Fear Factor: Sublimity and the exclusion of love in modern-day Christian evangelization
Edmund Burke, in his work “On the Sublime and Beautiful,” claims that terror is essential for something to be considered sublime. And Longinus, who wrote on the sublime hundreds of years before Burke, states “the Sublime, acting with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or no.” Both these statements contain direct applications to the Book of Revelation, which has terrified audiences and inspired evangelists for generations.
This paper examines how modern-day Christian evangelists draw on the Book of Revelation to use apocalyptic media, including sermons, films, books, podcasts and websites, to instill fear in their audiences, thus eliciting a contrived need for salvation. This paper further posits that the use of the sublime, while manipulated by Christian evangelists, and used as both a viable means of proselytizing and as a conversionary tool, irresponsibly subjugates love as a minority discourse, effectively reversing the primary foundation of Christianity, which places love at a premium.