Administration Consults with “Rapture Christians” Over Israel

Many people will think that I must be joking, and I wish I were - but if the evidence is true, the Bush administration has been consulting with “Rapture Christians” about foreign policy. Specifically, administration officials have met with the “Apostolic Congress“ about upcoming moves regarding Israel and the Palestinians.

Rick Perlstein writes for The Village Voice:

NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace." Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip. ... While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W. Bush's speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics—a point of pride for Upton. "We're in constant contact with the White House," he boasts. "I'm briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings. . . . I was there about two weeks ago . . . At that time we met with the president."

When I sought to confirm Upton's account of the meeting with the White House, I was directed to National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, whose initial response upon being read a list of the names of White House staffers present was a curt, "You know half the people you just mentioned are Jewish?" When asked for comment on top White House staffers meeting with representatives of an organization that may be breaking Israeli law, Jones responded, "Why would the White House comment on that?" When asked whose job it is in the administration to study the Bible to discern what parts of Israel were or weren't acceptable sacrifices for peace, Jones said that his previous statements had been off-the-record.

According to Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton describes the Apostolic Congress as "the Christian Voice in the nation's capital” and has offering a “theocratical perspective." Interestingly, Israel wasn’t the only topic of the aforementioned meeting:

James Wilkinson, deputy national security advisor for communications, spoke first and is characterized as stating that the 9-11 Commission "is portraying those who have given their all to protect this nation as 'weak on terrorism,' " that "99 percent of all the men and women protecting us in this fight against terrorism are career citizens," and offered the example of Frances Townsend, deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, "who sacrificed Christmas to do a 'security video' conference."

Tim Goeglein, deputy director of public liaison and the White House's point man with evangelical Christians, moderated, and he also spoke on the issue of same-sex marriage. According to the memo, he asked the rhetorical questions: "What will happen to our country if that actually happens? What do those pushing such hope to gain?" His answer: "They want to change America." How so? He quoted the research of Hoover Institute senior fellow Stanley Kurtz, who holds that since gay marriage was legalized in Scandinavia, marriage itself has virtually ceased to exist. (In fact, since Sweden instituted a registered-partnership law for same-sex couples in the mid '90s, there has been no overall change in the marriage and divorce rates there.) It is Matt Schlapp, White House political director and Karl Rove's chief lieutenant, who was paraphrased as stating "that the Presidents Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level."

The problem, as Perlstein notes, isn’t that George W. Bush consulted with devout Christians - the problem is that he consulted with people uninterested in peace about the process for achieving peace in the Middle East. Yes, that’s right, Christian Zionists are uninterested in peace: they take literally the Bible’s claims about Armageddon and they expect it to happen because of the Palestinian issue. Either the Bush administration is also uninterested in peace or they aren’t bright enough to figure out what they are consulting with the wrong people.

Also interesting is the claim that Bush “is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level.” Struggle against whom? Well, based upon the above context and Bush’s past rhetoric, one must assume that he considers himself to be engaged in a cultural struggle against liberals, gays, secularists, and... well, just about everyone else who doesn’t share his evangelical worldview. That’s a bit disturbing in a person who is supposed to be the president of the entire nation, not simply conservative evangelical Christians.

Read More:

• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Christian Nationalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
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• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality