The Harbringer by Jonathan Cahn

When I was at the public library the other day, I picked up four pens, one eraser, and a free book as prizes from their adult reading program. Passing over suspense and romance, I picked up The Harbringer by Jonathan Cohn. Even though Christian prophecy/political novels aren't my thing, at least it's a clean read.

The structure is awkward and doesn't flow well,. The story begins with a man walking into a reporter's office with a printed manuscript of his encounters with a strange man. For the rest of the book, we receive occasional interjections by the reporter. The distance this creates detracts from the story line. Further more, the plot is unnecessarily tedious.

It begins with the main character receiving a Middle-Eastern seal in the mail. Through chance encounters with a self-deemed prophets, he learns the connection between the fall of Israel and the collapse of modern America. By the very nature of the topic, this makes the book rather pedantic. The character receives a seal, puzzles out the meaning, meets the prophet, hears the actual meaning, and receives another seal. While it could be inferred that the prophet did this so the narrator would investigate for himself, it stilts the story flow. If the author truly believed these principals, he should have written nonfiction, instead of creating characters who are merely mouthpieces for doctrine.

The doctrine is also peculiar. It is a specific use of convenient theology--the belief that America occupies the same place in the modern era as Israel did in ancient days. While some of the connections were fascinating, the author confuses similarity with correspondence. While I agree that 9-11 and the 2008 financial crisis were consequent of sinful behavior, I hesitate to label them judgments.

The author does include his sources, for those who wish to investigate further.