c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ As 1998 drew to a close and the nation suddenly became awash in predictions of possible Year 2000 computer meltdowns, nowhere was the doom and gloom more prevalent than among conservative Christians.

Radio and television programs, Web sites and book publishers catering to evangelical and Pentecostal Christians warned the faithful to spend 1999 preparing for the widespread societal collapse predicted to follow the crash of millions of time-sensitive computers unable to differentiate between Jan. 1, 2000 and Jan. 1, 1900 _ the so-called Y2K millennium bug.

Believers were urged to stock up on dried food, water and even weapons to help their families survive. High-profile leaders gave impetus to the fears by voicing their own concerns and linking them to the apocalyptic scenario recounted in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Books by Christian writers Michael S. Hyatt, author of”The Millennium Bug,”and Shaunti Christine Feldhahn, who wrote”Y2K: The Millennium Bug,”sold in the hundreds of thousands. Religious broadcaster James C. Dobson gave each of his 1,300 full- and part-time employees at Focus on the Family an extra $500 to help them prepare for Y2K, a $650,000 expenditure.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell said”we do not have enough programmers”to fix the problem and pronounced Y2K”God’s instrument to shake this nation”and turn stunned unbelievers toward the Christian message. The Rev. D. James Kennedy told his national television audience that because of Y2K”people will be open to hear the gospel as they have never been before.” As the appointed hour rapidly approaches, however, many of these same voices have now traded fundamentalist conviction about the near certainty of global disruption for agnostic equivocation about the millennium bug’s real impact. Instead of the Bible, they’ve taken to quoting government and industry assurances of Y2K readiness.

Moreover, a distinct backlash has emerged within the conservative Christian community against many of those who issued some of the most dire warnings.

Hank Hanegraaff, host of the popular”Bible Answer Man”radio show, has spent hour after on-air hour debunking Y2K warnings and castigating those he considers responsible. In an interview, he said Falwell, Dobson, Kennedy and other influential conservative Christians had been taken in by”profiteering sensationalists”spreading”alarmist propaganda,”even if they have since changed their tune.

Charisma, the respected monthly charismatic-oriented magazine, ran a recent cover story headlined”Doomsday Madness.”The magazine’s cover depicted a terrified family huddled in a basement filled with packaged foods and barrels of water. A rifle stood at the ready. In one hand the father held a flashlight. In the other he clutched a Bible. Inside the magazine, editor J. Lee Grady dismissed Y2K warnings as”nonsense.””Don’t be gullible enough to believe them,”Grady said of the”preachers and publishers”peddling”doomsday hysteria”and”outlandish claims”linked to Christian prophesies about the collapse of secular society and Jesus’ return to Earth.

Richard Landes, director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University and a leading expert on religious and public reaction to Y2K, said the change in Y2K attitudes stems from concern that earlier predictions were leading to public panic.”There has been heavy pressure on everybody to back off,”he said.”It’s coming from a consensus that has emerged that says the real problem here is not from technology but the possibility of panic. … To say I’m really worried now is being judged akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater.” Authors Hyatt and Feldhahn are among those who have modified their public pronouncements.

In”The Y2K Personal Survival Guide,”Hyatt said it was”downright impossible in my view”for Y2K to result in anything less than major disruption. Now, he calls himself”a Y2K agnostic.””In many ways I feel I know less today than I did a year ago,”said Hyatt, whose Web site sells”Y2K Prep Food”packages, including his top-of-the-line”one-year, four-person supply of nutritious, good tasting”canned foods for $3,395, plus shipping costs.

While Y2K is still likely to”be more than a bump in the road,”it is not likely to be”the end of the world as we know it,”said Hyatt, a senior vice president at the Christian publishing firm Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tenn.

Feldhahn, who lives in Atlanta and is president of Joseph Project 2000, a nonprofit Y2K preparedness organization, said that because the”bar is being raised on Y2K readiness, we don’t have to worry as much about some things. … I tend to think we’ve made enough progress so we won’t see a meltdown.” Y2K, or”year 2000,”refers to problems predicted for those computers unable to distinguish between 2000 and 1900 because they use only the final two digits of a year to determine the date. Minor Y2K problems have already surfaced.

In Maine, owners of 2000 model cars and trucks received certificates of title identifying their vehicles as”horseless carriages”_ a term used in the state for vintage vehicles manufactured prior to 1916.

However, most American companies in such critical fields as banking, telecommunications, health care, transportation, power and energy say the hundreds of billions of dollars they’ve put into correcting potential Y2K problems has done the trick. Any disruptions that do occur, they insist, will be minimal and spread out over a period of months, rather than all happening on Jan. 1.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other government officials also have said widespread Y2K disruptions are less a threat than is potential public panic. However, they do caution that actual Y2K computer failures in some other nations _ including Russia and China _ could be severe and negatively impact the United States.

Because Y2K doomsday scenarios fit into a theological belief in Jesus’ Second Coming, a belief that’s taken on extra meaning as Christianity’s second millennium draws to a close, Hanegraaff, for one, is worried some in the church will lose faith when warnings of mass Y2K chaos fail to materialize.”Many people who made life decisions based on Y2K predictions will fall out the back door of the church saying, `If you guys were so wrong on a current event, how can you be correct on something (Jesus’ resurrection) that happened 2000 years ago?'”he said.”Christianity should not be based on hype and sensationalism.” Despite such criticism, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, host of”The 700 Club”on Christian Broadcasting Network, still says”it seems reasonable to expect the possibility of some serious dislocations”because of Y2K.

In an April 700 Club commentary still prominently featured on the CBN Web site, he cited”potential”power outages; water, food, fuel and medicinal shortages; and transportation disruptions.

Robertson likened his suggestions for stockpiling emergency supplies to purchasing fire insurance that is never needed. Dobson, in a late September broadcast, used the same analogy in defending his earlier airing of Y2K disaster warnings on his radio programs.

Falwell, Dobson, Kennedy and Robertson all either declined through representatives to be interviewed on the subject of Y2K, or did not respond to such a request.

Others who issued warnings say even if 2000 results in no Y2K problems, they still will have acted appropriately.

Feldhahn, for example, maintained the attention she and others brought to the situation was in large part responsible for the urgency with which government and business leaders addressed Y2K.”Our role as Christians is to provide an example and an answer to the world during any time of crisis _ including Y2K,”she said, quoting her own book.

Hyatt cited the biblical Book of Proverbs’ advice about”prudent”people planning for potential disaster.

For critics such as Hanegraaff, however, relying on Scripture to justify Y2K warnings amounts to”scriptorture”compounded by”sloppy”research and”sophistry.””It’s a wooden, literal approach toward interpreting the Bible,”he said.

Steve Hewitt, the editor of Christian Computing Magazine, agreed.”The fact is there’s always problems with technology; it’s always buggy and of course somebody’s computer will crash. But the facts even a year ago did not warrant the level of crisis predicted,”he said.”People created scenarios, but scenarios are not fact.”

DEA END RIFKIN