If the name Michael Baigent sounds familiar, it's because he wrote HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL in collaboration with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh. Dan Brown's blockbuster novel, THE DAVINCI CODE was based on that work. Baigent and Leigh unsuccessfully sued.

RACING TOWARD ARMAGEDDON maintains that some of the more radical members of the three Abrahamic religions are doing their best to make Armageddon happen sooner rather than later.

Baigent starts with an anecdote about the Red Heifer. In Old Testament times, anyone who touched a dead person (just about everybody) was considered unclean. He had to be cleansed with the ashes of a perfect red heifer (no white or black hairs) in order to be allowed into the temple. Christian fundamentalists predict that when the third temple is built, Jesus will return. Some Jewish rabbis want to blow up the Islamic mosques presently occupying the temple mount. But they can't walk across the mount unless they are cleansed. Problem: there are no perfect red heifers. Not that Christian fundamentalists aren't trying. An Alabama breeder is currently trying to breed the perfect red heifer.

After the red heifer story, Baigent turns to an analysis of Revelation. He maintains that author John of Patmos was talking about Rome, that it was symbolic, that even John says it was symbolic, that John expected Christ's return in his lifetime, and that many church fathers were reluctant to include Revelation in the New Testament and didn't until well into the fifth century.

There's also a chapter on Jerry Falwell, which gives Baigent a chance to introduce other worthies such as Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association; Rousas Rushdoony of the Chalcedon Foundation, a group dedicated to the promotion of Christian Reconstruction and a US theocracy; and "Scary Gary" North, who endorses stoning for such offenses as adultery. Throw in Tim LaHaye, Holland Coors, Oliver North, and Major-General John K. Singlaub and you've got yourself a grand conspiracy working toward a Christian theocratic government in the United States.
Baigent asks the reasonable question: "How is such a program of a theocratic empire under biblical law different from the Islamic fundamentalist's demand for a worldwide caliphate and the introduction of sharia law?"

Radical moslems also believe in a final battle between the Christians and the Jews on one side and Islam on the other, only they foresee a nuclear confrontation and a victory for their side. They also believe in a messiah whom they call the Mahdi, a caliph who disappeared in the ninth century.

Baigent solution for all of this is to turn to spirituality: the Sufi Moslems disdain political involvement; the Jewish Kabala and Hermetic Philosophy also meet Baigent's specifications. 

Dave Schwinghammer's published novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.