Pwayse Tyeesis: The Apotheosis of the Fundamentalist Apocalypse

I’m not a fundie watchdog. So when I hear Fundamentalists say something weird it always comes to through leftwing or liberal media. And, yes, today was when I heard about Jim Bakker making the fantastic claim that those who mock Trump bring the apocalypse closer. Wait, what? Yes, that’s right. Most of us know Trump as the man whose behavior and speech inspire comparisons with the situation in Germany before World War II. And people who resist him are now ushering in Armageddon? Apparently!

American Apocalypse

Recently, I’ve started to read up on the background of my own Evangelical/Fundamentalist upbringing. For years, I wouldn’t touch it. I was done with it and sought to overcome errors in my Evangelical theology by constructing new theologies on the basis of Luther’s theology of the cross (see my upcoming publication with Mohr Siebeck). This way I avoided having to look back. Though I’m aware well acquainted with the Evangelical movement, I was in for a number of surprises, though, when I started reading “American Apocalypse” by Matthew A. Sutton.

Reading that book, I realize that Jim Bakker’s erratic pronouncement is not so strange or novel after all. Did you know that in the 1930s Fundamentalists were the staunchest opponents of Roosevelt and his New Deal? That’s right…