An uneasy relationship between faith and modern science has served to promote this idea that the Bible does not contain absolute truth. Emerging scientific evidence has made the Biblical perspective abstract. Such post-modern Christianity disqualifies the Bible as a valuable source of absolute truth. However, if the religious book of Christians is conscientiously studied through the eyes of God, one cannot remain oblivious to the religious background of an expected apocalypse. In the Bible, the emphasis of End Times prophecy is not on any kind of global event that may be spawned by environmental problems, but on the hearts of people to turn them toward God. According to the Biblical concept of apocalypse which stands in contrast to the scientific debate, certain events are predestined to happen near the end of the world “no matter what mankind does or doesn’t do” (Dewey 2013). Judaism: According to the Jewish faith, the term “apocalypse” translates into revelation of hidden things given by God to His chosen ones. Both Christian and Jewish perspectives about apocalypse share many similar features. This idea of the chosen people is particularly considered “the dominant idea in the Jewish Apocalypse” (Jewish Encyclopedia 2011). This suggests that the Hebrew ideas related to last events which will result in culmination of all activity in the world are quite similar to the Christian beliefs in many ways. Same fundamental beliefs which structure the Christian doctrine of apocalypse are found in roots of the Jewish apocalypse also. According to Isa. xI-Ixvi, God has plainly expressed His purpose since the beginning of times (Jewish Encyclopedia 2011). This suggests that the apocalypse will take place by the will of God so that His purpose could be accomplished which is to defeat the AntiChrist and ensure His sovereignty. In Jewish theology, the apocalypse is a tool which will be employed by God to announce the day of the Lord. This day will completely overthrow the current order of the world by bringing it to a sudden halt. A new era ushered in by the apocalypse will take place the existing order’s place (Anderson 2011). This new era will be ruled by God. Besides religious reasons, the Jewish explanation for apocalypse attaches reasonable amount of importance to the highly talked about convulsions of nature also which form the bedrock of the scientific debate. This is because the Jews believe that there are many signs given by God to man which speak of the expected arrival of the end or the apocalypse (Jewish Encyclopedia 2011). These signs can be found in the universe and on earth. They are hidden in catastrophic natural disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes, growing global problems like wars or depletion of the ozone layer, and increasing number of people going astray (Oegema 2011, p. 168). The scientific debate pertaining to apocalypse has excessively benefited from the fact that many apocalyptic signs lie in disastrous environmental and natural events (Phillips 2009, p. 162). They use this fact to play down the role of religion and argue that apocalypse will be essentially environmental in nature. However, just because apocalyptic signs lie in natural disasters and environmental issues does not mean that the apocalypse is primarily environmental in nature. Rather, Judaism advances this idea that religion plays the most important part in the debate about apocalypse because the world will come to an end in accordance with God’s will. According to the Jewish apocalyptic literature, this will happen to punish those who were sinful and reward those who abided by the God’s word in their lives (Körtner 1995, p. 117). So, the faith of Judaism does not undermine the significance of environmental factors, but like Christianity it also puts religious reasons for bringing the apocalypse at the front. Standing in contrast to the scientific argument, religious factors receive the most attention in the Jewish faith and environmental problems are thought to channel the apocalyptic events. Islam: It can be very difficult to rigorously believe in God if the apocalypse is not considered essentially a religious event. If it is believed to be an event affected by human activities, people’s faith in God will be ceased. This is why the Islamic eschatology, in which events leading to the Day of Judgment are studied, stresses that the apocalyptic ending of the present age will be entirely decided by God’s will. No one knows when or how the world will come to an end except God (Henry 2005, p. 124). This means that the apocalypse is completely religious in nature because no one but God can save or end the world. The apocalypse is not directly addressed in the Quran, but it remains a highly anticipated event among the Muslims because God repeatedly talks of sinfulness and corruption in the world near the end times (Selengut 2008, p. 86). Fierce battles unleashing untold terrors will take place following which Islam’s sovereignty will be ensured everywhere. Human activities cannot be accredited for bringing an apocalypse because the knowledge of when and why that time will come resides in the hands of God alone (Cook 2008, p. 7). This shows that religion plays the role of absolute importance in the Islamic views about the end of the world. Regardless of how human activities interfere with the world or the environment, the apocalypse announcing the Day of Resurrection will occur whenever God will order such a thing. In denial of the scientific debate, human actions play no part in the apocalyptic ending of the world according to Islam as it is completely a matter of God’s will. This suggests that like the other two Abrahamic religions, Islam also pays most attention to religious reasons in context of the end of the world. It is widely believed that apocalyptic events will occur not because of how humans interact with their environment, but because “this is God’s work and will come in God’s time” (Selengut 2008, p. 86). It is claimed that Islam is an apocalyptic religion (Jonsson 2006, p. 405). This is because Muslims are constantly advised in the Quran to prepare themselves for the Day of Judgment. The scientific debate indefinitely stresses on harmful activities in which humans are engaged claiming that such activities will bring the world to an end. The scientific debate does not see different issues like natural disasters, global warming, growing population etc. as the apocalyptic signs of God, rather it popularizes these issues as the chief perpetrators of the apocalypse. In contrast to this philosophy, Islam reinforces this belief that only “God has absolute authority over all matters” (Esposito 2004, p. 102). This suggests that apocalypticism is not related to environmental negligence of human beings. The prospect of the apocalyptic end of the world will not eliminate if human beings start positively interacting with the environment. If all issues like global warming and pollution are completely resolved, the imminent end of the world will still remain unchallenged because this world is created by God in the first place to see how human beings fare in their preparation for the Day of Judgment. References: Anderson, JB 2011, Apocalypse 12-21-12: The Mayan Prophecies, Lions Pride Publishing Co. Amanat, A 2002, Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America, I.B. Tauris. Cook, D 2008, Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature, Syracuse University Press. Dewey, P 2013, Field Guide to the Wild World of Religion, eBookIt.com. Esposito, JL 2004, The Islamic World: Past and Present, Oxford University Press. Henry, S 2005, The Encounter of Faith and Science in Inter-religious Dialogue, ISPCK. Jewish Encyclopedia 2011, Apocalypse, viewed 28 April 2015, Jonsson, D 2006, Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad, Xulon Press. Körtner, UHJ 1995, The End of the World: A Theological Interpretation, Westminster John Knox Press. Newton, JK 2015, The Revelation Worldview: Apocalyptic Thinking in a Postmodern World, Wipf and Stock Publishers. O’Day, GR & Petersen, DL 2009, Theological Bible Commentary, Westminster John Knox Press. Oegema, GS 2011, Early Judaism and Modern Culture: Literature and Theology, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Pannenberg, W 2004, Systematic Theology, Volume 1, A&C Black. Phillips, NE 2009, The Pop Apocalyptic: Keith Haring’s and Kenny Scharf’s Remaking of Contemporary Religious Art, ProQuest. Selengut, C 2008, Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Read More