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Banned
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Originally Posted by ottopilot
Some believe that Iranian president Ahmadinejad intends to continue provoking the west into a series of compounding confrontations by proxy and direct action. Whether it's intended or not, main-stream media has not picked up on how Ahmadinejad begins most of his commentary (example: at Columbia and the UN) by evoking the prophecy of the "12th Imam"..
..Some believe that the greater importance of Iraq is because of it's religious significance regarding the location of the new Caliphate. Many Muslims do not believe in these prophecies, but the belief of the 12er's is to supposedly usher in the new era of Islam. These are people willing to become martyrs for their beliefs at all cost... a belief or mindset that many assume too hard for Westerners to comprehend.
Just some other things to consider..
FYI (if interested) here's some more background regarding how Iran is prepping their population for "Mahdi Miracles". click to show
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ottopilot, I know your post is more than two months old, but I hadn't read it before today. (I was "gone fishing", away from TFP, until more recently.) Here are several observations about your post:
You display a description of "twelvers", you provide no link..
You display a teaser to a hidden "article", clicking on it opens a piece attritbute to "Worldnet Daily", and you provide no link...
Other readers, and you, if you're open to it, should be aware that the material in the Worldnet Daily article is authored by the founder and publisher of worldnet daily, Joseph Farah:
This is the link to your posted (hidden) article. See the bottom part, ommitted along with the link, in your cut & paste:
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=53964
Iran prepares people for 'messiah miracles'
Government broadcasts series on imminent appearance of apocalyptic Islamic 'Mahdi'
Posted: January 27, 2007
<h3>Related special offers:
Keep up to date on messianic activities in Iran by subscribing to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. </h3>
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Here is Joseph Farah, "in action", days before the 2004 presidential election:
Quote:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=41169
<img src="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images/section.BTL.gif">
Questioning Kerry's patriotism
Posted: October 29, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
It's time to stop pussyfooting around with John Kerry.
This guy is a malapropism away from the presidency.
..He became, arguably, the most important human asset in the public relations arsenal of the Vietnamese Communists..
..<h3>They mean the man so close to becoming commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States is the man who betrayed those forces in 1971 – the man who betrayed his comrades in arms, the man who betrayed his country.
It's time to call a spade a spade. Kerry is a traitor. What he did was treason. Period. End of story.</h3>...
America's mistake was not locking this guy up in the stockades in 1971 and throwing away the key...
...May God open America's eyes next Tuesday.
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<h3>Here is Farah's original references to the details in your hidden article, published a year earlier on his subscription website, complete with his hyped claim of actually translating the DVD of Iranian president Ahmadinejad:</h3>
Quote:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=48225
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Iran leader's messianic end-times mission
Ahmadinejad raises concerns with mystical visions
Posted: January 6, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: This story is adapted from the latest issue of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the weekly, online, premium intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND. Annual subscriptions to G2 Bulletin have been cut in half to just $99...
<h3>....According to a transcript of his comments, obtained and translated by Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin</h3>, Ahmadinejad wasn't the only one who noticed the unearthly light. One of his aides brought it to his attention.
The Iranian president recalled being told about it by one of his delegation: "When you began with the words ‘in the name of Allah,' I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end."
Ahmadinejad agreed that he sensed the same thing.
"On the last day when I was speaking, one of our group told me that when I started to say 'Bismillah Muhammad,' he saw a green light come from around me, and I was placed inside this aura," he says. "I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they didn't move an eyelid, I'm not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes – Alhamdulillah!" ...
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<h3>Here is the same information Farah charged a subscritpion fee to read, freely available a month earlier, with a verbatim translation, on UK channel 4 and days later on PBS. A much more balanced view of Iran is provided by channel 4's Lindsey Hilsum, the apparent source of Joseph Farah's subscription article, and your hidden article, dontcha think?</h3>
Quote:
http://www.channel4.com/news/article...t%20day/159515
International Politics
Preparing for judgement day
Last Modified: 05 Dec 2005
By: Lindsey Hilsum
Mocked for his ugliness, stupidity and smelly socks, President Ahmadinejad is feared for his religious common touch, writes Lindsey Hilsum.
....In one of his first acts after being elected in June, Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, allocated £12m of government funds to enlarge the shrine and mosque. Much to the alarm of those who say Iran is modernising, he frequently refers to the Mahdi, even mentioning him in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September. Asked late last month how Iranians should prepare for the Mahdi, he replied: "They must be pure and devout."
On other occasions, he has talked of reorienting the country's policies to be ready for judgement day, the equivalent of Tony Blair telling Britons to prepare for Christ's second coming.
'A green light around me'
A DVD doing the rounds in exile circles and in Tehran reveals just how mystical Iran's new president is. The scene appears to have been filmed openly, shortly after Ahmadinejad returned from the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, but has not been publicly released.
The president is seen entering a house with Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a senior conservative figure in Qom...
.."On the last day when I was speaking, one of our group told me that when I started to say 'Bismillah Muhammad', he saw a green light come from around me, and I was placed inside this aura," he says. "I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they didn't move an eyelid, I'm not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes - Alhamdulillah!"
Iranian holds up a copy of the Koran.
Some are beginning to worry that the president's religiosity, combined with his extreme statements - notably his declaration that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the earth" - are damaging the country. The unspoken fear is that the president is not concerned about international turmoil, because he believes these are the End Times which herald the return of the Mahdi.
"Such talk is for internal consumption," says Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president. "But I am worried by the use of these religious slogans." Ayatollah Yusef Saanei, a liberal clergyman in Qom, said: "We should rule the country according to Islamic law, but we should not use religious ideas in politics. Even Ayatollah Khomeini did not believe we should do this."
The previous reformist government trod a fine line, defying western objections to Iran's nuclear programme while simultaneously giving the impression of opening up and becoming more tolerant. In three months, the new president has abandoned subtle diplomacy, sacking reformist ambassadors and replacing practised nuclear negotiators with ideologues.
The men he has nominated as ministers are seen by most Iranian politicians as inexperienced - so far, parliament has rejected three of his nominees for the post of oil minister, leaving the key ministry rudderless...
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Quote:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...iran_12-9.html
STRONG WORDS FROM IRAN
December 9, 2005
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad has recently drawn international ire by suggesting that the Holocaust never happened and Israel be moved to Europe. This Independent Television News report details the deep influence of Islam on the leader's ruling style and Islam's general impact on politics in Iran.
realaudio
LINDSEY HILSUM: Jamkaran, the shrine to the 12th imam, the Mahdi. The faithful write their prayers. He is their most revered saint, their only hope. One day, they believe, he'll return to Earth through the well which lies under the postbox.
In the meantime, they mail him their wishes. One woman prays the Mahdi will cure her son's opium addiction. In the men's section, more prayers -- a terminally ill child, a daughter still unmarried, unemployment, all the problems of poverty.
Many mullahs say the well and postbox are mere superstition, but thousands of Iranians come to the Jamkaran shrine every Tuesday evening. They're looking for a sign that the Mahdi will return soon.
Now, it seems the Mahdi has become political. Iran's new president says he's a devotee of the 12th imam and of Jamkaran.
One of the first things Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did on becoming president was to allocate $17 million to this shrine to the 12th imam, the Mahdi. All Shias believe that one day the Mahdi will return, but some Iranians are beginning to worry that their new president is reorienting the country's politics towards that day.
Darkness falls and still the pilgrims come. They're warding off the evil eye. For eight years, Iran was run by reformists who talked of democracy and disparaged such religiosity, but the new president talks the language of the people.
Some are keen to praise him, provided they don't have to look a woman journalist in the eye.
MAN (Translated): Mr. Ahmadinejad is the only president in 28 years who came with a slogan of bringing justice, saying that he is one of us, cut from the same cloth. He proudly invokes the name of God the merciful, and after that he always prays for the coming of the Mahdi.
LINDSEY HILSUM: He repeated that prayer when he addressed the U.N. General assembly last September, calling on God to hasten the coming of the Mahdi.
A DVD circulating secretly in Tehran and on the Internet shows the president a few days later entering a house with a senior conservative ayatollah...
....<h3>LINDSEY HILSUM: The reformists are horrified that this is the image of Iran being seen around the world.</h3>
REZA KHATAMI, Opposition Leader: In the last eight years, the reformists tried to give a very clear sign to the world that Islam in Iran is not so fanatic. And I think the new government, they want to go back three decades -- and they not only want to go back themselves; they want to pull back the country three decades, so everybody now is worried about the future.
LINDSEY HILSUM: Happy landings. It's the annual day of the Basiij, a paramilitary organization meant to protect the country. Three decades ago, they were the vanguard of the Islamic revolution. Today, they're showing off their skills --
GROUP: Allah akbar!
LINDSEY HILSUM: -- and their air force. This is Mr. Ahmadinejad's power base, his enforcers amongst the population, although it looks as if not everyone's in step.
We caught up with the president and asked what he meant when he said Iranians should prepare for the return of the Mahdi. The reply: "They must be pure and devout."
Mr. Ahmadinejad shocked western governments when he said Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth. He used Basiij Day to send another hard-line message to Europe and America, the countries trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear technology.
PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD (Translated): You whose arsenals are full of nuclear weapons, you who have used nuclear weapons this century against defenseless people and nations, you who used depleted uranium in the Iraq war, you whose arsenals are full of chemical and biological weapons, who are you to come out and say that you're suspicious of Iran's nuclear program?
LINDSEY HILSUM: A human chain symbolically protecting the country. The reformists fear the president's harsh words will lead to Iran being called up in front of the U.N. Security Council on suspicion of making a nuclear weapon.
MOHAMED ALI ABTAHI (Translated): We want nuclear technology to enhance Iran's standing in the world, but if that means we will have to sacrifice the power we already have because of sanctions or even more extreme measures against us, then in reality we will have gained the technology, but we won't have increased our power and influence at all.
LINDSEY HILSUM: The Bright Future Institute at Qom is devoted to the study of the Mahdi and other Messianic cults, they catalogue the literature and answer questions from the public sent in by e-mail, phone or letter.
The most common query is: How will we know that the Mahdi is about to return?
The children's books they design show what a wonderful world it will be afterwards. But just like fundamentalist Christians, Shias believe the messiah's second coming about be heralded by an apocalypse, war and chaos; they don't say it publicly but some Iranians worry that their new president has no fear of international turmoil, may think it's just a sign from God.
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What was your point, ottopilot? Iranian president Ahmadinejad is a politician, and his "base" is deeply religious.
We, as a nation, have so much in common with the religiosity of the people of Iran, I don't know what your point is:
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020701/story.html
Apocalypse Now
Posted Sunday, June 23, 2002; 2:31 a.m. EST
36% of Americans believe that the Bible is the word of God and is to be taken literally
— TIME/CNN Poll
A TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. <b>Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true,<b> and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack....
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Quote:
http://www.johnstoncenter.unc.edu/ev...rrow_moyer.htm
There Is No Tomorrow
By Bill Moyers
The Star Tribune
Sunday 30 January 2005
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress...
... I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That is why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. That is why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations, where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." For them a war with Islam in the Middle East is something to be welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The rapture index - "the prophetic speedometer of end-time activity" - now stands at 153.......
...So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? As Glenn Scherer reports in the online environmental journal Grist, millions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but hastened as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
We're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half of the members of Congress are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian-right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian Coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who before his recent retirement quoted from the biblical Book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to relish the thought...
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<b>Consider that the following is a news article, not an "op-ed" piece.</b> It seems to explain how the U.S. and Israel came to be in the positions that they are today in the middle east, vs. the current violence in Iraq, Gaza, and in Lebanon. Consider John Bolton's current responsibilities;
in the context of his recess appointment by Mr. Bush to UN ambassador, after he failed to win confirmation to the that position, by the republican controlled senate, and Bolton's participation in Richard Perle's 1996 "study group", described below, that issued a report that stated:
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Israel should insist on Arab recognition of its claim to the <b>biblical land of Israel,</b> the 1996 report suggested, and should "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...45652-2003Feb8
Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical On Mideast Policy
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 9, 2003; Page A01
Running for reelection last month, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel repeatedly boasted of the "deep friendship" he has built with the Bush administration -- "a special closeness,"....
Sharon was describing what his American supporters call the closest relationship in decades, perhaps ever, between a U.S. president and an Israeli government. "This is the best administration for Israel since Harry Truman [who first recognized an independent Israel]," <b>said Thomas Neumann, executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs,</b> a think tank that promotes strategic cooperation with Israel as vital to U.S. security interests.
<h3>host inserts: Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs= JINSA</h3>
For the first time, a U.S. administration and a Likud government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies. Earlier U.S. administrations, from Jimmy Carter's through Bill Clinton's, held Likud and Sharon at arm's length, distancing the United States from Likud's traditionally tough approach to the Palestinians. But today, as Neumann noted, Israel and the United States share a common view on terrorism, peace with the Palestinians, war with Iraq and more. Neumann and others said this change was made possible by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.
The Bush administration's alignment with Sharon delights many of its strongest supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and a large part of organized American Jewry, according to leaders in both groups, who argue that Palestinian terrorism pushed Bush to his new stance. <b>But it has led to a freeze on diplomacy in the region that is criticized by Arab countries and their allies, and by many past and current officials who have participated in the long-running, never-conclusive Middle East "peace process."</b>....
...The turning point came last June, when Bush embraced Sharon's view of the Palestinians and made Yasser Arafat's removal as leader of the Palestinian Authority a condition of future diplomacy. That was "a clear shift in policy," Kenneth R. Weinstein, director of the Washington office of the Hudson Institute, a conservative supporter of Israel and Likud. The June speech was "a departure point," agreed Ralph Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former director of the Christian Coalition.
Since then, U.S. policy has been in step with Sharon's. The peace process is "quiescent," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's special envoy to the region. "I've kind of gone dormant," he added. In December Bush appointed an articulate, hard-line critic of the traditional peace process, Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast affairs for the National Security Council.
"The Likudniks are really in charge now," said a senior government official, using a Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party. Neumann agreed that Abrams's appointment was symbolically important, not least because Abrams's views were shared by his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, by Vice President Cheney and by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "It's a strong lineup," he said.
Abrams is a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration who was convicted on two counts of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal, then pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. In October 2000, Abrams wrote: "The Palestinian leadership does not want peace with Israel, and there will be no peace."
Said Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute, who shares his outlook: "Elliott's appointment is a signal that the hard-liners in the administration are playing a more central role in shaping policy." She added that "the hard-liners are a very unique group. The hawks in the administration are in fact people who are the biggest advocates of democracy and freedom in the Middle East." She was referring to the idea that promoting democracy is the best way to assure Israel's security, because democratic countries are less likely to attack a neighbor than dictatorships. Adherents of this view have argued that creating a democratic Palestine and a democratic Iraq could have a positive impact on the entire region.
Some Middle East hands who disagree with these supporters of Israel refer to them as "a cabal," in the words of one former official. Members of the group do not hide their friendships and connections, or their loyalty to strong positions in support of Israel and Likud.
One of Abrams's mentors, Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, led a study group that proposed to Binyamin Netanyahu, a Likud prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999, that he abandon the Oslo peace accords negotiated in 1993 and reject the basis for them -- the idea of trading "land for peace.<h3>" Israel should insist on Arab recognition of its claim to the biblical land of Israel, the 1996 report suggested, and should "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."</h3>
<b>Besides Perle, the study group included David Wurmser, now a special assistant to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, and Douglas J. Feith,</b> now undersecretary of defense for policy. Feith has written prolifically on Israeli-Arab issues for years, arguing that Israel has as legitimate a claim to the West Bank territories seized after the Six Day War as it has to the land that was part of the U.N.-mandated Israel created in 1948. Perle, Feith and Abrams all declined to be interviewed for this article.
Rumsfeld echoed the Perle group's analysis in a little-noted comment to Pentagon employees last August about "the so-called occupied territories." <b>Rumsfeld said: "There was a war [in 1967], Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved . . . they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict. In the intervening period, they've made some settlements in some parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won."............</b>
......The State Department pressed for continued negotiations and pressure on Sharon to limit the scope of his military response to Palestinian suicide bombers, while the Pentagon and <b>the vice president's office favored more encouragement for the Israelis, and less concern for a peace process</b> which, they said, was going nowhere anyhow........
But the administration did make a series of statements and gestures intended to restrain Sharon's response to suicide bombings, and to reassert the traditional U.S. policy that Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank had to cease. At the urging of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Bush publicly embraced the idea of a Palestinian state.
An internal debate split the administration and invited the lobbying of think tanks, Jewish organizations, evangelical Christians and others who take a fierce interest in the Middle East. While some groups including Americans for Peace Now lined up against Sharon's tough policies and in favor of negotiations, most of the organizations and individuals who lobbied on these issues embraced a harder line, and supported Sharon. Over the past dozen years or more, supporters of Sharon's Likud Party have moved into leadership roles in most of the American Jewish organizations that provide financial and political support for Israel.
Friends of Israel in Congress also lined up with Sharon. <h3>In November 2001, 89 of 100 senators signed a letter to Bush asking the administration not to try to restrain Israel</h3> from using "all [its] strength and might" in response to Palestinian suicide bombings. Signers said they wanted to persuade Bush to prevent Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from pressuring Sharon......
....A series of episodes in which Bush felt Arafat behaved inappropriately further soured the relationship. Bush repeatedly refused to meet with Arafat, who had met with Clinton 21 times. And month after month, U.S. officials blamed Arafat for failing to prevent the suicide bombings in Israel.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sharon began immediately to argue that Israel and the United States were fighting the same enemy, international terrorism. Over the months that followed -- months marked by escalating violence in Israel and the West Bank -- Bush and Sharon grew closer, personally and politically. By the end of last year the two had met seven times and talked on many more occasions by telephone (with Sharon doing nearly all the talking, Israeli officials said). Said a senior official of the first Bush administration who is critical of this one: "Sharon played the president like a violin: 'I'm fighting your war, terrorism is terrorism,' and so on. Sharon did a masterful job."
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, a leading figure in Jewish-Evangelical Christian relations for two decades, offered a more sympathetic description of Bush's alignment with Israel and Sharon. "President Bush's policy stems from his core as a Christian, his perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, and of the need to stand up and fight against evil," Eckstein said. "I personally believe it is very personal, not a political maneuver on his part."
Politics have played a role, several sources said. Gary Bauer, an evangelical Christian activist and Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said that he and like-minded evangelicals have campaigned vigorously in support of Israel and Sharon's tough policies. "I think we've had some impact," Bauer said.
Another conservative Republican with Christian ties who has made Israel a cause is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Last April, speaking to a Jewish group in Washington, DeLay called Israel "the lone fountain of liberty" in the Middle East, and endorsed Israeli retention of the occupied territories. He referred to West Bank by the biblical names, Judea and Samaria, which are often used by Israelis who consider them part of Israel.
The Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said the White House and its political director, Karl Rove, know "how critical [evangelical] support is to them and their party," and know how strongly evangelicals support Israel. "We need to bless Israel more than America needs Israel's blessing," Land said, "because Israel has a far greater ally than the United States of America, God Almighty."
"This is not your daddy's Republican Party," said James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, who argues the administration is losing its ability to act as an honest broker in the Middle East by lining up with Israel. "There's a marriage here between the religious right and the neoconservatives," he said, referring to intellectual hard-liners such as Abrams and Perle, both of whom worked for Democrats before joining the Reagan administration.
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US president Bush is a politician, and his "base" is deeply religious. Who is more open about what he is doing and saying, Bush, or Ahmadinejad ?
Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...26/lol.05.html
LIVE FROM...
Former President Gerald Ford Hospitalized; Apocalypse Now?; Eight Israeli Soldiers Killed in Lebanon
Aired July 26, 2006 - 15:00 ET
....PHILLIPS:
.....Now, here is the kicker. The book, about 20 pages of Latin script, was allegedly found opened to Psalm 83. Now, if you're a scholar, as you know Psalm 83, "God hears complaints that other nations are plotting to wipe out the name of Israel." Well, that's precisely the kind of news nugget that would get the attention of my next guests, a seemingly random event with an eerie coincidence to reality.
<h3>Jerry Jenkins is in New York. Now, along with Tim LaHaye, he co- authored the widely popular "Left Behind" series -- only 63 million books sold, by the way. Also joining me, Joel Rosenberg in Washington.</h3> He's the author of "The Copper Scroll," the latest of several apocalyptic novels.
<h3>So, gentlemen, from books, to blogs, to the back pews, the buzz is all about the end times.</h3> What do you think about the Book of Psalms? Is this going to be the next thing that both of you will write about?
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: I'm getting...
(CROSSTALK)
JOEL ROSENBERG, AUTHOR, "THE COPPER SCROLL": Jerry, go ahead.
PHILLIPS: I'm getting smiles from both.
All right, Jerry...
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: ... will this be your next book?
JERRY B. JENKINS, CO-AUTHOR, "LEFT BEHIND": Well, that's a...
(LAUGHTER)
JENKINS: It's an amazing news story. I had not heard it. In some...
PHILLIPS: Really? OK. This is your -- this is news to you, then.
JENKINS: Yes. In some ways, it's -- it's not terribly surprising.
I mean, I think God finds ways of communicating with us. And -- and he does that through his word. That's an incredible story. And it would probably have to be written in fiction form, because people are going to find it hard to believe.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: Well, Jerry, you have sold 60 million -- 63 million- plus books about the end times. Why do you think they have been so successful? And -- and why did you go that rite -- route? Why did you want to write about it? JENKINS: Well, the idea for fiction about the end times was really Dr. LaHaye's. He's a prophecy scholar and theologian, has been studying this stuff longer than I have been alive.
But he just had the idea that, after writing several nonfiction books about the subject, if -- if we could put it in fiction format, more people would find it accessible and understandable. And that has proven true.
And, because of the end of millennium, and because of 9/11, and because of what's happening in the Middle East right now, people are scared to death about the future. And I think they hear about books that are based on the prophecies of scripture, and it just intrigues them, and -- and makes them want to find out what we think.
PHILLIPS: So, Joel, are we living in the last days? I mean, let's talk about the specific signs to watch. You have written about them. What does the Bible say? And are we there?
ROSENBERG: Well, people are very interested, I agree.
You know, Tim and Jerry's books deal with the rapture, the disappearance of the church, and the events going forward in Revelation. My theories, "The Ezekiel Option," "The Copper Scroll," are about events that could lead up to the rapture and the return of Christ.
Yes, people are interested, because the rebirth of Israel, the fact that Jews are living in the Holy Land today, that is a Bible prophecy. <h3>When Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, they begin to form an alliance against Israel, those are the prophecies from Ezekiel 38 and 39.
I have been -- that's what I'm basing my novels on. I have been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill. Members of Congress, Israelis, Arab leaders all want to understand the Middle East through the -- through the lens of biblical prophecies.</h3> I'm writing these novels that keep seeming to come true, but we are seeing Bible prophecy, bit by bit, unfold in the Middle East right now.
PHILLIPS: And you talk about epic battles for Jerusalem, you know, the -- the biblical prophecy. Get specific with us. Tell us...
ROSENBERG: Well, that...
PHILLIPS: ... what's happening now that -- that totally correlates with what you have written about biblically?
ROSENBERG: Well, that's right...
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Quote:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/121/story_12103_1.html
<h3>Tim LaHaye is the co-author, with Jerry Jenkins, of "Left Behind,"</h3> the popular Christian fiction series about the End Times. Some Christians believe in the Rapture, an apocalyptic event in which believers will rise from the earth to meet Christ while others are "left behind" to endure the tribulation -- a time of rampant lawlessness, disaster, famine, and illness -- prior to Jesus' return to the earth.
<h3>In your new book, you seem to want to recast the Rapture in a warmer light.</h3>
Actually I want to cast the nature of God in warmer light. The Rapture is a time of incredible mercy and grace. If you only look at the people who defy God, it's a negative time. But if you look at the whole population, it's a blessed time.
<h3>But you can hardly blame people for being scared. You've done as much as anyone to plant the catastrophic events of the Rapture in people's minds.</h3>
I wouldn't plead guilty to that. All we're doing is fleshing out the prophecy of the Bible. There is going to be a time of tribulation, but keep in mind that that seven years comes just before the millenium. The Tribulation is there to let people make a decision about Jesus Christ. For those who accept God's plan, what follows is nothing but utopia. But for those who reject it, it's eternal loss. I don't think that's different than what any Christian would tell you.
<h3>And yet the Rapture isn't considered orthodox Christian theology .</h3>
I think that is an erroneous conclusion propagated by the amillennialist and reform church movements. The truth is, Christianity is divided between those who take the Bible literally and those who take it figuratively. Those who take it literally are far more in the majority, if you're talking about evangelical Christians--Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God and independent churches, like the Brethren. There are a lot of denominational groups that accept this, so I don't think it's fair to say [it's a minority view]. Lets face it, we've sold more than five million copies of Left Behind books, and they say every copy is read by 10 people. Five million times 10 is a lot of people.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/us...=1&oref=slogin
February 25, 2007
Christian Right Labors to Find ’08 Candidate
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.
The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls,<h3> including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.
But in a stark shift from the group’s influence under President Bush</h3>, the group risks relegation to the margins. Many of the conservatives who attended the event, held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election....
....And some members of the council have raised doubts about lesser known candidates — Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Representative Duncan Hunter of California, who were invited to Amelia Island to address an elite audience of about 60 of its members, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who spoke to the full council at its previous meeting, in October in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Although each of the three had supporters, many conservatives expressed concerns about whether any of the candidates could unify their movement or raise enough money to overtake the front-runners, several participants in the meetings said....
....“There is great anxiety,” said Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation. “There is no outstanding conservative, and they are all looking for that.”
Mr. Weyrich, a longtime member of the council, declined to discuss the group or its meetings. The council’s bylaws forbid members from publicly disclosing its membership or activities, and participants agreed to discuss the Amelia Island meeting only on the condition of anonymity.
<h3>For eight years and four elections, President Bush forged a singular alliance with Christian conservatives — including dispatching administration officials and even cabinet members to address council meetings — that put them at the center of the Republican Party.</h3>...
....The Council for National Policy <h2>was founded 25 years ago by the Rev. Tim LaHaye as a forum for conservative Christians to strategize about turning the country to the right. Its secrecy was intended to insulate the group from what its members considered the liberal bias of the news media.</h2> ....
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121170
Inside the Council for National Policy
Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of
.....In 1999, candidate George W. Bush spoke before a closed-press CNP session in San Antonio. His speech, contemporaneously described as a typical mid-campaign ministration to conservatives, was recorded on audio tape.
(Depending on whose account you believe, Bush promised to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court, or he stuck to his campaign "strict constructionist" phrase. Or he took a tough stance against gays and lesbians, or maybe he didn't).
The media and center-left activist groups urged the group and Bush's presidential campaign to release the tape of his remarks. <h3>The CNP, citing its bylaws that restrict access to speeches, declined. So did the Bush campaign, citing the CNP.</h3>
Shortly thereafter, magisterial conservatives pronounced the allegedly moderate younger Bush fit for the mantle of Republican leadership.
The two events might not be connected. But since none of the participants would say what Bush said, the CNP's kingmaking role mushroomed in the mind's eye, at least to the Democratic National Committee, which urged release of the tapes.
Partly because so little was known about CNP, the hubbub died down.....
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<h3>At least the president of Iran doesn't make secret speeches to his religious, wack job, "second coming", base, unlike our US president.....</h3>
Quote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...05/wmid105.xml
US evangelist leads the millions seeking a battle with Islam
By Alec Russell in Washington
Last Updated: 1:00am BST 05/08/2006
Anyone who wants to understand why Israel has such unwavering support from the United States should speak to one man.
Fiery television evangelist Pastor John Hagee has emerged as the rallying voice for thousands of American Christians who believe Israel is doing God's work in a "war of good versus evil".
When he strode on to a stage in Washington last month, he was cheered to the rafters by 3,500 prominent evangelicals - as well as by Israel's ambassador to America, a former Israeli chief of staff and a host of US congressmen of both parties.
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"After 25 years of hammering away at the truth on national television, millions of people have come to see the truth of the word of God," Mr Hagee told The Daily Telegraph. "There is literally a groundswell of support for Israel in the USA among evangelicals."
Twenty-five years ago, Mr Hagee was denounced as a heretic when he urged his fellow preachers to speak out in support of Israel. He also met with huge suspicion from Jews who thought that anti-Semitism was the standard evangelical belief.
When he persevered and hosted a "night to honour Israel" in his hometown, San Antonio, there was a bomb threat and panicked Christian followers ran for the door.
But today most of America's 60 million Christian evangelicals, who make up about a quarter of the US electorate and the essence of the President's "base", <h3>are behind Mr Bush's pro-Israeli position and are pushing for a showdown with Iran.</h3> As many as half of those are Christian Zionists.
Mr Hagee said: "What we have done is united all of this evangelical horsepower and said, 'We're not just going to Washington to stand on the grass and sing Amazing Grace. We're going into the halls of Congress to see the senators and to see the congressmen face-to-face and to speak to them about our concerns for Israel'."
His claim of political clout is no idle boast. <h3>The President sent a message of support praising him for "spreading the hope of God's Love and the universal gift of freedom". They met several times when Mr Bush was governor of Texas.</h3>
America has long identified with Israel against its Arab foes. This backing has been shored up in Washington by the influential Israeli lobby. It also reflects a cultural affinity which is greater in the wake of the September 11 attacks: for most Americans, Israel is on the front line against terrorism.
Another key factor in this bond, however, is Christian Zionism: a booming movement <h3>based on the idea that Israel's travails fulfil Biblical prophecy and are a forerunner of the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming.</h3>
As the head of Christians United for Israel, an organisation linking hundreds of US evangelical leaders, it is no exaggeration to say that Mr Hagee is one of Israel's most influential supporters.
Outside his mega-church is a facsimile "Wailing Wall". Inside on a flagpole is the Israeli flag and tributes from Israeli visitors, including prime minister Ehud Olmert, who came several times when he was mayor of Jerusalem.
In his recent book, Jerusalem Countdown - A Warning to the World, Mr Hagee seeks a showdown between Islam and the West. "This is a religious war that Islam cannot and must not win," he writes. "The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching... Rejoice and be exceedingly glad the best is yet to be."
He concedes it was a "difficult mountain to climb" to persuade evangelicals to back Israel. <h3>Many dispute his contention that some Jews can "find favour with God". Traditionally, evangelicals have argued that Jews will have to convert or face a double Holocaust at the battle of Armageddon.</h3>
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11541
Pastor Strangelove
Texan John Hagee may not have his “perfect red heifer” yet. But he does have a huge following, the ear of the White House -- and a theory that an invasion of Iran was foretold in the Book of Esther.
Sarah Posner | May 21, 2006
.....He had been asked to explain the significance of Purim to Christians, and particularly how the Old Testament's Book of Esther “serves as a roadmap to reality,” which pinpoints where the next world “hot spot” will be.
That soon-to-be-flaming location is where the Book of Esther was set: namely Persia, or in modern parlance, Iran.
Seated beside Lapin in the ornately gilded Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) studio was Pastor John Hagee, the author of an incendiary new book purporting to show that the Bible predicts a military confrontation with Iran. By then, Hagee's book, Jerusalem Countdown, had sold nearly 500,000 copies. ....
....Hagee, who serves as head pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, hosts his own television program that is seen twice a day on TBN. He argues that the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the release of his book last January, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a lobbying organization intended, he says, to be a Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With CUFI, which Hagee has said will cause a “political earthquake,” the televangelist aims to put the political organizing muscle of the conservative evangelical movement behind his grand plan for a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.
While Washington insiders wonder and worry whether President Bush really is bent on a military strike against Iran, Hagee already has spent months mobilizing the shock troops in support of another war. As diplomats, experts, and pundits debate how many years Iran will need to develop a viable nuclear weapon, Hagee says the mullahs already possess the means to destroy Israel and America. And although Bush insists that diplomatic options are still on the table, Hagee has dismissed pussyfooting diplomacy and primed his followers for a conflagration.
Indeed, Hagee wields “a very large megaphone” that reaches “a very large group of people,” said Rabbi James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee, who has studied the Christian right for 30 years. With CUFI, the Texas pastor has exponentially expanded the reach of his megaphone beyond his television audience......
Quote:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/met...e.14a97df.html
S.A. pastor a champion for Israel
Web Posted: 07/22/2006 11:59 PM CDT
....He's drawn both praise and criticism from Jewish and Christian leaders for what's become his life's work.
His reach — television and radio broadcasts in 190 countries, 21 major books, plus his Cornerstone Church, with an average Sunday attendance of 8,000 to 9,000 — is undeniable.
.....In an interview Friday with San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer Abe Levy, the pastor addressed his pro-Israel campaign and the latest Mideast fighting.
You've visited Israel 23 times and known Israeli prime ministers dating back to Menachem Begin. You've donated $12 million in recent years for 12,000 Russian Jews to relocate to Israel. Why?.....
......Five months ago, you founded Christians United for Israel with 400 evangelical leaders. The group drew 3,500 people to its first-ever summit last week in Washington D.C., and met with members of Congress. You've said this summit will be repeated yearly. What else is in store for the group?
We're going to have a 'call to action' e-mail and fax. Every spiritual leader in the nation, we want to be able to communicate to them every Monday morning about the issues facing America. ... We have something over 16,500 leaders on our 'call to action' list, and some of those leaders have more than a million people on their e-mail and fax address......
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Which country has 8,000 nuclear weapons, 12 aircraft carrier task force groups, a fleet of attack submarines and submarines armed with nuclear ICBMs? Iran, or the US?
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071501032.html
Marching as to War
Former Air Force Officer Mikey Weinstein Zeroes In on Proselytizing in the Military
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; Page D01
........Yet one of his favorite lines these days -- right up there with "sucking chest wounds" -- comes from <h3>the Officers' Christian Fellowship, a private organization with 14,000 active-duty members</h3> on more than 200 U.S. military bases around the world. In its mission statement, <h3<the OCF says its goal is "a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.".......</h3>
......Ambassadors for Christ in uniform. To Weinstein, who is both a Jew and a member of a military family, it is an abomination. It "evokes the Crusades." He says he can't believe that generals talk like this when the United States is fighting a global war on terror and trying to win hearts and minds in Muslim countries...........
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This is not an extreme post, authored by an extremist. It is a balancing act, because some here have no sense of balance.
Last edited by host; 12-06-2007 at 02:11 AM..
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