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 and
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, 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 [editor's note:
and 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.

_____

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about the pervasive role of the Religious Right in the U.S. government.
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