Apocalypticism and Popular Culture in South Africa: An Overview and Update1
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Margaret Mollett in
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Abstract
Apocalypticism, in the form of premillennial dispensationalism, based on foundational texts in Daniel, 2 Thessalonians and the book of Revelation, took root in South Africa through missionaries from the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. At first associated with Pentecostal churches and splinter groups from traditional churches belief in an imminent rapture followed by the tribulation, the millennium and final white throne judgment characterise an ever-widening circle of so-called charismatic groups. This heightening of expectation can mainly be ascribed to the influence of Hal Lindsey during the 70s and 80s and Tim LaHaye during the first decade of the 21st century. Rapid growth in media technology and the popularity of religious fiction has resulted in a merging of apocalyptic expectation with popular culture. This article probes the nature of “popular culture” and its relation to religion in South African context, and indicates a route for further enquiry and research. It concludes with the question, “What obligation does this lay on the scholarly guild?”
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Althouse Peter Spirit of the Last Days: Pentecostal Eschatology in Conversation with Jürgen Moltmann 2003 New York Continuum Journal of Pentecostal Theology: Supplement Series 25
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Anderson Allan “Pentecostals and Apartheid in South Africa during Ninety Years 1908–199” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyberj9/anderson.html.
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“Apocalyptic Defined” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: htpp.Faculty.bbcedu/rdecker/Ph.D./depriest/1defined.html.
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Barkun Michael A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America 2003 California University of California Press
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Burns J. Lanier “Reflections” Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary 2005 Spring 26ff
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Carpenter Mary & Landow George P. Patrides C. A. & Wittreich J. A. “Ambiguous Revelations: The Apocalypse in Victorian Literature” The Apocalypse in English Renaissance, Thought and Literature 1984 Manchester Manchester University Press 299 322
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Chapman Jennie Newport K. G. C. “Selling Faith without Selling Out: Reading the Left Behind Novels in the Context of Popular Culture” The End All Around Us: Apocalyptic Texts and Popular Culture 2009 London Equinox 148 172
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Chattaway Peter T. “The Late Great Planet Earth as a Document of its Own Time and of Events That Have Not Yet Happened” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: Peter Chattaway.com.articles/Lindsey.htm.
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Chetty Irvin G. “Towards a Postcolonial Pentecostal Historiography: Ramblings from the South” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 2009 35 no. 2 337 435
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Darby John Kelly W. The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 1962 Kingston on Thames Stow Hill Bible Trust
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Darby John “Synopsis of the Bible” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: www.stempublishing.com.
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Ellison Robert H. & Engelhardt Carol Marie “Prophecy and Anti-Popery in Victorian London: John Cumming Reconsidered” Victorian Literature and Culture 2003 31 no. 1 373 438
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Flesher LeAnn Snow Left Behind? The Facts Behind the Fiction 2006 Valley Forge, Pa. Judson
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Forbes Bruce D. Bednorowski M. Farrell “Apocalypticism in the United States” Twentieth Century Global Christianity. A People’s History of Christianity 2010 Minneapolis Fortress 211 230 Vol. 7 of A People’s History of Christianity. Edited by D. R. Janz.
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Forbes Bruce D. & Mahan Jeffrey A. Religion and Popular Culture in America 2000 California University of California Press
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Frykholm Amy Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America 2004 Oxford Oxford University Press
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Gribben Crawford Rapture Fiction and the Evangelical Crisis 2006 Darlington Evangelical Press
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Gutjahr Paul Towheed Shafquat , Crone Rosalind & Halsey Katie “No Longer Left Behind: Amazon.com, Reader Responses and the Changing Fortunes of the Christian Novel” The History of Reading: A Reader 2011 London/New York, N.Y. Routledge 209 236
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Hanegraaff Hank & Brouwer Sigmund The Last Disciple 2004 Wheaton, Ill. Tyndale
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Hanegraaff Hank & Brouwer Sigmund The Last Sacrifice 2005 Wheaton, Ill. Tyndale
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Hey Sam “Contemporary Developments in Pentecostal Hermeneutics” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: www.alphacrucis.edu.au.
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Hunter Harold D. “Some Ethical Implications of Pentecostal Eschatology” Paper presented at the 10th EPCRA conference in Leuven, Belgium. No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: http://www.epcra.ch/papers_pdf/leuven2/hunter_2001.pdf.
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La Haye Tim The Rapture: Who will Face the Tribulation? 1982 Eugene, Oreg. Harvest House
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Lindsey Hal & Carlson Carole C. The Late Great Planet Earth 1970 Grand Rapids Zondervan Publishing House
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Lindsey Hal & Carlson Carole C. The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon 1981 New York Bantam
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Magnum R. Todd & Sweetnam Mark S. The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church 2009 Colorado Springs Paternoster
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McDannell Colleen Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America 1995 New Haven Yale University Press
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Meglio Alexandra The Secular Revelations: Ruskin, Abrams, and the Apocalypse 2011 Providence: R.I. Brown University Press English/Religious Studies 156, Sacred Readings [Cited 10 September 2012]. Online: victorianweb.org/religion/apocalypse/Meglio.html.
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Menzies William Synan V. “The Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal Movement” Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins 1975 Plainfield, N.J Logos International 84 85
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Mollett Margaret “Creeping Crusade: Interpretation, Discourse and Ideology in the Left Behind Corpus: Society and Rhetoric in the Light of Revelation 7” 2010 D Litt. et Phil. diss., University of South Africa
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Oliphant Margaret The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church 1862 London Hurst Illustrated by his Journals and Correspondence. 2 Vols.
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Patterson Mark & Walker Andrew Hunt S. “Our Unspeakable Comfort: Irving, Albury and the Pretribulation Rapture” Christian Millenarianism from the early Church to Waco 2001 Bloomington Indiana University Press 115 ff.
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Radosh Daniel Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture 2010 Berkely Soft Skull
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Richie Tony “Are Pentecostals Dispensationalists? A Hard Question to Answer” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online www.christianzionism.org/Article/RichieT01.pdf
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Riddlebarger Kim A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times 2003 Grand Rapids Baker
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Rossing Barbara R. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation 2004 New York Basic Books
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Sizer Stephen Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon 2004 Leicester InterVarsity
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Schlemmer Lawrence Dormant Capital: Pentecostalism in South Africa and its Potential Social and Economic Role 2008 Johannesburg Centre for Development and Enterprise
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Sweetnam Mark & Gribben Crawford “J. N. Darby and the Irish Origins of Dispensationalism” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 2009 52 no. 3 569 577
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Vinson Synan Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins 1975 Plainfield, N.J. Logos International
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Warner Tim “The Origin of the Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine” No pages [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: www. answersinrevelation.org.
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3
Kim Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillenialism: Understanding the End Times (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003).
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7
See John Darby, The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby (ed. W. Kelly; Kingston on Thames: Stow Hill Bible Trust, 1962); for a short but substantial biography see Mark Sweetnam and Crawford Gribben, “J. N. Darby and the Irish Origins of Dispensationalism,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52, no. 3 (2009): 569–77.
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11
Mary Carpenter and George P. Landow, “Ambiguous Revelations: The Apocalypse in Victorian Literature,” in The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature (ed. C. A. Patrides and J. A. Wittreich; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 299–322.
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12
Abrams cited in Alexandra Meglio, The Secular Revelations: Ruskin, Abrams, and the Apocalypse (English/Religious Studies 156, Sacred Readings; Providence, R.I.: Brown University, 2011). For an online version see also “Victorian Web – literature, history & culture in the age of Victoria,” n.p. [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: www.victorian web.org/religion/apocalypse/Meglio/html.
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14
See Mark Patterson, and Andrew Walker, “Our Unspeakable Comfort: Irving, Albury and Origins of the Pretribulation Rapture,” in Christian Millenarianism from the Early Church to Waco (ed. S. Hunt; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), Articles and letters written by Irving and a letter by Margaret McDonald, published in The Morning Watch are included in an analysis by Tim Warner, “The Origin of the Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine,” n.p. [cited 10 September 2012]. Online: www.answersinrevelation.org.
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17
William Menzies, “The Non-Wesleyan Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” in Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins (ed. V. Synan; Plainfield, N.J.: Logos, 1975), 84–85.
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18
R. Todd Magnum and Mark S. Sweetnam, The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009). Also Warner, “The Origin of the Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine”.
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27
Lawrence Schlemmer, Dormant Capital: Pentecostalism in South Africa and its Potential Social and Economic Role ( Johannesburg: Centre for Development and Enterprise, 2008), 16.
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30
Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley, Calif./London: University of California Press, 2003), 5.
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31
Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970). In 1974 Late Great Planet Earth was published in comic book format under the title of There’s a New World Coming.
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32
Hal Lindsey, The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon (New York: Bantam, 1981).
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33
Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 248. She further states: “For him the current period was not merely a period of social unrest, it was the beginning of time. Late Great Planet Earth published by Zondervan revitalized the connection between the cosmic order and the modern world. The appeal of the book resided in its ability to show how the time right now was eminently meaningful.”
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36
First published in 1910, Sydney Watson, In The Twinkling of an Eye (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1933), Foreword: “For five or six years the idea for this present volume has been simmering and seething in my mind. The first and only real problem I had to face in the matter was that of the principle involved in using the fictional form to clothe so sacred a subject (for, to me, the near Return of our Lord is the most sacred of all subjects). But the problem of the principle was speedily settled, as I remembered how wondrously GOD had owned and blessed ‘Long Odds’, in which the fictional is the vehicle of the teaching.”
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37
Paul Gutjahr, “No Longer Left Behind, Amazon.com, Reader Responses and the Changing Fortunes of the Christian Novel,” The History of Reading: A Reader (eds. Shafquat Towheed, Rosalind Crone, and Katie Halsey; London/New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2011), 226–7. Yet Amy Frykholm, Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 23, points out that religious fiction could be interchangeable with fiction in popular culture generally. She suggests that “a reader could likely read Left Behind for a few minutes before bed after having spent an evening watching the latest Bruce Willis movie or intersperse the reading of Left Behind with John Grisham’s thrillers or Peggy Clark’s mysteries.” Frykholm adds that anxiety about the influence of secular culture may be condemned but would not prevent the buying, renting and consuming of popular culture generally. Jennie Chapman, “Selling Faith without Selling Out: Reading the Left Behind Novels in the context of Popular Culture,” in The End All Around Us: Apocalyptic Texts and Popular Culture (ed. K. G. C. Newport; London: Equinox, 2009), 153, recognises a “disparity between popular culture as specific, local grassroots and mass culture, which is homogenous national/global and commercial – therefore a profitable commodity”. See also McDannell, Material Christianity; Daniel Radosh. Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture (Berkeley: Soft Skull, 2010) for insights into the marketing aspects of popular Christian literature and artifacts.
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39
Bruce D. Forbes, “Apocalypticism in the United States,” in Twentieth Century Global Christianity (ed. M. Farrell Bednarowski; vol. 7 of A People’s History of Christianity; ed. D. R. Janz; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 211–230.
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46
See LeAnn Flesher, Left Behind? The Facts Behind the Fiction (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 2006), and Barbara R. Rossing, The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (New York: Basic Books, 2004).
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47
Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer, The Last Disciple, (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 2004); Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer, The Last Sacrifice, (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 2005).
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48
J. Lanier Burns, “Reflections,” Insights: The Faculty Journal of Austin Seminary (Spring 2005): 26.
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Apocalypticism and Popular Culture in South Africa: An Overview and Update1
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Margaret Mollett in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Apocalypticism, in the form of premillennial dispensationalism, based on foundational texts in Daniel, 2 Thessalonians and the book of Revelation, took root in South Africa through missionaries from the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. At first associated with Pentecostal churches and splinter groups from traditional churches belief in an imminent rapture followed by the tribulation, the millennium and final white throne judgment characterise an ever-widening circle of so-called charismatic groups. This heightening of expectation can mainly be ascribed to the influence of Hal Lindsey during the 70s and 80s and Tim LaHaye during the first decade of the 21st century. Rapid growth in media technology and the popularity of religious fiction has resulted in a merging of apocalyptic expectation with popular culture. This article probes the nature of “popular culture” and its relation to religion in South African context, and indicates a route for further enquiry and research. It concludes with the question, “What obligation does this lay on the scholarly guild?”
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 453 | 46 | 4 |
| Full Text Views | 88 | 0 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 44 | 0 | 0 |
