Dear FRONTLINE,

Dear Frontline

Thanks for a good program on a topic of great moment. The inter-testamentary origins of the apocalyptic form received a great deal of attention, perhaps more than necessary but all good. Augustine and Joachim were rightly highlighted, so far so good.

However, the presentation was less well presented upon reaching the dawn of the modern age. Here of all places would have been an opportunity to address just what it is about western thought from roughly the 16th to the 20th centuries that gave rise to the notion of calculable outcomes from the study of prophecy based upon notions of linear and analytical thinking. Of all the streams of influence at the dawn of the modern age, the German Lutheran Reformation is perhaps the least important contributor! The argument of your presentation was weakest here. Here I think it would be helpful if those who are interested in the lineage of historicist interpretative schemata to take a look at my book, "The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain" [OUP 1979]. Since the intellectual history of the early modern age is, or was, my specialty - I was a little before my time for academic preferment - I may perhaps be particularly sensitive to the more proximate origins of our present tradition. At the time of the 30 Years War, there developed in Britain a group of both English and continental exiles who established analytical exegetical techniques which produced [with predictions for their own day of course] an identifiable Apocalyptic tradition in western historiography which was later exported technically virtually unchanged to America, until as was pointed out the ëinventioní of the rapture.

I do not think it is insignificant, [and I think the connection should have been made], that the rise of analytical approaches to philosophy, to all human knowledge including material scientific inquiry, could, when applied to literary texts including Scripture, be seen by the reformed and even some of the counter-reformed as pre-eminently literal and exact, scientific, calculable, logically persuasive from the axioms of the text and demonstrable from current events. This is the real origin of our western tradition as we encounter it today. Many highly respected and university trained minds, for example Isaac Newton did what they thought was their best and most important work as interpreters of the Book of Revelation, Daniel, and other passages. Similar expressions filter through the rationalism of the 18th century, the German idealists of the 19th and the Marxist, Fascist et al of the 20th centuries. Sharing aspects, language and image with all apocalyptic thought, the specific form we have now owes more to the last four centuries than to the era around the time of Christ. It would have been good to see this balance.

The present tradition is I trust going to be co-existent with the modern thought patterns that define it. I believe these have begun major changes, good old paradigmatic shift, new physics and so on, and hopefully the next fifty or so years will see new understandings of the shape of human knowledge which will likewise impact [and I think increase] our understanding of Holy Scripture. In the meantime there may well be trouble and I thank the producers of the program for beginning a necessary process of education.

Katharine Firth, D Phil Oxon
Readfield, Maine

Dear FRONTLINE,

Firstly, I would like to express my admiration for Frontline, a TV programming with substance and depth.
I was born in a Bahai family a new religion originated from the old Persia which is today's Modern Iran, but being an analytical engineer for the past few years, I rejected all religions, and turned to some sort of atheism. What striked me last nigh was the date 1844 anticipated by William Miller to be the date when Christ was to return.
On the same year in Persia someone neamed the "Bob" claimed he was a messenger from God. Today's Bahai are the follower of Bahaollah whom the " Bob" called the Promised man in the Bible, Koran, and Torah.
Coincidence?!

Alan Casiani
San Diego, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

It seems wrong that PBS, a government institution, would air a program that puts down the sincere religious beliefs of a mainstream religion like Christianity. It should be noted that most Fundamentalists, Dispensationalists, and Pentecostals are not Anti-Jewish, but are strong advocates of their right to practice the Jewish Faith openly. Also the Reference to the "Heaven's Gate" movement as Christian was unfair. Just because they espoused a few elements of Christian origin doesn't make them Christian any more than the Islamic elements of the Shriners makes them Muslims. The reporting that the Book of Rvelation was a false prophecy that failed in 3 1/2 years is an interpretation, and should not be presented as fact. Also the remarks regarding the Book of Daniel being a forgery written 400 years after the fact was slanderous against our Holy Faith I am a Pentecostal. I really enjoyed the presentation of religious history, but wish it weren't so biased.

Aaron Walden
Pryor, Oklahoma

Dear FRONTLINE,

FRONTLINE covered a lot of ground in "Apocalypse!" 2500 years worth, packing a lot of excellent information into a two hour documentary. Very good! I feel, however, that your attempt to ground the book of Revelation in history is somewhat futile. Your sane approach to religion is welcome for people like me, but it is lost on fundamentalists who have no clue regarding their own ignorance. Keep up the good work, but know that it's a drop in the bucket, compared to contemporary apocalyptic whackos who seem to get more air time, and hence, more influence over people's views. You get the impression that they WANT the world to end. Incredible.
p.s. In your segment on Hitler's MEIN KAMPF, you suggested that he may have been alluding to the book of Daniel when he said: " . . . the Pan-Jewish prophecy that the Jews will one day devour the other nations and become lords of the earth." Maybe, but I suggest instead that he was alluding to the book of Esther if he was using a translation of the Greek additions to the book of Esther Chapter A:10: [Mordecai's dream] "The light of the sun broke forth; the lowly were exalted and they [i.e. the Jews] devoured the nations." Just a thought! Especially when you consider that Hitler hated the book of Esther, because it fed his paranoia that the Jews were an insidious force which would turn the tables on the Germans.

Thomas Hart
Latrobe, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your excellent show left out perhaps the most dramatic of all the end-time apocalyptic stories, the Anabaptist Kingdom of Muenster in 1535; Norman Cohn's chapter on Jan van Leiden in his Pursuit of the Millennium led me to writer The Tailor-King, a popular history recently published by St.Martin's Press, which I think might interest many of your viewers.

tony arthur
woodland hills, ca 91367

Dear FRONTLINE,

I thought your program was a reasonably good overview of the history of the apocalyptic theme in Western and Middle Eastern history. Except for the part showing its manifestation in modern day America. It was interesting to see the earnest faces of American Christians who still carry the apocalyptic torch.But it would have been a more comprehensive treatment to also show the earnest faces of Al Gore and his fellow faithful among those who see the Earth's wicked about to suffer the apocalypse through overpopulation, starvation, global warming, melting ice caps, untreatable microbes and so on. The Antichrist is "global capitalism" to these true believers follow the Seattle demonstrations for the ITC conference. And since God is dead for liberals, they must substitute "the planet" or "nature" or "Gaia" for the forces of light side of the story. Did the relentlessly liberal editors of Frontline choose to focus on apocalyptic Christians because these, and not the Gore/Nader/Greenpeace apocalypticists, are associated with the political right? Or are they so steeped in leftist orthodoxy themselves that they simply can't see it?

David Bell
Portland, OR

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was very impressed with your program last night and judging by the quality of responses I have read, this program struck a chord with a great many people. I am an agnostic myself, but I have spent a lot of time reading The Bible. I have always been struck by the powerful visions of Revelation and I am pleased to have heard a discussion of the matter of the perspective of the writer.

I must say, though, that it is very disquieting to think that people may take steps to hasten such a cataclysm. I hope that no one would really want to be the catalyst of such violence. If this is indeed the plan of a supreme being, let the supreme being take the initiative. Please do not vainly provoke violence.

Kurt McClintock

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was very disappointed in your portrayal of apocalypse. Christians studying the end of time events have spent many of hours, yet not one person of faith was consulted. Your program only showed the view of a few people who do not have a faith. Christianity is the only faith that has prophecy and prophecy is not a tool used to scare people. If the weather station would broadcasts a warning of an impending storm, would this be just to scare the people? certainly not. To say that the prophets of the Old Testament conjured up stories and rewrote history is nothing short of blasphemy. The truth is the book of Daniel so accurately predicted the future that many scholars say it had to be written at latter, yet recent archeology finds have proven that Daniel did exist at the time many Christian scholars say he did. I have found more and more that PBS is very unfriendly to Christianity. It seems bent on turning Jesus into just anther man, but the grave is empty, He has risen and He will come again. Please, if you are going to do any more programs on Christian precepts, get a balance perspective. You might just find out there really is a God.

Tim Roscoe
salisbury, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have a real problem with you describing the Heaven's Gate people as Christian/New Age. In my view the two terms are mustually exclusive. Many groups attach the teachings of Jesus to their own beliefs. It is doubtful, however, that Jesus would ally himself with a group seeking heaven by embarking on a UFO. The "next level" is actually at hand spiritually and has been for 2000 years.

I didn't get to see the entire program last nite. I intend to check it all out. Your assignation of the term Christian to these poor people leads me to believe you've sought to denigrate true Christian believers by association. It is clear such an attempt is not just unfair but completely inept on your part. Pretty blatant bias there, guys.

John F. Lemke
Dowagiac, MI

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for airing this show on the Apocalypse. One thing that always astonishes me when the Book of Revelation is discussed is that although everyone seems to grasp the fact that the book is full of symbolism, they fail to see its ultimate purpose. The imagery is spiritual, and it describes spiritual events - not any literal end of the world. The imagery describes the end of one age and the beginning of a new age. Old ideas will come crashing down, old ways of doing things will be swept away, and hurtful practices and ideas will come to a spiritually dramatic end as people wake up to the truth. No one will see these things with their literal eyes. They are spiritual, as are the predictions of Ezekiel, Daniel and the other prophets. The basic message is that in time the world will get better, that kindness and goodness will reign, that people will worship and love God, and that there will be peace. Many things, however, need to change before that can happen. This hopeful and reasonable interpretation of Revelation is the one found in the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. I'm surprised that this viewpoint was not mentioned on the show.

Jeremy Simons
Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

Dear FRONTLINE,

This message is for those who consider themselves to be Christian in faith. While the subject of the Apocalypse is interesting, it only seems to cause worry in most people. Why worry? All the worry in the world won't keep you from eventually dying. Since the afterlife is really the concern, true Christians should only concern themselves with increasing their faith /belief. It was for unbelief that the chosen ones could not enter into God's rest, and ever since Adam God has been denied belief / faith. All the miracles performed by Christ and the Apostles were brought about through the faith of those involved. Of the two criminals hanging alongside Christ, the one who believed was promised a place in paradise that day solely based on his one statement of belief. My advise is to decrease one's worrying and increase one's faith. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow:for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Rumaldo Ortiz
Santa Fe, NM

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched the program tonight with mixed feelings. I am married to a Jew, and his idea of the Apocolypse is way different from mine. However, I think the show was wonderfully presented, and, as I know first hand, will set some so-called Christian Fundamentalists over the edge. I have a family member involved in one of these churches, and she absolutely believes that the Jews killed Christ, when in fact, it was the Romans. I plan on giving her my copy of the tape I made, just so she will get at least part of the truth. I really don't find the Book of Revelation relevent in today's society; we've been killing each other over religion as long as we've been on earth. I agree with whoever said that the Book of Revelation should not have been included in the New Testament.

Denise Rousar

Dear FRONTLINE,

The rapture of Christians could not take place just any time now, nor is Christ's return imminent. These events, Christ's return and the gathering together of all Christians by Christ will NOT take place until there is first a great Christian apostasy and then a "son of destruction" who will claim to the the real God will enter the world, claim to have no historical connection to any religion or anything worshipped and set himself up as God, after these things Christ will return, destroy this person's world power Rev 13 and gather all Christians unto Himself. SEE II Thessalonians 2 and especially verse 4. I'm tired of the loud voices of some Christians that keep claiming Christ's return is imminent, not because of what the bible actually says but because they ride their favorite hobby horse.

Sherry Summers
Los Angeles, Ca

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am disappointed that such a well researched documentary would associate the Seventh Day Adventist Church SDA of today with the Millerite's "Great Disappointment", but stop short of explaining the modern SDA Biblical teachings of the end of time and time of the end. Any confusion of the viewers from this oversimplification was most likely compounded by the SDA association with David Koresh's group as a "Seventh Day Adventist splinter group." Mr. Koresh's beliefs and teachings were not Biblically sound and therefor completely unconsistent with SDA doctrines. The Seventh Day Adventist Church is not a cult, but rather a well accepted mainstream Protestant Christian denomination. In fact, Catholic Church essays have pointed to SDA believers as most closely following scripture as a matter of conscience i.e. Sabbath keeping as set forth in the 4th Commandment. Thank you for the opportunity to make these distinctions and clarifications. May the Lord bless you all.

Terry Gobel
Spokane, Washington

Dear FRONTLINE,

Although I appreciate your effort on discussing the topic of the Apocalypse, I feel that the "scholars" and the program in general were biased towards disbelief in biblical prophecies. They also sounded condesending about the beliefs of Christians to the point that this almost sounded as if the theme of the presentation was trying to discredit belief in God, and the taking of the Bible literally at all. These passages and scriptures are to be spiritually discerned. It does a great discredit to the viewers to not have a more balanced look at things as important as this. It appears that when a public broadcasting station portrays a report on evolution or some other "scientific" belief system, it is portrayed as "known fact". But when we are faced with an issue of Christianity, it is looked at by the media as just another silly transitional idea to help man deal with his fear of the unknown, which is not the case at all. Everyone on this earth, since the beginning of time, worships something. It might be themselves, the sun, the moon, mother nature, science, or God. But the fact remains the Bible has stood the test of time, critics, scholars, and thousands of years of scrutiny. Yet it still remains as perfect and un-yielding with the truth about our beginning, life application, and end of the world as we know it, as the first day the Lord inspired it's writing. All you need, is to trust that it will all be revealed in God's own time. To have faith in something other than ourselves is the first and sometimes hardest obstacle, but the easiest to see once you've crossed it. I hope to see more programming on Frontline that deals with Biblical issues in a enlightening way and I appreciate the opportunity to voice my opinion.

Mike Bains
Ft. Smith, AR