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Sunday, September 18, 2022

What's Wrong with Watson's and Davis' Current Events Messaging?

According to Church of God International Pastors Bill Watson and Adrian Davis, the policy prescriptions of Biden and the Democrats are anti-Christian and pro-totalitarian. For them, Biden and the Democrats are busily putting the finishing touches on the demise of America. Indeed, they see all of this as the beginning of the end (as in the Apocalypse). For Watson and Davis, the current policies of the governments of the United States and Great Britain are facilitating the long-ago prophesied declines of these two nations. For them, the Culture War is a real war between good and evil.

What's wrong with their assessment of the situation? After all, don't a great many conservative and Republican Americans agree with what they have to say about Biden and the "Demoncrats?"

First, the peoples of Great Britain and the United States are NOT the descendants of the ancient Israelites (history, genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and Scripture all prove that they are NOT Israelites)! Hence, NONE of the prophecies concerning the ancient Israelites apply to them or our time. In short, Watson and Davis have misapplied and misinterpreted Biblical prophecy (which has rendered ALL of their prophetic pronouncements suspect)!

Second, like their Republican counterparts, Biden and the Democrats are worldly politicians. They are no better or worse than other worldly politicians! Also, their policies are no better or worse than those of their conservative/Republican colleagues. ALL human governments are flawed. All human politicians are imperfect and cannot discern the full impact of their policy prescriptions. To illustrate this point, one only needs to open his/her eyes and look at the problems that these policies are meant to address.

What are those problems? Are things really as bad as Watson and Davis portray them to be? And, if their guy/party was in power, would that really solve all of our problems and forestall the Tribulation? Moreover, if it did forestall the Apocalypse and Christ's return, is that something that Christians should actually wish to happen? After all, aren't we supposed to be looking forward to the complete overthrow of the governments of this world and the establishment of God's Kingdom on this earth?

The problems are familiar to all of us: climate change, pandemic, pollution, energy production, societal violence, the global economy, societal morality, wars, a lack of respect for the rule of law, the erosion of freedom/rights, deficit spending, wars and various conflicts between various nations of the earth, illegal immigration, and the decline in religious affiliations throughout the Western World. Ironically, both sides of the political spectrum in the United States and Britain have offered their own policy prescriptions to deal with many of these challenges. Even so, both sides tend to disparage the other as evil, totalitarian, ignorant, unpatriotic, or some combination of all of the above!

Of course, most of the policies which both sides present to deal with these problems are simplistic, superficial, and designed to advance the power and influence of the party(s) who are advocating them! For instance, the issue of illegal immigration does not always lend itself to easy solutions or moral clarity. After all, the Torah makes clear in a number of places that strangers/aliens in the land were to be treated fairly and hospitably (see Exodus 22:21, 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:18-19). As for taking care of those less fortunate than us, what could be more Christian than that? Likewise, women have been having abortions throughout human history (sure, it was very often illegal in times past, but there have always been those who have been ready and willing to terminate unwanted pregnancies). And, what do we do with a Christian or Jew who believes that human life begins when we draw our first breath? (See Genesis 2:7) As for pollution, what about God someday destroying those who destroy the earth? (Revelation 11:18) Likewise, as for Globalism, isn't the Kingdom of God going to be a kind of globalist regime? (See Daniel 2:44, Zechariah 14:9)

In conclusion, the problem with the messaging of Davis and Watson should be apparent to all - they have confused their responsibilities as citizens of God's Kingdom with the rights, privileges and responsibilities which they enjoy as citizens of Canada and the United States respectively. In short, they have forgotten that Christians are NOT supposed to be helping/propping up/participating in the realms of this present world! They both insist that everyone should see the world the way that they do and claim that anyone who doesn't is deceived, ignorant, or actively supporting these evils! Oh, if only they had eyes to see and ears to hear! 

2 comments:

  1. I'm sharing this on Facebook!

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  2. The reading of current events into Old Testament prophecies is a long standing practise not only in the ACOG's, but in the part of evangelical Protestantism that holds to the the dispensationalist method of Bible interpretation. Ever since its beginnings in the Plymouth Brethren sect in the 1830's, the fundamentalists and evangelicals who embrace it have always tried to read current events into Biblical prophecies. Everytime some world shattering event occured, they would preach sermons, publish tracts, pamphlets, and books, and blare away on cd's dvd's, tv and radio that Gog and Magog aka Russia was going to attack Israel, this newly rising leader could be the Anti-Christ. Like HWA, they've been wrong every single time. These folks, like the ACOG's, need to start looking at Old Testament prophecies through the viewpoint of the New Covenant. If you try to read the Old Testament without this understanding, you'll be walking around blind. II Cor. 3:6-18

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