PROPHECY is unfolding in the Middle East. Riots. Killings. War. At its centre is President Donald Trump. And his evangelical supporters are hoping he will bring on Armageddon.
The move of the US embassy to Jerusalem was bold.
Its outcome was predictable.
The territorial dispute between the Palestinians and the recently recreated (after some 1875 years) Israel has been erupting sporadically ever since 1948.
Any change to the delicate power balance was sure to topple into violence.
It has shattered hopes of fresh peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.
It has also damaged the credibility of the US as a Middle East peace broker.
How this has been allowed to happen doesn’t make much sense – unless you look at it through the evangelical eyes of some of Trump’s top advisers and closest confidantes.
The move was about domestic politics.
Not international diplomacy.
The decision to move the embassy fulfilled a key Trump election campaign promise. It also represented a victory for hard-line pro-Israeli interest groups.
But Trump’s most prominent electoral support group – conservative evangelicals – see it all as a biblical drama. At last, their great nation has an embassy in God’s own capital city – Jerusalem. And it means cataclysmic events proclaimed by prophecy are about to take place.
Trump himself is at the heart of this prophecy.
The President of the United States is God’s right-hand man. Many evangelicals see Trump as an imperfect tool God is using to create perfect works. This means nothing less than the end of days. And a one-way ticket to heaven.
Read the article by Jamie Seidel in The Queensland Times.