News Snippets From All Beats

In determining conferences to skip in the upcoming seminar season, examining the list of Celebrity Christian Globetrotters scheduled to share their wisdom at Crystal Cathedral’s Rethink conference in January 2008 may be helpful. The following are a few Bio-observations for some of these influential icons:

Lee Strobel - is a best selling author and former teaching pastor of Willow Creek Community Church (under Bill Hybels) and Saddleback Church (under Rick Warren). It was Strobel who thought that the case for Christ was yet to be presented and, ignoring the fact that the task had already been completed and complied in the New Testament by Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, produced an effort that contributed only to distracting from the authorized version; and showed, as does his enlistment with this conference, that he is also unable to fathom the case for discernment.

Jay Sekulow - is the Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Sekulow’s appearance at Rethink is difficult to explain, unless it is the product of too much arguing. One of the identifying characteristics of a good attorney is his ability to argue a case from both sides, and one of the biggest liabilities of an attorney is an inability to remain on the side he has chosen. Is this conference appearance the result of too much ideological plea bargaining?

John Ortberg - is the teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. His appearance at Rethink is easier to understand. This is the same Presbyterian USA denomination that sided with Palestinian homicide bombers and against Israel when the later began building a wall to protect themselves. PCUSA enacted their own brand of economic sanctions by calling for financial divestment from companies doing business in Israel.

It is also the same PCUSA that allows the local presbytery to ordain homosexuals, and denies “the singular saving lordship of Jesus Christ,”¹ and from which thousands of lesser luminaries have been able to flee, with their congregations. Not so with the Ortberg, under whose leadership, and despite its prestige and wealth, or perhaps due to it, his church remains affiliated with PCUSA to this day. So much for the “teaching” pastor.

Notes:

1. Lillian Kwon, “Dissident Presbyterians Offered New Home in EPC,” Christian Post, Jun 26, 2007. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070626/28167_Dissident

_Presbyterians_Offered_New_Home_in_EPC.htm.

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In a statement that startled more than a few apostates, but surprised few real Protestants, Pope Benedict XVI singed off on a document last week that reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to be the only true church. “Other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches,” the Pope said, “and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.”

Perhaps proving that no heresy, or insult, is too hard for them to swallow, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is reported to “remain committed to ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.” This in spite of The Roman Catholic Church’s long standing proclamation that all Presbyterians, past and present–forefathers, relations and friends–who may have repented of their sins, and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, have nonetheless gone to, and are going to, hell; so long as they have been, and remain, outside the RCC.

Such a biting blasphemy and scathing rebuke leveled at the work of the Holy Spirit and the security of the believer can hardly be surpassed except that the PCUSA should go forward and kiss the hand of this antichrist, and to sup at his table of unholy sacraments. Alas, this would not be an entirely new direction for PCUSA.

This is the same Presbyterian Church that in 2004 called for economic boycotts of Israel for the abominable act of erecting fences to keep homicide bombers from blowing up Israeli women and children. At the time, the Presbyterian Church actually countered the Israeli initiative with a suggestion that they build “bridges of peace rather than walls of separation.” At least they are consistent. By accepting this latest term of unconditional surrender to unmistakably join the Mother of Harlots, the PCUSA has shown that it not only loathes the Jews, but it betrays the Protestants of the Reformation, and denies the Lord of glory. This, in itself, would be enough treachery, but they are not alone.

Positioning them selves thus far to join the PCUSA in the falling away (2 Thess. 2:3) include the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. The season declares that it will not be long before they join the RCC, and many more former Protestant churches, and several different religions, will follow (some have speculated that the SBC is on the same path). While this is news, it is not new news: the scriptures foretold this two thousand years ago. Astute readers will remember what shortly follows the conclusion of the Apostasy, and know that the time is short.

(read about it in The Christian Post)