Is Obama the Anti-Christ?

I've been getting this question a lot lately: Is Obama the Anti-Christ foretold in the Book of Revelation?

Yes and no. Here's why. . .

The image we have of the figure of the Anti-Christ comes from Hollywood. . .creepy kid with "666" tattooed on his scalp. . .black eyes, psychic powers, talks to wolves, crows, etc. . .kills people who get in the way of his demonic plans for world domination. In more recent times, the Anti-Christ has been portrayed as an international politician with great charm, a brilliant mind, a wildly secular compassion, and a taste for creating Nanny State bureaucracies like the U.N. and the E.U.

Now, without going into the 2,000 year-old history of how Christians have conceived the Anti-Christ from scripture, it is vital that we understand one Big Truth about the idea of the Anti-Christ: his appearance is NOT some future event; that is, the Anti-Christ is not coming "some day." He has come and gone many times and will likely come and go many more.

Why do I say this? Check out this paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism"(n.676). I've highlighted the key phrase here: "already begins to take shape in the world every time. . ." Since we are bound to live within history (i.e. we are subject to the passage of time), we experience God's plan of salvation for us as a progression of events--past, present, future. However, what scripture reveals to us is God's plan All At Once, that is, what we have in the Bible is the totality of our salvation history from beginning to end, each event is simultaneously past, present, and future revealed from God's vantage point of eternity.

The Second Coming of Christ has happened, is happening, and will happen. The Book of Revelation is a book of prophecy (future). But it is also a book of history (past) and a contemporary report of the world news (present). It is a mistake for Catholics to take this book to be merely historical, or as merely world news, or as merely prophetic. It must be all three at the same time because the book reveals an eternal (atemporal) plan played out within time. We can read the Book of Revelation for patterns of historical progress in the life of the Church as she lives with the world. Since our relationship with the world is always adversarial, it is fairly easy to say that there will be peaks of open conflict and persecution both of the Church by the world and from within the Church by those who given themselves to the world.

In parapgraph 675, the paragraph immediately preceding the paragraph above, we read: "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." Everything in this passage has happened before; is happening now; and will happen again. The ancient church was persecuted under the Roman emperors. The church in Africa (Sudan) and Asia (India) is being persecuted right now. And the church will be persecuted again in the future--in the U.S.? Europe? Very likely. Think about the secular messiahs the Church has confronted in history--the Roman emperors were considered gods; Mao and Stalin held power through messiah-like cults of personalty; Hitler persecuted both Jews and Christian, both of God's people under a national messiahism called fascist socialism. There are many others.

Back to Obama. Given everything I have said above, can we consider Obama the Anti-Christ? No. There is no "the Anti-Christ." There have been many Anti-Christs that have given flesh to the demonic desire to replace the Kingdom of God with a secular paradise. There are many now and there will be many more. To the degree that Obama opposes the will of God for His people, cloaks his opposition in religious language and ceremony, and persecutes the Church for her resistance to his secular messianic agenda, then we can say that he is an Anti-Christ.*

But here's the kicker: we are all capable of doing what the Anti-Christ in the Book of Revelation did, is doing, and will do. We do not do so on the scale of an American president or an international organization like the U.N., but we all have found ourselves, find ourselves, and will find ourselves believing and acting "against Christ," i.e. become Anti-Christs. From the White House Obama's secular messiahism is far more effective in undermining the Church than my single sins of omission or even my accumulated sins of commission. But can any of us overestimate the damage done to the U.S. Church by the abuse scandals caused by our priests and bishops? Or the damage done by pro-abortion clergy, religious, and politicans?

So, yes, Obama is an Anti-Christ. And no, he is not The Anti-Christ.

*It is very important for me to note here that I am not comparing Obama to Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. The man is a plain ole Chicago-machine liberal Democrat with great stage presence and rhetorical skills. But to compare him to these monsters is way, way over the top and is likely counterproductive in opposing his policies.