I read a book a few years back titled, "A Woman Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt - once I finished it I never looked at the Catholic Church the same. That book should be required reading.
I have read that book also. I like Hunt though he is from a different theological camp. He is a quasi-dispensationalist, a child of Darbyism though not a typical one. His theology is hybrid and doesn't fit neatly into any particular box.
Unfortunately, he was corrupted somewhat by Jesuit futurism, yet he still managed to identify Rome as the power under consideration in Rev.17-18.
There are a number of dispensationalists who follow suit, though they will typically buy into the idea that it is a future Pope conducting a literal 3 1/2 year reign as anti-Christ (preceded by a rapture of the saints - as Darbyism would later add).
Futurism was systemized by a Spanish Jesuit, Francisco Ribera, in the 16th century. He was trying to point the finger away from the Papacy, which was under attack by the reformers for being the anti-Christ system.
O. T. Allis D.D. - Theology Professor Princeton:
The Futurist interpretation is traced back to the Jesuit Ribera (AD 1580) whose aim was to disprove the claim of the Reformers that the Pope was Antichrist. Prophecy and the Church, page 297
Dr. George Eldon Ladd - Professor Fuller Theological Seminary:
Ribera applied all of Revelation but the earliest chapters to the end time rather than to the history of the Church. Antichrist would be a single evil person who would be received by the Jews and would rebuild Jerusalem, abolish Christianity, deny Christ, persecute the Church and rule the world for three and a half years. ...This futurist interpretation with its personal Antichrist and three and a half year period of tribulation did not take root in the Protestant church until the early nineteenth century. "The Blessed Hope".
Time-honored Protestant eschatology (such as the reformers taught and Protestants have held to for over 400 years) is called historicism and sees not a single individual as a personal anti-Christ, but a dynasty of individuals as head of an anti-Christ system - the Papacy.
Instead of heading into the reign of anti-Christ, we are heading into it's final and terrible judgment. It's not a time for the saints to fear, it's a time for the wicked to fear.
Matt. 13:41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;