Could Barack Obama Be the Biblical Antichrist?

by Bill Barnwell
by Bill Barnwell

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Ever since Barack Obama arrived on the national scene back in 2004, there's been all sorts of false rumors thrown around about him that continue to be believed by some despite all real evidence to the contrary. One theory, however, has been a bit more sinister than labeling Obama as a Muslim or unpatriotic: maybe Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

Bantering about Obama being the latest candidate for Antichrist persisted during the campaign, but has picked up renewed steam since his election last Tuesday. Google search has surged with the key words "Obama Antichrist." Numerous Christians have speculated on their blogs that Obama just may be the Antichrist. When Obama delivered his victory speech last Tuesday before a large adoring crowd, and foreigners celebrated overseas, one friend wrote on Facebook, "I cannot separate these events from the book of Revelation." Numerous other Christians blogged or communicated the same thoughts that evening.

But let's get a few facts straight first about the Biblical "Antichrist." First of all, the book of Revelation (and it's Revelation in the singular, not "Revelations" as its often misspelled) never once uses the word "Antichrist," yet this is supposed to be his lengthiest reference in Scripture. Revelation was written towards the end of the first century to Christians going through fierce tribulation and persecution at the hands of the imperial Roman Empire, and a couple of particularly nasty Caesars, such as Nero and later Domitian. Modern interpretation of Revelation has fast-forwarded the entire book into the remote future, with the bulk of its events taking place after the "rapture," a theologically fictitious concept nobody in church history believed before the 19th century. In this scenario, God is pouring out his wrath on the unbelieving earth, which later comes under the control of the "Antichrist."

Unfortunately, Revelation was never read this way until relatively recently. And logically, it makes little sense. Conservative Christians rightly argue against critics and skeptics who take the Scriptures out of context and are quick to make judgments about the Bible without fully understanding the text. These believers would encourage such critics to understand the historical, literary, political and social circumstances behind a book of the Bible. For whatever reason, however, many of these same believers throw all that out the window when it comes to the book of Revelation.

Few pause and consider the irrationality of a writer of Scripture addressing a book to a given audience, and then talking mostly about events that do not directly concern them. Popular interpretations of Revelation totally remove the contents of the book from what was actually happening when it was written and how the original audience would have responded to what they read. It would be like me writing a long letter specifically addressed to a friend and then writing about issues and concerns that had nothing to do with him.

"But isn’t the Bible timeless and for all people?!" Yes, of course. But to properly apply any Biblical passage you have to first discovered what it originally meant. The meaning for people today is not different from the meaning of the original audience. Biblical Interpretation 101. There is one meaning, though there can be many applications. Certainly, Revelation is indeed filled with applications for Christians today on any number of issues. It speaks loudly to the issues of living through government oppression, God’s faithfulness through hardship, surviving and dealing with tribulation and persecution (not escaping it via heavenly rapture), the nature of certain evil rulers and dictatorial governments that try to exalt themselves above God, etc.

The problem, however, is that many generations of Christians have skipped over the original meaning. The application for their era, and even misapplications, become the original meaning in their minds. Consequently, scores of Christians have thought Revelation was written directly to them and that the book was written exclusively for their time and their circumstances, rather than understanding the original meaning and cautiously applying it to their time. Coupled with the fact that the Scriptures make pretty clear that no one knows for certain when the "end" will come, the overconfident assertions from "Prophecy Experts" have continually made Revelation enthusiasts look silly.

While Christians throughout the ages have all thought that theirs was the last generation and that some particularly evil ruler was the final incarnation of the Beast figure of Revelation 13, all of them have turned out to be wrong. Rather than interpret Revelation in its original context and then cautiously applying it to their age, the book has been the source of all kinds of delusional theology, culminating most obnoxiously today with the "Left Behind" series and the doctrine of pretribulational dispensationalism, which was born in the 1830's. All of this "newspaper exegesis" of cutting out current events from the newspaper and claiming it a fulfillment of Revelation is Biblically sloppy as well as just plain dangerous.

So now Barack Obama is touted as the "antichrist" because, amongst other reasons I've read:

1. A lot of people like him, including suspicious foreign people (this makes rural conservatives nervous).
2. He rose to power quickly.
3. He wants to end the war in Iraq in a timely manner (but in reality, don't hold your breath for that).
4. He’s a smooth talker.

In this twisted form of thinking, peace is to be looked at with caution and suspicion since supposedly the Antichrist is prophesied in the book of Daniel to bring a false peace treaty between Israel and her neighbors, and the Antichrist will then break the treaty half way through and unleash his true ungodly colors. However, Daniel 9:24–27 doesn't say any of that, and it's another widely misused passage in the past 170 years that has little exegetical and historical footing. Talking about peace, even though Obama is hardly a pacifist, gets him many weird and theologically concerned stares.

Peacemakers in general, due to bad readings of Daniel, are to be viewed with suspicion. Torture, Guantanamo Bay, wars sold to the public and fought on false premises, warrantless wiretaps, America’s deteriorating national image abroad, expanded executive power, and Abu Ghraib are all less of a concern for this crowd. Talks of peace, especially peace between modern Israel and her neighbors, is reserved for liberals and heretics. True believers know that war, strife, conflict, and racism are here to stay until the Antichrist comes and deceives the masses. Therefore, by extension, Middle East peace is antichristic.

The rest of the world despising us (What, you want to cozy up to European intellectuals, you sissy liberal?!), perpetual armed conflict and the like are more Biblical reassuring to this group than silly little notions like peace and multilateralism ("Multilateralism? You must mean a One World Government!"). Hence, the politics of President Bush and war hawkish neoconservatives are righteous while anything less is "liberal" and cause someone like Obama to come under Antichrist suspicion from Left Behinders while they conjure up frightening images from Revelation.

So who exactly was the Beast of Revelation? Here's Wesleyan scholar Ken Schenck, professor of Bible at Indiana Wesleyan University on the issue:

"Nero fits the bill for the number 666 as well. If you take the letters of the word Caesar Nero and treat them as numbers instead of letters (the ancients didn't have separate symbols for numbers), they add up to 666 [Bill's note: several ancient New Testament manuscripts render the number of the Beast 616. A separate common way ancients calculated Nero's name yielded the number 616.]. You'll remember that Nero was the one who put both Peter and Paul to death as well as many other Christians. He was responsible for the first real persecution of Christians, which took place in Rome around the year 64–65.

"If we ask how the original audiences of Revelation would have heard the passages about the two beasts, therefore, it seems very likely that they would have heard them in terms of the Roman Empire and its emperors. They expected very bad times indeed to come with the return of an emperor like Nero (or perhaps they would have even expected the return of Nero himself?). By the time Revelation reached its final form, they might have equated this beast with Domitian.

"Emperor worship was a strong force in Asia Minor, in which the emperor was worshipped as a god. The beast from the land might thus correlate to whatever Roman administrator was responsible for the emperor cult in Asia Minor. Remembering that Roman coinage during the time of Domitian called him "Lord" and "God" and that he more than any emperor before him insisted on worship well before his death, we can at least conjecture the conflict of conscience it might have caused Jew and Christian to decide whether to use his coinage or not, to "take his mark" and not to be able to buy or sell if you didn't.

Could we take this imagery spiritually in terms of someone yet to come? I won't dare tell the Holy Spirit not to speak this way to someone or create "spiritual fulfillments" in this way. But these parts of Revelation have very, very strong connections to the first century, at least in their original meanings. "Babylon," for example, was a code word for Rome that Jews and early Christians used in the period after Rome destroyed Jerusalem (cf. 1 Peter 5:13)."

The entire post is well worth the read and goes into greater detail. Schenck is able to articulate the historical facts concisely, but provides much education and information on these widely misunderstood issues. It is part of an outstanding five-part series of posts on his public blog addressing the "Antichrist" and end-times issues. You actually should read each of the posts if you have any interest in these issues. For instance Schenck also addresses Mark 13 and its cognate passages in the New Testament about the "signs of the times" that people typically interpret as leading up to Armageddon, but in fact much of the content in these passages are referring to the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70AD and the "signs" that lead up to the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

Speaking of the Jewish people, Schenck also avoids both delusional anti-Semitism and reflexively pro-Israel politics in his post examining the folly of overly exalting the modern secular nation state of Israel. Many Christians are led to believe that anything short of unqualified total support of the modern Israeli government will result in a curse from God. This simply is misreading and applying various Scriptural passages, and Schenck deals with them here.

Decide for yourself who presents the stronger case: Schenck and those who present similar views as his, or the crowd promoting the idea that Obama is the Antichrist, or any number of other wild assertions. Also, to those who are caught up into the dispensational movement, try to look at the issue factually, and not emotionally.

Emotions of fear and doom spread like wildfire amongst many conservative Christians the night Obama was elected. Suddenly, everyone was "scared for our country," apparently not realizing the country has had some major problems under the current administration. Reactionary Christians shaking and screaming about Obama are acting just as obnoxious as many liberals do whenever their favored candidates lose elections. After talking to many Christians in my own social circle after the election, one would have thought that John McCain was a knight in shining armor here to save us from evil and hopelessness.

Look, there are plenty of reasons not to be enthusiastic about an Obama presidency. I can also understand why many Christians have problems with many of his political positions. I share those concerns as a fellow Christian. But the sensationalistic nonsense has to stop, especially when they are rooted in bad theology. Such hysterical attacks also weaken the legitimate questions about Obama’s politics, not to mention the fact that it’s rather unchristian to slander somebody (as is the case with some Christians continuing to suggest Obama is really some closet sinister Muslim) just because you disagree with him about legalized abortion or whatever.

Sticking to the facts will suffice. Readers can draw their own conclusions whether sensationalism or responsible Biblical scholarship can better help us understand difficult books like Revelation. However, you don’t have to like or agree with Obama’s politics to defend him against hysterical character assassination. As to whether or not Obama "might" be the Antichrist, let’s allow a responsible handling of the Biblical text dictate our ideas on this matter, not some nutty stuff you read in an email forward.

Bill Barnwell [send him mail] is a pastor and freelance writer from Michigan. He holds both a Master of Ministry degree and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree from Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Prior to entering the ministry he studied Political Science and Social Science at Michigan State University and Wayne State University and was actively involved in local and state campaigns and consulting.

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