http://findarticles.com/p...0MKY/is_9_27/ai_108881880
I don't remember reading this in the New York Times.
WASHINGTON DC -- According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."
Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament.
I do remember reading this:
"The Catholic Church has lost its shepherd," Bush said at the White House, with his wife, Laura, standing alongside him. "The world has lost a champion of human freedom, and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home.
"We will always remember the humble, wise and fearless priest who became one of history's great moral leaders."
And I remember reading this:
The world has lost a champion of human freedom," President George Bush said. "We're grateful to God for sending such a man ... a hero for the ages," said Mr Bush, who went to war in Iraq despite the Pope's opposition but who, as a conservative Christian, shared many views with him.
I've followed the career of George W. Bush for many years and never found him to be a practitioner of religious tolerance. Indeed, he was elected in part by the same group that voted against JFK in 1960 specifically because he was Catholic, and I remember reading this:
After Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to upstart John McCain, the South Carolina primary became the next major battle. The Bushies were determined to do anything--that is, anything--to defeat McCain in the Palmetto State and smother this insurgency. That meant spreading malicious rumors about the former war hero and his family, mounting dirty tricks, and falsely attacking McCain for not supporting veterans' issues in the Senate. A key part of the Bush strategy was to swing the social conservatives of South Carolina--of which there are many--behind the candidate who proclaimed himself a uniter-not-a-divider. Seeking to kowtow to the religious-right Republicans of South Carolina, Bush scheduled a visit to Bob Jones University, a hotbed of racist and anti-Catholic fundamentalism.
Bob Jones University. Yeah, that Bob Jones University. The one founded by Bob Jones, Sr., who said "I would rather see a saloon on every corner than a Catholic in the White House. I would rather see a nigger as president." Bob Jones University, whose president in the 1960s was Bob Jones, Jr., who said, after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., "We will not lower our school's flag for an apostate!" Bob Jones University, whose president in 1966, Bob Jones, Jr. flew to Northern Ireland to award Ian Paisley an Honorary Doctorate two weeks after he was released from prison for his participation in an anti-Catholic riot, and who was himself expelled from the European Parliament in 1988 for calling Pope John Paul II "the anti-christ."
That Bob Jones University. Very "christian." But not very Christian.
And I remember reading this, and being utterly disgusted by it -- apparently the National Review is preferred reading by the Beast and his minions:
(B)elief in the permissibility of the death penalty is a part of traditional morality, as is belief in the justifiability of war. And yet whilst the president of the United States, for one, steadfastly supports both capital punishment and the concept of just war, John Paul II seemed resolute in his virtual opposition to both. I say “virtual” because, though he never condemned either explicitly, everything he said and did made clear that he regarded them as all but unreasonable and inapplicable in the modern age. Here it looks like George W. Bush’s morality is far more traditional — and I would argue more defensible — than John Paul’s.
I promise you, if there is an anti-christ (a suggestion about which I am extremely skeptical), he will be called by his followers "smarter and holier than the pope." But what about this:
In 1987, JP II issued an encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Matters), in which he clearly cast Marxist Communism and unregulated, free-market, liberal capitalism as equivalent evils, each containing their distinct "structures of sin." It is a revolutionary statement and has guided the Catholic Church's teachings on social justice and global development for nearly two decades. And it has been entirely ignored in the mainstream media, then and now.
...the Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism....The developing countries, instead of becoming autonomous nations concerned with their own progress towards a just sharing in the goods and services meant for all, become parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel....A disconcerting conclusion about the most recent period should serve to enlighten us: side-by-side with the miseries of underdevelopment, themselves unacceptable, we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissible. because like the former it is contrary to what is good and to true happiness. This super-development, which consists in an excessive availability of every kind of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups, easily makes people slaves of "possession" and of immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the so-called civilization of consumption" or "consumerism ," which involves so much "throwing-away" and "waste." An object already owned but now superseded by something better is discarded, with no thought of its possible lasting value in itself, nor of some other human being who is poorer....the ones who possess much are relatively few and those who possess almost nothing are many. It is the injustice of the poor distribution of the goods and services originally intended for all....It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all…
I am not a fundamentalist. I do not take the Bible literally. Consequently, I don't really think I believe in this whole (to my ears, crazy) idea of the "anti-christ." But if I had to pick a likely contender, I would certainly have to agree with John Paul II.
Dr. Fallon
29 Comments
Do I really want to use my own ignorance as a defense? Do I want to live without recognizing my right to ask the question, "Why?" I appreciate these posts because they remind me I'm allowed to suppose things I'd never think of on my own, but that obviously some journalists have considered, perhaps that George W. Bush reminds people of anti-Christ like behavior. Never thought of it that way.
The polished TV 'reverends' who need you to send them lots of money are all anti-Christs. The 'anti-Christ' is not a person, it's a general move away from Christianity.
and even though i think bush is the absolute worst president in the history of the united states
and even though i believe he has led us into a war based on lies that in the end has slaughtered more iraqi's than saddam ever did, i still dont think he is evil enough to be considered "an anti-christ"
i think there have been more evil leaders in the past and there will likely be more evil leaders in the future.
lets try to be a bit more selective when we pick people to lead us, regardless of which country you come from.
someone stole starrmans post! hahaha
I would find it interesting, I feel sure.
I think Jesus Christ was a person; maybe also the son of God, God only knows on that front ;). I think he is not a symbol, however; I think he's someone to learn from, and to emulate.
A little window into my personal beliefs here: I like the four Gospels. They have the power of real, spiritual awakening to me when I read them. None of the rest of the Bible rings true in that way; it's virtually all about political machinations, boards of directors, decrees, construction of the new Church of Christ (which Christ himself spoke out against, by the way). But the four Gospels seem to be transcendantly good and directed towards fundamentally beautiful things in nearly every word. If I had the chance to make a new spiritual book based on Christian histories, I would choose the four Gospels and discard everything else, or at least move it to an auxiliary volume entitled 'questionable'. For that matter, I'm definitely curious as to how much of what is written in the Gospels accurately describes Jesus.
But about the symbols/icons: you're really talking about the Protestant Reformation iconoclasts. When printing became a cultural phenomenon and widespread literacy followed, literacy was embraced by the folks who benefitted most from print literacy: the Germans and the folks living in German speaking or German influenced areas. That's why it's no coincidence that it started with Martin Luther in Mainz, just a fgew generations after the development of print (Read Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change or http://www.amazon.com/Pri...dern-Europe/dp/0521447704">The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe).
In pre-literate Europe, religious art was used to tell the story of the Gospel to the vast majority who could neither read nor speak Latin (many pre-reformation dissenters believed it was also used to "exploit the ignorant masses" -- kind of like arooka). But Luther rang in an age where the text was paramount, everyone would need to read, and the Bible would be printed -- for the first time -- in vernacular languages.
Some went a little overboard and began smashing statues, whitewashing over beautiful medieval frescoes, melting crrucifixes, etc.
It is important to note that in the counterreformation, as a reaction to iconoclastic protestantism, the Catholic Church clung ever tighter to its icons, paintings, statues, and gilt crucifixes.
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)