Are we living in apocalyptic times? What might be called also “End Times?” This is what triggered the impactful fresco on “The Antichrist” by Luca Signorelli after all.
There was an “end time” mood in 1500 when he started the fresco that so impressed Sigmund Freud and many others, myself included. It was a “half millennium” moment.
Many people are feeling an “end time” or apocalyptic time currently. Surely the news on climate change harbors such feelings. As glaciers and continents melt, seas rise, temperatures break all records and species including human migrate on an ever-widening scale, there is and will be a feeling of “end time” or apocalypse.
As democracies come under fire still more from without and within by forces of authoritarianism and fascism, an “end time” looms.
An “end time” or “apocalyptic time” gave birth to archetypes like the antichrist in the Christian scriptures at the end of the first century. Indeed, the Book of Apocalypse is all about the early Christians facing the wickedness of an empire and its commitment to wiping this early sect off the face of the earth. Throwing them to the lions, etc., was a real thing as was blaming a fire that engulfed Rome on them.
Today’s election is also a real thing. One where one candidate has been counted lying 33,000 times while president and 126 times in his previous presidential debate. A time when lies come as readily as truths—and the media barely reports them because they are so frequent—is a sign of the end of civil discourse and democracy. Democracy requires virtue and a minimum of truth telling.
Indifference to and the end of truth is a sign of the antichrist who arrives at end times.
Of course, the Book of Apocalypse, the last book in the Christian Bible, is also called the Book of Revelations because the two words, apocalypse and revelation, are interchangeable in Greek. So we have a right to ask: Are our times also a time of revelation and revelations?
I think we can truly say they are. Science has been particularly revelatory of late. The finding that our universe is 13.8 billion years old and expanding and contains most likely two trillion galaxies is a revelation. It is literally “taking the veil off” of our common story, feeding us a new creation story just when we need it, just when our previous ones were coming apart.
Creation Stories are revelatory and keep tribes together and set common norms for behavior and today’s story is for all humans and tribes.
Webb Telescope is unveiling much that feeds awe in our hungry hearts. As Rabbi Heschel teaches, “awe is the encounter of the mind with the universe” and “the beginning of wisdom.”
Can an uptick of awe feed an increase of wisdom—which our species desperately needs? Can our facing our demise as a species jolt us into changing our suicidal ways and indifference to climate change? One hopes so.
Evil looms large in a time of apocalypse.
But so too does the sacred and gratitude for our existence and courage, imagination and creativity to evolve into a new version of homo sapiens. One that puts joy and justice and our divine powers of compassion into how we live on this earth.
Like Jesus and others have assured us is possible, doable and the work of Spirit. Such revelations birth hope and new visions.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & MAGA as Antichrist: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.
Banner Image: “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you feel both apocalypse and revelation in our times? Do you believe new levels of awe from today’s creation story can awaken a new humanity such as Jesus and other spiritual leaders spoke of? One where gratitude for our existence and the sacredness of it all lights fires of joy and justice and compassion?
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
5 thoughts on “Are Our Times Both Apocalyptic & Revelatory?”
Good morning, I read your Trump & MAGA as the anti-christ yesterday. Thank you for writing and sharing it. I totally agree. I have been saying Trump is the anti-christ of our time since he ran for president the 1st time back in 2015. God help us!
A historical overview where fears of end-times influenced human behavior:
1. Christianity (1st – 4th Century)Many Christians believed that the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the world.
2. Middle Ages •Year 1000: Widespread anxiety in Europe, that the millennium marked the end of the world. •Black Death (1347 – 1351): The bubonic plague, was interpreted as a sign of the end times.
3. Protestant Reformation (16th Cen) •Martin Luther, believed they were living in the end times, viewing the Catholic Church as the Antichrist.
4. Great Awakenings (18th – 19th Cen) •The Millerites (US) believed that Jesus Christ would return in 1844. •Jehovah’s Witnesses: The founder, predicted the end of the world in 1914.
5. 20th Century •World Wars and Cold War: World War I and World War II were seen as signs of the apocalypse. The Cold War, fears of nuclear annihilation. •Y2K (1999): The Year 2000 with fears that computers would malfunction, leading to widespread technological failure and potentially apocalyptic scenarios. •2012 Mayan Calendar (2009 – 2012): An interpretation of the Mayan calendar suggested that the world would end.
6. Modern Movements •Climate Change / Environmental Apocalypse (21st Century): Growing concerns have fueled modern apocalyptic fears. •Pandemics (2020–Present): The COVID-19 pandemic has also sparked fears, as a precursor to the end times. •Belief by some that Trump and the US Republican Party are the Anti-Christ
Joseph Campbell: We are the consciousness of the earth.
I think a new humanity is possible. We may even now see the small beginning of a more just world. Even if it seems the world is sinking into evil I see signs of people seeking a world that is more spiritual. Let us always pray for peace and justice.
Yes! Yes! Yes! FAITH~HOPE~LOVE for Humanity and Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT in LOVING Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS—COSMIC CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS….