Apocalypse Maybe

The End of Fear

A look at the fear of growing up in a doomsday cult and believing that, any day now, the world may end.

In part two of our Apocalypse Maybe series, End of Fear, people raised with a belief in an impending apocalypse look back on their upbringing, and find some parallels in today’s increasingly unstable world.

Acclaimed author and professor Jerald Walker shares the story told in his 2016 autobiography, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, while writer and PR professional Fleur Brown connects past fears with the current day.

Some threads of apocalyptic beliefs are then unpicked with academic insight by James Tabor, retired professor of Christian origins and ancient Judaism at the University of North Carolina. He reassures viewers that such prophecies, past and present, have a 100 percent failure rate.

Apocalypse Maybe is a documentary series exploring why, in the presence of cascading global crises, many feel that we might be living in the end times.

Theme music: Try Again by Cam Kahin.