Diary: Antichrists Among Us

The term "antichrist" only appears five times in the Bible, but a cult not based on sound theology has created an urban legend that seeks Armageddon. The term "antichrist" never appears in John's Revelation or Daniel, two disparate works of literature written three centuries apart and under very different circumstances, yet the Left Behinder's weave them together.

The small texts that mention the "antichrist" were written to attack the Gnostic understanding of who Christ was. A Gnostic relies on intuition and not on dogma and doctrine. Gnostic's were most certainly free spirits and most all of the writings we have about Gnostics, have been the attacks upon them.

That all changed when the Nag Hamadi Library was translated and published, for what had been deemed heretical by those in power in the fourth century can now be read in most every language.

Biblical scholars today agree that many books of the Bible were written by others in the name of an apostle, for the quickest way to gain credibility is to trade on another's reputation.

We may never know if the author who coined the term "antichrist" was actually the apostle John who wrote I John and 2 John-the only sources where the term appears.

John also say's much more:

"Dear Children,
...as you have heard that the antichrist is coming; even now many have come..."- I John 2:18

"This is how we know who the children of God are not: anyone who does not do right; nor anyone who does not love his brother."-I John 3:10

"If anyone has material possessions and see's his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ...let us love with actions and in truth."-I John 3:17

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear because fear has to do with punishment."-1 John 4:8, 18

The theology promoted in the Left Behind fiction is a theology based on fear and punishment.

The followers of this heretical theology worship a false god: a punitive father, who seeks obedience, is patriarchal, demonizes woman, gays, lesbians, and seek empire on this world and cares naught for the fragility of Mother Nature. They resist what science offers, in particular they are antichristic in their refusal to see that stem cell research could lead to actual HEALINGS of diseases, and JC was very big into healing.

I cite John 5: 1-6, which in some readings is prefaced with an angel from heaven, who would descend and agitate the waters of the Pool of Bethsaida.

Only the first leper, blind, or invalid who made it into the water would receive a healing. One day while Jesus was there, he walked by a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" The man answered he had no friends to help him get into the water first. Jesus asked him again, "Do you want to be healed?"

JC is always a gentle man, he never pushed anyone into anything!

The antichrist theology is the opposite and in the 21st century, these fundamentalists among us are seeking theocracy based on fear of others and they seek empire in this world.

Not at all what JC was about; he was about liberation from the bondage of corrupt teachers of The Law, that God loved ALL and the Kingdom of God is NOT of this world.

Antichrists do not have eyes to see that nature is God's primary temple, and war the greatest abomination...

During the time when the writer of John was writing about the spirit of antichrist, Gnosticism was still in its evolution and far from the intricately developed system of the second and third centuries when the church and its institutional hierarchy became firmly established. During the time John was writing against the false teachings, the Gnostics were by and large libertines who denied Christ's humanity. Some said that Christ only appeared to have a body; others said the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at his baptism and left him when he died.The Gnostics left no testimony in their behalf, so all we have had to go on is what was written against them and the texts that survived that have become the Nag Hamadi Library.

These texts offer no new information but prove that early Christians were just as diverse as Christians today.The Armageddon groupies believe they will be lifted out of the misery of the world, and neglect to reflect upon the antichrist within, which is how centuries of theologians understood the term. The term anti/against Christ is best understood to be anti/against what Jesus taught.

Christ was ALWAYS pointing to the Father, saying he only did what the Father wanted, and the prophet Micah summed it up best:

"What does God require? He has already told you o'man! Be JUST. Be Merciful! And walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8

The antichrists take certain scriptural passages literally, and totally neglect those they do not want to see or hear. Such as, Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, and Luke 12:10 which are simpatico with Gnostic Thomas saying 44:

Jesus said: "Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."

The Holy Spirit, AKA the spirit of God is within all created things. One should wonder what spirit is driving those that torture and bomb another, for just who would Jesus torture and bomb?

No religion owns God and no church owns Jesus.

Jesus has been hijacked by the right wing fundamentalists and the time of his liberation from the antichrists is NOW. Christ was no Christian, that term was not even coined until three decades after he walked the earth.

But JC was a social justice radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who challenged the job security of the temple priests and disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces for teaching subversive ideas such as all people are equal and valuable.

The antichrists of today, neglect the non-negotiable's that JC commanded that his followers must do: LOVE, pray for and forgive your enemies, treat all people the way you want to be treated and remain NONVIOLENT, even if nailed to a cross.

Christ dealt compassionately with sinners and outcasts, but hypocrites received his wrath.

Compassion, which is sorrow for the suffering of others, is accompanied by the urge to help. This should define the Christian attitude.

If there is no compassion within a Christian, then it is the spirit of the antichrist that rules.