The End of the World Show: A Short History of Millenniumism

Abstract

On Wednesday evening, 28 July 1999, an unprecedented event occurred. A program entitled "Seven Signs of Christ's Return" was broadcast during prime time by Australia's leading commercial television network. People who do not live in Australia and who do not have an experiential awareness of the particular brand of secularism that is endemic in  Australian culture and society may not find that event particularly noteworthy. Those of us who have lived there most of our lives have found it mind-boggling. Religious programming just does not happen during prime time on the major commercial networks in Australia.

Commenting on the significance of the broadcast, Nat Devenish, previously the manager of the South Pacific Division Media Centre and, as such, the person responsible for negotiating time slots for programming Adventist media productions, stated that he recalled a conversation with the manager of the same network in which the manager stated that "even if you were to give me a million dollars I would not put a religious program in prime time."

This radical change in thinking has been brought about by the colossal upsurge of community interest in the coming new millennium and the end of the world. While this paper will devote its attention primarily to the phenomenon among those who espouse Christianity, it must be noted that it is by no means confined there.