List of people accused of being the Antichrist

Pope John XXII (left) depicted as the antichrist in Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus (1340)

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In most Christian circles, the Antichrist is described as the future leader of a supranational state, and is seen as a messianic figure, opposing all things about God, all while declaring himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10). Throughout the nearly 2000 years that Christianity existed, many political and social figures of their time have been accused of being such. This list chronicles those who have either failed to make the cut, or are pending to be, depending on the level of shoehorning one relies on. Many non-specific people are called "Antichrists" in the New Testament (1 John 2:18, 2 John 1:7), so this will list specifically refer to those who are, or were, said to fulfill the events of Daniel or Revelation, signaling the End Times.

Dead[edit]

• Jesus (c. 4 BCE – 30 or 33 CE): According to Paul Sides (a former computer programmer who runs an obscure webshite using the pen name Rav Sha'ul that contains plenty of other incomprehensible green ink "religious" babble), Jesus Christ himself is the Antichrist.^[1] This stance seems to have replaced a previous numerology-oriented "theory" from Sides that speculated the Antichrist to be Charles III when he was still Prince of Wales.^[2] Jesus was also previously accused of performing demonic acts in the name of Beelzebub by the Pharisees, at least according to the Bible.
• Nero (37–68): The OG. Scholars claim that in Gematria, 666 was to refer to Nero during his reign and persecution of Christians at that time.^[3] Preterists also believe Nero already fulfilled the events of Revelation.
• Pope Gregory VII (c. 1015–1085) and all subsequent popes, according to John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism.^[4]
• Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194–1250)
• During the Middle Ages, the idea that the Pope was the Antichrist was widespread.^[5][6][7]
• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821): His rampant conquests made many preachers in Europe fear the idea that he would take over the world. For those who believe that Nostradamus predicted the rise of three Antichrists, Napoleon is often considered the definitive candidate for the first slot.^[8]
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945): Probably the first American president to be widely called the Antichrist, a trend that has extended to almost every American president since.^{[9][note 1]} Roosevelt's rapid expansion of government and consolidation of power, combined with his utopian visions and his influence in developing international bodies like the United Nations, seemed to "check the boxes" of many 1930s American fundamentalists, who believed that the Antichrist prophecy would be fulfilled by the consolidation of independent nations into one superstate, led by a seemingly benevolent leader that promised world peace.^[10] Historian Matthew Avery Sutton has argued that these anti-New Deal evangelicals foreshadowed the modern evangelical-Republican alignment, along with its anti-liberalism / anti-globalism paradigm.^[11]
• Benito Mussolini (1883–1945): Being Italy's dictator and his takeover of Rome made preachers concerned he would revive the Roman Empire.
• Adolf Hitler (1889–1945): Kinda like Napoleon, but also planned to wipe out all Jews. Nostradamus fans often consider Hitler to be the second candidate of the predicted three.^[8]
• Aleister Crowley (1875–1947): "The Great Beast 666"^[12]
• John F. Kennedy (1917–1963): Being the first Catholic President in America surely gets you quite a scare.^[13] Extra points for getting shot in the head, though no resurrection as of now.
• Ronald Reagan (1911–2004): A mentally troubled man named Gregory Gordon had an obsession with Reagan being the Antichrist, to the point of getting arrested and convicted for threatening the life of a former President in 1990.^[14] There was also the once widely-circulated factoid that each of his three names, Ronald Wilson Reagan, consisted of 6 letters: 666.^[15]
• Pope John Paul II (1920–2005), according to Ian Paisley^[16]
• Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (1924–2006): A French newspaper editor and politician with a Pan-European streak, he was suggested by Hal Lindsey in his 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth.^[17]
• Saddam Hussein (1937–2006): Claimed by some to be the third in the unholy trinity of the Antichrists according to Nostradamus fanboys, as they believe that the name "Saddam" is a mirror spelling of the antichrist figure "Mabus" Nostradamus mentioned in one of his quatrians.^[18]
• Jose Luis de Jesús (1946–2013): Claimed to be both Jesus and the Antichrist at the same time.^[19]
• Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022): It all had to do with the birthmark.^[20][21]
• Henry Kissinger (1923–2023): A favorite Antichrist candidate for American fundamentalists in the 1970s and 1980s.^[22][23]

Alive[edit]

• George Soros (1930–): At least, Rudy Giuliani seems to think Soros is the Antichrist for some reason.^[24]
• Pope Francis (1936–): Protestants have long had a tradition of accusing the Catholic papacy (as well as individual popes) of being the Antichrist, a tradition that dates all the way back to one of the movement's major founders, Martin Luther.^[25] So it's no surprise that in the modern age, crazy "birther" Republican politicians ranting on Facebook will do so likewise.^[26]
• Joe Biden (1942–): The current President of the United States. He's a Catholic, but that didn't stop a Kansas man from travelling to D.C to attempt to kill "Antichrist Biden".^[27]
• Donald Trump (1946–): The rallying point, if not outright leader, of a dizzying array of cult-like political movements, such as QAnon and MAGA. He also has a large chunk of the Religious Right in his corner, despite (or maybe because of) being a charlatan with a narcissistic streak and habit of running con games rivaling L. Ron Freaking Hubbard. Oh, yeah, and he's also a hard-boiled authoritarian whose Hitler-esque approach to politics has won him the adoration of America's Neo-Nazis. Notably the tabloid New York Daily News, reporting on a spat between Trump and Francis over Trump's border wall, called Trump "ANTICHRIST!" on the front cover of their February 19 2016 edition.^[28][29] Author and internet personality Benjamin L. Corey also jocularly noted that as of 2020, Trump would have fulfilled a large number of biblical predictions about the Antichrist.^[30]
• Hillary Clinton (1947–): Accused of being the Antichrist by the GOP representative of Montana, Ryan Zinke, as part of his 2014 campaign.^[31]
• Vladimir Putin (1952–): After Putin began his widely condemned invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, several bishops in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine called Putin a "modern-day anti-Christ", or at the least operating in "the spirit of the anti-Christ".^[32]
• Jerry Seinfeld (1954–): Some forums have actually said this.^[33][34]
• Oprah Winfrey (1954–): Declared as one of the principal "pastors" of a "Harlot Babylon" by Rick Perry's NAR dominionist pal Mike Bickle in an undated video revealed in 2011. Bickle said that this "Harlot Babylon" was a precursor to the coming of the Antichrist.^[35] Some obscure webshites have gone even further and declared that she was the Antichrist, largely due to her massive popularity and accusations of supposed "New Age" influences.^[36][37]
• Bill Gates (1955–): Foreshadowing the shitshow of the modern QAnon web, a 1994 chain letter email used numerology and an easter egg in Microsoft Excel called the "Hall of Tortured Souls"^[38] to proclaim Gates as the Antichrist.^[39] Gates' later transformation into a health philanthropist added a new wrinkle to these claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to fundamentalism's wholehearted embrace of the anti-vaccination movement, and the widespread belief within the movement that COVID-19 vaccines Gates was promoting would contain mass-trackable microchips.^[40] This led to a few preachers to once again accuse Gates of being the Antichrist.^[41]
• John Lydon (1956–): self-accused, "I am an antichrist / I am an anarchist."^[42]
• Barack Obama (1961–): The most obvious example in recent memory.^{[citation NOT needed]} Ultimately, this was inevitable given that he was the first black President of the United States. Not helping is that he was accused of being a Muslim, as well as being born in Kenya. In a 2013 poll of Americans' beliefs in conspiracy theories, 13% of respondents believed that Obama was the Antichrist.^[43] Accusing Obama of being the Antichrist was a common hysterical rant in the FW:FW:FW: chain emails of the aughts.^[44] Notably, witnesses said that the motivation of the suspect of the 2011 White House shooting, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, was that he thought that Obama was the Antichrist.^{[45][note 2]}
• Tim Walz (1964–): Shortly after Walz was selected as Kamala Harris's vice presidential running mate in 2024, an obscure "prophet" named "Joseph Z" (aka Joseph Zupetz) appeared on a program run by Kenneth Copeland's ministries called Flashpoint. There, "Z" accused Walz of being picked by the "spirit of the Antichrist", as he "fit in with the wicked overlord lizard mafia that is really driven by their goblin masters."^[46]
• Elon Musk (1971–): Accused of being the Antichrist on a number of occasions, including after he wore a "Devil's Champion" outfit for Halloween 2022.^[47][48] His leadership role for Neuralink is of particular interest to some people who accuse Musk of being the Antichrist because they believe the company's brain chip implants may be the mark of the beast.
• Yuval Noah Harari (1977–): Accused of being the Antichrist by ReAwaken America tour co-founder Clay Clark as part of an over-arching conspiracy theory involving the Great Reset. The reasons Clark thinks Harari is the Antichrist seems to be because Harari is gay, vegan, has the same first name as a descendant of Cain mentioned once in the Bible, and made a grand total of two speeches at the World Economic Forum in 2018 and 2020 (which, translated into Clark's conspiracy-speak, meant that for some reason Harari was the "lead advisor" of WEF head Klaus Schwab).^[49][50][51] Helpfully to the conspiracists, ironically, a lot of Harari's actual works are dystopian futurism what-ifs (particularly when he discusses technology, especially AI);^[52] such provides a lot of material for Clark and other conspiracists to misuse in order to justify their "End Times" spin.
• Emmanuel Macron (1977–): Current French President. Another favorite Antichrist candidate of Internet conspiracy theorists.^[53] Macron did himself no favors in a long interview on April 17 2020 with the Financial Times by referring to "bête de l'événement" (the beast of the event) as an allusion to the challenges of the times, such as terrorism and the COVID-19 pandemic. This, of course, allowed conspiracy theorists to quote mine the phrase into implying that Macron was the "beast" himself.^[54]
• Jared Kushner (1981–): Trump’s son in law, and senior adviser when he was in the White House. President of Kushner Companies, who for a long time owned a building in New York City with an address of (gasp!) 666 Fifth Avenue.^[55] Also got a line of credit from (gasp!) George Soros to help fund a company called Cadre.^[56] These facts, and an allusion to Kushner somehow looking like the fictional Nicolae Carpathia from the Left Behind series, are all certain End Times webshites need to proclaim that "we are not saying that Jared Kushner is the Antichrist, but..." ^[57]
• Prince Harry (1984–): So much Gematria…^[58]
• MrBeast (1999–): In January 2023, Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast, a YouTube personality known for elaborate stunts and large giveaways, paid for 1000 phacoemulsification cataract removal operations, and then posted a video about this giveaway to YouTube (under the somewhat clickbait-ish title "1,000 Blind People See for the First Time"). While MrBeast Antichrist accusations had occasionally emerged previously in noxious corners of the Internet like 4chan, in a sad reflection of the post-Musk devolution of Twitter, this video triggered some shitpost tweets on that platform that accused MrBeast of being the Antichrist for "subverting christs teachings"^[sic] through "excessive acts of faux generosity".^[59] As with many shitpost memes, the level of sincerity and sarcasm varied depending on the poster.^[60][61]

See also[edit]

• List of predictions of the end of the world

Notes[edit]

References[edit]