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Are We the ‘Earthquake Generation’?

Christians who see natural disasters and global upheavals as signs that the end is near are misunderstanding Jesus' prophecies in Scripture

“There’s been an increase of earthquakes in recent years. That’s one of the signs of the end, you know.”

You often hear statements like this from two groups. The first consists of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. For many of them, it is “common knowledge” that there has been a rise in the number of earthquakes, signaling the Second Coming of Christ and the millennial golden age, which most Evangelicals and Fundamentalists believe will follow.

The other group is New Agers. They believe that we are nearing a global catastrophe—thought to involve a shift in the earth’s rotational axis—which will precede “the New Age,” a millennium-like period in which Eastern and occult ideas reign over the planet. Adherents of the movement see the alleged increase in earthquake activity as one of the signs that the great catastrophe is near.

Occultists have predicted the dawn of a “New Age” for along time, but the specific scenario many now talk about—that it will begin after a global catastrophe involving a pole shift—was popularized by the American psychic Edgar Cayce, who was active in the first half of the twentieth century. Cayce was known as “the Sleeping Prophet” because he entered trance-like states in which he claimed to have access to “the Akashic record,” an ethereal storehouse of knowledge about the psychology, health, and past lives of individuals, as well as information about the ancient past and near future.

He predicted that, beginning in the late 1950s, there would be a series of “earth changes,” including the rising of parts of the lost continent of Atlantis. These changes would build up to the great catastrophe and pole shift, which would occur in 1998. Following the great catastrophe, the millennium would begin, and “Christ consciousness” would return to the earth. (Many New Agers state that Jesus was merely the first human being to attain “Christ consciousness”; they do not believe he was the second Person of the Trinity.)

Now that 1998 has arrived, followers of Cayce have begun to tie recent volcanic and seismological events into his predictions. Should the earth fail to shift on its axis this year, they already have an “out.”

In the 1970s, as Cayce’s target date began to approach and his predictions failed to materialize, imitators of the Sleeping Prophet began to move the date of the great catastrophe. The story was that human free will had changed the precise timing of the calamity, which now would occur between one and four years later than originally predicted, depending which psychic you listened to.

I was aware of all this because, when I was a teen-ager, I was a devotee of Cayce. I had a large collection of books about him and about the coming “earth changes.” One volume, We Are the Earthquake Generation, had a back cover featuring a map of the United States purporting to give the situation in 1996. It showed the Pacific coast radically altered. Not only was California gone, but the Pacific ocean now extended as far inland as the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

I also read books on Bible prophecy, including Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, which was all the rage at the time. Like most of the Bible prophecy books at the time, the ones I read were heavily pre-millennial and pre-tribulational.

Pre-millennialism is a view, common in American Protestantism, that claims that the Second Coming of Christ will precede an earthly millennium in which Christ physically reigns on earth. Before the millennium there will be a period of great persecution, knowing as the tribulation.

Pre-tribulationism claims that, before the tribulation, Christ will return briefly and “rapture” all true believers up to heaven. Then, at the Second Coming, they will return to earth with Christ. (Mid-tribulationists and post-tribulationists put the time of the rapture a little later.)

I recognized similarities between these books and the New Age books I was reading. Historically, the New Age movement has tried to commandeer Christian concepts to make itself more palatable to Westerners. The New Age movement is a spiritual “fast food” version of Eastern religions. New Age teachings are to real Hinduism and Buddhism what Taco Bell is to authentic Mexican food. One thing is similar to the other, but adjusted to fit American tastes.

The idea that we are entering a period of convulsions that will precede a new, millennium-like golden age is taken straight from American Protestantism. In the East, actual Hindus and Buddhists do not expect this. But in the United States, former Protestants who have embraced the New Age movement have imported certain Evangelical concepts into it. Some even talk about there being a rapture to pull evolved souls (for example, New Age believers) away from Earth when the convulsions are at their worst, so they will not have to go through the trauma of the pole shift. New Agers appeal to the same words of Christ that Protestants use to justify the claim that there will be a rise in the number of earthquakes.

After I became a Christian in the mid-eighties, I received a pre-trib, pre-mill indoctrination, but eventually I read enough Scripture that I began to perceive problems with this viewpoint. It wasn’t just a matter of misunderstanding a passage here or there. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists were fundamentally misreading the Bible.

There was a big problem with systematically misunderstanding what period in history prophetic texts were addressing. Very often, texts that have already been fulfilled were applied to our future. There was also a problem with confusing local or regional events with global ones. For example, Fundamentalists often claim that there will be a future “one world government” that the Antichrist will head. To prove this, they point out that Daniel 2 and 7 speak of a series of four kingdoms that conquer Israel, the fourth of which is said to “devour the whole earth and trample it down” (7:23). This must refer to the future, they conclude, since no empire has yet conquered the entire planet.

But the third kingdom is also said to “rule over all the earth” (2:39), and Fundamentalists are virtually unanimous in identifying the third kingdom as one that belongs to the past—either Alexander the Great’s Greek empire or the Persian empire that preceded it. The “earth” in this case must be understood to be the Mediterranean region of antiquity—the “known world” of the time. If the third kingdom fulfilled its promised conquest of “all the earth” by taking dominion only over the Ancient Near East, then the fourth kingdom’s conquest of “the whole earth” can be read the same way. This means that Scripture does not require us to envision any future empire that conquers the globe. The claim that there will be a future, menacing “one world government” is a staple of the scenarios one reads in prophecy books, but that future isn’t required by Scripture. This illustrates a mistake Fundamentalists commonly make in trying to get global predictions out of Scripture texts that are only concerned with local or regional events.

Another passage that is often understood in global terms although it deals with local events is the one, given in the three synoptic Gospels, on which is based the idea that there will be a global rise in earthquakes (see box). This passage is found at the beginning of Jesus’ main prophetic discourse, known as the “Olivet Discourse” since he gave it on the Mount of Olives.

All three accounts begin with Jesus and his disciples leaving the Temple and crossing to the Mount of Olives. Some disciples comment on how magnificent the buildings of the Temple complex appeared, but Jesus dismisses their comments, stating that one day the Temple would be destroyed.

They question him, asking, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign when this is about to take place?” (Luke 21:8) or “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?” (Mark 13:4). The subject of the Olivet Discourse, as presented in Mark and Luke, is when the Temple will be destroyed and what signs will precede the event. This means that the Olivet Discourse in Mark and Luke is concerned with a local event—the destruction of the Temple—not with global ones. It deals with an event in our past, since the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, at the close of the Jewish War. Probably this would be clearer to people if not for the fact that in Matthew’s account an additional questions is asked: “Tell us, when will this [the destruction of the Temple] be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matt. 24:3).

Because it poses an additional question, Matthew’s account includes additional material (Matt. 24:36-25:46) that deals with it. Unfortunately, many people see the initial questions in Matthew’s account and read it as if the whole discourse applies to the Second Coming and the end of the world. It doesn’t. The first part of Matthew’s account (24:4-35) parallels the material in Mark and Luke and is intended to answer the disciples’ question about the destruction of the Temple.

Jesus tells the disciples that before this event happens there will be a period of trouble. It will be characterized by the appearance of false messiahs and false prophets. Wars will start during it, and there will be rumors that other wars may start. There will be natural disasters, including famines, pestilences, and great earthquakes in some places. It will also be a time of trial for Christians, and many will fall away due to persecution. Ex-Christians will betray their former co-religionists, and people will betray Christians even in their own families. Believers will be turned over to councils and synagogues. Some will stand before kings and governors and testify to the Christian faith with irrefutable answers, and the gospel will be preached to all nations. Christians will be put in prison; some will be executed, and others will be preserved through the trial. Toward the end of the period (that is the timing Luke seems to suggest), there will be great signs from heaven.

When many read this, they assume Christ is talking about the final tribulation before the end of the world. This is why Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and New Agers commonly say that there will be a rise in the number of earthquakes, as well as other disasters, right before the Second Coming or New Age. Since many are convinced that we are near the Second Coming or New Age, they look to current headlines for fulfillment of the expected signs. Every new disease is taken as one of the pestilences that signal the end. Every new earthquake sparks comments about how there has been a rise in the number of earthquakes as we have neared the end. But there are problems with this.

It simply is not true that there has been an increase in earthquakes. Not long ago I was listening to a New Age radio program over the Internet. The host was talking to a geologist and repeated the claim that the number of earthquakes has risen recently. The geologist tried to set him straight, explaining that there has been no increase.

As I listened, I thought, “You know, I bet I could get a tally of all the major recent earthquakes.” After a bit of searching around, I found the web page of the National Earthquake Information Center and downloaded a list of all earthquakes in the last century of magnitude 7.0 or higher. Putting the information into a database, I produced a chart showing how the number of quakes has varied over the century. Not only has there not been an increase in earthquakes, there has been a decrease! At the beginning of the century there was an average of about twenty-three magnitude 7.0 or better earthquakes per year. Now there is an average of seventeen or eighteen. Of course, the average could go up again. In fact, it probably will go up. But the point remains that there has not been an increase in recent years.

More fundamentally, the relevant passage in the Olivet Discourse is not talking about something in our future, but about something in our past—about the period leading up to the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. Only Matthew’s account sets out to discuss the Second Coming in particular. Mark and Luke may contain material on the Second Coming, but only toward the ends of their accounts. They speak of Jesus coming in clouds (Mark 13:26-37, Luke 21:27), but it is not certain that this is a reference to the Second Coming. The Bible often speaks of God riding on or coming in clouds, especially in judgment (Ex. 19:9, Ps. 68:4, Isa. 19:1, 30:30, Lam. 2:1, Ezek. 30:3, Nahum 1:3). Jesus specifically stated that “this generation will not pass away before all these things take place” (Mark 13:30; cf. Luke 21:32). It is therefore entirely reasonable to take the prophecy not as a reference to the future Second Coming, but as symbolic and apocalyptic language, modeled on Old Testament parallels, pointing to Christ’s judgment on Jerusalem—which did take place within that generation, when the city was sacked by the Romans.

Even if that is not the case, the material at the beginning of the Olivet Discourse certainly does not apply to the end of time, but to the forty years between Christ’s Ascension and the end of the Jewish War. During that time there were false messiahs and false prophets. The Jewish historian Josephus says that during the siege of Jerusalem there were many false prophets in the city (Wars of the Jews 6:5:2). There were wars and rumors of war. There were famines and plagues. It was also a time of great persecution for Christians, some of whom fell away and returned to Judaism (a problem the book of Hebrews was written to deal with). Christians were taken before councils (Acts 4-6). Some, such as Paul, stood before governors (Acts 23-24) and kings (Acts 25-26) in testimony to Christ (Acts 23:11), with irrefutable answers given by the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:8-16, 26:19-31). They were thrown into prison (Acts 12:5). Some were executed (Acts 12:2); others were preserved (Acts 12:6-17). In fact, if Luke wrote his gospel shortly before Acts, he would already have witnessed the fulfillment of many of these prophecies in his own day.

One might raise an objection to this interpretation by asking, “What about the signs from heaven that Luke mentions? Did these happen?” Yes. The phrase “signs from heaven” can be taken in two senses. First, it can mean “signs from God” (“heaven” was often used as a substitute for “God”; thus even in English we have sayings such as “for heaven’s sake”—that is, “for God’s sake”). God certainly performed many miraculous signs during this period (Acts 2:43, 5:12, 6:8, 8:6, 8:13, 14:2, 15:12). Second, “signs from heaven” could mean signs in the heavens. These also seem to have happened at the time. Josephus records a number of them: “Thus there was a star resembling a sword [or a cross; cf. Matt. 24:30], which stood over the city, and a comet that continued for a whole year. . . . chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds” (ibid., 6:5:3).

“Granting that there were ‘signs from heaven’ that occurred during the period,” one might ask, “what about the preaching of the gospel to ‘all nations’? That hasn’t happened even in our own time!” Here is where the global/local problem mentioned earlier comes in. To Mediterranean peoples back then, “the world” meant the known world and “the nations” meant those clustered around the Mediterranean. In Luke 2:1, the evangelist states that a decree had gone forth from Augustus Caesar that “all the world” should be enrolled. In Colossians 1:6, we find Paul saying that the gospel is bearing fruit and growing “in the whole world.” In Romans 1:5 he says that God sent him to bring about the obedience of faith “among all the nations.” He says in Romans 16:26 that God’s plan is being made known “to all nations” by the prophetic writings. In Colossians 1:23 he states that “the gospel . . . has been preached to every creature under heaven.”

All of this applies only to the known world of Paul’s day. Augustus Caesar census did not include the Aztecs. The gospel was not preached in the Americas in the first century (Mormon claims to the contrary notwithstanding). Paul was not an apostle to the Chinese. There were no copies of the prophetic writings among the Australian aborigines. And Paul did not mean that the gospel had been preached to every individual human, even within the Roman Empire.

The same global/local distinction applies to what Jesus said about earthquakes. He did not say that there will be a rise in earthquake activity all over the planet. He said that during the period he spoke about there would be earthquakes. Needless to say, there were earthquakes around the fall of Jerusalem. In fact, Josephus records that there was an earthquake in the Temple itself during the feast of Pentecost.

In any event, when Jesus’ statements are read from the perspective of those he was addressing in Israel, they are not understood to be global predictions. He was speaking to them about things they would hear about in the period before the destruction of the Temple. We are not the earthquake generation Jesus spoke of. That was the same generation he was addressing, the one he promised would not pass away until his words were fulfilled.

Matthew 24

4 And Jesus answered them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: 8 all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. 9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.

Mark 13

5 And Jesus began to say to them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. 9 “But take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 13 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

Luke 21

8 And he said, “Take heed that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9 And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must first take place, but the end will not be at once.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. 12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. 13 This will be a time for you to bear testimony. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death; 17 you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.

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