I long abandoned the Dispensationalism of my early Christian heritage. If modern readers do not know what Dispensationalism is don’t fret, most dispensationalists don’t really know either. For the curious who want a quick introductory summary, watch the triple B movie “A Thief in the Night (1972) which can be found on Youtube or try your hand at the multi volume fictional series “Left Behind” which is best left behind.
And full disclosure, I never really bought into the game of pin the tail on the antichrist that was also rampant in my early church experiences. Interestingly the only references to “antichrists” are found in the Johannine epistles. And it is plural not singular.
2 John
18 Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge.[g] 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?[h] This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
2 John 4
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus[a] is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.
7 Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!
The first thing to notice is antichrist is not a singular individual. And two, antichrists deny that Jesus has come from God in the flesh. John was probably speaking to a gnostic tradition that began in the early church denying the reality of God in the flesh. The label antichrists had very little biblical precedent other than speaking to false teaching in the gospel. The notion that the antichrist was a particular person, the evil twin of Jesus did not occur until Christians in the early church conflated the beast of the Book of Revelation with the antichrist, a particular person/group whose identifying number was 666 (Rev. 13:18). And then in the late 1880s the antichrist became part of a systematic view of history called Dispensationalism and incorporated into much of the North American church.
Once that happened the game was on. And over the course of history the list of failed candidates is too long to count. Virtually every pope has been a candidate. In my early years the WWC World Council of Churches made the list and in most recent times 1 out of 4 Americans believed Obama was the antichrist. Pin the tail on the antichrist became an evangelical cottage industry and an effective way of using fear to create victimhood and unquestioned obedience. It also allowed dubious Christian leaders to mobilize otherwise good church people to fight against perceived threats to God[1] and God’s people. Recent targets have included the LGBTQ community, communism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and any other group or policy that does not fit with cultural accepted beliefs or prejudices. And these targets are further fueled by conspiracy theories which are virtually impossible to eradicate because they survive on fantasy. They are a play on the emperor who has no clothes. Any attempt to suggest that the emperor is naked is greeted with “no he is not” - end of discussion.
But if I were to play the game of “Where’s the antichrist,” ironically the darling of much of USA evangelicalism, Donald Trump would be my obvious candidate. There are the obvious immoral qualifications that evangelicals are willing to ignore. He is a certified bully, a womanizer, a narcissist, he doesn’t know when he is telling the truth or not, he wants to set up a new world order, and he is in his own words a bad hombre. And more importantly he has been very successful in doing what other failed antichrist candidates have often lacked. He has seduced a significant faction of the church, turning it into his own civic religion.
Narcissism is impatient, narcissism is mean. It is envious, It likes to boast, it is proud, is dishonors others, it is self-seeking, it is easily angered, it keeps records of wrongs, it rejoices when others fail and avoids the truth, It always looks out for self, never trusts, never hopes, never perseveres. And now jealously, hate and narcissism abide but the greatest of these is narcissism.
I am reminded of the three temptations by the adversary that Jesus the Christ faced in the wilderness. It is mentioned in all four gospel accounts. Turn these rocks into bread - Jesus refused. Trump promises to bring down the price of eggs and not leave any American citizen hungry (a man who has likely never shopped in a grocery store). Jesus refused to throw himself off the temple and let angels take care of him, Trump argues he could shoot a stranger in New York and people will vote for him. Jesus was taken to the top of a mountain and in exchange for worshipping the tempter, he is promised all the kingdoms of the world. And Jesus said to the tempter “away with you” and the devil left him. Trump ensconced in his power, is prepared to annexe Canada, take back Panama, take over Greenland, and the Gaza strip and this is after his first month in power.
Is Trump an antichrist? He is certainly living up to the billing. Is he The antichrist. Again, the biblical record would argue against a singular apocalyptic Antichrist. But if we are looking for one, he ultimately fails. In reality, he is a sad insecure man with a great deal of destructive power who needs constant affirmation and thinks he can wield that power to get people to like him. Unfortunately, in the meantime he will leave a great deal of destruction in his wake.
[1] In the measure the church has tried to protect and/or defend the image of God, they have propagated the worse that the church has to offer.