The QAnon theories often showcase a messianic figure (Trump) assembling an army of brave Christian followers to take on scheming demonic forces and ultimately win in one great triumphant battle (“the Storm”). It’s hard to ignore how aligned this framing is with QAnon conspiracy theories, which place Trump and good Christians at odds with the blood-drinking, child-trafficking, Satan-worshiping elites running the country. “It’s all about fighting one world government and the coming dominance of the Antichrist so we can stand against evil,” Sutton said. Trump didn’t frame his isolationist America First policies or his anti-FBI rants as a fight against the Antichrist, but his distrust of European governments and of his own intelligence and security agencies maps onto these cultural tropes and other long-held evangelical suspicions about the threat of satanic forces. Matthew Avery Sutton, a history professor at Washington State University and author of American Apocalypse, noted that Donald Trump, knowingly or not, tapped into a century of end-times beliefs by quarreling with NATO and criticizing the FBI and the “deep state.” In the Left Behind book series, which was published in the ’90s and early 2000s and which has had an enormous impact on how many Christians conceptualize the apocalypse, the Antichrist turns out to be a politically savvy secretary-general of the United Nations, which is then converted into a single world government. Secularism within the government and in public life, he said, has led to anarchy-and the “stolen” 2020 elections are the proof. But he said the pandemic had nothing to do with these beliefs. As someone who hosts the major annual conference debating these apocalyptic prophecies, he understands their perspective. Others, though, are eager to believe that Bible prophecies are already being fulfilled. We are living in the last days of the “church age,” he believes, but are not yet in the time of tribulation. Ice believes we live in unholy times and looks forward to the Second Coming. Ice is an evangelical and personally believes in a coming rapture, but he isn’t as eager as many other Christians to read the signs of its work in motion. Tommy Ice, a retired theology professor and the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center, hosts an annual conference discussing the pretribulational rapture, which refers to a rapture-or disappearance of-the faithful, an event that in his belief will occur before a seven-year period of hellish events on earth. Why, at this moment, when the Christian right should be feeling more empowered, would the end of the world be so trendy? He declined to comment publicly after October 21, when his predicted apocalypse did not occur.But it seems an odd time for doomsday fervor, given the ascendancy of the religious right in American politics and the current makeup of the Supreme Court. On October 16, however, Camping admitted to an interviewer that he was not sure when the end would come. On May 23, Camping said that May 21 had been the Day of Judgment, and following the physical rapture on October 21, 2011, the whole universe would be destroyed by God. After the prediction failed, media attention shifted to Camping and his followers for their responses. He stated that his predictions had already been fulfilled: on May 21, 1988, the churches were judged on September 7, 1994, judgment continued on the churches and on May 21, 2011, the entire world was judged. On May 23, Camping refused to apologize for his earlier interpretations. The massacre was linked to false predictions by Camping. Many were arrested for extremism, while hundreds were shot dead by the Vietnamese forces. The Vietnamese government dispersed the gathering. They had planned to wait for Christ to arrive. In 2011, around 7000 ethnic Hmong Christians gathered in a desolate town in Vietnam’s Điện Biên province in early May. To support his arguments for the May 21 doomsday, Camping stated that he had mathematically calculated the prophecies in the Bible for decades.Īs a result of his predictions, many of his followers gave up their jobs, stopped investing in their children’s education, sold their properties, and even spent huge amounts promoting his apocalyptic claims. Some churches cited the verse in ‘Matthew 24:36’ where Christ says that “about that day or hour no one knows.” Church officials continued their business and scheduled their church services as usual for Sunday, May 22. Harold Camping’s predictions were rejected by most Christian groups.
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