But as Jonathan Zimmerman asks in a column on the History News Network, why isn’t the same scrutiny being applied to Huckabee’s beliefs, and specifically his adherence to premillenial dispensationalism, floridly exhibited in such theo-drivel as Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series and Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth? (LaHaye, incidentally, has all but endorsed Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor.) Lest anyone think that the following springs from some sort of ignorant Catholic bias on my part, you should know that premillenial dispensationalism was the mother’s milk of my own fundamentalist youth.

Premillenial dispensationalists believe in something called the Rapture, which holds that at a certain point in history, all “true” Christians will simply disappear from the face of the earth, taken up into the skies to meet Jesus during one of His two end-times returns. (This first “Second Coming” of Christ will be only partial since the Lord will not actually alight.) After the Rapture, premillenial dispensationalists believe, the earth will be wracked by seven years of Tribulation as a prelude to the apocalyptic end of history: A greater Israel will be restored; Solomon’s Temple will be rebuilt; 144,000 Jews will be converted to Christ; an asteroid will wipe out a third of earth’s population; another third will be destroyed by nuclear war; Satan will be bound for three-and-a-half years, then loosed for three-and-a-half years; the Antichrist will appear, most likely at the helm of a revived Roman Empire, and declare himself divine within the restored Temple; the reign of the Antichrist will be marked by a vast totalitarian system in which the economic activity of individuals is controlled by a mark on the right hand or the forehead; the False Prophet, an apostate religious leader (probably the Pope) will arise and assist the Antichrist by performing miracles in his name; Russia, China, and Iran will converge on the Holy Land with the goal of wiping out Israel once and for all; the armies of the Antichrist will meet them in battle in the Valley of Mediggo (Armageddon); whereupon the sky will split open, a trumpet will sound, and Jesus will descend upon the Mount of Olives to destroy Satan and the Antichrist, defeat the armies of Russia, China and Iran, and physically rule the earth from Jerusalem for a thousand years.