The Romanizing Oxford Movement and the true history of the role of Jesuits in promoting Arminianism over Calvinism, also Preterism.

More historical stuff I'd never hear if it weren't for Chris Pinto. The link is to yesterday's radio show on the Oxford Movement in England, which was a Jesuit-inspired movement to return England back to Catholicism.

A reference he gives: Walter Walsh, the Secret History of the Oxford Movement.

Pinto also gets into the history of Arminianism versus Calvinism (from about 5:15 on the counter), Calvinism representing the Protestant Reformation and Arminianism being a Roman Catholic attempt, again through Jesuits, to undermine Protestantism in the churches by reintroducing some Catholic doctrines in a supposedly evangelical context.

The hatred of Calvinism often encountered in the churches has struck me as very odd ever since I read Calvin's Institutes for myself, some twenty years ago now, and discovered that he seemed to be saying the same things I'd read earlier in Luther. Standard Protestant doctrine. Which is something that Pinto also points out. So the attack on it by Arminius was an attack on Protestantism itself. And there is even some idea that Arminius was a Jesuit although apparently that can't be proved, and all that can be said is that the Romanizers certainly love what Armninianism does to Protestantism.

Arminianism as Pinto reports was a very aggressive, even violent, even Inquisitional, movement against Protestantism. William Laud, a High Church Anglican who was really a closet Romanist, is paraphrased as saying something like: We have sown the sovereign drug Arminianism into the churches to correct their errors.

The Five Points of Calvinism were developed in order to answer this Romanizing movement through Arminianism.

The attacks on Calvin derive ultimately from Romanist propaganda, which would no doubt come as a huge surprise to someone like Dave Hunt who spent much effort in exposing the Roman Catholic Antichrist, but also vehemently attacked Calvinism.

Pinto also says the "neo-Calvinists" aren't the same as true Calvinists. Main difference is apparently their view of prophecy, as the Reformers did believe in a future destiny for the Jewish people. He references a book, The Puritan Hope, Ian H. Murray. that shows that the Puritans believed in a future for Israel. But today's Calvinists have been "subverted" by Preterism, which sees most prophecy as fulfilled in the past. (Since so much of prophecy identifies Rome as the Antichrist the source of Preterism may be easily enough guessed.)

Good stuff. Again, I wish Pinto would write a book or that somebody would, that would sketch out this whole history of Romanist plots against Protestantism, which apparently have had a lot more success than most "Protestants" have any idea.

Pinto does have lots of articles on these things at his site though.

It must make the Jesuits very happy to hear how many supposedly Protestant Christians denounce Calvin and support the romanizing doctrine of Arminianism.

Misreading the connection between Isaiah 9:10 and events in America

I'm going to have to take a break from all this because it's getting too convoluted and tiring, but one thing I've got to comment on is how David James, and his fellow critics in general, consistently misread the way Cahn relates Isaiah 9:10 to events in America as a "direct connection" or as if Cahn finds a prophecy about America literally IN the verse. I must admit I can't really understand how they read it. Every time James comments on it I find it incomprehensible. And he always goes on to point out that Cahn denies the way he reads it, but he still insists Cahn must mean it the way he reads it.

The only thing I can think might account for his misreading is Cahn's use of terms like "mystery" and "hidden" and "secret" and so on. To my mind these are merely dramatizing words, essentially ways of expressing the fact that the Old Testament is a supernatural work (a "mystery"), that God's word is living and powerful, and that it speaks to all people in all times in a way that's hard for the unbeliever to comprehend, who might on the other hand be able to relate to "an ancient mystery."

These aren't terms I would use and I could also object to dramatizing anything connected with the Word of God, but I leave that as a matter of style and only raise it now as a possible explanation for this consistent misreading I keep encountering.

Some examples:

He goes into most detail about it in Chapter 7 "The Mystery of Isaiah 9:10."

[James] Cahn denies arguing for a direct connection between Israel and America and maintains that the passage only demonstrates a pattern of God's judgment. He likewise concludes that recent events in America, beginning with 9/11, are only parallels to that specific pattern.

I don't see Cahn arguing for a "direct connection" at all, although James isn't always clear about what he thinks Cahn means. But I certainly agree that the verse makes a pattern for America, and that there is a parallel in America to that verse -- BECAUSE the verse FITS America, fits the attitude of America in response to 9/11. Even if there had been no literal uncanny manifestations of the elements of that verse IN America the verse would still express the American attitude. (I see the uncanny harbingers as a special emphasis on the nation's attitude given by God so that those who keep trying to deny that the nation is under judgment can't avoid it -- or in the end will "have no excuse" as scripture often says about attempts to avoid its truths.)

So James's description of Cahn's view certainly seems to describe the way I read it. But James doesn't accept this description:

[James] Yet in multiple places Cahn gives the very clear impression that these are more than simply parallels and that a direct connection does exist.

I NEVER get that supposed "very clear impression" that James is getting and I don't see where he's getting it. Then he gives some examples from the Harbinger that convince him Cahn REALLY means whatever James thinks "a direct connection" means.

[Cahn] An ancient mystery behind everything from 9/11 to the economy . . . to the housing boom . . . to the war in Iraq . . . to the collapse of Wall Street. Everything in precise detail.

Those who laid America's foundations saw it as the new Israel, an Israel of the New World. And as it was with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God.

And this means to James what? Some kind of "direct connection" with Israel? What does he mean by "direct?" Obviously he's suggesting some kind of "replacement theology" in the Pilgrim and Puritan mind, which is, again, a dispensationalist preoccupation (and, I'd add, utterly false and misbegotten in relation to Reformed thinking. There is no "replacement" of anything in early Reformed thinking, there is only the fulfillment of the TRUE intention of the Abrahamic Covenant which was to the Seed who is Christ and not for unbelieving Jews, only for those of FAITH. This is not "replacement" at all. However, Chris Pinto has been making clear that today's "Reformed" Christians have a view of prophecy that's very different from the original Reformers, who did see a role for Israel in the last days whereas today's "Reformed" are largely given over to Preterism, so there's some ambiguity here.

[Cahn] The Assyrians are the fathers of terrorism, and those who mercilessly plotted out the calamity on 9/11 were their spiritual children, another link in the mystery joining America to ancient Israel.

The idea of a "joining" between America and Israel seems to be the clue here. Again, where James seems to locate the origin of this "link" in the Old Testament, I read it as created in the present, in the fact that America NOW has been repeating the attitude of Isaiah 9:10, and NOW was attacked by Muslims. The connection is made in the PRESENT because events seem to be echoing those of the Old Testament verse. There is no OTHER kind of "connection," some kind of mysterious inner meaning to Old Testament events or anything like that.

Say somebody today commits a sin like the sin King David committed and while reading the Bible finds his own sin described there and is called through that description to repentance and so on. Nobody would suggest that this person who is living today was INTENDED in that story about David's sin, and yet because it describes so well this living person's situation there IS a "connection." You could also say that the description in the OT is a "pattern" for the current situation once that situation is recognized, but it is not otherwise a pattern in the sense of some general principle; and the current situation "parallels" the situation in the Bible without there being any notion whatever that the original Biblical context was meant for anyone other than King David.

[Cahn] So if the ancient mystery is joined to America, then somehow 9/11 has to be linked to the words, "We will rebuild."

James says:

[James] Linked. Joined. Connected. Behind everything. Cahn's belief in a direct prophetic connection between Isaiah 9:10, Israel, and the United States could not be more clear

Not clear at all I'm afraid. A direct prophetic connection? You mean, as in "Isaiah was prophesying ALSO to America?" But of course he wasn't, and it's hard to imagine you could think Cahn or anyone could have such an idea.

Perhaps Cahn's language is too "poetic" or "literary" or maybe too plain and ordinary for James who is geared to a more technical bibical way of talking about these things. Cahn certainly does not mean any literal connection IN Isaiah to America. The joining he has in mind occurs in the present, when it is seen that America has the same attitude Israel had as described in Isaiah 9:10 and these "harbingers" have shown up in a way that gives peculiar emphasis to that attitude. It is those events that make the connection, it's not in Isaiah or in Israel. Isaiah 9:10 IS the "pattern" for this, the events in America DO "parallel" the verse. But James keeps finding something else here and I can only think he's led to it by some misreading of some of the wording but that's the best I can do at the moment.

In a way Cahn's language is too "literary" for me too, but it doesn't lead me to James' int4erpretation, I just think of it as the way Cahn likes to dramatize the story, evoke the misty ancient past and so on. Well, the book of Isaiah IS old, at least 2500 years old, and any connection at all between it and modern-day America could strike your average unbeliever as preposterous, which could be why Cahn likes to dramatize the mysterious and supernatural in it. But again, this is mostly style, not substance. And for all I know, Cahn might explain this differently too.

James goes on to make even more out of this but I have to stop for now.

Harbinger Economics off to a rocky start

Now I'm into the second half of David James' book and this will probably be slow-going for me, because even in reading The Harbinger and listening to Cahn's talks I didn't take the time to fully understand his claims about the economic crashes of the last decade. I got the general idea that he had found the Biblical Shemitah or Sabbath laws, having to do with seven-year periods, expressed in the timing of America's crashes since 9/11, and since I accepted the basic revelation of the harbingers I accepted that he must be right about the economic timing as well. But it would take study to test that and since James is no doubt going to raise questions that call for such study I'm going to be a while at this.

James does point out something I hadn't noticed in my reading of The Harbinger, which is that The Prophet speaks of efforts to rebuild the American economy as the "hewn stones" of Isaiah 9:10. James says this is allegorizing, which it is, but the bigger problem it seems to me is that everything else is completely literal in the appearance of the harbingers. That is, the Freedom Tower cornerstone is already the representative of the hewn stones of Isaiah 9:10, it's confusing to now make economic rebuilding representative of them. If Isaiah 9:10 included a mention of how Israel's economy had been destroyed by the Assyrian attack but that they also planned to rebuild there as well, that would be some kind of basis for a parallel. But in fact there isn't even a clear-cut destruction of the economy on 9/11 that is clearly the reason for America's attempt to "rebuild" that I can see. 9/11 certainly set in motion a deteriorating economy but that's not the same thing as fallen bricks or a dead tree, that is, it wasn't a one-time event that could be rebuilt the way a tower could be rebuilt or a tree replanted.

So that is certainly a confusing and indefensible part of The Harbinger it seems to me. I'll have to think about it more, and I hope the rest of this section doesn't raise equally confusing issues.

Pinto on Barton, Beck, Treaty of Tripoli, Second Amendment, Rome and the Jesuits and so on

I interrupt my ongoing battles concerning the Harbinger and its critics to mention that Chris Pinto has been doing a lot of good stuff on his radio show over the last couple of weeks -- you can start as far back as August 6th at least but if you go back into July he's also discussed the Second Amendment and the Treaty of Tripoli.

He's been covering the David Barton controversies over the religious beliefs of America's founders -- apparently Barton's bad scholarship has been challenged by some Christian pastors and his publisher Thomas Nelson was forced to drop the book.

Barton is now pretty firmly established as a friend of Glenn Beck to such an extent that he is lending credibility to the false antichrist religion of Mormonism.

Pinto has also been keeping tabs on the history of Romanism and the devious tactics of the Jesuits.

We need a new Protestant Reformation.

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:

=============================================
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.