Judgement postponed, judgement delivered

Everyone is still here, including Mr Harold Camping and his faithful calculator and followers. There is no rapture. But judgement, the Second Coming of Christ, and the end of the world (as humans now know it) are nothing to scoff at, at least not for Christians. These themes run through their Holy Book and, indeed, constitute a sort of reason for being for their faith.

The Bible says, "For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10 NKJV). The human conscience universally attests to this declaration of accountability to some Higher Authority. Which is why two things assume such significance: The drowning of conscience in distractions, and the insistence that there is no such Higher Authority to call accounts, in which case we are perfectly free to do whatever we want, as the philosopher Nietzsche so clearly saw before he went mad.

Powerful theme

So powerful is the judgement theme in scripture that John, the apostle and prophet of the Apocalypse, declared that he saw nobody less than an angel messenger "flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth - to every nation, tribe, tongue and people". And the angel bawled out "with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of his judgement has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water'" (Revelation 14:6 & 7, NKJV).

If an hour of judgement is announced by an angel, how will the judged know when that is, especially in light of the fact that the celestial messenger is calling for a specific response to the announcement and two other angels follow this one announcing massive calamity upon those who refuse to step out of Babylon, as Judy Mowatt sang, and who worship the beast and his image. Looks like Christians have a lot of explaining to do!

But it isn't only simple-minded fundamentalist fanatics who are shouting judgement and the end of the world (as we know it). A respectable international and secular organisation like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is also in the business of forecasting doom and gloom, sounding a lot like the Old Testament Hebrew prophet Isaiah in Chapter 24.

Natural-resource consumption

Here is UNEP, armed with a bank of computers and data banks of (honest and accurate?) data, not a simple calculator, in an AFP report 'Consumption of natural resources exploding', which was carried in the Sunday Observer on May 15: "Global consumption of natural resources could almost triple ... by 2050 unless nations take drastic steps". "The world," the expert panel report went on, "cannot sustain the tearaway rate of use of minerals, ores and fossil and plant fuels."

UNEP is calling upon governments "to 'decouple' economic growth from natural-resource consumption" since "the prospect of much higher resource consumption levels is far beyond what is likely sustainable".

The world, the report noted, is already running out of cheap and quality sources of some essential mate-rials such as oil, copper and gold, which in turn needs rising volumes of fuel and water to produce.

And listen to the up-in-the-air solution proffered by this panel of serious environmental experts: Governments must find ways to do more with less, at a faster rate than economic growth - the notion of 'decoupling'.

The problem is, every developing country wants to be another United States, or Western European state, or Japan. So who is going to drop out of the economic race for the environment? And why wouldn't those who remain in the race simply take up the slack? Are the planet and humankind not faced with the most massive positive feedback loop ever? Positive feedback loops always end in explosions, unless, of course, decoupling can be made to work.

This is an apocalyptic crisis facing humankind on account of its own actions and not an intervention, per se, of a god. And it is by no means certain, at least the people in the best position to know are not telling us, whether the irreversible tipping point for global environmental disaster is not in the past rather than in the future. The wisdom and restraint and cooperation required for resolving this impending apocalyptic crisis of natural judgement have not so far been very evident among humankind.

And here is Isaiah speaking for the God of the Hebrews in magisterial epic poetry, but without a date like Camping or UNEP: "The earth mourns and fades away/The world languishes and fades away .../The earth is violently broken/The earth is split open/The earth is shaken exceedingly/The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard/And shall totter like a hut."

The prophet tenders as cause: "The earth is defiled under its inhabitants/Because they have transgressed the laws/Changed the ordinance/Broken the everlasting covenant .../Its transgression shall be heavy upon it/And it will fall, and not rise again."

Ugly picture

Not a pretty picture. But this is only an ancient mythic poem appearing in a holy book now largely discredited by many even of its own theologians. UNEP has better and more current scientific data.

"The ability to travel to the US ... is extremely important and/or desirable to most Jamaicans, making the potential loss of this privilege a source of considerable leverage," says a now WikiLeaked diplomatic dispatch out of Kingston in 2005. Minister of Energy and Mining James Robertson has just had his US visa revoked with reasons not stated. But Robertson has whispered negatives against him, like many other Jamaican politicians, so he deserves to lose his visa.

What may be a serious inconvenience for an ordinary citizen makes official functioning virtually impossible for a minister of government. On purely pragmatic grounds, without the necessity of any high ethical standing, Robertson had to resign, or be fired by his appointer. The Jamaican Government cannot function in defiance of the United States. No other government in the world can if America seriously wishes it. Don't mention Cuba.

The Americans, from superior moral ground, sent for 'Dudus', a don accused of gun- and drug-running and closely connected to the ruling party. The prime minister and minister of justice said the Government of Jamaica (widely regarded as being corrupt by both the United States and its own people) had legal and human rights objections to the extradition request. The Government dawdled, but finally "bowed", in the words of the prime minister, and packed Dudus off without even a hearing in a Jamaican court. But since everybody knows that Dudus is a bad man, he deserves it.

US Navy SEALs stormed into the sovereign state of Pakistan and captured and summarily executed Osama bin Laden. But bin Laden is the world's most wanted - and hated - terrorist, and Pakistan may have been complicit in giving him cover or at least careless in not ferreting him out. Both man and country deserve what they got. What America wants, America gets. Who America wants, America gets. This was the steel cable running through President Obama's Osama is dead speech.

Israeli security

The world's sole superpower, with military capacity greater than that of the next 20 countries combined, is pushing regime change for moral just cause and democracy in a number of states around the world, while restricting the historic freedoms of its own people at home in the 'war against terrorism'. And in a spectacular shift of Middle East foreign policy, which Christian 'fundamentalists' would not have missed, the US government has recommended to Israel that it pull back to its pre-1967 war borders. Nuclear-armed Israel is insisting that such a move would compromise its security in a hostile neighbourhood. Whatever loyalties one might have, it is plain for all to see that the security of Israel is fundamental to peace in the Middle East.

Many Christians place enormous apocalyptic weight on the United States and the Middle East and watch them closely for signs of the end of the age. Global - and autocratic - dominance is expected from the first in collaboration with an ancient 'beast' power, and instability and conflict are expected from the second. These Christians certainly have a lot to work with right now.

The Christ whose return is supposed to terminate human history told His followers in his own apocalyptic pronouncements (Matthew 24) that they should watch and be ready because "of that day and hour no one knows". This was the favourite consolation text of the anti-Camping opposition. But this command would be nonsensical, if one doesn't know what to look for or have a general sense of the time. But those are precisely the difficulties which Jesus set out to deal with in his own apocalyptic declarations. And He told His beloved apostle and the greatest apocalyptic prophet, John, to tell the Church, "He who has an ear, let him hear (Revelation 2:7 ff NKJV)."

Christians shouldn't expect to be taken seriously if they can't reliably help people to know the 'hour of judgement', a matter of such great weight for both the Church and for all humankind, so much so that it was loudly announced by an angel in the Apocalypse and by the Lord of the Church Himself. What will happen then. And how to prepare for it.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.