Discourse of Disaster: Talk of the End. analyzing the confluence of sacred and secular millennialism

Abstract

Looking at a broad spectrum of sacred and secular discourse, this work attempts to explain how apocalyptic rhetoric functions within current U.S. society. Materials considered include: interviews, sermons, and texts from local pastors identified as fundamental to mainstream; the ritual experience of two millennial groups that reached the "End"; mass media and its millennial themes in the survivalist publication Soldier of Fortune; nuclear discourse and the apocalypse; and news media coverage of natural and man-made disasters: Los Angeles and Heaven's Gate. Taking previous millennial organizations and scholarly perspectives into consideration, these sources are analyzed with respect to what seems a blurring of apocalyptic rhetoric between sacred and secular spheres under the common theme of control over space and time.