666

Berdyaev’s analysis describes well the fruits of wedding Dispensationalist eschatology to Atlanticist geopolitics. Such grand distortions deprive the image of God to Russians, Iranians, or other villains de jure, casting them only as evil and depraved instruments of infernal powers. They are not only denied the divine image, but the freedom and human agency that corresponds to the spiritual personality. And while a few individuals among them might be “saved,” according to this formula, the collective peoples of Russia, Iran, and other Muslim nations are primarily destined to be hurled into hellfire after they serve their purpose on the cosmic stage. Only the few elect who donated sufficient funds to John Hagee’s King-Kong megachurch will be “raptured” out of tribulation unto the place of the righteous.