Preachers and History I

Over the years I have heard many preachers appeal to history, both church and world history. As a history buff who really should have trained as a historian, I am not impressed. All too often their appeals are to justify a denominational prejudice or theological bandwagon.

For example, the Seventh Day Adventists have made up their mind that the Pope is the Antichrist. But as of course there has been more than one pope over the centuries they have to cut their cloth to fit their presumption. Thus to them the Beast is a system and an office, not a man.  How do they make this work? As always a good knowledge of scripture is required, but one that is resourceful, economical with truth and with no regard for historical fact or biblical context. 1260 days in prophecy is literally 1260 days but to cover a hatred such as theirs a period that  spans a millennium or more is requisite. So 1260 days becomes 1260 years and the fatal wound of prophecy becomes not a man literally rising from the dead but an institution losing temporal power . So they decide that the capture of the pope in 1798 by French Revolutionary forces will do. Then they work back 1260 years arriving at 538. The pope at the time was Vigilius. They claim that he received his power from the Emperor Justinian (though some preachers are so grossly incompetent as to not be able to get that one right) so Justinian was the dragon mentioned in scripture. But Vigilius was not favoured by his emperor. He in fact spent time in prison at the ire of Justinian for he would not compromise over a doctrinal issue concerning Monophysitism where the Emperor was desperate to keep the Eastern provinces in his Empire quiet by pleasing them where the were largely Monophysite

However such details matter not to the doctrinaire hater, so they invent an all powerful papacy But such is easily refuted

And this is done by refuting the claim that the popes had absolute power from 538 to 1798. The House of Theophylact.   is one such case. Its most notorious member was Marozia, daughter of Theophylact, Senator of Rome who was at the height of her power in 931. She was mother grandmother and great grandmother of popes, and she and her daughter held the papacy in her gift. The popes were pawns. The rule of these women was called the pornocracy (rule of whores) . But polemical catholic haters have never heard of this. It suits them to have an all powerful papacy as proof it is the Beast of Revelation. But this was not the only instance of papal impotence. When , after Boniface VIII claimed to be King of all the Earth (Unam Sanctam, 1302) the King of France showed his awe struck compliance by deporting the popes to Avignon (now southern France where he could keep an eye on them) for the next 70 years - 1309-78. they were puppets of the French King.

That Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was made to submit to a pope at the village of Canossa in 1077 is taken as proof of papal power. But context determines all. Henry got his revenge some time later when it was politically expedient. Papal victory was not lasting. Neither was papal power.

Facts like these, ignored by polemicists, is why I no longer trust any preacher who claims he is speaking from history. If his lies are egregious and obviously so I write him off as a man of God. If his speech is better than that I will check it. But I have learned that as Christian men are not honest men one should never give unqualified assent to any preacher on this subject (history) ever again, nor, actually, if sola scriptura is true, should we be uncritical about any preacher on any subject at all, for it never ceased to be the case that we should test all things.

There are other issues where preachers show ignorance of history thus ignorance of truth. I may continue this as a short series