America's big 'hang-up' about "end-times talk"

...was chatting with Vishal Mangalwadi about a year ago, here in Colorado Springs, and I had an unusual burst of bravado, when I told him, straight-faced, that I wish the Protestant church had a Pope, by which we, at least in the U.S., needed to issue an apology to the rest of the world, for having exported a profoundly negative view of our age--that it was supposedly just to get worse and worse and worse and worse, and then FINALLY, Jesus will "come again" to "set up his kingdom." I just read an old sermon a day or two ago which said exactly that--by a popular radio preacher in these United States. There is much work we--at least as Americans--need to do, mainly with our understanding of these times, in order, mainly from Scripture, to pick up a much more "victorious eschatology" by which we can then, in all honesty, seek to move toward, of all things, "obedient NATIONS!" I think without a shift in our understanding of THESE times, we will not likely arrive at this larger/monumental task.