Bumper Sticker Logic

 While driving through town today, I pulled up behind a car sporting the following bumper sticker: "My sh**** attitude is none of your f****** business."  Except there were no asterisks, and now it was my business.  In fact, it was the business of everybody who pulled up behind that particular car.  It immediately became my business because it's the kind of publicly displayed message that makes my 12-year-old look away with embarrassment as he reads it, and makes me hope my 6-year-old in the back seat doesn't use that sentence to work on his phonics.

 My initial annoyance at the lack of social grace was momentary, but I became increasingly bothered by the bad thinking.  The bumper sticker makes no sense. The slogan is just a condensed way of saying, "I am going to make you pay attention to something that is none of your business, and then get angry and swear at you because you don't ignore my passive aggressive obnoxiousness."

I am convinced we have become a society that ponders serious issues without much more than bumper sticker depth. Unfortunately, the supporting evidence is everywhere.
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"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."  This one tops my list, because so many other equally foolish statements find confirmation here.  Does this mean the expense tabs, the debt, the compromises of morality, the memories, and the hotel towels all actually, truly stay there?  The Hangover was a morally bankrupt movie, but even Hollywood had the decency to show a little bit of a ripple effect.

 The Vegas slogan is a brilliant ad campaign - who wouldn't want a free pass on anything they do for a couple days?  The problem is, it's just not true.  What would happen if a plaintiff said to the judge, "You know, what happened in my car while I was driving drunk should stay in the car."  Or if a skydiver kept muttering, "What happens in the air stays in the air."  Uh, no.  What happens anywhere happens in real life; it matters. There are no free passes.
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"What happens in the privacy of my bedroom is nobody's business," and its close cousin, "Keep the government out of my bedroom." 
  
Let's be honest. What we are really saying is this: "I want to live in a nation where everybody agrees that any sexual action in which we (specifically 'I') engage in privately is okay, and won't have any effect outside of the moment."  But that's not true.

Jonathan Cahn's "Harbinger": Deconstructing Isaiah

Jonathan Cahn's The Harbinger is currently #54 on amazon.com (#1 in Religion/Mystery and #2 in Religion/Fiction).  If you have not read it, think of The Bible Code or  The Da Vinci Code without any cool Hebrew language grids, chase scenes or exotic locations.
   
The narrator meets a mysterious guy who walks him through “harbingers,’ impending signs of doom based on two previously under-appreciated verses in Isaiah.  Harbinger's classification as "fiction" is apparently a nod to the style, not the seriousness with which the subject matter is presented or taken. 

 
I'll tell you up front:  I think the book has some serious flaws in its reasoning.  Before I explain why, let me point out the things I liked.
 
The warnings about the pride and arrogance in America, as well as the condemnation of our false gods of wealth and ease, are certainly timely. Cotton Mather once noted that  “Religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.” The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.

  
I appreciate Mr. Cahn's concern for the spiritual well-being of our nation.  I don’t know him;  he seems to love God mightily, and he apparently wrote this book from a sincere desire to warn America about the dangers of its chosen path.
   
At the end of the book he provides a thorough explanation of the importance of accepting and following Christ.  Considering the astonishing breadth of his audience, he is in a unique position to present the hope of the gospel to many. 

 
My following comments have nothing to do with the author’s character, heart, or presentation of Christ.  I suspect that if Mr. Cahn and I sat down for lunch, we would have far more in common than not. I'm glad we are on the same team. My comments have to do with the manner in which the book leads readers toward particular conclusions. I am worried that its questionable presuppositions and unusual analysis of Scripture set a precedent that may have detrimental fallout.

FOUNDATIONAL FLAWS

The conclusions of the book work only if the foundational assumptions are true. Here are some of the core claims Harbinger presents without a defense:

• America is Israel
• America made a covenant with God like Israel did
• The passages in the Old Testament specifically directed toward a specific group of people at a specific place and time are also for us
• Actual Middle Eastern trees are meant to be associated with similar iconic North American trees
• The Founding Fathers were somehow like the Patriarchs of Scripture
• A private dream can carry as much clout as the Bible
• Everyone in the world is ordered to observe Jewish Years of Jubilee 
• Politicians are prophets unaware, similar to writers of Scripture
• Defiance against terrorism is the same thing as defiance against God
• The collapse of Wall Street is iconically the same as a "breech in the walls" in Old Testament cities
• Washington, DC is Samaria
• The collapse of the global economy was determined 3,000 years ago 
• When the #7 shows up, something spiritual is happening
• There are "invisible" messages in Isaiah 9:10
• The damning “testimony of two or three witnesses” in Scripture refers to the Vice-President, the President, and the Senate Majority leader all saying that America will rebuild 
• People can speak prophetic curses on entire nations unintentionally
• Obama pronounced judgment on America while genuinely trying to give an inspiring speech  
• Because of presidential speeches, the harbingers had to happen
• The narrator in the book - who I assume is meant to be speaking for Jonathan Cahn - is “the son of God’s light, the declarer” because those words were written on a piece of paper in a vision

If all those previous claims are true, then the book’s conclusions would follow logically.  But assuming they are true and showing they are true are very different things indeed. Mr. Cahn rarely makes the case for them; he simply states them and moves on to conclusions based on these unsubstantiated claims. Perhaps he has published other material in which he explains why he believes these things to be true, but this book gives me no reason to agree with him.