The End is Near

Today I read a young adult novel that came up in class, but that I had really wanted to re-read.  It's called Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever encountered any kind of fundamentalist religion.  The book revolves around two characters, male and female, who have a parent who has become swept up in a sect of Christianity that emphasizes the end of days coming with the Millennium.

Reverend Beelson, a charismatic and convincing minister, and his Believers are convinced that the end of the world will occur on July 27, 2000.  Two teenagers get caught up in the middle, and they are forced to evaluate and re-evaluate what they believe as the End Day approaches.  Coville and Yolen portray authentic teenagers in fictional, yet realistic situations.

I like YA novels that can serve dually as a good story and a cautionary tale.  (Here is where it gets slightly political--quit reading now if that's not your thing.)  Armageddon Summer is a fictitious account of one exegesis* to Christianity, or any faith that preaches an "End of the World."  One of the things I find that this book expresses is how people take their interpretations of materials like the Bible, and reify** metaphors and figurative speech.  It doesn't matter if God is orchestrating existence if people are acting on their own convictions, causing real consequences via misunderstanding or reducing what is meant to be complicated.  People may desire simplicity, but it is nothing more than a desire.  Simplicity for the sake of making things simple can remove one by varying degrees of what is true.  These are the dangers that seem to be put forward by Armageddon Summer, which is why I recommend it so highly.  And for the record, I don't believe we are living anywhere near the "End of Days."  I think things will continue to get worse and worse regardless of what people do on behalf of their belief.

 
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*exegesis is a fancy word for "how it plays out"
** reify is another fancy word, it basically means "to treat as real," or to make what is abstract concrete.