FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Antichrist Unveiled

Rant Number 361 4 September 2009

The secret is out. The identity of the Antichrist has been uncovered. The vile agent of darkness foretold by the Apostle John is mysterious no more. The beast of the book of Revelation, the ‘man of lawlessness’ evoked by St Paul, the ‘Nero come again’ dreaded by the early Christians – no longer is he confined to dark prophecies. Such a horrid entity now stalks the earth. He walks amongst us. He even rules us – yak! Who he? It will come as a bit of a shock, I know, but I won’t sweeten the pill: Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

That the President of the United States should be the bearer of the number 666 will strike some as implausible. (Maybe the same right-thinking people who’d relish bestowing the title on G.W. Bush.) But the kooky website alleging the amazing fact is adamant. Obama is the man.

Idiocy apart, it perplexed me. Wasn’t Barack till recently hailed as an almost Christ-like figure? How could he now turn out to be Christ’s very antagonist? It doesn’t make sense. Obama is a nice guy. An attractive persona. His face, like his smile, is frank, open and genuine. He speaks well, sounds honest, eloquent and sincere. He is a family man, with a lovely wife and kids. Domestically, he champions the less well off – vide his proposed healthcare legislation. (My friend Helen, a fan, just enthused about his virtues as a writer, philanthropist, intellectual, etcetera.) He likes Muslims – did he not the Qur’an three times in the pandering Cairo speech? The other day he was at a Ramadhan iftar – Islam belongs in America, you learnt. Wonder of all wonders, he is even a teeny-weeny critical (ahem, with big, big qualifications) of the state of Israel. How could he...?

What does the Antichrist’s reign signify? Forget theology. Who cares for that in our illiterate age? I submit Lars Von Triers’ abominable movie, Antichrist, is a good guide to the popular meaning. A catalogue of gut-wrenching horrors, it is structured around three parts – grief, pain (subtitled ‘chaos reigns’) and despair. As a red thread running through it, frenetic copulation. All spiced up with unspeakable acts of cruelty to men, women, children and animals alike. Sadism, misogyny, torture, madness, mutilation...When you behold a fox disembowelling itself, you get - or you think you get – the point about the film – nature itself gets un-natured. A world upside-down. The natural, God-ordained order of things, creation, is undone, twisted, inverted and perverted under the rule of Antichrist. (An alarming message, come to think of it. You may think of blatant examples around of ‘inversion’ of the natural order. But relax! Catholic Church apart, no one gives a damn for the natural law these days.)

Verily, director Von Triers churns out loathsome garbage. Highbrow filth. Is it because he is a Dane? What’s wrong with that country? Kierkegaard was right. A society that appears Christian, while the reverse is true. Triers pretends to be a subversive - in fact he is reinforcing a degenerate kultur’s clichés. It dates from his pretentious Dogme 95 cinema manifesto, which spawned a spate of poisonous oeuvres. Yet, consciously or not, perhaps his revolting movie might be squared with the weird symbolism of the Book of Revelation. Much about ugliness and badness, eh? A long way from ‘nice guy’ Barack Obama, it seems.

In actual fact, he who ushers in Lucifer’s rule does not have to look like the grotesque devil of medieval mystery plays, showing the cloven foot and spitting fire. The sod is subtler than that. Indeed, in Paolo Signorelli’s painting of the Last Judgment the Antichrist looks remarkably like Christ. But the most sophisticated portrayal comes in a short tale by the Russian writer Vladimir Soloviev. Christ’s and man’s enemy is young, a thinker and an acclaimed public figure. Apparently a person of exceptional genius, beauty and nobility of character. The author of the book A Way to Universal Peace and Prosperity. A philanthropist, a reformer, a lover of humanity. A radical endowed with sympathy for the needy. (Getting warmer...) A believer in truth, goodness and Christ. But he is envious. ‘Christ is first, why am I only second?’ So Satan seduces him into rebellion. Read the story on the web, I beg you. Amazingly prophetic about a United States of Europe, with a president who looks uncannily like Tony Blair. I relish the bit about the Jews eventually sussing the Antichrist out. You can’t fool God’s ancient people, can you?

Any analogy between the US President and Soloviev’s Antichrist is problematical, I grant you. There are plenty of other potential candidates. Why not a woman, for instance? Angela Merkel? Nah! No way. The Antichrist won’t be quite as dull. All I would argue is that the cunning fiend will not conform to the crassest popular expectations. Soloviev is spot on there.

One problem with Antichrist attributions is that between singular and plural. One and many. The Bible is taken to refer to a single, demonic dictator or world demagogue, a satanic schemer hell bent on misleading humanity into sin and evil. Yet I John 2:18 speaks of ‘many antichrists’, as opposed to a grand Antichrist to come. Throughout history many were given the title. King Antiochus Epiphanes (‘God Manifest’ – the bloody lunatic!), Roman emperors like Caligula, Nero and Domitian, Simon Magus, Arius, a certain Arabian prophet, Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, Charles Taze Russell, founder of Jehova’s Witnesses, Mary Baker Eddy, of Christian Science fame, Trotsky, Hitler, Mussolini, Professor Keith Ward, young Nick B., the bishop of Truro...und so weiter. It is safe to say that nasty antichristian figures have existed and do exist today. They are all manifestations of the one, eschatological, final Antichrist. If Obama really were a candidate for the unenviable role, would he be one of the lesser antichrists? Not the Prince of Demons himself, I don’t believe. Despite the razzmatazz, all that glitters is not gold - the fellow strikes me as basically lightweight.

Finally, many have more realistically linked the Antichrist not to a historical person but to an evil state of affairs or principle. If that is true, I fear he is here already.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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