The Bilderberg Group, a conference of world leaders, has met in Watford, England beginning four days of meetings.

This group  has been a focus of conspiracy theorists, who over the years have thought of the Bilderbergs as shadowy cabal intent on ushering in a one-world government.

 Among those who think this way are some evangelical Christian eschatologists, who believe that the Bilderbergs are helping to bring about a new world order which will lead to return of Christ.

 The organization's website says that Bilderberg is actually an annual conference, founded in 1954, designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America.

Every year, it says, between 120-150 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media are invited to take part.

 Although the meetings are secretive, the Bilderbergs say that their intention is to provide a forum for informal, off-the-record discussions about megatrends and major issues facing the world.

The Bilderberg website boasts there is no formal agenda and that no policies come out of their meetings.

However, the end-times specialists, who do not think of themselves as conspiracy theorists, but as purveyors of biblical prophecy, say that the Bilderberg Group has more sinister motives.

Although one protester's sign this week read, "Bildeberg ate my hamster."

 The Bildebergs are one of several similar organizations, say the eschatologists, attempting to institute a one-world government which will be lead by the Antichrist, a satanic figure who will seek to control all aspects of human existence.

 One of the ways these biblical interpreters say he will control people is economically  through what is called "the mark of the beast", a phrase found in the biblical book of Revelation and associated with the numbers 666.

 Jack Van Impe, an American pastor who hosts a weekly television program centered on biblical prophecy, has repeatedly cited the Bilderbergs as a catalyst for a bringing about one-world government.

 "They also see themselves as the saviors of mankind," he said on one of his shows."They came into existence in 1954 and their goal was to incorporate Europe into a new world order."

 "They have gone so far in a meeting in Virginia in 2008 to say that 'we are going to control the people in the new world order through a microchip in one's body through a microchip by 2017'."

 Greg Laurie, a popular American megachurch pastor and evangelist, said in a sermon at his church in January that no one knows for sure what this "mark of the beast" is, but that it will result in a cashless society and devil worship, according to the Christian Post.

 "The antichrist's economic policy will be very simple," said Laurie."Take my mark and worship me, or starve to death."

 Laurie told his congregation that "the technology to do this is already here." He cited a 2012 headline from the New York Daily News which discussed a human "barcode" and the fact that pets already have implanted microchips.

 Hal Lindsey, a minister who rose to fame in the 1970s with his best-selling eschatological book "The Late, Great Planet Earth", is another evangelical television host who believes that a sign of the end times is one-world government.

 He wrote in 2007 in World News Net Daily that the Bilderbergs, along with other groups of world leaders, were trying to form a North American Union with its own currency called the "amero".

Lindsey said a weak dollar, a huge national debt and an open borders policy by the American government were signs that the organizations were trying to create this union.

 "All of these things have brought me to believe that forces outside our government - like the shadowy international Money Trust members of the Bilderberg Group  - made a decision to force the formation of the North American Union along with the amero," he said.

 "Their decisions have been instituted in the past via the Trilateral Commission, which is the dba (doing business as) for the nefarious Conference on Foreign Relations."

 Van Impe includes these other groups in a list of cabals he says are seeking to bring about a new world order.

He also has said that the Illuminati, the Club of Rome and the United Nations are trying to bring about world government as well.

 Irvin Baxter, a Pentecostal minister who is the teacher on a televion program called "End of the Age" used over 10 minutes of his radio show in 2011 to read a list of that year's Bilderberg attendees, which he said he got from a "mole". 

"Many people believe it is this group that determines the course of the world," he said.

After reading the list of dignataries and noting how secretive the meeting in Switzerland that year was, Baxter asked,"What are they talking about?"

"Is there a chance they could be talking about a new world order. If you don't think so, then you don't have a clue about what is going on. I promise you, they were talking about a new world order."

This year, the Bilderberg Group has published a list of its attendees.  

They include Britain's Chancellor George Osborne, who leads financial policy and and his opposite number from the government's opposition, shadow chancellor Ed Balls of the Labour Party, to the CEOs of of Google, BP, Goldman Sachs and Shell as well as former U.S. general David Petraeus.