Biblical Prophecy and American Foreign Policy

By staff reporter Fritz Alvarez

Some of us are so naïve as to think what is going on in the Middle East and around the world in the war against terrorism should be taken at face value. A graduate student researcher at Texas State University found evidence of belief by Evangelical Christians that it is all a part of a great Biblical battle of the “End Time.”

In a paper entitled Media in Texas, Biblical Prophecy, and the Middle East Wars, the writer raises a possibility that Evangelicals are using their influence in the media and in government to make sure U.S. actions in Iraq and elsewhere are true to biblical prophecy.

Viewing the attack on Iraq as the overthrow of “The Whore of Babylon,” as predicted by the New Testament book of Revelations, fundamentalist Christians are said to have viewed U.S. action there as necessary for a fulfillment of prophecy and prelude to the “Second coming of Christ.”

Examining Evangelical Christian support for Israel, the paper asks, then answers, the question of why a sect which believes one must “accept Jesus Christ as Personal Savior” to go to heaven would support a Jewish society which summarily rejects the notion of Christ as Savior and Lord.

The answer lies in the fact that Evangelical Christians take every word of the Old and New Testament as being the exact word of God. There is a belief that in the “End Time” a number (some believe the book of Revelations says it is 144,000) Jews will be “saved” and accept Christ as Savior. It is in the interest of these 144,000 future Christian brothers that the Christian Right supports Israel.

According to the scholarly paper, Evangelicals used their political and media muscle during the initial phases of the Iraqi war to influence their flocks to support the effort. They broadcast a belief that overthrow of “Babylon” (Iraq) was necessary for the establishment of a new regime there that would fulfill a prophecy that a %u2