'Antichrist' Fear Regarding Obama to Maintain Its Grip on Evangelicals?
Could a heckler who called President Barack Obama "the Antichrist" during a fundraiser event Monday be a sign of growing fears held by Americans viewing the political landscape through the lens of biblical prophecy?
Calling someone the Antichrist echoes apocalyptic fears, and with the global economic crisis, numerous natural disasters and the threat of radical Islam, there has been a growing sentiment among evangelicals that Christians are living in the last days.
Matthew Avery Sutton, author of "Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America," says that the apocalyptic fervor being experienced today is similar to the kind that fueled antigovernment movements in the 1930s and 40s.
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In the early part of the 20th century, "fundamentalists' anticipation of a coming superstate pushed them to the political right," Sutton wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece Sunday.
"As the government grew in response to industrialization, fundamentalists concluded that the rapture was approaching. Their anxieties worsened in the 1930s with the rise of fascism. Obsessed with matching biblical prophecy with current events, they studied Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, each of whom seemed to foreshadow the Antichrist," Sutton claims.
However, such fear was not limited to foreign lands, as Franklin D. Roosevelt was also a target of evangelical criticism.
"His consolidation of power across more than three terms in the White House, his efforts to undermine the autonomy of the Supreme Court, his dream of a global United Nations and especially his rapid expansion of the government confirmed what many fundamentalists had feared," Sutton writes.
"[The fear was that] the United States was lining up with Europe in preparation for a new world dictator," Sutton claims, adding: "As a result, prominent fundamentalists joined right-wing libertarians in their effort to undermine Roosevelt."
The similarities between the "fears" of Roosevelt and Obama are strong and even more striking, given that Obama's policies are so often compares to Roosevelt's "New Deal," which has become a symbol of government interference and largesse in the eyes of fiscal conservatives and libertarians.
Even social security has come under attack from Republican moderates, like presidential hopefuls former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
With Obama's attempts to implement health care programs, bail out corporations, inject energy into the economy through stimulus packages, combined with "birther" theories and beliefs that Obama is really a Muslim disguised as a Christian, the president's image matches how some evangelicals view the Antichrist - even if Scripture does not support that interpretation.
However, Sutton argues that, although fears and frustrations of ordinary Americans are enough to spark an anti-government movement and compel some to view Obama as the Antichrist, it remains to be seen if any poiticians are effective enough to exploit such fear for votes at the polls.
"While few of the faithful truly think that the president is the Antichrist, millions of voters, like their Depression-era predecessors, fear that the time is short," Sutton writes.
He adds, "The sentiment that Mr. Obama is preparing the United States, as Roosevelt did, for the Antichrist's global coalition is likely to grow."
