THE DOCTRINE OF
THE ANTICHRIST,
THE SEARCH FOR
MORAL PURITY, AND MISOGYNY

INTRODUCTION: A GROWING
WAR BETWEEN THE SEXES

A very wonderful and dear friend of mine, Constance Cumbey, once told me that Satan's greatest ruse is to first create a problem, and then offer the solution: the poison is not so much in the problem as it is in the solution. That is very true of all that follows.

There is a war afoot between men and women in this country and throughout the West that is slowly building to a crescendo. One sees it everywhere today - a hatred of one sex for the other: women who are tired of being BRUTALIZED by men, and men who are weary of women PUSHING themselves into heretofore sacrosanct, all-male preserves where the presence of women defies all logic and rationality. It's most extreme form has manifested itself in the effort by women to enter the military. Indeed, for some time now, radical feminists have been pushing to open military combat assignments to women; hard-line feminists believe that unless women can be admitted into the "combat arms" (i.e., into what they consider to be the "warrior class") they will always be considered "less than equal" to men, not only in the military, but in society at large - never mind the fact that the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces recommended in November 1992 that women NOT be assigned to combat.

PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES

Testimony before the commission overwhelmingly indicated that differences in physical capabilities between men and women could not be tolerated in a combat situation in which the physical strength of EVERY member of a "combat team" is imperative to the team's success and safety - and this is to say nothing concerning the dangerous likelihood of inappropriate interpersonal relationships between the sexes, all the training to the contrary notwithstanding.

The conclusions were based on evidence from Desert Storm, where men serving alongside women close to the front were required to set up tents, dig latrines and carry heavy loads for their female counterparts; the situation led to EXTREMELY bad feelings on the part of the men; that - combined with a pregnancy rate which approached 10 percent among enlisted women (coupled with family/child-care problems) - meant the non-deployability rate among military women was three to four times greater than men. The scuttlebutt among the men concerning these rates was that their female counterparts were getting pregnant in order to avoid deployment - and evidence suggests that in many instances, the men's suspicions were not wholly without merit.

Indeed, surveys indicate that much of the problem of sexual harassment in the military stems in part from the men's resentment over double standards favoring women insofar as physical strength is concerned, such as the gender-norming of test scores [in the army - push-ups, chin-ups, carrying back packs, running, etc.; in the airforce - the inability of female pilots to withstand high "G-forces" in tight turns in combat aircraft, etc.; in the navy - the inability of women to handle the heavy lifting of machinery and fire hoses in emergency combat situations, etc.] which lead to the false assumption that women are not having a problem staying up with men physically in a military environment - WHEN, IN FACT, THE EXACT OPPOSITE IS TRUE. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness and a former member of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, writes, "It is hard to imagine a better prescription for future conflict between military men and women."[1]

PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

In addition, and on a much more somber and cheerless note insofar as radical feminists are concerned, a great deal of collateral evidence has been gathered which also suggests that women are not psychologically equipped to deal with the horror, barbarism and brutal shock of savage and violent physical combat - which is not the same thing as taking care of the wounded in a MASH unit, where there can be no doubt women have acquitted themselves honorably. In both Panama and Desert Storm, women close to combat in non-medical roles (both enlisted and officers) tended to freeze. The evidence suggested that women reacted to the horror of brutal physical combat in exactly the same way women have always reacted, and would react today if caught in a gang fight in east Los Angeles between the Bloods and the Crips: they froze and were reduced to a whimpering, terrified mass of humanity - and it didn't seem to matter how much training they had been given.

But despite all the evidence which tends to indicate that women are physically and psychologically not suited for combat, combat roles are, nonetheless, being opened to women. The reason? - the "Tailhook Scandal" of some ten years ago. The Tailhook Scandal gave a boost to the efforts of the feminists that no amount of lobbying could - it was the proverbial "foot-in-the-door" which then Congresswoman Pat Schroeder and others used to force the door open for women. Following the release of the report on Tailhook, then (i.e., 1993) Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced that women would immediately be assigned to combat-aviation training. Repeal of the law exempting women from combat ships came next, and the Pentagon began moving to allow women into more dangerous positions in or near land combat sites - and the military fell into what amounted to as a pell-mell rush to accommodate women in these new roles, an effort which has cost the Pentagon millions and millions of scarce dollars to retrofit ships, tanks, etc. for females.

WHY THE RUSH?

Why the rush? - the fear by male officers to be perceived as "politically incorrect," a charge which today ruins careers. For example, Donnelly - reporting on what's happening in the navy - writes, "This (i.e., the "politically correct" navy) is the new Navy: a man's career depends on having the 'correct' view on women, as defined by feminists who know how to exploit sexual politics to get their way."[2] She goes on to retell what she describes as the "fatuitous" transformation of former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Kelso; she writes, "... Kelso said he started to change his mind about women in combat when the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings caused him to realize that 'there really is a jungle in the workplace'. Kelso also now suggests that the answer to any 'execution problems' with women in combat (e.g., the "love boat" phenomenon and getting men to do the "heavy-lifting" for women, etc.) ... is 'the right kind of training' ... (i.e., training designed to deal with interpersonal sexual problems through the use of condoms, abortions, etc. and to prompt men to be more willing to help their women compatriots out physically)."[3]

Kelso's change of heart evidently saved him from the aftermath of Tailhook; when Navy Secretary Dalton - who by then had become nothing more than a "water carrier" for the feminists - moved to fire Kelso for his so-called "lack of leadership" in the Tailhook affair, Defense Secretary Aspin intervened to save him, at least in part because he had changed his mind about women in combat.

Donnelly concludes that the Defense Department - under intense political pressure from the feminist lobby - now finds itself "... condoning a new policy of (feminizing the military) that is ... demoralizing to men ... (The military) has capitulated on issues that will affect its combat readiness for decades to come."[4]

These are the kinds of policies which lead one to the belief that the liberal elites are out of touch with reality. When "push finally comes to shove" in the military, when women are finally tested in a physically violent and brutal combat environment, THEY WILL FAIL (and I speak here as a combat veteran of the Vietnam War) - and all the Pat Schroeders of the world will not be able to hide that failure. And when that happens, it could begin a chain reaction against feminism which may not end until women are driven back into the kitchen, bare foot, pregnant, and stripped of all their many otherwise legitimate social and workplace gains.

THE NAIVETÉ OF THE ELITES

One is left breathless at the naiveté of the liberal elites - what they're doing here (and in other places - such as pushing a radical homosexual agenda, multi-lingualism, multi-culturalism, etc. - agendas which clearly fly in the face of the cultural values of ordinary Americans) is playing right into the hands of the Religious Right. They're forcing a showdown on issues which they cannot possible win over the long run. By pushing their agenda into the absurd, by challenging the Religious Right on turf they are ill equipped to fight on, they are making it easy for advocates of the Religious Right to paint them as just that - "absurd."

And, more ominously and forebodingly, if extreme elements in the Religious Right have their way, in the end, what they may be doing is signing their own DEATH WARRANTS; after all, when well-known Reconstructionists can cavalierly suggest that "... the divorce problem will be solved in a society under God's law because any spouse guilty of capital crimes (adultery, homosexuality, Sabbath desecration, etc. - parenthesis in the original) WOULD BE SWIFTLY EXECUTED, thus freeing the other party to remarry,"[5] execution for supporting homosexual rights, radical feminism, etc. may not seem as far fetched as it now appears.

Absurdity in the one direction (the left) can - more often than we care to admit - lead to absurdity in the other direction (the right); the problem here is that right-wing absurdity [i.e., absurdity carried out "in the name of God"] has led in the past to the crematoria of Hitler's Death Camps.

A COMING REACTION AGAINST WOMEN

There are some, of course, who believe that such a reaction is unlikely; that things have gone too far insofar as "secular-humanism" is concerned. After all, one has only to see the way Bill Clinton got off with regard to his sexual perversions in the White House. This is certainly what people like Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, etc. are saying.

But the Bible seems to indicate that such will not always be the case. The Bible alludes to a coming REACTION to all this, a REACTION that the Antichrist will ride into power on proclaiming the sanctity of "Traditional Values." This is the DECEPTION of the end of days: Antichrist appearing as Christ and in the name of Christianity (Matt. 24:24 and I Tim. 4:1-2). This is especially true insofar as the status of women is concerned - this is precisely what Dan. 11:37 seems to indicate when it says that he (i.e., the Antichrist) will oppose the "desire of women." While there are some who insist that this particular verse refers to the desire of women to "bring forth the Messiah," such an interpretation requires an inordinate amount of convolution and seems to imply that women are more desirous of this than men. The more likely interpretation is the "common sense" one - i.e., that he will oppose the "modern-day" desire of women to seek "equality" with men in the world of business and politics.

This is the common view. Almost all evangelical interpreters of about every kind of persuasion concerning "last things" (eschatology) agree that such is the case - although you would never know it insofar as the pronouncements of James Dobson et. al. are concerned. [Please see J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come; Robert Duncan Culver, Daniel and the Latter Days; and Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince).

What this indicates, then, is that sometime between now and the coming of the Antichrist a reaction against the "liberalism" and "secular-humanism" of today will set in. You ask me, How? Well, we are not told exactly what well precipitate this reaction (a financial meltdown? A war? Social unrest? - we are left to speculate on this matter. But such reactions are common in the history of the West in the face of panic and when secularism and "liberal excess" have over-reached itself. This is exactly what happened in Rome when Augustus Caesar seized power "in the name of religion and decency" from the Senate just prior to the birth of Christ; this is what happened in France when Napoleon seized power from the Jacobins "in the name of 'right religion';" and this is precisely what happened when Hitler seized power in Germany from the socialists while proclaiming that he was doing so in the name of Christianity: "Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ... We want to fill our culture AGAIN with the Christian spirit."

And God help women when this happens. There is a history here of male brutality against women which is both very frightening and extremely horrifying - and although this brutality has historically been carried out in the name of Christianity and "right religion," it has nothing to do with true Christianity. It is absolutely non-biblical and reaches back for its legitimacy into ancient Western myths which lie at the foundation of Western Civilization; specifically, the Grail Quest.

NOW. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION HERE - because some of you may have unwittingly become involved in this kind of thinking, and if you have, it has the very real potential of ruining your marriage and destroying your walk with Christ - and all this "in the name of 'right religion'."

THE EXCALIBER LEGENDS

At the very root of Western mythology lie the Excaliber legends which revolve around the theme of the "Grail Quest;" they form the basis of much of our story telling and the way we view ourselves as a culture, EVEN TODAY: for example, the "Star Wars" trilogy, the "Highlander" series, the "Super Hero" comic books, "Angel," "Buffey the Vampire Slayer," "Star Trek," etc. And while many so-called devotees of these stories and myths would be hard-pressed to explain their origins, they all stem from the same source: the Grail Quest.

According to L'Enchanteur by French author Rene Barjavel the Grail was originally a cup made by Eve to receive the blood flowing from Adam's side; after the Fall, an angel broke the Grail, which was later repaired and became the cup of the Last Supper and the vessel used by Mary to catch Christ's blood when his side was pierced by the "Lance of Longenius" (which is today housed in the Hofburg in Vienna); this, supposedly, was the vessel carried by Joseph of Arimathea to England and which later became the object of the "Grail Quest" in Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal, and the Excaliber legends. Of course, all this is non-biblical and has nothing to do with the Bible!!

THE HOLY GRAIL: THE PIVOT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Richard Wagner (whose operas did so much to inspire Hitler) used the Holy Grail as the central pivot around which flowed the whole history of Western Civilization. Grail Christianity (as opposed to Biblical Christianity) teaches that divinity is transcendent: that man has the potential to become divine - to be joined in intrinsic oneness to his Creator. ["Grail" means "step-by-step" or "by degrees" - i.e., to achieve divinity by achieving "inner perfection" by degrees and by the work of man; to ascend by steps up a pyramid or a mountain towards "godhood" or "holiness."]

According to Grail Christianity, the Old Testament holds that God had concluded a Covenant (and consequently, a relationship) with a certain people (i.e., the Jews). None others enjoyed this privilege; it was unique. As a result, a relationship to God was possible only through membership in this group.

In the New Testament the church comes to replace Israel as the vessel through which man may be joined to divinity - and only through baptism (spiritual birth) into membership in Christ's church is it possible for man to attain this divinity [i.e., only through social identification with the church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus)].

But the church has now been splintered into a thousand pieces (just as the Grail Cup was splintered after Adam's fall) and is, thus, no longer able to fulfill its divine mission. As a result, it awaits someone [or some super, magical, spiritual group of "Grail Seekers" (i.e., the Templars, the "bondage breakers" of "Latter-Rain," the "Apostles & Prophets," etc.)] to piece it back together - just as the angels pieced the cup together after the Fall. Only when this has been accomplished can man resume his ascension towards the divine.

SEXUAL TEMPTATION:
WOMEN AS THE ADVERSARY

The problem, then, is for this magical, mystical group of "bondage-breakers" to rise up and piece the church back together; but this can only occur when enough men (no women need apply) achieve the necessary "inner perfection" required for a "Vision of the Grail" - which vision alone brings true spirituality; spirituality, then, leads to the "magic" necessary to piece the church back together. Once the church is pieced back together, the world will be united and peace achieved.

[NOTE: it is precisely this - i.e., their perceived need to achieve "inner purity" in order to stimulate the movement toward church unity - that accounts for the growing emphasis on "moral perfection" in those churches that are a part of today's ecumenical movement - and it is exactly in these churches that ACCOUNTABILITY has taken on such an inordinate importance - i.e., the submission by individuals to others in a small group for the purpose of enforcing rules of behavior designed to cause "perfection" in the conduct of one's daily life. The dynamic involved in such groups resembles the "dialectic" that is implicit in small communist cell groups where each member is constantly subjected to tests of one sort or another designed to examine one's "reliability" and to enforce "GROUP-THINK" - much like what occurred during Communist China's "Cultural Revolution." And it is EXACTLY here that women fall prey to the dynamic. Why? - because nothing causes men so much grief and turmoil than the temptation of sexual sin!! - and so much so that men who are aiming at "moral perfection" find it easy to come to the view that women are the enemy insofar as their ability to achieve that perfection. THUS, WOMEN BECOME THE ADVERSARY!! - and this is easily discernible in the literature of groups that are involved in this dynamic, for example: the Promise Keepers (please see our article, "George Bush, The 'Promise Keepers' And The Principles Of Messianic Leadership").]

Wagner portrayed this dilemma in Parzival through the medium of the "Grail King:" the Grail King, Anforta, had been appointed to his sacred office as a mere boy - having done nothing to achieve it. Wolfram von Eschenback explains" He reached the years when his beard began to grow, the age when Love turns her malice upon youth ..." She (i.e., Love) then urges the king to turn aside from his divinely appointed duties to pursue female companionship, and "... in riding in quest of adventure (i.e., sexual fulfillment) ... he is pierced, wounded in a joust, by a poisoned spear through his testicles, so severely he could not be healed." As a result, the kingdom is thrown into confusion and desolation - becoming a wasteland. Anforta's moral collapse (and, hence, the collapse of his kingdom) is caused by sexual sin.

In the unfinished Perceval by the Frenchman, Chretien de Troyes (born @1160), Perceval observes the Grail procession: a youth enters a hall with a bleeding spear or lance and is followed by youths carrying candelabra. Then "a beautiful maiden entered, holding a grail in her hands ... The grail was worked with fine gold and was encrusted with many precious stones, which were among the richest and most expensive in the world." The procession excites Perceval's curiosity, but having earlier been instructed not to talk excessively, he refuses to ask about the Grail. He later learns that, had he inquired, his question would have cured the maimed Grail King. Importantly, he learns that his failure to ask was due to an earlier sexual sin.

SEXUAL SIN, THEN, IS THE BESETTING HINDRANCE WHICH ALL GRAIL SEEKERS MUST OVERCOME IN THEIR QUEST FOR THE "VISION OF GOD." Sexual sin beclouds Perceval's moral vision and ruins his quest. Lancelot and Tristan also fail in their quests because of sexual sin - their adulterous love for women (Guinevere and Isolde) who belong to other men. The destruction of Grail Searchers through sexual sin is a never ending theme running through the entire fabric of the Grail Quest. The massive, even colossal, gravity of sexual sin in the mythology of the Grail Quest has no parallel in the Bible. So great does the fear of sexual sin loom in the eyes of the Grail Seekers, that strict forms of chastity come to encompass all those who enter the quest - a chastity under which the Templars, the Hospitalers, the Teutons, etc. all labored - and, again, it's interesting to note in this connection that one of the hallmarks of the coming "anti-messiah" is his hatred and loathing (one might even say, fear) of women. (Dan. 11:37)

It's no accident, therefore, that the same chastity - THE KIND THAT LEADS TO THE ACTUAL FEAR OF WOMEN AS A CONTAMINATING INFLUENCE - has come to encompass many Christian sects; but again, the fear so generated has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with the Grail Quest - and the extensive degree to which this kind of thinking has trickled into Christianity gives some indication as to the influence that Grail thinking has had on Western Christianity. Leaving aside the obvious example of the Roman Catholic Church, with its refusal to let its priests marry, take William Branham. Branham's influence on American Pentecostalism cannot be over estimated. C. Douglas Weaver has written, "Branham's ministry must ... be considered ... as (the) precursor of the Faith/Confession movement (to say nothing of Latter Rain) ... Kenneth Hagin ... is the founder, and is the acknowledged 'prophet' of the movement. Other prominent voices - all of whom consider Hagin their spiritual father - include Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, John Osteen, Kenneth Hagin, Jr., and Charles Capps."

WILLIAM BRANHAM, "LATTER RAIN,"
AND THE HATRED OF WOMEN

Throughout his entire career as a minister and as a faith-healer, Branham - like all Grail Seekers - exhibited a paranoid fear of women; it was woven into his entire ministry and was the main topic of one of his most repeated sermons, "The Serpent's Seed," a sermon in which he wove a truly lurid tale of female treachery, impurity, and seduction - and a sermon which paralleled in its conceptual form almost every aspect of Wagner's Parsifal. All of these men - i.e., Hagin, Copeland, etc. - exert powerful influences on today's charismatic movement, and most are at the forefront of the Christian Unity movement which today is encompassing both conservative Catholics and evangelicals.

Now there is a very earnest and somber reason that we have taken the time here to dwell on this subject. As Catholics and evangelicals move ever more closely together, this kind of thinking will come ever more to the forefront in the "Organized Church." One sees its subtle influence everywhere - in the literature of James Dobson (carefully hidden behind "Christian-speak" and "Psycho-babble"), the Promise Keepers (where it's cleverly concealed behind a rather vacuous "praise" of women, etc., etc. In the end, however, all this leads to domination of women in the worst sense of that word - a domination that is both cruel (because it is ultimately based on a fear of women as a "contaminating influence") and ruthless (because such passions must be ruthlessly suppressed, meaning - ipso facto - that women must be mercilessly bridled and constrained. Needless to say, this kind of thinking does not lend itself to a good marriage. Such thinking is UTTERLY unbiblical and extremely heartless and unfeeling; it inevitably destroys families and turns the relationship of a man with a woman into a connection that resembles more the relationship of a cruel master to a lowly servant than anything else.

SUCH THINKING IS UTTERLY UNBIBLICAL

The Bible says, however, that such "master / servant" relationships are an abomination to God and have no place in the church. Jesus said: "... Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Matt. 20:25-28) Jesus said, "IT SHALL NOT BE SO AMONG YOU," and He continued by saying, "WHOSOEVER WILL BE CHIEF AMONG YOU, LET HIM BE YOUR SERVANT ..."

Some would retort that these verses are in contradiction to Ephesians 5:22-25. Much is made of that portion of these Scriptures which calls upon wives to submit to their husbands, but very little attention is paid to the admonition that husbands are to love their wives even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. LOVE IS NOT CRUEL! It is not unkind; it is not fierce and severe; brutal and inexorable; devilish and heartless. Love is kind and gentle; good-hearted and compassionate; generous and sympathetic. Believe me when I say, "moral perfection" - when it leads to the kind of cruelty that is inherent in the Grail Quest - is not of God, but TOTALLY of the EVIL ONE - and people that become involved in such a quest have truly been deceived!!

I have been blessed far beyond the imaginings of my youth, far beyond what most men ever touch in this life by my wife of almost forty years, my beloved Lucy. It has been a wonderful life that we have shared together, and although there has been much poverty and physical stress, I wouldn't change even one iota of it now that I am old. I have loved and been loved by her more than any man could ever hope - both in my youth when she was young and beautiful and I was a soldier, and now that I am old and youth has faded away. It has been a PARTNERSHIP of love and mutual respect - and in all those many years I don't think that I have ever once ORDERED my wife to do anything. I have never LORDED it over her, and I have never taken DOMINION over her. We have just never operated on that plain. I believe that men who operate at that level don't understand the first thing about human relationships.

A CURRENT FLOWING IN
TODAY'S CHURCH: BE CAREFUL!

Nonetheless, there is a current flowing in the church which says that men should take dominion over their wives as a master would take dominion over his servant; and the clear implication here is that they (i.e., women) are a contaminating influence. It's still half-hidden and obscured behind a great deal of "love-speak" and "psycho-babble," but it's there, and most of you who are reading this article know what I mean. Moreover, the Bible indicates that this will grow even to the extent that there will come a time when those who want to "live holy lives" will be encouraged not to marry (I Tim. 4:3) and to avoid women all together - and all this under the illusion that they are doing God a service.

You must resist this current. If you don't, you will end up destroying your marriage and destroying what the church is really all about. The church is about love; it is about kindness and compassion; it is about tenderness and mercy; it is not about force and it is not about threats. The world longs to see such love! People everywhere long to see it! This is our testimony in the end of days; not force and not threats.

God bless all of you!

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries

1. Elaine Donnelly, "The Tailhook Scandals" in National Review, March 7, 1994, pg. 59.
2. Ibid., pg. 59.
3. Ibid., pg. 59.
4. Ibid., pg. 59.
5. Mark Rushdoony, Chalcedon Report #252, 1986.

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