In April 2024, our television and mobile screens were filled with images of long-range ballistics glowing in the night sky over Jerusalem. A barrage of missiles had been launched directly by Iran from hundreds of miles away into Israel. In the tense moments where we waited for spectacular images of destruction across a land considered holy by Jews, Muslims, and Christians, it seemed the apocalyptic event the world has long imagined might begin. It did not.
Since then, the conflict has escalated with subsequent attacks from both Israel and Iran. On June 22, 2025, the United States became directly involved with powerful, never-before-used bombs dropped from stealth planes on nuclear development sites deep inside Iranian mountainsides. As everyday citizens implore their leaders to act in their best interest in times of growing conflict, the world anxiously contemplates what comes next.
In the backdrop of this conflict is Israel’s multi-front offensive in Gaza which has undeniably become a humanitarian catastrophe with no immediate, just resolution. Additionally, the grueling and high-stakes war in Ukraine initiated by Russia shows no sign of ceasing. With the United States militarily involved in the Middle East along with other nuclear-capable nations such as Israel, Russia, China, and NATO allies with a material interest in the region, the growing weariness remains a very real and calculated possibility.
Understanding Apocalyptic Narratives and Current Events
Religious traditions often refer to events and signs of coalescing great peril involving catastrophic war, natural disasters, and destructive “acts of God” as “the end times.” For generations, Jews and Christians tell a story of a perfect world created by God that became corrupted by the sin of mankind. The Biblical narratives recount numerous stories with a familiar storyline: humanity’s self-interest and rebellion create tragic outcomes that lead people to rediscover God’s moral ways. These stories originate from ancient Mesopotamia in the Middle East, dating back 400 CE to 3,000 BCE. It wasn’t until closer to the turn of the millennium that a new form of literature became popularized in religious tradition: the apocalyptic genre.
An apocalypse isn’t a particular event, but a story that conflates current events (typically political in nature), religious symbolism, and fantasy to imagine a prophetic outcome. These narratives regularly feature widespread destruction by oppressive or supernatural powers that threaten the existence of a people group. They are stories of war-making and typically legitimize claims of superiority of one group over another with God’s divine blessing or judgement.
Imagining the possibility of worldwide catastrophe through war, climate change, artificial intelligence, or (a less likely) asteroid strike is visualized in modern-day apocalyptic novels and films. Like ancient apocalyptic literature, such hypothetical outcomes are not purely fictional. They are grounded in observations of current events, our interpretations of them, and our need for justice from suffering and evil.
Where historical and current events alongside competing worldviews can incite our anxiety about the future, ideological groups seek to position themselves as the righteous defenders of truth. This is often done at the expense of others by perpetuating more harm than good and justified in the name of God. In polarized times like these, it’s no wonder many reject religious traditions and others cling closer.
Visions of Hope and Justice
So, are we living in the “end times” and on the brink of a total global collapse? Unlikely.
We may be entering a dark period in human history where war, climate change, and technological disruption create never-before-seen global threats. The future cannot be fully known, but the wisdom and insights of our historical texts can serve as helpful guides. The ancient prophetic texts that predict the end of the world and God’s total victory are stories intended to unite believers to persevere in faith under oppression, persecution, tragedy, and extreme hardship. These stories can be insightful, but not predictive as fundamentalists and biblical-literalists claim them to be. An analysis of history and the function of religious and non-religious apocalyptic literature would reveal a sobering conclusion: they do not foretell the future.
However, the stories of the past can caution and inspire us to pursue justice and the flourishing of all people in opposition to those who seek their self-interests at the expense of others. These stories remind us that chaos and calamity are ever-present realities in the human experience. They also invite us to imagine the results of injustice and evil against one another as members of a single human family, even if exaggerated or disproportionately biased. An apocalypse isn’t a single event, but the story of widespread human suffering and loss. For this reason, we’re drawn to worship and pray to God for inspiration, intervention, and redemption over our collective plight.
Hope in our time is the pursuit of a better justice that cultivates unity, progress toward a sustainable future, and solutions that benefit everyone, everywhere. The stories of epic battles between the forces of good and evil have been written into the very fabric of modern human consciousness, but we are not limited by them. A peaceful and just world is possible when we transform our fears into compassion and love for others because, in Christ, we are all children of God.
