The Politics of Apocalypse

"I have a Bible question for you," said the voice on the other end of the phone. I begrudgingly paused my kung fu movie to listen. I didn't normally get scripture-related questions from this person, so I was curious what he was after. "I got this e-mail from a crazy woman [read: family] who said John's Revelation points to Obama as the anti-christ."

Deep breath. I am not political, at least in a civic kind of way. I am a politics of diaspora kind of guy. I think the primary task of the church is to be the church. I think when we get that right, we may have some credibility to enter into the arena of civil politics. For more on that, read Stanley Hauerwas.

I am not political, but I have found this campaign more than any in recent memory to be the most religious. I was outraged with the way the media painted Jeremiah Wright and for their brazen lack of understanding regarding liberation theology. Before that, there was the whole Obama is a "Muslim" thing. On the other side, people are tossing around words like "evangelical," "born-again" and "fundamentalist" as if they are interchangeable. Palin and the whole "war as a mission from God" thing was taken out of context as well. There are so many instances of skewing religion in order to spin the political machine it just makes me sad. Sometimes, I makes me wonder if the church -- which is somewhere behind this stuff on all sides -- is really worth saving.

And I come back to the Obama/anti-christ nonsense. Apparently, the e-mail going around claims that John's apocalypse in Revelations predicts the anti-christ will be in "his 40s and of Muslim descent." Well, forget the fact that Islam wasn't around until at least 200 years after John wrote this, and how many believe he was writing about the Roman Empire, and age doesn't seem to ever come up ... Is electing someone to office really going to have an effect on a person being the anti-christ? So, if Obama is not elected, does that mean we avoid the end of the earth and the rapture? Kirk Cameron would be so disappointed!

We, the religious on all sides, have given the political system and office (namely, president) far more power than they deserve or were even intended to have. I believe God's plan of salvation can be aided by virtue and hindered by sin, but it can never be changed or stopped. That's because it is already completed ... just not yet realized.

For those who didn't know where they were: welcome to the not yet. Enjoy your stay. In the mean time, I hope that Christians can be prayerful, present in love, giving abundantly, serving devotedly, and sharing the faith in Jesus that has given us our name. He is the already, and that is good news.