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Obama and the End of the World in Three Movements

Among other things, the rhetoric of Barack Obama's presidential campaign strikes millenialist chords. Particularly in his embrace of inspiring images over concrete policies, what comes to mind the kind of dream world that can never be made out of the present but only the past or future. While Ronald Reagan chose the fullness of the past, Obama speaks of the fullness of the future. In the absence of specificity, of a tangible world embodied in his promise of "change," he promises, in effect, the end of the world. In three movements:

1. Messianism. Perhaps this is inescapable in electoral politics, particularly in a presidential race. Through me (and only me) the world will be transformed and healed. Need we recall: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Certainly it would be cruel to say that Obama's rhetoric goes to such extremes as this. But unlike Clinton's campaign based on what she can do, Obama's is much more on what he is, what he represents.


2. Antichrist. In every messiah is the chance and the likelihood of a false messiah. In fact, according to American fundamentalist folklore, the Antichrist will be an appealing man of peace who persuades people to support him. Because world peace and international unity are believed to be signs of his reign, fundamentalists are highly wary of organizations like the European Union and the United Nations. Just as GW Bush called himself "a uniter not a divider," Obama promises to come to Washington with a bipartisan ethic. His multi-racial heritage and his eloquent "race speech" promises to usher in a new era of racial harmony. This, combined with a willingness to seek new diplomatic relations with rivals abroad and to question American's unwavering devotion to Israel (such betrayal is another common part of the Antichrist folklore).


3. Both extremes are both tempting and vacuous. From my first declaration of support for the man, I have insisted on the need to temper his proclamations and implications of world-ending change. The future, the Undiscovered Country, does not enact the dance of imagination but rather the fits of a reality so painfully immanent that from us it stands utterly transcendent. No person, even the president, can tell our future for us.

re: Obama and the End of the World in Three Movements - 6/20/2008 11:01:14
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