The Way Back: A DARING THOUGHT: If women went back to wearing hats in church would God restrain His judgment?

Sin begets sin.  In fact increasing sin is one form of God's judgment against a nation or a person.

From time to time I come back to the fact that most churches are disobeying the Creation Ordinance that requires women to cover our heads in the worship service.  Two things brought this to mind again right now:  first, the difficulty I've been having getting across why Christians feel obliged to refuse to do anything that puts us in the position of treating gay marriage as legitimate. 

Then second:  while looking for a particular book at Amazon I ran across a book admonishing the Church about our failure to be an influence against the moral deterioration of American culture:  The Cost of Our Silence, by David Fiorazo.  It's a fine book.  I got it free for my PC Kindle library.  He gives a thorough list of the many sins of the culture the Church has either been complicit in or actually embraced.  Everything from abortion to gay marriage of course.

But as I was dealing with the  problem of gay marriage, realizing that God's ordinance of marriage in Genesis 2:24 is the basis for the Christian's conscience against gay marriage, the head covering came to mind as another Creation Ordinance.  And one that is pretty universally disobeyed by the churches.

So once again, alone as can be on this subject I nevertheless keep suspecting it may be a crucially important element in the moral deterioration of the Church which is the cause of the moral deterioration of the culture.  Once again the specter of the covered heads of the Muslim women comes to mind, who are of course part of a major element of God's judgment on the West, and once again I found myself thinking how this fact alone could be God's message to us about the importance of the head covering creation ordinance.  As often happens in the cultures of the fallen world, the Muslims overdo it;  Paul only requires covering the head in the worship service, not at all times.  Christendom made the same mistake for centuries too, as you never see uncovered female heads in western art either up until recently.  It's possible someone could make a case for this I suppose, but the passage in 1 Corinthians only refers to the context of the church assembly.  Muslim women also represent an extreme version of female modesty, on which I started another blog that never went very far.  I believe that too is an important element in the moral deterioration of the churches and the culture.  But I am probably being cowardly about saying so, knowing how unwelcome these subjects are, and feeling so hopeless about changing anyone's mind about them.

I've written a great deal on the subject at my blog Hidden Glory, and a few thoughts on modesty as well on the other blog, Women's Place.  lThere's a lot that could be said, but for now I just want to register this recurrent thought: 

It's possible that the deterioration of the churches and the consequent deterioration of the culture both started before the banning of the Bible from the schools, and before Roe v Wade, with the giving up of the wearing of hats by women in the churches, and that too was probably preceded by other violations,  liberalism being the main one.  The election of Trump bodes good things but we need to go deeper, much deeper.  It's been a horrifying mystery why in spite of our being attacked on 9/11 the very enemies who attacked us have been growing in influence and even popularity, spreading through Europe and moving into America more and more.  Why can't we stop this incursion, this threat to our security? 

This is clearly God's judgment.  It has to be that the churches haven't repented for the causes. 

What if we started with a small thing:  women covering our heads in the church services?  (I think hats don't quite meet the requirement but we need to start somewhere and if hats are easier for women to adopt that's the place to start).  If this is the linchpin I keep thinking it probably is, then we could be sure God would open our spirits to new understanding of how we have offended Him and how we can recover His blessings.

You Can't Make America Great by Defying God's Law

Again I'm melancholy about the prospect of any enduring good to America to come through Trump's election.  It's hugely good of course that we're free temporarily at least from a Marxist Leftist President.  Like most Trump supporters I have been experiencing much relief that he won and his sane policies are being brought into effect. 

But I have to face the fact that the obstruction being raised against his every move isn't just human evil, although it is that in any case, it must also and more importantly be understood as God's continuing judgment on the nation.  It's not so much that the opposition is winning - yet, anyway -- it's hard to tell at this point since Trump seems to be continuing to do positive things for the country, fulfilling his campaign promises, maintaining the vision that earned him the election.  But the persistence of the Leftist Islamist satanically inspired obstruction to his every move, and the continuing lies and smears in the media and the continuing baseless accusations by his opponents don't look like they are going to let up.  Though Trump's win is surely God's blessing on the nation up to a point, this constant attempt to undermine it suggests the blessing is shaky.

I think it all reflects the continuing rottenness at the core of American life that God has been judging for some time.  In my previous post I focused on the rottenness of ecumenism, religious syncretism and the presence of idolatrous religions in the ceremonies of the inauguration.  But now I'm thinking of the nation's accumulated sins.  As I've pondered Trump's policies I see that what he is doing is aimed at restoring God's blessings the nation enjoyed in years past.  But the problem is those blessings were originally built on the nation's righteousness. 

Trump's policies are all about healthy sane ways of running a government, building economic prosperity, relieving economic  burdens on the average citizen and on businesses, to increase employment, protecting the nation against various threats and so on.  This is in fact a partial list of God's blessings on a righteous nation as spelled out in the Bible, so we should probably understand Trump's policies as a humanly inspired effort aimed at undoing God's judgments which we've been laboring under for so many years.  That may seem like a good thing, seem like it must mean God is smiling on us again, but I'm not sure of that, since nothing Trump is doing changes the unrighteousness that is the reason we've been under judgment, and if that doesn't change the blessings can't possibly last long.

Righteousness exalts a nation, says the scripture.  Unrighteousness can only bring us down, and unfortunately what is today mistaken for righteousness is the exact opposite of the truth.  Good for evil and evil for good [Isaiah 7:20] reigns in our political life, seen for instance in the aggressive defense of gay marriage as a Constitutional right and the vilification of anyone who opposes it as un-American and "bigoted" and so on.

"You can't Make America Great Again by Defying God."  I found that quote somewhere on the internet a while back but can't find the source now.  I had also noted this discussion of the probable failure of Trump's policies because he described the Supreme Court gay marriage opinion as "settled law," which they say could undermine his attempts to stop illegal immigration.  It isn't directly addressing the point I'm making here, but it focuses on issues I agree need to be resolved if Trump's policies could really be a blessing to the country. 

Then yesterday I was rereading the book about Islam, Philistine (1995) in which the author, Ramon Bennett, describes some of the cultural reasons America and the West in general are regarded by Muslims as "The Great Satan."  Americans sometimes impute ridiculously psycho-social causes to Muslim hatred of us, poverty and lack of opportunity and so on, or their outrage at American military aggression, and other reasons that are only marginally relevant at best.  But there are genuine other reasons for their hatred of us, such as our huge public immorality which is being spread across the world and corrupting their societies as well as our own.

From page 61 of the book:

The United States has no moral law, although some might say it has.  God has been thrown out onto the trash heap.  Only lip service is paid to America's Christian roots by government officials;  even less by educators, and corruption is rife throughout the judicial system.  The moral has been exchanged for the immoral.

The United States pornographic industry is the biggest in the world, eaering billions of dollars annually ...

American television overflows with vulgarity, profanity, nudity, violence and murder. ... And few, indeed, are the movies that adults or youngsters can comfortably view without their minds being contaminated by sewerage packaged as "family entertainment."

The American population is ... deceived by Satan... This great nation was founded and built upon the Bible but has since gone a-whoring after other gods [which] manifests itself largely in sex for profit.

America, believing the answer to the ills of the Middle East to be simply a matter of Westernization, increases its aggressive marketing thrust into the Moslem states through the media, adding fuel to the already smoking fires of bitter hatred and boosts Islamic fundamentalism instead of decreasing it.

I tend to emphasize in discussions of Islam that their violence comes from their own sacred teachings, it doesn't need any external provocation.  Their aim to rule the world is on their books.  But by emphasizing this I think I'm wrongly ignoring that there are indeed other reasons for their hatred of the West, as Bennett outlines in the above quote.  The Left is always saying that those of us who are trying to show the dangers of Islam to the West are in fact promoting their hatred by treating the whole religion as the cause, or by ignoring the psycho-social reasons mentioned above.  This is just culturebound blindness, but there ARE reasons besides the religious call to jihad, as described by Bennett. 

In a sense we deserve the title The Great Satan.   The Left unfortunately has changed the meaning of the American Constitution to make all the abominable sins that the Muslim world hates and that God is judging us for a matter of Constitutionally protected "freedoms" and "rights."  This is how they defend abortion, pornography, the normalization of homosexuality, gay marriage, now transgender rights and so on.  THESE ARE SOME OF THE MAIN REASONS THE WEST IS UNDER GOD'S JUDGMENT.  And one of the main instruments God is using against us is the growth of Islam in the west and their violence.

Trump's policies hit his supporters as a lungful of fresh air after years of Leftist globalist attempts to sell us out to our enemies.  But if you take the perspective I'm laying out here, what Trump is doing can't succeed for long because it doesn't address the real reasons God is judging us, and all the Leftist globalist undermining of the nation should be understood as ways God is judging us.

I think I'll quote the way I just put this elsewhere:

I suspect that Trump's efforts to return the nation to sane policies may not work because the nation is under judgment by God, and until we do away with the causes of that we aren't going to get out from under that judgment. Which means causes like abortion and normalizing homosexuality and legalizing gay marriage and many other issues dear to the heart of the Left. Trump is not taking those on but focusing only on the practical projects that should protect the nation, protect it I've finally realized, from God's judgments against us. Since the Left isn't going to give an inch on its sin-liberation politics which is the main reason we are under judgment, I don't see any way for Trump's projects to succeed for long. That means we'll eventually be overtaken by Islam, which appears to be God's main instrument of judgment against us.

Trump has explicitly given in on the very issues that need to be addressed if the nation is to be made great again, when he refuses to tackle gay marriage or the LGBT movement and other reasons God is sorely displeased with us.

Avoiding all this is understandable of course because it's an aggressively defended political evil that has little chance of being reversed given its popular support, while the practical matters he focuses on are much easier to bring about.

But what this means is that our relief at the sanity of Trump's policies is misguided.  We're still under God's judgment, there's no way He's going to bless the nation beyond a temporary reprieve at best.  Is there an answer?  Very possibly not.  We may be beyond that stage.

There's always prayer.  Maybe God would listen if enough of us pleaded for a way to turn back the nation to our former goodness so that our greatness could be His gift to us again.

EUROPE: STOP THE SAPPY TEARS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

I felt it myself but didn't quite have the nerve to say it. Then I saw it said at Front Page Magazine.

Yes, stop the grieving for the victims of the Brussels attack. The direct victims must grieve and be comforted, but everybody else: you should be ANGRY, you should be UP IN ARMS, you should be denouncing these murdering servants of the devil with every breath you take. Why are you shedding powerless tears and sending sweet sad condolences to Brussels when you should be declaring war on the enemies of Europe?

I know why and it's sadder than sad that you are the captives of the evil philosophies of Cultural Marxist Political Correctness.

And as I keep saying too:  I know it's because you hate the true God and this powerlessness is your due punishment.  This powerlessness that only feeds the ambitions of the jihadists. 

WAKE UP!  WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

Oh Lord. wake up Your people to pray for them.

Muslim attack on Charlie Hebdo God's judgment on the anti-Christian West

Feel I should offer at least a brief clarification of my post about the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, where I said that France and in fact all of Europe need to deport their Muslims and get back to Protestant Christianity. I thought I'd eventually have more to say but I don't really have MUCH more to say. I knew when I put up that title that I'd probably not think much of the magazine Charlie Hebdo if I knew more about it, and that calling for a revitalization of Protestantism would not be at all something that magazine would appreciate, so along with saying Muslims should be deported in a way I was also saying the magazine probably also needs to go.

Wikipedia gives enough of a description to support that view: 

Charlie Hebdo, French for Charlie Weekly, is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as strongly anti-religious, anti-racist[4] and left-wing, publishing articles on the extreme right, religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics, culture, etc. According to its former editor Stéphane Charbonnier ("Charb"), the magazine's editorial viewpoint reflects "all components of left wing pluralism, and even abstainers".

Interesting it doesn't mention Protestant Christianity in that list of religions it targets, but just from the general description Protestants wouldn't like the magazine either, only Christians wouldn't murder its staff in protest.

The upshot of all of this is that Muslim attacks in the West as the Muslim population grows in Europe, and is also growing in the US, should be thought of as God's judgment against the West for our abandonment of Christianity. If we don't get back to God there will be more Muslims, more murders, more mayhem in the West as they continue to grow their population to the point that they can claim the West for Allah and subjugate all other religions and cultural beliefs. The fact that this very program is denied by "liberals" is really itself evidence that God's judgment is in operation. Revival is the only thing that could turn back the tide, and I suppose we shouldn't give up on that no matter how unlikely it seems, though in debates online I keep discovering just how adamant the denial is, how entrenched the politically correct view that spells suicide for the West, while the only remedy, Christianity, is hated.

It's hard to face. Maybe harder to take, though, is the Christians who don't recognize it, who just go on as if it's not happening.

Brannon Howse's attack on another discernment ministry: Just how should we think of a state's legalization of gay marriage?

UPDATE June 11.  Really more of a P.S.

Forgot to note that one of Howse's jibes at Jan Markell was against her apparent expectation of a dramatic sort of judgment from God for Minnesota's legalizing of same-sex marriage, which he characterized as on the order of expecting a tornado although I don't recall her saying that.  His answer was that weather is cyclical, meaning of course unrelated to God's judgments.  Can he really mean such a statement, is he thinking?  Is there any such thing as something that escapes God's sovereignty? 

Whether tornados or any other weather phenomenon is a particular judgment for a particular offense is difficult if not impossible to know, but to deny that weather is one of God's instruments of judgment is a denial of God's sovereignty over all things.   Some Christians may claim to know more specific reasons for a particular weather pattern than it's possible to know, but the basic idea can't be wrong.  God's judgments come in many forms and that is surely one of them.  For just one scripture reference, consider the famine in Elijah's day, the withholding of rain for the idolatries of Israel.

This was one of the errors made by the critics of Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger too.  All the harbingers he identifies the critics dismiss as meaningless coincidences.  Is there really such a thing as a meaningless coincidence?  I find all kinds of small and apparently meaningless coincidences in my own life and others have had the same experience, odd patterns of names or birthdates among family and friends and that sort of thing.  They are truly meaningless as far as I can tell, but this is God's universe and He probably has a reason even for those little strangenesses.  But when it comes to the harbingers that so CLEARLY reflect the scripture verse Isaiah 9:10, how can they be dismissed as meaningless?  How can Christians even believe in meaningless coincidences in a universe ruled by God?

======Original Post======

When I got back from my enforced vacation due to computer problems I had some emails waiting for me related at least tangentially to Jonathan Cahn's book. 

Brannon Howse on his May 22 radio show specifically targeted some recent comments made by Jan Markell suggesting that Minnesota's legalizing of gay marriage invites God's judgment on that state.  Brannon seems to go out of his way to target Jan, and it must be at least partly due to her support of Jonathan Cahn's book The Harbinger, which he sums up in this radio broadcast as "promoting mysticism." 

I didn't want to listen to his show but found myself obliged to.  I didn't hear both parts, however, only the first part.

Apparently Jan said that many Christians are now worried about Minnesota's coming under judgment for the legalization of same sex marriage, and Brannon quotes her saying "Now with homosexual marriage as a reality many Christians, solid pro-family type people -- we don't know where to run to."  And Brannon felt some need to criticize her for that, something that is really a common feeling many Christians have these days as we see the nation around us, and indeed the whole world, coming under judgment.  "We don't know where to run to."  Brannon felt some need to say that this isn't what Christians are called to, we're to expect persecution and tribulation in this world and so on and so forth. 

Well, he's right about that of course, but is he right to pillory Jan Markell for merely expressing something that so many of us are feeling these days?  I might point out a couple things that contradict his view: one, that God did allow the Waldensians to escape persecution for long periods by hiding away in the valleys of the Alps, and two, there is a proverb that says the prudent man foresees calamity and hides himself.  God also promises to hide the faithful from His wrath.  Sure, maybe in this case, in these last days, it may simply be impossible to find any earthly place to hide, but that's another subject.  We may be approaching a time when all we have is God Himself as our hiding place and that has to be a good thing for our spiritual health and growth.  Yet as we see judgment coming great numbers of Christians these days quite naturally cast about for a place to be safe from it, and it seems to me a lack of charity and grace to take a person to task for such a feeling. 

The main point Brannon keeps hammering away at, again specifically targeting Jan Markell but also "the religious right" in general, is the specific focus on gay marriage itself.  He is at pains to argue that homosexuality is only one of many sins that God judges, and that America is under judgment for a whole slew of sins, also that homosexuality itself IS God's judgment.  And again, he's right about all that, but I'd say he's also wrong in spirit in his focus on Jan Markell.  For one thing I seriously doubt she isn't aware of all the other sins the nation is being judged for, and I know she is aware of the sins of the church in particular because many of her own radio broadcasts focus on those.  Brannon's needling refrain about "discernment ministries that don't discern" is again, a lack of charity and grace toward another Christian, utterly undeserved that I can see.   There isn't any Christian or discernment ministry that we can expect to be perfect, we are all going to have our own blind spots and make mistakes to one degree or another, and there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with each other on such points that I can see, in fact it's necessary.  But Brannon has gone over the line here.

Beyond charity, Brannon is just wrong in his judgments of this issue.  Seems to me the reason so many of us focus on the gay marriage issue is that it IS the last offense on that list in Romans 1 that Brannon makes so much of, it's kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.  For two reasons:  one because it is the end result of the list of sins mentioned in that scripture, showing we've reached a sort of state of perfection of sin as it were, and two, because in this particular case it is an OFFICIAL sin, a sin officially committed by the State of Minnesota itself.   In this it compares with the nation's legalization of abortion, for which we've been under judgment for years.  The fact that there are many practicing homosexuals in the state or the nation does not necessarily amount to the level of God's judgment on the state or nation, but when it is LEGALLY legitimized by the State itself THEN I think we are quite right to see that as an invitation to God's judgment in a more direct and immediate way than any accumulation of the sins of the people themselves at least up to a certain level.  I have to suppose this is what Jan is responding to.  It's not, as Brannon keeps putting, it, uh oh homosexuality is in itself some special sin that invites judgment, as if we're ignoring all the other sins of the nation or state, but uh oh now we've gone and OFFICIALLY waved this violation of God's law in God's face and He's not going to be able to overlook that for long. 

Oh yes, America is under God's judgment, has been for years, and the growth of support for homosexuality as per Romans 1 clearly demonstrates that we've reached the end of the trail of judgments from God, and oh yes, homosexuality is in itself God's judgment, as is the proliferation of sins of all kinds.  But because it IS the end of the trail of an accumulation of sins and judgments over years, and because it is now officially endorsed by the State of Minnesota, discerning Christians have very good reason to expect a more dramatic expression of God's judgment.  There is nothing wrong with such an expectation. 

Brannon's broadcast is a good compendium of the sins for which we can expect judgment, it has that virtue, but I have to say that it comes off as some sort of nitpicking vendetta against Jan Markell and that is reprehensible. 

He also slams her in passing for her support of Jonathan Cahn's book, The Harbinger, which is probably the main reason for attacking her as he does, but I'm planning another post on that subject so I'll leave that for now.

Are we ready?

It's been in the works for some time of course, this attack on the Second Amendment.  They may not have engineered the shooting itself although I wouldn't put it past them to find a way to pull it off.  They can probably count on somebody hearing from Satan and doing that without much effort on their own part.  Maybe.  Although the timing was interesting. 

And they've got lots and lots of people thinking this is a great idea to take guns away from the good guys because a drug-crazed person used a gun, of all the idiotic illogical things but that's the way these people think these days.  Feverishly up in arms even, if you'll pardon the pun, indignant as all hell itself against our right to keep and bear arms.  Poor deluded people.  And you can't say anything to them at all that they'll hear.

Nothing moves them, they can rationalize it all away.  It doesn't matter to them that crime goes up when guns are taken away, because rampant crime against law-abiding citizens is somehow supposed to be tolerable by comparison with the rare gun rampage enacted by the NON law-abiding.  We're supposed to be nice to criminals who break into our houses, not good to defend ourselves against the poor things.  Crime is called innocent, and the victim is called criminal.  Sign of the times. 

Point out what happened in World War II when guns were confiscated and Hitler was able to move in freely wherever he wanted, and they'll find some reason why Hitler didn't really care that there were guns pointing at his soldiers from every household which supposedly blows your concern to smithereens.  Point out that Americans sent guns to the Brits because they were unarmed against a possible Nazi invasion and that too gets ridiculed.  Some idea that guns can't really ward off a whole army, what a stupid idea they have about how it would all go down.  Soldiers going door to door would be seriously inconvenienced by heads of household with guns.  So without guns we can now be sure they WILL go door to door because they know they can do it.  Out at the point of a bayonet, into the back of the truck, whatever.  Or just shot dead on the spot.  Or beheaded.

I guess they have some crazy idea another Hitler isn't going to rise up in this best of all possible worlds or something like that.  It's just us Christians who are expecting that, and just around the corner too.  Soon as they take our guns.  Oh and after we've finally fallen off this fiscal cliff which has to happen eventually, so we're gunless and starving both, easy targets.  Or maybe they'll get a nice hot war going in the Middle East to destroy Israel first.  Or all three at once.  Yeah, all three.  Wonder if the deluded ones will have second thoughts then or they won't care because it will be mostly the Christians and the Jews who are targeted.  At first anyway.

The Second Amendment, indeed the Constitution itself, is "antiquated" to these twisted minds.  Let's do away with it altogether, just as we've done away with God, just as we've done away with God's laws, just as we now commit murder of the unborn and call it a right and have bestowed righteous status on just about everything else God calls unrighteous. 

This time it's the whole world under God's judgment at once though, not just America.  Certainly America is under judgment, we've been seeing that for some time now.  God even gave us Jonathan Cahn's book to make it certain in case we missed it, as unfortunately many Christians did when the WTC was attacked.  And are still missing it.  There are Christians who actually think that Cahn got it wrong about the harbingers being from God, and I particularly think of their waving away the public speeches by Daschle and Edwards and other government leaders that quoted Isaiah 9:10 as not really statements of defiance of God at all, so spiritually obtuse are some of our Christians these days.  Judgment begins at the house of God. 

So although Cahn's book goes on selling pretty well it isn't going to be the call to repentance it might have been.  We seem to be well past that possibility.  Seems now that it's just going to stand as a testimony against us, God's way of saying He did all He could to tell us what's coming and we ignored it and now it's on our head.   That's what He did through His prophets to Israel time and time again.  He's been merciful and longsuffering enough even to do it for us now and we're not hearing.  We're going down.  The sins of America are well ripe for the harvest.  Some pastors have begun prepping their congregations for possible martyrdom, which is what they should be doing. 

But the biggest catastrophe is probably going to be Europe again.  Keep your eyes on the European Union.  Something evil this way comes.

It's all in place for the finale.  All it needs is a trigger.  And then it will probably happen very fast.  When?  Tomorrow?  In a few months?  A few years?  Soon. 

I have unsaved family.  That probably bothers me more than anything else.  I don't mind dying.   Well, I must admit I'm afraid of pain, and I'm IN quite a bit of pain with arthritis these days so I know what I'm afraid of there, so I'd rather be killed quickly of course.   But it's God's call and He will sustain me through whatever He decrees.  Will he save any of them?  Am I not praying enough for them? 

"Those who know their God will do exploits" the angel told Daniel.  It would be nice to do some exploits on behalf of the Lord when all this comes down.  May God give us the necessary provision of faith for the task.

I will certainly not miss this world in which evil and good are changing places more and more every day and the vast majority of people are happy with it. 

New Criticism of The Harbinger: Douma, Pt. 4 The Shemitah

The other point I wanted to get to but didn't in the last post is Douma's remarks about the concept of the Shemitah as as it is used in The Harbinger.  There's a lot to say about this concept that I'm not going to get to, I just want to respond to Douma's main point.

First as usual we encounter the Dispensationalist framework which is what is making an ungodly and unbiblical confusion out of the whole discussion, when Douma objects to Cahn's applying the concept of the Shemitah to America at all, since according to that system of Bible-mangling it was

meant only for Israel.

He condemns Cahn for applying it to America, quoting page 159 of The Harbinger:

The sign of the Shemitah, given to a nation that has driven God out of its life

 Interesting that he doesn't quote the earlier part of that dialogue:

Yes, but what does it have to do with America.  Ameica has never had a Sabbath Year. 

That's correct.  It was only commanded for one nation.  But the issue here isn't the literal observance of the Shemitah or any requirement to keep it....  The issue here... is its dynamic, its effect and its consequence.... The issue is The Shemitah as a sign.

Cahn, in other words, is clearly not applying the Shemitah to America in the same sense it was given to Israel.  I don't want to get into that here except to say that I think he observed -- emphasis on OBSERVED -- somethng interesting about a pattern of seven years that actually OCCURRED in America that led to the connection with the biblical concept of the Shemitah. That is, it isn't something he took from the Bible to make it fit America, it was the other way around.

Be that as it may, for another discussion another time, Douma, having found Cahn at fault for applying the Shemitah to America at all, says 

Are you and I bound to sabbatical rest laws?  Isn't he saying as Peter did that we Gentiles have to start living like Jews?  [41:59]  How is that not a distortion of the goepsl?  Where is the criticism of that?  How is Cahn not trying to build up a wall that was taken down by Christ in Ephesians 2, the wall of separation, the Mosaic law that separated Jews and Gentiles.  Is not Cahn rebuilding that wall once again?  Of course he is.  So this is a gospel issue.  He's resstablishing the Mosaic Law and now it applies to you and I [sic].  [42:28]

No, I'm free from that in Christ.

Here can be seen one major confusion that needs to be untangled.  Douma fails to distinguish between the inheritance of freedom in Christ that we have AS BELIEVERS and the condition of the unbeliever, but also between individuals and nations.  The Harbinger is about the nation of America.  It is the NATION that is coming under judgment by God.  That will certainly affect individuals, both believers and unbelievers, but the judgment as such is about the nation and not the individuals. 

God deals with individuals individually.  That is a different thing altogether from His judgment of nations as nations. 

9/11 should have been recognized as judgment on America by anyone with any biblical sense at all, and I have to say most of the nation has no biblical sense so it's no wonder it was missed.  America as a nation is corporately in defiance of God, only too well described in Isaiah 9:10 but also given a special confirmation and emphasis by the existence of the harbingers as described in Cahn's book, and it all relates specifically to 9/11. 

But this does not in any way imply anything about the individuals who were killed on that day.  We have no way of knowing how God dealt with them and it's none of our business.  Some were no doubt believers, some weren't.  We can say that God showed a great deal of mercy in the midst of that judgment, in that relatively so few were killed when so many thousands more could have been killed.  There are miracle stories galore about that day. 

Judgment on a nation is NOT at all the same thing as judgment on individuals.

So when we think about elements of the Old Testament coming to apply to America today we have to keep the nation separate in our thinking from individuals, either believers or unbelievers.

Yes, we BELIEVERS are free from the Law in Christ, but unbelievers are not but "abide under the wrath of God" as scripture says, and nations are still corporately dealt with by the Law in the fashion laid down in scripture for Israel.  The Mosaic law is really a revelation of The Law that runs this universe.   It's no arbitrary thing.  It inexorably rules, it inexorably judges.  That is why we NEED the gospel to rescue us from it as individuals, and we can ONLY be rescued AS individuals. 

But outside the gospel The Law goes right on ruling and judging.  The Mosaic Law was the basis for Blackstone's Commentaries on the law that used to be the foundation for English and American law.  No more of course since the Bible as any kind of authority in our world has been brought down by the powers of evil.  But once upon a time The Mosaic Law was taken to be the foundation for all civilized laws in this fallen world.

THAT IS AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE THING FROM THE GOSPEL.

Cahn is NOT reestablishing the wall of separation, he is simply doing what sane intelligent Christians, unhampered by idiotic Dispensationalist presuppositions, have ALWAYS done, apply the Law to NATIONS.

The confusion in the critical attacks on The Harbinger is truly dangerous -- again, far beyond The Harbinger.  Maybe it's because of this truly unbiblical system of theology that so many pastors in this nation had no clue that 9/11 was God's judgment in the first place.   These critics, even when they think the nation deserves judgment for all the sins they can enumerate that all conservative Christians agree about, seem to be strangely unable to be SURE of it.  Well, we MAY be coming under judgment they say, or maybe we're GOING TO BE some time in the near future.  This is a terrible blindness and it's sad to think it might be theologically induced blindness.

The Harbinger again. Or why I am defending it.

Been listening to Brannon Howse's latest radio shows on The Harbinger, in which he's interviewing David James, whose book critical of The Harbinger has just come out (I'm waiting for it to arrive), and T. A. McMahon who published James' critique. It's all more of the same, but the book should be the definitive treatment of the critics' views so I'm looking forward to it in an odd sort of way.

On the morning of 9/11 I had a dream about being in the back seat of a small plane and demanding to be let out because I had a forboding about ... something. The pilot was a little girl and some time before 9/11 there had been a big story in the news about a father who let his eight-year-old daughter fly his plane alone. Sadly she crashed the plane and died. At the very least in my dream I assume she would have represented the threat of a crash. There was a man in the front passenger/co-pilot seat, however, who supposedly could have saved us, but I still wanted out. He shook his head disapprovingly at me. I was on the ground watching them fly away when I woke up to the news that the first WTC building had been hit. I was watching the TV when the other was hit.

I'm not going to say that was a prophetic dream but it's sure suggestive of something in that direction.

It has nothing to do with the dream as far as I know, but I recognized that 9/11 was God's judgment when it happened. I don't know how others could fail to recognize it. Or I've more or less figured out how, but it's still astonishing to me. Getting others to take it seriously was just about impossible. I'd talk about it on political internet forums and even conservative blogs and get denounced for it. By people who consider themselves Christians as much as by anyone else. Some Christians still aren't sure that was God's judgment or that America is under God's judgment at all. David James for one according to some things he's said.

I remember a "humorous" picture being sent around the conservative circuits of a supposed plan for a rebuilt World Trade Center, with five buildings side by side, the buildings on the ends the shortest the two next to them a bit taller and the one in the middle quite tall. All intended to show defiance to our enemies but I knew it really meant "giving the finger" to God, not just our enemies. Which is exactly the same attitude that the harbingers of Isaiah 9:10 are all about. Did anybody want to hear that? Few then for sure, I wonder how many now.

What happened to the America whose leaders would on occasions of crisis or threat call for a national time of fasting and prayer for God's forgiveness and protection? Long gone. We couldn't muster a National Christian Anything any more. If Christians these days are going to act on behalf of the nation it's going to be in spite of the nation's leadership -- though no doubt with an exception here and there in the lower ranks. We certainly don't need all the ecumenical stuff that includes the false religions, the Mormons, the Muslims, the Catholics. (Yes, the Catholics.) The crew that Glenn Beck is trying to pull together on behalf of his Mormon view of America. Much the same motley crew that Bush assembled in the National Cathedral to pray for the nation after 9/11. That set off my alarm bells for sure. That's like ASKING for further judgment against us.

At the time my impression was that a huge majority of American preachers were refusing to accept that 9/11 was God's judgment. Remember how the very few who did know it was judgment got hooted down? Like Robertson and Falwell. Wilkerson preached on it too, though as far as I recall I don't think he got attacked for it. None of these guys are among my own Christian favorites, and I have some specific theological problems with a couple of them too, but they knew what ALL the preachers in the nation should have known and didn't.

When I first learned about the Harbinger at the beginning of this year, it occurred to me that this could be God's way of making Christians notice that 9/11 was His judgment after all. It seems to be making quite a bit of headway in that direction, but it's also stirred up quite a hornet's nest among some ministries against it, not for its message of judgment though it has the effect of derailing that message anyway. For no good reason either, as I've been arguing here. Of course they think their reasons are damning and I'm not going to say they're not sincere, I'm sure they are quite convinced they are right.

Again the message of judgment comes from an outpost of the Church that wouldn't be among my favorites, but God didn't ask me. If David Wilkerson were still alive he'd no doubt recognize the truth of The Harbinger. Jerry Falwell might too. Pat Robertson has recognized it. There are some conservative evangelicals who are recognizing it as well.

God often doesn't do things the way we think He should.

God's will be done.

The Harbingers of Nine Eleven and the Biggest Harbinger of them all and is there any hope of turning back God's judgment against America?

I am still studying Jonathan Cahn's revelations about 9/11 in light of Isaiah 9:10 as reported in my previous post. I've begun to study some aspects of it in detail for future posts but that's going to take some time. I also want to read his book, which I ordered yesterday.

Interestingly, the book was available the day before at Amazon but at that point I wanted to wait to order it, then yesterday it was sold out and they are having to restock! I think I know why. Rabbi Cahn --I have a problem with that title myself, he's a Christian after all, but that's what he calls himself so I'll use it -- was interviewed on a TV show called Jewish Voice with a Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, also a Messianic (Christian) Jew, which aired on the 8th (you can find it at You Tube) and Bernis encouraged his audience to get the book. It could very well be that this information is going to fly around the nation and maybe even the world very soon and they'll have to reprint the book.

I consider this topic to be of paramount importance and I want to learn as much about it as I can, and it's going to take time and right now I don't have the time to write a really thorough post about it but I want to write something. I'm not even going to take the time to include links until later.

Here's the main message I want to get across: As Cahn has reported, American leaders actually quoted the verse in Isaiah that so painfully applies to the American attitude after 9/11, which was an attitude of proud reliance on human strength in defiance of God instead of repentance, after an act of God warning of judgment to come against the nation. Tom Daschle was Senate Majority Leader when he declared that we will rebuild, thinking Isaiah 9:10 a message of hope instead of recognizing it as defiance against God. He was one of the nation's leaders. Therefore he spoke for the nation in that capacity, in other words he spoke prophetically. Just as Gamaliel in his leadership position spoke prophetically of Jesus dying for the people, also without knowing the meaning of his own words.

Likewise John Edwards was in a position of leadership when he proclaimed the same message on the anniversary of 9/11 three years later. Obama himself also said essentially the same thing seven years after Daschle's speech on the subject, but without reference to the verse in Isaiah, when he vowed that "we will rebuild" the economy, after a first stage of its collapse.

As Cahn notes, especially in the Bernis interview, that's three American leaders who pronounced a vow of defiance against God, just as ancient Israel did after God brought the first wave of judgment against them, a warning blow that was a harbinger of more to come unless they repented. Cahn makes much of the fact that it was political leaders who did this, saying that is like an official pronouncement of defiance on behalf of the entire nation.

That's three American leaders who essentially PRONOUNCED A CURSE ON AMERICA and invited more of God's judgment.

As I recall, the general attitude at the time was this same defiance. I'm surprised if President Bush didn't say something along the same lines but it would take more research than I have time for to find out at the moment. He offended God enough with his statement that "Islam is a religion of peace" and with his blasphemous ecumenical service in the National Cathedral supposedly on behalf of the nation which was itself a curse on the nation. I know that on the conservative internet forums the attitude was They can't do this to us, we are the strongest and best nation blah blah blah, with a militant tone of defiance that outdoes the vow of Isaiah 9:10 in sheer emotional belligerence at least. When they were passing around a mock "plan" for the rebuilding of the towers with five towers in a row with the middle one very tall, that looked like a fist with its middle finger extended -- wonderful "joke" -- I recognized that they were "giving God the finger." I don't know where our conservative LEADERS were but the conservative rank and file was ASKING for God to smack us down.

But back to Cahn's revelations, the pronouncements by our leaders are all backed up by the other "harbingers" of further judgment from the Isaiah verse. God brought an army against Israel and they knocked down their bricks and the leaders vowed to rebuild stronger and better. God brought an attack on the World Trade Center and American leaders fell all over themselves to announce that we would rebuild, we are the strongest nation, they can't keep us down, and so on. But GOD can keep us down and He has plenty of reason to do so.

Some of our political leaders also brought in a quarried stone and placed it at Ground Zero as the cornerstone of a new tower they called the Freedom Tower, dedicating it with speeches that further affirmed our defiance of God. The Isaiah passage said the leaders of Israel vowed to rebuild with hewn stones, or quarried stones, in place of the bricks that were knocked down. Our one hewn cornerstone is enough to symbolize our defiant attitude in exactly the spirit of Isaiah 9:10, the REAL meaning of 9/11, not what blind politicians kept promising. The cornerstone's simply standing there is testimony to American defiance inviting God's further judgment against us.

Same with the "sycomores" that were also felled in ancient Israel as part of God's warning of judgment to come. It's not the same tree but we call it a sycamore nevertheless and it was an ancient sycamore in the churchyard of Trinity Wall Street Church -- really, the churchyard of St. Paul's chapel which is a separated part of Trinity Church -- that was knocked down by a piece of one of the towers, and it became a huge symbol of the event. A sculptor who likes to sculpt tree roots took it and made a memorial to it in bronze which was placed right next to the church. It's a huge creepy spidery bronze monstrosity of tree roots. Like the hewn cornerstone of the "Freedom Tower," it has become another symbol of America's defiance of God's warning of judgment. A dead tree, its roots exposed, is a fitting symbol for judgment on our nation and it stands there in stark testimony to the truth of the situation for anyone with eyes to see. God is going to uproot us completely if we don't repent, if there is even time for that.

On top of that, it was a "cedar" tree that ancient Israel vowed to put in to replace their felled sycomores, and would you believe that our blind blind sentimental fools who are doing all these things in the face of God's warning brought in a tree of the same basic type to put in the place of the dead sycamore tree? Cahn says the Hebrew word translated "cedar" actually refers to a different tree than specifically a cedar, but it's uncanny enough that Israel used an evergreen, a conifer, to replace their destroyed sycomores, and so did we!! A Norway spruce now stands where the felled sycamore once stood.

Read the signs. There they are. Our blind political leaders mean one thing by them but God means something else. God felled the towers, God felled the sycomore, God moved the fools to commemorate the event with SYMBOLS OF JUDGMENT though they had no clue that was what they were doing!

There's LOTS MORE SYMBOLISM in this whole event that I've been discovering on my own and that Cahn probably also covers in his book, but these very pointed symbols in themselves ought to be enough to get across our dire situation as a result of our defiance of God.

All this makes me cry, I don't know about you. Here we are under judgment in a far more official way than I had any idea. I knew we were under judgment and that 9/11 was a warning judgment, and anxiety would overtake me from time to time thinking about it and thinking about the foolishness of Americans in our refusal to repent. It was a helpless feeling, the nation is hell bent on destroying itself. But it was a vague fear, and now I see that God Himself has very pointedly declared His judgment against America in these awful specific symbols that most don't have a clue how to read, and I keep thinking, IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO AT THIS POINT? Is that hewn cornerstone that declares our intention to rebuild what God knocked down going to go on standing there as a testimony against us without repentance? Is that bronze monstrosity of an uprooted tree going to represent God's final curse against us or is there still something we can do?

Repentance is what is needed if there is any time for that at all, if God's judgment is not yet final and He still extends grace to us at all. But where will the will come from to repent? What American leaders are there who would stand up and repent for the vows of defiance already pronounced, or fall down publicly in sackcloth and ashes on behalf of the nation in the hope God might rescind His judgment on us?

But there is one more sign that I want to pursue concerning these harbingers, and I can't really do it justice in this off-the-cuff post, but I have to point out something I think is important that I learned from pursuing Cahn's revelations:

TRINITY WALL STREET CHURCH:

This is the biggest "harbinger" of them all, Harbinger #10 perhaps?

The church to which the sycamore belonged that was killed on 9/11, the church which replaced it with a conifer and decorated it with "holiday lights" its first year, the church next to which now stands that frighteningly symbolic monstrosity of a bronze statue of an uprooted tree, the very church in which George Washington prayed, even upon his inauguration as our first President, which therefore symbolizes the founding of our nation, the church which is bounded on one side by the downed World Trade Center (whose address by the way was simply "Church Street!!") and bounded on another by Wall Street, making it a symbol of so many elements of American life and history that to miss its significance after a little thought would take invincible obtuseness -- THAT CHURCH IS AN APOSTATE CHURCH. Go read the disgusting antichrist stuff that church stands for. I'll get links up soon but I can't take the time at the moment. That church in itself represents THE REASON THE NATION WAS JUDGED.

Sure, it's all our sins, it's the officially sanctioned murder of 50 million Americans through abortion, it's the destruction of the institution of marriage which God ordained, not just by the favorable attitude to "gay marriage" but also by our easy divorce laws and the rampant disregard of marriage in the common occurrence of unmarried cohabitation, single parenting and the like, and it's our "freedom" of pornography and other twistings of the original American concept of freedom, all of which Cahn briefly mentioned, and much much more, and all the movements that have brought us to this pass, the influence of "Postmodernism" of "Secular humanism" of "Cultural Marxism" and on and on and on.

But IT'S THE APOSTASY OF THE CHURCH that is the first and foremost reason for America's fall. Among all the symbols Rabbi Cahn unearthed in his study of 9/11 this one overshadows them all. The church that should uphold God's will has rejected Him and the particular church at Ground Zero with its downed sycamore and its bronze harbinger of this nation's death OUGHT TO BE RECOGNIZED AS SYMBOLIZING THE FOUNDATIONAL EXPLANATION FOR THE WHOLE DISASTER.

Christians ought to be praying against the apostate churches more than against all our other sins. JUDGMENT BEGINS AT THE HOUSE OF GOD!!!

Instead of -- or along with -- doing prayer walks around fortune-telling parlors and abortion clinics, DO PRAYER WALKS AROUND THE LOCAL APOSTATE CHURCHES, around the cult "churches" too, the Mormon churches, the Jehovah's Witnesses and so on. Catholic churches, apostate churches like Trinity Wall Street, Joel Osteen's church. DENOUNCE THEM TO GOD. Ask God to free their captives.

There's plenty more to say about all this but I had to get this much said in the little time I have at the moment. Back later.

God's Sovereignty in Catastrophes: Who's Ruling This Planet Anyway?

These days it always comes up whenever there is a disaster, like the Katrina hurricane or the Indonesian tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti or the recent huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan -- did God have anything to do with it or not? The quick answer, based on the Bible, is of course He did, nothing happens without God, nothing at all. I've written quite a few posts on this at this blog.

But as soon as you try to say something along those lines you find yourself pounced on by people who consider you the most hateful evil person who ever lived. The language used is pretty excoriating. They denounce and blaspheme and rail in tones of most aggrieved indignation. You think you're just saying something simple and true that is based on biblical scripture, something in fact that is God-honoring and even conducive to spiritual growth, but no, to hear them go on it appears you're guilty of something on the order of genocide, at the very least an unChristian "judgmentalness." A W Pink's The Sovereignty of God written in 1918 is the classic on the subject. From his Introduction:

It would be foolish for us to expect that this work will meet with general approval. The trend of modern theology—if theology it can be called—is ever toward the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent effects of Darwinianism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighed in the balances of the Sanctuary. Even those who are clear, intellectually, upon other truth, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few, very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity of man. Those who speak of man’s "free will," and insist upon his inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their ignorance of the real condition of Adam’s fallen children. And if there are few who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God.

From his Chapter One:

To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Ps. 115:3). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is "The Governor among the nations" (Ps. 22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the "Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15). Such is the God of the Bible. How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.[1] To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity: is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is "trying His best" to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being. To declare that the Creator’s original plan has been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God. To suggest that God was taken by surprise in Eden and that He is now attempting to remedy an unforeseen calamity, is to degrade the Most High to the level of a finite, erring mortal. To argue that man is a free moral agent and the determiner of his own destiny, and that therefore he has the power to checkmate his Maker, is to strip God of the attribute of Omnipotence. To say that the creature has burst the hounds assigned by his Creator, and that God is now practically a helpless Spectator before the sin and suffering entailed by Adam’s fall, is to repudiate the express declaration of Holy Writ, namely, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" (Ps. 76:10). In a word, to deny the sovereignty of God is to enter upon a path which, if followed to its logical terminus, is to arrive at blank atheism. The sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, infinite. When we say that God is sovereign we affirm His right to govern the universe, which He has made for His own glory, just as He pleases. We affirm that His right is the right of the Potter over the clay, i.e., that He may mould that clay into whatsoever form He chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. We affirm that He is under no rule or law outside of His own will and nature, that God is a law unto Himself, and that He is under no obligation to give an account of His matters to any.

From The God of Disasters by Vincent Cheung:

... Many people's belief systems are not equipped to handle catastrophes, and so to them they appear random, senseless, and beyond explanation. Some people resort to pragmatism, focusing on picking up the pieces; others are driven to cynicism and despair. But whether or not they come up with their own explanations, or whether their explanations agree with one another, they are united in condemning those who would say that these catastrophes are God's punishments against sinners – those who worship idols, blaspheme, murder, fornicate, cheat, oppress, those who are lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God, and those who would expel him from their courts and schools and families. No, it is not that they can prove these people's innocence, or that they can prove that God does not punish, but the mere suggestion that God would visit them with judgment, and in wars, and floods, and fires that at times would kill thousands, is enough to invite their anathema. Anyone who dares to suggest that a disaster could be God's legitimate recompense upon deserving evildoers is reviled as cruel, unpatriotic, or the like. It is noteworthy that these individuals ... include both non-Christians and professing Christians. ...as long as we stay within what is revealed in Scripture, it is possible for us to arrive at some general interpretations of what God is doing in the world and in our lives. Scripture tells us that God does punish sinners with both natural and "man-made" disasters, from the everyday mishaps and inconveniences to things like floods, earthquakes, plagues, famines, blizzards, and so on. All these things occur by God's sovereign decree and power. Some of these things involve human decisions and actions, and so we distinguish between natural and "man-made" disasters. ...God controls both nature and man, so that even these so-called "manmade" disasters are planned and caused by God. These would include things like wars, terrorism, and genocide. ...The point is that God is the direct sovereign and righteous cause of all disasters of all kinds. [W]e have warrant from Scripture to say that when disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis, and even terrorist attacks occur, killing thousands of people, there is almost always an element of divine punishment. ... If you reject this, you might as well stop calling yourself a Christian, for your faith rests in yourself and your own opinions, and it is evident that you have no regard for God and Scripture. Then, another intended effect of these disasters is to awaken the elect and to harden the reprobates.

From The Sovereignty of God Amidst Disaster, at The Veritas Network. author Ryan Rindels:

Atheists, skeptics, and agnostics [and many who call themselves Christians as well I must add] will conclude that God has nothing to do with what occurs in the natural world. Everything, from tsunamis to tornadoes, is simply the accidental phenomenon of our planet. The recent earthquake in Japan was nothing more than a seismic burp–a release of tectonic pressure that just happened upon a populated area. Was there any purpose or intent in the death of thousands? Honestly, no. Wrong place, wrong time. Random chance. Sorry, that’s the best conclusion they can give you. ...We believe every single event, however apparently random and accidental, is part of God’s sovereign plan. Nothing is accidental, nothing happens by chance. Even those things that seem bad and harmful are pieces of a greater puzzle which we cannot see or understand. God exists to glorify himself. He is just and right and worthy to do this. In the book of Job we learn that God isn’t obligated to reveal his divine will to us. Could we even comprehend it if he did? Faith in him is sufficient.

I also agree with this one from a blog called Ardent Cries, author Chad Bennett:

People who die in these disasters are not being judged for being worse than you and I. What judgment has fallen, we all deserve.

It IS God's judgment but we all deserve judgment. As I understand it from scripture, it's a matter of timing, the "fullness of time" that determines when and to what extent God brings judgment against a particular nation. Here’s another thought on the same theme written in 1983 by John Piper:

The soft-hearted rebels exploit heartache to push their heresy: the death of a daughter, a Down’s syndrome son, a freak accident, a husband’s cancer—is God a sadist? And so the rebels find broken hearts and pour their heresy in the cracks. But it is not healing. Only truth can heal. It need not be spoken callously. It need not be spoken at all in moments of anguish. But it must be believed and cherished. “He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What doest thou?’” (Daniel 4:35). ...Psalm 105:16 says, “He summoned a famine on the land, and broke every staff of bread.” When I read this I simply bowed in awe of the God who orders from his throne all wind and heat and rain.

As should we all. (Great line by the way, The soft hearted rebels exploit heartache...) And here is John Piper again , quoted in a blog post on the devastation of Haiti (which has other good quotes and comments, including about Tony Campolo denying that God had anything to do with the disaster.) Piper is writing in the context of the Katrina disaster:

On his 89th birthday (August 31) NPR Senior News Analyst, Daniel Schorr, observed that President Bush had “staked out a non-position” on the debate between evolution and intelligent design. Bush had said that “both sides ought to be properly taught in the schools of America.” Then, with manifest scorn, Schorr linked the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with the concept of intelligent design: “[Bush] might well have reflected that, if this was the result of intelligent design, then the designer has something to answer for.” No, Mr. Schorr, you have something to answer for, not God. God answers to no man. Come, Daniel Schorr, take your place with Job and answer your Maker: “The Lord answered Job [and Daniel Schorr] out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. . . . Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed”?’” (Job 38:1-3, 8-11). Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Shall the pot say to the Potter, “This is an unintelligent way to show your justice and your power? Come, Maker of heaven and earth, sit at my feet—I have lived 89 years and have gotten much wisdom—and I will teach you—the eternal God—how to govern the universe”? No. Rather let us put our hands on our mouths and weep both for the perishing and for ourselves who will soon follow. Whatever judgment has fallen, it is we who deserve it—all of us. And whatever mercy is mingled with judgment in New Orleans neither we nor they deserve. God sent Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners. He did not suffer massive shame and pain because Americans are pretty good people. The magnitude of Christ’s suffering is owing to how deeply we deserve Katrina—all of us. Our guilt in the face of Katrina is not that we can’t see the intelligence in God’s design, but that we can’t see arrogance in our own heart. God will always be guilty of high crimes for those who think they’ve never committed any. But God commits no crimes when he brings famine, flood, and pestilence on the earth. “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” (Amos 3:6). The answer of the prophet is no. God’s own testimony is the same: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). And if we ask, is there intelligent design in it all, the Bible answers: “You meant evil . . . but God meant it [designed it] for good” (Genesis 50:20). This will always be ludicrous to those who put the life of man above the glory of God.

The Sovereignty of God over ... everything.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised. It's hard to understand and hard to accept just how violently many Christians react against the idea that God is sovereign over ALL things, which means of course sovereign over events such as 9/11 and the earthquake in Haiti, both of which I've written about in this blog.

They will say that God IS sovereign ... BUT: ...but not sovereign over earthquakes, ...but not sovereign over jihadists, ...but not sovereign over human will, ...but not sovereign over who is saved (election) etc etc etc.

And here's another puzzler:

We know that God is a sovereign God, but what does that really mean for us in the earth today?

"Really mean?" "For us today?" Huh? Why should it mean anything different for us today than for anyone ever?

And anyone who holds the view of God's complete sovereignty is likely to be severely upbraided and even treated as hardly a Christian at all. Witness what was said against Pat Robertson. The fury of those who object to this idea is little different from that of complete unbelievers. I've been called amazingly bitter names by supposed Christians for defending this perfectly orthodox understanding. I'm called "harsh" and worse for doing this, although my tone as far as I can tell is simply factual and descriptive.

They argue that you can't win people to Christ with such "harshness," ignoring the fact that the discussion isn't about winning people to Christ, and that it is God who is being presented as the "harsh" one, as well as that there is no harsh tone, only words they have trouble accepting. The subject is simply the objective explanation why such events occurred, the subject is not the gospel. We're discussing the plight of Haiti.

Even so, there is plenty of good reason to think people ARE won to Christ by understanding the seriousness of God's wrath we are all under, and won more securely than when the gospel is given without such framing. The idea is that we have to understand that we are rightly condemned before we can rightly value or even understand the meaning of the offer of salvation in Christ. This is how the gospel was often preached in times past, and still is preached in Reformed churches.

For the record, here's a page of links to sermons and articles on various aspects of God's sovereignty.

Here's a similar but shorter list at Monergism dot com.

On this page they list the various sovereignties of God with scriptural sources:

• God is sovereign over the entire universe: Ps 103:19; Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11
  
• God is sovereign over all of nature: Ps 135:6-7; Mt 5:45; 6:25-30
  
• God is sovereign over angels & Satan: Ps 103:20-21; Job 1:12
  
• God is sovereign over nations: Ps 47:7-9; Dan 2:20-21; 4:34-35
  
• God is sovereign over human beings: 1 Sam 2:6-7; Gal 1:15-16
  
• God is sovereign over animals: Ps 104:21-30; 1 Ki 17:4-6
  
• God is sovereign over "accidents": Pr 16:33; Jon 1:7; Mt 10:29
  
• God is sovereign over free acts of men: Ex 3:21; 12:25-36; Ez 7:27
  
• God is sovereign over sinful acts of men and Satan: 2 Sam 24:1; 1 Chr 21:1; Gen 45:5; 50:20
  

And here's a brief article by John Piper on 9/11: Why I Do Not Say God Did Not Cause the Calamity . . .

Perhaps I can at least now say that this discussion is so clearly futile that I won't be attempting it again -- not that I won't write about it here as usual, of course.

Haiti on the way to recovery. Let it be so, Lord.

I hope hope hope this is what it purports to be , a real move of God in Haiti. Three days of fasting and prayer by a million people in Haiti, crying out to God to forgive them and heal their country. How wonderful. This is what is needed. President Preval called for these days of fasting and repentance to replace the Mardi Gras celebration.

I'm sure those who organized it and those reporting it believe it is genuine and I want to also. Scriptures were read, prayers were prayed, songs of worship were sung. Praise God for it if it is genuine. Three thousand conversions are claimed, 101 of them confirmed to have been voodoo priests. Heart-wrenchingly wonderful if genuine.

So why do I have any reservations at all?

Because the name of Jesus Christ was not spoken even once in this video.

Because nothing was said about how people in Haiti think they can be both Christian and voodoo practitioners to assure us this confusion is overcome in this event.

Because "Christianity" is too often equated with Catholicism and ritual instead of genuine relationship with Christ.

Because in such an atmosphere there is some question how complete a conversion is going to be.

I hope hope hope it is genuine. I hope that at least a huge proportion of it is genuine. I wish it hadn't been presented in such a sloppy emotional way so that it's impossible to judge whether it is genuine or not.

But we will know them by their fruit.

Lord, I pray that You will bless Haiti mightily with a new allegiance to You and a complete healing of their unhappy land.

Us too, Lord, us too.

Mealy mouthed "Christians" who keep the world in bondage to Satan

I've been unable to find the quote on the internet but I heard it on Christian radio yesterday and hope I got it right: Richard Stearns of World Vision announcing that "God didn't do this to Haiti," because God is merciful etc. etc. etc. It was quoted along with a report that even in the midst of the disaster people are praising God, worshiping and singing hymns.

Sure sounds nice and Christian, but what a sentimentalized bogus Christianity it is if it rests on a denial of God's sovereignty in judgment as well as blessing. What God is REALLY being worshipped here? What a bunch of carnal pollyannas so many Christians are.

Where's the salt and light in this mealymouthed sweet-talking devilish doctrine?

What sort of God wouldn't punish sin I want to know? What kind of "mercy" is it if there is no deserved punishment to be merciful ABOUT? What sort of God wouldn't finally have to punish a land as full of satanic voodooism as Haiti? A country where it's been said they are 80% Catholic but 100% voodoo or something like that. You can't mix voodoo and Christianity. Any percentage of voodoo whatever cancels out any Christian element (but let's face it, there's hardly anything Christian left in Roman Catholicism anyway, which is made only too clear where they endorse and tolerate such native devil religions as voodoo as they do in Haiti). And the evil in voodoo is so rotten and so deep that you can even see it in the young voodooists who are stealing the food given as aid to the suffering right out of the mouths of their own fellow Haitians. DISGUSTING. There's NOTHING Christian about that. That is worse than animal behavior.

Those Christians who are denying that God is sovereign over earthquakes and all other natural events, and that nothing happens that does not express something of His governance over this world -- absolutely nothing -- are some day going to have to answer for a weakened, even utterly useless, gospel message and a powerless church.

If there is no judgment from which we are to be saved, then there is no salvation worth the name. And what happens to "fear of God" which scripture so strongly declares to be the beginning of wisdom? We've lost any true Biblical wisdom. God help His people.

The Haitians need to be told in no uncertain terms that God IS judging Haiti for their witchcraft (at the top of what is no doubt a long list of other offenses) and that until that is denounced and given up they will never emerge as a viable society at all. Not to mention that individually their voodoo is taking them all to Hell. It is NOT mercy to tell them otherwise, to coddle them about how God wouldn't do such a thing to them. That in fact is to despise and condemn them to much more suffering, just as God tells us in the Book of Proverbs that to spare the rod is to hate your child. Satan himself tells them it's not their fault and keeps them in bondage to voodoo.

===

Here's a good discussion of the situation with emphasis on how AMERICA is already under judgment.

God certainly DOES judge nations, as well as individuals.

Here's a particularly venomous post from another site denouncing the very idea that God judges nations:

Militant radical Muslims arrogantly declare that the disemboweling and slaughtering of men, women, and children in the marketplace by a bomb blast is God’s will since they are the wrong kind of Muslim.

Overzealous fundamentalist Christian ministers and freelance evangelicals arrogantly declare God willed that hapless men, women, and children be killed, crippled, and made homeless in the hundreds of thousands in Haiti since they must be a misguided species of Christian.

As it does with al Qaeda, it gives God a bad name.

It is not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Love your neighbor”---of that one can be certain.

The aggressive ignorance and confusion as well as blasphemy of such an assertion fairly takes the breath away. It is hardly worth answering the person who thinks this way, but if it sways believers at all that is very sad. Unfortunately there may be many Christians who reject the biblical witness of a God who judges sin, because of the tendency toward an "easy believism" sort of diluted gospel message over the last few decades. Easy believism makes God out to be a kindly old grandfather sort of God and encourages an aversion to the very idea of judgment and sin itself. This despite the fact that the whole gospel message is that God Himself came to die in our stead, to pay our sin debt for us because we are incapable of it, which should foster a sense of the dreadful offense of sin. Instead, the watered-down gospel we get these days tends to minimize sin, making God into a nice guy who indulges us in our "mistakes," rather than offering us a costly salvation for our heinous offenses against Him, and reducing our Lord's death on the cross to, well, to meaninglessness -- there was hardly any cause for His suffering so, if there is hardly any offense in our sins. ANY sort of judgment for sin, of individuals or nations both, is now oddly dismissed as some sort of invention by zealots, despite the testimony to it in scripture.

And strange confusions abound. Of course, a lot of it is calculated confusion, not genuine confusion at all, as in the above quotation. The mere statement that God Himself judges unrepentant sinners in horrific ways, which is given as a kind warning or a kind helping hand to repentance, is equated to the Muslim command for human beings to slaughter innocents -- innocents, not sinners. The fact that God commands us to be good to our enemies and to take care of those suffering from God's judgments is studiously ignored by those who want to tar Christians with whatever accusation the devil can invent. The fact that it is God dispensing judgment and not human beings is likewise studiously ignored, as is the fact that God is judging unrepentant sin and not innocent human beings. Clearly there is no point in answering such charges by anyone who so clearly wants to believe them. But there may be a point in trying to show believers just how twisted such reasoning is, and especially to try to instil a sense of the deep offense of sin in the place of the easygoing trivialization of it.

Here's another false assessment of the situation in Haiti:

Haiti is surely a Job among nations….Today, nearly all Haitians are Christians. About half also practice voodoo, an adaptation of their African ancestors’ native religion.

Obviously someone who has no clue what Christianity actually is. Sure, no problem, call yourself a Christian AND practice voodoo and that's all it takes and abracadabra you're a Christian and the whole benighted witchcraft-practicing nation of Haiti is "nearly all" Christian. And also, of course, anyone who suggests a biblical view of witchcraft is vilified. Whatever else you think of Pat Robertson, he's right about God's being behind the disaster in Haiti. But of course the anti-Christians are on his case.

In his narrow, malicious way, Robertson is making a First Commandment argument; when the God of Israel thunders from his mountaintop that “you shall have no other gods before me,” he means it. This God rains down disaster---floods and so forth---on those who disobey.

But Robertson’s is a fundamentalist view. It’s so unkind and self-righteous---and deaf, dumb, and blind to centuries of theological discourse on suffering by thinkers from Augustine to Elie Wiesel---that one might easily call it backward.

Call it "fundamentalist" and you're certain to engender nothing but scorn and derision like this, imputing to Robertson a "narrow" and "malicious" attitude. That really ought to tell Christians that he's on the right track, as Jesus makes clear in the New Testament that those who are following Him WILL be treated this way. Good for Pat Robertson and woe to those who disdain him. Of course it IS fundamentalist, that is, it is in keeping with the biblical revelation, it's what God Himself tells us in His word. If Augustine disagreed, too bad for Augustine -- he didn't always get it right despite many things he DID get right. And what does Elie Wiesel have to do with Christian revelation anyway?

Every Western religious tradition teaches that mortals have no way of counting or weighing another’s sin.

Um, we aren't talking about the sins of individuals, which are none of our business unless made our business, we're talking about the sins of nations here, and that is clearly shown us in the Old Testament. You don't have to be a prophet to understand what the Bible teaches about God's absolute sovereignty over all things (although it may help to be a Calvinist), it's revealed to us in scripture, and in the case of nations we can often infer many things about a particular act of God, just knowing something about that nation's history -- not everything, but the main issues. In the case of Haiti, voodoo fairly hits you in the face as the explanation for not only this particular disaster, but their hundreds of years of deterioration into poverty, their incompetent and exploitative government and the like.

“If that happened to the Haitians because they’re so sinful, then why hasn’t it happened to him?” retorts Bart Ehrman, a Bible scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Your time is no doubt coming. Why would anyone ask such a question?

[Some mortals who fancy themselves mind-0f-God readers cite “fullness of time” here, explaining that if your sinful homeland hasn’t been hit, it’s only because it hasn’t been hit yet; therefore, let us repent all together, in locksquat with prayer mats unrolled!]

It doesn't take the prophetic gift to understand God's mind THROUGH HIS OWN REVELATION TO US, merely a faithful adherence to that revelation, but of course those who hate God don't mind misconstruing it all in the service of their agenda.

“I think,” adds Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, “that it’s supreme hubris to think you can read God’s mind.”
-- Lisa Miller, religion editor, Newsweek, January 25, 2010, p. 14

Well, the poor Jews, but they are unfortunately deluding themselves.

Again, it's not "reading God's mind" to infer God's doings from His own revelation in scripture. It's exactly what He gave us that revelation FOR, so we could understand His operations in this world and be warned.

===========================
So many have been disputing what Pat Robertson said about Haiti's "pact with the devil" I had to see if there's anything to it. It appears that there most likely is. It is at least the stuff of legend, and of Christian attempts to exorcise it as well, showing that it is generally believed to be historically true.

Here's one source: Government Of The Devil, By The Devil, And For The Devil By Tom Barrett (03/11/04) From that page:

It is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago. On August 14, 1791, a group of houngans (voodoo priests), led by a former slave houngan named Boukman, made a pact with the Devil at a place called Bois-Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all of the white Frenchmen on the island. They sacrificed a black pig in a voodoo ritual at which hundreds of slaves drank the pig’s blood. In this ritual, Boukman asked Satan for his help in liberating Haiti from the French. In exchange, the voodoo priests offered to give the country to Satan for 200 years and swore to serve him. On January 1, 1804, the nation of Haiti was born and thus began a new demonic tyranny.

Many of the links on the above page are now defunct, most of them being pretty old (remember, this was written in 2004, well before the recent earthquake in Haiti). But there are still some live ones that back up the claim of such a pact, and show that it is recognized by Haitians themselves as a turning point in their history.

Some more references:

Reported in 1998, an effort was made by Christians to exorcise the evil influence of the pact at the site where it was originally made in 1791. It doesn't seem to have had much if any effect, as the practice of voodoo has continued just as strong as ever since then.

Here's a U.S. government document that treats this pact as historically recognized if nothing else, and reports on the efforts of the Christians to undo it: U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999. From the report:

While society is generally tolerant of the variety of religious practices that flourish in the country, Christian attitudes towards voodoo vary. While many Christians accept voodoo as part of the country's cultural patrimony, others regard it as incompatible with Christianity, and this has led to isolated instances of conflict in the recent past.

In early August 1998, three evangelical pastors were arrested near Cap Haitien after they had proceeded with plans to hold a religious revival at Bois Caiman. Bois Caiman has a strong patriotic significance for Haitians, since it is the site of a legendary 1791 voodoo ceremony at which slaves swore to rise up against their masters and risk death rather than continue to live in bondage. The resulting slave rebellion was a precursor to the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). The pastors, who had been prohibited by the authorities from holding the revival on the actual anniversary of the ceremony, proceeded instead with plans to hold the event several days before the anniversary, hoping to rid the area of malevolent influences. This offended much of the local populace and local authorities, who arrested pastors Joel Jeune, Jean Berthony Paul, and Gregor Joseph on August 4. They were released on the orders of a judge on August 6.

The story has some holes in it. It may in fact be the truth that they did this, but in 1998 the supposed pact with Satan would have expired anyway since it was made in 1791 for 200 years. Not that Satan honors his commitments of course, but since God is in charge of everything ultimately anyway, he may have to. In any case, the practice of voodoo has not stopped as a result either of the expiration of the pact or the efforts of the Christians, and until this practice is given up by a majority there is little reason to think Haitian society is going to improve any time soon.

There is this other factor that they are nominally "Christians." Well, in the US we are also considered a Christian society despite the fact that there can't really be a very high proportion of true believers in the country, certainly no where near as high as is often claimed. BUT I think we can safely claim to be a Christian SOCIETY in the sense that Haiti is not. I'm thinking of recent reports from Haiti about young men taking food away from women and children and the weak. Such action in most western societies would be denounced, because we ARE a Christian society in that sense. The protection of the weak by the strong is a strong tenet of our societies that has come down through centuries. We may of course be losing it now as we're overtaken by pagan values -- or really, subpagan values, animalistic values -- but we can still see it in operation now and then.

Analyzing the situation in Haiti

Voodoo faith 'could hinder Haiti's recovery from quake'
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Haiti is facing a spiritual as well as a physical crisis with the collapse of many of its most potent religious symbols in the earthquake, according to a leading Labour peer and Methodist minister.

Even those who have retained their faith in the face of the overwhelming crisis will struggle to find somewhere to worship on Sunday, with so many churches including both the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals destroyed, and many others severely damaged.

Actually, that kind of sounds like judgment to me, but then I think those churches deserve to be judged.

Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, superintendent minister of Wesley’s chapel in the City of London, who was ordained in Haiti and wrote a biography of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first democratically-elected President, said he feared the fatalism inspired by the voodoo religion would militate against recovery.

That's interesting. Attitude does make a big difference. One thing about the effect of faith in Christ in a person is that it inspires doing things to improve situations.

The death of the Catholic archbishop along with the destruction of the cathedrals will be seen as potent symbols of the failure of those religions to withstand an act of God, he warned.

Well, that's not a bad thing. Those religions don't bring people to a saving faith in the living Jesus Christ and He is the refuge they need.

Voodoo is fundamentally a home-based cult where each family has their own collection of household gods, many of them Catholic saints. In many households, it sits comfortably alongside a family’s Catholic observance.

No surprise there since Catholic prayers to Mary and saints and other superstitions are the same kind of pagan religion.

The Catholic church officially backs the right of families to practise voodoo.

Sure, what do they care HOW they go to hell, whether it's through their own rituals and superstitions or voodoo's.

Protestant missionaries have been less sympathetic, classifying family spirits as demons.

May their tribe increase and their faith and spiritual power spring up in the wake of this disaster to save many souls.

More than eight in ten Haitians are officially Catholic, with about one in ten Protestants. But an unknown number also practise some voodoo rituals as well.

The dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier exploited voodoo as a method of social control, using sorcery and superstition as covers for his corrupt destruction of the nation.

Easy to see how that could happen.

Lord Griffiths, who wrote a history of Protestantism in Haiti and has had a 40-year love affair with the country, including living and working there for ten years and setting up the Haiti support group in the UK, said: “The interesting thing for sociologists and anthropologists is the considerable overlap between voodoo and Catholicism.”

Not hard to grasp if you understand what's really at the core of Catholicism, which came out in Vatican II.

Voodoo grew out of the animist religions brought to the country by slaves, and was then overlaid by the Catholicism of the plantation owners. This led in many places to syncretism, or fusing, of the two belief systems.

Not hard between two such similar paganisms.

Lord Griffiths told The Times: “I would say that 90 per cent of the time, the voodoo is non-malign. It is not just sticking pins into dolls, although there is a bit of that.”

It may be non-malign in a worldly sense but it takes people to hell so it's pretty malign in a spiritual sense.

The tragic religious “fault line” which could now impact recovery from the earthquake was the “fatalism” of the voodoo belief system.

Lord Griffiths said: “The Haiti people have had so many batterings that when something terrible happens, they just say, “Bon dieu bon", or “God is good”, whatever happens. In other words, it is God’s will, we must accept it, there is nothing we can do about it.

“The task for Christian evangelism is not to make voodoo worshippers into Christians but to help deal with the fatalism that does not allow voodoo worshippers to see themselves as agents of their own improvement.

But this can't happen UNLESS they are made into Christians and come to understand the malignity of their false religion.

"The problem is the competition between these two mindsets, the fatalism that says they can do nothing and the right perception that they can do a lot. That is the spiritual struggle.”

Ah gee, optimism that flies in the face of reality is SO inspiring.

He said the Catholic Archbishop’s death would confirm in the minds of many Haitians that the Church could not withstand the raw force of nature and the loss of the Catholic cathedral was an even more potent symbol of the same thing.

Well, the Protestants, if there are any with a real grasp of the situation, should be pointing out that God was judging those superstitious religions and that they need to come to know the living God in Christ and give up their superstitions.

“It will certainly feed into the minds of some. But it is the cathedral that is the thing. It is knocked down, that great high place of religion.

"If an Archbishop goes under a pile of rubble, you can regret it. But if you see the ruin of the cathedral where all the Archbishops since 1860 have officiated, it is a more powerful image.

"They will see this every day for years to come. Haitians will say, this is the state-approved religion and look what has happened to it.”

Nothing could be better if there's hope for their recovery than to fully grasp that the state-approved religion was a big part of their calamity and that God has judged it. May God raise up preachers who know how to teach them the truth.

Tyler Cowen, a commentator in the US, said in his blog Marginal Revolution that religion might explain why Haiti is so poor. He cited the philosopher Hegel who argued that “voodoo, with its intransitive power relations among the gods, was prone to producing political intransitivity as well.”

Sounds likely.

Albert Mohler, a baptist in the US, wrote: “In truth, it is hard not to describe the earthquake as a disaster of biblical proportions. It certainly looks as if the wrath of God has fallen upon the Caribbean nation.

"Add to this the fact that Haiti is well known for its history of religious syncretism — mixing elements of various faiths, including occult practices. The nation is known for voodoo, sorcery, and a Catholic tradition that has been greatly influenced by the occult.”

Mr Mohler refuted the suggestion from Pat Robertson, the American preacher, that Haiti was cursed by the devil.

“Why did no earthquake shake Nazi Germany? Why did no tsunami swallow up the killing fields of Cambodia? Why did Hurricane Katrina destroy far more evangelical churches than casinos? Why do so many murderous dictators live to old age while many missionaries die young?”

I was strongly disappointed in what Dr. Mohler said as I usually very much appreciate his point of view. God couldn't have stopped the earthquake? God is that weak? Or God is that preoccupied He doesn't even pay attention to such things? What picture of God is being conveyed when people deny that He had anything to do with a disaster such as Haiti is suffering?

I'd answer the "whys" being asked above: There is such a thing as the "fullness of time" for God's wrath. Nazi Germany only existed for a few decades. Haiti has been around for centuries practicing its voodoo all that time. Perhaps the killing fields too have not ripened for judgment yet. As for churches, "judgment begins at the house of God" comes to mind, but we just don't have any information about those churches. It's more reasonable to focus on the larger New Orleans as the target rather than specific individuals and institutions, unless we happened to know something about them, and we don't. New Orleans as a whole has a reputation for sin that's hard to ignore though. Mardi Gras, voodoo etc. It's also an old city, not anywhere near as old as Haiti but still, much ripened toward the "fullness of time" when Katrina came along.

Amos 3:6 ... shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

And besides, Nazi Germany certainly was ultimately punished after the war.

There are different ways God's wrath comes upon nations, there's not one method that applies to all. Political insanity is one method, for instance; it's not all tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes.

There is probably more truth to Pat Robertson's claim than is being acknowledged. Voodoo is certainly a satanic religion and apparently some sort of pact was once made, but its practice by a majority of the population is enough of a reason for God's judgment on the nation.

But this article is interesting in its pointing to a fatalistic attitude in voodoo as a source of the Haitian problems too.