Prophets Got It Wrong; Politicians Did It Wrong

The more these buffoonish stunts turn out to be mean-spirited migrant “kidnappings,” the more the wicked side of American politics shows its ugly face to the world. Yes, the Word says there’s “nothing new under the sun.” But this sleezy twist of “human trafficking” seems new, even as “Breaking News” promises more of it with its hypnotic chant of the sins haplessly recycled with the “thief” of John 10:10: “Steal… Kill…Destroy.” Repeat.

Meanwhile, the “tell-all” books streaming out of Washington don’t tell it all. Even though former US Attorney, Geoffrey Berman’s, “Holding The Line” [Sept., 2022], prompted more probes into Trump’s toxic reign as what Baker and Glasser called “The Divider” [Sept., 2022], whatever else is found will simply overlay corruptions already piled Trump-Tower high. As we’ll at least be hearing more about him as a national security threat, we’ll also be hearing from him as a QAnon conspirator, stirring up more hysteria and what Martin and Lakins call some “White Fear” (Sept., 2022) he fiendishly brews for his cult.

It’s a footrace now for the rest of us who are trying to get ahead of the fray, up to higher ground, or at least down wind of the stench of “civil war.” In its own escape, the generation hooked on the “living dead” dug itself deep into the bowels of the netherworld. The extreme Christian right, with nowhere to run until heaven opens, particularly those raised on the unchecked pride of racial supremacy and the arrogance of unbridled power, the only seat left to take over now is God’s.

They’ve tried, of course. Usurping the authority of scripture, as they and others have throughout history to conquer, to enslave, and to “take dominion,” there seems to have always been this dogged pursuit of a chance to even exploit God. This obsession with “the prophetic,” then, is it; their “next level,” that “higher realm” of exceptionalism, reserved for those with a private scoop on the “day and the hour” that Jesus said neither men nor angels know (Matt. 24:36).

Christians who’ve insisted on extracting from God’s word their aberrant doctrines and ideologies can retreat, now, into this nebulous prophetic realm where, according to a prophecy of Johnny Enlow, Donald Trump would return, “in 2021,” as their “primary government leader on Planet Earth” [Politico, 2/18/21].

Eventually, according to the Roys Report (4/30/21), such “fake prophesies” and “bungled predictions” of Trump’s reelection were renounced by “Christian ministry heads, preachers, academics, denominational officials, authors, evangelists and other participants of the so-called ‘prophetic movement’.” In April 2021, they released a “four-page statement of ‘prophetic standards’ to help correct abuses in the movement.”

But not all errant theology has these self-correcting pressure points. As the “Apostle of Right-Wing Christian Nationalism” [RollingStone 9/1/22], Dutch Sheets and his “growing contingent” of Americans for an “authoritarian Christian Theocracy” is probably here to stay. Their ramblings are a blend of hostile rhetoric that, besides insisting on “taking power in this country,” converting the world to Christianity (“by force if necessary”) by “declaring it” or by “decreeing it,” claims to accelerate the return of Christ to the earth. And that will be done, says Dr. Bill Hamon, author of “The Final Reformation and Great Awakening” (2021), “by receiving prophetic revelation on what needs to be restored and then becoming instruments in the hand of the Holy Spirit to bring about the restoration of all things.” Then “Christ can be released from heaven to return.”

No matter that Jesus essentially told the “nationalist” bent in His own disciples that knowing when power would be restored to Israel is “none of your business” (Acts 1:7). Hamon’s book insists on presenting “a masterful understanding of the times and seasons of God and how we can partner with Him to see the third and final Church reformation and the last great awakening sweep the earth.”

Hamon asserts that at some point, a “transition generation” will materialize to help “make the transition from the old earth to the new.” It’s another intrusion upon eschatology, and a way of installing extra-biblical narratives that include his “Apostolic Reformation” in the end-time chronology. As usual, it assumes power and authority even over apocalyptic things.

All of this turns on a presumptuous view of 2 Peter 3:12, concerning our “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” Retrofitted for their own day, however, beyond “praying” and “desiring” His promise of “new heavens and a new earth,” is this assignment of themselves and some influential, prophetic role to play even in manipulating the return of Christ.

In their meticulous staging of His return, how verses 14 and 17 were conveniently omitted is only reminiscent of selective renderings that were once passed off as directives from God’s word targeting the slave. Rather, these directives are for all who “look for such things” as the “prophets” claim to understand of the “times and seasons.” They should (vs. 14) “be diligent to be found without spot and without defect before God in peace…” and they should (vs. 17) “guard your souls, lest you go after the deception of those who are (outlaws) and fall from your stability.”

Such universally moral standards as these apparently missed Governor DeSantis and his coconspirators, who seem to have been just as hardened by personal ambition as some of these unrepentant “prophets” were blinded by their prophetic ambitions. As an exception, Jeremiah Johnson, describing the prophetic movement as “deeply sick,” found the moral courage to repent, and to confess before God and the people, “I was wrong.” Too bad the politicians who conjured up these wicked schemes won’t say the same. Too bad they are not held to a set of standards that sanction their blatant ethics violations and their degrading of humanity and these offices of leadership that claim to be “of the people” and “for the people.”