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Y2K: Apocalypse Not!

By Charles Henderson

Dateline 12/28/99

A year ago, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, who have sold more than 10 million copies of their Left Behind series of books about the Apocalypse, prophesied global upheaval on Jan. 1, 2000. The Y2K bug could trigger "financial meltdown," warned LaHaye, "making it possible for the Antichrist to dominate the world."

But now that there appears to be little evidence of either meltdown or world domination by an Antichrist happening at the turn of the millennium, LaHaye and Jenkins are born again Y2K optimists. "We don't think it relates to Y2K at all," Jenkins said, "And we're bemused by people who do."

As awareness of the so called Y2K computer bug became widespread more than a year ago, Christians seemed to be taking particular interest in the topic, especially those fundamentalist or evangelical Christians who look forward to the imminent return of Christ. Strange as it may seem to those outside the Christian faith, a significant number of the faithful are heartened by bad news, for they believe that a world wide calamity, bringing an end to life as we know it on this planet is actually good news, for that calamity is part of God's unfolding plan and a prelude for the coming of God's kingdom. Thus, news of a technological disaster that would plunge the economy into chaos, interrupt the power supply, disrupt food distribution networks, or even touch off global conflict and war was seen as the fulfillment of Christian hope for the future. In a feature article, Y2K Hypertalk, written in January, 1999, I sharply disagreed with these scenarios as well as with the seriousness of the Y2K problem. I reviewed the major websites constructed by Christian alarmists, and suggested that while the Y2K problem was not one that Christians should ignore, the real threats to humanity come not from our computers, but rather from the more perennial vices of the human heart such as ignorance, fear, prejudice or greed.

Now, as fears of the computer bug and its consequences have faded, last year's prophets of doom find themselves retreating rapidly from "end of the world" hypertalk. For example, a year ago one of the leading Christian alarmists, Gary North, was describing Y2K as "the biggest problem the modern world has ever faced." He forecast a financial crisis that would bring the world economy into a state of meltdown the likes of which no living human has ever experienced. Furthermore, he predicted that this global crisis would begin to unfold long before January 1, 2000. Hence, as we approach the close of the year with the U.S. economy continuing to boom, stock markets reaching all time highs almost every day, and strong recovery taking place even in countries that appeared to be caught in deep recession a year ago, it is not surprising the North has edited his website. To his credit, he has not deleted those pages with the dire predictions of a year ago, but simply buried them deeper in his website. Hence it's possible to compare side by side and word for word what he was saying a year ago with what he is saying today. It is more than coincidental that he replaced his original article with the revised one in October when, rather than a stock market collapse, the stage was set for one of the strongest rallies in U. S. history.

Gary North, January 1999
At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000, most of the world's computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data. This will create a nightmare for every area of life, in every region of the industrialized world.

Gary North, December 1999
Things will not break down all at once in early January unless the power grid goes down and stays down. But the domino effect will create ever-increasing institutional noise and confusion throughout January and beyond.

Similarly, by January 1999, Shaunti Feldhahn, had left a successful career as an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to become founder and president of The Joseph Project 2000, a not-for-profit Christian organization whose purpose was to help individuals and churches respond to the Y2K problem. She had written a best selling book, Y2K: The Millennium Bug, which recommended, among other things, that churches and individuals stockpile food in anticipation of a major computer related disaster. During the course of the year, Feldhahn's focus began to shift. First, her message was widened to address the challenge of making preparations not just for Y2K, but for other unspecified disasters. And second, she added a new theme, suggesting that the food originally collected in anticipation of Y2K problems could be distributed to the homeless, the hungry or those in need. As she put it recently: "As I�ve crisscrossed the country talking with insightful men and women of God, I�ve learned that many are beginning to suspect that Y2K is just a training exercise. God may be using the warning of coming economic or technological disruptions as a catalyst to get his church back to the place where it always should have been anyway. At the Joseph Project 2000, churches routinely tell us that, 'Y2K is really just spurring us to put in place a Good Samaritan ministry that we should have had anyway." To me, this is the best kind of answer to the common Y2K question of, "What happens if nothing happens?"

To be sure, a renewed effort to address the problem of hunger is a creative solution to a Y2K fizzle. Still, Feldhahn has come a long way in just one year, from leading a national campaign to inspire Christians to prepare for the worst to wondering what to do if "nothing happens." Currently at her website, under the heading, "Future Events," Feldhahn has these cryptic words: "At this time there are no events to announce."

Earlier this year, Jerry Falwell distributed a packet on "The Y2K Time Bomb," including a video, "A Christian's Guide to the Millennium Bug," advising people to be prepared for disaster. "Y2K is God's instrument to shake this nation, to humble this nation," Falwell said. "He may be preparing to confound our language, to jam our communications, scatter our efforts, and judge us for our sin and rebellion for going against his Lordship."

Now Falwell says he has read the government reports on Y2K and is "encouraged." A few weeks ago, Falwell withdrew the video and has been revising his forecasts of doom. "I don't anticipate any major problems," he said last week. One might then ask whether Falwell thinks God's "wrath" has been turned aside by something as ordinary as a "government report."

The most ironic aspect in this year long odyssey is how profoundly certain Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists have been influenced by events in the secular world and by sources of information that are clearly not of divine origin. Claiming Scripture as their only source of wisdom, biblical literalists have revealed themselves to be swayed more easily by news stories coming from the secular press than mainline Protestants or Catholics who have held all along that reason as much as revelation is needed in negotiating the complicated challenges of life at the turn of the millennium. Will prophets of doom learn a lesson from the failure of Y2K related scenarios to materialize? Probably not. For if you are convinced that God is willing to destroy this world in order to save it, then you'll simply seize upon the next tragic news story as a sign of the impending judgment day.

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