Roads to Armageddon

Martin Henry, Contributor 

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty ... . And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. (Revelation 16: 13, 14 & 16, NKJV).

Armageddon Day is only two days away! August 2! That is if the apocalyptic hype surrounding the debt-ceiling impasse between the Democratic executive and the Republican Congress of the United States (US) government is to be taken seriously. With the countdown on in earnest, msnbc.com ran a news story on July 18 headlined, 'End of the world? Debt stalemate invokes language of Armageddon'. One of many such media stories.

The Obama administration, the story reported, has turned to biblical rhetoric to underscore the disastrous consequences if the United States defaults on the biggest national debt in the world. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other Obama administration officials had been trumpeting an economic 'catastrophe' if Congress, controlled by the Republicans, does not raise, by August 2, the US$14.3-trillion debt ceiling which caps how much the US government can borrow. Economists widely agree that a real 'catastrophe' ('a momentous tragic event, ranging from extreme misfortune to utter overthrow or ruin') is likely from a US default. A situation that would drive the United States into a new recession and, like a tsunami, drive disaster through international financial markets.

Dubious calculations

'Catastrophe' has not frightened the obstinate congressional Republicans into voting to raise the debt ceiling. They are gunning for reduced spending towards a balanced budget. Stories now making the rounds by email are accusing the Obama administration of accumulating more debt in 20 months than all the presidencies from Washington to Reagan, 1789-1989, 200 years. The calculations are, of course, dubious since the debt is not a matter of continuous accumulation but a matter of borrowing and paying back over two centuries. The bank bailout, as the governmental response to the financial meltdown of 2008, and which was set to cause its own global catastrophe, accounts for most of the Obama debt.

So the administration has upped the ante, exchanging 'catastrophe' for the even stronger Armageddon. Obama has used it in a news conference. And his budget director, Jack Lew, told ABC TV that "notwithstanding the voices of a few who are willingly playing with Armageddon, responsible leaders in Washington are not".

In an age of vast ignorance of what the Bible actually says, biblical metaphors, like 'Armageddon' and 'Nicodemus by night', tend to be tossed around with little understanding but are, nonetheless, reflective of the enormous influence which Judaeo-Christian Scripture has had on Western civilisation, and, via the West, upon global civilisation. 'Armageddon' occurs only once in the Bible in the passage quoted at the start, Revelation 16:16. And the event can obviously occur only once, marking the end of human history.

Paying a little attention to the text, we discover that it is demons coming from the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet who instigate a gathering of the kings of the earth (and, therefore, a gathering of the nations) to a mysterious battled dubbed "the battle of that great day of God Almighty".

Who's the dragon?

The gathering for battle comes as the sixth of a series of seven sequential outpourings of "the wrath of God on the earth" (v 1) as plagues. The fight seems to be against God himself by a confederacy of rebellious humans and demons. In the following seventh outpouring "men blasphemed God" (v 21).

If only we could know the identity of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet!

The same cast of characters appear earlier in Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation. The Revelation means that which has been revealed, or opened for understanding. The Revealer told the Apostle of the Revelation: "Do not seal the word of the prophecy of this book (22:10)." So why can't we know the identity of the characters?

Reminiscent of the economic debacle which the American government now deeply fears, in Chapter 13 an image to the beast arises and causes all to receive a mark without which "no one may buy or sell" (v 16 &17). And the last verse offers an identification key for figuring out the identity of the beast.

Some among allegedly progressive people in Jamaica are hankering for a republican form of government. There are many fine things about presidential republicanism. But every form of government has its own set of problems. Republicanism, like cricket, is a game for gentlemen. And in the specific case of American republicanism, a game for gentlemen guided by Christian ethics. It was James Madison, a framer of the Constitution, the author of its Bill of Rights and the fourth president of the US, who declared that this Constitution was designed to govern a Christian people and is wholly inadequate to govern any other.

Exacerbated woe

A great weakness of republicanism, with its sharp separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, a weakness exacerbated among tribalists, is the risk of gridlock when both arms are controlled by different tribes. Of course, corrupt tribalists are wont to resolve the problem by stocking both arms with their own members, as was the case in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, for 70 years, and, historically, across most of Latin America and Africa copying American republicanism.

The Westminster parliamentary model, of course, has its own problems, one being the undue influence over the legislature by the executive, which is drawn from the legislature, a woe again exacerbated among tribalists.

The biblical Armageddon is, obviously, not yet. According to the Apocalypse, five outpourings of "the wrath of God on the earth", which cannot be unnoticed by anyone alive, must precede this gathering of the nations to the final battle "of that great day of God Almighty". But the American debt debacle is going to set off a real 'catastrophe' one way or another. And many other countries of the world, including our little Rock, are deeply indebted.

Holding the debt-ceiling cap could have the effects President Obama and his administration fear of crippling the capacity of the government to honour its existing debt-payment obligations and meeting its spending obligations. Cutting expenses, as the Republicans in Congress are demanding as the solution, simply cannot happen as fast as cutting off access to more borrowed money. The economy could well be sent into shock from any sharp contraction of government spending, government being the single largest player in every national economy in the world, a situation which is bound to cause catastrophic trouble in the future.

In any case, even if it turns out that the US government can function under the debt cap of US$14.3 trillion, the impasse between the executive and Congress is bound to trigger a crisis of confidence in the domestic and global financial markets, already shaky from the recent crisis and the recession following. Nobody can predict the extent and impact of this crisis of confidence.

Grave problem

But if the debt cap is upped and more money can be borrowed, and will be borrowed, the grave problem of a growing debt burden will continue with an inevitable point of collapse in the future. Borrowing to service past borrowings and to meet expanding current obligations cannot continue forever. There has to be a collapse point. This our own Government has discovered and has taken some steps, through the JDX, to rectify.

Pretty much the whole world is caught in the debt trap - with all the impending consequences of capping or not capping. And the rickety state of the global financial system, and of more and more national ones, small and big, universally based on unreal and unbacked paper and electronic money which governments can manipulate at will, shall inevitably slide into a truly catastrophic crisis. To offset such a possibility, there will be increased pressure for a single powerful global finance and economic manager to take charge.

Individual countries all have central banks to perform precisely these functions. But we have seen their inadequacies and those of the present international banks, the IMF and the World Bank, in a time of global financial crisis.

The Patmos prophet's vision of a Grand Authoriser of participation in the global economy does not appear so far-fetched now. Nor, indeed, the vision of the real Armageddon to which humankind could arrive by a number of available roads of our own making.

The ancient Greeks understood nemesis as a consequence of hubris, as the Hebrews understood divine judgement against human presumption. Armageddon is "the battle of that great day of God Almighty". And even if there is no "God Almighty", as a handful of bright, sophisticated but empty-headed fools among humankind hold (Psalm 14:1), human stupidity, greed and selfishness, not to mention misunderstanding of the role of government and loss of the control over government which constitutionalism sought to ensure, are set to deliver a catastrophic future, if we stay on the same course.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.