Chris

American Christian fundamentalism has been obsessed with Millinarianism in one way or another since the latter half of the 19th century. It has given rise to some of the most well known sects that have survived to this day (Mormons, JWs, Adventists) as well as many more that didn’t, but it also has a home in mainstream (i.e. creedally orthodox) charismatic Christianity.

Interest in the end times was turbo-charged in the mid 20th century with the world seeming to be on a nuclear knife-edge. A 1960s book called The Late Great Planet Earth set out the modern form of the end times beliefs Huckabee seems to be espousing here. The same basic set of predictions about the end times are also contained in a novel series called Left Behind (the first of which was badly adapted into an airport disaster movie starring Nicholas Cage some years ago).

This is by no means the only way of understanding the Bible’s Book of Revelation, and it was not the way the church understood it at all until it took root in the USA, which has used its cultural reach to spread it far and wide. But it is now widespread and so while it may sound a bit batty to unchurched ears, especially on the lips of someone so close to the president, it really is not all that surprising when understood in context.