If one more Christian declares, hints, or wonders out loud or over email to me about how Obama may in fact be the antichrist, I think my head will explode or I will tatoo the words "Christian No More" on my forehead or I will move to Kenya and never come back. Just in case you have been the recipient of these ridiculous rumors (as I have many times now), here is a good response my husband wrote recently to help a friend know how to answer:
Hey Kevin, yeah, on behalf of christendom I sincerely apologize that you had to be subjected to that level of ignorance. It's not necessarily that persons fault... they just aren't well informed and have fallen prey to some pretty radical people who have gone to great lengths to try to prop up this level of extremism. There's a good website that defends rumors against Obama from Christian Perspective called "Put Away Falsehood" based on a verse in Ephesians that warns against this very type of false teaching or rumor mongering (www.putawayfalsehood.com)
Unfortunately they haven't articulated a direct response to this most extreme, yet surprisingly common rumor about Obama (I've heard it many times). My first response to anyone who says this would be to ask them not only WHY they think Obama is the antichrist, but what they think the antichrist actually is and whether they even know what the bible says about the anti-christ.
The Bible only contains four direct references to the "antichrist" (in the most common translations) and NONE of them have anything whatsoever to do with why this rumor is being spread around (though, as previously mentioned, the Bible has plenty to say about how wrong it is to pass judgment on others and spread rumors/gossip). All four of the references to the antichrist in the Bible simply talk about someone who denies Christ, preaches against him or says that he is not the son of God. That's it. Period.
Chances are that this person either read one or more of the radical, right-wing, christian propaganda books in the "Left Behind" series or heard this rumor from someone who had. Unfortunately these books have been read by millions of Christians. They're terribly judgmental, divisive and exclusionary books that the world would be far better without. In those books, they develop a character who is the anti-christ which is loosely based on the allegorical "Beast" in Revelations. Without any real biblical basis, the "Left Behind" books create an antichrist character that is a charasmatic political leader trying to consolodate his power by uniting the world into a single community under a single leader & single radical religion. A pretty far stretch from the 10-headed "beast" in Revelations who marks people w/ 666. Along the way, the Obama/antichrist rumor has picked up some stuff about him being a muslim and in my mind the rumor would simply have NEVER gotten to the point that it has if Obama were white. This antichrist rumor has strong, strong racial overtones to it.
So BOTTOM LINE is that there is nothing in the Bible WHATSOEVER to point to any similarities between Obama and what the Bible says is the anti-christ. The concept of the anti-christ in the bible is specifically aimed at false prophets/preachers who deny the incarnation or divinity of Jesus. Obama has NEVER done any such thing--In fact he has explicitly, repeatedly and consistently done the opposite. In both of his books, he directly acknowledges that he believes Jesus is Lord. In fact he has acknowledged this belief far more often and more directly than John McCain has. It is an undisputed fact that until very recently many christians were unhappy with and did not support John McCain precisely because he has typically refused to talk about his Faith and most believe that he (McCain) is not a very spiritual person... which is to say that he does not appear to know much of anything about the Bible when asked, has not cited examples of prayer being a meaningful part of his life since he was in a POW camp, and appears to know very little about the tenants of the denomination that he identifies himself with...
Anyway, I obviously could go on and on, but as you already knew when you texted me, this rumor is nothing short of crazy talk. But it is worth pointing out to anyone who espouses such views or shares a concern about it, that it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to support such a view from a Biblical standpoint. So if Christians want to argue against the Bible and why the only author to ever mention the antichrist (John) was wrong in his description of the anti-christ... or how Obama corresponds with the 10-horned/7-headed beast/dragon/leapord/bear with ten crowns who has "called down fire from heaven to earth in full view of men" (from Revelations)... then I suppose they're entitled to try to connect such disparate dots.
I know that's A LOT of stuff. But unfortunately, while there's little or nothing to support this rumor, it'd take ages to point out all of the many ways in which those who believe this rumor have been misled or fooled into believing this non-sense.
Hope this helps a little.
--rick.
No comments:
Post a Comment