It being the new year and all, I thought I’d introduce you to some new mentalists, just in case you’re getting bored with the old mentalists. These new ones are the people watching the disquieting events unfold in Gaza with what might properly be called rapture.
I use the word ‘rapture’ advisedly. As in ‘for yea, the rapture cometh’. And those shells landing on Gaza are to be welcomed, of course, for they are bringing the day ever closer.
There was a trip to Jerusalem last week undertaken by a bunch of British Christian evangelicals — by coincidence, just as the Israelis began lobbing rockets into Gaza. They hadn’t planned it like that, although retrospectively they may claim to have seen it. The whole shebang was described as a ‘New Year’s Prophetic Summons’ and the organisers were, in the main, American evangelical Christian Zionists, but there were plenty of Brits in attendance.
You may be familiar with this little by-way of religious fervour, this rather bizarre cul-de-sac of supernaturally imposed bigotry — partly because it has helped determine US government policy towards the Middle East for 30-odd years. These are the militant end-time Christians who are, indeed, yearning for the end. It was all foreseen — a final conflagration between the Antichrist in the blue corner (that’ll be the Muslims, then) and the forces of Christianity in the red, with the Jews looking a bit askance in the middle, unless they have returned to the fold, in which case they’re OK. The blurb for this latest trip — which involved conferences, walking the ramparts of Jerusalem and urging hellfire upon the recusant Mohammedans — reads as follows: ‘The days are shortening as Messiah’s coming approaches.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in