CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog

II

This little exercise in logical deduction is not intended to try to predict the end of days.  It is, however, intended to determine if there is an antichrist among us, nowadays, and if so, to uncover who that might be in order to avoid the deception that Jesus warned about.  The evidence to be examined will include the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and current evidence in the real world. The purpose is to assist those, whether people of Christian faith or not, who might otherwise be deceived to follow such a character. 

First of all, who or what is an antichrist?  It’s important to dispel some obvious but popular myths.  Unlike portrayals in films like Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen, an antichrist (even the Antichrist) is not to be understood as a literal hybrid offspring of Satan and some human.  Rather, an antichrist is better to be understood as an ordinary human being, extraordinary in affect but ordinary in nature. An antichrist is not a spawn of Satan, but a human being that takes after the Satan.  Such an individual takes after Satan by trying to pose as and replace Christ, to replace God in people’s trust and devotion.  An antichrist, like Satan, is an imposter, a poser.  Ordinarily, such an individual behaves in ways that are characteristic of Satan, in ways that are deceptive, disruptive, and often destructive in nature. 

Unlike the characterization of Antichrist, called “the beast” in the Book of Revelation, there will not have been only one of them, but an indeterminate number throughout history.  The one described in Revelation might be understood simply as the ultimate Antichrist, the last perhaps even the worst of them.  Others will have existed, though.  Incidentally, the Book of Revelation has never been a wholesome source of theology or of understanding about Antichrist, for that matter.  It is a genre of writing known as apocalyptic literature. One characteristic of apocalyptic literature is that the writer took past history, or circumstances current to his time, and presented them as if they would unfold at some time in the future.  Later interpreters of apocalyptic literature tend to try to apply those images to their own times or in their own immanent future.  Another basic characteristic of apocalyptic literature is the use of highly symbolic and figurative imagery, into which interpreters often seem compelled to read their own ideas and speculations. That’s why Revelation, while it might provide helpful liturgical information, is not a reliable sourcebook for beliefs or for predicting the future.  It’s ripe for projection and subjectivity. The basic message of Revelation is simple: trust God, no matter how bad things get, because God will prevail in the end and will reward those who persist.

In point of fact, early Christians, contemporary with the writer of Revelation, regarded the Emperors of Rome, particularly Nero, as Antichrist.  Nero was a prototype of an antichrist. He was a likely candidate because he was utterly ego-centric, claimed to be all powerful and godlike.  He was vengeful, chaotic and destructive.  He and certain other emperors not only claimed divinity, but demanded absolute allegiance to the point of worship.  Moreover, Nero was the emperor who initiated what would be the final Roman assault on Israel. Under his orders the Roman legions attacked and defeated the Jewish people in Palestine, killing hundreds of thousands in the process.  Remember: many early followers of Jesus, for whom Revelation was written, were Palestinian Jews. The Roman emperor ordered the army to destroy the Temple and most of Jerusalem with it.  Subsequently, the Roman emperor ordered survivors to be dispersed throughout the empire (the “Diaspora”).  And so, Nero and his successors provided prototypes of antichrists – ones who craved power to gain personal glory, playing God by coercing allegiance and dominion that would otherwise belong to God, and ruthlessly destroying those who would not obey and revere them.

Beyond Roman emperors I would suggest a couple of other prominent candidates for the position of antichrist.  More than 1,000 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Jewish people, another candidate emerged a continent away. Genghis Khan defeated an expanse that extended from Peking to the Danube River and killed more than 37.5 million people, along the way.  He was ruthless, relentless and merciless in his pursuit of dominance.  Both emperors, like Nero, and leaders like Genghis Khan wanted to dominate.  They demanded absolute allegiance, as if they were gods, and made every effort to destroy anyone or anything that they imagined might stand in the way. 

Then, almost 1,000 years after Genghis Khan, there was Adolph Hitler.  He also sought dominion and demanded absolute allegiance.  He used words filled with hatred toward identified scapegoats and praise for people feeling desperately diminished, in order to seduce followers to give him their complete loyalty. Using that platform of support, Hitler did everything he could to dominate the rest of Europe.  In the process, he ordered the detention and extermination of as many as 20 million civilians, including 6 million Jews, quite apart from those who died in battlefields or air raids. 

Those three historical figures were far from the only candidates for the position of antichrist, just a selection of some of the most notorious.  None of the three fit the literal image of antichrist, alias the Beast, in the Book of Revelation.  They didn’t have the number “666” tattooed on their heads, like Damien in The Omen. They didn’t have multiple heads or horns on their heads, like the Beast in Revelation. They did have other traits in common, though.  Each of them craved power.  Each of them was deranged by self-absorption. Each of them used force and fear to coerce absolute allegiance.  Each of them completely lacked compassion for others.  Each of them destroyed other people’s lives to acquire power.  Each of them grasped power by attaining political position.  Each of them was ruthless in the ways he sought to gain political position and to feed his insatiable appetite for absolute power.  Each of them divided people, demonized adversaries, and destroyed those who stood in his way to gain uncontested power by using fear.  Their ultimate goal was consistent: to attain personal glory – adoration.  In that way, using any means possible, each of them seems to have taken after his father, the devil (figuratively speaking) in his passion to become god-like.