Various political and religious commentators are drawing parallels between Donald Trump and Hitler’s Germany. Emmanuel Todd has a different take on this issue in a recent article. He argues that European institutions are becoming the real far-right, because they are out of touch with reality.
Kaiser Y Kuo has written an important article about the role of China in the modern world called The Great Reckoning.
Daniel had a vision of a Terrible Beast.
It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left (Dan 7:7).He saw an Empire that would crush and devour many other nations.
In a recent interview Jeffrey Sachs described a nation that is ruthlessly trampling and destroying other nations. He is not a Christian, but I think he got a glimpse of the Terrible Beast.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people (Matt 4:23).
Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12).
The good news of the kingdom is that Jesus has been made king and he has sent the Holy Spirit to establish his kingdom throughout the earth. The Book of Acts is the story of the Holy Spirit beginning the task of bringing his kingdom into being.
Some Christians say they cannot believe in the resurrection of Jesus. This is not logical. If God cannot raise someone from the dead, he is not much of a god, but just a bystander in the universe. So why believe in him? If God exists, then anything is possible, including miracles. So the key issue is not belief in the resurrection, but belief in God. If God exists, then raising someone being raised from the dead is no problem.
Some Christians say that believing in the resurrection is not sensible in a scientific age. This is not logical. Man learning to do science, does not change God, or limit what he can do. Scientific study by man cannot take away God’s power to raise the dead.
Many scientists assume that miracles cannot happen. Not surprisingly, they find no evidence of God in the universe. However, assuming what you are trying to prove is not logical.
A television reporter asked a rationalist if he believed in God. That rationalist said that we have been looking round the universe for a long time, but have not found God, so he must not exist. That is not logical. First of all, many people have found him. More importantly, the fact that something has not been found does not prove that it does not exist; just that it has not been found. Many things exist that have not yet been found. Fortunately, God can be found by those who seek him sincerely.
God exists
Jesus is risen
Faith is logical
Some would say that he is a retributive judge, who cannot forgive unless the penalty for sin has been paid.
Others would say that he is kind, forgiving and merciful.
The first view is not even an Old Testament portrayal of. Ezekiel 18:24-32 tells a different story of God’s justice.
If a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust (Ezek 18:27-29)?If the person turns from their wickedness, they will live. Their wickedness will no longer be held against them, but will be forgotten. The Israelites said that this was unjust, but God disagreed. He said they were unjust, so they did not understand God’s justice.
At the end of the prophet’s message, God makes his attitude clear.
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD (Ezek 18:31-32).God does not want people to die for their sins. He wants to give them a new heart and a new spirit. He does not take pleasure in people being punished.
If we look at the life of Jesus, the answer to the question above is obvious. When he met ordinary, broken people he did not demand that they face retribution for their sins. He did not say that the had to pay the price of justice before he could forgive them and heal them.
When the leper to him asking for mercy, he reached and touched him. He then healed him (Mark 1:40-41). Jesus forgave the sin of the paralysed man who was lowered through the roof (Mark 2:5,11-12). He did not require him to meet the demands of justice first.
Imagine this end to the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31).
While the lost son was still a long way off, his father saw him, and sent a servant to explain that he wanted to forgive him, but that he would have to repay the debt he owed before he could do so.This does not have the same ring as the parable that Jesus told.
Imagine this ending to the parable.
While the lost son was still a long way off, his father saw him. He wanted to forgive him, but he couldn’t until the debt was paid. So, the father called the older son and demanded that he pay the debt that his brother owned. When the son had repaid the debt at considerable cost, the father welcomed the lost son that he had never stopped loving.This does not make sense, but it is what many Christians preach.
Paul explained what God has done in his letter to the Romans.
All are put right freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (Rom 3:24).This redemption came freely by his grace.
He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time (Romans 3:25-26).God chose to pass over sins committed beforehand. He was happy to forgive, because this demonstrated his righteousness.
Some preachers say that God demands propitiation for sin, ie his wrath has to be satisfied. That is not true. It is the spiritual powers of evil who had to be propitiated, because humans had let them grab authority over the earth from them.
I never had to propitiate my father, ie give him a gift to calm down his wrath. Everyone would agree that a son who had to propitiate the anger of his father with a gift had a terrible father.
The idea that God needs retribution for sin before he can forgive them is a distortion of his character. It is Satan who accused people and demands retribution against them. Jesus died to satisfy his demands for a ransom.
I get upset when I hear preachers using the example of the Widow’s Mite when attempting to raise funds for their ministry or church building programme. I explain why in Widows Mite.
During the first five centuries of Christian history, a number of ecumenical councils were held. Tradition says that these councils settled outstanding theological disputes. For example, the Council of Nicea in AD 325 is said to have established the doctrine of the Trinity. This is not really true. The theology of the Trinity is settled in the nature and character of God, not by human councils. Those who listen to the Spirit of God will find the truth, whereas human councils will usually arrive at a convenient compromise.
Christian historians who back the council movement identify the meeting of elders and apostles in Jerusalem that is recorded in Acts 15 as the first ecumenical council. A careful reading of the text does not support this view. This meeting was not a council that set a pattern for the church; it was actually a shambles that made unwise decisions.
The problem arose when the gospel spread to Antioch. Paul and Barnabas had a relationship with apostles and elders in Jerusalem from the time when they both lived and preached there (Acts 9:26-30). They were sent up to Jerusalem to talk to them about the problem (Acts 15:2). Several things went wrong at this council.
The shambles described in Acts 15 shows the dangers of trying to deal with problems on the mission field with church councils, committees and government. See Church Shambles.
I have been reading Matthew’s gospel again. I am struck by how central healing and deliverance from evil spirits was to his ministry.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them (Matt 4:23-24).
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick (Matt 8:16).
And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him 36 and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed (Matt 14:35-36).Then there are all the individual healings that Matthew describes in his account of Jesus ministry.
I have just finished reading a book called Strange Religion by Nijay Gupta. This book provides a description of Christianity in the first couple of centuries.
Nijay explains that the first Christians seemed weird to the people of Roman society. The behaviour of Christians was totally different from any religion that the Romans knew. This is why the gospel was so appealing and the church grew so fast. It was radically different and better than any other religion of the time.
When I look at the church today, the opposite seems to be the case.
Christian music seems very like secular music, with similar genres, and only the message being different.
Christian worship seems to be secular rock concerts with groups of people and similar musical instruments on the stage.
Christian schools are very similar to secular schools, with a slight difference in curriculum.
Christian seminaries function in a way that is very similar to other tertiary education institutions.
Christian political parties function in a way that is similar to other political parties.
Christian buildings don’t look much different from secular buildings.
I see that Donald Trump has instructed the Census Bureau to undertake a new population census. According to the US Post-Enumeration Survey (PES), eight states were overcounted while six were undercounted in the 2020 population census. Trump is concerned that these discrepancies distorted representation in Congress, which is based on census numbers, but there are a couple of issues with his concern.
The biggest threat to the fairness of electoral district boundaries is gerrymandering. Successive governments from both parties have gerrymandered congressional districts to the extent that many never change hands. Introducing a fairer way to set boundaries would contribute more to fair elections than better population estimates.
The other problem is that conducting a census of the population is almost impossible in the modern world. I have explained the difficulties faced in New Zealand in a previous article.
The problems are worse in the United States, as two save money, the Census Bureau operates a postal collection for the population census. That only works well if the agency has up-to-date address lists for all citizens. However, that is not the case. When people move frequently, it is very difficult to maintain accurate address lists. Consequently, many census questionnaires are not delivered to the correct people. And if people don’t bother to post their census form back, getting a response from them is very expensive.
For these reasons, I would be surprised if Donald Trump will get a more accurate census than was achieved in 2020.
Trump was upset by the July 2025 payroll report (a less-than-expected monthly job add of 73,000 and a very large negative two-month revision of 258,000). He has also expressed concern that the Payroll Reports for the period leading up to the 2024 election were revised down following the election. He is correct in saying that the statistics for the last year of the Biden presidency overstated the state of the economy, but it probably did not have a huge effect on the outcome of the election (although it might have in different circumstances).
The problem is that early estimates of employment/jobs are very difficult to measure. In the United States, the payroll report is based on a survey of business establishments. This presents several difficulties. The robustness of a sample survey depends on the quality of the population frame from which the sample is selected.
The United States does not have an up-to-date register of businesses, so the sample results have to be adjusted for births and deaths of businesses. Businesses that have closed down will not respond to the survey, although they could still be in the survey. New businesses will not be included in the establishment survey because they will not be on the business register when the sample is selected. The adjustment for births and deaths can be quite large, yet they are difficult to estimate because the relative numbers depend on the stage in the business cycle.
The other problem is that funding for statistics has been cut. I read that funding for CPI surveys has been reduced, so I presume the same applies to the payroll survey as well. Getting a satisfactory response to the surveys of businesses can be difficult. There are methods that can be used to improve the response rate, but they all cost money.
In light of these difficulties, I am not surprised that the payrolls report is not as robust as commentators would like.
In New Zealand, the earliest estimates of monthly job numbers are derived from data supplied to the tax department as part of the PAYE system. There are a few issues with small businesses that have less frequent reporting requirements, but the appropriate adjustments can be estimated. But overall, the Monthly Employment Indicator is a robust statistic. It is supplemented by a quarterly survey of business establishments. The sample is selected from the business register that is kept up to date using GST registrations (value added tax), so there is less of a problem with births and deaths.
I have always considered that government statisticians have a prophetic role. They gather data and produce information that demonstrates how the government is performing. For example, if the government is manipulating or debasing its currency, the consumers price index will expose it. If a nation, or its government, has lost its blessing, it should be exposed by GDP statistics.
If statisticians are to undertake this role, they must be independent of the government that they are monitoring. While they will be dependent on the government for funding, they must have the freedom to design and produce statistical information without any political interference. They must be free to use the best possible statistical methods and techniques to produce information about the performance of their nation’s economy.
In New Zealand, the Statistics Act recognises the independence of the Government Statistician. The statistical agency has control over the statistical methods and techniques adopted for the production of national statistics. Down through the years, Statisticians have guarded this authority carefully. Most citizens assume that statistics are not subject to political interference.
Statisticians around the world have always wondered if the statistical agencies in the United States that produce economic statistics are fully independent. The directors of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), which produces employment measures, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces GDP measures and the National Accounts, and the Census Bureau, which operates business surveys that feed into the measurement of GDP, are all political appointees. This makes it harder for these statistical agencies to claim independence from political interference.
Now, Donald Trump has blown this issue up by firing the Director of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, claiming the jobs statistics she produced were biased, because she was a Biden appointee. He promised to appoint a director who would publish statistics that supported his view of the “beautiful economy”. This will make it very difficult for his appointee to produce independent statistics if they record bad news for the economy.
The modern economy is based on debt. People and nations are becoming more and more enslaved to debt. The only solution is the government of God.
Under the Government of God, all economic transactions must be voluntary. There will be no state authority with the power to enforce debt contracts. The Instructions for Economic Life give no mechanism for making people repay their debts. This means that lenders cannot force borrowers to pay the interest they owe. They cannot force them to repay a loan. Lenders will have to rely on the goodwill of the borrower to get repaid.
Most people will repay their loans because they want to maintain a good reputation. They will realise that they might want a loan in the future and not want to spoil their credit record. They will avoid defaulting so that they continue to be trusted by the people to whom they have made promises.
Realising that they might be a creditor in the future, they will encourage the practice of repaying loans. They will set a good example for other debtors by fulfilling their commitments to repay debts. Paul urged us to repay our loans if we can.
Give to everyone what you owe them… Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another (Rom 13:7-8).Love requires us to repay our debts. However, this is only a moral obligation. There is no provision for enforcement of debts.
We repay our loans because we love, but love does not require us to impoverish our families. If a person cannot afford to repay a loan without plunging their family into poverty, they are not required to pay the loan.
In the Government of God, creditors lose their power, because there is no government power to enforce the repayment of loans. This shifts control from the creditor to the debtor. If the money that is owed to a lender is not repaid, there is nothing the creditor can do about it. They cannot make threats of violence to ensure repayment. Goods cannot be taken to cover the outstanding debt.
All a creditor can do is go to a judge and make their case against the person who has refused to pay the debt. Judges can confirm that a debt is owing, but they do not have authority to enforce repayment. The judge may pronounce judgment against the debtor but does not have the power to enforce their decision. They can explain their decision to the community, but public disapproval might not be enough to make the person repay the debt.
A community will only put pressure on people to repay a debt if they believe that repayment is justified. If the terms of the debt are unfair, sympathy will go to the debtor, so a creditor would make themselves unpopular by demanding repayment. The community would not support demands for penalty interest, even if the debt contract allowed it.
If a debtor is being impoverished by a debt, the judge will declare that the debt must be cancelled at the end of seven years, so the creditor will not be able to demand repayment. The judge will rule that all the interest charged must be refunded, because charging interest to a poor person is forbidden by God’s law.
Judges will only support claims for the repayment of legitimate business loans. Claims by owners of unrighteous wealth for repayment of debt will not be supported by judges. They will declare that money lent by loan sharks has become unrighteous wealth that does not have to be repaid.
In God’s Economy, judges applying God’s law will remove the power of creditors. Courts will be reluctant to enforce many debt agreements, so repayment of debt will mostly be voluntary. Debtors will be free to walk away from their debt, because there will be no government forcing them to repay it.
Daniel’s vision is not really a message about Iran. The emergence of Iran (Ram) was just a signal that the season described by the vision was beginning.
A second message of the vision is that the power of the United States (Goat)' power will not last.
When the goat became very great, at the height of his power his large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up towards the four winds of heaven (Dan 8:8).Daniel also warned that the power of the United States will fade for a time soon after defeating the Prince of Persia. His action against Iran will mark the beginning of Donald Trump’s decline. His power will fade.
I am not sure about the meaning of the four horns that rose in its place. The four horns could represent civil war in the United States. Some commentators believe this is possible, but I am not sure. American men are too obese and lazy to fight seriously. I believe that it more likely represents a shift from a uni-polar world to a multi-polar one.
Recent events have shaken the confidence of the American leadership. The financial burden of fighting two wars at a time will become too great, and an economy weakened by the Global Financial Crisis will limit the scope for action.
The US has also struggled to win wars. Military adventures in Syria, Libya and Yemen failed, preventing the US objectives from being achieved. A twenty-year effort to conquer Afghanistan also failed. The US retreat from Afghanistan was an embarrassing shambles. US efforts to defeat Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine appear to be failing. An attempt to bomb the Houthis in Yemen failed, and the US had to withdraw its aircraft carrier groups to a safer place.
Daniel was seeing the end of the so-called uni-polar world that emerged at the end of the Cold War, which had developed at the end of World War 2. During that season, the world was dominated by a struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the dominant world power. No other nation could come close to matching its economic wealth and military power. This world is described as uni-polar. It is represented by the large horn on Daniel’s goat.
However, at the beginning of the 21st century, the strength of the Russian economy and military was restored. At the same time, China emerged as a major economic power, with an economy that will soon match the United States in size. Its military capability is growing rapidly. The United States can no longer dominate in the way that it once did. A multi-polar world is emerging. Daniel saw this happening after the large horn was broken off.
In its place, four conspicuous horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven (Dan 8:8b).Daniel saw four powers (horns) arising towards the four winds of heaven. This is another way of saying the four corners of the earth. These four are probably Russia, China, Germany and France (or perhaps India). Daniel was describing the emergence of a multi-polar world. This temporary weakness of the United States allows these nations to flex their muscles. The ability of the United States to dominate the world is gone forever.
Terrible Beast
The main purpose of Daniel’s vision is not to warn about Iran, but to explain the emergence of a Terrible Beast. It is a powerful nation that dominates much of the world.
The decline of American power will bring a change in power in the nation.
Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. (Dan 8:9).A new dominant power will seize control of the United States of America. The horn starts off small but grows extremely large. The new political ruler will seem insignificant at first, but will grow into enormous power. As the big four grow in strength and the situation gets desperate, a ruthless and powerful leader will emerge.
A new leader will take control and unite the nation by force, trampling on those who oppose him and stamping out all opposition. The nation that loves freedom will get a dictator, but they will welcome the order that he brings.
This new, ruthless president will lead this change. He will expand his control in South America by trampling on weaker nations that oppose him. The United States will stand alone, but grow to achieve enormous power. This will culminate in an invasion of Israel.
The United States will be transformed into the Terrible Beast that Daniel described in his previous chapter, by relying on military power and control. It will become the most powerful nation again, but at a terrible cost in terms of freedom. The United States will become a Terrible Beast, continuing the tradition of the Roman and Babylonian Empires.
Followers of Jesus who understand the times should join together in small communities where they can support each other and protect each other during the hard times. By standing together, they will remain firm, while others are being shaken. They should be prepared for distress and equipped for victory.
The Terrible Beast will exercise enormous political, military and spiritual power.
It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the LORD (Dan 8:10-11).The actions of the Terrible Beast will release spiritual powers to work evil on earth.
The full series is here.
The second part of Daniel’s vision explains that when the Prince of Persia is at the zenith of its power, an even more powerful kingdom, the Shaggy Goat, will arise. It will come from the West in a sudden attack.
The Goat is called the King of Greece (Dan 8:21), also known as the King of the North. The King of Greece is not the nation of Greece, but is the civilisation that came out of Greece and the spirit that controls it. Many modern historians and philosophers consider that Western Civilisation emerged out of ancient Greece. The King of Greece symbolises Western Civilisation centred on the United States.
Originally, Western Civilisation was centred on Europe, but since the beginning of the twentieth century, Europe has been eclipsed by the United States. It now dominates Europe in terms of military power and cultural influence. Since the Second World War, Europe has been dependent on the United States. Many European businesses are controlled by United States companies. European defence has been the responsibility of NATO and is guaranteed by the United States.
The United States has developed an enormous arsenal of weapons (including nuclear weapons), and it now uses them to exert its influence in the world. Since the end of the Cold War, it has become the dominant force in the world. America, by default, has become the world's policeman.
During the twentieth century, the United States emerged from Europe's shadow to dominate Western Civilisation, both in terms of military power and cultural influence. The prominent horn on the goat in Daniel 8 represents the United States controlling the Western world. A powerful spirit called the King of Greece is currently working through it.
The United States currently dominates Western Civilisation, in terms of military power and cultural influence, so the goat is the United States. This explains the irony of the King of the North "coming from the West". The vision of the Goat is a prophecy of the United States and Europe, acting as the King of the North, attacking and defeating a Middle Eastern nation.
The Goat has a single large horn. Daniel says that it was "conspicuous and impressive". This symbolises the self-confidence and overconfidence of the United States. The horn also represents massive military power. The military power of the United States exceeds anything that has ever been known, and no nation in the world can match it. The large horn represents power concentrated in one person. It represents the hegemony of the United States president.
Daniel saw the goat, representing the United States, flying into a "great rage" against the King of the South.
He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at him in great rage Dan 8:6).The goat attacked the two-horned ram and destroyed it.
My Mistake
Back in the 2000s, I wrote that this vision was fulfilled by the US invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Saddam Hussein, but I now believe that I was wrong. This was a serious mistake.
I now believe the true fulfilment has begun at this time through Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran in June 2025. Several aspects of Daniel’s vision are relevant to what has happened.
The Goat has a single large horn that was "conspicuous and impressive". This symbolises the self-confidence and brashness of Donald Trump.
The goat comes “from the west”.
A goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground (Dan 8:5).The United States is west of Iran. It is “The West”.
“Not touching the ground” symbolises an airborne attack. The B-2 bombers that dropped the bunker bombs on the nuclear sites in Iran had flown all the way from Missouri without landing anywhere, and they returned by the same way as they had come. They flew non-stop for thirty-seven hours and had to be refuelled in the air several times. This was truly “not touching the ground”. It is an amazing achievement.
The Iranian defence forces were unable to prevent this attack. None of the US planes were shot down.
There was no power in the ram to stand against him (Dan 8:7).
Various allies and supporters of Iran, like Iraq, Russia and China, chose to do nothing to prevent the attack.
None could rescue the ram from his power (Dan 8:7).
The Goat knocked the Ram to the ground and trampled on it.
The goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it (Dan 8:7).Over the past decade, the United States has imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran. These have severely weakened the Iranian economy. If these are not removed, the Iranian economy will continue to struggle.
Having bombed Iran once with impunity, the US can do it again. This dramatically alters the power dynamic between the two nations, but it depends on whether Iran submits to the US demands. If they don’t, the US might bomb Iran again.
Donald Trump might choose to bomb Iran to distract from his political problems at home. The bombing of Iran on 22 June 2024 might just be the beginning of the Goat’s attack on the Ram.
| Note: the fact that an event is prophesied does not mean that it is justified. The United States was not justified in attacking Iraq and it would not be justified in invading Iran. |
The Goat attacked the Ram, but it did not destroy the Ram, just its two horns. Two rulers will be destroyed, but the nation of Iran will continue on, perhaps with less power. The nation of Persia is mentioned in several prophecies that have not been fulfilled, so Iran will be around for much longer.
In my article, I explained that we have seen the fulfilment of the first part of Daniel's vision in our time. It is described in Daniel 8:3,4.
I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other, but grew up later. I watched the ram as he charged toward the west and the north, and the south. No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.This is what Daniel saw, and the interpretation is given in verse 20. The two-horned ram represents the kings of Media and Persia. The people of Media and Persia now make up the nation of Iran. Most Iranians are Persian. Daniel saw a future ruler of Iran who would rise to power.
The Daniel’s ram is a restoration of the empire of the Prince of Persia, centred on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Daniel saw the ram charging to the west, the north and the south.
I watched the ram as he charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great (Dan 8:4).Daniel was told that the Ram represents the Kings of Media and Persia (Dan 8:20). Iran was previously called Persia.
I explained that the first two of the charges of this Ram had already taken place. To the west of Iran is the nation of Iraq. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, and military strategists said that Iran would soon have to surrender. To their surprise, the Iranian troops forced the invading army back across their border. Iran then attempted to invade Iraq and topple its Baathist socialist government of Saddam Hussein.
The nations to the north of Iran are Syria and Lebanon. There are already strong links between Iran and Syria. The war in Syria has strengthened this relationship. Iran has been fighting against the rebel forces that have been supported by the western powers. This is the fulfilment of the Ram's move to the north. Iran also supports Hezbollah, which led the resistance against Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
More interesting still, Daniel says that no nation would be able to "rescue from his power". When the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran, over one hundred American hostages were held in their embassy. The United States, which is the greatest military power in the world, devised a plan called "Eagle's Claw" to rescue them.
Despite elaborate planning and the best equipment that modern technology could provide, the rescue attempt ended in disaster. Helicopters encountered unprecedented headwinds and unexpected dust storms. A helicopter crashed into a plane during refuelling in the Iranian desert, and eight servicemen were killed. The United States was not strong enough to rescue its people from Iran and had to beg for their return.
The nation to the south of Iran is Saudi Arabia. It has a significant Shia population in the areas close to Iran, so it is vulnerable to Iranian influence. However, the charge to the south is still in the future.
Interpreting prophetic scriptures is a tricky task, so when you make a mistake, you should admit it. Especially if you have put it in writing. I will explain my mistake I made in my interpretation of the book of Daniel further down in this post.
Back in 1982, I wrote an areticle for the local newspaper about Daniel and Iran that explained that the events described in one of his visions are beginning to be fulfilled during the season that is currently getting underway. This was a few years after the Islamic Revolution had occurred in Iran.
I recounted how Daniel 8 describes a vision of a two-horned ram and a shaggy goat. The typesetter for the newspaper must have had a sense of humour, because he placed a nature article about a goat-like creature called a “Thar” next to my article. This picture was placed between the two articles. This picture illustrated my article well.
Islam Advances
In my article, I explained that starting in the 1980s, a revival of the Islamic religion began to spread all over the world. People who in the past were ashamed of their religion began taking new pride in Islam and the Koran. Sometimes referred to as Islamic fundamentalism, there has been a return to the foundations of Islam, and a new seriousness in following the Koran. The modern Islamic revival has the entire of the Moslem world. It is very powerful at a grassroots level, and even secular rulers came under its influence.
The resurgence of Islam really got underway in Iran when a secular ruler, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown by militant, fundamentalist Muslims loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. The Islamic revolution radically changed the entire nation. Iran is now an Islamic Republic and a key player in the Middle East. The ram is a restoration of the empire of the Prince of Persia, centred on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran is described in Daniel 8. This chapter describes a vision that Daniel received while the people of Judah were in exile in Babylon. After the vision, the angel Gabriel appeared to explain its meaning to him. When Gabriel drew near, Daniel fell to the ground in fear, but the angel stood him on his feet and encouraged him. Gabriel first explained the timing of the vision's fulfilment.
Understand that the vision concerns the time of the end.He makes it clear that the vision is not to be fulfilled in Daniel's time. It concerns the time of the end, and will be fulfilled in the later "time of wrath". In the RSV this phrase is translated as the "latter end of the indignation".
I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end. Dan 8:17,19.
Chris Hedges, who is one of the few honest commentators on Israel, has an interesting insight.
The genocide in Gaza signals the abolition, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, of the rule of law. It marks the obliteration of even the pretense of an ethical code. Israelis are the barbarians they condemn. If there is any warped justice in this genocide it is that Israelis, once they finish with the Palestinians, will be forced to live together in moral squalor.
Adam Tooze describes the scale of China's cities.
China’s cities are the most gigantic experiment in urbanization in history. If anywhere has a claim to define the “norm” of urbanism it is China...China in 2025 may have as many as 160 urban centers with a population of more than 1 million. Of these 18 are megacities with 10 million inhabitants or more.
For sake of comparison the US can claim to have no more than ten urban areas with a population of one million! Being in China makes you realize how profoundly anti-urban America is. There are only two US conurbations - NY-New Jersey and LA - that would qualify as megacities. On sheer scale, neither would qualify as Tier 1 in the Chinese rankings.
For further comparison, the EU counts 39 urban areas of over 1 million inhabitants but only one city-region, Paris, with a population of over 10 million.
There is not a single city in either Europe or the US that can compare to the awesome scale of the largest Chinese conurbations.
Each day I try to read a couple of chapters from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. By coincidence, I have arrived at Job and the Book of Revelation at the same time. The parallels between these two books are interesting. They both describe a three-agent view of the world. I describe what this means in an article called Three-Agent Universe.
Job and his friends lived in a two-agent universe. They believed that everything that happened was caused by God or humans. This is what confused Job. He trusted God and knew that he was good. He could not understand why so much evil had happened when he had lived a good life. His friends accused him of deserving what had happened to him, but Job refused to accept that. He also refused to accuse God of being evil.
The narrator of the book of Job understood that Job lived in a three-agent universe. He understood that Job was caught up in a struggle between God and the spiritual powers of evil. The evil that had afflicted Job was inflicted by the spiritual powers of evil. Rather than being a result of Job’s wickedness, this evil occurred because he was good, and the spiritual powers of evil hated him.
The book of Revelation also describes a three-agent universe. Some of the evil events on earth are caused by humans. But much of the evil is the work of the spiritual powers of evil, in a last desperate attempt to overthrow Jesus and regain a place of power. But John reminds his readers that the spiritual powers of evil have limited powers and can only act when God allows them (by opening the seals, etc).
The difference between the two books is that in Job, the spiritual powers of evil had a place in heaven, and could accuse humans before God. In Revelation, the spiritual powers of evil have been defeated by Jesus’ death on the cross, and have been cast down onto the earth with only the power of a trespasser. They have lost their place in heaven (Rev 12:1-12) and will fail in all their attempt to restore it. Their final defeat leads to their destruction.
Many Christians still live in a two-agent universe. They don’t understand that some of the events on earth that affect them are a spillover from the battle between God and the spiritual powers of evil. This means that good people sometimes experience evil, and evil people sometimes succeed for a time.
The God of both Job and Revelation promise that in the end, everyone who lives on earth will receive true justice and vindication.
Commentators are upset by the Trump Tarriff of 15 percent tariff imposed on the EU. Something that is missed in the debate is that the EU is primarily a customs union. The EU protects it businesses with taxes and duties that are charged against imports from countries outside the EU. Countries in the EU impose Value Added Taxes of between 20 and 28 percent. In contrast, sales taxes imposed in the United States range from 6 percent to 12 percent. So a tariff of 15 percent just about matches the taxes already imposed on US goods by the EU.
In New Zealand, businesses are upset about the 15 percent tariff on goods exported to the United States. But this exactly matches the rate of GST that is imposed on American goods imported into New Zealand. This is hardly unfair.
That does not mean it is right. Any disruption to trade is probably bad for a trading nation like New Zealand. See Tariffs.
Dean Baker has an interesting comment about the Trump Tarriffs.
Foreign countries are not eating the taxes that Trump is imposing on our imports from them. In May, the first month where many Trump tariffs were in effect, the US collected over $22 billion in tariff revenues. That would come to almost $250 billion on an annual basis, or an average of roughly $2,000 per household.Here is another.If foreign countries were eating these taxes, we would see a decline in import prices, which are measured without including the tariff. In fact, non-oil import prices rose by 0.3 percent in May and are up 1.7 percent over the last year.
With Trump preparing for another massive round of tariffs he is promising to hit American households with the largest tax increase in history.
In June the government collected $26.6 billion in tariff revenue. That is up from around $6 billion a month in 2024 before Trump’s tax hikes. The difference of $20 billion comes to $240 billion on an annual basis. Summed over a decade, as we do with other measures, this comes to $2.4 trillion.These comments confirm to me something about the Trump Tarriffs that is often missed. They are not just about trade. Trump looks back to the 19th century when citizens of the US paid no income taxes. At that time the federal government collected its revenue using duties on imports.This would be a substantial tax hike in itself, roughly $1,900 per household, but we know that the figure is almost certain to go much higher. Trump is threatening taxes of an additional 10 to 30 percent on imports from our major trading partners, such as Mexico, Canada, the European Union, and Japan.
Dean Baker suggests that the Trump Tarriffs will collect $250 billion in a full year. As this will be mostly be paid by American consumers, it represents a significant tax increase. Trump hopes that it will make a significant affect on the trillion dollar budget deficit.
Aurelien has just published a very interesting article called Living with Russia that analyses the changing balance of military power in Europe. Anyone who wants to understand the future of the world should read it.
As expected, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed. Volodymyr Zelensky is a puppet leader controlled by hardline ultra-nationalists, so he cannot agree to any agreement that looks like surrender, even though his forces are being beaten. NATO leaders are encouraging him to keep going, but this is a mistake, as the longer he keeps fighting, the worse will be the outcome for the Ukranian people.
The Ukrainian people have backed the wrong horse. Ukraine will join the long list of nations that have been abandoned after putting its trust in promises of US support. The outcome will be ugly.
The Ukrainian army is already defeated, and cannot win, even with American support. Trump’s attempts to establish peace in Ukraine will eventually fail.
If Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs up to a peace agreement, he will be destroyed by the ultra-nationalists and oligarchs who control him.
Ukrainian forces fighting against Russia will flee west and attempt to destroy him.
American attempts to fly in Valery Zaluzny or some other leader more amenable to the West will fail, as these efforts always fail. A worse person usually rises in the place of the person who was supposed to be a safe alternative.
The Ukranian population will continue to collapse. 20 million Ukrainians have migrated and most will not return. The birth rate has collapsed. In 2024, 495,000 Ukrainians died while 176,000 were born.
Fleeing soldiers will return home without their pay or any financial support. Many will have to go overseas to serve as mercenaries to earn a living.
Without US funding, the Ukrainian bureaucracy will not be able to pay staff and many good jobs will disappear.
Most Ukrainian industry has been destroyed, so employment will become scarce.
Government services will cease as funding collapses.
The massive weight of debt will cause the economy to collapse and civil society to break down.
Numerous disappointed Ukrainians will migrate to Western Europe looking for work opportunities.
Ukrainians who fought in the war will feel betrayed by their leaders and the people who have lived in comfort in Western Ukraine.
Civil disruption will become widespread.
A massive rebuild will be needed, but Europe and then the US will be unwilling to fund it.
Eastern Ukraine will be rebuilt with Russian and Chinese support.
The political struggle for power in Ukraine will continue.
The ultra-nationalists and oligarchs who have been ripping off Ukraine will seize control and civil strife will break out in Kiev.
European leaders will be embarrassed when it becomes obvious that they have been supporting ultra-nationalists and oligarchs with nazi sympathies.
Europe will become absorbed in its own economic problems as it is weakened by disunity. It will lose interest in supporting Ukraine.
The security guarantees of NATO and its promises of support have been exposed as useless.
Without NATO holding it together, Europe will fragment into disunity.
Tariff wars will undermine the EU, leading to more fragmentation.
Europe has lost its soul, and will go into sharp decline, unless a real Hitler emerges in France or Germany.
I published this piece in December 2022. It is probably becoming more relevant now.
Zelensky has not acted with truthfulness and integrity
His lies will be exposed
A bad spirit will come between Zelensky and the western news media.
When they realise that he has duped them
They will be filled with scorn,
They will turn on him and attack him with a vengeance.They will accuse him of doing the things
that he has accused his enemies of doing.
His false accusations will turn back on his head,
and he will lose his place.A bad spirit will come between Zelensky and his people.
When they realise that he has lied to them,
making false promises that he cannot deliver
and used their men as cannon fodder for no benefit,
destroying their country
and wrecking their economy,
while stealing their wealth.
They will hate him, and he will lose his place.The battle has been heavy but he did not acknowledge it
so something bad will close in on them.
Some of the soldiers whom he betrayed
will be so angry
that they return to Kiev to destroy him.Ukraine will be given into the hands of the people who have plundered them.
The oligarchs and ultra-nationalist who rule the country will be exposed
when they openly seize control.
Their true character will be revealed.
God will surrender them in the hands of the nation they hate
His hand will be against them
so they cannot stand against it.
Things will go badly for them
as they come under intense pressure.Western military and political leaders
will be embarrassed when they realise
who they have been supporting
and will turn against them with a vengeance.
They will break faith with each other,
and blame each other for their failures.
I am currently reading through Kings and Chronicles and am constantly amazed at the achievements of some of the Old Testament prophets, given that the Holy Spirit still had not been released to move freely on earth. This morning, I read the account in 2 Chronicles 28 of one called Oded. Most Christians will not have heard of his name, but he was an incredible peacemaker.
As so often happened, the Ahaz king of Judah and his people had forgotten about God and worshipped idols. Ahaz even offered one of his children as a sacrifice in accordance with the way of the surrounding nations.
When the King of Aram attacked Judah, the King of Israel joined in and killed 120,000 Judeans in one day. He also took 200,000 Judeans captive and was marching them back to Samaria to be slaves.
The bible does not explain where he came from, but a prophet of Yahweh came out to the returning army and confronted the King of Israel. He explained that Yahweh had allowed them to defeat the Kingdom of Judah, but now they were going over the top and going beyond what Yahweh would allow. Oded said,
With you yourselves there are only liabilities in relation to Yahweh your God, aren’t there? So now listen to me. Give back the captives you've taken from your brothers (2 Chron 28:10-11).Some of the people of Samaria heard the words of the prophet and pushed back against the army, repeating his words.
You will not bring the captives here, because it will be a liability upon us in relation to Yahweh. You’re saying you’ll add to our wrongdoings and to our liabilities, because our liability is great (2 Chron 28:13).The armed men received the word and let their captives go. And abandoned their plunder. Designated people came and served the captives from the spoil. They clothed them, gave them boots, and food and drink. They put those who had collapsed onto donkeys and led them. They returned all the captured people to the plain of Jericho, so they could return to their homes. Then they went home.
This is the only event in Oded’s life that is recorded in the Bible, yet it is an amazing achievement. He was able to receive God’s word and declare it boldly to people who needed to hear it. Speaking to people who have been victorious is always risky, but Oded was able to follow the Spirit’s leading and be in the right place at the right time. And because he obeyed God, his word was effective, and changed history.
These days, in the age of the Spirit, many Christians call themselves prophets, but I can't think of many who could do what Oded managed to do for God. Even though God has poured his Spirit out at Pentecost, I can't think of many American prophets who could confront Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu and say, “You are increasing our liability to God. Stop doing harm and put things right”.
According to the file properties I wroted this in March 2023. I did not share it at the time, because it seemed too soon. I might still be ahead of myself.
The dawn of day is coming
but the night must come first (Isaiah 21:12).
Because the people of God are so unprepared,
the night will be much longer and darker than many expect.It is good for watchers to share about the light of the dawning,
because it gives people hope.
But if they don’t warn about the darkness of the night that comes first,
it will be a false hope.Many prophets know that God needs his church to change
They are talking about a big paradigm shift
in a season of restructuring;
a metamorphosis from one shape to another;
but they don’t seem to know the detail of the change he needs.The church urgently needs more guidance about what he requires.
People are praying for revival,
begging God to move by his Spirit,
but God is not the problem,
because his spirit is always moving.The problem is the church.
It does not seem to be willing to make the changes
that God needs it to make
before it can carry the revival that he wants to send.The church is celebrating
as if the dawn has arrived.
but the current model of doing church is inadequate
because it cannot cope with the darkness of the night;
Reliance on personality pastors (or their sons)
and programs in buildings
will not be viable during the darkness that is coming.
And the current model will not even cut it when the light of dawn comes,
because it cannot carry the Kingdom of God.There is a time to laugh and dance,
but also a time to weep and mourn.
The twilight is a time for weeping, mourning and seeking.
Continuing to celebrate as if victory is being won
is discouraging for an army that is being overwhelmed
by forces that are stronger.God is calling prophets of the night
who can prepare God’s people for the long darkness
that we must pass through to get to the dawn of the new day.Some of the changes he requires will be painful.
If we don’t make them now in the twilight,
we will have to do it during the darkness of the night.
The changes will be the same,
but they will be hugely more traumatic during the darkness.
I think that it is dangerous for Christians to announce that they know what science is saying because they have found a scientist that supports their point of view. Some scientists are popular with Christians because they like what they are saying, but that does not mean that it is true. Cherry-picking a scientist whose message you like and assuming that you have arrived at the truth is a dangerous game. We don’t get to the truth just by listening to voices that we like.
I get nervous about scientists on both sides of the climate change debate who are excessively certain about their claims. I really worry about those who mock other scientists by saying "they don’t get it". I prefer scientists who are a little bit humble.
The climate is far more complicated than most scientists realise. Their models are often too restrictive to represent the climate accurately. If their models were fully reliable, they would be able to predict what the climate will be like a year ahead, but they can’t, so I presume their models are not that accurate. Therefore, we should take the claims on both sides of the debate with a grain of salt.
Christians should be careful about saying to people that climate change is true or not true. The reality is that we don’t know. Rather they should be seeking the wisdom of God about how we should live in this season. If we get his wisdom, we will be prepared for the future, regardless of what happens to the climate.
The climate change advocates have exaggerated the situation over many years (presumably to scare people into action) but that does not mean they are wrong about everything. They could be partly right, so we must not bury our heads in the sand.
One thing is certain. The economic development of the world and our use of fossil fuels to support rampant consumerism over the last 200 years has been a reckless and irresponsible use of the planet God gave to us. So, it would not be surprising if we have done serious harm to the climate.
My position about the climate is that we don’t know. I think it is foolish to say that the climate people are totally wrong. Nor will I panic about the future. But I do think that we must be more serious about living more simply and less materialistically in obedience to God.
More at Climate Change.
If your interpretation of Romans 13:1-5 would require you to submit to a ruler like Hitler, then there is something seriously wrong with it. You need a better interpretation.
An atom consists of a few electrons circulating around nuclei with the opposite charge. Both are so small that they cannot be seen and there is nothing between them, because they are repelled from each other by the opposite charge, it an atom is mostly energy.
When looking at the universe we see the mass of the stars and the planets. Therefore, the equation above is more informative, if the terms are re-arranged to highlight the nature of this mass, ie M=E/C2.
One explanation of the equation says that “Energy can be used to make mass out of nothing... except pure energy”. Of course, humans do not have sufficient energy to make anything significant, but God does.
The Mass of the universe is mostly formed from energy. Reality is nothing held apart to become something (with mass) by a massive amount of energy. This is why the smashing of a single atom of hydrogen releases a massive amount of energy.
So when God created the universe, he just released an enormous amount power in the energy need to form the created world out of nothing. The world is nothing pulled apart to become something huge. Millions of atoms were created by a massive infusion of energy. If in the equation above, M is the mass of the universe, then E must be massive too. God was able to release all that energy without any loss of power to himself.
In the same way, at the end of the age, God could just withdraw the energy/power that keeps the mass of the created world in place. It would instantly collapse back into nothing again. And when God receives the energy back, he will not be any greater, because he was able to give it at creation without being diminished in any way.
Modern scientists see a lumpy universe expanding rapidly and randomly to become the vast array of galaxies that can be seen with powerful telescopes.
I see the creation the other way around. The universe was a small lump of matter that God infused energy and power, causing it to grow rapidly, as he pushed matter apart creating the sun, the moon and the stars by inserting his power in the same way that yeast causes dough to bubble and grow.
The modern view is a massive explosion to become a random universe. The theological view is a massive expansion of matter to become orderly universe.
The modern scientific view begins with a massive concentration of energy, without any idea of where it came from. (Some suggest that this singularity might have come out the back of black hole.) This huge mass of energy explodes and expands out rapidly to form the visible universe. This expansion is randomly uneven, so stars and planets are formed in a random way.
God worked the other way around. He probably began by creating atoms by separating electrons from their nuclei with by inserting his energy. As matter formed he separated out lumps of matter by inserting more of his energy to form gaps between them.
As more and more energy was inserted the stars and planets we observe were formed. This was not a random process. Rather, God inserted his energy in a way that caused the stars planets to form in the way that he had intended. God stretched out the heavens in a controlled process that followed his design.
After discussing our feelings of arbitrariness in modernity -- making something matter in a world where nothing matters -- Dunnington goes on to discuss a second symptom of modernity's malaise: Boredom.
Because modernity lacks a telos, we don't have a Story that gives life purpose, direction and meaning. Any story we do have is the story we pick for ourselves, a story that can be dropped in an instant, making that story seem hollow and arbitrary.You'd think that this would create a feeling of existential crisis for us. But as Dunnington points out, most moderns don't feel existential angst. What we tend to feel is bored.
But why argue that boredom a uniquely modern problem? Dunnington points to two things.
First, due to our material affluence modernity has increased our leisure time. That's no small accomplishment. However, and this is Dunnington's second point, modernity has accomplished this feat by eliminating our Story.
And these two things -- time without a telos -- create an existential vacuum. Space in our lives has been created -- leisure time -- but we lack a Story to fill that space with meaningful activity. Consequently, we fill our leisure time with entertainments and distractions. Again, this is situation perfectly suited to capitalism, large amounts of free time needing to be filled with products and activities for sale.
The trouble, we all know, is that after we cycle through all these entertainments we become increasingly bored. There's a million shows on TV and across our streaming platforms and we can't find anything to watch.
Addiction, according to Dunnington, cracks through the boredom by giving us something compelling to do. Addiction, if it's anything, is a motivated state, something that consumerism struggles to give us consistently.
Further, rather than facing a vast, undifferentiated sea of choices, addiction focuses life upon a single, unifying activity.
In short, addiction alleviates boredom in two different ways: Making something matter when nothing matters and making one thing matter in a sea of choices. When we're bored we have a million things we could do, but nothing we want to do. And if that's the experience of modernity, the experience of addiction is the exact opposite.
Addiction gives you a single, compelling thing to do. Once again, we see addiction filling in a void created by modernity and, thus, implicitly functioning as a form of social critique.
Here's Dunnington making these points:
Addiction provides a response to the underwhelming life of boredom that plagues the bourgeois in its leisure time by making one thing matter. And addiction provides a response to the overwhelming life of boredom that plagues the working class with the fragmented and compartmentalized striving by making one thing matter. For those who are bored with nothing to do, addiction stimulates by entangling and consuming; for those who are bored with too much to do, addiction disburdens by simplifying and clarifying.If modern life is, by turns, underwhelming and overwhelming, addiction shows up as a solution.
Statistics New Zealand has announced that it will not undertake a Census of Population. According its media release,
Wide-ranging improvements to the data system will modernise and future-proof how New Zealand’s economic and population statistics are produced… By tapping into information New Zealanders have already provided, we will deliver more relevant, useful, and timely data to help inform quality planning and decision making.
This decision was a long time coming. The Department of Statistics had been widely criticised for the low response rate to both the 2018 and 2023 censuses.
I have argued for many years that our society has changed, so it is almost impossible to do a census in the way it was done in the past. We need to understand that in our changing society, a traditional census of the population is becoming almost impossible to do. I wrote the first draft of the following article in 2019 to explain the problem.
Social Change
All the organisations that included cold-calling on households as part of their activities have given up and switched to other methods. The reason is that when you call on most dwellings, there is nobody home to respond to the call. In most households, all adults are working, so there is no one home during the day. Visiting at night or the weekend does not produce much better results, because many people work at night or the weekends, too. They are also busy in various social, sporting and cultural activities.
Only a few decades ago, many people made their living doing door-to-door sales, selling brushes, health foods and medicines, insurance and other products. Those activities are no longer profitable, so marketers have switched to party plans and on-line sales as a substitute.
Many charities undertook door-to-door collections on a Saturday morning. For some this was their main source of funding. These collections are no longer viable, because it is hard to get collectors willing to knock on doors and too many people are away from home on Saturday morning.
Church ministers no longer undertake casual pastoral visits in the way they did in the past, because it is too difficult to find people home.
Most churches no longer engage in door-to-door evangelism. Even the Jehovahs Witnesses have moved towards displays on city street corners. (Their stand beside the Bridge of Remembrance rightunder the noses of the census experts working a hundred meters in the office of Statistics NZ is a public demonstration of the social change).
Many dwellings now have locked gates and intercoms, which make it impossible for cold-callers to enter. Many other dwellings have dogs loose in the yard, which prevent people from calling on their house. Organisations cannot demand their employs enter dwelling where the dogs could be dangerous.
More and more people are living in gated communities, which are impossible to enter, if you do not know a resident who will open the gate. The residents will often be upset, if one person lets a census taker onto their site.
People buying houses as an investment sometimes choose to leave them empty, rather than running the risk that tenants might damage the building. Collecting information from these dwellings is impossible, because no one is ever there, but collectors do not know that and waste time going back against and again.
Many people live in more than one dwelling. They go to one dwelling while they are working and go to a different one when they are off work. Some people will live a couple of nights a week with their partner, and live in their own home for the rest of the week. Children often spend every second week with their mother and the alternate weeks with their father. These fluid living arrangements make it increasingly difficult to contact people in the place where they live.
The same applies to the operation of a census of the population. Attempting to contact every person living in a nation has become an impossible activity. A method that relies on calling at a dwelling and giving the forms a resident who will get the other members of the household to complete them and be there when the census taker returns for a second visit to collect the forms is an impossible task, given the way that society is structured.
A couple of decades ago, there was someone at home most of the time, usually the mother of the family. She felt a duty to do the right things and could organise her family to complete the forms. If her husband did not get around to doing it, she would complete the form for him, often without him knowing. More adult children were living at home, so their parents would persuade them to complete the forms, or do them for them. They could persuade any boarders that they should complete the forms. That has changed in modern societies.
Mothers are no longer at home, because most are working. Finding someone at home who will take forms and undertake to return them when they are complete has become much more difficult. I presume that women have always been much more conscientious about these things than men.
One person no longer has the moral authority to tell another member of their household what to do. It is no longer acceptable to complete forms for other people, unless they are children or medically incompetent.
Young adults no longer live at home. They often live together in flats. There is no one with moral authority to badger people into completing a task if they do not get around to it.
Once neighbours could tell a census worker quite a lot about the people living the house next door. Now they often don’t know the people who live there, and they would be unwilling to give a government official information about them if they did.
Many people have holiday homes that they live in during the weekends. This makes them harder to contact.
All over the world, statistical offices are finding it increasingly difficult to run population censuses using door-to-door visits. Many have switched to other methods for collecting information.
Allowing on-line collection is a partial solution to the people. Mobile people who are hard to contact at home, are usually comfortable sharing information on-line. Young people are comfortable sharing information about themselves on Facebook and Instagram. An on-line census is a much better way to collect information from this generation. However, it does not solve the problem, because the people who are not comfortable sharing information on-line will get more and more difficult to contact.
Social change takes place slowly, so the consequences appear slowly. However, they are most serious for activities that need participation by 100 percent of the population. A door-to-door salesperson only needs to find a few people at home for their activities to be economical, but most have still given up. The problems are much greater for census takers, because they need to find 100 percent of people at home, which is much harder to do.
Anti-Government Attitude
In the past, people trusted their governments and did what they told them to do. If they were asked to complete a census form, they felt obligated to do it. That has changed.
The proportion of people who do not trust their government and are hostile to its activities is growing. These people do not trust the government, so they do not want to give it their personal information.
The declining trust in government is reflected in voter participation in government elections. In recent elections, parliamentary elections more than twenty percent of the population do not vote. (Only 6 percent did not vote in 1984). More than half of the population do not vote in local government elections.
The decline in voter turnout reflects a declining obligation to support government activities. If twenty percent of the population did not bother to vote in elections for the government that can control their lives, then it should not be surprising if half of them did not complete a census form that has very little impact on their lives.
Our migrant population has increased rapidly. Many migrants have come from nations that use the information people provide to monitor their behaviour and harass them. When they come to New Zealand, they are often reluctant to give information to the government, because they fear it could place them in danger.
Busy Lives
Modern people live busy lives. Completing a census form might only take half an hour, but many modern people do not have half an hour to spare. So even people who are happy to complete the census, often don’t get around to doing it. We all have things that we intend to do, like phone an acquaintance, read an article, repair a blown light bulb, weed the garden, but we don’t get it done, because we get busy with other things. Things that we want to do get pushed down the list, and eventually forgotten.
A census form often just gets forgotten. People intend to do it, but then something happens to distract them: extra hours are offered at work, a relative dies, rugby training starts, Game of Thrones is on TV, a friend gets cancer, so the census form gets forgotten. No one asks for it, and before long the time for responding is over, without the form being completed.
Very few people get prosecuted for refusing to complete the census. The fine is only a few hundred dollars, so fear of prosecution is not a real incentive.
When people give examples of how a census should be done, they assume the easy examples: a conscientious person with lots of time. Unfortunately, a population census can be wrecked by the small proportion of people whose lives are not ordinary.
Response Rates
Censuses have always been hard to do. The politicians seem to be obsessed with response rates, but they are just one measure of quality, and they are a slippery concept to measure. The response rate is the number of the population responding divided by the total population. The problem is that the denominator in this formula is not known. To estimate the percentage that has responded, you need to know the size of the total population that you are trying measure. That number is not available, because it one of the figures that the census is trying to measure. You only know the number that responded, so a response rate can only be produced by guessing the number that should have responded.
When the census relies on contacts with household, you need to estimate the total number dwellings that are occupied by people, so that you can measure the number of households you should have had a response from. The total number of dwellings is known, but unfortunately, it is hard to count the number of dwellings that are unoccupied, because their status is not obvious, even if you knock on the door. The occupants might be away for the day. So response rates have to be taken with a grain of salt, particularly those from the past, when guestimates of the total population being surveyed were much weaker. And I presume that diligent statisticians have always found clever ways to tweak their estimates to make their response rates look better. That probably explains why a 95 percent response rate was achieved in 2013.
Non-response is unavoidable in every statistical survey, even if it is mandated by the government. The key issue is what is done about the non-response. Statisticians have robust techniques for dealing with non-response, so it is not really a serious problem, provided it is well managed.
Complex Organisation
Most businesses start small and grow gradually. They learn and develop as they expand. A census has to be undertaken within a few weeks. Organising a census means taking on thousands of employees all at once and training them for a task they have not done before. They cannot be employed for too long, because the cost would get too high. No matter how good the screening process, some of the employees selected will be duds. The problem is that by the time that is discovered, the census is finished and the damage is done.
Most businesses develop and adapt as they expand. A census has to be completed in a couple of weeks. This means that there is very little ability to adapt and resolve problems as they emerge. By the time a pattern of problems emerges, it is to late to make a significant change, because by that time the census period is nearly complete.
Getting good people to work on a census is not that easy. Once there was a large pool of family carers at home, who were pleased to have a temporary job that would allow them to earn a few extra dollars while their children were at school. Many of these had done administrative jobs before they had children, so they were well-suited to census work. That situation no longer exists. The pool of carers and retired people who could do the job are already employed.
Census work cannot be done while children are at school, as that is the time when the fewest people are not home.
Most people do not feel comfortable cold-calling on people they do not know.
People do not want to go onto a situation where a dog is loose, but that is part of the job. Several census worker get attacked by dogs each census.
Census workers will get yelled at by people who are angry with the government. That makes the job quite unappealing.
Poor Quality Information
A population census relies on self-complete forms. These have to be designed so they can be understood by everyone. This is very difficult. The form has to be designed for someone with a reading age of about nine. The questions have to be kept simple, so they are easily understood, but this is not always possible because even simple questions can be complicated for some people.
Income is an example. At first thought, it would seem easy to collect. For some it is, but for others, it is not, and a census form has to cope with the tricky cases. Some people know the amount of their take-home pay, but they do not know their gross pay. People on casual jobs, with several employers find it very difficult to say what their income is for a particular period. Self-employed people often do not know their exact income until well after the end of the financial year. The income questions in a population census have to be sufficiently vague to make the information provided fairly useless.
The ethnicity of New Zealanders is increasingly diverse and complicated. This means that collecting information about ethnicity in a self-complete form is very difficult. If people do not understand the concept being asked, there is no one to ask. If too many guide notes are put in the form, it clutters the layout and makes it hard to follow.
There is always pressure from public agencies to add extra questions to a census form. A decision has to be made on how long the form can be without becoming an obstacle to collection. When completing voluntary form people get tired, so if they encounter questions that they find hard to answer, they often give up. The census is a long form, so not surprisingly, many people give up before they get to an end.
Some people are mischievous when they are completing a government form. They put in false information, just to be funny. I understand that in one census, a dozen people reported an occupation of Prime Minister, and several said they were the queen. People put mischievous responses when they are reporting their ethnicity or religion. This natural behaviour cannot be stopped, but it reduces the value of the information collected.
If governments need information about people to support social policy, they would be far better to use voluntary interviewer-administered surveys of representative samples. This is a far cheaper option than trying to take a full census. It is more efficient, because a social survey can provide detailed information that is far more useful. It will also produce more reliable information, because people are less likely to lie to an interviewer.
Governments have Information
The reality is that governments already have most of the information that they attempt to collect in the census. People supply this information in the forms they complete when engaging with the government for various services. Statisticians call this information “administrative data” as it is collected through administrative processes.
The government knows the number of people living in New Zealand. It can derive that from the numbers of births and deaths registered, and from immigration data reporting the numbers of departures and arrivals. Being a couple of islands, makes this much easier than it is for countries on large continents with fairly porous borders. Statistics NZ could continue producing reliable population projections even if there was never another census of the population.
Inland Revenue has accurate information about the incomes of all New Zealanders. They know exactly how much each person earns. Governments would be better to use this information than relying on vague information supplied in a self-completed form. When people apply for National Superannuation and Social Welfare Benefits, they have to supply a huge amount of information about themselves. When families apply for “Working for Families” benefits, they have to supply information about their family and their partners. Governments are collecting data about us all the time, often without us being really aware of it. They should use this information better, rather than relying on expensive and unreliable information from a census.
The government says it needs census information to allocate health funding. Using census data is actually a lazy way to do it. The Ministry of Health collects information about people who visit doctors and more detailed information about people who get hospital treatment. The Ministry of Health already knows where the sick people live, and what is wrong with them. Statistical techniques are available for projecting this information forward, so governments should be using health information to allocate health funding. This would be better than relying on census data that does not record anything about health needs.
Governments also say that they need census data to know where to build schools. That is nonsense. The Ministry of Education has information about every child attending school and preschool or kindergarten in New Zealand. They know about every child born, through the birth registration process. The schools provide a statistical return to the Ministry of Education twice a year. This a better way to obtain information about social problems at the schools. The government should use this information that they already have to allocate education funding, and make sure that it is directed to where it is needed, rather than relying on census information that tells them very little about the education needs of students.
Building consents provide information about districts where new housing is being built. Using the information about the type of dwellings, it is quite easy to estimate the number of children that will be moving into these new residential areas. The government has this information before the houses are built. This should be used when deciding where to build new schools. If they wait for census information to be available, they will build the schools too late to meet the need.
Census information is used to shift the electorate boundaries for the general election. Running a census is a fairly inefficient way to do it, because, by the time the data is collected and the boundary adjustments made, the information used will be well out of date. Through the land information system and valuation process, the government knows where every dwelling in New Zealand. is. Through the building consents process, they know where new dwellings will be built, even before they are built. It is quite easy to estimate the number of people in each dwelling. The need for changes to the electorate boundaries mostly come from new housing development. Using the information about dwellings that they already have, governments could establish electorate boundaries that are fit for purpose.
Conclusion
Operating a population census in a modern society is becoming an increasingly impossible task. That does not matter, because governments have far better ways of obtaining information.
A reader asked told me about their experience in a Christian organisation that had gone off the tracks. He asked the following question.
How should a ministry deceiving the public, the community and its members be treated when one is discovered?This is a good question, but a difficult one.
I think that the response will depend on the situation of the person who has become aware of the person in the troubled organisation.
Leadership
If the person is in leadership, they should have the right to speak to the other leaders of the organisation. If the person is trusted by the other leaders, their warning might be heard. However, if the problem begins with the main leader, the other leaders are more likely to line up behind him, and the person challenging will be perceived as a troublemaker. Their message might be rejected.
Resigned Leader
If the leader has resigned from their role due to their concerns about the organisation, they will have less credibility with the other leaders. Any criticism of the organisation that they articulate will be seen as “sour grapes.” The remaining leaders of the organisation will attempt to dampen their influence. They might be able to give a warning to the people in the organisation with whom they have strong relationships, but outside that group, they will have very little interest.
Members of the Organisation
A member of a Christian organisation should be able to raise the concerns with its leadership. But there is a big risk that they will not be listened to. The recent history of Christian organisations indicates that whistle-blowers will frequently be ignored and, worse, will be treated badly.
If the leadership bring their power against the person who gives a warning, it can be very unpleasant for them. Many followers of Jesus have suffered terribly when they attempted to challenge the leaders of their organisation. I cannot think of a situation where warnings have been heard, and the organisation changed when the leaders understood the problem.
A member of an organisation can speak to other people in the organisation that they know and warn them of the problem, but they will be seen by the leadership as troublemakers. The leaders will speak against them and portray them as disloyal. The people who they speak to will have to choose who they trust. Many will side with the leadership, against the member expressing concerns.
Members who have left the Organisation
People who have left the organisation will have greater freedom to speak, but they will have less credibility, except with people who know them and trust them. That is likely to be a small group. So, even if they speak out boldly, their influence will be limited.
The leadership will portray the person speaking as betraying the organisation and trying to undermine it. They will describe the person as bitter. They will say that they are deceived because they were challenged by the leadership and are speaking out of their hurt.
They will be attacked by the leadership in an attempt to discredit them before they gain any influence. If the person speaks out publicly, the leaders of the organisation will attack them in order to dull their influence.
Hard to Prove
The person who is concerned about the spiritual state of an organisation will have difficulty proving their case. The experience in many organisations dealing with accusations of sexual and spiritual abuse shows that they will often be ignored, even when there is testimony from several people. Many cases that have been raised have been investigated by lawyers appointed by the leadership team and discounted or ignored.
The people who have raised the claims have often been ostracised by people they have been connected with over many years. These attempts to challenge the leadership of an organisation have mostly failed, even though justice was on their side. Experience in the United States shows that “victim-shaming” is a very effective tool for shutting down people who are criticising an organisation.
If the challenge is about an evil spiritual influence, it will be even harder to prove to a leadership team. The challenger can describe what they have discerned in the Spirit, but the leaders will be able to reject their claim by saying they have discerned something different. The leaders will have people they trust who claim to have the gift of discernment, and will take their word over that of someone that they don’t trust.
The leadership will often denigrate the character of the whistle-blower to undermine their discernment. Leaders tend to take criticism as a sign that they are doing the right thing. Attacks on whistle-blowers by leaders and their supporters have frequently been vicious.
Prophets
In some regions, people who are recognised as “a prophet” by several churches might have emerged. Agabus is an example (Acts 11:27-30; 21:10-14). A prophet to the churches in a region like Agabus might have sufficient respect to successfully challenge a church or organisation that is going astray.
The problem in the modern world is that very few prophets of this type exist. Prophets get ahead these days by being attached to a megachurch, or by joining a group of prophets. Most churches are led by pastors, and the prophet is expected to submit to the pastor, which tends to undermine their independence and leave them too compromised to freely challenge error.
Conclusion
In most situations, there will be nobody who can challenge an organisation that has lost its way. God will have to deal with the problem. This is a pessimistic conclusion, but it is confirmed by the experience of those who have tried.
Building Right
In my books, I explain how the prophetic ministry should be pushed down to the eldership level. Every church should have several elders, and though most will be pastoral, at least one should be an evangelist, and one should be a prophet. Having a prophetic ministry built into its DNA should help a church or organisation stay on track.
The prophet will have a strong relationship with the other elders. If one of them seems to be taking the church in the wrong direction, the prophet will be able to challenge them. Having a balanced leadership is the best safeguard against an organisation losing its way.
The problem for IHOP KC was that the “Kansas City” prophets were unaccountable itinerants. They had joined together to support each other, but in practice, they were probably condoning and covering up each other’s sins. They were not in a place where they could challenge the direction that the organisation was moving.
Mike Bickle
I witnessed with Mike Bickle’s well-known prophecy that God was going to change the church dramatically in one generation. However, I was puzzled by his response to it. I expected that he would press in to find out how God wanted to change the church, so he could articulate it for believers to grab hold of. However, he never seemed to do that. Instead, he started an intercession organisation that was structured in the same way as the church that God had said he wanted to change dramatically. It seemed like he was locked in the past, not pressing into the future.
I have always been a bit sceptical about intercessory ministries. I believe that the New Testament teaches that every follower of Jesus needs to be an intercessor. This makes our intercession more effective, because we will be praying in areas where we have influence and authority.
In my view, most organised intercession is ineffective because intercessor organisations are praying for areas in which they do not have authority, so there they cannot release God to act. In many cases, a claim to be an intercessor is just an excuse for doing nothing. It is an excuse for never sharing the gospel or discipling new believers. Consequently, intercessory organisations are often an obstacle to change because they validate inactivity. Therefore, I am not surprised that IHOP lost its way.
