In today’s political rhetoric, apocalypse always looms
Former President Donald Trump often describes the current presidential election as the “final battle.” That phrase begins one of his campaign ads and was part of a speech at an event for young conservative activists in Florida last summer. He also used it at his first official campaign rally in Texas in March 2023.
“2024 is the final battle,” Trump said in Waco, a city known for a deadly clash between federal agents and a doomsday cult. “That’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over, and America will be a free nation once again.”
Some may dismiss the expression as merely overly dramatic language about a political fight. But Christians—especially evangelical Christians—will likely immediately recognize this phrase as being from the Book of Revelation’s description of the apocalypse, God’s final destruction of the world that ushers in the New Jerusalem.
The use of apocalyptic references in political speech is nothing new in the United States—nor is it a partisan proclivity—but the amount and ways in which references to end-times are being deployed in this presidential campaign have some political watchers and religious scholars concerned. In an already hyperpolarized time, such language can be dangerous, they say.
“If you think you’re in a ‘final battle,’ that really raises the stakes of politics,” says Alison McQueen, associate professor of political science at Stanford University, who has studied the history of apocalyptic language in politics. “If we see our political enemies as the forces of evil, then it seems that almost anything goes in terms of how we treat them.”
She cites an example from the Civil War, when radical preachers would quote Psalm 137 to justify beating babies against the rock to defeat the anti-Christ. “That’s what happens when you see things in apocalyptic terms,” says McQueen. “All the previous moral rules of restraint and treating your opponents with equality melt away.”
Yet apocalyptic language can be tempting during a time of national and global uncertainty, she says, because it offers a narrative that makes this all intelligible.
Even before the attempt on Trump’s life in July, Faith in Public Life, a multifaith nonprofit that promotes equitable democracy, had planned programming to counteract political violence. CEO Jeanné Lewis finds apocalyptic language in politics problematic and “very, very dangerous.”
Religiously laced language evokes archetypal images about who we are and who God is, says Lewis, who has studied conflict resolution and peacemaking. It also stokes archetypal fears, which can reduce human beings’ abilities to discern and make healthy decisions.
Such fears allow extreme authoritarian candidates to position themselves as saviors and can be used to justify violence. “Any language that demonizes the other, that promotes an us-versus-them mentality, or that justifies a minority judging the majority of society—these are trends we see before wars, genocide, and other acts of mass violence,” Lewis says.
Apocalypse literally means a revelation of a truth that is hidden. “I think we’re seeing a revelation of those who claim to be following Jesus but are afraid of losing their earthly power,” Lewis says. “They want us to be afraid as well. Fear may help us survive in the short term, but it doesn’t help us thrive in the long term.”
Good vs. evil
When political scientist Paul Djupe began to notice Trump using language that resembled that in the Book of Revelation, he and his colleagues set out to study apocalyptic beliefs among Americans. What they found is that this language is widespread across the Christian tradition, including among Catholics.
“It turns out there are a lot of people who believe this, and it’s not just evangelicals,” says Djupe, who directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and is the coauthor of The Full Armor of God: The Mobilization of Christian Nationalism in American Politics (Cambridge University Press).
His group’s study measured four aspects of apocalyptic beliefs (which Djupe tongue-in-cheek calls the “four horsemen”): belief in embodied evil, belief in the ability to channel God’s power, belief that the end-times battle has begun, and belief that Christians are being persecuted.
They found that about 24 percent of Catholics were identified as strongly apocalyptic, relatively similar to the number of mainline Protestants (23 percent) and Black Protestants (21 percent). A higher percentage of evangelical Protestants, 32 percent, held strongly apocalyptic beliefs.
If you include those with moderate apocalyptic beliefs, 74 percent of Catholics can be identified as having apocalyptic beliefs, compared to 86 percent of evangelical Protestants. Djupe says both premillennial and postmillennial outlooks are represented.
“There are so many religious figures who are using apocalyptic language, and the Christian persecution narrative has really exploded in the last 15 years, especially since the legalization of same-sex marriage,” he says, explaining the findings.
His research also found that those with apocalyptic beliefs tend to be more politically engaged, and they view politics as a zero-sum game. In other words, “If they don’t win, all is lost,” Djupe says.
These threats of massive loss can escalate into violence. “There’s a sense that if leaders don’t have enough spine to do what needs to be done, they might have to do it by force,” he says.
In the United States, apocalyptic thinking goes back to the nation’s beginnings, says McQueen, whose book, Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times (Cambridge University Press), traces the use of apocalyptic language throughout history, from the apostle Paul to the 20th century.
The Puritans believed they were escaping the end-times and establishing a New Jerusalem on the shores of North America, and the Civil War was rife with apocalyptic language, including in songs such as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Just before the Republican Convention in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” More recently, George W. Bush, who identifies as a born-again Christian, referred to the war on terror with images of dark and light, calling September 11, 2001 a “day of fire.”
“Historically, this kind of apocalyptic language is right at home in the United States, and it has had varied uses,” McQueen says, noting that this language came “roaring back” in the 2016 presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Although Trump makes apocalyptic utterances with practiced ease, it was actually Clinton who said, a month before that election, “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.”
Democrats use extreme language about the end of democracy or the literal end of the planet, but Lewis cautions that “not all narrative about the destruction or failing of collective society is apocalyptic.” Examples would be actual data about the scientific effects of rising temperatures or about historical precursors to failed democracies.
“[From Republicans] I see much more language that draws on religious imagery in ways that are explicitly referencing Daniel, the Book of Revelation, or Sodom and Gomorrah,” she says. “They are pulling out Christians’ worst fears and specifically asking for God’s wrath and judgment against those they disagree with.”
Apocalyptic language is often employed during times of crisis, offering a promise of utopia with a simple solution of eliminating an enemy, says Steven P. Millies, professor of public theology and director of the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
For example, Marxism wanted to eliminate the aristocracy, and Nazism wanted to eliminate those who weren’t racially “pure,” Millies says.
The lure of that simple solution can be attractive. “If there’s a lot of troubling stuff going on, here’s a narrative that promises to make sense of it,” McQueen says.
Apocalyptic thinking also offers a promise of redemption. “There’s a two-part appeal: Things are not random or meaningless, they’re part of a story. But even better, they’re a prelude to a new and better world,” McQueen says.
Apocalyptic language also signals that we live in a special time, a period of meaningful transformation. This is seen in the constant reminders that this is the most important election of our lifetime. McQueen says that such language is “meant to alarm people and make them uncomfortable, but it also spurs them to action.”
Christian supremacy
Although apocalyptic language is drawn from the Christian and Jewish scriptures, theologians say that using the Bible to legitimize political ideas such as Christian nationalism or Christian supremacy is a misuse of the tradition—and can be destructive.
“Apocalypticism is not a theological concept; it’s a marketing concept,” says David Dault, an assistant professor of Christian spirituality at Loyola University Chicago’s Institute of Pastoral Studies. “It’s designed to mobilize mass movements and to have mass effect.”
By taking the biblical stories out of context and oversimplifying them, politicians “use them to control the narrative to get the maximum number of people to join your cause to fight the people you consider to be the scapegoat or the enemy,” Dault says.
“It’s the ‘secret sauce’ that gets the job done the fastest,” he says. “If you can convince people that your side are children of light, you don’t have to engage in actual political discourse.”
Dault, who grew up in the Christian militia movement with a family that was convinced the world was about to end, worries about the use of such beliefs to get “political mileage” and to offer simplistic solutions to voters’ valid concerns.
“Conspiracy theories generally—and apocalypticism is a conspiracy theory—at least let you feel like you have it all figured out,” he says. “That can have an opiate effect.”
The stories in the Book of Revelation were a response to the devastating destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 C.E. and attempted to portray God as more powerful than the Romans. But using those ancient, complex writings for an us-versus-them political win is dangerous, Dault says.
Any use of scripture to justify the death of your enemies is problematic. “If you want the bad guys to suffer and die, that doesn’t seem to be Jesus’ message,” he says.
Matthew D. Taylor is a senior religious studies scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore and has studied Christian supremacy and the role that apocalyptic beliefs and language play in religious radicalization. “Dominion theology,” for instance, a political ideology held by Christians who seek to implement civil laws based on their interpretation of the Bible, comes from a particular style of reading apocalyptic stories in scripture, he says. It is popular with such groups as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a charismatic Christian movement that seeks to take over civil society and prepare for the second coming of Jesus.
“Apocalypticism is where Christians often have found permission to live out their violent fantasies of Christian victory and Christian dominance,” says Taylor, whose book, The Violent Take it by Force (Broadleaf Books), explores the NAR’s role in the January 6 insurrection.
“It’s not a coincidence that the NAR types seem to prefer the Jesus of Revelation over the Jesus of the gospels,” Taylor says. “The Jesus who is executed by the Roman Empire is a lot less appealing to them than the Jesus who comes as a conqueror at the end of time.”
Taylor believes that the NAR’s “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which calls Christians to take by force the seven “mountains” of society (education, entertainment, family, business, religion, media, and government), is an example of Christian supremacy. “Christian supremacy is the hardened end of the Christian nationalism spectrum,” he says. “Their vision is domination, not unlike what happens when other religious nationalisms take over.”
Taylor has observed some people in the Republican Party “cozying up” to Christian supremacists, adding fuel to the fire of an already polarized politics. He worries about the “death of pluralism.”
“Apocalypticism is about negotiating fear,” he says. “In religious right circles, they believe Christians are on the verge of grave persecution, of losing all cultural power and being humiliated. So they’re fighting tooth and nail to stop that, which legitimizes all kinds of violent rhetoric and actions.”
Riling people up with language inciting a “culture war” against Christianity is especially ironic, given that Christians already dominate the country’s political institutions and still make up the majority of the populace, Taylor says. “But it’s easy to ramp people up with rhetoric that they are at war with the other side.”
While there have always been niches in Christianity that harbor a resentment about being trapped in an unsatisfying and intolerable world and thus turn to apocalyptic thinking to escape those troubles, the use of apocalyptic language to restore a sense of the United States as a Christian nation in recent political discourse is different, says Millies.
“There is something other than ordinary politics going on here,” he says. “When you start using apocalyptic language, you’re not just drawing on this language from the Bible, you’re also making an implicit claim to understanding the whole human story. That’s why apocalyptic language in politics is dangerous.”
Love your enemies
Instead of obsessing about the end-times, Dault advises Christians to follow Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies. “We have an obligation to imagine a future where they belong as much as the people we love belong,” he says. “That is the opposite of apocalyptic thinking.”
Millies also believes churches need to “take an honest look at what we’re presenting to the world.” Instead of focusing on apocalypticism, they should try to present a vision of politics that can solve problems together.
Likewise, Lewis believes Christians should pivot from a fear-based apocalyptic stance and look to Jesus for a message that “everyone is invited into God’s vision for humanity.”
In responding to apocalyptic language in politics, it’s helpful to remember that the Book of Revelation is just one part of the Christian tradition, says McQueen. Other parts of scripture have a more skeptical attitude toward the end-times. In 1 Thessalonians, we hear that the “day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (5:2). In Acts 1:7, Jesus tells the apostles, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”
Another resource is St. Augustine, who also lived during a time with an uptick in apocalyptic rhetoric because of the fall of the Roman Empire. When bishops asked Augustine if it was the end of the world, part of his response was to acknowledge that bad things happen—and they have always happened—and it doesn’t necessarily bear any special cosmic significance.
Some Christians “had gotten all fired up, expecting that the end was coming,” McQueen says. “But Augustine said: Live your life as you normally would. Don’t live it under the shadow of the coming of Christ.”
When Christians encounter apocalyptic language in politics, they should ask if it’s appropriate to the situation, McQueen says. She cites the real threat of climate change or nuclear annihilation as instances when strong language can positively empower people for a collective challenge.
“But if the person using this language is seeking not to unite but rather to divide and is calling upon you to see your fellow citizens as somehow less than human and not worthy of the usual respect we owe to others, then you should be suspicious and critical of it,” she says.
Another red flag for McQueen, she says, is “if it looks like the intent is to disempower people, to get us to give over our voice and our power to a strongman.”
Lewis also believes that Christians have a responsibility to hold other Christians accountable if they are promoting violence in God’s name. “We’re called to be stewards of peace and voices of reason in turbulent times,” she says.
This article also appears in the October 2024 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 89, No. 10, pages 10-15). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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