Community of the Risen » Eschatology http://dkam136.com a place for the church to be the risen entity it was meant to be. Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:32:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Is the Mark of the Beast a Scare Tactic? http://dkam136.com/2009/10/14/is-the-mark-of-the-beast-a-scare-tactic/ http://dkam136.com/2009/10/14/is-the-mark-of-the-beast-a-scare-tactic/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:44:52 +0000 wellis68 http://dkam136.com/?p=1028 This morning I had a conversation with one of my more conservative evangelical friends. We were talking about youth ministry, then we were talking about theology, then he brought up some questions about how people are saved. We talked a little longer before he brought up “the mark of the beast” (Revelation 13:18), an image which I think of as highly symbolic and historically specific, representing first century political circumstances (while of course still offering us a lens for understanding our current situation), specifically those surrounding or resembling Emperor Nero, if anyone, also known as Neron Caesar, a particularly oppressive figure even among the Caesars (for some good and accessible commentary on this see Bruce Metzger’s Breaking the Code, page 76-77).  But of course my friend, being the good dispensationalist he is, sees it as a literal mark which will be placed on or in people who deny Christ in the “End Times,” making it possible for them to buy and sell goods. He was only asking about whether or not God will still save those who verbally and physically deny him while still believing in him in their hearts, which doesn’t have to be specifically an “end times” conversation, so I didn’t think it was necessary for me to reveal to him that I thought his eschatological perspective was a load of crap. He almost immediately brought up politics, “you know Obama wants to ‘chip’ people with a microchip…”

And that’s when I got to thinking…

Why do people believe in the literal “mark of the beast,” not to mention all the other problematic images in Revelation? Is it really because they read scripture and that was the most obvious interpretation (I’ll save questioning their hermeneutics for later)? Is it really only because that’s what’s been passed down to them (I’m sure this is often it!)? Or is it because it makes for very effective scare tactics?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that dispensationalist literalism makes for very powerful conservative propaganda. I believe that this is part of the reason it is so alive and well in our world. While George W. Bush was in office, dispensationalism was used as propaganda for people to support war in Iraq and to give up on peace making in the middle east. Now that we have Barack Obama in office, it’s the mark of the beast language that scares people into looking negatively upon anything the president does or says. Whatever the situation, dispensationalism is good at twisting current events, no matter how horrific they are or how really good they really may be, and adapting itself so that everything is secret knowledge for the conservative dispensationalist. So the question is, do dispensationalists believe their outlandish interpretations because they’re being honest with the text or is it because it conveniently fits into their conservative bias and fear mongering? Is the literal and future mark of the beast expectation a reasonable interpretation or is it just a convenient scare tactic?

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