Apocalypticism

A roundup of the latest from the world of religion.

Christian Soldiers of the Apocalypse have been running around the woods of Michigan planning attacks on federal law enforcement in their war against the Antichrist. How does the Hutaree Militia fit into the history of American militias and conspiracy theorists?

Whether it’s the Mayan prediction of the 2012 cataclysm or the theology of the rapture, predictions of the end of the world tell us as much about ourselves as about the coming apocalypse. And we’ve got plenty to worry about either way.

Finally, something Christians, Jews, and Muslims can agree on: Apocalypse. But as the theological end-time visions of the three Abrahamic faiths converge, it is not the wrath of heaven that threatens life on Earth, but all-too-human fundamentalism and fearmongering.

While the president has reached out to the faithful, he has yet to realize that he is dealing with a countercultural movement that at its foundation is obsessed with the apocalypse. But he will know it soon enough as evangelical interpretations of the Bible point to Barack Obama as the Antichrist.

Does Christianity have any workable teachings for an age of global concerns? Were Jesus to return on this 40th anniversary of the moon landing to preach a “Sermon on the Moon,” “Consider the lilies” would become “consider the ecosystem,” and a “house built upon sand” would be, well, just about any house built on any shoreline in the world.

When the media labels a religious group a “cult,” it fans the flames of intolerance and can endanger the group’s most vulnerable members.

The co-authors of the eschatological Left Behind series appeared on the Rachel Maddow show to offer a variation on the theory that Obama may be the Antichrist.

Has the Nation of Islam, a tradition hinged on separatism, evolved into supporters of the President of the United States? If so, how does that affect the Nation’s ground-up community networks and sociopolitical analysis of American society?

RD News Round-Up—November 24, 2008: Religious Right’s ‘Obama Watch’; RaptureReady.com getting readier; Focus on the Family’s ‘I Stand for Christmas’ campaign; Proposition 8: The Aftermath; Huckabee’s revenge; Christian doctrine cures OCD?