We're not just sticking to Christian visions. We're looking at all sorts of visions of the end of the world or of massive transformations of the world - either as a greatly anticipated hope or as a nightmare. For example, he says, the Church Universal and Triumphant is not a conventional Christian group. Its several thousand members believe a cataclysmic war will wipe out much of civilization. They've stockpiled huge amounts of food and water and diesel fuel, and some people think they've got guns to keep the heathens out.
Church members believe they'll survive the hard times that are coming.
In theory, Miller says, most Christian religions can be considered millennial because they look to some version of a Second Coming of Christ and a 1,000-year rule. In the United States, millennialism is largely a Protestant phenomenon, he says, and within Protestantism are two major schools of thought. It's a really catastrophic scenario. In part, this is because of America's preoccupation with the more unusual groups, he says. Chris Lapine, Lawrence senior in printmaking, is researching the Antichrist as an icon in popular culture.