Was alleged anthrax killer a Christian Zionist trying to instigate Armageddon?

by johnalive [courtesy of Open Left - Front Page]

Christian Zionists believe that Jews are the chosen people and that there must be an "ingathering" of Jews to the Holy Land to precipitate Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Muslims are usually cast as the satanically influenced villians. As Glenn Greenwald writes:

...large numbers of [US] Christians -- 31% -- believe in "Christian Zionism." In the poll, that was "defined as a belief that Israel must have all of the promised land, including Jerusalem, to facilitate the second coming of the messiah." It thus seems fair -- even necessary -- to assume that at least some sizable support among Christians for the Bush administration's Middle Eastern militarism is due not to their loyalty to U.S. interests, but instead to their theological desire to strengthen Israel in order to bring about the return of the messiah.

Bruce Ivins, the US government biowar scientist who is now the prime suspect in the anthrax murders that came within a week of 9/11 and pumped up war hysteria against Muslims, wrote several letters to the editor that suggest he was a supporter of the rightwing political Christian movement in the US, and that he very much believed that the Jews were the "chosen."  

Originally published August 24, 2006 Rabbi Morris Kosman is entirely correct in summarily rejecting the demands of the Frederick Imam for a "dialogue."
By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for "dialogue" with any gentile. End of "dialogue."

Originally published November 09, 2004 I read Deborah Carter's column of Nov. 7, "Election blues," and I have three comments for the good woman, and for everybody else, as well.

First, it's clear that views like hers would put Jesus on that cross again. Second, thy loom and churn best be still, come the Sabbath. Third, you can get on board or get left behind, because that Christian Nation Express is pulling out of the station!

Taken together, these two letters are strong circumstantial evidence that Bruce Ivins was a Christian Zionist. For more on the threat of Christian Zionism, here is an excellent article from the National Catholic Reporter:

Religion and politics. It's an incendiary combination anywhere, and particularly in the Middle East where Christian fundamentalists, often working in tandem with Jewish Messianic settlers, promote the formation of a Greater Israel that they believe will usher in Armageddon itself. Many of this country's most ardent Christian supporters of Israel welcome that prospect. Others who don't subscribe to the end-of-time theology of "dispensational premillennialism" worry that the agenda pushed by the tactical alliance between Jewish and Christian fundamentalists will transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a battle between two nationalities into a war of civilizations that will engulf the world.

"It's a very tragic situation in which Christian fundamentalists, certain groups of them that focus on Armageddon and the Rapture and the role of a war between Muslims and Jews in bringing about the Second Coming, are involved in a folie à deux with extremist Jews," said Ian Lustick, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, a consultant on the Middle East to the last four presidential administrations and the author of the book For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel.
....

The United States' current and exclusive focus on Islamic fundamentalism is a case of what some argue is selective blindness.

"We pay a lot of attention to Islamic extremism, but we don't pay a lot of attention to Christian extremism or the extremism in the Jewish religion that is being used to justify what is going on today," said James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, speaking about the turmoil in the Middle East. Zogby argues that despite disclaimers to the contrary the United States is waging a war on Islam at home and abroad even as it tacitly supports extremist settlers in the occupied territories Israel controls.

From www.progressiveislam.info