The plain fact is this, the power of God begins to fall upon the nations, and the light of the latter-day glory begins to break forth through the dark atmosphere of sectarian wickedness, and their iniquity rolls up into view, and the nations of the Gentiles are like the waves of the sea, casting up mire and dirt, or all in commotion, and they are hastily preparing to act the part allotted them, when the Lord rebukes the nations, when He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. The Lord declared to His servants, some eighteen months since, that He was then withdrawing His Spirit from the earth; and we can see that such is the fact, for not only the churches are dwindling away, but there are no conversions, or but very few: and this is not all, the governments of the earth are thrown into confusion and division; and Destruction, to the eye of the spiritual beholder, seems to be written by the finger of an invisible hand, in large capitals, upon almost every thing we behold. (TPJS 15)

Not to hijack the thread…but has anyone found an original source for the supposed quote from Joseph Smith “destruction writ large on everything we behold,”? Thanks in advance.

While you’re right that being born again in an LDS tradition isn’t exactly the same, there’s a certain similarity. So I’d say how we approach baseball or other such things changes somewhat and yet it’s the same activity.

I should note a certain criticism I’d make of Nibley here and elsewhere in that I think he takes too platonic a conception of all this. If you’re familiar with platonism his phrase, “seeming and being are two wholly different things,” raises flags. In some ways Nibley’s eschatology has a few too many echoes of Plato’s The Cave. However I think he gets enough right I wouldn’t push that criticism too far. But I think Nibley’s tendency to discount activities like baseball or football is due to that platonism. Whereas I’d say that while it’s quite easy to get out of hand with them that eschatology lets us enjoy them as a family and friends in a non-superficial way.

Jeff, yes I think secularism has brought up eschatology in many different ways. Marx not only with the idea of the uprising but the utopia at the end of the uprising. I suspect that Marx gets this in part from Hegel though. There’s a certain eschatological component to Hegel’s thought as well. Marx is largely copying Hegel’s the end of history. (And you get that Hegelian element in more contemporary works like Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man. Nietzsche arguably is playing with the same idea with his notion of the Superman as well as in the Myth of the Eternal Recurrence. The whole point to the superman being someone who when told their history will endlessly repeat is joyful is the idea of this eschatology even if it’s interesting in that there is no end. There lots of little ironic moves he makes.

These secular copies of eschatology end up being different even when they, such as in Nietzsche, keep a certain individual ethical stance. You’re probably more familiar with Kierkegaard’s more religious move where faith itself is a certain eschatological trust. (This is in Fear and Trembling) Then in Heidegger you find a kind of fusion of Hegel, Kierkegaard and a bit of Nietzsche in the analysis of being towards death. It is by embracing the reality and actuality of our death that we’re able to be free. Heidegger then invokes a kind of Pauline component to this with his authentic and inauthentic modes of being captured in such analysis. (Roughly akin to the spirit of the law and the letter of the law in Paul)

So it’s kind of funny how in more secular works the eschatological remains so pertinent even when most of those writing in the tradition ultimately reject the kind of spiritual eschatology pre-supposed by Christ. After all the eschatology for Christians was seeing what is valuable in this life in terms of a death that is wrapped up in the atonement.

However, I think the two stories you quote may have slightly different morals. Why is enjoying a strawberry just before one dies any more noble that enjoying a baseball game or TV show? If I were facing death, I would want to be enjoying every minute, hopefully with my family or whoever the most important people in my life might be. I agree with Nibley that wealth and worldly fame would have little importance to me at that time. I also would prioritize my activities. Baseball would be pretty low importance for me, but I might want to watch a basketball game or a Studio C sketch with my daughter. The notion that I would want to give up the enjoyment of my hobbies and leisure activities is wrong, though. Looking forward to the next life does not mean that we stop living this one.

http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2015/09/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine/

There is a enormous difference between anxiously waiting for a disaster that may inflict pain and suffering on our fellow human beings (which I interpret as a fundamentalist position) and changing one’s worldview while waiting for the Bridegroom, who we will meet in this life or the next. Physical preparation is only a gift for family and friends.