Jonathan Zimmerman: End of the World May 21?! Don't Panic – But Don't Ridicule Project Caravan, Either

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author most recently of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

Hey, check out all those crazies who think the world is about to end!

That’s been the theme of most media reporting about “Project Caravan,” the bus convoy traversing America to warn that the world will be destroyed this Saturday. The people expecting Judgment Day on May 21 are fools and simpletons, news stories imply, and the rest of us are free to sit in judgment of them.

But they’re not nearly as weird as you’ve been led to believe. According to a 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center, 41 percent of Americans believe that Jesus will return by 2050. And most of them think the world will end, too.

So while they may not agree with Project Caravan’s specific May 21 prediction, millions of Americans are fully aboard with the basic idea that doomsday is on the way. They’re not just the kooks who are derided on TV; they’re your friends, neighbors, teachers, and doctors. End-of-the-world prophecy is all around us, whether we know it or not.

And it’s been there for a long time, too. The idea has deep roots in American history, which was founded by people who thought they were carrying out God’s will. As the Puritan minister John Winthrop famously preached, America was a “City on the Hill”: As a righteous society, based strictly on Biblical law, it would provide a moral and spiritual example for the rest of the world....