Author Archives: Marsha West

About Marsha West

Marsha West is the owner and managing editor of Christian Research Network, Apprising Ministries (the late Ken Silva’s blog) and On Solid Rock Resources. She is also co-founder of Berean Research. For two decades Marsha was the owner and managing editor of Email Brigade website as well as the EMB News Report, a bi-weekly email report for conservative people of faith. For many years Marsha was a regular contributor to several blogs including CRN, RenewAmerica, News With Views and Web Commantary as well as popular websites she no longer endorses: American Family Association, Worldview Weekend, Stand Up For The Truth, The Christian Post and Christian Headlines. Although Marsha still blogs, her primary focus is CRN. Marsha also writes Research Papers (White Papers) on various topics that are published on CRN, Berean Research and On Solid Rock Resources. Visit Marsha’s other sites: On Solid Rock Resources https://www.onsolidrockresources.com/ Apprising Ministries http://apprising.org Marsha’s RenewAmerica Column http://renewamerica.com/columns/mwest Marsha’s Facebook Page http://facebook.com/marsha.west.77

An Open Letter to Beth Moore – Timeline of Events

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Michelle Lesley keeps us informed as to what has transpired since six Christian women published a letter to Beth Moore asking that she clearly state her view on homosexuality, as what she believes has “evolved” over the years. Under immense pressure, Beth has finally come out with a statement! Michelle shares her statement in the timeline. She writes:

Nearly three weeks ago, six Christian women (and nearly 500 subsequent signers) addressed An Open Letter to Beth Moore, asking five questions about her views on homosexuality:

  1. Do you believe homosexuality is inherently sinful?

  2. Do you believe that the practice of the homosexual lifestyle is compatible with holy Christian living?

  3. Do you believe a person who dies as a practicing homosexual but professes to be a Christian will inherit eternal life? Continue reading →

Living Out – A Follow-Up and Call to Further Action

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“Have all the objectionable resources that were exposed in your articles been removed from Living Out during the audit?  Answer: NO. Only two resources were removed and all of the resources quoted from the section above are presently live on their website. Although I trust that an audit is being carried out, this reckless and unbiblical teaching remains unedited for people to follow. (It is important to clarify that Sam Allberry does not have the sole authority to remove these resources.)” 

The above quote was taken from a June 6 piece written by Tom Buck. A few days ago I checked his blog over at Alpha & Omega Ministries to see if he had written a second follow-up. Nothing yet.

Many people are unaware of the controversy that erupted over some of the articles posted on Living Out (LO), a website owned by three professing Christians who experience same-sex attraction (SSA), namely Sam Allberry, Sean Doherty and Ed Shaw.  According to LO’s site, these men have a desire to “bring out into the open the questions and dilemmas that gay Christians can often face.” Continue reading →

Beth Moore: Calling Homosexuality a Sin is ‘Exceeding Scripture’

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Yet, in one of the rare situations where Beth Moore actually writes something biblically sound and true — a clear position on the sinfulness of homosexuality — she insists that she’s “exceeded Scripture.”

(Jeff Maples – Reformation Charlotte)  Beth Moore has been under fire lately after a group of female Bible teachers published an open letter to Moore urging her to clarify her doctrinal position on homosexuality. Moore insisted that her doctrinal views on homosexuality have not shifted over the course of her ministry. On page 279 of Beth Moore’s book, Praying God’s Word, originally published in 2009, Moore writes: Continue reading →

The Curious Mystical Text Behind Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Bid

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If you’re unfamiliar with A Course In Miracles, the Christian Research Institute published an essay “A Course In Miracles: Christian Glossed Hinduism For The Masses” that delves into the dangers of the Course. In short, the book “is a masterpiece of spiritual strategy. It claims to be a revelation from Jesus Christ Himself, and it is intelligently organized and simply written. It appeals to personal pride and can become almost addicting emotionally. It is carefully designed for radically restructuring a persons perception against Christian faith and toward New Age occultism.”

Columnist Sam Kestenbaum reveals that “the Christian Research Institute, ominously described the narrator of the Course as not divine at all, but “a demon cleverly impersonating Jesus” bent on turning a “person’s perception against Christian faith and toward New Age occultism.”  Ms. Schucman was hesitant. But with the encouragement of a colleague, William Thetford, she began to write. She came to believe the voice belonged to Jesus. Her spirit channeling unspooled over several years, culminating in a three-volume, 1,300-page tome. It was published in 1976 by the Foundation for Inner Peace.”

Here’s Kestenbaum’s piece over at The New York Times: Continue reading →

Hispanic Pastors Tour Border Facility, Say They’re ‘Totally Baffled’ by Misinformation in News

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Rodriguez is not the first Christian leader to push back against the media’s characterization of the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border. During an interview with Faithwire last week, Prestonwood en Español Pastor Gilberto Corredera said border agents have good relationships with the children, often spending their own money to buy food and water for them.

(Tré Goins-Phillips – Faith Wire)   A delegation of Hispanic pastors, led by the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, toured a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, last week, and what they saw was “drastically different” from the media’s portrayal of the situation along the country’s southern border. Continue reading →

Pope Francis unleashes his inner pagan in Pan-Amazonian document laying foundation for ‘new’ Christianity

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“The document is fraught with references to “Mother Earth” while touting a “New Pentecost” based on the “diversity of religion and culture” in the Amazon region of South America that Francis sees as a template for the world.”

(Leo Hohmann)  Pope Francis has released the preparatory document for the Vatican’s upcoming Pan-Amazonian Synod in October, and it contains yet another window into the pope’s green-friendly worldview in which he subtlety and deceptively turns traditional, biblical Christianity on its head. Continue reading →

Gender Transition Clinic Sees Huge Spike in Children Under 14 Seeking Sex Change

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“We know that compared to only 1% of the general population, around a third of young people treated at the Tavistock has an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. A condition that is characterized by difficulties of social interaction. Vulnerable girls are being used by the transgender movement to destigmatize what is essentially a male sexual fetish.”

(Faith Wire – Will Maule)  A British gender clinic has reported a massive increase in the number of children seeking to transition from one sex to the other. The most significant surge in demand has come from young girls who are determined to transition to becoming males. Continue reading →

‘Dark Times to Come’: US Pastor Who Had Been Imprisoned in Turkey Testifies Before Religious Freedom Panel

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The pastor outlined how he himself was accused of “Christianization” in Turkey, but with the slant that he was using Christianity and “psychological warfare … under the guise of an evangelical church pastor” to undermine the government.

(Heather Clark – Christian News Network)  Andrew Brunson, an American missionary to Turkey who had spent two years in prison after being falsely accused of using “Christianization” to overthrow the government, testified before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Thursday. He explained his belief that his case was used to cause the general population to think negatively and suspiciously of Christians. Continue reading →

The Heart of the Difference Between Revoice Theology and Reformed Theology – the Sinfulness and Mortification of Sinful Desires

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“The Confession, and those who are opposed to Revoice and Side B Gay Christianity, view not only actual homosexual acts but desires to be properly sinful. We also regard part of the work of sanctification to consist of bringing these desires into subjection and mortifying them so they really diminish and die as the regenerate person is sanctified.”

(Andrew Webb – The Aquila Report)  At the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly June 25-28, 2019, several speakers (the most prominent being self-proclaimed Gay PCA pastor Greg Johnson) took issue with the Nashville Statement on the grounds that it condemns a homosexual self-identity…. Continue reading →

Holocaust Survivor Nominates AOC for ‘Nobel Prize in Stupidity’

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Mosberg, who lost his entire family during the Holocaust and himself survived both the Plaszów and Mauthausen camps, said: “Her statement is evil. It hurts a lot of people. At the concentration camp, we were not free. We were forced there by the Germans who executed and murdered people — there’s no way you can compare.”

(Stephen Kruiser – PJ Media)  After igniting another verbal gaffe controversy when she compared border detention areas to concentration camps, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) received a couple of invitations to visit real concentration camps and perhaps learn something. Continue reading →

Lauding Heretic, Eugene Peterson, Beth Moore Compares Him to Beethoven

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“An advocate of the now largely defunct Emergent Church, Peterson actually encouraged people not to read or study the Bible. Peterson created a Bible paraphrase that was as least like the Bible as humanly possible, because Peterson wanted people to avoid God’s Word as much as possible.”

(Pulpit & Pen)  Beth Moore recently likened the author of The Message “translation” – perhaps the worst Bible translation in the history of mankind – to Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, and Ludwig von Beethoven. If you know anything about Bible translation, this is face-palmingly stupid. Continue reading →

Anti-Trump fever takes threatening turn

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“There was Antifa’s recent attack on Andy Ngo, a freelance journalist often associated with the pro-free thought cultural publication Quillette. At a demonstration in Portland, at which Trump was a focus of dispute, Antifa fighters beat up and milkshaked Ngo, apparently because he was there and he was not on their side.”

(Byron York – Washington Examiner)  The toxicity of the resistance to President Trump has risen in recent days, with the nation’s most respected newspapers publishing rationalizations for denying Trump supporters public accommodation and for doxxing career federal employees, while a journalist found himself under physical attack from the so-called anti-fascist group Antifa, which has stepped up its violent activities since Trump’s election. Continue reading →

God Is Good and Just When He Punishes People

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If He were to render our judgment, we’d all be doomed. If He faltered in His responsibility to punish us—criminals—He shouldn’t be commended for it. He would be a deficient God, one who can’t be trusted to do what is right. Even though I’d be included in His judgment, I would still have to acknowledge that to punish me would be the just and good thing to do. This is bad news. But here’s good news.

(Alan Shleman – Stand To Reason)  When my son trespasses into his sister’s room and takes something of hers, he’s violated our daughter’s trust and broken our family rules. He knows he’s done something wrong and now he’s in trouble. That’s why we punish him with some sort of discipline. Continue reading →

Adonai with female body parts?

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John Lanagan of The Word Like Fire begins with an apology:

Reader, I sincerely apologize for the title, and for having to present the quotes from Paul Young’s novel, Eve. Young’s false teaching and mother goddess first entered the visible church through his book, The Shack.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shall be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6) Continue reading →

Matt Chandler & Other Evangelical Leaders Rejected TED Bloggers’ Pleas to Expose Harvest in 2012

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“I’m heartened that Chandler may be changing his tune. But I am underwhelmed by his response. The failure by Chandler and his unnamed colleagues left thousands at the mercy of a vicious wolf, including Mahoney and Bryant. These leaders should be cut to the heart right now and asking these men and others hurt by Harvest for forgiveness.”

(Julie Roys)   Former celebrity pastor, James MacDonald, has been fired. His sins have been splashed on national headlines. Every elder and senior leader at Harvest Bible Chapel (HBC) has resigned. And the church is scrambling to stay afloat.

But it all could have been prevented.

That’s according Ryan Mahoney and Scott Bryant, authors of The Elephant’s Debt (TED), a blog critical of Harvest and MacDonald. Continue reading →

‘My Little Pony’ Children’s Cartoon Features Lesbian Aunts During Final Season

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“With Josh and Nicole running the final season together, it was something we all wanted to do — bring this out couple into the final season and make them ‘officially’ a part of the MLP world,”

(Heather Clark – Christian News Network)  The animated series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” featured lesbian aunts during its final season, a writer for the show and an actress who gives voice to one of the aunts have confirmed.

“Introducing Aunt Holiday (ginger hair, voiced by me!) & Aunt Lofty, the lesbian pony couple debuting today on on ‘The Last Crusade’ episode of My Little Pony Season 9! #mylittlepony #proud,” tweeted Jackie Blackmore on June 15. Continue reading →

PCA General Assembly Approves the Nashville Statement as a Faithful Declaration on Biblical Sexuality

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In response to issues raised by Revoice and its impact in the PCA, the General Assembly approved, 803-541, the Nashville Statement; and the appointment of a study committee.

(The Aquila Report)  At its 47th General Assembly meeting in Dallas, Texas, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) approved the Nashville Statement as being a biblically faithful declaration on the matter of biblical sexual ethics. The PCA GA was responding to questions and issues raised throughout the church arising from the Revoice Conference that was held in St. Louis, Mo., in July 2018…. Continue reading →

Progressive Sweetheart J.K. Rowling Attacked By SJWs Over Her ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism’

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Social justice warriors were able to pull back the mask this week, though, after a Twitter account called “Trans Advocate” demonstrated that Rowling followed a number of “TERFs” on Twitter — or “trans-exclusionary radical feminists.”

(Emily Zanotti – Daily Wire)  It doesn’t matter how “woke” you are, you may never be woke enough for some progressives — a lesson “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling is apparently learning the hard way. Continue reading →

This Is Not Your Grandparents’ Church

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Bethel Church in Redding CA, live worship (stage show) April 2019 – Youtube screenshot

“And here’s the sick irony: by driving off the elderly, they were driving off the people who, through their weakness, would bring a unique strength. They were driving off people who are necessary to the healthy functioning of a church.”

(Tim Challies)  One of the ugliest boasts of so many of the churches created during the era of the Church Growth Movement was this: This is not your grandparents’ church. This was a slogan they proudly broadcast on signs outside their churches multi-function ministry centers, a motto they printed on postcards and mailed to nearby homes. Just about every upper middle class neighborhood in North America got at least a few of these in the late 90s and early aughts. Continue reading →

NBC News analysis declares Donald Trump the winner of first Democratic debate

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New York Post columnist John Podhoretz saw things similarly, taking particular issue with the candidates’ far-left push on immigration. He said the candidates “spent far more time talking about how they would help illegal immigrants than about how they would help the voters they most need to win over” and that will benefit Trump.

(Fox News) An NBC News analyst declared President Trump the winner of the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle.

Author and reporter Jonathan Allen expressed surprise that Trump emerged “largely unscathed” as the field of 10 candidates mostly avoided direct attacks on him. Continue reading →

Joel Osteen Celebrates LGBTQ Pride at Lady Gaga Event

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Joel & Victoria Osteen attended this Lady Gaga event – Youtube screenshot

“Interestingly, Osteen asserted a few years ago that he believes that the Scriptures are clear that homosexuality is a sin. Yet, he has continuously softened his tone and downplayed the significance toward homosexuality since then.”

(Jeff Maples – Reformation Charlotte)  “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you…” 2 Corinthians 6:17

This is not satire, this really happened. Joel Osteen, one of the modern-day princes of the Word of Faith prosperity gospel movement, was seen at Lady Gaga’s pride celebration at Apollo Theater on Monday night. The New York Daily News reports, Continue reading →

Hillsong ‘Worship’ Concert Includes Women on Stage, Writhing in Towels

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“This is a video from Hillsong NYC (pastored by Carl Lentz) singing, “Praise the name of the Lord our God.” Hillsong NYC is the church whose worship team was lead by two famous celebrity gay boyfriends, which was at first denied by Lentz until Pulpit & Pen found a video of Hillsong guru Brian Houston admitting the NYC campus had homosexual worship leaders.”  

(Pulpit & Pen)  Video and freeze-frames from a recent Hillsong music conference reveal a dance number that includes women writhing about sexily in the near-nude, only covered by bath towels. This isn’t the first time that Hillsong has confused worship with flesh-peddling. Continue reading →