Think the world is going to end soon? You aren’t the only one. Think the world is ending in December 2012? We’ll see about that…
As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of eschatology and a couple of my favorite books are all about the End Times. So it was with great anticipation that I read Will the World End in 2012? A Christian Guide to the Question Everyone’s Asking by Raymond Hundley, which analyzed various different hypotheses about how the world will end, and when. Whether it’s the Mayan calendar predictions around December 12, 2012, the second coming of Christ, or Old Faithful erupting, Hundley summarizes each possibility and then comes to his own conclusion as to whether the hypothesis is conceivable.
It’s a quick read – at least 1/4 of the book is just NOTES in the back. Because of that, I also found this book to be very superficial. Given the weighty topic he has chosen to write about, he treats each one very quickly and doesn’t go into great detail at all. For example, I don’t know much about the Large Hadron Collider experiments and would have thoroughly enjoyed reading more – much more – about these machines and what scientists are trying to do with them. Instead, Hundley spent 6-7 pages giving a summary background, providing a few pithy quotes, and then offering a quick conclusion as to whether the Collider can cause Armegeddon.
It’s like Hundley wrote a primer for another, better book. Yes, the content was interesting, but the delivery was poorly executed and left me frustrated by it’s supreme brevity.
I’m sure the author’s heart was in the right place. The goal of his book is to show that despite how the world does end, the importance is to be in a right relationship with God when the time does come. But I think the book could have been executed much better in order to have a bigger impact on his larger message.
This book only gets 2 stars out of five. The two stars are for what the book DOES provide – some basic information about the end of the world and how it could happen. But had the author spent more time (and pages) on actual content, this book easily could have gotten a higher rating.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.â€