GOP Rapture (no, not CPAC), why Obama is the cause of the End of Days, and blame as the cause for politico-religious extremism.
Michele Bachmann has been spending time in the darker corners of the American extreme-right wing media machine, and most recently created some noise by claiming President Obama is a contributing cause of the upcoming Rapture. “Imminent” as Bachmann put it in a radio interview. We’ve heard the extreme right wing blame Obama for just about everything from acid rain to America being invaded by Islamic spiders, but Obama the cause of Rapture…? Once again, Mrs. Bachmann has stumbled upon a whole new level of dumbfoundabilty.
End of Days: Rapture, The Political Right, and Michele Bachmann
First a confession: personally I never fully understood the Rapture from the standpoint of a person who values humanity as a whole, rather than just my own circle of friends. Being a individual, though, I get it: life is difficult, living can be scary, and we all want an easy solution to the fight or flight feeling we get when seeing something impossibly terrible like ISIS or nuclear bombs. Before these times of endless pharmaceutical commercials, people generally dealt with this instinctual fear by worshipping some form of personified entity who would protect them. In modern medicinal times, we just call that feeling “despair” and get prescribed high-end meds for it. Nevertheless, since the dawn of language, man has told stories of beings, creatures, and even giant rocks that will appear out of the sky or erupt from the earth to save us from that which scares us most: Life and our inevitable meeting with Death. I do understand, and empathize with, how Michele Bachmann and those who believe the End of Days can look around at world events and be scared. I get that, and everyone has a right to deal with that fear in their own way… but blaming Obama? Mrs. Bachmann, that’s taking the politics of religion too far, and therefore opens the door for some POLITUSIC-style mocking on the touchy issue of Christian fundamentalism living in sin with right-wing politics.
What is the Rapture and why does Michele Bachmann claim Obama is the cause of it? The process of The Rapture is that Jesus comes back to say, “Hey all, sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long. Now’s the time.” Next, all the faithful Christians who have died will rise from the grave. And finally, all the newly arisen people / zombies / vampires / ashes (we are talking about physical bodies, here, not the souls that are rising), as well as the currently breathing faithful are ushered into the clouds to join the Lord forever in eternal bliss. Basically: be with God without having to go through the whole death thing that scares everyone so much. Excellent!
Oh, and I forgot: the other 4.6 billion of us go through a sort of Hell on Earth thing called the Tribulation for 7 years. (What happens after that, I’m not sure.) 4.6 billion left behind is assuming all 2.2 billion Christians in the world truly believe in the Rapture, of course. My guess, however, is there’s billion or so who won’t make the cut when it comes to the modern evangelical litmus test.
In 2010 Pew Research Center polled Christians and found that “roughly” 41% of Christians believe in the Second Coming. (They didn’t ask if Obama was the cause of it, though.) If we’re being generous, that means about 902 million people believe in the Second Coming. Many evangelicals encourage it (it’s a get out of Death free card, after all). There are many Christian denominations who encourage the End of Days and work to make it happen by means of converting non-believers – particularly Americans (some are very specific about that: converting sinful Americans.).
Why Does Michele Bachmann Blame Obama for Imminent Rapture?
Honestly, my first question is that since those who believe in the Rapture look forward to it because they get to be with God… shouldn’t they be thanking Obama? Truthfully, that’s the one area in which Michele Bachmann appears to be logical. While the End of Days is Obama’s fault, she also says it’s very “exciting”.
My theory as to why Bachmann blamed Obama for the End of Days is because the right-wing entertainment sector has run out of anything else to pin on the President in order to raise funds and sell air time. These days a person can’t be in the extreme right wing during an interview and not blame Obama for some metaphorical end of the world.
The core is about Iran. On the face of it, anyway. In her words,“We need to realize how close this clock is to getting towards the midnight hour,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama is intent, it is his number one goal, to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.” (... wow… I mean… WOW…) Yes, the Iran as most Americans know it is scary. But its people are not. Anyone who embraces humanity over merely their own-damn-self can see that the People of Iran are basically the same as the People of any other country. The massive majority are good, honest, hard-working people who just want their lives to be a little better tomorrow. Yes, Iran has some dark spots in its history, but so does America. Nevertheless, the extreme right wing necessitates evil in order to keep its base riled up. Claiming President Obama somehow wants to help Iran and secretly hates America is, sadly, little more than a daily operations checklist for the Tea Party faithful.
One thing I love about Michele Bachmann, however, is that she never stops with just one Obama blame. The conversation went on to blame abortion and marriage equality as causes of the Christian God’s “punishment for America”. I never will understand the fundamentalists’ obsession with “punishing” America. On one side they rant up, down and sideways about never being apologetic for America, yet they also advocate their God punishing American…. oh right… punish all those people who are not “real Americans”. I forgot about that part for a moment. I understand how the “punish America” narrative creates a holier than thou feeling in the person who is making the claim, but that’s not really in line with most Christian-teachings. Dark corners, I guess. Most people will never be able to understand how a person can be happy about damning 5.9 billion people to Hell on Earth while they get to kick it with Jesus in the most comfortable massage chair one could possibly imagine. In my case, while also having to witness my great-great grandfather rising from the grave and explaining to him what a massage chair is – until we both finally conclude that yes, a massage chair is an extraordinarily absurd object of human invention. Michele Bachmann calls that exciting. I call it a horror film.
Blame: the Core of Extremism
We all know that blaming President Obama for everything from a tooth ache to a toe stub is in the DNA of the extreme right wing. It’s what binds the various factions of the GOP together. The problem with that get out the vote method, however, is that blame is the perfect psychological gateway drug to extremism. Blame creates extremism. Most religious groups – Christians, Muslims, and every religion ever created – start very small and are fairly docile; they remain within their own congregation until the point someone decides to stand up in the pulpit and blame someone for whatever ill is troubling them that day. There’s always an eventual fringe-shift from “love and be good” to “blame and damn”.
Similarly, most political groups are capable of working with other political parties until they decide to start blaming Other for whatever they feel is wrong and corrupt in this world. In politics, blame is the key to creating extremism. As the timeline of humanity moves forward, the difference we see is that political parties (or niches therein) are now being created as a result of blame, rather than progressively edging to that inevitable end.
That might be worth a repeat: without blame, there is (virtually) no extremism – especially in religion and politics. Cary that theme into what we’ve see from the Tea Party ever since Obama has been on the national political stage. Blame, blame, blame. The more blame that has been spewed from corners of Republicanland, the more extreme these groups become, politically, religiously, and conspiratorially.
Religious practice is no different, which is why Michele Bachmann likely feels it’s perfectly acceptable to blame the President of the United States for the imminent Rapture, and “not despair but rejoice” because the End of Days is near and, “in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the Rapture of the church.”
The point on timelines of any religion at which extreme branches are created are usually when small groups start assigning blame to groups who believe something different than they do. Damn them to Hell because they caused (insert why life is hard here). Organized religion is a funny thing. It always starts as a beautiful thing, but as time passes factions just end up getting political and killing one another… or at least wishing them all to be left behind to a Hell on Earth by means of encouraging the Rapture – that’s the more “civilized” approach.
Published: by | Updated: 04-22-2015 07:18:13
