Gorillas in the Midst
Gorillas in the Midst
Anti-Christ carries with it a dual meaning, We all know that the anti-Christ is supremely against Christ. What we often miss is that the term carries with it the idea of that which is instead of Christ. If I were the anti-Christ, however, I would see it as my task not only to take people's eyes off of Jesus and onto me, but I would also seek to bring the gaze of the world off of me, and onto a sham me. If I'm going to masquerade as the Christ, I must have someone perform an anti-Christ pantomime.
Dispensational eschatology has been happy to oblige. Since its inception dispensationalism has been practicing its own peculiar form of headline-egeisis. While insisting that they alone are committed to taking the text literally, they have turned falling stars into ICBM's, locusts into attack helicopters, and the European Union into a ten-headed beast. Meanwhile, each new bad guy arising on the political scene gets the treatment of Procrustes, forced to wear size 666. We have had some suggest that Hitler was the anti-Christ, only to have that dream go up in smoke in a bunker in Berlin. More recently we have had our pick of Henry Kissinger, or Boutros-Boutros Gali, or Saddam Hussein. As soon as the politico falls off the political map, we are treated to yet another candidate.
Such foolishness not only embarrasses the church, but it distracts us. While we were out hunting the headlines for anti-Christ, we have missed the five hundred pound gorilla in our midst. We're like Blondie guarding the couch lest Dagwood take a nap, when we should be guarding the refrigerator, lest he make a sandwich. The problem is not some sinister Bond-style villain equipped with weapons of mass destruction, the problem is in almost every nation we have a state that has set itself up as God. We do not have one charismatic leader with a secret 666 tattoo on his scalp, but hundreds of inane leaders who scalp us daily.
While the dispensationalists have been waiting for the terror of an absolute ruler we have been drowning in the terror of too many absolute rulers. We have fallen into rank statism because we are afraid not of the state, but an eschatological boogeyman that died almost two thousand years ago. Nero is at the same time laughing in his grave, and spinning in it, consumed with jealousy that the Prime Minister of Tanzania has more real power than he, the emperor of the world's greatest power, ever had.
Who is the Prince of Peace, but Cohn Powell, Madeleine Albright, James Baker, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Henry Kissinger? It doesn't matter who it is, only that we, while worrying about some specter, have assigned powers that rightly belong to Christ to a motley crew of bureaucrats. Who is the bread of life, but those state programs that put food on millions of tables, complete with cheese or peanut butter? Who is our deliverer, but the guy we hope will turn things around, once we get him in office? Who will turn the hearts of fathers back toward their children but the army of social workers who have become a nation of nannies? Who is the truth, but the priests of the state religion down at the government school who have catechized us to believe that there is no truth? Who created us, but the state that built the hospital in which we were born, and paid for the delivery?
The state has become as God to the world, and we're worried about the latest tin-horn, oil glutted dictator out in the desert. And because we're worried about that dictator, what do we do but hand more power over to the state, or NATO, or the UN, and plead with them to do something. Because we're worried that the "free" education we give our children may not seem like such a bargain if they end up gunned down by their classmates, we again ask the state to make the fear go away. We ask the state to strip from us that which the state fears, our guns. And we show ourselves to lack what the state fears the most, courage.
Our problem is not our eschatology but our Christology. More important than figuring out when He will return is believing who He is. More important than figuring out what the one world government will look like when He returns is understanding that there already is one world government, and He alone rules. We worry because we do not believe He is the King. We hope and pray that one day He will be, but after the tribulation. In the meantime, we worship the god of the state, to keep us alive until the rapture.
As the state grows, men shrink. We become mere shadows, men without chests. We become lapdogs that live to please the master, not because we love him, but because we need him to keep us safe. We, if we recognize that we serve in the Lord's army at all, come to serve as pygmies. The devil's ploy is working, and we are not. He has made slaves of us as we wait for him to consummate his plan to make slaves of us. In order to be free men, we must be set free of the fear of men. In order to magnify the name of Christ, we cannot at the same time say, "This cup of water is brought to you by the King of Kings," and then in that fast radio commercial lease terms voice add, "Actually it is brought to you by the federal government, but thanks to Marvin Olasky they allow me now to say that it comes from Jesus, even though it doesn't." In order to do battle with the devil, we have to recognize him. He's driving the car with the federal tags.
The state that fails to affirm the Lordship of Christ is of necessity anti-Christ.
And so are those who support it.