Religion & State



Religious Motivation in America's Conquest of the Middle East &
88 Failed Prophecies Inside A Baptist Church

by Charles E. Carlson



Is America's warring in the Middle East politically or religiously motivated?  Some 
now argue the war is between the Christian Right and their President Bush versus 
the forces of Islam.  In fact this is ethnically close to being true, but not quite.  
War is a political expedient, and the "Christian Right" is its enabler, not the reverse.


War is the politician's return ticket to office, the only sure answer to full employment. 
In the 11th Century, the landed gentry and their politicians looked to the Catholic 
Church for its ennoblement of the 11 Crusades ending with the shameful Children's 
Crusade two centuries later.


Our Neo-Crusades are enabled by Judaized-Christians of various labels who now 
make up the majority of President Bush's faltering support for occupation in Iraq.  
Few would deny this, and a recent poll tells us that only 42% of Americans now 
approve of the Bush administration's war policy.  But this by no means should be 
interpreted to mean that "Christianity" demands war, or that all those in the 
Judaized Churches agree or understand what they are a part of.


Project Strait Gate's private church vigils are held periodically on the sidewalks in 
front of churches. They are a non-scientific, rolling exit poll, revealing to those 
who hold the BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS signs that the President's 
wars policy still enjoys very substantial support from evangelicals.  This author's 
guess, after talking to hundred in front of many major churches and evangelical 
conventions, is that the vast majority of those who unwaveringly support the 
Neo-Crusade are Judaized-Christians. We doubt if many would refute this 
conclusion, including the President himself.  This leads to the most important 
and obvious puzzle of the fledgling 21st Century.  How can anything be so 
incongruous as "Christian" enabling serial wars?


What has caused those who say they follow Christ to become the enablers 
of serial wars, and where is the hope? To understand how and why Judaized 
churches enabling serial wars we will go back to a very small seventeen-year-old 
incident many evangelicals would like to forget.  It was the latest major rapture hoax, 
and its history is found in a shabby little book entitled, 88 REASONS WHY THE 
RAPTURE WILL BE IN 1988, written by Edgar C. Whisenant.  The "Rapture" to 
evangelicals means the beginning chapter to the end of the world.  Whisenant 
represented himself to be educated in some discipline of an aerospace technician, 
and had the endorsement of The World Bible Society of Nashville, TN.


A young Southern Baptist family friend, a pro-life activist named Mike, distributed 
Edgar Whisenant's epistle in his and my large men's church breakfast in the early 
months of 1988.  Mike absolutely believed the book, and considered the rapture 
not only imminent, but was scheduled by God for October 14 of that very year.  
Regretfully, this writer did nothing at the time to dissuade Mike, even though 
the book he gave me appeared to be full of holes.  I did not interfere because I 
did not see it as my business, Mike did not ask my opinion, and I justified my own 
silence based on not understanding how the book could hurt anyone.  Sadly, I was 
to learn I was very wrong.


At first glance it might appear that 88 REASONS could only harm those who 
believed the stretched myths found in its pages.  Mike was married and had a 
young family, yet he made a mission project of giving the books to all who would 
carry one out the door of the church, as I did.  I am sure 88 Reasons made a 
difference in Mike's life, and it could hardly have been positive, for he was truly 
convinced the world would end only months away.


How could what Mike did hurt anyone except himself?  Never mind how much time 
and money he spent to give away the books.  Even if he quit his job to wait for the 
rapture, his parents were behind him and his children would never go hungry.  But, 
unfortunately, Mike was not the only victim.  What he did, although well meaning 
and a dedicated follower of Christ, may have shortened the natural lives countless 
persons.


Mike gave up causes he believed were saving lives.  He was an activist in the pro-life 
movement, and the volunteer leader of an important group.  But as the spring came, 
he phased out of this commitment to spend more time with his young family in the 
months remaining on earth.  Mike believed in preserving life, but no one showed 
him or warned him he was playing into the hands of two political regimes that had 
little respect for human life.  These were the Neo-Cons (by another label) who 
controlled the first (Sr.) Bush Administration in 1988, and the State of Israel that 
was in the process of crushing the Philistines who were revolting against its 
occupations of their land and homes, as the Lebanese had revolted three years before.


As you have guessed by now, "the Rapture" did not happen in1988.  But the first 
war on Iraq was already in the political hopper, and the first blood of the Iraqi 
innocent would be poured out on us two years later.  Edgar Whisenant's book of trash 
prophesies contributed to the slaughter.  Its pages are filled with hints and innuendos 
of racism and bigotry in the name of Christianity.




88 Reasons more to make war in the Mideast


Most of the 88 Reasons given for the imminent rapture had to do with the State of 
Israel, directly or indirectly.  In fact, Edgar tells us the dating of the "great event"
was based on the 40th Anniversary of the creation of the new Zionist state of Israel 
in 1948.  Edgar was most creative in inventing exactly 88 reasons, but almost all of 
them involved his belief in world Zionism incorporated as a part of his "Christianity." 
Here are just a few of the 88 Reasons:  Whisenant suggested that God needed a 
Rapture to realize the destiny of the Zionist State.


REASON #7 (in part) "this is the last generation, [M1]started on 14 May 1948, the 
day Israel became a nation.  Israel is the time clock of God throughout history, 
Israel is the blooming fig tree, (Jer 24:4-8) and the last generation will end 40 
wicked Gentile years later on 14 May 1988."


AND REASON # 66:  "Israel is the key to this whole scenario. You're again to see 
how time begins and ends and moves with the nation of Israel.  You have noticed 
how our news events seem to be constantly bringing out attention to the Middle 
East these last days.  And that is just where God wants it"...


Whisenant admits he knows he is not supposed to try to out-guess God. He even 
quotes the scripture that forbids him to try, and then spins his logic for disobeying 
God based on a loophole he invented on page 2 of his book.  There, he states:
"It is evident that in the minds of most Christians today, Matt 24:36 is believed to 
prohibit anyone from being able to see the day of our Lord's return approaching. 'No 
one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but 
only the father."


But Elmer simply drilled out a loophole based on 24 time zones, and supposedly
two distinct days on any turn of the moon. He implies this is what God supposedly 
meant, that no one could guess the correct day and hour of His coming because of 
all the time zones they lived in.  Here is his justification for writing the book:


"However, this does not preclude or prevent the faithful from knowing the year, the 
month and the week of the Lord's return."  (Page 3, reason #1)


One would truly have to think himself a god to insult the true God by "taking his 
words in vain." How do self-supposed Christians take this nonsense seriously? The 
first reason is their trusted leaders and pastors do not deny it, and sadly, that included 
me.  Whisenant got his support from the World Bible Society in Nashville, TN.  It 
wrote it don't know if the book is true or not, but it's conclusion is too important not to 
share with their friends, just in case, so they join in mongering the trash books.  The 
truth is, rapture scares are good business for churches and bible booksellers.  Witness 
the Left Behind book series that sell tens of millions of copies based on pure bible-
fictions.


The Pastors at my Baptist church should have issued a statement to the flock.  
Jesus warned of "false prophets."  Had the pastors done so I might have listened, 
for I supported him as a leader, and Mike might also have listened. Evangelical 
theologians either support or are silent about prophets of "Rapture." Many of them 
also fail to see the harm in a little rapture guessing.


Another reason men like Whisenant take themselves seriously is they had a cheering 
section made up of the most radical element of anti-Arabs in the Mideast:  Israel.  
Elmer quotes none other than Meir Kahane, a man who was among the violent killers 
in Israeli history.  And Whisenant justifies Kahane:


Reason #8 "Rabbi Meir Kahane, who wants to throw out all of the Arabs in Israel, is 
acutely aware of the 40-year grace period given by God, beginning in 1948."



Edgar Whisenant goes on quoting Rabbi Kahane page after page, supporting his 
militancy against Arabs with words of respect.  To him Kahane was an oracle for 
God carrying out His will against the Philistine tribe.


Meir Kahane was in fact an angry terrorist who deliberately incited documented brutality 
against the Palestinian people.  Few Israelis openly advocated the Kahane program for 
deportation or liquidation of 3.5 million Arab people.  He was an embarrassment to the 
Jews in Israel, who claimed that they themselves were victims of a similar liquidation a 
generation before.  Kahane was founder of the Kach Party, which was committed to 
violence and repeated assassinations of Arab villagers encouraging them to leave.  He 
was assassinated in 1990.  Kahane's public statements had much to do with agitating 
the Arabs toward the first Intifada in 1987. Whisenant used Kahane as a scripturally 
justified weather vane for war.


Most of Whisenant's "88 Reasons" were either tied to present happenings in Israel or 
based on Hebrew Old Testament prophesy.  All 88 pointed unequivocally to war 
("Armageddon") being "Gods will."  Anyone who took the book seriously could not help 
but be conditioned to accept bloodshed in the Middle East.


Most of my friends accepted the little book from Mike, who wanted no money for it.  
After all, what good would money be after October 14th?  Most of us probably did not 
take it seriously, and I would be surprised if many copies, save my own, survived these 
18 years.  I was later surprised to learned that the 88 Reasons had a national following, 
especially in the heartland.  Edgar prospered, said to have sold a million copies at 
$2.00 each.


But I was wrong about the little book doing no damage.  Mike's distribution of the books 
and those of thousands like him, damaged minds and bodies.  He innocently helped 
convince some that the Arabs were dirt under the feet of the Israelis, and that anything 
that helped Israel was God's will, no matter how mean and vile it might seem.


One year later, Edgar's rapture promises were forgotten, but his and those of many 
like him remained.  The first Bush President was pounding the war drums demanding 
punishment of Sadam Hussein for invading Kuwait, even though Hussein was practically 
on the federal payroll.  When this writer finally woke up, it was too late to convince 
my church leaders.  They would not listen to my plea to take a stand against the 
pending destruction of Iraq, which was soon destroyed to the cheers of the State of 
Israel.  Before the end of 1991, little Arab children were starving in Baghdad's middle 
class neighborhoods.  


Evangelicals were whispering, "Biblical prophesy is being fulfilled."


During this terrible period of war, the Philistine uprising called "Intifada" was brutally 
crushed by American-supplied super war machines.  Judaized Christian dispensa-
tionalists, remembering Edgar's 88 Reasons, also considered this "God's will." 
Whisenant, and everyone who did not openly oppose him, contributed to the deaths 
of every Philistine (Palestinians) and every Iraqi, not to mention a few American losses.


American church-goers are conditioned to the idea that war in the Mideast was 
inevitable and planed by God, and that nothing can be done to stop it.  Nor should 
"Christians" try to prevent it, they thought, and "God's will" should become a battle 
cry for our political participation.




There is a Cost

The blood is already pouring out on the hands of those who contrived the Neo-Crusade.  
Rivers of scarlet are trickling down all of our arms, staining each one of us.  We, who 
call ourselves by Christ's name and did nothing to stop it, are guilty of shedding innocent 
blood.  Sad to say, we are in a conflict between the justice and humanity Christ taught, 
and the pagan superstition and bloodletting of self servings politicians who thrive on war. 
They have found their support in the Judaized, dispensational institutions.  Resistance 
to this is not an option to those who follow Christ.



Where is the Hope?

Every Empire I can think of has had a state "religion" by some name.  Where is the 
hope in a society whose dominant religion is openly in supports political plans to 
destroy human life?  This is USA today; it was also Rome 1900 years ago.  If our 
politicians are the standard for justice, love of ones neighbor, and respect for life, 
what chance do we have to recover even a glimmer of the morality found in our 
history?  Can anyone or anything save us from the joining the Romans, where the 
citizens, hardened by serial wars, eventfully accepted and were entertained by
torture and public murder inside the Coliseum, Vespasian's beautiful work of art 
and engineering?


The hope in this story is in the young Baptist, Mike, and a few like him among a sea 
of churchgoers.  Why Mike?  Because he is more experienced by now, but he will 
remain an activist, driven by love of Christ and a moral imperative to protect human life 
and dignity.  It is Mike's nature to do so.  One "Mike" is worth a hundred, perhaps a 
thousand slumbering "Christians" who are never been wrong because they never do 
enough to make a mistake.


Mike, I would guess, knows by now he should not be part of a church that only 
pretend to respect the sanctity of human life.  He knows he is mismatched or 
"unequally yoked" as Jesus put it, and he has probably changed "church homes" 
two or three times since I knew him, looking for answers to the questions that nag
at his soul, and not finding it.


There are "Mikes" in every evangelical, dispensational, Judaized church in America.  
You will find them leading, teaching, volunteering, passing the plate and paying tithes. 
They are doing their best, working, as they know God commands them to work, but 
doubting leadership's acceptance of war.  We meet them when we picket big churches.  
They occasionally come out and join us, and more of them ask questions and reflect 
their own doubts about their churches.  My guess is Mike continues to be an apostle for 
Christ, perhaps without fully understanding how he has been betrayed.  But he will come 
out of the failing church when he understands this message.  The "Mikes" have power in 
their righteousness.  When they correctly place the blame for the blood that is on their 
hands on their churches Judaized Christianity is finished; it cannot survive in an 
environment of truth; it is framed on falsehood.  Christ's words tell us He is still waiting 
for men like Mike to follow Him out of the corrupted church.


PROJECT STRAIT GATE'S purpose is to find the "mikes" with millions of letters like 
this one.  We will continue to explain how this is to be accomplished in Part II, 
accomplished with your help. 

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