Far-Right Religious Leaders Advising Trump See Iran as an End Times Holy War

https://theintercept.com/2026/04/04/paula-white-iran-war-christian-evangelicals/

443 points · 99 comments · view on lemmy.world

99 Comments

vegeta@lemmy.world · 80 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?

-Edric, Guild Navigator - Dune Messiah

TwilitSky@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 149d

The mechanism of religion as a weapon never changes: controlling the public through fear and using said fear to extract power and wealth.

If you really want to understand power, religion and wealth one need look no further than Henry VIII's Tudor court and Thomas Cromwell with his scheme to rob all the sacred religious Abbeys of England and take their wealth establishing a brand new made up religion. It's the point in history where the veneer of religion was stripped away and left in its place were the people who had been using it casting all airs aside and start directly controlling people by simply killing and torturing enough of them.

sepi@piefed.social · 67 pts · 149d

send these bible-thumping chucklefucks to the front

hemmes@lemmy.world · 62 pts · 149d (9 replies)

Doesn’t that story also include the Antichrist who’s “charismatic” and fools them all into fealty to him?

phdepressed@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 149d (1 reply)

They believe they're too faithful to fall for that of course. It's the empathetic who are antichrists.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 12 pts · 149d

yup its all signs of devil influence. not accumulating wealth and being against people who do. feeding the poor. helping those in need. these people need to find jesus.

cmbabul@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 149d (1 reply)

They collectively believed in it so much that they manifested him into reality without realizing

Arkhive@piefed.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 149d

Like the orcs from 40k hahaha 😂

But I honestly have way more respect for the orcs. They at least got creative with their collective psychic abilities.

Smaile@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 149d

shutuuuup, your sounding like my elderly grandma and is weirding me out.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 5 pts · 149d

yes, they think he is it, and that's why they support him.

Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Yes. Also, giant man-faced scorpions wearing solid gold hats will climb out of the Earth to eat the unfaithful.

UNCANNY FORESIGHT

(not a joke, really says that. tax free. They don't have to pay taxes for this shit)

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 147d

Everybody's gotta go somehow. Being chomped down by a gold-hatted man-faced scorpion is better than lots of other ways of leaving this world.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 147d

An immutable property of marks is that they don't know they're being conned.

DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 54 pts · 149d (7 replies)

If they really think this is the End Of Time, why aren't they out there on the front lines?

HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social · 44 pts · 149d

Because they are War Pigs.

"Why should they go out to fight? They leave that all to the poor"

Lodespawn@aussie.zone · 31 pts · 149d (1 reply)

They want to get Raptured not Martyred.

Asfalttikyntaja@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 148d

If they want to be raptured, rapture them on the frontline.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 149d

This is why learning about religions is important...

Not so much to "learn" from the religion, but to learn how that religions follows tend to think.

For this brand of Christian extremism, they're trying to make the rapture happen. Because that happens at the start of Armageddon, they're trying to start Armageddon.

To do so:

  1. The area that is modern day Israel needs to be ethnostate controlled by the Jewish faith.

  2. They need to enter a religious war against all their neighbors, none of which can be Jewish nations.

  3. The Jewish nation gets wiped off the map by "heatens", meaning not Jews or Christians.

  4. Everyone the right specific flavor of Christian (extremists Protestants) gets called up to heaven, and it's heavily implied they will get to watch everyone else suffer for enterity on "hell on earth" like some fucked version of Squid Game.

That's why I fully believe trump was manipulated into starting this, everyone in on this scheme told him it would be an easy win and to kick up shit, knowing it won't.

And once it's "hot" enough over there, they're gonna get trump to do a full withdraw with no notice to cause chaos. It's likely what happened with Afghanistan too.

The end goal is Israel being wiped out, they just had to make Israel feel like they had enough back up to start wars with all their neighbors at once.

Like, their "Armageddon clock" is seconds to midnight, and I wouldn't put it best them to have trump toss a nuke on his way out to ensure Israel gets fully wiped to fufil the prophecy.

But back to the beginning:

We desperately need to solve the religious extremist issue, and just getting rid of trump wot solve shit. Everyone will just go back to ignoring the real shit till they try again.

4grams@awful.systems · 4 pts · 149d

They don’t, or at least the pedo in chief doesn’t. He just knows that he can sell it to his base. Plus he has stacked the cabinet with true believers and those that stand to profit from all this shit. Just more grift enablement, then again, most religion is.

veroxii@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 147d (1 reply)

Say what you want about the crusades, but at least the king and his knights all rode off to war personally.

DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 3 pts · 147d

My favorite story from the Crusades.

The Europeans landed and a huge mob of locals came running at them. Naturally the knights killed all the 'infidels.'

Later, they learned that the 'infidels' were local Christians who were coming to greet them and offer support.

Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 149d

These people are a danger to the rest of us. They are mentally unfit and lack basic decency.

RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 149d (6 replies)

Far right leaders want to see trump ignite armageddon, making him the antichrist.

If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will be tormented with fire and sulfur." Revelations 14:9-11

The mark on the forehead says “MAGA”

HubertManne@piefed.social · 9 pts · 149d (1 reply)

nice. hats on forehead and signs in the hand.

RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 149d

Here’s your hand sign.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 148d (2 replies)

It's kind of amazing, but these religious whackjobs may have a point. Current events are following the Armageddon myth almost perfectly:

Could American Evangelicals Spot the Antichrist? Here Are the Biblical Predictions:

nickiwest@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 147d

What this shows me is that the fascist playbook has been the same for literally thousands of years. Descriptions of ancient despots apply equally to the modern-day ones.

That, and numerology is completely bankrupt. You can manipulate almost anything to fit a specific numeric scheme if you want to.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 147d

They're idiots. They don't even realize that it's impossible to immanentize the eschaton, according to their own holy books and most of the better related fanfic.

CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 148d

Which everyone else reads as an "L".

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 149d (3 replies)
satanmat@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 149d (2 replies)

Yep. Because the crazies are gagging for Christ to return.
Their whole grift, their raison d’etre is “god is coming, pray harder, and give me your money “

Clasm@ttrpg.network · 11 pts · 149d

It's almost like it's a suicidal death-cult.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 149d

Ultimate fucking daddy fantasy with this lot.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 29 pts · 149d (4 replies)

Hegseth already thought this when he got the job.

He’s insane and in charge enough without religious leaders anyway.

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 149d (3 replies)

He's a cynical piece of shit, he doesn't believe in anything.

grue@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 149d (2 replies)

No, that's Vance. Hegseth is the one with the christofascist tattoos; you don't have those carved onto you out of cynicism.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 149d

Yeah, I have a feeling Hegseth is either a true believer, or state mandated rehab brainwashed him into it.

Or drunk visions talk to him.

I don’t think Vance believes anything he says past what will keep him in power.

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 148d

I think it is mostly cynicsm, that he doesn't actually believe that nonsense, and that he's playing those that do, and tattoos are a part of that. Guy was a fox news host, no way he's a true believer.

SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 149d (2 replies)

We're fucked.

backalleycoyote@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Maybe. If Jesus comes out of his cave tomorrow and sees his shadow it’s only six more weeks of Armageddon.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 147d

Hey, leave my lord and savior Punxsutawney Phil out of this.

ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Christian Zionism is out of control, and a thread to modern society.

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 149d

Israel is the devil.

tehn00bi@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 149d

The crusades. But with nukes.

Saprophyte@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 148d (1 reply)

Imagine believing that your all powerful god is so weak that he has to wait on you to start the end of the world. Pathetic.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 147d

It's even more comical than that. Their own scriptures say that nobody will know the time of the end of the world. "I will come as a thief in the night." But in their arrogance, they think they can force God's hand.

Fundies never fail to escalate the stupidity and to stir up shit for the rest of us.

HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 21 pts · 148d (1 reply)

Religion is the greatest threat to peace and human well-being.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 148d

Always has been.

CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 148d (1 reply)

These dipshits always see everything in such stupid terms.

I imagine a future where such people are sentenced to be put into VR where they could live out their sick eschatological fantasies. That's unless some kind of therapy doesn't come online for such people, as I think they have a (probably as of yet named or recognized) mental disorder

Etterra@discuss.online · 15 pts · 148d

Blind faith is a mental illness as far as I'm concerned.

Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Make sure their children and/or grandchildren serve in the US infantry. Frontline duty only.

Tryenjer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 148d

These types, in general, don't really care about their own children.

Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 148d (1 reply)

US was justifying its genocides in the middle-east by "they are religious extremists." How much of it was projection?

zalgotext@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 148d

All

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 149d

It's wild people are just realizing this literally decades into this far right group grooming jr politicians and incoming officers at every military academy...

It's like looking at your house on fire, flames leaping from every opening, and being concerned if your pillow is going to smell like smoke tonight.

Yeah, that would suck to smell smoke all night.

But the bigger issue is it smells like smoke, because it's been reduced to ash.

Military academies (school for officers):

https://truthout.org/articles/underground-group-of-cadets-says-air-force-academy-controlled-by-evangelicals/

Politicians:

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/the-family-explores-secretive-group-focused-on-building-networks-of-power

I'm not saying them pressuring trump isn't bad, I'm saying it's infinitly worse that over the last 30 years they've installed their people and had them recruiting peers the whole way.

It's not just "extremist Protestantism" it's the verbatim 1920 "second wave kkk" plan:

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-ku-klux-klan-in-the-1920s/

And that's not the end game, that was what in sports is referred to as "rebuild years" where the focus was on growing membership and distancing from the hands on violence of lynching to systemic violence perpetuated thru legal but highly unethical means.

People really need to start learning this shit, it's honestly the same playbooks, we can easily tell where they're going, we just have to actually learn history.

The bad news is, we missed the off ramp they took last time:

Just as quickly as the Klan rose in membership and influence, however, it collapsed. There were many reasons. Some members were embarrassed by the organization’s bigotry, some by its silly regalia and ceremonies, or its money grubbing. Others were repulsed by its violence or its hypocrisy.

The Klan’s most fatal weakness was rooted in its poor leadership. The organization claimed to stand for morality, but its leaders provided the worst possible examples. For example, Edward Y. Clarke and Mary Elizabeth Tyler, the two Atlanta-based publicists who masterminded the Klan’s skyrocketing rise, were soon revealed to have been arrested in 1919 for sexual impropriety and possession of illegal alcohol. Then, with millions of dollars rolling in, infighting for control grew fierce, and Klan founder and Grand Wizard Col. William Simmons found himself ousted by Houston dentist Hiram W. Evans. Evans had allied himself with perhaps the Klan’s most successful personality, Indiana Grand Dragon David C. Stephenson. Stephenson, a former Socialist and a failed Democratic congressional candidate, had quickly engineered a Klan takeover of Indiana’s Republican Party. Clearly the most powerful man in Indiana, Stephenson (who said, “I am the law in Indiana”) viewed himself as a future senator and perhaps even president of the United States.

In April 1925, however, the 33-year-old Stephenson forced his aide, 28-year-old Madge Oberholtzer, onto a Chicago-bound train, where he assaulted and raped her. She attempted suicide, but her death a few weeks later was ruled to have followed from infection of the wounds Stephenson had inflicted on her. A jury found Stephenson guilty of rape, kidnapping, and second-degree murder.

wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io · 16 pts · 149d

“It’ll happen this time, I’m sure of if guys.”

SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 148d (2 replies)

If they are so desperate to die, they can do it by themselves and leave the rest of us out of it.

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 148d

If they all Raptured themselves, the remaining world would be much better off.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 147d

If you lived the miserable, joyless, superstitious, sexually dysfunctional, paranoid, clueless life that one of them lives, you'd probably want to join a death cult too.

Formfiller@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 147d

People like this used to be institutionalized

Avicenna@programming.dev · 14 pts · 148d (1 reply)

It is so unlike for far-right religious leaders to side with pedophiles, I am very surprised.

KulunkelBoom@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 148d

The world's religions see no problem with sticking their dicks into children.

atropa@piefed.social · 13 pts · 149d (1 reply)
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WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 149d

It's insanity. These people are deeply mentally ill. They are a danger to society and themselves.

ClownStatue@piefed.social · 12 pts · 149d

… And it gives them all raging hard-ons.

Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 149d

Thats the entire cause of the world's pains. Ignorant religious fools calling every conflict the end. If only it was the end of THEM, we could all rest easier

MapleEngineer@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 148d

MAGA is a pedofascist death cult.

dermanus@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 148d

Religiosity has been in decline in the US, hopefully the ultra performative sect that's influencing him makes it happen even faster.

billwashere@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 148d (1 reply)

Well if Iran has nothing to lose and the US thinks it’s the end times this is going to end so well…

so…. The Crusades 2: Electric Boogaloo

Sunflier@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 147d

I'm pretty sure there already was a second crusade between 1147–1149. If we're counting, we're up to the 9th or 10th crusade, depending on how you group the last of the crusades.

GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 148d (6 replies)

I should have paid more attention and been more vocal. Every time those people came to my door telling me how everything was better when "god chose kings and leaders", I should have had facts to refute them. Hopefully I will be able to in the future.

dermanus@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 148d (3 replies)

I don't think facts would have helped you. This isn't something they reasoned their way into. You're not going to reason them out.

GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 148d (2 replies)

Can I make them question their reality?

dermanus@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 148d

In my experience, no. But by all means try. Maybe you can plant a seed of doubt that grows.

Be Socratic though. Fewer facts, more questions.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 147d

Yes, by utterly and totally defeating them.

Toothy@lemmus.org · 5 pts · 148d (1 reply)

If you invite them in and have an honest conversation with them they leave and never come back.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 147d

A few years ago, I lived in a grand old house in a nice bit of California and we'd occasionally get Mormon missionaries knocking on our door. One time, a couple of them caught me while I was off work and relaxing. It was a boiling hot day, they looked like they were suffering, so I invited them in and offered them some herbal iced tea and homemade fig bars (my wife's a bit of a hippie, what can I say?). We talked a fair bit about religion, but I'm a non-believer, so that could only go so far. I have a policy of not trying to convince people to become an atheist, but if they ask what I believe, I'll tell them. These young guys were recruited in Provo, suited up and sent off to Sodom-by-the-Bay to have doors slammed in their faces. They were naive and were very polite, nice guys.

To their credit, when I'd be in town after that, if I saw one ride by on his bike, he'd always wave and say hi, despite the fact that I'm an evil infidel.

Pro tip: don't try that with Jehova's Witnesses, they're paranoid, hyper-aggressive and, in my experience, devoid of manners.

Sunflier@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 147d

I'm pretty sure that's how they justified the Crusades.

Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 149d

Is this modern crusade three or four? I am losing track

The next logical step is obviously to kill their leadership, this worked very well in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia. Bastions of peace to this very day

Oops I have had a stroke

p.s. free one-way ticket for every Abrahamic faithful to the holy land, includes AR-15 and jug of gatorade.

Best money ever spent I tell you what

Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 149d (6 replies)

“Hamanda acka acka racka deda backa sanda acka ambo osa cacka reeté eké banda acka riki dibi asha daaah”

  • Paula White Cain, Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office
ripcord@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 149d (5 replies)

What?

Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 149d (4 replies)
ripcord@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 149d (3 replies)

........what?

Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 149d (2 replies)

Look I’ve given you two sources, I’m not sure how much clearer I can make it for you. If you dispute the points that are being made, make a substantive argument.

ripcord@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 149d

You make a persuasive argument, Fry

Widdershins@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 149d

I watched the video. I think you got links mixed up and posted some guy having an aneurysm.

Bwaz@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 148d (1 reply)

I wonder if that's the key to Trump still being so popular among Protestant Christians after so much proof he's as evil as it gets? That they see the only way out of the incredible mess the GOP (primarily) has made of the country and world is for the "End Times" to arrive, condemning everyone in the world except themselves and rapturing their gullible asses out of trouble.

Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 148d

They really believe that Jesus is going to beam their fat asses up to the mother ship. These people are scary.

bufalo1973@piefed.social · 5 pts · 149d

End Times, yes. But for the "US Empire".

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 147d

Further evidence, if any more were needed, that these pig-ignorant sisterfucking hucksters should be taxed for interfering in politics, and better yet, should be institutionalized.

KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 148d (1 reply)

On the plus side, they can no longer open the Nuclear Football suitcase because it's been inadvertently sealed shut by Pentagon Pete masturbating furiously and shooting "tributes" on it.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 147d

Unlikely. Kegsbreath probably has constant brewer's droop, and that's one of the reasons for his endless over-compensative macho posturing. That, or he feels attracted to twinks, but thinks that'll send him to hell if he acts on it. And that's why he's so obsessed with the soldiers he surrounds himself with being clean-shaven and not overweight.

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 147d

There's a name badge in that picture so I looked it up. Apparently Alveda King, MLK's niece, is on the board of "Black Voices for Trump". MLK must be rolling in his grave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveda_King

tacoplease@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 147d

Far-right religious leaders should all be used for chum

KulunkelBoom@lemmus.org · 2 pts · 148d

And he's just the addled shitbag to make it happen.

benny@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 147d

MAGA and religious zealots are like two peas in a pod, ready to use fear, disinformation and wealth for their purpose of subjugation, oppression and even genocide.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 149d

My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations

m3t00@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d

'the end is near' is key to the 10% tithe grift. same since i can remember. believer; what need money for, here.

LadyButterfly@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 149d

Oh god the news is just permanent satire

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 148d

trump won't see god in Iran but he will try to use him for his own advantage.