The Islamic Anti-Christ

[Cold Steel]

I just downloaded it to my Kindle and find it fascinating. It's not bogged down by evangelical eschatology and seems well suited for LDS audiences.

The Islamic Anti-Christ, by Joel Richardson

The product description is:

The Bible predicts that in the last days a charismatic leader will establish a global following in the name of peace. The Koran also predicts that a man will rise up to lead the nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace. The man in the Koran is called the Mahdi, or Islam's savior. However, the man in the Bible is the Antichrist. Joel Richardson's stunning research and analysis suggest that the Mahdi and the Antichrist are actually one and the same.

In The Islamic Antichrist, Richardson exposes Western readers to the traditions of Islam and predicts that the end times may not be far away. His book will stun readers unaware of the similarities between the Antichrist and the "Islamic Jesus." His research on the relationship between Christian end-time prophecy and Islamic expectations of world domination will shock readers and shape the debate over radical Islam for years to come. This is the book to read on the world's fastest growing religion and the future of the world.

I'm not well versed on the Qur'an and the hadiths, but I do know that belief in the twelfth imam (the Mahdi) is primarily a Shiite doctrine, yet the similarity of beliefs between it and the Christian Antichrist seems to be remarkable.

So has anyone here read it? If so, what's your take?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Cqp3crBto&feature=related

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[thesometimesaint]

Cold Steel:

I've always believed that one of the Anti-Christs is to be a former member of the LDS.

[Bill Hamblin]

Well, given the fact that the Evangelicals have an essentially unbiblical understanding of the Anti-Christ, it is doubtful that Richardson's book will be very enlightening. What it will tell us about is how one branch of Evangelicals eschatology compares with their misunderstanding of one branch of Islamic eschatology.

[Cold Steel]

Yes, evangelicals have wide differences with us, especially in regard to the Rapture and the two witnesses. In the case of the Mahdi, Richardson correctly, I believe, associates the Beast/Antichrist with Gog. Another difference in the book of Revelation is that the seals that are opened by the Savior are representative of the seven thousand-year periods of the Earth's existence. This is not a doctrine held by other Christians, who view the seals as indicative of latter-day events (which may not be too far removed from the truth). In other words, the millennial pointers seem lost on most Mormons, who fail to correlate them to the various events. So why would the Lord highlight them in John's vision unless, perhaps, they reflected some of the horrors of the last dispensation?

In short, I think Latter-day Saints will get a lot out of Richardson's book, if for nothing else than learning more about the Mahdi and the Muslims' fierce hatred of Christianity. The Mahdi will appear with someone claiming to be Christ, and the book of Revelation indicates that the Beast will appear with a religious figure who is able to do great miracles. And the Islamic antichrist will appear in Jerusalem and claim to be Jesus, and do many miracles, and this, of course, is designed by the Adversary to cause Muslims to doubt Jesus when he appears on the Mount of Olives. I always wondered about Zechariah's observations: "And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles." (Zechariah 14:16-19)

For some reason, there will be Muslims who will refuse to go up to Jerusalem and bury the proverbial hatchet. And from what Zechariah said, Egypt and some of the other nations are going to be slow in obeying the divine edict to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles.

Muslims have been taught to despise the concept of the trinity, the sonship of Jesus, the Atonement, and the divinity of Christ. I imagine the LDS view of gods and creation would make us primary targets. One minister actually converted to Islam because he couldn't justify the idea that God would cause his Son to suffer and die to fulfill a code of justice that he, God, had devised. We LDS are the only Christians to teach that the Father had no choice but to sacrifice his Son to bring about the Atonement. If God can do anything, then why couldn't he remove the "bitter cup" and not require the agonizing death of his Only Begotten? That's one area where the Muslims have always pinned evangelical Christians. According to their traditions, the Mahdi and Jesus will convert Jews and Christians to Islam, and if they don't convert, they die.

I think the book is very worthwhile, and the author doesn't believe in the Rapture, the tribulation and other evangelical doctrines that might prove distracting to Mormons. Except for the seals, it's a very LDS-friendly book. If it weren't, I wouldn't have bought it.

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