New “End-Times” Book Identifies “Mystery Babylon” as Mecca

WND has news of yet another “end-times” book:

It’s already the center of a great empire – but it’s only going to grow in the years to come. In fact, says New York Times bestselling author Joel Richardson, it’s shaping to be the “mega-city” of the Antichrist himself.

The city is Mecca, the object of devotion of Muslims around the world who pray in its direction five times a day.

…”In the early history of the church the primary opinion of believers seemed to be that the pagan city of Rome was Mystery Babylon,” Richardson explained. “Of course, they lived under the shadow, under the dominance, the hegemony, of the pagan Roman empire. But as the Roman Empire essentially fell, as pagan Rome fell and it was Christianized, then that view lost favor. And so the next major view that we find in history is that it was Islam. Islam, as a religion, represented Mystery Babylon. We see that in some of the earlier commentaries we have on Islam.”

Richardson draws attention to infrastructure projects that will apparently combine Mecca with Medina, Jeddah, and King Abdullah Economic City, and he notes the influence of the Saudi lobby in Washington. A video on the site also shows various American Presidents greeting Saudi rulers over the years, culminating with Obama’s infamous bow of 2009; it thus passes over Trump’s dip (mocked as a “curtsy”) as he received the the Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud a few days ago. On Twitter, Richardson judges that “When @POTUS44 met the Saudi king, he bowed before him. This time around, the Saudis bowed to @POTUS No other way to assess it.”

Like his previous works, Richardson’s new book is published by the birther conspiracist Joseph Farah at WND Books; it builds on (and according to one Amazon review, appears in part to repeat) his argument that the Anti-Christ will be a Muslim. In terms of scholarship, his thesis blunders in the same way as other self-proclaimed “End Times experts”. The prophetic books of the Bible may seem to contain obscurities, but these become explicable when understood in historical context; “prophecy experts” instead look for other contexts, which is both unnecessary and nonsensical, and thus commit the error of eisegesis – reading things into a text that aren’t there.

Richardson’s previous books have been endorsed prophecy “peers”, as well as none other than Robert Spencer (1); this new book comes with blurbs from Tom Horn, whose own extravagant end-times theories owe more to science fiction than Biblical scholarship;  Chris Mitchell, CBN’s Jerusalem correspondent; Pastor Mark Biltz, of “Blood Moons” fame; and Marvin Rosenhthal, who runs a ministry to Jews.

Richardson also thanks a number of pastors and others for assisting with the book’s preparation: these include Samuel Whitefield, “director of OneKing, a ministry that helps connect the global church to God’s purposes for Israel and the nations”; Stephen Holmes, who hopes to missionize Israelis living in Nepal; Ralph Woodrow, an old-school evangelist who formerly took the view that “Babylon” was the Roman Catholic Church, but then changed his mind; David Lindhjem of Perleporten Mission for God, which provides Richardson’s books in Norwegian translation and beams evangelistic programming into Iran; and Dax Cabrera, a businessman who specialises in medical services but who also turns his hand to Christian novels.

Babylon has also been identified with Mecca by Richardson’s one-time associate Walid Shoebat.

Footnote

(1) Richardson and Spencer also recently spoke together at an unnamed church in Colorado.