Siena students tackle 'Signs of Millennium'

A group of students at Siena College in Loudonville spent last semester watching such movies as "The Devil's Advocate" and "The Seventh Sign," surfing the internet, and discussing the virtues of M&Ms.

You might think they were blowing off classes, but these students were taking a seminar, "Signs of the Millennium", taught by Dr. Peter Zaas, director of the Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies at Siena.

They examined how films, the internet and candy -- M&Ms are being advertised as the "official candy of the millennium" -- shape people's views of the year 2000 and the new millennium.

Joshua Powers, a junior who is a parishioner of St. Michael's Church in South Glens Falls, found it interesting to learn how different religious faiths think about the millennium and the far-fetched interpretations of the Bible that some people have as 2000 draws near. The Books of Daniel and Revelation were some of the Scriptures that students in the seminar examined.

Celebrating the year 2000 is a significant event, but Christians shouldn't lose sight of what Jubilee Year 2000 and the new millennium mean from a religious standpoint.

"It's not so much of a religious holiday. It's disheartening that people have taken it for what it is. People are more concerned about New Year's Eve," he said.

Megan Bause, a senior, wrote a paper on failed apocalyptic prophecy, which covered such topics as the Seventh Day Adventists and Heaven's Gate followers. She enjoyed learning the terminology associated with the new millennium and was surprised to discover "how many different ideas there were surrounding it."

She found that people experienced a religious reawakening as the second millennium came and that modern society also is becoming more religious as the third millennium nears.

The link between religion and the western calendar is one of the notions that Dr. Zaas hopes his students came to appreciate by attending his seminar.

"That's one of the things religion is for: to make sense out of time," he said. "It's always a revelation to the students that this is, basically, an arbitrary dating system." (PQ)