Read an April 6, 2011, story at CNBC.com on the current wave of apocalypticism.

Darren A. Ferguson is founder and pastor of Luke 4:18 Ministries, an umbrella organization of hiphop ministers and services in New York, including the Soldiers of Praise hiphop choir and Friday Night FLAYVA (Freedom, Love and Abundant Youth Victory Alliance) worship. He is also youth director for Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Ferguson calls his preaching style […]

Read an April 28, 2011, column at Religion Dispatches by Peter Laarman that compares religious and secular “end times” impulses.

Read a March 18, 2011, essay at First Things by Meghan Duke, in which she recounts the history of failed prophecies and critiques the tendency to believe in them.

Read a May 20, 2011, essay at the Science + Religion blog that explores the appeal of apocalyptic thinking for secular people.

Michael Shermer, author of The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths (2011), wrote a June 7, 2011, column in New Scientist explaining that for both religious and secular people, apocalyptic thinking is spurred by a desire to bring order to the randomness of events.

Read a March 9, 2012, ABC news story about an online post in which Harold Camping acknowledged being wrong about a 2011 doomsday.

James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College.

Read a Nov. 20, 2012, LiveScience.com article about the cultural fascination with the end of the world.