ABSTRACT
The apocalyptic ideology of the Christian right projects its own hatreds on to the enemy, who therefore seems wholly demonic, like the earlier forms of anti-Semitism. In holding on to apocalyptic vision, the Christian churches are thus regenerating old hatreds that began with the rivalry of cities and empires in the ancient Near East. The Christian right continues to argue for the use of nuclear arms on the grounds that, for the faithful Christian, there can only be eventual rescue and vindication. Pat Robertson links the likes of Hitler and Genghis Khan with the Council on Foreign Relations and all those liberal academics who are intent on imposing an anti-Christian new world order through the United Nations. Thus when Pat Robertson and others see secular beliefs and values or Islam as the very image of the Whore of Babylon, they join a long tradition of those who used apocalyptic visions to foment a paranoiac fear of alien and domestic rivals.
