The Modern Moloch, Part 5: The Political Messiah

These past few weeks we have been exploring the nature of government as I have began to dig into the religious nature of the way that government functions. In Part 1, we looked at the idolatrous nature of the State and the way it maintains its power through human sacrifice. In Part 2, we looked at the characteristics of a cult and demonstrated how the way that the political system functions all fifteen qualifications and expounded on how the government was a death cult (i.e. a cult that promoted and venerated killing, death, and dying in its service as the ultimate good.) In Part 3 and Part 4, we looked at the characteristics of religious worship (sacred texts, temples, churches, prayers, objects of worship/idols, etc.) and demonstrated how the government fulfills every characteristic of religious belief and worship.

Here in Part 5, I will be talking about the central figure of politics, the idea that holds all worldly political systems together -from totalitarian dictatorship to direct democracy- the utopian belief that a person or group of people can, if given enough power, solve all the world’s social, economic, and spiritual problems through the use of violence to compel obedience to his/hers/their stated ideal. In other words, I am going to be talking about the Political Messiah.

The Origins of the False Messiah

And there was war in Heaven…

In Latter-day Saint theology, the conflict between the True Messiah and the False Messiah can be traced all the way back to the pre-mortal Council in Heaven. (Abraham 3:19-28) There we believe that Heavenly Father gathered all His spirit children together -that would be all humans before their birth on Earth- and announced what we now know as the Plan of Salvation or the Plan of Happiness. There Father announced His plan to create a physical Earth where His children could go, receive physical forms, experience mortality with all its joys and sorrows, be tested and proved to see if they would choose to serve God, and to allow them through experience to develop the kind of of character and nature that would be prepared to become all that He knew we could become- i.e. gods. (D&C 132:20) This plan carried two dangers- the inherit experience of suffering and the possibility of failure. Promising to fulfill Father’s will, Jehovah/Yahweh (the pre-mortal Jesus Christ) stood and accepted the responsibility of being the Savior, the Messiah. Opposing this, Lucifer promised to save all people without the possibility of failure, demanding only the throne and all the power of the Father in order to accomplish this feat. (Moses 4:1-4) When Lucifer’s proposal was rejected as it would destroy the very purpose of Creation – the transforming of God’s spiritual children through the trail and testing that would prepare them for godhood- Lucifer rebelled and, now labelled Satan, was cast from Heaven with all his followers. This was the war in Heaven. (Revelation 12:7)

From the very early stages of history Satan’s goal was to present himself as the Savior of Mankind. As part of the temple ceremony those in attendance are shown a dramatization of the Creation of the world and the Fall of Adam and Eve. As part of this presentation Satan, after tempting Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit, declares that he will “buy up armies and navies” and through apostate religious leaders and wicked political leaders will reign with “blood and horror” upon the Earth. After they have been cast out of the Garden of Eden, presents himself as the “God of this world.” Those words -blood and horror- have always stood out to me. Blood represents bloodshed and horror means terror. In other words, Satan would ensure his control of the fallen world by using the militaries of the world to kill or terrorize any of those who would not obey him. Does this not sound like the way the State- the government- functions? Will the government not kill you in order to compel obedience from you and does it not seek to ensure your obedience to its order by terrorizing you with the threat of violence and death?

When Satan came among Adam and Eve’s children he told them that he too was a “son of God” and that they should love and serve him. Cain specifically loved Satan more than God, murdered his brother Abel as a human sacrifice to Satan, and then, following Satan’s teachings, Cain could then take all his brothers possessions. This was all part of Satan’s false religion wherein Cain was crowned the Master Mahan in the false priesthood of this infernal faith. (See Moses 5) When Satan appears to Moses, Satan again demands worship. When Moses refuses, rejecting Satan and telling him that he has no glory and is therefore beneath Moses’s attention, Satan “Satan cried with a loud voice, and ranted upon the earth, and commanded, saying: I am the Only Begotten, worship me.” (Moses 1:19) Even to the Christ Himself, Satan showed “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” and declared “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9) The Book of Mormon warns repeatedly about wicked “combinations” which worship Satan and who exercise political power (2 Nephi 2:26, Helaman 6:26-29, and Ether 8:18-20, to start with) that ultimately destroy two civilizations. Satan is always connected to the gaining and usage of political power.

The Great and Abominable Church

In every age, Satan has tried to impersonate Jesus Christ and to be worshiped as God. When that has failed he has always reacted with rage and violence, promising to destroy those who refuse him with the power of the armies and navies of the Earth because he is their god. The Bible doesn’t dispute this claim either. In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul uses “god of this world” as a reference to Satan and his efforts to blind the people of the world to the truths of the Gospel. In 1 Nephi 14 in the Book of Mormon the prophet Nephi has a vision of an angel who shows him that the world is divided solely between two powers- Satan and Christ:

The world is divided between the church of Christ and the church of Satan. If you do not belong to the church of the Lamb of God then you belong to the church of the devil, which Nephi notes is the whore of all the earth. Notice also that this abominable whore has dominion -rulership, control, domination- over all the earth and in every nation and people on the planet.

This goes very well with John’s vision in the Book of Revelation. In Revelation, John sees a dragon, which is identified in Revelation 12:9 as the Devil. The dragon is described as having seven heads, seven crowns, and ten horns. Dr. Alonzo Gaskill explains in his book The Lost Language of Symbolism that crowns represent authority and political power (pgs. 69-70) and that the horns represent the imperfect power of the Devil (pgs. 49-50). Then in Revelation 13, John sees a great seven-headed beast arise which is empowered by and and which serves the Devil. According to the revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Beast is, “the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth.”(See Revelation 13:1, footnote a.) Note that “likeness” means not just looking like something, but being a representation of it. Revelation 13:2 explicitly says that this beast which represents the kingdoms of the world gets “his power, and his seat, and great authority” from the dragon- the Devil. Revelation 13:7 says the Beast has the power to make war and has power “over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” Accompanying this beast is another figure, described in Revelation 13:11 as a beast but in Revelation 19:20 as a false prophet, whose job is to promote the beast and work apparent miracles in its name. This figure is infamously known as the Antichrist.

Connected to the beast is Babylon, the “whore who sitteth upon many waters” and who is the “Mother of Harlots and Abominations” (Revelation 17:1-5) John tells us that the waters that the whore sits upon “are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” and we are specifically told that she “reigneth over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:15, 18) She is wearing purple and scarlet- purple being the color of royalty and scarlet being the color of blood, which Dr. Gaskill notes mimics the blood red vestments of the temple priests after they had finished making sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. The parallels seem too strong here to deny- Babylon the Whore is a symbol for the same organization which Nephi’s great and abominable church is a symbol of- the church of the devil. (Gaskill, The Lost Language of Symbolism, pg. 70) Dr. Stephen Robinson explains that both Nephi and John are talking about the same thing:

When we put all this together, we find that the term great and abominable church means an immense assembly or association of people bound together by their loyalty to that which God hates. Most likely, this “church” is involved specifically in sexual immorality, idolatry (that is, false worship), or both. While the book of Revelation does not use the exact phrase “great and abominable church,” both John and Nephi use a number of similar phrases to describe it. They call it the “Mother of Harlots, and Abominations,” “mother of abominations,” and “the whore that sitteth upon many waters.”

The Beast and the Whore

So, we have Satan, the self-proclaimed god of this world whose goal is to usurp the role of Jesus Christ and be worshiped as the God and Savior of Mankind. To this end, Satan has constructed two interlaced systems of domination, one political and the other spiritual. Repeatedly, Satan is shown as controlling the political systems of the world and his vow is to use their destructive power to exert his control over the people of the world. The Beast of Revelation represents the nations of the world, which in turn derive their power and authority from the Devil. The Whore, aka the great and abominable church, is the religious institution of Satan’s which exercises control over the political powers of the world as well and is pervasive throughout the entire world. Notice no exceptions are made. According to the revelations of Nephi and John, the political systems of the world are under the control of Satan. Yes, that includes your nation, too.

As of yet, I haven’t said anything truly controversial. I’ve only been summarizing what Nephi and John have said, I haven’t applied any of it. That changes now with a few simple, but important, questions: What political system exists across the entire planet and which reigns through blood and horror- violence and terror- in order to compel obedience from the masses, that is engaged in the worst sins mankind has been warned of, including the slaughter of children? What political system rules by inspiring religious zeal and worship of it from the masses? It is the State. This is unsurprising really because, as we have chronicled here in the Modern Moloch series, the State, the governments of the Earth, are idolatrous death cults which maintain their rule through mass indoctrination, inspiring terror in anyone who would question them with the threats of imprisonment, the destruction of their homes and families, and, of course, death as they will kill you if you actively resist. If any organization in human history fits the description of the Satanic political and religious system, it is the State.

Is it any wonder that the Lord has warned us that all nations will be consumed by the wrath of His judgments in the Second Coming? (D&C 87:6) Where else but into Hell with its infernal master could such a monstrous system go? It is no wonder that when tempted with political power by Satan that Jesus Christ rejected it saying:

Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:10)

You can serve your political system/your nation/your country/the Devil or you can serve God. You cannot do both. And notice that Christ as well saw service to political power and worship as going together.

If the State can be described as the Beast in its secular functions and as the great and abominable church in the way that in controls the masses and promotes beliefs and ideas in direct opposition to the Gospel through its religious cult, we are still left with a serious question. Who is the second beast- the one who is described first as looking like a lamb with two horns but whose voice is that of a dragon (in other words, seemingly righteous while actually evil) and who is later described as a false prophet? Who is the Antichrist?

The Antichrist

The Bible Dictionary explains the idea of the Antichrist this way:

Anyone or anything that counterfeits the true gospel plan of salvation and that openly or secretly opposes Christ. John the Revelator described the antichrist as a deceiver (1 Jn. 2:18–22; 4:3–6; 2 Jn. 1:7). The great antichrist is Lucifer, but he has many assistants, both spirit beings and mortals.

Lucifer is the great antichrist, but there are many lesser antichrists in the world- if you promote a false religion and either secretly or openly promotes beliefs, actions, and customs that violate the Gospel of Jesus Christ then you are anti-Christ, you are opposed to Christ. It is in this way that the Book of Mormon uses this term when it says men like Korihor are antichrists. (Alma 30:6-60, but especially verse 12). And it is in this way that I think we should understand the Antichrist of Revelation. Just as the Whore is all false religions and the Beast is all the kingdoms of the earth, the Antichrist is a personification of all those who teach use to serve the kingdoms of the world instead of serving God.

John describes the Antichrist as a false prophet, a beast with the voice of a dragon (i.e. the Devil) but with the appearance of a lamb (i.e. of Christ-like purity and righteousness.) The Antichrist is capable of seemingly doing miracles and wonders, even healing the Beast when it was mortally wounded by the sword. He preaches to the masses and convinces them to adore and worship the Beast and even kill those who refuse to obey his orders. (Revelation 13:11-18) In our search for the Antichrist we should therefore look for these qualities: the Antichrist always presents his or her self as righteous and noble while promoting ideas and actions in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Antichrist does what seems like impossible wonders; the Antichrist convinces the people to obey it and to worship the Beast, the State, and disobey the commandments of God; and finally the Antichrist kills those who oppose its commands to worship and obey the Beast and its idols.

So, if the Beast is the State, the governments of the world, who or rather what group of people, fulfill the role of the prophets of the State? Politicians themselves. Though present in the election of every politician, every single one of which makes promises that not only cannot they keep but which are impossible to do so, this is most obvious at the Presidential level where messianic messaging is at its height in both parties and those running promise (and are expected) that if you just elect them then they’ll fix all the problems of the world -racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, classism, greed, homelessness, the global economy, the national economy, bring peace to all the Earth, and even the planetary environment – if you only give them the power to do so. What they promise is literally impossible for any person or group of people to do, yet people believe they can do it.

Their economic problems alone are pure fantasy, made impossible by the knowledge problem (simply put that it is impossible for any one person or group of people to have all the knowledge necessary to create and provide all the products needed to satisfy all the wants and needs of hundreds of millions and billions of people). They promise economic wonders and miracles, but they are nothing but lies and false prophecy. And that is but one example. I have covered in detail how they promise peace and deliver nothing but human sacrifice and bloody war. They win power and position by creating hatred and contention among the people, which is Satanic in source as the Devil is the “father of contention,” (3 Nephi 11:29) something else I’ve written about. They teach us to worship, follow, and obey the orders of the State, of the government, even when those commandments violate the commandments of God and have us kidnapped, beaten, sexually violated, caged, even killed when we do not (that is arrested, both normally searched and stripped searched -what would you call it if a stranger in black ran his hands between your daughter’s legs and felt her crotch without her permission?- locked in jail, and shot or otherwise throttled to death by the police).

• 

• 

So, politicians do all they can to convince us to serve the kingdoms of the world, the Beast, in order to gain power for themselves. They tell us that if we but serve the Beast and do what it says then it will re-order the world, fix all of humanities problems, repair all the problems of the Earth, and make everything right. Through its various programs and lies it tries to pass off its failures to do these things as wonders to be amazed at. It commands us to obey it and serve its idolatrous death cult and if we don’t then we can be subject to all sorts of life destroying punishments and ultimately be killed in order to secure its power from the threat of our independence. The actions and orders of the government – whether that be through the legalized theft and extortion called “taxation,” its hatemongering political contention, its warmongering and murdering, or any other of the endless ways it violates the commandments of God- are often in direct opposition to the will of God and yet we are commanded to obey the Government instead of God, being faced with violence and terror -blood and horror- if we do not.

The Danger

Is this not the role that Revelation teaches that the Antichrist performs for the Beast, for the kingdoms of the earth- to convince the people of the world that the Beast’s actions are good and just and to kill anyone who disagrees? It is, and this is why these political messiahs are so dangerous. They get us to look away from God and convince us to serve the Beast, the kingdoms of the earth, whose power and authority ultimately derives from Satan. And the more we idolize them, the more power they are able to seize with which to dominate society. Gene Haley summarized it well when he said:

[During the Hurricane Katrina disaster] it soon became clear that the public held the Bush team responsible for performing feats above and beyond its legal authority. One almost had to feel sorry for Michael “Heckuva Job” Brown, the disgraced former Federal Emergency Management Agency head, when he was obliged on Capitol Hill a month after the hurricane to inform an irate Rep. Chris Shays (R‐​Conn.) that in our federalist system, the FEMA chief has no power to order mandatory evacuations, or to become “this superhero that is going to step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans.” “That is just talk,” Shays responded. “Were you in contact with the military?”

For a president beleaguered by public demands, seizing new powers can be an adaptive response. Small wonder, then, that the Bush administration promptly sought enhanced authority for domestic use of the military. Although few in the media noted the historical moment, the president received that authority [with the] power to use U.S. armed forces to “restore public order and enforce the laws” when confronted with “natural disasters,” “public health emergencies,” and “other…incidents” — a catchall phrase that radically expands the president’s ability to use troops against his own citizens. Under it, the president can, if he chooses, fight a federal War on Hurricanes, declaring himself supreme military commander in any state where he thinks conditions warrant it. That’s the kind of executive power grab that happens when the public demands that the president protect Americans from the hazards of cyclical bad weather.

[I wrote more about this Bush Era power grab here.]

This is the ultimate outcome of the idolization of the State and its false prophets. We begin to treat men as gods, with power to save us from all of the problems of life if we would but shut up, sit down, and obey them. Another manifestation of this are the people who want the State to use fines and impose criminals penalties to force people to wear masks in public. People believe that the authority and the power and the violence of the State can save them from illness, even if it means destroying the lives of others to do it. That is, after all, what a Beast does, it rends its enemies to shreds- and if you don’t obey then you are the enemy. The more we treat the Beast and its false prophets, its Antichrists, as Political Messiahs who can create a new Secular Garden of Eden, the more we worship at the idol of the State and take part its great and abominable church, the more we ultimately trust more in the dragon than in the Lamb, the more we are reduced to servility to the Beast, led astray from the “strait and narrow path” to wandering into the darkness until we are lost (1 Nephi 8) and bound into servitude to by his “strong cords” forever. (2 Nephi 26:22) American journalist and essayist, H.L. Mencken put it well when he said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. “

Instead of following the Beast and living in Babylon we must heed the direction of the Revelator:

I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. (Revelation 18:1-4)

If we hope to escape the Whore’s punishment, to not be destroyed when she is destroyed, then we must come out of her. We must stop living according to her ways and forsake taking part in her cult. We must abandon our worship of the Beast, our adoration, love, and obedience to the nations and political powers of the Earth. We must, like Christ, declare that we will serve God alone! Only then, after we have driven Babylon from our hearts and abandoned the city of the dragon, can we begin to build Zion -the New Jerusalem, the City of the Lamb.