I’m stepping up on my little pastoral soapbox for a moment—not because I enjoy the view from up here, but because sometimes the sheer theological nonsense floating around in the public square requires a gentle-but-firm tap of the shepherd’s staff. Consider yourself lovingly warned.

When someone claims that a leader has been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” we are no longer in the realm of Christian theology. We’re not even in the realm of creative fan‑fiction. We’ve wandered into a place where Scripture is treated like a movie script and Jesus is reduced to a plot device.

The Jesus of the gospels does not outsource his return to geopolitical chaos. He does not subcontract holy war to presidents, generals, or anyone else with access to a microphone. He does not need a nation to “light a signal fire” for him—as though the Lord of heaven and earth is waiting for us to strike the match.

Armageddon, in Scripture, is symbolic language meant to reveal the limits of human power, not a military objective to be achieved. Turning it into a foreign‑policy strategy is not bold faith; it’s bad exegesis with a side of hubris.

And let’s be clear: Jesus does not anoint people to start wars. Jesus anoints the poor, the brokenhearted, the peacemakers, the ones who hunger for justice. The only fire he lights is the fire of mercy, compassion, and truth.

When leaders (secular or religious) invoke Jesus to sanctify violence, they are not proclaiming the gospel. They are baptizing their own ambitions and hoping no one notices the difference. The church has every right—and every responsibility—to say, “That’s not how any of this works.”

Faith does not require us to accept theological nonsense. Faith requires us to recognize the voice of the Shepherd—and to call out the noise that tries to drown him out.