DEC. 13, 2004

BELIEFS & PRACTICES Religion and culture: What's ahead for 2005

2005: Apocalypse now?

IN THE NORTHEAST
• Abbas Amanat is a professor of history at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and co-editor of Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse From the Ancient Middle East to Modern America (I.B. Tauris, 2002). Contact abbas.amanat@yale.edu.
• Dr. Colin Nicholl is an assistant professor of New Testament at Gordon Conwell Theological seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. He is an expert in eschatology and author of the forthcoming From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica (Cambridge University Press), which addresses eschatological issues. Contact via Ann Doll, director of public relations, 978-646-4141 or 978-884-1116 (cell), adoll@gcts.edu.\
• Kenneth Himes is chairman of the theology department at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Contact 617-552-0681, kenneth.himes.1@bc.edu.

IN THE EAST
• Rebecca Denova is a visiting lecturer in religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa., where she teaches a course called "Apocalypse Then and Now." She says it remains to be seen if concern about global terrorism becomes the new apocalyptic obsession, but she notes that President George W. Bush has used apocalyptic language to describe the war on terror. She also thinks ideas of the Apocalypse have become a part of the American mythos, in part because the continent was settled by apocalyptic groups such as the Puritans. Contact 412-431-0325, rdenova@adelphia.net.
• James Howell Moorhead is a professor of American church history at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J., and an expert on American Protestantism and the Apocalypse. Contact 609-921-8300, james.moorhead@ptsem.edu.
• Magnus Bernhardsson is an assistant professor of history at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and co-editor of Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse From the Ancient Middle East to Modern America (I.B. Tauris, 2002). Contact 516-463-5607, magnus.bernhardsson@hofstra.edu.
• Associate professor Elizabeth Castelli teaches in the Barnard College religion department, specializing in biblical studies, early Christianity and feminist/gender studies in religion. She is especially interested in the "afterlives" of biblical texts - how the Bible is deployed and recycled in contemporary social, political and cultural expressions and debates. She edits a new journal devoted to the analysis of Scriptures and their legacies in contemporary life: Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds (Equinox Publishing, U.K). Contact 212-854-8291, ec225@columbia.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• Paul Thigpen is author of The Rapture Trap (Ascension Press, 2001). Now a Catholic, he is a former evangelical Protestant pastor. He lives in Savannah, Ga. Contact 912-898-7991.
• Brodrick Shepherd is founder of Armageddon Books, an online bookstore based in West Jefferson, N.C., that sells more than 750 titles on end-times prophecy. Contact 336-246-2628, prophesy@armageddonbooks.com.
• Kevin Lewis is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He teaches a course called "Visions of the Apocalypse" and has written an essay on Americans' obsession with the Apocalypse. Contact 803-777-2561, kevin@sc.edu.
• James Tabor is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has written about millennialist thought from biblical times to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Contact 704-687-2783, jdtabor@email.uncc.edu.

IN THE SOUTH
• David Rowe is a professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He has contributed several articles to The Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements (Routledge, 2000). Contact 615-898-2646, dlrowe@mtsu.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST
• Robert Royalty is an assistant professor of religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind., who specializes in the Apocalypse. He can discuss how cultural expressions of millennialism are evoked and played upon by politicians. Contact 765-361-6155, royaltyr@wabash.edu.
• Paul Boyer is professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin and has written about apocalypticism in the United States. He says the events of 9/11 boosted end-times belief because it thrives on fear and uncertainty about the future. Some prophecy writers see 9/11 itself as an end-time sign, while others focus on the increase in government power that it produced, as in the Patriot Act, as preparing the way for the all-powerful rule of the Antichrist. Contact 608-263-2339, psboyer@wisc.edu.
• Mark Reasoner is an associate professor of biblical studies at Bethel College in Arden Hills, Minn., and has written about the popularity of the "Left Behind" series. He says apocalyptic fervor has gone into a kind of "holding pattern" since 2000. Meanwhile, 9/11 cemented many Christians' view of Babylon as the ultimate enemy. He also says apocalyptic obsession is a particularly American phenomenon, because dispensationalism has failed to take root elsewhere as it has here. Contact 651-638-6400, m-reasoner@bethel.edu.
• Loren L. Johns is an associate professor of New Testament at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. He has written about pastoral challenges in shaping a 21st-century eschatology. Contact 574-295-3726, ljohns@ambs.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Amy Johnson Frykholm is author of Rapture Culture: 'Left Behind' in Evangelical America (Oxford University Press, 2004). She teaches religion, literature and cultural studies at Colorado Mountain College. Contact via Oxford University Press publicity, publicity@oup-usa.org.
• Charles Talbert is a professor of New Testament at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He is an expert on Christian ideas of the Apocalypse. Contact via Julie Carlson, Julie_Carlson@baylor.edu.
• David Cook is an assistant professor of religious studies at Rice University in Houston, where he teaches courses on apocalypticism in Islam and in Asian religions. He says Islamic ideas of the apocalypse have altered since 2000, and he has written about apocalyptic Islam's relationship to Osama bin Laden. Contact 713-348-2440, dbcook@rice.edu.
• William Martin is a professor of sociology at Rice University in Houston. He is an expert on religious fundamentalism. Contact 713-348-3481, wcm@rice.edu.
• Grant Underwood is a professor of history at Brigham Young University, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints school in Provo, Utah, and an expert on Mormon millennialist thought and history. Contact 801-422-7522, gru2@email.byu.edu.
• L. Michael White is a professor of classics and Christian origins at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a consultant for and co-writer of "Apocalypse! Time, History and Revolution" for the PBS television series Frontline. Contact 512-471-5742, lmwhite@mail.utexas.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Katharyne Mitchell is a professor of geography at the University of Washington in Seattle. She has lectured on Apocalypse and utopia in modern thought and has written about how ideas of the Apocalypse influence contemporary spaces. Contact 206-543-1494, kmitch@u.washington.edu.
• Stephen D. O'Leary is an associate professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He has written widely about millennial and apocalyptic fervor, including Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 1998). Contact 213-740-3945, soleary@usc.edu.
• Jean E. Rosenfeld is a senior research associate at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an expert on violence and religion and has written extensively on millennialist groups. Contact 310-454-5412, jerosenfeld@cs.com.