TUESDAY, MARCH 26. There is a certain brand of Christianity that believes in the end-times. A period when God is finishing up his work on Earth and dispensing justice.
The end-times is divided up into sub-sections, like the tribulation and the rapture. The basic gist is, if you have seen the light and given your life to Christ, you will be transported to heaven. If you haven't, you're in for some serious turmoil, suffering, and pain.
Many end-times folk say we are on the brink of the End. There will be a vortex of a war on the plain of Armageddon, in Israel, and the world will be sucked into it. Nukes will be exchanged.
Eventually, Christ will return to the planet with his faithful and institute 1000 years of peace. Peace being the job of Christ.
Back in the 80s, when all sorts of preachers were predicting the End, one fellow--I believe his name was Robison--spoke from his pulpit about the heretical sin of humans working for peace. Taking Jesus' appointed task away from him.
Humans should be all about attack and defend. Jesus would handle the peace part. Therefore, all those millions of people on the streets of cities in the US and Europe who were protesting nuclear escalation--they were heretics. They were sinners. They were trying to do Christ's peace work.
All this has some application to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Those in the end-times camp trust that this conflict is a prelude to the great war which will end the present era and bring about the beautiful peace.
Therefore, no one should fear a war in the Middle East. One should see it, instead, as a grand event which fulfills prophecy.
Likewise, no one should worry about the possibility that nukes will come into play. The end is all about fire raining from the sky, and nukes fit that bill perfectly.
Back in the early 80s, end-times preachers of distinction had Reagan's ear. And now, sources tell me, there is this same influence at work on Bush.
A leader who succumbs just a little to this end-times doctrine is far more likely to step into reckless shoes of war. He trusts that God will encourage such war or stop it if he chooses.
You get a hybrid version of end-times thinking: "Yes, we'll try to herd the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiating table, but if that doesn't work out, well, that's God's choice. War on a grand scale is an acceptable outcome."
To look at the current Israeli-Palestinian situation without this background is not to see the whole picture.
The religious monuments in Jerusalem called the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock--they are focal points. Potential triggers for a holy war. Both Jews and Moslems claim the area is sacred to them. The Rock is said to be the exact place from which Mohammed stepped off into heaven long ago. Any attack on it which succeeds in destroying it could bring millions of Moslems to the city for war.
In the 80s, I documented one or two such attacks, by so-called right-wing Israelis, which were funded, in part, by US Christian end-times $$. The thinking being: Let's help prophecy along; let's speed up the Armageddon holocaust; if God doesn't like it, he'll stop it.
I gave a short briefing about this to some Unitarian church officials in Santa Monica, California. They were stunned. They were angry, in fact. Angry at me. I guess I threatened some paradigm. Or something. They wanted to hear no more about it. I suppose they viewed what I was saying as an attack on all religion, including their own.
I learned that, for many people, shocked disbelief is preferable to facing up to what is going on below the surface. It's a lesson I haven't forgotten. Now, on reflection, I think those Unitarians were simply committed to the idea that people everywhere are, basically, of good will. I was shaking the tree of that belief.
Even though Middle East negotiations and possible negotiations are a constant theme in the press, we should not suppose that just a little more hope, a little more encouragement will finally fix this mess and this tragedy.
There are those among us who long for war. Who see it as a sign that ultimate good shall prevail. Who see it as part of the big plan. Who see it as the final shake-out which will separate those of faith from those who choose damnation.
Myths are not just fairy tales which have no connection to "serious" practical matters. Myths can be inserted like bullets into guns, like rockets into planes, like missiles into plotted trajectories.
Back there in the 80s, when I was hot on this whole story, I remember reading a quote from a prominent end-times preacher who did, in fact, have access to circles of power in Washington. The quote went something like this: "A missile rising off the launch pad is a beautiful, enthralling thing to see. It reminds me of Jesus ascending to heaven."
Wither goest thou? To war? To a war which proves the power of God?
President Reagan eventually cooled himself out. He acceded to the cartel agenda of "ending the Cold War." When the current Bush talks about the evil-doers and his crusade, our crusade, to rid the world of these evil ones, he is walking around the edge of end-times philosophy.
Such religious thinking is always a wild card in the deck. It doesn't take a devoted student of history to see that, in many times and places, the so-called religious crusade to wipe out the heretics has sprung to the fore, has gripped whole populations in its fervor.
There is nothing rapturous about this. The result is always death on a large scale, and then history picks up again, and people stumble around in the ashes, looking for a way to rebuild. The God they believe in does not end the world.
The real "threat" that Middle East PEACE poses is this: The world would see that deep conflict can be resolved. That people can settle their differences. Peace is the domino effect that worries the people who run this world from boardrooms. Their agenda is not end-times, it is eternal hostility among groups and nations, which brings in tighter and tighter control over personal liberty.
Real peace implies greater freedom. End-times thinking (which is not limited to a particular Christian sect) is used by the controllers to keep the pot boiling. But there is always the chance that Love of the End will get out of hand, will produce a war which devastates the planet.
The back-up plan for that is Underground, where a minor number of bigshots can hold the fort and eat well, and then emerge as a replica of God to push their brand of history forward.
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