Believe it or not, I actually receive e-mails as to how the “Antichrist of The Week” came into existence? Some people find it hilarious while some love to “rebuke” me for trivializing the book of Revelation. I thought I had an old post explaining this but I could not find it easily. I then remembered this explanation I had wrote in response to someone’s question and I decided to post it with a more expanded story.

The ‘Antichrist of the week’ started out as a joke that just snowballed. A friend of mine and I were watching television one night when a news item came on about Winona Ryder being charged with shoplifting. We turned the television from FoxNews to CNN to MSNBC, to E! and all they were talking about was Winona Ryder’s arrest. I just blurted out these words in a sarcastic tone “Winona Ryder, Antichrist of the week”.

My friend busted out laughing and rolled out of the couch to the floor in an hysterical fit. After he got over the humor, he proceeded to tell me the story (very similar to the way the antichrist was treated in pentecostal / holiness circles growing up) how when he grew up in independent Baptist fundamental circles, everytime someone made the world news, that person somehow became the most probable candidate to be the ‘one world government anti christ. I proceeded to tell him that this same mentality went on in the pentecostal circles also. We then discussed how the bible prophecy teachers you see on television every week just re-issued and recycled their books, tapes, etc. substituting the current newsmaker’s name as the antichrist.

We then started naming all the people and things we heard were at one time the antichrist from the Pope, King Juan Carlos, the credit card, Henry Kissinger, Gorbachev, HAL9000, Britney Spears, ‘the beast’ supercomputer in Brussels Belgium, Bill Gates, Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat, Bob Geldof (Live Aid), Idi Amin, the Internet, Marshall Tito, Jesse Jackson, Daniel Ortega, Louis Farrakahn, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Francois Mitterand, Moammar Kadaffy, Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each part of his name), Prince Charles, etc.

We then as a pratical joke began to treat it like a game show stating if we had the money, we would send these people who were named antichrist of the week some Lee press on nails, Rice-a-roni, a certificate to frame on their wall, and a software version of our future antichrist of the week board game. We realized that we could never afford the La-Z-Boy recliner and therefore never mentioned it.

Years later, I told my friend that I was blogging and that I wanted to incorporate the Antichrist of The Week joke as an integral part of my blog. He was excited and every once in a while sends me e-mails with certain news stories to consider as potential candidates.