Biblical Prophecy, Financial Armageddon, and why Barack Obama is (not) The Antichrist

[Note: I made this post originally in this thread, but since it got completely ignored (and I’m a sucker for attention), I’m starting my own thread on this topic.]

Since the election, I’ve had several people tell me that they fear Obama may be someone sinister, perhaps even “the Antichrist” – yes, some have used the word “Antichrist” without any prompting. And these are non-Christian liberals who VOTED for Obama! My fundie KGSMom does NOT believe Obama = Antichrist (she thinks Obama might usher in the “real” Antichrist, but that’s years off) but she’s hearing the same sort of “chatter” in her church group, most of whom aren’t nearly as fundamenalist as my mother (and she’s actually quite liberal, for a fundie.)

It’s no surprise, really. The common thread of these people I mentioned is that they’ve all been raised in Sunday School classes, where they talk about the End Times and The Apocalypse as if it’s something that will eventually happen. Now these deeply ingrained childhood fears are coming back to haunt us, since this man we just elected just happens to fit the profile of the fictional Antichrist. It’s just coincidence, of course (there IS no Antichrist, there will NEVER BE an Antichrist, the whole concept is fear-based and stupid!) but I’ve been reading the Bible in depth lately, and the synchronicity has never been this strong before.

Here is the dogma commonly preached as who the “Antichrist” will be:
(1) Charismatic. Yup, Obama’s got that in spades.
(2) A Peacemaker. Obama is black, pro-Muslem, and has already promised to end our stupid U.S. wars.
(3) Will come at a time of Great Crisis. Yup, I’m still watching the financial news, the stock market’s down to 8400 today…
(4) Will be hailed as The New Messiah. (And this is the part which makes me scream, “STFU, LOUIS FARRAKAN!!”)

It’s all silly fiction, of course. Turns out, like the Rapture and Hell itself, there is NO Biblical reference for “The Antichrist” in the Bible AT ALL. The word “antichrist” is only used in 2 John, and the actual text clearly refers to false prophets in general:

I’ve underlined the two parts which make it clear, when taken in context, that the Beloved Disciple John was referring only to (a) false prophets, and (b) non-Christians in general. So technically, there are millions of antichrists – all Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, New Agers and agnostics, anyone who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ is an antichrist. The SDMB itself is filled to the brim with antichrists – hey! We should have an Antichrist Dopefest! :cool:

But, there’s more. Traditionally, the “Antichrist” is equivalent to The Beast as described in Revelation 13, which is where things get a little scary:

Clearly, to my mind (plus traditional fundamentalist propaganga such as Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth), this passage predicts some type of One-World Government. And I suspect the topic of the upcoming G20 summit on November 15th will directly address the need for a united one-world economy, eventually leading to some type of one-world government. (Yes, I’m aware of all the “New World Order” conspiracy theories – like Biblical prophecy, these theories are inherently fear-based, due to human’s natural tendency to Fear change and Fear the future.) I think this recent “credit crunch” – in particular the time from September to mid-October when the banks suddenly stopped lending credit to each other – really scared the shit out of a lot of people, especially the top leaders in government, commerce, and finance. We shall see how things play out – especially now that America has a new liberal president, who has promised universal health care and other left-wing ideas which, until now, have often been regarded as pure socialism…except, “socialism” is no longer a dirty word, to most Americans.

Then we get to the next passage:

Oh, shit – this is what we skeptics refer to as a “self-fullfilling prophecy.” :eek: And this is why I’ve been telling people for weeks now: “If someone takes a shot at Obama, it will NOT be a racist, it will be a crazy fundamentalist whackjob who thinks Obama is the Antichrist/Beast.” Everyone’s worried about racism, but most genuine racists simply don’t have the BALLS to try and shoot the President. OTOH, while I’m no longer a fundie Xtian, I was raised under that faith, and I remember exactly how my mind worked during that brief time when I “gave my life to Jesus Christ” – it’s not just faith, or belief. IT IS REALITY TO THESE PEOPLE. And yes, I think many of them are downright crazy enough to try and fulfill Rev. 13:3, just to satisfy the little demonic voices in their heads. And such a person would be “On A Mission”, just like John Hinkley who flew under the radar and attempted to assassinate Reagan – some lonely Xtian whackjob, isolated from most friends & family (except his church, perhaps), bereft of logic and reason, driven by repressed anger and fear, and desperate enough to attempt such a stupid, stupid stunt. And there are MILLIONS of people like that in this country!

That being said, I don’t think Barack Obama’s in any real physical danger now. Now that he’s our new President, he can remain deep behind the veil of Secret Service protection – he doesn’t have to expose himself and pretend to be “A Man of the People” by freely mingling with the Electorate. So, I think he’s safe from an assassination attempt until the next campaign cycle begins, which is at least 3½ years away. Wait…3½ years? OH CRAP! I just read the next verse:

Aw, hell. That’s the problem with playing the Bible Code game…after awhile, it’s starts to seem a little too real. :cool:

I also wanted to point out this passage, which is the most famous (and oft-misinterpreted) verse in Revelation:

Yes, I know…“666” has been interpreted to mean everything from UPC codes to simply the number of letters in a world leader’s name – for instance, Ronald Wilson Reagan = 666. (Using that method, “Barack Hussein Obama” = 675, which means he merely lives a few doors down from the real Beast! :cool:) I don’t have any insight as to what “666” really means, except that it’s clearly an ECONOMIC number. And what kind of crisis is the world experiencing right now??

Remember, I’m not saying any of this is really happening – it’s merely coincidence. However, there are millions of fundamentalist Christian whackjobs out there who genuinely believe in this claptrap, and the “fatal head wound” part is especially dangerous. I’m pretty sure Homeland Security’s already on top of this potential threat, however.

Ironic that this passage is so often misinterpreted, since it says right on the page that you need “wisdom” and “insight” to understand it. Of course, everyone knows the number is a coded reference to Nero, who was a major persecutor of Christians about two decades before Revelation was written. The beast miraculously recovering from the head wound is said to be a reference to Domitian, who was regarded as “Nero reborn” and was also a big persecutor of Christians. Of course, I am a liberal Christian who has a few differences with fundamentalists. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to creating a D&D character sheet for an undead necromancer.

And don’t forget–RR was shot in the chest–and lived! Clearly, he is the Antichrist.

The other day, I found a book I’d gotten in the 1970’s when I was a Rapturist. It was written in the 1930’s and entitled WHAT TIME IS IT? by a Pastor Basil Holt, published by The Standard Press, which I believe was the publishing house of the SBC at the time.

I’m still a conservative Christian, but not a Rapturist. I lean to Historic Premillism about 90%, Preterist Postmillism about 10%. I’m a Christian Zionist based on God’s covenants with Israel, not because of national Israel’s role in any End-Times scenario. I thing there are a great many things for the Church to do before God brings it all to a consummation.

That said- it is interesting to read a 1930’s Rapturist book that discusses the creation of the State of Israel, increasing global communications, and a unified Europe. I’m 95% “we’ve got a long time left”, but 5% “maybe”.

Why Barack Obama is not the AntiChrist/either Beast/Man of Sin/Little Horn, etc.-

He confesses Jesus as his Lord & Savior Who died for his sins & rose from the dead.

Until he renounces that, he can’t be the AntiChrist.

While it’s not IMPOSSIBLE that an African-American professing Christian, or an Asiatic “Mongolian” may become the AntiChrist, there are (depending on how one reads Daniel, 2nd Thess 2 & The Revelation) indications that his ethnicity will be European, Semitic or a mixture of the two. A whole lot of Rapturists will be surprised if the AC is not a Caucasian with some Jewish background.*

  • On his show PI, Bill Maher, of all people, explained to Richard Lewis why this belief is not anti-Semitic. “The AntiChrist will be like Jesus’ Evil Twin. He’ll do all he can to look like Jesus. Jesus was Jewish so the A…C… would probably be Jewish.”

And since Obama is European and Arab, he has that covered. No, wait, I may be confused. :wink:

Please, don’t assume everyone who reads the Bible possesses the same rational logic & historical understanding that you do. Most fundie Christians – including major leaders in our government – don’t follow any sort of logic at all; in their minds, every single word in the Bible is 100% literally true. Not only that, they believe if you disobey The Lord’s Eternal Word, you will die and BURN IN HELL FOREVER. That’s the Logic Trap these people are stuck within.

Except, Rev 13:3 clearly predicts a head wound, not a chest wound. Therefore, if Hinkley was an Angel of the Apocalypse destined to “mark” the Antichrist’s presence – he missed. He aimed too low. As a result, the world had to wait 26 more years for the “real” Antichrist to appear… (Yes, I’m using fundie logic here.)

The point is its ambiguous enough to apply to just about anyone. So yes it COULD refer to Barack Obama, but it could also have referred to Bush, Hitler, the Pope, and any other major world figure going all the way back to Nero (who of course, could well have been the Beast in question).

I still maintain that Ronald Wilson Reagan was the Great Beast 666. (Sorry, Mr Crowley, you tried too hard.) Recovered from a mortal wound? Check. Mocked the beliefs of his predecessors? Check. Revered as a kind of sainted hero &/or god? Check.

Who needs to look to the future when it’s already happened?

Oh, wait, that’s already been brought up. (And anyway, why would a prophecy take 1900 years to fulfill? Isn’t a reference to the post-Flavian regime in Rome more likely?)

Numbers are fun. I am reminded of a couple of jokes:

Chinese couple, owners of Chinese restaurant, getting ready to go to bed at night and feeling frisky.
Wife says “what would you like?”.
Husband says “how 'bout 69?”
The wife exclaims: "What?! You want the sweet and sour duck?!

Another one:

Girlfriend asks: "What would you like?
Boyfriend: “How about a 68?”
GF: “What’s a 68?”
BF: “You give me a blow job and I owe you one!”

Except what you are missing is that the defining factor for many of these people thinking President-elect Obama is the antichrist is the fact that he is black. This sort of crap has never been spewed about a white candidate, which makes me think that it might have just a tad of racism underlying it.

I hadn’t thought about the black/white duality. Yeah, that’s a good one. (And I sure hope we’re not putting any ideas into some fundie whackjob’s head by discussing this topic…)

Bill Clinton is the Antichrist.

No, he’s the fake Antichrist.
Sorry, John Kerry

Nope, it’s Arnold Schwartzenegger

OK - never was too extreme. But I certainly get the feeling the Antichrist stuff is a LOT more widespread regarding Obama.

Wait.

Back to th’ OP. All buddhists are antichrists? - Excellent. I’m putting that on my resume.

Barak Obama is the most liberal of all the Anti-Christs!!!

The Revelations crowd is a complete mystery to me.

slight hijack// Wasn’t there a more recent translation of the text referring to the #666 and it turns out it wasn’t 666 at all? Might have been a later copy of the text. //end hijack

This may have been a dream, but when I read Revelation some odd years ago didn’t the Beast have a “second in command” that was described as human/charismatic/etc? I think it was around the part with the harlot/whore of Babylon. Though not mentioned by the name antichrist, it would bear a good resemblance to the traditional view of him.

I’m, of course, not arguing Revelation is anything BUT an old allegory, or that Obama is this figure, it was more of a wonder if that’s where the main idea may have sprung from.

Yes; 616.

And let’s be reasonable. Obama can’t possibly be an antichrist, or he would have gone up in a flash of gamma rays as soon as he contacted normal matter. There’s nothing to worry about.

No, no, no - he would only explode on contact with the body of the Real Christ[sup]TM[/sup], which depending on your views on transubstantiation, he may or may not have done…

Grim