Church of Azazel > Beliefs & principles > The Antichrist



The Antichrist

by Diane Vera



Copyright © 2006 by the Church of Azazel. All rights reserved.



There is no reason to believe in the infallible truth of Christian prophecies. But some prophecies may be self-fulfilling, by sheer force of so many people believing in them.

Christian predictions about the "Antichrist" have already inspired many people, e.g. Aleister Crowley and quite a few teenage Satanists, to try to take on that role. Perhaps, someday, one of these people may actually succeed. Alternatively, a world leader may emerge who didn't intend to be the Antichrist, but who is almost unanimously identified as such by the more conservative Christians.

Anyhow, an "Antichrist" may be just what the world needs. That is, the Antichrist as expected by a great many of today's evangelical Christians, not the Antichrist as portrayed in the Omen movies.

In the Book of Revelation/Apocalypse (chapters 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16), Jehovah - not Satan or the Antichrist - is the one predicted to inflict nearly all the more severe calamities and eventually to destroy the entire Earth. He is predicted to do this mainly out of fury that not everyone bows down to him; he is a fierce, self-described "jealous god" (Exodus 20:5 and Exodus 34:14). And, given their belief in the Rapture, the more fanatical evangelical Christian worshipers of Jehovah could indeed end up destroying the entire Earth. A lot of them seem to get off on the prospect of big wars in the Middle East, because those wars speed up the end-times clock. [1]  We've seen also, as of September 11, 2001, how destructive the more fanatical Muslims can be too.

On the other hand, many evangelical, fundamentalist, and traditionalist Christians believe that the Antichrist will bring world peace, at least for a short time, via a "one-world government" which will emerge from the United Nations. In fact, a one-world government would be the only conceivable way to end the threat of nuclear war once and for all  -  and that, to almost anyone but a hardcore fundamentalist Christian, would be a very good thing indeed.

It is also commonly believed that the Antichrist will persecute "true Christians." Then again, many fundamentalist/traditionlist Christians feel "persecuted" already, merely because most people don't like their attempts to force their religion on everyone else. [2]

According to many evangelical Christians, the Antichrist will be a world political leader who will also preside over a new world religion. [3] The predicted new "religion" will essentially be a broad coalition of all the world's already-existing religions, except for "true Christianity," i.e. theocratic-minded fundamentalist/traditionalist Christianity, and possibly also excluding Judaism according to some evangelical Christian writers, although others say thet the Antichrist will be a Jew. [4] Such a coalition wouldn't really be a single new religion, but it would be seen that way by many Christian religious right wingers, who insist, for example, that "secular humanism" is a religion. [5]

If, in addition to religiously intolerant fundamentalist/traditionalist Christians, the coalition were also to exclude religiously intolerant fundamentalist/traditionalist Muslims and possibly also religiously intolerant ultra-orthodox Jews/Noahides, then, yes, the entire rest of the world could indeed benefit from a politically powerful coalition of all the world's other religions against the Abrahamic would-be monopoly. What the coalition would oppose is the imperialistic theocratic mindset that has gotten more and more common amongst the more fundamentalist/traditionalist Christians and Muslims and in the small but growing Noahide movement - a very scary movement if it gets much bigger. (Noahides are halfway converts to Judaism. One of the seven laws of Noah is to set up courts of justice to enforce the other six laws, which include prohibitions on "idolatry" and "blasphemy," punishable by death - at least according to an ultra-Orthodox interpretation which seems to be growing in popularity. [6])

A worldwide coalition against Abrahamic theocracy could be rather fractious, though. It would have to include everyone from Western gay nudist Wiccans to fundamentalist/traditionalist Hindus, who typically hate Western gay nudist Wiccans every bit as much as fundamentalist/traditionalist Christians do. To be maximally effective - and maximally consistent with the Antichrist prophecies as commonly understood by most evangelical Christians, who say that the Antichrist will be a "false Christ" - the movement would also have to include the more liberal kinds of Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

To pull all these many very different kinds of people together worldwide, it would surely be helpful to have a very charismatic world leader, such as the Antichrist.

The Church of Azazel does not claim to know who the Antichrist will be, and we certainly would not be so pretentious as to claim to be the Antichrist. Nor do we even know for sure that there will be an Antichrist. But we can encourage at least some of our members to start building the beginnings of the needed religious and sociopolitical movement, and we can encourage other people to do so as well.

How can we help lay the groundwork? By doing the following:

  1. Alerting people to the dangers posed by Abrahamic would-be theocrats. A lot of people are still unaware or in denial about this.

  2. Exposing the manipulative techniques of Christian and Islamic evangelists, and encouraging people to study counterarguments.

  3. Political activism to defend the rights of nonmainstream religions and other nonmainstream subcultures that are under attack by religious bigots.

  4. As part of all three of the above, opposing any revival of "Satanic" panic. (See Against Satanic Panics.)

  5. Talking to and making friends with people of a variety of nonmainstream religions, rather than looking down our noses at them as all too many Satanists have done.

The Church of Azazel encourages its members each to do at least one of the above, at least on a small scale - especially the last one, making friends with people of nonmainstream religions, since doing so can be very beneficial to the development of one's own religious thinking, as well as helping to promote religious tolerance in a small way.

Numerous young theistic Satanists have fancied themselves to be the Antichrist. If you are such a Satanist and you want us to take you at all seriously, well, you'll need to prove it through your accomplishments. Among other things, you had better excel at doing all five things listed above, plus you had better be a darned good political organizer on an international scale. Otherwise, well, perhaps you might still be "chosen by Satan" for some purpose, but certainly not as the Antichrist.



References

  1. On common evangelical Christian attitudes toward the Middle East in light of end-times prophecy:

    2.

    See, for example, the following articles about the massively popular "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye, a major religious right wing leader:  Fundamentally unsound by Michelle Goldberg, the Time Magazine article The Bible & the Apocalypse, Reverend Doomsday: According to Tim LaHaye, the Apocalypse is now by Robert Dreyfuss in Rolling Stone, and a review, by Gershom Gorenberg, of Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series.

  2. About fundamentalist/traditionalist Christian persecution paranoia:

    3.

    See various articles listed in the section on Christian persecution paranoia in my article Promoting religious tolerance on my Against Satanic Panics website.

  3. About the "one world religion":

    4.

    In additions to the articles about Tim LaHaye I've referenced elsewhere, see also the following pages by various kinds of fundamentalist/traditionalist Christians: New Age Bible Versions on the website of Jack Chick (publisher of the infamous Chick tracts), One-world religion and One World Government / Religion on websites by followers of the ultra-traditionalist Catholic visionary Veronica Leuken, and One-world religion on its way? on WorldNetDaily.com. See also the following less well-known sources which voice fairly typical views and have a high Internet profile: One world religion now officially born! on a fundamentalist Baptist website, The New World Order and New Age Religion by fundamentalist pastor Ron Graff, Mystery Babylon: One World Religion by Joseph R. Chambers, The New Age Movement: What Christians Should Know by Dr. Dale A. Robbins, and The New Age Religion: brought to us by the Ascended Masters.

  4. About the Antichrist being a Jew, according to some though by no means all evangelical Christians:

    5.

    See I, Antichrist? by Jeffrey Goldberg, interviewing Jerry Falwell (another copy here).

  5. About "secular humanism" as an alleged "religion":

    6.

    Regarding Tim LaHaye's views, see:  The World According to Tim LaHaye: Chapter Four - Secular Humanism as False Religion by Chip Berlet, Another Assault From the Religious Right by Paul Kurtz, and If Best-Selling End-Times Author Tim LaHaye Has His Way, Church-State Separation Will Be... Left Behind by Bob Boston. For one of Tim LaHaye's own diatribes about "secular humanism," see Anti-Christ Philosophy Already Controls America and Europe (PDF file) in the September 1999 issue of Tim LaHaye's newslatter Pre-Trib Perspectives. See also Chip Berlet's comments in The World According to Tim LaHaye: Chapter Two - Pre-Trib Perspectives.

  6. About Noahides and "courts of justice" with death penalty for "idolatry" and "blasphemy":

    7.

    See The Seven Laws of the Descendents of Noah, The Seven Laws of the covenant of Noah, and The Concept of Noahine Courts on Noahide websites. See also the following relevant ultra-Orthodox Jewish sites: RaMBaN on VaYishlach on Gates to Jewish Heritage and Courts of Law by Chaim Clorfene and Yakov Rogalsky. But note that not all Jews traditionally agree - see The Obligation of Jews to Seek Observance of Noachide[1] Laws by Gentiles: A Theoretical Review by Rabbi Michael J. Broyde.



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