LifeZette reports:
A new South Carolina law requires all police officers to be trained on how to de-escalate situations involving people with mental illnesses.
The Criminal Justice Academy in Columbia has a 4 1/2-hour class dedicated to covering the topic of mental health. The cadets are taught how to pick up on cues from a person who may be mentally ill, de-escalate the situation, and get that person to communicate with them.
According to The Christian Institute:
Giving out hormone blockers to ‘pause’ puberty ‘endangers’ young children, medical experts have warned.
In an article published in the New Atlantis science journal, experts warned against using hormone-suppressing drugs to encourage gender-confused children to “transition.”
The authors concluded that there is little scientific evidence to support the use of hormone blockers and they should not be considered a prudent option.
Lois Putnam of Learn to Discern Granny has a quote from Roger Oakland women should heed: “In fact, in many churches … books replace the Bible altogether. Rather than teach verse-by-verse … the leader of the women’s study teaches page-by-page through a book that is very appealing to the flesh and provides additional revelation to the Bible. When a discerning woman in the study goes to the pastor and expresses her concerns, she is often chided for being divisive, or her concerns are totally overlooked.” Putnam offers some good advice to women and men alike:
Not long ago a dear friend wrote me an e-mail that she titled: “Yet Another One.” In her note she wrote that a former pastor’s wife had just messaged many on Facebook touting “Jesus Calling.” Now this seasoned pastor’s wife seemed to have absolutely no clue, or discernment, that there were any problems with Sarah Young’s devotional Jesus Calling. Sadly, she had never read Warren Smith’s classic critique: Another Jesus Calling.
Christian News reports:
Photo credit: Hans Musil3
According to the denomination’s website, the General Synod voted on Sunday to approve a motion that “recognizing the need for transgender people to be welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, call[s] on the House of Bishops to consider whether some nationally commended liturgical materials might be prepared to mark a person’s gender transition.”
Barry Bowen of The Christian Sentinel has the story:
In 1987, Congress held hearings to examine government oversight or the lack thereof for religious institutions. The hearing was spurred on by allegations of fraud involving televangelist Jim Bakker and PTL.
Pastor D. James Kennedy meekly told Congress, “I would think that if a person is going to give money to something, that they have … a responsibility to learn where it is going.”
Donor Responsibility. It is an important concept. Christians should check out televangelists before sending them checks or making donations by phone. Besides examining a preacher’s theology, donors should determine if giving to them is good stewardship.
Trinity Broadcasting Network, America’s largest religious TV network, is amassing huge legal expenses. The network has spent more than $20 million on attorneys’ fees since 2012.
Michelle Cretella is the pediatrician. In a piece over at The Daily Signal, Dr. Cretella, who is a board member and researcher for the American College of Pediatricians, reveals what pediatricians who don’t go with the flow are up against. For one thing, “The transgender movement has gained legs in the medical community and in our culture by offering a deeply flawed narrative. The scientific research and facts tell a different story.”
Read it and weep.
Transgender politics have taken Americans by surprise, and caught some lawmakers off guard.
Just a few short years ago, not many could have imagined a high-profile showdown over transgender men and women’s access to single-sex bathrooms in North Carolina.
But transgender ideology is not just infecting our laws. It is intruding into the lives of the most innocent among us—children—and with the apparent growing support of the professional medical community.
As explained in my 2016 peer reviewed article, “Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate,” professionals who dare to question the unscientific party line of supporting gender transition therapy will find themselves maligned and out of a job.
Technocracy News has this comment on genetically engineered insects:
And away we go… Moths with a genetically modified kill switch to be released into the wild. The words ‘likely’ and ‘unlikely’ are used repeatedly to justify the release: ‘unlikely to impact the environment or humans’ and ‘likely killed off my pesticides’. The USDA has again fallen under the spell of Technocrats who elevate science to a state of godhood and themselves as the high priests.
Gizmoto has the story:
Diamondback moths may be a mere half-inch in length, but their voracious appetite for Brussels sprouts, kale and cauliflower make them a major pain for farmers. This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a potential solution: moths genetically engineered to contain a special gene that makes them gradually die off. A field trial slated to take place in a small area of upstate New York will become the first wild release of an insect modified using genetic engineering in the US.
According to Leah Jessen of LifeZette, “many intelligent and educated people don’t know fundamental truths about human life, such as when life begins.” She writes:
“When does a human life begin?”
This question should not be hard to answer — but in today’s culture, the topic is more contentious than ever.
“This is not about opinions, politics, or religion — nor should it be. It is about modern, objective, relevant science,” Brooke Stanton, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Contend Projects, wrote on her organization’s website. Based in Washington, D.C., and founded two years ago, the secular and nonpartisan Contend Projects is working to inform people, based on science, about when life begins.
Dr. Meg Meeker believes that Charlie Gard’s parents, who live in Great Britain, should have the final say over their son, not gov’t bureaucrats or faceless “experts.” Charlie’s story has made headlines, even in America, and it’s a very troubling story indeed. Here’s how Dr. Meeker tells it in a post over at LifeZette:
Charlie Gard’s parents are embroiled in the fight for their son’s life and — importantly — the fight for their right to be parents.
Diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disease, a condition that disables the cells of the body from functioning adequately, little Charlie — who is not yet a year old — has been on life support. And the British courts, not his parents, are assuming responsibility for his life.
According to Breitbart:
Female soldiers must give “dignity and respect” to transsexual men who join them in their shared shower rooms, according to training manuals leaked by soldiers in a mandatory class.
But this “dignity and respect” is a one-way street, according to the training slides, which were developed by officials working for former President Barack Obama. “Transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers,” according to the slides, which were first leaked by TheFederalist.com:
As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night (John 13:30).
The chapter began with satanic influence on Judas. In verse 2 John says, The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus
(John 13:2). Here you see that Judas’s greed has given the devil an opportunity. When we resist God’s love and follow a determined march toward evil, it gives the devil opportunity. And he had the opportunity to implant thoughts in Judas’s heart that would take deep root immediately. So he had already put it into Judas’s heart to betray Jesus; the deal had been arranged. When Jesus gave him the morsel and Judas took it and ate it without a word or a sign of repentance or remorse, he passed the point of no return.
Christian News reports:
Pastor Robert Jeffress. Photo credit Gage Skidmore
A well-known megachurch leader and Trump supporter says that those who have been critical of last Saturday’s choir performance of a song based on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan are “evangelical gnats” who are just upset that Trump won the election.
“They are absolutely nothing but evangelical gnats who are looking for any excuse to nibble at the president,” Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas told the Christian Post this week. “If you take these critics’ argument to their logical end, then Christians need to quit saying the Pledge of Allegiance.”
As previously reported, the song, which had been written by the church’s former music minister, Gary Moore, was performed by the Southern Baptist choir during Saturday’s “Celebrate Freedom” rally in the nation’s capital. The event was co-sponsored by Jeffress’ congregation and featured a message from the president.
Edmund Kozak of Lifezette covers what some are calling President Trump’s “Reaganesque” speech:
President Donald Trump delivered a speech Thursday in Warsaw, Poland, sure to boost the anti-globalist ruling government of the eastern European nation — and undercut his EU critics.
“The Polish experience reminds us — the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail,” Trump said before a huge crowd at Warsaw’s Krasinski Square.
“Your oppressors tried to break you, but Poland could not be broken,” he continued.
Chicago Tribune ran the Associated Press report:
Muslim groups in Malaysia and Indonesia have called for a boycott of Starbucks because of the coffee chain’s support for LGBT rights.
Malaysian group Perkasa, which supports a hard-line form of Islam and nationalism, this week called on its more than 500,000 members to stay away from Starbucks coffee shops. This week and last, leaders of Indonesia’s second largest mainstream Muslim group, Muhammadiyah, with an estimated 29 million members, denounced the chain.
The groups were apparently reacting to comments made several years ago by former CEO Howard Schultz in support of gay rights that drew renewed attention amid an increasingly anti-LGBT climate in both of the predominantly Muslim countries.
The brouhaha is over Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, where the pontiff declared that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can now receive Holy Communion. The RCC has always considered divorced/remarried Catholics to be living in a state of adultery and because adultery is a sin against God, they were not allowed to take communion. According to Jonathan Kleis of Reformissio, “A key problem is that the Pope’s own position on this issue has been ambiguous. Although last year he backed an Argentine bishops’ directive advocating support for giving Holy Communion to some remarried divorcees and, a few months ago, wrote a letter thanking Maltese bishops for their guidelines on interpreting the document, he has yet to state an official position…” So now things are starting to get ugly.
Trouble is brewing in Rome. As I wrote a while back about the fractures developing in the foundation of the Catholic Church over the interpretation of Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia, the situation has only become worse. Not only have requests for clarification gone unheeded, but talk has now begun of “doctrinal anarchy” as regional conferences of bishops around the world have been issuing contradictory guidelines for the admission of divorcees to the sacraments. In an article posted on the National Catholic Register, Edward Pentin writes:
Christian News reports:
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the CEO of Hasbro outlined that the company has changed its thinking regarding certain toys being geared toward particular genders. Brian Goldner told the outlet that Hasbro has found that a significant percentage of boys are interested in My Little Pony, and that girls might like some of the Star Wars products the company will soon be releasing. “You’ve pivoted Hasbro’s focus from mostly boys to girls as well, and the stock hit an all-time high in February. What does that say about the marketplace?” reporter Tatiana Siegel asked.
According to The Telegraph, the exorcism industry is in part “driven by immigrant communities and Pentecostal churches which are very open about their exorcism services.” Exorcisms are being performed despite the fact that the writers of the New Testament never admonish believers to cast demons out of people. What we are told to do is to put on the armor of God and stand firm against demonic activity (Ephesians 6:10-20). James tells us to resist the devil (James 4:7) and Peter says that when it comes to the spiritual forces of wickedness we are to be alert and of sober mind (1 Peter 5:8). We must not give the devil a foothold in our lives. (Ephesians 4:27). Never are we told to address demons or to attempt to perform an exorcism. Again, we are told to keep our spiritual armor on and to “resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
An “astonishing” rise in harmful Christian exorcisms is being partly driven by migrant communities, a think tank has warned.
A report by Theos, a think tank focusing on religion, found that experts were concerned that the “booming industry” in exorcisms was putting Christians’ mental health at risk.
The report, which examines the relationship between Christianity and mental health, said: “Exorcisms are now a booming industry in the UK, with a number of interviewees noting the astonishing increase in demand – often, as one noted, in defiance of any actual rules or procedures put in place by any church.”
The reporter accused of coercing an apology from the creator of the Donald Trump wresting meme threatened the man with punishment unless his remorse is genuine and his “ugly behavior on social media” stops. LifeZette has the story:
CNN found itself ensnared in yet another ethical quagmire on Wednesday after a young reporter apparently tracked down the creator of a mock video tweeted by President Donald Trump and extracted an apology from him.
The Reddit user created the controversial animated GIF that showed Trump bodyslamming a man at a WWE match. The man in the original video was Vince McMahon, the former president of WWE and a personal friend to Trump. In the mock video the CNN logo was placed over McMahon’s head.
According to The Orange County Register:
Harvest Christian Fellowship will be joining the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant body with about 15 million members. The Rev. Greg Laurie, pastor and founder of the 15,000-member Harvest and its Harvest Crusades, announced the move in June.
Some theologians see this as Laurie’s official shift toward mainstream evangelicalism and worry that Riverside-based Harvest could be overshadowed by the denomination. Laurie has been seen as one of the biggest crusaders of Calvary Chapel, an association of evangelical Christian churches to which Harvest belongs. Calvary was born as a movement away from religious denominations.
The government works for us, not the other way around.
By Larry Kudlow
What is the Fourth of July? It’s a wonderful time. We’re outdoors. We’re with family and friends. We’re playing golf or fishing. There are barbecues and baseball and fireworks and all that good stuff. And beneath it all, supporting it all, there is freedom. Freedom. The Fourth of July is about freedom, if nothing else. America’s freedom, of course. But a freedom that extends to all people. One that leads to greatness and prosperity. A freedom that has become the backbone of the world. I would like to take a moment this holiday to revisit the sources of that freedom. They were outlined so eloquently in perhaps the greatest document ever written, the Declaration of Independence. And they’re as crucial now as they were 241 years ago. It’s a well-known story. Back in 1776, the Continental Congress sought freedom from tyranny. They said, “We’re revolting against a British monarchy and parliament that doesn’t represent us. We’re rebelling against laws we don’t control and are capricious to say the least.”
To formalize this revolt, the congress formed a committee of five. Chosen were Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingstone (New Jersey), John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Roger Sherman (Connecticut). A pretty spiffy group of thinkers and writers. Their task was to draft a statement of independence — although what they came up with was so much more. Their document, “The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,” was adopted on July 4, 1776, after days of debate and revision. The document begins: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
I’d like to underscore the civility of that opening. This document is an example of civility. The great American revolt was a defense of the right of discussion. Civil discourse. Respectful disagreement.
In 2014 the late Ken Silva expressed his concern over Dr. Michael Brown’s promotion of NAR false teachers Mike Bickle (who was recently permanently disqualified) and Lou Engle. CRN is re-posting a blog post he wrote as a reminder that Dr. Brown has been criticized for his connection to and defense of wolves in sheep’s clothing for quite sometime. “The point of this piece,” stated Silva, “is simply to archive and document this for you because the pages containing these kinds of admissions often seem to vanish.” No surprise there. “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. John 3:20
Ken Silva did a brilliant job of exposing and documenting the wicked things people do. With this backdrop in place, here’s Ken’s article:
Concerning Mike Bickle, the International House Of Prayer’s false Kansas City prophet and purveyor of New Apostolic Reformation/Latter Rain doctrine, Apprising Ministries recently told you that Francis Chan Is Wrong For Endorsing NAR Teacher Mike Bickle.
Then yesterday I pointed out that Dr. Michael Brown, host of The Line of Fire radio program and widely respected theologian in many charismatic circles, has come to the defense of the indefensible: Dr. Michael Brown Defends Word Faith Heretic Benny Hinn.
That post featured Brown’s spirited Twitter exchange with Steve Camp, pastor-teacher of The Cross Church, who correctly took Brown to task for his conduct on the television program of Benny Hinn. It’s beyond question that Hinn’s a notorious Word Faith (WF) preacher.
Yet on Facebook Brown had already posted the following: Let’s just say that Benny Hinn was as bad as some of you say. Why shouldn’t I reach his audience with gospel truth for five days, even if it means some people will be upset with me? (Just more food for discussion!) (source)
It would seem from this that Michael Brown doesn’t believe Benny Hinn is “as bad as” critics e.g. like Watchman Fellowship have previously pointed out. ((http://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/bennyhinnprofile.pdf, accessed 1/14/14.)) Well, here’s a clip from Benny Hinn’s You Tube page published this past December 24 featuring Hinn with so-called “prophetess” Juanita Bynum.
Hinn’s intro to this video tells us:
Bynum has become an example of inspiration, hope, and new life to men and women around the world. She has turned her humble beginnings into an inspirational and philanthropic empire for educating, equipping and empowering people from all walks of life.
Her bestselling books include Matters of the Heart, My Spiritual Inheritance, Threshing Floor, and No More Sheets. On this powerful broadcast, Dr. Bynum reveals the fresh word that God has been showing her about the coming days. Get ready to feel the igniting of your heart as you hear about promotion, favor, and increase during 2014! (source)
Watch as Hinn marvels at WF flake Bynum’s absolute spiritual gibberish concerning the “anointed” prayer shawls he’s selling offering. You tell me if Hinn’s changed. I personally think it’s sad that Dr. Michael Brown apparently can’t see through hucksters like Benny Hinn:
Video removed [mejsvideo src=”https://www.apprising.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/BHinnBynum2013.mp4″ width=640 height=360]
But this video still remains: Watch the moment Benny hinn prayed for Juanita Bynum to receive the prophetic ??
Unfortunately, you’re about to see that it gets even worse for whatever credibility Brown may have left. He also wanted us to know that his NAR dominionist friends Mike Bickle of IHOP and Lou Engle of TheCall are preachers to follow and that the Brownsville Revival was a true move of God:
I know it’s late, but for those of you who are still up, here’s a quick question (meant honestly): How many of you are fine with my friendship with men like Mike Bickle, Lou Engle, and Reinhard Bonnke (whom I believe to be true men of God), and my involvement in and endorsement of the Brownsville Revival (which I believe to be a wonderful move of the Spirit), but you’re just concerned about my appearing on Benny Hinn’s TV show? (source)
The point of this piece is simply to archive and document this for you because the pages containing these kinds of admissions often seem to vanish. So, in closing this for now, for more information on false prophet/quasi-apostle Mike Bickle I refer you to the Mike Bickle – I.H.O.P. page of Apostasy Watch (no longer online).
As it concerns Bickle, who’s now crossing over into the mainstream, Christian apologist Bob DeWaay has already informed us:
IHOP president and director Mike Bickle…claims that Jesus cannot return until something drastically changes in the church: “He is not coming any day. He is not coming until the people of God globally are crying out in intercession with a bridal identity under the anointing of the Spirit.” If you do not understand what he means by that it is likely because you have read the Bible literally and have never found anything regarding a special anointing that imparts a revelation of a “bridal identity.”
In fact, much of Bickle’s terminology will be strange and foreign to most Christians… Bickle’s movement is based on allegorized scripture, deeper life pietism, and mysticism, representing a slightly modified version of the heretical Latter Rain movement of the 1940s. Bickle claims that he began his ministry through the hearing of an audible voice of God in 1983 that told him to start 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David.
He further claims that he erected a sign to that effect and that he himself did not even know what prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David was, despite that God had told him to establish it. It turns out that it is “prophetic singing prayers.” Once they figured out what it was, IHOP was born. (source)
The Significance of Youth-Filled Stadiums: Revisiting the Old Latter Rain Prophecy in Light of Current Events from Herescope is a good place to get started with what NAR Apostle Lou Engle is about. You may recall I showed you Engle is also moving closer to the mainstream as well in Louie Giglio, Passion 2013, And Jesus Culture.
Here’s an example of Lou Engle in action from August of last year. Notice that this false prophet of the New Apostolic Reformation is with spiritual wingnut Patricia King:
Video removed [mejsvideo src=”https://www.apprising.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Engle.mp4″ width=640 height=360]
But there’s this video: False NAR Prophet Lou Engle w/Patricia King of XP Media
Finally, G. Richard Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman of Personal Freedom Outreach will fill you in on The Murky River of Brownsville: The Strange Doctrine of the Pensacola Revival (no longer available). It’s important to note that Dr. Michael Brown was a leader in ((http://www.fire-school.org/author/drmlbrown/, accessed 1/14/14.)) as well as an apologist for, this so-called revival. ((http://www.equip.org/articles/the-counterfeit-revival-part-three/, accessed 1/14/14.))
While these spiritual shenanigans were still going on [circa 1997] Fisher and Goedelman brought out:
Within Pentecostal circles in the early 1900s and beyond, “Azusa Street” became a catch phrase describing what some regarded as a powerhouse move of God. Now, nearly a century later, recent events at an Assembly of God church in Florida’s panhandle are receiving similar fanfare…
This “revival” is being heralded as “A River is Flowing” and a place to “meet the God of the Universe face to face.” Praise for it has even been proclaimed from the very top of the denomination [the AoG] that represents the largest body of Pentecostals…
There are two dominant human agents of the revival. The first includes the pastor of the Brownsville congregation, the Reverend John Kilpatrick… The second key player in Pensacola is the Reverend Stephen Hill who is ordained as a Missionary Evangelist with the Assemblies of God…
Despite the warnings against those with critical spirits, the Brownsville team strives to at least present a veneer that their doctrine and practice are biblical. Hill recently stated:
“We have a theologian, by the way, on our staff. Michael Brown, who is a theologian. He debates rabbis all over the world. Those of you who have a problem about anything write Michael Brown, Brownsville Assembly. He’ll blow you away, friend. He’ll give you Scripture for everything that’s going on. But I don’t have to have a Scripture every time a man’s hand twitches. I’m sorry, if you’ve got to have a Scripture if a man’s hand twitches.”
In spite of Hill’s challenge, members of the Brownsville staff are not always able to provide an answer for what they say from the pulpit… Is this a “revival” to end all “revivals” — the mother of all revivals? Its doctrine and practice says simply that it is the Church tapping into a new emotionalism and new heights of mysticism, the paranormal and entopic phenomenon. (source)
Someone needs to explain to Dr. Michael Brown that slander refers to the spoken word; libel concerns the written word. Unfortunately for him, he will have no success trying to refute the factual information I’ve presented above:
(source)
You should also know that in The Raging River Of Brownsville: PFO Responds to Michael L. Brown’s Attack of the Critics of the Pensacola Revival (no longer available) Fisher and Goedelman would later engage with Brown’s critique of Brownsville critics. What they wrote is really rather revealing:
Dr. Michael L. Brown rightly could be called the critic of the critics. His nickname of “knock ‘em down Brown” (acquired a number of years ago by his ability to “slay in the Spirit”) could easily be retooled to describe his response to the critics of the Pensacola-based church where he is resident theologian.
He is super-critical of anyone who expresses more fault than flattery of the purported revival and its manifestations occurring at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Florida. Brown’s book, Let No One Deceive You, is just one of the many items being promoted and marketed as a result of this “latter-day revival.”
In it he suggests that the doctrine and practice of the “Pensacola Outpouring” is biblical and of God. However, some of the troublesome things, like the false declarations of Pastor John Kilpatrick and Evangelist Stephen Hill and the bizarre manifestations, are conveniently passed or glossed over.
Brown is harsh and combative, to say the least, and is a mirror image of Brownsville’s harsher critics. In reality, his tone far exceeds that of most of the critics of the alleged “outpouring.” Name-calling and damnation, absent from the vast majority of revival evaluations, are readily present in Brown’s writing…
Let No One Deceive You is saturated with insulting language. Critics are referred to in the Preface as “critical, religious, fault-finding, ministry nobodies.”… Brown has a way of turning Scripture on its head. He takes a perspective and then makes the Bible conform to it. (source)
As one who was saved in a charismatic church, and has been documenting for you evangelicalism’s move away from sola Scriptura, I can tell you that this would all be par for the course. Too many people today are running around claiming direct revelations from God and then making Scripture conform to their fickle feelings.
Ken Silva’s 2014 article is published here.
CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18 such as those mentioned in the article.
Why this warning, why this article? A few days ago Jurgen Matthesius, senior pastor of C3 San Diego, announced his support for “The Shack” in an Instagram. Over the years Churchwatch Central has done a stellar job warning the sheep about dangerous sects and movements that claim to be Christian including C3 churches. In their latest report they included a piece by noted Christian apologist Matt Slick where he details why the blockbuster book and movie must be avoided at all costs:
“There is a famine in the land, and Christian discernment is dying. The book “The Shack” is a feel-good fictional story about a man named Mack whose daughter is murdered. Mack subsequently has an encounter with God in a shack in the woods, and through this meeting, he’s healed emotionally and spiritually. Sound good? Of course it does. The only problem is the many false doctrines laced throughout the book.
Instead of describing God as the Majestic Supreme Being that He is, The Shack dumbs Him down and reshapes Him into a feel-good figure. God the Father who, according to the Bible, cannot be seen (John 6:46; 1 Tim. 6:16), appears in the form of an African-American woman named “papa” (p. 86–talk about gender confusion) who has scars on his wrist (p. 95). Wrong! The Father was not crucified. Jesus is presented as a Middle Easterner wearing a plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves (p. 84). The Holy Spirit appears as an Asian woman (p. 85). The Shack’s author, Mr. Young, justifies these false representations under the rubric of literary license and says it is only fiction. Okay, but does that mean it is alright to refer to God in a way that is in direct contradiction to Scripture? No, it does not. God has chosen to reveal Himself without gender confusion in the man Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5), but The Shack doesn’t stop with flamboyant reconstructions of God.
Christian News has the story:
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the 2015 Supreme Court same-sex “marriage” decision did not clearly state whether the “spouses” of homosexual government workers are entitled to benefits. “The Supreme Court held in Obergefell that the Constitution requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages to the same extent that they license and recognize opposite-sex marriages, but it did not hold that states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons,” Justice Jeffrey Boyd wrote on behalf of the panel. “Of course, that does not mean … that the city may constitutionally deny benefits to its employees’ same-sex spouses,” he added. “Those are the issues that this case now presents.”
After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him (John 13:5).
There can be little doubt that in this passage Jesus is deliberately working out a parable for the instruction of His disciples. He is dramatizing for them the truth of His own ministry, of His own redemptive mercy. He is showing them by this means what He had come into the world to do. You can trace the parallel in the events that John records: First, Jesus rose from supper, just as He had previously risen from His throne of glory. Then He laid aside His garments. Paul tells us that He laid aside His glory when He came into the world in the incarnate state. He laid aside the exercise of His own deity. He did not come to act as God; He came to act as man indwelt by God (see Philippians 2:5-11).
“For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” (1 Cor. 3:3b).
As we continue our discussion of topics related to perseverance, we come to a discussion about the “carnal” Christian. Proponents of carnal Christianity assert that it is possible to trust in Christ as Savior without necessarily confessing Christ as Lord. According to advocates of this position, a person is saved if they confess Christ, even if they never live, or even care about, a life of obedience to Him as Lord.
This position marks a significant innovation in the history of Christian theology. Even those of us who deny the meritorious nature of good works, affirm their necessity in the Christian life. Advocates of carnal Christianity charge that if we affirm that good works are necessary in the life of the believer, they assert that we necessarily deny that justification is by faith alone.
