In what can only be deemed a miracle, the peoples of earth have managed to pass through a fourth blood moon this year without the apocalyptic events predicted by the all-you-can-eat buffet fiend and supposed Christian evangelist John Hagee.
The nuclear accord between the United States (and the rest of the world) and Iran has not ended in some sort of global conflict, nor has Iran used the opportunity to “wipe Israel off the map,” as the neocons and their Christian Zionist sycophants have continuously been predicting. Gog and Magog must have spent the entire duration of the blood moon saga playing Angry Birds on their iPhones and drinking their Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, thereby missing their cue to invade plucky Israel and initiate the Battle of Armageddon.
But fear not, for Reverend Hagee warned us that if the United States came to what most sane people might consider a reasonable understanding with Iran on its nuclear program, this would constitute America “turning its back on Israel,” thus incurring the wrath of his god in the form of terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals. After all, if you don’t stand with Bibi Netanyahu and Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, you most certainly deserve to be blown to smithereens by ISIS or any other of the CIA’s Salafist flavors-of-the-month.
Despair not if you are a myopic Christian Zionist awaiting the End of Days. You may not have gotten your final WWF Royal Rumble showdown between Israel and Iran this week, but plenty of bloodshed and chaos can still be found in this season of blood moons if you know where to look. Intrigue awaits – look beyond the usual suspects provided by John Hagee, Hal Lindsay (yes, he’s still alive and kicking), and the rest of Left Behind, Inc. (Thankfully we still have Nic Cage to make the end of the world so very sexy!)
The banner of apocalyptic mayhem rests not with Iran or Russia, but with the United States and its fellow travelers like Saudi Arabia, and yes, Reverend Hagee, Israel. And here we must turn our attention a little past the fields of Mageddo, and look toward Yemen, which unlike Israel, was actually engulfed in mass violence during the period of the blood moons by that stalwart ally of America and Israel, the Wahhabi theocracy of Saudi Arabia. Indeed the past year has seen the Royal Saudi Air Force, equipped with the latest technology provided by Washington, perpetuate waves of violence and mass murder against Yemeni civilians incapable of defending themselves against superior military means. Yet John Hagee seems to have little to say about events in Yemen and the vast suffering caused by a top US ally. Apparently the Yemeni people have failed to bless Israel, condemning them to bombardment and starvation by Tel Aviv’s new Arab friends.
Even more curious is the silence of John Hagee and company about the vicious persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria, atrocities carried out by jihadist factions trained, armed, and funded by the United States and its allies (including Israel). John Hagee spends an awful lot of time campaigning on behalf of the Likud Party in Israel, but seems little concerned with his presumed co-religionists persecuted by Western-backed Wahhabist contingents.
More recently, Italian Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco has denounced the West for its indifference toward the persecution of the ancient Middle Eastern Christian communities, asking as to why they show so little concern:
The sad answer is, of course, because the West is the not-so-hidden hand behind that injustice in Syria as well as Yemen. Perhaps that is what the blood moons were intended to warn us of. But Syrian and Iraqi Christians and Yemeni Shi’ites don’t fit into the grand Dispensationalist narrative of the Sons of Light (America and Israel) against the Sons of Darkness (Iran, Russia, and the Arabs). So they are summarily dismissed and dehumanized, their suffering rendered irrelevant.
Instead we have the neo-Talmudic theology of Christian Zionism, in which the Gentiles are reduced to cattle who exist only to bless the modern nation-state of Israel, or else be massacred by “God” as enemies in a divine genocide. Our Lord plays little role in this theology, only invoked occasionally as collateral. But for Hagee & Co., Christ certainly doesn’t exist as the God-Man that the Church, both East and West, has proclaimed for over 2,000 years in His will to reconcile all men to God in love and forgiveness.
The 17th century French philosopher and religious writer Blaise Pascal once quipped in his timeless Pensées:
The proud man who lives by lies is not spared this needed condemnation and spiritual rebuke. For his heart is filled with pseudo-spiritual arrogance and hatred toward his fellows, excepting only the chosen micro-segment of humanity he himself determines. Instead he delights in the fantastical blood orgy of divine mass murder of the presumed enemies of God (wherein his spiritual kinship with all other pharisees and zealots is affirmed), all the while assuming himself among the elect. How easily the haughty forget St. Paul’s reminder that we see through the glass darkly, and that all men must work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
Christ told us that the Devil was a murderer from the beginning, and the father of lies, and thus his spiritual children are those who delight in lies and violence. What can be said for those who not only willfully ignore the violence their government facilitates against innocent peoples in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, but also crave and relish the thought of the death of millions of “infidel” Iranians, Arabs, Russians – who are actually fighting ISIS and other nasty jihadist sects so beloved by the masters of the Novus Ordo Seclorum? May they come to their senses before it’s too late.
The nuclear accord between the United States (and the rest of the world) and Iran has not ended in some sort of global conflict, nor has Iran used the opportunity to “wipe Israel off the map,” as the neocons and their Christian Zionist sycophants have continuously been predicting. Gog and Magog must have spent the entire duration of the blood moon saga playing Angry Birds on their iPhones and drinking their Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, thereby missing their cue to invade plucky Israel and initiate the Battle of Armageddon.
But fear not, for Reverend Hagee warned us that if the United States came to what most sane people might consider a reasonable understanding with Iran on its nuclear program, this would constitute America “turning its back on Israel,” thus incurring the wrath of his god in the form of terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals. After all, if you don’t stand with Bibi Netanyahu and Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, you most certainly deserve to be blown to smithereens by ISIS or any other of the CIA’s Salafist flavors-of-the-month.
Despair not if you are a myopic Christian Zionist awaiting the End of Days. You may not have gotten your final WWF Royal Rumble showdown between Israel and Iran this week, but plenty of bloodshed and chaos can still be found in this season of blood moons if you know where to look. Intrigue awaits – look beyond the usual suspects provided by John Hagee, Hal Lindsay (yes, he’s still alive and kicking), and the rest of Left Behind, Inc. (Thankfully we still have Nic Cage to make the end of the world so very sexy!)
The banner of apocalyptic mayhem rests not with Iran or Russia, but with the United States and its fellow travelers like Saudi Arabia, and yes, Reverend Hagee, Israel. And here we must turn our attention a little past the fields of Mageddo, and look toward Yemen, which unlike Israel, was actually engulfed in mass violence during the period of the blood moons by that stalwart ally of America and Israel, the Wahhabi theocracy of Saudi Arabia. Indeed the past year has seen the Royal Saudi Air Force, equipped with the latest technology provided by Washington, perpetuate waves of violence and mass murder against Yemeni civilians incapable of defending themselves against superior military means. Yet John Hagee seems to have little to say about events in Yemen and the vast suffering caused by a top US ally. Apparently the Yemeni people have failed to bless Israel, condemning them to bombardment and starvation by Tel Aviv’s new Arab friends.
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| Armageddon it? |
Even more curious is the silence of John Hagee and company about the vicious persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria, atrocities carried out by jihadist factions trained, armed, and funded by the United States and its allies (including Israel). John Hagee spends an awful lot of time campaigning on behalf of the Likud Party in Israel, but seems little concerned with his presumed co-religionists persecuted by Western-backed Wahhabist contingents.
More recently, Italian Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco has denounced the West for its indifference toward the persecution of the ancient Middle Eastern Christian communities, asking as to why they show so little concern:
Why, we ask the Western world, why not raise one’s voice over so much ferocity and injustice?
The sad answer is, of course, because the West is the not-so-hidden hand behind that injustice in Syria as well as Yemen. Perhaps that is what the blood moons were intended to warn us of. But Syrian and Iraqi Christians and Yemeni Shi’ites don’t fit into the grand Dispensationalist narrative of the Sons of Light (America and Israel) against the Sons of Darkness (Iran, Russia, and the Arabs). So they are summarily dismissed and dehumanized, their suffering rendered irrelevant.
Instead we have the neo-Talmudic theology of Christian Zionism, in which the Gentiles are reduced to cattle who exist only to bless the modern nation-state of Israel, or else be massacred by “God” as enemies in a divine genocide. Our Lord plays little role in this theology, only invoked occasionally as collateral. But for Hagee & Co., Christ certainly doesn’t exist as the God-Man that the Church, both East and West, has proclaimed for over 2,000 years in His will to reconcile all men to God in love and forgiveness.
The 17th century French philosopher and religious writer Blaise Pascal once quipped in his timeless Pensées:
How hollow and full of filth man’s heart is.
The proud man who lives by lies is not spared this needed condemnation and spiritual rebuke. For his heart is filled with pseudo-spiritual arrogance and hatred toward his fellows, excepting only the chosen micro-segment of humanity he himself determines. Instead he delights in the fantastical blood orgy of divine mass murder of the presumed enemies of God (wherein his spiritual kinship with all other pharisees and zealots is affirmed), all the while assuming himself among the elect. How easily the haughty forget St. Paul’s reminder that we see through the glass darkly, and that all men must work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
Christ told us that the Devil was a murderer from the beginning, and the father of lies, and thus his spiritual children are those who delight in lies and violence. What can be said for those who not only willfully ignore the violence their government facilitates against innocent peoples in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, but also crave and relish the thought of the death of millions of “infidel” Iranians, Arabs, Russians – who are actually fighting ISIS and other nasty jihadist sects so beloved by the masters of the Novus Ordo Seclorum? May they come to their senses before it’s too late.
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