Armageddon – Today

President Reagan, several times, has talked about Armageddon – Apocalyptic battle between the armies of good and evil mentioned in the Bible (Revelation 16:16). From the nature of his remarks some pundits suspect he might welcome such a spectacle, and sees himself as the commander of the forces of righteousness. If so, he should learn more about the Bible.

I first met the world, “Armageddon”, in connection with the Republican National Convention in 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, leader of the Progressive segment of the party, was contending with William Howard Taft, the candidate of the “Old Guard”, for nomination for President. The Progressive slogan rang out, “We march to Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” The conservatives were dubbed the forces of evil, but they won and Taft was renominated. Roosevelt’s adherents split off, formed the Progressive – Bull Moose – party, and insured the election for Woodrow Wilson.

Senator Boies Penrose, leader of the Old Guard, was told, “Boies, if you persist in pushing for Taft, you’ll wreck the Republican Party.” To which the Senator replied, ‘Yes, but I’ll control the wreckage.”

To get back to the Bible, the author of Revelation writes in code words which Christians of that day understood, but the meaning of which has been lost for us. We do have a clue to the identity of the “beast” with the seven heads, which is the enemy of the saints (Chapter 17). The seven heads represent the seven hills of which the city of Rome is built, and the ten horns represent the emperors since Augustus Caesar. Probably the emperor at the time of the writing was Domitian.

From the time of Augustus every Roman Emperor was declared to be a god, and assumed the role of divinity. Domitian decreed that every citizen must worship before his status as a sign of patriotic loyalty. The Christians refused. To obey would betray their faith in the God of Jesus Christ. Their refusal made them traitors to Rome, and outlaws. Domitian inaugurated a persecution if the Christians far more wide-spread than anything that had occurred previously.  John writes to the Christians to be loyal to God, never to compromise their faith. He assures them of the overthrow of the Roman beast in the near future, and gives them a vision of eternal life in the New Jerusalem.

Armageddon, as John foresaw it, never occurred; but the symbolism expresses an eternal truth. The basic conflict in Revelation, at Armageddon, is the conflict between the demands of a secular society, the Roman Emperor, and the Christian faith and ethics. That conflict persists symbolically in generation after generation after generation, even to this day.

The furor raised by the worshippers of so-called “free market economy” in reaction against the proposed pastoral letter of the Catholic bishops puts the issue in focus. The letter indicts our economic order for allowing people to die of hunger in the midst of food surpluses, for abject poverty side by side with ostentatious displays of wealth, unemployment in spite of need for goods and services, and a widening gulf between rich and poor resulting in denial of human dignity to the less fortunate and the less able. Incidentally, school prayer is no substitute for an enlightened social conscience. We Protestants who have supported the social message of the National Council of Churches are delighted with the reinforcements the Catholic bishops are bringing us.

The pastoral letter is denounced as being in conflict with economics. Jerry Falwell calls it “socialism” – which betrays his worship of profits above Christian behavior. Top Republicans see it as an attack on Reagan’s policies. The Bishops understood this and postponed publication of the letter until after the election in order to avoid the criticism of trying to interfere with that election. To the criticism that the bishops ignore economics, Cardinal Bernardin replies that the bishops are specialists in Christian ethics. The critique of the economic practice is an ethical critique. It is up to the economists and business leaders to devise a system to conform to ethical standards.

The issue is the same as in the Book of Revelation, the worship of an economic and political system under any name, and the worship of God as known in Jesus Christ. The Reaganites, in their fulminations against the letter put the President and themselves on the wrong side of the battle. The Bishops of the Catholic Church, allied with many of our Protestant leaders, “March to Armageddon and battle for the Lord.”

“For not with swords’ loud clashing,

Nor roll of striking drums;

With deeds of love and mercy

The heavenly kingdom comes.”