God is Dead!

For those of us old enough to remember the late '50s and '60s, there was a "God is Dead" movement at that time. According to The Guardian, the movement reached its zenith in April 1966 when Time magazine published a cover asking in large red letters over a black background: Is God Dead?

I admit I did not have much interest in the question, nor much interest in the answer. It was clearly an attack on organized religion, especially Christian. A teen at the time, the whole argument seemed so esoteric. Too philosophical.

The Guardian says this about those times:

"Ultimately, the death of God movement fizzled after only a few years in the limelight. It turned out to be a last gasp of the liberal Protestant theology that was quickly losing ground in American culture and politics to a more literalistic evangelical tide."

Now, jump ahead to today and I find myself embracing a modified "God is Dead" philosophy. I was raised an Anglican. For me, God was Anglican. I had a friend who was evangelical. Some Sundays I took a break from attendance at my church and attended his. I also attended large, hall-filling evangelical events with my boyhood friend.

These events, so important to the Christian Missionary Alliance members and the Seventh Day Adventists folk plus others, were ignored by the Anglicans. The feeling seemed to be ignore the evangelicals and they will go away.

The Anglicans were wrong. The evangelicals did not go away. Rather than wither, the movement grew. We were foolish to have ignored it. Today, to an increasing extent, evangelicals rule. Today, the God I was raised to worship, the God of my Anglican Church, is, if not dead, awfully quiet.

I have relatives who are evangelicals. They send me Internet links to preachers they follow. They believe I will profit from listening to these evangelical preachers—if only I listen. Often, I don't. I find that I do not recognize their Jesus. My gut tells me these folk are misdirected, misinformed or worse, they are fakes, frauds, false prophets. Con men.

Anglicanism in my day sought a balance of scripture, tradition, and reason. This approach was far less dogmatic than that of the evangelicals today.

Literal interpretations of the Bible, encouraging believers to drill deep into The Book, only leads to confusion. At least, this is what I was told in the '50s. Listen to your minister, I was told. Otherwise, you will find yourself deep in confusion rather than faith. At best, evangelicals were debating the trivial; at worse, they were venturing into heresy territory.

For instance, the evangelicals, I knew, believed in the "end times." Many of the hall-filling events centred around the "end times" and the "rapture." According to my minister and his deacon, the end times was a misreading of the Bible. It was a heresy that just wouldn't die. It had been promised for a thousand years. Clearly, it had not happened and I was assured it wasn't likely to happen in my lifetime either.

Faith healing was another concept foreign to Anglicans. Faith healing was held in contempt by Anglicans as it was seen as profiting from exploiting the desperately ill. God gives us the strength to fight disease. Surgery fixes it. Given the choice between a faith healer, like Oral Roberts, or a surgeon like the one who repaired my badly worn heart, I go with the surgeon every time. If I thank God, it is only in passing.

My father had heart disease. Our minister offered spiritual and emotional support. His doctor offered nitroglycerine. Taking nitro relieved the pain better than prayer. That said, God did eventually end the pain. Dad died.

So, was my God cold? Indifferent? No, not in the least. The old God of the Anglicans was not into making a lot of promises that he would not keep. My God was a realist, a teacher, a leader . . .

The Anglican God, the Anglican Jesus, spoke of loving one's neighbour as one's self. Showing compassion and actively caring for those in need was a core belief. If I had to put God on the political spectrum, God would have been left of centre.

Let's look at a few religious hot-buttons. Let's compare today's evangelical God to the God of my youth.

Public Housing: Some evangelicals are wary of tax-dollar assisted public housing. I have a friend who falls into this category. A good example would be Scott Turner who runs HUD under Donald Trump.

 

Turner was an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, a prominent evangelical megachurch. As a Texas state legislator, Turner consistently voted against initiatives aimed at aiding the poor and expanding affordable housing. He called welfare "dangerous, harmful" and "one of the most destructive things for the family."

 

Sidebar: I was raised in a government subsidized Wartime Housing project. My father was a department store salesman. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. Although my dad always had a full-time job, he worked hard, his jobs paid very poorly. I don't believe he ever made more than $5000 in any given year. Often he made much less. 

 

Today, I believe one of his great granddaughters is firmly against such government funded housing. Without public housing I wonder where my sister and I would have lived and how my parents would have kept their pride intact.

 

My God, my Jesus, was in favour of taxpayer-funded public housing.

 

Single Payer Health Systems: Contrary to what you may have read. Single Payer Health Systems are not socialist. It is a form of universal healthcare where the government pays for all covered healthcare while the providers are private. Think of it as healthcare insurance for all with no fine print. No loss of coverage due to preconditions.

Many evangelicals believe in personal accountability and self-reliance. If you can afford better healthcare, you should be able to have it. It is a multi-tiered, capitalist system. You get what you can pay for. Haven't got much money? You won't get much healthcare.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler found that many who lack insurance coverage in the United States die as a result. It is probably safe to say more than 70,000 Americans, aged 18 to 64, die annually from lack of healthcare.

One might think the number of Canadians dying from lack of healthcare would be zero. It should be but it isn't. The number is not as high as in the U.S. but thousands of Canadians still die annually because of failures in the Canadian healthcare system. Wait lists are so long that people die while waiting.

My Jesus, I believe, would opt for the single payer system. Based on the data I found, the average cost of a comprehensive health insurance policy for a family of four in the United States is approximately $24,301 per year. This amount is less if the payments are employer supported.

In comparison, Canadians only spend half of what Americans do, hence the healthcare problems. No money. I believe Jesus would be in favour of raising taxes in this instance. Canadians are getting a free lunch here, or at least a low cost lunch, and it shows. The taxes, of course, would be progressive.

Sidebar: I have had robotically-assisted open heart surgery for a leaking heart valve; I have had two pacemaker/ICDs implanted and I may well live long enough to get a third; I've had a broken hip repaired with a titanium implant; I've had lifesaving emergency minimally-invasive surgery for a totally obstructed bowl; And the list goes on. In the States, I would be have died.

Free will or freedom of choice: Think of the Covid-19 vaccine. In Canada, it was, for the most part, mandatory. A lot of evangelicals were incensed by this. Anger over the mandating of covid vaccine was a big force in driving Justin Trudeau out of power. In their view, Trudeau was intent on taking freedom of choice away from Canadians. 

 

The "Freedom Convoy" participants were heroes in their eyes and Trudeau a socialist dictator. I thought taking an action that could damage, possibly irreparably, his political future was brave, gutsy, a moral choice. My Jesus would have smiled and applauded.

 

This contrasts with the evangelical Jesus, who is quite willing to sit on the sidelines while his followers seek the "truth." Many evangelicals didn't join the fight against covid immediately. No, they first sought the truth. They asked questions and listened to everyone saying anything. Everyone is worth a listen. Really? Everyone?

For instance, they learned the vaccine was rushed to market. It wasn't. Research on mRNA technology began in the 1980s and large advances were made in the following decades. Science was ready. Evangelical Christianity wasn't.

 

The Jesus of my youth was in favour of community safety over individual rights. I believe he would have seen the evangelical take to be simply selfishness. A bit of the me first philosophy leaving a stain on Christ's followers.

I could go on but I will stop here. I am finding it difficult digging into the death of my God. When my evangelical friends and relatives talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they claim, "It is very complex." Some even repeat Trump's and Putin's talking points.

 

My Jesus finds it easy to denounce the killing, maiming, raping and kidnapping being done by the Russians as wrong. It is not complex. As Christians we should be doing all we can to put an end to it and that does not mean bowing down to evil. I believe my Jesus would have challenged the Russians when they threatened Crimea. My Jesus would have hoped his followers would have taken immediate action, stopping the killing before it started. My Jesus has a spine.

 

Reading what I wrote, I have changed my mind. God, my Jesus, the Jesus of the early '50s may be dead to many now but it is only temporary. He will be rediscovered—resurrected. Reborn. You can't keep a good God down.

 

Do you want to know more? Check out this link: God is Dead.

If you believe Jonathan Cahn, you are betting against the house.

Recently I was sent a link to a video posted by the Messianic Jewish minister and author, Jonathan Cahn. A Messianic Jewish minister is a Jewish individual who believes in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah and adheres to Christian beliefs as presented in the New Testament.

At first, I wrote Cahn off as just another crank scaring gullible people with prophesies of the "end days". Then I learned that Cahn's most recent book, The Dragon's Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection, and the End of Days, is a number one best seller. That got my attention.

Within just a day of its release, the book reached No. 1 on Amazon's Global Bestseller List. It was also number 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers List and still holds that position today. This fellow is getting the word out and getting very wealthy doing it. He has sold millions of books. I am impressed.

But, I am not impressed enough to believe this dude. I am 77 years old and I have heard this bumph for my whole life. My mother and I did not believe it then and I still don't. Most, if not all, those "prophets" from the '50s are now dead and many of the ones  who replaced them are gone as well.

Jack Van Impe died on January 18, 2020, at the age of 88, following a fall.

Tim LaHaye died on July 25, 2016, at the age of 90, following complications from a stroke.

Hal Lindsey, in The Late Great Planet Earth, predicted that the world would end sometime before December 31, 1988. He was wrong. In later years he hedged his bets but at the ripe old age of 93 he is still patiently waiting.

David Jeremiah has not made any specific predictions about the exact date when the world will end but it could happen at any moment. Jeremiah's focus is on spiritual readiness rather than setting specific timelines for apocalyptic events. David Jeremiah is now 82. Time is running out on his prophesies.

Jonathan Cahn is a Johnny-come-lately to all this silliness as he wasn't born until April 12, 1959 but he still has a big "whoops" in his resume. He wrote another book, the Mystery of the SHEmeeTAH, in which he predicted the end of the U.S. as we know it would happen on September13, 2015. Of course, it didn't happen.

I am not alone in taking issue with these self-proclaimed prophets. Click the link and read what Pastor David O. Dykes, Green Acres Church, Tyler, Texas, had to say, "Over the last decade there has been an alarming growth of neo charismatic/Pentecostal influence into conservative politics. I have always considered myself politically and theologically conservative, but there are some religious nuts who have hijacked part of the conservative movement. There has been a rise in the number of people who are calling themselves modern day prophets and are making predictions – about world events. One of them is best-selling author, Jonathan Cahn.

Why am I so confident Cahn will be wrong again?  Well, I have more than a thousand years on my side. Some worried the world would end in the year 1000 AD, reflecting apocalyptic fears associated with the millennium and supposedly found in the Bible. 

 

If that is not an early enough date for you, I could reach back farther into the past but I am sure you have caught my drift. If you believe this scare talk, you are betting against the house. More than a thousand years of continuous wins by the "I-don't-believe-it" crowd puts prophets like Jonathan Cahn on the wrong side of the table. 

 

If you would like to read another take, but one in the same vein as this one, check out:

The Agony of Deceit post that says, "Jonathan Cahn does not resemble a biblical prophet but resembles more a charlatan." Well said.