# Countdown to Armageddon: Fundy preachers in the 1980s
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 13, 2021, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967 "2021-12-13T06:59:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/1 "2021-12-13T06:59:55Z")
Anyone remember this? It was a thing in the 1980s: ministers pleading with their congregations/TV audiences to repent because “Judgment Day is a-comin’!” Not just fundamentalists, and not just the Big Three (Falwell, Bakker, Swaggart); some ordinary Protestants were on this jag. God was going to judge us, and only the righteous would survive. It dovetailed nicely with the Satanic Panic: the devil was trying to raise an army of teenagers to be on his side when good battled evil.
The thread title comes from a commercial that ran hourly on the local station where I was in the Rust Belt. Some minister or theologian was pushing his presumably self-published book, with that title. Except with his severe twang, it came out “Countdown t’Armagidden”. I’ve tried to find out his name using that phrase. No success so far: now that Post-Apocalypse is a genre, you can imagine how common a title that is.
Anyway, does anyone remember this? Note: I don’t think the Heaven’s Gate cult grew out of it. I think they were always New Age and into woo, not fundy and obsessed with sin and repentance.
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/2 "2021-12-13T07:47:11Z")
sounds like “the world tomorrow” show which was 5 percent sermon and 95 percent infomercial for texts proving on how Armageddon was coming soon
> **[The World Tomorrow (radio and television)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Tomorrow_(radio_and_television))**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
>
>
> The World Tomorrow is a half-hour radio and television program which was sponsored by the Worldwide Church of God (originally known as the Radio Church of God) led by Herbert W. Armstrong. It originally ran from 1934 to 1994. A 15-minute version of the radio program (under varied translations of The World Tomorrow) was broadcast in the French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish languages.
> Herbert W. Armstrong secured a temporary 15-minute sl...
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/3 "2021-12-13T08:48:59Z")
Many preached the rapture was coming; Hal Lindsey, M. J. Agee, Whisenant.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/4 "2021-12-13T09:02:25Z")
Jack Chick covered the topic in his 1972 tract [“The Last Generation”](http://lauralot89.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-last-generation-1972.html), which he [updated four decades later](http://lauralot89.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-last-generation-2013.html) to replace the signs that the end was coming _any day now_ in 1972 with the signs that the end was coming _any day now_ in 2013, replacing the stereotypes of Jews and hippies with stereotypes of Catholics and Wiccans.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/5 "2021-12-13T16:20:04Z")
You’d think the trump administration was in charge of the Apocalypse.
“The world will END! In two weeks.”
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/6 "2021-12-13T16:31:52Z")
Every generation of “prophets” predict the end times will occur in their lifetime. I think it just got more attention in the 1980s when religion became more entwined with media, public policy, and politics.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/7 "2021-12-13T21:36:07Z")
> [@Smapti](#):
>
> Jack Chick covered the topic in his 1972 tract [“The Last Generation”](http://lauralot89.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-last-generation-1972.html), which he [updated four decades later](http://lauralot89.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-last-generation-2013.html) to replace the signs that the end was coming _any day now_ in 1972 with the signs that the end was coming _any day now_ in 2013, replacing the stereotypes of Jews and hippies with stereotypes of Catholics and Wiccans.
To be sure, I think Jack Chick personally got less involved in creating those tracts in his later years. His early works were a mixture of Christian (for certain values of “Christian”) hate and humor (see: “[The Mad Machine](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0072)”) and were at least entertaining. Later issues became steadily more nasty and hateful. I suspect that was more the work of later writers who took over.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2021, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/8 "2021-12-14T22:15:37Z")
I have, somewhere, a full-page ad from the Indy Star that predicted to the day the Big Day. Nothing happened, of course, and I always wondered what those prophets do when their sure thing doesn’t happen.
Years later, another, better publicized preacher set the date of The Rapture. That morning, I carefully placed a baseball cap, a t-shirt, shorts, and socks in shoes at the end of my driveway to make it look like I vanished. I took a picture for Facebook. My neighbor was puzzled at first, then he got it. He chuckled about that all day.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/9 "2021-12-14T22:21:40Z")
These days, we have Q-heads lining the streets at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, awaiting the resurrection of JFK, Sr. and JFK, Jr.
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### Author:  [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2021, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/10 "2021-12-14T22:56:18Z")
Fundamentally Oral Bill! The more money you sent him, the sooner God would call the other televangelists home.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2021, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/11 "2021-12-15T04:08:52Z")
I remember people talking about this, and also how the Bible itself has a few things to say about people who attempt to predict the day.
> **[ON BORROWED TIME & 88 REASONS WHY THE RAPTURE WILL BE IN 1988 Two Books in...](https://www.amazon.com/BORROWED-TIME-REASONS-RAPTURE-Books/dp/B000LSLY7E)**
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> ON BORROWED TIME & 88 REASONS WHY THE RAPTURE WILL BE IN 1988 Two Books in One \[Whisenant, Edger C.\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. ON BORROWED TIME & 88 REASONS WHY THE RAPTURE WILL BE IN 1988 Two Books in One
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2021, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/12 "2021-12-15T04:12:17Z")
> [@AskNott](#):
>
> I always wondered what those prophets do when their sure thing doesn’t happen.
I recommend the book When Prophecy Fails. It deals with that topic in general, and follows a small cultish group whose leader has predicted a specific date when the world will end in a flood.
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/13 "2021-12-15T22:21:27Z")
I remember the FamilyRadio billboards from 10 years ago predicting the end in 2011.
[Crazy old Harold Camping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction)
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2021, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/14 "2021-12-15T22:25:48Z")
> [@AskNott](#):
>
> These days, we have Q-heads lining the streets at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, awaiting the resurrection of JFK, Sr. and JFK, Jr.
Hence why QAnon is considered a religious-like movement. They literally use the language of Evangelical/Fundamentalist eschatology. The same people falling for this would fall for the stuff mentioned in the OP.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/15 "2021-12-16T13:11:08Z")
It was the 80’s - _everyone_ thought the world was going to end tomorrow, probably thanks to nuclear war. Those preaches were just putting a religious spin on something that was already part of the zeitgeist.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2021, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/16 "2021-12-16T22:00:14Z")
Well in 1999, Jerry Falwell predicted the end of the world to come in about 2010. Helpully, he also pointed out the antichrists is probably alive today (1999) and is probably a Jew.
Jimmy Swaggart predicted such an even just about every other day. But only Jim Bakker has lived long enough to keep his hand in the business. He is still doing it.
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### Author:  [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2021, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countdown-to-armageddon-fundy-preachers-in-the-1980s/955967/17 "2021-12-16T23:51:44Z")
I heard it plenty growing up in the Southern Baptist church. This was in the seventies, though. By the eighties I’d moved on to mainline Protestantism, where it wasn’t talked about as a literal future event.