More Forteana -- this time, it's the End Times meets the Illuminati!

I've been following the Faithful Progressive's blog recently, and I'm very much enjoying it. FP is currently doing a series of posts critical of the Christian Right (especially of the Reconstructionist flavor) from the perspective of a deeply spiritual, although politically liberal, Christian. Now, some of the things that FP has been surprised to discover were well known to me, but when I read that Tim LaHaye was obsessed with the Illuminati, I was more than a little taken aback. FP quotes a passage from an article by Rob Boston on the Americans United for Separation of Church and State site which talks at length about LaHaye:

When he's not knocking religions he doesn't like, [he referred to Pope Paul VI as as "archpriest of Satan"] LaHaye obsesses over off-the-wall conspiracy theories. He believes a secret society called the "Illuminati" has engineered world events since the 18th century. The Illuminati, a frequent obsession among conspiracy buffs, was supposedly founded in 1776 by a cabal of power-hungry Europeans. As the story goes, over the centuries its members have sparked wars and manipulated financial markets to enrich themselves and bring about an atheistic one-world government.

In Rapture Under Attack, LaHaye writes, "I myself have been a forty-five year student of the satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order. Having read at least fifty books on the Illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years." [emphasis mine]

Hey! It's an IRAB Christian! Oh...wait...um...nevermind. Granted, this is a guy who doesn't need evidence for his beliefs (he buys into the 6,000 year old earth, for example) but ... wow.

This was entertaining, too:

Conspiracy-theory thinking and contempt for religions that differ from fundamentalist Christianity run through LaHaye's non-fiction works. His 1983 book The Battle for the Public Schools contains a drawing of a tree whose trunk is labeled "Secular Humanism." Some of its roots are labeled "Hinduism," "Buddhism," "Taoism" and "Confucianism." Branches and leaves coming off of the tree are labeled "Crime," "Divorce," "Abortion," "Homosexuality," "Rape," "V.D.," "Public Schools" and "Liberal Politicians."

Yup. Hinduism ... that's secular humanism, alright. I'd think that LaHaye would feel a great deal of kinship with the Hindu nationalists & the BJP. Oh, well, except that them Hindoos are trying to form a theocracy based on DEVIL WURSHIP! (A diabolocracy?)