Christian Fundamentalists

 Bibliography

Introduction

Religious fundamentalism in America is seen as powerful cause of America's policy aberrations. This is a half truth. Fundamentalism, we are often told, is the reaction of a threatened culture or failed society to international challenges it cannot meet. This fits America's Christian fundamentalism very nicely. America, with its minority of participating voters and its completely aberrant choices of leaders, is as much a 'failed state' as any Islamic fundamentalist nation. Christian fundamentalism is a reaction to the quite correct perception that American society is in deep trouble: it is a consequence, not a cause of that trouble. Rather than worrying about how to counter Christian fundamentalists, we should worry about how to deal with the trouble in the first place.;

– Three Years and Counting? How Time Flies by Michael Neumann, 23 September 2004.

The Rapture

The rapture is an event that will take place sometime in the near future. Jesus will come in the air, catch up the Church from the earth, and then return to Heaven with the Church. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, we are given a clear description of the rapture: "the dead in Christ will rise, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord."

– Rapture Ready.

So here we have a major political constituency – representing much of the current president's core vote – in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of men". They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.

– US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy by George Monbiot, 20 April 2004.

Christian Zionists

The Christian fundamentalist lobby, dominated by the evangelist preachers, […] appears to be extremely pro-Zionist. ‘Appears’, because there is a darker side to it. According to its theological beliefs, the Jews must congregate in Palestine and establish a Jewish state on all its territory, so as to make the Second Coming of Jesus Christ possible. The evangelists don't like to dwell openly on what's comes next: before the Coming, the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don't will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon. This is basically an anti-Semitic teaching, but who cares, as long as they support Israel.

– Two Souls by Uri Avnery, 08 June 2002.

Evangelicals

The New Tribes Mission (NTM), set up in 1942, is one of many fundamentalist christian missions that is trying to peddle its message to vulnerable groups, in this case the remaining tribal peoples of the world. It sets itself the ambitious and frightening target of continuing with this "until the last tribe is reached". It is active in nineteen countries.

– New Tribes Mission from EcoAction, 17 September 2003.