False Prophet Rick Joyner
How else do you characterize the words of fundamentalist Rick Joyner, the guy who runs MorningStar Ministries and the Oak Initiative, who is warning that California is all but lost to us – California and the rest of the West Coast – and that we are about to witness a “demonic, Nazi takeover of the United States.” I’d sooner believe warnings of a zombie apocalypse, to tell you the truth. But either would be a little too B-movie-ish to attract any believers certainly.
Not so. According to Right Wing Watch Joyner has laid out the following apocalyptic scenario (sans, unfortunately, the zombies):
- Japan 2011 earthquake presages greater disaster on West Coast
- Earthquake on West Coast (not much of a prediction, really)
- New Madrid Fault Line ruptures (plausible – even FEMA warned of potential disaster in 2008)
- Imminent demonic, Nazi takeover of the United States (ehh…)
This is the order of events, apparently, though causation gets a little sketchy when he brings in divine wrath in response to America falling “to some of the ultimate depravity that a nation could fall into.”
Rick Joyner is doubling down on his claims that an earthquake will soon bring ruin to the west coast, writing in an email today that the New Madrid Fault Line will also rupture. Joyner, the head of MorningStar Ministries and the Oak Initiative, said that America’s policy towards Israel is responsible for “natural disasters that have struck our country.” He has already warned people “to get out of” California because America has “fallen to some of the ultimate depravity that a nation could fall into,” and said that the recent earthquake in Japan will lead to a demonic, Nazi takeover of the United States.
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I’ve had to prophesy many negative things over the last few years, and like it or not (and many don’t), we have a track record of accuracy. Quite a few have listened, evaluated, believed, prepared, and have prospered. I know the prepared will prosper in all times, but I would rather not prosper because of catastrophe. Our first goal should be to warn so that the catastrophe does not have to happen. Everything will be settled and made right on the Judgment Day, which is what I’ve resolved to live for.
Our West Coast is about to be shaken like it has never been shaken before. I am encouraging everyone I know to pray for more time, but we don’t have much time. Others also have been seeing similar things along the New Madrid fault line along the Mississippi River. Some have seen this linked with when the U.S. puts serious pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem. There are amazing parallels between things we have done to Israel with natural disasters that have struck our country. These are not a coincidence.
My bringing these up after the Japan earthquake hit did create one more controversy in a long list of controversies in my life. I don’t like controversy, but I realize that not much can be accomplished in these times without it. Though I do not claim to have handled or articulated any word perfectly, and I do spend a lot of time second-guessing myself, in this case the more controversy that is stirred up by this word the better. It is a true word, and the controversy is causing more people to talk about it. Some on the West Coast have started hearing for themselves, even some of the most vehement doubters, and for this I am very thankful.
Even so, the day this begins to unfold on our West Coast will be the worst day of my life. I learned a long time ago that you are unlikely to get credit for accurate prophecies until you’re dead and no longer a threat. For this reason, I don’t even consider being vindicated. I would much rather be wrong about this one, but I know I’m not. Since the Japan earthquake and tsunami, I have been feeling the grief more and more for our own countrymen that are on our West Coast.
I am thankful too that so many great churches and works of God are on our West Coast, and hopefully all of them can be spared and be like a Goshen. I know great churches and great saints will be needed there like never before. I have considered that this may be why they are not hearing this word—God does not want all of them to leave. We must be praying now for the strengthening and protection of God’s people on our West Coast, that they will be mightily used by Him, and that many will be saved for every one who is lost in the impending disasters.
MorningStar Ministries touts that its goal is to develop people who “are true light and salt in the earth” but it apparently isn’t big on intelligent or educated ones. The Oak Initiative claims to be “a grassroots movement to Unite, Mobilize, Equip, and Activate” those “salt and light” folks to engage issues from a “sound biblical worldview” which is nice, I suppose, except that the Bible was written before the earth sciences were understood.
One pastor, writing back in 1999, described Rick Joyner’s methodology as “tak[ing] anything in Scripture and mak[ing] it mean anything that suits his theological aims” which seems to be right on the money, and opined that “reading his material is similar to reading New Age materials.” Needless to say, Joyner has been warning of earthquakes for more than a decade and this whole “time to get outta California” thing is just a repetition of a call he made in January 1998 in his California Earthquake Prophecy.
At that time he wrote that earthquakes are “imminent” unless people repent and that though nobody has “been given a sure timing” he felt that “we may have several more years” (apparently, much more than several) and that pople should leave Southern California if God “directs them to” but that “the time is soon coming when I will have to begin telling people that they should only stay if they hear from the Lord to stay.” He wrote then that “many cities and regions…are about to experience God’s judgements [sic]” but that God especially hates Los Angeles.
He apparently later “softened his timing” in an attempt to damage control the inexplicable 13 years that have passed since then, and will no doubt do so again if California fails to slide off into the Pacific deeps.
This is what happens when you make war on science. Parents be warned. It’s difficult not to rate Joyner’s prophecies as about on a par with Jack Black’s Year One, where the origins of rain are explained:
Zed: What do they need a virgin for?
Pedestrian Villager: To throw her in the fire. Are you new?
Zed: What? Why?Pedestrian Villager: An offering to the gods.
Zed: Are you serious?
Pedestrian Villager: There’s a famine going on……so if we make
a good enough sacrifice……then the gods give us rain.
You get rain, you get harvest……you get harvest, you get food.
You know what food is?Yeah, you know food.
Zed: So they’re gonna throw a virgin into the fire so that it rains?
Pedestrian Villager: Where do you think rain comes from? Clouds?
My 6-year-old knows.
Hey, how do you get rain?
Burn a virgin.Zed: I didn’t think it was anything related to…
Pedestrian Villager: Yeah, yeah. “I didn’t think, I didn’t think.”
It’s the gods and it comes from virgins being burned.
There, in a brief snippet from a Hollywood film you have as much science as you will find in Rick Joyner’s prophecies.If that’s how you want to order your universe, I suppose we can’t stop you, but please do understand we are going to laugh and point fingers.
Script from Script-o-rama.com
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
