Ivor Powell and Heather Hogan
It is all systems go for apocalypse now according to the Seventh Day Adventist Church as it surveys the devastation of upcountry floods and, before them, the coastal fires that ravaged South Africa.
“There is great truth in these things. We are living in prophetic times,” church representative Eddie Harris intoned. “We believe we are at the end of this Earth’s history.”
In the Seventh Day Adventist view of the world, this is the run-up to the Second Coming of Christ, and the imminence of that event has been indicated not only in the recent fires and floods, but also in war and lawlessness gripping the Earth. “It’s all there in Matthew Chapter 24. It says be on your guard, he will come like a thief in the night,” observed Harris.
With different inflections, the view is shared by other religious organisations, like the Pentecostals, sectors of the Rhema and Full Gospel Churches, the Charismatic Christian movement and assorted proponents of New Age theory. “Those who belong to the New Age movement have been expecting this for a long time,” said a New Ager who asked not to be named. “Around this time, this is what is going to be taking place: floods, fires and earthquakes …”
Reading from the works of Nostradamus she identified the following passage: “The wet areas will become flooded and the dry areas will become deserts, the food shortages will become more pronounced … I see conflicts over food, over water and conflicts over the land that is left. But man can help the situation if he is positive in the face of adversity.”
Wiccan and sangoma Bev Nowikow foresees “terrible destruction in the new millennium … I want to warn people but I know that few will listen to me.” Even before the current cycle of natural disasters, Nowikow predicted problems in South Africa with electricity, water and food, as well as an earthquake scheduled to hit Gauteng in the near future. “Crystals in the earth are being removed; this is making the ground sick,” Nowikow warned.
Also reading the signs are the Jehovah’s Witnesses – who carry a ready-made pamphlet detailing the portents of the “Rapture” – the assumption of the faithful to everlasting bliss.
Jehovah’s Witnesses researcher Dave Carikas said although natural disasters would increase and were “part of the biblical sign that we are living in the last days of this world as we know it, God is not punishing us”.
Covering all bases, however, he added: “Jesus could foresee man’s mismanagement of the Earth and the natural disasters we would bring on ourselves.”
But few of the doomsayers are prepared to plot out a calendar of cataclysm. Both the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses say the time is known to God alone. Others might have been burned when January 1 came and went this year without either fire or brimstone – or Armageddon- issue floods for that matter. – Additional reporting by Khadija Magardie