to the time of the End of Days, which they feel is upon us, the word is nowhere to be found within its text. It is, however, very likely from the apostle John that we first learn of the Antichrist. In 1 John 2:18, he declares that the enemy of Christ has manifested and that many false teachers have infiltrated the Christian ranks, and in 2 John, verse 7 he declares that there are many deceivers already at work among the faithful.
At last Christ and his angelic armies of light destroy the forces of darkness at Armageddon in the final battle of good versus evil. Babylon, the False Prophet, and the Beast (the Antichrist) are dispatched to their doom, and Satan, the Dragon, is bound in a pit for a thousand years. With Satan imprisoned and chained, the millennium, the Thousand Years of peace and harmony, begins.
Although Christ’s Second Coming is said to be mentioned over 300 times in the New Testament, the only references to the millennium are found in Revelation 20:27. Christian scholars disagree whether or not there will be an initial resurrection of the dead just at the advent of the millennium and a second one a thousand years later, immediately prior to the Final Day of Judgment.
For some rather incomprehensible reason, Satan is released from the pit at the conclusion of the millennium; and true to his nature, he makes a furious attempt to regain his earthly kingdom. His former allies, The Beast (the Antichrist), the False Prophet, and the hordes of Babylon, were destroyed at Armageddon, but there were some demons who escaped annihilation at the great battle who stand ready to serve their master. In addition to these evil creatures, Satan summons Gog and his armies of the Magog nations to join them in attacking the saints and the righteous followers of God. Although the vast multitude of vile and wicked servants of evil and grotesque monsters quickly surrounds the godly men and women, God’s patience with the rebellious angel has come to an end. Fire blasts down from Heaven, engulfing and destroying the satanic legions and the armies of Gog and Magog. Satan himself is sent to spend the rest of eternity in a lake of fire.
Armageddon
See also: Apocalypse, End Times, Megiddo, Norwegian Armageddon
When a fictional zombie outbreak occurs, there is always at least one character that believes the rise of the dead is the work of an angry God, one that decides to punish the living by raising the dead. In other words, the war against the zombies becomes a confrontation of definitively religious proportions. Rather interestingly, over the course of the last decade or so, the Pentagon has quietly and carefully promoted the idea that the War on Terror is not just a battle against bearded maniacs from the Middle East, but a confrontation of biblical proportions, one that is a fight between good and evil, God and Satan. Of course, the reality is that the War on Terror is simply the latest conflict of many that have always plagued the human race and, in all likelihood, always will plague us. But, that has not stopped Uncle Sam from seeding meme-like messages to the effect that this war is very different from all previous wars.
In January 2010, a great deal of press and television coverage was given to a very strange development in the War on Terror: the U.S. Marine Corps signed a contract with a company called Trijicon—based out of Wixom, Michigan—which provided rifle sights containing inscribed quotes from the Bible. And we’re not talking about a handful of sights: it was in excess of three quarters of a million of them, which netted Trijicon a nice sum of $650 million.
The Death and Conflagration by Albert Chmielowski is a circa 1870 oil painting that was part of the triptych Disaster that captures the mood of Armageddon quite poignantly.
Despite the fact that many might see this as a positive thing, official regulations exist specifically, and quite rightly, banning the promotion of any and all religious belief in both Afghanistan and Iraq, specifically to prevent claims being made that the War on Terror is a religious one. Inscribing the following onto the sights was hardly perceived in many quarters as keeping the hostilities deity-free: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Significantly, additional quotes came from the Book of Revelation—a book that perhaps far more than a few people might turn their attentions to if the dead really do rise from the grimy soil below.
It was this development that got Michael Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a state of rage. He said: “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.” He had a point: senior military personnel were referring to the weapons equipped with the saintly sights as a “spiritually transformed firearm of Jesus Christ.” Such was the furor that all of this provoked, Trijicon took two new steps: (a) they had the messages removed from those sights still in their factory; and (b) they provided what were described as modification kits to allow for the removal of the references from the already deployed optical sights.
“We must ensure that incidents like these are not repeated, so as not to give the impression that our country is involved in a religious crusade, which hurts America’s image abroad and puts our soldiers in harm’s way,” said Haris Tarin, Director of the Washington, D.C. office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Armando
Voodoo is not a religion with a commonly held dogma or creed. There are many styles of Voodoo being practiced in contemporary New Orleans. Among them is the Cult of the Chicken Man that was originally created by the late Prince Ke’eyma. The Prince is said, by some authorities on Voodoo, to have founded one of the largest secret societies since the one created by the legendary Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau. The Cult of the Chicken Man survives today, according to many, because of the devotion of Prince Ke’eyma’s devotee, Armando.
Armando the Voodoo King is the successor to Prince Ke’eyman. (Art by Ricardo Pustanio).
Voodoo’s Prince Ke’eyma created the Cult of the Chicken Man in New Orleans. (Art by Ricardo Pustanio).
Armando begins his day with a Voodoo grave ritual at the tomb of Marie Laveau. His apartment on the edge of the French Quarter is dominated by a large portrait of Prince Ke’eyman, who took the Cuban orphan under his wing and taught him the ways of Voodoo. Armando is proud to have received the power of Chicken Man’s legacy as his chosen priest, but also to have ceded him the right to become the guiding force of the secret sosyete. Although Chicken Man died just a few days before Christmas in 1998, a full Voodoo Burial and New Orleans Jazz funeral was held for him in January 1999. His ashes are kept in Priestess Miriam’s Temple on Rampart Street.
Armando does not believe in permitting those not practicing Voodoo to observe performances of the rituals. His detractors argue that Armando is against public demonstrations of Voodoo because he does not wish anyone to share the special rites taught to him by the Chicken Man.
Many
