According to a new survey from the University of British Columbia and the University of California, somewhere between 29 and 39 percent of all Americans believe we are in the end times and headed for some sort of doomsday.
The study included people of various religious backgrounds, as well as atheists. While they might disagree on how the world might end, many agree that we are getting closer to the end.
Religious leaders are now responding to this study, including Rabbi Brian Strauss with Beth Yeshurun Synagogue, who linked much of this to social media. “You see a video that promises the end times are here, and you’re gonna get 20 more by the end of the day because you watched that video,” he explained.
Professor Shannon Holzer with Houston Christian University added that for Christians, the end times doesn’t necessarily equate to doomsday, and we shouldn’t spend all our time fretting about it. “We have a tendency to watch the sky,” he said. “As Christians, we need to be prepared for him [Jesus Christ] to come back, but we need to live as though he’s not coming back for a while.”
That sentiment seems to be shared by Pastor Aaron Wright at Grace Family Baptist Church, who said: “Whatever difficulty we may experience in life, God will use it for good, and our call is to be faithful, not to fret and worry about things we see on the news.”