"American Rapture"

The number of Evangelical Christians in the US stands at somewhere between 70 and 80 million.

Yesterday I read an article called “American Rapture” by Craig Unger in the December issue of Vanity Fair. In the article, I found this statistic: “According to a Time/CNN poll from 2002, 59 percent of Americans believe the events in the book of Revelation will take place.” 59%?!! What ever happened to the Enlightenment? Reason? It is outrageous that 59% of Americans, including many highly educated people, actually believe they will be raptured so that they can witness the apocalypse from the safety of heaven. As part of the apocalypse, merely as a point of interest, the rest of us will be crushed to death in “the great winepress of the wrath of God.”

I am generally respectful of religion, but I do fall short of understanding this kind of blind belief in a myth. It has the makings of a larger scale Jonestown or Waco. I would like to be able to ignore the whole phenomenon but I cannot because this belief in Revelation is actually dangerous for the world.

The first part of the problem is that Evangelical Christians have too much influence in our government. In his article, Unger describes the Council for National Policy, a secret society of rich and powerful right-wing Christians that has some control over the federal government. Jerry Falwell has confirmed that he is a member of the CNP.

“Within the council is a smaller group called the Arlington Group,” says Falwell. “We talk to each other daily and meet in Washington probably twice a month. We often call the White House and talk to Karl Rove while we are meeting. Everyone takes our calls.”

The second part of the problem is that Evangelical Christians do not support peace in the Middle East. They have, in fact, aligned themselves with the Israeli right, and a great number of them agree with the Israeli religious far right that Israel should expand its borders because God gave the Jews all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. The Israeli government began allying itself with American Evangelicals in 1977 when Menachem Begin called on Jerry Falwell. Benjamin Netanyahu continues the tradition today.

It is an unholy alliance. Evangelical Christians only want a “greater” Israel because they think that it will hasten the Rapture. The pragmatic Israelis welcome the political and financial support, and the tourism, but they must think the Evangelicals are mad as a box of frogs. On the other hand, the Evangelicals must be sure that their Israeli friends are all going to suffer horrible deaths when Armageddon comes.

What it boils down to is that we are advancing the world along a dangerous path because we are allowing Evangelical Christians and their biblical myths to influence our foreign policy in the most volatile region on the planet. At the same time, of course, we have extremist Muslims happily playing the part of the other side.

Yitzhak Fhantich, an Israeli intelligence and security consultant, as quoted in Unger’s article:

“…And Jerusalem, of course, is the home of the Jerusalem syndrome,” he says, referring to the phenomenon whereby obsessive religious ideas can trigger violent behaviour. “If someone believes God told him to do something, you cannot stop him. …After all, religion is the most powerful gun in the world.”