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The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and the Apocalypse in America​ by Daniel Wojcik examines the role and belief of the apocalypse in American society and culture, with chapter two focusing on the origins of apocalyptic beliefs in America. Starting with America’s founding, in chapter two, “The American Apocalyptic Legacy” starts as defining “the United States…as the new Eden” historically (Wojcik, 21)

A utopia looks different to different groups of people, which is why the apocalypse, especially is different religious contexts as Lifton examined, have different looking outcomes, even as the general pattern of the apocalypse is quite similar across times and places. Religious scholar John Collins mentions that apocalyptic values of life can transcend death, and there is a tendency to try to make sense of chaos which surrounds human beings, a craving for power or cosmic importance which leads to apocalyptic ways of thinking, that the violence and suffering experienced has an ultimate end and purpose, shifting the blame and responsibility from people to gods or in secular apocalypses, governments. Ideally betterment can come without destruction beforehand, and reconciliation of what is and isn’t truly a threat in need of an apocalyptic way of thinking and progress needs to be considered between increasingly interconnected groups, with fundamentally similar ways of thinking but see each other as common enemies, with different ideals for how the reborn world should look. The other questions here are how to balance the ideals of a better world among different groups, how can America continue its strive for improvement without perpetuation of the vicious cycles of apocalyptic thought, and how can religious apocalypses can be untangled from the more secular or political counterparts, when the latter is based on the former, and what are the inherent differences in their outcomes sought.

I think I agree with your [chronological] order for reading the books more than with your mother When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – Four adventurous siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie—step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch.

In “‘In the Lord’s Hands’: America’s Apocalyptic Mindset” Lifton’s focus is that ordinary people can believe in the apocalypse and that apocalyptic thinking can bleed into politics, for example, in situations like political coups, which can change the status quo for the better, or for the worse. Lifton thinks people’s motivation for apocalyptic belief is a mixture of hope and fear as “apocalyptic visions…have flourished during times of great suffering… Those who stand to benefit from a new world order look to the apocalypse with hope (Lifton’s view) and those who stand to lose status or success in this new world order fear it (Osnos’ view), but the apocalypse itself is one and the same. Lifton’s arguments and beliefs lend more to the common experience of the majority, while Osnos details the experiences of the 1%—while very different thought goes into the why of the fear, the fear and anticipation of the apocalypse is held common.