Compass -  Apocalypse Now?

These days apocalyptic thinking is common and pervasive. Are we at the end of the world...?

It's a question humans have asked throughout the ages. In our own time too, many people fear we're on the brink of apocalypse...

In a provocative episode of Compass we meet a self-proclaimed prophet of the Apocalypse, American Pentecostal Pastor Ron Weinland, who believes he has been sent by God to announce the end of the world in 3 years time!

According to Ron, the end times are imminent, and he's not alone. Climate change, acts of terrorism, war and natural disasters have fuelled the current epidemic of apocalyptic thinking.

Ron's inspiration is the last and most controversial book in the Christian Bible, the Book of the Apocalypse, also known as the Book of Revelation. Ron's conviction that we're at the end of 6000 years of human rule of the earth is based on evidence he's drawn from the Bible. He links numbers and prophecies in the Book of Revelation with current events that he believes herald the end times.

According to Ron "Europe is prophesied to rise one last time...there will be ten nations that are prophesied to come together. And they are the ones that are going to begin World War Three."

However, not everyone shares the same views as Ron. Christian academic Greg Clarke challenges this literal 'current affairs' interpretation of the Book of Revelation's imagery.

Clarke says, "As a literature scholar I am really keen on people understanding the nature of literature. The bible is a book. The bible has to be understood as the kind of literature it is. And it's apocalyptic literature, it's exciting, it's full of symbolism, it's telling a grand, wonderful story, but it's not meant to give us a running sheet for the future."

Compass will be repeated on ABC2 - Friday, November 28 at 6:00pm