Signs of the Times
Jun 12th, 2007 by Glenn
There was an interesting debate in Gospel Doctrine this past Sunday. Two Historians went at each other (mildly) with differing ideas.
The GD teacher, a Ph.D. in History who is probably in her mid-60’s made that claim that the Signs of The Times does not play as prominent a role in the Church as it did just 20-30 years ago. She felt that more conference talks and Sunday school lessons and just general chatter among the members focused much more on the Signs of the Times and the Second Coming than they do today – that people used to believe it would happen in their lifetime, but don’t think that as much any more. She wondered what had changed.
One of the students in the class, a Doctoral candidate in History in his early 30’s took issue with these claims. He felt that the Second Coming is still taught as a fundamental doctrine of our church and that the Signs of the Times are still discussed as much as they ever were – or that they are at least as important today as the ever have been.
Of course both of them, for the most part, looked at “top down” examples — i.e. conference talks from the Brethren, or lesson manuals published by Salt Lake. Neither of them really turned to the folk record — the “bottom up” approach. As a folklorist, I think you can get a better guage on the this question by listening the the lore of the folk. Unfortunately, that is a rather difficult thing to do — you can’t have eyes and ears everywhere, and most of the folk record is oral transmission in non-formal situations. I have my own ideas based on some very narrow inquiries I made into this topic some years ago, but I would really like to hear from you. In your experience over the past few years, what do you think? What have you heard?
Have you noticed a change at all in the course of your lifetime? Do you or people you know look for signs of the times? If so, which ones? Do you feel that the Second Coming will happen in your lifetime? Please, I urge you — hurry and post your thoughts before Brother Stephen gets a hold of this post and starts talking about red-moons and rainbows again. I smeared vaseline all over his seerstone to keep him in the dark, but it’s only a matter of time until he finds a napkin and wipes it off.
I haven’t noticed much of a change in the course of my lifetime, but I’m only 25, and I was a teenage convert. I did notice an increase in discussion about the Second Coming/end of the world, etc. following 9/11, but it seemed to subside within a year or so.
I will occasionally note or pay attention to signs of the times, mainly relating to wars/rumors of wars simply because there is a lot of war being reported on in the news, and it’s hard not to think about. I doubt that the Second Coming will happen in my lifetime, but if it does, I think that I will be an old woman. I’m planning for a long, normal life.
I think there has definitely been a shift. I no longer hear the - you are the chosen generation - talks. I also think that in the 80’s there was an unspoken but widely believed hope that the year 2000 would bring the Millennium. As the 90’s came to a close, most people recognized that most of the signs of the times had yet to be fulfilled, and we weren’t ready for the world to end.
My belief is that the church emphasis (among the populace - not the leadership) on the end-times goes along with those of the general religious population. Hal Lindsey’s, The Late Great Planet Earth, was big in the 70’s/80’s. This coincided with Saturday’s Warriors, Bruce R. McConkie, etc… There is no popular belief that the millennium is coming (the Left Behind Series notwithstanding) so members of the church are not focussing on it either.
Overall, I think more members are recognizing that the time does not matter, since we are doing millennial work in the temples today. Just live your life and when the Lord comes, we will hopefully be ready.
Keri,
Very interesting. One of the points that the younger historian tried to make was that there were — how did he put it? It was funny — something like “old relics” and “new relics” in the church. Most of us in the room, he said, were “old relics” (he meant that we had grown up in the church rather than joining later in life) and that the real discussions about the second coming and signs of the times happened among the “new relic” members. A girl immediately rose her hand and talked about her experience as a “new relic” — she had just passed her second anniversary for joining the church. She grew up Christian and already had a certain idea of “end times” and she got that in the missionary discussions, but was suprised that it was not talked about more in the everyday church experience (she was basically shooting him down).
You make another good point about 9/11. When I was tudying folklore at BYU (mid 90’s) Bert Wilson told me that these kind of signs of the times stories are pretty latent until some kind of major crisis happens — then they spike. As I recall, he was talking more specifically about the Three Nephite Hitchhiker stories (where they warn you to get your food storage by the end of the year because something big is going to happen) and the spike they had in Utah when Bill Clinton was elected President. It sounds kind of funny, but it is an interesting way to guage popular attitudes in Utah towards a democrat in the white house.
Keri,
One more thing. I am curious if you have come across any uniquely Mormon signs of the times that are different than what you may have heard before you joined the church. Did you have the same belief about the second coming before you joined?
Gilgamesh,
I have been wondering about the “chosen generation” thing. I heard that all the time growing up (70’s and 80’s, Mesa and Tempe, Az). I also wonder how frequently patriarchal blessings promise any more that people will live to see it. I undertand that used to be more common but has since dropped off quite a bit.
I agree with your conclusion that it doesn’t really matter cuz when it happens it happens, but that is still hard for me to completely accept because it was such a big part of my fascination growing up.
I also think you could be on to something there with your popular culture/mormon culture parallel. It seems to me that more New Age pseudo-science works like “What the BLEEP do we know” and “The Secret” have taken the place of some of those pre-2000 “end times” focused works (Celestine Prophesy comes to mind). Do you see that as well? Where do you see the emphasis in popular culture now? Do you see that bleeding over into Mormon culture?
Don’t you see that dismissing or ignoring signs of the second coming is indeed itself a sign of the second coming? The world wants to believe that nothing is going on so they can partake in Babylon just a little longer. But to those people I say Christ will come as a thief in the night and he will not delay his coming until the end of the Earth! In fact, the signs are multiplying daily and obvious to those well-versed in the scriptures. Let us not forget that many fail to see them because they are like the unprepared virgins from the parable of the ten virgins.
Oh dear — um… Hello, Peter. I hate to say this, but yes, you are right, one of the signs of the times is indeed apathy about the signs of the times. I am rather concerned, however, that you feel no need to fulfill that particular sign for yourself. Isn’t that approach a little counter-productive? I mean, if there were not already wars and rumors of wars in the world, wouldn’t you — as an upstanding follower of The Truth — feel a little obligated to go out and start some just to move the work along (either the rumors or the wars, whichever you prefer)?
Of course, one sign where I see that both yourself and Brother Stephen are not slacking is the one about how men’s hearts will wax in the last days — I’m sure you are familiar with that one. Kudos for moving it all along on that front. And don’t forget to horde your oil (and virginity) — you are not required to share.
To my mind, the biggest thing that changed between the 1980s and now was the end of the Cold War. I remember in the early 80s before the death of Yuri Andropov, and even later during the early Gorbachev years, that many people spoke about when we’d have nuclear way, not if. This same period witnessed a real peak in post-apocalyptic science fiction writing (think David Brin’s 1985 The Postman), which I would argue represents a folk preoccupation with the end of civilization as we know it. I must admit that I am out of the sci-fi loop now, but I seem to recall a real shift away from post-apocalyptic fiction in the early 90s and a move towards more optimistic, perhaps even utopian, fiction that saw mankind as capable of solving problems and progressing to a better state (think of the popularity of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 90s*).
Thus in the 1980s we had an eminently plausible and immanent mechanism for something approaching the conditions described in the Apocalypse of John (although I should note that every generation seems to see its fulfillment in their own time), something we don’t really see today. While there are threats, none of them seem to presage a total collapse of our world order (although I think that some environmentalists see a new eschaton in global warming). They are nuisances, not existential crises. Absent a threat to our existence, we don’t focus on the end.
I wonder about the background of the history candidate in your class. I have seen a definite shift in interest in discussion of the last days in my life (which covers the same period as his), but it is possible that he grew up in an environment that didn’t particularly emphasize millenarian ideas, so he sees no change, while I grew up in one that did emphasize them, so I see a decline. It could well be that all of us answer this question in terms of our micro-culture, so we could all be right at that level.
One other interesting parallel I was just talking with some friends about today is that we no longer see much of the emphasis on Satanism that was prevalent in the 1980s. I remember when prominent Church members would write books decrying the Satanic influence of pop music on our youth, but I don’t really see this topic as a hot issue any more. I think that the reasons for its decline might be similar: we have moved to a period of greater optimism overall. (Oddly, however, I don’t think the same is true of our Evangelical friends, who seem to see themselves as an embattled minority even as they have their hands on the levers of power. That might be one reason why the Left Behind series is so popular in that crowd, while we don’t currently have the equivalent.)
* I realize it started in 1987, which doesn’t really fit my schema.
Oh no, looks like Bro. Goode there is a Knudsen clone. As if we need any of those.
My thoughts, Glenn, are that the continued expansion of the church beyond the United States may have something to do with the decrease in emphasis on the signs of the times. It seems like lots of things that were prevalent in Utah in the past (like Three Nephites stories) don’t seem to translate as well to other countries and cultures. In a lot of official church venues, like General Conference, the trend seems to be toward a streamlined simplified message with less Americanization apparent in it.
Of course, I could be out in left field on this topic. But, still, I wonder what role cultural background plays in approaching the second coming and its related signs.
Glenn,
Historically the church has had its ups and downs. The 1830’s were filled with millennial hopes (if you build it -the Jackson County Temple - He will come). Those waned through Nauvoo, with the ouster from Missouri bringing a dose of reality to the church. The 1857 Mormon War through the Civil War also brought about hopes that the Lord would strike down the persecutors of the church. Those prone to numbers woke up the millennial hopes based on the Joseph Smith revelation that if he should live to 84 the millennium would come (about 1890). Instead, the Manifesto was given. WWI and WWII also brought about some hopes and talk of the end again. The wars ended with no Second Coming in sight. The 60’s provided new fuel to the fire - the free world was falling apart and the church was the last bastion of hope. Again, no second coming and the world became more conservative in the 80’s. With the fall of communism, there is not an evident anti-Christ - though terrorism may rise to the occasion.
I think we are at a time of “unanxious expectation.” As Peter noted, we cannot avoid the signs, but I think the nail on the coffin for public emphasis occured with the Branch Davidians. As a church working to be seen as mainstream, public millennial discourse leads to paralells with extremist groups. Although millennial expectation is a tenet of most Christians, the major traditions have moved from an anxious awaiting to passive expectation. Again, unlike Augustinian thought on the matter, we DO NOT believe that the church is the millennial reign of Christ on the earth, but our temples allow us to get a jump start on the work that will occur during the millennium.
You make some good points Gilgamesh. I hadn’t thought of it in that light. In the age of modern media, it wouldn’t take much more than one highly publicized fire-and-brimstone sermon to set the church’s critics on the warpath.
I do think, like you say, that people are aware of the signs of the times. It seems that most of the discussion on this topic in Sunday School or Sacrament meeting is geared toward more spiritual preparation. For example, we don’t talk about building Zion in Jackson County as much as being a Zion-like people (temple worthy, having charity, etc).
When I taught a GD lesson on this subject about ten years ago in Bloomington, one older lady — a local Hoosier without any Utah connection — stood up and recounted a story I had heard years before, and was quite surprised, actually, to hear again. She said that she had heard about a group of light-skinned, blue-eyed south americans (she may have mentioned brazil or peru) who have been quarrying stone and laying it up in store because of an ancient prophesy that told them that they would take this stone up north to build a great temple to their God. She felt that the time was very close for those native americans to bring their stones and start to work on THE temple that is expected to be built in Independance, Mo preperatory to the Second coming.
Those are the kinds of stories I miss. I suspect they may still be out there, but I just don’t hear them any more. I don’t hear the speculation or debate about whether or not this General conference will be the one when the prophet will announce our return to Missouri, or the return of the Lost Tribes, or the great meeting at Adam-ondi-ahman. I don’t hear the speculation anymore about which of the apostles will be the two called to the special mission in Jerusalem. I miss these stories. They were such a part of my fascination with the church when I was a kid. I really expected to see these things happen in my lifetime, and now I barely hear about them. How boring
Glenn,
I agree - it is pretty boring. We are becoming a peculiarly homogenous WASPy people.
Dear Brother Gilgamesh,
That’s a nice name. Is it Irish?
I have to take issue with your last statement:
Maybe some members are, but certainly not everyone. And even then, as long as they don’t act on it they are still allowed full membership in the church — just like with single, celibate, heterogenous people. I don’t really know what you mean by WASPy — maybe it is the sickening sting that you feel in your stomach hen you see homogenous people and their flamboyant ways — but just to add my two cents to this discussion, I think that the general tolerance towards homogenous people is in itself a sign of the times. They are unraveling the very fabric of our society. And we all know what happened when they did that in Sadam and Gonorrhea.
Stevie-boy, I don’t think homogeneous means what you think it means. Let me help you out.
ho·mo·ge·ne·ous: –adjective
1. composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind; not heterogeneous: a homogeneous population.
2. of the same kind or nature; essentially alike.
Please — let’s not get graphic!
(Brother Glenn, can we get that Rider person’s comment removed? He is clearly one of them.)
Stephen -
WASP - White Anglo Saxon Protestant
Homogenous - What Simonds said above
Boring - I think we have become, as a culture, too much of the above for the sake of proving we are “Christian”
In contrast - I would love to see us proclaim our peculiarities. Progression to godhood,
Jesus is our Older Brother,
premortal existence,
As man is, God once was, as God is man may become,
Mother in Heaven
Yes, we were polygamists but we have a living prophet
the gathering of the 10 tribes
Jackson County as the New Jerusalem
These are what make us peculiar and we don’t hear it very much any more. Doesn’t make us any less Christian, but it does make us different.
I never really paid attention to the signs of the times before I joined the church, as I was not particularly religious. I didn’t really have a belief regarding the second coming, so I can’t really compare the differences.
However, I served my mission in North Carolina, so I had exposure to a lot of Evangelicals, and I definitely saw a difference in their views about the Second Coming as opposed to ours. The biggest one I noticed was the timing of the righteous being caught up to meet the Savior. As I understand it (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), many Protestants believe that the righteous will be caught up to meet the Savior 7 years before the second coming, during which they will not be on the earth for the really big calamities, and that the LDS view is that the righteous will be caught up to meet the Savior at the second coming, after having lived through the calamaties (or having passed away and been resurrected in the first resurrection).
Gilgamesh,
Don’t worry too much about Brother Stephen — he is intentionally dense. It makes the world a simpler place.
I completely agree with you. I like our peculiarities. I would add to the list:
degrees of glory,
spiritual gifts,
resurected Jesus visiting many places — a truly global savior,
doctrines and scriptures yet to be revealed (just not the Kinderhook plates),
(and I would take off jackson county — it gets into that whole Eden thing and that’s just a little too ethno-centric for me to swallow — I have no problem de-emphasizing that one)
Keri,
Your description of the rapture is consistant with what I’ve always understood. Of course there are probably some other obvious differences in LDS and non-LDS eschatology (fun new word for the day). I’m going to do this off the top of my head, so help me out.
Signs that are distinctly LDS:
1. Adam Ondi Ahman
2. The Book of Mormon and restoration of the Gospel
3. (uhhh… I’m drawing a blank here — can anyone help me out?)
Others I am not so sure about:
4. The two prophets in Jerusalem — I think we have our own take on this, but it isn’t uniquely LDS — it comes from Revelations, right?
5. The return of the Lost Tribes
6. Wars, commotion, hearts of men waxing cold
There have to be more…
Glenn ,
I just read Stephen’s latest post. Either he is a very cynical man, or very dry witted. Either way, he is entertaining.
I can see the point of the Jackson County thing today, but at the time it was given it was a radical revelation. The Lord would come, not just for the white Christian Americans, but to the Jackson County, bordering on Indian Territory to join together all peoples, regardless of race or cultural identity, under one Gospel. That message resonates with me.
I like your other additions.
Gilgamesh,
He is neither, and he is both. As for entertaining… I suppose that is a matter of taste, but I think so, too.
I like your take on jackson county. I had never thought of it as an expression of multi-cultural inclusionism. I wonder, however, if that wasn’t just a result of proximity — that the mormons had been pushed to the fringe of society.
On second thought, the more I think about it, the more I think the radical multicultural message might suggest a hint of intentional human creation rather than divine “this is how it is” Truth. If Jackson county really was Eden, and really is the future return-point for the second coming, then it wouldn’t really matter if it were bordering Indian territory at that point in history or not, would it?
Hmmm… I’m thinking through this one.
Glenn,
Bushman, in “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” believed that the plade (Jackson County) had a deep theological significance becasue it bordered Indian Territory. Because the Book of Mormon taught that the native Americans were descended from House of Israel, Jackson County, which bordered the Indian Territory on the east, would become a bridge between the Jew (Lamanite) and Gentile (United States).
What the “Indian are House of Israel” teaching brought about, to me anyway, is the belief that any people, any culture, any ethnicity, might be one of the lost 10 tribes. All people were God’s people, because we could not determine lineage by race or skin color, or even by geographical location.
Gilgamesh,
Again, that sounds like you (or Bushman) might be suggesting that the intrigue with native americans and lost/new Israel and this border-status of Jackson county played a role in Joseph’s “creating” this story. Is that your intention, or am I just reading into it?
Just found your blog page when I was researching some “end of times” topics. I also was of the “chosen generation” that I was told of in seminary. That is probably when I became most fascinated with the second coming and end of times topic. I learned early on that their is lots of mormon stories that make it around ward to ward, stake to stake and worldwide with the internet. (I live in Arizona and we may not get as many as Utah but we aren’t far behind) Lot’s of stories that make us feel good inside but don’t always have truth in them. This subject is one I spend a good deal of time studying. We have the scriptures and are told to study them, perhaps that is why we don’t preach or talk about the subject too much on Sunday’s. For how many years have we been told to get a year’s supply, be financially stable (2 pamphlets just released on these subjects) be spiritually prepared and to keep our lamps full of oil? There is no new scripture on the subject, so in my opinion what we already know between the scriptures and the words of the modern day prophets we have all the Lord is going to say on the subject at this time. It is up to us to read and receive our own revelation on what we as individuals and families need to be working on. On a side note I have formed a group of neighbors who are members and interested in studying this topic more in depth and we meet 2 times a month. I know that by doing this I have to be careful in not making this a “doctrine class”. We need to also be careful to not make this a fanatical subject. So the way we are approaching this is we are studying the signs of the times so that we can better prepare us and our families for the second coming. It is amazing how little knowledge of the signs of the times the majority of the members have. All those I met with had not even heard of the tribulation spoken of by other religions and even the rapture, whether pre trib, mid trib or post trib. It is a subject that scares the majority of the church members so they would rather not even discuss it. I found this to be true as I talked to friends and family to put this group together. As we proceed with this group I hope to have us somewhere between the fanatics and the scaredy cats. As we are now a global church I find that more and more of the gospel studies are being left to the individuals and their families. The church can’t save us only our testimonies can. Good luck with your research.
Julie,
Nice to hear from you. I too heard those stories in AZ — not that they were necessarily the same stories. You said a few things that jarred a few memories loose:
Sometime in the mid to late ’70’s (I was probably five years old or so) a woman in our ward stood and bore her testimony to the ward that she had been warned in a dream that the end was coming soon, and it would include great floods, and we all needed to go out and buy boats. She went on and on about it until the bishop stood and gave her the “tap” that her turn was over — one of the few times I have seen that done. It made an impression.
I know this sort of thing frustrates people, but if it makes you feel good inside, doesn’t the story carry some “truth” to it? It at the very least supports things that we believe to be true. I know what you mean, though — the story may be a fabrication, not based on actual events. But I try to be careful in my approach to folklore that I don’t judge a story by it’s “factuality” — but more by the value it has in peoples’ lives.
Your neighbor study group sounds very interesting. I used to do that at BYU in the mid 90’s — in fact I tape recorded several of our discussions on the signs of the times for a paper I wrote. I have a lot of fond memories of that group. I hope you’ll drop in and share what you discuss from time to time.
“The church can’t save us only our testimonies can.”
Only Christ can save us.
I remember being taught in SS in the early-70’s that one of the signs of the times was that the blacks would receive the priesthood.
One peculiar doctrine that I often heard taught while in seminary was the notion that bulk of church membership would abandon Utah and walk back to Missouri en masse to build the New Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri - which would be swept clean of its inhabitants. Obviously, there is not much emphasis on that doctrine any longer since the idea of gathering millions of members into a small county in Missouri is not practical or doable.
Another big thing I remember, prior to the end of the Cold War, was how Communism - with the Soviet Union leading the way - would overtake the world and bring about the apocalyptic battle of Armageddon.
j_t,
As recently as 4 or 5 years ago, my younger brother — who has not wanted anything to do with the Church for about ten years (and is semi-active in another Christian faith) — told my sister and I (to our great shock) thought he still believed that President Hinckley was a prophet and that if he told the church tomorrow that today was the day we needed to pack up and make the trek back to Missouri, he would do it. My point in sharing this is not to measure my brother’s “worthiness” or anything — just to illustrate that the belief about moving to Missiouri is still around (at least in this case) regardless of how much weight we put on it. But I do agree with you — I don’t hear about it nearly as much as I used to.
In 1979 the church published an article in the Ensign called Missouri Myths
It deals with a few of the issues that you have raised and suggests by its very presence the persistence of folk belief in apocalyptic themes
Yes Christ does save us as he saves everyone. But only are testimonies are going to get us through the tough times that lie ahead. It is our testimonies of Christ that save us.
This is technically more of an Evangelical belief, more than a general Protestant one (so I’m not surprised you ran into it a lot in Carolina!). There is an entire business around this with Tim LeHaye’s Left Behind series of books (I think I have the author’s name spelled correctly).
“When I taught a GD lesson on this subject about ten years ago in Bloomington, one older lady — a local Hoosier without any Utah connection — stood up and recounted a story I had heard years before, and was quite surprised, actually, to hear again. She said that she had heard about a group of light-skinned, blue-eyed south americans (she may have mentioned brazil or peru) who have been quarrying stone and laying it up in store because of an ancient prophesy that told them that they would take this stone up north to build a great temple to their God. She felt that the time was very close for those native americans to bring their stones and start to work on THE temple that is expected to be built in Independance, Mo preperatory to the Second coming.”
WOW….I have not heard of this since my mission. This is actually a BBC documentary…um….and I might have broken a rule and watched it at a members house. I do not remember the details but they were clearly light skinned people with south american features.
We just discussed this in our GD class this last Sunday. The instructor had the class raise hands on those that thought they would be here during the second coming. It was a rather large class (Mesa, Az). In a class of about 100 there were only about 8 people that raised. I was shocked by the lack of hands.
Hmmm - I have thought that recently there has been an increase in Signs of the Times comments from the brethren and maybe a decline among the “folks”. Maybe it’s because I am an avid watcher of signs - having joined the church when that whole “chosen generation” talk was going on. But I think it is much more subtle than a call to build handcarts to return to Missouri. Looking over the last 2 or 3 conferences you will see talks encouraging members to develop the spiritual strength they will need for the rough times that are coming. The conference after 9/11, (October 2001) Hinkley specifically said that the moon turned to blood prophecy had been fulfilled. (I know - I missed it too, had to go back and reread it when a friend pointed it out. Shows how good we pay attention during conference). The new All Things Are Gathered In pamphlets indicate to me an effort to push food storage and debt freedom in a user friendly way (for those stragglers in obeying the call to prepare).
The recent gospel doctrine lesson (I am the GD teacher in my ward - Palm Desert Stake) that discussed preparedness for the 2nd coming (parable of the 10 Virgins) put an emphasis on spiritual preparedness. I think there may be two phases to preparedness, physical (the lamp) and spiritual (the oil). For years we have been counseled to be physically prepared (food storage, stay out of debt, get as much education as you can….), but we have now moved to phase two - prepare spiritually.
I think it is obvious that I am in that group that thinks the second coming will happen in my lifetime. Yes, I am highly aware that throughout time each turn in the century and major disaster gets the populace thinking about it again. I do believe however, that if you keep an eye on the fig tree you can see the leaves are definitely budding.
Now I have a question — do you (whomever cares to comment) believe we can take comments made in Patriarchal blessings into account? I have read some very definite promises related to latter day events, but then I have also heard people say that “their great grand father’s blessing promised such and so related to the last days and he is dead!” I believe blessings use an eternal timeline, not just the mortal one - but some of the blessing I’ve read seemed to be very specifically referring to the mortal timetable. (I know it is hard to judge without having the actual wording to consider).
And a last word regarding “I heard a story….”, we need to be very careful of falling for urban legends, there are many of them floating around in the church. There used to be a web site where LDS legends and myths were verified or debunked, but they are no longer functioning. Check your sources, verify the scriptural or General Authority reference. Miracles do occur and some amazing things are out there that are evidence of the truth of the church, but every story isn’t true.
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.