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

Christians today are largely unaware of the communists tactics for taking over individuals and controlling populations.  They should make themselves aware because these are now being used successfully in churches to take them over, change their mission, and steal their wealth.  For a complete expose on the communist process of brainwashing the reader is encouraged to read the seminal work on the subject by the author who first printed the term “brainwashing” in the English language.   In Edward Hunter’s Brainwashing: The story of men defied it, Hunter not only reveals the process, but what has proven to be the best and most effective strategies for surviving and defeating it.  Although the threat of communism is thought to be a relic of the past that has been largely discredited, and today nonexistent, it has never been more important to understand its powerful tools and its success in enslaving  men in a false religion.

The “communist theologians”¹ are at work today in American churches and have taken most of them over without firing a single shot. The mechanism used are small groups that can collectively be referred to as Life Groups.  Understanding how church Life Groups are being used to extinguish Christianity can be demonstrated by examining one aspect of Communist proselytizing.  This one is the process for producing confessed sinners who can receive absolution from their crimes by “reform” and “rebirth” into the Communist religion.²  It is a strategy for producing offenders though a process of forced self-criticism, and confessions of the supposed crimes that surface in them, in small group settings which are all facilitated, or led, to achieve the desired result.  With the exception of changes made herein of enumerating the clauses, some bolding, and elaboration in brackets; the following is a paragraph from Hunter:

The communists have made confession the medium for their principal propaganda drive among their own subject peoples.
1. They first determine the conclusion they wish to put across,
2. then they select the details which add up to this fake hypothesis.
3. Their problem then boils down to finding people with experience approximating these details as closely as possible.
4. By befogging the minds [by facilitators leading group members in individual response-confessions through mundane, vague, and trivial agenda points to fatigue mental acuity], they endeavor to convince them that they fill the bill!³

Number three is the reason why Life Groups are segregated by age and often by sex when enough congregants are available.  All these will have similar experiences, or conditions, and have approximating details, or circumstances, to draw from.  These can be capitalized on to more easily lead small groups to predetermined positions of agreement for obtaining desired, although undisclosed, results.  The results are the desired responses the leadership wants from the congregants on varying items that present in the life of maintaining the organization and the leadership, but these are secondary to the actual purpose of the Life Group programs.  The main purpose of the process is the process; it keeps the whole groups in submission and under control of the leadership. This is why a key component of Life Groups is individual confessions of failures and short comings; to confess means to submit. The tactic for instigating confessions takes on the form of a debriefing analysis under the guise of searching for a better way a member could have performed a task, or responded to an incident in their personal life.  Certainly, members must self-criticize themselves before they can suggest an improvement.

Usually, the targeted results revealed to the Life Group members are the completion of community service and beautification projects.  These are supposed to comprise some physical evangelistic witness of the church’s compassion for the community.  While the leadership does, indeed, hope to draw more members to feed off by these public relations exercises, the service projects are themselves part of the communist strategy of enforcing the concept of submission.  People are prodded into to ‘doing life together’ in such groups to achieve the eradication of the individual mind, development of the symbiotic thought process of conformity; and to deprive the individuals of as much of their leisure time as possible to preclude an individual mind from reemerging.

To ensure that the collective remains intact, Life Group facilitators at Real Life Church in Valencia California are instructed to focus on “application and accountability”  which fosters a tedious and time consuming process.⁴  Facilitators are to “fearlessly challenge the people” in their groups “to come up with specific ways they can act on what the group is focusing on,” and even to encourage them to “break into accountability partners for a few weeks at a time” to ensure they adhere to their tasks.⁵  Nothing is left to chance or the Spirit, or goes unmonitored.  Accountability partners are even assigned for prayer time during the week, and group members must use Bible verses to design and commit to action items  with the clear inference that their progress will be reported on to the leadership by the accountability partners.⁶ Ideally, a Life Group member will be too mentally and physically fatigued by the process to reflect and evaluate with outside information, such as the Bible, to ever get a thought or desire of breaking free from the organization. The leadership remains the leadership, with power, prestige, and salaries.

The name the Chinese Communists have for their service learning groups is the Daily Life Committee.⁷  Because the Communist government controls civil law, they can mandate daily attendance for maximum control.  All implementations of these control groups outside communists countries usually begins with weekly or even bi-monthly schedules before being ratcheted for more frequent attendance.  The Los Angeles Unified School District began their professional development meetings several years ago with approximately one meeting per month, and many sites utilized the control group model of facilitated small-group consensus. Today, those meetings are held weekly, and are mandatory.  Life Groups typically start out meeting once a week.  Part of the reason for the surge in megachurches developing satellite campuses is for the facilitation of more frequent Life Group meetings by making them logistically feasible.

The church Life Groups follow the basic pattern of the Chinese Daily Life Committees which have sign-ups for committees on recreation, sanitation, food, and study.⁸  The pretense of the concept of servant-leader, which leads Life Group members to imagine some autonomy, is maintained by giving Life Groups a predetermined list of likely community service projects as examples; with the encouragement of identifying their own community project.  In reality, this relives the leadership of duties by assigning more of the volunteer work onto the Life Groups.

Actual boundary conditions for Life Groups are tightly controlled and regulated.  For instance, in most of these Life Group programs conduct is strictly prescribed and includes pre-scripted answers to possible questions group members may encounter while performing their work, and almost always they are prohibited from any actual evangelizing.⁹  Christian evangelizing is not to be the goal of these groups because it is no longer the goal of the churches they belong to.  True evangelizing would require group members to learn more scripture and thus more doctrine, and those who were as yet unconverted would either convert, or depart, and the converted would grow stronger in the faith.  All of these results would be detrimental to the leadership.

If your church has instituted Life Groups and is encouraging you to join, they may only be innocent efforts to encourage fellowship and support. This case, however, would be one of the very few exceptions, and probably would soon succumb to the Communist paradigm.  One reason for this is that the curriculum which direct these groups is often turned to for resources, and these implement a program of brainwashing and control.  When the table is set for Satan, he usually shows up. We are warned that in the last days perilous times would come; times that would sap the strength from many.  The implementation of Life Groups is the utilization of a process to create a new organism having a form of godliness, but denying, that is disavowing by contradiction, the actual power thereof (2Tim 3:1-5).  We are also told this would be a device of traitors to the faith, and that from such we are to turn away.  What Christians need to understand is that Communism is not a philosophy or theory of government so much as it is diabolical process by which the Devil sets up his anti-church body. It has assisted him in ushering in the Apostasy.

Notes:

^1. Edward Hunter, Brainwashing: The story of men who defied it, (New York: Pyramid Books, 1958; San Francisco: American Libraries, 2006), 240. http://www.archive.org/details/brainwashingstor00huntrich/ (accessed August 8, 2009). Citations are to the American Libraries (online) edition.

^2. Ibid, 237.

^3. Ibid, 242 (bolding, enumerating, bracketed added).

^4. Real Life Church, “Session Guidelines For Facilitators And Co-Facilitators,”

http://www.reallifechurch.org/FAITHNETWORK_UserFileStore/fileCabinet/ministries/d34af287-7b8a-41d8-b4bf-84b420d6eaa7/SessionGuidelinesforFacilitatorsandCoF.pdf (accessed August 9, 2009).

^5. Real Life Church, “Session Guidelines for Facilitators and Co-Facilitators”

^6. Real Life Church, “What a Typical Life Group Looks Like,” http://www.reallifechurch.org/FAITHNETWORK_UserFileStore/fileCabinet/ministries/d34af287-7b8a-41d8-b4bf-84b420d6eaa7/WhataTypicalLGLooksLike.pdf (accessed August 9, 2009).

^7. Edward Hunter, Brainwashing, 179.

^8. Ibid, 179.

A debate is a conflict which clarifies a position. A dialogue is a conversation which compromises a position.

- John E. Ashbrook

Explaining his acceptance of an invitation to serve on the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships panel (FBNP), former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page admitted to having concerns.  He noted that there are “very few conservatives on the council,” but he is requesting prayer: “I do ask Baptists to pray for me as I try to bring to the table what I believe is a conservative, biblical viewpoint.”¹

Reportedly, Page took assurances from former associate Pentecostal pastor Joshua DuBois, executive director of the White House Office of FBNP, that President Obama really wants to hear his views.  Where do these guys hide when the expos’es are coming out?

Obama and company want to vent Page like an air bag in a small group, pretend to incorporate his suggestions into policy by using facilitators expert at recasting his words to match predetermined outcomes, and obtain his support, for things he might ordinarily object to, by arriving at consensus.  He is being used, and many will likely suffer because of his succumbing to flattery.

Bible believing Christians will be the losers, and the White House Office of FBNP will gain either way Page falls.  If he remains, they will be able to claim conservative religious support for their agenda.  If he jumps ship, they can renounce all conservatives (Bible believing Christians) as obstructionists, and they will certainly hold that over his head as leverage to keep him onboard.

The White House Office of FBNP is another effort at conscripting churches into an army of federally mandated social workers for community service (something that used to be reserved for convicted felons), under federal laws that do away with free exercise of religion.  Financially struggling churches began falling into this trap by first accepting faith-based funding, and in tying on the federal feed-bag they tied on a muzzle.  Some thought that they could use government money to finance God’s work.  They might have been innocent enough, or coned by a wolf, but certainly naive and foolish.  In this age of deception, it has never been more important to keep separate the things that are Caesar’s from the things that are God’s

Notes:

^1. Baptist Press, “Page hopeful, cautious about faith council,” February 17, 2009. 

http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=29824

[More Articles on FBNP: for series click here]

I recently received a solicitation for a book endorsement from a writer who claimed to have familiarized himself with my work and implied that we held harmonious views on the subject of climate change.  After reading only a few pages of the work it was easy to see that the author was either unfamiliar with the concept of research, or was disingenuous.  I do not name the author or his work because I do not wish to promote it in any way, but can by its classification reveal all that there is of pertinence to know about it. It is another installment in the gospel of Green Evangelism, and I am prompted by it to identify some of the characteristics of this newest religious cult.  Foremost in their divergence form the faith is a singular characteristic that unites all the Green Evangelists.  It is this: they perceive the book of Revelation to be a book of warning; instead of the prophecy that it is. They have determined that the plagues, famines, wars, and catastrophic changes in the atmosphere, and on earth, that include those caused by meteorite impacts and violent upheavals of the sun, can be prevented.  They espouse nothing less than another gospel whose great commission is to preach environmentalism to all the world as a savior of mankind, and to baptize converts in the name of the earth, the wind, and the fire.

When these cultists represent them selves as Christians, they are found to play lose with the Holy Scriptures; using any two words they can find together to support their theories, and abounding in misapplications and anachronism.  Most will cite God’s command to mankind after He placed him in the garden of Eden to “dress it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15) and apply it as a standing stewardship obligation over the whole earth that is both his primary responsibility, and is still within his power to control.  By this contention they neglect the subsequent modifications to the original arrangement brought about by sin- mankind’s fall from his preeminent position of authority and power, the expulsion from the garden itself, and the resulting curse laid upon the remaining and forthcoming gardens everywhere.

The curse was not merely the inconvenient bother of weeding the newly created thorns and thistles from our plots that we now had to labor over to produce our food.  Because of the curse death entered into the world, and all of mankind has been dying and returning to the ground from whence he was taken ever since.

The only hope for the environment is the reconstitution of the earth to be made by the Lord Jesus Christ upon His return (Isa 65:17; Zec 14:4-7). Then “the wolf and the lamb will feed together” (Isa 65:25), a person of a hundred years will be reckoned as a child (Isa 65:20), the waters will be healed (Zec 14:8; Rev 22:1), and the trees will produce fruit that will heal the nations, and their leaves will be used to cure all disease (Rev 22:2; Eze 47:12).

Only then will the curse God leveled in the garden be lifted: “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it: and his servants shall serve him.” (Rev 22: 3).  Until that day “we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom 8:22).  That groaning will continue until after the prophecies concerning the catastrophic climate changes in the Revelation are fulfilled.  Why?  It is a period of time appointed for “the wrath of God” to be poured out upon the earth and all those who worship, among other things, demons (Rev 16:1; 9:20); and the gospel of Green Evangelism is a doctrine of demons who will seduce many in the latter times (1 Ti 4:1).  It will be the environmentalist’s nightmare come true as the seas, rivers, lakes, and streams are turned to blood as God pours out His judgment on those who spilt the blood of prophets, and saints, and gives them blood to drink in return (Rev 16:3-6).  The ungodly always hated the prophets, for it is they who testify of Jesus; and they particularly hate the last book of prophecy for it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Every religious cult, including this new cult of Green Evangelists, will have at least one of two things in common: they will deny the humanity of Christ, or deny the deity of Christ.  God said that, prior to the Lord establishing His Kingdom on earth, “the earth will wax old like a garment” (Isa 51:6). The earth is deteriorating; it is fading, wearing thin, fraying, developing holes, and ripping and tearing apart at the seams. Jesus Christ claimed to be God, saying: “I and my Father are one” (Joh 10:30).  The Jewish leaders, familiar with the scriptures, and the law, understood Jesus perfectly well, and were so impressed with His seriousness each time He made the claim that they attempted to stone Him for blasphemy at least four times on three different occasions (Joh 5:18; 8:59; 10:31,39).

The book of Revelation is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John” (Rev 1:1; emphasis added). Simply put, anyone who denies the certainty of the prophecies of that book coming to pass is not only denying the word of God, they are denying the deity of Jesus Christ who gave it.

This is paramount because, just as the only hope for the environment is the work of Jesus Christ, so to is the work of Christ the only hope for mankind.  If you deny Christ, you deny His work: all of it.  This explains why the Green Evangelists do not preach the gospel of salvation. They will patronize it, give it an obligatory mention, and claim it as a supporting role in their larger work, but they are calling Christians away from “the grace of God unto another gospel” (Gal 1:6).  This other gospel is a perversion of the gospel of grace; adding to it works as a requirement of salvation.  First, they have equated the salvation of the planet with the salvation of man, and then they prescribe all the works that are necessary for the Christian to perform for this salvation. I won’t produce the litany here, but only a few that are high their altar.

In addition to going as agrarian as you can, there is the carbon sabbath the must be observed, a day in the week when you use no mechanization other than manpower.  There are dietary laws to be observed, or various degrees of vegetarianism.  Devotees must achieve as nearly as possible cohabitation with all faiths and persuasions in an effort to reduce travel to work, and size of living quarters. If elective travel is engaged in, or meat is consumed, the selling of indulgences has been revived so that these sins may be atoned for.  A tree can be planted, or a buy can be made in the fiat economy of carbon credits.  All of this religious ostentation to blot out the individual and collective sin of carbon footprint.  To the saints who are being troubled by these cultists and false brethren who are trying to impose their environmental circumcision on you, I echo Paul; I would that they were even cut off (Gal 5:12).  As it was then, so it is true today that in the near future: “he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be” (Gal 5: 10).

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.

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. (1Ki 18:21)

In the search for intermediate life forms to support the theory of evolution none have been discovered. New developments out of the science community, however, reveal that some scientists appear poised to identify an intermediate life form by creating it themselves. In what has become a long and protracted campaign to do just that, a new effort by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine (NAS/IMO) has resulted in a 70-page book titled Science, Evolution, and Creationism. In the text they attempt to bolster the theory of evolution, and persuade religious people that they sacrifice nothing in joining their ranks. The effort is aimed not only at convincing religious people that science and religion are compatible, but that religious people can also embrace the theory of evolution without contradicting the biblical account of creation. The evidence already suggests similar efforts on their part have met with significant success, and that there is, in fact, a means to classify an emerging intermediate life form. To treat this new, emerging species, religious people will hereafter be referred to in this piece as religious-man.

According to NAS/IMO, their book “shows that science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith.”¹ The catch for this compatibility is that religious-man needs to make a few adjustments, or concessions, in the way they interpret the Bible. The reward to be gained from the science community is the vaulted mantle of co-existence. The compromise to be granted by the religious-man is: everything.

Naturalists, those who put their faith in the theory of evolution for the genesis of life, flatly reject God’s explanation for the creation of mankind, and that does not mean that they co-exist as on equal planes with respective merit. It means that, between the two of them, at best, one of them is wrong, and at worst one of them is a liar. Because God is not a liar, the task of assigning error and uncovering deceit is made easier. While Naturalists in general are only wrong when they put their faith in spontaneous generation of life by some chance environmental conditions and unintelligent forces that, through a blind natural selection process, eventually produced mankind, the scientists at NAS/IMO are liars for at least false representation. They are representing religion as one of the two methods of human understanding that are of equal value. This, they do not genuinely mean.

The reality is that religious-man is held to be inferior to the naturalist, or scientific-man, and the actual offer being extended by the latter is for the former to submit to the authority of science. Practically, they are to submissively enter the box naturalists have prepared for them so that they may be placed on a shelf and marked as exhibits of intermediate life forms; not fully evolved to the extent that the naturalists are (representing no small victory in that it would be the first intermediate life form yet produced for their theory). Then, the naturalists will accept religious-man as their ignorant wards, and make all the pertinent decisions on their behalf, and at their expense.

Honest members of the evolutionary-faithful do not dispute this. Except for the way a few of these points are herein stated in so unsavory a fashion, this is what, by the mechanics of their theory, they’ve come to believe. It is only when the high priests of science go trolling for religious converts, and more advantageous footing, are the terms of surrender euphemistically referred to as co-existence. They continue to invest in this strategy because its tactics, exemplified in this new book, continue to pay huge dividends.

There are growing numbers of religious-man who have embraced the theory of evolution as an explanation for the biblical account of creation. Naturalists have approvingly thumbed the starched lapels of their lab coats at the obsequious fawning of converts who bring forth such offerings to their altar of faith as Theistic Evolution.

The methods approved by the scientists at NAS/IOM which produce these sorts of heresies were put on record by Alan Leshner, CEO of American Association for the Advancement of Science, in an interview on the book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, where he said:

Over and over, religions that see the Bible as an allegory, as a description of an overall process that isn’t tied to literal day by day, those religions seem to understand better how science can co-exist with a religious belief or even a biblical belief. It’s the literalist point that has tremendous problems.²

Notice what is advanced to tender this co-existence: a detailed list of the demands for surrender that are at issue; and the scientists at NAS/IMO and AAAS might be acknowledged for their honesty in that, but it is made more from the strength of their disdain than their cool resolve for objectivity.³

Certainly, the naturalists will accept, on limited terms, any who will recant that the Bible is the literal word of God. Surely, they will welcome, to a certain extent, those who will confess the Bible is nothing more than an allegory; a feeble attempt of primitive men to explain things that only scientists can be trusted to divulge, that only naturalists have evolved enough wisdom to understand, that only the result of blind chance and unintelligent forces could comprehend. Tremendous problems indeed.

Contrary to what NAS/IMO claim, this is by any definition conflict. Opposed are two narratives for the explanation of life and its purpose. At odds are two distinct groups of people; those who have a faith grounded in a theory, and those who have a faith grounded in theology, those who deny the existence of God,⁴ and those who take him at His word. Literally.

There is, however, a growing middle; an intermediate life form of religious-man, not fully Bible-believing, not fully naturalist. This foray into the realm of creationism by the NAS/IMO that includes overtures to this religious-man is not expected to topple Bible-believing men. That would be too much for them to hope for. On that score, they would gladly settle for intimidation. This is a continued effort, in part, to create more of these useful intermediates. By another part, the campaign is designed to mollify the already converted religious-man. It is a calculated effort to sooth him so he will pay no attention to rising chorus of challenge to the exclusivity of one failed theory barring all other discussions on the subject of origins; to the extent that naturalists will not even discuss the scientific evidence that disproves the theory of evolution, or confront the fraudulent portrayal of supporting fabrications still published in school textbooks.

This new book from NAS/IMO exemplifies a polished and well funded campaign being run against the Bible. In its face, it is hoped that some Bible-believing men might pause, and religious-man ought to be kept quiet while his children are stolen away from him and turned unto fables. What needs to be reiterated by Bible-believing man, as he presses the play, and learned by religious-man, is, again, there are no intermediate life forms. There are none to support the theory of evolution, and none to support an intermediate state of salvation. Nothing can save religious-man but complete faith in God, as is revealed in the Bible, and the same is true for naturalists. Literally.

Notes:

^1. Institute of Medicine, Reports, “Science, Evolution, and Creationism,” January 3, 2008 (emphasis added).

http://www.iom.edu/CMS/28312/50460.aspx

^2. Katherine T. Phan, “Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible,” Christian Post, January 09, 2008 (emphasis added).

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080109/30782

_Pro-Evolution_Book_Says_Science_and_God_Compatible.htm

^3. The radio interview may be heard WAMU 88.5 FM. I do not imply that there was any choler in Leshner’s voice. He was interviewed by Diane Rehm on WAMU 88.5FM, which is listener supported public radio station. I am indebted to Katherine T. Phan of The Christian Post for her reporting (see n. 2) that alerted me to this interview and made it possible for me to hear it.

^4.. If His claims are invalid, He fails the test for the definition of “God”.

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).

This is a Christian news and commentary website that purposely avoids the political aspect of issues, or what usually goes by the name of politics. Political discourse is diversionary, too easily ensnares the young in the faith, and deals with symptoms rather than causes. It is inevitable, however, that at certain times candidates will venture far into Christian circles, and espouse false dilemmas that must be rebuked. Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani epitomizes such a politician. Speaking at Houston Baptist University last Sunday, Giuliani stated that he is personally opposed to abortion because it is “morally wrong,” and yet he “would grant women the right to make that choice.”[i] While there are some statements that can be interpreted in a verity of ways, this is not one of them.

Abortion can only be morally wrong if it is morally murder. There is nothing else that goes on in an abortion. In spite of his admission that a position on abortion is reached by “deep and profound judgment,”[ii] he is willing to disregard what he knows to be murder in order to win pro-abortion votes. Furthermore, he has the audacity to tell a Christian audience that: “Everybody’s got to make a choice. How important are the differences and then how important are the other issues that are involved in this election?”[iii] Giuliani is lying.

By implication, he is clearly presenting a false dilemma where Christians must chose to vote for the lesser of two evils. That’s simply not true, but Christians still fall for it nonetheless by misinterpreting their responsibility of Christian stewardship. The reasoning runs that because Christians are blessed to be citizens of this great nation founded on Christian principals, they are obliged to protect it and maintain it by participation in its affairs, and by voting. This is true, but when politicians who have absolutely no convictions, outside of getting elected, court the Christian vote they imply that, no matter what, in the end you’ve got to compromise; and that is not true.

Notice how Giuliani sets it up: “You have a right to evaluate this in figuring out if you can support me, and at what level you can support me.”[iv] In other words, a voter must separate themselves from their morals and lay them out in front of them like chips in a card game. Giuliani would have us to think that a hand of lower taxes, strong on defense, and which also holds the murder card; trumps his opponent, which also holds the murder card, but is high on taxes and low on defense. It doesn’t, because an individual who votes for Giuliani is also authorizing the murder of innocent babies. As a politician, Giuliani works hard to try and mask that fact.

By emphatically pronouncing his objection to abortion, he tries to give the voter another “level” for their conscious to retreat to in order pull the lever for him as a pro-life candidate. What Giuliani is also masking here is that there is a third vote whereby voters don’t have to get blood on their hands. Voters don’t have to settle for Giuliani, or for his murdering rivals, they can abstain. Abstention is a valid and important vote that is made after determining that there are no statesmen running for office; no candidates with moral convictions and the courage to stand up and fight for them.

It would be far easier to respect Giuliani if he would simply declare that he is pro-abortion. For him to say that he knows abortion is murder, that it is morally wrong, and that women should be allowed to commit that murder explains the degree to which he has compromised his own morals. This also indicates that he expects others to abandon morality and make decisions based solely on expediency.

Giuliani told the students at Houston Baptist that he had a profound respect for their views, and their education, and their religion.[v] Indeed, some students polled just after Giuliani’s appearance seemed taken by his performance. One remarked he thought Giuliani gave a great speech, and said: “I agree that we’re not going to agree 100 percent with all candidates. I think it was a good political stance to take. He’s sitting right in the middle.”[vi] It may be hoped that the warm, celebrity glow wares off soon after Giuliani has departed, and the spirit of compromise departs with him. That Giuliani has the nerve to show up on a Christian University campus and suggest that they must also accept abortion as a part of their Christian stewardship shows the depth to which he disrespects their intelligence, their University, and their God. Let’s hope his cold slap in the students’ faces begins to sting, and wakes them up.

Notes:

[i] Joe Stinebaker, Associated Press Writer, “Giuliani Reaffirms Abortion Stance,”

The Christian Post, May 14, 2007.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070514

/27391_Giuliani_Reaffirms_Abortion_Stance.htm

[ii] Stinebaker, “Giuliani Reaffirms Abortion Stance.”

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid. (emphasis added).

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

(The Revelation 8:7-11)

 There is coming a time when the Gospel of the Grace of God will cease.[i] The ambassadors[ii] who are now preaching this gospel of reconciliation between man and God through Jesus Christ[iii] will be called home to their far country.[iv] The work of their ministry continues now for a short space to turn “strangers and foreigners into fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”[v] The end of this gospel will come suddenly when this class of ambassadors will be called away so quickly and unexpectedly that the action is described in the Bible as taking place in the twinkling of an eye, and as if it were accomplished by a thief in the night.[vi] The reason explained to them for seizing them away from this world is twofold: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”[vii]

The time of this hour will be at least seven years long, and it will be marked by cataclysmic environmental changes brought about by such things as supernatural meteor showers, huge asteroids and comets impacting the earth, and changes in our sun’s solar radiation. The effects of these catastrophes with include the incineration of entire forests, or deforestation on a scale here before unimagined. Famine will be widespread due to the earth’s crops being consumed while they are even yet green by the intense inferno sweeping the planet. Air quality over large areas of the world will be unfit to support human life, and there will be few safe harbors to flee to for safety. The earth’s waters will become so polluted by the poisonous gases and boiling temperatures from the fiery impacts that a third of all sea life will perish. The superheated currents of the oceans will alter their courses, and stagnation and putrid decomposition will be common for beach resorts and shorelines

Because they will have nothing else to drink but the poisoned water from earth’s streams and rivers, a large part of the human population left to undergo these tribulations will die from water poisoning. Many more will suffocate from the heavy, noxious, bitter asteroid gases that will spread out over the surface of the earth like a blanket poisoning multitudes. During this time men, even though they remain unrepentant, will recognize God’s hand in their tribulation; and their despair will cause them to say to the mountains: “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”[viii]

So today these ambassadors fervently preach the gospel of grace to save men; not only from this pending judgment to fall upon the inhabitants of the earth, wherein some will still be saved who are to pass through it, but more importantly to save them from an even worse final judgment determined for those who die without accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. They will be judged by the law, or by works of the law, and none will be found righteous by that standard.[ix] Their fate is Hell, and then the Lake of Fire for all eternity.[x] All of this is a serious enough circumstance, and an appreciable prompt, for preaching the gospel of grace.

There be some, however, that possess a puerile understanding of Christian doctrine, and who preach another gospel. They prompt with a blasphemous question that reduces Christ to a mere consumer shopping for an energy efficient automobile, and ask: “What Would Jesus Drive?”[xi] They have named their gospel “creation care,”[xii] and belong to groups like the Evangelical Environmental Network. According to its founder Reverend Jim Ball, their environmental religion is one in which they “are called to be ministers of reconciliation, and that means caring for all things.”[xiii] These things would ostensibly include the rain forests, and caring for them would be evidenced by adhering to a religious behavior dictated by faith in the theory of global warming,[xiv] a theory that posits that humans will cause widespread environmental devastation on biblical proportions by, among other things, burning fossil fuels.

The Green Evangelicals have neither the knowledge of scripture, nor of human history, that even a first century Pharisee named Gamaliel had.[xv] A doctor of the law, Gamaliel could recognize the alignment of events to the scriptures and the futility of denying them.

In regards to their contradiction of the gospel of grace ambassadors, he would certainly say to the creation care disciples today: “Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”[xvi]

Gamaliel’s original counsel at the time he gave it was to prevent religious leaders from slaying the Apostle Peter and other Apostles. He knew enough of history and prophetic scripture to know that these Apostles could very well be telling the truth as to Jesus being the Christ. Of course, Gamaliel was right, and more scripture comprising the New Testament was penned for us by these and other Apostles. It is from these same scriptures that this article’s epigraph is taken, and which say for a certainty that these heretical creation care preachers will be found as a blade of grass facing a blast furnace.

That is the answer to the question of their environmentalist gospel if they choose to wait for it. If they hear the answer from the gospel of grace now, they will no longer be found to fight against God; instead, they will be found in His Son Jesus Christ to escape the wrath which is to come.[xvii] The answer to enquiring as to Christ Jesus’ will for mankind is made possible by rephrasing the question for accuracy: What Would Jesus Have Driven?

Jesus would have driven, by Roman soldiers, three nails, or spikes, through his hands and feet to hang on a cross, and have the sins of the entire world laid upon him.[xviii] He would have it that he would hang there until he died an excruciating, substitutionary death; for all who would believe on him, and accept the salvation he made possible by His once and forever sacrifice, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”[xix] While His payment also reclaimed the title deed to the whole earth,[xx] which man forfeited at the fall, He didn’t do it for the rain forests.

“The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods” (Psa 24:1-2). He will do with it as He pleases, and it has pleased Him to warn us, and make a way to save us. The Green Gospel can’t save you, but God’s Grace can. Which gospel have you staked your life on?

Notes:

[i] Acts 20:24

[ii] 2Cor. 5:20

[iii] 2Cor.5:19; Heb. 2:17

[iv] Heb. 11:13-16 1Pet. 2:11

[v] Eph. 2:19

[vi] 1Cor. 15:52, Rev. 3:3; 1Thess. 4:13-5:2

[vii] Rev. 3:10; see, Isa. 13:9-11

[viii] Rev 6:16-17

[ix] Gal. 2:16

[x] Rev. 20:11-15

[xi] Laurie Goodstein, “Living Day to Day by a Gospel of Green,” The New York Times, nytimes.com, March 8, 2007.

Http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/garden/08ball.html?_r=1&oref=… (accessed March 8; requires membership).

[xii] Goodstein, “Gospel of Green.”

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] a Pharisee and president of the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel had been the Apostle Paul’s master, Acts 23:3.

[xvi] Act 5:38-39.

[xvii] 1Thes. 5:9.

[xviii] Isa. 53:5.

[xix] 2Pet. 3:9; see, Mat. 20:28; Act 4:12.

[xx] Rev 5:1-14.

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)

Churches across the land will be exposed to compromise again this year as pastors relinquish their pulpits to psychologists. Already, speaking schedules are being booked at near capacity for these counselors to come in and take authority over flocks, and to instruct them in the intimacies of marriage and romance. Take for example Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapists. This year their “Becoming Soulmates Seminar” is being held at churches all over the country, and in Canada, and includes twenty-nine bookings to date.[i] The Parrotts have also appeared on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, The View with Barbara Walters, NBC Nightly News, and Oprah; and their work has been published in Family Circle, Redbook, Men’s Health, Focus on the Family, Brides, and USA Today.[ii] Insight as to their message might be gleaned from another of their series also appearing at churches entitled Love Talk, which includes the book by the same name, online assessment, DVD’s, small group workbooks, and leader’s guide.

In Love Talk, the duo claims to translate “psychobabble” into an “easy to understand language,” which can be used by them to teach couples how to “speak each other’s language.”[iii] It is fitting that these psychologists have finally come to accept the arch pejorative of their craft as a descriptive neologism: babble means confusion of tongues.

The concern that pastors should have regarding these counselors is that they continue to be received by major audiences through popular, nationwide secular programs. By this it may be presumed that they cannot be preaching the exclusive message of the gospel. Indeed, when going to the world marketplace with their merchandise, they should cast a broad net. A look at their product description for Love Talk gives an idea of how broad:

In this six-session Zondervan GroupwareSmall Group Edition DVD curriculum, acclaimed relationship experts and real-life couple Les and Leslie Parrott are back with a wonderfully insightful guide for improving the single most important factor in any marriage or love relationship— communication![iv]

The term “any marriage” sounds all inclusive and applicable to the saved, unsaved, and unequally yoked, but do they expand their claim of nourishment and efficacy to explicitly extra-biblical unions? The terms taken together, “any marriage or love relationship” (emphasis added) would seem conclusive that they do. The point is that their product of therapy is designed and marketed to people in non-Christian, extra-biblical, romantic unions. It cannot be purely comprised of Christian corrections and reproofs, or even predominantly Christian. The short is that for the world this is a therapy of the world, but for the Christian to turn towards this instruction they turn away from biblical counsel.

Sincere, but negligent pastors are in for a rude awakening when they see and hear how Biblically anemic these programs are. In the aftermath, they will be scrambling to supplement them with scripture. Then will it finally occur to them that they had the material all along, could have done a better job; and that they did not need to hire famous, smiling faces, but only seek the face of God?

Notes:

(more…)