"Rapture Threat Level Orange"

On the Simpson's this evening....Homer screeches into the church parking lot and the billboard reads: "Rapture Threat Level Orange."

Two narratives are tied together here. One is biblical and the second is a national security metaphor.

They come together well to illustrate the peculiar relationship between the church and the state, which are two great institutions that give order and meaning to the modern American political and social landscape. Historically speaking, both the church and the state can be seen to evangelize fear and pronounce a condition of insecurity. It was during the eighteenth century that the state institutional complex assumed this role from the church and became the dominant institution of the two. Now, as the cartoon sign suggests, the metaphors of church are instrumental to the metaphors of national security and the state. Yet they continue to work co-constitute a sense of fear and public anxiety.