The "End of Days" Daze

of course this is the big problem for small c christians, or non-evangelicals. Your key text offers a multiplicity of narratives, you're subtle enough to think about it in depth and not go for the easy option (the world is ending next tuesday), but in so doing you're not really capable of being fully Christian as that has been defined by the crazies at the edges.

and why does this happen? Because ultimately you're trying to defend a set of beliefs that don't really make much sense, except as a broad (and largely unoriginal) moral code. When it gets metaphysically challenging (real sin, Satan's work in the human world etc,) certain groups are always going to derive strength from the more outrageous claims of these views (Pat Robertson take note), because the more you're prepared to claim, the more seer-like and visionary you will appear to be.

In your penultimate paragraph you seem to wrestle with the real world vs imaginary world issue here. But really a rational Christian is just one who hasn't yet completely given up on childish milennia old fairy stories.