Dear St. Rita Families,

            The subject of the Antichrist gets a decent amount of attention nowadays, and there tends to be a not-so-subtle political hue to the conversation – even to the point of naming names: Trump, Xi, Putin, etc. I certainly caution against overthinking this part of the question, as many people in history have been identified as the Antichrist during their tenure, Adolf Hitler being one of them, a choice which many now might have considered understandable 80+ years ago. Most people, too, seem to associate the Antichrist with some sort of world domination, which is certainly a reflection of the Lord’s temptation in the desert, when the devil offers Him precisely that in exchange for worship.

            So, what does Scripture say about the Antichrist? How do we apply the words of Scripture to our present situation?  Well, first, in a world that has become increasingly marked by identity politics – where you identify yourself and others mainly or exclusively according to their political leanings – the temptation is great to presume that this evil figure that looms large in Christian thought is primarily a political figure. And while the Antichrist almost certainly will somehow be involved politically, the definition of the Antichrist is, well, necessarily a religious one. Anti. Christ. Not anti-republican or anti-democrat or anti-Obama or anti-Trump, but anti-Christ. 

            So, we have to think about who Christ is, because to oppose Him is to be antichrist, even if you are not THE Antichrist. The Letters of St. John make this clear: “Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us” (1 Jn 2:18-19). Many antichrists? Yes, and it appears that they began as faithful Christians, but they fell away somehow. St. John continues, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 Jn 2:22). He couches the nature of the antichrist in simple terms – denying the Father and the Son, and denying that Jesus is the Christ. 

            That certainly has some powerful political implications, if the Antichrist is involved in politics. But let’s be honest, most politicians seem to deny in some way that Jesus is the Christ, and even if they acknowledge Him as such, there is little to no agreement about what that means! So, we find the awkward and confusing situation that people believe nominally in Christ, but they oppose Him in their actual belief and/or practice. All of this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which John will say “every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already” (1 Jn 4:3). And again, “many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 Jn 1:7). It is in the world already! 2000 years ago! Rejection of Jesus is not a new thing, and the devil is always trying to reclaim the ground he lost, even though he is definitively conquered by Jesus. This last line, from the Second Letter of St. John, is perhaps the most clear: “men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.” Fortunately for us, this gives us a clear path forward so as NOT to be antichrist at all.

            So to circle back for a moment: antichrist doesn’t care about your politics. He just wants you to be anti-Christ, and there are a thousand ways to do that on both sides of the political spectrum. You can do so by explicitly denying Jesus as the Christ. You can do so by saying that other religions are as good as Christianity or that there is no substantial difference or that it doesn’t matter what religion you are (since you’ll probably go to heaven because you are a ‘good person.’) You can do so by rejecting Christ in His moral teaching – the hot-button topics of abortion, contraception, homosexuality (or other sexual deviation/gender identity), euthanasia – or by rejecting the simple moral teaching of charity to your neighbor and love of the poor. You can do so by warmongering. You can do so by pride. You can do so by greed. You can do so by lying and manipulation. The list goes on, and the point in distinguishing politics and religion is only to say that not only must the stated (and unstated) political goals be moral and according to Christ, but so must the methods be also. One can be antichrist in both ways.

            All of this is conditioning, however, so that one falls for following the Antichrist himself. St. John refers both to many antichrists, but also to a single one. St. Paul refers to the “man of lawlessness… the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess 2:3-4). He is encouraging the Thessalonians not to be agitated about the end of time and the coming of the Lord. Before that, the man of lawlessness – the Antichrist – must be revealed. In other words, one of the devil’s last tricks is going to be to promote a man in place of Christ, a man who would appear to be a savior, a man whose coming and revealing would be a caricature of Christ’s coming and which will lead many astray. Fortunately, St. Paul says, too, that when that man of lawlessness is revealed, “the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming” (v. 8). 

            But again, those who follow this Antichrist will, sadly, be already conditioned to reject Jesus by means of all the other types of rejection I already mentioned. St. Paul continues, “The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (vv. 9-12). In other words, taking pleasure in unrighteousness – whatever version of it one may succumb to – is the precursor to following the Antichrist. 

            This is very good news, however, for the Christian, because it indicates very clearly how we are to avoid the Antichrist and hold on to our victory in Christ! Just follow Him. Reject sin. Reject unbelief. Put Faith in Christ (and in the Church that HE established!!) over and above your politics. Even when members of the hierarchy of the Church do or say things that are or feel wrong-headed (or which could be obviously wrong or sinful), profess your faith that the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church and strive to be a good son or daughter of this Church which is both Christ’s Bride and His Body. It is not a far leap from the antichrist being the one who denies Jesus Christ come in the flesh to the antichrist also being the one who denies Christ’s Body, who is also called Holy Mother Church.

            Therefore, do not be led astray by claims (even so-called Christian ones) that this person or that is the Antichrist. All will be revealed in due time, and we have much better things to do than to focus on the identity of the Antichrist. Why focus on the Antichrist when you can focus on the Christ? If you only have eyes for Christ, you will readily reject the Antichrist when he comes along. And then, you get to go to Heaven! And the Antichrist? Well, we’ll let Jesus take care of him. 

In Christ,

Fr. Christensen