@Alyosha has, in the past, posted about The Late, Great Planet Earth, a book published in 1970 and written by great Christian Zionist Hal Lindsey. In 1979, it was adapted into a movie with a narration by Orson Welles. Two sequels were written with equally scary titles: Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth and The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon. What is The Late, Great Planet Earth all about? Here's a short synopsis (from Wiki):
The biggest supporters of Zionism and the state of Israel have been nearly exclusively Evangelical and eschatologist. Take, for example, the Left Behind series, written by Evangelical eschatologists Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim Lahaye. In the Left Behind series, as with most Evangelical eschatologists, Russia torches off the End Times by attacking Israel with their fighter jets. In a miraculous show of divine protection, the Christian god smites the Russian jets from the heavens without a single Israeli shot fired or life lost (except for the evil Russians, who all died). Soon after, a peace treaty is signed between Israel and her Muslim enemies, the Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem, and every good little Christian boy and girl is raptured and the rest of us are left behind to suffer the next seven years in torture and agony, even if we come to believe in Jesus during that time. Blabbity blah blah, you know how it goes.The Late, Great Planet Earth is a treatment of literalist, premillennial, dispensational eschatology. As such, it compared end-time prophecies in the Bible with then-current events in an attempt to broadly predict future scenarios leading to the rapture of believers before the tribulation and Second Coming of Christ to establish his thousand-year (i.e. millennial) Kingdom on Earth. Focusing on key passages in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, Lindsey originally suggested the possibility that these climactic events might play out in the 1980s, which he interpreted as one generation from the foundation of modern Israel in 1948, a pivotal event in some conservative evangelical schools of eschatological thought. Cover art on the Bantam edition boldly suggested that the 1970s were the "era of the Antichrist as foretold by Moses and Jesus," and called the book "a penetrating look at incredible ancient prophecies involving this generation." Descriptions of alleged "fulfilled" prophecy were offered as proof of the infallibility of God's Word, and evidence that "unfulfilled" prophecies would soon find their denouement in God's plan for the planet.
These are the prophecies the Evangelical eschatologist uses to justify making Russia the bad guy:
Ezekiel 38:1-6 (NIV)
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army—your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. Persia, Cush and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you.
These nations are interpreted by such figures as Hal Lindsey as follows:
Magog - Russia
Persia - Iran
Meshek, Tubal, and Togarmah - Turkey
Cush - Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula
Put - Libya
Gomer - Germany
Supposedly, the End Times will begin when these nations and their allies attack Israel together. They point to increased trade and weapons deals between Russia and Iran, for example, as signs of the End Times (instead of trade deals between two nations the U.S. has made an enemy of).
It gets better (or, rather, worse): in 1971, while Ronald Reagan was still Governor of California, he attended a banquet to honor then-state Sen. James Mills. During the banquet, he told state Sen. Mills about this prophecy from Ezekiel, and how he believed Russia was Magog and thus, according to the prophecy, Russia was doomed to destruction.
It can thus be no coincidence that nine years later, when Ronald Reagan became President, he launched the U.S. into the most feverish hostilities with Russia in decades and ultimately oversaw the total destruction and elimination of the Soviet Union. It wasn't politics or anti-communism that motivated President Reagan, it was a fervent belief, like all Evangelical eschatologists believe, that he could help usher in the end of time and the second coming of Jesus.
It can also be no coincidence that since then, we have intervened in Libya and Iran, and are still trying to keep up hostilities with Russia even though they no longer make any sense. It also explains our major hostilities with the Arab world, and the most central point of all of this: the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the West's fixation since then on giving billions of dollars in aid and offering defense to Israel, for reasons that are applied to no other country.
Evangelical eschatologists are the main supporters of Zionism, neo-conservatism, interventionism, and a host of other foreign policy errors we face. The fact that their actions will ultimately lead to the destruction of the U.S., if we keep it up, is of no concern to these fundamentalists...after all, according to them, the United States isn't in Biblical prophecy because it won't be there in the end times, either because it will be destroyed by nuclear war, collapse internally due to moral decay, or there will be a great revival that will rapture one fourth of the U.S. population...thus collapsing the U.S.
The more you read this stuff, the more parallels you can find to what is going on now. Greg Laurie's reference to moral decay in the previous link shows the resurgence of social conservatism and the "Moral Majority" of kooks like Rick Santorum, his desire for a "strong military" that can respond to foreign threats shows the support for neo-conservatism, and his idea of a "great revival" that turns one fourth of our population into strong, rapture-able Christians shows both social conservatism and the freaking out about the War on Christmas and other such ridiculousness where Evangelicals try to force their brand of Christianity on everyone else.
It goes even deeper than this, but this is just surface stuff to start the discussion.
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Originally Posted by PolWatch
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