The Hutaree Tribulation Force

Teresa Nielsen Hayden goes comprehensive, with everything you might possibly want to know about the Hutaree militia bust.

There's not much left to add to that, but let me weigh in on one aspect of this story that falls in my bailiwick: the Hutarifarianites' apocalyptic, End-Times-prophecy obsession with the Antichrist.

Chip Berlet discussed this aspect of the group last night on Rachel Maddow, noting that what these folks believe is "the plot of the Left Behind novels." But that's only partly true.

We've discussed before some of the esoteric but fiercely contested disputes among End Times enthusiasts and "Bible prophecy scholars." The anti-American Hutaree militia's Web site includes/included several links to one such dispute in particular: the question of a "pre-Trib Rapture."

This is where the Hutarianists break with Left Behind architect Tim LaHaye and other famous prophecy nuts like Hal Lindsay or John Hagee. LaHaye et. al. believe that the End Times will begin with the "Rapture" of all Christians — "Jesus coming to get us before we die." One day very, very soon every Christian on earth will disappear — snatched up to Heaven — and then it's all downhill from there for those left behind on earth and for the earth itself.

After this Rapture, Tim LaHaye believes, the Antichrist will take power and rule over a One World Government during the seven-year Great Tribulation. The Antichrist is supposed to be the embodiment of evil, but nothing he does during this Tribulation can begin to compare to the nasty plagues and torments handed down by LaHaye's god during this period. At the end of the Tribulation comes the final battle, Armageddon, which ends with Jesus' second second coming. Then rocks fall, everyone dies.

The Hutaristas envision a different timeline for the End Times. They believe the Rapture won't come until the end of the seven-year Tribulation. For these camouflaged Christianist al-Qaida wannabes, this seems less a theological dispute (to the extent that any of this premillennial dispensationalist nonsense can be called "theology") than it is a preference for what they think sounds like the more exciting option.

They've read all the Left Behind books and they've decided they want in on the End Times action. If all the real, true Christians get whisked away before the global cataclysms of the Tribulation, they would miss out on all the fun. All their survivalist gear and stockpiled ammunition would go to waste.

Plus, in LaHaye's scheme, there's nothing for RTCs to do except sit around abstaining from sex until the Rapture. Bo-ring. The "post-Trib Rapture" variation let's RTCs participate in setting the End Times in motion by helping to spark the global conflict that leads to Armageddon. This is what the Hutaree militia was hoping to accomplish through their alleged plans to murder a police officer and then ambush the funeral.

While the Hutarianisticians make a point of their differences from Tim LaHaye, it's obvious that LaHaye and the World's Worst Books still had a strong influence — a shaping influence — on this domestic terrorist outfit. Their imagined enemy was Nicolae Carpathia and the OWG outlined in LaHaye's novels. And their goal in life was to really be the Tribulation Force.

That link — to an audio clip from Red Dawn — is a running gag here that, to me at least, never gets old because it's so apt. Red Dawn is precisely the fantasy that propels the Left Behind series and the lethal buffoonery of the Hutaree militia. It's a fantasy that imagines a world in which the Hutarianites can pretend they are good people on the side of goodness and a world in which they can pretend they are courageous.

That fantasy only appeals to people who strongly suspect — who on some level know — that in dismal reality, they are neither of those things. Those who realize that about themselves will inevitably be drawn to the Red Dawn/Tribulation Force fantasy as a far more attractive alternative to reality.

Let me be clear — most of the tens of millions of Tim LaHaye's readers aren't going to wind up stockpiling pipebombs to kill police officers. LaHaye's vast and pernicious influence doesn't usually lead directly to such brutal extremes. More often, his warped heresies just result in the reassuring message that real, true Christians don't need to concern themselves with the wellbeing of others in this doomed world. And just as significant is his influence of mainstreaming once-ridiculed John Birch Society conspiracy craziness, making his evangelical readers far more susceptible and open to the goofier beliefs of Birchers and birthers, tea partiers and LaRouchies.

But just because the Hutaree militia represents only a tiny minority of LaHaye's following doesn't exempt him from responsibility for their allegedly lethal conspiracy of treason. Their Tribulation Force fantasies wouldn't have taken this form had he not given them the idea.

I doubt this will have any detrimental affect on LaHaye's position as a prominent and respected best-selling author. He'll still get interviewed by respectable media outlets who will continue to parrot, uncritically, his false assertion that his views arise from a "literal reading" of the Bible. They won't note that his views represent a radical departure from 2,000 years of Christian thought and they'll be too polite to mention that his political views are barking mad, reflecting the peculiar stupidity of willfully ignorant self-righteousness.

Those of us who subscribe to a more orthodox reading of the Bible can at least hold on to the hope that Tim LaHaye, one day, will be called to account "according to what he has done." He has helped to make some sane believers a little bit crazier and he has helped to push some already crazy people into more extreme and potentially lethal forms of insanity. What he has done is not good.