Is American the New Israel or the New Assyria? Self-righteous nations see no need for national repentance; America is always right.
Christian rabbi, Jonathan Cahn, in his 2011 book, The Harbinger, describes with courage and precision how both 9-11 and the 2008 recession were judgments from God upon America for its endless greed and economic and military oppression. I agree; in broad strokes, I wrote much the same shortly after 9-11.
America did not repent after 9-11; instead Democrats and Republicans defiantly declared that we would rebuild bigger and better. I see no signs of any of our presidential candidates, Democrat or Republican, leading us to national repentance. We all need to pray the Daniel 9 prayer for our nation. Instead we are fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 9:10-11: "We will arrogantly rebuild." We have rebuilt the Freedom Tower.
Cahn correctly understands 9-11 and 2008 as judgments from God; he also sees the Civil War as a judgment from the hand of God because of the enormous evil of slavery. But strangely, he does not grasp the even GREATER social evil of our colonial founding fathers. Especially from 1700-1789, the slave trade, slavery and Indian genocide dominated the economics and politics of this country. But Cahn ignores these hard historical facts and declares that we were founded as a good and godly nation by our founding father, George Washington. Washington owned hundreds of slaves; he did not free them in direct violation of the Sabbath Year requirement that slaves were to be freed every seven years. Washington was one of the richest men in the colonies gaining much of his wealth from oppressing slaves. Jesus declared "Woe to the rich" to this type of evil rich.
Yet Cahn states without qualification that America was "a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception." The Puritans, "as with ancient Israel, saw America as in covenant with God." "It would give refuge to the world's poor and needy, and hope to its oppressed." But America engaged in prolonged and massive oppression of Indians, Africans and Mexicans, to name a few.
The Afro American pastor, Bill McGill, gives a more accurate view of American history: "The Christian Coalition should stop preaching the lie that this country was founded on Christian principles and values, and teach their children that only a godless [Assyrian-type?] people would be responsible for Indian genocide and African enslavement."
Cahn writes about how God used the terrorist nation Assyria to judge rebellious Israel. The Assyrians, at the peak of their power, ruled much of the ancient Middle East. They combined a high tech war machine combined with terror. "The Assyrians made terror into a science. The systematized it, perfected it . . . masters of terror."
As Americans engaged in the slave trade, slavery, Indian genocide, theft of Mexican land, the oppressed of this land saw supposedly Christian America acting like the Assyrians---the epitome of brutality, ruthlessness, oppression, evil. The false idea of Manifest Destiny was used as a cover for this continuing massive evil. In recent years, the unjust wars in Vietnam and Iraq continued American evil on a large scale. For more on America's often unjust wars, read The Wars of America: Christian Views.
Cahn foresees another judgment falling on America, worse than 9-11 and 2008, if America fails to repent. Here is how Cahn describes modern America: "idols of greed, money, success, comfort, materialism, pleasure, sexual immorality, self-worship, self-obsession." I would describe modern America as dominated by the American trinity of hypermaterialism, hyperindividualism, and hyperethnocentrism.
To summarize, Cahn wrote: "the nation responds without repentance. . . . American leaders vow We will rebuild." Trump asserted: "We should have the World Trade Center [rebuilt] bigger and better."
Cahn makes a big deal over President George Washington and other American leaders going to a small brick church in New York, St. Paul's Chapel located next to Ground Zero, and dedicating this new nation to God in 1789, also asking for divine blessing and protection. I am not sure God was listening to this unrepentant, deistic, Pharisee's prayers; Washington was a slaveholder who neglected justice and the love of God. There were no signs of repentance, no release of his oppressed slaves, no repair of oppression damage, no pledge to implement Jubilee justice, no pledge to end the slave trade, slavery and genocide.
Cahn is clear and blunt about America's need for national repentance today to stop the progression of divine judgment from 9-11 to 2008 to _______________. Cahn has a long list of national sins. America's list of sins was just as long and evil in 1789, but Cahn completely ignores these sins in his blind effort to portray America as a Christian nation.
Still I would recommend that all Americans read this book; you will learn much about how America's financial and economic system works and about our nation's ethnocentric arrogance which transcends party lines.
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