Apocalyptic rhetoric of religious right is playing with fire

[cbayer]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/09/30/apocalyptic-rhetoric-of-religious-right-is-playing-with-fire/

September 30, 2012 By Fred Clark

The religious right leaders and right-wing media predicting apocalyptic scenarios if President Obama is re-elected are just playing political games.


Photo by Graeme Jennings/Washington Examiner

When Robert Knight says an Obama victory will “push us over” the edge into “losing our constitutional republic,” or Matt Barber says the election is about “good vs. evil” and “may determine whether we as a nation sink or swim, live or die,” or when John Hagee says it will “bring absolute socialism,” they’re just talking out of their collective asses. They don’t really believe it.

That wild talk is just pep-rally hyperbole that they don’t really expect to come about any more than they really expected all of the horrific consequences they earlier predicted would come to pass when Vermont first allowed civil unions, or when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed.

But not everyone understands that it’s just a game. And not everyone understands that these over-the-top predictions and lies are just role-playing aspects of that game.

more at link

[gordianot]

1. If there is any lesson to be learned from the last 12 years never ignore threats by fanatics.

Especially by religious confused fanatics who seek attention in the name of their religion where ever they live on the planet. When those close to home cite First and Second Amendment rights as an excuse it is in your back door.

[cbayer]

2. Agree, but think it's been going on a lot longer than 12 years.

Both here and all over the world.

[gordianot]

4. Neanderthals lost out Homo Sapiens probably had a better social network it just continues.

[Adsos Letter]

6. I've got about 8' of bookshelf dedicated to studies of apocalyptic eschatology.

Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession by Robert C. Fuller (OUP, 1996) is excellent on the US manifestations of this kind of thing.

Apocalyptic eschatology has added fuel to many horrific world events, as I know you know. It was interesting, as an undergrad studying the Crusades, to read Guibert de Nogent's version of Urban II's speech while preaching the First Crusade:

For it is clear that Antichrist is to do battle not with the Jews, not with the Gentiles; but, according to the etymology of his name, He will attack Christians. And if Antichrist finds there no Christians (just as at present when scarcely any dwell there), no one will be there to oppose him, or whom he may rightly overcome...These times, most beloved brothers, will now, forsooth, be fulfilled, provided the might of the pagans be repulsed through You, with the cooperation of God. With the end of the world already near, even though the Gentiles fail to be converted to the Lord (since according to the apostle there must be a withdrawal from the faith), it is first necessary, according to their prophecy, that the Christian sway be renewed in those regions either through you, or others, whom it shall please God to send before the coming of Antichrist, so that the head of all evil, who is to occupy there the throne of the kingdom, shall find some support of the faith to fight against him.

Source: Medieval Sourcebook:
"Urban II (1088-1099):
Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095,
Five versions of the Speech"
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html

It certainly wasn't the only impetus to crusade, but it gave it that "God wills it" aspect which allowed conscience-free atrocities by so many.

EDIT: Added "[Jerusalem" for clarity. EDIT: I can't code this correctly; he's refering to jerusalem as the place where Antichrist needs to find Christians (specifically, a Christian king according to Adso's Letter on the Antichrist) to fight.

[cbayer]

7. This is a part of my education that is sorely lacking.

Not only from an academic perspective, but because I never even encountered it much in real life.

The concept of an anti-Christ is so foreign to me, except as a metaphor.

[Adsos Letter]

8. The concept of personal, as well as corporate, Antichrist/antichrist

is a very potent lens for those raised in these beliefs.

[Adsos Letter]

3. There is a line in Diane Purkiss' The English Civil War: A People's History...

....regarding the atrocities carried out by both Cavaliers and Roundheads; it is something to the effect that both sides were committing horrible acts in response to propaganda which was itself based on lies.

I think of this whenever I hear/read something like my friends son recently posted on FB: "Pro-God, Pro-Gun, Pro-Life, anti-Obama."

[cbayer]

5. Well, he's got the rhetoric down, doesn't he.

So rigid. So without substance. So lacking in critical thinking.