Political Correctness, the Devil's Own Doctrine, is killing us all

I don't want to add to the hysteria about Ebola, but on the other hand there isn't much reassuring to be said either. We are in the hands of idiots, another name for people who subscribe to Political Correctness. This pernicious idiocy has been growing for decades and wreaking havoc in society on any number of issues, but who would have imagined it could wreak havoc at the level of giving free rein to a deadly communicable disease?

It's Political Correctness that has brought us officially legalized gay marriage, though not just gay marriage but the criminalization of those who consider gay marriage to be a violation of God's Law. This is an infringement of the First Amendment rights of those dissenters, but Political Correctness has no respect for our Constitution, Political Correctness rewrites our Constitution to support any number of bizarre objectives that no sane society ever even considered before. If a way can be found to identify some group as oppressed by the larger culture by being denied some practice or other, even if that practice threatens the wellbeing of the culture itself, as some "religious" practices do, and even if it's a group that is at best two percent of the population, that group can become the basis for denying First Amendment rights to anyone who opposes the mentality of that group, by calling that person racist or sexist or something like that, and punishing them with fines or other sanctions. But how many see the evil in this and protest it?

It is Political Correctness that has been perverting the American Constitution and most specifically the First Amendment, for decades now. We don't yet have Shariah law anywhere, but the idea is absurdly promoted by the Politically Correct, who simply have no idea what our Constitution is all about, or don't care. It's akin to the American Communist movement in the early part of the twentieth century, the first wave of idiots who had no idea what America is all about and absurdly believed that Marxism was a fairer system. Thus does the devil do his dirty work. By the sixties they had succeeded in eliminating American History and Institutions as a requirement from American Universities, and installing any number of Marx-infected professors who had an irrational hatred for America.

Multiculturalism is one of the idiotic tenets of Political Correctness. The American system of government that was once just about universally understood to be the best form of government ever invented, taken as a model for all nations everywhere, is now treated as nothing more than a mere accidentally developed culture that is equal to all other cultures, including third world cultures, cultures that abuse women and children and still practice slavery, you name it, all we have to offer any more is supposedly a white-man's preference and not a universal boon to humanity at all. We could maybe hope that this insanity would give way to reality eventually but for the fact that our system itself has been systematically undermined in the image of Political Correctness for a few decades now. All fueled by irrational Hatred of America.

The excuse for this is primarily the racism of the southern states that the nation labored under into the twentieth century, which simply became a tool in the hands of the anti-American wrecking crew. It's this hatred of America that is the root of all the PC tenets, and as a matter of fact we can trace Political Correctness to Marxism. There is some reason to think the buck doesn't stop there, however, as some of the influences on Marxism can be traced further back to the stealthy secretive work of the Jesuits, who did have a hand in the training of major Marxists and Communists, including Marx himself. And THEIR motive would be easy to fathom: America was once a major Protestant nation, like Britain, which has also been a favorite target of theirs. Ironically, however, the racism of the southern states can be found strongly represented among Roman Catholics. (Anybody remember that the South got into the Civil War on the encouragement of the Pope? Anybody remember that Gone With The Wind was about an Irish Catholic family?)

Racism isn't the only epithet in the PC arsenal to paralyze normal sane thought and action, but it is probably the main one. The reason we can't keep illegal aliens from crossing our southern border is that it's "racist" to object to it, and then they've perverted the meaning of the rule that anyone is American who is born in America to mean that any alien can have a baby here and be legitimized by that means, and the more children they have they more they outnumber the nativeborn citizens so that they can eventually displace us. Destructive insanity that is traceable back to Cultural Marxism, but pretty obviously to Roman Catholicism above all.

Perhaps the first manifesto against Political Correctness was The Origins of Political Correctness by William Lind.

Besides the article, you can hear him on the subject at You Tube, HERE as well. This presentation gives a complete history of the intellectual development of the concept in all its anti-American inspiration and ultimate success at destroying American culture.



Ben Carson is another one who has spoken out against Political Correctness as an evil ideology that threatens to destroy America, HERE, where his talk at the national prayer breakfast for Obama's second term inauguration is highlighted.



And here are some from Alex Jones:

19 Shocking Examples of How Political Correctness is Destroying America





And this kind of mind rot is why the west now has Ebola cases which could have been prevented if there was a normal intelligence running the show and preventing the movement of infected people from place to place until the disease is eradicated. You know, it's "racist" to cut off travel from infected Africa to the US. I pray God will have mercy and put the brakes on this insanity, but I don't have a lot of hope for it because it's His judgment on a sinful world, a world that has left Him behind and chosen an idiotic anti-morality to rule us. Of course it's the gradual decline into amorality, thanks to Political Correctness for starters, that has brought the west to this point where Political Correctness is even more virulent than ever. I'm afraid this is just part of the last days' nightmare that is coming on the Earth, and those who suffer the mind rot will just go on getting more rotten while the world collapses around them.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

The idea of "Replacement Theology" is false and does not serve the cause of gaining support for the nation of Israel

Is it true that a crucial failure of today's Church is not to be supporting the nation of Israel according to its importance in prophecy? Are we really inviting God's judgment on the Church and the nation for this failure?

I really don't think so. Correction: I don't know but I think the west is under judgment predominantly for lots of other offenses, and I'm less and less convinced of the arguments that put Israel at the center of prophecy. But I've also got to say that there could be some truth to it, but the case has not been made for it if so. Those who promote this idea are guilty of slanderous and divisive attitudes and a failure to put their views into a reasonable perspective so that reasonable people might be persuaded. Right now I don't think their perspective is reasonable.

I'm all for supporting Israel, I think it would be a disaster if we stopped, I think all the pro-Palestinian politics, in the government but also the churches, is as wrongheaded as it's possible to be, backing the wolf against the lamb as usual, utterly ignoring the stated objectives of Palestinian policies to destroy Israel. They don't want a State, they could have had one years ago if that was their objective, but it isn't, and they could have had a lot of help from Israel in developing it too. But they want Israel gone, period. And they've said so many times. And the blindness it takes to ignore all that is almost miraculous. Well, that's not a bad description really; it's certainly a spiritual condition in the end. So yes, I think God could bring us under judgment for failing to support Israel but not necessarily because prophecy requires it, just because it would be wrong.

But then I hear all this theological stuff about "Replacement Theology" which is supposed to explain why the liberal/left churches are pro-Palestine, and that doesn't sit well with me either. All you have to be to support Palestine over Israel is a Politically Correct Leftist who is ideologically committed to what they perceive to be the underdog without regard to how the underdog got into that condition. Which in this case is thanks to their Muslim leaders who want to keep them underdogs to get sympathy from the world and make Israel look bad. The fact that Israel has made itself a prosperous and successful nation is the Great No-No from the leftist point of view, and their success alone makes them the guilty party. This is so obvious it takes extraordinarily perverse thinking to overlook it. But the Left is wonderfully adept at that kind of thinking so what else is new?

I do suppose there must be some theological influence in the position of the leftist churches, but I also have to suspect it's more windowdressing than real motivation. The idea is that the Church has replaced Israel in God's promises and prophecies, but it makes no sense to abandon Israel even if the Church HAD replaced them in theological terms. What does that have to do with the political realities of the situation brought about by the deceitful policies of the Palestinian leaders? Replacement Theology is as nutty an explanation for taking the Palestinian side against Israel as the Leftist lies themselves.

Unfortunately the Right doesn't seem to think so; the main message we hear from the pro-Israel camp is that Replacement Theology is causing the churches to deny the importance of Israel in prophecy, to ignore for instance the immense significance of Israel's gaining of statehood back in 1948. It seems to me that their becoming a nation does have to be understood as fulfilled prophecy, and it's also hard to overlook the times when Israel defeated their enemies by what can only be considered God's hand; but I'd need to see a more rational exposition how it fits into prophecy than what we get from the Christian Right these days. What we're getting is a view of scripture that treats the opposing theology, which they dub Replacement Theology, as little short of anti-Semitic.

Again, as I say above, it is hard to see how anyone could rationally use such a theology to defend a political position that is inherently stupid; the real explanation has to be that the churches that support Palestine have simply been infected with leftist political correctness.

In my context here this is really a side issue, though it needed to be said. Once again the problem for me is the very idea of Replacement Theology itself, which strikes me as just plain bogus. There is no such thing, as I've said many times before. This is really just a slander of the Reformed tradition or Covenant Theology, which has the traditional view that the Church is the inheritor of the promises of God to Israel, and the Church is both Jew and Gentile.

The concept of Replacement Theology is offensive and slanderous.* It utterly misrepresents the theology it is labeling and it accuses innocent people of anti-Semitism in the process.

Again the provocation for my post on this subject comes from Jan Markell's ministry, Understanding the Times Radio, this time from her interview of Dr. David Reagan who recently wrote a book titled The Jewish People, Rejected or Beloved, in which he analyzes current issues with Israel in terms of Replacement Theology. Jan Markell has a lot of great topics that the Church does need to be aware of, but her commitment to this particular point of view is way off base and I wish she'd come to see that. Some time ago I did a post on her interview with Messianic Jewish guests Shelly and Scott Volk, which promotes the same offensive point of view that is being repeated in her interview with David Reagan.

I don't want to be offended by the "Christian Zionist" people, and certainly not by the Jewish Messianic Branch of the Church, I wish this problem would go away, but it isn't going away so I'm giving my view of it. I'm coming to think there is a trend there that amounts to modern-day Judaizing.

Anyway, to get to the interview with David Reagan:

Jan starts off stating that it seems the great prophetic importance of the situation of the State of Israel is being ignored by the majority of the churches, and that this has to do with their having embraced a wrong understanding of scripture. "The Church is silent" on these things, she says, "Instead they hear that the Church is the New Israel."

She could be right, as she says a bit later, that there has been a sea change in the attitude of the churches toward Israel in recent times, from a previous strong commitment to Israel, to strong criticism of Christian Zionism or the Church's defense of Israel. She lists a number of people who represent this point of view but I haven't studied them and wouldn't trust what I get from Wikipedia on them to be sure of what they stand for, so I'm not going to comment. Do they really hold a position that could rightly be called Replacement Theology or is this just the usual misrepresentation of the traditional Reformed theology that says the Church was always God's objective and that believing Israel was always the early form of the Church? I don't know, but I suspect the latter because of the attitudes I encounter among the "Christian Zionists." Just as a matter of fact I'm sure she's right that there has been such a change but what it's really about I'm not in a position to judge at this point. Again, I'm sorry to see Israel abandoned politically when politically they are not the villains in the drama.

"How do we wake up the churches?" Jan asks Reagan, who answers: "I'd do it from scripture because the scripture is very very clear that God has not washed His hands of the Jewish people, all people have to do is start reading Romans nine through eleven." OK, that's clear so far. He goes on: "Those three chapters are the most neglected chapters in Christian history because the Church has hated them with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people."

But that last statement is pure slander. What churches "neglect" those chapters in Romans? None that I know of. Let alone for the even more offensively slanderous reason that "the Church" has "hated" the Jews "with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people." This is just unbelievably slanderous and offensive. For one thing it makes no sense. Here he needs to document his accusations: WHICH Church, and quote them please. When he goes on with "He still has a purpose for the Jewish people and He's going to bring a great remnant of them to salvation when they place their faith in Jesus as their Messiah" there is nothing to object to, except the implication that there is any theologian who disputes this. If there is we need to be given the evidence.

He goes on "accounting for" this supposed hatred of the Jews in the Church:

This is something that is deeply rooted in Christianity. You take for example the King James Version of the Bible ...If you go back to the original and look in the Old Testament you will find many chapter headings that read like "God Makes Promises to the Church" and you read that whole chapter there's nothing in there about the Church, they are promises to Israel, but the translators were caught up in Replacement Theology, and they put that mentality into the scriptures in the Chapter Headings.

I have a hard time hearing The King James Bible knocked, which seems to be a favorite pastime of many people in the churches for many reasons these days. I'm afraid this angle on it is particularly offensive, because if there's one thing that's true of the King James scholars it's that they knew their Reformed Theology. They weren't "caught up in" what is here pejoratively and tendentiously being called "Replacement Theology," they knew that God's people Israel were the foundation or root of the Church, which He was building through the Jewish remnant of believers, that would be fulfilled in the coming of their Messiah when all who have faith in Him become grafted in to that Jewish root.

Reagan goes on with his prejudiced and false history of the Church:

This goes back really to the very beginning of the Church. As soon as the Church began to become more Gentile than Jewish the Gentiles turned on the Jews, and then Augustine systematized all this around 400 AD when he simply began to argue, as did others following him, that God had washed His hands of the Jews because the Jews were Christ killers, and they were labeled that over the ages and people were actually taught in the Church that they were to hate Jews, that they were to despise Jews, that they were to mistreat Jews.

Telling it like it is, this is a pernicious lie, in fact it is about three pernicious lies in one, one of which I dealt with in my post about the Volks, but I'll say more about all this after I've finished quoting Reagan.

And one thing we need to get straight about who killed Jesus. The Bible says there were more than the Jews involved in this. The Bible says point blank [sic] that it was the Jews, it was the Gentiles, it was the Romans, and you know who else it was? It was you and me. All of us have the blood of Jesus on our hands because he went to the cross and died for all of us.

And this is a pernicious half-truth which I also answered in that other post.

To try to be as fair as possible, first I'd say that it would help if both sides in this polarized conflict gave a bit here and there. Those who completely dismiss Israel as rejected by God --if there are any, and I'm not completely convinced of this yet because no evidence has been given for it -- need to see that Romans 9 through 11 says that's not the case; they also need to consider that perhaps SOME of the Old Testament prophecies don't apply to the Church but to earthly Israel, or perhaps even to both. They might also learn from the Reformers who didn't dismiss the Jews from God's plan.

But the other side really does have to give on a number of points. They need first to acknowledge that the covenant with Abraham is a covenant of faith that is now the heritage of the Church. If there is an argument that it ALSO applies to earthly Israel, then make that argument, but to deny that Christians are the legitimate heirs of Abraham isn't going to gain them any credibility.

It would also help a great deal if they'd acknowledge that most of the Old Testament references to Israel DO apply to the Church, instead of holding on to their dogged literalist view that they can only apply to earthly Israel. It has seemed to me for some time that some of the passages could very well apply to earthly Israel but there is simply no doubt that most of them look forward to the Church in the time of the Messiah, and ignoring this doesn't do the Zionist cause any good. After all, what was Israel meant to be but the People of God, and what is the Church but the People of God established by faith in the Jewish Messiah?

Instead of bullishly insisting that the Church has been wrong all these years about the Church in the Old Testament, show us that there are at least a few places where earthly Israel is meant or also meant. I would think that could be the case, and it may even have been spelled out by some theologians that I don't know about. But first give up this wrongheaded notion that it's wrong to apply the references to Israel to the Church, which they call Replacement Theology. Which it isn't. It's Continuation Theology if anything, or even Fulfillment Theology: it's what was always intended by God's establishment of Israel as His People: a body of Believers! Unbelieving Jews are NOT true Israel, EVEN IF God still has His hand on them and has plans for them to become believers. Before we're saved we're all "children of wrath," remember?

If you want people to support Israel, stop insisting on your end times theology and focus on the practical situation of Israel; that and the clear message of Romans nine to eleven, which doesn't have to be embedded in a nest of slanderous accusations, ought to be enough to rally support.

Also consider that the traditional Church is not the rabid Jew-hating institution they sometimes make it out to be --excepting of course Roman Catholicism because they promoted the pogroms and all kinds of violence against Jews and others, and had a big part in the Holocaust too. It's irresponsible to impute attitudes to "the Church" without being clear which "Church" you are referring to, and without quoting anyone to prove your point.

The claim that Augustine promoted hatred of the Jews turns out to be just plain wrong. I looked up his views and found a recent book on the subject that says he made a case for the continued existence of the Jews as a recognizable body as witnesses to Christ, and strongly defended the understanding that God would bring the Jews to faith at the end. He said nothing whatever to promote anti-Semitism, with which he is absurdly and falsely charged. The early church fathers, of which Augustine was one of the most prolific writers, devoted themselves to theological arguments about doctrine, and Augustine was one who took apart Judaism, no doubt in pretty insulting terms, but it would be ridiculous to confuse a doctrinal argument with a hatred of the people who hold that doctrine. Arianism was also dissected by the church fathers, and all the other heresies, without any hint of hatred toward the people holding those views.

If later ignorant people used such intellectual work to support their anti-Semitism, that can't be blamed on Augustine.

Another thing that's wrong in their thinking is the apparently entrenched idea that when the Church started to be called Christians at Antioch, that marked a switch from the Jewish- dominated Church to a Gentile-dominated Church that supposedly unleashed hatred of the Jews. There isn't the slightest reason to believe this, and I pointed this out in the post about the Volks that I've linked above. I also quote Matthew Henry's understanding of that event as the point where ethnic identities should have been melted into the Christian identity, "no more Jew nor Gentile but all one in Christ Jesus." And historically that is probably what happened. Instead today we find modern-day Jewish believers falsely making it a cause for accusing the Gentiles of anti-Semitism and promoting the very division in the Church that event should have ended.

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*Here's Replacement Theology Dot Org a website I just found that's dedicated to explaining what is wrong with the concept of Replacement Theology:

What is Replacement Theology? It is a pejorative term used by a growing number of misinformed Christians who unwittingly misrepresent the views of fellow believers. The purpose of this web site is to encourage Christians to cease using this unkind term, for it is theologically inaccurate, divisive, incendiary to honest Christian discourse, and overtly offensive.

...“Replacement Theology” is often used to discredit Reformed or Covenant theologians by ascribing to them a view that they do not hold. When carelessly repeated, the phrase “Replacement Theology” propagates this flawed definition. Furthermore, it drives a wedge between fellow Christians. Damage to the unity of the body of Christ occurs when well-meaning, but misinformed people haphazardly employ the term. It is often done to advance their own theological theory of biblical or end-times interpretation.

Evil Times

Six Catholics, three Jews on the Supreme Court. Decisions coming down that remove the first amendment rights of Protestant businesses to exercise their religious beliefs by refusing specific jobs that give direct support to gay marriage. Latest I've seen a silkscreener who won't do a t shirt advertising gay marriage.

did make a decision in favor of Hobby Lobby's refusal to provide birth control as part of insurance for employees. Birth control is a big Catholic issue. Imagine that.

Vatican reevaluating family issues. Going to come out with some kind of support for gay marriage? How many gay priests are there in the Vatican and elsewhere in the RCC? How many molestations of children have been swept under the rug?

How many Catholics in our Congress? Well there's Boehner on the right and Pelosi on the Left and the two of them got together and invited the Pope to speak to Congress some time next year. If only we had an Ian Paisley who would stand up and denounce him as Antichrist.

Catholics give sanctuary to illegal aliens coming over our Southern Border, they make sure they get American tax money too. They're Catholics too you know.

Remember the Jesuit who came out a couple years ago saying we should get rid of the Constitution?

  England has modified its old law against having a Catholic on the throne.

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While the Antichrist system is doing all this, some parts of the Protestant church are looking for the Antichrist to arise somewhere in the world sometime soon.

  Well, Islam IS an antichrist too.

  We've already had a beheading in America on the basis of jihad, in Oklahoma, though political correctness as usual wants to dispute that as the reason for it.

Actor Ben Affleck had a fit about people making an issue about the murderous tendencies of Islam. It's just a few of them you know. Well, one percent of 1.4 billion people is fourteen million. Is that enough?

  Some lefties on a message board actually come perilously close to defending female genital mutilation as just a "cultural practice" of Muslims, and the burka, and oppression of women in general, same lefties who would have worked hard for women's rights in the west I'm sure, but it would be racist to object to another culture doing far worse.

  World has gone mad, but so mad it's become commonplace. It will never recover.

Some lefties think we shouldn't protect ourselves against Ebola by cutting off communication with Africa. That would be racist.

Did Tamerlane Tsarnaev commit murder long before the Boston Marathon bombing and get away with it?

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Pastor of a church in Alabama just came out and admitted he has AIDS and has had sex with church members, also mishandled church money. And what else, I forget?

Some obstacles to getting the churches, let alone America, to repent, let alone pray down a revival.

There are Christian leaders now calling for repentance by Christians for the sake of America, because the nation is clearly under judgment by God.   There is also the occasional expression of hope that we might still have revival.  Both these concerns occupy me a great deal, and I think both are crucially important.  The church has to repent if we have any hope of saving America at all, and revival is still possible, I haven't given up on it completely.  Both require of us a great commitment of time and dedication.  All that is true.

But when I make a mental list of how far wrong the nation has gone, and the churches as well, what we need to repent of, I lose heart.  For one thing, when I realize that some of the people calling for this kind of commitment are connected with the charismatic movement I get really discouraged.  It's not that there aren't genuine believers in that movement, but the movement itself is something we need to repent of because it promotes false doctrine, false experiences, false Christianity.

One leader I appreciate and would normally trust for his spiritual insight, David Ravenhill, is treating a dream by Rick Joyner as prophetic and something we need to take seriously.  Joyner had a dream about Islamic State militants crossing our borders and murdering people.  But it is at least naïve to believe anything Rick Joyner says.  All you have to do is watch one of his "services" at his Morningstar church on You Tube to know that there is absolutely nothing Christian about his church, it is pure paganism and any spiritual phenomena experienced in such a context can only be satanic. 

Islamic militants invading America is a real possibility with or without Joyner's dream, in fact there are no doubt many sleeper Islamist cells that have already been here for years or decades. In fact it wouldn't make sense for jihadis NOT to be crossing our unprotected borders; they hate us, why wouldn't they be coming in to try to destroy us?   We do not need Joyner's dreams to tell us such things, and it may be that his specific dream is false anyway, if we wait around to find out.  That ought to show him up as a false prophet but charismatics are known for ignoring such obvious proofs against their doctrine.

If we want to save America one of the things we need to do is denounce the apostate movements within the Church such as the Charismatic Movement and certainly particular representatives of it.  When the wolf is the one preaching repentance how are we going to make his nature known so that the Church can be rid of him?

Second, we need to denounce the Antichrist Roman papacy and make it clear that there is nothing Christian about that "church" either, but the people who recognize this are few and far between, and the Charismatic Movement is one huge arena where Romanism is treated as Christian.

If you're going to pray for the salvation of the nation, start with denouncing those apostate elements within the church. 

Then you can move on to denouncing all the "liberal" churches that deny the full sufficiency of scripture, that compromise the first chapters of Genesis in favor of embracing evolution, or that deny the judgments of God against homosexuality.  We need to pray in great numbers against these things or all we will do is contribute to the One World False Church that is rapidly taking form, and contribute even more to the sinking of America under God's hand of judgment.

What good could it possibly do to have a revival with such elements within the public presentation of the Christian Church?  Whatever revival we could get under such circumstances would be counterfeit, like all the so-called revivals we've had through the Charismatic Movement over the last few decades, such as The Toronto Blessing, the Brownsville "revival," the Lakeland fiasco, and something going on in Redding California.  There are gigantic phony "revivals" in other parts of the world too, such as Africa, all based on the counterfeit Christianity of the Charismatic Movement.  Reinhard Bonnke is one of the perpetrators,  No, he is not a Christian.

The possibility of enough people with such a perspective on the situation coming together with the right motives and the will to act is pretty remote.  Perhaps if at least a few of us get the point and pray and tell the truth about these things we can accomplish something, but pushing back God's judgment?  Experiencing a genuine Revival?  Very very remote possibilities indeed.  I'm not giving up but the tide is running the other direction and the commitment needed to counter it is pretty daunting.  Never doubt God's ability though if He wants to bring this about.

Exposing the Papacy as the Antichrist 3

This is a detour from the main focus of my posts on this subject but it doesn't go far off the track.

I received a link to a video in my email and found it to be a surprisingly effective claim to reveal a completely different interpretation of Mystery Babylon and the Antichrist than I've been working on: Babylon the Great and The Turkish Antichrist. It's definitely worth some thought. It traces the connections between Islam and the pagan religions back to Semiramis, and claims that Mecca, not Rome, is the "city on seven hills" of Revelation 17. John was taken into the desert, or wilderness, to see the image of the great harlot who sits on the beast, and that location does make Mecca a better candidate than Rome.

It is merely asserted in passing that Mecca sits on seven hills, so I don't know what degree of authenticity can be claimed for this, but certainly Rome was known as the City on Seven Hills already back when John wrote the Book of Revelation, and has always maintained that title.

There are other claims made that give credence to this new interpretive scheme, but I think also enough failures to fit the prophecies to show that it isn't really a rival to Rome.

It's mainly the idea of the Antichrist in this system that ultimately doesn't work, though. This is a single figure who will appear at the very end of time, along the lines of so many Futurist views we're familiar with today, who will have the title of Caliph, which is said to mean "Substitute" just as "Vicar of Christ" means Substitute for Christ and therefore Antichrist. The connection is strained in the film, however, as Jesus is regarded by Islam as just one of many prophets, so the final Caliph is a substitute for him along with all the other prophets and therefore can't be Antichrist who specifically usurps the place of Christ. No informed Christian is going to fall for such an inexact Substitute, but the papacy has fooled Christians down the centuries already with their claim to be the Vicar of Christ.

The papacy also has all the trappings of the old religions that go back to Semiramis, as Alexander Hislop showed in his Two Babylons, so both religions show that connection, but the papacy does a much better job of filling the description of the Harlot's scarlet and purple garb.

Also they have to turn the "wine of her fornication" into the oil which has made Saudi Arabia wealthy, as it is that oil that keeps the world more or less at their mercy, and that made possible all the wealth in today's Middle East that fits the description in Revelation 17. But of course this is all very recent. None of this wealth existed when John wrote the Book of Revelation, or down through the centuries either, but the papacy has accumulated wealth from early on.

The woman's being drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus fits both systems though, as Islam has murdered Christians, including a million and a half Armenian Christians by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire, and of course Islam has been continuing the slaughter particularly in Africa in recent times. Now with the rise of ISIS it is becoming everyday news. I just saw a headline, too, that says ISIS destroyed the monument to the Armenian genocide in Syria.

So none of this is going to rival the papacy for the title of Antichrist, but I'd say it does fill in the case for Islam as the other leg of the Roman Empire as shown on Nebuchadnezzar's statue as described in the Book of Daniel.

Exposing the Papacy as the Antichrist 2

Besides the monumental History of Protestantism, J. A. Wylie also wrote a short treatise, published in 1888, titled The Papacy Is the Antichrist: a Demonstration, in which he argues that the papacy is the perfect counterfeit of Christ.  In fact this treatise is quite a tour de force as Wylie attempts to show that the papacy fulfills all the scriptural references to the Antichrist, including all the references in the Book of Daniel, which I find rather boggling.  He could be right, but it would take quite a bit of study to find out for sure. 

But even without those references he gives solid reasons why only the papacy can be the actual Antichrist, starting with its claim to the title "Vicar of Christ" which all by itself is like announcing the Pope to be "Antichrist" as the words are synonymous.  This is a point I've made as well, as "vicar" means "substitute" or "in the place of," and there is also a Latin version of the concept, VICARIVUS FILII DEI which means "in the place of the Son of God" and whose letters which are also Roman numerals (VICIVILIIDI) add up to 666.

He must be a good counterfeit who can deceive many, a false Christ. Therefore he can't be an open enemy of Christ but must be a pretender to be Christ or a Christian leader. So Wylie points out that he can't be an Atheist or a Communist or a Pantheist.

He also can't be a Muslim. All these actively oppose Christ. Islam reveres him as a prophet and is antichrist in the sense that they deny His Deity, but this is an open denial. There are "Christian" cults that do the same. None of these are THE Antichrist although they are antichrists.

He also can't be an evil political leader, even if his evil surpasses that of all the most violent political leaders ever known, because he lacks the essential character of putting himself forward as a false Christ. (I would point out, however, that a characteristic of some political contenders has been that they make themselves gods and demand worship. That was true of the Caesars and Nero in particular took it to Antichrist proportions in his persecutions of the Christians, and Hitler also made himself as close to an object of worship as he could get. The Third Reich was after all one of the attempts to revive the Roman Empire, which followed the Holy Roman Empire and Kaiser Wilhelm's Second Reich, all in some form of collaboration with the papacy, and those who have followed these things are expecting the European Union eventually to develop into another version of the Holy Roman Empire.)

In this connection Wylie says

Antichrist’s rage is concentrated on one particular object and cause;

By which he must mean ridding the world of the true God and Christ and His followers, but I'd point out here that although the Inquisition murdered tens of millions of true Christians it also murdered Jews and Muslims and witches and atheists.

He continues:

nor with any propriety can such a one be said to sit in the “temple of God,” the seat on which the mock-Christ specially delights to show himself.

It took a while for me to be convinced that this defines the Popes already down through the centuries, as putting themselves in the seat at the head of the Church, which was the view of the Reformers. This contrasts sharply, of course, with today's futurist interpretation of a rebuilt literal temple in earthly Jerusalem, in which the Antichrist is expected literally to seat himself during the last seven years before the Lord Jesus returns. Something of the sort did happen in the time of the Maccabees when Antiochus Epiphanes put up what was probably an image of Zeus in the Jewish Temple and demanded that the Jews worship it, in fulfillment of the prophecy of the "abomination of desolation" in the Book of Daniel, which is generally understood to have a future fulfillment as well.  Antiochus was certainly an Antichrist figure, but by Wylie's argument not THE Antichrist since he was far from a successful counterfeit but an open enemy of the true God.

The next section of Wylie's argument where he contrasts the Mystery of Inquity with the Mystery of Godliness loses me to some extent, but then he does make a good comparison between the many Christ figures who came as types of the true Christ over the centuries before His arrival, as sketched out in the Old Testament, with types of the Antichrist, particularly the Caesars who were both kings and pagan priests and became the foundation of the papacy. He speaks of a "colossal" image of the Antichrist but, surprisingly (to me anyway), doesn't specifically name the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream which identifies the pagan empires that lead up to the final Roman empire. Nebuchadnezzer did, however, erect a gold statue of himself and demanded it be worshiped, which makes him personally a type of the Antichrist.

In Chapter 7 Wylie spells out how the papacy arose, and I find his historical points to be very convincing myself:

The first event which contributed, and contributed essentially to the development of the Papacy was the removal of the Emperor from Rome. Had Caesar continued to reside in his old capital, he would, as the phrase is, have "sat" upon the Pope, and this aspiring ecclesiastic could not have shot up into the powerful potentate which prophecy had foretold. But Constantine (A.D. 334) removed to the new Rome on the Bosphorus, leaving the old capital of the world to the Bishop of Rome, who was henceforth the first and most influential personage in that city. It was then, probably, that the idea of founding an ecclesiastical monarchy suggested itself to him. He had fallen heir, by what must have seemed a lucky accident, to the old capital of the world; he was, moreover, possessor of the chair of Peter, or believed himself to be so, and out of these two -the old town of the Caesars and the old chair of the apostle, it might even be possible -so, doubtless, he reasoned, to fabricate an empire that would one day rival and even overtop that of the emperors. These, it might have been thought beforehand, were but slender materials to bear the weight of so great an enterprise; yet with their help, and aided, doubtless, by deeper that mere human counsel, he projected a sovereignty which has not had its like on earth, which survived the fall of the Roman Empire, which lived through all the convulsions and overturnings of the Middle Ages, and which has come down to our day, and has the art, when men believe it to be about to expire, of rallying its powers, and coming back upon the world.

About this time, moreover, the equality which had reigned among the pastors of the church in the primitive age was broken. The bishops claimed superiority above the presbyters. Nor was there equality even among the bishops themselves. They took precedence, not according to their learning, or their talents, or their piety, but according to the rank of the city in which their see was placed. Finally, a new and loftier order arose overtopping the episcopate. Christendom was partitioned into five great patriarchates -Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. These were the five great cities of the empire, and their bishops were constituted the five great princes of the church.

Now came the momentous question, for a while so keenly agitated, Which of the five shall be the first? Constantinople claimed this honour for her patriarch, on the ground that it was the residence of the Emperor. Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem each put in its claim, but to no effect. Constantinople found, however, a powerful rival in the old city on the banks of the Tiber. Rome had been the head of the world, the throne of the Caesars; around it was still the halo of a thousand victories, and that gave it a mysterious influence over the imaginations of men, who began to see in its bishop the first ecclesiastic of the Christian world. The popular suffrage had pronounced in favour of the Roman bishop before his rank had received imperial ratification. He was installed as the first of the five patriarchs in A.D. 606. The Emperor Phocas, displeased with the bishop of Constantinople, who had condemned the murder of Maurice, by which Phocas opened his way to the imperial dignity, made Boniface III. universal bishop. The imperial edict, however, gave to the Roman bishop only the precedence among the five patriarchs; it gave him no power or jurisdiction over them.

He goes on to sketch out how the papacy acquired power bit by bit over the ensuing centuries beginning with the forged Donation of Constantine and Decretals of Isidore. These are now acknowledged to be forgeries, but

The fabrications of Isidore were made the substructions of canon law, and that stupendous fabric of legislation is still maintained to be of divine authority, despite that it is now acknowledged to be founded on a forgery.

And he goes on describing the means by which Rome brought primitive Europe under subjugation to papal power, for instance by teaching not a word of the gospel of Christ but only the power of Rome itself, and creating various superstitions to keep them in line.

In earlier years there had been genuine Christian evangelical churches planted in northern Europe by Irish and Scottish missionaries, but these were forced under Romanism, as were the original Irish evangelical churches that had been founded by St. Patrick.

Then the Crusades added to the papal power. And on it goes. I do find all this very convincing myself. This is certainly a portrait of the Great Apostasy and the Antichrist system built on it. It fits all the scriptural qualifications for the Mother of Harlots.

He continues with further evidences but I'll have to come back to consider them later. But to this point I'd say he's made the case, and it is really astonishing that today's churches are blind to the Antichrist nature of the papacy.

Exposing the Papacy as the Antichrist

I've had in mind for quite a while getting together a post on the Antichrist system of the papacy with documentation so that it might convince some to try to do something about it. Even people who believe the papacy is the Antichrist don't think of doing anything to combat it, it's just a passive recognition, along with the sense that there will yet be a final Antichrist, which is the main thing people think of. That there is any danger to anybody at any stage is a completely foreign thought.

But as Chris Pinto has been making clear, there is quite a history of Protestants warning against this Antichrist system, trying to make Christians aware of it, exposing it, calling it out, as we're counseled in scripture to do with the "works of darkness." Charles Spurgeon didn't believe the papacy was the Antichrist at first but finally did and wrote many articles exposing them in his publication The Sword and the Trowel.

Up until the first part of the twentieth century there were many such warnings, and a main target of the warnings was the Jesuits, who are the attack dogs of the papacy and truly dangerous, being known in former times as ruthless assassins who aimed to take down heads of state, particularly Protestant heads of state, but also any others who crossed them, including Popes. Early American President John Adams said there wasn't any group more deserving of Hell.

But who knows any of this any more? Newsweek magazine even came out recently with an edition that speaks approvingly of the Jesuits having a sort of comeback. Since this current Pope is a Jesuit and is quite popular, his order gets to bask in his glow.

I hope I'll be able to get my documented post together soon, I've been reading J A Wylie's History of Protestantism for starters, but at least I wanted to say this much now. We all need to know these things. Catholics also need to know about it since they really don't have a clue about any of it either.

Meanwhile Chris Pinto has lots of information at his sites, Noise of Thunder Radio and Adullam Films.