This generation may be the one that will face Armageddon.
- Ronald Reagan, People Magazine, December 26, 1985

I'm beginning to understand. The word's on the street and, in the US, there are
tens of millions who believe in Armageddon. "The End Is Coming" I'm told
and my local bookstore has books telling me the end's coming soon. Last year,
some of America's best-selling titles trumpeted imminent Armageddon and arrival of God's
"rapture". Fifty-million copies of the "Left Behind" series of books prophecy
an imminent Armageddon and chronicle the Rapture and Tribulations that will follow. Millions
of Americans are preparing for "The Second Coming of Christ".

The politics of believers connect God's word to US foreign policy, so it was with trepidation
and wonder that I opened the doors and looked inside this world of deep belief. With a vision
of Armageddon, Biblical revelation and truth, old and new, millions of religiously
conservative Americans speak of US foreign policy that should support and adhere to a
prophetic religious perspective. We hear God is on the side of believers going to war.
The tragic irony, of course, is many claim God, even the same God is on their side as they
war with each other.

Confusion continues as believers in the Second Coming, profess that those who do not share
their beliefs will not be saved when the end comes. Everyone not a reborn Christian
will be 'left behind' after the Rapture. Some who profess apocalyptic belief have gone so far
as to profess support of a "Greater Israel" - to advance the day of God's reckoning -
while denying "the children of Israel" can be saved. As interpreted, the story of
the Armageddon and Second Coming is to begin in the north of Israel.

Believers talk of a "Day of the Lord", a struggle for global dominion that
will pit armies of a Christian West against a "Union of Disbelievers", often
interpreted to be Islamic Nations an Eurasian allies from the East. According to popular
interpretations of Revelation prophecy, nuclear exchanges will occur between the West and East.
Both sides will move military forces in the mideast and commence all out conflict.
According to widely held apocalyptic belief, Satan's demons will influence 'evil' political
and military leaders and absent intervention of God the destruction of all living things
will occur in a final nuclear holocaust and aftermath.

Some interpretations of Revelations speak of Western leaders attempting to takeover
rich oil fields east of Israel. Others speak of armed forces will gather near Armageddon,
literally around 15 miles from Haifa. Most interpretations profess that during the Rapture,
Jesus will "snatch up" the deceased, the "dead in Christ" and they will
rise into the heavens, then believers who are alive will be caught up
and rise in rapture to meet the Lord.

The story continues in great detail, as annual sales of ten of millions of apocalyptic
books in the US attest God may begin executing judgments against unbelievers during
the period called Tribulations. Nations will attack Israel and Jesus Christ will
physically return leading the "Armies of Heaven". They will destroy
everyone who's not a believer. Satan will be bound up and Jesus will declare
a "Millennial Kingdom" centered in Jerusalem. Jesus and Saints
will rule for a thousand years. During this period people will be born who are
not loyal to Christ. Satan will tempt the inhabitants of the Earth. Some will take
up arms against God and be defeated. Christ will judge everyone who has ever lived,
rewarding some and punishing others. Those who are destroyed will be cast into a
"Lake of Fire" called "Hell". After eons of temptation and punishment,
according to interpreted prophecy, God will destroy heaven and Earth because of sin.
God will create a new heaven and earth for those who are saved and rule forever.

Revelations translated for a modern Christian audience is a story that fires a belief
in worldwide conflict - a politics of believers and unbelievers. While a worldwide population
numbering a billion and a half Muslims grows faster than any world religion, fundamentalist
Christians look to conflict of religions, 'civilization' and ultimate salvation in the
Second Coming of Christ.

Apocalyptic visions and religious politics in America are not to be ignored or
lightly considered. Many millions of votes and elections are dependent on religious
conservative thought. The lobbying power of religious groups challenges that of any special
interest group in Washington DC. The ties between conservative religious leaders and the
White House are close and intimate and 'God's word' provides more than an undercurrent in
foreign policy. Days before the Bush Administration revealed a "Road Map" proposal,
the White House received a letter signed by a cross-section of well-known American
religious leaders opposing the "Road Map" peace plan.

The political clout of the 'Christian Right' is potent, its express positions treated with
great deference, Armageddonists have risen to press their belief-as-policy. Many millions
of conservative American Christians follow the news in the Mideast with rapt attention.
"I believe this is the beginning of the wars of the last years", says Pastor
Elva Martin, leader of the Word of Truth Assembly in Anderson, South Carolina. Martin refers
to the New Testament Book of Revelation and Old Testament books of Daniel and
Ezekiel and points to a direct link between biblical sites, passages and current conflict
in the mideast.

The war in Iraq is a sign world events are leading up to a final conflict between good,
led by Jesus, and evil led by an Antichrist. "First," explains Steven Hankins,
dean of Bob Jones University Seminary, the war in Iraq "is relevant geographically
in that the final events in the history of the world as we know it center on the
middle east, so anything that happens militarily in the political states in the middle east
is naturally a point of interest." Hankins says the Iraq war may be relevant to end
times prophecy, but it's not the main event. "If the Rapture happens today, then we
are seven years from Armageddon." He points to the fifty million apocalyptic
"Left Behind" books sold. Authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye offered their revelatory
analysis of the Iraq war on their website "Left Behind Prophecy Club", while Jerry
Falwell's Liberty University broke ground on a Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy. End Times
magazine reports double-digit increases in subscriptions, sales of books, magazines and audiotapes.

The Christianity of a nonviolent Jesus who preached "the golden rule", do onto others as
you would have others do onto you, and putting away the sword, seems to be absent in Revelations.
Jesus' pacifist teaching may be "too radical" for "road maps" as Gandhi called
Christ "the most active practitioner of nonviolence in history". Yet, the core teachings
of Christ seem to have less impact on foreign policy than interpretations of the Book of Revelations.

Even as injunctions from the pulpit and admonitions from the pews acted to influence the course
of US foreign policy, communities of faith in the U.S. chose not follow the Administration to
war. Churches, synagogues and mosques, individuals, congregations and ministries consciously and
conscientiously opposed escalating cycles of violence and war. War's not inevitable. War in
the mideast is not a preview to Armageddon. Virtually every major religion in the U.S.
opposed initiating war against Iraq.

Christian support for going to war in Iraq came principally from Southern Baptists, apocalyptic
and fundamentalist ministries who pressed their case in an exclusive White House audience.
The Washington Post reported, after the war, that a "private briefing" had been held
between the President and "141 evangelical Christian leaders on March 27 to discuss the Iraq
war and other subjects." Those invited included "Jerry Falwell, who apologized last year
for calling the prophet Muhammed a 'terrorist' and broadcaster Marlin Maddoux, who has
proclaimed an 'irrefutable connection' between Islam and terror. Also invited were the President
of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is sending food to Iraq labeled 'grace and truth
were realized through Jesus Christ' and Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, who said Iraqis are 'desperately in need of the gospel.'"

On Easter Day in the spring of 2003 [ed note: 2004], the President chose to celebrate the holiest day
in Christian belief, the resurrection of Christ, at Fort Hood, Texas, the home of the 4th Infantry
Division, described often by the Pentagon as the "most lethal" unit of the US Army.

_____

For more information visit:
TheocracyWatch,
a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) at Cornell University.
The Center is a nonsectarian, action-based educational organization with its roots in religious dialogue,
human rights advocacy, and ethical thought. TheocracyWatch raises awareness about the pervasive role
of the Religious Right in the U.S. government.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over.htm [1]
http://www.theocracywatch.org/about_us2.htm [2]
http://www.cresp.cornell.edu/ [3]