] Academics do need to pay more attention to the role of ] religious belief in American public life, not only in the ] past, but also today. Without close attention to the ] prophetic scenario embraced by millions of American ] citizens, the current political climate in the United ] States cannot be fully understood. ] ] Leaders have always invoked God's blessing on their wars, ] and, in this respect, the Bush administration is simply ] carrying on a familiar tradition. But when our born-again ] president describes the nation's foreign-policy objective ] in theological terms as a global struggle against ] "evildoers," and when, in his recent State of the Union ] address, he casts Saddam Hussein as a demonic, ] quasi-supernatural figure who could unleash "a day of ] horror like none we have ever known," he is not only ] playing upon our still-raw memories of 9/11. He is also ] invoking a powerful and ancient apocalyptic vocabulary ] that for millions of prophecy believers conveys a ] specific and thrilling message of an approaching end - not ] just of Saddam, but of human history as we know it. Quick! Take a drug, get laied, go skydiving, drive your car real fast, write a novel, climb Mt. Everest, learn to swim, code that program, ask her out, run a marathon, get that peircing, write that song, go to that club, move to a city, move to the woods, eat sushi, do whatever the hell you gotta do, because the end times are here and George Bush is driving.. Umm.. Yeah. AlterNet: When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy |