The Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson (1908) is a long and psychologically insightful novel, a precocious instance of the genre that sci-fi fans now call “Cybersteam.” It was written in the wake of the Victorian era by the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, who had dabbled for some time in the occult before converting to Catholicism. The novel takes the strands of religious liberalism current around 1900 and projects them a hundred or so years into the future — to create a society perfectly ripe for the coming of the Antichrist.
What’s so chilling about the book is how accurately the author predicted the church of today, where many Christians have lapsed into a teary-eyed, self-aggrandizing “tolerance” and abandoned core Christian doctrines, especially when the State applies the slightest pressure and offers its squalid bribes.
As the Antichrist arrives, it is as a sponsor of humanitarian values, winning the equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize simply for showing up. In due course, he does defuse a threatened European war, and dissolves social conflicts with a preternatural ease. He also offers to solve all ecclesiastical conflicts, by drawing believers together into an uplifting, pan-religious movement that goes beyond “divisive” moral issues and “outdated” doctrinal claims. Those Christians too pig-headed and uncharitable to accept his kindly offer face the prospect of euthanasia or worse — chief among them, the reigning pope.