The evangelicals’ influence in American and thus world events is actual, given their strong support of president Donald Trump. Trump’s war secretary Pete Hegseth is an embedded evangelical.
The Rapture is a rupture of reality that gripped millions of Americans’ beliefs from the late 20th Century and even had its effects ripple through everyday South Australia in early 2026. The Rapture also added to the deeply ironic place of Jewish people in history.
The Rapture is a belief anticipating the second coming of Jesus (Look busy!) to herald the end of the world. This would bring the ascent of only the chosen people to Heaven. The chosen people, apparently, are the Christian evangelicals so prevalent in the United States of America. The Rapture is a scenario interpreted from the biblical old testament Book of Revelations. This scenario was dramatised in the Left Behind series of thriller novels from 1995 to 2009 by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye about how events would pan out for evangelical Christians’ triumph in the end times.
The best-selling books generated spinoffs, including graphic novels, audio books, computer games and even films. The big worry is that Left Behind and variations on the Rapture theme are seen as being played out – and even pushed – in actual global events towards the end of the world. For American evangelicals, the return of Jewish people to Israel and the promised land fulfilled a phase of the Rapture version of history. That version includes the Great Tribulation or Armageddon that has to take place to pave the way for second coming centred on Jerusalem.
That’s why the 2026 US-Israel-Iran conflict in 2026 could be seen as devoutly to be wished as part of fuelling the Great Tribulation.
The evangelicals’ influence in American and thus world events is actual, given their strong support of president Donald Trump. Trump’s war secretary Pete Hegseth is an embedded evangelical. But, to be very cynical, we could see the whole Rapture end-of-times tale as a way to keep the parishioners fearful and attending church to keep swiping their tithing credit cards. Of course, the most ironic part of the Rapture is that the evangelicals see themselves as the chosen people – not the Jews. The Jews can only enter Heaven – do pass Go; do pay $200 – if they acknowledge Jesus as their messiah.
Of course, this just adds to the madness around the historic role of the Jews, whose god was purloined by Christianity and Islam. Maybe that’s why Jews are guiltily blamed for everything including sinking the Titanic. (Icebergs, Golbergs, what’s the difference?) In 1492 (the same year their man Columbus bumped into somewhere near America), Spain’s Catholic monarchs, Isabella I and Ferdinand II, issued the Alhambra decree expelling Jews who wouldn’t convert to Christianity.
That sent Jews spreading over Europe including to what became Germany. Despite the Jews there becoming outwardly more German than the Germans, their financial success lined them up as fulfilling fictional conspiracies such as Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russia in 1903 and taught in schools in Nazi Germany.
The horror of the Holocaust led to Israel being settled in 1947. Israel came to represent the core of extreme Jewish nationalist defensiveness, understandably, as expressed by Shakespeare’s Shylock: “Thou calledst me a dog before thou hadst a cause, But since I am a dog, beware my fangs. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.”
The exceptional brilliance of the Jews in their intellect, humour and as well as business acumen only fires jealous resentment towards them. Hints of an international Jewish world-dominating capitalist conspiracy persist behind today’s attacks on the United Nations. And – oh yes! – Karl Marx’s deep communist plot too.
And the Marx brothers aren’t left off the hook, as agents of Jewish Hollywood. Israel’s military has aligned with the United States that still has a lingering legacy of strong antisemitism from figures such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.
And with Trump administration supported by evangelicals who seem to believe that it was odd of God to choose the Jews, there must be some deep-down element of wondering among Israelis that: with friends like this, who need enemas?
How odd of God but Goyim annoy ‘im
How odd
of God
to choose
the Jews.
This doggerel is attributed to 20th Century
British journalist William Ewer.
It attracted this riposte from Cecil Browne:
But not so odd
As those who choose
a Jewish God
But spurn the Jews
And this from Leo Rosten,
American author and Yiddishist:
Not odd
Of God.
Goyim
Annoy ‘im.
At left, a book by Lewis Browne,
How odd of God:
An introduction to the Jews.