Is [Redacted] the Antichrist?

Given the General Election in a week, you likely have your interpretation or assumption about who is the redacted individual. I'm redacting the name not just to be cheeky or attention-grabbing, and not simply to be less contentious, but also to be humble by leaving space to be equally critical of any individual who might gain influence over me or my community and risk bearing out characteristics that are anti-Christian. And even if you're reading this in some months' or years' time, it will likely remain relevant given the nature of humanity and politics... And depending on your convictions, different readers will with equal vehemence put opposing individuals in the blank. Or you might be picturing Nicolae Carpathia from the Left Behind series, and think the individual you see in the blank is for sure flawed, but is certainly no Nicolae. (Or perhaps you do actually feel that this individual is as evil as the fictional "Antichrist.") And it's not just those of us who grew up with a particular cultural concept of "Antichrist" from a book series; it has been a phenomenon for many cultures and peoples to over-index our worldview and fears on the "great evil" or "big bad"; to fixate on the extrema instead of the typical; to elevate conspiracy over reality.

So on the one hand, the Carpathian-type Antichrist is highly unlikely to be found in our world today. Even if one holds to an end-times view that includes such an Antichrist one day arising, the Bible is also clear that none know the day of Christ's return or the Final Judgment, and pretending to "see the signs" of the end is fruitless at best and deceptive at worst (Mat 24:36). We are to be live as if Christ could return at any time, yes, but that's not what we fixate on -- we fixate in the meantime on striving toward the work he called us to do and the people he called us to be: perfectly loving disciple-makers for his Kingdom (Mat 5:48, 28:8-20)

However, on the other hand, it is important to reconsider how both Jesus, and the Apostle John -- who also recorded his Revelation that became the book of the Bible that Left Behind is supposedly based on -- actually described False Messiahs and Anti-Messiahs in the First Century (herein I will translate the words typically rendered in English translations as "false Christ" and "antichrist" with "Messiah" instead simply to provide more unique terms that avoid the overloading these terms have in today's vernacular). And perhaps, more importantly, to focus on the true Messiah and His Kingdom, to distinguish from the False, so we can better be on guard for the False Messiahs in the 21st Century.

Spoiler warning: it's not the same thing we see in Left Behind. Many False Messiahs have come and gone, exist today, and will continue to show up in our world. These aren't the "great evil," and so fixating on and overly fretting over their influence can also lead the worrier astray, just as those being deceived are being led astray. But ignoring them, too, is ignoring a malady over one part of the Body of Christ, the Church, which must be rooted out to bring the whole back to health.

In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus warns of "false prophets." And again in Matthew 24:10-28 He warns of "false Christs" and "false prophets." In 1 John 2:18-27 and 2 John 1:7-11, the Apostle John discusses the "antichrists" who are leading followers of Christ astray. These titles are typically rendered as plural, and referred to as past, present, and future occurrences. These False Messiahs are often disguised, presenting themselves as Christians but inwardly seeking to deceive and lead astray the followers of Christ. They claim to have a special or hidden understanding. They deny key aspects of Christ's teachings. On the whole, they are trying to steal the affections and worship owed to Christ for themselves, and establish their own kingdom rather than becoming servants in God's Kingdom.

Recall that the Christ means "the Anointed" and is the Greek title for the Hebrew Messiah of the same meaning -- the long awaited King who would arrive to reunite and redeem the scattered and oppressed people of God (Israel) and reinstate the Kingdom of God. Many rulers had been anointed to rule God's people throughout history. But all were imperfect images of the One Christ, who arrived proclaiming the Kingdom of God and inaugurating His reign in an unexpected way: by dying an innocent sacrifice for the grievous faults of all of Humanity, and reuniting and redeeming all people, both of Israel and of every other nation.

His Kingdom brought forgiveness once and for all to cover the shame caused by breaking the original covenant in the Garden. His Kingdom dispensed the Holy Spirit to bring people back into direct, unmediated contact with God that was ruptured by the eviction from Eden. His Kingdom broke down the barriers and enmity between groups of people caused by the idolatry of Babel. All this was to begin the process to reunite Heaven and Earth as they were in the Beginning. It was not merely a physical Kingdom, but one that exists at the interface between the physical and spiritual. And Christ's followers were then called to expand the overlap between these realms and bring more people into the restorative work of that Kingdom, rather than being mired in only the concerns of the physical one.

Jesus speaks at length about His Kingdom in the Gospels. Here are a few key points He makes to consider in evaluating what would be the "anti" form of the Anointed and His Kingdom:

1. The Kingdom is for the poor in spirit, the meek, and the persecuted. This includes both those who are already seen as lesser in their society, and those who are greater but choose to not exert their power over others, and instead disadvantage themselves to advantage others (Mat 5:1-10, Luke 6:32-36).
2. The Kingdom is for those who live out the Law to a fuller extent than the ruling religious elite. He also condenses the Law to its greatest elements: to love God fully, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mat 5:19-20, Mat 22:36-40).
3. The Kingdom operates on unprecedented generosity and grace. It will not be "fair" nor based on what one "deserves" nor regard one's "greatness" as humans think about these things: "the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Mat 20:1-16).
4. The Kingdom rejects any who use religious practices or teachings for personal gain. Jesus is extraordinarily critical of rulers and teachers who lead astray their community by putting on a false pretense of piety, yet in reality are "full of greed and self-indulgence" and "lawlessness" (Mat 23:1-33).

So if this is the Christ, the Messiah, and His Kingdom, then who is the False Messiah or Anti-Messiah? As John describes, it is not one specific individual, but a class of individuals who will re-occur throughout the "last times." Here again we have another term that Left Behind and similar ways of telling the story of the Bible in the modern era has muddled. John is not referring to some narrow window of time right before the "end" of the world, as it is commonly used today. It refers instead to the entire era of God's dispensation of His grace and redemption in the world through his Anointed, Jesus, as contrasted with the former era where God revealed Himself through specific prophets and priests and kings. All of whose roles were culminated in the arrival of Jesus.

But if there were many little "a" anointeds before The Anointed arrived, will there not also be many little "a" antichrists before one final big "A" Antichrist arrives? I will defer on this question for now, as is it not specifically important to my discussion. Whether there is one "final" False Messiah in the end does not change the fact that Jesus and John specifically spoke about the plural False Messiahs that will come and go, and their warnings were primarily about these local battles and not a final cosmic one.

Back to the topic at hand, then: What makes any individual in our local communities a False Messiah? The most present danger is a False Messiah who claims to be selected by God; who claims to seek to build His Kingdom; who claims to fight at the forefront of His Church against apostasy and evil -- but whose definition of God, of His Kingdom, and of the people in it is directly at odds with Jesus' definitions. As Jesus puts it, those who bear "bad fruit." So taking the short list made above about God's Kingdom, we can start asking probing questions on each point:

1. How do they treat the poor and persecuted in the community? Do they seek to use their own power for themselves, or do they freely relinquish it to better their community?
2. How do they love their neighbors? The religious elites in our day are frequently those whom our non-Christian neighbors caricature as the "de facto" Christian, often rightfully, as bigots and haters and hypocrites. Does this individual subvert that image, instead exemplifying a truer form of how Christ loved the sinful and ostracized in His community? Or do they add to this hypocritical image and push the community further away?
3. Do they demonstrate a seemingly unbounded generosity and grace? Do they put themselves last, so that others are first? Or do they insist on everyone getting what they "deserve" and only treating others based on their perceived merits?
4. Do they claim to be Christian to draw in a following of Christians, and use that designation to elevate their status? But are they in practice living a life of greed, self-indulgence, and lawlessness?

But wait, you might ask, "you're writing this in the context of an election -- that's purely political, not clerical -- so why does claiming to be Christian or not even matter?" To an extent, maybe it shouldn't. Who we let lead our local church is not who we choose to lead our city or state or country. Jesus and John were concerned with Churches losing sight of the truth or fracturing to follow False Messiahs, not whether or not Caesar claims to be Christian. But there are some key differences in the 21st Century vs. the First. For one, we elect our leaders. And even for those not able to vote, we have a number of opportunities to exert influence over the actions of our government that Christians in First Century Rome and Asia couldn't even dream of having. For two, Christian Nationalism is not a novel or insignificant movement. There are many who even ascribe to America's founding a Christian orthodoxy woven into our laws. Now, that's not to be in any way critical of the tremendous positive influence that Christian principles of human dignity and justice have had on our society. But it is to say, if Christians have in fact lived out their calling to be salt and light to the world and brought about social and political changes that point toward the ethos of the Kingdom of God, then Christianity should necessarily be viewed as a boon, not a bane, to the majority of society. But to the contrary, Christian Nationalism and the hypocrisy of so-called Christians who wield political power in our society no doubt rivals that of the scribes and Pharisees who Jesus rips into in Matthew 23. It is not merely political; many Christians have bought into the temptation of "fixing" the problems in society by collecting power. And this is especially exacerbated when the individual claims to be Christian or uniquely targets the sympathies of a Christian audience.

All this also misses the point of the true Messiah and His Kingdom. Whether we've fallen prey to a False Messiah, or rejected a False Messiah yet still live in fear of their influence in the world, we're mired in the physical -- the wealth, the power, and the methods of the physical world. God's Kingdom exists at the place where Heaven and Earth touch, and involves bringing more and more of God's way of living into the here and now. Jesus reigns, and His Kingdom is the only that will last; every other king and kingdom will fail. No matter who is "king" for a time, the work and calling of Christians remains the same: to love God and love their neighbors. And the work of God's Kingdom will always be unimpeded since He is at work through the Holy Spirit, and His word will not return void, even if we often won't understand His ways of doing things (Isa 55:8-13).

The Christian's duty is not to conquer politically, but to take up their cross and follow Christ into His way of rebuilding His Kingdom. Any other way is Anti-Messiah. And as John warns of those who do not reject these Anti-Messiahs: "Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work" (2 Jn 1:11). So be cautious who you anoint lest it be a False Anointed.