{"id":56,"date":"2008-08-08T15:58:12","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T15:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html"},"modified":"2008-08-08T15:58:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T15:58:12","slug":"obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The story that began here on Progressive Revival last week when Revivalist Mara Vanderslice&nbsp;noted that&nbsp;John McCain&#8217;s The One Ad could be interpreted as<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/new-mccain-ad-implies-obama-is.html\"> portraying Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ<\/a>&nbsp;has made it into the pages of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/politics\/article\/0,8599,1830590,00.html\">TIME magazine<\/a>, which reports that more religious leaders are adopting that interpretation. Here&#8217;s the ad:<\/p>\n<p><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/mopkn0lPzM8&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The gist from TIME:<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\" style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\">\n<p>The Republican nominee&#8217;s advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a &#8220;creative&#8221; and &#8220;humorous&#8221; way of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,1830400,00.html\" target=\"_self\">poking fun at Obama&#8217;s popularity<\/a> by painting him as a self-appointed messiah. But even this innocuous interpretation of the ad &#8212; which includes images of Charlton Heston as Moses and culled clips that make Obama sound truly egomaniacal &#8212; taps into a conversation that has been gaining urgency on Christian radio and political blogs and in widely circulated e-mail messages that accuse Obama of being the Antichrist. <\/p>\n<p>The ad was the creation of Fred Davis, one of McCain&#8217;s top media gurus as well as a close friend of former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and the nephew of conservative Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. It first caught the attention of Democrats familiar with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,1002759,00.html\" target=\"_self\"><i>Left Behind<\/i> series<\/a>, a fictionalized account of the end-time that debuted in the 1990s and has sold nearly 70 million books worldwide. &#8220;The language in there is so similar to the language in the <i>Left Behind<\/i> books,&#8221; says Tony Campolo, a leading progressive Evangelical speaker and author.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The story that began here on Progressive Revival last week when Revivalist Mara Vanderslice&nbsp;noted that&nbsp;John McCain&#8217;s The One Ad could be interpreted as portraying Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ&nbsp;has made it into the pages of TIME magazine, which reports that more religious leaders are adopting that interpretation. Here&#8217;s the ad: &nbsp; The gist from TIME:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The story that began here on Progressive Revival last week when Revivalist Mara Vanderslice&nbsp;noted that&nbsp;John McCain&#8217;s The One Ad could be interpreted as portraying Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ&nbsp;has made it into the pages of TIME magazine, which reports that more religious leaders are adopting that interpretation. Here&#8217;s the ad: &nbsp; The gist from TIME:&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-08T15:58:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam - Progressive Revival","og_description":"The story that began here on Progressive Revival last week when Revivalist Mara Vanderslice&nbsp;noted that&nbsp;John McCain&#8217;s The One Ad could be interpreted as portraying Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ&nbsp;has made it into the pages of TIME magazine, which reports that more religious leaders are adopting that interpretation. Here&#8217;s the ad: &nbsp; The gist from TIME:&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-08-08T15:58:12+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html","name":"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-08T15:58:12+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-08T15:58:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/obama-as-antichrist-theory-gat.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama as Anti-Christ Theory Gathers Steam"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}