News Snippets From All Beats

It is the policy of TheNewsBeats.com not to run an image of an ungodly reprobate, or of an evil man or woman; so long as another image can suffice with the content of an article, or when the subject is plainly too repugnant and blasphemous. Exceptions are sometimes made, but not in this instance. To view the image for which the following caption applies, readers must use the link provided.After viewing the link for “Super Conference 10.10.10,” read the caption: LINK

[UPDATE (8-11): Since this posting, sign-in authorization has been enacted to view the original image, but fortunately a screen shot exists HERE]

Appropriate Caption:

We will not be told by the Bible what to do.  If we women want to dress like men and call ourselves pastors to satiate our lust for power, we’ll do so.  If we want to wear religious collars to validate on the outside what does not exist on the inside, we will.  We don’t like Christ Jesus, and we don’t want to have anything to do with him.  We love ourselves.

We love extravagant vacations and expensive clothes, and luxury homes to return to.  We love your money.

We are nothing more than flashy orators and vocalists providing fleshly entertainment to disorient you in order to steal your money.  If all else fails, we will threaten you with a god we don’t believe in, much less serve.

We are a group of painted strumpets and cheap starlets and some demon possessed men, and we are a whoring after our other gods.  Won’t you join us?

Times are tight and most of our following fools are broke after taking our advise, so we had to team up on one ticket to increase the draw.

You will be able to gaze at the trappings of our material wealth and be awed by our style so that you can be made to believe that you too can possess all the things that you lust after by your brief association with us.  This is the substance of our unholy communion.

It is the communion you will take with us; a communion with demons at the Super Fleecing Conference.  On the scale of apostasy this is a 10.10.10.  Won’t you join us?

[If this caption isn’t the accurate one for the image, I’ll eat my own words (printed on chocolate to save a tree)]

Out of respect for John Piper’s years of Christian service, some are asking that Piper’s video he made explaining his reasons for inviting heretic Rick Warren to speak at his Desiring God conference be viewed and then privately responded to only to Piper.  That might be the proper course of action if this was the first monumental lapse in discernment to be made by Piper.  This is not, however, a singular incident, but the continuation of a trend.

Piper has previously invited another heretic to address his audience; albeit posthumously, and by means of epigraph.  In his 2002 book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Pleas to Pastors for Radical Ministry, Piper introduces one of his chapters using words of G.K. Chesterton.  In 1908, Chesterton proved happy to call God a liar by discrediting the Genesis account of creation because it didn’t line up with the favored world view of Darwinian evolution.  That was no one-time lapse either; Piper made further endorsements of Chesterton by citations in books he published in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Piper’s readers continue to not only meditate on Piper’s work, but also his endorsements of Chesterton as well; fawning over the heretic’s words.  The harm that would be caused by Warren speaking at Piper’s invitation is incalculable. As for Piper’s video explanation for endorsing Warren, his reasoning was puerile, and his on-camera demeanor seemed so befuddled that a plea of non compos mentis could be entered on his behalf.   John Piper needs to retract his invitation to Warren, publicly repent for the damage he has done to the simple in the faith, and retire while he has the mental faculty to do so by his own free will.

The Church does not need any more supposedly strong men for the Lord publicly degenerating into senility whereby they give the heathen opportunity to blaspheme God, and the simple in the faith cause to stumble.  Piper made this a public discourse, he has had ample time to be reached and corrected by those near him with discernment, and he has yet to repent.  This is now the appropriate way to respond; publicly.  John Piper: you had your apostasy, now eat it so it will go away.

CS: Controlling Scripture for this article available here.

Income earned by mega churches reportedly averages $6.5 million a year.  The annual budget for Lakewood Church in Houston, pastured by Joel Osteen, exceeds $80 million.¹  Merchandise in the form of CDs, DVDs, and books probably accounts for a large portion of the income.  Some of the changes that have been made which are propelling both growth and income were noted by Jonathan Walton, Assistant Professor of religious studies at University of California, Riverside.  Walton told CNN that “the plasma screen TVs have replaced crosses, Power Point-like presentations of words of songs and liturgical practices have replaced the hymnals.”²  While the CNN report did not touch on it, another change responsible for the growth of mega churches is the commercialization of the message marketed to the members, or rather, the consumers.

Notes:

^{1 - 2.} CNN, “Mega churches mean big business,” Connect the World, CNN. January 22, 2010.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/21/religion.mega.church.christian/

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).