Gallowglass

The EU-as-Antichrist theme dates back to at least the late 1980s among some American Protestants. I remember collecting pamphlets which featured this; one of them had a marvellous painting of a dinosaurian Beast with the EU stars at the ends of its horns. At a guess, this evolved out of the hardy perennial that the Pope is the Antichrist.

I fudge the causal connections a bit, because I’m flying a wee bit of a kite - I reckon that the connections are there, but certainly have no intention of researching them any further than a quick trawl of the WWW. So take this all with all appropriate health warnings - but my theory is that Paisley’s Bob Jones connection was key. Paisley has spent a lot of time at BJU, from the mid 1970’s on as far as I remember, and gone on lots of lecture tours in the US fulminating about the evils of the EU - and it’s easy to see why he would jump to this conclusion, espousing the variety of British nationalism that he does. It’s harder for me to see why American fundamentalists would care about the EU before the very recent past, unless they had been primed by someone with a more direct interest. And my suspicion is that Paisley was the main proagator of the myth. Don’t know how I’d go about proving it though, even if I had the time. And if anyone has a better story of what happened, I’d love to hear it.

Henry may be on to something WRT the Paisley connection to America through Bob Jones. In fact, Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church (which I should note is not presbyterian) has some congregations in the USA.

But from a broader perspective, supranational organisations as steps to the One World Government of Antichrist are an old fundie meme. The UN is the traditional villain (see this charming tract by Jack Chick, a Paisley working in the medium of cheap comics rather than politrics and preaching). But it certainly makes sense to see the EU as part of the Conspiracy as well.

Oh oh, the HTML tags don’t seem to be working. The Chick tract (‘The Beast’) is here:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0007/0007_01.asp

Hmmm… now it does work, strangely enough. Movable Type is indeed a riddle wrapped in an mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Okay, I don’t actually blame deinstitutionalisation for the fundamentalist movement, although Reagan does bear a share of the blame. What dazzles me is that when I was a kid and heard these sorts of things from the pulpit, it was the Soviet Union and China who were supposed to be bringing on the Apocalypse, back when the EU was merely the EEC. Do these people have no institutional memory of anything they’ve ever said before?

sigh I guess that’s one of those questions that answers itself.

I can remember in 1971 being dragged to a lecture by some Fundamentalist friends; the lecturer was Hal Lindsey himself, author of “The Late Great Planet Earth”, the best-selling non-fiction book of the 70s (in America).

At that time he was pointing out that the coming expansion of the EEC from six nations to ten was the fulfillment of a prophecy in Revelations about the Beast with ten horns being ridden by the Scarlet Woman (the Catholic Church)

Norway subsequently rejected the EEC, leaving the Beast with only nine horns, but I’m sure that was explained away. (He also made a point about the Biblical significance of the large number of horses in the Soviet Army).

American Fundamentalist oppositon to wicked Europe goes way back before Ian Paisley.

Scott - they probably rationalise it as ‘the devil comes in many forms’ or something similar

I think part of it stems from the adoption of the EU flag - Revelations refers to the Whore of Babylon and a crown of (twelve?) stars, IIRC, and they see the EU flag as a brazen proclamation of the satanic roots of the EU.

Of course, the image of the Antichrist trying to get his policies through the labyrynthine bureaucracy of the EU is an amusing one. Buying and selling souls through the Common Agricultural Policy?

They’ve been pushing this line ever since Maastricht

They’ve been pushing this line ever since Maastricht

Thanks for the info Mike; obviously the story is more complicated than I’d thought initially (isn’t it always). Lindsey is clearly another ur-source of this myth - and almost certainly a more important one, given his influence on US fundamentalism. Scott, I presumed that you were speaking tongue-in-cheek - and as you say, your last quey is unfortunately one of those questions that answers itself. Check out http://www.trinitysem.edu/journal/jwm_intro_v2n1.html for other Antichrists in the history of Protestant fundamentalism, as well as some apposite comments on both Lindsey and Paisley.

Henry— it’s Hal Lindsey who’s the relevant loony. *Brink( Lindsey is the decidedly non-loony free-trade and hawkish-libertarianism blogger. And, so far as I know, neither one has joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.

Thanks - corrected. the update was written quickly and with distracting influences (2 kittens trying to play)

Even if it’s nota new thing, the recent rise of US wingnut europhobia must’ve made it much more widespread and frequent. That’s the bigger story.

“Europe” has been “sex” since the Grand Tour got its capitalization, if not earlier; and there’s nothing sends most American fundies fulminating like the suggestion of enjoyable sex. Esp. if out of wedlock, or leading to wedlock out of the home church.

Besides, as lately as 1864, Pius IX re-published a compend ex cathedra of canon law, respecting which the present Pope has said: “There they (the faithful) will find a rule for the direction of their mind and works.”

Sounds like a cute concept!

Abraham Lincoln: “The true motive power (of America’s troubles) is secreted behind the thick walls of the Vatican, the colleges and schools of the Jesuits, the convents of the nuns, and the confessional boxes of Rome.”

Papal encyclicals of Pius XII and John XXIII: Europe would become “the greatest [Roman] Catholic superstate the world has ever known”, “the greatest single human force ever seen by man”.

Bismarck quoted to the German Parliament, 5th December, 1874, the Papal Nuncio’s words to the Minister of Wurtemburg : “The Roman Church has to look to revolution as the sole means of securing her rightful position.”

Anyone who knows of the financial power of the jesuits and their hand in war know the above to be true.

World Wars my friends, the instruments.

The fundamentalist idea of a revived Roman Empire being the seat of an “Antichrist” goes back at least to J. Darby, who said that he came to that conclusion about 1825. The details were set in stone in the late 1880’s by F. W. Grant, a Princton theologist. The way pre-fundamentalist idea of a papal antichrist is as old as Christianity—it grew out of the increasing prominence of the Bishop of Rome during the 200’s C.E. at the expense of the Bishops of Antioch, Jerusalem, et cetera. If there is anyone here educated enough in history, Greek, etc. to understand it, read Revelation. The Apostle John is the source of the idea of the European “Beast,” the 200 million man militia of China, Armageddon, etc. The Apostle Paul is the source of the idea of the world-class ruler known as the Antichrist. Judging from the posts I’ve perused on this forum, intellectual pursuits are not valued by this audience. Indeed, your denizens appear to be profoundly ignorant. Nonetheless, I tried.