Americanism: National Heresy

Chapter 6

Clinton Heylin writing in Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades: "By embracing the New Age brand of Christianity advocated by the Vineyard Fellowship, Dylan was about to become, in popular perception, just another Bible-bashing fundamentalist...the Fellowship certainly shared the "born-again" precepts of more right-wing credos--believing such a change was an awakening from original sin.

It elevated the final book of New Testament allegories, John's Revelation, into a literal account of end times. All one needed was the code. The end of the world was not merely nigh, it was NIGH!

Apart from the scriptures, the classes sought to provide a grounding in the works of Hal Lindsey, the man to whom God in his infinite wisdom had revealed the true code of Revelation. Though no saint himself, Lindsey was closely associated with the Vineyard church. His book The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) became Dylan's second Bible and added an apocalytpic edge to his worldview, allowing Christ Come Again precedence over Jesus the Teacher.

According to Lindsey, current world events had been foretold in the apocalyptic tracts of the Bible. His basic premise was that the events revealed to John in Revelation corresponded with 20th century history, starting with the re-establishment of the Jews' homeland, Israel. By identifying Russia as Magog and Iran as Gog--the confederation responsible for instigating the final conflict, the Battle of Armageddon--Lindsey prophesied an imminent end.

This scriptural snake oil was drunk whole by Dylan. There be no question that in 1979--and for some time to come--he believed that the finishing end was at hand. A lengthy rap from one of his fall 1979 shows illustrates the unequivocal nature of this belief.

"You know we're living in the end times. I don't think there's anybody who doesn't feel that in their hearts. The scriptures say, In the last days, perilous times shall be at hand. Men shall become lovers of their own selves, blasphemous, heavy, and highminded. Now I don't know who you're gonna vote for, but none of those people is gonna straighten out what's happening in the world today...Take a look at the Middle East. We're heading for a war. That's right. They're heading for a war. There's gonna be a war over there. I'd say maybe five years, maybe ten years, could be 15 years...I told you The Times They Are A-Changin and they did. I said the answer was Blowin in the Wind and it was. I'm telling you now Jesus is coming back, and he is! And there is no other way of salvation...There's only one way to believe, there's only one way--the Truth and the Life. It took me a long time to figure that out before it did come to me, and I hope it doesn't take you that long. But Jesus is coming back to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years."

His belief in the imminence of the End was reflected in almost all the songs he now found himself writing. Powerful evocations of dread like Precious Angel, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking, When You Gonna Wake Up? and When He Returns--all subsequently included on Slow Train Coming album--drew heavily and directly upon the Book of Revelation.

If John Wesley Harding had to deal with "the devil in a fearful way," the new songs dealt with Jesus in an equally fearful way. The scariest example of Lindsey's oddball eschatology, though, bought wholesale by Dylan, occurs in the song Ye Shall Be Changed, wisely omitted from the 1979 album. It was based on chapter 11 of The Late Great Planet Earth in which Lindsey fantastically interprets I Corinthians 15: 'In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet...we shall be changed'--to signify that "when God has the last trumpet blow, it means He will move out all Christians--and at this point we shall be changed" into...Essence!

What is Americanism?

Americanism is a do-it-yourself, subjective, lawless religion. Hell in heaven's clothing.

Its first big lie justification by spiritual experience, its second lie the upside-down Gospel of money and self unlimited--"you can have it all now, just pray and pay here"--its third big fantasy the idea that Christ will return to Earth to reign physically for a thousand years--note this is by analogy a repetition of the mistake of the nationalistic, materialistic Pharisees 2000 years ago--together with a related fantasy, the so-called Rapture.

The truth is the opposite. Blessed those not taken and not taken in. The thousand year reign of Christ has been and gone. The Rapt merchants are 500 years behind the game.

St.Paul: "Such false apostles are deceitful actors transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light."

Rather our era is the one Jesus referred when he posed the sobering question: "When the Son of man returns, do you think he will find faith on Earth?"

These Millenarians forget the first among rebels was Lucifer, whose name was changed to Satan, and that his most destructive and deceptive field of operation was always against the Church from within, bad bishops and "Judas priests"--"false prophets who come to you dressed in the vestments of sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves."

The devil's other fields of operation sex, democracy and capitalism for the destruction of marriage, morality, authority, family, friendship and folk culture--every wholesome unblemished thing of tradition sacrificed to the idol of Mammon, the spirit of greed and darkness calling itself Progressivism and Enlightenment.

The Luciferian rebellion was the foundation stone of the Atlantean New World republic of America.

Contrary to the lie and absurdity perpetuated in every history textbook, America was named after something more significant than the some ship's lieutenant. It was most likely Ameru, the feathered serpent demon of the Amerindians and invisible lord of the land of the Americas. Known to the Aztecs as Quetzacoatel, the same "invisible energy" operated in the Old World under various guises such as the "sun-god" Baal or Bel, and Moloch, and Tammuz.

The life- and child-hating demon Ameru extorted of the poor Amerindians hundreds of human sacrifices each day, as depicted by Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto, a word meaning hidden truth revealed.

The name America is a skeleton-in-the-closet and dead giveaway, for the US never was a Christian country. That notion was a useful veneer to deceive the gullible voter.

For more on this subject, read Solange Hertz' books The Star-Spangled Heresy and The Battle for the Amerindian. Also the lectures of Gerry Matatics available from BiblicalFoundations.org.

When the government changes in Washington, not much changes, because the underlying spirit of the nation which is a conquering spirit remains the same.

American Republicanism is Revolutionary and not "Conservative." Bush government adviser Michael Ledeen in the William Buckley's so-called conservative National Review magazine admitted the aim of Americanism from its revolutionary beginning was prosecuted in all fields of endeavour. Note he is careful not to mention religion, for the destruction of the church has always been the heart of the matter, the bull's eye, the American bishops being the piper that paid for the song that Second Vatican Council intoned.

Ledeen: "Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence--our existence, not our politics--threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission."