Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future:
_Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items _ and, by extension, consumers _ wherever they go, from a distance.
_A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them.
_In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets _ all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives.
Science fiction?
In truth, much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists _ and new and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed.
Some of the world's largest corporations are vested in the success of RFID technology, which couples highly miniaturized computers with radio antennas to broadcast information about sales and buyers to company databases.
Already, microchips are turning up in some computer printers, car keys and tires, on shampoo bottles and department store clothing tags. They're also in library books and "contactless" payment cards (such as American Express' "Blue" and ExxonMobil's "Speedpass.")
Companies say the RFID tags improve supply-chain efficiency, cut theft, and guarantee that brand-name products are authentic, not counterfeit. At a store, RFID doorways could scan your purchases automatically as you leave, eliminating tedious checkouts.
...read more
1/24/08
Invisible RFID Ink Safe For Cattle And People, Company Says -- RFID Ink
A startup company developing chipless RFID ink has tested its product on cattle and laboratory rats.
Somark Innovations announced this week that it successfully tested biocompatible RFID ink, which can be read through animal hairs. The passive RFID technology could be used to identify and track cows to reduce financial losses from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease) scares. Somark, which formed in 2005, is located at the Center for Emerging Technologies in St. Louis. The company is raising Series A equity financing and plans to license the technology to secondary markets, which could include laboratory animals, dogs, cats, prime cuts of meat, and military personnel.
Chief scientist Ramos Mays said the tests provide a true proof-of-principle and mitigate most of the technological risks in terms of the product's performance. "This proves the ability to create a synthetic biometric or fake fingerprint with biocompatible, chipless RFID ink and read it through hair," he said.
Co-founder Mark Pydynowski said during an interview Wednesday that the ink doesn't contain any metals and can be either invisible or colored. He declined to say what is in the ink, but said he's certain that it is 100% biocompatible and chemically inert. He also said it is safe for people and animals.
The process developed by Somark involves a geometric array of micro-needles and a reusable applicator with a one-time-use ink capsule. Pydynowski said it takes five to 10 seconds to "stamp or tattoo" an animal, and there is no need to remove the fur. The ink remains in the dermal layer, and a reader can detect it from 4 feet away.
"Conceptually, you can think of it in the same way that visible light is reflected by mirrors," he said, adding that the actual process is slightly different and proprietary.
The amount of information contained in the ink depends on the surface area available, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls for a 15-digit number to track cattle. The first three digits are "840" for the U.S. country code. The remaining digits are unique identifiers. The numbers would link to a database containing more information.
"It can say where it has been, who it has talked to, who it has eaten with, and who else it has been in contact with," Pydynowski said.
Ranchers and others in the agricultural industry can choose a covert stamping system, which would make it impossible for cattle thieves to tell which animals have been marked and easy for those checking for stolen cattle to determine a cow's source. Pydynowski said the technology is an improvement over ear tags, which can be detached from cows and other products.
The technology could verify that cuts of meat originated in a hormone-free environment, Pydynowski said, adding that consumers would destroy the system by breaking down the ink when chewing the meat. In other words, Big Brother wouldn't know whether someone ate a Big Mac or a filet mignon, according to Pydynowski's explanation. However, the government and agricultural producers and retailers could track e-coli outbreaks in spinach, he said.
The ink also could be used to track and rescue soldiers, Pydynowski said.
"It could help identify friends or foes, prevent friendly fire, and help save soldiers' lives," he said. "It's a very scary proposition when you're dealing with humans, but with military personnel, we're talking about saving soldiers' lives and it may be something worthwhile."
Invisible RFID Ink Safe For Cattle And People, Company Says -- RFID Ink -- InformationWeek
Somark Innovations announced this week that it successfully tested biocompatible RFID ink, which can be read through animal hairs. The passive RFID technology could be used to identify and track cows to reduce financial losses from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease) scares. Somark, which formed in 2005, is located at the Center for Emerging Technologies in St. Louis. The company is raising Series A equity financing and plans to license the technology to secondary markets, which could include laboratory animals, dogs, cats, prime cuts of meat, and military personnel.
Chief scientist Ramos Mays said the tests provide a true proof-of-principle and mitigate most of the technological risks in terms of the product's performance. "This proves the ability to create a synthetic biometric or fake fingerprint with biocompatible, chipless RFID ink and read it through hair," he said.
Co-founder Mark Pydynowski said during an interview Wednesday that the ink doesn't contain any metals and can be either invisible or colored. He declined to say what is in the ink, but said he's certain that it is 100% biocompatible and chemically inert. He also said it is safe for people and animals.
The process developed by Somark involves a geometric array of micro-needles and a reusable applicator with a one-time-use ink capsule. Pydynowski said it takes five to 10 seconds to "stamp or tattoo" an animal, and there is no need to remove the fur. The ink remains in the dermal layer, and a reader can detect it from 4 feet away.
"Conceptually, you can think of it in the same way that visible light is reflected by mirrors," he said, adding that the actual process is slightly different and proprietary.
The amount of information contained in the ink depends on the surface area available, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls for a 15-digit number to track cattle. The first three digits are "840" for the U.S. country code. The remaining digits are unique identifiers. The numbers would link to a database containing more information.
"It can say where it has been, who it has talked to, who it has eaten with, and who else it has been in contact with," Pydynowski said.
Ranchers and others in the agricultural industry can choose a covert stamping system, which would make it impossible for cattle thieves to tell which animals have been marked and easy for those checking for stolen cattle to determine a cow's source. Pydynowski said the technology is an improvement over ear tags, which can be detached from cows and other products.
The technology could verify that cuts of meat originated in a hormone-free environment, Pydynowski said, adding that consumers would destroy the system by breaking down the ink when chewing the meat. In other words, Big Brother wouldn't know whether someone ate a Big Mac or a filet mignon, according to Pydynowski's explanation. However, the government and agricultural producers and retailers could track e-coli outbreaks in spinach, he said.
The ink also could be used to track and rescue soldiers, Pydynowski said.
"It could help identify friends or foes, prevent friendly fire, and help save soldiers' lives," he said. "It's a very scary proposition when you're dealing with humans, but with military personnel, we're talking about saving soldiers' lives and it may be something worthwhile."
Invisible RFID Ink Safe For Cattle And People, Company Says -- RFID Ink -- InformationWeek
1/19/08
Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record ...read more
Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record ...read more
Closing the Door on Civil Liberties
American society is closing down. In “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” scholar Naomi Wolf lists the 10 steps to a closed society and examines the similarities between Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and the Bush administration in the context of shutting down a society:
10. Manipulate a real or imagined threat: Stalin claimed that “sleeper cells” of capitalists were surrounding Soviet citizens. In the last six years, our leaders have claimed that “sleeper cells” of terrorists are surrounding Americans.
9. Create a secret prison system: How do Lenin’s secret prison system, Mussolini’s confino and Hitler’s study of Mussolini affect us? Why should we worry if brown people and Muslims are held and tortured in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other secret prisons?
“I invite you to name a society that created a secret prison system outside the rule of law where torture takes place that didn’t sooner or later turn the abuse against its own citizens,” Wolf says.
When a democracy closes down, individuals with whom the mainstream public doesn’t identify are tortured first. Then the line between a real terrorist and a mere critic becomes blurred. It doesn’t matter whether you’re white or black, Republican or Democrat, or citizen or foreign national; the president can call anyone an “enemy combatant,” and the government can take you to prison, deny your right to a lawyer and torture you on the president’s say-so.
Andrew Meyer, a student at the University of Florida, was tasered by police after asking why President George W. Bush hasn’t been impeached at a lecture. This is scary because the University of Florida is answerable to the Board of Regents, which is answerable to the state legislature, which has close ties to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. In Nazi Germany, politician Joseph Goebbels pioneered the tactic of using state legislatures to put pressure on university boards of regents to control professors and students critical of Hitler.
8. Create a paramilitary force: Blackwater is a paramilitary corporation with close ties to the White House. The corporation has been in the news for allegedly massacring 17 Iraqi civilians.
But Blackwater is now on Main Street: Blackwater was invited by the Transportation Security Administration to patrol the streets of New Orleans and received orders from Bush to patrol the streets at any time during a “disaster”—which Bush can arbitrarily declare.
It doesn’t matter whether we have the essential institutions of a civil society if citizens are too intimidated to push back. Remember, Italy was a working democracy when Mussolini sent the blackshirt paramilitary to intimidate civilians.
7. Create a surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens: In East Germany, only 10 percent of the people had a stasi file, but everyone thought they had one. This worked, states Wolf, because the state doesn’t need to watch everyone if we all think that we’re being watched.
Eight hundred thousand American citizens (including staffers from the American Civil Liberties Union, members of the anti-war group Code Pink, decorated war heroes against the Iraq invasion, professors at Columbia University, UC Berkeley, Harvard and UCLA and scholar Richard Murphy at Princeton University) are on Bush’s Watch List and are not allowed to leave the country. Wolf is on the Watch List, and her e-mail and text messages are monitored by the state.
Twenty thousand American citizens are added to the Watch List each month. In February 2008, these citizens will have to apply to the state to leave the country.
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens: That’s why we now have interrogation rooms at airports, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
5. Infiltrate citizens’ groups: Police officers and FBI agents in Seattle spy on peaceful environmental groups without reason and put them under house arrest without due process.
4. Target individuals: Stalin targeted key individuals like newspaper editors to make examples of them in the third Moscow show trial. Homeland Security now seizes CBS journalists in Iraq and tortures them in U.S.-run prisons. David Horowitz’s book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” blacklists individual professors to intimidate all professors critical of the state.
3. Recast criticism as espionage: The Espionage Act is now used to round up anti-war critics, journalists and outspoken clergy members without warrants.
2. Recast critics as traitors: Witness the words “anti-American,” “traitors” and “pro-terrorists.”
1. Subvert the rule of law: Due to the Defense Authorization Act, the president now has the power to declare anyone an “enemy combatant” and lock us in a 10-by-12 foot navy brig cell for three years without access to a lawyer.
A closing society, argues Wolf, still holds elections; they’re just corrupt. There is still a judiciary; it’s just not free. There are still academics; they just watch what they say. There are still newspapers; they just know how far they can go. Go to americanfreedomcampaign.org to find out what to do.
Nathan Tumazi is a third-year international studies major. He can be reached at ntumazi@uci.edu.
New University Online
10. Manipulate a real or imagined threat: Stalin claimed that “sleeper cells” of capitalists were surrounding Soviet citizens. In the last six years, our leaders have claimed that “sleeper cells” of terrorists are surrounding Americans.
9. Create a secret prison system: How do Lenin’s secret prison system, Mussolini’s confino and Hitler’s study of Mussolini affect us? Why should we worry if brown people and Muslims are held and tortured in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other secret prisons?
“I invite you to name a society that created a secret prison system outside the rule of law where torture takes place that didn’t sooner or later turn the abuse against its own citizens,” Wolf says.
When a democracy closes down, individuals with whom the mainstream public doesn’t identify are tortured first. Then the line between a real terrorist and a mere critic becomes blurred. It doesn’t matter whether you’re white or black, Republican or Democrat, or citizen or foreign national; the president can call anyone an “enemy combatant,” and the government can take you to prison, deny your right to a lawyer and torture you on the president’s say-so.
Andrew Meyer, a student at the University of Florida, was tasered by police after asking why President George W. Bush hasn’t been impeached at a lecture. This is scary because the University of Florida is answerable to the Board of Regents, which is answerable to the state legislature, which has close ties to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. In Nazi Germany, politician Joseph Goebbels pioneered the tactic of using state legislatures to put pressure on university boards of regents to control professors and students critical of Hitler.
8. Create a paramilitary force: Blackwater is a paramilitary corporation with close ties to the White House. The corporation has been in the news for allegedly massacring 17 Iraqi civilians.
But Blackwater is now on Main Street: Blackwater was invited by the Transportation Security Administration to patrol the streets of New Orleans and received orders from Bush to patrol the streets at any time during a “disaster”—which Bush can arbitrarily declare.
It doesn’t matter whether we have the essential institutions of a civil society if citizens are too intimidated to push back. Remember, Italy was a working democracy when Mussolini sent the blackshirt paramilitary to intimidate civilians.
7. Create a surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens: In East Germany, only 10 percent of the people had a stasi file, but everyone thought they had one. This worked, states Wolf, because the state doesn’t need to watch everyone if we all think that we’re being watched.
Eight hundred thousand American citizens (including staffers from the American Civil Liberties Union, members of the anti-war group Code Pink, decorated war heroes against the Iraq invasion, professors at Columbia University, UC Berkeley, Harvard and UCLA and scholar Richard Murphy at Princeton University) are on Bush’s Watch List and are not allowed to leave the country. Wolf is on the Watch List, and her e-mail and text messages are monitored by the state.
Twenty thousand American citizens are added to the Watch List each month. In February 2008, these citizens will have to apply to the state to leave the country.
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens: That’s why we now have interrogation rooms at airports, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
5. Infiltrate citizens’ groups: Police officers and FBI agents in Seattle spy on peaceful environmental groups without reason and put them under house arrest without due process.
4. Target individuals: Stalin targeted key individuals like newspaper editors to make examples of them in the third Moscow show trial. Homeland Security now seizes CBS journalists in Iraq and tortures them in U.S.-run prisons. David Horowitz’s book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” blacklists individual professors to intimidate all professors critical of the state.
3. Recast criticism as espionage: The Espionage Act is now used to round up anti-war critics, journalists and outspoken clergy members without warrants.
2. Recast critics as traitors: Witness the words “anti-American,” “traitors” and “pro-terrorists.”
1. Subvert the rule of law: Due to the Defense Authorization Act, the president now has the power to declare anyone an “enemy combatant” and lock us in a 10-by-12 foot navy brig cell for three years without access to a lawyer.
A closing society, argues Wolf, still holds elections; they’re just corrupt. There is still a judiciary; it’s just not free. There are still academics; they just watch what they say. There are still newspapers; they just know how far they can go. Go to americanfreedomcampaign.org to find out what to do.
Nathan Tumazi is a third-year international studies major. He can be reached at ntumazi@uci.edu.
New University Online
FBI wants instant access to British identity data
Americans seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints
Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.
The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" - the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.
...read more
Britain Planning to Implant "Machine-Readable" Microchips in Prisoners
Britain is planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips - like those used on pets - under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of electronic tagging.
Because of concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the British Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews.
The "radio frequency identification" tags, as long as two grains of rice, can carry information about individuals, including identities, address and offending record.
The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are used to track dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor people.
A senior Ministry of Justice official said the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles.
"All options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue."
The move is in line with a proposal from the Association of Chief Police Officers that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders to track them more easily, preventing them from going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools.
"We've wanted to take advantage of this technology for years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing," a senior minister said. "Its time has come."
The Independent on Sunday reports that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their tags.
The tags, injected into the back of the arm, consist of a glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" to transmit data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.
Details of the scheme provoked an angry response from probation officers and civil-rights groups.
"If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the Liberty rights group. "Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation."
Britain has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today.
New Zealand has also faced a jump in prison numbers. A Ministry of Justice forecast last year showed the average monthly prison population was expected to go from 7656 in June 2006 to 9028 in June 2014.
However a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said last night that it had not looked at the British scheme and had no plans to do so in the foreseeable future....source
Because of concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the British Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews.
The "radio frequency identification" tags, as long as two grains of rice, can carry information about individuals, including identities, address and offending record.
The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are used to track dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor people.
A senior Ministry of Justice official said the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles.
"All options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue."
The move is in line with a proposal from the Association of Chief Police Officers that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders to track them more easily, preventing them from going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools.
"We've wanted to take advantage of this technology for years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing," a senior minister said. "Its time has come."
The Independent on Sunday reports that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their tags.
The tags, injected into the back of the arm, consist of a glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" to transmit data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.
Details of the scheme provoked an angry response from probation officers and civil-rights groups.
"If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the Liberty rights group. "Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation."
Britain has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today.
New Zealand has also faced a jump in prison numbers. A Ministry of Justice forecast last year showed the average monthly prison population was expected to go from 7656 in June 2006 to 9028 in June 2014.
However a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said last night that it had not looked at the British scheme and had no plans to do so in the foreseeable future....source
National ID: Another step to totalitarianism
In this age of terrorism and out-of-control illegal immigration, it is a growing belief by many Americans that we must all be regulated, restricted, licensed, registered, directed, checked, inspected, measured, numbered, counted, stamped, authorized, fined, harassed, disarmed, exploited and taxed in the name of protection. Trouble is, that outlook is just plain wrong, and it isn't freedom.
According to a report from the London-based Privacy International, "Privacy is being extinguished in country after country." The report also noted that privacy was improving in the former communist states of Eastern Europe, but it is worsening across Western Europe and the United States. According to the report, of 47 countries surveyed, Malaysia, Russia and communist China ranked worst, but Great Britain and the United States also fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies."
As technology develops, data banks of personal information are being collected on everything from medical records, to financial and employment histories, to school records, to buying habits at the supermarket. The government is building data banks on farm animals. Our cars have little black boxes that record data on our driving habits. In addition, the uses of video cameras, computer chips and biometric screening to monitor our activities are growing rapidly.
Step by step, using a wide variety of good excuses, Americans are allowing themselves to be fingerprinted, their eyes scanned, computer chips inserted under their skin, providing DNA, and more....read more
According to a report from the London-based Privacy International, "Privacy is being extinguished in country after country." The report also noted that privacy was improving in the former communist states of Eastern Europe, but it is worsening across Western Europe and the United States. According to the report, of 47 countries surveyed, Malaysia, Russia and communist China ranked worst, but Great Britain and the United States also fell into the lowest-performing group of "endemic surveillance societies."
As technology develops, data banks of personal information are being collected on everything from medical records, to financial and employment histories, to school records, to buying habits at the supermarket. The government is building data banks on farm animals. Our cars have little black boxes that record data on our driving habits. In addition, the uses of video cameras, computer chips and biometric screening to monitor our activities are growing rapidly.
Step by step, using a wide variety of good excuses, Americans are allowing themselves to be fingerprinted, their eyes scanned, computer chips inserted under their skin, providing DNA, and more....read more
1/5/08
Some Food For Thought, "Have Christians Already Accepted The Mark Of The Beast?"
Christians throughout church history have debated the nuances of Eschatology. These debates will doubtless last until Jesus Himself decides to end them. Until then, the theological battles extolling or condemning premillennialism or postmillennialism, pre-tribulation Rapture or post-tribulation Rapture, etc., will continue. To be sure, this column is not an attempt to resolve or even argue these interpretations of Scripture. Let every man be persuaded in his own heart. Personally, I don't think it's worth arguing about.
Whether a Christian is premillennial or postmillennial, whether he or she believes in the pre-tribulation Rapture or not is immaterial to our responsibilities. We Christians have a duty to be the "salt" and "light" of society until Jesus returns--whenever that is. And, frankly, the time of His return is His business, not ours. If we would concentrate on those matters that truly belong to us, we would be much more effective. Arguing and battling between Christians over the nuances of Eschatology only serves to advance the cause of the Enemy. It is counterproductive and fruitless to anything worthwhile.
That being said, a brief reference to the belief that a literal antichrist is yet to come is in order. Accepting this interpretation of the Book of Revelation, there will come in the days of "great tribulation" a Western World leader, known as the antichrist, or beast. Christians accepting this interpretation believe that the antichrist will unite the Western World, mainly Europe and the United States, and will implement a satanic despotism.
Part of the antichrist's reign upon the Western World (called, by some, The Revived Roman Empire) will be the demand that everyone accept "the mark of the beast" in his hand or forehead. Of course, the number Scripture uses is 666. Everyone who does not accept this mark will be deemed to be an outlaw: unable to buy or sell, or contract normal daily business of any kind. However, acceptance of the mark will also mean rejection of God and salvation.
Premillennialists believe they will be "raptured" to Heaven before these events take place. Some believe the church will go through the "great tribulation," while most postillennialists don't believe in a literal "tribulation" at all, but believe these Scriptures are related to other events altogether.
Regardless of how one interprets the Book of Revelation, I think most all believers will accept the Apostle John's warning that the spirit of antichrist is already in the world. (I John 2:18; 4:3) Can we not readily agree that anything that resembles antichrist is a form of antichrist?
Accordingly, did not the German church have an obligation to resist Adolph Hitler? Of course they did. However, at the end of the day, out of over 14,000 pastors and church congregations in Germany at the time, only 800 properly discerned the evil Hitler for who he was and openly opposed him. The rest not only tolerated him, but openly praised him, promoted him, and punished anyone who failed to do the same.
Yet, Hitler definitely personified the spirit of antichrist. While publicly professing to be a Christian, he privately disdained Christians and was caught up in secret societies and the occult. He was driven to lead Germany into preemptive wars of aggression. He cast off Germany's republican form of government and consolidated power unto himself. He implemented a total surveillance society in the name of national security. He was so completely accepted and adored by Germany's churchmen that German congregations were told that in order to be good Christians they had to be good Nazis and that to support any other political party than Hitler's was to fight against God. He enacted strict gun control laws. Why did Germany's pastors and Christians not recognize Hitler for who he was?
Can we not say that, in their own way, Germany's pastors and churches accepted the mark of the beast? Sure they did. No, Hitler was not THE antichrist, but he certainly exemplified the spirit of antichrist. As such, he deserved to be resisted.
However, before we become too judgmental toward the Christians of 1930's Germany, we should look in the mirror. Are not many Christians in these United States behaving in the exact same manner? Have not many of us already embraced the spirit of antichrist? And if so, have we not, in our own way, already accepted the mark of the beast? Sure we have.
Many pastors and Christians embrace the authoritarian policies of one George W. Bush with the same enthusiasm and blind loyalty as Germans did Hitler. For example, according to White House insiders, while publicly embracing conservative Christians, the White House is privately said to have nothing but disdain for Christians. Mr. Bush acknowledged being a member of Skull & Bones, a secret society with a dark history. Others have reported that he is a member of Bohemian Grove, which, according to some, is an occultist society of the most sinister variety. Yet, all of this is rejected out of hand by most Christians today.
Plus, George W. Bush (as did Adolph Hitler) has led America into a preemptive and aggressive war against a foreign nation without provocation. Now, there is even talk at the White House of expanding the war in Iraq with attacks against Iran and Syria, and maybe even Pakistan. In addition, he is in the process of turning America into a Hitlerian surveillance society where our every move, phone call, and email are being monitored by federal police agencies.
Yet, conservative Christians are still so infatuated with President Bush that they actually believe that anyone who resists the President is resisting God. They further believe that if anyone votes for any candidate who is not a Republican (Bush's party), they are fighting against God. They gladly surrender their constitutional liberties and safeguards. They enthusiastically support an unconstitutional war in Iraq and would no doubt support expanding the war to wherever Bush decided. They happily cede Bush the power to tap their phones, read their emails, or open their mail (without warrant or court order, no less).
Regardless of one's politics or religion, the spirit of Big Brother, the spirit of military aggression, the spirit of occultism, the spirit of a police state mentality, the spirit of deception are all part of the spirit of antichrist.
Therefore, whether one identifies himself as a premillennialist or a postmillennialist or anything in between; whether we believe in a Rapture or not; no matter what our understanding of Eschatology might be, every Christian has a duty to "resist the devil" in any form in which he reveals himself. And that certainly means that any political leader, regardless of party, who embodies or exemplifies the spirit of antichrist, must be resisted. Anything less means to accept, in a way, the mark of the beast....Source
1/3/08
Chuck Baldwin -- We Desperately Need The "Confessing Church"
By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
January 4, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
If the reader has not already done so, I again urge you to read the book, Hitler's Cross, which was written by Erwin Lutzer and published by Moody Press. This book should be "required reading" for every pastor and Christian layman in America. In his book, Lutzer focuses on the attitudes and actions of Germany's pastors and churches during the rise and reign of the Third Reich. It is a masterpiece.
For those of us living in a country and time far removed from Hitler's Germany, it is hard to comprehend how that nation's Christians--and especially its ministers--could have been so thoroughly taken in by old Adolf. We assume such an event could never happen again--especially to us. However, to any honest observer of history, the conditions of the Church in America today are eerily similar to those of the Church in Nazi Germany.
For one thing, as did the Church in Nazi Germany, the Church in America has become infatuated with Big Government. Historically, patriotism in the United States meant love for God, love for family, and love for freedom and independence. Today, however, Christians of all persuasions have come to accept and even embrace the Nanny State, complete with its intrinsic obsession with an omnipotent federal bureaucracy that exercises perpetual surveillance and absolute control over every area of our lives.
For example, according to today's Republican Presidential candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul), patriotism demands that we click our heels to the Department of Homeland Security and that we enthusiastically support aggressive, preemptive war. This is exactly the kind of redefinition of patriotism used so brilliantly by Hitler and his fellow propagandists. Yes, Martha, it appears that history really does repeat itself.
When Ron Paul was asked about Mike Huckabee's overt usage of a cross for a campaign advertisement, he quoted Sinclair Lewis as saying, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Many Christians railed against Dr. Paul for making this comment. However, the truth is, Ron Paul (himself a committed Christian) is one hundred percent right! (To see how Hitler used this same tactic, I invite readers to note the photograph of the German Fuhrer in Lutzer's book, on page 75, which shows Hitler coming out of church with a large emblem of the Cross directly over his head. This photo was used extensively by Hitler during his political campaigns.) ...read more
1/1/08
Bishop left in dark over secret gay service
"The Archbishop of Canterbury kept a special communion service for gays so secret that he failed to tell the Bishop of London it was happening in his diocese, The Times has learnt.
Dr Rowan Williams inflamed the row over homosexuality which is tearing apart the Anglican Church when it was reported that he had agreed to hold a eucharist for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clergy.
But even his critics have been taken aback to learn that he did so by making an incursion on to the patch of the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, without giving notice or seeking permission."...read more
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