Is Obama the Antichrist?
- Jeremiah 33:14-16
- Psalm 25
- 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
- Luke 21:25-36
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves…
As I shared recently, whilst preaching in another parish, these apocalyptic passages used to scare me. For all that – as a good evangelical – I was glued to the news, reading revelation along side of the newspaper, studying Hal Lindsey and other such pre-millenial prophets of doom with a level of intensity most youth and teens reserve for sexual fantasy. And I think the bawdy parallel holds: for such reading generated in me a fear. And such fear was an intense pleasure. Like the risk/pleasure of a glimpse of naked flesh and sexual arousal to a teen, so also was the thought that “oooo it’s happening! Now!” Hal Lindsey (and others) thought that the European Economic Community would, as soon as it reached ten members, suddenly rebirth the old Roman Empire and that would be about 1979 or so, and then the rapture would happen and all hell would break loose…
Every movement towards what looked like prophetic fulfilment would be documented and discussed. Every movement away from such fulfilment would be ignored. Plain and simple.
That such a close reading of the Eschatological prophecies was never done before was explained by Hal and Company not as a breaking with nearly 2000 years of Christian interpretation of Scripture (which it was) but rather as sign – it self – that so many things were now in alignment. We can now see it happening. We can know.
It sent chills up my spine, let me tell you!
Chills of fear, and excitement, and revenge: because everyone who rejected the message was about to get their comeuppance and I could watch from heaven and laugh. Of course, I’d be sorry for ‘em kinda, but everyone was about to see it and know…
In the last couple of years you may have hear that President Obama is the Antichrist or, at least, “Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him — a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib … The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance.” and I’m sure that someplace, someone is looking for the number ten to show up again in Europe, now that they have a president and continue to “persecute” Christians (by taking crucifixes out of public class rooms, etc).
So, as we continue in our advent readings (this is the third week of apocalypse in the revised common lectionary) I wonder where the real meaning is. Jesus says it here:
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken… Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Hope. Redemption. Lift up your heads.
Other people will be confused and fearful, but you… be not afraid!
Paul says in another passage that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord. That’s not a magical incantation, but rather an if-then statement. If you love the lord, all things will work for your good, not because God is “doing things” to you but because your faith ill get stronger, your reliance on God will grow, your inner peace will grow. You work out your salvation in fear and trembling and so things – as sucky as they are – are working for your good.
(That is a “you” in the plural sense, by the way. No one of us can do this alone: faith in Jesus is a “y’all” thing, not a “you” thing.)
This text says that even when everything starts to fall apart we should realise that we are still moving towards our redemption. Salvation – wholeness – is coming.
I have written elsewhere that I wish Obama (and others) didn’t so willingly play by the script crafted for them by the Premillenial Dispensationalist crowd. But I think the more-real truth is that the script written by that crowd is constantly changing: Hal Lindsey saw no evidence of the USA in prophecy. That being the case, how could Obama be the Antichrist?
And let’s look at the word, itself: Antichrist. It doesn’t mean what we want it to mean. It doesn’t mean “against” or – as we kind of like to imagine – sort of a black-for-white photographic negative of Christ, all-the-things-Christ-is-not. We don’t use it rightly in our modern English, but more classical tropes have “Antebellum” as in “Before the war”. It means “against” in the classical sense of “instead of” or “compared to”. John uses it in his Gospel when he says “Grace for Grace”. Jesus uses Anti in Matthew to describe the coin with which he is paying taxes.
Anti means “in place of” or “instead of”.
And we who tend to want to read the Bible as a Newspaper filtre, who want to pornographically find evidence that The End Is Near in every event of the world, in every turn of phrase from world leaders, etc, are, I suggest, making an Anti there: instead of Hope we are inculcating fear.
We’ve managed to make an Antichrist out of the Bible.
I’ve managed, since reading more traditional Orthodox understandings of the Apocalypse, to take up hope, sometims. But here’s where I stumble: we are to take hope in these things. When things get messed up, I easily get “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life”. I am easily bummed into submission. Apocalypse is only more problems in this context. A sign of “The End” is only a further realisation that I’ve not done enough, that I’ve failed to get my act together, that I’ve screwed up.
I don’t see “another sign of the end” as…
What?
What’s good about the end of the world?
We celebrate Advent to prepare. We can view it as a downer time (fasting, self-immolation, avoiding parties, wearing itchy wool sweaters…) or we can see it as a time to prepare for the 12 day party of Nativity and Theophany. We can imagine that we’re supposed to beat ourselves up before the end of the world, or we can imagine that we’re supposed to be amazingly excited.
In his Narnian apocalypse, CS Lewis writes, “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning!”
But I stay stuck in the term: when the final exam comes, I’m never thinking “only 20 mins more and VACATION!”. I’m usually too set in my fear, focused on the page in front of me.
What would it be like to take the exam as a mark, a milestone on the road to joy?
