The News Beats

Although not a surprise to most people, both in and out of the faith, Televangelist Benny Hinn has admitted to being unable to heal, according to the Los Angeles Times.  What makes this a real bomb shell is the ailment that exposed Hinn’s weakness.  It wasn’t a brain tumor, pancreatic cancer, or paraplegia that finally found Hinn out; it was his marriage.

After 30 years of marriage, Hinn’s wife filed for divorce on February 1 on account of differences that Hinn could not reconcile.  According to a prepared statement from his ministry, Hinn couldn’t even see it coming.  “Pastor Benny Hinn… was shocked and saddened to learn of this news without any previous notice.”¹  That is pretty poor foresight for a man who supposedly can close his eyes and see disease in someone else’s body, but the unwitting admission is far worse.

“Although Pastor Hinn has faithfully endeavored to bring healing to their relationship,” the statement continued, “those efforts failed….”² While it is very sad for a marriage of so many years to end in divorce, the damage Hinn has done to the simple in the faith over several decades is far more tragic.  Perhaps now, fewer will be victimized by this false prophet.

Notes:

^{1 - 2.} Gillian Flaccus, “Wife of prosperity gospel televangelist Benny Hinn files for divorce in California,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2010.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-televangelist-divorce,0,2770235.story

Brian McLaren is an infamous leader in the Emergent Church movement, which is a recent and more obnoxious outcrop of church Liberalism which spawned the Evangelical Left.  Among their many heretical takes on what the Bible teaches, they also profess that Israel is to be scorned.  McLaren is joining the cacophony of anti-Israeli voices now that he is visiting the Palestinians and has undergone an awakening from the “well-planned propaganda” he was the victim of all his life in the states.¹  This certainly brings the question of McLaren’s credibility, and even basic abilities, front and center.

Firstly, exactly how sophisticated was the campaign that kept McLaren wrongly supporting Israel, if he ever really did so, for his whole life until now (his born in 1956)?  He could not have been misled by the U.S. media all these years.  They consistently portray Israel as an evil aggressor any time they take a defensive action.   McLaren certainly was not misled by others of his liberal church collogues such as the Presbyterian Church USA.  The PCUSA claimed that Israel was erecting an obstacle to peace by building a security wall to keep out homicide bombers, and they called for financial divestment from companies doing business with Israel in order to punish it for pursuing self-preservation.

If McLaren is the self-described dimwit he claims he was for making “basic assumptions” in which he allowed his understanding to be “skewed from a lifetime of half-truths, unfair and imbalanced news…, and misinformation,”² how does he account for his sudden clarity?  If it truly takes a change in geography and first-hand observations to enable McLaren to clearly evaluate events and accounts, is the level of McLaren’s perspicuity actually worth any serious consideration whatsoever?  These are very pressing concerns because of other claims McLaren makes about himself.

McLaren claims to evaluate Christian doctrine and weigh the minds of the Apostles to prescribe new applications of scripture, based on his wisdom and insight, as he applies himself to the documents.  Astoundingly, he now admits to being unable to sort through the products of basic journalism and ferret out facts from fiction.  Obviously, his preexisting premises of being easily fooled and misled invalidate any claim he now makes to sound reasoning.  But he’s not appealing to reason.  McLaren is playing to small-minded anti-Semitism, and working for the spirit of Antichrist.

Notes:

^{1 - 2.} Mark D. Tooley, “The Anit-Israel Revelation,” FrontPage Magazine, January 27, 2010.  http://www.thenewsbeats.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=482

Members Recast: Judas Iscariots and No-Talents

Most Life Groups are not Christian fellowships.  They are groups of people managed for their resources by church leadership teams.  The unsaved are often encouraged to join these groups where salvation is secondary, if it is that high on the list at all.  The membership drives are conducted for any and all so long as they’ll be manageable for resources.  That is the impetus behind community outreach projects, and the reason an emphasis is on the surrounding community instead of focusing on the body of Christ, the Church, as a separate entity.  That sort of divisiveness would preclude growth as defined in corporate business models.

In Life Groups, members are confronted with Christianity-by-the-numbers, or with formulas for Christian living, designed by the leadership.  The leadership’s goals for growth and perpetuity of the organization are more attuned to self-preservation than they are to edification of the saints.  It follows for leaders to assess group members as potential capital. They are to be utilized for their labor, in volunteering; for their facilities, using homes; and for their money, collected in tithes, offerings, and sales for church products and productions.  There are several tactics employed to obtain these resources, and Life Groups provide an opportunity to work over members more personally in an intimate setting until they conform to the vision.

Many churches publish their Life Group resources online making it possible to obtain examples of human capital management in rather sordid detail.  Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, California applies a particularly shameful example of coercion for raising finances from group members in its Life Group curriculum the “ABC’s of Financial Success.” In one lesson from the program Judas Iscariot is psychologically examined in such a way as to make it possible to negatively profile some members of the group.  After guided reading in the gospel of John, chapter twelve, group members are asked to share what they think went though Judas’ mind at the pouring of the ointment from the alabaster box onto Jesus.

We know what Judas said because it is recorded.  Judas protested that the ointment should have been sold, and the money given to the poor (John 12: 5).  The group members are prompted for their answer this way:

Often time [sic] we think of Judas just as an evil traitor but we must remember that he was not always thinking of betraying Jesus.  He left everything he had to follow Jesus and as far as we know he followed faithfully until his betrayal.  Based upon this information…share your answer.¹

The surface lesson might be that the love of money can cause one to miss sight of what is most important, but there is an obvious attempt at subliminal stimulation here that is atrocious.

The ulterior design of this prompting seems to be in persuading individuals to presume themselves candidates as likely as Judas to betray Christ.  The unraveling of their faith made possible by their retaining any reservation in turning over their finances in the percentages prescribed by the church, Satan was sure to enter into them effecting their eternal damnation.  The way in which these scriptures are handled in this exercise reveals both a gross manipulation of people, and the facts.

As far as we know, Judas was not faithfully following Jesus up until the betrayal.  The text tells us very plainly that Judas cared not for the poor, a fact others might have suspected and that John already knew, and an attitude opposite what one would expect from a person who had faith in Christ.  Furthermore, the same text reveals Judas was the one in the group who carried money purse, and it is clearly pointed out that “he was a thief” (John 12:6).  For how long Judas had been stealing we are not told, but he already had been stealing by this point, and had probably been doing so for a long time.   Contrary to what’s being implied, there was no sudden incident of a born-again Christian coveting a fortune affixed at his numerical breaking point and losing his salvation on account of it.

In another exercise, Life Group members are guided in reading the parable of the talents in Matthew, chapter twenty-five.   The facilitator is supplied with leader notes that correctly interpret what the parable represents, and the identities of the persons in the parable; except for one tragic error.  The leader notes bunch all the servants in the parable into one category, and instruct the facilitator to proclaim: “The servants represent us.”² A cursory examination of the details of the parable shows clearly that the one-talent servant was not one of us, that is he could not be considered a true Christian, but was in fact a professor only. In spite of this, group members are asked “Which one of the servants do you most relate to? Why?”³  Here again, the underlying motive for blurring the lines between the saved and the lost can be traced to raising capital.

The parable runs from verse 14 to verse 30, but the guided reading stops at verse 26, and this seems to be purposely guided so as to obscure, for the moment, the unsaved character of that one-talent servant, and his doom. The end of the parable reads:

Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mat 25:28-30)

The fact that the parable is short, and human nature is inquisitive, means that it is a safe bet to assume that many readers will, on their own, find out the fate of the one-talent servant.  By not covering it in the group, leaders can avoid fielding the salvation issue, and can instead let the implication stand that this fate awaits those who refuse to tithe to the church.

The one-talent servant buried his talent in the ground thus showing that he did not have Christ.  Those who have not Christ will lose even the life that they have.  There is no defense for such scandalous mistreatment of persons and misapplication of scriptures.  Nowhere in the leader notes is there any instruction or caution for ensuring the salvation issue in a group member’s life who identifies himself as the one-talent man upon examining this parable.  So it cannot be said that by identifying all the servants as “us” in the parable the church was merely acknowledging the saved and unsaved mixture of their Life Groups; else it is horribly negligent in the care for souls, and in the proclamation of the gospel. The reason for the church identifying all the servants of the parable in the same group is to use fear of cursing to motivate group members to give money.

Notes:

^1. Shepherd of the Hills Church, “Bondage,” ABC’s of Financial Success. (Leader Notes) http://www.4lifegroups.org/leaders/leader-notes/abc-s-of-financial-success-leader-notes/bondage. (accessed January 14, 2020).

^{2 -3.} Shepherd, “Funding,” ABC’s of Financial Success. (Leader Notes) http://www.4lifegroups.org/leaders/leader-notes/abc-s-of-financial-success-leader-notes/funding. (accessed January 14, 2020).

MORE ARTICLES ON LIFE GROUPS

Many civic minded individuals with religious convictions have joined together in the Manhattan Declaration to declare their opposition to abortion and support of marriage, among other socially redeeming values.  Except for other signers, it might be only the commendable exertion of civic duty on the part of the citizenry that could be praised much in the same way as their registering to vote, though garnering more of it from those who agree with their position.  What has turned this otherwise fair lesson in civics, however, into a debacle is the assortment of religious leaders who are now also in league together by their own declaration.

The religious signers of the Manhattan Declaration include many high-ranking officials of the Roman Catholic Church.  Present are the Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese; Most Rev. Robert J. Baker, S.T.D., Bishop of Birmingham Diocese;  Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver; Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn; Most Rev. Timothy Dolan, Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, etc., et al.¹  Had it ended there it would have remained only a Constitutionally protected expression of religious beliefs to be respected.

The trouble with the document is that an assortment of famous, Protestant religious leaders has also signed onto it.  This has caused many to declare openly their disappointment and disapproval, and to question the wisdom of such an act.

How can persons who conduct large ministries which include study in the scriptures be so very ignorant of the implications of their endorsements? When they sign the Manhattan Declaration they affix their seal of recognition that legitimizes the views and positions of other signatories.  This writer has yet to discover that heretofore Kay Arthur, of Precept Ministries International, and Chuck Colson, of Prison Fellowship; have renounced their view of salvation through Christ alone and have joined the Catholic Church to obtain it.

Certainly it is a logical step to take after joining with its representatives in religious pursuit of ideals based on a common understanding of the scriptures.  The Protestants who signed would do well to understand what the Roman Catholic Church understands about itself:

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour [sic], after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd…. This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church.²

This tenent of the Roman Catholic Church, found in the Dogmatic Constitution On The Church, simply means that if one is not in the Catholic Church, one is not in the body of Christ; as the Catholic Church is the only true Christian church.  It follows that the Catholic Church would conclude the obvious about those who left it, or remained outside of it, in regards to salvation.  What the Catholic Church still affirms as its position on salvation, “basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the [Catholic] Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation.”³

In light of these things, should we now expect future study programs from Arthur’s Precept Ministries instructing on how recant Protestantism to join the Catholic Church?  Will Colson’s Prison Fellowship be disturbing Bibles and rosaries to inmates?  While offerings that could be forthcoming from such popular ministries would probably not be so blatant, but of a more subtle nature; such a change in directions could have ill effects on many who subscribe to those ministries.  That makes the nature of these questions, if not their substance, serious; and among others that should be answered by the signatories:

Jack Graham - Will Dr. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, perform the Mass when fellow signatories such as His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida come to call on him?

Josh McDowell - Is author Josh McDowell, founder of the ministry by the same name, soon to release a book titled: New Evidence that Demands a PAPACY“?

Chuck Swindoll - More to the point, and at the foundation, can Chuck Swindoll, pastor and founder of Insight for living, lend any insight as to why he now accepts the organization which claims exclusive sacerdotal powers and that conversely finds his Pastoral Office illegitimate and ungodly?

That last question should also be answered many other signers, including:

Randy Brannon, Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church;

Rev. Jonathan Falwell, Senior Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church;

Dr. Jim Garlow, Senior Pastor, Skyline Church;

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary;

Dr. Michael Youssef, President, Leading Way;

Ravi Zacharias, Founder and Chairman of the board, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

(There are others of notoriety who signed the Manhattan Declaration, but who have already proved they cannot be taken seriously in the faith.) What say you?

Notes:

^1. List of Religious Leaders Signatories, “Manhattan Declaration,” Manhattan Declaration.org,  http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/sign/list-of-religious-leaders-signatories(accessed December 5, 2009).

^2. Pope Paul VI, Dogmatic Constitution On The Church, (Lumen Gentium) November 21, 1964. Ch 2, 14 (emphasis added).  http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

^3. Ibid. Ch 1, 8 (emphasis added).

Some of the scariest cult practices around the world actually contain Christian themes.  In San Fernando, Philippines, upwards of two dozen people have themselves nailed to cross on Good Friday to emulate the crucifixion of Christ.  Many more undergo self-flagellation where “scores of men pound their bleeding bare backs with bamboo sticks dangling from ropes in a flagellation rite meant to atone for sins.”¹ As atrocious and repulsive as these displays are, most in mainstream Protestantism would attribute these rituals to ignorant penitents of the Roman Catholic variety, and in far away jungles.  Welcome to the jungle.

The misapplication of Christ’s life as an example for Christian living has become a popular topic for leaders in large Protestant churches in America, and the results could get just as ugly. According to mega-church pastor Rick Warren, people should look back on Jesus life leading up to the crucifixion and emulate it to perfect good leadership skills. While at first it sounds like a pious exercise promising great benefits to perspective leaders,  even the great mega-leader himself exhibits the pitfalls of trying follow Jesus after His life in the flesh.  In one lesson Warren instructs: “You’ve got to learn not to care about the opinions of others.”²  Real leaders won’t “pay attention to those who cheer you or jeer you.”³    After all, leaders need to be like Jesus who “lived for an audience of One” in order to please their heavenly Father.⁴   It almost sounds like Warren is championing the priesthood of believers, and extolling the individuals’ relationship with God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit.  Not so fast.

Warren is encouraging leadership, but not without the bounds of his own holy order, or outside of his organizational hierarchy.  Shortly after encouraging leaders to remain undeterred by either applause or rejection, he withdraws Christian liberty altogether.  “If God gives you a vision for your ministry,” Warren begins his about face, “he’s going to bring other people with the same idea together with you.  If nobody agrees on your idea, guess what?  It’s not from God.”⁵  Really? How do you know that you’re not just on a bad run of those ‘jeers’ you’re not supposed to pay attention to?  If you sense the Holy Spirit telling you to move, should you decline on Warren’s technicality of having at least one human witness to vouch for God’s credibility?

Aside from this being absurd, this denies the fact that there are ministry opportunities a saint will encounter that will be used to demonstrate God’s awesome power and His sufficiency; to both strengthen the individual believer, and glorify His name.

Of course, Warren is being deceptively duplicitous.  He is pretending to hold out some vaunted mantle of leadership while actually enticing the simple into leg irons for subservience to the Purpose Driven holy order.  That order is the Purpose Driven Church comprised of cloisters of small interdependent groups which are closely supervised and directed by the real leadership at the top.

In an effort to support the claim for his small group paradigm by pointing to the disciples, Warren claims that “Jesus modeled this kind of ministry.  He never did ministry alone.” This outright falsehood is parleyed in an attempt to suggest that the Lord instituted the collectivist’s “collaboration” of working in “a small group,”⁶ outside of which no Christian service was legitimate, and that Jesus was incompetent and utterly dependent upon His small group to redeem mankind.

There is a strong resemblance between Warren the collectivist, and a more famous one spoken of by historian Clinton Rossiter in 1960:

He was, on any large view, a collectivist, a thinker who had a thoroughly social view of the claim to personal liberty, who obliterated ruthlessly the distinction between public and private man, … and who insisted that the behavior of any individual was determined almost wholly by his membership in a class.⁷

This collectivist and avowed atheist, who Warren has molded his soviet-style control groups after, was none other than Karl Marx. Warren’s ruthless obliteration of aging or small congregations by sending PDL-trained infiltrators in among the sheep to take over church buildings is well documented.  His propagation of the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which establishes a ruling clergy over an ignorant laity, has reestablished the class system the Protestant Reformation once freed Christians from. Next stop, Rome.

Notes:

^1. Associated Press, “Philippine devotees nailed to the cross in Good Friday rites,” International Herald Tribune, March 21, 2008. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/21/news/Philippines-Crucifixions.php

^{2 - 6.} Rick Warren, “The Seven Foundations of Jesus’ Leadership,” Christian Post, April 23, 2008.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080423/32075_The_Seven_Foundations_of_Jesus%92_Leadership.htm

^7. Clinton Rossiter, “Marxism: The View from America” (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), 119.

Every year more and more packages of small group curricula are marketed to churches under the pretense of helping pastors to do their job better. A popular theme this year is apologetics, and there are several products to choose from. Lee Strobel is broadcasting his “Investigation Faith” seminars, and his small group curriculum will be released this Fall. Strobel also endorses Garry Poole’s Seeker Small Groups (which is also endorsed by Nicky Gumbel, of The Alpha Course). Outreach Training’s Mark Mittelberg, who coauthored Becoming a Contagious Christian with Willow Creek’s Bill Hybels, encourages pastors to purchase their resources in order to get “key sharp lay leaders” to perform apologetics ministries, among other things.¹

It seems that nothing has been left to chance, or the Holy Spirit, at Outreach Training; they have even chiseled four “laws” of outreach ministry, with several codices for each. The first law, according to Outreach, requires churches to create an “identity” by using the marketing technique of “branding.”² Once the church designs a marketable image, they move on to work the sections in law number two which cover how to attract visitors. The first section in this law is titled “Doing Marketing God’s Way,” and it includes a particularly horrible take on the Pentecost, and advises that:

Churches and ministries should examine the communication channels (or media) available to them and strategize effective ways to use them for the Kingdom in their own communities.³

There seems, always, to be interspersed in these money making programs some talk about building something for the Kingdom, to lure the unlearned into thinking they are being extended an opportunity to construct an edifice to commemorate their meritorious sacrifices; if only to have it displayed as a small brick in the wall of the celestial city to come. All of this to be gained, claim the authors, by looking to the world’s method of marketing to know what to do. After all, this is the section on marketing, but it raises the critical point.

Are pastors allowing this shameless merchandising of the saints under their care because they really do need help doing their job; because they don’t know how to do it? What else to conclude but that too many young seminary graduates are actually psychology majors stopping over for the time being while they get up nerve to hang out their own shingles in practices elsewhere. Ambitious young men who are after more respectable and higher paying counseling jobs so that they can live in the houses they want to live in, and drive the cars they want to drive. Unless, of course, they could get the marketing right in one of these churches and build attendance into an income tsunami they could ride to prosperity on.

The authors of these programs counter that apologetics is some specialty ministry requiring their expertise and (well paid) assistance. They clamor that orchestrated attacks are mounting from the atheists, and time must be spent by pastors studying their arguments and crafting rebuttals. Yet, all atheism boils down to only one argument, and it is the easiest to rebut using only a book that pastors should already have in their possession.

The only thing that would establish atheism as the truth of the universe is the fact of Darwinian Evolution; and it is a theory that is almost effortlessly demolished, proved to be a universal lie, using only the first two chapters of Genesis. Are there not so many such men as are called pastors, who have faith in God and His word, who could teach from the first book in the Bible? Is it true that the best course for men in saving souls is that they should vex themselves by steeping their minds in the convoluted reasoning of reprobates and unregenerate men?

This is a digression of the worst sort. No such valuable time should be liberally applied to these pursuits, and especially not by pastors who admit, by their temptation to purchase these sordid professional development programs, that they lack familiarity with the Bible itself. Here is acquaintance on the subject of persuading those who would seek God, and what needs actually exists for supplementing the gospel. Open the book and read, even from the beginning. For our Lord spoke on this subject: “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luk 16:31).⁴

Notes:

^1. Katherine T. Phan, “Apologists Ask Churches to Step Up Response to Militant Atheism,” Christian Post, February 13, 2008. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080213/31176

_Apologists_Ask_Churches_to_Step_Up_Response_to_Militant_Atheism.htm

^2. Resources, Outreach Training, http://www.outreachtraining.com/resources.html. (accessed February 20, 2008).

^3. “Doing Marketing God’s Way,” From Outreach, Inc. Products Division. http://www.outreachtraining.com

/documents/DoingMarketingGodsWay.pdf. (accessed February 20, 2008).

^4. This from our Lord’s account of two certain and particular men who died and received their separate and eternal reward, and here He quoth Abraham.

Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove California is set to host a Christian conference in January 2008 that will include a gathering of assorted cultural icons. The conference, titled “Rethink: new perspectives from global influencers,” is billed as a high-level strategy session where strategic briefings will be given on geo-political trends, and where “secrets for success”¹ will be shared. The object of the conference is to glean valuable insight for determining how to “stay on the cutting edge” in this fast paced world.² The practical strategies for this edge-clinging are to be discovered in post-briefing, facilitated, small group brainstorming sessions.

There are at least two serious problems with this Christian conference. Firstly, it is amazing to find the facilitated format still purported to be a process of shared discovery after so many have already discovered that this small group paradigm means that the conclusions have gone in before the facilitators come out.

Secondly, the criterion that was used for selecting speakers for this “Christian” event has nothing to do with Christian doctrine. The qualifier is that they be successful in a given market. That is what makes them influential. The line up of guest speakers includes entertainers, filmmakers, global media executives, and a former U.S president. Speakers will be professing Christian thinkers, and non-Christian Globalist thinkers such as Larry King and George H. Bush. The question naturally arises, why would this still be billed as a Christian conference? Here is the answer Rethink provides:

We’re purposely gathering a group of speakers you wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear at a Christian conference. Our aim is to be immersed in the latest thoughts and perspectives of these respected cultural icons to tap into what’s happening in our world today and to grapple with how we respond.³

With the exception of the ignorant and the naïve, could any real Christian leaders be expected to attend this confabulation? Any Christians who are sent invitations should already know that what is happening in the world today is spiritual warfare, and that we are not to gather with the unsaved to grapple with flesh and blood for our strategies, but are instead to put on the whole amour of God (Eph 6:13-18):

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:12)

Furthermore, Christians are not to be immersed in the vain philosophies of man’s wisdom, no matter how iconoclastic a particular philosopher has become by his or her success in the kingdoms of this world (Col. 2:8). Neither should we be yoked together with them in their pursuits, or adopt their methods of pursuing; whether that be for obtaining success, or gain, or for the sake of social causes (2 Cor. 6:14-18). These causes differ from faith causes in that they precede from the desires of the flesh to serve the flesh.

Campaigns to address poverty and hunger emerge to sustain a cheap source of labor to furnish goods and services to the comfortable, to circumvent epidemics before pandemics reach the them, and to gain subservience from dependent classes (they would put a labtop in their hands to get instructions to them faster). Programs to distribute medical supplies naturally follow poverty campaigns for the same reasoning. The world fight against AIDS is a fight of the flesh in response to the sinner’s desire to engage in all manner of fornication at all times despite clear and present danger to themselves and others.

Africa is the magnet for these appeals to the churches because it is the mesh where the pictures of innocent starving children can be applied to all these issues while at the point of a bayonet in a war-torn dirt land far enough from pews to invite easy meritorious sainthood and preclude the responsibilities of the priesthood of every believer. Churches like Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral and Rick Warren’s Saddleback feed on this Christian irresponsibility as much as they are the cause of it.

The Rethink conference will be about adopting key programs for influencing the world. To do this they will have to adopt the causes that feed the world’s flesh in order to win their praise, and they will have to ignore their souls in order to gain acceptance. These new programs will be carried back to churches everywhere and billed as new ways of doing church for the new century. They will be portrayed as required adaptations churches must make in order to adjust to the culture and obtain relevance. The message will play well to congregations who have for too long be fed the empty calories of whip cream in place of sound doctrine, and the tide will continue towards apostasy.

Notes:

^1. Rethink: New Perspectives From Global Influencers, Why Rethink?

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com

_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2 (accessed October 10, 2007).

^2. Ibid.

^3. Rethink: New Perspectives From Global Influencers, Speakers

(conference scheduled for January 17-19, 2008), http://www.rethinkconference.com

/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=3&Itemid=14.

(accessed October 8, 2007).

(more…)

In unveiling his new strategy to fill 9,000 vacant seats at Willow Creek Church and regional campuses, mega church pastor Bill Hybels relied heavily on survey information obtained from his 20,000 congregation to craft his Vision 2010 campaign. Hybels expects his congregants to pick up the pace and adopt a “bolder approach to outreach”[i]so that they can see God’s power released. The Christian Post reports that Hybels wants them to reach “out to the lonely and confused people across racial and socioeconomic lines.”[ii]As his presentation unfolded, many of the “confused” people must have been setting right in front of him.

When Hybels responded to information in the church survey where the “fully devoted followers of Christ” said they were less satisfied than the both newer and younger followers with church fare, and actually indicated they “want more deep truths of God,”[iii]Hybels announced he would begin teaching them, to survive on less. Again, The Christian Post:

In Vision 2010, Willow Creek leaders will be altering the way they coach to teach attendants how to be “self-feeding individuals” early on in their spiritual development. Rather than expecting to be spiritually fed each week with a 35-40 minute sermon on Sundays, congregants will start learning how to take responsibility for their own feeding. Everything else – the worship services and the classes at Willow Creek – will just be “whip cream” on top.[iv]

The third component of Hybels’ Vision 2010 is probably what will be taking up so much of his time that he can’t feed his flock. In what has become the mega church grand competition for most recognized, benevolent, and humble personality; Hybels is going to step up giving for fighting AIDS overseas (i.e. Africa), “and justice and fighting for the poor and oppressed in this world,” according to the Post.[v]Never mind the fact that the oppression is taking place right here in his own country with the crafting of hate crimes bills, like HR 1592, designed to eliminate the free-speech preaching of the gospel. Mega churches venturing to comment on these attacks would fear losing their 501c3 non-profit, tax-exempt status; and thus their silence at home, and urge to find a foreign battlefield.

The real reason these demagogues love Africa and AIDS so much is because they can raise a fortune in offerings and the only results they need to show for it are some pictures with some starving children, and dying victims on cots. After all, they aren’t expected to cure AIDS. When the personality and his entourage returns from overseas, they give the congregation a video show; as a nice big catharsis for the preceding guilt they put them under to extract the money, and some will remain under the delusion that they’ve once again earned their salvation.

It might be fair enough to say Hybels’ congregants who are wise enough to discern they are being fed empty calories and remain to eat it deserve this treatment, but there is a reason they are called sheep. There is a reason Jesus answered Peter’s claim that he loved Him with a command to feed His sheep, three times by the way. There is also a reason for Jesus’ prophetic warning given in Matthew, and I believe we are witnessing it unfolding today:

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mat 24:45-51)

It is further interesting to note that the word translated “drunken” here in Matthew is used “metaphorically of one who has shed blood or murdered profusely,”[vi]and is the same word used in The Revelation at the final manifestation of the conglomerate, Popish, apostate church:

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Rev 17:6)

Notes:

---

 

 

[i] Lillian Kwon, “Bill Hybels Unveils Willow Creek’s Future Vision for Multiplied Impact,”

The Christian Post, May 02, 2007.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070502

/27197_Bill_Hybels_Unveils_Willow_Creek%27s

_Future_Vision_for_Multiplied_Impact.htm

 

[ii] Ibid.

 

[iii] Ibid.

 

[iv] Ibid.

 

[v] Ibid.

 

[vi] Thayer’s Lexicon.

In Rick Warren’s article “Six Physical Factors That Affect Your Worship Service,” which appeared in The Christian Post, Warren attributes the success of worship to comfortable and aesthetic facilities. Drawing an analogy between stadiums and sanctuaries, Warren contends that pews are the cultural equivalent to the “cheap bleacher section at ball games.”¹ He advises pastors to imitate those “box seats” that “are prized at stadiums.”² It seems that with pews, pastors also run the risk of making people uncomfortable with seating that is too close together. “Personal Space is highly valued in our society,” Warren observes.³

Of course, the tried and true church goers may not know they aren’t up to society’s standard of being uncomfortable; and this is why Warren’s advise emphasizes duplicity, and begins with a supposition: “If you can get away [with] replacing the pews, I’d advise it.”⁴ If pastors can, then the fun can really start.

Once a pastor can replace the pews with movable chairs, he can begin to exercise control over the minds of the worshipers by milieu manipulation and group dynamics. The first thing to eliminate is the skeptical, or discriminating, mind. This can be accomplished by placing the chairs so that “people can see some of each other’s faces.”⁵ This way a pastor who has adopted the PDL sermons, replete with personal anecdotes and humorous stories, can work these to his advantage. When he can get people to see other people laughing, he can cause them to suspend their judgment of his anemic sermon out of respect for the happy occasion. This is the use of group dynamics in a controlled environment, and the fun is just starting.

As this new church is in the “planting” stage,⁶ it is important to give appearance of success. Warren instructs pastors to “always set up less chairs than you need. It’s encouraging to your people when additional chairs must be brought in as people arrive.”⁷ There is one more indispensable part of this musical chair deception if it is to be a Warren success: sound.

Invest in the best sound system you can afford. If you’re trying to cut costs, do it in some other area. Don’t skimp here. Saddleback grew for 15 years without our own building, but we’ve always had a state-of-the-art sound system.⁸

Could this mean taking out a second mortgage? Maybe they could sell those pews to a local stadium for cheap seats. Hey, it’s not about you; and it doesn’t seem to be about Him either. As can be seen by Warren’s choice of scripture for authorizing this program of pleasure seeker deception, It’s about pleasing society. To justify making facilities the heart of worship, Warren misapplies Titus 2:10, taking the verse completely out of context. This is the context:

In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; (Tit 2:7-13)

This scripture is about the adornment which is manifested in the conversation, behavior, and the life of a saint; not in the facade of a building. Interestingly, it is also about sincerity, and not covertly setting something aside (purloining), and about fidelity, or good faith. Sound is important, but it is sound speech, or teaching that does not deviate from truth.

Notes:

1 - ⁸. Rick Warren, “Six Physical Factors That Affect Your Worship Service, “The Christian Post, March 08, 2007.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070308/26208_2_Six_Physical_Factors_That_Affect_Your_Worship_Service.htm

4. (emphasis addeded)

Tom Bartlett arrived at Celebration Church in 2004. Presumably, he didn’t just drop through the roof, but went through some sort of hiring process; possibly to replace a retiring pastor. Today, there are some who think the roof might as well have caved in. Bartlett is taking credit for riving a dwindling congregation of 40 and raising the number up wards to 300 congregants,[i]but it hasn’t been so much about growth as it has been about replacement.

One of the first people to be replaced was Joe Owings, a retired pastor. Owings and others left the church because the new pastor implemented Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church method for church growth. “It was during that time we began to get uncomfortable with the music. The emphasis seemed to be more on younger people and a new generation, and we just felt like we did not fit in.”[ii]So, Owings and others were promptly ‘out-fitted’ with a new church of the great outdoors. Bartlett defends his reliance on contemporary music as the draw for these new, younger congregants because they are the people he is trying to reach, “and we see them leaving the church in droves.”[iii] Maybe they’re being enticed back in by the sound of contemporary music, but there is reason, and authority, to question the integrity of the sort of faith that depends on it:

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (1Co 2:4-5)

Because the wisdom of man is no match for the spiritual warfare unleashed on the minds of mortals who would repent and turn towards God, Paul was adamant that our faith be sourced in the power of God. This is accomplished by preaching in the power of the Spirit. Your faith should not stand with enticing sounds from man’s guitars either, but the seductive power of music is often used in religions that depend on sensuality for producing initiates and controlling them. Mix in a heavy diet of “psychological techniques,”[iv]or man’s wisdom, for behavior modification in place of doctrine, and they’ll never know what hit them.

While it is tragic to consider hundreds being deluded into believing they are experiencing saving grace, it is made possible by what may turn out to be the largest landgrab since the Catholic church ruled the kingdoms of Europe. PDL churches are not build-new churches, they are takeovers.

What happens to an original congregation, a congregation that was probably made to feel guilty for lower attendance, guilty for not utilizing their resource to reach the community, guilty for not taking out a second mortgage to upgrade the sound system and lighting, guilty for expecting a shepherd in their senior years in the church they sacrificed to build; what happens to them? “Well,” says their pastor Bartlett, “that’s why there’s different churches for different folks.”[v] [] And, no, we’re not exaggerating about the guilt tripping tactics that are used to get members to leverage themselves until they’re ripe for a corporate-style, hostile takeover. Here it is from his eminence, Rick Warren:

“Every church has to make the decision…. Is it going to live for itself, or is it going to live for the world that Jesus died for?”[vi]

The Church of Jesus Christ lives for, which means serves, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The doctrine of the Gospel is preached so that men may be saved out of the world they serve, and born into the Kingdom to serve the King of Kings.

Warren’s gospel, which is not the gospel, is a gospel of works wherein you must serve the world in his volunteer community works programs, and give up your church property to become one of his local offices. He has given up the cross for his acrostics (i.e. his service projects: P.E.A.C.E., C.H.U.R.C.H., S.H.A.P.E., S.T.O.P., S.L.O.W, etc.), and he means to have eminent domain.

Endnotes:

---

 

[i] Martin Bashir and Deborah Apton, “Rick Warren and Purpose-Driven Strife”:

Pastor’s Unconventional Approach Inspires Some, Alienates Others,

ABC News Nightline. March 7, 2007

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2914953&page=1

 

[ii] Bashir and Apton, “Rick Warren and Purpose-Driven Strife” http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2914953&page=2

 

[iii] Ibid.

 

[iv] Ibid. 3.

 

[v] Ibid. 2.

 

[vi] Ibid. 4. Owings describes content, PDL sermons.

In explaining the reasoning of why the congregation of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta plans to retain their homosexual pastor in defiance of an order by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to dismiss him, a worship assistant said: “He exemplifies the kind of love and empathy I envision Christ to have had.”[i] In this small statement there is something very revealing about the peculiar stance of professing Christians who are at odds with the Bible. Christ is spoken of here in the past tense, or as a dead man.

To these “social justice” congregants Christ is revered as a historical figure who had egalitarian ideas,[ii] gave eloquent speeches, did good deeds, and died to bring attention to his cause of social service. This contrasts worshiping Christ as a risen, living savior whose subjects obey Him as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Adherents to a social justice Christ claim his endorsement for practicing what society at large desires as just treatment. Consequently, there are many passages of scripture they redact from their studies, such as: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil”(Mat 5:17). 

To fulfill, Jesus Christ came to pay the perfect price for every trespass of every law, for every one who ever lived; and the price was His life. That is God’s justice. Because He knew no sin, death could not rightfully hold Him; so He lives, and because He lives we can live too. That is God’s mercy. The grave, with its passageway leading to Hell, cannot be victorious over those who accept the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by faith, and follow Him.

In all this, God did not repudiate His laws as the standard for perfection; instead, He made a way to escape the penalty of the law by imputing perfection into those who by faith would receive it. In this acceptance, their must be the acknowledgement that the law is just, and all have fallen short of it. The law remains as the standard which must be met for those who would achieve perfection on their own; a testament of what the fruit of righteousness would look like by the absence of sin, and a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ for justification by faith. If we willingly deny the law, we deny Christ; and we remain under the schoolmaster subject to the penalty of the law.[iii]

In light of clear Christian doctrine, how can there be such a dichotomy between those who preach God’s justice in order to extend God’s mercy, and those who preach social justice in order to extend society’s lasciviousness? The latter are actually Christian philosophers, and as such they deliberate in the court of the philosophers; joining that eclectic group who embrace such ideas as suit them in exchange for those which no longer serve their interests for the present time. It is a court wherein nothing can be proved against you for a certainty, as therein is no certainty. This is how they have come to reject the certainty of the law, and the certainty that Christ lives.

Notes:

---

 

 

[i] Giovanna Dell\’Orto “Lutheran Flock Stands Up for Defrocked Pastor,” The Christian Post, February 16, 2007.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070216

/25847_Lutheran_Flock_Stands_Up_for_Defrocked_Pastor.htm

 

[ii] Giovanna “Lutheran Flock Stands Up for Defrocked Pastor”.

 

[iii] Gal 3:24-25 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (25) But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Billed as the “Change Without Compromise 2007” conference, Brad Powell, Senior Pastor of Northridge Church, MI, is marketing his church transition workshops by comparing Church fervency to a bottle of hot sauce. Referencing Revelation 3:15-16, Powell contends the comparison “isn’t that far off,” and he claims that by purchasing his hot ideas your church can “move from static to dynamic, from cultural irrelevance to relevance, and from ineffective to effective.” Of course, “20% growth annually” might also be inside the bottle too. Workshops include Marketing and Communications (or, “What’s On Your Label?”); Volunteers (how to develop and maintain them); and Programming with a Purpose. “Your services can be ‘all killer, no filler’! Experience the process… from the pastor’s series thoughts… to the final walk-out music. Hands-on training that’ll rock your programming world” (workshop, deatails).

Upon successful completion of the Powell transition, it sounds like a pastor can process attendees through church services with all the efficiency and thrills of a major theme park ride. The cost for the conference and workshops is $179. While we didn’t see a workshop on holding them upside down long enough to shake the money out, it seems safe to deduce that the mechanism is built into the package. The–if you will excuse the phrase–selling points for this tabasco-talk are Powell’s own numbers: 12,700 people for weekend services, and 2,100 “decisions for Christ” last year alone. When considering these, and Powell’s merchandising campaign, two things come to mind. One is 2Peter 2:3: “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” The other thing is that Pilate got probably as many “decisions for Christ” in a single day; they decided to crucify him.

Rick Warren’s interview on CNN’s The Situation Room (see transcript) reveals Warren continues in his lean away from doctrine, and towards the world. In doing so, he must also continue to redefine both the role of the pastor and the responsibilities of the saints. In responding to a question over casing “a bit of a stir” by partnering with pro-homosexuality and pro-abortionist Barack Obama for his AIDS summit, Warren said: “Well, you know, if you can only work with people you agree with 100 percent, you’ve ruled out the entire world.” While that is a good point for a politician to keep in mind, those who would continue to call themselves pastors should consult a higher authority on this matter:

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. (Joh 15:18-21)

Pastors are not called to work with, or for, the world, but to preach a gospel against the world and for Christ: to save some out of the world. Furthermore, real pastors are given by God for the perfecting of the saints (Eph. 4:11); and not for the promoting of the politicians. This is something “America’s pastor” hasn’t caught wind of yet. In responding to another question as to Obama’s fitness for the presidency, one reason Warren cites for believing Obama has got what it takes for the oval office is his “civility.” Warren then proceeds to elaborate on the type of civility he would impose, and it’s revealing:

And I’m so tired of the rudeness we’ve got in our society where people are just mean to each other. We need to return to civility, which says, I treat you with respect even if I violently disagree with you. That we’ve lost the ‘civil’ in civilization. (Warren, transcript)

Warren is no doubt referring here to those who call him on preaching a social gospel of benevolence and good works for Christians to perform as societies little janitors and nursemaids. Some have made note of his apostasy of training up servant-leaders by inflicting guilt and blame on those who are unsuspecting of harm and free from guilt (the simple: Rom. 16:18) by charging that they should be doing more to clean up the symptoms of the world’s sin. The apostle Paul had something to say in regards to the preaching of another gospel revolving around works as a justifier of souls, and it is appropriate to recall it here:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:6-9; emphases added)

I think it is safe to extract two points from this text: 1) Paul “violently” disagreed with these apostates; 2) and he did not respect them in the least. Obviously, Warren dose not wish to return quite this far in search of civility. And that’s his shame.