A quick update of the ongoing trials affecting Apprising Ministries.
Bill Gothard Resigns, Duggars Still Scheduled To Speak at IBLP 2014 Conference
Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Living Principles (IBLP), has resigned amid abuse allegations. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, of the popular 19 Kids and Counting television show, adhere to the IBLP principles and are slated to speak at several upcoming IBLP conferences in 2014.
SBC Pastors Conference 2014 with Rick Warren, Francis Chan, and James MacDonald
T.D. Jakes Presents Word-Faith Leadership Conference
No Tears for Lost Roman Catholics, Beth Moore?
A Culture of Counterfeit Christians
Have you ever run over a dead skunk in the road? I have, during a heat wave. The smell got into my tires and permeated our garage for days! I’ll go out on a limb and say that no one takes pleasure in the highly offensive smell of skunk spray, dead or alive. My point in telling you this is that to God the stench of sin is much worse than skunk. For an example of just how much the Lord hates sin, grab a cup of coffee and read First and Second Kings. Given our penchant for getting things fast, here’s an illustration of the way in which God dealt with Baasha, one of Israel’s most ruthless kings:
Since I exalted you out of the dust and made you leader over my people Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have made my people Israel to sin, provoking me to anger with their sins, behold, I will utterly sweep away Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Anyone belonging to Baasha who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the heavens shall eat. (1 Kings 16:1–4)
God had already destroyed Jeroboam for his flagrant sins, yet Baasha repeated the same mistakes. God rebuked the Israelites for their sinful ways and vowed to punish them.
SBC’s Ed Stetzer as regular host of TBN’s Praise the Lord
LGBT Film Fest a Labor of Faith for Two Seminary Students
The liberal L.A. Times would have us believe that there is a category called LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) evangelical Christian. Since the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin against God, this is a contradiction in terms. According to the writer, Kurt Streeter, instead of repenting (turning) from their sin and doing what’s right in God’s eyes, some in the LGBT community have made a choice to ignore the clear teaching of Scripture and to falsely claim they’re evangelicals.
Chelsea McInturff and Samantha Curley were eager for a public conversation about film, gay sexuality and Christian life, but they weren’t sure whether it was the right time — or the right place.
They stood nervously inside an auditorium at Pasadena’s evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary last spring, worried the drama they were about to screen –— about a teen coming out as lesbian — would end up offending an audience of students and professors who didn’t necessarily approve of its story line.
“Should we even do this?” they recently recalled wondering. “Maybe we should we just skip this one and move on.”
Genetically Modified Babies
A few days ago the FDA participated in a summit that was held to consider radical biological procedures that would produce genetically modified human beings. Marcy Darnovsky. executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, wrote this article for the New York Times. Darnovsky believes these modification techniques are dangerous because of their medical risks and societal implications:
These techniques would change every cell in the bodies of children born as a result of their use, and these alterations would be passed down to future generations.
The F.D.A. calls them mitochondrial manipulation technologies. The procedures involve removing the nuclear material either from the egg or embryo of a woman with inheritable mitochondrial disease and inserting it into a healthy egg or embryo of a donor whose own nuclear material has been discarded. Any offspring would carry genetic material from three people – the nuclear DNA of the mother and father, and the mitochondrial DNA of the donor.
Rick Warren and Samuel Rodriguez Together at Thrive Conference
Enough With the Gay Mania
Quin Hillyer, contributing editor of National Review, implores: “How about a little old-fashioned privacy for sexuality of all stripes?”
It’s one thing to be tolerant of what once were known as “alternative lifestyles.” It’s another thing to be asked to celebrate them, as the exuberant mythologizers of Michael Sam and Johnny Weir ask us to do. And it is way beyond the pale to hold forth on any sort of sex life — perhaps apart from self-restraint — as if it’s a form of heroism.
Yet the culture of the professional Left, enthusiastically aided by the establishment media, is going bonkers in pushing active homosexuality (or any one of several exotic variants thereof) as an absolute virtue. One can hardly turn around these days without facing, in fiction or in real life, what amounts to homosexual chic. From the amount of primetime air time afforded to gay Americans, one would think they constitute at least a large minority of the population, rather than the 3 to 5 percent they actually do.
Back to Christian Basics
Apologist and ethicist Bill Muehlenberg reminds us how important it is for Christians to read and meditate on the Word of God daily.
One of the most tragic realities of contemporary Western Christianity is the fact that so many Christians simply do not read their Bibles. Certainly many – if not most – do not read the Bible regularly, daily, and determinedly. This has to be one of the great scandals of today’s church.
How can we claim to be lovers of God and disciples of Christ if we neglect perhaps his greatest gift to us: his written Word? Scripture is not just our guidebook, our rock, and our sustenance, but it contains God’s love letters to his own people.
How can we claim to love God yet ignore and treat with disdain his love letters to us? Just remember when you were first in love, and perhaps separated from your beloved. You looked forward every day to a letter in the mailbox, or today, an email in your inbox. You could not wait to hear from the one you loved.
Indoctrinating Children into the Cult of Steven Furtick?
T.D. Jakes Conference to feature Saddleback Church Leader
The Other Shoe Drops in Kentucky: Federal Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage in the Commonwealth
Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, expresses his dismay over a Kentucky judge’s decision to grant full recognition to same-sex marriages legally performed in other states:
As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe.” Those are the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, drawn from his dissent in the case United States v. Windsor, handed down last year. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, ruling that the United States government could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Court struck down a law passed by massive majorities in both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. While the Court did not rule that all fifty states must immediately legalize same-sex marriage, it set the stage for this eventual result. Justice Scalia made that point clear in his dissent.
Now, Justice Scalia’s prophecy has come to pass in Kentucky. Today, U. S. District Judge John G. Heyburn declared that Kentucky’s ban on recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states violates the equal protection clause of the U. S. Constitution. Judge Heyburn did not rule that Kentucky must now marry same-sex couples, but that the state must grant full recognition to same-sex marriages legally performed in other states. Nevertheless, Judge Heyburn recognized that his decision points to that eventual result, stating that “there is no doubt that Windsor and this Court’s analysis suggest a possible result to that question.” If anything, that is an understatement. As with Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion in Windsor, Judge Heyburn now clearly points to the striking down of any state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage. As Justice Scalia predicted, we did not have to wait long for the other shoe.
Steven Furtick Debuts on TBN amid Financial Concerns
Bill Nye’s Reasonable Man – The Central Worldview Clash of the Ham-Nye Debate
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes:
The debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham attracted a huge international audience and no shortage of controversy—even before it began. Bill Nye, whose main media presence is as “The Science Guy,” and Ken Ham, co-founder of Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum, squared off in a true debate over one of the most important questions that the human mind can contemplate. That is no small achievement.
I enjoyed a front row seat at the debate, which took place even as a major winter storm raged outside, dumping considerable amounts of snow and ice and causing what the local police announced as a “Class Two” weather emergency. Inside the Creation Museum there was quite enough heat, and the debate took place without a hitch. Thankfully, it also took place without acrimony.
The initial controversy about the debate centered in criticism of Bill Nye for even accepting the invitation. Many evolutionary scientists, such as Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, refuse to debate the issue, believing that any public debate offers legitimacy to those who deny evolution. Nye was criticized by many leading evolutionists, who argued publicly that nothing good could come of the debate.
One Brave Christian Woman Contra Mundum
Apologist and ethicist Bill Muehlenberg writes:
In my book, Heidi Mund is a Christian superstar, a champion, and a hero. We so desperately need more like her. Instead we have millions of gutless, spineless effeminate churchians who will never open their mouth about anything. Indeed, our churches are filled with craven cowards and spineless wonders.
So who is Heidi Mund? She is a small, frail, quiet German woman, but one who allows the Holy Ghost to empower her greatly, speaking out forcefully and fearlessly against syncretism, idolatry and the lies of the enemy. Her story has been captured in a video which has gone viral, and rightly so. You can see the 6-minute video here.
On Contemplative Spirituality and Charismania
Willow Creek Begins the Ecumenical Alpha Course
Christians, Don’t Give Up on the Homosexuality Debate
Jason Helopoulos, guest blogging for The Gospel Coalition writes:
Even before the Grammy Awards showcased Macklemore singing “Same Love” and Queen Latifah presiding over a “same sex couple’s wedding” ceremony, I had most of this blog written as the topic has been on my mind for quite some time.
I am not a Kuyperian or a Neo-Kuyperian, but there are certain watershed cultural issues for every generation of Christians; issues in which they cannot be silent. For our generation, abortion and homosexuality are key watershed issues. They are watershed issues, because abortion snatches away life and homosexuality reaches out and grabs hold of death.
The average Evangelical Christian continues to believe we should speak out against the acceptance of abortion in our culture. And the pro-abortion forces have been losing ground over the past five years. No doubt, much of that is due to the church’s resolve to stand against this agenda. However, it seems to me that in the past few years, Evangelical Christians in the United States have increasingly and passively grown in their acceptance of homosexuality. This should concern all of us.
Wretched: Love and Death in IHOP
Yet More Sexual Insanity
Apologist and ethicist Bill Muehlenberg writes:
One can argue that the past century has been one grand social experiment to see what life would be like if we kicked God and transcendent moral values out of the West. Well, the results are in, and it is not looking very good. When we ditch the one certain source of objective morality and absolute truth, mankind is simply left to its own devices.
We end up making things up as we go along, and everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Anything goes, and this is especially true in the area of sexuality. All boundaries are cast aside, and every kinky and bizarre thing imaginable is engaged in and sanctioned.
Everywhere we see the brave new world of unbridled sexuality. And despite what the sexual libertines say, we all suffer as a result – especially children. When we manage to foolishly convince ourselves that absolutely anything goes when it comes to sexuality, then there will always be plenty of losers.
So let me offer another handful of cases, beginning with this shocker from Italy: