The Doomsday Code
This is on in the UK tonight on Channel four at 7 pm.
This is the write up on it in the Radio Times:
'St John's apocalyptic vision of the end of the world in the Book of Revelation is one of the Bible's best known passages, inspiring morbid fascination in many cultures. This programme sees Time Team's Tony Robinson visiting the USA, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa in an effort to uncover the realities behind the book's mystique.
according to a 2002 poll, 59 percent of Americans believe the prophecies in Revelation will come to pass. These 'End Timers' have powerful political friends in the White House and their opponents are convinced they are actively trying to ensure these events occur. Robinson also meets those who think that Israel will fight a nuclear war with the Islamic world, that the Secretary General of the UN is the Antichrist, and that the world will end after the battle of Armageddon.
Tony Robinson is more of a deep thinker than you might guess, and here he brings us a rollicking story about a strain of evangelical Christianity that takes the Book of Revelation literally : the so called 'End Timers.'
Put crudely, End Timers believe that the apocalypse is coming and they wield considerable and worrying political clout in the USA. We see a string of preachers from the American South (all steel haired white men with booming voices) whose crackpot jumble of beliefs may well appal moderate Christians as much as atheists.
Broadly, their agenda is to pour petrol on the flames of Middle Easter plitics, dilute the USA's will to combat global warming and foster hostility to the UN.
It's an alarming and incendiary package to say the least. And before you write to complain that I'm biased in some way, spend two hours wathcing this shrewd, far reaching film.'
The inside story
The End is Nigh, That, in a nutshell, is the opinion of a large group of American Christian fundamentalists who are featured tonigh in The Doomsday Code. (7.00 om C4). presented by Tony Robinson. Executive producer Eamonn Matthews says, 'They believe that Israel and the muslimnworlds will start a nuclear war, and that the Antichrist will emerge from the United Nations. What's difficult to get across to British audiance is that these people are not nutter but successful, intelligent American from the souther Bible Belt'.
If you can possibly make the time to watch this programme tonight, it may prove to be a fascinating insight into the American belief system and its effect on their foreign policy.