The article below has some interesting points with which I agree. This deals with the article to which Jesus Politics points, and where I made a couple of comments (see below)
Seattle Weekly: News: Is Bush the Antichrist? by Tim Appelo
In the Greek, the word “anti” doesn’t just mean “against.” It also contains the meanings “equivalent to” or “a substitute for.” Nero was anti-Christ because he falsely claimed to be God. The idea of deception is crucial. The Antichrist isn’t the devil, the opposite of God. He’s an evil human masquerading as a golden god. The Antichrist appears to humanity not as the hideous Beast but as handsome Nicolae Carpathia, who resembles Robert Redford without the facial erosion. “That could be our next Republican president,” quips Lang.
In this sense, the Bush church is Antichristlike indeed. It is institutionalized deception, anti-American ugliness with a beguiling face, a neocon job. Only when necessary does it employ the perilous bald-faced lie, the outrageously transparent duplicity—the political equivalent of Robertson arguing that “Do unto others” indicates Christ’s support of capitalist selfishness. More often, a smoothly dissembling surface is preferred. Rove notoriously emulates Machiavelli; the Christian right is a stealth movement, infiltrating school boards and mainstream churches and every institution of democracy like a thief in the night—in order to undermine, overthrow, and replace democracy with theocracy. The Union of Concerned Scientists proclaims Bush’s lies about science “unprecedented.” In With God on Their Side, Kaplan concludes, on mountainous evidence, “The goal is not to engage your opponents in the public square, but to kneecap them, or send them into exile.”
I am reminded by this issue of The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. In it, a demon named Wormwood assigned to a particular Christian is sent letters by his superior, Screwtape, on how to best deceive his assigned Christian. CS Lewis, whom the fundamentalists claim as their own, is anything but, and cleverly pulls off a masterpiece. The kinds of deceptions he describes through Screwtape is ingenious, and often mentions the “covert” neccssity of their schemes (and so, one of the master schmes is to clothe their efforts in religiosity, and thus mask the true evil nature of their deception. That the AntiChrist is a “religious” figure is rarely challenged. But it seems that the Religious Right is unable to recognize that the “lingo” of the Religious Right itself is a perfect cover for anyone who wishes to manipulate them; given that Religious Right persons tend to be easy prey for those using “key phrases” and “backing the right issues” such as Rove and Bush and the neocons have discovered.
I have copied my comments from Jesus Politics on this article to the Continue Reading section below:
If we could get past the images of pitchforks and devil-worship (Satanism, which has nothikng to do with actual “Satanic” interests), we could see this more clearly. Anti-Christ also has nothing whatsoever to do with things like “Left Behind” and “pre-millinial” schemas. Anti-Christ is much simpler than that, in my theology.
It is simply that which works against the desires of Christ for this world. It is plain to me that the Bush administration has NOthing to do with Christ other than the blatant misuse of the entire message of Christ, number one being PEACE. And in addition to that, Bush is ANTI just about EVERYTHING in the gospel, aside from the extremely narrow issues defined by the religious right that have very little to do with any “affairs of the government” as the Bush administraiton defines them (which is they way they prefer it).
It is not at all a “stretch” to call Bush “Anti-Christ”, unless you want to insist that Anti-Christ is some kind of closet Satanic ritualist. For me, this is the image Satan woudl actually prefer. It allows operation under “sheep’s clothing” and avoids suspicion. Osama Bin Laden AND George W. Bush are BOTH Anti-Christs. Actually, George W. Bush is a better candidate for a SINGLE ANTI-CHRIST figure , since he is the head of state of the most powerful empire in the present world, and has “deceived millions” (at least 50-some million in this country.
Dale
Posted by: Dale Lature | January 8, 2005 10:24 AM
In addition , I have no idea if Bush is THE Anti_christ, since I’m not sure if there is a “THE”. But I am certain that he is AN ANTCHRIST, solely on the basis of worldwide violence and , on top of that, a violence carried out simply becuase they WANTED to , and went to fantastic lenghts to deceive the world and fellow government figures, and , amazingly, pulled off a complete snow job, due to an equally sinister and deceptive media blitz (courtesy of “Bush’s Brain”, Karl Rove).
Dale
BTW, I’m about to watch that DVD “Bush’s Brain”)