Vanderlei Dorneles The Last Empire: The New World Order and the Counterfeiting of God’s Kingdom (Tatuí, SP, Brazil: Casa Publicadora Brasileira, 2015), 192 pp. US$7.99 (Kindle)

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in biblical prophecy and end-time events. Its topic is Revelation 13:11, the lamblike beast, and the role of the United States in prophecy.

Many people have written on the topic, but they have generally been from the United States or, to a lesser extent, Europe. Those two areas of the world have much in common, especially a colonizing past. On the other hand, this volume is written by a scholar from the Southern Hemisphere—from a continent that has been on the receiving end of the “civilizing” and colonizing efforts of the North. Being from the Southern Hemisphere allows Vanderlei Dorneles to treat many aspects of American imperialism from a fresh perspective.

Dr. Dorneles, Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Brazilian Publishing House has also served as pastor, writer, and a teacher of both theology and communication. Aspects of the book were first investigated as part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of São Paulo.

The title of the book builds upon the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation and their presentations of the four kingdoms of Daniel 2, the sea beast of Revelation 13:1, and the beast of Revelation 13:11–17 that arises from the earth, has two horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon, and is instrumental in making all the earth worship the sea beast which has dominated so much of Christian history. As such, the lamblike beast is the last of those empires that feature largely in the conflict between good and evil in Bible prophecy. It is this last empire, Dorneles points out, that will lead out in the worldwide campaign against those who will be preaching the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6–12 to all the earth right before the eschaton of Revelation 14:14. It is the lamblike beast that will eventually enforce the mark of the beast. As such, it is not only a central feature in end-time prophecy, but is also a symbol whose identity needs to be unpacked.

Dorneles accepts the traditional Adventist understanding of the lamblike beast as the United States. But his book seeks to put that interpretation on solid historical ground. As he notes, “the aim of this book is to show how the birth and foundation of the American nation are important elements in understanding the Seventh-day Adventist interpretation of Revelation 13:11, as well as how these elements help to deepen awareness of the solidity and logic of this interpretation” (p. 11). In the process the book revisits “this prophetic interpretation” to “analyze the stability of its basis” or foundation (p. 8). Beyond those purposes, The Last Empire moves to demonstrate how the United States is positioned in the early twenty-first century to truly speak like a dragon in the handling of those who stand against its principles.

The book is divided into three parts, which, unfortunately, are not indicated in the flow of the chapters by divider pages in the text. The first part consists of two chapters that consider the biblical aspects of the topic. Chapter one deals with the North American empire in prophecy and places Revelation 13:11 in the context of the flow of biblical prophecy, highlighting not only the identity of the two-horned beast but also that it is the preaching of the three angels’ messages that “serves as the catalyst for the climax of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, which is focused on God’s law” (p. 21). That preaching will eventually lead “Satan’s side” to “undertake a last great effort” through the agency of the lamblike beast (p. 24).

Chapter two focuses on the Adventist interpretation of Revelation 13:11–18, which viewed the lamblike, two-horned beast as the United States from the early 1850s onward. The chapter not only looks at the progression of Adventist interpreters, but also looks at Protestant interpretations before the rise of Adventism that pointed in the same direction but were not as specific in identification. The chapter ends by highlighting that the “new earth” model of the good life exhibited by the American nation actually serves as a counterfeit of the real thing that will come at the eschaton.

The two chapters of part one cover a great deal of familiar ground, but they often do so in an insightful way that adds interpretive power to the discussion. Beyond that, they provide some insights that are new and helpful.

Part two of The Last Empire leaves the somewhat familiar grounds of the first part and enters the realm of the semiotics of culture—that is, a “specific area of semiotics which proposes that cultures are formed and structured by the production and accumulation of texts that reflect the worldview of those cultures” (p. 54). Here the concept of “texts” extends beyond written material to such things as music, painting, religious rites, symbolic images, and many other forms of cultural expression. Through semiotics the three chapters of part two provide a profile of the United States that demonstrates an ongoing collective identity across more than five hundred years.

The chapters present an overview of the development of the American nation with its messianic mission in three stages: discovery, colonization, and founding. Chapter three outlines the rather surprising perspective of Christopher Columbus, who tied his discoveries to the biblical promise of a “new earth” and the renewal of the cosmos. His messianic beliefs had been informed by those of Joachim de Fiore (1132–1202), who wrote on the prophecies of Revelation. Thus even before the discovery of America, Columbus had held a messianic understanding that provided “texts” leading to a collective identity for the “new earth” that would be expanded upon in later eras.

Chapter four furthers the image-building track through the ideas set forth by British colonists, including the New England concept that this new earth would be like a city on a hill that the eyes of the old world would focus on. The chapter demonstrates that, like Columbus, the colonizers of the American nation used biblical symbols and gave them messianic meanings even as they detached them from their literal meaning in the Bible. Thus the Puritans came to see themselves as God’s New Israel with a messianic mission to the world. In the process, the chapter highlights the function of the Sabbath (Sunday) as a sign that they were truly God’s covenant people, a “chosen nation.”

Chapter five continues the development of American identity in the founding of the United States through the examination of such texts as the Declaration of Independence, presidential speeches, and the Great Seal of the United States. Not surprisingly, Dorneles finds a great deal of information that continues to reflect the messianic mission of the “new earth” to the rest of the world. One tidbit that I found interesting was the image of the American eagle on the Great Seal that pictures it with the laurels of peace grasped in one talon and the arrows of war in the other, thereby visually reflecting on the lamb-like and dragon-like characteristics of the United States and symbolizing that the power of the nation “can be used to bless or to dominate” (p. 121). The chapter also exhibits the development of a civil religion in the United States that informs its messianic mission to the world.

Part three contains three chapters that highlight “how American imperial power is identified with the ‘voice of the dragon’ through its warlike actions and eventual persecution of God’s people” (p. 11). Chapter six discusses the “voice of the dragon” in American history all the way from its dispossessing of the Indians and Mexicans, up through its mission to “civilize” the Philippines even though they fought back for years, and up into its imperialist wars of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The dragon aspect comes out quite nicely in a quote from the commanding American general who in 1900 claimed that he was firmly “convinced that Filipinos need bayonet treatment for at least a decade.” Such was one small outcome of the nation’s messianic mission to the world.

Chapter seven is a rather complex treatment of the American nation’s treatment, or potential treatment, of dissenters of the American culture’s mainline perspectives. Needless to say, the chapter closes by finding that the American empire will eventually face off with Adventism over issues related to the Sabbath and creation.

The final chapter indicates how the war on terror and the monopolistic moves of the information industry are setting up a framework for end-time events. One helpful insight is that America’s drive to preserve freedom is actually more and more restrictive of it. That argument is especially clear in the book’s concluding section. Thus it is through its counterfeiting of the “new earth” that the last empire will become the agent that becomes the focal point of power to fight against those who will be preaching the coming of the genuine “new earth.” The book concludes with the thought that “the empires revealed in the Bible prophecies clearly and unequivocally fulfilled the trajectories set for them in the divine plan” (p. 182). So it will be with The Last Empire.

Did Dorneles succeed in his task? My suggestion is that you read and find out.