Eschatology: Don't be Historicist.

Historicism is an interpretation method of Revelation and eschatological prophecies which maps prophesied events such as broken seals, characters such as the Antichrist, and concepts such as the Beast, onto real historical events, persons and institutions of our world. There isn’t just one historicist view; in fact, there’s probably as many historicist timelines and theories as there are proponents. Today, it’s probably the most common type of eschatological theology, and it’s unfortunate, because it makes no sense and has proven to be a failed system.

Here’s a far from exhaustive list of people who have been accused of being the Antichrist:

Popes and antipopes: Sylvester II, Gregory VII, Anacletus II, John XXIII, Pius IX, John Paul II, Francis;
Kings and emperors: Diocletian, Julian the Apostate, Frederick II (HRE), Henry IV (HRE), Saladin, Henry VIII (England), Louis XIV (France), Napoleon, Wilhelm II (Germany);
U.S. Presidents: Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush, Trump;
Religious figures: Muhammad, Jan Hus, Luther, Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola, Joseph Smith;
Various politicians: Cromwell, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Gorbachev, Macron…


Here’s a list (far from exhaustive too) of institutions, countries or empires accused of being “the Beast”:

The Roman Empire, the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Avignon papacy, the British Empire, Napoleon’s French Empire, Nazi Germany, the USSR, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, China, tech firms such as Apple, Microsoft and Google, the World Economic Forum…

The pattern is very clear. Whenever someone or something comes up that people don’t like, they immediately start making unsubstantiated apocalyptic claims, map biblical prophecies onto real-world events and start announcing the end of the world, only to fail every single time. It keeps going on and on forever.

Just stop this nonsense. Historicism leads to nothing but hysteria, paranoia, politicization of our faith, and most importantly, makes us Christians look like deranged maniacs and retards.

Revelation was fulfilled in the 1st century AD, according to the promise of Christ that some of His disciples wouldn’t taste death before all those things were fulfilled; Nero was the Antichrist, pagan Rome the beast; the Great Persecution was the one led by Nero, when thousands of early Christians, including most of the Apostles, were martyred; the “end times” was the end of Ancient Israel, fulfilled at the complete destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; the consummation of the ages was the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the new one, the new and everlasting covenant.