TOP STORY: RELIGION IN AMERICA: The sky is falling. . . or is it?

c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) A record number of hurricanes blew across the globe in 1995. An earthquake in Kobe, Japan, killed 6,000 and an unusually high number of severe tremors shook the world. Massive blizzards buffeted the United States last winter, followed by rampant flooding. A heat wave in July killed 800 in […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) A record number of hurricanes blew across the globe in 1995.

An earthquake in Kobe, Japan, killed 6,000 and an unusually high number of severe tremors shook the world.


Massive blizzards buffeted the United States last winter, followed by rampant flooding.

A heat wave in July killed 800 in the Midwest.

More than 1,000 tornados were reported in the nation’s midsection, the second most active season ever.

A 48-mile-long, 22-mile-wide iceberg broke off Antarctica.

It’s enough to make some God-fearing people wonder: Are natural disasters-often referred to in legal and insurance terminology as “acts of God”- becoming more common? And from a theological perspective, could these disasters be fulfilling apocalyptic biblical prophecies and evangelical Christian predictions of the approaching end of the world?

Some high-profile religious leaders have encouraged that sense of foreboding.

“These disasters should drive people to their knees,” Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said last August on a broadcast of his program The 700 Club during Hurricane Felix.

“God is the one who protects this nation, and if God lifts his hand . . . and the hedge of protections is taken down, this nation is defenseless.”

TV evangelists Jack and Rexella Van Impe frequently cite an increasing number of natural disasters as evidence that the end of the world is approaching. Along with biblical prophecies, they cite the 1992 Canadian Global Almanac as saying there were 48 earthquakes of 6.5 or greater magnitude from 1900-1969 and 133 from 1990 through 1992.

“It could mean that Jesus is about to return,” Van Impe said.

But, said David Edwin Harrell, professor of history at Auburn University, it would be hard to find a time in history when doomsday prophets couldn’t find disasters to point to as signs.

Disasters will always be with us, and so will evangelists looking for prophetic signs, he said.

“It’s certainly not a new phenomenon,” Harrell said. “We’re almost certain to see that kind of prophetic speculation pick up as we approach the year 2000.”


Those who track earthquakes say better science, not necessarily approaching doomsday, accounts for a higher count of earthquakes.

“Over the past five to six years, we’ve located more earthquakes,” said Waverly Person, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center.

“That’s because of technology; we have better instruments.”

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In 1995, the U.S. Geological Survey documented epicenters for 22 “major” earthquakes of 7.0 to 7.9 on the Richter scale and three “great” earthquakes of 8.0 or higher. That was up from 14 major and one great earthquake in 1994 and 16 major and no great earthquakes in 1993.

About 10 to 15 years ago, the U.S. quake center located the epicenter and calculated a magnitude for about 10,000 earthquakes a year, Person said. Now those who monitor earthquakes locate the epicenter of about 20,000 quakes, he said.

“There are many more we do not locate,” Person said. “We record millions that are not located.”

Person said he has had religious inquiries from doomsday-minded Christians.

“I sure don’t see it,” Person said. “I just don’t see that. I simply give them the facts. If anyone reads the Bible, they talk about earthquakes. I don’t know whether this is a sign of anything. As far as we’re concerned as scientists, it’s not out of the ordinary.”


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The 1995 tropical storm season also seemed to mark an upsurge in natural disasters.

There were 19 named storms last year-11 hurricanes, 8 tropical storms, the most since 1933, when there were 21 named storms-10 hurricanes and 11 tropical storms.

“We actually had more hurricanes last year than in 1933,” said Frank LePore, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center. “Let’s hope it’s a hiccup in the long-term trend.”

He said he’s aware that some people might interpret large storms as judgment from heaven. “There are as many interpretations as there are interpreters,” LePore said.

Despite the high number of hurricanes in 1995, the combined damage was $4.5 billion, which pales in comparison to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which did $25 billion worth of damage. Hurricane Opal caused $3 billion in damage along 120 miles of the Gulf Coast, making it the third-most costly U.S. storm after Andrew and 1989’s Hurricane Hugo.

“It’s not numbers as much as it is intensity and location,” LePore said. “It only takes one.”

Although the Bible recounts a flood as God’s first method of wiping out the world’s sinners, God’s covenant with Noah also promised that “never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”


So floods are not generally viewed among the devotees of Bible prophecy as a sign of the end times, although recent years have brought a series of dramatic floods.

The Rev. Jeremy Lesley, pastor of Trinity Bible Fellowship on Main Street in Pinson, Ala., said his church was flooded when creeks overflowed from heavy rains this year, ruining carpet and damaging furniture. But the congregation did not interpret it as an omen. “Nobody was out building another ark,” Lesley said.

He said he does believe the Bible’s warning that disasters will accompany the endtimes. “It said there would be earthquakes,” he said.

Jesus is quoted in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke as citing earthquakes as a sign of the end. In a prophecy recorded in the three Gospels, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,” Jesus predicts that famines and earthquakes, and according to Luke, plagues, will be signs of the end.

The Book of Revelation mentions flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail as part of the apocalyptic vision.

Robertson, one of the most widely watched and read among Christian broadcasters and authors, said wars and rumors of war, famines and earthquakes, lawlessness and anarchy, apostasy and falling away of Christians and the persecution of Christians will all mark the imminent Second Coming.


“I think all these things are happening with increasing frequency,” Robertson said on a recent edition of his Answers program on CBN. “Our age is just about over. Nobody knows the exact day or the exact hour.”

Robertson noted, however, that he was born in 1930 and the same signs appeared to be evident in the 1930s and 1940s.

“These days are not so different from those days,” he said. But “I firmly expect to be alive when Jesus Christ comes back to earth.”

JC1 END GARRISON

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