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'End times' religious groups want apocalypse sooner than later, and they're relying on high tech -- and red heifers -- to hasten its arrival.

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah. For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

To the majority of Shiites, the Mahdi was the last of the prophet Muhammad's true heirs, his 12 righteous descendants chosen by God to lead the faithful.

Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines.

Artisans have re-created priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple — along with two 6½-ton marble cornerstones for the building's foundation.

Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal's body.

Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God's plan within this generation.

Though there are myriad interpretations of how it will play out, the basic Christian apocalyptic countdown — as described by the Book of Revelation in the New Testament — is as follows:

Jews return to Israel after 2,000 years, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, billions of people perish during seven years of natural disasters and plagues, the antichrist arises and rules the world, the battle of Armageddon erupts in the vicinity of Israel, Jesus returns to defeat Satan's armies and preside over Judgment Day.

Generations of Christians have hoped for the Second Coming of Jesus, said UCLA historian Eugen Weber, author of the 1999 book "Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages."

"And it's always been an ultimately bloody hope, a slaughterhouse hope," he added with a sigh. "What we have now in this global age is a vaster and bloodier-than-ever Wagnerian version. But, then, we are a very imaginative race."

Apocalyptic movements are nothing new; even Christopher Columbus hoped to assist in the Great Commission by evangelizing New World inhabitants.

Some religious scholars saw apocalyptic fever rise as the year 2000 approached, and they expected it to subside after the millennium arrived without a hitch.

It didn't. According to various polls, an estimated 40% of Americans believe that a sequence of events presaging the end times is already underway. Among the believers are pastors of some of the largest evangelical churches in America, who converged at Faith Central Bible Church in Inglewood in February to finalize plans to start 5 million new churches worldwide in 10 years.

"Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go to the ends of the Earth and tell everyone how they could achieve eternal life," said James Davis, president of the Global Pastors Network's "Billion Souls Initiative," one of an estimated 2,000 initiatives worldwide designed to boost the Christian population.

"As we advance around the world," Davis said, "we'll be shortening the time needed to fulfill that Great Commission. Then, the Bible says, the end will come."

An opposing vision, invoked by Ahmadinejad in an address before the United Nations last year, suggests that the Imam Mahdi, a 9th century figure, will soon emerge from a well to conquer the world and convert everyone to Islam.

"O mighty Lord," he said, "I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace."

At the appropriate time, according to Shiite tradition, the Mahdi will reappear and, along with Jesus, lead Muslims in a struggle to rid the world of corruption and establish justice.

For Christians, the future of Israel is the key to any end-times scenario, and various groups are reaching out to Jews — or proselytizing among them — to advance the Second Coming.

A growing number of fundamentalist Christians in mostly Southern states are adopting Jewish religious practices to align themselves with prophecies saying that Gentiles will stand as one with Jews when the end is near.

Evangelist John C. Hagee of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio has helped 12,000 Russian Jews move to Israel, and donated several million dollars to Israeli hospitals and orphanages.

"We are the generation that will probably see the rapture of the church," Hagee said, referring to a moment in advance of Jesus' return when the world's true believers will be airlifted into heaven.

"In Christian theology, the first thing that happens when Christ returns to Earth is the judgment of nations," said Hagee, who wears a Jewish prayer shawl when he ministers. "It will have one criterion: How did you treat the Jewish people? Anyone who understands that will want to be on the right side of that question. Those who are anti-Semitic will go to eternal damnation."

On July 18, Hagee plans to lead a contingent of high-profile evangelists to Washington to make their concerns about Israel's security known to congressional leaders. More than 1,200 evangelists are expected for the gathering.

"Twenty-five years ago, I called a meeting of evangelists to discuss such an effort, and the conversation didn't last an hour," he said. "This time, I called and they all came and stayed. And when the meeting was over, they all agreed to speak up for Israel."

Underlining the sense of urgency is a belief that the end-times clock started ticking May 15, 1948, when the United Nations formally recognized Israel.

"I'll never forget that night," Hagee said. "I was 8 years old at the time and in the kitchen with my father listening to the news about Israel's rebirth on the radio. He said, 'Son, this is the most important day in the 20th century.' "

Hagee's message is carried on 160 television stations and 50 radio stations and can be seen in Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and most Third World nations.

By contrast, Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach and co-founder of the evangelical Promise Keepers movement for men, which became huge in the 1990s, has had a devil of a time getting his own apocalyptic campaign off the ground.

It's called The Road to Jerusalem, and its mission is to convert Jews to Christianity — while there is still time.

"Our whole purpose is to hasten the end times," he said. "The Bible says Jews will be brought to jealousy when they see Christians and Jewish believers together as one — they'll want to be a part of that. That's going to signal Jesus' return."

Jews and others who don't accept Jesus, he added matter-of-factly, "are toast."

McCartney, who only a decade ago sermonized to stadium-size crowds of Promise Keepers, said finding people to back his sputtering cause has been "like plowing cement."

Given end-times scenarios saying that non-believers will die before Jesus returns — and that the antichrist will rule from Jerusalem's rebuilt Holy Temple — Jews have mixed feelings about the outpouring of support Israel has been getting from evangelical organizations.

"I truly believe John Hagee is at once a daring, beautiful person — and quite dangerous," said Orthodox Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, vice president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York.

"I sincerely recognize him as a hero for bringing planeloads of people to Israel at a time when people there were getting blown up by the busloads," Hirschfield said. "But he also believes that the only path to the father is through Jesus. That leaves me out."

Meanwhile, in what has become a spectacular annual routine, Jews — hoping to rebuild the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 — attempt to haul the 6 1/2 -ton cornerstones by truck up to the Temple Mount, the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock shrine. Each year, they are turned back by police.

Among those turned away is Gershon Solomon, spokesman for Jerusalem's Temple Institute. When the temple is built, he said, "Islam is over."

"I'm grateful for all the wonderful Christian angels wanting to help us," Solomon added, acknowledging the political support from "Christians who are now Israel's best lobbyists in the United States."

However, when asked to comment on the fate of non-Christians upon the Second Coming of Jesus, he said, "That's a very embarrassing question. What can I tell you? That's a very terrible Christian idea.

"What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?"

But are all of these efforts to hasten the end of the world a bit like, well, playing God?

Some Christians, such as Roman Catholics and some Protestant denominations, believe in the Second Coming but don't try to advance it. It's important to be ready for the Second Coming, they say, though its timetable cannot be manipulated.

Hirschfield said he prays every day for the coming of the Jewish messiah, but he too believes that God can't be hurried.

"For me," he said, "the messiah is like the mechanical bunny at a racetrack: It always stays a little ahead of the runners but keeps the pace toward a redeemed world.

"Trouble is, there are many people who want to bring a messiah who looks just like them. For me, that kind of messianism is spiritual narcissism."

But some Christian leaders say they aren't playing God; they're just carrying out his will.

Ted Haggard, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, says the commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission has naturally intensified along with the technological advances God provided to carry out his plans.

Over in Mississippi, Lott believes that he is doing God's work, and that is why he wants to raise a few head of red heifers for Jewish high priests. Citing Scripture, Lott and others say a pure red heifer must be sacrificed and burned and its ashes used in purification rituals to allow Jews to rebuild the temple.

But Lott's plans have been sidetracked.

Facing a maze of red tape and testing involved in shipping animals overseas — and rumors of threats from Arabs and Jews alike who say the cows would only bring more trouble to the Middle East — he has given up on plans to fly planeloads of cows to Israel. For now.

In the meantime, some local ranchers have expressed an interest in raising their own red heifers for Israel, and fears of hoof-and-mouth disease and blue tongue forced Lott to relocate his only verified red heifer — a female born in 1993 — to Nebraska.

Cloning is out of the question, he said, because the technique "is not approved by the rabbinical council of Israel." Artificial insemination has so far failed to produce another heifer certified by rabbis.

"Something deep in my heart says God wants me to be a blessing to Israel," Lott said in a telephone interview. "But it's complicated. We're just not ready to send any red heifers over there."

If not now, when?

"If there's a sovereign God with his hand in the affairs of men, it'll happen, and it'll be a pivotal event," he said. "That time is soon. Very soon."

Source: LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-endtimes22jun22,1,7639393,
full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true

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David Worby is now at the helm of what he calls the largest and most important class-action lawsuit in U.S. history, representing thousands of people he says are dying at an accelerated pace from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero.

He says a national health emergency should be declared because his 8,000 clients are developing cancer, kidney and respiratory ailments in the nearly five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The big question: To what extent is this true?

The answer: No one really knows because Worby hasn't shared medical proof, and that's why even the government's 9/11 health coordinator recently stopped by his White Plains penthouse office to see what he's got.

The fact is that no one has done a comprehensive study of the health consequences on an estimated 75,000 police, firefighters and construction workers who responded to the World Trade Center site — and Worby has stepped into the vacuum.

"You're looking at the system," Worby said. "I'm it."

He has sued New York City and its contractors, who oversaw the rescue and cleanup, claiming they failed to protect workers from cancer-causing benzene and other hazardous chemicals that filled the air. Worby returns today to a federal court in Manhattan, where the defense will argue for a dismissal on the grounds that the city made a "good faith" effort to safeguard workers by providing them equipment, such as masks, and trying to ensure they used it.

The city's lawyers also claim that New York is legally immune from liability while providing services during an attack on U.S. soil.

Worby says the city should have shut down the operation, and declared it a hazardous waste site, immediately after it was clear no survivors would be found. Instead, workers remained there for months, forming bucket brigades that cleared debris and searched the smoking rubble for bodies.

He has thousands of clients saying they basically fended for themselves the first few days, then were given masks with filters that were later replaced because they were deemed insufficient to block out all the toxins.

It was 20 months after the attacks that Worby's first two clients — NYPD detectives John Walcott of Pomona and Richard Volpe of Mount Kisco — walked into his office to report they were suffering life-threatening conditions.

Both men arrived at Ground Zero shortly after the towers came crashing down. They searched the pile for survivors the first few days as part of the bucket brigade, wearing nothing more than surgical masks. They spent the next several months recovering body fragments, volunteering on days off. They felt so strongly about the mission that they braved the conditions, even as they began coughing up blood and black soot.

"I thought this could be doing something to my body, but at the same time, I was thinking it's my job and that they wouldn't put me in a dangerous situation like that," Volpe, 38, said.

"I was told everything was safe," Walcott, 41, said.

A married father with a newborn child, Walcott became increasingly sluggish in the ensuing months. He attributed it to having to wake up early to coach hockey at Fox Lane High School.

In May 2003, he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and told he would be dead in a week without treatment. So he began five months of chemotherapy and had a stem-cell transplant.

Told his cancer likely resulted from his exposure to benzene at Ground Zero, he also went in search of an attorney. He and Volpe — who is suffering kidney failure — contacted two attorneys whose fees were too high, before finding Worby.
'A voice to 9/11 heroes'

Worby, a 53-year-old Bedford resident, already was one of the region's most successful personal injury lawyers, an outspoken advocate who set a Westchester and Putnam county record in 1989 by securing $18 million for a construction worker hit by a car on the Hutchinson River Parkway. He's also a composer, playwright, author, producer and TV writer, according to his Web site. Ice-T and Snoop Dogg, whom Worby calls "unrelated brothers," will star in one of his screenplays that begins shooting in the fall.

He came out of semiretirement to file the suit in September 2004.

Initially, his lawsuit got little attention, partly because few took him seriously, including the news media he was courting. But his client list kept growing, largely by word of mouth. Walcott and Volpe, for their part, have referred several people with whom they worked at the World Trade Center site.

Although Worby has only met a couple of hundred of his clients, he now has more than a dozen lawyers working full time on the case and a team of medical consultants. His profile has grown to the point that media and politicians are now seeking him out.

"David Worby has given a voice to 9/11 heroes who would otherwise be suffering in silence," said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has met Worby to discuss his suit and her fight for a greater government response to the health concerns. "Because our government has basically abandoned these workers, advocates like Mr. Worby have had to intervene on their behalf."

This month, he's sat down with everyone from The New York Times to "60 Minutes," declaring that 57 of his clients have already died from 9/11 causes, including two this week.

"I predicted two years ago that I would have hundreds of people dying and nobody listened," he said. "I have 300 people dying of cancer in the next few months. We're just now entering the latency period for these toxins."

But as with most of the sickness and deaths, he won't disclose names or evidence linking the illnesses to 9/11, citing privacy concerns. He referred The Journal News to one doctor who is assisting his case, but that person did not return repeated calls.

"All you people in the media are torturing me," Worby said. "You say, 'Give me doctors, give me scientists.' Find your own scientists. Challenge me."

He has no medical degree, though one of his consultants dubbed him a "brown-shoe epidemiologist."

The reality is one of the deaths formally linked to 9/11 recovery work was NYPD Detective James Zadroga of New Jersey, whose autopsy found he died from respiratory failure caused by exposure to toxic dust.

Some experts say the types of cancer Worby's reporting typically wouldn't occur for at least 10 years after exposure but note it could be hastened by the extreme level of toxins at Ground Zero.

"It's a very sad commentary that a lawyer working on his own knows more about the health of people who were exposed to 9/11 hazards than the government, which has a responsibility to protect the public health," said Jonathan Bennett, spokesman for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.
'Reason to be concerned'

The federal government did set up a health registry in 2003 for lower Manhattan residents, workers and rescue personnel. But while 71,000 people participated, the program has come under fire because it gave no medical testing, care or referrals.

Under one federal program, Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City has screened about 16,000 World Trade Center responders and treated 1,800 people, though the treatment has a 16-week wait list.

Dr. Robin Herbert, the program's co-director, said "at least a few" of them have developed cancer, although doctors haven't studied whether they're linked to Sept. 11.

"We are not near the point where we can say anything scientific about the cancer rates among our population," Herbert said.

"The programs we're operating were not funded to specifically track nor identify deaths among WTC responders," she added.

She refused to comment on the suit but said screeners at Mount Sinai have been "badly surprised by the persistence of our patients' WTC-related illnesses."

"We do know there were various cancer-causing agents in the environment, and I think there is certainly reason to be concerned and to watch this group very carefully," she said.

Worby has not declared how much money his suit will seek but said that his priority is getting the government to address the crisis facing his clients and others.

"This is a mission, this is not a case," he said. "I've never seen anything like this in my life. It has nothing to do with being a lawyer. It has everything to do with understanding the medical catastrophe and helping people."

Source: The Journal News
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/NEWS02/
606220379/1027/NEWS11

Holly Benoit and I stare intently at the computer screen, almost willing the "thing" to reappear.

The 20-year-old works in the Herald accounts department and was jolted a few days earlier by what seemed to be an apparition of a woman in a long white gown, moving swiftly between the desks.

Since the overhead security camera was aimed at the exact spot, we’ve been given permission to view the tape from that scary morning. And that’s what we’re doing now.

Sure enough, here’s Holly, moving in and out of view and looking quite agitated. And here’s her mother Marg, who was also in the office at the time, just the two of them. Both have very serious expressions.

And here comes the security guard, checking things out, just as Holly had described.

But no sign of anything else. We reverse the tape and stare again. And again. Was that a flicker?

Nope. Just the three worried-looking women. How disappointing.

So who — or what — might it be? Holly isn’t the only employee to have seen something over the years.

Some believe it’s Martha, first wife of Richard John Uniacke, the lawyer/politician who was named Nova Scotia’s solicitor general in 1781 and attorney general in 1797.

The couple lived in a house on the site now occupied by The Herald Building on Argyle Street.

Incredibly, Richard married Martha when she was only 12, and they had 12 children! She died when she was only 40, most likely in the same townhouse, because Richard’s estate in Mount Uniacke wasn’t built by then.

She and Richard are buried beneath St. Paul’s Anglican Church, just a block from the Herald. Perhaps she likes to return occasionally because she misses her old haunt, so to speak.

Herald publisher Graham Dennis is amused by the stories but, like me, isn’t ready to believe in ghosts.

"Not ghosts as such," he says, "but I do believe there are (people) whose personalities linger on, long after them. I absolutely do!"

He adds that the newspaper has never lacked for powerful personalities, especially females.

Whatever the explanation, I’m hearing some unnerving stories from normally sensible Herald colleagues. • Take Stephanie Brown, for example. She works in classifieds and she tells me she was working one Sunday morning, alone except for the security guard in the lobby.

Suddenly, she heard muffled voices of a man and woman, coming from a nearby hall that was in darkness.

Puzzled, Stephanie peeked around the corner, up and down the dark hall.

It was empty.

"Yet it sounded like they were right beside me," she says. "I got goose bumps. It was scary!"• Then there was Susan Bradley’s experience. Susan’s a veteran news reporter who had a scare one night on a late shift. She was alone at the time and, as she headed to the door to the lunchroom, she felt a presence crowding her from behind, as though someone was trying to get past her.

Susan fled to her desk and dialed a telephone operator, just to hear another human voice!• And let’s not forget Barry Kaiser, who worked on the fourth floor for 32 years before he retired.

One night, chatting with a colleague, he was stunned to see a figure materializing a few feet away.

"He had on a blue/black hammer-tailed coat, stockings and black shoes with square, gold buckles."

Barry couldn’t make out the face because it was blurry.

Shaken, he directed his colleague’s attention to the apparition but it vanished before he could turn.

As eerie as these events are, they can be matched by the strange occurrences at the other downtown Herald location at the corner or Prince and Brunswick streets.

The three-storey brick heritage building opened in 1875 as the Halifax Visiting Dispensary. Within its walls were an apothecary, a dispensary and, ominously, a morgue and coroner’s office in the basement.

Natasha Mitchell works there. She’s administrative co-ordinator of the newspaper’s customer service department and admits to feeling presences, especially on the stairs to the basement, now a staff lunchroom.

"Like someone brushing by me."

Natasha has heard many strange tales over the years, like the one about the ghostly cup. Once, several women were having lunch when one got up for some coffee. As she went to pour, her cup moved along the counter, all by itself.

"They all saw it," adds Natasha.

Scariest of all, however, have been sightings of a little girl, just standing there in a long white dress.

"She’s been seen, as plain as day!" says Natasha. "People have been scared to go back alone."

Once, a staffer encountered the wraith racing up and down a third-floor corridor.

"She was screaming for help," says Natasha. "She was screaming, ‘Help me! Help me!’ "

So there you have it, some curious goings-on indeed. So, how can a disbeliever like me get to the bottom of all this weirdness?

"You should challenge the ghost to come find you," a colleague suggested brightly.

Er, perhaps not.

Source: The Chronicle Herald
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/512619.html