Faithfully Criticizing Dispensationalism and Christian Zionist Rapture Views

“It is mortifying to remember that I not only held and taught these novelties myself, but that I even enjoyed a complacent sense of superiority because thereof.” Philip Mauro

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” Jesus

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a dispensational premillennialist: “The present state of Israel is not the final form. The present state of Israel will be lost, eventually, and Israel will be run out of the land again, only to return when they accept the Messiah as Savior.” (Radio debate with Gary DeMar)

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“Armageddon Now” Theology & Christian Zionist Politics
Pro-Dispensationalism | Dispensationalist Dementia
FOR QUESTIONS ON WHETHER EXPLORING THESE ISSUES IS ANTI-SEMITISM, REFER TO THE “ANTISEMITISM” ARCHIVE

STUDY ARCHIVES: Amillennialism | Apocalyptic | Christian Zionism | Dispensationalism | Eschatology | Hermeneutics | Historicism | Idealism | Millennial Reign of Christ | Preterism | New Covenant Theology | Postmillennialism | Premillennialism | Pre-Tribulational Rapture | Reconstructionism | “Seventy Weeks” | Parousia | Universalism | J.N. Darby | Jerry Falwell | Thomas Ice | Tim LaHaye | Hal Lindsey | C.I. Scofield | Jack and Rexella Van Impe | John F. Walvoord | Christian Zionism and Salvation for the Jews | Philip Mauro: The Gospel of the Kingdom & The Hope of Israel

Are you a Christian Zionist?  Take the litmus test: “Do you believe that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy?”
Christian Zionism: The Tragedy and The Turning | How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend

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LATEST ADDITIONS

• 4/9/14: Why Christian Zionism is nothing short of outright heresy “Christian Zionism, the belief that the current Zionist state of Israel is an unambiguous portent of the imminent return of Christ, is said to be the largest growing cult in America. With some 70 million Christian evangelicals in the U.S. (a large proportion subscribing to Christian Zionist beliefs), unconditional support of Israel on religious grounds translates into massive lobbying power in a country where the “religious right” has seen itself as the leaders in a fight against the infidels of secularism, Islam, socialism and any one else in their way.”

• 2012: The Dispensational View of Double Fulfillment of Prophecy “So, Joel McDurmon and Gentry (and we could add DeMar and other postmillennialists to the list) are on record as rejecting the Dispensational “double fulfillment” view of prophecy. So after rejecting and condemning the Dispensationalists for positing the Double Fulfillment of prophecy, McDurmon not only affirmed Double Fulfillment, he affirmed Many Fulfillments!”

• 2012: The Importance of Revelation’s Date | Against Dispensationalism “Our blog seeks to explain, promote and defend postmillennialism, which is optimistic about the future conquest of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

• 2011: Thoughts on Eschatology: Dispensationalism, Salvation & Supersessionism “One of the most consistent and erroneous complaints about disp is that it teaches an alternative way of salvation for Israel. Is that really the case? Does Dispensationalism Teach Two Ways of Salvation?”

INTRODUCTION TO THE
THEOLOGY
OF DISPENSATIONALISM

Does Dispensationalism use a “Literal” Hermeneutic? | Margaret Macdonald’s Original Pre-tribulation Vision | Why the Early Church Fathers Finally Rejected Premillennialism | Forty Percent of Americans Believe in a Jesus/Satan Showdown at Armageddon | Millennial Expectations through the centuries

FEAR TACTICS TIED TO THE IDEOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS DOMINATION

The Dispensationalist view of Bible prophecy teaches that the nation of Israel is still waiting for its kingdom and King, as well as the reception of the inheritances of the biblical ‘Abrahamic Covenant’.   Accordingly, they teach, the Second Coming and Great Tribulation are right around the corner to settle affairs.

Those endorsing “Rapture Theology” represent the most vocal Christian sect in America today.   This view, built upon an extremely Right Wing political theory, attaches itself to Israel theologically, convinced that the State of Israel is “God’s Chosen Nation”.   Watching current events very closely, they believe that war in Syria will hasten the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Besides being terribly racist and dangerous, this doomsday theology has been rejected throughout the history of Christianity, and is repudiated in the New Testament.

SO-CALLED “LITERAL METHOD” OF INTERPRETATION

Dispensationalists, in order to protect this doctrinal novelty, celebrate a “literalist” approach to Scripture.  In order to prove or disprove this method of Biblical interpretation, it must be closely examined. I recommend starting with the following work on the question of hermeneutics:

How should the Prophecies to Israel be Interpreted?
(Philip Mauro, “Hope of Israel”)

The issue of interpretive method is of utmost importance.  Driving this point home is Postmillennialist James Snowdon:  “It was the literalizing of the Jewish prophecies concerning the Messiah and His kingdom that led the Jews off into views and hopes of the Messiah that were false and cruelly disappointing… It was the literal interpretation of their scriptures that blinded the Jews to their own Messiah”  (The Coming of the Lord, 198-199)

HISTORICITY OF RAPTURE VIEW LACKING !

“But it is not correct to say, as Premillenarians do, that it was generally accepted in the first three centuries. The truth of the matter is that the adherents of this doctrine were a rather limited number. There is no trace of it in Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius, and other important Church Fathers.” (Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines [London: The Banner of Truth Trust, (1937) 1969], 262).

“An intensive examination of the writings of pretribulational scholars reveals only one passage from the early fathers which is put forth as a possible example of explicit pretribulationalism.” (William Everett Bell, “A Critical Evaluation of the Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine in Christian Eschatology”).

SAVE A JEW, SAVE YOURSELF! 65 million Evangelicals can’t be wrong  “When I pointed out to a Jewish cousin of mine the insanity of this “alliance”—in which the Christian Zionists are using Jews in order to help God massacre them—he laughed. “I know, they’re a bunch of freaks and weirdoes.” Then he added: “But we’re just using them.”

“Those who are anti-Semitic will go to eternal damnation.”
John Hagee

LOOLOO

• • Israel’s unholy alliance with US right  – “the section in Revelations 20 that predicts the doom of the present world and the second coming of Christ … These are the preconditions for the “rapture.”

  • 2008: IsraelENews: Why aren`t evangelicals denouncing Pastor John Hagee? “Hagee’s also a fervent supporter of the State of Israel against its Muslim neighbours. But he doesn’t bother to tell Jews that Christians of his ilk expect all Jews to convert to Christianity. If they don’t, such end-times Christians believe Jews will suffer eternal damnation when Jesus returns in the Last Judgment. “

  • 2008: Christian Zionist Leader Hagee in Unprecedented Appearance at Reform Temple  “When Rabbi Woznica asked the Reverend if he was a literalist, he said that he was and that he did believe that the world was really created in six days and that Noah’s ark was real. On the other hand, in response to a follow-up question from Rabbi Woznica, Reverend Hagee said that he does not believe a Sabbath-breaker ought to be stoned to death, referring to Biblical laws as ‘word pictures’ that indicate ‘principles.’’

  • 2008: John McCain accepts endorsement of Hagee “John McCain is so anxious to get the support of the Theopublicans that he is jumping into bed with some pretty loony individuals. This short report on his endorsement from televangelist John Hagee is one example. Hagee is a proponent of the dulusional theory of “dispensationalism” which was invented in England by John Darby in the 1800s. Darby brought his theology to America where a large percentage of fundamentalists embraced it with enthusiasm. One result of dispensationalism is that American fundamentalists are more Zionist than the Zionists themselves — as you will see here.”

  • 2007: Joshua Mitnick – Evangelicals’ New Reach In Jewish Agency Criticized “Rabbi Eckstein.. said that until now Jewish groups have been happy to accept IFGC funding and now the group is receiving the recognition it deserves. “It feels like we’re losing control,” said Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, a co-founder of the Web site Jews on First, which criticizes the growing influence of the Christian right and Christian Zionist groups in America. “Those who will be in charge of the Zionist enterprise will not be Jews, but the senior partners with the most money,”

  • 2006: Among Evangelicals, Kinship with Jews “Since that day five years ago, according to Eckstein, the Tabernacle has sent more than $175,000 to the fellowship, which has a donor base of 400,000 Christians and has contributed more than $100 million to Israeli causes. “

  • 2005: Evangelicals Get a Piece of the Promised Land – “On hand was Dr. Paul Crouch, president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, a worldwide giant in Christian broadcasting, and Jay Sekulow, the head of the American Centre for Law & Justice, a Christian-based law firm founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson.”

  • 2005: Letters to the Editor on “The Gods Must Be Crazy” “After reading this excellent article, now I understand. And I’m scared to death. These radical evangelical Christians actually believe that the faster we destroy the earth and our environment, the faster the “second coming of Christ” will happen. I no longer believe in a “second coming” (although I do believe in God and an afterlife, just not in the black-and-white way that fundamentalists view it). But with 50 million Americans, according to this article, and 231 U.S. senators and representatives believing in this crazy “End Times” theology, all working to hasten the end of the earth, they just might pull the rest of us along with them down the path of environmental destruction and the end of the ability of the earth to sustain life.”

• 2003: Christian Zionists discover Israel

• Christian Zionism : Israel’s Best Weapon ? ” it favored “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,”was perhaps the single most important act premised in Christian Zionism.”

• Christians Rally for Israel in Washington “And I want you to know,” Olmert told his audience, “how much we need your friendship and support and how much we respect these expressions of support that come from this evangelical community of great believers and lovers of Zion. We are partners. We are friends. … G-d bless all of you. G-d bless America.”

• America’s New Christian Zionists | Israeli Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists | Politics of Apocalypse | New Zionists | Powell Attack Dispys | Christians Support Construction of Jewish Temple? | Palestine belongs to? | Christian Coalition | Repudiating Christians who support Israel? | Will Fundamentalist Jews and Christians Ignite Armageddon? | Because Bible Says So |  | WRMEA | Christian Millennial Expectations | False Prophecies of JW

• Online Journal – The Iron Fist of Jesus – “Fundamentalist Christians, adherents to a nauseating perversion of Christianity (conjured from their twisted imaginations and their distorted interpretations of the Bible) wield a significant amount of power in the United States, socially and politically.  In short, Fundamentalist Christians are the people whom the real Jesus would have hammered with his Iron Fist, if he had had one, and if he had been inclined to use it. Fortunately for them, Warrior Jesus is simply a myth the Christo-Fascist masters use to keep their minions in line. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America’s religious extremists are as dangerous as those in the Middle East and around the globe. Just in case there is an Iron Fisted Jesus and an impending Rapture, I am signing off by wishing you a Merry Christmas!”

• Christian Zionism and the Palestinian State “America is slowly realizing that it is the American Zionists – Christians and Jewish – that actually prefer Israel to America. They conspired to conscript the U.S. government on behalf of a foreign power. They lied, deceived and planned to take America into a spiral war – the Iraqi invasion being the first of that long list of yet-to-take dirty wars – to apparently secure and strengthen the rogue state of Israel.”

• Christian Zionism: Terror in Jesus’ Name – “Christian Zionism is a call for global war. The belief that Christianity is the sole truth, that all other faiths are ‘Satanic’ or ‘false’, that the Jews must all gather in Palestine to fulfil so-called Biblical prophecies, and that a grand global war will soon erupt leading to the massacre of hundreds of millions and heralding the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, who will establish his Christian kingdom extending till the four corners of the world, clearly indicate the hate-driven, global expansionist project of Christian Zionism. “

• Mixing Prophecy and Politics in the Holy Land – Jane Lampman for CSM “Ray Sanders and his wife, Sharon, grew up on farms in the American Midwest, but Israel has long been their home. Their journey began in the 1970s, when they read Hal Lindsey’s apocalyptic bestseller, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which laid out a scenario for the end of the world according to a literal interpretation of Bible prophecies.  “That awakened our understanding to Israel and its prophetic role in the Last Days,” Mr. Sanders explains in his spacious Jerusalem office. “That was a real paradigm shift in our lives.”   —  (Premillennial Dispensationalism) divides history into eras (dispensations) based on a complex interpretation of biblical texts in books such as Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. Most other Christian groups view these prophecies as predictions fulfilled long ago or as visions with a purely symbolic or spiritual meaning. But premillennialists insist they will occur on earth in the future.”

• Muslim American Society: Apocalypse Bush! “The End Times provide the ultimate meaning, the final straw, the only thing worth caring about, because it defines the BushCo worldview like nothing else except maybe embarrassing grammar and crushing deficits and a secret craving for gin.”

• Israel’s unholy alliance with US right  – “the section in Revelations 20 that predicts the doom of the present world and the second coming of Christ … These are the preconditions for the “rapture.”.

• In tough times, Israel finds a friend in Evangelicals “During an exuberant opening ceremony for the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles conference organized by the International Christian Embassy, more than 3,000 pilgrims from dozens of countries displayed their love of the Jewish state, its people and its policies.”

• More Jews welcome Evangelical Support “Fundamentalist Christian support of Israel, taken to its logical conclusion, is a statement that the Jewish people must cease to exist and accept Christ as their savior,” he said. “In one way, Israel and those who love Israel are grateful to have Christian support. On the other hand, to understand it fully means to understand that essentially it’s rooting for our demise.”

• The Bible is their ‘Road Map’ – Christian Zionists meet to plan strategy to spoil Bush’s peace plan

• Pat Robertson gets ovation over Israel comments at temple – “Rev. Pat Robertson, a television evangelist who founded the Christian Coalition, told a synagogue audience last night that his support for the state of Israel is not based on theology..”

• An unholy alliance with the Christian Right “Evangelist Christians from South Carolina paid for the huge billboard on the Ayalon Highway declaring “There’s no land for peace.” TV evangelist Pat Robertson last week reprimanded Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, saying “Who do you think you are, handing Jerusalem over to Arafat?”

• 2003: Why Christians Support Israel “Undeterred by the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the widespread hostility toward Christians in the Middle East, throngs of Christians immigrate each year to the Holy Land. Indeed, Israel is the only state in the Middle East where the Christian population is actually growing.”

• The double-edged Evangelical embrace “the importance of the return of Jewish people to Israel is a major sign pointing to the “end times”

• 12/12/12: Another Year, Another Would-Be Apocalypse “Apocalypses use images of end times as a way of shaping present action. John, for instance, wanted his audience to reject claims of political “beasts” that promise wealth, status and luxury, and to imagine the possibility of becoming a community, a “New Jerusalem,” marked by divine compassion and the healing of nations.”

• Why the Apocalypse Is So Compelling “The reasons behind why apocalyptic movements suddenly gain traction tell us a lot about ourselves and our society. We think about the end not merely during times of stress, but during times of uncertainty. That said, we can all look forward to the next round of apocalyptic hysteria in 2012.”

• Allies for Armageddon (2007)  “For armies of eager decoders of bible prophecy, the signing of the Balfour Declaration and General Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem had little to do with righting a historic injustice or with winning the war, but everything to do with Jesus’s Second Coming.” (p. 123)

• Do todays earthquakes and storms point to Christs Second Coming A new book, The Book of Truth Volume One, claims to contain divine messages from Jesus Christ given to the author warning of the end times which are near.  is a serious position within the Evangelical community. For you disbelievers (including my students) I have included a picture of their booth at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Milwaukee, where I am today. I did not just make this stuff up.”

• Is This the final move towards the destruction of Jerusalem? “As the conflict escalates between Israel and Gaza, one cannot help but wonder if this will turn into the final, decisive conflict.” November 17, 2012

• The End of Prophecy in AD70 “In teaching Revelation last year and preaching it at the Winema Week of Missions last summer, I have talked about this new preterism (what I call neo-preterist). The usual response: people can’t believe this

• Israel and prophecy writers are in the news again “Contrary to dispensationalism’s future holocaust, preterists believe that Jesus predicted that a great tribulation would take place within a generation of the prophetic discourse He gave on the Mount of Olives. For forty years, Jesus’ disciple preached the gospel throughout the Roman Empire warning Jews everywhere of the coming judgment. Those living in Judea at the time were warned to flee before the judgment. Just like Jesus predicted, the judgment of Jerusalem came by way of the Roman armies led by Titus. Those who heeded Jesus’ warning survived.”

• Kingdom through Covenant: A (dispensational) Review “Two profs from Southern Seminary published a biblical theology earlier this year that “fell like a bomb on the playground of the [biblical] theologians,” particularly disrupting the contented play of those of us hailing from either one of  the two traditional camps—i.e., dispensational and covenant theology. In it the authors, one a systematician (Stephen Wellum) and the other an OT scholar (Peter Gentry), argue for a middle way between these traditional polarities, calling their view progressive covenantalism.”

• Chuck Smith Says the End is Near – AGAIN! | American Vision Chuck Smith is predicting that the end is near – again! At a three-day conference, with 8000 in attendance and the usual suspects misinforming thousands about Bible prophecy, Smith, the founder of Calvary Chapel, delivered “a strong message of hope in a fallen world,” the Christian Post reported.

• Harold Camping: I Won’t Predict Apocalypse Again “America’s favorite doomsday prophet issued a belated apology letter yesterday, admitting he was wrong about the rapture coming on May 21 . (No specific mention of his subsequent prediction”

• Don’t you fret about the end of the world Philip Schroeder, San Antonio Preterist “There are people today, who spend all their time with a Bible in one hand and their newspaper in the other, worrying about the future so much that they are doing nothing to improve the present.”

•  12-21-2012 Just Another Day 12-21-12 is just the end of the Mayan calendar cycle, as December 31st is “the end” of our calendar cycle for the year

• Huff Post, Michael Meade, D.H.L. Why the World Doesn’t End “While the raw energies of life may become uncovered and the troubles of the world may intensify, there is a simultaneous possibility that hidden meanings might become revealed and new ways of proceeding become discovered. Part of the revelation of the end-times is that things do not actually end altogether. The “world as we know it” may come to an end; that has happened many times before. Yet the fiery conclusion of all of creation, so greatly feared and seemingly near at hand, never quite arrives. The final judgment keeps being postponed and the literal end of time remains an unfulfilled prediction. “

• The Dispensational View of Double Fulfillment of Prophecy “So, Joel McDurmon and Gentry (and we could add DeMar and other postmillennialists to the list) are on record as rejecting the Dispensational “double fulfillment” view of prophecy. So after rejecting and condemning the Dispensationalists for positing the Double Fulfillment of prophecy, McDurmon not only affirmed Double Fulfillment, he affirmed Many Fulfillments!”

• 2002: David Corn – Inhofe’s Pro-Armageddon Politics : Why Conservative Christians Back a Genesis-Inspired Mid-East Peace Map (2002) “One of the reason I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America,” Inhofe huffed, “is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them.”

• ‘End Times’ Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon – LA Times “In Christian theology, the first thing that happens when Christ returns to Earth is the judgment of nations,” said Hagee, who wears a Jewish prayer shawl when he ministers. “It will have one criterion: How did you treat the Jewish people? Anyone who understands that will want to be on the right side of that question. Those who are anti-Semitic will go to eternal damnation.”

• Some Fundamentalists Ache for Armageddon – “It’s time to bring out into the open one of the largest political supports for Israeli radicals and debate how some religious leaders, particularly the Reverends Falwell and Robertson, push support for the most militant, settler lobbyists in Israel and against the Israeli peace groups such as led by the murdered Yitzak Rabin.  Many fundamentalist leaders have crossed the line from forecasting Armageddon to trying to bring it about.  Their alliance with the Zionist radicals is very two sided, each thinks it is using the other for its greater benefit.”

• Christian Zionists: Ahmadinejad is new Hitler  “Christians United for Israel call on US to attack Iran immediately, move US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as sign of support”

• JewishJournal: Hagee’s speech backing Israel alarms some “But that reaction ignores the fact that Christian Zionists like Hagee are increasingly trying to affect U.S. Mideast policy. The biblical perspective shaping that activism offers only more war and new holocausts for the Jews, not the peace that Israelis crave.”

• Lusting After Apocalypse – “The Rapture is a racket,” Barbara Rossing accuses unapologetically in her 2004 book The Rapture Exposed. In this bold study, Rossing outlines how the theology of the Left Behind series represents a very real danger because of its promotion of ethnocentric mentalities, irresponsible environmental ethics and a militaristic political agenda in America. The most disturbing example she gives is in the realm of Middle East politics. Premillennial dispensationalists believe that the Bible names the rebuilding of Israel as a necessary precursor for Christ’s return. So was born an American fundamentalist movement known as Christian Zionism, which unilaterally supports the expansion of the modern state of Israel. This alliance between Christian and Jewish Zionists is deeply ambivalent, however, as the former also believes that Christ will not return until the great suffering of Israel and the eventual conversion of his chosen people. Besides their obvious offensiveness to Jews, Rossing points out that such groups look forward to “tribulation and war in the Middle East, not peace plans.”

• America Obsessed with Future Apocalypse – Tom Harpur of Toronto Star “Revelation has absolutely nothing specific to say about events today or events tomorrow. Fundamentalists conveniently skip over the fact that its very first verse says its contents are about happenings that will occur “speedily” and verse three underlines this by saying the time spoken of is “near” at hand. Nothing could be clearer.”

• Ohio Star-Beacon: The End is Coming Has Already Come “The rapture and Armageddon sell books and make for great movies, but preterists say the ‘end of the age’ occurred in A.D. 70”

• Waiting for the Sky Taxi – “Oh, those wacky Rapture-maniacs.  How we love to mock them, with their bizarre “countdown clocks” and their tacky literature and their oh-so-mockable bumper stickers. And there is much within the bizarre range of pre-millenialist theology that would be comical, if it weren’t for the astonishing numbers of humorlessly devout believers in this nihilistic mutation of Christian eschatology.”
• Apocalypse, inc. “For the past five decades, every decade has increased the number of earthquakes, killer earthquakes we’re talking about,” said Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind novel series, speaking in January on MSNBC, as reported on the network’s Web site. “And the good thing about all of this is, it points out that man really has to get right before God, because the time is short.”Online Opinion – Apocalypse: Why we shouldn’t fear if the end is nigh – “One of the jokes against religion appears in cartoon form, a little raggedy man holding up a sign that says, “The End is Nigh”. There have been a large number of real life doom-sayers in our history, even famous ones like Isaac Newton, who spent years calculating the exact date of the end of the world from biblical texts and came up with the year 2060, so we still have some time left.  Well, he was right about gravity!”

• Seattle P-I: I’ll gladly stay behind “A neighbor recently insisted I read the Left Behind series. “Especially now after 9/11,” he said, “and the blessed countdown for the Rapture has begun.” “Why are you so … well, cheerful, about the end of the Earth?” I asked him.”

• Newton’s Strange Bedfellows “Every century since the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) was voted into the New Testament has been marked around its beginnings and ending by an outbreak of “these are the last days” thinking and prophesying in the churches and their offshoots.  Beware of any preacher, astrologer, or visionary who proclaims that “this is it.” Newton was dead wrong and so are all the would-be apocalyptic experts today.”

• Media Monitors: Uses and Abuses of Bible Prophecy (Rossing Influenced by DeMar) – “Mainline Christians left the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation to the fundamentalists for interpretation. As a result, Revelation theology became the dominant, Christian interpretation – a prophetic, apocalyptic interpretation – that fuels a lucrative prophecy industry.”

• Don’t Know Much “I continue with commentator Nicholas Kristof and his protest against the Left Behind series of books authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which preaches the death of all people except the Christian Zionists. Kristof ridiculed the idea of the end of days, pointing out that those predicting an apocalypse have a “long and lousy” record.”

• Reaching to the Choir – “The fundamentalist Christian Zionist movement is especially vexing to (President Jimmy) Carter. Conservative evangelicals like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay offer unilateral support to Israel based on the New Testament prophecy that the reconstruction of the ancient kingdom of David will usher in the “end times” and the Second Coming of Christ. Carter summarily dismissed this cause, tersely calling it “a completely foolish and erroneous interpretation of the Scriptures.” “And,” he went on, “it has resulted in these last few years with a terrible, very costly, and bloody deterioration in the relationship between Israel and its neighbor. … [T]his administration, maybe strongly influenced by ill-advised theologians of the extreme religious right, has pretty well abandoned any real effort that could lead to a resolution of the problems between Israel and the Palestinians.”

• CSM: The End of the World “Today, as belief in this end-times prophecy sees a resurgence among Americans – partly because of the phenomenal success of the “Left Behind” series of novels (58 million sold) and the disturbing “signs” of terrorism and war – Mr. Currie and others are seeking to refute the apocalyptic theology.”

• TIME: Cover Story: Apocalypse Now “For evangelical Christians with an interest in prophecy, the headlines always come with asterisks pointing to scriptural footnotes.”

• TIME: The Bible and the Apocalypse “Since Sept. 11, people from cooler corners of Christianity have begun asking questions about what the Bible has to say about how the world ends, and preachers have answered their questions with sermons they could not have imagined giving a year ago”

• Once Upon End Time – “Ever since the dawn of Christianity, groups of believers have searched the scriptures for signs of the End Time and the Second Coming. Today, most of the roughly 50 million right-wing fundamentalist Christians in the United States believe in some form of End-Time theology.”

• Oregon Live! – Wars! Earthquakes! Pestilences! – “James knows that not all Christians see scripture and the signs the same way he and Strandberg and the whole Left Behind crowd do. The Web site gets a lot of critical mail, and some of it is posted online. “Some people get really hostile over anything on the site,” James says. “To me, that shows the truth of what we’re doing.”

• Miss. Clarion Ledger – End of Times: Faithful see signs… (again) “This war in the Middle East has a different feeling from the other wars,” says the Rev. Jason Dillon, associate pastor of of Parkway Pentecostal Church in Madison. “I believe the end of times is much closer now.  There has been no shortage of fulfilled prophecies, including “earthquakes, pestilences, famines,” Dillon says. “We’ve seen it all.”

• Times UK – As scientists predict scientifict disaster, others foresee Apocalypse “Sales of apocalyptic literature have grown hugely in recent times: the doom boom is nigh. While scientists give warning of scientific disaster — Atlantic hurricanes, a new European ice age as the Gulf Stream dies, the disintegration of the Antarctic ice shelf — others foresee Apocalypse, Armageddon and Rapture, the bodily ascent to Heaven of the saved. A recent poll in Newsweek showed that some 55 per cent of Americans believe in the Rapture, and more than a third believe that the world will end as predicted in the Book of Revelation. The 12 novels in the Left Behind series of Christian apocalyptic fiction have sold more than 63 million copies. “

• Kait8: Apocalypse Now? – “Mike Glover is the Pastor at First Assembly of God in Jonesboro (AR). “Some of those last things that Jesus talked about are taking place as I said, in repetition, closer and closer together as a woman would give birth the scripture describes it. The contractions are closer and the intensity becomes greater and that’s what we’re seeing,” said Glover. “

• Codfish Press: End Game for the End Times – “Is anyone listening? Are these signs of the apocalypse detailed in the Book of Daniel, the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Revelation, or are we just having a global stretch of bad luck? “

• MI News: Quakes, Pandemic, Floods = Second Coming? MichNews – “The Church Age will conclude with the Battle of Armageddon in the Valley of Megiddo in the northwestern section of Israel. At height of the Battle, Christ will return to Earth with His angels and the redeemed of all time. They will establish a millennial reign upon the planet. Christ will be regarded as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  All of this is planted in the Scripture and researched by serious Bible students. They can see the Bible come to life daily when hearing the news. They can put “two and two together” as never before. It’s amazing. “

• Baptist Standard – Bumper crop of disasters wratchets up “Rapture Index” – “Not all Christians have jumped on the rapture bandwagon. Many see it as a modern twisting of what they believe biblical prophecy really is–not so much predictive as prescriptive.    Barbara Rossing, a New Testament professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, is familiar with the website but doesn’t think it holds much appeal for Christians like her who have condemned the Left Behind series and argue the rapture is not a biblical concept. She wrote The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. (Rapture Ready fella Terry) James is familiar with the criticism, and it doesn’t shake his confidence in the rapture.  “I’m of the opinion that every Christian will go (in the rapture), regardless of the state of their walk with Jesus,” he said. “We’re all in God’s family.”

• SacBee: Time of the Signs – “These are busy days for Pastor Nathaniel Wilson. He believes they may also be his last.  ‘I believe we are in the end times because the Scripture tells us so,’ says Wilson, founding pastor of The Rock Church, a thriving Pentecostal church on the outskirts of Elk Grove..   The pastor is overseeing a new 92,000-square-foot sanctuary that is scheduled to break ground next month and is expected to complete construction in a year.”

• Doomsayer heaven “In trying to create one overarching interpretation, they are not allowing for the complexity of the biblical witness to come through,” he says. “The irony is, in their quest for accuracy, biblical literalists are forced to misread the Bible.”

• Red Heifer Days “Our eschatological heifer story begins on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where tens of millions of Jews, Muslims, and Christians believe the central events of each tradition’s Last Days will play out”

• CSM: Mixing Prophecy and Politics in the Holy Land – “Ray Sanders and his wife, Sharon, grew up on farms in the American Midwest, but Israel has long been their home. Their journey began in the 1970s, when they read Hal Lindsey’s apocalyptic bestseller, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which laid out a scenario for the end of the world according to a literal interpretation of Bible prophecies.  “That awakened our understanding to Israel and its prophetic role in the Last Days,” Mr. Sanders explains in his spacious Jerusalem office. “That was a real paradigm shift in our lives.”

• MCNews: In the Works: Jerusalem Temple – “Therefore, with this US Republican Congresswoman strongly entrenched in her project, evangelical Christians, all along, are watching most interestingly for they consider such occurrences as part of biblical prophecy unfolding. And the more biblical signs unfold, the more evangelical Christians perceive the onrush toward the Second Coming of Christ. The evangelicals keep researching their Scriptures, sharing notes and scanning the daily news headlines. The erection of the next temple would certainly fit in grandly with all of that.”

• Village Voice: In Line for the Rapture “The Apostolic Congress, a Christian Zionist movement, has some attentive ears in the White House. How much influence do they wield on American policy in Israel?” Affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church, the Apostolic Congress is part of an important and disciplined political constituency courted by recent Republican administrations. As a subset of the broader Christian Zionist movement, it has a lengthy history of opposition to any proposal that will not result in what it calls a “one-state solution” in Israel.”

• Baltimore.:Messing with Texas – “Like many born-again Christians, DeLay believes strongly in the end times. DeLay sees the West Bank as the ancient kingdoms of Samaria and Judea, which must be reunited before the second coming. He openly opposed Bush’s “road map to peace” as too soft on the Palestinians.”
• Bizarro Bush “Get ready for the Rapture, my friends, and make sure you pull that lever and vote Republican – because if you don’t, then we’ll be spared the fulfillment of all those dire Biblical prophecies, and the Second Coming will be delayed. Yes, the Rapturists are crazed enough to believe that human intervention can have an effect on the timing.”

• Rapture Index (Mad Theology!) “The Rapture Index “precursors” (including “Antichrist”) are on earth even AFTER the point in time for a “pretrib” rapture, are fulfilled DURING the seven-year tribulation period, and actually point to ONLY the (posttribulation) Second Coming to earth and not to any sort of “pretribulation” coming – a concept that NO church before 1830 ever taught!”

• Lebanon and the Christian Zionist Apocalypse “When Israel began bombing Lebanon this summer, participants of the Rapture Ready web message forum welcomed the conflagration as a sign of the apocalyptic End Times anticipated by some evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the United States

• Holy Land churches attack Christian Zionism “The Christian Zionist programme provides a world view where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism,” said the declaration, accusing Christian Zionists of hurting hopes for Middle East peace.

• Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Religion and Politics “A recent national poll of over 2,000 Americans found that the majority of white evangelical Protestants and those in the South support the belief that the state of Israel was given to the Jewish people by God. Among the surveyed religious groups, white evangelical Protestants stand out with 69 percent supporting the belief that God gave Israel to the Jewish people, according to the survey released by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life last week. Moreover, a full 59 percent subscribe to the belief that Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The views were also well accepted among black protestants with 60 percent believing Israel was given to the Jews by God and 56 percent believing Israel fulfills the prophecy of the second coming. “

• US support for Israel soars after Hizbullah war “Some 42 percent of Americans believe “Israel was given to the Jewish people by God,” while 35% said they believed the state of Israel was “part of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus.”

• US Attacks in MidEast unwanted around world – “Cheney and a powerful right-wing Christian lobby apparently want to provoke a war with Iran and Syria. Sydney Blumenthal, writing in the Nation, reveals that a new right-wing Christian lobby — which has easy access to the White House — encourages Israel’s expansion and aggression as it coincides with its own end times, Armageddon philosophy. “

• Uruknet: AIPAC, The Middle East, and American Foreign Policy (Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal) “So-called Christian Zionists also have a significant influence on American foreign policy, especially as it relates to the Middle East. Their propaganda has been so successful that today, forty percent of Americans believe that Israel was directly given to the Jewish people by ‘God’. One third of Americans even believe that the creation of the state of Israel, in 1948, was a step towards the ‘Second Coming of Jesus Christ’ and the ‘End of the world’.  

• 2/10/12:  Jerusalem’s Temple Mount epicenter of End of Days battle in world religious conflict

• 2/10/12: The Importance of Revelation’s Date | Against Dispensationalism “Our blog seeks to explain, promote and defend postmillennialism, which is optimistic about the future conquest of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

• 1/28/12: World will survive latest end-date “Madness about the world ending this year has increased to the point where, if you Google December 21, 2012, you get over two billion hits.”

• 1/12/11: A Brief Critique of Dispensationalism – The following is a brief, yet potent, argument against the errors of the Eschatological doctrine commonly known as Dispensationalism by Richard Jones.

• 1/11/12: Doomsday Clock Moves One Minute Closer to Armageddon “Faced with clear and present dangers of nuclear proliferation and climate change, and the need to find sustainable and safe sources of energy, world leaders are failing to change business as usual,” said Lawrence Krauss, a board member of the BAS.”

• Forget 2012, expert says world ends in 500M years | CTV News

• Author Stands Up for Israel, Yet Claims it Has No Special Prophetic Role – Christian Newswire “Publisher Gerald Christian Nordskog points out that modern-day Israel does not represent the chosen people of the Old Testament, which was divorced by God in 70 AD through the Great Tribulation Destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple by the Romans.”

• Mideast action at U.N. casts spotlight on Christian Zionism CNN: “”As a Christian I have a clear directive to support Israel,” Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said in New York on Tuesday, after delivering a speech blaming the U.N. and President Barack Obama for the Palestinian statehood push. A U.S.-based group called Christians United for Israel, meanwhile, this week organized a campaign of more than 45,000 e-mails of support to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

• Woman sues state over mandatory ‘mark of the beast’  (2011) “A demand by the state of Oklahoma for people to submit to biometric digital photographs, which are stored and shared without their knowledge in order to obtain a driver’s license is a violation of the state’s residents’ religious rights”

• 9/2/11: Pravda: Gov. Rick Perry wrong about Israel and prophecy “The Apostle Paul uses the same word “elements” in the Greek to refer to religious beliefs and principles (Colossians 2:20). The “heavens” represent God’s relationship to Judaism. All this will be permanently done away with upon Christ’s return accompanying the destruction of the Jewish Temple and Jerusalem (which occurred in 70 A.D.) ” // Comment: “Why do hyperpreterists continually narrowly define Greek words to suit their presuppositions? The context is “the earth” and “heavens destroyed.” Go back to verse 5. What earth is being spoken of there? Was the flood that destroyed the elements in Noah’s time also figurative? The “present heavens and earth” (v. 7) is the contextual setting. Where is the plain passage that tells us that “heavens” is “God’s relationship to Judaism?”

• Beck Is Not Pushing For The Destruction Of Jerusalem But … “Others are apparently concerned that Beck is one of the small minority of extremist Christian Zionists who are actively looking to cause trouble in the area to hasten the fulfillment of biblical policies. In fact, according to Beck, one reporter went as far as asking him whether he was pushing for “the destruction of Jerusalem to hasten the return of the Messiah.”

• 6/13/11: Malawian Man Sentenced For Wrongly Predicting End Of The World It’s bad enough that the world didn’t end on May 21 for followers of Christian fringe group leader Harold Camping, but things got worse for a Malawian disciple who pleaded guilty for distributing false leaflets about the end of the world. Saduki Mwambene, a 39-year-old bicycle repairman, got six months”

• 5/24/11: Preacher says world will actually end in October A California preacher who foretold of the world’s end only to see the appointed day pass with no extraordinarily cataclysmic event has revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

• 5/20/11: Everyday Rapture Some are convinced that The Rapture will occur on May 21, 2011. But days and hours are the provenance of God, not man, and in a way Raptures happen every day, in many ways.

• 5/20/11: The Biblical Nature of Hoppean Monarchism by Ryan Bassett “Recently, after having read a preterist interpretation of the Book of Daniel something leapt out of the page. There appears to be a biblical basis for the Hoppean thesis of the corrupt nature of Democratic mob rule as opposed to the somewhat lesser tyranny of traditional monarchism. Notice the following excerpt from a discussion regarding the prophesy of the 7th chapter of Daniel”

• 5/20/11: Judgment Day ‘Rapture Parties’ planned as evangelist Harold Camping predicts huge earthquake Harold Camping is certain that Saturday is Judgment Day – and just in case he’s right, some Americans are making the most of their time left with ‘Rapture Parties’ across the country.

• 5/19/11: ‘Rapture’ Movement Predicts End of the World on Saturday A loosely organized Christian movement has spread the word around the globe that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday to gather the faithful into heaven. While the Christian mainstream isn’t buying it, many other skeptics are milking it.

• 5/18/11: End of World Prophecy Attracts Followers, Provokes Ridicule

• May 21, 2011: Is it the end of the world? Groups prepare for Judgment Day

• What can we learn by comparing the old and new covers of Left Behind It’s unlikely that you haven’t heard of the Left Behind series of Christian fiction. Since 1995, the epic, 12-book apocalyptic fantasy series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has sold more than 63 million copies in many languages.

• Preacher spawns the latest apocalypse movement Christian radio host Harold Camping is garnering national attention for his numerology predicting the Second Coming of Christ this year.

• Is Japan Disaster Another Apocalyptic Sign? “Does such an idea reflect merely the hardhearted ravings of religious fanatics bent on making a buck from humanity’s misery, or is it possible that planet earth is indeed approaching the biblical “end of days”?

• Japan Quake, Tsunami ‘End Times’ Sign, Say Some Evangelical Christians – “Sumatra 9.1, Katrina, Rita, massive flooding in Australia, birds and fish dying around the world, bees disappearing, Middle East uprisings, and now Japan’s killer quake.” (Don’t forget “dogs and cats living together”)

• Armageddon Entrepreneurs: Who’s Profiting From Fear? “Left Behind co-author Tim LaHaye has already been tying the disaster in Japan to his reading of the Bible: “The Bible tells us in Matthew 24 that one of the signs of the last days — one of the birth pangs to occur — is an increase in earthquake activity and intensity,” he told WorldNetDaily. “

• Jack Fruchtman: Apocalyptic Politics of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley: A Study in Late Eighteenth-Century English Republican Millennialism (2007)

• The Ninety-Five Theses Against Dispensationalism “Contrary to dispensationalists’ view of the mark of the beast, most of them seeing in the beast’s number a series of three sixes, the Bible presents it not as three numbers (6-6-6) but one singular number (666) with the total numerical value of  “six hundred and sixty-six” (Rev 13:18b).”  (Don’t Forget About Earliest Witness to the Number of the Beast: 616)

• STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF AMERICAN MILLENNIALISM (2008 PDF) By Army Major Brian L. Stuckert / Premil Response: “This is an emergency that we all must act on and right now. This posting is an United States Army report about the literal believers of the Bible and how they affect American foreign policy. It is the most dangerous document to believers that I have ever read in my entire life. After reading this document, it is easy to see the next step would be to eliminate our Constitutional rights and herd us into concentration camps.” (John McTernan) “This report is so outrageous that I called and spoke Colonel Stefan Banack who is the Director, School of Advanced Military Studies and responsible for this study (I listed his telephone number above and recommend that you call him.) He acknowledged the study and DEFENDED it! The conversation was extremely heated between us, and he hid behind the freedom of speech to produce it. He refused to let me write an article to refute this attack on Bible believers.”