Jon Basil Utley’s warning in, Their Armageddonites, and Ours, that “The rest of the world should be aware and wary” as “America, Iran, and Israel all have governments heavily influenced by fanatical religious fundamentalists” could come to a pointed head sooner than nought.
While it’s easy to see what Israel hopes to gain by leasing land at no charge to mainly American Evangelical churches for an evangelical theme park by the Sea of Galilee, since their ultimate goal is to convert Jews or leave them for dead as they ascend into heaven, it seems more like a pact with the devil than an inventive way to increase tourism.
Highlights may include a Holy Bible Garden, full of plants and trees mentioned in the New Testament, and equipped with quiet sites for reflection and prayer. A Sea of Galilee Amphitheater will overlook the mouth of the Jordan River and hold 1,500-2,000 worshippers. And the park will have a Christian Experience Auditorium and a Multimedia Center. The center would also feature an online broadcast center, which would give religious leaders an opportunity to address their followers back home, live, near the tranquil blue waters of the Sea of Galilee (which today is considered a lake).
While “the Christian partners will have to agree not to go out and proselytize to local Jewish Israelis” it’s hard to imagine such a promise being kept since proselytising is arguably an eleventh commandment for evangelicals. Imagine the message Pat Robertson will be broadcasting to his faithfull viewers back home. How long after the last brick is laid will the man who called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, preaching from the lands where Jesus walked, begin condemning Jews who refuse to heed the word of God? Bloody hell, he will be more beside himself than usual to hurry Armageddon along.
“Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory” lifted from Bush’s Armageddon Obsession, Revisited by Michael Ortiz Hill, an article referenced by Utley. Hill reminds readers:
This pagan myth recycled as a suspiciously unchristian Biblical test found new credence in the 19th century when John Darby virtually revived the Montanist heresy of investing it with a passionate literalism. Given to visions (he saw the British as one of the ten tribes of Israel) Darby left the priesthood of the Church of Ireland and preached Revelations as both prophecy and imminent history. In this he inaugurated a lineage in which Bush’s mentors, the Reverend Billy Graham and Dr. Tony Evans are recent heirs. Revelations is much beloved by Muslim fundamentalists and like their Christian compatriots they also thrill to redemption through apocalypse. Jewish fundamentalists of course do not believe in Revelations but have nonetheless made common cause with the Christian Right. “It’s a very tragic situation in which Christian fundamentalists, certain groups of them that focus on Armageddon and the Rapture and the role of a war between Muslims and Jews in bringing about the Second Coming, are involved in a folie a deux with extremist Jews,” said Ian Lustick, the author of For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition (and yes it is a single tradition) is being led by its fringe into the abyss and the rest of us with it.
Telecast live by the Christian Broadcasting Network, or at least the latest lurid chapter in the continuing bring it on saga of Bibi’s thick and thin friends. Does Netanyahu believe he can rewrite their final chapter?
Update: Pat Robertson was reportedly expelled from the investor group behind the biblical theme park venture for saying Sharon’s stroke was God’s revenge for returning land to the Palestinians. He has sent a letter of apology to Omri Sharon, Ariel’s son, who is busy enough pleading with Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court for a delay in his sentencing. Omri was recently convicted “after pleading guilty to violating campaign funding laws, perjury, and fraudulent registration of a company. Sentencing was scheduled to take place at the end of January 2006.” The jury is out on whether Robertson’s apology will get him back into the theme park club.