Review: Waiting for Armageddon - Fundamentalists believing literal words in the Bible

Over on Amazon.Com they summarize the movie thusly: "Waiting for Armageddon explores the culture of 50 million American Evangelicals who believe that Bible prophecy dictates the future of mankind and that Israel and the Jewish people play pivotal roles in ensuring Christ's return. The film raises questions regarding how this theology shapes U.S. - Middle East relations and may encourage an international holy war." Let's unpack this and ponder the mind-set which see's the events going on around us as proof that the end times prophecies in the Bible are not only accurate predictions of the future, but are unfolding right now. Ponder the mind-set of a 15 year old young lady unhappy that she won't have a chance to marry and have children, because Armageddon will happen before she has a chance.

There are people in the U.S. and elsewhere with that mind-set. For that matter the mind-set isn't new, as there have been apocalyptic end-times cults for a long time. I grew up in a church with a similar mind-set, The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At Church meetings we had plenty of discussion about how the world was going to end soon, and the church taught its youngsters things we should do to prepare for the time after the Apocalypse. Our church saw its role as being leaders in the rebuilding of the U.S. because some kind of Holy Aura would protect the land around Independence, MO because our church was headquartered in that city.

Today this apocalyptic end-times is not the province of tiny non-mainstream cults, sects or churches. Today it's a widely accepted point of view and there are plenty of political leaders openly espousing belief in the end-times.

The movie, Waiting for Armageddon, takes an up-close-and-personal look at quite a few of these people from individual believers to Pastors etc in the movement. They're speaking openly and clearly in this movie on their beliefs.

One of them is shown speaking before an audience at a "Pre-Tribulation" Conference saying that Post Modernism has at its core Atheism. That when someone reads the Bible and doesn't take the words literally, but instead has an open mind to interpreting the words, that they're engaging in the atheistic post modernism approach. That such people are simply completely wrong-headed. Others are shown saying that America's special role is to Christianize the rest of the world, and that they're supposed to start by Christianizing the U.S.

This goes a long way towards explaining how it came to be that the fundamentalist Christian viewpoint is being steam-rolled over us.

This mind-set strongly reminds me of an earlier blog post: Establishing control over a society. It was an inspired idea which came to me one day several years ago which goes like so:

I want to share a realization that recently came to me. It is a way of establishing control over a society, allowing you to bend them to your will. However in practice this will take generations to really lodge into society, so you probably won't have direct benefit but your heirs will.

1. Step 1: Beg, borrow, steal or forge a set of spiritual writings
2. Step 2: Present those writings as the Word of God
3. Step 3: Present the writings as being the infallible source of truth
4. Step 4: Appoint a group of people as the official interpreters of Gods Infallible Words as written in those writings

Step 1 - the Bible - the history of the Bible is one of politically motivated manipulation of its content, politically motivated use of that book and the Church (what's now Catholicism) to subjugate peoples. Steps 2-4 are analogous to the demand to accept the Bible as literal words, no interpretation, no questions, etc.

Prominent in this Tea Party nonsense is this same fundamentalism and ideas to convert America into a theocracy. That is, America being ruled by Christianity. America, the country where Separation of Church and State is one of the supreme principles of our governance.

What if these ideas are being manipulated by political powers for political ends? It wouldn't be the first time that Christianity (or other religions for that matter) were abused for political games.

The movie shows several people saying the Bible tells accurately the future. Really? This strikes me as a complete misunderstanding, because it's apparent one can only accurately tell what happened in the past and that the future has a wide range of possible outcomes depending on the decisions we make today. To proclaim there can be only one future is to discount our power of choice and the ability of our decisions to shape results.

The movie is rather unbalanced in that the fundamentalists are given free reign to speak without their statements being overtly questioned. There are speakers in the movie with other points of views that do a fairly good job of undermining the fundamentalists. But, I came out of watching it thinking the other points of view were completely overwhelmed by the crushing weight of the fundamentalist position.

It is a good movie, well put together, good information, and it's valuable to see directly what these people are saying to one another.

Hunting around on YouTube I found an amazing dissection of the movie by a fundamentalist Evangelical who shows a dozen ways the movie is confused or gets it wrong. Videos below

On the separation of Church and State (in the U.S.)

Katherine Harris is running for Senate in Florida, and was interviewed by the Florida Baptist Witness. Who's Katherine Harris? She was President Bush's campaign manager for Florida, while at the same time was the Secretary of State for Florida. The Secretary of State oversees elections, and of course isn't it an interesting conflict of interest that the person overseeing the election is also the campaign manager for one of the major election contestants? And isn't it interesting that not only did this pattern happen in Florida in 2000, it also happened in Ohio in 2004.

But, I digress.

The important part of this interview is:

What role do you think people of faith should play in politics and government?

The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended. So it’s really important that members of the church know people’s stands. It’s really important that they get involved in campaigns. I said I’m going to run a campaign of integrity. I’m not going to run it like all of the campaigns that I’ve seen before…. And you know, it’s hard to find people that are gonna behave that way in a campaign and be honorable that way in a campaign. But that’s why we need the faithful and we need to take back this country. It’s time that the churches get involved. Pastors, from the pulpit, can invite people to speak, not on politics, but of their faith. But they can discern, they can ask those people running for election, in the pulpit, what is your position on gay marriage? What is your position on abortion? That is totally permissible in 5013C organizations. They simply cannot endorse from the pulpit. And that’s why I’ve gone to churches and I’ve spoken in four churches, five churches a day on Sunday and people line up afterwards because it’s so important that they know. And if we don’t get involved as Christians then how could we possibly take this back?

So, um, it's clear from the article and her background that she is one of these Conservative Republicans who loudly proclaim their Christianity so that everybody knows that's their faith.

The question I have for her is, since when did anybody say that people who practice a Religion were disallowed from participating in politics?

That has never happened. Never was it disallowed for the Religious to also practice Politics. Never. So why does she claim this happened? Oh, wait, her association with G.W. Bush probably makes it easier for her to be a liar.

The principle of the Separation of Church and State is not that Religion is disallowed from Politics. It's that the State cannot establish a State Religion, and that the State cannot favor one religion over another.

Maybe in Florida "everybody" goes to church on sunday, and "everybody" is Christian ... actually, I highly doubt this ... but that pattern isn't true everywhere in the U.S. In California the white folk are a minority, and there are many non-Christian religions that are widely practiced in California. And, I'm not talking about New Age weirdos here (of which I am one) but Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jainists, etc. All those are ancient religions with long histories to them, sometimes longer history than Christianity.

Given that, why should there be favor of one religion over another? Why should the State give a rats ass about which religion someone practices or which religion is better than the other? Obviously it's a matter of personal preference which religion is better, or which religion suits one person better than it does another. And just as obviously the State should butt out of such distinctions.

But, to read Katherine Harris and her ilk, they want to establish Christianity as the dominant religion and have the State embody Christianity as the dominant religion.

Um, this is the United States. A country founded on a group who was escaping religious persecution. Why would our founding fathers have wanted the United States to engage in religious persecution? That's what it would be if the State were to begin giving preference for one religion over another, it would be a form of religious persecution.

The United States I grew up with does not practice religious persecution, but instead gives space for all religions to be worshipped on an equal footing.

Will Jews be blamed for stealing Christmas?

A couple days ago I posted a piece on the "battle" for Christmas. What's happening is the politically active Conservative Christian crew has decided to gang up on the supposed sidelining of Christmas celebrations. Which I find odd, because it's hardly sidelined at all.

Will Jews be blamed for stealing Christmas? (By MATTHEW E. BERGER, Jerusalem Post, December 18, 2005): This article is proof of one of the theories I put forward. The writer is wondering whether the Jews will be blamed for this supposed marginalization of Christmas. In the U.S. we have a lot of religions, not just Christianity. In the constitution we gaurantee freedom of religion. So, he asks, will the fundammentalists blame the Jews?

The battle for christmas

It's Christmas season. In todays newspaper is an article detailing efforts by so-called "conservatives" to have the official celebrations actually say what's being celebrated. In the past (oh, 50 yrs ago) in the U.S. the Christmas celebrations were clearly said to be about Christmas. The city/county/state would decorate a Christmas tree, the schools would be out for Christmas vacation, there would be Nativity dioramas on the courthouse lawn, etc.

But in the intervening years there's been a slide towards calling it "winter break" rather than Christmas vacation, and rather than decorating a christmas tree it would be a holiday tree, etc. Now, there's a clear legal reason for this. The U.S. Constitution clearly says there will be a separation between Church and State, and it's a reasonable legal interpretation to say that the State cannot be preferential to one religion over another.

And over the last few years the so-called "conservatives" have been working at all sorts of levels to promote Christianity (usually in a fundamental form) and Christian viewpoints all through the U.S. The recent push to get "Intelligent Design" accepted as teaching curriculum is obviously a subterfuge to get more influence of Christianity in America.

But, let's think about Christmas for a moment. One thing that strikes me is how, in truth, this is a very un-Christian celebration. It's fairly well known that many of the things about the Christmas celebration were elements of a "Pagan" holiday which the early Catholic Church wanted to replace with a Christian celebration. Hence they moved the date of Christs birth to fall upon the Saturnalia celebration, overlaying Christian themes on top of the pagan elements.

What about Christs birth has anything to do with a tree? Nothing. The tree is taken from the "pagan" holiday. As is the Mistletoe.

What about "Santa Claus"? The origins of that chubby guy are murky, but one thing I know is he has nothing to do with Christ. And Reindeer? And Elves? And Frosty the Snowman? What do any of these things have to do with Christ?

And what about the gross commercialism? Spending yourself silly buying gifts? Is that anything to do with Christ?

The article refers to The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought and I think "what 'sacred' holiday is he talking about???".

What is sacred about shop til you drop? Or what is sacred about stuffing yourself on a huge meal? Or what is sacred about murdering an innocent pine tree so you can watch it starve to death while it's hung with baubles and doodads?

I would be very happy if these people were to support celebration of a sacred holiday. You know, honor Jesus the Teacher who came to us. Honor his teachings. Consider again the teachings of love and forgiveness, or accepting and loving your neighbor as if they are yourself, and so on. But that's not what they're doing.

Instead what they're doing is telling people a big lie. That the people in America should feel persecuted, that their religion is being taken away from them. Huh? It is? Since when?

Clearly the founding fathers felt there was a grave danger if the Church and State were joined in one entity. In modern times we have examples of several fundamental Islamic countries to warn us away from joining a fundamentalist style of Church with the government. To the founding fathers their example was the fundamentalism rampant in England shortly before America gained its independence. The fundamentalists in England had a tight rein over the government, and ruled with a bloody iron fist killing anybody who got in their way.

Christianity is just one form of spiritual worship. This country clearly is a melting pot of every culture that's walked the face of this planet. Maybe it's that I live in California and it's a bit more obvious here. How can the Christians rightfully claim their religion should take pre-eminence in America over the other religions that are practiced here?? I'm not saying the Christians should be shoved aside or persecuted. But what's at stake here is the freedom of all Americans, not just the slice of Americana that celebrates Christianity.