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

Pope suggests ‘better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic’

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Reuters reports:

Pope Francis delivered another criticism of some members of his own Church on Thursday, suggesting it is better to be an atheist than one of “many” Catholics who he said lead a hypocritical double life.

The same could be said of evangelicals. The report continues…

In improvised comments in the sermon of his private morning Mass in his residence, he said: “It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life.”

Evangelicals, listen up!  More…

“There are those who say ‘I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association’,” the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.

He said that some of these people should also say “‘my life is not Christian, I don’t pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life’.”

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See our Research Paper on Roman Catholicism

Witches to cast a spell on Trump

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According to ELLE, liberal witches are going to put what they call a “binding spell” on the Trump administration.  Evidently they’re only going to bind Republicans because they don’t wish to cause them harm. “We’re just trying to stop the harm they’re doing,” say liberal witches.  One can’t help but wonder if conservative witches will stand for this or will they cast their own spell in an attempt to cancel out the spell that binds.  Jaya Saxena has the story:

Those who don’t like Donald Trump and the current Republican administration are mobilizing in all sorts of ways. They’re speaking up in town halls and calling their representatives. They’re organizing protests and demonstrations. And, for the magically-inclined, they’re casting spells.

Starting at midnight on Friday, witches around the country are calling for a mass spell to be cast on Donald Trump every night of a waning crescent moon until he’s driven from office.

The spell was publicized by Michael M. Hughes, who told ELLE.com that it was tweaked from multiple spells he saw going around private witchcraft groups. He published it on Extra News Feed because he felt “it would be very welcome to a lot of people.” It quickly spread, with events being formed around the country and support on social media.

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Americans feeling ‘warmer’ toward Mormons and Muslims — but not evangelicals

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According to Baptist News Global:

Maybe Mitt Romney should have waited one election cycle to run for president.

Romney was dogged by negative perceptions about his Mormon faith during his unsuccessful 2012 bid for the presidency. But new research shows attitudes about Mormons are warming, just as they are for most other faith groups in the United States.

Using a “thermometer” to gauge opinions about various religions, the Pew Research Center said American feelings about Mormons improved from 48 to 54 degrees since 2014.

“The increase in mean ratings is broad based,” Pew said in the February report titled “Americans Express Increasingly Warm Feelings Toward Religious Groups.”

“Warmer feelings are expressed by people in all the major religious groups analyzed, as well as by both Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and younger and older adults.”

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Trump Admin Withdraws Obama-Era Directive Requiring Allowance of Male Students in Girls’ Restrooms

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Christian News reports:

The Trump administration withdrew on Wednesday an Obama-era directive that required public schools to allow students to use the restroom that they feel matches their “internal sense of gender” under threat of losing federal funding.

A letter issued by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice outlines that the guidance issued under the Obama administration did not “contain extensive legal analysis or explain how the position is consistent with the express language of Title IX, nor did they undergo any formal public process.”

“This interpretation has given rise to significant litigation regarding school restrooms and locker rooms,” the departments noted.

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Rick Warren’s Wife, Kay, Joins Band of Vision-Seeing Prophetesses in the SBC

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Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen reports on Mrs. Warren’s vision and then selling tickets to carry out that vision:

First, it was Beth Moore with her ridiculous “God-given” vision of the professing Church, including Roman Catholics, being joined together by God in unholy unity. Now Kay Warren, wife of Saddleback megachurch pastor, Rick Warren claims she had a vision from God after the suicide of her mentally ill son in 2013. In a Facebook post, she writes:

Not long after our son, Matthew, died, I had a vision in prayer. I don’t regularly see visions, so this was unusual. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the Worship Center at Saddleback full of people who are living with a mental illness – depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, an eating disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia – or any other mental illness that was making life challenging.

Now, there is one thing to note here. Saddleback may be full of undiscerning professing Christians with a very lukewarm, if any, knowledge of Scriptural truth, at least as of now, it does not seem to be full of mentally ill people–at least to the extent that she makes it sound in her prognostication.

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The Shack’s Author William Paul Young on Substitutionary Atonement

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From Lighthouse Trails:

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29

In 2009, Lighthouse Trails posted an article titled “The Shack Author Rejects Biblical Substitutionary Atonement.” The article was largely based on an interview that The Shack author William Paul Young did. Below is a partial transcript of the interview between Young and a pastor named Kendall Adams. When your Christian friends, family members, pastors, and church members tell you they are going to go and see the upcoming movie, The Shack, ask them if they really understand what The Shack author believes. You may listen to the entire interview by clicking here. You can also pass out Warren B. Smith’s article/booklet The Shack and Its New Age Leaven and Substitution: He Took Our Place by Harry Ironside.

On the Penal Substitutionary Atonement (that Jesus Christ took the penalty for our sins on the cross):

Adams: “On page 120 [of The Shack] where God says, you know, I don’t punish sin, sin is it’s own punishment, you know, this is when Mack , um, is having a hard time with his view of God pouring out wrath, etc. But then when it says, “Mackenzie, I don’t need to punish people for sin. I guess when people read the scripture my question is, doesn’t God…hasn’t God, and doesn’t He…punish sin?”

William Young: “Some of it is semantics, we’re dealing with the concept of the wrath of God and, and here’s an underlying question. “Do you believe that God does anything that is not motivated by love?”

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Celebrating Charismatic Catholicism … As If They Don’t Have Enough To Worry About

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Most people are unaware that charismania exists within the Roman Catholic Church. But it does.  The movement is growing and for good reason. Bud Ahlheim informs us that because the RCC was losing millions of adherents to what they deem apostate Protestantism the church’s hierarchy took the advice of Brazilian Catholic priest Marcelo Rossi who urged them to incorporate some of the features of evangelical churches into a more “modernized, spiritualized, and experientially emphatic Roman Catholic church. The primary feature Rossi mimicked was the charismatic element.”

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) will be celebrating fifty years of the movement this month, which is “not cause for celebration, but for lamenting,” says Ahlheim.  In the following blog post over at Pulpit & Pen, he takes a look at the CCR:

According to a recent story in Religion News Service, “This month marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of the most important Catholic lay movement of the past century.”

That lay movement is called the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. And, just like its Pentecostalism forebear, the movement was birthed in the U.S.A.   Though adherents and proponents of it also claim a lineage to the days of the first-century church, charismania of any flavor is a recent phenomenon. Its lineage doesn’t nearly go back two millennia. Barely a century old, charismania was birthed in America in 1900 in Topeka, Kansas. (For more on it, you could read THIS.)

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Straight WNBA star: Lesbian culture broke my spirit

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Mark W. Sanchez of New York Post has the story:

Candice Wiggins was a college star at Stanford, the third pick of the 2008 WNBA draft and a 2011 champion. And at the mountaintop of her basketball career, her sexuality marred the moment.

There is a “very, very harmful” culture running throughout the WNBA, she says, which saw her get bullied during her eight-year career because she is heterosexual.

Wiggins, who last played in the league in 2015, said she retired prematurely to leave a league that she estimated — wildly — is 98 percent lesbian, and which is played in such isolation that it weighs on the people on the court.

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Tim Tebow Raises Concerns After Praising ‘Shack’ Movie Based on Universalist Novel Portraying God as Woman

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Christian News reports:

New York Mets outfielder and former NFL great Tim Tebow recently praised the upcoming film “The Shack,” a movie that is based on William P. Young’s bestselling novel of the same name, which some say contains universalistic doctrine and other unbiblical material.

“Got a sneak-peek of @TheShackMovie last night. Great reminder that God is with us in our highs & lows & LOVES us no matter what!” he posted on Twitter on Friday, generating 1,700 likes.

Reaction to his post was mixed, with some conveying agreement and others expressing concern out of their belief that the book and film are heretical.

“I was able to get a sneak peek, too! I loved the way it portrayed the Trinity’s relationship with each other and us!” one follower wrote.

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Oregon’s Euthanasia Bill Is Intentionally Ambiguous

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According to Ian Tuttle of National Review, Oregon’s Senate Bill 494 will make it easier for the state to end the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. “But it is worse,” Tuttle warns after describing what some elected officials have in store those who live in the blue state. “Having destroyed the professional oath to which doctors are bound, Oregon would destroy the basic ethic of care that is the mark of a humane society — the expectation that says to tend the sick, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless.”  He writes:

Savagery can be subtle.

Oregon, which in 1997 became the first state in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide, is considering tweaking the laws surrounding advance directives, the legal documents by means of which a person can dictate ahead of time his desires for end-of-life care. The innocuous-seeming changes that Senate Bill 494 proposes would permit the state to starve certain patients to death.

Under current state law, “artificially administered nutrition and hydration” — intravenous feeding by tubes — does not include food administered normally: “by cup, hand, bottle, drinking straw or eating utensil.” The latter category, unlike the former, is considered part of the basic provision of care required for the sick, and required by law as long as the patient is mentally incompetent to say otherwise.

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Are the Dangers of Secondhand Smoke Now Unsettled Science?

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At one time doctors recommended low-fat diets to their patients until researchers discovered that diets high in carbohydrates dramatically increased the incidence of type 2 diabetes. Over at LifeZette, Dr. Brian C. Joondeph reports that even though it was considered settled science, it now appears that secondhand smoke does not cause heart attacks. He writes:

Smoking is hazardous to our health. It’s also the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, according to the CDC. And from a public health perspective, there is no doubt that cigarette smoking increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer.

What about secondhand smoke, however — is it similarly dangerous or just an annoyance? A recent article in Slate examined the association with some surprising results.

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New Apostolic Leader, Bill Johnson, Teams Up With Catholic Priests to ‘Proclaim the Gospel’

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Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen reminds us that “It’s easy for the undiscerning to get caught up in the ecumenism of today’s false church. Everyone wants to be united because disunity is uncomfortable. But the Scriptures clearly teach that it’s the absence of clear doctrine and truth that causes division in the body (Rom. 16:17).”

With this in mind, NAR pastor and self-proclaimed “apostle” Bill Johnson is urging those who pay attention to his egregious teaching to team up with the apostate Roman Catholic Church to share a gospel that saves no one. Maples has the story:

According to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website, the New Evangelization of Catholics:

calls each of us to deepen our faith, believe in the Gospel message and go forth to proclaim the Gospel. The focus of the New Evangelization calls all Catholics to be evangelized and then go forth to evangelize. In a special way, the New Evangelization is focused on ‘re-proposing’ the Gospel to those who have experienced a crisis of faith. Pope Benedict XVI called for the re-proposing of the Gospel “to those regions awaiting the first evangelization and to those regions where the roots of Christianity are deep but who have experienced a serious crisis of faith due to secularization.”1 The New Evangelization invites each Catholic to renew their relationship with Jesus Christ and his Church.

This is an effort initiated by the Roman Pontiff to draw people back into the Roman Catholic system of works righteousness. The crux is that those Catholics who have left the church should be “re-evangelized” and brought back in.

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See our Research Paper on Roman Catholicism

 

The Boy Scouts Are Playing with Fire

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In a piece over at LifeZette, Dr. Meg Meeker shares her concern that girls who identify as boys and insist on becoming Boy Scouts may experience abuse, pregnancy and bullying.  She writes:

The Boy Scouts of America recently announced that they now welcome transgender kids into their ranks. Many people have heard about this decision — but there’s much more to know.

As well-intentioned as the organization may be, there are some serious problems for all of the scouts when it comes to this policy. Here’s why.

First, having a boy who feels he’s a girl or a girl who feels she’s a boy camping alongside other scouts creates tension for all of the children. Where should the transgender child sleep and change clothes? If he is a transgender boy — feeling like a boy but living in a body with breast and a vagina — and he asked to sleep alone, he will feel unaccepted and alone. But if he sleeps with the other boy scouts — as the transgender lobby demands — the risk for abuse, pregnancy, bullying or chiding is unacceptably high.

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A Quantum Leap Into the Paranormal

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In this piece over at truthXchange, Dr. Peter Jones warns that more and more people are experiencing visions of divine light…encounters with various blissful and wrathful archetypal deities…communication with spirit guides and superhuman entities…contact with shamanic power animals…

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

“Christian, stay alert!” advises Dr. Jones for we are “moving as a culture into a deep intimacy with the occult: from simple online ‘courses’ to outright shamanism, to after-school Satan clubs, and to ‘spirit cooking,’ to name just a few.”

Speaking of the world of the occult, Dr. Jones reveals that Carl Jung, one of the most influential psychologists of modern times “was widely and incorrectly received in the Western church as the first ‘Christian’ psychologist.” Dr. Jones reveals that Jung “admitted in his personal diary that the occult was the essence of his theories.” What is more, Jung channeled a spirit guide, Philemon, who was “an old man with the horns of a bull and the wings of a bird,” who, said Jung “represented a force which was not myself.”

Learn more about the world in which we now live from occult authority Dr. Peter Jones. He writes:

I just received an invitation to sign up for a teaching webinar offered by Jean Houston, a highly popular occult channeler and close friend of Hillary Clinton. Houston’s series is entitled: Unlock your Quantum Powers. Her terminology is arcane and mystifying. What are our “quantum powers”? Her explanation doesn’t help: “You are an organism in the universe of totality.” This is only a fancy, seductive way of describing what folks in the new spiritual circles call “being one with nature.” Houston gets even more spiritual when she invites participants into a “Partnership with the collective consciousness of the universe,” since we are “co-creators with the Universe.” She goes on: “This session will shift your beliefs about the Universe onto a much more potent and stable foundation so you can begin to transform your life in leaps and bounds…” Houston boasts that people from 53 countries have already signed up for the seminar.

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Norma McCorvey, Remorseful ‘Roe’ in Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Case Permitting Abortion, Dead at 69

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Christian News reports:

Norma McCorvey was known as Jane Roe, the plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Photo credit: CultureWatch

Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision that legalized abortion but who later became an outspoken opponent of the procedure, died Saturday. She was 69.

McCorvey died at an assisted living center in Katy, Texas, journalist Joshua Prager confirmed to CBS News. He is working on a book about McCorvey and was with her and her family when she died. He said she died of heart failure.

McCorvey was 22, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant for the third time when in 1969 she sought to have an abortion in Texas, where the procedure was illegal except to save a woman’s life. The subsequent lawsuit, known as Roe v. Wade, led to Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling that established abortion rights, though by that time, McCorvey had given birth and given her daughter up for adoption.

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Stop Calling Error ‘Anointed’

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In a spot on piece over at Pulpit & Pen, Costi Hinn calls for Christians to get back to the basics, meaning biblical Christianity.  He raises a two fold question: “What in the world has happened to the body of Christ and what semblance of biblical orthodoxy will be left for our children and grandchildren?” The way things are going, the younger generation will grow up with scant knowledge of what God’s Word says and they’ll trust, not in the authority of the infallible Word of God, but instead they’ll lay aside their bibles and trust in extra biblical revelation uttered by infallible men.

In this short blog post, Hinn exposes some of the errors professing Christians have bought into, not realizing that they’re actually believing lies from the pit of hell. How could this be?  Two words: Biblical illiteracy.

Now to Hinn’s piece:

Where do you draw the charismatic line?

30 years ago nobody would’ve given this question much thought because it was easy to answer. People either liked Benny Hinn or thought he was crazy. People thought Kathryn Kuhlman was a great woman of God or a dramatic fraud. People were largely conservative, or charismatic. They either spoke in tongues that made no sense or viewed the practice as foolish and unbiblical.

It wasn’t a perfect Christian world, but at least there was some clarity.

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Pope Francis: ‘Muslim Terrorism Does Not Exist’

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Breitbart reports:

In an impassioned address Friday, Pope Francis denied the existence of Islamic terrorism, while simultaneously asserting that “the ecological crisis is real.”

“Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist,” Francis said in his speech to a world meeting of populist movements.

What he apparently meant is that not all Christians are terrorists and not all Muslims are terrorists—a fact evident to all—yet his words also seemed to suggest that no specifically Islamic form of terrorism exists in the world, an assertion that stands in stark contradiction to established fact.

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See our Research Paper on Roman Catholicism

Gay Weddings Over Freedom: Washington State Punishes Florist for Faith

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The Washington State Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a ruling against a florist accused of discrimination because she declined to fulfill an order for floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding and instead offered a referral. John Stonestreet of CNSNews provides the details:

The Washington State Supreme Court has punished a florist for running her business according to her faith.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Washington State issued its much-anticipated opinion in State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers and Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers.

The only way to see this decision is as a major setback for religious freedom.

The case involved an anti-discrimination complaint brought against Barronelle Stutzman, the 71-year-old owner of Arlene’s Flowers, and I might add, one of the nicest people on the planet. Three years ago, a long-time customer whom Stutzman considered to be a friend, asked her to create a floral arrangement for his same-sex wedding.

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Church of England gay marriage vote thrown into chaos after members ‘get confused and press wrong button’

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For some perspective on the Church of England controversy, it’s a good idea to listen to Dr. Albert Mohler address what’s really going on. Click here to listen to Mohler’s The Briefing. To read the transcript, scroll down to “Church of England…”

Now to The Telegraph report:

The Church of England’s crucial vote on gay marriage has been thrown into doubt after the Bishop of Coventry admitted he accidentally voted against the report and several others may have made the same mistake.

The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth apologised for the mistake last night, which he said was because of “a moment of distraction and some confusion over the voting process”.

The bishop insisted that he did in fact support the report written by his colleagues and was “embarrassed” to have accidentally rejected it.

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House Votes to Overturn Obama Admin Rule Banning States From Defunding Planned Parenthood

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Christian News reports:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to overturn a rule issued by the Obama administration that bans states from defunding the abortion and contraception giant Planned Parenthood.

Congress used its authority under the Congressional Review Act, which allows the legislative branch to overturn orders issued within the past 60 days. It agreed 228-188, under House Joint Resolution 43, to return power to the states to distribute Title X funding as they see fit.

“This resolution does not cut a dime from family planning funding available to states. It simply enables states to direct the funding towards non-abortion, whole-women health care providers,” explained Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo.

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The Perils of Religious Romanticism

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What is Romanticism? In a nutshell, Romanticism was born in the late 1700’s and is described as an artistic and intellectual movement characterized by a heightened interest in the beauty of nature, imagination, and intense emotional expression. According to Bruce W. Davidson, professor at Hokusei Gakuen University, Romanticism has made a comeback and is having a huge influence on our postmodern culture. Not surprisingly, Romanticism has also reared its ugly head in the visible Church. “Religious Romanticism can take people very far from sensible living, even into dangerous territory,” warns Davidson. The dangerous territory he speaks of is emotionalism. “Among Christians, that trend has taken the form of a rebellion against a focus on theology and an emphasis on religious experience.”

Sound familiar?

You can read Bruce Davidson’s piece over at American Thinker:

On January 2, about fifty thousand young adults gathered in Atlanta to participate in the Passion 2017 conference.  People outside evangelicalism might imagine something named “Passion” to be an event for romantic novelists or their fans, but it was actually a kind of religious pep rally.  The title typifies a significant religious shift of recent years, one turning away from doctrine and toward emotion – a kind of religious Romanticism.  Nowadays, numerous Christian books, conferences, and even churches bear the word “passion” in their titles.  In past eras, church people congregated to debate doctrinal and moral issues; now they hold events to celebrate their emotions.

The original Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century was basically a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism, with its elevation of science and cold rationality above everything else.  In opposition, the Romantics celebrated sensation, feeling, and aesthetics.  Adopting a therapeutic view of human existence, the Romantics often also held society to blame for mankind’s problems, not inborn sinful inclinations – the latter according with the historic view of Christianity.  Their optimistic view of human nature has undergirded much of the political agitation and clamor of subsequent times for radical change.

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Roman Catholic Group Requests ‘Pope Francis’ Refer to Mary as ‘Co-Redemptrix With Jesus’

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According to Christian News:

Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven

The International Marian Association has requested that the leader of Roman Catholicism, Jorge Bergoglio, also known as Pope Francis, refer to Mary as “co-redemptrix with Jesus the redeemer” during the 100th year anniversary of the purported apparitions of Mary in Fatima, Portugal.

The Theological Commission of the Marian Association, which is comprised of 30 supportive entities, including Vatican Secretariat of State Florian Kolfhaus, Andrew Apostoli of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), Elias Mary of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Sanctuary in Wisconsin, and Michael O’Neill and Christopher Padgett of the Mariological Society of America, recently released a 10-page document outlining why Mary is deserving of the title.

It states that Mary passed on her sinless nature—given to her by God at conception—to Jesus, that He might redeem the world from sin. Through her willing human participation in the Father’s divine means of saving wicked men, the Commission contends, she is the “New Eve” just as Jesus is the “New Adam.”

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See our Research Paper on the Roman Catholic Church

Germans Take Trump’s Lead Re. Muslim Refugee Policy

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News With Views reports:

While the Democrats and so-called moderate Republicans yell and scream over U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the influx of Muslims from seven nations known to be hotbeds of radical Islam terrorists, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel under intense pressure by the German people is now seeking the deportation of the same refugees she originally welcomed with opened arms.

Merkel announced her 180-degree turn in her nation’s refugee policy and says she will unveil plans this week to increase deportations of immigrants especially those suspected of being involved in anti-West terrorism or materially-supporting radical groups.

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How can we determine what doctrines are essential and what are they?

Posted by ∙ ∙ In Devotion/Teaching ∙

John MacArthur of Grace to You presents his view of the essential doctrines of the faith:

To begin with, the strongest words of condemnation in all the New Testament are aimed at false teachers who corrupt the Gospel. Therefore the Gospel message itself must be acknowledged as a primary point of fundamental doctrine.

But what message will determine the content of our gospel testimony? The biblical message of instantaneous justification through faith alone-or a system of rituals and sacraments that are supposed to convey grace to the participants with no guarantee of ultimate salvation? What authority will we point people to? The Scriptures alone-or a papal hierarchy and church tradition? Those two gospels are flatly contradictory and mutually exclusive.

All these considerations determine what message we proclaim and whether that message is the authentic Gospel of true Christianity. Therefore we are dealing with matters that go to the very heart of the doctrines Scripture identifies as fundamental.

Can we get more specific? Let’s turn to Scripture itself and attempt to lay out some biblical principles for determining which articles of faith are truly essential to authentic Christianity.

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‘What’s Next – Temple Prostitutes?’

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Lighthouse Trails has a piece that deals with some of the garbage that is being promoted by “Christian” leaders such as Tony Campolo, Ann Voskamp and Dr. Daniel Amen. Ever heard of Tantric sex?  Well you’re about to — no details are given. This is one of those blog posts we dislike publishing; however, in order for the Body of Christ to become informed as to what’s trending in the Christian community, we believe it’s necessary.  So – read it and weep:

Bridal spirituality was a common theme of medieval nun Teresa of Avila’s books where she records a vision she allegedly had in which the Lord Jesus appeared and declared they were married.

LTRP Note: This short article might be disturbing to read, but what is being described here is happening now in the church. Please take heed and pray for discernment as you listen to Christian speakers and read their books. The links below this article are to articles that substantiate what Lynn Lusby Pratt is saying.

By Lynn Lusby Pratt

About a decade ago, I became aware of the new wave of false teaching entering the church. One aspect of that teaching hinted that our experience with Jesus was (should be?) sexual. (Christians who use a mantra, as in contemplative prayer, and go into an altered state of consciousness sometimes have erotic experiences, which they mistakenly believe to be “union” with God/Jesus.) There was new interest in/promotion of the “bridal mysticism” of medieval nuns like Teresa of Avila: “Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain . . . and a spell of strangulation . . . swoon-like weakness . . .” There were quotes in Christian books, like Tony Campolo saying, “There is nothing wrong . . . with eroticism in worship.” And Ann Voskamp: “Mystical union. . . . God as Husband in sacred wedlock, bound together, body and soul. . . . To know him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit skin to spirit skin . . .” [One Thousand Gifts, p. 217]. Ken Wilson: “I was having feelings of connection with the divine . . . [that] reminded me very much of the amorous feelings I have for my wife” [Mystically Wired, p. 27].

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