Obama the Anti-Christ?

America - The National Catholic Weekly ^ | 2008-08-04 | Michael Sean Winters

[Alex Murphy]

A new ad by Sen. John McCain has caused controversy because of its use of religious imagery. The ad features images of Obama and Charlton Heston playing Moses. Flashing across the screen, pictures of Obama’s rapturous greeting in Berlin alternate with the phrase “The One.” The ad is an attempt at satire, poking fun at the quasi-messianic enthusiasm with which Obama was greeted in Europe. But is there more to it?

Writing in an article on Beliefnet.com, Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democrat and founder of the political group Matthew25.org, argues that the ad implies that Obama supporters see him as taking the place of the true Messiah, and just so as the Antichrist. “As Christians, we have one Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ. It is blasphemous to suggest otherwise,” Vanderslice wrote.

In case you think Vanderslice is seeing something that is not there, bear in mind that Hal Lindsay, an evangelical writer argued in the WorldNetDaily that “Obama’s world tour provided a foretaste of the reception he [the Antichrist] can expect to receive…it seems the world is now ready to make his acquaintance.” Lindsay was not saying Obama was the Antichrist, but he certainly was blurring the lines. The idea that Obama is somehow a precursor to the Antichrist is not very soothing either.

This blog has argued consistently that religion has a place in the public square, that our politics and our civilization have paid too high of a price for the secularization of the polity and of the culture. But, it is also that case that religion must make itself reasonable, for its own sake, but especially when it enters the public square. Hal Lindsay should be thrown under the bus with John Hagee and Jeremiah Wright. The mantle of religion does not give anyone the right to be a nutjob with impunity.

What is refreshing is that such charges are being answered from within the evangelical community. There was a time when they would have had the airwaves to themselves. Earlier this year, when James Dobson, a leading conservative evangelical, attacked Obama a website went up called www.jamesdobsondoesnotspeakforme.com. The website was the brainchild of Kirbyjon Caldwell, an evangelical preacher who gave the closing prayer at George W. Bush’s first inaugural. The discovery of divergence within the evangelical community will not only help our nation’s politics, it will help the churches regain some humility. Vanderslice’s push back against those who are trying to paint Obama as the Antichrist is more evidence that the evangelical community is gaining in maturity. They are discovering what we Catholics have known for a long time: there are many ways to apply the teachings of Christ and as a Church it is wise to follow the dictum: in essential things unity, in inessential things diversity and in all things charity.

[jeffc]

Writing in an article on Beliefnet.com, Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democrat and founder of the political group Matthew25.org, argues that the ad implies that Obama supporters see him as taking the place of the true Messiah, and just so as the Antichrist

Yeah, so?

[Tzimisce]

Someone has been reading my blogs.

[thefrankbaum]

Do you have a link to that video? I want to see that in person...

[Salvation]

What is your opinion here?

[Salvation]

Good points.

[Alex Murphy]

What is your opinion here?

I'm a postmillennialist, not a dispensational pretribber.

[Orange1998]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/01/new-mccain-ad-compares-ob_n_116414.html

[B.R. Burton]

I did the Gematria (Hebrew alephbet numerical value calculations) on the name "Barak Hussein Obama" in Hebrew, and it didn't come out to 666. However, in the 1st century, they didn't exactly have last names, it was more names like Shaul bar Yosef, (Saul son of Yosef), or Nachman ben Ami (Nachman son of Ami). So, I typed in Barak ben Barak, and it came out to 656! Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never seen the media and the world in general salivate over someone like Obama, and that's one of the things about the anti-christ, or False Mashiach, he'll be a great guy at first, who achieves a "false peace" in the Middle east, and then he'll show his true self.

Here are my calcs:
Barak Hussein Obama = 501
Barak ben Barak = 656
Barak bar Barak = 806

Just keep watching and praying.
Shalom in Yeshua (Jesus') Name,
Benjamin

[chessplayer]

Jimmy Carter the antichrist.

http://mklasing.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/jimmy-carter-is-the-long-awaited-antichrist/

Ronald Reagan the antichrist.

http://home.mcn.net/~willfree/coincidence/reagan.htm

Bill Clinton the antichrist.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21829

George Bush the antichrist.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_9_27/ai_108881880

[raynearhood]

The “dispensational pretribber” link.... you owe mw a new screen!!!

[raynearhood]

you owe mw me a new screen!

OOPSIE!!!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Obama doesn’t have to be smart. The Father of Lies will tell him what to say.

[Jet Jaguar]

Try Barry Soetoro

[BykrBayb]

And what other names are possibly his real name? Make a list, and try them all. One of them simply has to be 666.

[onedoug]

Better things of God be seen more past tense than in life
Rather than having been lived, seems too soon to have formed before.

[kaehurowing]

“And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. . . The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.” (Revelation 13:1,3, regarding the Antichrist)

Certainly supports those who say Obama was born in Hawaii, geographically the most remote islands on the planet—in the middle of the ocean.

[kaehurowing]

I saw someone wearing a great Rastafarian t-shirt last weekend.

Instead of having Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari), whose title was the “Lion of Judah,” who Ethiopian legend says is of the Line of David (through the union of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba) and who is considered by Rastafarians as The Messiah, in the middle sitting upon his throne, the portrait had been altered and had replaced him with

Barack Obama.

[Alex Murphy]

The “dispensational pretribber” link.... you owe me a new screen!!!

Have you ever read The Peta Bible?

[raynearhood]

Hilarious

[Alex Murphy]

I found another of my Dispensational Hermeneutic passages for your enjoyment:

And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall watch the mountain groweth before him until it fills the whole earth, even unto crushing all the saints beneath it, yet yeah verily ye will declareth victory over whatsoever ye saith until death.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and keep ye deluding yourselves until that day when I will return unto you, and finally accomplish Myself what ye could not do in My Name."
-- Mark 11:22-24, Pretrib Dispensational Version