RELIGION: Evangelical Christians are aligning themselves with Jews in preparation for the Second Coming, writes Louis Sahagun in Los Angeles.
For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.
Their end game is to speed up the promised arrival of a messiah. For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon. With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood, California, to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfil the Great Commission - to make every person on earth aware of Jesus's message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.
In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested that the elimination of Israel would herald the return of a ninth-century Muslim cleric known as the Mahdi, the 12th Imam. He hopes to welcome that messiah to Tehran in two years.
Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines. Artisans have recreated priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple - along with two 6.5-ton marble cornerstones for the building's foundation.
Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah. So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they couldn't find even three white or black hairs on the animal's body.
Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce the completion of God's plan within this generation.
While there are myriad interpretations of how it will play out, the basic Christian apocalyptic countdown - as described by Old Testament scripture and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament - is as follows:
Jews return to Israel after 2,000 years; the Holy Temple is rebuilt; billions perish during seven years of natural disasters and plagues; the Antichrist arises and rules the world; the battle of Armageddon erupts in the vicinity of Israel; Jesus returns to defeat Satan's armies and preside over Judgment Day.
Generations of Christians have hoped for the Second Coming of Jesus, says Eugen Weber, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of the 1999 book Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages. "And it's always been an ultimately bloody hope, a slaughterhouse hope," he adds. "What we have now in this global age is a vaster and bloodier-than-ever Wagnerian version. But then, we are a very imaginative race."
Apocalyptic movements are nothing new; even Christopher Columbus hoped to assist in the Great Commission by evangelising New World inhabitants. Some religious scholars saw apocalyptic fever rise as the year 2000 approached.
According to polls, an estimated 40 per cent of Americans believe that a sequence of events presaging the "end times" is under way. Among the believers are pastors of some of the largest evangelical churches in the US, who converged at Faith Central Bible Church in Inglewood in February to finalise plans to start five million new churches worldwide in 10 years.
"Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go to the ends of the earth and tell everyone how they could achieve eternal life," says James Davis, president of the Global Pastors Network's Billion Souls Initiative, one of an estimated 2,000 initiatives worldwide designed to boost the Christian population. "As we advance around the world," he says, "we'll be shortening the time needed to fulfil that Great Commission. Then, the Bible says, the end will come."
An opposing vision, invoked by Ahmadinejad in an address before the UN last year, suggests that the Imam Mahdi will soon emerge from a well to conquer the world and convert everyone to Islam. "O mighty Lord," he said, "I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace."
While mayor of Tehran in 2004, Ahmadinejad spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming to Imam Mahdi.
For Christians, the future of Israel is the key to any end-times scenario, and various groups are reaching out to Jews - or proselytising among them - to advance the Second Coming.
A growing number of fundamentalist Christians, mostly in Southern states, are adopting Jewish religious practices to align themselves with prophecies saying that Gentiles will stand as one with Jews when the end is near.
Evangelist John C Hagee of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio has helped 12,000 Russian Jews move to Israel, and donated several million dollars to Israeli hospitals and orphanages.
"We are the generation that will probably see the rapture of the church," Hagee says, referring to a moment in advance of Jesus's return when the world's true believers will be lifted to heaven.
"In Christian theology, the first thing that happens when Christ returns to earth is the judgment of nations," says Hagee, who wears a Jewish prayer shawl when he ministers. "It will have one criterion: How did you treat the Jewish people? Anyone who understands that will want to be on the right side of that question."
On July 18th, Hagee plans to lead a contingent of more than 1,200 high-profile evangelists to Washington to make their concerns about Israel's security known to congressional leaders.
"Twenty-five years ago, I called a meeting of evangelists to discuss such an effort, and the conversation didn't last an hour," he says. "This time, I called and they all came and stayed."
Underlining the sense of urgency is a belief that the end-times clock started ticking on May 15th, 1948, when the UN formally recognised Israel.
"I'll never forget that night," Hagee says. "I was eight years old at the time and in the kitchen with my father listening to the news about Israel's rebirth on the radio. He said: 'Son, this is the most important day in the 20th century.'"
Given end-times scenarios saying that nonbelievers will die before Jesus returns - and that the Antichrist will rule from Jerusalem's rebuilt Holy Temple - Jews have mixed feelings about the outpouring of support Israel has been getting from evangelical organisations.
"I truly believe John Hagee is at once a daring, beautiful person - and quite dangerous," says Orthodox Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, vice-president of the National Jewish Centre for Learning and Leadership in New York. "I sincerely recognise him as a hero for bringing planeloads of people to Israel at a time when people there were getting blown up by the busload," he says. "But he also believes that the only path to the Father is through Jesus. That leaves me out."
Meanwhile, in what has become a spectacular annual routine, Jews - hoping to rebuild the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 - attempt to haul 6.5-ton cornerstones by truck up to the Temple Mount, the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock mosque.
Each year they are turned back by police. Among those who have been turned away is Gershon Solomon, spokesman for Jerusalem's Temple Institute. When the temple is built, he says, "Islam is over".
"I'm grateful for all the wonderful Christian angels wanting to help us," Solomon says. However, when asked to comment on the fate of non-Christians upon the Second Coming of Jesus, he says: "That's a very embarrassing question. What can I tell you? That's a very terrible Christian idea. What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?"
So are all of these efforts to hasten the end of the world a bit like, well, playing God?
Some Christians, such as Roman Catholics and some Protestant denominations, believe in the Second Coming but don't try to advance it. It is important to be ready for it, they say, although its timetable cannot be manipulated.
Hirschfield says he prays every day for the coming of the Jewish messiah, but he, too, believes God can't be hurried.
"For me," he says, "the messiah is like the mechanical bunny at a racetrack: it always stays a little ahead of the runners but keeps the pace toward a redeemed world.
"Trouble is, there are many people who want to bring a messiah who looks just like them. For me, that kind of messianism is spiritual narcissism."
Christian leaders such as Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, say the commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission has naturally intensified along with the technological advances God provided to carry out his plans.
Over in Mississippi, Clyde Lott believes he is doing God's work, and that's why he wants to raise a few head of red heifers for Jewish high priests.
But Lott's plans have been sidetracked. Facing a maze of red tape and testing involved in shipping animals overseas - and rumours of threats from Arabs and Jews alike who feel the cows would only bring more trouble to the Middle East - he has given up on plans to fly planeloads of cows to Israel. For now.
"Something deep in my heart says God wants me to be a blessing to Israel," Lott says. "But it's complicated. We're just not ready to send any red heifers over there."
If not now, when?
"If there's a sovereign God with his hand in the affairs of men, it'll happen, and it'll be a pivotal event," he says. "That time is soon. Very soon."