What could have possessed the Rev. Jerry Falwell to announce that the Antichrist is probably alive and a male Jew? During a recent speech in Kingsport, Tennessee, on millennial anxiety, Falwell predicted that the Antichrist “will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he’ll be Jewish.” Falwell could not–or would not–identify the Evil One but later burbled that he, or it, was teaching at Harvard, which somehow prompted fundamentalist dittoheads to send hate mail to Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who angrily faced down the reverend on Geraldo. With Dershowitz definitely out of the running, here is an attempt to narrow the field, accompanied by the Vegas odds.
Dr. Andrew Weil.
(2 to 1) The New Age MD’s 1995 book was curiously titled Spontaneous Healing. When asked through his Web site if he was the Antichrist, Weil responded with an instant message: “Thanks for asking…. I’ll think about it.”
Michael Eisner.
(3 to 1) Producing PG porn and satanic rock and allowing “Gay Day” at Disneyland shows where he’s at. And what better way to disguise those horns than mouse ears?
Henry Kissinger.
(3 to 1) In his booklet “What Can We Know About the Antichrist?” Herbert Vander Lugt depicts Satan’s disciple as “a dynamic deceiver,” “power obsessed” and someone who “will portray himself as a man of peace and a friend of Israel but turn out to be neither.”
Adam Sandler.
(6 to 1) It is said that the Antichrist comes from the East. Sandler was born in Brooklyn, which is close enough. At 32, Sandler is about the same age as Christ at the time of his death. The real giveaway: The smirking star of The Waterboy engenders a huge following for no apparent reason.
William Shatner.
(12 to 1) What do you think Captain Kirk meant by “the final frontier”–heaven? Play Shatner’s 1968 album The Transformed Man backwards and you’ll likely hear “Beam me up, Beelzebub” repeated over and over.
Larry King.
(18 to 1) The Book of Daniel (11:36) says of the Antichrist, “the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god.”
Howard Rubinstein.
(36 to 1) Among the Antichrist’s accomplices will be “the false prophet” and “the harlot,” which sounds uncannily like two of the superflack’s big clients, trash-TV mogul Rupert Murdoch and Weight Watchers pitchwoman Sarah Ferguson.
Arthur Miller.
(66 to 1) The Crucible is interpreted as a parable of McCarthyism in which the ministers are the villains. So who are the heroes? Satan’s spawn, the witches!
Sandy Koufax.
(666 to 1) A Jew who pitched three no-hitters and a perfect game must have had help.
