Religious and Secular Views on Endtime

“Andrew Weigert combines a multi-faceted sociological perspective with Meadian interactionist social psychology to create an analytical framework for the study of time, specifically end times. His analysis centers on the power of conceptions of what he refers to as “endtime” in contemporary struggle between “adherents of particularist salvation and those who hear a universalist call to fulfillment” (p.174). The book is both a scientific treatise designed to help us understand one source of the dangers of the times in which we live, and an apologia for the spirit of hope that inspires his work.” – (From the Commendatory Preface) William V. D’Antonio, Catholic University

“In his new book Andrew Weigert directs our attention to Endtime Thinking as a social phenomenon that must be taken seriously. Most scholars know at some intellectual level that present-oriented consumption, quick-results politics, apocalypse-fixations, and suicide-futurisms threaten human survival and, when tied to exclusivist identity dynamics, imperil social civility as well. But because the sociology of time has been a speculative venture of such grand theorists as Georges Gurvitch and Pitirim Sorokin social scientists have not in the past made the seriousness of Endtime Thinking a reality in the everyday praxis of social science. Andrew Weigert focuses on real issues, as befits his stature as a senior scholar rather than an incipient careerist seeking recognition in some already-established scientific discourse. Thus his work is innovative in the best sense, taking the intellectual resources of the scientific treasury and putting them to good use to address a significant problem. Just as the sociology of crime is general sociology applied to a specific phenomenon, the sociology of Endtime Thinking begins with a statement of general sociology. Weigert does this concisely, using mostly symbolic interactionist and phenomenological frameworks. Then he dwells on the different facets of Endtime Thinking, showing that, like crime, problematic Endtime Thinking is constructed no differently from other restricted forms of thinking. Just as bricks can be used to build a library or a prison, world-construction can lend itself to enabling benign or malignant time-orientations. Weigert's call is for responsible selves, selves formed in dialogue with the humans who are really fellows, not ones artificially divided into those to be taken into account and those to be ignored or treated as non-persons. He would not have human identity obscured by narrower identities. He is challenging the masters of rational culture to see the limits of instrumental ratiocination and to aspire to reasonableness. The state of the world in which humans have weapons that would destroy humanity is itself a new condition that demands new interpretations and identities for a responsible self. Consequently, this is a book to be heard as much as read, heard in the sense of arousing the energies of thought and action for a response to a challenge. The call is particularly relevant to intellectuals, who have the power to make reasonable the discourse in which motives and identities emerge.” – Anthony J. Blasi, Tennessee State University

Preface
Our Time Together Is of the Essence
Author's Preface: Why Care About Endtime
Introduction
Imagined Futures Within Reach
Endtime Thinking
Eschatological Identity, Time, and Motivation: The End Is A Beginning
Telling Endtimes
Available Futures: Selected Transformations of Time and Identity
Self and Identity Dialectics: Inclusive vs Exclusive Futures
Bibliography
Index
List of Figures