Why are these Christians happy about the Hamas-Israel war?

Since the beginning of human history, war and related violence have raged across the globe. Wikipedia's long list of current wars or lesser conflicts bears witness to the apparent inability of humanity to solve disagreements peacefully.

Even worse, what I sometimes call bonkers theology can and does play a role in stirring up, approving of or even continuing military violence. As this insightful analysis from The Nation points out, there are some Christians who are thrilled about the Hamas-Israel war because they believe it's another sign of the approach of the Second Coming of Christ and, well, the end of the world as we know it.

This should be no surprise, especially to anyone familiar with the evacuation theology represented by the hot-selling "Left Behind" series of books published in the 1990s and early 2000s.

That and related theologies are rooted in a literalistic reading of the Bible and one result is a religious idea known as Dispensationalism.

As the article in The Nation notes, "(F)or many in the American evangelical world, the news out of Gaza is a crucial foretaste of redemption — the prelude to the final battle for earthly power, to be followed by Armageddon and the Rapture."

(The so-called Rapture is at the root of the Left Behind series and is based on another literalistic misreading of certain passages of scripture. The book to read is The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation, by Barbara R. Rossing. I mentioned that book in this blog post. All this is a reminder that anyone who reads the Bible should understand how metaphor, myth and allegory are different from literal history.)

To quote The Nation piece again, "Believers in the literal interpretation of 'endtimes' prophecy see the fortunes of Israel as a key harbinger of the Final Judgment and the elevation of fallen human history into the realm of the divine. . .The best-known promoter of this worldview is Texas-based Pentecostal televangelist John Hagee, the founder of the advocacy group Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Hagee is a longtime fixture in the endtimes media complex, claiming that the march of time is rapidly aligning with the events foretold in Revelation and other prophetic books of the Bible."

Why do these Christians display such public support for Israel? The answer has almost nothing to do with providing a homeland for the world's Jewish people, as The Nation article makes clear: "In the dispensationalist schemes of Hagee and other endtimes preachers, Jews are a means to an end — the efficient cause of the final conflagration, but not autonomous spiritual agents in their own right." In other words, only when Israel controls the Temple Mount in Jerusalem -- and perhaps all or most of the land they believe was promised by God to the people of Israel -- can the Second Coming of Christ occur.

And what happens then? In dispensationalist accounts, all the Jewish people either convert to Christianity or are condemned to hell, according to this theology. Nice, huh?

And guess who The Nation piece describes as "one very influential spiritual ally" of these current dispensationalists: "Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu." In a way, that sort of makes sense in that they use their support for Israel to recruit people to their vision of the end times while Netanyahu uses them to justify his policies. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

By the way, much of this kind of prophetic theology is based on how one reads the book of Revelation, the puzzling last chapter in the New Testament. Almost from the beginning of Christianity, some readers of Revelation have been expecting the Second Coming or the end of history any day now because that's what they believe they read in that book. And one thing about the date setters is that they have been consistent: They've always been wrong.

And yet they keep finding gullible people who believe them. Imagine that.

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IS HE THE 'THEOLOGIAN OF THE HOUSE'?

The new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, R-La., says the American "culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable.” And he wonders whether God is going to "allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins." In some ways, it feels to lots of people that we may be experiencing something like such a judgment because of the foolish decisions voters have made in past elections -- and may make in the future -- to choose leaders who seem so certain they know how God would respond to our culture.

And speaking of Johnson, you might want to read this Good Faith Media piece about why, despite what Johnson claims, he doesn't really hold a biblical worldview.

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THE BOOK CORNER

Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn, by James Walvin. As the author, an emeritus history professor at the University of York, notes, in the last 50 or so years, this old hymn has experienced a remarkable revival. Today it's heard in many places on many occasions, including at a funeral service where it was sung solo (to start) by Barack Obama when he was president. Why the return to former slave ship captain John Newton's four-verse song? Walvin attempts to explain in this engaging -- if somewhat repetitious -- new book.

Perhaps it won't shock you to discover that the reasons for its renewed popularity include the reality that it has been a big money-maker for music publishers, musicians and others. That may not detract from its religious message but in some sense it ties it back to Newton's connections with the slave trade in the 1700s.

As Walvin writes, "For more than fifty years 'Amazing Grace' has been absorbed into a variety of important business interests, most notably perhaps in the massive business of funerals and of remembering the dead. . .'Amazing Grace' has become an anthem for the dead as much as a uniting sound for the living."

So if this hymn thrills you (I personally give it about half a thrill most times I hear it), you may be interested in this book's account of the sinful roots of its history and why it has returned to remarkable popularity today.