The Late Great Planet Earth

Famous authors today say books by the author of The Late Great Planet Earth plus that book itself sold more books than any other author of Christian books in the world. This book was said to be quite influential with Reagan and his cabinet including James Watt, Secretary of the Interior. I visited with Watt in Fargo when I was mayor. Watt was in religious la la land. 

It's almost alarming the book is classified as "nonfiction." The topic is prophesy and the New Testament book Revelations. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of books have been written and sermons delivered telling of the events prophesized before the return of Jesus and the end of the world. It is almost a cottage industry. Every generation is willing to shell out money to read "inside" information as to how current events foretell those prophesized in Revelations. That a President and the Cabinet that run our country now believe, or believed back then, this fictional mythology is reality is frightening. 

I have not seen recently but assume there are now groups of survivalists packing away food and water in order to survive the events prophesized in Revelations. Until a few years ago, the disgraced Rev. Jim Bakker streamed a daily program from the Ozarks talking up the prophesy and selling large containers of food and water to viewers. During the Reagan/Watts period, the survivalist Gorden Kaul lived in western ND and was killed by Feds in a standoff. A man who claimed to be in Kaul's circle called on me when I was Mayor of Fargo and wanted me to know a group of such folks lived in the city.

I'm reading a book about a couple who grew up about 20 minutes from the farm I grew up on in Iowa. They were the victims of the Ruby Ridge, Idaho attack by feds in which the wife and a child were murdered by feds. Seeds of the eventual disaster were sewn years earlier when the young couple became absorbed in the Revelations prophesy they read about in The Late Great Planet Earth. While living as survivalists in rural Idaho, the husband, Randy Weaver, was charged with selling a gun that was illegal. He did not attend a hearing to defend the transaction. Based on this and incorrect information, the Feds attacked the family's home killing the two members. Later, Randy Weaver was paid over a million dollars by the government. He later became an atheist, married another woman from near our family farm and died in his 70's.

 Our society will improve in some ways. Church attendance in declining. But the cloud of Revelations and The Late Great Planet Earth will live on forever.