As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse

Below is a link and an cite from an article by Sarah Posner. I think of them as contributions to this month's project--teaching K-Punk about apocalypticism.

Link: AlterNet: War on Iraq: As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse.

Christian Zionists are dancing the hora in San Antonio. Armageddon appears to be at hand.

As George W. Bush sets his sights on Iran, even Republicans are wondering how to constitutionally contain the trigger-happy king. But for an influential group of Christian fundamentalists -- White House allies that garner not only feel-good meetings with the President's liaisons to the "faith-based" community but also serious discussions with Bush's national security staff -- an attack on Iran is just what God ordered.

Biblical literalists, convened together through San Antonio megapastor John Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI), are now seeing the fruits of their yearlong campaign to convince the Bush administration to attack Iran.

Hagee came to Washington last summer on the warpath, and many Republicans -- and even a few Democrats -- welcomed him as an alleged supporter of Israel. More than 3,500 CUFI members fanned out across the Capitol to meet with their congressional delegations. Televangelist power brokers, like rising star Rod Parsley of Ohio, who serve as directors of CUFI, now proudly display photographs of their meetings with senators, brows furrowed over the seriousness of the task at hand. But probably Hagee's most important meeting was smaller and not public, at the White House with deputy national security adviser and Iran Contra player Elliott Abrams.

Did the two men talk dispensationalism or diplomacy? That the president's top national security advisor on Middle East policy met with the popular author of a best-selling book that claims that God requires a war with Iran demonstrates just how intensely politics trumps policy (and human lives) for this unhinged administration. Emboldened, Hagee returned to San Antonio fretting that "most Americans are simply not aware that the battle for Western Civilization is engaged" and "don't want to believe that Iran would use nuclear weapons against mighty America. They will!" As the bloody fighting between Israel and Hezbollah raged last August, Hagee organized a grassroots lobbying campaign to blitz the White House switchboard with callers opposed to a cease-fire. Members were urged to call the White House to "congratulate" Bush on using the term "Islamofascists" and on his "moral clarity."

Armed with blood-red rhetoric and the hubris of the politically connected, Hagee filled his 5,000-seat church for a weekend-long event culminating in his Night to Honor Israel in October. To an eager audience preparing for the end times, analogies to Hitler and denouncement of "appeasement" were flying. Anti-Muslim rhetoric was at a fevered pitch. All of it was dressed up as love and benevolence for God's chosen people. But what masqueraded as Biblically mandated generosity toward the Jews was nothing more than a political rally for a war not just against Iran, but against Islam, and for the dominance of Christianity (Hagee's brand, of course).

By the end of the year, Hagee was warning his followers that Iran was "reloading for the next war," claiming that he had "reason to believe that Iran will face a military preemptive strike from Israel to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," and denouncing the Iraq Study Group as "anti-Israel." Although he had spent nearly a year claiming that Iran intended to destroy Israel, Hagee, in rejecting the ISG's recommendation to diplomatically engage Iran, fumed, "America's problems with Iran have nothing to do with Israel. Iran's president has said he intends to use nuclear weapons against the United States of America. My father's generation would have considered this statement a declaration of war and bombed Iran by this time."

Bush knows Hagee's minions are locked and loaded for a war to end not only all wars, but the world. He might have already signed a secret executive order authorizing military action against Iran. But last week Bush nonetheless lamely tried to bring the rest of the country on board with his tried (but by no means true) device of uttering the words "Iran," "nuclear weapons" and "9/11" in the same breath.

His saber rattling won't work for the majority of Americans outraged by his conduct of the Iraq war and opposed to its escalation. But for his listeners gearing up for the end times -- a segment of American evangelicals increasingly united around this issue -- Bush fired up the grandiose rhetoric of a final showdown: "The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time."

Comments

[cynic librarian]

Jodi, I am glad that you are tracking these articles and this issue in particular. What is unique about the Bush Xtians is that they are using the mythology of apocalypse to support a conservative/reactionary ideology.

As many biblical scholars will tell you this has not been true in the past--apocalyptic movements and the genre itself have referred to and emanated from the socially marginalized and dispossessed.

In my recent reading projects, I have also come across this idea within British politics and American colonial politics. That is, as JGA Pocock has shown, millenarian groups were those who were at the forefront of secularization, as well as the egalitarian-oriented movement of republicanism.

The Busybody blog is doing some interesting things around questions of this sort: s/he's at http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/ .

You might also wish to check out Mark Goodacre's blog and this posting on Paul and apocalyptic: http://ntgateway.com/weblog/2007/01/jew-and-greek-in-christ.html

I regret that my replies to your posting on these subjects have been sporadic. Limited access to the web as well job responsibilities have conspired to keep me from blogging as much as I used to.

[cynic librarian]

PS There's also this interesting page with many good links at the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean blog: http://www.philipharland.com/Blog/2007/01/21/visions-of-the-end-where-did-they-come-from-end-11/

[Jeannette]

Apocalyptic mythology has always been around in virtually all cultures and all human traditions in some form or another. In modern times, it plays a distinct role within the political spectrum and colors most political propaganda/debate in some way. Issues like global warming and peak oil come to mind. Apocalyptic thinking is also an important part of much modern warfare, particularly as it relates to securing mass support for the war du jour.

Christian zionism as related to Israel is slightly different, though, as it is decidely eschtalogical (as opposed to apocalyptic) in its emphasis on the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Perhaps not a terribly urgent distinction, but worth noting nonetheless. Further, the eschtalogical piece is something which Hagee and many strains within the Evangelical camp heavily emphasize in favor of Zionism. The entire concept of Christian Zionism is a fascinating development, as it is almost strictly political and has really gained a great deal of steam in the past several decades or so. Given the specific purpose that the Evangelical Christian movement fulfills politically, it would be interesting to further dig into the roots of this modern phenomenon.

[cynic librarian]

Jeanette, Without getting too bogged down in terminology, eschatology relates to anything dealing with ultimate things, such as life after death and so on. Apocalyptic is related to end times and history and the role that the divine or transcendent plays in bringing that about.

Your separation of political and religious seems unwarranted. Many of the intertestamental apocalypses have politico-religious ramifications. Seeing that the Xtian Zionists use a political message is nothing new, therefore. As I remarked to Jodi earlier, there have been politico-relious movements of apocalypsticists from those times and throughout Xtian, Jewish, and Islamic history.

Pocock, for example, notes the political ramifications of Savonarola's apocalypticism, as well as this dimension in English and American revolutionary periods. Pocock makes some interesting comments on how apcalyptic changes one's relationship to time and sees time.

For Pocock, what happened in Savonarolan Florence, for example, was that the apocalyptic message brought time down to earth--so to speak--giving the believers that they had a direct role in the outcome of history. This opposed the Augustinian conception of time and the two kingdoms, since in that framework the two worlds did not intersect except at the end of time, which God was in control of and which humans had no role to play.

I am sorry if this seems a bit rough and unhewn but I am close to the start of my job.

[Tonyk]

This article reminds me of the same fear-mongering hogwash I keep hearing from right wing pundits like Limbaugh. Propaganda like this is meant to stir up the left-wing base and it is no different from the Rovian tactics used to mobilize the christian-right in 2004. Your obsession with Christian Zionism indicates a closeted desire to see a confrontation between your enemies. This is a sick proposition. Its no wonder that the majority of Americans choose not to subscribe to this provinical and hateful ideology.

[shary]

good subject. the zionist pastors.