In the 21st century, apathy abounds like nothing else.
Millions of people all over social media are complaining they're boooored. Entertainment is great filler for a while, then boredom sets back in and everyone starts hoping for something more. We are so over the status quo. We are so over life. We're all looking for something to break up the monotony of it all.
There's a reason why The Walking Dead and its successful spin-off are set to proliferate our TV screens with even more post-apocalyptic drama.
There's a reason why The Left Behind series has been one of the biggest Christian bestsellers of all time.
There's a reason why people believed that blood moons necessarily equalled end times despite all evidence to the contrary.
The appeal of the death of society
Who of us hasn't entertained the thought of an impending apocalypse? Daydreaming about zombie scenarios or prepping for whatever might happen to take us down. Even government agencies make plans in the event of an instantaneous humanity-threatening crisis.
Nobody wants to be caught off guard for the end of the world.
The apocalypse promises to give us a new start. It's a chance for ordinary people to be heroes. It's a world where ignorance is aptly rewarded with an unlikely survival rate and where you are prepared or perish.
And as much as we like our TV and internet, deep down we know that mindless entertainment robs us of reality. We'd like to be forced into a situation without it. We want to go back to reality. Back to nature. Back to survival.
Having a world of no consequences is something that also appeals. We might be in debt today but if the apocalypse hits, we're home free. It's a reason to stop worrying. To leave behind the burdens of life. To find true freedom in the fact that nothing matters anymore and to embrace the simplicity of survival.
Good Christian zombie survivors
Our entertainment proves we'd like to be terrified into action. We want to have the stakes sky high. What are you capable of? Would you do what it takes to survive?
Yet with Christianity, we already have our grand survival scenario, surviving the greatest enemy of all—death. Seeing the reality through the eyes of God shows us what it really means to live and how trivialities of life don't really matter in the end.
This should spur us into action even more than an impending zombie uprising. It's a game of survival and the stakes are the highest yet—eternity or Hell. Billions of people around us are ignorantly treading the broad road to Hell. We can be their saviours by pointing them to the only cure for spiritual zombification: Jesus Christ.
Ordinary people can become heroes. We can reinvent ourselves into the likeness of Christ and give it all up to preach the good news, to suffer and die for a higher cause. To be a true hero and change history like Paul did, like Luther, or Joan of Arc.
The apathy just can't be cured
But the eternal consequences of Christianity just don't feel all that real. We're dealing with a spiritual reality here, and the spiritual zombification of people isn't the same as actual zombies wandering around trying to take a bite out of you. It's easier to envision putting a bullet in a monster's head than pulling the damned out of an eternal hellfire which we cannot see with our own eyes.
Which is why, even though Christians should know that what we have is more intense and more life-or-death than any apocalyptic scenario, we still don't act on it. We fall back into the boring monotony of life, dreaming of shooting zombies instead of spreading the gospel.
It's hard to care when our glimpses into the spiritual world are rare, if non-existent. It's hard to not sit on our hands and wait for the apocalypse. It's easier to get caught up in our entertainment than live like the apostle Paul in a constant and very real battle for the souls of others.
Children of the age of technology, we are the walking dead and apathy is the disease we're all infected with.
Bridget Brenton has been researching apologetics, philosophy and the paranormal for years. You can check her apologetic effort out at 101arguments.com
Bridget Brenton's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/bridget-brenton.html
