Much of the success of the film in 1976 was due to the sense of malaise in the West at the time as one film critic, John Kenneth Muir, wrote: "What if the Bible is correct? What if all the signs of the Apocalypse are happening around about now? Would we believe them? Heck, would we even notice?" Duren wrote that through it was unlikely that most people who viewed the film in 1976 accepted the dispensationalist viewpoint, but the mere feeling that the world or perhaps more accurately the West was in terminal decline gave the film a resonance at the time that its subsequent sequels and remakes made in later decades have lacked. Beyond the success of the film, Duren wrote that the impact of the film on popular culture can seen in the way that many people accept the dispensationalist reading of the Book of Revelation as the correct interpretation whereas in fact the dispensationalist interpretation was and still is rejected by many churches. Duren wrote dispensationalism had once been a "fringe" theory within Protestant theology, but due to the popularity of "The Omen" it is now popularly seen as what Bible says. Duren noted that in the film it has to be explained to Robert Thorn that the number 666 is the "mark of the beast" as presumably the audiences in 1976 was not familiar with this aspect of the Book of Revelation, but because of the film's popularity the number 666 has entered popular culture and most people, even those of a secular bent, are at least vaguely aware of the sinister significance attached to 666.