I have some critical questions for the American Body of Christ—a body in which I have been active for several decades. I am eager to know if this describes you:
- You think it’s a good idea to tell soldiers they are fighting “God’s War”
- You sincerely believe that in a nation characterized by First Amendment religious freedom, you should push one particular theology within a government agency
- You have been persuaded that military commanding officers, trained in war colleges, are equipped to understand biblical prophecy well enough to indoctrinate troops who are serving under their commands
- You think that instigating or participating in Armageddon is going to be a positive, healthy pursuit. To me, each one of these proposals is preposterous.
Our Troops Indoctrinated by Apocalyptic Dogma
In 2026, numerous troops reported that their commanding officers had indeed apprised them of these things. Armed servicemen have been told they are engaged in a kind of “holy war.” This information should strike terror in the hearts of anyone who has read even a smattering of world history. The term ‘Armageddon’ has been deliberately employed in the description of the current war that President Trump has perfunctorily inflicted upon the Iranian people and their leaders. This is confusing on several levels.
First of all, on the level of religious freedom, why should our troops be subject to religious indoctrination, even if this has been produced by the religion we believe to be ultimate truth? We are admonished to propagate Christ’s kingdom by the demonstration of our love, not by government fiat. The latter has never worked out well; one need only Google the word “Crusades” to gain more insights than one may wish to know. Secondly, the Armageddon battle (the name of which appears only once in Scripture) is portrayed in John’s Revelation as a battle of mass destruction. Its invocation has come to be associated with annihilation. If one believes in the scriptures at all, they cannot rationally adopt the position that participating in this battle will be positive, or that the chances of our troops surviving it will give us any reason to applaud.
Major End Times Positions
Four major views of the doctrine of the Last Things, or the End Times, prevail, with many subvariants, resulting in dozens of possibilities for how such a scenario might unfold. There is no consensus about which view is more correct, orthodox, or more likely to be true. It is unsurprising that groups most dogmatic about their faith systems are also inclined to be the pushiest about their End Times views. For many conservative Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Charismatics, and Pentecostal believers, their End Times positions are not simply their preferred views but the “correct” views.
People who have grown up comfortably using the term “Rapture” to describe the most highly anticipated event in future history are often incapable of viewing biblical evidence apart from the biased way it has always been presented to them. It is unlikely they would have reached their conclusions had they had access to the ancient texts and other scholarly tools, including Biblical commentaries. They are incapable of seeing this from any other perspective once they have internalized the teachings that John Nelson Darby began to piece together in the nineteenth century. Like so many other traditions, once it’s become part of one’s DNA, it is difficult to unlearn it. However, we shouldn’t allow the persistence of these groups to persuade us that their views are the “dominant” or most prominent views in Christianity. This is simply not the case.
No Consensus on End Times Theories
Further, there is no consensus on the meaning of the symbols in the Revelation and the Old Testament book of Daniel, the latter of which is often invoked in extraordinary ways to interpret John’s apocalyptic vision. We don’t possess inerrant tools to determine if any of these symbols are even meant to be taken literally. The word “millennium” itself means one thousand. The book of Revelation is nothing if not a book of symbols. It is not rational to presume that when we encounter numbers like seven, twelve, or one thousand, these are also not in themselves symbols. It would be rare to find any expositor, even a fundamentalist one, to contend that a beast rising out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns represents a literal animal. Yet, dispensational expositors often base their future plans, and even their strategies, on concepts such as a forthcoming “seven years of tribulation” or a literal one-thousand-year peace.
Why would we assume that, among an ocean of obvious symbols, we are suddenly confronted with prominent numbers in both Old- and New Testament prophecies that are not symbols? Is it not possible that these exact numbers point to deeper insights into an eschatological future?
The Lure of Adrenaline
All theologies contain speculative elements, but some are more speculative than others. Eschatology might be the most speculative of them all, since the laypeople and theologians who study end-times events are attempting to piece together prophesies, signs, symbols and visions rather than historical- or didactic understandings of scripture. No individual is likely to arrive at completely “correct” conclusions about the future. Components of your personal system, if not your entire system, are highly likely to be faulty. This writer honestly can’t fathom why Americans talk about these particular prophesies so much, except for the accommodating thought that our culture is extremely entertainment-focused. Action movies and thrillers are more popular than dramas and documentaries, after all. We prefer adrenaline-soaked information over routine, established, and much less speculative pursuits such as loving others, helping those in need, living ethically and making peace with our fellow citizens. The word “holiness” might elicit laughter in twenty-first-century church gatherings today, whereas phrases such as “spiritual warfare” cause people to stand up and take notice.
American Theological Priorities
Somehow, in some manner, we have breached the second quarter of the 21st Century and the religious public appears to be bored with faith, hope, and love. Perhaps this is because faith, hope and love require believers to make physical investments, while interest in the eschaton simply asks them to read varying opinions and to choose an expositor’s point of view. Interest in eschatology merely requires a casual observer to read someone’s blog post or to watch a movie and form an instant opinion. This could amount to watching a movie as facetious as a reboot of the Omen, or a book as shallow as Volume 27 of the “Left Behind” series. Twenty-first-century viewers have heard rumors that the scriptures might be cool or enlightening, perhaps offering insights into the future. There is truth in those pages, they are told. They are not necessarily energized by welcoming the stranger or turning the other cheek, but somehow they have been persuaded that the battle of Armageddon will be fought very soon and that the outcome will be exciting. If this describes you, my friend, you have been duped.
Haphazard Biblical Scholarship
End Times fascination has clearly subsumed many conservative believers. It is said that no one knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return (Matthew 24:36). There are as many ways to interpret teachings about the End of the Age as there are makes and models of cars. One has about as much chance of making sense of it all as of discovering a cure for cancer. Why do people continue to invest so feverishly in the speculative elements of this pastime?
If you are genuinely convinced, as I am, that the Revelation of St. John the Divine is an inspired book, whose version gets your rubber stamp? Theologians have been studying these things for two thousand years—and much longer if one includes the prophesies of Amos, Joel, Daniel, and others. Why place all of one’s cards on the proposition that some dispensational premillennial position is going to be the interpretation that will come to pass? This is a view that has been around for only a little more than one hundred fifty years, and as such it does not carry the historical gravity of some of the other perspectives. Is this really the hill upon which we wish to erect our flag, and even to die upon?
Unambiguous Teachings in Scripture
Many components of the New Testament are explicit and unambiguous. In fact, most of the historical books and epistles are remarkably clear, even if the casual reader needs to understand the composition of the audiences addressed and certain cultural aspects of the eras under consideration to fully appreciate their impact. For example, James the half-brother of Jesus stated how “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27). While further study is needed to recognize the composition of the “world,” and how James uses the word “religion”, and what pollution from the world entails…
Okay, perhaps even in seemingly simple passages, we need to apply critical lenses. Clearly, though, the admonition to care for widows and orphans, at a minimum, clues us into the reality that our faith compels us to advocate- and provide for the needs of specific groups of people. Today, in North America, there may be groups who are like the widows and orphans of first-century Palestine, and we should be more attentive to the identities of these groups if we want to properly practice “true religion.”
Likewise, the obscure writer of the epistle to the Hebrews admonishes his Jewish audience not to:
“…. forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” (Hebrews13:2).
Hospitality may be demonstrated differently today than in the first century, and the prison experience is entirely different, not to mention the differing reasons people are serving time in our prisons today. What is clear, though, is that hospitality to people who are unknown to us and caring for people in dire circumstances are New Testament priorities. To try to twist the basic concept of practicing decency to marginalized populations is to malign the clear intentions of Scripture.
Motivations of Those Possessing Shallow Faith
We must ultimately consider the component of faith among people who are placing their confidence in some kind of End Times showdown where Israel prevails and the USA is prominent. To begin with, there is no biblical evidence that the USA will be a participant. But an even greater question to consider is this: Why do so many people who have demonstrated lackluster faith—even non-existent faith—suddenly believe with a certainty that one group’s interpretation of Revelation is absolute truth? The Americans who are energized by the notion of a biblical apocalypse are not, as an aggregate, people who have faithfully embraced and practiced gospel principles in the past. If they had been, they would have been busy clothing and feeding needy people. They would have been looking for widows and orphans to care for. They would have been seeking out means of making life redemptive for those whom Christ came to save. They wouldn’t be scanning the horizon for wars to engage in or gleefully anticipating the concept of military annihilation. The notions of devastation and destruction would grieve them.
Biblical Truths That Should Motivate
If you have decided to believe in absolute biblical authority —to the degree that you declare all biblical prophesies to be true—then why waste your intellectual capital on better understanding biblical passages describing a sequence of events that are out of your control? The nature of the Gospel is transformative. If you believe it to be true, your priorities must shift. Rather than dwelling on speculative things, those who desire to experience spiritual renewal should be encouraged to pursue things that are unambiguous in Scripture—principles that possess the power to transform others. If you spend your life trying to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and endeavoring to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, you will be busier than you ever imagined you might have been. You may even find you have little time left for eschatological fervor.
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