This isn't your parents' End Times novel—and Kirk Cameron is nowhere to be seen
The End Times are obviously the greatest gift to Christian writers from Christian culture. There’s an endless wealth of topics, prophecies, people and subtexts that authors can explore. The U.S. is mad at Iran? Someone’s probably interpreted Revelation to predict that! Global warming? Surely the End Times. The Backstreet Boys and Warren G. have new albums coming out? Oh mercy, it’s the Apocalypse!
And, of course, one can’t talk about Christian apocalyptic fiction without mentioning the beast (pun fully intended) of the genre, the Left Behind series which leapt to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, inspired a video game and led to the so-bad-they’re-good film adaptations.
So it’s understandable if you come to The End is Now (by Rob Stennett) with a little trepidation. But rest assured: This isn’t your parents’ End Times novel. Instead it’s a little satire, mixed with a lot of family drama and commentary on the craziness that grips anyone who focuses a little too intently on the “signs”—or who ignores the idea of the Second Coming all together.
The protagonists of the book are the Hendersons, a sort of catch-all slice of Americana. Jeff, the father, works as a dissatisfied car salesman; Amy, his wife, feels like she’s living in God’s “plan B” for her life; Emily, the high school daughter wants nothing more than to be homecoming queen; and Will, a 10-year-old who has a mysterious vision in a cornfield warning him of the impending rapture.
But the rapture Will hears about isn’t the “people disappear from all over the globe and chaos ensues” that you normally read about. This rapture will only occur in Goodland, Kan., the small town where End Is Now is set. As the book puts it, “Goodland is the test market for the rapture.”
And what a test market for the rapture: Goodland collapses on itself as Will begins to share his vision and prophesy about the “signs” that will occur before the rapture. When the signs start happening, furor erupts. People start looting, stockpiling food and tools and divide themselves into groups of “The Prepared” and “The Realists.” The groups are just what they sound like—The Prepared are the people who are convinced by Will’s prophecy and believe the rapture will occur in a short time, while The Realists are convinced that Will’s prophetic warnings are sheer delusion.
Of course, Stennett mentions all of these things with tongue firmly planted in-cheek. He’s obviously commenting much more on peoples’ insistence that End Times events are all or nothing; either everything that happens in the world is a “sign,” or everything is a coincidence and the Second Coming is just a myth.
The Hendersons come to represent a sort of middle ground that Stennett seems to suggest might be a happy medium: People who believe whole-heartedly in the Second Coming of Christ, but choose to eschew some of the more extreme measures and crazy posturing of their believing brethren.
Stennett’s criticism isn’t just reserved for the zany faithful, however. The Realists are finally driven mad by the notion that people really believe in forces outside of humanity and are led to do some shocking things. It’s difficult to read these passages without thinking of some of the more egregious examples of “atheist apologetics” like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.
What finally happens to the town of Goodland is strange and a little sad. The End Is Now illustrates what happens in communities when no one listens to each other and becomes so entrenched in their position that love disappears. Stennett’s point is much less about what to “believe” about the End Times and much more about what happens when people become obsessed with it—either with the “signs” or with the idea that there is nothing that happens outside of random, humanistic chance.
