The End is Nigh

Here's a little background on what Keiran is talking about. Daniel was a prophet in the Old Testament, during the peak of the Babylonian empire. Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king at the time, enjoyed testing his prophets, so he'd often round them up and get them to interpret his dreams. But because anybody can just make stuff up, this time he added a twist by not telling the prophets what he'd dreamed. He demanded they tell him his dream, as well as the interpretation, else they be put to death.

Daniel rose to the occasion. The scripture Keiran quotes is the latter part of the dream/interpretation. Daniel sees a large statue, "The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay." Each layer represents an empire, starting with Nebuchadnezzar's as the golden head, and proceeding through time with future empires - until God's empire, represented by a huge rock, comes along and smashes the statue.

In my opinion, the point of the dream was meant to be a warning to Nebuchadnezzar: that God rules over all empires, and that Nebuchadnezzar would fall unless he turned from his evil ways. The warning comes true within Nebuchadnezzar's lifetime: he loses his kingdom, goes insane, and eats grass with the sheep.

However there is a popular theology amongst Christians (specifically conservative Evangelicals), known as dispensationalism, which believes (amongst other things) that everything in the bible is to be taken literally. Therefore, Nebuchadnezzar's dream is an indication of world events; either events past, or events to come, depending on your interpretation.

Most dispensationalists ascribe the layers of the statue to the following world empires:

1. Gold head = Babylonian (a given since Daniel says as much)
2. Silver chest = Medo-Persian
3. Bronze belly = Grecian
4. Iron legs = Roman

Kieran's issue, however, is with the statue's toes. Daniel claims "Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces" - referring to the legs, i.e. the Romans. Daniel then goes on to describe the toes, which is the part that Keiran quotes, "Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom". The problem is, is Daniel still talking about the Romans, or is he talking about a new kingdom? He did say fourth and FINAL, but some people interpret the divided kingdom as a new one altogether.

Those who believe the toes are lumped in with the Romans, believe that God's empire (the stone) represents Jesus, and the kingdom he set up through his death and resurrection, during the Roman empire. Those who believe the toes are a post-Roman empire, believe God's stone represents a future event, i.e. Judgement Day (the second coming of Christ). Mormons believe that God's stone represents the founding of the Mormon church in 1830, but they're kooks.

Jehovah's Witnesses, who live for this end-times stuff, believe the toes are a kingdom made up of the British (tracing their roots to the Roman empire...i.e. iron) and the Americans (a newly formed empire...i.e. clay). Given that Blair and Bush are all buddy-buddy in their War Against Terror, I can see why Keiran would be a little jumpy. To Jehovah's Witnesses, a British-American alliance is a sure sign of fire and brimstone just around the corner.

My big problem with dispensationalism is that people have been dovetailing current events into biblical prophecies for years. To quote John F. Walvoord, longtime president of Dallas Theological Seminary and leading proponent of dispensationalism:

"History answers the most important question in prophetic interpretation, that is, whether prophecy is to be interpreted literally, by giving five hundred examples of precise literal fulfillments. The commonly held belief that prophecy is not literal and should be interpreted nonliterally has no basis in scriptural revelation. A solid record emerges of fulfillment of prophecy in the past and an anticipation that each prophecy will have that same literal fulfillment in the future."

So many of these biblical prophecies have been fulfilled, time and time again, and will continue to be fulfilled in the future: i.e. history repeats itself. It's almost human nature to take the political climate of an age and apply it to biblical prophecy. I can remember my mom, during the height of the Cold War, reading me prophecies of "fiery arrows coming over the north" (Ezekiel 1:4), and how that was most likely going to be Russia bombing us with nuclear missiles (as if the Bible was written in from a North American geographic perspective). During the Second World War many believed Hitler was the Antichrist, responsible for the decimation of 2/3 of the Jewish race during the Great Tribulation (Zechariah 13:8-9).

As for Britain and the USA getting together to form a new empire - well I wouldn't bet the farm on it. On the world stage Britain has very little to offer, and the I think the USA's day in the sun is coming to an end. It's time to look to the east my friends: China's inevitable emergence as the new world superpower. Now, lemme just pull up my biblical prophecies with the word "east" in them...

Given that post-Blair Britain has decided to pull out of Iraq, I guess we can stop worrying about the rise of the American-British empire for now.

But not to worry, we've got a new target in our sites: Iran. Yup, turns out the American Christian Right is lobbying the US government to preemptively strike Iran - given that they believe Iran's attempts to "go nuclear" will result in the decimation of Israel, a sure-fire kick-start to the apocalypse.

I'm not entirely sure why Christians feel the need to protect Israel, considering that the Bible outlines its demise in the end-times anyways. Maybe we are just trying to buy more time?

Anyway, I just finished listening to a really good documentary: Bill Moyers Journal - Christians United for Israel, which talks all about this. It's some scary stuff, and well worth the listen.