Genre:  Religious tract/eschatology.

ISBN: 0971926212

The following review was contributed by: John Walsh & CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews

The Book of Revelations provides dire warnings of the end of the world and the arrival of the Antichrist and other such things. Many people feel that the events described are going to come true in a literal sense and spend their time trying to understand what is going to happen to whom and when. As part of this movement, the American bible scholar and broadcaster James A. Scudder has written Son of Satan: The Coming Economic Prosperity to explicate his views about the end-times which are, in fact, rather imminent.

In common with other writers who take the bible to contain the literal truth, Scudder provides no explanation of which version he favours or any discussion of the very complex translation work required to bring it into a comprehensible form of English. This strikes me as very odd; if a writer’s primary source is treated in such a cavalier fashion, then what does that mean for the level of scholarship involved? Some of the other sources employed seem to have little credibility beyond assertion. Many of the arguments fly in the face of generations of careful scientific exploration, as for example in the casual dismissal of evolution. Others are contentious in different ways. I imagine not all Americans would welcome his interpretation that their home country is in fact Babylon from which the Antichrist will arise. He also has an ambivalent attitude towards the sacred cow of democracy:

“I don’t believe democracy is inherently evil. I certainly love living in America more than I would in any place else, however it is easy to see that a democratic way of thinking will help usher in Satan’s world-uniting religion (pp.98-9).”

The author elsewhere observes that Bush’s war against Iraq is also bringing about the rise of the Antichrist (which furthers God’s plan and must be good, therefore) and he acknowledges that the war is motivated by the desire to control that benighted country’s oil supplies. His other comments reveal, as might be expected, a socially conservative worldview and the conviction that only people who think in exactly the same way as he does will get up to heaven while the rest of us will be condemned to hell forever.

Together with a lengthy study section, this book will interest some of the many people who share Scudder’s beliefs, although it is of limited value to people who have alternative opinions, unless they are thinking of changing their minds. It is also very revealing of the mindset of one of the set of people that we are led to believe helped usher in the second Bush administration.