Our End-Times Beliefs Affect How We Interpret Today’s News (Part 1)
Different Christians have different perspectives on how God will go about bringing His kingdom to earth.
In America’s southern states, many believe the Bible prophesies a Rapture which will be followed by the appearance of a literal anti-christ. According to this view, seven years of tribulation will be followed by a huge battle between the forces of good and evil.
Other Christians think the text shows us Second Coming/Rapture occurring halfway in the middle of the Tribulation. Others believe Jesus will appear to take his followers after the Tribulation. Beyond these beliefs, some Christians don’t believe in a Rapture at all. They think the whole idea was invented by John Darby around 1830.
After looking at why each group has drawn its conclusions from the Bible, I can see strong possibilities for each. Though I do lean one direction more than the others, I can respect each of these views. What’s most interesting to me, though, is considering how our assumptions about the present/coming Kingdom can impact our reactions to daily news stories.
When the Left Behind books came out, a huge percentage of evangelical America was given a contemporary narrative framework for pretrib eschatology (i.e. Rapture before Tribulation). By reading this story, we were able to visualize a literal, final, anti-Christ (not just the preliminary anti-Christs of I John) through Nicholae Carpathia, and we were able to think about how a one-world order might actually work in the modern world.
The popularity of these books hit at an interesting time technologically. These stories were written between 1995 and 2007, so they were fresh in our minds as the internet made international communication and retail abundant. Amazon.com and eBay were formed in 1995. AOL went monthly in 1996. Google searches went live in 1997. 2003 Skype. 2004 Facebook. So, just as we were reading end-times fiction describing the dangers of globalism, instantaneous discussions with people all over the world became common.
Simultaneously, fluidity in international trade increased. Global trade grew five times greater between 1990 and 2001. (http://archive.ipu.org/splz-e/trade12/2-R2.pdf ) And, over the past few decades, it has become increasingly common to create products in various stages, in a process involving multiple countries. We’re not just talking iPhones or Toyotas here—as we’ve learned through the Covid 19 crisis, even basic pharmaceutical production relies upon a supply chain that transcends national borders.
As all of these events were occurring, globalist suspicions rose in a context of political discord. Politicians like Obama and Hillary Clinton were ominously described as “globalists,” hinting that the policies of these leaders might be helping issue in a “One World Order.”
As Obama and Clinton interacted with foreign governments, their comments about international unification triggered suspicion that globalist prophecies were beginning to take root. Scenes from the Left Behind books—and even more the creepy gut feeling of moving toward a single earthly power— sent up red flags in abundance.
This suspicion seems a bit odd in 2020, as it has virtually disappeared in the exact same demographic while Trump has praised Kim Jong Un and Putin. But video clips showing FOX News reactions to such attempts under Democratic leadership show us just how much has shifted under a leader many evangelicals trust. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rMJakLzPags
Under Democratic leaders, a great deal of evangelical concern surrounded American connections with the UN and NAFTA, let alone the formation of the European Union and the euro—which many evangelicals considered a direct step on the path to a single global currency and one world order.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching a great many southern evangelicals chatter nervously about potential conspiracies churning behind Covid 19. Some do this subtly, but many others flagrantly reference end-times prophecies as they suspect rich, powerful Bill Gates (along with a godless, liberal international posse) of intentionally orchestrating a virus that will allow him to control the earth, eventually mandating the microchipping of humans (which they think may be the sign of the beast).
In stating this forthrightly, I am neither denying the possibility nor am I mocking it. I’m simply trying to give a cultural context to the high-cortisol, hyper-alertness that a lot of us are feeling as Boomer friends forward “You must watch this video before they yank it down” links on Facebook.
Frankly, Bill Gates seems like a pretty nice guy to me. A humanist, yeah. And I disagree with him significantly on several political points.
Also, if the pretribbers are right and the anti-Christ is not metaphorical, I definitely expected the big, bad guy to be a little more debonaire—somebody besides a computer nerd born in Seattle who looks like he would be a super bad dancer at parties.
Still, my eschatological views allow for a Rapture and an antichrist of some sort.
I’m not letting anybody put a microchip in me. I’m not a big fan of retina scans or face recognition. And I not only think of the book of Revelation quite a bit these days, I also chew on Orwell and Huxley almost hourly. These are weird, dystopian times. These may be some sort of end times. I just don’t know.
But zooming out big scale, I see a pattern beginning in Genesis I with Eve’s desire to be “like God” without community with God. I’m reminded of two and three year olds saying, “I do it myself!” That’s humanity post Fall.
This thirst for a self-propelled, righteous autonomy continues all throughout the Old Testament and even the New Testament. Romans 8 clarifies that there are two ways—the way of the Spirit and the way of the Flesh. And I think the latter will probably eventually culminate into a literal end-times rebellion and chasing after a leader who promises to make us as great as we can be all on our own.
Because of this, I think that instead of treating the Scriptures like a code on the back of a cereal box, I think we need to be studying the deep heart of what it means to be indwelt with Jesus, walking in the Spirit, reliant upon his righteousness in his power.
Why? Because evil is tricky and can come in all forms and all political parties. There are so many ways to become enchanted with promises that we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, protect our own, rise in our own strength, and make the world beautiful again. That essence is what we need to suspect—even more than cracking clues that make our bellies turn like little girls listening to ghost stories at a sleep over.
I also think we need to be aware of HOW our eschatologies leave us vulnerable to suspicion. This awareness doesn’t mean we are wrong about our theories about the Bible. It doesn’t mean we need to shift to a different belief in how the Scriptures work. It only means that we address our biases head-on instead of letting them impact us at a subconscious level.
