Obama, the Antichrist, the Apocalypse and LGBT Rights

Sounds like we're throwing everything and the kitchen sink into this subject, eh?  Well, truth be told, there won't really be any kitchen sinks after the apocalypse anyway.  But how's this for a concept: some conservative evangelicals are starting to wonder if Obama's support for LGBT rights is a sign that the end of days is near.  Moreover, they're even rumbling that Obama himself might be the antichrist.

Antichrist?  Apocalypse?  End of Days?

Hmm...with a Democrat now in office, is a surge in apocalyptic rhetoric on the horizon?

That's the conclusion reached by Matthew Avery Sutton over at Religious Dispatches, who does a great job tracking the history of evangelical apocaplyptic thinking over the past 100 years, and notes that when Democrats are in power, some religious leaders start planning for Armageddon.

For instance, during FDR's administration...

The rapid expansion of the New Deal state and FDR’s dream of a global United Nations threatened evangelicals’ sense of religious liberty and national independence. For the faithful living in the 1930s and ’40s, to support Rooseveltian liberalism or internationalism was to be complicit in the rise of the Antichrist.

Good, but I think it can be topped.  Here's what Sutton has to say about apocalyptic thinking during the days of LBJ:

In the late 1960s, evangelicals once again faced growing state power in the form of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” while simultaneously witnessing the apparent evaporation of cherished American values. They responded by reverting to apocalyptic jeremiads. This was most evident in the runaway success of Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s. At the same time evangelicals, although scorning Hollywood, turned to modern technology to preach Armageddon. The result was the cult phenomenon A Thief in the Night, an Armageddon-themed film that popularized one of the first pop Christian hits, Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” The movie scared countless teenagers (and probably an equal number of adults) into preparing for the rapture.

And who can forget the Clinton administration:

Millennial fervor swept evangelicals again in the late 1990s on the heels of the two-term Clinton presidency. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins published Left Behind, the first in a series of novels that grew into the best-selling series of the past decade (until they were finally overtaken by the true prince of darkness himself, Harry Potter). Films, music, and even a line of kids’ books turned Left-Behind apocalypticism into a billion dollar business. Evangelicals were well prepared then to view the terrorist attacks on 9/11 as evidence of God’s judgment for the Clinton years.

True that.  Anyone remember Rev. Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on feminists, reproductive health professionals and LGBT folks?

Now with Obama, apocalyptic fervor is at an all-time high it seems.  Already there's conservative Internet buzz suggesting that Obama is indeed the antichrist (Cable news happens to employ one of those who believe this...cough, cough, Glenn Beck, cough cough).  And as Sutton puts it, most of Obama's legislative agenda - at least as it was set out during his campaign and during the first 200 days of his administration - only reaffirms for some conservative religious folks that Armageddon might be here as soon as next Tuesday.  Here's Sutton's take on Obama's viewpoint among deeply conservative evangelical Christians:

Obama is caught in a classic catch-22. The Antichrist, the Bible explains, is going to masquerade as an angel of light. This means that the more Obama accomplishes as president and the more he improves America’s image abroad, the more suspicious evangelicals will become; they don’t want to be duped by the devil. Obama’s talk of more cooperation with other nations, the possibility of a national health care plan, his move to nationalize some private businesses, and his goal of expanding protection of the rights of gays and lesbians will drive evangelicals to one certain conclusion: the End of Days are upon us.

Of course, seen from the lens of U.S. history, it's really clear that the End of Days has less to do with anything Biblical, and more to do with right-wing religious hysteria over Democratic Presidents who might mention the word "gay" or "lesbian" once in a while.  Obama has certainly done a great job of reaching across the political football field and engaging religious conservatives (sometimes to the detriment of support within his own base).

But for people who want to believe that progressive social values are the highway to the apocalypse, there's very little Obama can do to simmer down the hysteria.  Given that, hopefully there will come a time soon where the Obama administration worries less about what the 700 club thinks of him, and more about what progressives believe about his tenure in Washington.