Obama couldn’t be the Anti-Christ. I’ve asked several evangelicals about this, they all told me the anti-Christ has to be Jewish, like Jesus was.

Also, they would regard the coming of the Anti-Christ as a GOOD thing as weird as that sounds, cause according to them that means the rapture will come soon.

According to Slacktivist, Tim LaHaye has come out and said that the Antichrist can’t be an American.  No justification for that, but there you go.

My father said recently about Obama, “Well, the bible does say that the Antichrist will be a charismatic leader from the Middle East ...”

I told him that Obama was born in &^*^%$^%& Hawaii, and that he sounded like a moonbat.

His response was just a dismissive, “I’m just saying ...” and then he trailed off.  I walked out of the room for a drink after that.

As you said, Jesse ... only the Right could convince people that being popular is a liability.

Yeah, another thing is they think the Antichrist will be a European. So, European and possibly Jewish. Thats most certainly NOT Obama.

Opo: If the Antichrist was an American, then the One World Government he will create will at the same time be the American Hegemony, which can’t be evil. Sigh, I pulled it out of the nether regions, but it makes sense when you consider the American right’s fear of foreign. They are after all the only people who think that the New World Order should conquer the US rather than originate there.

Uh, no.  Sadly, LaHaye’s only justification is that “the bible” doesn’t indicate an American.  It all has to do with over-complicated interpretations of various scriptures, in precisely the right way so that you don’t accidentally happen upon the answer everyone else knows to be correct (The Antichrist represents Rome, not Romania). 

I don’t think it’s anywhere near as self-aware as “Well the Antichrist can’t be American, because we’re the good guys and our Empire is the good one”.  Though I guess there’s also probably that, too.

>>Tim LaHaye has come out and said that the Antichrist can’t be an American

Ah yes, but then what’s that I hear about right-wing bloggers saying Obama isn’t American, but Kenyan?

Of course, you can use the Bible to justify anything imaginable. And you can also find Biblical material which shows how the same thing is wrong and evil.

This is why relying on Biblical instructions leads to nothing but chaos.

Yeah, Mike.  That is the amazing thing. 

I mean, I think what he’s getting at is that his particular calculus of his preferred cocktail of “prophetic” biblical texts “indicates” a specific other country.  In his preferred interpretation, there is some bizarre fixation on Romania.  Thus, “the bible” doesn’t allow for an American Antichrist.  (And, yes, of course nothing about America is indicated in any sane reading of the bible, obviously.)

Of course, the real truth of all of this is that LaHaye’s entire interpretation is outrageously baroque and fully nonsensical, the actual bible makes very little mention of the popular figure we call the Antichrist, etc. etc. etc. bullshit bullshit bullshit.

But if even the leader of the Rapture Ready crowd doesn’t think an American can be the Antichrist, it seems a bit silly for all his minions to be wringing their hands over it.  On the other hand, since LaHaye is arguably part of the Religious Right and thus the Republican base, and has the responsibility to shepherd his Antichrist-obsessed minions over to McCain, one wonders why he’s not taking the opportunity and running with it.

Because LaHaye makes his money from fear of a future antichrist. If there were to be a real antichrist, the Left Behind series would stop being profitable. Therefore, Obama isn’t the antichrist.

The Romania fixation is because the antichrist is supposed to be from Rome in LaHaye’s calculations.  Romanians are the descendants of Roman settlers so, therefore, you can have a scary scary combination of (former) Communist and antichrist.

Anyone interested should read back through Fred Clark’s dissection of “Left Behind.”  It’s fascinating to see that really only people who know nothing about the Bible or Christianity find the books to be convincing.

That’s part of what scares me about this meme.  You don’t have to worry about the people in mainline Christian churches.  It’s the people who don’t actually go to church but whose fundie friends keep telling them all of this “true” stuff about the antichrist—it must be true, because “Left Behind” has sold millions of copies and was mocked on “The Simpsons”!

McArdle’s simpleminded libertarian horseshit is mind-bogglingly ridiculous.

I feel like alice in wonderland.  Isn’t the antichrist supposed to be a neccesary part of god’s plan? so we can get to heaven?  So wouldn’t voting for mccain be voting against god?

I wish I could formulate my question better but my brain oozes out my ears and gets the keyboard all sticky.  halp!

Exactly, Mnemo.  Or the fact that The Discovery Channel just loves showing “documentaries” about the Rapture phenomenon with copious interviews from LaHaye, and stupid news magazine shows are always doing stories on this and bringing in LaHaye as their official expert on Revelation and what Christians believe about the apocalypse.

IT’S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME

You missed the Reagan antichrist talk? You know the 666 letters of Ronald (whatever his middle was) Reagan.

It’s an every election thang to name the antichrist. Where have you been?

Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?

Jesse—

Not to freak you out or anything, but as an ordained Presbyterian elder, I can tell you that there’s nothing anti-Christian about what you’re saying here.

That’s because most Christians on this planet don’t buy into all that End Times science fiction.  It’s not actually in the Bible, and it’s not part of the Christian tradition.  It’s a bunch of gobbledy-gook made up by Bible “interpreters” in the late 1800s and immortalized in the notes of the Scofield Bible.  It’s actually a hoot to read in a sort of sick way.

You’re right that some of those so-called Christians are working on convincing themselves that Obama is the Anti-Christ, and that it’s a big deal for them.

We should take it seriously, but you shouldn’t feel like you have to call it “Christian.”

Love and kisses,
IM

Jesse, a Vader reference for the title? Really? (Or is that just an amusing coincidence.?)

The Antichrist is pretty much what the word sounds like - a false Messiah who offers the exact opposite of Jesus’ message

Actually, if one looks into Lindsey or LaHaye’s work, or preferably follows along at Slacktivist, one finds that the fundamentalist take is that the false Messiah will offer exactly Jesus’ message.  You know how Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers”?  He was lying, because anyone who attempts to be a peacemaker is working for Satan, and could be the Antichrist.  Same with concern for the poor.  Anyone who actually tries to put the lessons from the Gospels into practice is automatically suspect to these people.

Anyway, all of these attempts to fit Obama into the role, or dismiss him because he’s not Romanian, are fundamentally flawed by what Inigo Montoya has already pointed out: the End Times Big Bad known as “The Antichrist” isn’t even in the Bible.  “Antichrist” isn’t in the Book of Revelation.  It’s used as a generic term in the Epistles of John to refer to false followers of Christ, those who distort his message for their own gain (such as greedy warmongering lying fuck Tim LaHaye, coincidentally).  And the author referred to them in the present tense, meaning they were around in the 1st Century CE.  So yeah, it’s not an honest “Christian” doctrine; it’s an excuse to wallow in vicious bloodthirsty revenge fantasies and assuage your own fear of death, while still trumpeting what a good Christian you are.

Now, if Obama dressed up Matrix-style while his followers proclaimed their belief that he is the One, I would find it fairly entertaining.

What annoys me most about Douthat’s post is the continuation of the general GOP meme that noticing something slimy is being done is every bit as reprehensible—if not more so—than the actual wrong being committed: commenting on vast wealth transfers to the rich is “class warfare”, but the transfer itself isn’t; commenting on systemic race-based barriers is “racist”, but the barriers aren’t, and so forth.

Yeesh, the religious right and their political adherents, enablers and panderers have been using code language for years; it’s not as if it’s news or controversial for sane people.  To take the position—and tone—that Douthat has taken in his article is foolish, not that we are surprised at that: the man is a consistent, right-wing asshat. 

I wonder what it would be like to tell Douthat that something flew low and fast over your house, but you didn’t see what it was.  Ross wouldn’t say, “oh, was it an F-18 from the airshow?”  No, he’d wiggle his fingers at you and go, “woooHOOO!!!!  The little green men are coming for you, you say!  Get out the tinfoil, crazy boy!”

Shorter Douthat:
If you notice that somebody else is crazy-talking to crazy person in crazy language then neither of them is crazy you are.

Actually, the saddest thing about this is that if the GOP nominated Nicolae Carpathia and the Dems Albert Schweitzer the vast majority of the fundies would believe that Schweitzer is the AntiChrist and that Nicolae Carpathia was their last, best hope to save a Christian America.