A Logical Argument for the End of the Age
Author RICHARD A SWENSON, M.D.
This book is billed as “A Logical Argument for the End of the Age,” I have read the book twice now, and I agree with the sub-title. I also find myself in agreement with Ralph D. Winter who wrote a brief introduction to it: “Here, in a brief and highly readable form, is a fascinating and amazingly comprehensive catalog of the many puzzling and significant global forces in our present world. Here are no simplistic proposals; rather foundational grist for the mill of the fearless believer. These facts won’t wear out.” [Ralph D. Winter, Ph.D., General Director, U.S. Center for World Mission]
Though Mr. Swenson is a Christian, this is not your typical end-time book. It is rather a catalog of the many forces at work in our world today-any of which could hurl us into the end times taught in the Bible. Any, or all of the cataclysmic events reported in this book could at any time trigger the end of the age. Richard builds his case only on the basis of undeniable trends in the world, and ends by challenging the Christian to live in such a way that this approaching end is good news and not bad news.
With a Biblical understanding of the fall of man, (what Richard calls “fallenness”), we see how world events going on right now could, be due to the fall of man, cause the end of the world as we know it. Events such as overpopulation and world hunger, weapons of mass destruction, ecocatrastrophy, war, economic disaster and debt, biological weapons, infectious pandemics, tribalism, ethnicity, nationalism, and religious division could spell disaster.
I really like his discussions of progress, more of everything, and dissatisfaction with what we have. Progress tempts us to assume that our world will last forever but, as we view the world events of the present, and contemplate the sin nature of man, it is apparent that it won’t. Is the world as we know it coming to an end? Maybe it is time for a new heaven and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells.
