How the deck is stacked against The Harbinger --updated

Just a little sketch off the top of my head of impressions I'm getting from my first read-through of David James' book, The Harbinger, Fact or Fiction?\

[Later: I've carefully read the first half of the book and taken many notes; the last half I've barely skimmed through, so I have to apologize for giving a wrong impression about having read the book through. To respond to this book would take a book in itself. Since I am fascinated with all this, not to mention indignant against what I see as unfair treatment of Jonathan Cahn, I may end up with the equivalent of a book.

So far, through the first half of the book, I find only a few things to make any kind of concession on:

If James is right about the Assyrians, Cahn is seriously in the wrong in connecting them with today's terrorists as he does. James makes a compelling case, that today's Assyrians are Christians, not Muslims. But Jonathan Cahn may be able to answer him from his own research, I don't know. I can't answer it myself so I have to leave it as an error in the book.

Also, I agree with James that it would have been better if Cahn had left out the reference to the Septuagint's rendering of Isaiah 9:10. Apparently he was wowed by the mention of a "tower" there, which adds a neat little confirmation to his theme, although none of today's translations from the Hebrew scriptures mentions a tower. And yes, the whole translation is different. Of course Cahn would not have referred to the whole verse if only because the harbingers all reflect today's translations. This seems to be a case where Cahn let himself be carried away by his love of drama and finding connections.

A third point is not quite as black and white. This is Cahn's attempt to explain the removal of the gigantic quarried stone that had been brought in to be the cornerstone of the planned Freedom Tower: Cahn explains it as the frustration of America's plan in parallel with the frustration of Israel's plan to rebuild, being a second expression of God's judgment, the first being the initial destruction and the intent to rebuild with hewn stone. To my mind this all depends on whether or not this frustration of plans can be demonstrated in Israel's case from the scripture. If it can then I'd probably accept the parallel in America. But my own way of thinking about the removal of the stone is that such a stone simply isn't needed in the modern context of steel skyscraper construction, BUT that the very fact that a hewn stone was brought in AT ALL demonstrates God's hand in showing the parallel between America's attitude of defiance and Israel's as described in Isaiah 9:10.

These things are not failures of biblical hermeneutics or any kind of doctrinal failure at all, they are merely errors of historical research or excessive zeal in making connections, which seems to be Cahn's particular gift, a gift that can get out of hand.

I do believe that the rest of James' objections as he lays them out in the first half of his book can be answered.]

The rest of this post is a brief overview of the MAIN problem with ALL the critics' attacks on the Harbinger: Their strict and exclusivistic adherence to a rigid version of Dispensational Theology:

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Discernment ministries usually work to identify serious failures of Christian doctrine, such as a denial of the Deity of Christ, which is the essential problem with denial of the Trinity; or advocacy of extrabiblical revelation (anything that is taken as authoritative outside the Bible, such as the traditions of Catholicism or the Book of Mormon), prophecies that contradict scripture, imputation of works of the flesh or the devil to the Holy Spirit and vice versa.

So it's rather strange to see these ministries going after Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger with such zeal, considering that they can't identify any such violations of the orthodox faith without indulging in tortuous reasoning (which I know I'll have to demonstrate when I can get to it).

What these particular discerners find against the book is predominantly a failure to adhere to their own strict version of dispensationalist theology.

Some of the ways the critics treat Cahn remind me of a kafkaesque nightmare in which nothing makes sense, you are found guilty of violating bizarre laws you never heard of before, and anything you say on your own behalf is used against you.

Cahn denies that he considers himself a prophet. But other people refer to him as a prophet and he doesn't correct them. He considers the message of the Harbinger to be prophetic, therefore what does that make him but a prophet? MY ANSWER: I think he's denying that he's a prophet in the biblical sense, since he claims no spiritual impartation from God, but doesn't object to a more casual use of the term since after all he is the one who discovered the harbingers which establish the prophetic message.

Cahn denies any sort of belief in replacement theology, by which national Israel is replaced, in this case by America. But the book gives the definite impression that America has replaced Israel. MY ANSWER: It would only give such an impression to a zealous dispensationalist who will not allow that the Old Testament could EVER apply to ANYTHING other than Israel.

Cahn denies that he finds America in Isaiah 9:10. But the book gives the definite impression that there is such a connection between America and Isaiah 9:10. MY ANSWER: All Cahn is denying is that somehow America is implicit in the verse, not that there is a connection between the verse and America. The connection does not exist in the verse itself but occurred in America, where the same spirit of Isaiah 9:10 has been expressed in many different ways, including by those uncanny harbingers.

Cahn denies that he believes that America is in covenant with God the same way Israel was, but the book gives the definite impression that such a covenant does exist. MY ANSWER: Seeing that America has been in a special relationship with God because of our godly Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers, a relationship that was even regarded as a covenant by some of them, is NOT the same thing as claiming identity with Israel, whose covenant was initiated BY God.

Cahn should have written a different book, and a major way it should have been different is that it should have dealt with end times themes, the rapture, the restoration of Israel, the return of Christ, the final judgment. These are all dispensationalist preoccupations at the present time, which apparently absolutely preclude a book that's only about America. MY ANSWER: Cahn's book is about AMERICA.

The book James thinks Cahn SHOULD have written is a book that a deep-dyed dispensationalist would have written. In fact James suggests an interesting plot for a novel that he himself should write.

It's just not the book Cahn wrote or wanted to write. The book Cahn wrote is about America, it is not about the end times, it is not about Israel etc. etc. etc.

The dispensationalist presupposition won't let him write such a book, it must be a different book, it must be about Israel and the Antichrist and the coming new world order, it simply cannot be about America because that doesn't fit with dispensationalist expectations.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection Part 3

David James in a comment to my first post below on dispensationalism in relation to The Harbinger says there is no such thing as a dispensationalist hermeneutic. I posted there the link to this article by Thomas Ice, which I will quote here:

Dispensational Hermeneutics
By Thomas Ice.

" Consistently literal or plain interpretation is indicative of a dispensational approach to the interpretation of the Scriptures," declared Charles Ryrie in 1965. " And it is this very consistency- the strength of dispensational interpretation- that irks the nondispensationalist and becomes the object of his ridicule." [1] " Consistently literal interpretation" was listed by Ryrie as the second most important sine qua non of dispensationalism, which forms the foundation for the most important essential, "the distinction between Israel and the Church."[2] Earl Radmacher, in 1979, went so far as to say that literal interpretation "is the 'bottom-line' of dispensationalism."[3] While the ridicule of nondispensationalists has continued, there also appear to be signs of hermeneutical equivocation within the ranks of dispensationalism.

Dispensational hermeneutics, as opposed to, say, Reformed hermeneutics or Covenant Theology hermeneutics, includes major major emphasis on Israel as opposed to the Church, as the main or even exclusive object of all the Old Testament prophecies and promises. Ice discusses variations on this, but it remains true that the distinction between Israel and the Church is "the most important essential."

There is also a very interesting discussion online by John MacArthur on the subject of dispensationalism, which I hope to get to. I've been told I'm a Progressive Dispensationalist because I do at least believe that Israel has a role to play in the last days, and that seems to be more or less MacArthur's position.

So eventually I'll be back with that.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection Part 2

As David James takes care to recognize throughout his book and especially in his last chapter, Final Thoughts, in general both supporters and critics of The Harbinger share a conservative Christian mindset or worldview, generally agree on all the main discernment issues involving cultic and apostate movements, and agree on the sins besetting America that deserve God's judgment, and I'd add that, for the most part, we also agree that we are in the last days.

As James puts it:

Whatever else may be problematic concerning the rest of the book he [Cahn] is absolutely correct in his assessment that America is in serious spiritual trouble.[THFOF p.102]

He also acknowledges that Cahn has emphasized the fact that God's judgment on a nation is of far less importance than the spiritual condition of individuals, for whom the consequences are eternal.

So far so good.

He then goes on to object that, nevertheless, these ends don't justify the means.

And the first of these "means" that James condemns is, of course, Cahn's supposedly faulty hermeneutic:

Cahn has departed from a literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic, in favor of looking for hidden mysteries while engaging in allegorical interpretation and untenable speculation. In short, he has mishandled the Word of God.[THFOF p. 202]

This is, of course, what is going to have to be disputed by anyone who wants to answer David James, and, Lord willing, that's what I intend to try to do.

The fact is that the "literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic" that James has in mind is not EVERYBODY's "literal, grammatical historical hermeneutic" but only the particular hermeneutic of the dispensationalists, although James in his adherence to that theological school is not willing to acknowledge the existence of other schools. Understandably, perhaps, but it has made for quite a bit of unnecessary confusion, for me for one, in dealing with their attacks on the book.

The dispensationalists in dealing with The Harbinger have uniformly presented their own theology as THE only biblical theology, as in this following statement from James:

Although praise of The Harbinger has come from across an extremely broad theological spectrum, the comparatively little criticism the book has rewcweived has been from a relatively small group who share a clear set of mutually held biblical and theological commitments. [THFOF p. 204]

And these shared commitments are in fact the tenets of dispensationalism, though he'd apparently rather give the impression that the shared views are the only or the only right "biblical and theological commitments."

Among those who have serious concerns about The Harbinger and Cahn's views, the common ground they share is not their opposition to the book, but rather a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic, as well as the theology and view of the prophetic Scriptures that flow from that. [THFOF p. 204]

In other words, this biblical hermeneutic is THE biblical hermeneutic and there is no other.

He does then go on to acknowledge that many of the book's supporters share the same hermeneutic and theology, although he's almost acknowledged what I have come to think IS the main reason for the division between the book's supporters and its critics, which is the dispensationalism of the critics despite the fact that there are also supporters who share their dispensationalism.

This does require me to account for why dispensationalists themselves also divide on this book. My first, provisional, explanation is that the book's supporters are not adhering rigidly to a formal dispensationalist theology or hermeneutic as the critics are, but rather reading the book in a much more natural way, which would keep them from falling into the utter absurdity of accusing the book of anything remotely along the lines of Replacement Theology for instance. A second, provisional, answer is that the supporters' dispensationalism is of a less extreme kind to begin with. I don't know if this is true and probably can't prove it one way or the other.

David James asks the question what accounts for the differences even among the dispensationalists --or again, as he so tendentiously puts it, among those who have "a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic" -- but his answer seems to be the usual dispensationalist assumptions versus those who to his mind DON'T have "a firm commitment to a biblical hermeneutic:"

Those who have opposed The Harbinger tend to uniformly do so on the basis of a number of factors. One major concern is that The Harbinger gives the distinct (and wrong) impression that America has been elevated to a status in God's program that has been reserved for Israel alone. [THFOF pp. 204]

This is pure dispensationalism, which is so rigidly committed to viewing the Old Testament as exclusively to "Israel alone" that even arriving at an application of Old Testament principles to one's own life is brought under suspicion, let alone a nation or anything in the contemporary world, which is treated as a flat-out unquestionable unmitigated failure of proper biblical interpretation. You'd think this method of interpretation was somehow decreed by God Himself the way they talk about it. And he goes on in the same vein:

This impression is deepened, at least in part, due to what is seen as a problem with the hermeneuticl principles used to interpret Isaiah 9:10 (and the Old Testament in general). This has led to further concerns about how passages that were given specifically to Israel have been applied to New testament believers, as well as to the United States, which is a Gentile nation. Ultimately this has resulted in differences between the two sides over the correlation and application of Isaiah 9:10 and other passages to recent events going back to September 2001 and even back to the founding of America. The Harbinger supporters do not seem to share these concerns. [THFOF pp. 205]

That is absolutely correct, we do NOT share those concerns. Those concerns are strictly an artifact of the wrong hermenetic of dispensationalism. The wrong hermeneutic is theirs, not Jonathan Cahn's, even if he thinks himself a dispensationalist, and I don't know how far he goes in that direction.

Dispensationalism is not only simply ONE school of biblical interpretation, it is regarded by some Christians of other theological persuasions as HERESY. At least at certain extremes there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is definitely heresy. Two dispensationalist teachers who are connected with and promoted by Brannon Howse, who has been a major promoter of the criticisms of The Harbinger, do go that far into heretical versions of dispensationalism, Jimmy DeYoung and John Whitcomb, and I've brought up their heretical views on this blog before.

Clearly there is much more that needs to be said about dispensationalism in connection with The Harbinger, which will probably be the subject of posts yet to come as I continue to address David James' critique. I would suggest that if you abandon at least the most extreme dispensationalism, half of the objections to The Harbinger would just go up in smoke. At least half.

More to come.

The Harbinger Critics: The Dispensationalist Connection

Just had a theological/hermeneutical ton of bricks land on my head. As it were.

I've noted before that dispensationalism has been guiding some of the criticism of The Harbinger, but I managed to forget that and focus on the separate arguments. While taking note of its influence to some extent I was hoping to avoid getting into such a thicket of theological controversies.

Now it's hitting me that it is this system of theology, or system of hermeneutics, that is THE basis of the attack on The Harbinger. This came as a depressing realization as I've been grappling with David James' book. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to get into it to some extent, and even a small extent is already far beyond where I wanted to go with such questions.

Why is it there is such a divide among conservative Christians on The Harbinger? James asks that question and I found myself coming to the conclusion that it's somehow because the critics all share a theology, a theology that I don't share and that apparently the average reader doesn't share either. But I wasn't yet understanding just WHAT theology that is.

James, who is very saddened by the disagreements on this book among conservative Christians, also attributes it to theological differences, in his last chapter, but he doesn't name the theologies in question.

It took a while for it to sink in. Ah yes. Dallas Theological Seminary. Ah yes, look at who the critics are. James, DeYoung, Howse, McMahon, Thomas Ice, Roy Zuck.

Dispensationalists. Of course. Why did "Replacement Theology" ever come up at all, and why is it still an issue in some form or other? All that stuff I keep wanting to call stupid and so on, that keeps missing the point of The Harbinger, is dispensationalism.

THAT's the cause of the huge divide. Even though many of the book's defenders are also dispensationalists to one degree or another.

And I'm going to have to deal with all this, like it or not. I've collected some links. My work is cut out for me.

More later.

The error of expecting the application of an Old Testament message to modern times to be exact

I'm trying to get all this together in my mind, in order to have a definitive response to the critics myself, which is what I regard David James' book as attempting to do for his team. So along with reading his book I've been listening to the last part of the discussion on Brannon Howse's program for August 7th, with Howse and T A McMahon as well as David James, which deals with the same material the book does if not in as much detail.

Something I have to say right away is that if David James is going to complain about my trying to make him or his fellow critics look foolish, which he suggested in his comment to my previous post, it has to be acknowledged that they are not pulling any punches themselves in characterizing The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn or his defenders as foolish. It's true that David James himself seems to be more cautious in his use of terms but the message is nevertheless the same: the defenders of The Harbinger are falling for an extremely foolish illusion, treating mere coincidences as a word from God, and failing to apply what they characterize as basic principles of Bible interpretation, and so on and so forth. Brannon Howse on that program mentions an email he received from a "well-known" pastor in Chicago whom he quotes as saying he'd read half of The Harbinger and found it "silly and foolish."

With that kind of rhetoric coming from the critics they are hardly justified in demanding that Cahn's defenders refrain from similar language. In fact, there is no way to do so consistently. Even with the best of intentions, bending over backwards to avoid insulting language, it can't be done beyond a bare minimum because both sides of this controversy regard the other side as coming to absurd and foolish conclusions about the book. Certainly I don't think the critics themselves are foolish, but I do think their arguments are foolish, something I find hard to account for coming from knowledgeable Christian leaders, and I've had a struggle to comprehend this all along. Obviously they have the same opinion of their opponents' judgments.

In my last post I raise questions about what seems to me to be only one of their absurd criticisms of The Harbinger, this notion that Cahn interprets Isaiah as literally addressing America. I asked what might have led them to this conclusion since to me it IS absurd, and so far I have only my same guesses -- some way they read Cahn's word choices in some other sense than he meant them. That's the best I can do to understand it.

Another issue that is just as absurd to my mind is their insistence that the "harbingers" are not precise enough matches from Isaiah 9 to present-day America to claim that these harbingers are something only God could have brought about. Jonathan Cahn has himself answered this many times, pointing out that this is like expecting New York City to BE Jerusalem of the 8th century BC, or to expect that ancient Assyrians are going to come marching against the United States as God's judgment against us. You can't expect a message that was originally intended for ancient Israel to be precisely matched in the context of modern America, to which it does now nevertheless clearly apply. They keep harping on the idea that the match must be PRECISE. This is absurd in the extreme. What on earth leads them to this absurdity?

I'm sorry, David James and the rest of you, I can't see this any other way and I sincerely do not understand how you can allow yourselves to entertain even for a moment what I can only regard as extreme absurdities.

But this is just to give one more instance of the same. I'm still working on all this.

Reading the US into Isaiah?

David James' book arrived and I've been reading through it.

The idea continues that The Harbinger assumes that the United States is somehow included in Isaiah 9:10 even as written to Israel, an idea so bizarre I don't know whether to laugh or cry or just sit stunned.

A couple of questions occur:

1. Has anyone ever in the history of Bible interpretation been documented to have made this particular error of finding a current place or situation actually embodied in the Biblical text? Some cult? Anybody?

If not, that would seem to make it something that just doesn't happen, and that being the case how is it they are willing to assume that Jonathan Cahn, alone of all Christians on the planet, would make such a bizarre error? They acknowledge that he doesn't say any such thing directly but they nevertheless believe the book expresses such an idea. Again, against all likelihood that anyone would ever commit such an error.


2. Is the idea that Jonathan Cahn made such an error due entirely to his reiterated phrase about a message for America being "hidden" in that verse? Is that what this is all about?

Just have to ask. Anyone know the answer?

More on why I'm defending the Harbinger

This "Harbinger" controversy is beginning to wear on me.

Still need to finish my response to Brannon Howse's radio show of August 6th which I started in a previous post. Finally they are trying to address the central point of The Harbinger which I've been yelling about for a while now, the fact that there doesn't seem to be any way to dismiss the "harbingers" themselves as coming from any source other than God. They can't be explained away as mere coincidence or explained on the basis of any particular theological position. They exist in reality, and to discuss all the supposed theological objections to the book without acknowledging that is like pointedly ignoring the elephant in the living room as they say.

CAVEATS, DISCLAIMERS AND CAUTIONARY PRINCIPLES REITERATED:
First, it's not the book itself I'm defending as much as the message I get out of the book, which I'd already gotten out of speeches and interviews before the book came out, that is, the meaning of the "harbingers" in America that echo Isaiah 9:10. I could have all kinds of objections to how the book is put together, various word choices and phrasings, but to my mind all that is not the point. It's the harbingers that are the point.

To say it again, I share the theological objections of the critics to the publisher of the book (Charisma House subsidiary Front Line), and to many of the personalities who have interviewed Jonathan Cahn, such as Jim Bakker, Sid Roth, and Pat Robertson. I don't know enough about their theologies to know how seriously out of line I would regard their views if I knew more but I know enough to know they are off in an area of the Christian community that I generally reject. I also gather from Jonathan Cahn's talk to a Messianic convention in 2005 (at You Tube) that he's more accepting of the idea of prophecy in the church today than I am, describing his messianic congregation or the messianic movement as a whole as "a prophetic people" and referring to certiain experiences as "prophetic" that I might see differently.

And I should also say that I don't regard any of this as insignificant either. Associations DO matter, of course. The Charismatic Movement promotes the idea that the supernatural gifts God gave to the Church in apostolic times continue today, a position which is rejected by most of the rest of the churches who say the gifts have stopped. Sometimes this rejection extends not only to the gifting of persons, with which I -pretty much agree, but also the occasional working of supernatural phenomena within the body of Christ, and that I don't agree with.

Such phenomena do occasionally still happen, and that to my mind could include isolated prophecies (See my post on Jan Hus) or visions or dreams from God, miraculous healings or other miraculous events, again not as the specific gifting of a person but at least as an occasional event for a specific purpose (It would have to have a specific purpose for the good of the body of Christ, it seems to me, to even be considered as authentic).

Nevertheless I realize this is also a problematic issue and I'm open to being convinced I should reject it all without reservation -- not yet convinced but open to it.

Most of such phenomena I've come to regard as something Watchman Nee and Jessie Penn Lewis identifed as "soul power," that is, as abilities related to the original endowment of the human race that were suppressed as a result of the Fall but still occasionally manifest as psychic powers, clairvoyance and that sort of thing. Such abilities are cultivated in various religions through meditation and physical disciplines and shamanistic rituals, and much of it involves demonic communications and influence as well. I used to regard the counterfeits as completely the work of the satanic hordes but I find Penn Lewis and Nee's explanation more realistic.

It's not always easy to tell the difference but I think it's very clear in some cases that this is what is really going on in charismatic circles but getting wrongly attributed to the Holy Spirit. I have no doubt this is what is behind Benny Hinn's "powers" and his predecessor Kathryn Kuhlman's, also William Branham who had an "angel" following him around and thought he was the Elijah of the last days. Also this is clearly what is manifesting in Rick Joyner's church, which I've discussed in earlier posts (examples of which are at You Tube), and in "prophetic readings" by Jill Austin, which I also discussed earlier, and the rest of the doings of those who make up the New Apostolic Reformation. It is no doubt also what's going on in Pat Robertson's "word of knowledge" segment of his show, and it seems to me that Sid Roth (who accepted Rick Joyner as a true prophet on his show) is deceived about these things and that the vast majority of the charismatic community are also taken in by them. The "revivals" such as the Toronto Blessing, "Holy Laughter" (Watchman Nee describes this counterfeit phenomenon back in the 30s in the Chinese churches, so it was far from new when it came to America in the 90s), the Brownsville Revival, and certainly Todd Bentley's bizarre carryings-on.

Calling out all this stuff as part of the Great Apostasy is the righteous work of the discernment ministries, but sometimes they do it with a heavy hand and not true spiritual discernment.

So here I've given a pretty broad indictment of the charismatic movement in general, and sometimes I wonder why I don't go all the way and reject everything that seems to have a supernatural origin.

It's just that I can't account for ALL such phenomena this way.

Can people be deceived by such phenomena, wrongly attribute it to God, and still be true Christians? I have to hope so because there have been many, including me, who have come out of the charismatic movement after gullibly accepting it for some time.

SO, after all that, given that The Harbinger has such associations, WHY DO I CONTINUE TO DEFEND IT?

Simply because I can't account for the appearance in the real world of what Cahn calls the "harbingers" by any such reasonings as the above, as mere coincidences, as anything that humans or demons could have concocted, as any kind of illusion, or as anything other than something God Himself must have done.

Also, the accusations of the book ARE predominantly a matter of associations and don't hold water as indictments of Cahn, such as for thinking himself a prophet, such as for equating God's covenant with Israel with America's godly consecrations from the past (by Winthrop for instance, or even Washington's prayer of consecration of the nation).

I can see that the book raises suspicions by some of its associations, by some of its terminology, and probably because it was written without adequately anticipating how some of its phrasings might be heard in some theological camps, and I'm not completely happy with some of Cahn's ways of conceptualizing his material either.

But nevertheless I cannot account for the "harbingers," particularly the ones based on Isaiah 9:10 (I have yet to fully grapple with the concept of the "shemitah") as anything but something only God could have brought about.
I can't. And so far none of the explanations anyone has given to account for them convince me.

Such as the explanations David James is giving on this radio show.

TO BE CONTINUED