Waiting for the End of the World is part of a tradition of apocalyptic literature stretching back at least as far as the Biblical "Revelation." Since the end of World War II, the threat of nuclear warfare has intensified popular interest in the end of the civilized world. Novels such as Alas, Babylon, movies like On the Beach, and various episodes of Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents have dealt with global destruction.

More recently popular novels and movies have suggested that the greater threat may be terrorist attacks on assembled groups of people, as in Black Sunday, or madmen preying upon vulnerable individuals, as in the Friday the 13th series.

Likewise, from the beginning of the Christian era, the lives of saints have been a distinct genre intended to encourage average people in their pursuit of goodness. Since the days of St. Paul, generally the...