Blue Cord

As if there weren’t enough silliness in the world, there are now those who are speculating that Barack Obama is the antichrist.

The whole idea of looking for the antichrist is based on the flawed notion that the book of Revelation can be read as a roadmap to future events. This misreading has lead to an interpretive tradition that has built up a rather imaginative framework in which Revelation can be read. The Left Behind series, for instance, draws upon this concept to construct a fictional idea of what will happen at the end of time as a way to instruct readers about things that supposedly will happen at the end of time. This framework has led to many believers thinking they know more about the antichrist than St. John ever did.

The current brouhaha actually seems to have two levels. On one level there is the ads being put out by the McCain camp itself, such as the one below.¹ This ad and the discussions by opinion mongers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are not intended as a serious statement that Obama is an antichrist. Instead, they is meant to poke fun at his popularity, his inspiring speeches, and the religious imagery he and his supporters sometimes use. It is Politics 101: take something positive about your opponent and make it seem like a negative.

Apparently it is acceptable for Republicans to use religious language about their candidate but not Democrats. I listened to talk show hosts on Christian radio in Washington, DC, say over and over that God choose Bush instead of Gore so that Bush would be commander-in-chief on September 11, 2001, usually with a quote from Esther 4:14 that Bush had come to power for “such a time as this.” But for some reason the same language used about a Democratic candidate raises red flags.²

Yet even though this topic is intended on the surface to poke fun at Obama, I am sure those who are originating the discussion are also aware that it will provoke unease about Obama in some circles (primarily evangelical circles).  While John Hagee and Jerry Jenkins have both rejected the idea that Obama is the antichrist, others have accepted it. Take, for example, the Barack Obama the Antichrist? blog, which seriously discusses the question of whether Obama is the antichrist.³ Steve Waldman of beliefnet.com has a good article in the Wall Street Journal that takes a look at this blog and some others, as well as discussing the McCain ad.

It is rather depressing that dispensationalism still holds sway over enough of the population that this kind of interpretation could be accepted by even a small percentage of the population. Here is a small sampling of the faulty arguments from Barack Obama the Antichrist?:

• “Obama has really been using biblical rhetoric, and people are seeing him as ‘the one’ to save us.” Of course, the Bible never says that the antichrist will be give the title “The One.” And if the use of biblical rhetoric makes one the antichrist, then I know a number of preachers that may qualify.
• Barack referred to himsef as the devil. Even setting aside the fact that the devil and the antichrist are two different figures, what Obama said was, “It’s the devil you know verses the devil you don’t.” Numerous politicians have quoted this well-known proverb, but that doesn’t make them the antichrist.
• When confronted with the idea that Revelation was referring to someone in the first century, he states that this may be the case, but “[e]ither way, Barack Obama stands against many of my beliefs.” But just because someone stands against many of your beliefs does not make them the antichrist; it makes them the antiyou. Obama also shares one belief in common with the guy, however, namely his belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Apparently such a belief is not enough to prevent him from being the antichrist.
• He quotes Matthew 24:4-8, which says that there will be famines and earthquakes at the end of time. He follows this by saying, “I am just saying this weather phenomenon is really lining up with the phenomenon that is Barack Obama.” Of course, Matthew 24:4-8 does not mention weather; it meantions famines and earthquakes. And if we are going to connect national leaders to bad weather, I think Bush and Katrina hold the number one slot.
• Finally, the guy who writes the blog refers to the last book of the Bible as “Revelations,” when the actual title is “Revelation.” Yes, it is a minor point, but it is a pet peeve of mine.

I could multiply these examples ad naseum, but you get the point. I couldn’t find a place where he makes an extended argument for Obama being the antichrist. Most of the blog is just posts that take a recent news story about Obama and argue that this is the kind of thing the antichrist would do.

I will be the first to admit that Obama supporters have sometimes gone overboard in their praise of Barack, just as most political supports do. Take, for example, the blog entitled Is Barack Obama the Messiah? But if such overstatements and exaggeration were always taken at face value, the hagiography about Reagan would have me believing that he was the Second Coming of Christ.

1. The ad says at the end that it was paid for by John McCain 2008, but it does not contain the standard “I’m John McCain and I approve this ad.” I don’t know if the candidate himself endorses this approach. [back]
2. Yes, I am aware that double standards in politics are common practice. For instance, the same Republicans who are arguing that Obama does not have enough experience are the same ones that said eight years ago that Bush had plenty of experience, even though Bush had held public office only eight years while Obama has been in public office eleven years. [back]
3. If you doubt whether the Left Behind series could inspire something like this, the blog has a link to the series in his sidebar. It is in a group entitled “Christian Links.” The only other links there connect to an online Bible and a site that discusses end-times prophecy. [back]

While we are on the subject of frivolous lawsuits, I thought I would mention a story that happened down in my home state of Tennessee.

At Lakewind Church in Knoxville, a man claims he was so filled with the Holy Spirit during a service that he fell and hit his head. He is suing the church for $2.5 million for “medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering.”

This story seems like something you would see at The Onion, but since the story was reported by the AP I am assuming it is reliable. Of course, if The Onion were making this up, they would have said that the man was suing the Holy Spirit.

Let’s think about this theologically for a second. If you believe that the Spirit of God takes over your body and causes you to fall down (something the NT associates more with demon possession), then you have a big question to ask before giving yourself over to such an experience: Do I believe that the Holy Spirit will handle my body responsibly? That is, will the Holy Spirit prevent my head from hitting the pew when causing me to fall? At the very least, will God cause one of the other church members to catch me when God hurls me to the floor?

If your answer is no, then you had better look around you to make sure you have a safe fall zone before this irresponsible God gets a hold of you.

Of course, Paul says that Christians should not take each other to court (1 Cor 6:1-8), but apparently this man was concentrating on esoteric experiences instead of listening to that part of the sermon.

The New York Times is reporting that a tablet entitled Gabriel’s Revelation, which dates from around the time of the birth of Jesus, contains an account of a three-day resurrection . The story, which has the needlessly sensationalistic title “Was Jesus’ Resurrection a Sequel?”, reports an interpretation by Israel Knohl that suggests the text predicts the resurrection of an individual after being dead for three days. As is always the case, the crux of the reading occurs in a break in the text.

The Times then states:

This, in turn, undermines one of the strongest literary arguments employed by Christians over centuries to support the historicity of the Resurrection (in which they believe on faith): the specificity and novelty of the idea that the Messiah would die on a Friday and rise on a Sunday.

Such a statement over-reaches the evidence by quite a bit. Even if Knohl’s reading is correct — and that is far from certain — all it shows is that someone else thought that a resurrection would occur after three days. It is not news that resurrection was a pre-Christian idea, and the fact that someone would connect it with a three day period is hardly surprising. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, and if the author of Matthew could make that connection (Matt 12:40) I am sure others could too.

Despite what the title of the article might suggest, the text in question does not report that a resurrection happened. It is merely predicted in the text. Although Knohl connects the text with Simon (a Jewish rebel known from Josephus), he doesn’t claim that the author of the text thought that Simon actually did rise from the dead. And the followers of Simon were certainly not willing to proclaim that message and change the world the way the followers of Christ did.

Obviously, the Times is follow the age old dictum: “If it sheds blood for your sins, it leads” (it rhymes in the original Greek). And of course they point to the Talpiot tomb and other ideas that they suggest challenge the truth claims of Christianity. But while the text sounds interesting (they don’t provide the full text) and certainly will add to our ideas about the thought-world in which Christianity emerged, it certainly doesn’t drive the final nail into Jesus’ coffin. (And even if it did, he could still get out.)

A friend of mine forwarded this story to me today. Last week, a 78-year-old man crossing the street in Hartford, Connecticut, was hit by a car that was traveling in the wrong lane. The car did not stop. Neither did anyone else. The entire event was caught on a surveillance video. For those unfamiliar with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), this video serves as a re-enactment. The only difference is that there is no Good Samaritan in this story.

As the man lay conscious and bleeding on the pavement, no one stopped. Cars continued to roll by. Some slowed, but eventually went on their way. One car approaching in the lane in which he lay stopped for several seconds, then did a u-turn and went down another street. A guy on a motorcycle circled around to take a look, then headed on his way. Pedestrians on the sidewalk didn’t even approach the guy for the first half a minute, and even later they only got within five feet. The most anyone could be bothered to do was to call 911, which only four people out of the twenty-five to thirty people around him did. Eventually, a police car that happened to be driving by stopped to help him.

Now, some might argue that no one around had any first aid training. They didn’t help him because they didn’t want to make the situation worse. That may be the case, but that should not have prevented them from providing the simple comfort of human presence. Just having someone there talking with him would have calmed him down and it would have helped to know that someone cared. But apparently no one did care. Not only did no one come to be at his side, but no one even bothered to stop traffic so he wouldn’t get hit again. Cars full of priests just kept driving by, while the Levites on the sidewalk stood and watched.

I grew up in the South, but I have lived in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest. Of all of these, I am not surprised that this happened in New England. Yes, there are a lot of good things to say about New England and there are some good people here. But in the seven years I have lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts I have seen more disregard for one’s neighbor than I have in all my time in the other regions combined. The surprising thing is that I am not surprised by this video.

For comparison sake, let me tell you what happened when I lived in Iowa in 2003. One day in January as I was driving down the street, the car in front of me struck a pedestrian. The fact that a car struck a pedestrian is the only similarity between the story in Iowa and the story in Connecticut. In Iowa, the car that struck the pedestrian stopped. So did a bunch of other cars. Within fifteen seconds, there were six of us around him. Someone who had a cell phone called 911, while the rest of us took our coats off to cover the man and support his head. Even though it was ten degrees below zero, not a single individual held back his or her coat. And while some of us went to stop traffic to keep the man from getting hit again, others stayed and talked with the man so he would know that someone cared and was with him.

The basic problem in Hartford boiled down to this: everyone expected everyone else to do something, so no one did anything. Unlike the scribe in the parable they didn’t even bother to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” When you can see a fellow human being lying bleeding in the street and keep driving by, you as an individual are seriously lacking in character. And when everyone present does that, your culture is in deep trouble.

By the lack of power vested in him, Chris Brady at Targuman declared January to be International Biblical Studies Writing Month. Bibliobloggers have been announcing what they will be writing about during this month–long burst of writing energy, so I thought I would do the same.

I am a contributor to the new lectionary series put out by Westminster John Knox Press entitled Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.  For those unfamiliar with this series, it provides commentary on each of the four assigned readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for every Sunday in the three year cycle. The commentary for each reading consists of an exegetical essay, a theological essay, a homiletic essay, and a pastoral essay. I have been asked to contribute the exegetical essays for three readings from Year C:

• Exodus 14:10-31, 15:20-21
• Isaiah 65:17-25
• Acts 5:27-32

Why I have been asked to write the commentary for a passage from Acts is unclear, but I will happily accept the $0.08 per word for writing it.

So, in the spirit of International Biblical Studies Writing Month, I hereby vow to have this assignment finished by the end of the month.