The Mayans – nice people, bad prophets

Musician and prophetic evangelist Simon Adahl once shared on Facebook how he had met a man who, after listening to Simon’s numerous miracle stories, exclaimed: “I had no idea that the church had something to do with the supernatural!” Simon was both surprised and sad when he heard this. Is the Western church so bad at representing God that people don’t realize He is a supernatural being?

I think we are. Even Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in the West often lack the abundance of signs and wonders we read about in the book of Acts. Other churches don’t even believe in it, or they are extremely careful, fearing that they would scare people away if they became “too” miraculous. They view signs and wonders  as a danger and a temptation, and thus healers, prophets and wonder-workers are rare among them.

The New Age movement, on the other hand, loves miracles. And I believe that many turn to New Age because they are not satisfied with unmiraculous cultural Christendom that is being offered them in the church. Today, the Maya Calender has recieved massive attention around the world because it ends today, which according to some means that the world is doing the same. And this is not a marginal phenomenon. Around 10% of the global population thinks that there is a possibility that the world end this year because of the Mayan Calendar.

Why are all these people viewing the Mayans as a prophetic authority? Most of them do not worship Mayan gods. Most of them do not live according to Mayan culture. Still, for many the simple statement “the Mayans said so” is a sufficient argument for thinking that the apocalypse may come today, even though they have no plans about starting sacrificing animals to the serpent god Kukulkan. Thus, in order to debunk the theory, Mayan scholars have to argue why the Mayan calender did not predict the end of the world but just an epoch shift, rather than questioning why people view the calender as prophetic in the first place.

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