While I think this is changing, I really don’t believe that the average atheist/agnostic quite understands End Times gospel, nor do they fully grasp how integral it is to White Christian Nationalism. Or how dangerous it is, and I think we are seeing just how dangerous these beliefs are when they are an influence on policy, which I covered in part in this post last week about the new war in Iran.
I know that some might use this as an attack on all religion, or even normal Christianity. I say normal Christianity because White Christian Nationalism is not really true Christianity. And as someone who is participating in various progressive groups, I can tell you that a number of local churches in central Pennsylvania show up to events like No Kings and our area’s Pride event. Not to mention, faith leaders have been shot in the head with pepper balls and taken chemical sprays to the face, including an incident that produced one of the iconic images of our time.
In any event, 47% of Christians, not a majority, believe we are living in “End Times” as per Pew Research and it’s likely that less than 100% of those folks believe that Israel and Iran going to war is part of it all. Yes, this really is a belief among some of them, as I wrote last week:
That it unfolded in this way, with Israel firing the first missiles, is in part due to the Christian Nationalist movement that runs the country at the moment being very, very focused on triggering the Rapture, and their entire policy related to Israel is based on that. According to their twisted interpretation of Revelations, Israel must attack Iran to get the ball rolling. Don’t believe me? Evidence of this very crazy way to run a country’s foreign policy is this BBC story about the ambassador to Israel begging Trump to start a war between Israel and Iran. The ambassador in question is Noted Crazed Fundamentalist Mike Huckabee.
Right now, the Iran war, and it’s a damn war because Trump does not get to set reality, it’s showing all the signs of being a fiasco. The entire action is illegal, and within the overall illegality, there are many war crimes being carried out. The bombing of an Iranian girls’ elementary school is looking worse and worse from a moral perspective. Attacks on desalination plants by both sides are humanitarian nightmares waiting to happen, given how important they are in that region for mere survival. Israel is demonstrating a total lack of regard for anything other than itself and its leadership’s own sick goals, as demonstrated when it hit oil targets in Iran, causing a large cloud of toxic smoke over the city and apparently upsetting some American military people.
As the war gets worse and worse for Trump, it’s hard to know what he will do. He’s impulsive, stupid, and narcissistic, so it’s hard not to imagine him trying to use a nuke in Iran, even if there’s just a small chance of that happening. Beyond that, it’s not difficult to imagine this going sideways fast in other ways. For example, Pathetic Drunk Pete Hegseth is dying to commit more war crimes, and given that Trump can even pretend to give a shit about our own troops, it’s not hard to see us commit many more atrocities in Iran. Our partner in war crimes, Israel/Bibi, is ready and willing to help.
In fact, the D word is already being floated. Incredibly, Pravda Impersonator Karoline Levitt is not passing up an opportunity to say an American military draft is very much on the table.
Circling back to the theme of this post, one might hope that Republicans in Congress step up and put an end to this lunacy, but since many of them are in the End Times Cult themselves, that lessens the chance of it. Trump’s MAGA supporters, which range somewhere in the 30s as far as a percentage of the population, are somewhat divided because they were promised by Trump no new wars.
But the deep-seated Christian Nationalist types are pretty much dug in. Despite their faith, these are not really people with great moral ideals, and if you have to die to make the Jeebus come again, so be it. If 200 heathen Iranian school children have to die in a bombing, then that’s what had to happen.
As for Trump himself, he has never shown a lot of interest in evangelical theology, other than how it helps him politically. He poses with Bibles and babbles about how God spared his life during the assassination attempts, but beyond that, the guy is an odd hero for the faithful in that he is probably a pedophile, has been proven a rapist, has 34 felony convictions, has been married three times, and never goes to church without a TV camera nearby.
No one can say for certain where this war with Iran will end up, but it’s fair to say that anyone who believes the war is a necessary part of prophecy should not be anywhere near the levers of power. They’ve already done enough damage.
The last word goes to the late Country Joe McDonald, who passed last weekend at age 84. With a few minor lyrical changes, this song works in the current moment.