The piece has received a great deal of criticism from readers, much of which lashes the author for what they regarded as a sensationalist headline: "Is Obama the Antichrist?" In our own comments section, there were hundreds of strongly worded (and often offensive) responses. "Devoting column space to this drivel speaks so well of Newsweek," started one reader, in a comment dripping with sarcasm. Some questioned whether the piece credibly qualified as journalism, calling the piece a "dangerous" provocation. "Shame on you Newsweek for adding any kind of legitimacy to this story from fearfully creative minds," wrote one reader. "Obama is the first politician in too many years to have hope as an inspiration as his platform, as opposed to fear and control. I am appalled by your lack of taste and judgment."

Others insisted that the column was full of "extreme right rhetoric," even suggesting that there was a tone of bigotry or hatred to the piece. "Does it matter to you, Newsweek editors, that you're encouraging all the wingnut loonies out there?" asked one reader. "Or is attracting attention all that matters to you?" As with other stories, there's a general assumption that a piece of controversial writing in a national magazine is injurious to society.  And even among Christians, there was a sense betrayal for portraying a small portion of believers. "To everyone reading this," cautioned one reader, "there are a LOT of Christians who would laugh at this story just like me." Many faulted the piece for failing to provide sufficient context for Strandberg's beliefs in the short space allotted for the column.

Debate over the article spilled out into the blogosphere. In a post featured on DailyKos, one writer claimed that "Miller's column is brimming with ignorance and paranoia which seems to be purposefully crafted to fan the flames of fear and hate." And a Washington Monthly blog post by writer Steve Benen faulted NEWSWEEK for giving a platform to, in his words, “strange people who believe strange things.

"When bizarre, fringe publications speculate openly about who may or may not be the Antichrist, it's easy to dismiss,” he wrote. “When Newsweek publishes a 600-word piece on those who wonder about Obama being the Antichrist, one really has to wonder what on earth the editors were thinking."

A minority of readers applauded the piece for presenting oft-ignored views. "I thank Lisa Miller for producing a very unbiased article just giving the facts about what some people believe," argued H.R. Robinson. "She is not condoning these beliefs nor is she trashing them, she is just presenting them. It doesn't matter if the beliefs are mainstream or even crazy, the fact of the matter is that some people believe this stuff. Period. There is no need for personal attacks on her, she is just doing her job."

Due to the criticism, I asked Lisa Miller if she would write a response for the blog. Here's her take, which she asked me to print in full:

On Nov. 5, I was on the phone with a source, a conservative Christian who was disappointed in the result of the election. But something else disappointed him more. Too many of his colleagues on the right, he said, were unable to focus on moving ahead. Too many of them, he told me, saw the result as a catastrophe, a sign of the end; some of them were talking about the president-elect as if he were the anti-Christ. I was intrigued for two reasons. The Barack Obama campaign had faced much criticism for the Messiah-like aura that surrounded it. Now, a certain constituency of far-right Christians were looking at the president-elect as the devil—or at least, as devilish. This seemed to me to be newsworthy. As I looked into it, I saw that the Antichrist idea had been "out there," in various ways, in local papers and on sites like Politico and USNews.com. Second, I felt that all the stories about the "new evangelicals" during this election season had obscured a very important reality in the Christian landscape: a third of white evangelicals believe that the world will end in their lifetimes, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public life. In other words, Americans with an apocalyptic worldview, who believe that the Bible contains prophesy predicting the end of time, are far from extinct.

Apocalypticism, the idea that God will bring about the end of history soon (in a series of events whose exact order has been debated for centuries) and reward the righteous with heaven, has been around since before the birth of Jesus. Many reputable scholars now believe that Jesus himself was an apocalyptic prophet and preached something like this warning, from the Gospel of Mark: "The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the Gospel." The controversy over the sanity of this perspective began on the first Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, according to the gospels, and the world stayed right where it was. The sun rose and set and rose again. The history of Christianity has, in some sense, been a story about reconciling these foreboding teachings of Jesus—and of the apostle Paul—with history as it goes on and on. Today, most mainstream Christians think about Jesus's apocalpyticism in more metaphorical terms, not as real-time warnings. But through the centuries, there have been many who continued to mine the Bible for exact information about where, when and how the world would end. Millennialists have thrived in America; Todd Strandberg, the lead character in our story, is one of them.

I do not endorse millennialist theology, but I do not dismiss it either. I am a journalist, not a rabbi; I do not aim to condone one truth claim above another, for that way madness lies. (Did God really part the Red Sea? Did Jesus, sentenced to death for political crimes, really rise from the dead after three days in a cave? Did Mohammed really travel to heaven to talk to God? Did an angel named Moroni descend from heaven to show a young American boy named Joseph Smith the location of secret tablets upon which scripture was written?) Christians with an apocalyptic worldview are important to the story of Christianity and in America, their values have to a great degree shaped what we call the culture wars. Many of them believe that what they see as the creep of secular progressivism is a prelude to the end of the world. They are an important part of the American fabric, and in my view, worth 600 words in a national magazine. As I do with most controversial subjects, I let these end-times believers speak for themselves, hoping that readers would draw their own conclusions about the soundness of their beliefs. I never imagined that readers would think that they spoke for NEWSWEEK or for me.

I’m Kurt Soller, one of Newsweek’s newest and youngest staffers. That means two things around here: first, I grew up with the Internet and attended journalism school at a time when experts were grappling with online writing, new media and what some people like to call “the commentariat” (that’s you, for the record). Second, I’m new enough at the magazine to admit when we got something wrong. About two years ago, I was just another reader of Newsweek.com. Now that I’m on the other side, hopefully I can provide answers to the questions you have. Ask away. My e-mail is plastered all over this blog, but just in case, I’m at kurt.soller@newsweek.com. For years, newspapers have had what they call ombudsmen or public editors. But call me a blogger. These days, at least, I’ll count it as a term of affection.

Though, I’ll confess that I’m relatively new to blogging, especially when it comes to professional – not personal – efforts. So I hope that we can figure out this together. In short time, I’ll be introducing regularly-scheduled features that will appear on the blog each week. Look forward to audio and video with your favorite NEWSWEEK reporters, analysis from other journalists out there in media land, or links to the things that our friends over at Gawker have to say about the death of the newsweekly. But for now, we’ll start with the bedrock of this blog – creating community by figuring out what you all want to talk about. I’m open to anything, for now, so tell me if you think I’m taking things too far – or not far enough.

Since I’m new to blogging, it’s convenient that the veteran blogger Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic Monthly just wrote an essay entitled “Why I Blog.” You can read the whole thing for yourself, but if you’re sick of my chatter, here is his take that I've adopted on why this blog is necessary:

“A blog bobs on the ocean but has its anchorage in waters deeper than those print media is technologically able to exploit. It disempowers the writer to that extent, of course. The blogger can get away with less and afford fewer pretensions of authority. He is – more than any writer of the past – a node among nodes, connected but unfinished without the links and the comments and the track-backs that make the blogosphere, at its best, a conversation, rather than a production.

… Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.”

OK, so maybe that’s a little pretentious. But you get the point. Let’s start talking.

Talk to you soon,
Kurt