Dr. John Stackhouse of Regent College has started his dissection of  The Armageddon Factor.
This is going to be a tough one for me because I’m in awe of his academic prowess, and have been touched by his kindness. As I’ve watched Marci McDonald start to get her feet under her in broadcast interviews (which is not her natural element) my respect for her has grown as well.  As I’ve listened and read,  I realize she has offered an encyclopedia and roadmap for those of us who are trying to pay attention. I’m grateful for this book,  I’m thankful Ms. McDonald has spoken up again about what our fundamentalists are skittering around doing and who they are attempting to influence.
What Dr. Stackhouse says about this book will influence the very people who need to read it – moderate Canadain evangelicals who, for all sorts of reasons are deaf, dumb and blind to what the Canadian religious right is up to.
About the only thing I can argue about with someone this learned is the cover. John Stackhouse doesn’t like it. I do.
If  book cover designers win awards,  I think Terri Nimmo  should get one for The Armageddon Factor. It’s striking, stark, ironic and clever. The black  7 28 is a laugh out loud message for those of us who watch religious zealots. I’ll take my chuckles where I can get them. The white back lit cross that makes up the first part of the title is an irreverent in your face visual against pretentious piety. It’s fun.
Oh well. I am ready to do some more learning.  This review beats pushing through what has  been grandious political and social sheeple-screaming this past week.
Here we go. Part 1 of Dr. Stackhouse’s unhappy task.
Her account of a putative Religious Right, alas, is not what we ought to be able to expect of such a prominent journalist. As a historian of recent North American evangelicalism and as an occasional journalist myself, I’m going to take the measure of this book according to the two key components of journalism–and of history: information and interpretation (Parts 1 and 2 of this series). On both counts, I will argue, this book frequently fails to pass even minimal journalistic standards.
I will then argue in Part 3 that her conclusions are mistaken—except where they’re not. Marci McDonald—who, during our two interviews, I found to be both intelligent and pleasant—is not wrong about everything. Not at all. In fact, my main regret about this book is that its several flaws will allow those who prefer to do so to discount its important message: There is a Religious Right in Canada and it’s more important than many people have thought. In fact, it is more important than I had thought.
So I proceed with the unhappy task of showing that the book is frequently flawed on the basic level of getting the facts right.
Update: Part 2: Interpretation I found this quite respectfully funny, he ends with a sobering note leading into part 3:
But it would be wrong to stop here, so we won’t. For Ms. McDonald, despite her evident trouble understanding quite what she’s looking at, has nonetheless found something to which the rest of us ought to pay attention. There are, it appears, people in Canadian public life and in the federal government in particular whose views and associations ought to trouble not just the Marci McDonalds but even card-carrying, bona fide evangelicals like me.
Part 3: Conclusions. Understanding. I can’t do this review justice, Â go read it.
Forget making fun of the creation-science museum in Alberta. Forget trying to demonize Preston Manning. Forget Charles McVety and Faytene Kryskow, both of whose ministries (according to data furnished me by the Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism, among other sources) have experienced significant drops in funding and personnel over the last 24 months. Focus on Stockwell Day and his associates and the religious culture that spawned and supports them. How have such people become so powerful and stayed so prominent even under Prime Minister Harper, who is not like them (as Ms. McDonald frequently, if inconsistently, acknowledges) and whom no one accuses of ruling the Conservative caucus with a light touch?
Analysis, then, should not be devoted to some supposed cabal of right-wing organizations that seem to me instead to have little direct power (National House of Prayer, the Laurentian Institute, the Manning Institute…). Attention instead needs to be trained on the religious culture that has spawned and supported certain powerful individuals in the Conservative Party. Ms. McDonald’s researches into the Watchmen for the Nations-type of fellowship, into Christian schools and home schooling, into the Word-Faith charismatic churches, and into the growing power of certain forms of Christian television seem to me to be investigations well worth following up by people with better skills in the pertinent social sciences, even as we can be grateful for her explorations of them as first steps.
Here’s the thing about McDonald’s book: flawed though it may be, and incomplete on several fronts, it has served as a catalyst for writing about and discussing this question.
Every thoughtful and informed piece published about ‘The Armageddon Piece’ gets more information out to people who want to know more.
Every interview on TV and radio gets their audience thinking and reacting.
And finally, all the shrieeeking and over-the-top smearing of McDonald and her work by rightwingnut religious and ideological zealots gets the majority of non-dominionist Canadians wondering what those hot buttons are.
Well said deBeauxO’s.
I don’t know if I’m going to do a review. I’d rather point to a few thoughtful ones. Taking apart shriekers is not difficult and they seem to be predictably simmering down.
To have The Armageddon Factor looked at by Dr. Stackhouse on his own time at his own pleasure is a bonus for Canadian evangelicals and for Ms. McDonald. Or Paul Wells. Or Murray Dobbin. Or…
Dr John Stackhouse’s comments about The Armageddon Factor by Marci McDonald are quite good.
I think Dr John Stackhouse is a good source of information.
I think Darci McDonald’s book has enough in it that will get many people thinking.
I also agree with Dr John Stackhouse’s regret about the book.
The book will get criticism and support from people.
Whoever criticizes her book also reveals as to where they stand on this topic.
The pendulum seems to have swung as it once was in the 1950s to where it was in the 1960s to where it seems to be going now in the year 2010.
From 1940-50s sensibility
To the 1960s and all that went on
How there were changes again in the 1970s, 80s, etc, until now.
Now there is the Right Wing American Evangelical Christianity.
Now there is a Right Wing Canadian Evanglical Christianity.
The movement is more known in the United States than in Canada.
The New Apostolic Reformation is becoming more known in both the United States and in Canada than it once was.
Marci McDonald’s book ‘The Armageddon Factor’ is helping this.
Dr Stackhouse’s comments are good.
I think more will research and comment on what Marci McDonald has already commented on
“Dr.” Stackhouse is a blatant universalist aka “repentance and regeneration are archaic primitive religious icons which need to be abolished from the collective world human psyche as being destuctive and exclusionist toxic doctrine.”
“Inclusivism
In an on-line article (posted at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/003/11.26.html as of 7-31-07), Regent College’s John G. Stackhouse (a frequent writer for “Christianity Today”) says that believing the Gospel and being born again are OPTIONAL. To quote:
“I would like to commend what is sometimes called an “inclusivist” position.”
“It is obvious that one does not have to know about Jesus to adopt this posture that results in salvation.”
“To confine the scope of salvation to those who have heard certain facts about Jesus and who come to accept him on this basis, therefore, is not necessitated by the Bible, and in fact is not even the best way to understand the Bible.”
Huh? SEE WHAT the ivory tower and s0-called “higher” criticism does to you? Regent College is merely a den of heretics.
What is his worldview?
“Furthermore, we must beware of a second problem that lies nearby. And that is the idea that missions is all about getting people saved, and particularly about rescuing their souls from hell so that they can go to heaven.”
Nah, we can’t be worried that people are LOST w/o the gospel of Jesus; we have to be worried that they aren’t reading crap like his buddy/wolf/falseteacher/false prophet Eugene Petersen churns out ie the “Message” so-called “bible”.
His pal false evangelist Billah Graham is on the same page, ie: “Eventually, Billy stopped believing in a literal Hell, sent unknown thousands into the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Sacramental Protestant Churches (all teaching false “gospels”) and told the viewing audiences of Robert Schuller’s, “Hour of Power” and Larry King Live on CNN that you didn’t have to KNOW Jesus to be saved and that many Muslims, Buddhists, etc., are saved and don’t even know it! .”
Er. The gospel is simple: we are sinners and need born again cf John 3:3,5,7. “You MUST be born again.”
NOT ” many Muslims, Buddhists, are saved and don’t even know it.”
John “stacked” house as in “the deck is stacked” is a phony and dishonest pretend academian.
Proverbs 14:7 “Flee from the presence of a foolish man, when you perceive not in him the lips of knowledge.”
Good advice.
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A big ps: “the bomb found “rusting” with N. Korean writing on it which killed 47 S. Koreans is the same “evidence” as the “suicide bomber” passport found intact at WTC site, inpristine shape – no less”
source : http://kevboyle.blogspot.com/2010/05/korea-latest-false-flag-exercise.html
Bene Diction & Laws Re: Reply #4 Laws
‘Dr Stackhouse is a blatant universalist…..’
Laws, how do you know that?
I enjoyed his critique and as you mentioned, the fact that someone of that calibre challenged McDonald is critical. I hope she does a follow up.
But her book is a very good start and I’m encouraged that it hit a nerve.
I disagree with Stackhouse about Preston Manning however. I liked him at one time, because I thought he was simple and honest. However, he wrote several books and I have read them all. And yet nowhere does he mention his involvement with the Fraser Institute or the National Citizens Coalition, despite the fact that they were so instrumental in the success of the Reform Party. He doesn’t mention his relationship with Newt Gingrich or Morton Blackwell, which are well chronicled in other places.
Just as McDonald’s inconsistencies may have left doubt, Manning’s deliberate omissions made me doubt him.
I found the title of your book interesting as the word Armageddon is familiar but in reality everything needs to be in line for the rapture not Armageddon. The rapture must take place before the true battle so it is important that the religious get everything in order before that time.
I enjoyed the writing style and it was very informative. I look forward to a sequel. You could call it Rapture Factor.
Hi Susan,
We aren’t connected with the book, just reading and talking about it.
Here is the authors site.
http://marcimcdonald.ca/