"Science-fiction theology." This is a title that has become attached to a genre of literature that is usually described as "end times" writing by its own authors. But in this class of books, speculations often become so outlandish and outrageous that they seem more like poorly-written science-fiction.
The writing is not at all original; it is in fact frankly derivative. Its ultimate derivation is usually from the Book of Revelation-- about which more commentaries have been written than have appeared about the rest of the Bible combined. This dark, mysterious book is filled with colorful, often gaudy, symbols of processes that often involve bloody violence and cataclysm. The book is said to refer to our near future, despite the plain fact that it was written nearly two thousand years ago.
Nor are late-twentieth-century writers unique at all in their claim that the symbols of this book apply to their time. People have said exactly the same thing for the entire history of the book of Revelation. (Since Revelation is also known by its Greek name Apocalypse, these writings are often called "apocalyptic.") Every century since the first has seen the symbols of Revelation as having applied to its time.
So, the symbolism of Revelation is enormously elastic, plastic to the point where it can fit into just about any time period or even in the totality of history.
But why do scholars and pseudo-scholars take such an adamant stand in their claim that Revelation applies to our time?
First, they are probably relatively ignorant of the historical facts;
Second, books on Revelation are often best-sellers, and the more dramatic and frightening that they can make the commentary, the better it will sell;
Third, many of these people are not real scholars, and so they compensate for their lack of true qualification by seeking to "reveal" the "greatest secret" in history.
Fourth, many writers want to be famous.
Fifth, it places the life of the writer, and those of the readers, into a cosmic context that seems not only to give special meaning to each life but tends to make life much more exciting.
There are probably many other reasons, especially in the psychosocial fields, but this sketch gives us a good beginning. One of the most important components of the Revelation story is that of the "antichrist"; technically, this word is not even found in the book of Revelation but has been superimposed thereby true believers.
In the early year of the twentieth century, many Americans were "nativists," which meant that they feared people from other countries. They especially feared the Jews from Eastern Europe. There were a number of reasons for this anti-Semitism: Jews, stressing education, were smarter than most Americans; Jews were highly active in the labor-unions and felt to be a threat to the smug middle class, and Jews were a convenient scapegoat upon which Americans could blame their problems.
Even more importantly and relevantly, Christians found an excuse in the record of the Bible itself for their hate-mongering. The Jews, they pointed out, had repeatedly been unfaithful to Jehovah, the god appropriated from Hebrew sources by Christian fundamentalists. Jehovah was a war-god with no sense of humor, or, for that matter, even of justice. Instead, he was seen as ferociously punitive, implacable, and unforgiving; he had a very long memory and had never really forgiven the Jews. But the real "biggie" for fundamentalists was that the Jews had killed Jesus.
So, it was easy for ignorant, uneducated people to jump to the conclusion that all Jews were "bad guys." As participants in evil, they had been seen as having been destined to make a kind of contract with satan through his agent, the antichrist.
Hard-hearted, hard-nosed fundamentalists did not "waste time" feeling sorry for the Jews, and some even approved of the horrific holocaust.
This anti-Semitic paranoia reached its zenith in the "discovery" of a manuscript called the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a collection of obviously fake documents claimed to have been written by Jewish conspirators. In this book, Jews supposedly conspire to take over the world-- yet another aspect of bad "science-fiction" in the guise of religion.
Such considerations led some Christians to the speculation that the antichrist-- the evilest man in human history-- would be born as a Jew.
But fundamentalists have been quite liberal with their identifications of antichrist-people, and have by no means limited this to Jews. They were programmed and taught to see Catholics as superstitious people who blindly followed the pope-- who for years was himself identified as the antichrist. So, some fundamentalists identified the entire Catholic Church as the antichrist. Engaging in a little science-fiction, these speculators said that a kind of "worldwide church of earth" would coalesce around the Catholic church and that this great act of interfaith would be the work of the demonic antichrist. (Fundamentalists hate compromise, and see all attempts by religions to get together or to peacefully agree as to the subtle work of satan.)
The Ku Klux Klan, from about 1915, became one of the most rabid spokes-groups for hate-mongering, especially when it came to Catholics; many of its members were fundamentalists. They worked hard on the propaganda, based on fear and greed, that Catholics were anti-American aliens, out to steal money, jobs, and property from "good" fundamentalist Americans.
With the coming of industrialization to the big cities of America, there grew a great gulf between capitalists and laborers. Many groups, including socialists, sought to take advantage of this natural antipathy, and it was not very long before the socialists also earned the title "antichrist".
Fundamentalists have always had a terror of active government, and as the government began a policy of active participation in strike-resolution, the U.S. itself began to be labeled in the literature as "antichrist." For in 1917, after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, public opinion in America began to sweep to the far right; this delighted fundamentalists, who were already on the far-right fringe.
When, before World War 2, FDR initiated the "New Deal" programs, they fretted that Jews were fulfilling a conspiracy actually to take over the U.S. government. FDR then earned the title "antichrist."
But the antichrist could not be everybody, yet the literature of this time did indicate that everybody but the fundamentalists was in dire and immediate danger of either being the antichrist or of cooperation with him.
Fundamentalists even stooped to playing on the middle-class fear of being edged out of their jobs by unions and said that unions were collectively the "beast" of Revelation-- a creature who serves antichrist.
But fundamentalists did not stop even there. They actually labeled all other Christian churches, and all other faiths, as servants of satan, and thus candidates for "antichrist." It was universally taught and believed that World War 2 would inevitably lead to Armageddon and the end of civilization. (Fundamentalists have a strong tendency towards "knee-jerk" responses to world-problems, especially wars; throughout all of history for the past two millennia, they have seen every major war, and many minor ones, as the "beginning of the end," and have said that Armageddon is just around the next metaphoric corner.
Among fundamentalists, distrust, intolerance, and contempt have become elevated to genuine virtues. For "loyalty to the faith" demands active participation in hatred, prejudice, and bigotry. This is religious hate elevated to an obsession.
Most people from the right-wing fringe see themselves as extremely "patriotic." For them, they claim, even the government is not patriotic enough. Historically, they find "reasons" for their bitterness. In 1925, in the famous Scopes trial, fundamentalists were made to appear ignorant, backward, and uneducated, and they have never forgiven America for the "slap in the face." In this major humiliation, no longer credible, they lost all respect in the eyes of many. Thus, they began to label intellectuals, teachers, and even students as the collective "antichrist." In this overall scenario, patriotism became simply another way to reinforce their "us versus them" view of the world. This tends to reinforce their internal sense of solidarity, and, as in the old song, "You and Me Against the World," it gives one an unhealthy sense of satisfaction to know that the world is rejecting and persecuting because people really, secretly know that the ones whom they persecute are their superiors.
As far as the "flip-flops" in the identification of antichrist are concerned, a concept that means everything is in danger of meaning nothing at all. Even the most solid identification, considered universally unquestionable, documented, and fully verified, collapsed recently with the downfall of the Soviet Union. Until that event, the Soviets had played major roles in speculations about "end-time" scenarios.
Even in an identification this certain, however, there were major disagreements among writers. Some said that the Soviet Union was not an antichrist, but another "bad guy" named Gog, mentioned in, of all places, the text of Ezekiel. How did we jump from Revelation to Ezekiel, written centuries earlier? This is a bit of sleight-of-hand that marks apocalyptic thinkers with stunning regularity. If they need a totally unrelated text, they will not hesitate for a moment simply to insert it into their narrative.
At any rate, each in his own time, Stalin and Kruschev were both confidently identified as "antichrist." For these writers, mere suggestion is never enough; they must speak their dogma with certainty, or they will be seen to vacillate. This fact only increases the irony, bringing it closer to actual humor, when the latest candidate for antichrist dies or fades from popular view. (Later, this same label fell, predictably, upon Gorbachev.)
At any rate, the antichrist was said to be somewhere in the Russian system, even though no one was quite certain exactly who or what it was supposed to be. Not surprisingly, any kind of peace with Russia was resisted tooth-and-nail by fundamentalists, who clearly did not want America to "get into bed with" antichrist. (In fact, it was due to his successes that Henry Kissenger was said by many to be the "real antichrist.")
In fact, by extension, any American who favors peace or the reduction of nuclear weapons is very probably a supporter of antichrist, they say. The quest for global peace is somehow twisted into a betrayal of American and its values, showing just how far these fundamentalists have strayed from sanity and clarity of vision.
For similar reasons, intercultural toleration is discouraged, even despised. Fundamentalists see the "God-given" government and cultural pattern of America as boundlessly superior to any other, or that exposure to other societies simply brings everyone "down".
One particularly disturbed fundamentalist has even gone so far as to say that any teaching regarding peace is heresy! (The implication, inferred by many fundamentalists, is that America should be the first to use nuclear weapons.)
It is almost beyond all belief that human beings could be so primitive and backward as to promote these horrors in the name of the Prince of peace, the Lord of love, and the God of forgiveness. However, such dangerous inferences can be made from most of their writings, including those of Pat Robertson and Hal Lindsey.
The end of the cold war has severely disappointed many fundamentalists. It is just so sad to have lost such a valuable scape-goat and enemy as the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. But, cheer up. There are enough other enemies in a world in which people are actually looking to discover or to create new ones. After all, the world is filled to overflowing with pagans, atheists, rock-and-rollers, Jews, Catholics, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, teachers, new-age people, and non-fundamentalists in general-- any of whom could be the next convenient target to be identified as the next antichrist.
In fact, the great enemy might already have been found: Attention in this literature has had much to say about the Islamic community, which might be the latest candidate for "antichrist." (However, among Muslim fundamentalists, "Christian" fundamentalists find people just as extreme, bizarre, and fanatical as themselves.) To fundamentalists, who insist on "group-link", there is simply no point in arguing that some Islamic people are good, kind, just, and wise. Once they have labeled a group as the antichrist, from that time on, every member of that group is cursed with that appellation. For example, Lindsey identified the peaceful and sincere Anwar Sadat as a candidate for the "beast," a co-conspirator with the antichrist. (This theory went up in smoke when Sadat was killed.)
So, today, the analog of "pin the tail" or "musical chairs" continues, with various, conflicting identities given to antichrist. For example, Saddam Hussein made a quick splash in prophetic circles, but this "fad" lasted no longer than this ruler's headlines, which was not very long at all. (In exactly the same pattern, in the twenties and thirties, it was very popular to identify Mussolini as the antichrist but when he faded, so did all these theories.)
Extremists and fringe-groups despise the United Nations because it means "mixing" American culture and diplomacy with those of "inferior" variety; fundamentalists simply cannot see the huge arrogance of this stance. Before the U.N. arose, its predecessor, the League of Nations, was presented as a sure and certain proof that Armageddon was drawing very close indeed.
Fanatics have always hated international cooperation, usually because they considered their personal possessions so much more important than world peace. Fundamentalists, who thrive on exclusivity and separatism, feel lost and threatened in the face of such wide cultural tolerance and diversity as the U.N. represents.
Historically, fundamentalists, in their unbending resistance to the Social Gospel, world-peace, progressive programs, and interfaith movements, new philosophic and theological ideas, and the love-movement, have consistently resisted every positive and good effort ever made by any human being.
On the other hand, by embracing the necessity of war, by closing themselves off, by dogmatism, by condemnation, they have promoted in every way a world divided by hatred, ignorance, stupidity, and violence. Thus, objective analysis can find little redeeming value in the fundamentalist positions.
Even groups who teach love, respect, compassion, and tolerance have been carelessly and quickly labeled a "demonic vulture" by fundamentalists. The efforts of the National Council of Churches to bring together squabbling, bickering Christians, and to find some sense of unity and peace, has also been denigrated. The NCC has been called by them "dirty, hellish gang of sex-mad devils" And what were the great "sins" of which the Council was guilty? Two of them were pacifism and the quest for civil rights.
Fundamentalists despise the spirit of ecumenism or interfaith unity and dialog, with its humility and kindness.
Despite their bumbling, clumsy attempt to identify the antichrist, which has regularly and spectacularly flopped, fundamentalist still insists on seeing themselves as "smarter" or "more alert" than the average person, because they are able to "see through the subtle deceptions" of groups committed to universality and peace, ecology and progress. And what do they see? They see the devil and demons everywhere, directing and controlling all these positive human efforts. However, anyone who sees the devil everywhere had better start to examine his/her own heart.
The fact that no one else is able to "decipher" or even to discover these clues is for them a demonstration of the fact that the devil has made their minds opaque and dull. Every expert and professional in the world is too dull to know these things, but the "great spiritual geniuses" of these often uneducated fundamentalists have made clear the real (but hidden) truth. Right.
But their theories, although recognized as "truth," are always fluctuating, rearranging themselves, and being revised. For example, when Greece became the tenth nation to join the European Community, the end was said to be very near, for according to Daniel, the antichrist (whom Daniel never mentions) is to rule over a ten-nation federation. Still, Armageddon refused stubbornly to conform to their theories.
Besides all those failures listed above, add two more failures to the antichrist list: Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
There is a good reason why the antichrist identity keeps changing: The fundamentalist interpretation of history, especially of future history, has nothing to do with reality. It is the sheerest tissue of lies, falsehoods, over-active imaginations, psychotic and twisted misinterpretations, and dark fantasies. The antichrist will never be clearly identified in geopolitical terms because the antichrist is only a symbol-- a symbol of the deep antichristian feelings and attitudes that exist within the fundamentalist writers themselves.
That is why, in searching diligently throughout history, efforts to identify him have been ludicrous. He dwells in the one place where a good fundamentalist will never seek him, and hatred for this antichrist is a thinly veiled hatred for the self. It is an expression of a contaminated and unclean conscience that one has refused to see consciously. That is why its power derives from the subconscious mind.
Candidates for antichrist in modern times have included even non-human systems, such as the worldwide computer system, television, fiber-optic technologies, etc. Some fundamentalists are literally scared of owning a tv set because they actually believe that they are so important that some satanic agent is spying on them through the screen.
It is no surprise at all that non-traditional philosophies have been attacked as representing antichrist. Fundamentalists are terribly concerned about being respected and respectable, and they have fallen into the delusion that the way to be admired is to hold tenaciously to fossilized dogmas, churches, and doctrines. They conveniently forget that Jesus was crucified by the respectable and religious people of his community, the "loyal" worshipers of Jehovah. No doubt if Christ were to return today, he would be considered non-conformist, non-traditional, or unconventional, and so, fundamentalists would be ready and willing first, to name Christ as the antichrist, and second, to shut him up.
And it is not simply that they distrust cult-leaders and the goofier kinds of gurus who make a spectacle of themselves through ego-display. But they mistrust their own hearts and mind, and even common sense. Their leaders have instilled this distrust in them because they realize that, if people start thinking on their own, fundamentalism, which relies on rigid obedience to authority, will have no future. Therefore, in their writings, they cannot stress enough the principle of "obedience," but they never mention free creative or independent thinking. In fact, independence is seen almost as a vice, to be avoided like something unclean.
In this dangerous reincarnation of the "church militant," progressive clergy are the most mistrusted of all. For they are unfairly portrayed as having betrayed God and the faith, simply because they have learned to think, and because they have put active love above obedience to dogma or authority. It is these elders and pastors who are seen as "camouflaged" co-conspirators with the antichrist, trying to "mislead" God's one church.
Even non-leader types who seek to give help to the poor, or otherwise improve the human lot, are labeled as "intellectual apostates," because they are like people who are polishing the brass on a sinking ship. Civilization has no future, so why work to make anything better? This lazy cop-out serves only inactive, lazy people. By contrast, Christ called every person to a life of active service, friendship, and compassion, to universal love. The attempt so rigidly to control even positive behavior is yet another transparent attempt to keep people within the boundaries of "approved" orthodoxy.
Scientific advancement, even in areas such as medicine, where it genuinely helps people, is seen as a real enemy, and science-fiction horror-projections are common.
One writer describes the antichrist as a kind of college professor-- the very kind of man whom the author, one suspects, most envies and thus hates. The answers to life are never to be found in research, or even in asking, but in "unquestioning faith." In other words, just stick to the rules, believe the dogma, and shut up. Don't think; don't ask questions' just conform. But this tends to create only uniformity without unity.
In fact, all well-educated people are presented by fundamentalists as potential, if not actual, enemies. In fact, in view of our study, it might well be asked, "Just who is not the enemy of the fundamentalist? And the answer is boringly predictable: All who think and believe exactly as I do.
This "Stepford Wives" conformity is due to the fact that Satan and evil spirits are seen to be everywhere, having infected and infested the entire world, and only by staying safely within the guidelines of conformity can one hope to escape his subtle snares and tempting intellectual ploys. Thus, conformity alone can be trusted; no other guideline, not even that of universal love, can be trusted.
Certainly, it is true that fundamentalists often feel a kind of security and even a form of comfort in the adoption of some of their ideas. They can also create a reasonable facsimile of love when they come together into a congregation, and that also can feel good. But none of these feelings is authentic, because they all arise from the most tenuous and weak basis; deviate only the slightest micrometer from the path of "truth," and you will immediately feel their wrath and even persecution. There can be no true peace, no true relaxation while walking such a tight-rope-- especially not if it is suspended over upturned swords! For one has sought comfort at the great price of freedom of thought, religion, and speech.
Fundamentalists also want to "protect" their children from the demonic influences which they believe are rampant in their Medieval world-view. So, they try to insulate their children in a "maximum security" approach to life. The kids cannot play like, or with, normal kids. If they do get to play at all, it is only with other children of fundamentalists. Further, the pluralistic, rationalistic, and humanistic aims of American education they feel are highly objectionable. While it is true that some schools have gone too far, it is not necessary to see evil spirits in every teacher and every classroom. But fundamentalists see themselves to be of such a rarefied "purity" that they can be contaminated by the smallest particle of error, and so insulate not only their children but for themselves as well. Schools are seen as, again, camouflage for the antichrist in his campaign to dominate the world. (They assume everyone responds to authority-figures exactly as they do, and that therefore, everyone will fall mindlessly into line behind the antichrist, as they do behind their leaders.)
That males have been stripped of traditional roles and powers seems a great obscenity, nearly a blasphemy, to most fundamentalists-- which explains why they prefer women who are timid, mouse-like, submissive, mindless, and dependent.
Also, fundamentalists seethe with envy that the world ignores them, and turns its attention instead to more sophisticated or educated intellectuals. Or, at best, it is open to those other influences. The fundamentalist leader does not want simply to lead or guide you; he wants to own you. And thus he flies into a jealous rage whenever anyone else occupies your mind or heart.
Added to this is the stressful fact that they must often learn to combat what is recognized as common sense. This is especially so when it comes to doctrines such as the antichrist, but it applies in many other areas of their lives. In extreme cases of paranoia, every alert and attractive personality might be seen, by the envious fundamentalist, as a potential antichrist. They are filled with burning rage at rock-stars, whom they cannot forgive for being so popular, and for "stealing the minds of American's youth," which usually means, "My daughter likes you better than she likes me."
Feminism, because it is a tool of the antichrist, is never to be trusted. Females should always obey males, no matter how stupid or uneducated these might be.