I read the
news today, oh boy.The prospect of regional war looms large, and the latest
threat from Iran's president highlights the worst case scenario.
"If the Zionist regime commits another stupid move and attacks Syria, this will be considered like attacking the whole Islamic world and this regime will receive a very fierce response," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a telephone conversation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Oh shit, Armageddeon. Tim Lahaye and the Left Behinders must be pleased. This is what all those years of sabotaging the peace process were about, provoking the Second Coming.
It's the end of the world as we know it (and I do don't feel fine.)
Here's the thing, for a (disturbing) section of the Religous right, the imminent annihilation of the state of Israel is a good thing. For the rapture ready this is no cause for alarm. The righteous need not worry, they've got reservations with St. Peter and the Pearly Gates.
At the heart of the dogma behind the Left Behind series is a sincere belief that the end of times is near, and that the sooner that the battle of Armageddon comes, the quicker "god-fearing" Christians will be caught up and taken to Heaven. Christian Zionists call this the Rapture, and they have the twisted belief that through supporting the state of Israel (until the lake of fire bit, keep reading) Evangelicals can hasten the Second Coming.
In March 2004, according to The Village Voice, a delegation from the Apostolic Congress, a religious group that believes in the Rapture, met with Elliott Abrams, then the National Security Council's senior director for Near East and North African affairs, to discuss its concern that Israel's disengagement from Gaza would violate God's covenant with Israel.....
"They're not interested in the survival of the State of Israel. They are interested in the Rapture, in bringing to fruition a cosmic myth of the End Times, proving that they are right with one big bang. We are merely actors in their dreams. LaHaye's vision is that Jews will convert or die and go to hell. If you read his books, he is looking forward to war. He is not an ally in the safety of Israel."
Just to be clear the mechanism by which which the non-Christian inhabitants of Israel, excepting the 144,000 Jews that Christian Fundamentalists believe will convert to Christianity during the end of times. And the rest of Jewish inhabitants of Israel.
This is the moment the Rapturists eagerly await. The magnitude of death and destruction will make the Holocaust seem trivial. The battle finally begins.
Those who remain on earth are the unsaved, the left behind--many of them dissolute followers of the Antichrist, who is massing his army against Christ. Accompanying Christ into battle are the armies of heaven, riding white horses and dressed in fine linen....
Once Christ joins the battle, both the Antichrist and the False Prophet are quickly captured and cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Wait a minute, lake of fire, so they get burnt whole. This theology stuff, it's all Greek to me, what's the Greek for that. Oh yes, a burnt sacrifice offered to the Lord as proof of faith.
That's a holocaust.
Oh shit, you mean that the Christian Fundamentalist endplan for Israel is a Holocaust. Surely, all decent people would realize that this is madness, and shun those who promote the destruction of a people to please a vengeful god.
Then again, you have to remember just how seriously whack the Christian Fundamentalist base of the Republican Party is.
Though its membership (CNP, Council for National Policy, ed note) is secret, the rolls have reportedly included Falwell and Pat Robertson; top right-wing political strategists Richard Viguerie, Ralph Reed, and Paul Weyrich; Republican senators Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth (both of North Carolina), Don Nickles (Oklahoma), and Trent Lott (Mississippi); and Republican representatives Dick Armey and Tom DeLay (both of Texas). The late Rousas John Rushdoony, the right-wing theologian who hoped to reconfigure the American legal system in accordance with biblical law, was said to be a member, as was John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, who was co-counsel to Paula Jones in her lawsuit against Bill Clinton.
"Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, senators and Cabinet members--you name it. There's nobody who hasn't been here at least once," says Falwell, who confirms that he is a member. "It is a group of four or five hundred of the biggest conservative guns in the country."
The C.N.P. has access to the highest powers in the land. In 1999, George W. Bush courted evangelical support for his presidential candidacy by giving a speech before the council, the transcript of which remains a highly guarded secret. And since the start of his presidency, Falwell says, the C.N.P. has enjoyed regular access to the Oval Office. "Within the council is a smaller group called the Arlington Group," says Falwell. "We talk to each other daily and meet in Washington probably twice a month. We often call the White House and talk to Karl Rove while we are meeting. Everyone takes our calls." According to The Wall Street Journal, two high-ranking Texas judges who spoke to the Arlington Group in October at the suggestion of Karl Rove allegedly assured its members that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
And what's the end plan for LaHaye et al, creating a Christian Fundamentalist state.
As a result, LaHaye argues, good Evangelicals should no longer think of humanists as harmless citizens who happen not to attend church. In The Battle for the Mind, he spells out his political goals: "We must remove all humanists from public office and replace them with pro-moral political leaders."
"In LaHaye's world, there are the godly people who are on their way to the Rapture," says Berlet. "And the rest of the world is either complicit with the Antichrist or, worse, actively assisting him. If you really believe in End Times, you are constantly looking for agents of Satan.... [And if] political conflicts are rooted in the idea that your opponent is an agent of the Devil, there is no compromise possible. What decent person would compromise with evil? So that removes it from the democratic process.
And before this degenerates into a Israel vs. Arabs flamewar, remember that's what the Christian Fundamentalist want. Flames to purge the Earth of Jews and Muslims alike. Call it Armageddon, call it a Holocaust, these motherfuckers and their enablers in the White House have murder on the mind (all in God's name.) And they should be called ut at every opportunity.
Republicans have made a pact with the Devil (in the name of the Lord), and they should be called on it. I challenge each and everyone of you to seek out the "townhall meetings" of people like Sen Rick Santorum, and Rep Mike Pence, and ask them a simple question.
Do you believe the by supporting the state of Israel you are hastening the Rapture?
Don't let them waffle, press them. And be peaceful, but if they try to remove you boy force, go limp. You have a legal right to be there, and if you go in force, they can't pull you all. They have no right to exclude people from meetings based on what you say when they're using tax dollars.