Atlas Shrugged

There are quite a number of Christian books that have been published, and films made, on the topic of the Antichrist. I submit to you that Ayn Rand's character of John Galt is a contender in principle. A few blogs ago I wrote of seeing Atlas Shrugged on a rainy day in Myrtle Beach. I went in knowing little about the novel of which the term cult-like following is inadequate. I came home and picked up the book and began where the film (the first of a trilogy) left off. Ayn Rand provides a savior for us in Atlas Shrugged and it is John Galt. Two thirds of the novel looks ahead for the answer to the question "Who is John Galt?," which is a running theme of the book, as roughly two thirds of the Bible looks ahead to the coming of the Messiah. Described accurately as a distopian United States, the setting of the novel has this Christ-like figure in John Galt who calls certain chosen disciples to himself to go into seclusion and watch the world collapse without them.  Confronted with his wisdom, these chosen disciples drop everything to follow him. He promises a paradise, or more accurately, the instruction of building one and freedom to do so. John Galt's oath, repeated a number of times after his appearance on the scene, is "I swear by my life and love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man nor ask another man to live for the sake of me." These disciples learn from him and fear for him as he exposes his person to the pharisees to confront their enslavement of truth. He is tortured...but lives and his kingdom eventually comes to earth (this nation anyway.) Rand did indeed have the playbook of the Leftist and the Totalitarian, her avowed enemies, in writing Atlas Shrugged for one can see their dangerous ineptitude and propaganda in today's newspapers, even in what will be the headlines of tomorrow's (May 20, 2011,)  but her utopian vision also comes from that same Leftist playbook. John Galt replaced original sin with original righteousness and received the love of man and woman because of it. The self-adulation of man has often been a temptation throughout history and in the hands of Ayn Rand's pen it is most formidable. She may not have thought too highly of Libertarians but they apparently think the world of her. There is high tension today between some Conservatives and some Libertarians who are so close...yet so far away. The news media, in their infinite befuddlement, covers this early skirmishing among Republicans as if the election were next month while drooling on polls that are of very little use, if not useless, at this time. It is my contention that the eventual Republican nominee is not even in the mix as of yet. There are extreme dangers in the Middle East and the world's economy, and malicious intentions of the world's elites that may not even be completely formulated as of now, any of which can alter the best laid schemes of mice and men. Ayn Rand's philosophy which exalts the potential of the mind of man to the exclusion of God is not the answer to our problems but rather a steroid. A consensus is needed between all Conservatives and all Libertarians but it cannot be at the expense of the One who indued our intellects with the very potential to prosper and who will, and has, withdraw it when we exalt ourselves.