{"id":59864,"date":"2016-01-26T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=59864"},"modified":"2016-03-10T00:01:34","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T07:01:34","slug":"charlie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2016\/01\/26\/charlie\/","title":{"rendered":"What about Charlie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Johnston\"There’s a good chance that by now, if you\u00a0read a lot of Catholic blogs, you’ve heard of Charlie Johnston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Charlie is a Catholic layman who lives in Denver, Colorado. A\u00a0convert from Protestantism, he claims to have received visitations from\u00a0Jesus, Saints and angels for most of his life.<\/p>\n

I’d like to take today’s post to give a little introduction to what Charlie has been teaching\u00a0and share a few thoughts as to\u00a0how one might respond to this sort of thing.<\/p>\n

The Message<\/h3>\n

So what has Charlie been saying? His central message is\u00a0that there is “a Great Storm”<\/span><\/em> coming, a series of catastrophic events for the entire world. He\u00a0speaks of wars, governments falling, economic collapse and millions dying. North Korea, China and the Islamic religion have all made appearances in his messages at some point.<\/p>\n

In addition to his warning of coming troubles, Charlie spends\u00a0a lot of time talking about how Christians are to behave during this coming tumult:\u00a0“Acknowledge God; take the next right step; and be a sign of hope to those around you, knowing that God is always close at hand”<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Charlie says that, during the the troubles, people will think it’s the end of the world but that\u00a0will not be the case. He speaks of of\u00a0an eventual rescue through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which ultimately renders his message as one of hope.\u00a0After this divine rescue, Charlie says\u00a0that there will be a long period of peace, prosperity and Christian unity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Is it legit?<\/h3>\n

I’ve heard a few of Charlie’s talks and read some of his blog and\u00a0I haven’t yet encountered anything which sounds obviously unorthodox, at least to my ears.<\/p>\n

Some well-known Catholics, such as Patrick Madrid<\/a>, while not endorsing Charlie, have interviewed him and heard\u00a0what he has to say. Charlie’s\u00a0Bishop does not appear to have done anything to promote his message, but equally doesn’t appear to have done anything to discourage it either. Charlie himself seems to be a faithful son of the Church, being under\u00a0spiritual direction from three priests. I also haven’t seen any evidence of him trying to cash in at all on his message. All this gives\u00a0evidence to\u00a0his sincerity.<\/p>\n

As a result, I would say that if\u00a0you find Charlie’s\u00a0message helpful, great, but if not then you’re free to ignore it.\u00a0Charlie’s messages would fall under the classification of “private revelation” and, as such, is not binding on Catholics. Each Catholic is free to either embrace or reject it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are actually quite a few concrete predictions which Charlie has made which have dates attached to them. For example, he has claimed that President\u00a0Obama will not complete\u00a0his second term. Time will tell…<\/p>\n

Lessons from Thessalonika and the Watchtower<\/h3>\n

I have often been impressed with the recognition by “adventist” groups that this world is temporary. It is not our home and some day Jesus will come back. Such groups include the Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists. I think that this emphasis is often lacking in Catholicism today and, as such, I appreciate the\u00a0similar\u00a0motifs which I find in Charlie’s message.<\/p>\n

I’ll come back to the adventist\u00a0groups in a moment, but I’d first like to talk about Matins last month. During that time, we were working our way through\u00a0the epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. I think that these two books of the New Testament\u00a0have much guidance for us concerning people like Charlie.<\/p>\n

For a start,\u00a0I know many will disregard Charlie’s messages out-of-hand, but in his first epistle, St. Paul\u00a0instructs us “Do not quench the Spirit,\u00a0<\/span>do not despise prophesying,\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span>but test everything; hold fast to what is good”<\/em> (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21)<\/span>. Charlie’s message\u00a0should be examined carefully, prayerfully and with guidance from the Church.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Paul dedicates most of his\u00a0Thessalonian letters to correcting the community’s distorted understanding of Jesus’\u00a0Second Coming. Some Thessalonians\u00a0had quit their jobs. After all, if Jesus was\u00a0coming back, what’s the point in working? Paul has to correct them on this point.<\/p>\n

I’d now like to return to the subject of adventist groups. While I appreciate their zeal, there has\u00a0been a lot of\u00a0carnage left in their wake which might have been avoided with a closer study of Thessalonians. The damage\u00a0came about through these groups making predictions which inconveniently failed to come true. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the Millerites (from which the Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists descend), predicted the end of the world. Failing to heed Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians, many\u00a0Millerites\u00a0sold all they had and simply waited for the end of the world. In similar fashion, when the Jehovah Witnesses were predicting the end of the world in the 1970s, many young members were discouraged from going to university and developing careers and were instead encouraged to go on mission. When the predictions failed many\u00a0walked away from Christ altogether.<\/p>\n

The reason I brought up groups such as the Jehovah Witnesses is that I’m concerned about the fallout if Charlie’s predictions prove false. You may recall a few years ago there was a man called\u00a0Harold Camping<\/a>\u00a0who was drawing a lot of attention. Harold was claiming that the world was going to end in 2011 (which it didn’t). How would his followers respond when his predictions fell flat?<\/p>\n

There is the danger that a group’s or individual’s predictions become so closely associated with Christianity that when those predictions fail, it is\u00a0not simply be seen as a defect in the one making\u00a0the prediction, but the fault of\u00a0Christianity itself<\/strong>. Therefore, I would encourage anyone embracing Charlie’s message to maintain this distinction.<\/p>\n

I also recount\u00a0these stories because, although Charlie isn’t predicting the end of the world, I’m a little concerned that\u00a0some may react to his message in a similar way, putting their lives on hold, casting aside opportunities and being paralyzed by fear\u00a0<\/strong>(although Charlie’s message doesn’t seem to endorse this). What might be a better response?\u00a0I would suggest that one could not do better than to be inspired by the words of the Lord in the Gospel where He urges us again and again simply to be vigilant and ready<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 03\/09\/2016:<\/strong><\/span> The Denver Diocese has released a statement<\/a>\u00a0concerning Charlie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a good chance that by now, if you\u00a0read a lot of Catholic blogs, you’ve heard of Charlie Johnston. Charlie is a Catholic layman who lives in Denver, Colorado. A\u00a0convert from Protestantism, he claims to have received visitations from\u00a0Jesus, Saints and angels for most of his life. I’d like to take today’s post to give a little introduction to what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3482,2969,1589,2909,3507,1843,1038,1899,3506,3483],"class_list":["post-59864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-charlie-johnston","tag-featured","tag-jehovah-witnesses","tag-jw","tag-predictions","tag-private-revelation","tag-prophecy","tag-public-revelation","tag-seventh-day-adventists","tag-the-end-of-the-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Charlie.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59864"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61238,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59864\/revisions\/61238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}