As we pray for a just peace in the Middle East, some Catholics and Protestants have been engaging in a different yet related battle—regarding whether the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt, how and when the Antichrist will appear, and God’s plan otherwise for the End Times.
In a recent and wide-ranging interview with former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Chad Ripperger, SMD argues, among other things, that the Temple in Jerusalem will never be rebuilt. At publication time, Fr. Ripperger’s interview has 3.8 million views (and almost 29,000 comments on YouTube). Meanwhile, in an article that has garnered 4.2 million views—including through the retweet of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)—Insurrection Barbie decries those who are “systematically dismantling the evangelical foundation of the American right,” including “political Catholic integralists.” The essay even criticizes Catholic Answers for opposing the allegedly biblical doctrine of sola scriptura.
Dispensationalism and the End of the World
Dispensationalism is popular among U.S. evangelicals, including many Baptists, Pentecostals, and self-identified non-denominational Christians. It considers the establishment of the modern political State of Israel in 1948 the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Dispensationalism’s beliefs include the rapture—typically before an anticipated restoration and defilement of the Temple by the Antichrist—and a literal thousand-year reign in which our Lord Jesus Christ will visibly return to earth and then usher in the Last Judgment.
In attempting to make her case, Insurrection Barbie argues that dispensationalism is a latter-day restoration of true biblical teaching:
For most of Christian history, the dominant theological position regarding the Jewish people was supersessionism—Replacement Theology: the belief that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people as inheritor of God’s covenant promises. Under this view, the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now fulfilled in the Church, and the Jewish people have no ongoing special covenantal status.
Evangelical Protestants, particularly in the dispensationalist tradition, explicitly reject this. They hold that Romans 11:1-2 is definitive—“Did God reject his people? By no means!”—and that the modern state of Israel represents the physical fulfillment of God’s ongoing covenant faithfulness.
Insurrection Barbie mispresents the Church’s teaching, which espouses that—consistent with Scripture—the Catholic Church is the restoration and fulfillment of the kingdom of Israel, not the replacement; that Christ the King’s reign therefore began almost two thousand years ago; and that God continues to love the Jewish people who have not accepted Jesus, and thus his plan for them in Christ remains, as St. Paul teaches:
Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:25-26; see CCC 674).
As I’ve written elsewhere, “Christians who don’t have an unbroken salvation history need to account for that lack of history,” and thus are prone to “dividing the doctrines of St. Paul from the teachings of Jesus,” including in failing to see that Jesus established his Church—”the pillar and bulwark of the truth” that Paul professes (1 Tim. 3:15)—as the restoration of his Davidic kingdom of Israel, in which he reigns on high from heaven as “the King of kings” (Rev. 17:14).
Will the Temple Be Rebuilt?
“According to the Fathers, at least the ones I’ve read, the Temple will never be rebuilt,” Ripperger says (0:37:19ff.) A little later in his interview with Ryan, he adds,
A lot of Protestants are thinking, “Oh, let’s help the Jews rebuild the Temple and that’ll usher in—because Christ is going to return.” They think the Temple is going to be rebuilt. And then, as a result of that—I should say that the Temple has to be rebuilt in order for the Antichrist to put himself in there. “So let’s do that, so that the Antichrist will come, and then that means Christ will come.” And that’s kind of their reasoning behind it (0:38:28ff).
The Church does teach that there is no salvific or other covenantal need to rebuild the Temple. Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant sacrifices—particularly for Yom Kippur and Passover—in his one sacrifice of Calvary, which culminated in everlasting glory in the heavenly sanctuary. This same sacrifice is offered anew in a bloodless manner, according to the order of Melchizedek, in each and every Mass.
I’m inclined to agree with Ripperger that the Temple won’t be rebuilt. At the same time, as my colleague Jimmy Akin documents well, there is no Church teaching on the matter, and a number of Church Fathers have actually predicted the Temple’s being rebuilt, including St. Irenaeus of Lyon (Against Heresies, 5:30:4) and St. Hippolytus (On Christ and Antichrist, 6).
Because of their convictions about the modern State of Israel, dispensationalists are bullish on a U.S. foreign policy that promotes and protects Israel. But do they truly have the best interests of the Israeli people at heart?
Because of their misinterpretations of Ezekiel 38-39 and Revelation 20:7-9, dispensationalists believe that a war against Iran or Persia (Magog) and its ally Russia (Gog) will fulfill a key part of End Times biblical prophecy, as apologist Steve Wood explains.
There is also concern that precipitously seeking to rebuild the Temple could trigger an even bigger war, given that it would require the destruction—or at least relocation—of the Islamic Dome of the Rock. (Granted, some Jewish and Muslims leaders argue that the mosque could be spared.)
The Antichrist’s Attack
All Christians agree that the Antichrist will eventually arrive, as Paul prophesied:
Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thess. 2:3-4; see CCC 675-676).
Dispensationalists think the Antichrist will fulfill this prophecy—along with a latter-day fulfillment of Daniel 9:27—in defiling a rebuilt Temple. St. Cyril of Jerusalem agrees:
He says “who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or that is worshipped (against every God; Antichrist forsooth will abhor the idols), so that he seats himself in the temple of God” (2 Thess. 2:4). What temple, then? He means the Temple of the Jews, which has been destroyed. For God forbid that it should be the one in which we are!
Why say we this? That we may not be supposed to favor ourselves. For if he comes to the Jews as Christ, and desires to be worshiped by the Jews, he will make great account of the Temple, that he may more completely beguile them, making it supposed that he is the man of the race of David, who shall build up the Temple erected by Solomon (Catechetical Lectures, 15:15).
In addition, many Catholics think the Antichrist will desecrate a major Catholic church, such as St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Some Church Fathers say it could be a destructive both/and. St. John Chrysostom states unequivocally, “We have said enough to prove that the temple will never be rebuilt” (Against the Jews, Homily 5, 4:1). Elsewhere, he writes the Antichrist “will abolish all the gods, and will order men to worship him instead of God, and he will be seated in the temple of God, not that in Jerusalem only, but also in every Church (Homily 3 on 2 Thessalonians, 2:3-4, emphasis added). In addition, Hippolytus may mean that the Antichrist will temporarily ban the sacrifice of the Mass when he writes, in reference to Daniel 9:27, “He says, ‘And one week will make a covenant with many, and it shall be that in the midst [half] of the week my sacrifice and oblation shall cease’”—that is, for 3.5 years (On Christ and Antichrist, 43; see St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, prologue, 9:24-27).
In the end, though, because Christ is indeed King, the Church will ultimately triumph in her Lord Jesus (CCC 677; see Matt. 16:18).