Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America

Stozier, a psychoanalyst and a history professor at John Jay College, City University of New York, writes about those Christians who believe that God will remake the world in a firestorm of destruction and send Jesus back to rule for a millennium. The author spent five years attending services and interviewing Pentecostals, Baptists and Evangelicals in New York City. His 27 respondents--among them an ex-prostitute, a multimillionaire entrepreneur turned missionary, a fiery preacher and a Wall Street broker--regarded their past as sinful or worthless. Their born-again experiences, in Strozier's formulation, represent attempts to heal traumatized, fractured selves. The final chapters of this cogent, worthy study attempt to place Christian fundamentalism on a continuum of apocalyptic belief by contrasting it with Hopi Indians' myths of impending eco-catastrophe and with New Ager premonitions of a dawning Aquarian Age. (Apr.)