Fab Four:
“Richard Land,
president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, identified what he
called the ‘four modern horses of the apocalypse’ and challenged messengers to
make personal commitments to bring revival to
… He identified the four modern horsemen of the apocalypse as denial of the
sanctity of human life, the rise and deluge of hardcore Internet pornography,
the radical homosexual agenda and its attempt to undermine marriage, and
radical Islamic jihadism.”
Apparently Mr.
Land referred to “horses,” and a reporter at the Southern Baptist Convention
made it “horsemen,” but that’s a minor point. Both horsemen and the horses they
rode in on are mentioned in the Book of Revelation. The Whore of Babylon is in
there too, but apparently afoot.
I don’t go into Revelation without an interpreter
— the Random House Unabridged, in this case. The dictionary says that the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse are “four riders on white, red, black and pale
horses symbolizing pestilence, war, famine and death, respectively.” Not
somebody you’d want to hang out with, for sure.
Mr. Land is not
the first to attempt to modernize the horsemen. In 1924, a famously florid
sportswriter named Grantland Rice wrote a memorable account of a football game
between Army and Notre Dame:
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the
Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence,
destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are
Stuhldreher, Miller,
and Layden. They formed the crest of the
was swept over the precipice … ”
A publicist took
pictures of Stuhldreher et al on horseback, and for a time, the Four Horsemen
of Notre Dame were almost as famous as the originals.
I remember a movie in the early ‘60s — a remake
of an older, silent movie — in which the four horsemen were shown galloping
across the sky. (The apocalyptic four, not the Notre Dame backfield.) A ‘60s
audience wouldn’t buy it. Maybe Mr. Land will have more luck with his version.