Millions of Christians have tried to make sense of local, national, and global events through the lens of biblical prophecy. In fact, some historians have argued that Americans have been unique in their efforts to find transcendent meaning in their experiences as a nation and a people in the long scheme of God’s seemingly unfolding revelation. When will history end? When will God establish his kingdom on earth? Where are we in God’s cosmic plan of the ages? Does the United States have a particular role to play in the end times? In seeking to answer these questions, almost every generation has worked to understand its place-and the place of the United States-in God’s timeline. But Revelation is not all death and destruction: a new, peaceful, and perfect heaven and earth is coming as well.Īmericans, like almost every Bible-reading people before them, have struggled to make sense of the Scriptures’ apocalyptic themes. According to visions written down by John in Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, a global cataclysm is coming, and history, time, and the world as we know it are all coming to an end. At least it has seemed so for generations of Christians, based on their reading of the Bible’s many apocalyptic passages. The uses of apocalypticism and millennialism are almost as diverse as their adherents. Sometimes their actions have served to reinforce the status quo, and at other times they have sparked revolutions. Positive that Jesus is coming soon, they have preached revival and engaged directly and aggressively with their culture. God, millennialists insist, has given them much to do and very little time in which to do it. Apocalyptic visions, rather than fostering a sense of indifference to the coming of the end of days, have served as a call to battle. When Christians have emphasized the Bible’s apocalyptic and millennial visions, they have acted in new and important ways. The Bible’s focus on a coming millennium has offered Americans the promise of transformation and redemption in a world that sometimes seems void of both. Although there are many kinds of apocalypticism, in the United States, Christian forms have dominated. It has fostered among adherents a strong sense of purpose and personal identity, it has helped them interpret the challenges they face all around them, and it has provided them with a triumphant vision of the future. The goal of ZAMM is to reduce the global burden of zombification and contribute to apocalypse prevention and preparedness through interdisciplinary engagement.Apocalypticism has had a powerful impact on American life. We use the zombie apocalypse as a lens through which we can engage about potentially frightening aspects of our present and future without fear and anxiety, but instead with imagination and creativity. ZAMM brings together scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, ethicists and futurists to engage with the challenges of zombification and the apocalyptic conditions that may be generated by or contribute to zombification. These dynamics - where one entity controls another - can lead to unanticipated biological, technological and social consequences. This includes host-parasite interactions, autonomous technology, and coercion/control in human interactions. We define a zombie as an entity that is fully or partially under the control of another entity. The Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting (ZAMM) is a radically interdisciplinary meeting that bridges science and the arts to grapple with the most pressing challenges of the present and the future.
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