c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ When diabolical, power-crazed politicians threaten to take over the world, they typically turn to atomic bombs, computer viruses or financial extortion _ at least in Hollywood.

But when European Union head Stone Alexander wants to bring the world to its knees, he chooses a different weapon: coded prophecies supposedly buried deep in the Bible that predict the end of time.

That’s what a team of evangelical Hollywood filmmakers would have you believe in”The Omega Code,”a slick, fast-paced film about end-times philosophies currently playing at theaters across the country.

The feature film, produced by the evangelical Trinity Broadcasting Network, is an attempt to bring a not-so-subtle Christian message into mainstream theaters. Studio executives hope the film’s secular venues will present the gospel by capitalizing on the hype surrounding the turn of the millennium.”The Omega Code”stars Michael York, who played the gentlemanly Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series, as Alexander, a global politician with dreams of taking over the world. Casper Van Dien plays Dr. Gillen Lane, a mystic and globe-trotting motivator who buys into Alexander’s scheme and later turns against him.

Also starring are Catherine Oxenburg, who appeared in”Dynasty”and”Charles and Diana,”who plays a television journalist with an eyewitness account of the impending Armageddon, and Michael Ironside, of”Starship Troopers”and”Top Gun”fame, who plays Alexander’s top henchman with powerful delusions of his own.

Studio executives spent $8.5 million on production, and the film was partially financed by Paul Crouch, the flamboyant televangelist who heads the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Crouch’s son, Matthew, is the film’s producer.

Hal Lindsey, a best-selling author of several evangelical books about the end of time, including”The Late Great Planet Earth,”was a biblical consultant on the film.

The film draws on the popularity of several recent books, including 1997’s”The Bible Code”by Michael Drosnin, which claim hidden codes in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) have predicted historic events and hold the keys to unmasking the future.

Drosnin claimed to find hidden messages predicting the Kennedy assassinations, the Oklahoma City bombing and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a year before his death. Drosnin’s work and similar books have drawn a host of criticism from scholars who say their research was at best questionable and at worse completely false.

In the film, Alexander uses the hidden codes to unite a global coalition and become the first”Chancellor of the United World.”His goal is to gain control of Jerusalem. According to apocalyptic prophecies, whoever controls Jerusalem in the final days will command the world.

Van Dien, the film’s motivator who is wooed by Alexander’s scheme, tells an audience there is commanding proof for the existence of the hidden codes.”If every living creature is embedded with DNA, why not the Holy Word of God?”he says in the film.

Eliyahu Rips, the Israeli mathematician who first discovered the alleged codes, denounced Drosnin’s attempts to use the codes to predict the future, including a”cataclysmic”earthquake which he says will hit Los Angeles in 2010. Drosnin has defended his work as the first attempt to scientifically analyze the Bible using computer-age technology. “I am not saying that `The Bible Code’ is a crystal ball,”Drosnin told a CNN audience after the book’s release.”You can not say, `Bible, please tell me the future’ and find out anything. You have to know what you are looking for to find anything at all.” The film is also hoping to capitalize on Americans’ belief in end-of-time prophecy. A poll earlier this year by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University found 72 percent of Americans believe that at some point in the future,”the world will be drastically changed by an act of God.” The survey also found that 15 percent of people believe the dawn of 2000 will bring on the end of the world.

At least one scholar who has studied the mingling of doomsday millennialism and pop culture says”The Omega Code”feeds into a popular uncertainty about what the future holds, brought on in part by the Y2K computer bug.

Brenda Brasher, an assistant professor of religion at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, said there are two things at work in”The Omega Code.”For one, Hollywood is latching on to elements of”the transcendent”in films such as”The Omega Code,””The Sixth Sense”and”The Blair Witch Project.”Religious or supernatural elements that were once taboo are now wholeheartedly embraced, she said.

But more importantly, Brasher said, a number of projects attempting to cash in on the millennium hype reflect a sort of”cultural airbag”that attempts to provide answers for an uncertain future.”It’s the idea that we’re not going to just smash into something that you don’t know when you don’t know it,”Brasher said.”It’s the idea that there’s this plan at work.” Some religious leaders, however, are cautious about the film’s premise and possible box office appeal.

Rabbi Jonathan Kendall, leader of Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Fla., said scientists and mathematicians”debunked”the Bible code theory. He said the idea is a misrepresentation of what Scripture is meant to be.”It raises false expectations and false hopes about the end of days,”Kendall said.”And while those expectations are working overtime, people are neglecting the issues which are the most pressing in this world.” DEA END ECKSTROM