The War After Armageddon

It was Montfort’s turn to smile. “Are you sure?”

“Sim… for God’s sake…”

“Exactly that. For God’s sake. Gary, don’t you see it? I wish you could. I’d love to have you as my ally. As a true ally, a brother in Christ. Don’t you see what this fight’s really about, how final it is? You can mock me… mock us… but this is the great struggle between Christ and the Anti christ. Or, I should say, the climax of that struggle.” Montfort uncrossed his legs and edged forward on his chair, aping Harris’s earlier gesture. “We’ve tried peaceful cooperation, we’ve tried compromise, even indulgence. We made excuses for them, looked the other way when they slaughtered the innocent like sheep for one of their satanic festivals. And what did it bring us? Their rage, their intolerance. The savagery in Europe — you were there, weren’t you? At the end of all that? Then the destruction of Israel. By fire, as foretold. And then the nuclear massacres in Los Angeles and Las Vegas…”

“Sim, I really do wonder… whether the rumors aren’t true. About your boys helping the Jihadis pull that off. Las Vegas, at least. ‘Sin City.’ And, I suppose, Los Angeles had plenty of sins to answer for, too. No more naked breasts on movie screens these days. It’s time for Susannah to show a little respect for those elders. Honestly, if the Reverend Doctor Gui, our beloved vice president, had picked two American cities to sacrifice, which two do you think he would’ve picked? Little Rock and Lynchburg? Or Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“I won’t dignify that with a response.”

“I didn’t expect one. Tell me, though… exactly how do you kill a billion people? Without getting overly sloppy? That’s a big project. Even for you.”

“You mock me. As those other soldiers mocked Christ.”

“Comparing yourself to Christ, Sim? Already?”

“There’s no need for blasphemy.”

“Of course, there’s nothing blasphemous about the idea of killing a billion people. Over a billion. When Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children,’ He didn’t mean it quite the way you seem to interpret it.”

“They’re the hordes of the Anti christ. Beyond redemption. Their religion was born in blood, it was spread in blood, and it will end in blood.” Montfort turned his head slightly but kept his eyes locked on Harris. “Gary, you can’t think in the old ways any more. This isn’t geopolitics in some classroom. The old, secular regime is finished. This is the final struggle… for new heavens and a new earth. We’ve worshipped too long at false altars, fallen for the dev — il’s snares, for the folly of believing that those who have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ must accommodate themselves to the wickedness of the damned. And what have we gained, Gary? What did our tolerance bring us? What did all our efforts at extending the hand of brotherhood, our ecumenical absurdities, what did all of it gain for us? Nothing. Nothing beyond the ever-greater madness, the ever- greater demands, the megalomaniacal vanity of an utterly failed civilization, the sickness unto death of this satanic realm of Islam and the heathen occupation of our holy shrines… and the massacre, the slaughter, of our own kind. Tell me, Gary: What would you have us do? Please. Give me your solution. After all the devastation… the nuclear destruction of two great cities in our homeland… do you really believe there’s room left for compromise?”

“Absolutes are for God’s Kingdom.”

“We’re going to build God’s Kingdom. Here. Now.”

“By killing over a billion people?” Harris shook his head. “Even if you could pull that off… I wouldn’t want any part of a God who thought that was a good day’s work well done.” Rubbed raw in the spirit, Harris asked, “What about the love of Jesus Christ, Sim? Don’t the Gospels mean anything to you? Or to your ‘Military Order of the Brothers in Christ’? Are you proposing that Christ’s lost years were spent in a Roman legion, spearing the local nuisances? That He just forgot to mention that killing was perfectly legit? Or that the editors cut the battle cries from the Sermon on the Mount?”

“The Book of Revelation follows mankind’s rejection of Christ’s message. We nailed the Son of God to a cross and abused Him, scorned Him. The Book of Revelation is God’s response.”

“Bullshit. The Book of Revelation is the scribbling of a nutcase in a cave. It’s Christianity’s Koran. It was only included in the New Testament because the message Jesus left behind made the early church’s bureaucrats nervous — not least, the idea of living humbly and sharing with the poor, or the fact that Jesus thought women were human beings. You’d be happier as a Muslim yourself, Sim.”

“You’re no theologian, Gary. You know not of what you speak.”

“Do you? Do you, Sim? Do you bear the love of Jesus Christ in your heart? Do you truly feel the solace of His mercy? You call yourself a Christian, but you’d just as soon cut out everything in the Bible between the Book of Joshua and the Book of Revelation. You’re no Christian, Sim. And your kind aren’t Christians. No man who could order the massacre of every human being in Jerusalem — then in Nazareth, for God’s sake — could ever claim to be a Christian.”

Montfort sat back and crossed his legs again. A cock crowed in the distance.

“And what about the home front?” Harris drove on. “What about the United States of America? What would Jesus have to say about your political antics, Sim? Remember that bit about ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’? Remember that part? Or ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’? Did I get that right? Did I miss the footnotes? Isn’t it enough that the American people are still overwhelmingly Christian? Do we really have to become an official religious state? Like Iran used to be? Or the Sultanate of Baghdad now? Didn’t things work pretty well for us over the past two and a half centuries? What were we denied as Christians?”

“The United States was, is, and shall be a Christian country. We have lived in error for many generations, but now we must accept our role as the New Jerusalem.”

“Well, you did a fuck of a job on the old Jerusalem.”

“Don’t mock, Gary. Don’t mock what you don’t understand.”

“I understand that Jesus Christ brought love and mercy into this world.”

“And we crucified Him. We had our chance. We failed Him. Now He returns with a sword.”

“Con ve nient. Show me that passage in the Gospels.”

“Luke 22, Verse 36, ‘he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.’ But you haven’t answered my questions, Gary. Tell me, please. Instruct me: After fourteen centuries of warfare between our faith and Islam — begun by a conquering, bloodthirsty faith and continued unto this day by its spawn — after all the Christian suffering, the enslavements, the relentless bloodshed, the hatred, the captivity of our churches… haven’t we had sufficient proof that we can’t coexist? That it’s us or them? Would you prefer it to be the Muslims who prevail? Should we just surrender? Would our enemies lay down their swords? To put it in secular terms for you, religions are competitors in a great struggle for survival. Religions can’t cooperate, not really. It’s not in their DNA. God tells us all that there can be only one path to salvation, one truth, but we refuse to hear. In our vanity and pride, we think we know better. ‘All religions share a universal spirit.’ Do they, Gary? Do they? You love to cite the Gospels. Well, where does Christ say, ‘Choose the faith you find con ve nient, they’re all the same to me’? You know better. As a Christian yourself, if a confused one. Christ tells us, in the clearest words He ever spoke, that those who do not believe in Him cannot be saved. He damns them. Or do you think He was just in a bad mood that day?” Montfort swept a hand back over his shining hair. “For fourteen centuries, we tried to find a way to live in peace with the forces of the Anti christ. For fourteen hundred years, we wandered aimlessly in a spiritual desert, bereft of comfort because we denied our purpose. And now, at last, our wanderings are over. We have been touched by the fire of God’s Word: There is only one true faith, and there shall be only one true faith, and this land will be purged with fire.”

“You sound like Charlton Heston in one of his lesser roles. What are you telling me, Sim? That a billion-plus dead Muslims won’t be enough? That the Hindus are next? And after them, the Buddhists? Then the Jews? Before you get started on the Catholics?”

Montfort waved his concerns away. “This is a struggle between God and Satan. Our faith is that of the One True God. Mohammed was the messenger of Satan. Allah is Satan. Islam is the faith of Satan, of the Anti christ, and must be expunged for this world to be redeemed.”

“And the Jews? How about the Jews, Sim? You’ve made them a lot of promises. Where do they fit in?”

Montfort fidgeted in his chair. “The Jews aren’t a problem.”

“You’re really going to hand everything back to them? To re-create Israel? With what’s left?”

“The Jewish people will receive justice.”