Thinking About the End of Days

            The story that's been consuming my creative life for what seems like forever involves, peripherally, Christopher Columbus. As a result, I've had to do some reading up on him.  Of greatest interest, in the context of the story, is his thinking, which reflected the thought of his time (although he was arguably far more obsessive about it than most folks).

Replica of one of Columbus' ships

            Columbus, according to some scholars, believed that the end of days was just around the corner and that he himself was a creature from prophesy. (Anyone interested in this view should check out Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, by Carol Delaney, published in 2011. It's a fascinating read.)

            Columbus' reading brought him to the conclusion that the world would end 155 years after 1502, that is, 1657 (if my math's right and I figured out his starting point correctly).   As I understand his thinking, the end of the world and the return of Christ is the whole point of everything.  To prepare, the entire world had to be evangelized to give everyone in it a chance to find salvation, and Jerusalem had to be regained by Christianity and the temple rebuilt.

            This is good, solid 16th century analysis, even if some of it is a bit biased to fit Columbus' preconceived notions.

            You might recall that around the year 2000, and again around 2012 (the end of the world according to the Maya, supposedly) there was a lot of activity focused on preparing for the end of the world. This periodic revival of millennialism suggests that a fairly large chunk of humanity is stuck in a medieval morass.

Inquisition torture chamber

            The end of days is something we're supposed to look forward to, and even welcome. Evidently, an all powerful deity has to destroy a perfectly good creation in order to make a visit back to it.

            Why an omniscient and omnipotent deity needs humankind to prepare for its return isn't clear to me. I would have thought that inherent in the idea of an all knowing and all powerful being, everything is encompassed, including self-sufficiency. But that's just me. More importantly, humankind is not well served by believing the world's going to end with a magical re-encounter because that implies we don't need to deal with real issues and solve them.

            As a case in point, as the U.S. election grinds its way through the primary season, several of the GOP candidates seem to subscribe to ideas that, if closely scrutinized, come close to variations on 16th century themes. As they all espouse their religious credentials, they seem to be insisting we all be their version of Christians. After that, they go on to take stances that seem to rely on an Old Testament mentality.

            The Donald has the makings of an erratic, self-aggrandizing sort of ruler, a sort of aged Henry the Eighth figure, without his intellectual capacity. Ted Cruz suggests, somehow, the possibility of an American version of the Inquisition. Marco Rubio, the earnest youngster in the group, says things that when probed, don't seem to have any real meaning. Maybe he's not a throwback to late medieval times, but there's not a lot of modern substance below the slippery surface, either.

            I'm rather fond of the American experiment in diversity and innovation. The possibility saddens me that it might end its days in a time warp, governed by people who look backward, to darker ages shadowed by fear and hatred. (Given my fondness for a disputatious America, please feel free to dispute!)