Who is the antichrist? - part 5

When you see the World's most interesting man hold up a bottle of Dos equis you understand that you're seeing an ad campaign (at least I hope you do). The actor in those spots didn't do any of those things... and surely isn't anywhere near as interesting. Somewhere in an office building there is a group of marketing whizzes banking that these ads will cause people to associate the beer brand with adventure and excitement.

There's no office headquarters for the man of lawlessness. Not in the physical realm. What he does have, however, is a legion of unwitting artists, actors, directors, producers, ect. who are all collaborating to create an icon, a kind of Marlboro Man, who sells godlessness instead of cigarettes. But let's go back to the beginning; centuries before Scarface or Snoop Dog, an age before the current batch of 007 films -- there was Christopher Marlowe and his greatest invention: Tamburlaine.

I think Marlowe is one of history's most interesting individuals. He was a 16th century poet/genius who paved the way for William Shakespeare. He was also a British spy in the employ of Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Lord Walsingham. He was accused twice of being a double agent for the Catholics trying to depose the Queen. The first time the charges quietly vanished. The second time he died three days later when another spy shoved a dagger into his eye socket.

I don't think he was ever a double agent, but Marlowe was a man who hated organized religion at a time when the European wars of religion were nearing their peak; and at that time anyone who did not think in lock-step was viewed with deep suspicion.

You see, Marlowe grew up in Canterbury, a stone's throw away from Canterbury Cathedral (the British equivalent of the Vatican). During his childhood England went from Anglican rule, to Catholic rule, then back to Anglican. As a child he watched churchmen pronounce Protestant values as absolute. Then he would have seen many of these same priests proclaim Catholic teachings when the ruling authority changed. If you want to see what happened to anyone who did not tow the party line you can read a book on that time period, Foxe's Book of Martyr's. Oh, since I know some of the old terminology can be confusing, drawn and quartered means that they cut out their intestines while the victim was still alive, then tied their arms and legs to four horses and tore them to pieces.

Marlowe wasn't the only one disillusioned by the violence and hypocrisy, just one of the most talented. His grand creation of wish fulfillment -- of a man who could transcend the religious oppression and tight social caste system of his day -- was Tamburlaine. Now the real Timber 'the lame' was not quite the world-beater of Marlowe's creation and as a Muslim he was certainly not lawless. But Marlowe did away with these 'flaws'. In his wildly successful play Tamburlaine was a demigod who imposed his will and conquered everything, even death (in an artsy no fear sort of way).

The important point here is that lawlessness became desirable in an environment of religious hypocrisy (unjust laws for living) and a sense of social disenfranchisement (a perceived lack of control over one's life). It would be centuries before the lawless man figure would return to the stage, but when he came back, he came back with a vengeance.

but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. -- 2 Thessalonians 2:7

In the 1920's and 1930's a privileged elite nearly bankrupted the United States and its average citizen. This was when the America's love affair with the gangster persona got well and truly underway. The white culture flirted with it, but it was the largely disenfranchised (there's that word again) American blacks who ran with it. Today it's called the Hip Hop culture and you can turn to any number of radio stations and hear a modern day horde of Lamechs boast about their own greatness and lawlessness.

The world as a whole is still looking for its Marlboro-man-of-lawlessness. But it's fast approaching the ideal with characters like the current James Bond. Now the original Bond wasn't a good fit for 'lawless' at all. Oh, he was a world-beater from the start, but he was also a man under authority. He was a "God save the Queen" man all the way, and placed his own desires... well, most of them, under the need to protect the UK. The two most recent movies have disposed of that. The Bond of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace is a rogue who does what he wants. Notice also how he does it.

Paul tells us that the man of lawlessness comes with "counterfeit miracles" (see the last post). Now theologians have usually explained a counterfeit miracle as an illusion, like someone making it appear as though fire were falling from the sky when it really isn't. The problem is that the ability to make people perceive something like illusionary fire without some sort of hidden machinery isn't a "counterfeit" miracle. No, that would be a real miracle. A miracle is something that violates the normal flow of cause and effect. Creating a mass illusion from nothing would do that brilliantly. Now, if you want to see a counterfeit miracle you need to turn on your television. Counterfeit miracles are produced with a special effects budget.

One might say, "But a counterfeit is an imitation that is meant to deceive? Like a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill. How is movie magic trying to deceive?"

And the answer is -- by trying to create a realistic enough simulation so that you, the moviegoer, lose yourself in the story for two hours or so. In other words to create a good enough bit of escapism to get you to pony up the cash to see the movie. Just because we typically think of this kind of imitation as harmless doesn't change what it is.

Does 007 perform miracles? Consider the real world:

Cause: dozens of armed men shooting at close range.

Effect: you die.

Now for the Bond version:

Cause: the usual army with guns, plus explosives, plus some guy with a razor blade hat or something.

Effect: a couple of scratches. Not enough to put him in the ICU, or even keep him from looking dapper.

The usual flow of cause and effect doesn't apply to Bond.

At this point you should be able to think of any number of examples of the man of lawlessness yourself. Harry Potter comes close, "Captain" Jack Sparrow is a good fit, as are any number of the current wave of vampire/antiheros.

Now let's complete our riddle:

How does the man of lawlessness avoid the 15 minutes of fame and the informational control trap?

Because he's not a mortal man or woman. He's a script that any number of people can pick up and read. We get tired of the people reading the script, but never of the script itself. And information can't control it because that's what it is, information -- a set of protocols that tells a person how to live and behave.

If you're waiting for a sorcerer to stand up in the middle of a UN assembly and call down fire you are wasting your time. The man of lawlessness is already among us in a hundred different personas. There may be another, perfect character on the horizon; a World's most interesting man that appeals to all cultures in a perfectly corrupt way, right before the tribulation, but I wouldn't hold my breath for this either. The man of lawlessness does his best work with children and therefore it is an ad campaign that needs time to convert its disciples into sons of lawlessness. On top of that, so far the lawless campaign has depended more on external conditions (abusive laws that prime individuals to think of 'lawlessness' as a good thing and social barriers that make the helpless long for supernatural powers of control) than on the personality of any particular 'lawless' character. I can't even think of any real advantages to investing itself into a single character. It's on the path to success just as it is.

Now for the last item of interest: the antichrist is never mentioned in the book of revelation, but neither is "the man of lawlessness". The reason for this is that the man of lawlessness is Paul's vision, not John. Paul and John think and write in very different ways. Paul focuses of the philosophical foundation of things; John focuses on people and relationships. When we come to John's Revelation we don't read about the philosophical fall of man. We read about one person inciting another person to commit murder. The person doing this killing is the 'beast' -- the empire of the end times. The person being killed is us. As for the instigator, that's a little tricky; John likens it to a religion, something like a church congregation, and thanks to Paul, we've just met the head pastor.

Next post we start, What is the whore of Babylon.