Apocalyptic belief and foreign policy

The Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center has a new spin-off site called Right Web that analyzes the thinking and activities of the far right. There is an excellent article on Right Web that gives and indepth discussion of a Apocalyptic Christian thinking - Culture, Religion, Apocalypse, and Middle East Foreign Policy" by Chip Berlet & Nikhil Aziz. It is excellent, and I have included it in the "Featured Articles" links. I will give a brief summation of the article here as it is relatively long.

The article gives a detailed historical and philosophical tracing of apocalyptic thought from John Patmos who wrote the book of Revelations in the Christian Bible, to modern manifestations in the US. The focus is on apocalyptic thought in the US - historically and comtemporarily.

"Apocalyptic thinking--especially in the Christian Right--joins other factors influencing U.S. Middle East policy, such as controlling global oil sources, assisting corporate-driven globalization, militaristic imperialism, and more. Why focus on this one factor? Because the Christian Right is a powerful force shaping politics and culture in the United States, and they are the largest voting bloc in the Republican Party, so they can expect politicians to pay attention to their interests.2 That George W. Bush takes his born-again religion seriously and applies it to his political decisions has been discussed widely.3"

There are two different versions of apocalypic philosophy. One that the transition will be peaceful, and one that it will be violent. In the US, it seems that the violent transition has had more force.

According to apocalypic belief, the "end times" will be marked by a great deceiver who unites Chrisitans through trickery to create a one world government and a one world religion. The trick is to figure out who that is. Seeming, the prevailing view is that the "great deceiver" is Muslim -- not Christian.

So how does zionism fit into this? According to the article, it is because of a series of events that must come to pass for thee "messiah" to return. First, the Jews must return to Israel; second, the Temple of Solomon must be rebuilt on The Temple Mount. This is a problem as the Temple Mount is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. When this is done, the sacred ark will be found.

This is problematic as the Temple Mount is also the home of the numerous Muslim mosques and is called the "Noble Sanctuary" by Islam. In other words, the Mount is sacred to all three religions.

"Apocalyptic, millennialist, and dispensationalist thinking has greatly influenced Pat Robertson and other Christian evangelical rightists including Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, and Joyce Meyer. This common worldview explains both their activist interest in U.S. foreign policy generally and their particular focus on the Middle East. The impact of such thinking is especially evident in their unqualified support for Israel and their Islamophobic opposition to Palestinian self-determination. The result of this politico-dual-religion amalgam is a movement called Christian Zionism, a source of Christian Right support for the U.S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and for a general U.S. presence in the Middle East. However, Christian Right support for Israel does not mean an unequivocal embrace of Jews. Anti-Jewish as well as anti-Islamic and anti-Arab themes have long formed a common stream running through Christian Right ideology and activism."

The authors then explain what they call "Messianic Militarism"

"With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, the apocalyptic predictions of neoconservative militarists garnered even more support, especially after the neocon-generated Team B reports. Khurram Husain in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists argues that the neocon “claims were all drawn from worst-case scenarios. But the Team B reports are more significant for the thinking they reveal. The authors made projections of Soviet stockpiles and built up a picture of a Soviet Union bent on dominating the world based on wild speculation.”37

With the collapse of communism in Europe, the United States was reframed as the defender of global civilization against the heathens and barbarians in “rogue states,” where terrorism still festered. This opponent-swap drew from an even earlier apocalyptic focus than anticommunism--a worldview extension of the earliest Christian millennial visions, which came to the United States “from the original, English-speaking heartland, itself grafted on the crusades and the voyages of discovery.”38 According to Kees van der Pijl, a European scholar: “Today, the missionary ideology constructed around the civilisation/barbarity dichotomy must satisfy the tastes of a Western public…because every hegemonic strategy has to build on the available foundation of attitudes and dispositions in the wider population if it is to be effective.” Therefore in the current Bush administration, “the End of History/Axis of Evil line of thinking …argues that for the world to reach its definitive form in terms of civilisation….[it is necessary to] neutralise the states ‘mired in history’ as potential rabble-rousers, the ‘rogue states’ beyond the pale.”39"

This article provides the best insight into the neo-conservative millenialist agenda of any piece that I have read. The article includes many good sources for further investigation.

Posted by rowan at December 23, 2003 9:19 AM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |