Pastors: Russian invasion, a foretaste of the end of the world?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused some prominent US evangelical leaders to pose a provocative question: Are we experiencing the end of the world that the Bible predicted, culminating in an apocalypse and the second coming of Christ?

There is no consensus on the response and no one talks about deadlines.

The pastor of a megachurch Robert Jeffress, speaking to his faithful in the congregation of the First Baptists in Dallas, said that many Christians wonder why, given the carnage taking place in Ukraine, “God allows evil like this to continue. Are we facing Armageddon and the end of the world?” , added the religious.

“We are living the last days,” Jeffress said. “We have been living the last days for 2000 years. We don't know. Will this be the end? Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?”

The curators of raptureready.com — which spreads comments about the prophecies about the “end of days” — believe that things could soon change. Its “Rapture Index” — which when it reaches 160 means that you have to “tighten your belt” — rose to 187 this week, two points from its all-time high of 189, reached in 2016.

One of the most detailed alerts was given by televangelist Pat Robertson, who abandoned his retirement on February 28 and warned in “The 700 Club” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was being “forced by God” to invade Ukraine, prior to a final battle with Israel. Robertson stated that parts of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel support this possibility.

“Putin can be said to be crazy. Yeah, maybe it is,” Robertson said. “But at the same time, it is being forced by God. He went to Ukraine, but that was not his goal. Their ultimate goal is Israel.”

“It's all there,” Robertson said, alluding to Ezekiel. “God is preparing to do something great, which will come true.”

Greg Laurie, pastor of a Californian megachurch with a large following on radio and television, said he believes that “we are living the last days. I think Christ can come back at any time,” Laurie said in a YouTube video.

The pastor argued that the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic reveal that biblical prophecies “are coming true in our time.”

“We see more things happening in real time, very close together, as the scriptures indicated would happen,” Laurie said. “What should we do? You have to look up to the sky. Remember that God is controlling everything.”

Throughout the centuries, the end of days has been predicted many times. Pat Robertson himself, for example, spoke of imminent apocalyptic events in the past. “One of the characteristics of apocalyptic thoughts,” said Darmouth College history professor Randall Balmer, “is that the most recent crisis is surely the worst, the one that will give way to the end of time.”

“It is true that there may be some evidence of this, especially when Putin talks about nuclear weapons,” Balmer added in an email. “But I remember the frenzy during the Six Day War and the Persian Gulf War by George H.W. Bush and, of course, the attacks of September 11” of 2001.

The idea that God is somehow using war in Ukraine to realize biblical prophecies is not well seen by some Christian scholars, according to Rev. Rodney Kennedy, Baptist pastor of Schenectady (New York State) and author of numerous books.

“The evangelical insistence on linking God's sovereignty with Putin's evil borders on absurdity,” Kennedy wrote in the publication Baptist News.

“Rapture believers don't realize that if they help provoke a world war, there won't be a Jesus Superman who will show up to take all believers to the shelter of the clouds,” Kennedy wrote. “The rapture is an illusion. What Putin did is a deadly reality.”

Russell Moore, theologian for the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, said that it is not appropriate to try to link world events with the prophecy of the end of time. He stressed that Jesus himself said that his second coming would be unexpected and would not be related to “wars and rumors of wars”.

“It doesn't stick to what the Bible says and is harmful to church witnesses,” Moore said. He added that the world survived numerous episodes that were said to anticipate the end of the world.

Moore stated that most Christians he talks to are more concerned with the welfare of Ukraine. “I am surprised how little people believe that these events are a direct Bible prophecy,” he said. “I don't feel this on church benches.”

“It's very rare to find someone under 50” years old worried about the possibility of the end of the world,” Moore said.

Jeffress said that members of his congregation in Dallas are of the opinion that Putin's aggression must be vigorously resisted, “but no one is going to a shelter and preparing for Armageddon.”

___

Peter Smith, Holly Meyer and Deepa Bharath collaborated in this office.

___

Religious news coverage by the Associated Press is supported by The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for the content.