Spit & Polish: 28 August 2011

Politicians and Rapture merchants should team upto form a club for the self-deluded

Earlier this year I wrote about unease among the faithful because various evangelical preachers had announced - yet again - the imminent arrival of the Rapture. If you missed that column, permit me to do a quick re-cap.

This is how it goes. When Armageddon is at hand, the world and all who live in it will die horribly - with the exception of true believers. For them, the Rapture will be a safe, early exit from this catastrophe.

On the day of the Rapture, the faithful will be swept on high, away from this doomed and decadent planet, to be welcomed in Heaven by the loved ones who "went before". After they settle in, "the End Times" will begin - but no one seems to know when this will happen.

It was talked about in the 16th century, but the most militant believers in the "Rapture" were the preachers who left Europe to settle in America in the 17th century. One can understand the attraction of the event. It's a spiritual tax rebate for a tightly knit community who follow their leader unswervingly because they believe he's getting them a short-cut into Heaven.

There have been many "Rapture" announcements, but nothing has ever happened. Over three centuries, the faithful (or the gullible) followed the forecasters of the Rapture, and the prediction always failed.

Preacher William Miller joyously proclaimed March 1844 as the date of the Rapture - but nothing happened. Then he proclaimed, apologetically, that he had miscalculated the date, but promised it would definitely happen in October 1844. It did not.

With so many no-shows over three centuries, you would think that people would smell a rat, but they don't. A radio evangelist, Harold Camping, boldly predicted September 6 1994 as the Day of Rapture. Nothing happened. Then Camping announced that May 21 2011 would bring us the Rapture.

I am a cautious creature so, just in case, on that date I wore my best clothes and packed a small basket of Lindt Dark Orange chocolate bars, Romany Creams and Twinings Voyage Indian Chai. I also gathered my two exquisite dogs - and if they don't have dogs in Heaven, I'm going back down - and we waited and waited and waited some more.

Eventually, after we had chomped all the goodies and the sun was rising, it was clear that this Rapture was a no-show. But that didn't cramp Camping's style. He is a game guy and this week I got an e-mail telling me that "a non-visible spiritual judgment" had taken place, and that the physical Rapture would occur on October 21 2011. I replied by e-mail, telling him to shove his Rapture where it belongs.

I am more troubled by the chaos and violence we have seen in the world in the last eight months. January 2011 started with brutal riots in Tunisia and Egypt which left a trail of death and destruction. We saw two tyrants fall and watched news clips of nations that had not yet seen much change. The media tagged it "the Arab Spring" and it spread to Libya, where that daft old dictator Gaddafi tried to cling to his cash, his status, his oil and his devious family. The Libyan uprising sent a revolutionary sizzle into Syria, where Bashar al-Assad added his brutal and lawless contribution to the Arab Spring.

We also saw the US facing political and financial bankruptcy and we saw President Barack Obama in meltdown. Watching him on TV, right now, is like watching one of those Disney cartoons in which a wicked witch (could she be Sarah Palin?) has slipped a shrinking spell into his presidential coffee and we can almost see him dwindling in stature. The easy, confident manner is now peppered with bluster like: "Let me be clear on this ..." Any language analyst will tell you that such a phrase is a tell-tale sign of insecurity.

Obama, of course, has Hillary Clinton on his team, and as far as I can see, she is doing all the work. If Obama becomes that terrible thing - "a lame-duck president" - Clinton would probably become the first woman president of the US. And while I might like to say something involving the words "Lady Macbeth", I won't.

On the subject of lame ducks, however, have you ever seen anything as dismal as British Prime Minister David Cameron squirming and squealing through his ghastly misjudgments of the phone-tapping scandal and the London riots? Cameron is squawking for law and order while his own politicians are shrinking his police force. How dumb is that?

I think Cameron and Obama should team up with Harold Camping, the guy who has mistaken the day of Rapture, but still retains a following. That's something that Cameron and Obama seem to share, and as I look ahead, I suspect we are not heading for Rapture of any kind, just a lot of misery.