There is a lot of dispute on this question over many decades.
What I can say is that today, the main trend of belief is that the Antichrist will be a popular world figure promising peace and a one world global government cooperation. The UN and other global or regional bodies are seen as likely places where the Antichrist will become popular and gain a world stage.
There is an entire scholarly book looking at who gets scapegoated in different historic periods:
Fuller, R. C. 1995. Naming the Antichrist: The history of an American obsession. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
There is also a figure called the "False Prophet," who is now often seen as emerging from Islam. Some of the current rhetoric is quite bigoted toward Muslims.
-Chip
________________________________
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of martin Sent: Thu 5/5/2005 11:29 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Chip Berlet in the news
On May 5, 2005, at 8:04 AM, Chip Berlet wrote:
> That was my success that day. I have no idea what happened with the
> specific student with whom I had interacted. But by being respectful,
> a lot of students saw the dilemma, rather than me verbally beating up
> on a person of faith for fundamentalist beliefs.
Do the fundamentalists believe that the antichrist will arise from within their midst?
Martin
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 4923 bytes Desc: not available URL: <../attachments/20050506/9e89b10d/attachment.bin>