The CHL and the Religious Right
As the intelligent but deeply misguided Bill Moyers points out: "the delusional is no longer marginal." Which brings me to the Religious Right. many of you are too young to remember James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior under Reagan. This is the guy who told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Watt was on to something. Millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not
only to be disregarded but actually welcomed even hastened as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Here is a theology lesson coming on. A fantastical theology (and I use the term theology losely) was concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans. The theology (known as dispensationalism, and largely unkown outside of the US) is rather simple: once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the Messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, frogs, and perhaps global warming during the several years of tribulation that follow.

That's why so many evangelicals have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed an essential conflagration on the road to redemption.

Since the CHL and the Religious Right do not have antithetical goals here, we will be tapping into their expertise a bit. They, too, are tracking the events that are leading to the rapture, just as we are tracking the events leading to one planet, one species, one genotype. They actually have a "Rapture Index" that tells believers how close they are to the end times. This index is "The Prophetic Speedometer of End-Time Activity." Presumably an index value over 145 means we are damn close. Today the index reads 156!
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:43 PM | |