Keith Rankin Analysis.
I recently read the Auckland Library copy of the 1986 book Prophecy and politics: militant evangelists on the road to nuclear war, by Grace Halsell (1923-2000). Before she died, she also published (in 1999) Forcing God’s Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture—and Destruction of Planet Earth. A revised 2003 edition included a “transcript of CBS 60 Minutes episode broadcast October 6, 2002 “Zion’s Christian soldiers; how conservative Christians see Israel’s role in bringing on the Second Coming of Christ” (Wikipedia). (Much more recently, in 2024, Al Jazeera ran this program: Praying for Armageddon episode one and episode two.)
Raised in Lubbock, Texas – thirteen years older than Buddy Holly – her youth was immersed in Christian Evangelical dogma. Evangelicals – from John Calvin in 1539, onwards – turned their Christianity from a faith that principally worshipped God to a faith that principally worshipped The Bible. Not only did the Bible become (holy) History, it also became (holy) Prophecy. (I have in my possession a very flash 1890s’ Bible; it dates everything, including the world’s “beginning” in the year 4004 BC.)
A picture may be worth a thousand words; a map even more so. The map here was one in wide circulation in American Evangelical circles mid-twentieth-century. It reflects the view that Israel was a necessary part of the ‘End Times’ prophecy, and that the Anti-Christ was Soviet Russia, invading Israel through Syria, aiming for a showdown centred on the Megiddo Vally, the place which gave our language the word ‘Armageddon’.
The study of End Times is called eschatology. Since the time of Calvin, a simmering obsession with End Times, has fluctuated (between warm and hot). An important epoch for End Time belief was the 1830s; note the Scottish writing/preaching of the likes of Thomas Chalmers (who Port Chalmers was named after) and Edward Irving. (I have in-law ancestry to members of Irving’s congregation.) Another time of deep concern was the early 1980s, with the reheated Cold War, and with the Reverend Jerry Falwell – David Lange’s Oxford Union foe in 1986 – playing a prominent part in Halsell’s story.
We note that these prophecies – contained in the Books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation – have a renewed audience today, and that the rest of us – who are neither Evangelicals nor Christian Zionists – should be concerned. Unlike in the 1830s, the world does have weapons which can create a global firestorm, and there is a state of Israel which is behaving like a rogue state.
We also note that, following the Beirut massacres of 1982 – conducted and provoked by the “Butcher of Beirut” (Ariel Sharon), and which led to the founding of Hezbollah – Iran has become (to these Evangelicals) the joint Antichrist, along with Russia revitalised in that role; the so-called Antichrist may be easily understood as the present Russian-Iranian axis, which is today bombing – as an axis – bits of Syria. (The Iran government, unlike the Russian government, is not formally involved. But these are the joint propper-uppers of the longstanding Assad regime in Syria.)
We might also note that, again to some of these people, United States president-elect Donald Trump represents the second-coming of Christ (note the picture that comes with Praying for Armageddon.) Further, he has appointed Mike Huckerbee to the role of American Ambassador to Israel; Huckerbee is a “Third Temple” Christian Evangelist who wishes to raze Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque, an event that would most-likely precipitate all-out war.
The key point is that, from a Christian Evangelical viewpoint, its all coming together nicely. The Evangelicals (dispensationalists) expect to be saved by The Rapture. Israel will fight the Antichrist on their behalf, and prevail through a pyrrhic victory. The surviving Israelites will then submit to the now-warrior Christ, and the Evangelicals will be restored to Earth.
Fantasy! Yet so many too powerful people believe it; and a nuclear Armageddon is possible today, even if The Rapture isn’t. Those who do not understand the risks should take note. Grace Halsell tried to warn us, but her warnings are not exactly common knowledge.
Further, there are some people who are definitely not Christian Evangelicals who sometimes sound as if they might be. Take this concluding sentence from Chris Trotter, an authentic (and scarce) New Zealand left-wing intellectual: “We can only hope that Donald Trump, soon to inherit America’s sabre – and its scabbard – is learning how to rattle it like mad” (Sabre-Rattling, 30 November 2024).
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
