Posted on 07/30/2006 7:37:34 PM PDT by Mother Abigail
Evangelicals militant when it comes to Israel, End of Days
By Zev Chafets
MISSILES and rockets are falling all over the Galilee. A bomb even hit Nazareth, where it killed two small Muslim children (Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, commander of the Religion of Peace, Hezbollah branch, apologized for the mistake; he had been aiming at Jews). But through it all, peace and tranquillity have reigned over Kibbutz Megiddo. This is bad news if you're one of those people who happen to be looking forward to the end of the world.
To the untrained eye, Megiddo is just another Israeli farm community attached to an archaeological dig and tourist gift shop.
But tens of millions of evangelical Christians know it as Armageddon, the biblical battleground for the coming war between Jesus and the anti-Christ.
Is the fighting that now rages between Israel and Hezbollah a sign that the final battle is nigh? I asked Connie Wilson, when I reached her on her cell phone.
"I don't know if this is the time or not," said Pastor Wilson, an American-born Pentecostal who lives in Jerusalem and specializes in keeping an eye on the End of Days. "But you can feel the breath of God from the Book of Ezekiel."
"Amen," I said, my usual response when I don't know what she's talking about.
Exactly a year ago, she and her husband, Bill, a retired brigadier general in the Georgia National Guard, took me on a tour of Armageddon. Connie read aloud obscure biblical prophecies about the apocalypse, taken from the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Daniel and the New Testament's Book of Revelation.
Later, Bill pointed out the military terrain in the Jezreel Valley, where he expects 2 billion enemy soldiers to gather against the forces of good. He wasn't sure what God's strategy would be, but applying military principles, he envisioned something like Sherman's capture of Atlanta, or so it seemed to me.
Secular liberals find this scenario preposterous. On the other hand, many of these same scoffers profoundly believe that high-octane gasoline and the profligate use of electric home appliances will heat planet Earth to a doomsday temperature last experienced 420,000 years ago (when, presumably, gas was a dime a gallon and it was OK to leave the TV on all night).
For true believers of any apocalyptic religion, the issue isn't merely how the world will end, but when? Here, even the most devout generally take an agnostic view.
Jerry Falwell, for example, is a pre-millennialist Christian of the greatest piety, but that hasn't stopped him from launching a long-term building program at his Liberty University, where Tim LaHaye, author of the Book of Revelation-based "Left Behind" series of novels, recently donated millions of dollars for a hockey rink.
With similar optimism, Al Gore is apparently thinking about a presidential run in 2008, regardless of global warming.
"We know end times are coming," Connie Wilson said. "We just don't know when. So we live our lives the way we imagine God wants them lived."
For millions of American evangelical voters, living right includes supporting Israel.
Last week, Pentecostal televangelist Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio, one of the rising forces in American Christian Zionism, convened a meeting in Washington of Christians Unified for Israel.
Hagee sees the newly formed group as an evangelical American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, dedicated to lobbying on Israel's behalf, especially in states where Jews are few and far between.
Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas attended Hagee's rally. So did Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum (who is running for his political life).
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman was there. So was the Israeli ambassador, Daniel Ayalon.
Jewish Democrats often decry Republican evangelical support on the grounds that these Christians only want to missionize Jews (and if they do, so what? It's a free country) or use them as cannon fodder at Armageddon (which matters only if you believe in Armageddon in the first place).
In fact, the main motive for Christian Zionism is not devious.
As Hagee said, paraphrasing the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12:3, "God will bless those who bless the Jewish people."
Now, if you don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible, this probably sounds like a Christian Hallmark card sentiment. But if you do, it's a marching order. The idea of militant evangelicals mobilizing for Israel frightens those who believe fundamentalists are trying to push the United States into a war to hasten Armageddon. But they miss the point.
One of the central attributes of conservative evangelical Christianity is its eschatological passivity. End times will come when God is ready, and there is nothing anyone can do -- not give your old clothes to the maid, join the Sierra Club or even go on a Nation magazine Caribbean cruise -- that will hasten Paradise.
This resignation once led to evangelical political quietism. But a new generation of leaders, such as Falwell and Pat Robertson, taught evangelicals that if they can't "fix the world" (in the charmingly modest phrase of the liberal religious left), they can at least support causes they find consistent with biblical teaching.
Now, in my personal opinion, some of these biblical principles are very good (honor your father and mother; don't steal your neighbor's ass), some less so (for details, contact my former wives). But one principle -- supporting Israel in the face of a genocidal Islamic fascism -- is excellent.
This support takes practical forms.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is an American group led by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein that raises tens of millions of dollars from evangelicals for Jewish causes.
It is now giving money to update the bomb shelters of the Galilee.
Sure, some of these donors may see this as part of a vast cosmic drama. Why not, they're entitled. They may have odd ideas about the end of the world, but the evangelicals' ideology has made them into militant anti-fascists (which is more than I can say for some of my best friends).
The truth is, in this war, I'd rather be in a bomb shelter -- or a foxhole -- with Jerry Falwell than with Jerry Seinfeld.
Iraq is suffering through one of its bloodiest months since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Taliban militants are burning schools and attacking villages in southern Afghanistan as the United States and NATO struggle to defend that country's fragile government.
Nuclear-armed India is still cleaning up the wreckage from a large terrorist attack in which it suspects militants from rival Pakistan.
The world is awash in weapons, North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear capabilities, and long-range missile technology is spreading like a virus.
Some see the start of a global conflict.
"We're in the early stages of what I would describe as the Third World War," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently. Certain religious Web sites are abuzz with talk of Armageddon.
There may be as much hyperbole as prophecy in the forecasts for world war. But it's not hard to conjure ways that today's hot spots could ignite.
To be honest I think my psychiatrist needs to prescribe Depakote for all the world leaders and everyone in the Middle East. Makes you all calm and docile. :)
They are not "obscure" and I resent that statement. I also think this is more anti Christian gobbledygook as usual.
I'm tired of all the "cute" comments from liberals trying to understand the evangelical, pro-Israel perspective.
Well, I not a Christian, but I see an End of Days coming.
Actually, the End of the West, but the days the West survives are the only ones worth counting, so I see it as the End of Days.
Those secular liberals might just give a care about this End of Days, because it will be the end of them as well.
The fuse has long since been lit.
It was lit, when Jesus was nailed to the cross.
Only the Father knows when the end will come.
I agree.
Let us pray for peace.
To pray for peace is to pray for justice, for a right-ordering of relations within and among nations and peoples.
It is to pray for freedom, especially for the religious freedom that is a basic human and civil right of every individual.
With all due respect, but when has this never been the case? History did not begin the day any of us were born.
I find this quote very interesting and timely. The alliances mentioned in the passages from Ezekiel 38-40 and are in place. What is described sounds very much like some sort of nuclear confrontation. Many Christians feel this scenario could very well happen soon. There are also passages in Isaiah that speak of the total destruction of Damascus and that it will be a ruinous heap and never to be inhabited again. This certainly hasn't happened yet. It also says in Isaiah that God gave us these prophecies so that we may know that it was from Him. It is judgement on a sinful unrepentant world.
God our Father,
creator of the world,
you establish the order which governs all the ages.
Hear our prayer and give us peace that we may rejoice in your mercy
and praise you without end.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
"They are not "obscure" and I resent that statement. I also think this is more anti Christian gobbledygook as usual."
_______________________________
They sure love our unwavering support even as they look down on us as a bunch of "dumb rubes".
I submit that the world would not be a better place for anyone because of it.
Nothing but Jesus Christ himself will be able to COMPLETELY eliminate terrorism.
Ironic that the muzzies stand on thier religion is that there's is the ONLY religion, either embrace it, be subservant to it, or die.
From my viewpoint there are only 2 ways the terrorist can be completely beaten once and for all. Knock them down and back, they'll just rise up again later. They need to either
a) be completely wiped out and the world is too politcally correct to even mouth the words much less carry it out.
b) That Jesus Christ' return proves to them once and for all that there religion was wrong and they bow down before him.
I made a point earlier today that "western culture" had reached a place where it was no longer willing to do the dirty filthy things defending itself requires.
No one has responded to my post yet. Not even to flame me for "defeatism".
I agree. As a nation, we no longer seem to have the will or unity to fight to defend our country.
I agree. As a nation, we no longer seem to have the will or unity to fight to defend our country.
As an evangelical Christian who has extensively studied prophecy, I can say categorically that this is NOT Armageddon. Too much to occur yet. It could be Isaiah 17, the Burden of Damascus or Ezekiel 38 the first battle of Gog and Magog. However, one can not be dogmatic about even that. We will know it when we see it happen. Right now, Evangelicals are excited though because we see the players lining up and we believe the Lord's return is very near.
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