Politics and Apocalypse

Several pastors backing McCain believe in a coming Apocalypse. Pastors of Palin's churches do too which makes a lot of people wonder what her beliefs are. So it is worth looking at Apocalypticism and how it has influenced political behavior.

In general terms Apocalypticism is a belief in an approaching confrontation that will change society and history and which hidden truths will be revealed. The Religious Right has a particular meaning implied by the biblical book of Revelations of Jesus returning in his heavenly glory to wage a final battle between good and evil.

The influence of the Apocalypse on theology and world view depends on whether you start with "imperial Christianity" or "liberation Christianity". It also depends on whether you treat Revelations as a beautiful allegory (in its description of heaven) or whether you take it literally. Strange that if you take it literally you still have to treat it as allegory to figure out who the main players are in real life and whether we are actually in the End Times. One indication seems to be that powerful political and religious leaders will sell out the faithful.

Revelations appears to speak of a thousand-year reign of peace (I have read it, but not lately, so I don't remember if Revelations actually says it or some "literalists" make the claim from some other part of the bible).

Even for people who agree on that bit there is a bigger bit to argue over. Who is in charge during that reign of peace? Some people, premillennialists, think that Jesus has physically come back to earth and is the guy in charge. Others believe that Jesus shows up at the end of that time and it is godly Christians who have seized power, enforced that peace, and made the world holy enough for Jesus to return. These are postmillennialists. And to seize power you must be politically active (unless you are able to take it through the use of your gun). Alas, there are enough of these people to muck things up, but not enough to actually take control.

For premillennialists, true Christians are to be called to heaven in the Rapture and thus spared the apocalyptic war through which Jesus establishes that peace. If this version is true, then a major theological activity is to determine if we are in the End Times and prepare accordingly (never mind that Jesus says no one can know). How to tell? Wars, rumors or wars, natural disasters, plagues, widespread immorality. Are these things more prevalent now than a hundred or thousand years ago? Any number of Fundie TV shows are convinced that the bloodshed in wars since WWI, Katrina and the tsunami, AIDS, and gays gives this era more points than any previous time. The big preparation to be made is to make sure all of the people you care about are true Christians so they are spared the big battle. Establishing the date of End Times can add a special urgency to appeals for conversion.

But if Jesus is about to arrive and take care of things, why bother voting? Through history, this branch of the literalists hasn't bothered to vote. Even so, the "liberation" branch was politically active, using language of the Apocalypse to abolish slavery, push for temperance, and abolish Jim Crow. This strange language led to good things.

Seeing the world through an Apocalypse, however, turns every issue into black and white. I'm with God and if you aren't you must be taking the side of the devil. No compromise possible.

So what brought out the vote? First, the battle over godless Communism. Second, Jimmy Carter declared he was "born again," an evangelical that others could vote for. Third, Falwell and the Moral Majority (in 1979), urged on by the ban on prayer in school and the legality of abortion, needed a theological reason to justify voting. R.J. Rushdoony, Francis Schaeffer, and Tim LaHaye (in his non-fiction works) provided that theology by mixing up the two sides of the debate of who rules in that thousand years of peace. The way they did it is to say that while Christians will be spared the big apocalyptic battle, they won't be spared the skirmishes leading up to that battle. And in these skirmishes the forces of evil will be so great as to destroy Christianity so that there will be no Christians left to enjoy the Rapture. I doubt very much Christians would be hunted down and killed, but rather the rest of the culture will see Christianity as so irrelevant that the church gains no new members and eventually dies out. Secularism triumphs. Now they've got a problem.

And now, politics and voting are a big deal. Those that believe in the End Times now have to make sure there are Christians alive to see it and are quite willing to contribute to assist those who believe that reign of peace will only happen if they are in control and have guaranteed that America is a Christian nation (though if the faith dies out there are none to take control and make the world ready for Jesus and thus he never comes. But never mind). The satanic influences are the suspects we've heard them shout about for the last 20 years or so: women's rights, abortion rights, gay rights, ban on school prayer, and anything that has the least bit if acceptance of any other religion. Of course, the influence of these satanic ideas is increased through the work of community organizers.

Satanic ideas aren't just home-grown. There is the fear that the United Nations is being used as a cover for Islam to become the world religion. And if Jesus is to return, he needs somewhere to return to and the designated place is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, currently home to a couple mosques. Israel takes center stage in this prophecy (the big battle is call Armageddon because it will be on the site of the ancient city of Megiddo in Israel) and preventing a solution in the Middle East only aids the prophecy in coming true, so there can't be any criticism of Israel's nasty tactics against the Palestinians (that many critics of Israel are raging anti-Semites doesn't help either).

End Times theology does play out through our politics. As we gays have seen, this theology is behind all of the anti-gay laws and amendments that have appeared in the last couple decades. Anti-bullying laws aren't being passed because they might protect gay kids. Even on the world stage, though Bush doesn't (appear to) hold these beliefs, he has found it politically expedient to hire people who do. A lot of the talk about all Muslims being terrorists and that we must stand firm on this war on terror comes from this theology. From the nature of the churches Palin has attended it appears she believes in some form of End Times theology. It is important to our country to hear about them, instead of allowing them to be used as code phrases to stir up the Right or allowing them to influence domestic and foreign policy.

Of course, when human problems (domestic and foreign) are elevated to the cosmic plane of good versus evil no compromise is possible. The way out of the stalemate is to confront that theology.

The place to start is in our own apocalyptic language. If we call them religious extremists we are declaring ourselves better than them and perpetuating the black/white choice they want to impose on us. Next we need to recognize that there is not one large block of fundamentalists, but there are various strands of these literalist beliefs held with various levels of fervor. We need to be able to tell which beliefs are held only by those wishing for End Times and beliefs that are held by wider groups of Christians so that we can confront the particular problem beliefs without alienating those who are as uncomfortable as we are with the demonization coming from the Right. This wider group of Christians happen to be centrist enough to swing elections. The variety of our beliefs and the consequences of those beliefs should be the source of many articles in mainstream media, but alas, is not.

I should say what I make of Revelations and End Times theology. Back when I was in high school (and the cold war raging) there was a lot of talk about how the USSR, China, and Europe were to take various roles in the Revelations symbolism. There is a character that has 10 horns which are replaced by 1 horn and many were sure that referred to the 10 countries that were becoming the European Union. Then the EU expanded to 15 countries and the USSR fell apart. Oops. Ah well. Someone will revise the list of players. Since then I've heard Revelations was written as a comfort to Christians being persecuted by Rome. Perhaps some of its prophecies were fulfilled 1700 years ago. So what does it all mean? I'll stick to the words of Jesus who said we won't know when the End Times will come and therefore we should first worry about his prime directive: Love God and love your neighbor. Everything else gets in the way.