OK, so I’m finishing my preparations this morning for teaching my Sunday School lesson (on the book of Revelation), and the thought strikes me: how many folks out there (and by “folks”, I mean evangelical Christians) believe, fear, or suspect that Mitt Romney may be the ‘Anti-Christ’ alluded to in Revelation by John?

Well, a very simple Google search (Mitt Romney AntiChrist) turns up about 26,000 hits. But, as it turns out, Romney is dead last on the list of major presidential contenders. Here are some searches for the other candidates as well as the current and immediate past Presidents and Vice-Presidents:

• Mike Huckabee: 156,000 hits
• Fred Thompson: 108,000 hits
• Bill Clinton: 84,900 hits
• Rudi Giuliani: 84,800 hits
• Ron Paul: 82,700 hits
• George W. Bush: 64,800 hits
• Hillary Clinton: 63,500 hits
• Al Gore: 62,500 hits
• John Edwards: 61,200 hits
• Dick Cheney: 40,800
• Barack Obama: 31,700 hits
• John McCain: 28,500 hits
• Mitt Romney: 26,000 hits

Admittedly, this is a crude and inaccurate measure — all I’m checking for is the presence of the word ‘AntiChrist’ along with the candidate’s first and last name. But the results certainly are counter-intuitive: not only is Mitt Romney the lowest on the list, but almost all the other major Republican candidates are ahead of all the major Democratic candidates, John McCain being the exception — but he’s still ahead of Romney.

I may do more refined searches later. ..bruce..