Bilderberg.org

[TonyGosling]

The Doomsday Code
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/doomsday.html

In this Channel 4 documentary Tony Robinson investigates the people with powerful political friends in the White House, who are trying to bring about the end of the world. Julia Bard reports

Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, is filled with bizarre, violent and terrifying images. Its origins are unclear and its content is controversial. Some say it is the work of St John but many others believe he could not have been the author. But whoever wrote it, described apocalyptic visions of plagues, famines, wars, devils, wild beasts and rivers of blood. It is so strange and complex that scholars down the centuries have continually reinterpreted its message and meaning.

Today, though, a growing number of American evangelical Christians reckon they have cracked the code. These End Timers believe that every weird word of Revelation predicts real events. Like a Hollywood sci fi movie they say that any time now the world will end. And when it does, true believers in Christ will be whisked up to heaven in an event called The Rapture while non-believers are left behind on earth to face famine, war, terror and destruction as the forces of good and evil fight to the bitter end.
Political implications

If this was confined to the personal beliefs of a few fundamentalists it would be of little significance but, says Tony Robinson, the leaders of the End Time movement are rich, well-connected and very powerful. Though the USA constitution enshrines the separation of church and state End Timers are frequent visitors to the White House. No one knows if George W Bush is an End Timer himself, but his policies are at one with those of the evangelical Right and his language is often apocalyptic, such as when he describes the 'war on terror' as 'the epic struggle of good and evil'.
Jerusalem

According to the prophecy, Jerusalem is where this final battle is to be played out. No stranger to conflict and violence, this city is the focus of End Timers' dreams of eternal paradise, because, according to their beliefs, this is where Christ will come back to earth. But first, they say, the Jews must return. End Timers believe that the establishment of the State of israel in 1948 was a fulfilment of the biblical prophecy and that since then 'the last days clock has been ticking'.

Many of them interpret the US government's policies on Israel and the Middle East from a biblical point of view. Before the war in Iraq, the USA supported a negotiated settlement in which Israel would return the Occupied Territories to the Palestinians. By 2004, after a torrent of criticism of the Roadmap to Peace, Bush's position had changed and now there is no call for a large-scale withdrawal from the West Bank.

End Timers parade through the streets of Jerusalem and take large amounts of cash to illegal West Bank settlements to encourage the residents to entrench themselves more deeply on this Palestinian land. In Jerusalem itself, Jews are being bankrolled by Christian fundamentalists to reside in Arab houses. The End Timers think that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke ('was removed from the scene') because he wanted to give back some of the Palestinian land.

Many Israelis are very worried about the kind of 'support' they are being offered. One journalist says that this is not based on Israel's needs and that there is no support for peacemaking. On the contrary, the agenda of the Evangelicals is war, so as to fulfil violent prophecy of Revelation.

Provocatively, some End Timers have joined forces with a fundamentalist Jewish group who want to rebuild the Temple of Solomon – touching on the ancient Jewish yearning for their destroyed Temple. But the place where they plan to build it has deep meaning for the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Temple Mount, where Islam's 3rd most holy site, Al-Aqsa Mosque, is situated, is the spot where Muslim, Jewish and Christian believers think that God created Adam, Abraham prepared his son Isaac to be sacrificed, and according to his vision, Muhammed was carried on a winged horse.

Mainstream Christians in the locality are appalled. They say attempts to rebuild the Temple are inflammatory and threaten to unleash even more bloodshed in the Middle East.
Predictions of war

Could it be that this is precisely what they are trying to provoke, in order to hasten the end of days? According to End Timers, when the believers are whisked up to heaven those left behind will face the ultimate battle between good and evil. It will take seven years to count the dead, they say – the time of Tribulation, a hell on earth. Israel will survive, according to this story, but will have a sudden victory only after a long war. Some say this means nuclear war and they support the war in Iraq because they believe that will bring it closer. Megiddo is the Hebrew name for Armageddon: the town where this carnage will occur.

For some End Timers, all this is big – very big – business. Tim LaHaye's Christian fiction series, Left Behind, has sold 63 million books, and movies of the books have been made by Cloud Ten Pictures. The internet is awash with websites which tell you how to prepare for The Rapture, and there are American shops to sell you everything you need to survive (for around $3,000) if you're unfortunate enough to be left behind.

The concept of the Antichrist originated in Medieval times, and is not found in the Bible. Nevertheless these evangelical Christians believe that the Antichrist is 'walking among us right now', the incarnation of evil, luring people to his cause with false promises of peace. For End Timers, the United Nations, whose role is to seek and maintain peace across the world, fits this description perfectly.
Undermining Africa

Now End Time beliefs are now spreading to Africa, with dire consequences. Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, is a born again Christian who is lionised by American End Timers. An American preacher in the capital, Kampala, says that the answers to Uganda's problems are not political, economic or educational, but can be found in the Bible, which he describes as 'God's constitution for the planet'.

Newspaper editor Andrew Mwenda is appalled by these Doomsday preachers, who he believes are converting young people and diverting them from fulfilling their potential and pursuing their careers. He says: 'This country is on a highway to hell.'

Uganda was a model in Africa of AIDS education and prevention and the rate of infection was falling. Now Museveni is promoting abstinence rather than safer sex, the number of cases is rising.Teacher Julius Othieno describes children being taken out of school, and not taking medicine when they are ill, in order to hasten their death.
Revelation

What is the real source of these ideas that so many people attribute to the book of Revelation? Whoever wrote it sheltered in a cave on the Greek island of Patmos, probably a refugee from Roman occupied Palestine. He is also likely to have consumed the local hallucinogenic magic mushrooms. So rather than taking these bizarre visions literally, it might make more sense to try to understand them in their historical context.

There are some 40 apocalyptic books from this era but this was the only one that made it into the Bible. If the author was writing about the hated Roman Empire, it could be that the seven heads of the beast meant the seven emperors. The mark of the beast could be the head of the emperor on the coins. The dreaded 666 very likely represented three letters indicating the Emperor Nero – representing letters by numbers was, and is, common in Hebrew. If so, instead of being a description of a world in chaos, it could be seen as a book of morality, optimism and faith.

Let's hope the End Timers start to see it like that before their actions really do bring about the end of the world.

[TonyGosling]

Why is the Christian Right So...Un-Biblical?
by Faithful Progressive
http://blog01.kintera.com/christianalliance/archives/2007/01/why_is_the_chri.html

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a series on the Christian Right that began with my effort at defining what the Christian Right meant as a historical phenomenon. What was most striking to me was that the movement on the Right seemed to utterly ignore the parts of the Bible that meant the most to me personally: the Gospels and the Jewish Prophets. I wrote in part: It is a fundamentalist movement that largely rejects any modern method of Biblical interpretation; it focuses a lot of energy on End Times prophecy, which accounts in part for its ease in ignoring the Gospels, the actual ministry of Jesus... It seemed to me that, for all their claims of being Bible-based, huge parts of the Bible were missing in their ministry.

The Christian Right asserts for itself the mantle of biblical literalism and fidelity to the text of the Bible. Many people, on all sides, uncritically accept this premise, or "frame" (to use the buzz mot du jour.) But University of Chicago Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Margaret M. Mitchell has found that there are gaping holes--chiefly the Gospels and the prophets of Israel--in the Bible cited by Christian Right organizations on their own websites. For me, these missing parts strip the Bible of its central meaning.

The article, part of University of Chicago Religion & Culture Web Forum series is entitled, How Biblical is the Christian Right? Her conclusion-- is the Christian Right really... Biblical? Yes and no. Biblical in the sense of seeking biblical support for an agenda? Yes. Biblical in the sense of reading the whole Bible? No. Biblical in the sense of reading the Bible literally? No, not consistently. Biblical in reading parts for the whole, and in using the Bible as a source of weapons to define themselves against their enemies? Yes. Wrestling with the possible plural meanings and complex legacies of Bible itself? Not in public, at any rate.



In other words, the Christian Right "cherry-picks" the Bible to serve its political agenda. This is exactly what the Christian Right accuses progressive Christians of doing--maybe with some justifcation. Many progressive Christians do in fact give more weight to the words of the Gospels, to the Sermon on on the Mount (Plain) or the Great Commandment, than to, say, the erotic poetry found in the Song of Solomon. There is a reason many Christians stand when the Gospel is read--this is the heart of the ministry of Jesus. It would appear that this tradition does not obtain for many groups associated with the Right--perhaps they stand instead when obscure portions of Judges and Leviticus are read. These groups appear to favor those texts and utterly ignore the Gospels on their own websites.

Dr. Mitchell writes:

Conventional wisdom—on the right and on the left—in a rare show of agreement, believes that the Christian Right is the political face of a movement that is quintessentially biblical. The Christian Right equals Christians who are biblical literalists or fundamentalists who wish to reshape American culture and political life in the biblical image. Whatever else the Christian Right is, surely it is steeped in the Bible, and in a particular, literalistic reading of the Bible...But is this actually true? (snip)

Mitchell explores the websites of all the best known Christian Right groups. For example, Southern Baptist Convention minister Richard Land...

His “For Faith and Family” web site presents the reader with a link to something called the “Ethics Scripture Index,” defined as “a listing of Scriptures that relate to various ethical issues,” from “Abortion, Adoption, Bioethics, Homemaking/Domestication, to War, Wives, Women.”14 For a student of biblical interpretation, this is a simply fascinating document, both in form and in effect. It is both like and unlike the ancient “testimonia” lists, such as we find at Qumran (4 QTestim), which contain a chain of excerpted quotes about the nature and identity of the true prophet, for instance. But, tellingly, this list is inconsistent in form. Let me explain. First off, there is no explanation of what topics or which passages are chosen or why, and in the vast majority of cases all one sees is a citation, not the text itself (that also has the nice effect of not confusing people who read their Bible in a different translation, and hence might find rather different wording which might call into question the aptness of its place there). And this method presumes that the whole column speaks with one voice about the issue, which means that there is already a pre-determined decision about the “biblical view” on the given issue. No hermeneutical rule of thumb or guidance is given on such issues as the relationship between the Old and New Testament in Christian law or regulation, nor about how different biblical genres relate to divine teaching and biblical truth (law, narrative, parable, and proverb are all treated the same). But one gets some glimpses of the interpretive work behind this list (and the rhetorical effect it is designed to have) because sometimes a paraphrase or explanation is appended to one or more items in each categorical list.

If we take these as indicative of some higher level of interest, investment or possible debate on the topic, it is quite interesting that under “Hunger,” for instance, only fifteen citations are given, but no comments (obviously not an important issue). Astoundingly, Luke’s second beatitude (“Blessed are those who hunger now” [Luke 6:21]) did not even make the list. By contrast, “Gambling” receives double the references “Hunger” has (thirty—Land does not have the same problem as the Dobson site in acknowledging that the Bible does not mention gambling), as well as some interpretive comments (my favorite: next to 1 Cor. 16:1-3, Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians on putting money aside each week for the saints in Jerusalem are glossed, “can’t give to a collection if your money is gambled away”!). The category that had by far the most listings was “Money”: 123 citations, but not a single interpretive comment.

The contemporary significance of these strategically-placed comments seems clear when one looks at the category “War” (there is none for “Peace”). Of sixty-six citations, fully fourteen were singled out for comment:

Gen. 14:13-16 Abram rescues Lot through warfare
Deut. 2:5, 9, 19, 32-35 God’s sovereignty in war
Josh. 6-12 aggressive in God’s plan for victory
1 Sam. 15:1-3 total annihilation of enemy
2 Sam. 5:17-25 preventative, consulted God beforehand
Luke 6:27-36 [sic; possibly 7:2-10] Jesus did not command the centurion to abandon his job now that he was a Christian

While it is easy to think of this as a literalistic proof-texting, it is not just that, but a highly creative rearrangement of selective pieces of the biblical record to justify a previously reached conclusion (in this case, apparently, the invasion of Iraq). Sometimes Land does include passages that might complicate the picture, but his own interpretive comments draw attention away from them. For example, we read “Rom. 12:2 our ways are separate from the world’s ways,” but would hardly realize that under the listing Rom. 12:17-21 lies a text that contains both the actual word peace (Rom. 12:2 does not) and a command related to it: “if it is possible by your agency, live in peace with all people” (Rom. 12:1. It bears noting, in relation to my larger thesis, that it is Christian peace-makers of various stripes—not the Christian Right—who are the literalists when it comes to the latter verse. (SNIP)


How is the Christian Right Biblical?

Thus far we have examined the modes of biblical interpretation found in the web-face of the Christian Right. My thesis is that what makes the Christian Right biblical is not a literalistic hermeneutic so much as a mode of argumentation by reference to a deliberately selective set of biblical passages, annexed to the predetermined cause through a variety of exegetical moves, which are usually unexplained because they depend upon prior agreement of the ends of interpretation. And I have shown examples where there is a lot less biblical study going on than one might expect. The Christian Right represents biblical interpretation in a conjunction of two selective circles: of what are the key issues in the political realm and what are the central passages in the biblical record. It represents an odd alignment of each. The canonical delineation is striking—a focus on the Old Testament, with special prominence given to Judges and 1 and 2 Chronicles, as well as to Genesis and Leviticus; and in the New Testament, to selected moralizing passages of the Pauline letters and Revelation. It is easy to see then what is missing: the prophets of Israel and the teachings of Jesus (the Gospels). Along with them go concern with social/political issues such as economic inequality, peace-making, love and forgiveness, and critique of religious hypocrisy (just to choose a few!).

The key to this selectivity is the wholesale adoption by the Christian Right of one strand of biblical thinking, apocalyptic. And apocalyptic is indisputably in the Bible, though it is not everywhere in the Bible, or necessarily quintessentially biblical.

[MrGinger]

In the gospels you will see many times the bible bashers having a go at jesus, they go by the name of the pharasises.
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Serious questions about the Occult - pm me.

[MrGinger]

Another aspect that is worth mentioning is that bible talks about the rise of a false religon. If you ask me, this false religon is the so called "Christian Right"

The Christian right themselves have no serious arguement to the identity of this false religion. They suggest the usual suspects like the catholic church, forgetting that the bible is speaking of a new religion that appears only during the end time phase.

The other aspect worth mentioning, is that they think america is not mentioned in the end times prophecy. This is patently false teaching, but that is another story. The point I would make is what they teach, not what I think.

Unlike them, I am open minded on this issue.

The more truth full authors write about Bildenberg, Trilateral Commission, and so on and so forth.
_________________
Serious questions about the Occult - pm me.

[TruthLeeds]

I know a number of 'Evangelical' Christians. Although I wouldn't describre them as Right Wing, they do have most of the same docterines as the phoney Christians in the US.

They love Romas 13 and laying down to government.

My brothers (a Pastor) interpretation of 'If you are a whatcher on the wall and do not warn the people the enemy is coming the blood is on your hands' was bizzare mindwarp logic sayong Christ was the whatcher! So they don't have to do anything.

He also thinks microchips as the MOTB ridiculous.

All pretty much exactly as Alex Jones describes the fake Christians in the US.

[TonyGosling]

God, I hope there aren't as many of them over here as the nutty Christian Right in the US