Christians who proclaim the coming apocalypse have failed to mobilize ordinary Americans but their views are shaping Washington’s debate about Iran.

By Jeff Sharlet

Why are we so obsessed with the apocalypse? By “we”, I don’t mean those of us who actually believe in the imminent end of the world, as foretold by a literalist reading of the Bible (presumably a small share of this magazine’s readers), but those of us who find apocalyptic believers – especially American apocalyptic believers – to be a source of sufficient anxiety that publishers churn out explanatory volumes such as Nicholas Guyatt’s Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans are Looking Forward to the End of the World. Does the liberal-minded audience that Guyatt has in mind for what he refers to as his “unnerving” tour of the American apocalypse industry really believe the end is nigh?

Evidently they do. Guyatt’s breezy investigation is only the latest response to the success of books that skip the “why” and go directly to The End…

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