Most Christians, including Catholics, spend little time contemplating when Christ will return and what that means. We regularly say, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end”, but we rarely contemplate the precise date and time of his arrival.

Christian evangelicals in the United States, on the other hand, have made ruminating on the end-times a speciality. For many, beliefs about Christ returning in glory have formed a central plank in their theological system.