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The Antichrist, though mentioned a mere four times in the Bible, and then only obscurely, has exercised a tight hold on popular imagination throughout history. This has been particularly true in the U.S., says author Robert C. Fuller, where Americans have tended to view our nation as uniquelyblessed by God--a belief that leaves us especially prone to demonizing our enemies. In Naming the Antichrist, Fuller takes us on a fascinating journey through the dark side of the American religious psyche, from the earliest American colonists right up to contemporary fundamentalists such as PatRobertson and Hal Lindsey.Fuller begins by offering a brief history of the idea of the Antichrist and its origins in the apocalyptic thought in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and traces the eventual 71Gws how the colonists saw Antichrist personified in native Americans and French Catholics, in Anne Hutchinson, RogerWilliams, and the witches of Salem, in the Church of England and the King. He looks at the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century, showing how such prominent Americans as Yale president Timothy Dwight and the Reverend Jedidiah Morse (father of Samuel Morse) saw the work of theAntichrist in phenomena ranging from the French Revolution to Masonry. In the twentieth century, he finds a startling array of hate-mongers--from Gerald Winrod (who vilified Roosevelt as a pawn of the Antichrist) to the Ku Klux Klan--who drew on apocalyptic imagery in their attacks on Jews,Catholics, blacks, socialists, and others. Finally, Fuller considers contemporary fundamentalist writers such as Hal Lindsey (author of The Late Great Planet Earth, with some 19 million copies sold), Mary Stewart Relfe (whose candidates for the Antichrist have included such figures as HenryKissinger, Pope John Paul II, and Anwar Sadat), and a host of others who have found Antichrist in the sinister guise of the European Economic Community, the National Council of Churches, feminism, New Age religions, and even supermarket barcodes and fibre optics (the latter functioning as "the eyeof the Antichrist"). Throughout, Fuller reveals in vivid detail how our unique American obsession with the Antichrist reflects the struggle to understand ourselves--and our enemies--within the mythic context of the battle of absolute good versus absolute evil.From the Scofield Reference Bible (no other book had greater impact on the American Antichrist tradition) to the Scopes Monkey Trial, Fuller provides an informative and often startling look at a thread that weaves persistently throughout American religious and cultural life.… (more)
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This is a fascinating peek into America’s obsession with the Antichrist, from the time of our founding as a nation until today. While the Bible speaks of antichrists in only two short books–First and Second John–and while these passages refer only to
Fuller is an oft-published professor of religious studies at Bradley University, and his writing style is precise and engaging. He carries us through dozens of America’s apocalyptic enemies, so-named the Antichrist by vigilant stalkers of the Beast, going clear back to King George III in 1777. Yankees, Masons, liberals, communists, Catholics, unions, feminists, socialists, modernists, few people have escaped demonization by various clergy in the cosmic war of good versus evil. Popes, world leaders, diplomats and too-liberal preachers are identified by name. Just wars are fought under the banner of God, spurred by apocalyptic lyrics such as the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Entire nations are portrayed as evil empires, even from the presidential pulpit, compared to the “Gog” of Ezekiel and Revelation. Charles Taylor solved the sinister mystery of Gog: Gromkyo, Ogarkov and Gorbachev, with that birthmark on the latter’s head surely disclosing his beastly identity.
Beware anyone preaching tolerance, advocating pluralism, striving for universal brotherhood, saving the whales, or hoping for world peace. Fuller rightfully observes in the final line of his book that “this relentless obsession with the Antichrist appears to have done more to forestall than to signal the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth.”
Written before the turn of the century, Fuller’s book surely struck a chord with readers mystified by the manic draw of the millennium end. At the time, over half of adult Americans expected the imminent return of Jesus, accompanied by the fulfillment of cataclysmic biblical prophecies including the appearance of Revelation’s Beast. The whole obsession would be comical to me, had it died before my own lifetime, but when Fuller got to the 70’s the tone turned somber. I remember the panic over communism, the demonization of Kissinger, and Gorbachev’s antichristic delusion that peace was possible. I remember counting the letters in Ronald Wilson Reagan to reach 666. I remember when Greece became the tenth member of the EEC, completing the ten horns of Revelation’s beast. Had the rediculousness ended with the printing of 2001 calendars, I could write it all off as the nonsense of a prior age, but it hasn’t. Our newest president has far and wide been the subject of this same religious madness.
The Antichrist may never fade away, but thank goodness for reasonable studies like this one to help us understand and cope with this odd cultural phenomenon in the United States. A must read.
Oxford University Press, © 1995, 232 pages
ISBN: 0-19-508244-3