For the past few weeks, I have been watching CNN International and keeping up with the latest news stories.  Two stories that CNN International has been covering extensively are the alleged abuse of children by Uganda’s Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army and the alleged rape of a mentally challenged girl by a group of boys in Cape town, South Africa.  Both stories are out of Africa, which I find very interesting.

Kony has been accused of forcibly conscripting children into military service—including young girls—many of whom have allegedly been used as sex slaves and child wives for Kony himself.  CNN’s extensive coverage of Kony has been supplemented by an anti child-conscription commercial depicting what appears to be a one-room elementary school in Africa, which is suddenly accosted by a group of armed men in military attire, who storm into the school, select a young male, and quickly load him onto the back of a military vehicle before driving hurriedly away.

Additionally, YouTube has a video dedicated to Joseph Kony called Kony 2012.  I was not aware of the extent of the global media coverage of Kony until I saw Kony 2012.  I could not believe, given the atrocities that have been committed against American children (such as those that came to light during the investigation into the Franklin Savings and Loan, outlined in the book, The Franklin Coverup), that the media has been so consumed by the actions of an obscure African warlord halfway around the world.  It just didn’t feel right.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  Child abuse of any kind is wrong.  But it just seems to me that the sudden media attention to Kony with respect to this issue is a little suspect under the circumstances.

The case of the mentally challenged girl who was gang raped has also received extensive media coverage.  It is interesting that this incident, which occurred over a year ago, has now generated such intense media interest, given that rape in South Africa has been a huge problem for decades among the European and the black African populations alike.

The media’s intense coverage of these stories is highly suspect—given that the problem of child abuse and enslavement is not restricted to Africa.  Why all this interest in Joseph Kony and child soldiers, when child abduction, child enslavement, and child sex trafficking is going on right here in the United States?  Why all the media attention to the gang rape of a young girl in South Africa, when similar rapes are committed every day right here in the United States?  It just doesn’t compute.

We all know that the media does not exist to inform, but to deform and reform—our thought processes, that is.  The media always try to get us to look left when we should be looking right, or to look down when we should be looking up.  Why should it be any different now?

So what does the media really want with Africa?  Why all the sudden interest in Joseph Kony?  I thought about this today and could come up with no other reason than that someone again wants Africa’s natural resources and that perhaps Joseph Koney is seen as a hindrance.  I wasn’t satisfied with this answer, however, because it doesn’t explain the need for the media.  One would think that the string pullers would want to keep the media attention away from Africa.  So why is CNN and the rest of the media pushing the Kony agenda?

I must admit that politics has never been my strong suit.  But since becoming a Christian I have come to understand that politics is essentially the social application of religion.  What I mean by this is that people usually live their religion.  They legislate their religion, they vote their religion, and they elect into public office those who share their religion (or at least those who share their religious convictions).  Many only socialize and keep company with those who share their religious convictions, and, for many, their religious beliefs guide important financial, business, and personal decisions.  Clearly, religion drives politics.

If religion is the basis for everything we do, and politics is the social outworking of religion, then everything that is going on in the world—including what we see going on in Africa—is based on religion, no matter how far removed from religion it may seem to be.  If this is the case, then there should be some biblical precedent or reference in the Bible that could shed some light on current events, in particular the events taking place in Africa and the media’s intense interest in the Dark Continent.

By the way, if politics is based on religion, then the old saying, “I don’t discuss religion and politics” could not have come from a Christian, because the two go together “like peas and carrots.”  But I digress.

I remembered that the book of Daniel has some things to say about Africa, so I went back to take a look.  The moment I started reading, it began to make sense.  In Daniel Chapters 10 and 11, the angel Gabriel explains to Daniel the meaning of a terrifying vision of the future which God had given Daniel.  That future is the time in which we are now living.  Speaking of the Antichrist, Gabriel says,

“He (the Antichrist) shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

“He shall stretch forth also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

“But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps” (Daniel 11:41-43).

Understand that at the time the book of Daniel was written, the country of Ethiopia didn’t exist.  At that time, the term “Ethiopian” applied to all blacks.  Ethiopia means “the land of Ethiops.”  Ethiops was another name for Cush, the son of Ham and the grandson of Noah.  Cush was the father of the dark-skinned races—the Africans.  The biblical Ethiopia, then, is Africa.  Though the Lybians are also descended from Ham, they are not descended from Cush, and that is why the angel Gabriel makes a distinction between the Lybians and the Ethiopians.

So when Daniel says, “the Ethiopians shall be at his steps,” he means that all of Africa will be under submission to the Antichrist.

It is important, at this point, to emphasize my belief, based on the Bible, that the current pope, Benedict XVI, is the Antichrist.  In that the Roman Catholic church has always had the goal of making it’s religion the universal religion of the world (catholic means “universal”) and the pope the universal monarch of the world, one must consider whether the events going on in Africa have the aim of not only securing the Vatican’s control over Africa and its vast natural resources, but the propagation of Roman Catholicism throughout Africa.  It would also mean wresting control from the Muslims and bringing Islam under the control of the Roman Catholic church, as Islam is the major religion of many African countries.  This would not be a stretch if what Jack Chick alleges in the Crusader comic Double Cross is true: that is, that the Roman Catholic church actually created Islam, which subsequently broke away and has rebelled until today.

This scenario is the only one that makes sense to me.  Consider that Egypt, Lybia, and Syria (all Muslim countries) were relatively stable until last year.  Then suddenly the pipes burst and we were going into Lybia to assist in taking out a sitting head of state that posed absolutely no threat to the people of the United States.  Granted, I am politically challenged, but I could not see the geopolitical ramifications of this move.  Only in view of what the Bible says, does the sudden instability and turmoil in these countries begin to make sense.

With this in mind, could CNN’s coverage of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army be intended to defame Kony and create an international groundswell of outrage sufficient to justify the UN sending a “peacekeeping” force into Uganda and the Congo to put down Kony?  What (or whom) is the Lord’s Resistance Army really resisting and why does CNN and the media care? 

Saints, we should think about these things and not jump on the Kony-bashing bandwagon.  We should always watch the news with an eye towards prophecy.  Things are often not at all what they appear to be.

The producer of the following YouTube video understands this completely.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4_U7FiEvkA&feature=related

Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

The Still Man

P.S.  As of this writing, media attention has shifted to Yemen, where a connection to Al-Qaeda bomb-making activities, 9/11, and the attack on the U.S.S Cole has been made. “And [Africa] shall be at his steps.”

Copyright © 2011-2012 Anthony Keeton, The Still Man ®.  All rights reserved.