The Day After the End-Time

I’m writing this the day after Nashville was to be destroyed by a nuclear bomb. Almost one month earlier, a fringe-y Seventh–day Adventist group called the Ministry of Future for America published a full–page ad in The Tennessean newspaper warning readers that “on July 18, 2020, Islam is going to detonate a nuclear device in Nashville, Tennessee.”

It was the first I had heard of this but as a child of the ’50s, I was used to taking nuclear threats seriously. I immediately went online and watched the film I’d seen in school called Duck and Cover. I was relieved to find I remembered exactly what to do if I saw the flash of a nuclear explosion: Duck under my desk or against a wall, and cover my face and the back of my neck.

Of course, since I am writing this from greater Nashville on the day after the prophesized nuclear attack, the attack never came—the prophecy was false. I can’t say I’m disappointed, but it makes me wonder what the authors of the warning are thinking now that their prophecy failed.

I visited the Future for America website to see if they had posted an explanation for their false prophesy, but their website had yet to be updated. If they need help coming up with something, I suggest they say God foiled the planned detonation in response to the Future for America warning printed in The Tennessean. Good to know that God is a subscriber; local newspapers need all the support they can get these days.

There is, of course, another option: The authors of the warning could simply admit they are full of crap, that they are hate–filled Islamophobes, and that they made the whole thing up to promote their own brand of Christianity. I doubt they will choose either. In fact, I doubt they will say anything at all.

Nonetheless, there are two important lessons I hope you derive from this. First, when making a prophecy, don’t be explicit as to when it is to come true. If you must mention a day, don’t mention a month; or if you must mention a month leave off the year. That way, if it doesn’t happen no one will know.

Second, when being warned by a prophet of some coming disaster, take the prophecy with a grain of salt, unless of course the prophet is Dr. Anthony Fauci, in which case you should wear a mask and practice social distancing while honing your duck and cover routine.

If you enjoyed this, read his story, “The God Gap.”