October 11, 2007 America's Armageddonites
by Jon Basil Utley Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human
race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States.
Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They
are the new "Armageddonites," fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from
forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about.
Most journalists find it difficult to take seriously that tens of millions of
Americans, filled with fantasies of revenge and empowerment, long to leave a
world they despise. These Armageddonites believe that they alone will get a
quick, free pass when they are "raptured" to paradise, no good deeds necessary,
not even a day of judgment. Ironically, they share this utopian fantasy with a
group that they often castigate, namely fundamentalist Muslims who believe that
dying in battle also means direct access to Heaven. For the Armageddonites,
however, there are no waiting virgins, but they do agree with Muslims that
there will be "no booze, no bars," in the words of a popular Gaither Singers
song.
These end-timers have great influence over the U.S. government's foreign
policy. They are thick with the Republican leadership. At a recent conference
in Washington, congressional leader Roy Blunt, for example, has said that their
work is "part of God's plan." At the same meeting, where speakers promoted
attacking Iran, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay glorified "end times".
Indeed the Bush administration often consults with them on Mideast policies.
The organizer of the conference, Rev. John Hagee, is often welcomed at the
White House, although his ratings are among the lowest on integrity and
transparency by Ministry Watch, which rates religious broadcasters. He raises
millions of dollars from his campaign supporting Israeli settlements on the
West Bank, including much for himself. Erstwhile presidential candidate Gary
Bauer is on his Board of Directors. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson also both
expressed strong end-times beliefs.
American fundamentalists strongly supported the decision to invade Iraq in
2003. They consistently support Israel's hard-line policies. And they are
beating the drums for war against Iran. Thanks to these end-timers, American
foreign policy has turned much of the world against us, including most Muslims,
nearly a quarter of the human race.
The Beginning of End Times The evangelical movement originally was not so
"end times" focused. Rather, it was concerned with the "moral" decline inside
America. The Armageddon theory started with the writings of a Scottish
preacher, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). His ideas then spread to America with
publication in 1917 of the Scofield Reference Bible, foretelling that the
return of the Jews to Palestine would bring about the end times. The
best-selling book of the 1970s, The Late, Great Planet Earth, further spread
this message. The movement did not make a conscious effort to affect foreign
policy until Jerry Falwell went to Jerusalem and the Left Behind books became
best sellers.
Conservative Christian writer Gary North estimates the number of
Armageddonites at about 20 million. Many of them have an ecstatic belief in the
cleansing power of apocalyptic violence. They are among the more than 30% of
Americans who believe that the world is soon coming to an end. Armageddonites
may be a minority of the evangelicals, but they have vocal leaders and control
2,000 mostly fundamentalist religious radio stations.
Although little focused on in America, Armageddonites attract the attention
of Muslims abroad. In 2004, for instance, I attended Qatar's Fifth Conference
on Democracy with Muslim leaders from all over the Arabian Gulf. There, the
uncle of Jordan's king devoted his whole speech to warning of the
Armageddonites' power over American foreign policy.
Armageddonite Foreign Policy The beliefs of the Armageddon Lobby, also known
as Dispensationalists, come from the Book of Revelations, which Martin Luther
relegated to an appendix when he translated the Bible because its image of
Christ was so contrary to the rest of the Bible. The Armageddonites worship a
vengeful, killer-torturer Christ. They also frequently quote a biblical passage
that God favors those who favor the Jews. But they only praise Jews who make
war, not those who are peacemakers. For example, they vigorously opposed
Israel's murdered premier Yitzhak Rabin, who promoted the Oslo Peace Accords.
Based on this Biblical interpretation, the Armageddonites vehemently argue
that America must protect Israel and encourage its settlements on the West Bank
in order to help God fulfill His plans. The return of Jews to Palestine is
central to the prophetic vision of the Armageddonites, who see it as a critical
step toward the final battle, Armageddon, and the victory of the righteous over
Satan's minions. There are a couple internal inconsistencies with this
prophecy, such as the presence of Christians already living in the Holy Land
and the role of Jews in the final dispensation. In the first case, Jerry
Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other Religious Right leaders tried to pretend that
Christians already in the Holy Land simply didn't exist. As for Jews, they
needed to become "born again" Christians to avoid God's wrath (or, according to
some Armageddonites, a separate Jewish covenant with God will gain them a
separate Paradise).
Everyone else Buddhists, Muslims (of course), Hindus, atheists, and so on
are then slated to die in the Tribulation that comes with Armageddon. As
described in the bestselling Left Behind series, this time of human misery ends
with Christ then ruling a paradise on earth for a thousand years.
Armageddonites know little about the outside world, which they think of as
threatening and awash with Satanic temptations. They are big supporters of
Bush's "go it alone" foreign policies. For example, they love John Bolton. They
were prime supporters for attacking Iraq. And, with very few exceptions, they
were noticeably quiet about, if not supportive, of torturing prisoners of war
(only with a new leadership did the National Association of Evangelicals
finally condemn torture in May, 2007). Their support of the Senator Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT) and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani shows that they
consider aggressively prosecuting Mideast war (to help speed up the apocalypse)
more important than the domestic programs of these socially liberal
politicians.
On other foreign policy issues, they are violently against the pending Law of
the Seas Treaty, indeed any treaty which possibly circumscribes U.S. power to
go it alone. They want illegal immigrants expelled and oppose more immigration.
They fear China's growth. They despise Europeans for not being more warlike.
The UN figures prominently in their fears, and the Left Behind books present
its Secretary General as the Antichrist. Domestically, they strongly support
the USA PATRIOT Act and all of President Bush's actions, legal or illegal.
Armageddonites and Fascism Author and former New York Times reporter
Christopher Hedges argues that worldview and reasoning of the Armageddonites
tend toward fascism. In his book American Fascists, Hedges focuses on their
obedience to leadership, their feelings of humiliation and victimhood,
alienation, their support for authoritarian government, and their
disinterestedness in constitutional limits on government power. Theirs was
originally a defensive movement against the liberal democratic society,
particularly abortion, school desegregation, and now globalization, which they
saw as undermining their communities and families, their values, and
livelihood. Their fundamentalism is very fulfilling and, Hedges writes, "they
are terrified of losing this new, mystical world of signs, wonders and moral
certitude, of returning to the old world of despair."
Hedges, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, also shows that
fundamentalists are quite selective. They don't take the Bible literally when
it comes to justifying slavery or that children who curse a parent are to be
executed. The movement is also very masculine, giving poor men a path to
re-establish their authority in what they perceive as an overly feminized
culture. Images of Jesus often show Him with thick muscles, clutching a sword.
Christian men are portrayed as powerful warriors.
The overwhelming power and warmongering of the Armageddonites has inspired
some resistance from other fundamentalists, but they are a minority. Theologian
Richard Fenn writes, "Silent complicity (by mainline churches) with apocalyptic
rhetoric soon becomes collusion with plans for religiously inspired genocide."
Their death-wishing "religion" is actually anti-Christian and should be
challenged openly by traditional Christians.
The next election will likely loosen their grip on the White House. However,
their growing ties to the military industrial complex will remain. Exposure of
their war wanting as a major threat to America and the world may well become as
destructive for them as was the famous Scopes trial in the 1920s. But that will
only happen if Americans become as concerned as foreign observers about the
influence of the Armageddonites.
http://www.antiwar.com/utley/?articleid=11735
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