November 3, 1999
Evangelical Y2K doomsayers
backing down as date draws near
___By Ira Rifkin
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--As 1998 drew to a close and the nation suddenly became awash in predictions of possible year 2000 computer meltdowns, nowhere was the doom and gloom more prevalent than among conservative Christians.
___Radio and television programs, Web sites and book publishers catering to evangelical and Pentecostal Christians warned the faithful to spend 1999 preparing for the widespread societal collapse predicted to follow the crash of millions of time-sensitive computers unable to differentiate between Jan. 1, 2000, and Jan. 1, 1900--the so-called Y2K millennium bug.
___Believers were urged to stock up on dried food, water and even weapons to help their families survive. High-profile leaders gave impetus to the fears by voicing their own concerns and linking them to the apocalyptic scenario recounted in the New Testament's Book of Revelation.
HANK HANEGRAAFF
___Books by Christian writers Michael Hyatt ("The Millennium Bug") and Shaunti Christine Feldhahn ("Y2K: The Millennium Bug") sold in the hundreds of thousands.
___Religious broadcaster James Dobson gave each of his 1,300 full- and part-time employees at Focus on the Family an extra $500 to help them prepare for Y2K, a $650,000 expenditure.
___Jerry Falwell said "we do not have enough programmers" to fix the problem and pronounced Y2K "God's instrument to shake this nation" and turn stunned unbelievers toward the Christian message.
___As the appointed hour rapidly approaches, however, many of these same voices have now traded fundamentalist conviction about the near certainty of global disruption for agnostic equivocation about the millennium bug's real impact. Instead of the Bible, they've taken to quoting government and industry assurances of Y2K readiness.
___Moreover, a distinct backlash has emerged within the conservative Christian community against many of those who issued some of the most dire warnings.
___Hank Hanegraaff, host of the popular "Bible Answer Man" radio show, has spent hour after on-air hour debunking Y2K warnings and castigating those he considers responsible. In an interview, he said Falwell, Dobson and other influential conservative Christians had been taken in by "profiteering sensationalists" spreading "alarmist propaganda," even if they have since changed their tune.
___Richard Landes, director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University and a leading expert on religious and public reaction to Y2K, said the change in attitudes stems from concern that earlier predictions were leading to public panic.
___"There has been heavy pressure on everybody to back off," he said. "It's coming from a consensus that has emerged that says the real problem here is not from technology but the possibility of panic. ... To say I'm really worried now is being judged akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater."
___Authors Hyatt and Feldhahn are among those who have modified their public pronouncements.
___In "The Y2K Personal Survival Guide," Hyatt said it was "downright impossible in my view" for Y2K to result in anything less than major disruption.
___Now, he calls himself "a Y2K agnostic."
___"In many ways, I feel I know less today than I did a year ago," said Hyatt, whose Web site sells "Y2K Prep Food" packages, including his top-of-the-line "one-year, four-person supply of nutritious, good tasting" canned foods for $3,395, plus shipping costs.
___While Y2K is still likely to "be more than a bump in the road," it is not likely to be "the end of the world as we know it," said Hyatt, a senior vice president at the Christian publishing firm Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tenn.
___Feldhahn, who lives in Atlanta and is president of Joseph Project 2000, a non-profit Y2K preparedness organization, said that because the "bar is being raised on Y2K readiness, we don't have to worry as much about some things. ... I tend to think we've made enough progress so we won't see a meltdown."
___Because Y2K doomsday scenarios fit into a theological belief in Jesus' second coming, a belief that's taken on extra meaning as Christianity's second millennium draws to a close, Hanegraaff, for one, is worried some in the church will lose faith when warnings of mass Y2K chaos fail to materialize.
___"Many people who made life decisions based on Y2K predictions will fall out the back door of the church saying, 'If you guys were so wrong on a current event, how can you be correct on something (Jesus' resurrection) that happened 2000 years ago?'" he said.
___"Christianity should not be based on hype and sensationalism."
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