Dr Paul Allen

  Author: Tim Challies. Is it fact or fiction? That is the question everyone asks when they first encounter Jonathan Cahn’s book  The Harbinger . The answer is both, I guess—a little from column a and a little from column b. How about this:  The Harbinger  is meant to be fact presented in the form of a novel; in reality it is an unfortunate mixture of truth and error presented in the form of a script. Still with me? What is demonstrably factual is that  The Harbinger  is a phenomenon. It has held steady for forty weeks on the  New York Times  list of bestsellers, selling over 700,000 copies through fifteen reprints. At the time I write this, Amazon ranks it #2 on their list of Christian fiction and #7 on their list of Christian theology . The book had largely escaped my view until the past few weeks when I received a series of emails from people wondering what it was all about. I finally caved and read it. Consider this more of an explanation of what it is than a thorough revi

Image via Wikipedia Since President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was dead,  Internet skepticism  has been on a  steady and troubling rise . So much so that the White House had  considered   releasing  gory photos of bin Laden’s body before deciding yesterday  against it. It’s just as well. I am convinced providing such evidence would have done no good. Conspiracy theories and doubt would linger. It’s an unsettling phenomenon that raises questions not only about the lack of trust in government, but also about the distinctions that must be made between irrational incredulity and a Christian belief that rests on faith rather than evidence.  If I root my faith in emotional belief rather than cool-headed logic, how am I different from “birthers” and “deathers?” Two recent articles written before last weekend’s Pakistan mission have provoked me to thought. In the first,  Discovery Channel’s Benjamin Radford  addressed why “birther” conspiracy theories linger eve