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Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start WWIII to Speed the "Second Coming" ... and Atheist Neocons are Using Religion
MILLIONS OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS WANT TO START WORLD WAR III ... TO SPEED UP THE SECOND COMING
The Founding Fathers weren't particularly anti-Islam.
But millions of Americans believe that Christ will not come again until Israel wipes out its competitors and there is widespread war in the Middle East. Some of these folks want to start a huge fire of war and death and destruction, so that Jesus comes quickly.
According to French President Chirac, Bush told him that the Iraq war was needed to bring on the apocalypse:
In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:
“This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”…
There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.
And British Prime Minister Tony Blair long-time mentor, advisor and confidante said:
“Tony’s Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better.”
Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair’s mentor, says that his religion gave him a “total belief in what’s right and what’s wrong”, leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as “a moral cause”…
Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.
Bill Moyers reports that the organization Christians United for Israel - led by highly-influential Pastor John C. Hagee - is a universal call to all Christians to help factions in Israel fund the Jewish settlements, throw out all the Palestinians and lobby for a pre-emptive invasion of Iran. All to bring Russia into a war against us causing World War III followed by Armageddon, the Second Coming and The Rapture. See this and this.
This all revolves around what is called Dispensationalism. So popular is Dispensationalism that Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series has sold 65 million copies. Dispensationalists include the following mega-pastors and their churches:
They are supported by politicians such as:
- Texas Senator John Cronyn
- Former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt
- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
- And others
Dr. Timothy Webber - an evangelical Christian who has served as a teacher of church history and the history of American religion at Denver Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Vice-President at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL, and President of Memphis Theological Seminary in Tennessee - notes:
In a recent Time/CNN poll, more than one-third of Americans said that since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they have been thinking more about how current events might be leading to the end of the world.
While only 36 percent of all Americans believe that the Bible is God's Word and should be taken literally, 59 percent say they believe that events predicted in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. Almost one out of four Americans believes that 9/11 was predicted in the Bible, and nearly one in five believes that he or she will live long enough to see the end of the world. Even more significant for this study, over one-third of those Americans who support Israel report that they do so because they believe the Bible teaches that the Jews must possess their own country in the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
Millions of Americans believe that the Bible predicts the future and that we are living in the last days. Their beliefs are rooted in dispensationalism, a particular way of understanding the Bible's prophetic passages, especially those in Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They make up about one-third of America's 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians and believe that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the unfolding of end-times events. In the last part of the 20th century, dispensationalist evangelicals become Israel's best friends-an alliance that has made a serious geopolitical difference.
***
Starting in the 1970s, dispensationalists broke into the popular culture with runaway best-sellers, and a well-networked political campaign to promote and protect the interests of Israel. Since the mid-1990s, tens of millions of people who have never seen a prophetic chart or listened to a sermon on the second coming have read one or more novels in the Left Behind series, which has become the most effective disseminator of dispensationalist ideas ever.
***
During the early 1980s the Israeli Ministry of Tourism recruited evangelical religious leaders for free "familiarization" tours. In time, hundreds of evangelical pastors got free trips to the Holy Land. The purpose of such promotional tours was to enable people of even limited influence to experience Israel for themselves and be shown how they might bring their own tour group to Israel. The Ministry of Tourism was interested in more than tourist dollars: here was a way of building a solid corps of non-Jewish supporters for Israel in the United States by bringing large numbers of evangelicals to hear and see Israel's story for themselves. The strategy caught on.
***
Shortly after the Six-Day War, elements within the Israeli government saw the potential power of the evangelical subculture and began to mobilize it as a base of support that could influence American foreign policy. The Israeli government sent Yona Malachy of its Department of Religious Affairs to the United States to study American fundamentalism and its potential as an ally of Israel. Malachy was warmly received by fundamentalists and was able to influence some of them to issue strong pro-Israeli manifestos. By the mid-1980s, there was a discernible shift in the Israeli political strategy. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Jewish state's major lobbying group in Washington, D.C., started re-aligning itself with the American political right-wing, including Christian conservatives. Israel's timing was perfect. It began working seriously with American dispensationalists at the precise moment that American fundamentalists and evangelicals were discovering their political voice.
***
Probably the largest pro-Israel organization of its kind is the National Unity Coalition for Israel, which was founded by a Jewish woman who learned how to get dispensationalist support. NUCI opposes "the establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel."
***
In their commitment to keep Israel strong and moving in directions prophesied by the Bible, dispensationalists are supporting some of the most dangerous elements in Israeli society. They do so because such political and religious elements seem to conform to dispensationalist beliefs about what is coming next for Israel. By lending their support-both financial and spiritual-to such groups, dispensationalists are helping the future they envision come to pass.
***
Dispensationalists believe that the Temple is coming too; and their convictions have led them to support the aims and actions of what most Israelis believe are the most dangerous right-wing elements in their society, people whose views make any compromise necessary for lasting peace impossible. Such sentiments do not matter to the believers in Bible prophecy, for whom the outcome of the quarrelsome issue of the Temple Mount has already been determined by God.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, then, dispensationalists have increasingly moved from observers to participant-observers. They have acted consistently with their convictions about the coming Last Days in ways that make their prophecies appear to be self-fulfilling.
***
As Paul Boyer has pointed out, dispensationalism has effectively conditioned millions of Americans to be somewhat passive about the future and provided them with lenses through which to understand world events. Thanks to the sometimes changing perspectives of their Bible teachers, dispensationalists are certain that trouble in the Middle East is inevitable, that nations will war against nations, and that the time is coming when millions of people will die as a result of nuclear war, the persecution of Antichrist, or as a result of divine judgment. Striving for peace in the Middle East is a hopeless pursuit with no chance of success.
***
For the dispensational community, the future is determined. The Bible's prophecies are being fulfilled with amazing accuracy and rapidity. They do not believe that the Road Map will-or should-succeed. According to the prophetic texts, partitioning is not in Israel's future, even if the creation of a Palestinian state is the best chance for peace in the region. Peace is nowhere prophesied for the Middle East, until Jesus comes and brings it himself. The worse thing that the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations can do is force Israel to give up land for a peace that will never materialize this side of the second coming. Anyone who pushes for peace in such a manner is ignoring or defying God's plan for the end of the age.
***
It seems clear that dispensationalism is on a roll, that its followers feel they are riding the wave of history into the shore of God's final plan. Why should they climb back into the stands when being on the field of play is so much more fun and apparently so beneficial to the game's outcome? As [one dispensationalist group's] advertisement read, "Don't just read about prophecy when you can be part of it."
ATHEIST WAR HAWKS MANIPULATE BELIEVERS TO BEAT THE DRUMS OF WAR
Leo Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including many leaders of the current administration.
Indeed, many of the main neocon players - including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Cambone, Elliot Abrams, and Adam Shulsky - were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many years.
The people pushing for war against Iran are the same neocons who pushed for war against Iraq. See this and this. (They planned both wars at least 20 years ago.) For example, Shulsky was the director of the Office of Special Plans - the Pentagon unit responsible for selling false intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass. He is now a member of the equivalent organization targeting Iran: the Iranian Directorate.
Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli. Strauss believed that a stable political order required an external threat and that if an external threat did not exist, one should be manufactured. Specifically, Strauss thought that:
A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured
(the quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).
Indeed, Stauss used the analogy of Gulliver's Travels to show what a Neocon-run society would look like:
"When Lilliput [the town] was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect." (this quote also from the same biographer)
Moreover, Strauss said:
Only a great fool would call the new political science diabolic . . . Nevertheless one may say of it that it fiddles while Rome burns. It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.
So Strauss seems to have advocated governments letting terrorizing catastrophes happen on one's own soil to one's own people -- of "pissing" on one's own people, to use his Gulliver's travel analogy. And he advocates that government's should pretend that they did not know about such acts of mayhem: to intentionally "not know" that Rome is burning. He advocates messing with one's own people in order to save them from some "catastophe" (perhaps to justify military efforts to monopolize middle eastern oil to keep it away from our real threat -- an increasingly-powerful China?).
What does this have to do with religion?
Strauss taught that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not believe in religion.
As Wikipedia notes:
In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this – along with support for religion generally – may have been a case of a "noble lie", intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.
So is it any surprise that the folks who planned war against Iraq and Iran at least 20 years ago are pushing religious disinformation to stir up the evangelical community?
Conservative Christians were the biggest backers of the Iraq war. And the Neocons are catering to them to try to back them into war with Iran, as well.
I've recently seen a swarm of spam claiming that all Muslims are evil, that they want to take over the world and establish a Muslim caliphate, and that they want to nuke Iran. They misquote Muslims and use false statements to try to stir up religious hatred.
They are simply promoting the Straussian playbook: stir up religious sentiment - even if you are personally an atheist - to create and demonize an "enemy", so as to promote war ...
NOT A PROBLEM WITH A PARTICULAR RELIGION ... BUT OF IMMATURITY
Most Americans confuse Zionism and Judaism. But many devout Jews are against Zionism, and Zionists can be Christian.
And as I've repeatedly noted, fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all very much alike, and often willing to use violence to spread their ideology ... while more spiritually mature Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all much more tolerant and peaceful than their evangelical brothers:
As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity. Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development. There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi the poet and Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian groups (and peaceful and violent atheists).
While there are certainly some Arab terrorists, Islam cannot be blamed for their barbaric murderous actions, just as Christianity cannot be blamed for the Norwegian Christian terrorist - Anders Behring Breivik's actions. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in international security affairs – points out:
Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn’t to blame — the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.
The 9/11 hijackers used cocaine and drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs … but they did not worship at any mosque. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. So they were not really Muslims.
And even atheists like Stalin can be terrorists, or at least genocidal maniacs.
Indeed, all religions teach compassion, love and the Golden Rule. Likewise, atheism teaches respect for the individual, the most good for the most people, and helping everyone reach their human potential.
Some within each philosophy follow these teachings, and others want to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. The issue is not really the label of this religion or that, but of maturity and true spirituality and compassion.
Postscript 1: Neoliberals and Neoconservatives are very similar in many ways. And because Neocons are not conservative, nothing in this post is meant to criticize conservatism.
Postscript 2: Most evangelicals are not dispensationalists, and so do not want to bring on armageddon.
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absolutely agree. this is about authority over, and using women as a tool to aggravate and agitate social opinons among the populace, a very very old tactic.
you are making some very good points falak, particularly about Islam not requiring that women wear the burqa - it's a function of those male religious leaders who hold the power over the populace that mandates a woman hiding herself from the eyes of men lest she sully their thoughts. . .
and while I find this both ridiculous and sad, it is understandable in the context of western porn "culture" exported globally - they are sides of the same coin, the exploit and control of bodies, particularly female - this nonsense is what all the StoryBooks tell the tale of, impure Woe-Man, the downfall of pure Man - there's no HeavenlyMother in these tales, right?
unfortunately, there are still many in amrka who choose to "vote" for lawmakers to make more non-secular laws restricting the freedom of women, even as a sacrificial trade-off. . .
BTW, I agree 100%. Islam requires modesty and FWIW, places restrictions on men as well.
I've met and befriended a few women who adhere to "Islam" (I only put quotes around this word to highlight that I've no idea how each individual defines the word, and definitions matter, to me at least), and in all my discussions with them I've come to understand, if not agree, with their viewpoint.
those who wear the burqa, or even headscarves, do it for reasons of modesty as you say, and when I look around at western women, captured by an abusive media that encourages their debasement as women, tells them exactly what they need to do in order to be seen as trashed, then I can empathise with their point of view, while not necessarily agreeing with the fundamentals.
and for what it's worth, I've met the partners of some of these women, and they were kind and respectful as well - go figure, eh.
(I realise this isn't the best post to say this, but your new Zappa avatar rocks! as did the man himself. . .)
peace.
It was time for a makeover - something with some, oh I don't know - flair. FZ was, in my view, the best thing to come out of the 60's.
I always figured if I ever got into radio, I'd use FZ exclusive for the bumps.
Frank was. . . well, frank, his life being the definition of the word that he was named. . . like George Carlin and others, his truths grow ever more truthy as the decades pass.
it's an obvious statement, but I'm glad they attribute it to Frank.
I'm also rather fond of Frank's weird 3rd cousin, Capt'n Beefheart. . . ahh, the 60's, so much to answer for, hmm.
Cathartes Aura said:
OMFG!
+ an incredibly large number
AND the bastard child of the 2nd cousin's fling with the guitar tech's roadie, David Thomas? Pere Ubu?
Birdies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qnRzCWFgd4&feature=related
and the lurker who watched? Mark E. Smith? the Fall?
Rowche Rumble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDZDgF2H7vU&feature=related
and because it makes me smile, another:
I Have Seen the Madness in my Area
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dezomqz3Q4&feature=endscreen&NR=1
ahhhh, if not for music, life would indeed sucketh. hard.
smirk, enjoy!
Cathartes Aura said:
Damn, woman, Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu? How did you become so cool?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhNmptnmCNw
I hung out with guys in my formative years - hah!
used to be a band manager, run an indie label, that sort of thing. . . but as bands got snatched up by major labels (corporate) it became less about the music and more about the business - not my interest - I had some royalties, so I bailed. . . took me a while to get the love of music back, but now I pretty much listen to something all my waking hours. . .
your link is sadly dead, deleted account message - grrr! I was curious!!
this may not be your flavour, it's on heavy rotation just now over "here"
Mark Lanegan Band "Blues Funeral"
http://widgets.beggarspromo.com/bluesfuneralkexp/widget.php
see you 'round here laters!
Said Cathartes Aura:
Understood and agreed. I've been told that my tastes in music are 'different' and, although that's a bit of an understatement, I'd have to agree. Nevertheless, I can appreciate just about any music which is written/performed with sincerity.
Hrmmm. Yes, I see. OK, here's a couple more links to the same song (Pere Ubu - Laughing) which, as I post this, are still working. This is the first Pere Ubu song I ever heard. I attended college in Cleveland in the early eighties and was spoiled with a listening selection of several good college radio stations. I heard this song one night and the sax reminded me of Trout Mask Replica era Beefheart, but then I heard David Thomas singing and knew that it wasn't the Captain. (As you're aware, they both have distinctive voices.)
Hopefully you'll find at least one of these still working:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gxB2NvKYio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSBdtcgdMV8
That first song (Gravedigger's Song) is fucking cool. I've bookmarked the link so I can listen more later. Thanks.
Indeed. Take care, friend.
. . . when I first moved to London, I went out to small, dingy music clubs - usually pubs with a small stage - almost every single night, 2-3 bands each venue, hop a bus or the tube to another. . . I went on my own, because I was new to town, and no one I knew wanted to hear what I was drawn to. . . I was inevitably surrounded by all males watching as well, in their black studded gear, or long trenchcoats, spiked hair, coolly paying attention - no yelps & whoops interrupting every song as was the case in amrkn audiences - this was a respectful audience, and an observant one, not a party crowd looking for a soundtrack to their mating rituals. . . I was home.
it's always been about the music to me, which, again, is why when I tried to make the leap from putting out my own fan-zines, with my own photos, to being in a band, then managing the bands I loved - it was fail - I could not mix my love of music with commerce, and I could not be the intermediary between corporate record companies, and the artists - which is what a good manager does with agility. I'm grateful for the experience(s), and the piles of unique photographs documenting the times, but very glad to just have my personal soundtrack going sans the drama.
that being said, the link my mind makes between Zappa/Beefheart/David Thomas/Mark E. - they are all artists who do not compromise for commerce, it's as pure as it gets - and they're wild and unique, and ODD - so I respect that in them. . . it's not easy listening, FM sort of stuffs, it's more an expression of a singular point of view - and that's my highest compliment to anyOne - be that which is your unique-ness, irrespective of censure.
here's the Mark Lanegan song that first stopped me cold:
The River Rise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kICd12iogeU&feature=related
(note the fan video it comes with - all those Kurt pics are so soft / feminine!)
and the link to his most recent album - that came from a brilliant college radio station out of Seattle - KEXP - they're still going strong, I live stream them daily while I work,
http://kexp.org/streamarchive/streamarchive.asp
even I can't keep up with all the new stuffs they uncover - paradise for a music junkie like myself - give it a listen!
take care friend, catch up with you in the pixels!
"Blues Funeral" is genuinely outstanding. Thank you for that, and more.
I have in my own vision an image that comes from pagan days when woman shared divine powers with man. On Olympian summit, we had icons, larger than life so alike us, so endearing because of it. The age of heroes taught us about Man's ideal way of being in godly shadows, all the while depicting the tragic destiny of man when he fell, through hubris or some human frailty. That was a wonderful construct that the subsequent Abrahamic, patriarchal construct has destroyed, pushing Man into a negativistic mind frame of his natural urges and in fear, mortal and terrifying, of losing eternal salvation; new supreme arm of the ecclesiastical cabal that Patriarchal order bequeathed us thanks to Abraham. Its time to free man from this mind set, using the rational construct of Greek Socratic origin, which will once again free the last species still slave to man on earth :woman, from patriarchal servitude. Woman has always been sOurce of happiness to man; but at what price. Not one to make man eternal predator of womankind. Unacceptable to ethical man. Even if it is to MORAL and religious man. Taliban and consorts.
I affirm I adhere to this difference. Its time to change the social clock of man, and this current Moslem- Christian-Jewish clash of phony civilization, that GWB has bequeathed us in the Neocon geo-political stand-off around the vital Oil patch is the throwback to past that will kick start the new march forward. Its just a gut feeling. I hope it becomes more than that.
there can be no peace, inner nor outer, within a Patriarchy - the very nature of the belief structure is antagonistic, bringing out the most base of humanity.
at the price of her sovereignty, the price of her knowing herself FIRST and foremost, and not defined by a culture that believes her body an impure temptation, or her desires as "evil" distractions, competition for the "pure" love of the FatherGod, who admits He is a "jealous god" - passive / aggressive relating.
I am not interested in any belief system that elevates one body type over another, based solely on imagining a revered figure with the SAME body type. it's the ultimate in narcissism.
This has to be the most ignorant article ever on ZH. Tell me how many denominations there are now and tell me how Christians are united. Christianity is nearly dead because Christians think that they are supposed to change things from the top down by watching Fox views and listening to Beck and Limbaugh. Jesus only gave us 2 commands. Love God and love your neighbor. It's bottoms up work. Sorry my friend evangelicals are like the market. They don't move. they ARE moved.
irrespective of what "Jesus" commanded, there are more than 2 rules to follow in any of these religions - you may just be choosing a fave version for your own beliefs.
infinite, no doubt, as many versions as there are individuals holding the story in their minds - HOWEVER, shall I also tell you how many are elected to govern all of us, even we who don't believe in their Book? because the amrkn government is CRAWLING with "true believers" who want to impose their judgeMENTAL reality on everyone, for whatever reason they pull out of their arse.
"Love God and love your neighbour" - ahhh, if only.
If Christianity is nearly dead it's because it's not survivable. Sorry, Nature Bats Last.
But anyway, sure enough, it's "Evangelicals" who are the most ardent proponents of war.
It's all about power and control. And getting "your" god on "your" side, well... ah, now that's THE POWER! Anyone getting in "my" way from having "god" on "my" side needs to get on "my" side else be eliminated by "my" "god." You're either with us or against us...
one more thing...
onarga74 said:
"Jesus only gave us 2 commands. Love God and love your neighbor."
Can a real and true love be commanded?
Real love comes from within.
Read what it says in other places - it is quite clear that mankind does not have the power to obey the law - it is a schoolmaster. Read for yourself ;)
But yes, real love can not be commanded.
Yes I remember that from the book of Perv 8:69 "love thy neighbor's daughter as she layeth by the pool"
You may think that but there are millions of them left...just like you'll see in the video below. Most of my family among them.
You and I may not believe this bullshit, but there are many who do and their beliefs will affect all of us. Yeah they're moved alright, easily moved.
Rapture Ready
http://youtu.be/mjMRgT5o-IgThis outfit claims over 900,000 members alone:
http://www.cufi.org/site/PageServer
If they claim a membership of 900,000 then that would mean that GW's "Millions" isn't, in FACT, hyperbole: Only a minimum of two million needed to qualify as "million(S)." So far everything is being supported in fact.
Most Evangelicals are apostates and heretics to Christianity. They interpret scripture to suit their own agenda instead of following traditions of religious scholarship and knowledge uncovered over centuries of study.
According to whom?
I hear this stated about every variant of Christianity (or any religion for that matter).
The Roots of Christian Zionism: How Scofield Sowed Seeds of Apostasyhttp://youtu.be/IO6VpMYAVms
agree with you both, it's a big ole heavy toolbox, full of many different use-full tools. . .
Thanks Disenchanted, for one of the best posts on this entire pathetic thread, these Christian Zionist morons don't even suspect that they are tools, idiotically complicit in their own demise. Here's more on Schofield:
"World Zionist leaders initiated a program to change America and its religious orientation. One of the tools used to accomplish this goal was an obscure and malleable Civil War veteran named Cyrus I. Schofield. A much larger tool was a venerable, world respected European book publisher--The Oxford University Press.
The scheme was to alter the Christian view of Zionism by creating and promoting a pro-Zionist subculture within Christianity. Scofield's role was to re-write the King James Version of the Bible by inserting Zionist-friendly notes in the margins, between verses and chapters, and on the bottoms of the pages. The Oxford University Press used Scofield, a pastor by then, as the Editor, probably because it needed such as man for a front. The revised bible was called the Scofield Reference Bible, and with limitless advertising and promotion, it became a best-selling "bible" in America and has remained so for 90 years.
The Scofield Reference Bible was not to be just another translation, subverting minor passages a little at a time. No, Scofield produced a revolutionary book that radically changed the context of the King James Version. It was designed to create a subculture around a new worship icon, the modern State of Israel, a state that did not yet exist, but which was already on the drawing boards of the committed, well-funded authors of World Zionism."
http://www.rense.com/general60/zcre.htm
+1000 Exactly! ...and you're welcome.
I lived this Christian Zionist world the first 21 years of my life. We weren't associated with the Hagee bunch, but I was taught essentially the same beliefs. My point being that the Hagee organization(@ close to a million followers) is just one of the outfits promoting this insanity in America. I think GW's contention, that there are millions of evangelical 'Christians' who subscribe to these Scofield Bible inspired beliefs, is a safe bet.
"Most" is a strong word. But most of the theology being peddled in "evangelical" circles is shoddy, intellectually sterile, and overly focused on a lawerly sort of proof-texting that is bent to all sorts of absurd ends. It is a far cry from orthodox Lutheranism or Reformed Christianity, those who were at first called "Evangelical." A lot of it is gnostic and idiolatry, e.g. the elevation of one's self to the stature of God ... as seen in the attempts on the part of some misled dispensational premillenarian Christians to influence world events to bring them into line with Bible prophecy ... as if God needs help! And in the Kingdom Now species of dominionism, the eschatology of which rather curiously almost precisely resembles liberal Christianity, the kingdom of God is to be had when the actual kingdoms are seized by the people of God. Anyone with grounding in the Scriptures and in general Christian thought can see right through this stuff for what it is: heresy begotten by sophistry begotten by reading scriptures taken out of context utilizing a perverse, lawyerly, hermeneutic where you go to the text to find support for some grandiose structures you have created rather than to humbly go to the text and see what you might gain from it. It's an attempt to introduce a more rigorous, empirical, scientistic hermeneutic and in that sense is analagous perhaps to the excesses of postmodern literary criticism, and it comes from much the same intellectual roots, only from very different sets of folks. The results are the same, a big mess of contradiction, relativism, and the elevation of the inside of your own head above all else. Yes, Lord, there is a lot of bad theology out there.
You say: "Most evangelicals are not dispensationalists, and so do not want to bring on armageddon."
Come again?????
Dispensationalism does not mean what you think it means. Dispensationalism is surely related to some of the views that you are speaking about above, but it is not identical with them. Dispensationalism is a Biblical hermeneutic which holds that God's soteriological action with respect to mankind is exerted in different ways during discrete periods of time in history, including the time in which God dealt primarily with Israel, and the time in which God deals primarily with the Church (our present age.) Dispensationalism got it's start in the 19th century and is controversial in Evangelical circles even today.
The particular eschatological orientation that you are referring to as far as LaHaye, etc. goes is eschatological futurism, specifically of a premillenarian character, with pronounced belief in a pretribulational rapture. The eschatological scenario envisioned in "The Late Great Planet Earth," "Left Behind," etc. is of this nature, an the theology is basically dispensationalist. But dispensationalism often goes together with these beliefs, but it is not necessarily so. Dispensationalism is not necessarily the key ingredient here because a dispensationalist hermeneutic is not the only one to read unfulfilled prophecy referring to Israel in a literal-futuristic sense. It is not the dispensational bit that creates the opinions you cite above but rather a rather perverse application of the premillenarian/futurist bit.
Most importantly, keep in mind that nowhere in a sane reading of Scripture is the return of Christ to be brought about by human action. This is a damnable heresy. All orthodox (small 'o') dispensational premillenarians of all stripes would agree. The idea that the kingdom of God is brought about by our actions is a common heretical thread between the politico-theological orientation you describe above (which is emphatically not orthodox dispensational premillenarianism), the Christian reconstructionists an dominionists (who are quite different theologically although not dissimilar politically in terms of advancing a theocratic agenda.)
Parenthetically, if Newt Gingrich is a dispensationalist (which I doubt), he too would be condemned as a heretic by his current church, the Roman Catholic.
And to the commenter who mentioned the Rushdoonyites etc. reconstructionism and dominionism are an entirely different animal. Dispensationalists regard reconstructionists and dominionists as dangerous heretics and vice versa.
Amen to the separation of Church and State!
I agree, but hey, what's that religious pyramid and eye on the back of our dollar, and that religious obelisk right in the middle of our capital. Somebody should do something about that.
That is known as part of Freemasonry.
They say that Politics and Religion are two forbidden subjects. However some have tried to trace the Masons all the way back to the Temple of Solomon and the murder of it's Engineer.
Notice the Lodges have a blank North wall. also consider that the sun rises in the east, these lodges keep only one door on the western end. However they appear to have sworn not to make war upon the State or Federal Government, they are allowed to exercise peacefully whatever it is they do in those places.
I am not a Mason. However GW, the Founder and First President of our Nation is a Mason; as was Benjamin Franklin etc.
As far as the Mega Churches of Today, I look upon them with some amusement. However they make up a sizable Army within our Nation when taken collectively. *Dismissive wave...
Martin Luther broke the power of the Catholic Church by converting the then forbidden Bible into common language easily understood by anyone. It is a basis for the German Language and the entire Protestant Faith.
I will not go into detail, however the Word of God is the way, the truth and the light.
As far as Wars and talk of wars... that too will come. We are not to be alarmed in the last days.
The rest of it is a mountain of Theology and a product of much thinking better served as a supply of fuel to keep people warm in winter.
you forget to mention the star of david hidden in plain sight on the dollar. hmmm.
It's an Illuminati/Masonic star on the back of the dollar.
The star on the back of the Dollar comes from Hermeticism, one of the occult faiths unfied under the eye of Lucifer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism
yes, and no surprise to see used so prominently by zionists...
Geo Wash, plese inquire of your true Muslim peaceful friends if they follow this ruling from the Ayatollah Khomeini:
“A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual act such as forplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed.”
JMHO, but that is as twisted as a pig's dick.
awww Augustus, doesn't matter what subject GW chooses, you're always here to troll him. . .
as to religion making laws on when & why a man can fuck a female - hello, it's a Patriarchy, Rule of the Fathers, and Fathers get first dibs - to remake yourselves in your SkyGod's image, means you get all the privileges too - how convenient!!
in the end, isn't all about who makes the laws and rules, and who benefits? have we not at least learned THIS yet?
i hear they're allowed to eat babies.
and they worship a moon god! gasp! /s (ignore the fact that Iranian prophesy of armageddon explicitly says that Jesus will return with the Iman Mahdi to fight the luciferian world system)... fundies and zionists like to overlook that inconvenient part of the plot.
Perhaps the Ayatollah foresaw the legions of spoiled gold diggers that spawn from giving women an ounce of respect
He was just doing god's work
Under Talmudic (Jewish) law, a man is permitted to have sexual relations with a female as long as she is younger than 3 years and 1 day. Don't believe me? Look it up! Here is the essence and detail of the Jewish belief today:
http://www.come-and-hear.com/dilling/index.html
Not.
You speak for your father. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44 "Look it up!"
For those who may not know - Armageddon comes from Har Meggido (Hebrew) and the word occurs only once in the Bible (Revelations 16:16). It is a physical place that once guarded the trade route between Egypt and Assyria, and has been the site of a number of battles throughout history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Megiddo
http://www.bibarch.com/archaeologicalsites/megiddo.htm
Take the last link with a grain of salt.
re : your Megiddo link, I found this :
...Deborah and Barak led the Israelites to victory over the Canaanite armies of Sisera by "the waters of Megiddo...
By the rivers of Jericho and Megiddo...Barak reigns supreme!
Who might Debby be, today?
Hitllary????
:o(
and from the Right AssCheek:
MicHELLe???? =(((
Sarah??? =O(((
seriously, *eye roll*
It was a fucking joke. Lighten up.
indeed, it is ALL a fucking joke. my post too!! every post here!
take it easy now. . .