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It's interesting that you want to bring science and the supernatural together for this. Traditionally, there's been a pretty high wall between the two. What makes you think the end times might bring those two divergent camps together?

Seltzer: Science and theology have always been a part of my life. I'm a science buff. My background is in doing documentaries for the National Geographic Society, for Jacques Cousteau, for the David Wolper Organization, trumping around the world looking at grasshoppers and termites with a close-up lens. And looking at the stars. I do believe that the scientist and the theologian in my scenario are both searching for something higher than the tallest building and beyond the farthest star for an answer to why the things on earth happen. When the Bible predicts that the world will end with a comet in the sky, with the distress of nations, with the end of bloodshed, with pandemics and famine and with the rage of the oceans rolling, you realize we have reached that time—and science is beginning to react in a way that perfectly aligns with what's described as the end of days, not just in Revelations but in 1 & 2 John, Daniel and Corinthians.

I think that a scientist and a theologian would have to ultimately come to realize that they're searching on parallel tracks for very elusive answers, and they're not connected so much by the answers as they are by the questions. I feel that they're walking the same path, and it feel very natural to connect the two.

If you look at the structure of the grasshopper as a scientist, you realize that's no accident. It doesn't have lungs. It has bellows. It sucks the oxygen in through its skin. The way it's constructed like a little mathematical piece of perfection. So what I'm saying is everywhere you look in science you would have to be blind to the fact that this is more than some random accident. So to me it's natural to think of the two in the same breath.

According to the book of Revelation and other Scriptures, after the world ends, we will have a new heaven and a new earth. Why would anybody want to stop that from coming? And what can man do that will stop the hand of God?

Bill Pullman and Natascha McElhone star

Seltzer: The hand of God ultimately will have its way for those people who believe in it. We believe the things we want to believe, and we deny the things we don't. Sister Josepha [a character in Revelations] is considered a blasphemer; she's one inch away from excommunication. She deals with a woman named Mother Francine who believes more literally in the Bible. The Vatican plays a role. And there are various characters we meet, some of whom literally believe that when Christ appears, he'll descend on a cloud surrounded by a thousand angels—and when the anti-Christ comes it will be as a seven-headed dragon. But the book of Revelations is always interpreted in the context of the historical time that it's being interpreted in. I think it's possible for us to look at the end of days and see that we're talking about nuclear destruction. And with all the efforts being made to try and forestall that, I think there is a metaphor here to forestalling the end of days. We have a character who believes that.

Christianity has a wide variety of views especially about the end times. What kind of Christianity are you portraying here?

Seltzer: I don't know that I'm portraying a particular kind of humanity. I wish I were more scholarly than I am. I'm a fan of the Scriptures and I love to read it. To me it's a great mystery novel, because it is nothing but clues and you are trying to create some kind of understandable picture. If I were a scholar, I'd be able to answer the question of what of Christianity. I can tell you what kind of characters I'm dealing with, but I really don't know that they would follow the track of any particular faith.

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