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A couple decades ago I learned how serious Tim LaHaye
had become when it came to my pretrib history research----and it
wasn't very becoming.
On January 5, 1981 he had sent a letter from the Scott
Memorial Baptist Church he then pastored in the San Diego area to an
evangelical publisher in another state. In the letter, which later
came into my hands, LaHaye bluntly discussed yours truly and told the
recipient: "Praise God you're going to answer this turkey----if
I didn't already have 89 irons in the fire I'd take it on----some one should!"
Back in those days LaHaye was well-known for his
bestselling Spirit-Controlled Temperament book (temperaments that
fundamentalist and evangelical critics have traced to the world of
the occult!). Unfortunately that book didn't reveal the type of
temperament LaHaye could possess (a LaHaodicean one?) in order to
call me a "turkey." Maybe his pretrib "feathers"
had been ruffled by the many evangelical leaders who'd
"gobbled" up my research and then praised it during the
previous decade:
In his 1974 book When Is Jesus Coming Again, J. Barton
Payne reflected it when he wrote that "the dispensational
position...began only in 1830 with J. N. Darby's acceptance of
Margaret Macdonald's revelation in Port Glasgow of a dispensationally
divided return."
During the same year Christianity Today called it a
"staunch defense" and Moody Monthly (while Jerry Jenkins
was a top name there) referred to my "careful, factual sleuthing."
In Canada The Prairie Overcomer at Prairie Bible
Institute concluded that "MacPherson's case seems to be
watertight" while The Witness (the oldest and largest Darbyist
Brethren magazine in England!) declared: "What he [MacPherson]
succeeds in establishing is that the view outlined was first stated
by a certain Margaret Macdonald...early in 1830." (Who knows the
British, and the British ways of speaking, better than the British do?)
Some other comments during that period came from
Harold Ockenga's letter ("You have done your research
well"), Ian S. Rennie's Dreams, Visions and Oracles ("it is
likely that [Margaret's revelation] was grist for Darby's mill"),
and J. Gordon Melton in the Encyclopedia of American Religions
("The best scholarship available [views Margaret as the pretrib originator]").
With reactions like these coming from a noticeable
percentage of the evangelical literati, you can see why Tim was
dispensationally distraught over the possibility that comments from
thinking evangelicals might have a dire effect on his ability to keep
on making pretrib (la)hay while the sun was shining!
But now let's fast forward until we reach the year
1992 and the arrival of LaHaye's No Fear of the Storm----a book
that's had no fear of being exposed as one of the most shabby,
slipshod, slovenly (and, yes, even dishonest) prophecy books ever!
While flipping LaHaye's pages in order to spot his
comments on the pretrib origin (the way my book The Rapture Plot
describes it), I quickly found one sentence on page 180 that has four
historical errors.
In it he asserts that 19th century (Plymouth) Brethren
scholar S. P. Tregelles claimed in two of his books, spaced 11 years
apart, that fellow Brethren member J. N. Darby derived pretrib from
the Jews and Margaret Macdonald. Since Margaret wasn't Jewish, LaHaye
sees Tregelles naming two different sources and contradicting himself.
If you've been totally immersed in pretrib rapture
origin research since 1970 (as I have), you'll soon find (as I did)
these four errors:
-
The two Tregelles works were not two books but an
article (1855) and a book (1864).
- They were nine years apart.
- The article spoke only of
"Judaisers" within Christianity. (This was the first time
I'd ever found anyone claiming that the Jews had been blamed for
originating pretrib!)
- The book referred to "an
'utterance' in Mr. Irving's Church." (Margaret never even
visited Edward Irving's church!)
LaHaye obviously had been influenced by other writers,
including R. A. Huebner and John Walvoord, who had previously aired
the supposed Tregelles contradiction. (Elsewhere in the present book
I show that Tregelles did not contradict himself.)
After being flabbergasted by this blunder-packed
sentence, I decided to check the accuracy of LaHaye's reproduction of
Margaret Macdonald's key 1830 revelation. With all 117 lines of her
revelation in front of me (as found in my books including The Incredible
Cover-up and The Great Rapture Hoax), I began
comparing LaHaye's version with it. Everything matched perfectly
during the first few lines.
But when I got to lines 10-11, LaHaye's copy spoke of
Margaret's "great burst." Was this a reference to the
"inbreaking of God...about to burst on this earth" (lines
42-43)? Or perhaps her vision of the final collapse of the pretrib
view? Well, neither. Between the words "great" and
"burst" LaHaye had omitted "darkness and error about
it; but suddenly what it was." This omission can keep his
readers in the dark concerning her cultic pride in thinking that only
she could really explain "the sign of the Son of man"
(Matt. 24:30)!
In addition to a variety of other copying errors,
LaHaye also omitted eight words in lines 16-17, a word in line 51,
another word in line 58, 11 words in lines 74-75, nine words in lines
76-77, and eight words in lines 111-112----sins of
"omission" that can easily result in faulty analyses of
Macdonald's prophetic words! (I wrote LaHaye in regard to his many
copying errors. He never responded.)
LaHaye's version of Margaret's words is actually found
in Robert Norton's Memoirs of James & George Macdonald, of Port-Glasgow
(1840). But somehow he had prefaced it as being part of Norton's The
Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic
Church (1861). All I had to do was find someone who had carelessly
combined the 1840 text with the 1861 title.
Within minutes, while going through my files, I ran
across a 1989 publication that had the same combination. And it had
the same copying errors----including the same 48 omitted words----in
the same places! The author was Thomas Ice!
(When LaHaye decided to plagiarize Ice's reproduction
of Margaret's revelation instead of doing his own research, he didn't
realize that Ice's sloppiness would trip up himself as well as Ice.
But of course they are still friends and partners----especially in
connection with the Pre-Trib Research Center----because they are
sloppy and dishonest birds of a feather! Incidentally, Ice never
responded after my letter to him asked about his many copying errors.)
In addition to LaHaye's "bumped" words, I
tallied 84 other errors he makes when quoting various writers on 27
other pages discussing pretrib beginnings. LaHaye omits 11 words when
quoting Walvoord's The Rapture Question: Revised. Walvoord, echoing
Huebner, was asserting that my evidence has not proven that Margaret
and Irving taught the pretrib view. But readers are kept in the dark
about the assertion in the book in question because LaHaye somehow
deletes what Walvoord was concluding!
On page 169 LaHaye says that at the Library of
Congress he obtained photocopies of Manuel Lacunza's work, the title
of which is The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. Perhaps he
can explain why on two pages this title appears as The Coming of
Messiah in Power and Glory and is listed on a later page as The
Coming of Christ in Power and Great Glory. Equally serious are his
book's other copying errors including erroneous sources and page
numbering in footnotes as well as inaccurate historical dates in the text.
Something else. If I fail to rectify some notions that
LaHaye has repeated, others in the 20th century tradition of copying
(and miscopying) may very well repeat and even embellish them.
LaHaye gives the impression that my father, Norman,
changed from pretrib to posttrib during his Southern California
pastorate from which he was ousted, and that Biola's position on the
rapture was the only one ever held by that Los Angeles school. LaHaye
even has a chapter about me entitled "MacPherson's Vendetta"
and assumes that personal revenge on my part is the reason for my
decades-long research on pretrib beginnings.
For the record here are my responses:
1. My father changed from pretrib to posttrib before
his 1944 book Triumph Through Tribulation. Through meetings in my
parents' living room, the church in question was formed in 1947.
Folks knew about his previous change, but he was always a calm and
scholarly preacher, almost never brought up posttrib, and never made
any rapture view a test of fellowship. Later on, some pretrib
outsiders joined, evidently intent on making the church a pretrib church.
I still have the handwritten notes that my mother took
at the May 16, 1951 ouster meeting. One of the voiced criticisms of
my father that she recorded: "He has no right to interpret
prophecy contrary to Scofield." (This critic obviously was
influenced only by Scripture and not by human agency in the same way
Darby was!)
2. The doctrinal statement in Biola's catalog says
merely that the "Lord Jesus is coming again to this earth,
personally, bodily, and visibly." The school's founders chose
such a broad statement because they wanted persons to have freedom to
hold and discuss what were then viewed as non-essentials: for
example, differing tribulational and millennial views.
Nowadays the Biola catalog includes this explanatory
note (following the doctrinal statement): "The Scriptures are to
be interpreted according to dispensational distinctives with the
conviction that the return of the Lord for His Church will be
premillennial, before the Tribulation, and that the Millennium is to
be the last of the dispensations."
When I applied in 1952 for admission to the original
Bible Institute of Los Angeles campus in downtown L. A., I was given
the original doctrinal statement which allows for non-conflicting non-essentials.
Since my father had been a schoolmate of Biola's
president at Princeton Seminary (hardly a pretrib school), I saw no
harm in occasionally sharing copies of my father's 1944 book with
some student friends and some of my teachers. If the school had told
me to stop this, I would have. If I had been a threat all year to
Biola's "official" position, why did it wait until just two
weeks before the end of the school year to kick me out?
Throughout this century pretrib has changed from being
a non-essential to being an expedient essential at Biola and many
similar schools, primarily because of its tremendous fund-raising potential.
3. LaHaye concludes wrongfully that my pretrib origin
research of a quarter of a century is nothing more than my vengeful
reaction to what happened to my family in the 1950's.
If so, it must be one of the slowest reactions ever. I
didn't even wonder about the origin until two decades after the
California incidents. Long before my research began, numerous
tragedies including untimely death had overtaken the ringleaders in
the church trouble. During the years between the early 1950's and the
early 1970's (when my research began), I was never bitter towards
anyone at either the church or Biola----and haven't been down to the
present day.
In the same No Fear book of his, LaHaye has an entire
chapter discussing my books. The fair and honest thing, when citing
books, is to list the books in footnotes or at least in a
bibliography----unless a writer has something to hide. The reason
LaHaye doesn't list any of my works in this manner is that he is
neither fair nor honest!
As if all of the above isn't enough, there's even
plagiarism in some of LaHaye's books! I'll give an example by
comparing Hal Lindsey's There's A New World Coming (1973) with
LaHaye's Understanding the Last Days (1998).
On p. 281 Lindsey wrote: "The New Testament
refers to the 'Book of Life' eight times, and although the Old
Testament doesn't call it by that name, it refers three times to a
book in which names are written. This book contains the name of every
person born into the world. If by the time he dies, a person has not
received God's provision of sacrifice to remove sin, then his name is
blotted out of this 'Book of Life.'"
On pp. 192, 194 LaHaye wrote: "The New Testament
refers to the book of life eight different times, and although the
Old Testament does not call it by that name, it does allude three
times to a book in which names are written...The book of life is that
book in which the names of all people ever born into the world are
written. If, at the time of a person's death, he has not called upon
the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, his name is blotted out of the
book of life."
After I told LaHaye in a letter that I had found
plagiarism in his books, he sent me the one and only letter I've ever
gotten from him, dated March 3, 1999. His first two sentences said:
"You are the first person who (to my knowledge) has ever accused
me of plagiarizing anything from anyone. And with forty books in
print I would think someone would have if it were true." I
immediately sent him evidence that he had plagiarized various books
by Walvoord and Lindsey. To this day he has never responded in
connection with the proof that I sent to him!
My book The Rapture Plot has an appendix exhibiting
plagiarism, by means of comparison quotes, in popular pretrib
prophecy books. Not only is Tim LaHaye's plagiarism portrayed, but
there's proof also of the same literary thievery in writings by Jerry
Falwell, Ed Hindson, Ed Dobson, Charles Ryrie, Paul Tan, and Jack Van
Impe, for starters!
If students at Christian Heritage College (LaHaye's
former stomping ground) or Falwell's Liberty University were to
plagiarize their neighbors' answers during an exam, they'd be in
danger of getting an "F" for the exam and maybe for the
entire course.
But when pretrib leaders cut corners and cheat in
print, which of course allows them to turn out rapture rush jobs much
more quickly, they are awarded honorary (if not honorable)
degrees----like the Doctor of Literature degree that Falwell's school
gave to LaHaye!
LaHaye gives the impression these days that his huge
book sales are proof that he's being blessed by the Lord. Well, if
financial success is the most important standard (and it seems to be
in the eyes of many pretrib authors and publishers), then the Lord
must also be blessing the Mafia and Columbian drug lords and even
Osama Bin Ladin!
But when does success become greed? LaHaye is
currently suing fellow Christians over the Left Behind film rights!
His lawsuit even states that he has suffered "emotional and
mental stress, including anxiety, worry, mental anguish and sleeplessness"----characteristics,
as you can tell, of Spirit-controlled temperament!
Jeremiah 17:11 is a verse that LaHaye has somehow left
behind. It says that "he that getteth riches, and not by right,
shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."
Finally, here's the big question:
In light of recently uncovered evidence revealing the
long-covered-up, sordid history of the pretrib rapture view, and in
light of the fact that God's judgment of careless and apostate
Christendom is rapidly increasing these days, will Tim LaHaye temper
his outlook and change his temperament or will he lose his temper,
let his temperature rise, and become temperamental?
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