Review of Grace Halsell’s “Forcing God’s Hand”

Grace Halsell was a journalist who also spent time as a LBJ speechwriter. Her worldview was decidedly classically liberal. She rubbed shoulders with the movers and shakers of the world. In her book she laments losing the friendship of Iphigene Bertha Ochs Sulzberger, wife of the publisher of the New York Times. Halsell complains about Iphigene’s praising of Grace when Grace was championing the cause of the putative underdogs in the US during the civil rights era and yet when Grace started to champion the cause of the Palestinians, by reporting the terror of the Jews, Iphigene Sulzberger (a Jewess herself) decidedly and hypocritically pulled the plug on their friendship. This loss of friendship was because of the subject matter in Halsell’s book, “Forcing God’s Hand.”

The reason for the title of the book is Halsell’s discovery, upon investigating Dispensationalism, that the Dispies believed that by their actions and work they could force God’s hand on the matter of the return of Christ. Through various interviews, as pursued while she was on trips to Israel as led by Dispie tour guides, she learned that the true Dispie believers genuinely believed that if they pursued certain avenues, like returning Jews to Israel, and like supporting and funding the re-building of the Jewish third Temple, the Dispies could shoe horn God into sending forth the Messiah.

In this book, Halsell exposes the looney tune nature of Dispensationalism by letting the Dispensationalists tell her about their beliefs in their own words. Halsell then probes gently with questions about their answers to, once again, reveal these people majored in brain disease while attending Dallas Theological Seminary or by reading Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Lewis Sperry Chafer, C. I. Scofield, etc.

Believing Dispensationalism is more difficult than believing Soviet narratives about WW II.

Halsell is clearly a liberal herself and would hate the Reformed faith but for different reasons. She clearly expresses that she cannot believe in a God of wrath. She is at her worst when she travels down these paths in her writing. She’s at her best when she just allows the Dispies to say stupid things. For example,

“Standing, overlooking the Meggido valley, Clyde, a traveling companion, explained to me that this was the site where Christ would lead the forces of good against evil. ‘Two-thirds of all the Jews will be killed,’ Clyde said, citing Zechariah 13:8-9. Pausing for some math, he comes up with nine million dead Jews. ‘For two hundred miles, the bl00d will reach the horses bridles.’

When I express concern over this scenario, Clyde, explains, ‘God is doing it mainly for his ancient people, the Bagels. He’s devised a seven-year tribulation period mainly to purge the Bagels, to get them to see the light and recognize Christ as their savior.’

But why, I ask, would God have chosen a people — ‘God’s favorite’ as Clyde says – only to exterminate most of them?

‘As I said, God must purge them,’ Clyde says. ‘He wants them to bow down before His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.’

But, a few will be left? To bury their dead?

‘Yes,’ Clyde tells me. ‘There’ll be 144,00K who are spared. They will convert to Christ.’

Grace Halsell

Forcing God’s Hand – p. 81

Over and over again in this volume, Halsell lets the Dispies hang themselves by their own words. The odd thing for the reader of Halsell’s volume is the amazement found in the inability of the Dispie’s to hear what they are saying. The lack of self-awareness is dumbfounding.

Halsell, admits in her book that upon writing this book she was a different person than the person who worked for LBJ. She even faults LBJ, in the book, for lying to the American people about Israel’s attempt to sink the USS Liberty. Halsell, is an example of a liberal who was mugged by reality and whose worldview was severely altered by being mugged. As mentioned above she loses the friendship of many of her former friends because of her Worldview change. This worldview change is noted in the pages of her work,

“By living among Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian Christians and Muslims, I saw, heard, smelled, experienced the police state tactics Israelis use again Palestinians.”

Grace Halsell
Forcing God’s Hand – p. 117

“What is the message of the Christian Zionists? Simply stated it is this: ‘Every act taken by Israel is orchestrated by God and should be condoned, supported, and praised by the rest of us.’

‘Never mind what Israel does’ says the Christian Zionists. ‘God wants this to happen.’ This includes this includes the invasion of Lebanon, which killed or injured an estimated 100K Lebanese and Palestinians, most of them civilians; the bombing of sovereign nations such as Iraq; the deliberate methodical brutalizing of the Palestinians — breaking bones, shooting children, and demolishing homes; the expulsion of Palestinian Christians and Muslims from a land they have occupied for 2K years.

Grace Halsell
Forcing God’s Hand
Published 1999

“Indeed, I hold that Christian Zionism threatens not just the lives of Palestinians and other Arabs, but the very existence of the US. Because of the cult of Israel, we have become a nation that does not have its own Middle East policy, but the policy the government of Israel tells us to have.”

Grace Halsell
Forcing God’s Hand – p. 126
Published 1999

For readers who have a pulse, it is easy to see the application between what Halsell was seeing and writing about almost 30 years ago and what we are seeing today as the Jews commandeer our foreign policy in the current war we are engaged in as a client state of Israel.

I highly recommend reading Halsell. I also would advise another volume that covers some of the same ground, “Against our Better Judgment,” by Alison Weir. I found myself being a sympathetic reader and I found myself saddened that Grace never stumbled across Biblical Christians. It is clear she was a stranger to Biblical Christianity though in the book she reports a conversion experience when she was a child.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane

Author: jetbrane

Leave a Reply Cancel reply