By Dan Gilgoff and Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editors
(CNN) - On our sister blog The 1600 Report, CNN's Alex Mooney notes a discrepancy in the official White House transcript of a California fundraiser Monday night, during which a person who heckled President Barack Obama was escorted out by security.
Here's the White House transcript's account of the heckler:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: The Christian God is the only true living God, the Creator of the heavens and the universe.
But Mooney observes that the White House pool report records the heckler as being much more blunt, yelling "'Barack Obama is the Antichrist!"
The president interrupted his remarks at the fundraiser, held at Los Angeles' House of Blues, to respond to the heckler.
"First of all, I agree Jesus Christ is the Lord," Obama said. "I believe in that. I do have a question, though. I think the young man may have left his jacket... "
Ironically, the remark about Obama as the Antichrist came the same day that The New York Times ran an op-ed arguing that the Antichrist is assuming a bigger place in the public discourse, as evangelical Christian ideas about the end times gain traction.
In a piece titled "Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics," Washington State University history professor Matthew Avery Sutton argues that, for some Christians, Obama fits into ideas about the Antichrist, whose arrival is believed to be a portent of the end times and Jesus' second coming:
For some evangelicals, President Obama is troubling. The specious theories about his place of birth, his internationalist tendencies, his measured support for Israel and his Nobel Peace Prize fit their long-held expectations about the Antichrist. So does his commitment to expanding the reach of government in areas like health care.
The op-ed was the most e-mailed piece on nytimes.com for much of Tuesday.
In the 2008 campaign, Republican presidential nominee John McCain released an anti-Obama ad called "The One" that ridiculed Obama for what it said was his messiah complex. Some critics claimed the spot was a veiled attempt to paint Obama as the Antichrist, though the McCain camp denied it.
What do you think? Is there a gathering movement to paint the president as the Antichrist? Are such charges overblown attempt to discredit Obama's critics?
Read Mooney's full report here.
I just re-read the last sentence of your post. Are these charges overblown? Are you kidding? Is this supposed to be professional journalism or another night on The Discovery Channel? What's next? Ancient Aliens?
ancient alien dinosaurs !
As an atheist, I feel it's my responsibility to foment confusion and discord in the christinsanity community by claiming that many different people are the anti-christ. More specifically, I use their own stupid beliefs against them by saying "the sky is falling", and relating it to an absurd religious delusion. It's fun, and keeps people on their toes.
The Anti-Christ will obviously be a Republican, not a Democrat. Anyone can see that...
You gotta be f'n kidding me....
Oooh, yeah, the antichrist. He's been coming for 2000 years, you'd think his ball's would be dry by now. Christinsanity is a plague, Religion = Delusion.
Newt is the antichrist.
.....and the Earth is flat....thunder are the demons in the sky arguing...etc. Sadly, there are believers. As long as there are enough people beliving in a concept and it is repeated enough times over a long period of time, it seems to become fact. Supernatural is Supernatural, more than just our comis books.
fortunatelly we all know the trueth. Obama is the LOCK NESS MONSTER
The Book of Revelation is best described by the following:==>
"Nineteenth-century agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll branded Revelation "the insanest of all books".[30] Thomas Jefferson omitted it along with most of the Biblical canon, from the Jefferson Bible, and wrote that at one time, he "considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams." [31]
Martin Luther "found it an offensive piece of work" and John Calvin "had grave doubts about its value."[32]
Next topic !!!!
Those thoughts are just human wisdom
CRAZY people trying to inject their CRAZY-ISM into our politics... take your crazy selves home and sit down !!!@!
It's called a delusion. It's crazy, I know, but it can be fixed. CRAZY usually cannot be fixed.
I don't agree with everything the President does. But the blatant disrespectlful comments are just so unnecessary, ugly and down right hateful. America we must remember, "Divided we shall fall." Let's get it together, huh?
love it V.P. love it... wish more thought like you
That would dindicate intelligence.. Sorry gotta cut this post short so i can run to Wal mart!
What comments are you talking about? It seams to me the division is being conducted by the GOP in trying to drag all of us back to the stone ages.
ABSURD! ABSURD! ABSURD!
Who is most likely to think the world began 6,000 years ago with one man, one woman and a talking snake:
(a) illiterate tribesmen from Yemen who have never had the benefit of even a fifth grade education
(b) Homeless people who have never read a science book
(c) American Evangelical Christians; or
(d) All of the above?
e) Brainwashed children who don't have a say, or choice, in their delusional education.
Gotta love the Liberal media. This is a front page article on CNN. ONE idiot heckler yells something out and now we have an article about some conspiracy to "Paint Obama as an anti Christ." And now we'll have everyone (on this website) jumping on the bandwagon and making blanket accusations about anyone that doesn't support Obama.
Where are the CNN articles about all of the accusations from Hollywood and MSNBC, NYT, etc etc, that anyone that doesn't support Obama is a racist? Where are the articles that show the evidence of this or if not, the lack of evidence... I'll wait.
let me get this straight, you see an article about obama being painted as an antichrist, and your first concern is that the people who don't like obama will get labeled as religious people who think obama is the antichrist?
Your problem is in the use of the word "everyone", such as, "When will everyone realize that everyone is not included every time someone mentions something." And besides, if you're a christian, you are technically racist because you think "everyone" who doesn't accept jebus crisco is wrong, and bad, and gonna' wind up in hell. To me, that's racism; hating someone because they're different.
on as serious note, look up 'obama bucks,' if you think there are no racists elements at play. Also, look up how during the election obama got flak for being in a chicago christian church lead by an outspoken minister, and then how a lot of the republican base thought obama was muslim. Please also see the hooplah about the 'terrorist bump' obama gave his first lady. Not to mention the whole 'we need to see the original' birth certificate fiasco. Donald Trump has someone looking into it.
the right wing media have taken over your party with blatant lies. check yourselves before you wreck yourselves.
Sweet – if he is the AntiChrist, then he definetly gets my vote!
If it walks like a duck....
Jason ; If a fool says dumb things, then ......
...then it must be a duck, but certainly not the Anti-Christ...for Christ sake! Talk about looney-bin idiocy!!
then its a chicken?
You mean he has supernatural powers? Wouldn't he have turned most of the Republican politicians to DUST by now? (one could only HOPE–joy overload just imagining it!)
These people are looney. I almost wish there would be a "rapture" so they would go away and leave the earth to the sane people.
lol
Absolutely. I wish they hadn't missed the bus that Heaven's Gate took, they'd be home by now!
Hey all you believers....
If you are a TRUE CHRISTIAN, then you MUST vote for Obama BECAUSE you believe him to be the AntiChrist!
Because then JESUS WILL RETURN!
Excellent logic there, "A vote for Obama is a vote for Rapture". I can see it now on billboards everywhere...
the antichrist is a boogeyman, to keep the flock from fleeing a corrupted religion into the hands of someone that can make the world better.
even if the antichrist was real, his coming and success would by prophecy precede the second coming of jesus, making the antichrist less anti, and more like a herald of christ. Of course, try pointing that out to someone who believes in this stuff. Every generation for two thousand years thought jesus would return while they were alive.
How narrow minded and pathetically ill informed people are about the holy scriptures. Yes I do believe there is an individual who will become the anti-christ and that his powers will be supernatural and only those who know the truth from reading and studying the Bible will be knowledgeable enough to recognize the truth. The anti-christ is not Barrack Obama.
I like how you will only trust the decision when it comes from "those who know the truth from reading and studying the Bible". You are one of the most whacked-out delusionists if you think for a second that anyone who reads that pathetic excuse of a book is going to find any truth whatsoever. What about all those who know the truth from reading the koran, or the book of moron, or studying about Xenu, like the sciencefictionologists do? You are just as delusional as all of them, take a minute to compare and you'll see it's true.
Jesus is truth
I think this is very much true. Why else at a business meeting this week did someone make the comment that end times are here if we don't change the political top in the next election. To many signs point to this he says.. What? I just shook my head and let him talk.
Why else? Are you really that stupid? It's because anyone who would say that is delusional and should be committed to an insane asylum, that's why. Wow, "Joe Blow at the office said it, so it must be true". No wonder we have so many problems, people are dumber than dirt.
Antichrist?! What is wrong with people today. Your religious beliefs should have nothing to do with politics. You can have morals and not be religious. In fact, I know more non-religious people that have more morals than religious ones.
Antichrist. If that means the opposite of being christian, I'll take it.
Right on Rachel !!
Let's get religion out of politics, PLEASE!!!