Regular readers know we at Various Things & Stuff strongly advocate a healthy separation of church and state. That was drilled into us, by the way, by the devoutly Christian political science professor we had in college, who warned repeatedly against the dangers of civil religion. Over the years, we’ve seen the wisdom of his cautions again and again and again.

That’s why we gagged just a little when reading our friend J. Patrick Coolican’s profile of right-wing radio talk show host Heidi Harris. Now, we should say that we know Harris, as she was for a few months the co-host of our late, unlamented TV show Political Insiders that ran back in 2006-2007 on KTNV Channel 13. So we weren’t exactly surprised to see she’d said this:

“I know a lot of talk show hosts who get hysterical,” she said, when the subject is [President Barack] Obama. “Because I’m a Christian, I don’t believe our country can be destroyed. We read the back of the book, and we win,” she said, in a somewhat esoteric reference to the Book of Revelation.

Oh. My. God. (No pun intended.)

First, the “back of the book,” as she puts it, has nothing to do with America. St. John had his revelation around 68 A.D., a good 1,424 years before Columbus made landfall in the new world and more than 1,700 years before the declaration of independence from the British crown. We’re not entirely sure what St. John had on his mind, but we’re fairly sure it wasn’t the invincibility of a nation that wouldn’t be found for more than a millennium.

Second, the “back of the book” describes apocalyptic battles between the devil and the resurrected Jesus Christ, not the indestructibility of America. For all we know, there might not even be an America at the end of the age, when this battle is supposed to take place. (And that’s only if we interpret Revelation literally as a book of prophecy yet to be fulfilled, and not as an elaborate literary coda to the New Testament, assuring believers that good will eventually and ultimately triumph over evil.

Get it? In “the back of the book,” Jesus and his church are triumphant over Lucifer and his legions. It’s not about how our country cannot be destroyed. So if the “we” Harris is referring to is Christendom, then yes, “we win.” But if she’s using the text to justify her statement that our country can’t be destroyed, well, that’s just silly. (In her defense, however, we should note that pretty much every generation of Christians has come to believe they were living in the last times, and that the events of Revelation would transpire in their lifetimes. So far, bupkis.)

We’re being too picky, you say? Well, we only make a point of it because — as Harris should well know, given that she’s read the “back of the book” — Revelation contains a very specific warning: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

Just saying.