The tragic misuse and misunderstanding of scripture

In a period of intense political debate, folks often use scripture to promote their own understandings of how the world works and to support their own ideological positions. Quite often, the Book of Revelation is used as a prophetic and literal view of events that are unfolding in the world.

Without a long explanation or a heartfelt tirade against such an interpretation of scripture that has no basis in reason and is historically invalid, I simply provide this video clip as an example of antichrist hysteria and how folks can be provoked to hateful and divisive speech when an apocalyptic book like Revelation is used by charlatans to whip their flocks into a frenzy. THE BOOK OF REVELATION IS NOT PROPHETIC! IT IS METAPHORICAL AND WAS COMMENTING ON THE EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ROMAN EMPIRE! For Christians to use it in any other way is not only dishonest, but creates a worldview that is an anathema to the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. Oh, and that means that neither President Obama or President Bush or any current world leader can lay claim to the much ballyhooed title of antichrist. I'm guessing it was Nero.