Recently, living through a major power outage (30 hours without heat or electricity) proved to me I wouldn't have made a good pioneer woman.
But a few friends lightheartedly pointed out that it at least gave my family a dry run for Y2K. You know, when all the world's computers that can't figure out it's the year 2000 revert back to the beginning of this century and leave us in the dark. Literally.But it's likely that Y2K problems won't even be as disruptive as my power outage, says Steve Hewitt, founder and editor of Christian Computing Magazine in Kansas City, Mo. An ordained Southern Baptist minister and a computer science expert, his efforts to fight the doomsday scenarios many evangelical Christians espouse about Y2K was the subject of a recent front-page article in the Wall Street Journal.
Hewitt's got his work cut out for him. Consider recent hair-raising Y2K headlines from Pat Robertson's "700 Club," like "The Year 2000 -- A Date with Disaster," "Surviving the Crisis" and "Countdown to Chaos." Television evangelist John Ankerberg declares on his Web site that experts fear "this problem is so serious that it could affect our way of life here in America."
The Rev. Jerry Falwell is selling a video entitled "A Christian's Survival Guide to the Millennium Bug." Even Dr. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family fame, gave out larger than usual Christmas bonuses to staff last year, suggesting it could go toward Y2K preparations.
Still, as an evangelical Christian, I am particularly dismayed by how many high-profile evangelicals are handling this issue. And I should be, Hewitt told me. Traveling around America trying to calm Y2K fears, he starts by pointing out that businesses and governments have spent billions in the ongoing process to successfully fix legitimate problems presented by Y2K.
Hewitt has spent a great deal of time trying to validate the frightening urban legends of Y2K tests gone awry, such as on major defense systems. But time and again, he's found the alarming anecdotes can't be confirmed.
Oh, there may be some real problems, Hewitt told me. But whatever they are, they will be of the typical, manageable and inevitable kind we already live through every day.
Many Y2K alarmists think embedded chips, or tiny computers buried in everything from microwave ovens to communication cables lying deep in the ocean, present the biggest threat of all. But even now they regularly fail and are fixed.
These things vary from mere nuisances to major inconveniences to dangers -- and they are part of everyday life with or without Y2K.
Still, evangelicals continue the alarm. The biggest reason, Hewitt said, may simply be the fear of the unknown. (The same doomsday scenarios reigned the last time we turned a corner on 1,000 years.)
But there are distinct trends Hewitt has observed as well: A lot of the more extreme evangelical folks have a political agenda -- they'd like to see the government fall apart and so, they hope, usher in Christ's reign. For others, the cold truth is that preaching chaos is profitable and calm doesn't sell many tapes or books.
But whether from a genuine or cynical motivation, irresponsible prophecies from some Christian leaders about Y2K devastation are going to give all Christians a bad name when we're calmly drinking our coffee the morning of Jan. 1, 2000.
Even if the newspaper does arrive a little late because of a short-lived computer glitch.