CNN Promoting the Apocalypse, May Sign Antichrist to Host Show?

There was a time when CNN was considered a fairly respected and respectable news organization. Today, their ability to demand respect is greatly diminished and they seem determined to eliminate what little is left. The most recent tactic has been to play up alleged signs of the coming Apocalypse. Are they merely pandering to superstitious Christian viewers, or do they really believe this tripe?

Media Matters reports:

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East. The July 26 edition of CNN’s Live From ... featured a nine-minute segment in which anchor Kyra Phillips discussed the Apocalypse and the Middle East with Christian authors Jerry Jenkins and Joel C. Rosenberg -- who share the view that the Rapture is nigh. At one point in the discussion, Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed “to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I’m sorry for all the evil things I’ve done,” to which Rosenberg replied: “Well, that would be a good start.” Throughout the segment, the onscreen text read: “Apocalypse Now?”

As Media Matters for America documented, the July 24 edition of CNN’s Paula Zahn Now featured a segment examining what “the Book of Revelation tell[s] us about what’s happening right now in the Middle East.” CNN re-aired this segment the next day. Media Matters also noted that Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From ..., Rosenberg claimed that he had been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East, and noted -- several times -- that the apocalyptic events described in his novels keep coming true.

Twice in three days CNN devoted several minutes to the subject. They invited two “experts” on the subject, which means that they invited two True Believers who have bought fully into a belief that their loving, merciful God will lead the world to a conflagration in which billions will suffer horrifically — and, even worse, they are looking forward to it. Where were the skeptics? Where were the scholars who think that the apocalyptic verses in the Bible mean something different?

No such people appeared on CNN — and probably because no one at CNN even thought to consider inviting such people. CNN, an allegedly respectable news organization, likes to present “both sides” of the story when it’s dealing with gay rights and this means forcing advocates of basic civil rights for gays must face off against rabid homophobes. CNN will present “both sides” of the story when it’s dealing with evolution, which means that serious scientists must face off against advocates of superstition, pseudoscience, and nonsense.

Where was CNN’s commitment to “presenting both sides of the issue” when it came to the Apocalypse? Usually that commitment is nothing more than a journalistic cop-out — it’s a way to avoid a substantive engagement with the issues and to avoid trying to determine who’s telling the truth and who’s full of crap. When presented with a situation to use that methodology to give people a dissenting and skeptical viewpoint, however, CNN failed... and miserably so.

The Carpetbagger comments:

On July 12, CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck described recent events as evidence that “it is the end of days” and an “impending apocalypse.” Beck returned to the subject a few days later, saying the “end of days is approaching quickly,” and asking viewers, “How far away from the plague of locusts are we?” This week, Beck announced an upcoming series “on the coming of the messiah.”

And just yesterday, CNN faith-and-values correspondent Delia Gallagher did a report on Armageddon with the words “Apocalypse Now?” on screen.

Are events in the Middle East not quite disturbing enough for these guys, so CNN decided to try to literally put the fear of God into its audience? Is it unreasonable to expect the “legitimate” cable news network to be slightly more responsible?

Does any of this matter? Should we care when a so-called “respectable” news outlet starts bandying about the Apocalypse and Armageddon? Absolutely. Perhaps the most important reason why this matters and why it’s wrong for CNN to be promoting these beliefs is that they give a respectable face to the attitude that these conflicts are inevitable, that these conflicts are the will of God and therefore cannot (or should not) be halted by humans, and that these conflicts are ultimate for the best (rather than a tragedy).

Treating the conflict in Lebanon as fulfillment of biblical prophecy sends the message that this is a religious event rather than a political problem. Political problems can and should be solved by a political process — sometimes that might include further violence, but ultimately this always means negotiations, compromises, and settlements. None of this applies if we are witnessing a religious event, however. If the conflict is a religious event, then it’s simply something that we must allow to play out until whatever God desires as the final conclusion. We are helpless and passive spectators, not active actors who have some voice in our own futures.

These beliefs also have significant political consequences in America. One of the so-called “experts” interviewed by CNN was Joel C. Rosenberg, a Christian author who claimed:

I’ve been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill. Members of Congress, Israelis, Arab leaders all want to understand the Middle East through the lens of biblical prophecies. I’m writing these novels that keep seeming to come true. But we’re seeing Bible prophecy, bit by bit, unfold in the Middle East right now. [emphasis added]

It’s plausible that Rosenberg is exaggerating in order to appear more important than he really is, but what he says here is quite credible. I’ve written before about reports of President George W. Bush researching the Apocalypse (and perhaps taking that into consideration for his decisions) and also that the White House has invited “Rapture Christians” to explain their views on Middle East events. There have also been numerous reports of George W. Bush claiming that he has been receiving and acting on orders from God — orders which have included invading both Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the Bush administration is treating the conflict in Lebanon as a biblical, religious event rather than as a political problem, then they are approaching it in completely the wrong way. Their inaction will allow the violence to continue unnecessarily; any action they take, however, may be designed to further the violence in order to encourage the prophecies to come true even sooner. Either way, the rest of the world will suffer on account of the baseless religious superstitions of a few morally insane individuals who have been given far too much power relative to their intellectual capabilities.

 

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