Islam, Antichrist, and the European Union   Ý
Copyright 2003 by William Meisheid (5-29-03)

Anyone who has studied eschatology (theories of the end times) has noticed that premillennialists (believe that Jesus will return for the church and there will be a seven year tribulation before a literal millennium) have longed looked at Europe as the eventual seat of the Antichrist and the central factor in end-time politics. Where their analysis broke down was that they always viewed the Roman Catholic Church as the seat of Antichrist's religious power. While this can be traced to the religious battles of the reformation and after, it was always short-sighted at best to expect Rome to pass the two tests St. John gave for an antichrist in his first epistle.

In 1 John 2:22 he said "Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist; he denies the Father and the Son." Later in 1 John 4:3 he adds "…but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." It should be noted that John foresaw a general spirit of antichrist that leads to its culmination in the final expression of an archetypical antichrist who as the agent of Satan will be at the center of the final conflict on earth.

The failure of Reformation and post-Reformation Protestantism was in their believing that the Roman Catholic Church could ever fit this definition in a true and public sense. Even to this day rabid anti-Catholics see the Antichrist's religious underpinnings hiding in the current or future Pope of Rome. However, a much more likely candidate has failed to gain much of a foothold, except from peripheral writers. Islam fits the religious requirements of antichrist and with the draft of the recent European Union's constitution, the groundwork is laid for its ascendancy.

In an article in WorldNewsDaily (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32813) the problem of God and Europe's Christian heritage being ignored finds two rationales. First, "We are very glad a reference to God has been left out, it would have created unnecessary barriers in Europe," Terry Sanderson, vice president of the UK's National Secular Society, told EUobserver. "Europe has to be secular for it to be really unified." Second, "Secularist countries, led by France, contend pluralist modern Europe is beyond the need to reference religion, according to ANSA. Leaders also stressed a reference to 'Christian values' would make it more difficult to accept a mostly Muslim country such as Turkey." Using the modern approach to not offending anyone (except Christian and Jews of course) it was argued "In an editorial, Scandinavia's largest daily newspaper, the Swedish Aftonbladet, said referring to Christian values in the constitution and placing them above other values would be a 'huge mistake' because it would 'exclude groups and raise new walls.' I guarantee you that Islam will not care about "excluding groups and raising new walls" as it moves into this European religious vacuum. The door is wide open and they will not hesitate to step through it.

It will be interesting to see Europe's accommodation or resistance to Islam over the next few years. If it accommodates Islam, then the stage will be set for the rise of a political and religious antichrist in Europe. This cannot happen overnight, but within three to five years things could look radically different on the formerly Christian continent.