Jesus' return - Apocalyptic influence on U.S. foreign policy

Apocalyptic thinking--especially in the Christian Right--joins other factors influencing U.S. Middle East policy, such as controlling global oil sources, assisting corporate-driven globalization, militaristic imperialism, and more. Why focus on this one factor? Because the Christian Right is a powerful force shaping politics and culture in the United States, and they are the largest voting bloc in the Republican Party, so they can expect politicians to pay attention to their interests. That George W. Bush takes his born-again religion seriously and applies it to his political decisions has been discussed widely. That’s why we need to understand apocalyptic thinking.

According to history professor Paul S. Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture, religious views in the United States have “always had an enormous, if indirect and underrecognized, role [in] shaping public policy.” Boyer advises us to pay attention to this hidden truth because of the “shadowy but vital way that belief in biblical prophecy is helping mold grassroots attitudes toward current U.S. foreign policy,” especially in the Middle East.

...Starting in the 1970s, author Hal Lindsey drew a huge audience of fundamentalists and evangelicals with a series of books claiming that the countdown clock of the end times had begun to tick with the founding of the state of Israel in the Middle East, an event that was portrayed as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. For some Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists the text in Revelation is read as a timetable and script for the end times, complete with a massive battle between God and Satan on the plains of Armageddon, located in Israel.

...Such Christians believe that in the end times, an agent of Satan will appear as an actual world political leader who tricks devout Christians into helping build a one-world government and a one-world religion. This figure is called the Antichrist, and true Christians must resist him to protect their soul.

Which is why I don't understand how they support George Bush, when he would seem the perfect candidate by these terms. The article explains that the European Union and the United Nations come under the most vehement attacks from the group set on Armageddon, as those two organizations represent the Antichrist's attempts to form a one world government. I think they're mising the more obvious - one-world government could be global American imperialism, and certainly a European Union or United Nations would not bring about a one-world religion. Could not, as they are unions of separate cultures. The one world government of an American empire, on the other hand, would be in a position to dictate a one-world religion. That is obviously somewhat far fetched, but if we were to suppose an Antichrist building a one-world government and religion, it seems to me much more plausible it would be from one nation, rather than believing a union of nations could agree on one religion to enforce.

[[Christian rights activist Tim] LaHaye became co-author of the Left Behind series of apocalyptic novels, which portray Israel as under attack by the forces of the Antichrist. One heroic mission undertaken by Christian protagonists portrayed in these novels is the assassination of the former head of the United Nations, who is revealed as the Antichrist himself. The series has sold over 50 million copies.

Kofi Annan better watch his back. I'm not kidding. He's a black man, married to a white woman; he has not rubber stamped Bush's war on Arab naitons; he has called on Israel to withdraw from Palestine, ending their "illegal occupation" and their violence against Palestinians; and, his term is up December 30, 2006 - and 2007 is a date bandied about on alternative websites as being the time of a great shift in earth's evolutionary affairs (sometimes referred to as a "mass ascension").

For some apocalyptic Christians, the return of Jesus requires that Jews return to Israel (the ingathering or Aliyah), and rebuild the third Temple of Solomon on the hilltop Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary. Rebuilding the Temple of Solomon would violate the sanctity--and most likely destroy--the Islamic religious shrines now located on the hilltop. Some messianic Jews and apocalyptic Christians believe rebuilding the Temple of Solomon should take place anyway and this is a key (but not the only) factor in the growth of a movement called Christian Zionism.

...A major display of the Christian Right’s support for Israel was the 2002 Road to Victory conference, organized by the Christian Coalition and quite unlike any previous Road to Victory conference. ... The galaxy of right-wing stars appearing at the conference either in person or through video included, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), former chair of the foreign relations committee Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), Lt. Col. Oliver North, Alan Keyes, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to the Religion News Service: “Pat Robertson told the Solidarity with Israel rally: ‘We should not ask (Israel) to withdraw (from the occupied territories)--we should stand with them and fight.’… Robertson, who said his support for Israel is longstanding, cited the Book of Genesis, in which God granted Abraham and his descendants the ancient land of Canaan, now believed to be modern Israel.”

We have seen the signs of the end times, and we are called by God to help prepare the way for Jesus' return.

Pat Robertson has called for the "elimination" of Arafat - in whatever way works. Cowboy Codpiece has been pressing for his removal all along, but so far I haven't seen any public report of him hinting that any method will do.

It is important to avoid stereotyping all evangelicals as backward, ignorant, uneducated, socially marginal, ultraconservative, fanatical, or dualistic.

This is true, but let me introduce you to some of my neighbors here in mid-Missouri. Heck, to some of my family.

The problem is not religion, evangelicalism, or fundamentalism but rather dualism and demonization by any belief system--spiritual or secular--wielded in order to cast one’s opponents as wholly evil while declaring one’s own group as wholly good.

Amen, Jesus.

So now somebody tell my why dualism and demonization seem to be so prevalent among fundamentalists. In fact, any religion that sees the world as the chosen versus the unbelievers.

Maybe the Armageddon mongers who believed Jesus would return in the year 2000 weren't wrong after all. Maybe he came, had a look around, and moved on.

The rest of the article, with references.