In the News

Blood Moons, Shemitah, CharismaMag.com, and Last Days Nonsense

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Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseWhere I live, everyone has been running around like crazy, preparing. Kids are off school. People have been buzzing about how it might all go down, and who will be chosen and who will not. Some have been anxious, others elated. What has long been awaited is finally upon us.

In other words, it’s the week of the county fair.

You thought perhaps I was speaking of something else?

Like that blood moon thing. Oh, that’s yesterday’s news. Who’s going to win Best of Show in cattle is more important right now.

As for me, I’m not so much a county fair person. I’m more concerned with the aftermath of this month of September within the pathetic prophetic community in charismatic and dispensationalist Christianity.

An unhealthy fascination with the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which fall within September, is an area of concern. This year is also a Jubilee year in Judaism, which happens every 50 years (7 X 7 Shemitah years plus one) and marks a time of the forgiving of debts and the releasing of those in bondage of any kind. Add in the blood moon tetrad we just experienced, and all manner of End Times craziness afflicted us in 2015.

Over at Charisma magazine online (CharismaMag.com and it’s sister site, CharismaNews.com), it’s business as usual, save for a few rare posts wondering why nothing happened. For the last year or so, these sites have been spewing predictions about this month’s eschatological “certainties.” I know this because my Facebook pages have been strewn with Christians posting End Times articles sourced from these two websites.

What was supposed to happen as prophetically announced through various pricey books, DVDs, teaching seminars, and other big money generators was the end of the world, the Second Coming of Christ, the exposing of the Beast and Antichrist, the Last Battle, all manner of Israel-related stuff, signs in the heavens, and signs on earth.

Oh, and that Catholic leader guy visited America. Surely he had to fit into all that too. Had to. Gotta read all the signs.

Here’s the scorecard:

Blood moon tetrad events – FAIL

Wonders related to Shemitah – FAIL

Attacks on Israel – FAIL

Armageddon – FAIL

The Second Coming of Christ – FAIL

The Rapture of the Church – FAIL

Wow, that’s surprising, isn’t it? Not one of those things either happened or signaled anything.

What gets me is that we’ll go on about our business, get ready for fairs, go to work, cheer or lament our local football teams, and nowhere will there be an admission from all these “prophets” who made a fortune hocking End Times nonsense that they were ultimately dead wrong about everything they predicted. And nowhere will there be an apology from the editiorial staff at Charisma that they rode this nuttiness for all it was worth and that they’re sorry for having done so.

I fully believe that Jesus will return one day. I fully believe it will be during a time of great unrest and turmoil. I fully believe that a war between the forces of God and the forces of Satan will erupt sometime in the future.

But all these End Times predictions by self-anointed prophets in polyester suits seem more like astrology, numerology, divination, and outright witchcraft than anything Christian that proceeds from the throne of God Almighty.

God is not a god of error, confusion, and fear. He is not found in earthquakes and windstorms, but instead speaks in a still, small voice, yet one that carries devastating and lasting authority.

My advice to fellow believers is to stop funding and promoting charlatans who attempt to make money by peddling loud, scary predictions. Just stop. Please. Don’t buy their materials and don’t repeat their silliness in social media and elsewhere.

I also hope you will consider that today will be no different than yesterday, and that no apologies will come from those who spoke wrongly. Consider that sometime in the next year we will get another run-up of predictions heading into next September, and by the same “prophets,” and they will be wrong then too.

Whatever we do, we cannot and should not forget or excuse these failed prophetic words. We cannot go on as if the failure of these predictions does not matter. The only way the Church can be strengthened is if we stop supporting the predictions and predictors. One reason lost people no longer look to the Church for answers is because of this nonsense. It must be dealt with.

If any of us fell for all this, we should not lie to ourselves that we didn’t. Instead, we should get before God and get real with Him about our obsession with all things End Times and our tendency to fall for related nonsense. My fear is, if we don’t deal with it, should the Liar of All Liars arise in our lifetimes, we will believe his or her lies just as readily as we believed all these mistaken “prophets.”

I will add that perhaps we should examine the truthfulness of our eschatology. Is falling for this again and again a sign that perhaps what we believe about the End Times is flat-out wrong? Christians have held many differing views of the End. Perhaps the one we currently hold is incorrect.

In conclusion, I offer this.

The smartest religious people of Jesus’ day completely blew both the prediction of His first coming and its means. They got everything so hopelessly wrong that even when the anticipated Messiah stood before them, they could not see.

I believe Christ’s Second Coming will be just as surprising and confounding. It won’t occur the way we think or at the time we believe is most perfect. Yes, we are in the Last Days, but God has not stated to us the exact number of those days.

Until that Final Day of these Last Days, keep doing the work of the Kingdom and relax in letting God choose when and how He will bring it all to its conclusion.

The Virtue of Being Slow to Speak

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Gagged and silencedOne of the ways social media may harm the Church (and society as a whole) occurs when Christians rush to comment on news stories and issues of social importance.

As I noted in my previous post, America’s Greatest Sin—And How It Sets the Stage for the Antichrist, we are obsessed to our detriment with novelty in America. If it’s new, it draws us. For Christians, though, being the first in line or first on the bandwagon is likely not a good thing.

The Ahmed Mohamed story blew up (no pun intended) this past week and incited much commentary on the Web, with people quickly choosing sides.

What disturbed me about this case is that we commented as if we had insider info about conversations that happened between the principals of the story: Ahmed, teachers, and police. We spoke as if we knew what was said that led to this young man’s handcuffing.

Problem is, we didn’t know. As more facts come in, it’s clear that more is going on than was initially known or reported.

I later read a screed that polluted further conversation about this case by examining the boy’s father’s past and drawing negative conclusions from that man’s run for president of Sudan and opposition to a Koran-burning pastor.

The problem there is the genitive fallacy, a logical fallacy that mistakenly draws conclusions based on a person’s past positions or allegiances and not on the facts at hand.

I also question Christians when we accuse someone of a response that if the situation were reversed and the Christian accuser were put in the place of the accused, the Christians would cry, “Persecution!” Could you and I be accused of the same thing we’re accusing someone else of? If so, how would we react to that accusation? Why would it be OK for us to react negatively and not the person we’re accusing? The Golden Rule applies to speech too.

Lastly, it’s September, the most active month for Christians making outlandish (and perpetually wrong) eschatological predictions. Christian obsession with the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that fall in this month means talk of doom, Rapture, more doom, and all manner of end-of-the-world predictions and visions.

Sigh. I am burned out of Christians doing the following:

1. Using logical fallacies to persuade

2. Rushing to promote some new End Times prediction by the latest hot “prophet”

3. Speaking without having all the facts

4. Condemning others using arguments that would cause outrage if the tables were turned

5. Not thinking long and hard before speaking

The Bible states we are ambassadors for Christ. A major characteristics of an ambassador is carefully choosing words so as to promote rational discussion of difficult issues, with a focus on creating peaceful outcomes that benefit all sides.

Can we Christians in America today say this is how we speak?

If we cannot—and I firmly believe we can’t—perhaps we should not be speaking at all. At least not until we have pondered and prayed over all the facts and can then speak in the way that an ambassador for Christ should. Seriously, we know many of the verses with which God chastens us concerning our speech. Are we obeying ANY of them? Do a study on what the Bible says about this topic. It’s a huge undertaking, believe me, because how we communicate with others is of great importance to God

In an age of social media, how must the Church speak and yet not appear uninformed, angry, hasty, or deaf? How do we operate as ambassadors of Christ in what we say, both in person and online?

Something to consider for this week and the days to come.

America’s Greatest Sin—And How It Sets the Stage for the Antichrist

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If you’re a normal human being of any thoughtfulness, you must be wondering,

Why the heck does everything in American life seem crazy right now?

If you’re like me, you’re trying to make sense of some of the inanity you’re seeing in the news. Heaven knows I’ve been trying to find some common thread.

Take a look at the following and ask what that commonality might be:

  • The ascendency of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Bernie Sanders
  • The hunt for the “murderer” of Cecil the Lion
  • The Kim Davis case in Kentucky and the rapid rise in support for same-sex marriage
  • The decline of Christianity in America
  • The failure of the Planned Parenthood videos
  • The pornification of everything

If you don’t see the connection, don’t feel bad. I only just realized it myself.

What ties those six items together is one concept:

Novelty

Let’s unpack this by starting with the last item on the list.

Scientists have studied pornography and its effects on the brain, and they’ve been startled at their findings. Pornography’s addictiveness is linked heavily to novelty. The porn addict is more addicted to the newness of every image seen than he or she is to the actual content of the image itself. It’s why porn addicts can’t be satisfied with seeing a pornographic image; instead, it must be one they’ve not seen before. That portion of the brain that resonates with novelty must be fed.

Internet, novelty

Trump, Carson, and Sanders are doing well in political polls for the very reason that everyone they are running against is a dyed-in-the-wool, tired politician of the kind we’ve all seen a million times before. But that trio is new, fresh.

The reason the Cecil the Lion case blew up is as much about our boredom with hunting down typical bad guys as it was about the actual killing of a notable animal. Ho hum with the mass murder of human beings (boring, old news), but some American dentist shot a famous lion! That’s different.

America’s boredom explains why only Christians interested in fighting abortion were entranced by the Planned Parenthood videos. Abortion? To everyone else, this is a dead horse. One the same “fanatics” keep flogging. Really, time to move on to something new!

Such as same-sex marriage. Soon to be followed by plural marriage. Soon to be followed by whatever new form of marriage we can dream up. Heck, even Christians are spinning this toward the novel when we talk about this being the FIRST DOCUMENTED CASE of Christians (Kim Davis and her supporters) being persecuted in America (which it isn’t, but hey, some of us want it to be).

And on and on.

Novelty. Not just idols, but NEW idols. Every single day.

This obsession with novelty may very well be America’s greatest sin.

When you start to think about it, that sin of obsession with novelty begins to make sense of the nonsensical. It can explain almost everything. Why people stand in line for the latest iPhone. Why you can’t engage people in conversations with any meaning. The enthrall of social media and its cascade of what is happening right now. All of it revolves around novelty.

Give us something new.

Which is why I think, in part, that Christianity is suffering in the West. It’s old, ancient even. Everyone is used to it. Even people who aren’t Christians can spout something about Christianity. And just like Asian religions swept America in the 1960s, Islam (new here, unusual, different) is making inroads in America. This seems otherwise crazy in light of 9/11, but not if novelty is the driving force. This also explains the sudden appeal of atheism. In a world filled with religions, how novel is NO religion?

This is why I believe America is in even deeper trouble than we may understand. It’s why we may be setting the stage for Antichrist or the Antichrist, depending on whether you believe it’s a generalized concept or an actual entity.

Because when Antichrist comes, the characteristic that will most likely define it/him/her will be novelty. It/him/her will gain acclaim for “freshness,” newness, and differentness. The Bible says that Antichrist and the minions supporting it/him/her will be known for the miraculous. And what sucker among us isn’t hankerin’ to see a miracle or two. Because, hey, novel. May even be the top trending news item on Facebook.

God knows we’re primed.