No genre intrigues me like the post-apocalyptic genre. TV Shows like Falling Skies, Walking Dead and even Revolution keep calling me back to see how the world would end and what would happen afterward. Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of Lost, is back on TV with a show about the time after the Rapture (an event I don't believe in, but still intrigued by). In the aftermath of apocalypse, the rules are changed and the world is reset with an opportunity to rebuild and recreate... maybe even to avoid the mistakes which have gone on before.
And yet it never works. People are still people. Tyrants rise up, slavery happens and people turn on one another. Civilizations fall apart just as easily after the apocalypse than before.
My fascination with post-apocalyptic resonates with my fascination with the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a series of end-of-the-world stories. Adam and Eve, Flood, Babel, Abraham, Exodus, Judges, Assyrian exile, Babylonian exile, Return and Restoration of the Temple, are all stories where there is an apocalyptic event and people have to respond to a changing set of circumstances. When you consider the apocalyptic imagery of the prophets, it isn't too difficult to view the Old Testament happening in the same world as the Walking Dead. Substitute the Babylonians for "Walkers" or "Skitters," and you understand the Old Testament pretty well.
Perhaps this is partially why folks in the United States have such a hard time understanding the depth of the Old Testament. The church has responded to the modern age by valuing certainty and comfort, whereas the Old Testament is honest about doubt and pain. The modern US church loves to talk about safety, whereas the Old Testament skips over the safe times and emphasizes the unsafe times. The modern US church refers to God in quiet deference, whereas the Old Testament interacts with God through raw nerves and unflinching commitment to what is.
The Old Testament shows us that disaster and catastrophe is part of the landscape of life in this world. The Old Testament also shows us that those who insulate themselves from catastrophe are either a) powerless to do anything about it, or b) part of the catastrophe. But ultimately, the Old Testament reveals a God who is willing to step into catastrophe time and time again to take it on and heal the deep wounds. It makes perfect sense, then, that the complete depiction of God in Scripture is a guy who stepped into catastrophe and took it on, even to the cross and beyond.
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