How I stopped the apocalypse when I was only 12 years old

Bonus content: a review of a movie that I only watched part of

“Correct!” the local Christian radio show host said. “You’re the winner!”

It was the fall of 1998, and I was twelve years old. I was homeschooled, and in the mornings my mom would turn on the radio while we were eating breakfast and doing chores. Every morning there was a contest where you could call in and answer a Bible trivia question. That day, not only had I known the answer, but I had been the sixth caller, which is what you had to do to win. I was ecstatic. I had gotten the answer right, and I had won a prize. They told me the prize was a new movie (on VHS) that had just been released. A few days later, my mom drove me to the radio station to pick up my prize.

The movie was Apocalypse: Caught in the Eye of the Storm.

If you are looking at the cover and thinking, “This doesn’t look like it would be a very good movie,” you are correct. But I was 12, and I was not allowed to watch anything rated above PG, and this looked really intense and dark, which I was most definitely into. (Remember, by this point, I had already read probably dozens of books about the Holocaust.)

I guess because it was (supposedly) about something in the Bible, my parents were fine with me watching it. I don’t think at the time that we had a TV downstairs; the only TV was in my parents’ bedroom. So I cozied up in my parents’ bed and watched this movie.

Because I last watched this movie 26 years ago, I decided to see if I could watch it again in order to refresh my memory. You can watch the movie for free on YouTube, so I sat down with my laptop open in order to take notes. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the movie because it was so terrible. But here are a few things I jotted down before I gave up:

• The acting is, not surprisingly, not great.

• The song that plays over the opening credits is basically a sitcom jingle.

• The Antichrist is the European Union president.

• The Israeli army refers to some kind of counterattack as “Samson’s Fist.”

• When people get raptured, their clothes are neatly folded on the ground with their accessories neatly place on top. (One of the comments on Youtube says, “I just wish the producers would have made the clothes look more realistic… the clothes should have been left in an unfolded heap, not folded up neatly like they just came out of the store.” As if this is the most egregious error made by the producers.)

• Babies get raptured out of their strollers.

I had been exposed to the idea of the Rapture, the Tribulation, etc. before this. We went to an independent fundamentalist Baptist church at the time, and during at least one youth group retreat, the speaker waxed poetic about the mark of the beast, which would (he said) probably be the number 666 tattooed on our foreheads (I am not joking). He painted a truly terrifying picture of what would happen after the Rapture, and then he did an altar call, I think hoping the stage would be overrun with teenagers who did not want to be unable to buy groceries because they didn’t have the mark of the beast. No one, out of hundreds of teens, came forward. I’m sure many of them hadn’t even been listening, because I have two teenage boys and I know they hear almost nothing adult say. But I’m guessing at least some of them, including me, were so paralyzed with fear that they were unable to leave their seats, even if it meant avoiding the forehead tattoo.

All this to say that by the time I watched Apocalypse: Caught in the Eye of the Storm, I was terrified of Jesus coming back. The movie, though, did what nothing else had done yet: give me visuals. I still remembered the folded clothes from the movie, and there was another scene I remembered, so I skipped to the end of the movie to see if I could find it.

Allow me to set the stage.

Leading up to the scene in question, the two main characters (who are married journalists) are now close to conversion. The husband, whose name is Bronson Pearl, feels that there’s just something off about this Antichrist guy. Bronson Pearl goes to his father’s grave and “talks” to his dad. The moon shines on the grave and he sees a Bible verse. Bronson Pearl runs back to his car because he had a package there (I don’t know how, I skipped that part) and the package of course contains a Bible. Bronson Pearl looks up the reference, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Bronson Pearl then decides he should go dig up his father’s coffin, I suppose to see if the body of his dad, who he knew was a Christian, is still in the coffin. All of Bronson Pearl’s father’s clothes are folded neatly in the casket, along with a Bible. Bronson Pearl opens it, reads a verse, prays, and presumably becomes a Christian.

It is now Day 6 post-Rapture. The Antichrist’s cronies have taken over all the news stations, including the one where Bronson Pearl’s wife works. She has already become a Christian and now she is being fired. But not just fired! Everyone is being told they have to bow down and worship the Antichrist. She refuses and is put in handcuffs. Then, somehow Bronson Pearl has hacked into the media’s cameras and is telling everyone on live television not to worship the Antichrist. Unfortunately, the minion who is running the station intercepts it, so no one sees it except the people in the station. Bronson Pearl also gets arrested.

Now we’re outside, and the two journalists spot each other but are herded in different directions, along with lots of other people in handcuffs. (Honestly, it’s not dissimilar to films about the Holocaust. I was confirmed in this thinking when I ran across a review that said it was like Schindler’s List for Christian people. A very, very, bad Schindler’s List.) Presumably these are all the people who are not willing to worship the Antichrist.

Bronson Pearl is the celebrity prisoner because he was a famous journalist. Bronson Pearl gets out of his handcuffs and tries to fight back. A guard punches him and declares him, “Bronson Pearl, king of the haters” (What?). They say something about making an example out of him. Now Bronson Pearl is in one of the vehicles that is basically a metal cattle car (again—strong Holocaust connection) and his wife is in another car but thankfully they are able to talk to each other through the sides of their respective cars.

Bronson Pearl’s conversation with his wife is interrupted by a guard telling him he needs to come out of the cattle car. But first, he gives an inspirational speech to his fellow cattle-car passengers. The guards let him finish (seems realistic) and then he is taken out of the car.

Now we are at the scene that I still remember in great detail. Bronson Pearl is led to a makeshift gallows as his wife runs to the other end of her cattle car so she can see. This is all being broadcast around the world. Now he is on camera, and he again tells the whole world the Antichrist is not the true savior of the world. The minions turn that camera off, but an employee in the news station is inspired by the bravery of Bronson Pearl, and he cuts to a feed of Bronson Pearl’s wife standing up to the news station minion and then a clip of a pastor preaching the gospel. (Bronson Pearl still has the noose around his neck.) This clip ends with the pastor leading everyone around the world in the Sinner’s Prayer.

Then that’s the end!

I’m not going to debate or even explain in depths my view of biblical eschatology, but suffice to say, I don’t believe this presentation of the end of the world is biblical. At the time, though, this theology was everywhere (the Left Behind books, anyone?) and I was imbibing it all. I was terrified. The idea of being hanged was absolutely horrifying to me. I did not want Jesus to come back. Even though I was pretty sure I was a Christian, I felt like I couldn’t be sure, and what if people in my family weren’t and they had to go through what Bronson Pearl went through?

At some point, I heard a sermon or interpretation of Matthew 24:14:

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

What I took from this was that Jesus wouldn’t return until everyone in the whole world had heard the gospel. I got nervous thinking about all the missionaries we knew who were busy trying to get Jesus to come back by spreading the gospel around the world. So I started thinking.

There were three kids who lived down the street, siblings, and I thought they were the worst kids I knew. Tommy and his two sisters. When we did Backyard Bible Clubs that summer, they didn’t listen, they fought with each other and with other kids, and usually had to suffer some kind of perfunctory discipline.

I was quite sure that Tommy and his sisters had not heard the gospel. I mean, they had been to Backyard Bible Club, but they had not listened and they definitely didn’t believe it. I figured that as long as Tommy and his sisters didn’t become Christians, Jesus couldn’t come back. So my only job from then on was to keep Tommy and his sisters from hearing anything about Jesus. Then the Rapture wouldn’t happen, and the Antichrist wouldn’t come and hang all the people who became Christians after the Rapture, which might include me.

We only lived in the same neighborhood as Tommy and his sisters for a few more months. I don’t remember to what lengths I went to prevent them from hearing the gospel. But because I am now sitting here writing this more than 26 years later, I think we can pretty confidently say that my plan worked.

And that, my friends, is how I stopped the apocalypse when I was only 12 years old. You’re welcome.

And because I know you’re curious, here is the movie’s theme song—you’ll also get to see some of the clips I mentioned: