Brad talks with Prof André Gagné about evangelical visions of the apocalypse and how they are directly related to Iran (and the assassination of Quassem Soleimani)
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Axis Mundi. - Hello and welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
This is an emergency episode.
We are going to talk about the very dramatic and recent developments in Iran.
And I'm thrilled to be joined by someone who I think is one of the most equipped and insightful voices on issues related to the religious right and evangelicals.
But specifically, I think, can really help us understand what's happening today and this week in terms of what's going on with U.S.-Iran relations and things are moving quickly.
So I'm joined today by Professor Andre Gagné, who is a tenured professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.
If you follow evangelical or religious right Twitter, you know that Professor Gagné is one of the most Sort of insightful voices providing commentary and analysis and pops up on TV and on Radio and has written many things about these topics.
So thank you so much for joining me Professor Ghania I'm really I'm really thankful for your your coming on the show on short notice Oh, thank you so much, Bradley.
You're very kind, very kind and generous introduction.
And it's really an honor and a pleasure for me to be chatting with you on this important topic today.
So we're talking because last night news broke that the U.S.
at the direction of President Trump had carried out an attack that had resulted in the killing of A high-ranking official in Iran, Soleimani, who is in many ways was a kind of de facto vice president, as well as a kind of leader of a shadow network of, you know, military, intelligence, cybersecurity forces.
You know, from what I can tell, as somebody who is not an expert on this part of foreign policy, this is a very, very big deal, a watershed moment that many people who have worked on Iran and U.S. foreign foreign relations for a long time never expected.
And it also seems like there's not much of a plan coming from the White House and our top officials.
Those are issues that I'm sure many people get into.
What I want to focus on is The backstory of how evangelicals, who are President Trump's most ardent supporters, with whom today, January 3rd, he's having his first rally, the Evangelicals for Trump group is kicking off today in Miami and Trump will be there.
I want to get into the how they understand Iran because they are likely to be supporters of Uh, Trump's actions, uh, in Iran and perhaps supporters of a larger conflict with Iran as part of a biblical story.
And so that story, some of you may or may not be familiar with, involves, uh, some names that you might've heard Gog, Magog.
These go back to, uh, the book of Ezekiel chapters 38, 39, and in many, uh, dispensationalist and or dominionist, uh, theologies coming from, Yeah, especially in terms of Iran.
have a central role in preparing the world for Christ's second coming.
Now, you may be thinking, well, what does that have to do with Iran?
And how does what happened last night sort of relate to any of that stuff?
So, Professor Gania, I'd love to just pose that question to you.
Can you connect some of those dots for us?
Yeah, especially in terms of Iran.
It's always in relation to Israel.
And we know that the Trump administration's policy on Israel is really aligned to that of evangelicals because these are his main supporters and And if Iran is seen as a threat to Israel, of course the U.S.
will always be on the side of Israel in terms of these ideas, especially if they align with what we know about a certain eschatological views coming from evangelicals.
So in a sense, when we see all of this, what we can envision, and we might wonder, you know, why is this coming up now?
And how will that play, especially in that meeting that will be held later today with the evangelicals, how will that play out?
What What does it mean also for them?
I've been scouting a bit what's happening on Twitter, and we see that there is, on the part of certain biblical prophecy enthusiasts, that this aligns a lot with what they read in the Bible, especially in terms of signs of the end times.
And of course, these names that you mentioned, Gog and Magog, and there's also a reference to Armageddon comes to the end times.
So, I'm going to go back to Armageddon.
I'm going to go back to Armageddon.
And I'm going to go back to Armageddon.
Armageddon.
And I'm going to go back to Armageddon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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