10 Commandments of the Anti-Christ: Mysterious "Guidestones" Madden Conspiracy Theorists and Christian Fundamentalists

By Joseph Laycock, Religion Dispatches. Posted July 6, 2009.

Another interesting parallel can be drawn between the Guidestones and the Book of Revelation. Both are texts of little-known origin warning of future peril. These conditions allow for historical-critical as well as dispensationalist readings of both messages. Scholars believe the Book of Revelation was written sometime in the first century and is a warning to early Christians not to conform to the evils of Greco-Roman society. Although the Guidestones were constructed relatively recently, they too have a historical context. The letter from the Guidestones’ benefactors describes the problem of global overpopulation and warns that, "Armageddon can be prevented."

Whoever planned the monument in 1979 most likely imagined that Armageddon would take the form of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. "R.C. Christian" could not possibly have predicted the events referenced by the vandals, such as the attacks of September 11 or the election of Barack Obama. But Dice, and others like him, read the Guidestones much as they read the Book of Revelation: not as historical artifacts but as important clues to understanding current events. Stripping the messages of their historical contexts allows them to converge, so that they mutually confirm a dualistic cosmology in which Christians must battle the New World Order. Thus, evidence of the New World Order’s unfolding plot can be found both in the Book of Revelation and in the Georgia Guidestones. Likewise, Dice’s use of the pseudonym "John Connor" is very telling. Like the character in Terminator, he likely sees himself as one who knows the future and is fighting to prevent it from happening.

The history of the Guidestones is ultimately an interesting study in the heterogeneous nature of symbols. To build something so extraordinary with so little explanation created a vacuum of meaning. Much like the Guidestones’ inspiration, Stonehenge, this caused new meanings to be invented. The Guidestones are essentially a spiritual and political Rorschach test onto which any number of ideas can be imposed. Pagans and New Agers created new myths and rituals, imbuing the stones with sacred reverence. For others, the monument is not the marker of a sacred space but the evidence of a demonic plot. Should the Guidestones survive for centuries as their creators intended, many more meanings could arise, equally unrelated to the designer’s original intention.

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