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God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man…Yes! You are in control!
-- Frederick Price, Prayer: Do You Know What Prayer Is…and How to Pray? The Word Study Bible, 1178
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News: What Does Mike Huckabee Have to do With the Apocalypse?
Posted on Saturday, January 26 @ 10:41:56 PST by John |
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by Valerie Saturen
Recent polls show the previously little-known Mike Huckabee now running a close race with contenders Mitt Romney and John McCain. Huckabee, who won the key Iowa race, owes his rising star to a surge of support from evangelicals. Comprising about 25% of Americans, evangelicals have formed the core Republican voting bloc since the 1970s. While most Americans are aware of the "family values" domestic concerns of this group, fewer understand its foreign policy agenda, which is tied to the powerful yet little-understood phenomenon of Christian Zionism. Rooted in a literal interpretation of biblical "End Times" prophecy, this ideology carries profound implications for our role in the Middle East, and it is a crucial factor in the 2008 Republican race.
Christian Zionism stems from the belief that the catastrophic events depicted in the biblical Book of Revelation are humanity's literal destiny, and that two-thirds of the Earth's population will perish in an apocalyptic battle of good and evil while the "saved" are "raptured up" to heaven. For Christian Zionists, this catastrophe is a necessary precedent to the Second Coming. Followers of this ideology comprise an estimated 20 million Americans, a number that grew rapidly after September 11 and increased Mideast violence within recent years. Aided by a surge in sales of books such as the best-selling Left Behind series, which portrays Revelation as a modern-day battle, the view of Mideast violence as an apocalyptic "sign of the times" is rapidly gaining ground. Significantly, Huckabee has received an endorsement from Left Behind author and leading Christian Zionist Tim LaHaye.
While those outside of evangelical circles may dismiss such beliefs, they have played a critical role in influencing U.S. foreign policy, and they will continue to affect policy as long as the United States remains under Republican leadership that relies upon evangelical support. Christian Zionism has implications for the U.S. role in Israeli-Palestinian relations, a potential confrontation with Iran, and relations with the Muslim world.
Click here to read the entire article
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Re: What Does Mike Huckabee Have to do With the Apocalypse? (Score: 1)
 by Islamaphobe on Saturday, January 26 @ 12:47:41 PST
(User Info | Send a Message) | I shall open the discussion on this article and invite comments. I have no respect for Tim LaHaye, John Hagee, and others of their persuasion, but neither am I persuaded by what I perceive to be the line of argument endorsed by Valeria Saturen. In fact, I consider what she offers to be more dangerous than what she attacks.
Ms. Saturen recently received an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona. I suspect that we can reasonably assume that she is a good student and that while the University of Arizona's program is staffed by people with proper academic credentials, it is not exactly a Christian friendly atmosphere, or one that is particularly well-steeped in knowledge of Christian theology. I assume that Ms. Saturen is of Jewish background since an article by her entitled "The Other Zionist Conspiracy: A History of Christian Zionism," was posted in 2006 at zeek.net. I am glad to see that since the posting of that article, Saturen has learned that the last book in the NT is Revelation, not Revelations.
Saturen contends that American foreign policy, particularly in Republican administrations, has been heavily influenced by Christian Zionism, whose theology embraces a "literal" interpretation of Revelation and anticipates a soon-to-arrive bloody apocalypse associated with the Second Coming of Christ. She assumes that President Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, has bought into this theology, and she closes her article that is partly posted above with the observation that "the human potential to create self-fulfilling prophecies is undeniable, and this is why Americans should pay attention to this ideology." Neither the article posted here nor the one posted at zeek.net demonstrates familiarity with such nuances in Christian theology as the distinctions among premillennialism, postmillennialism, preterism, and amillennialism. She pretty much assumes that most "evangelicals" adhere to what folks at this site tend to call dispensationalism, and she obviously feels that the safety of the world is gravely imperiled as a result.
That Christian Zionists have had some influence on American foreign policy I do not deny. That American foreign policy is dominated by Christian Zionism I consider to be absurd. It is my firm belief that there is a war going on the world of militant Islam with the rest of the world and that those Jews who, apparently like Valerie Saturen, think that a deal could be worked out with the Palestinians that might bring peace to Middle East if the Christian Zionists would butt out are delusional. She is right, however, about the human potential for creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Unfortunately, she apparently fails to see that the militant Islamists are doing far more to bring about that result than those deluded Christian Zionists.
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- by alberto on Monday, January 28 @ 15:43:15 PST
Re: What Does Mike Huckabee Have to do With the Apocalypse? (Score: 1)
by EWMI on Saturday, January 26 @ 22:08:15 PST
(User Info | Send a Message) | I have hung around ultra dispensationalists, now called Christian Zionists for years. Their passion is not for the Republican party but for Israel. What the writer does not say is that Christian Zionist (C.Z.) opinions come directly from Zionists. C.Z. leaders love to name drop the Rabbi's or Israeli ministers who call them or meet with them.
I do not think it is possible to say that C.Z's can still be expected to vote in a block given the shocking condition of the economy and the growing sense that the war on Islam is a fraud. My C.Z. friends are beginning to wake up to the fact that before Islam the enemy was Communism and before that Nazism.
The economy is continuing to tank. The stage is being set for a new and terrible global war and Christian Zionists will happily send their sons to die in the desert.
Rest assured that if the Arabs surrounding Israel where Baptists the so called clash of civilisations would be against evangelicals.
Summary:
a) Christian Zionists are Pawns
b) War on terror is a fraud
c) Economic Desperation is feeding into a new war
d) Western armies are a janissary force
e) Christian Zionist leaders bless the troops as they go to die
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