Fim dos tempos nos Estados Unidos : escatologia, fundamentalismo religioso e identidade nacional em Hal Lindsey e Tim LaHaye (1970- 1980)

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationships established between eschatological beliefs, national identity, and political discourses/practices in American religious fundamentalism during the 1970s. This analysis is based on texts of Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and The 80's: Cowntdown to Armageddon (1980) – and Tim LaHaye – The Beginning of the End (1972) and The Battle for the Mind (1980) – two of the most important and influential fundamentalist authors of that period and the main responsibles for popularizing the pre- millennial eschatological perspective, the belief that the Millennium of peace and happiness will only occur after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. If in the late 1960s religious fundamentalism was not a relevant force in the American political context, in the late 1970s this picture was altered by an intense process of politicizing the discourse and practices of conservative religious leaders of the so-called Christian Right. Throughout the research, we seek to investigate the impacts of this politicization of religious fundamentalism on the eschatological expectations and interpretations of biblical prophecies about the end times in the texts of Lindsey and LaHaye – and on their perceptions about what role to play United States in the face of belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ to the Earth. We seek to demonstrate how eschatological beliefs establish a deep relationship with the context in which they are formulated (and/or diffused), and thus how the analysis of Lindsey and LaHaye's interpretations of the biblical texts concerning the end times must be performed in dialogue with social, cultural and political context – both internal and external – in which their books were written and released.