Abstract
This article examines the predilection some Christian premillennialist preachers and teachers have with the semiotic association of geopolitics and biblical prophecy concerning the end times. This was epitomised in the run up to the United Kingdom’s referendum on continued membership of the European Union in June 2016. Since its inception, many premillennialists have interpreted the European Union as the place where the Antichrist emerges. Material objects associated with the European Union such as architecture, sculptures, currency and even posters, have been routinely highlighted as providing clear signs of the coming eschaton. Prophetic links between the European Union and satanic agencies, purported to be behind the ambition for an expanding European confederacy, ensured that many premillennialists voted to leave the European Union or were advised to do so in light of such prophetic signifiers. Utilising Webb Keane’s notion of representational economies, I argue that a premillennialist representational economy drives the search for signs in the everyday, and specifically those associated with the European Union. In this case, such semiotic promiscuity ratified the need to leave the European Union.
Highlights
When Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave his post-Brexit statement in an attempt to calm nerves in the immediate aftermath of a seismic shift in European politics, his speech addressed the sense of uncertainty that hovered over the United Kingdom (UK)
When you think about spiritual entities, religious organisations that have this extent of presence, that has this amount of political sway, that has this degree of prosperity, that practices a religion that presents itself as Christianity but in practice is blasphemous and abominable, there is only one religion on earth that fits the bill . . . I’m speaking to you about Roman Catholicism45
What does this all have to do with the referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU?
Summary
When Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave his post-Brexit statement in an attempt to calm nerves in the immediate aftermath of a seismic shift in European politics, his speech addressed the sense of uncertainty that hovered over the United Kingdom (UK) He spoke of a trinity of uncertainties that affected the economy: geo-political, economic and policy. The materiality of such examples is vitally important because acknowledging “[a] materialized study of religion begins with the assumption that things, their use, their valuation, and their appeal are not something added to a religion but inextricable from it”8 It is apparent in the study that follows that without signs, symbols, and tangible material reference points, prophecy would be mostly redundant. Using Keane’s notion of representational economy and associated semiotic concepts, two examples will be considered which have become focal points for the premillennialist rejection of the EU9
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