Come Out of Her, My People
That’s great it starts with an earthquake / birds and snakes an aeroplane / and Lenny Bruce is not afraid. —REM - It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The mark of The Beast isn’t so abstract or farfetched to the factory worker who must now match fingerprints against a file image to punch in or out. Spurred into action by the fall of the World Trade Center the American Tower of Babel C.W. Steinle sets out to prove primary events of the Book of Revelation are in our present and near future. The United States is identified as The Great Harlot with New York City standing in wherever the term “Babylon” appears. Righteous Believers not actively engaged in ministry are urged to leave the country before it becomes the special object of the Lord’s apocalyptic wrath.
Steinle’s Dispensationalist-Premillenialist largely Futurist theories line up generally with the Moody Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary views on Tribulation and End Times. The fact that the United States currently sides with the government of Israel on many matters and provides them with military coverage seems to place them in a quasi-protected position. “There would appear to be a great conflict for the United States to be both a witness of God and a defender of Israel; and also to be the Great Harlot.” The author seems torn. The United Nations is suggested as a backup candidate to be The Beast but only in passing. One claim in this book is beyond argument: “…dividing three into two (two-thirds) yields .666.”
This is an opinion piece in the guise of a scholarly work. The bigger the leap the more likely the word “obviously” follows it. Faith in a literal interpretation is not proof enough to sway the public. Long passages of source material spliced between blocks of analysis fragment the author’s case. The parts of Revelation not worked in are retained as an appendix. Some statements work as well or better as evidence for the competing school of Historical-Criticism. For example: “…Israel was persecuted by Rome and fled into the wilderness during the time that the New Testament was written.”
The author has traveled numerous times to Israel and early Christian sites in Asia Minor. He has worked with over two thousand study-group discussions on the subject of End Times. Come Out of Her My People was also the title of a 1991 book by J.E. Leonard which held that events predicted in Revelation were fulfilled soon after the time of writing. Preaching to the choir is the best plan for this book. The same viewpoint with the addition of credible citations built on the work of earlier qualified Bible scholars would be much more worthy of serious consideration.
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