The Avatar

ISBN: 978-1636415208

As a reader of thebooklight will know, Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic congregation leader, has written many books. Several of his works have been reviewed by the same. His latest work is called The Avatar and seeks to explain how the patterns which he has noted in some of his previous work have expanded. Specifically, he endeavors to explain how the lives of many pagan gods have patterns which have been appearing on the stage throughout his life. For this, he offers some testimony about his experiences in India, Cuba, and Africa that he has not previously disclosed in his former works. The narrative is shaped, then, by what “the gods” have been doing on the national stage for the past sixty or so years and Cahn has specific testimony in his experiences to add the flavoring of what this means practically speaking.

The parts concerning Cahn’s testimony and experiences in India and Cuba and Africa are fascinating. A short synopsis of this content would be “Things got wild”, in the sense that literal demons are involved doing demonic activities that Cahn and his entourage must battle.

Then, by about mid-book, we switch into an analysis mode of who the “gods” are, and who they correlate to. This is after we discover who they are typifying in the Bible, which, it turns out, is one mask they are wearing. Some of these people, like Trump, are not featured with a pagan mask–probably because Trump appears to be motivated by the Bible in his actions although not necessarily perfectly. It turns out there is a Biblical example for another person who did this very thing, and Cahn does an excellent job of noting the parallels.

Where Cahn loses the script, perhaps, is that he goes on about the pagan gods for most of the middle of the book. This, plus the fact that he relies on time measurement that is Babylonian and Roman to correlate certain events happening make it seem more like he is in alignment with the Roman Emperor than with God. It’s not, of course, that the Torah readings across the world cannot be used to understand something of events unfolding, but one could ask the question why those specific verses are read. Who decided it? Same thing with the calendar for events. We know Rome decided that the Roman calendar had to be instituted.

In fairness, most of Cahn’s readership is probably Roman Christians who identify as Messianic. There is a good chance he knows this and so has to use this kind of writing style to move books since his readership likely will not respond to much else. Fine. A writer has to write in a way that sells books if he wants to have his message spread. What is confusing, though, is why Cahn feels the need to spend so much time on the pagan god templates? His readers probably are not familiar with these entities, so by saying their name so frequently, is he not causing his readers to think about the very gods he is warring against? It seems like this work loses focus in this regard. Yes, there are pagan gods. Yes, on the national stage they have been named. Yes, their worship does thus and so, but who cares what they are doing in certain specific ways? Their end is always the same. Sooner or later, the idols are destroyed. Cahn makes this point, but it is not as solid of a thesis as one might hope for from the work. The ending quickly touches on it, and tells us we should pray and America is at a spiritual crossroads. Fine. Which name does America need to hear more of, then? YHVH? The Hindu pantheon of gods? It is an odd move. Perhaps Cahn felt like he had to prove his case, and so felt compelled to show his work. Maybe he has another book in mind.

Whatever the case, Cahn suggests America is in some twilight between these ancient gods and the Bible and that it hangs in the balance. One could make the same critique of this book. The scholarship is excellent. The connections are solid. The testimony is phenomenal and one yearns to hear more of what God did in Cahn’s ministerial adventures. One, however, gets to hear instead about much evil for entities one ought not be serving as a Messianic while using a calendar that was instituted, in no small way, to punish early Christians. This makes this a peculiar work, although given the body of Cahn’s other books, one can forbear final judgment on this piece until more time has elapsed. Cahn introduced us to the pagan gods. What is he going to do about that, now? Tell us to pray? Okay. Were not people doing that before this book emerged?

Cahn shows us the battlefield and the war, but leaves us with little idea concerning actionable steps to take. At the very least, he could have said 1. Get a prayer shawl. 2. Get a shofar. 3. Get out of Egypt. Discussing these steps would have been a good follow up. Again, perhaps a future book has this in mind, but the war is now, not later. Steps taken to fight after main battles are over are of no use. If the purpose is color commentary and a rallying to pray, okay. Make the book shorter and say that in the first twenty pages, and move on. That is, after all, a part of how these “gods” are defeated.