- WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell said the Antichrist is probably
alive today and is a male Jew. He also believes the second coming of Christ
probably will be within 10 years.
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- In a speech Thursday about the concern
people have over the new millennium, Falwell told about 1,500 people at
a conference on evangelism at Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist is
male and is a Jew.
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- ``Who will the antichrist be? I don't
know. Nobody else knows,'' said Falwell, whose Sunday morning services
at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg are carried by television stations
nationwide.
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- ``Is he alive and here today? Probably.
Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown
counterfeit of Christ. Of course he'll be Jewish. Of course he'll pretend
to be Christ. And if in fact the Lord is coming soon, and he'll be an adult
at the presentation of himself, he must be alive somewhere today.''
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- According to the Bible, the Antichrist
will spread universal evil before the end of the world but will be finally
conquered at the second coming of Christ.
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- Falwell, the chancellor of Liberty University
in Lynchburg and founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority, said Friday
in Williamsburg that he did not intend for his statement to be anti-Jewish.
He said he meant only that the Antichrist must be Jewish because Jesus
Christ was a Jew.
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- ``If he's going to be the counterfeit
of Christ, he has to be Jewish,'' Falwell said. ``The only thing we know
is he must be male and Jewish.''
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- Rabbi James Rudin, the director of inter-religious
affairs for the American Jewish Committee in New York, said the comment
surprised him because he knows Falwell is a strong supporter of Israel
and is not anti-Jewish.
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- ``This is part of what I call millennial
madness,'' Rudin said. ``To single out any one man and particularly to
identify him as Jewish plays into some latent and historical anti-Semitism
from the past.
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