Ellen G. White

 Jeremiah Johnson, a 33-year-old self-described prophet, was one of the few evangelical Christians who took Donald J. Trump’s political future seriously back in 2015.

This track record created a loyal audience of hundreds of thousands of people who follow him on social media and hang on his predictions about such topics as the coronavirus pandemic, the makeup of the Supreme Court, and the possibility of spiritual revival in America. And they took comfort ahead of the presidential election last fall when Mr. Johnson shared a prophetic dream of Mr. Trump stumbling while running the Boston Marathon, until two frail older women emerged from the crowd to help him over the finish line.

So when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was certified as the winner of the election, Mr. Johnson had to admit he had let his followers down.

“I was wrong, I am deeply sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness,” he wrote in a detailed letter he posted online. “I would like to repent for inaccurately prophesying that Donald Trump would win a second term as the President of the United States.”

The desire to divine the future is a venerable one, fueling faith in figures from ancient Greek oracles to modern astrologists. Christianity in particular is a religion whose foundational text is filled with prophecies proven true by the end of the book. Whether the gift of prophecy continues into the present day has long been the subject of intense theological debate. But in recent years, self-described prophets have proliferated across the country, accelerating in stature over the course of the Trump era. They are stars within what is now one of the fastest-growing corners of Christianity: a loose but fervent movement led by hundreds of people who believe they can channel supernatural powers — and have special spiritual insights into world events.

Many are independent evangelists who do not lead churches or other institutions. They operate primarily online and through appearances at conferences or as guest speakers in churches, making money through book sales, donations and speaking fees. And they are part of the rising appeal of conspiracy theories in Christian settings, echoed by the popularity of QAnon among many evangelicals and a resistance to mainstream sources of information.

The prophetic imagination roams far beyond national politics. It follows the Super Bowl and the weather; it analyzes events in pop culture, like Kanye West’s recent turn toward evangelism, and global events, including a particular fascination with Israel. Many prophets caution followers against trusting what they read in the news, but in its place they offer a kind of alternative news cycle, refracting and interpreting events in the real world through a supernatural lens.

“In my lifetime — 49 years as a follower of Jesus — I’ve never seen this level of interest in prophecy,” said Michael Brown, an evangelical radio host and commentator, who believes in prophecy but has called for greater accountability when prophecies prove false. “And it’s unfortunate, because it’s an embarrassment to the movement.”

The past year has been riddled with prophecies that did not pan out. As the coronavirus swept the United States in the spring, several prophets issued public assurances that it would decline by Passover; Cindy Jacobs, one of the most influential American prophets, led a global day of prayer to “contain” the virus in March. And by the fall, so many prominent prophets had incorrectly predicted the re-election of Mr. Trump that the apologies and recriminations now constitute a crisis within the movement.

The backlash to Mr. Johnson’s apology was immediate. On Facebook, he reported that he received “multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry.” He also said he had lost funding from donors who accused him of being “a coward, sellout, and traitor to the Holy Spirit.”

But the popularity of self-appointed prophets shows no signs of waning.

As denominational Christianity declines almost across the board, magnetic independent leaders have stepped into the void. “There’s this idea that you can’t trust anybody except these trusted individuals,” said Brad Christerson, a sociologist at evangelical Biola University. “It’s a symptom of our time. People don’t trust institutions, and people think that all mainstream institutions are corrupt: universities, science, government, the media. They’re searching for real sources of truth.”

The result is that many congregations are awash in misinformation. Almost half of Protestant pastors frequently hear members of their congregations repeating conspiracy theories about current events, according to a survey released last month by Lifeway Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Prophecy is a facet of the fast-growing charismatic Christian movement, which has an estimated half-billion followers worldwide and is characterized in part by the belief that the “gifts of the spirit,” which also include speaking in tongues and supernatural healing, continue into the present day, rather than being an artifact of biblical times.

Mr. Trump supercharged the public profile of this already ascendant stream of Christian culture. His evangelical advisory council included unprecedented numbers of charismatic leaders, including his primary faith adviser, Paula White, a charismatic pastor and televangelist. A few weeks before the 2020 election, he attended services for the third time at a “healing, prophetic” megachurch in Las Vegas, where speakers shared predictions and visions about his second term, to applause from Mr. Trump and the congregation. (The charismatic movement over all is notably multiracial, although the most successful politically oriented prophets of the Trump era were white and appealed to an audience that resembled Mr. Trump’s base.)

Christian prophets are meeting a hunger for reassurance and clarity that can be observed in other corners of American culture. Astrology is exploding in popularity. More than 40 percent of Americans believe in psychics, according to Pew.

Prophecy, similarly, is not only a predictive tool, but an analytical lens for making sense of the past and current events. The most successful prophets can connect seemingly disparate pieces of data in a grand narrative, adding new layers of interpretation as events unfold and inviting others to contribute.

n Crystal River, Fla., Scott Wallis had read Mr. Johnson’s prophecies on Facebook and was encouraged by them. He trusted Mr. Johnson in part, he said, because of two recent prophecies that had proven true, including one about the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series. (Mr. Johnson reported the prophecy two days before the team clinched the championship.)

For Mr. Wallis, a pastor and prophet himself, it made perfect sense that God would be involved in the outcome of the American election, just as he is involved in every human life. “Some people, like deists, believe God created the earth but abandoned the people and left them alone,” Mr. Wallis said. “I don’t believe that.” When a friend prophesied to him in 2014 that he would soon marry, he did not even have a girlfriend, but he was married by the end of the year.

The internet has made it much easier for prophets to disseminate their visions, with many more outlets at their disposal: social media, podcasts, books and a traditional media ecosystem that remains largely under the radar even to many other evangelicals. An appearance on “It’s Supernatural!,” an interview show hosted by the octogenarian televangelist Sid Roth, can be career-making for prophets. So can an endorsement from the venerable Elijah List newsletter, which claims 240,000 subscribers. Charisma magazine and the Christian Broadcasting Network both cover prophetic predictions as news.

Jennifer Eivaz, who calls herself “the Praying Prophet,” realized in college that she could hear God’s voice in a way she could “prove out.” When she and her husband started to lead a church in Central California, she would have dreams and receive specific information about people who attended. She was careful not to scare people, she said, often opting to check in with them rather than launch into specific predictions or insights into their lives.

She also started recording training videos on prayer and prophecy, which caught the eye of Steve Shultz, who had founded The Elijah List and invited her to contribute. As her profile rose, she became an internationally sought-after conference speaker at events with names like the Inner Healing and Deliverance Institute and the Prophetic Wisdom & Prayer conference, where believers pay to gather for music, prophecy and inspiration.

Ms. Eivaz occasionally offers public prophecies about national or international events. In May 2015, she announced that the yearslong drought in California was over and that “the rains are coming back.” The message tied together the biblical prophet Elijah’s experience on Mount Carmel; Ms. Eivaz’s recent trip to Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif.; a vision of a mother bear fighting for her cubs; the California state flag; and Gov. Gavin Newsom. (The drought did not formally end until 2017, although the state experienced unusually high rainfall over the summer of 2015.)

But those kinds of visions come to her only once every year or two, she said. She has watched with alarm as predictive prophecies like these have come to dominate the prophetic movement. “It’s like fact-shopping,” she said, adding that social media rewards “buzz and sensationalism” over wisdom, and pressures independent prophets especially to churn out fresh predictions every few days.

Mike Killion, who was a charter-bus driver in North Carolina until the pandemic dried up his business, pays attention to what he calls “synchronicities,” and others might call coincidences. He believes God is intimately involved in world events, and closely attuned to the prayers of his people.

If Mr. Killion’s phone is on the table and he mentions wanting to go on a cruise, for example, the phone “hears” him and starts offering advertisements for cruises, he said. “God works the same way,” he explained. “He’s listening to everything you say.”

Prophets are not always right about every prediction, Mr. Killion said, and they are certainly not always right immediately. “There’s this idea that prophets have to be right all the time, and have to be right next week,” said Mr. Killion, “when there are prophets in the Bible who had prophecies who weren’t fulfilled in their lifetimes.”

Mr. Killion scoffed at Mr. Johnson for walking back his prophecy about Mr. Trump’s 2020 victory. “Jeremiah Johnson should have kept his mouth shut,” he said a few days before Mr. Biden’s inauguration. “It still may happen.”

Mr. Johnson, for his part, appears to remain chastened. This week, he began a new YouTube series titled “I Was Wrong,” in which he plans to survey what the prophetic movement is, and where, in his view, it has gone awry.

In the first installment, he reviewed some of his past prophecies about politics and national events, and picked apart how he had erred in 2020. “Not everything that God speaks to us privately should have been public knowledge,” he said somberly. “I got caught up in the moment.” He spoke about his hope for “reformation,” and his concerns about God’s judgment to come. And in future episodes of the series, he promised, he will share what God is showing him about what comes next.

By Ruth Graham

They are stars within one of the fastest-growing corners of American Christianity. Now, their movement is in crisis.

Christian Prophets Are on the Rise. What Happens When They’re Wrong?

The Shroud of Turin, the linen some Christians believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, is to go on display in a rare exposition that is expected to attract millions of visitors. Pavithra George reports.

Millions expected to view Turin Shroud in rare display

... In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that wich the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper, expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision-the precious rays of light shining from the throne.

The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short. Thus it has always been presented to me. It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message. Our Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped. But has the word of the Lord failed? Never! it should be remembered that the promises and thretenings of God are alike conditional.

Are you in Christ? Not if you do not acknowledge yourselves erring, helpless, condemned sinners. Not if you are exalting and glorifying self, If there is any good in you, it is wholly attributable to the mercy of a compassionate Saviour. Your birth, your reputation, your wealth, your talents, your virtues, your piety, your philanthropy, or anything else in you or connected with you, will not form a bond of union between your soul and Christ. Your connection with the church...will be of no avail unless you believe in Christ. It is not enough to believe about Him; you must believe in Him. You must rely wholly upon His saving grace.

Christ gave to humanity an existence out of Himself. To bring humanity into Christ, to bring the fallen race into oneness with divinity, is the work of redemption. Christ took human nature that men might be one with Him as He is one with the Father, that God may love man as He loves His only-begotten Son, that men may be partakers of the divine nature and be complete in Him.

But so long as Jesus remains man's intercessor in the sanctuary above, the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is felt by rulers and people. It still controls to some extent the laws of the land. Were it not for these laws, the condition of the world would be much worse than it now is. While many of our rulers are active agents of Satan, God also has His agents among the leading men of the nation. The enemy moves upon his servants to propose measures that would greatly impede the work of God; but statesmen who fear the Lord are influenced by holy angels to oppose such propositions with unanswerable arguments.

The Saviour presents the virtue of His mediation before the Father, and pledges Himself to the office of personal Intercessor. by proclaiming Himself as our Intercessor, He desires us to know that He places in the golden censer His merits and efficiency, that He may offer them the sincere prayers of His people. How essential, then, that we pray much; for as our prayer ascend to the throne of God, they are mingled with the fragrance of Christ's righteousness. Our voice is not the only voice heard. Before it reaches the ear of God, it blends with the voice of Christ, whom the Father always hears.

Wrath of God: Christ was to take the wrath of God which in justice should fall upon man. He became a refuge for man, and although man indeed a criminal, deserving the wrath of God, yet he could by faith in Christ run into the refuge provided and be safe. In the midst of there was life if man chose to accept it.

Reconciliation: Reconciliation means that every barrier between the soul and God is removed, and that the sinner realizes what the pardoning love of God means. By reason of sacrifice made by Christ for fallen men, God can justly pardon the transgressor who accepts the merits of Christ. Christ was the channel through which the mercy, love and righteousness might flow from the heart of God to the heart of the sinner.

Pryer at Baptism: He received baptism at the hands of John, and in comming up out of the water he bowed upon Jordan's banks, and offered up a prayer to Heaven.... Jesus was accepeted of Heaven as a representative of human race. With all our sin and weakness, we are not cast aside as worthless; we are acceptedin the Beloved; for heaven has been opened to our petitions through the Son of God. The gates are ajar, and the light of heaven will shine upon all those whom Jesus came to save, if they will but come wihin the circle of the beams of the Son of Righteouness; for ample provision has been made for the salvation of every soul.

Purpose of the Incarnation: Christ in counsel with His Father laid out the plan for His life on earth... He clothed His divinity with the garb of humanity, thatHe might stand at the head ofthe human family, His humanity mingled with the humanity of the race fallen because of Adam's disobedience.

Blood and life are associated as lexical pairs and thus understood as parallel in meaning in... Hebrew. Because of this close association blood is considered the source of life, and because blood represents life (Gen 9:4, Deut 12:23),it may expiate for life. Because the life of a creature is in the blood, blood makes atonement for one's life. One life is sacrificed for another. The shedding of the innocent victim was given for the life of the one who has sinned.

Since Satan is the originator of the sin, the direct instigator of all sins that caused the death of the Son of God, justice demands that Satan shall suffer the final punishment. Christ's work for the redemption of men and the purification of the universe from sin will be closed by the removal of sin from the heavenly santuary and the placing of these sins upon Satan, who will bear the final penalty. So in the typical service, the yearly round of ministration closed with the purification of the sancutuary and the confessing of the sins on the head of the scapegoat.