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The Puritans who settled American saw their mission as the construction of a model of the "kingdom of God" on earth; they wanted to construct a "Christian democracy" that would be a model for the world. In fact, the coming of the "saints," as they called themselves, to New England was a necessary step in preparation for the final conflict with antichrist.

William Bradford and John Winthrop, two early political leaders in the colonies, reveal these teachings in their writings. Increase Mather, a famous preacher, spoke of these saints in the New World as having shaken off the "dust of Babylon." ("Babylon: is a symbolic city mentioned in Revelation as a symbol of the lower animal nature.) Even the famous Mayflower Compact (1620), the first experiment in American democracy, was founded on the principle of "the advancement of the Christian faith." In fact, in the earliest democracies in America, submission to the group was equivalent to submission to God.

They shone with confidence that they were living in the very final days of earthly civilization, that Armageddon was just around the next corner. In 1682, Increase Mather likened the devil to a "dying beast," gasping his last desperate breath, and making one final great attack on the people of God. (Native Americans were characterized as literal "demons.")

What was most appalling to these early settlers was not the lack of love or even of morality. Instead, what they bemoaned most loudly and often was the rise of "apostasy," a name which they gave to unapproved or unofficial religious teachings-- especially those that questioned the doctrines of organized religion. Various teachings proliferated at the first opportunity, and this apostasy became rampant as rival groups formed sectarian divisions among the colonists. Had the colonists focused solely on the spiritual principle of love and freedom, they could have continued to move, live, and work as a united front; but doctrines and teachings were most important to them, and they demanded strict conformity to the "letter" of their religious law.

Cotton Mather reflected the common superstition of the day in explaining the evils present with the colonists: satan had arrived in the New World before they had. They saw the devil, in fact, all around them, literally behind every bush and tree.

The cold-hearted, loveless, and ghastly prejudicial idea that native Americans were in league with the devil provided the perfect rationalization for the slaughter of these innocent men and women. The Charter of Massachusetts said that the purpose of the colony included winning the native peoples to "the only true God"-- the same Jehovah that encouraged widespread torture and virtual extermination of the native American population, whom they saw not as human beings, but as "beasts."

The bareness, harshness, and aridity of the wilderness hardened and embittered the colonists until they reduced morality to the formula "might makes right," much as the nazis were to do over two centuries in the future. They quickly gave up any idea of "converting" native Americans, and instead initiated a bloody and mindless policy of "holy war" against them. They patterned themselves after the ancient Israelites who, upon entering their "Promised Land," slaughtered the peaceful indigenous tribes who had inhabited that area before their arrival.

A major war with native Americans, the so-called "King Philip's War," in the 1670's, was seen as the outbreak or beginning of the final battle of history, Armageddon. Israel, with its worship of the tribal war-god Jehovah, became the "perfect model" for the establishment of the ideal "theocracy" (rule by God) on earth. Thus, America did not begin as a democracy, but as a theocracy. (In reality, it was a dictatorship by the "holy" religious elite. Further, it was a cruel, unfeeling, and unyielding despotism.)

The "horrible dangers" of non-conformity were expressed, paradoxically, as religious persecution-- the same kind of persecution that Americans had fled in England. Non-conformists such as Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson believed, respectively, in separation of church and state, and that a direct personal communion with God was possible. Both of these views marked horrifying heresies, for both represented a loss of power to the authorities. So, American colonists squelched non-conformity as ruthlessly as the Catholic church from which they had fled.

According to the accepted dogma, the church and state were intermingled, again using ancient Israel as the prototype, whose government believed that it represented the war-god Jehovah, and was therefore perfect. In much the same way, early colonists saw the government as representing the will of God, and good citizenship and obedience became almost a kind of "sainthood."

Hutchinson and Williams were both "disfellowshiped" and banished from the community, but their shunning had nothing really to do with theology or truth; it was a political expedient designed to serve the elite, whose power they threatened. This was at a time when even the most banal and tiny of political and social struggles was mythologizedd as a kind of battle between God and satan. A perfect example of this hysterical hyperbole is found in the witchcraft trials of 1692. There is strong evidence that the genuine and real motives behind these trials were greed and envy, not religion. Cotton Mather, a respectable preacher, became a marionette of these dark motives, and wrote The Wonders of the Invisible World as a kind of justification for the witchcraft trials. These trials were such a mixture of silly theology and cruelty that they might well be described as "ludicrohideous."

In this book Mather taught that they were living in the very "last days" of human civilization, and then made the hair-raising suggestion that people turn to the Book of Revelation for guidance-- a book that has driven more people mad than perhaps any other work in history. "The duration of antichrist is drawing to a close," he wrote in 1692. Jonathan Edwards, another infamous and fanatical preacher, also bought into this same illusion.

The people of New England, in the late seventeenth century, actually hoped to be active participants in the practical construction of the "Millennium"-- the thousand years of peace and perfection during which Christ would rule the earth. They wanted to be, and thought that they would be, actual participants in the making of this theocratic utopia. Cotton Mather, a vain and egocentrically irritable man, was often quite irascible, and neither he nor his followers really understood the intellectual changes in the mainstream society around them. Still, this comic Puritan was the unquestioned Puritan leader of his time.

He indulged in a completely conspiratorial view of the cosmos, and believed that he himself was haunted and troubled by "evil spirits." For one thing, he despised and terribly feared sex, and this fear was a kind of "demon" itself. (Ironically, he himself fathered fifteen children, so his anti-sexual attitudes apparently applied only to other men.)

A principle tool that he continually abused to keep the people in line was the "wrath of God"-- a clear projection of his own immense frustration and judgmental rigidity. He was always wanting to see the "end of the world", and actually made the mistake of predicting its occurrence several times; for he said that the end would come in 1697, again in 1716, and again in 1736. He just did not seem to learn from his mistakes, and felt the need to limit even God to certain time-tables so that the Master of the universe could be predicted (and, one suspects, controlled) by Mather. The witchcraft trials fit in this wacky scenario beautifully, as a natural exacerbation of the continuing war between God and satan; they proved that those people lived in the "last days," and were very close indeed to the final battle of Armageddon. After this battle, it was expected that human beings would set up a new political order designed and defined by the "will of God." After a massive, sickening slaughter of the population of the world, that would make the nazi concentration-camps look like a Sunday picnic, an age of peace would come.

In the 1740's and 1750's, the white-hot expectations of the "second coming" of Christ as the murdering avenger were once again whipped into a frenzy. (This particular theological believe is marked by regular frenzies.) The French were identified as "antichrist," and war with France was said to be God's "vial of wrath" poured out upon France. The clergy had to resort to the Hebrew Scriptures with its primitive and violent god Jehovah to justify the continuous warfare and violent hatred.

Robert Smith, a Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania, taught that "bloodshed" was needed to "purify" the earth. (Shades of "ethnic cleansing"!) Ministers deliberately and repeatedly blurred any distinction between the kingdom of God and the colonies. Thus, the hated Stamp Act of 1765 was said to be the "mark of the beast," without which people could not participate in the economy, but with which one would be eternally "damned."

There was a widespread belief that progress was the very meaning of history, and that the American government would actually evolve into the kingdom of God. Thus, the American political order was invested with cosmic significance.

OBSTACLES TO THE "CHRISTIAN EXPERIMENT." The overthrow of the "despotism" of England was interpreted to be the "down fall of antichrist." Between 1780-1880, American Protestants worked hard to develop their vision of a "Christian commonwealth," and to realize it as the United States government. Millennial optimism ran high, as people "caught fire" with the expectation that Jesus would come in the clouds and run things in America. America was destined to lead the world not only to liberty, but to moral perfection. Preachers continually referred to the colonies as the "new Israel," and continued to mistake Jehovah for the God of Jesus. Yet, they were clearly not without obstacles to this illusion. Among the obstacles to their "perfect theocracy" were the following: ignoring the sabbath, swearing, drunkenness, sexual immorality, atheism, deism, Masonry, immigration, slavery non-Protestants (Jews, Catholics), Mormons, city living, and the Civil War.

In mainstream society, a revolution was occurring, in which confidence started to be placed in science instead of Scripture. Humanism largely replaced the cranky old emotional explosivity of the old religion. The rise of "deism" made possible a "rational faith" that arose from humanism and science. (In deism, God was thought to have lost all active interest in human affairs.) And deism actually attacked the churches as enemies of progress.

Church-membership plummeted to less than ten percent of the population. People were strongly influenced by the humanism of the French Revolution. Rebellion against the authority of the church was widespread and popular, and a number of cults formed in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Many "Christians" saw the rise of satan in all this.

In 1798, the idea became widely disseminated that the French revolution was started by a conspiracy of a secret society or social order called the "Illuminati." This diabolical group was said already to have gained control of the Masonic lodges, and were now plotting the overthrow of the American government. (Whatever psychology inclines people to be extreme right-wing "Christians" also seems to be responsible for their eagerness to believe in conspiracies-- especially secret and invisible ones.) From this perspective, spies, saboteurs, and infidels were as omnipresent as formerly "evil spirits" had been.

These fundamentalists labelled liberty and equality as "false doctrines," as "diabolical," as misleading people. On the other hand, the idea of separation of church and state seemed alien and horrible, for it threatened the political power of the religious extremists who controlled the political machinery.

The idea that the pope was the antichrist began to be abandoned in favor of new targets within the American system. The "devil" was closer to home. Ethan Smith, in a book called A Dissertation on the Prophecies Relative to Antichrist and the Last Times, in 1811, identified the "real" antichrist as "infidel atheism"; he identified the Roman church as the "false prophet," another character in the Revelation-vision.

One of the major foundations for the Second Great Awakening in American was the illusion that the people were preparing the world for the immediate return of Christ. This did spark a forward-movement in Christianity, as the people became more "Armenian" in doctrine; that is, they started to turn away from the absurd Calvinistic notion that people were forever blessed and saved or forever damned from the moment of their birth. Now, Christians could choose to bring about regeneration, both in their person and in the world. This led to a proliferation of optimistic social programs, in an attempt to construct a social order that would please Christ. Christian social conscience was reborn in the early decades of the 1800's. Tens of thousands joined reform societies, in an attempt to realize the Millennial dream. God's work, they said, would come about through voluntarism.

It can be seen how, as reason became more powerful, hopes shifted away from dramatic intervention to a more realistic perspective-- that human beings were responsible for making positive if gradual changes in order to create a just and productive society. Until the outbreak of the Civil War, this vision created a powerful unifying purpose in American life.

With all this confidence in human endeavor, the belief in the antichrist was nearly absent, indicating that it might well be a sign of social pathology, or a response to that pathology.

Freemasonry was a group whose purpose was to promote morality and the brother/sisterhood of human beings; it was seen as an evil and diabolic snare by fundamentalists. Having come to the U.S. about 1730, they conducted some of their meeting in secret, and this got the rumor-mills stirring, and tongues wagging. Another "evil" of the movement is that it insisted on freedom from all sectarianism, and so did not partake in the squabbles and quibbles that marked the various fundamentalist sects; each sect assumed that those who did not agree with its position was "evil" and "satanic," and so the Freemasons were labelled. Also, the Masons did not claim to be specifically Christian in origin, and this was yet another "evidence" of their "evil" nature. Still, the group attracted many free-thinkers, and thrived. For example, Ben Franklin was a Mason.

In the meantime, the church was actively seeking a scape-goat on which to lay the blame for religious "waywardness," and refused to accept any responsibility itself. As early as 1737, fundamentalists made groundless accusations of immorality against the Freemasons. Yet by the first decade of the 1800's, they peaked, and actually formed more Freemason lodges than the fundamentalists did churches. The Puritans were always irritated and annoyed by either light-heartedness or open-mindedness, and for a long time, were an embittered minority struggling to keep the majority under their control. Paranoically, ministers began to preach that the Masons and others had as their sole but secret goal the eradication of Christianity. They were accused, with the atheists and socialists, of seeking to do away with private property. This struck the fundamentalists in a particularly vulnerable are: for they were widely known for their conservatism and their greed. Also, atheists and deists were accused darkly of the practice of sexual immorality, and this hit fundamentalists in yet another "sore spot," for they had always been fascinated if not fixated on sex. Fundamentalists accused atheists of also wanting to control the schools and newspapers-- a charge that still echoes in our time, as "liberals" are accused by conservatives of the same thing.

Soon, large portions of the nation caught fire with a frenzy of anti-Masonry and it even became a political party. The second mass-movement of the nineteenth century was temperance, which also had components of xenophobia, class-warfare, and ethnic prejudices and bigotry. (This was at a time when alternative beverages were largely unavailable, and water was unsafe.) Cotton Mather leaped, of course, upon the popular bandwagon against alcohol, and stated, predictably, that it aroused the "anger of the Lord." (What didn't?)

But all this talk about alcoholism, surprisingly, had almost nothing to do with morality. Instead the focus was on economic and social consequences, and it seemed to be more a problem of entry into the mainstream society than a personal disaster. Thus, little love, compassion, or personal concern was shown by most temperance-leaders. For drunkenness came to be seen as the consummate work of satan. It also became a question of membership in the mainstream social class, which emphasized other values besides soberness: thrift, efficiency, belief in Anglo-Saxon purity, personal religious commitment, and individual responsibility. (See "Sex and Morality, Victorian Style," in this series.)

SLAVERY. To their credit, Presbyterians declared this ghoulish practice as incompatible with the laws of God as early as 1818. It was promoted by the antichrist. In fact, Presbyterians and Baptists splintered into polarized camps over this issue. In 1861, in the book The Coming Crisis of the World said that the Civil War had been predicted in prophecy, in Revelation, in a spectacular battle between Michael and a dragon. It became almost universally accepted that the Millennium would begin in 1866. (Both the North and the South claimed that God was on their side, and fighting was seen as a religious duty.)

Another factor complicated the picture, triggering tribal territorialism and xenophobia: immigrants were arriving by the millions. Both Catholics and Jews were identified as antichrist. Nativist reactions took the form of what Fuller calls "apocalyptic name-calling." Fundamentalists declared even the Constitution "atheistical," because it insisted on equality. Nativism became shameless in its anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, and the "know nothing" party expressed it. The 1887 formation of the American Protective Association was an act of hate-mongering. These groups thrived on suspicion, and saw plots everywhere.

People understandably lost faith in the ability of human beings to create a perfect world. In order for the Millennium to come, some said, Christ would have to come first. They were called "pre-Millennialists." They tended to completely withdraw from the world, and down-graded the finest social programs as satanic. As far back as the 1820's, in England, an entire library of apocalyptic and prophetic books were published, thriving on the gullibility and desperation of people for "quick solutions." (This market still exists today.) History, said Pre-Millennialists, was not evolving into perfection, but spiralling downward towards a bloody end in the ghastly annihilation of Armageddon. Several minority religious groups in American seized this teaching. Many communes formed, to divide the "chosen" from the "world," including the Shakers. The Millerite movement, notorious for its prediction of the end in 1843, gained a great popular following, and later groups split from these "Second Adventists." (They labelled other Christians as "antichrists.") As they drifted to the lunatic fringe, they became extreme separatists, teaching that Christendom was represented by "Babylon" in Revelation. Ellen White, a founder of Seventh-Day Adventism, postulated the blatantly improbable theory, to defend Miller's false predictions, that something had indeed actually occurred in 1844, but, with astonishing duplicity, stated that it had been an "invisible" heavenly event.

MODERNISM. The battle-lines had been clearly drawn, by 1870, between fundamentalism and mainstream Protestantism. But a greater "demon" or antichrist was to be found in modernism. Secular or "worldly" culture is presented as highly perilous and rampant with apostasy. All modern trends are seen as reflections of the antichrist. Fundamentalists actually yearn for the total annihilation of all the "evil" people in the world-- in other words, all who do not belong to their faiths. In science, evolution-- a major bugaboo of fundamentalism-- came to be seen as a path through which God might have created human beings. And the distrusted psychologists began to suggest that God acts through unconscious processes. Many redefined God, not as a personal Jehovah, but as the power of Love within human consciousness. It was not long before "liberal" Protestants were also labelled "antichrists."

As early as 1879, a prophetic conference was held in New York City, to "gauge the signs of the times." By 1898, it was declared yet again that the world was on the brink of its final destruction. Then, it was said that modernists and progressives among Christians were preparing the way for the antichrist. This dismissive attitude allowed fundamentalists to reject modern thought without any reference at all to the data. Higher criticism of the Bible, modern literature, and the press became special targets for attack. Since most people were following antichrist, and democracy followed the people, even democracy came to be condemned as a tool of the antichrist. In time, any attempt to improve human conditions whatsoever was seen as an act in support of the antichrist. So, fundamentalists actually became eager to adopt the posture of cultural and religious outsiders.

In modern times, often by the adoption of outlandish or crackpot theories of history, many fundamentalists have deceived themselves into believing that they alone have been able to "decode" the secret mysteries of history. Their lazy indifference to human suffering ("We don't have to do anything at all but wait for God to act") is in direct conflict with the teaching of Jesus regarding compassion. In fact, the still condemn Christians who are more socially active, partly due to a wounded conscience. Thus, they are stuck with the paradoxical teaching that satan is the one who is behind all efforts fora cleaner world, a more just society, and very effort of justice, equality, and peace. In fact, all non-fundamentalists, or all who disagree with them, are narrow-mindedly regarded as "apostates" or false teachers.

Today, fundamentalism has created a subculture which seeks complete independence from mainstream culture. The lists of "bad guys" or outsiders continue to grow, as the world grows more "evil." Fundamentalists absolutely must believe that the average person is actually evil, in order to justify the mass-murder of humanity predicted in their twisted vision of "Armageddon."

Radio programs, televangelism, and a wide spectrum of dull and repetitive books help keep fundamentalists alerted about the latest theories. These people are usually from the far right or lunatic fringe of American religion. Both hate-mongering and the idea of antichrist have enjoyed recent renaissance. Naively, fundamentalists posit that a "return to the Bible" is a simplistic "solution" for all human problems; but they have fully as many problems as do "evil" non-fundamentalists. They seek to live within a continuous sense of emergency, to keep themselves whipped into a crisis-mentality, for only this keeps them going. Most of all, they need a common enemy. Like nativism, it is both conspiratorial and reactionary. Many teach that the U.S. government is now the antichrist. Since they insist on "demonizing" their enemies, they live in a world filled with demons. They even claim that literal "evil spirits" control their enemies-- a common symptom of psychosis. Many saw Roosevelt as satanic, but sided with Hitler in his hatred of the Jews.

Often, they are known for racial bigotry, and speak of "diluting" the white race with "mongrelism." They condemn all Christians who choose a theology of love over their doctrines of hate. They damn all liberal, progressive, or ecumenically-minded clergy. Thus, antichrist has become an ultimate symbol of hatred in our time. It has fostered a number of unhealthy obsessions for seeking out and destroying the latest "enemy."

Education also threatens them, partly because of their own ignorance. They rationalize, and are the leaders in, anti-Semitism, militias, and neo-nazi movements. The Jews, they say, were destined to make a "pact" with antichrist, because they have left Jehovah. (See "AntiChrist: Spiritual Philosophy or Science-Fiction?", and "Antichrist: Obsession and Superstition", in this same series.) Even the ghastly holocaust has been presented as a "just chastisement" of a wayward race. They present Roman Catholicism as the nucleus of a science-fiction "world religion" of the future.

World peace is ironically seen as a cause of the antichrist. So are modern movements in ecology. In fact, as long ago as the 1940's, progressive politicians were labelled as agents of the antichrist. Jehovah's Witnesses still present big business, big government, and "evil" churches as all a part of a satanic conspiracy.

Being filled with superstition and hate, fundamentalists are able to "decode clues" in the most unlikely places, objects, persons, and events. These often center around the fear of the number 666, which has been suspiciously found on everything from addresses to license-plates. Although they universally taught that the "New Deal" would lead directly into Armageddon, and that similar events in more modern times would do the same, thankfully they have been wrong every time. In fact, in well over two thousand years of predicting the end, they have never been right.

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