The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
17, 2019.
Fea, John 2016. The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.
Kaylor, Brian. May 22, 2009. “Publisher’s ‘American Patriot’s Bible’ Draws Strong Criticism.” EthicsDaily.com. https://ethicsdaily.com/publishers-american-patriots-bible-draws-strong-criticism-cms-14259/.
Lee, Richard G., ed. 2009. The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America . Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
Antichrist
2 John 1:7 refers to the spirit of the “Antichrist,” and numerous Scriptures from the book of Revelation refer to a “man of sin” as someone who will oppose Christ in the last days. The term “Antichrist” has been used both to refer to a particularly evil man who will emerge in the end of times and to a succession of leaders who have opposed Christ.
Written in code at a time when Christians were facing persecution, the biblical book of Revelation identifies Babylon, an ancient pagan city, as sitting on seven hills. This was an obvious reference to Rome; the emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians, would have been an obvious Antichrist. Because the Roman Empire was succeeded by the Roman Catholic Church, the headquarters of which (Vatican City) is also in Rome, it was easy for Protestant reformers from Martin Luther forward to identify the pope as an Antichrist.
Indeed, in a forum to which he contributed, Professor Paul S. Boyer observed that the notes to the Geneva Bible, which was published in English in 1560, explained the passage in Revelation 17:3–4, which describes a woman clothed in purple and scarlet and drinking from a cup of abominations and fornications, by saying, “This woman is the Antichrist, that is, the Pope with ye whole bodie of his filthie creatures” (“Forum” 2011, 18). The Puritans brought this idea with them to the new world, with Jonathan Edwards being among those who believed that the Reformation marked the beginning of the last days in which Catholicism would be overthrown. From such a perspective, which does much to explain conflicts over reading the Bible in public schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Protestants often regarded Catholics less like fellow Christians than like the antithesis to Christ.
During the American Revolution, some Patriots identified King George III as the Antichrist (Burke 2013). This link may have been furthered by the Quebec Act, in which Britain had acknowledged the Catholic Church in Canada. Internationally, Tsar Alexander was among those who identified Napoleon as a possible Antichrist (Carter 2012).
During World War II, a number of commentators identified Hitler or Mussolini as the Antichrist (Carter 2012; Poole 2009, 145). The subsequent Cold War led others to associate the Antichrist with Russia, whose communist ideology was atheistic. Speculation that U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, 33who had helped open diplomatic relations with communist China, might be the Antichrist in time gave way to the idea that Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, with a distinct birthmark on his forehead that some likened to the biblical “mark of the beast,” might be (Carter 2012).
There is not much distance between the view that the pope and Roman Catholics represent the Antichrist and the view that Muslims, who do not accept the divinity of Christ, are in fact Antichrists (Burke 2013). Such usage may, in fact, date back to the Crusades (Burke 2013). Professor Boyer observed that, in the events leading up to the 1990–1991 and the 2011 invasions of Iraq (the home of ancient Babylon), a number of prophetic writers identified Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the Antichrist (“Forum” 2011, 15).
Deeply suspicious of talk of a New World Order, which writers on prophecy have often tied to the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission, a number of such writers (many of whom may have been drawing from the idea that Obama, whose middle name was Hussein, had been born abroad and/or that he was a Muslim) identified Obama as the Antichrist. Indeed, Boyer reports that a Google search conducted in 2010 produced 8,170,000 hits by matching the keywords “Obama” and “Antichrist” (“Forum” 2011, 14). Apparently, every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Obama, other than President Ford, was at one time or another also labeled an Antichrist (Carter 2012).
Clearly, the use of such imagery can be adapted to a variety of contexts and tends to lead to political polarization.
See also Edwards, Jonathan; Obama, Barack; Puritans; Satan
For Reference and Further Reading
Burke, Daniel. February 7, 2013. “How the Antichrist Reflects an Era’s Anxieties.” The Christian Century. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2013-02/how-antichrist- reflects-eras-anxieties.
Carter, Joe. 2012. “The 7 Most Popular Contenders for the Title ‘Antichrist.’” The Gospel Coalition. November 16. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-7-most-popular-contenders-for-the-antichrist/.
“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.
Poole, W. Scott. 2009. Satan in America: The Devil We Know. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Pyszczynski, Tom, Carl Henthron, Matt Motyl, and Kristel Gerow. 2010. “Is Obama the Anti-Christ? Racial Priming, Extreme Criticisms of Barack Obama, and Attitudes toward the 2008 US Presidential Candidates.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 863–66.
Apess, William
William Apess (1798–1839), although of mixed blood, identified himself with the Pequot. Indentured as a youth to white families, Apess served for a time in the American militia during the War of 1812. After leading a fairly dissolute life, which he described in his autobiography The Forest: The Experience of William Apess, a Native of the Forest, Comprising a Notice of the Pequod Tribe of 34Indians, the first known autobiography by such a Native American, which was published in 1829, Apess converted and was ordained as a Methodist minister (Tiro 1996).
Much as abolitionist writers were citing Scriptures to condemn slavery, Apess cited Scripture to rail at discrimination against his own people and other peoples of color. He put particular blame on the Puritans, perhaps in part because he was from Massachusetts but probably also because they had been so reputed for their probity and godliness.
Although some versions have edited out a number of his biblical references, Apess’s sermon “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man,” which was originally published as an epilogue to The Experience of Five Christian Indians of the Pequod Tribe (1833), relied quite heavily on the Bible.
Apess began by identifying God as “the maker and preserver both of the white man and the Indian.” From here he described the miserable state of so many Native Americans, which he believed stemmed from the government’s failure to extend them equal rights and privileges and from simple prejudice based on their