Hal Lindsey's 1970 best-seller, The Late Great Planet Earth, boldly predicted the imminent final confrontation, Armageddon. Thirty-five years later, he's still predicting the apocalypse is just around the corner.
The Lindsey school of apocalyptic Christian Zionism holds that war in the Middle East is a sign of Armageddon and the coming of the Antichrist.
The doomsday "oracle" has written several other books of note on this topic, including The 1980s: Countdown to Armaggedon and recent titles such as The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad, and Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth.
In an essay by Stephen Sizer, "Hal Lindsey: Father of Apocalyptic Christian Zionism," Lindsey is explicitly linked with far-right Zionism in the US and Israel:
Lindsey's particular kind of reading of history, coloured by a literal exegesis of highly selective biblical scriptures, is essentially polarised, dualistic, racist and confrontational. He justifies the continued demonisation of Russia, China, Islam and the Arab nations; he encourages the continued military and economic funding of Israel by the United States; he urges Israelis to resist negotiating land for peace and instead, maintain their apartheid policies, settling and incorporating the Occupied Territories within the State of Israel; and he incites fundamentalist groups committed to destroying the Dome of the Rock and rebuilding the Jewish Temple. In so doing Lindsey identifies unconditionally with the political as well as religious far right both in the United States as well as in Israel. Ironically, as the 'father' of 'armageddon theology' his attempts to defend Israel and to refute anti-Semitism may actually be leading to the very holocaust he abhors but repeatedly predicts.
The recent postings on Lindsey's website include denouncements of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a declaration that "land for peace" means encouraging rather than undermining Palestinian suicide bombers.
Lindsey proclaims, "thus, the Antichrist cometh," and references "stark facts:"
The “Land for Peace” equation, by its very definition, legitimized terrorism as a form of political persuasion. Over the last dozen years, Israel has in effect given up almost all of its hard-won 1967 land in exchange for nothing that even resembles an illusion of peace.Here are some of the stark facts:
(1) Palestinian leaders have made no effort to disarm or dismantle the existing terror groups.
Article comments
1 - Bob A. Booey
Very interesting, good stuff, John.
And great job of research, as always.
That is all.