In a recent rambling essay, the novelist Kurt Vonnegut mused aloud about the odd absence of the teachings of Jesus from the canon of conservative thought:

It's an excellent question. Why do all of the professionally self- proclaimed Christians -- the ones who, like the hypocrites Jesus warned against, pray so loudly in public -- prefer the harsh first half of the Bible to the entirely Christian second book?

Who are these Old Testy Christians?

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Perhaps the White House knows. After all, they apparently have top men designing a "road map" to peace in the Middle East by consulting ... the Bible. And, of course, apocalyptic Christians.

That's not apoplectic, or really angry, Christians -- as fitting as that might seem.

No, it's apocalyptic, as in: Christians who eagerly seek the end of the world (preferably via a Middle East conflagration) because they believe it will bring the rapture -- a Second Coming of Christ.

As if Jesus Christ could be summoned inexorably back -- like a rock band agreeing to an encore after enough chanting people hold up cigarette lighters -- just because we draw the right-sized borders around Israel and erect the right-sized tower in the middle.

But back to the Bush Administration. We've long known that fundamentalist Christians are granted a staggering level of White House attention, about which they brag regularly.

Now, however, The Village Voice reports, "the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios."

That high-placed NSC aide would be yet another Reagan-era Iran- Contra retread: the unsinkable Elliott Abrams. As David Corn recounted after this Administration dusted Abrams off, Abrams is a man who denied massacres, lied to Congress, smeared his political enemies as "vipers", and had his testimony interrupted once by a Senator who said he wanted "to puke" after listening to him.

Abrams sat down on March 25 with leaders of the Apostolic Congress -- a group that keeps, among its modest website, a personal page about George W. Bush, complete with photos of Karl Rove at bottom. The group's official symbol - - much like that of the Presidential Prayer Team -- is a mirror of the US Presidential seal.

The opening passage of the group's own "about us" description reflects a deep obsession with politics. It begins: "In 1981, early in the Reagan Administration, Brother Stan Wachtstetter was able to open the door for Apostolic Christians into the White House."

If you're wondering what the "Apostolic" (another A-word, sorry) stands for, it speaks to the group's belief that the original 12 apostles baptized converts directly in the name of Jesus -- and not in the name of a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But really, what more do you need to know about a Christian group that, when it volunteers its testimony, feels there's no more important place to begin than with the date and time it pried open the door to the Reagan White House?

And does it make things clearer if you consider the group's representative in Israel "believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter"? That she refers to converting Jews to Christianity as "Circumcision of the Heart"?

The Village Voice reports these particular Old Testies oppose a Palestinian state -- on grounds that all of Old Testament Israel has to be in Jewish hands, and Solomon's Temple rebuilt, before Christ will come back.

Abrams was not the only top White House mind at the meeting with the rapture Christians this spring. Other officials spoke about how the 9-11 Commission is making America look bad; how same-sex marriage will change America; and how, as Karl Rove's lieutenant, Matt Schlapp, put it, the Bush Administration "is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level."

Gee, Schlapp makes them sound like ... Bolsheviks.

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