An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire (Hardcover)

Rather than running to the hills of political disengagment Northcott's book urges Christians to resist the domestic individualist dogmas and the imperialism of US foreign policy - situated helpfully in their cultural and historical context - in a manner that reflects the mission Christ.

The book combines a devastating critique of the development and cultural roots of US imperialism and unveils the power arrangements that are masked by rhetoric derived as much from Lockean liberalism as evangelicalism.

He discredits the apocalypticism of those evangelical churches who have confused their mission on earth. Rather than seeing the Christian's task as preparing the world (through Israel, neo-liberalism and anti-statism) for the future reign of Christ whilst God takes some time off, he follows Christ by calling for them to 'be Christ' in the world now.

An irony that Northcott explains is how the Christian right came to their unequivocal support of Israel against the Arab Muslims. Considering the appalling history of how Christians have behaved toward Jews in Eastern and Western Europe, in Russia, in the United States, and elsewhere it is difficult to understand why they should now be championing the Jewish cause. The answer is as simple as it is stupid. The evangelicals think that by establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine they are helping to usher in the Rapture, Armageddon and the return of Christ and his 1,000-year reign of peace. They believe this because it is prophesied that the Jews will return to Palestine and resettle the biblical lands, rebuild Jerusalem "and in particular the Third Temple on the site currently occupied by the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque" before the apocalypse. (p. 61) Evangelical Christians have little interest in helping the Jewish people. Their real motivation for supporting Israel is to further their delusive sense of history.

Not so incidentally it is further prophesied that this will be a horrific time for the Jews in Israel because of "fierce resistance" and "dreadful wars"; but those who survive "will ultimately recognize Christ as the true Messiah and so greet him at his Second Coming." (p. 61) In other words, what they think they are helping to usher in is a time of slaughter of the Jews and then the eventual ending of the Jewish religion as such. Amazing.

Northcott calls this "dispensational" thinking from those Christians who are following the teachings of Biblist Charles Schofield, the Pentecostal Edward Irving, the dispensationist, Brethren leader John Nelson Darby and others. "According to Darby there are seven dispensations in human history, the first being the paradise of the Garden of Eden, and the last being the 1,000-year reign of saints referred to in Revelation 20.1 - 7." (p. 58)

The "angel" directing the storm, the "angel invoked by George W. Bush in his Inaugural Speech in 2001," Northcott advises us, "is more like a prideful fallen angel than a humble servant of God." (p. 178)

Northcott's position is certainly a giant step removed from that of the evangelical right in the United States. And it is always good to hear someone from within Christianity in opposition to the preemptive unilateralism of the Bush administration. However, I don't think the cause of humanity and this planet is furthered much by making distinctions between angels, good or bad. In a larger sense we are told to choose between the good angels of the West and the bad angels (or "devils") of the Middle East. Indeed radical Muslims call Westerners "devils" while conservative Christians term radical Muslims "evil."

What is needed is a foreign policy based on an empirical assessment of options directed not by supernatural powers but by rational, educated, experienced and hardworking human beings who love their children and their grandchildren and who recognize that they have a stake in the future of this planet. The fact that Northcott does a masterful job of exposing the apocalyptic underpinnings of the Bush administration's foreign policy and its desire for empire does not address the more general problem brought about by government in the throes of any religious foreign policy. True, a president with a more mainstream Christian ethic would be loathe to intentionally cause the death of tens of thousands of people by an unprovoked invasion of another country or to deliberately enrich his most wealthy supporters at the expense of the poorest people both at home and abroad. And it is true that a Christian president who eschews the premillennialist mumbo jumbo of apocalypse, rapture, hellfire and such would take better care of the environment. But the real essence of the American experience and the American political and governmental way of life is the separation of church and state. I would hope that in his next book the very articulate and learned Mr. Northcott would emphasize the need to keep those who believe in angels and devils away from the reigns of state.

My criticism aside, this book is a most impressive and devastating critique of the Bush administration's imperial designs written in a way that rivets the reader to the page. Let me quote a passage from the beginning of the chapter entitled, "The 'War on Terror' and the True Apocalypse" to give you a feel for the power of Northcott's prose:

When George W. Bush was invited in 2003 to be the first US President to make a full State visit to the United Kingdom, he travelled with an entourage of 700 people. The streets through which his entourage processed were cleared of all ordinary people so that they could not wave an American flag or hold up a placard of protest as he drove through London behind 5 inches of plate glass in the Cadillac Deville flown over for the purpose. His limousine drove in the midst of a procession of dozens of black cars and jeeps containing US secret service, armed militia, Presidential staff, and the keeper of the nuclear button that the President carries with him at all times in case of a sudden need arising for him to rain America's vast arsenal of nuclear weapons on a miscreant state. This was truly an imperial procession, the like of which London had never before witnessed throughout its long history. (p. 103)