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

Oh good grief! School district censors Charlie Brown Christmas

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Charlie Brown ChristmasThere’s a ban on the Baby Jesus in Johnson County Kentucky. Todd Starnes, host of Fox News and Commentary, informs us that that an elementary school was instructed to remove a scene where Linus shares the true meaning of Christmas by reading from the Gospel of Luke. Starnes laments:

There are some days when this anti-Christmas nonsense is enough to make you deck somebody’s halls.

The latest yuletide lunacy comes from Johnson County, Kentucky where the school district has censored an elementary school presentation of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

The district also ordered other schools to remove all religious references from their upcoming Christmas productions.

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Rick Warren and Cardinal Sean O’Malley Conclude World Meeting of Families

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From Berean Research:

Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren once again unites with the apostate Roman Catholic Church, this time to talk about “The Joy of the Gospel of Life,” which is ironic because he’s fully aware that the RCC’s gospel does not bring joy. Why? Because it is a false gospel, a gospel that saves no one. In fact, Protestants hold that the RCC’s man centered gospel is in opposition to biblical Christianity. Pastor Warren knows perfectly well what the Bible says about those who teach a false gospel — let him be accursed!:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8, 9)

So – why would a shepherd lead his sheep into a den of wolves?

Recorder Standard has the story:

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Muslim prayer room at Catholic high school in Michigan sparks debate

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According to Fox News:

Some parents outside Detroit were questioning a Catholic high school’s decision to allow a special room for Muslim students to pray, Fox 2 reported Wednesday.

Brother Rice High School, an all-boys school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, reportedly granted a request from Muslim students to use the religious reflection room throughout the day. Roughly a dozen of the school’s 800-plus students are Muslim, according to WXYZ.

One unnamed parent told the news station the room was “unconscionable,” arguing that her son’s paid Catholic education would be “undermined.” Fox 2 reported receiving similar criticism.

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House budget bill funds Planned Parenthood, reduces UNFPA funds

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LifeSiteNews reports:

The House’s new Speaker has unveiled a $1.67 trillion budget that fully funds Planned Parenthood for the next nine-and-a-half months.

The budget comes five months after a series of videos showed Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price of unborn baby parts, as well as appearing to discuss illegal partial-birth abortions and illegal modifications to abortion.

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Mark Driscoll Listed as Director of Newly Incorporated The Trinity Church in Phoenix

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Mark DriscollWarren Throckmorton of Patheos informs us that shamed former pastor Mark Driscoll is in the process of starting a new church in Phoenix, AZ. In July Driscoll confirmed his move to Phoenix but said there are “no concrete plans for ongoing local church ministry as of yet.” Five months later he is listed as a director of The Trinity Church. According to Throckmorton:

The next big thing appears to be just around the corner.

Mark Driscoll is listed as a director of recently registered The Trinity Church in Phoenix, along with Randall Taylor and Jimmy Evans. The address is the same UPS store listed as the Mark Driscoll Ministries address (the church has a different box number):

Mark Driscoll Ministries 21001 North Tatum Blvd Ste 1630-527 Phoenix, AZ 85050

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Word of Faith False Teacher Joyce Meyer’s Shocking Doctrine and Heresy

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From Berean Research:

For those who haven’t heard this before, Christian celeb Joyce Meyer is a false teacher. In 2011 Fran Sankey of Tower of Truth Ministries and host of Test All Things radio broadcast discussed Mrs. Meyer’s unbiblical and problematic teaching on her program. We’re posting the transcript, which is well worth the read for anyone who is in the dark about this woman. To listen to the show, scroll down to the end for the link. Sankey begins with some background on Mrs. Meyer and then fills us in on the reasons that some of her teaching is considered heretical. You don’t have to take Sankey’s word for it. Listen to the sound clips of Joyce Meyer she has provided.

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Washington Times slams president for “scandal of enormous proportions”

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According to Christian Examiner:

President Obama’s indifference to Christian persecution in the Middle East is part of a “scandal of enormous proportions,” the editorial staff of the Washington Times has written in a scathing rebuke of the administration.

“Expressions of concern by the leaders of the West are few. The fact is that Christians face more persecution, in more countries, than any other religious group,” the editorial said before launching into an attack on the president’s human rights record with respect to Christian refugees from Syria.

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Wheaton College Suspends Hijab-Wearing Professor Who Declared “We All Worship Same God”

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Christian News Network reports:

A prominent Christian-identified university in Illinois has suspended an associate political science director after she posted photos of herself wearing an Islamic hijab this past week, stating that she was doing so to show solidarity with Muslims.

“Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion, and theological clarity,” the college said in a statement on Tuesday. “As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the college’s evangelical Statement of Faith.”

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McDonald’s, Target top sponsors of 2015 anti-family programming

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According to Christian Examiner:

Wendy’s, Coca Cola and Walmart were among the most responsible advertisers in 2015 by supporting positive programming, while Microsoft, McDonald’s and Target were among the least responsible advertisers, according to the Parents Television Council’s annual “best and worst” advertisers list.

The companies on the “best” list demonstrated a “willingness to support positive TV programming,” while the “worst” companies “supported TV shows that routinely feature sex, violence, and profanity” and “have not responded to calls to reevaluate their sponsorship behavior,” PTC said.

The “worst” list contains some surprising names, especially for families who don’t track commercials. McDonald’s, for example, is generally thought of as a family-friendly restaurant thanks to its Happy Meals and indoor play areas. But it made the “worst” list after a one-year hiatus. It also was on the 2012 and 2013 “worst” lists.

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LGBT Activists Fight State Law That Protects Believers Against Gay Marriage

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Mark David Hall of The Daily Signal writes:

Gay marriageHistorically, Democrats and Republicans have agreed that religious liberty is a core American value that should be protected whenever possible. Yet over the past decade, this consensus has come under increasing assault from the left.

A recent manifestation of this hostility to people of faith is a Dec. 9 lawsuit challenging a North Carolina statute (known as Senate Bill 2) that accommodates state magistrates and clerks whose sincere religious objections prevent them from solemnizing or licensing certain marriages allowed by law. According to Equality North Carolina, an LGBT advocacy group that plans to draw attention to the lawsuit along with the Campaign for Southern Equality, the law “allows magistrates who do not believe in marriage equality to renounce their judicial oath to uphold and evenly apply the United States Constitution.”

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Montana Judge Denies Polygamist’s Request for “Marriage Equality” in Striking Down Bigamy Law

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According to Christian News Network:

A judge in Montana has halted the lawsuit of a polygamist who sought “marriage equality” after was denied a license to tie the knot with a second woman.

As previously reported, Nathan Collier, 46, went to the Yellowstone County Courthouse in July with his partner Christine to seek a second marriage license.

As the U.S. Supreme Court had just opined days earlier that homosexuals should be able to “marry,” he stated that if the court really believes in equality, then he should have the right to marry as he wishes as well. Collier cited language from dissenting Chief Justice John Roberts, who stated that the “gay marriage” ruling “would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.”

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Ole Miss renames Christmas a “Hotty Toddy Holiday”

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Christian Examiner reports:

In an effort to be more inclusive, Ole Miss is excluding the word “Christmas” from its annual Christmas event.

“We really wanted to change the atmosphere from last year and that would explain the name change,” Kayp Maye, co-director of special events for the university’s Student Activities Association, said in an interview with News Watch 99.

For the previous six years, the celebration has been called “A Grand Ole Christmas,” but now it will be called “Hotty Toddy Holiday,” perhaps a reference to an Ole Miss football cheer or to the beverage hot toddy.

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Wheaton College Professor Comes Out Wearing Hijab, Quotes “Pope Francis”: “We All Worship Same God”

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According to Christian News Network:

A professor at a prominent Christian university in Illinois posted photos of herself wearing an Islamic hijab this past week, stating that she was doing so to show solidarity with Muslims.

Larycia Hawkins is an associate political science director at Wheaton College, one of the most renown Christian schools in the world. On Thursday, she posted two photos of herself wearing a hijab, and stated in a lengthy explanation that she plans to wear it everywhere she goes during the Advent—including at the Christian college and to church.

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“I’m a warrior for the babies” Planned Parenthood suspect declares in court

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The Washington Post reports:

“I’m guilty,” Robert L. Dear announced at his first in-person court appearance since he allegedly fired on a busy Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs three weeks ago, killing two civilians and a police officer in the assault and subsequent shootout with police.

Dear, 57, now faces charges on 179 counts of murder, attempted murder and other crimes.

But on Wednesday, startling those in the small Colorado courtroom, a handcuffed Dear declared, “There is no trial.”

“I’m a warrior for the babies,” he said.

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John 3:16 no longer one of the most popular verses for sharing

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According to Christian Examiner

YouVersion, a digital Bible app that works on every device, just shared its 2015 statistics, including its most shared verses by country—and John 3:16 isn’t one of them.

YouVersion is celebrating its 200 million downloads, 1,200 Bible versions, and 900 languages, a staggering increase from the 12 versions and 2 languages it offered when it was launched in 2006 by LifeChurch.tv, based in Oklahoma.

What God is doing through YouVersion is incredible—changing mobile devices into Bibles that people carry with them everywhere they go,” Bobby Gruenewald, pastor and innovation leader at LifeChurch, told Christianity Today.

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Yezidi Leader Tells Congress: “Because We Are Not Muslims…We Are Being Burned Alive”

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CNS News reports:

Chaldean and Yezidi leaders described the genocide of their people at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to members of Congress Wednesday at a hearing on assisting victims of ISIS.

“Because we are not Muslims, and because our path is the path of peace… we are being burned alive,” Mirza Ismail, chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, told members of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.

Ismail went on to describe the desperate plight of the Yezidis, an indigenous ethno-religious group from Kurdistan who are being targeted by ISIS because they are not Muslim.

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Transgender AND Transager: 52 Year-Old Father Lives as a 6 Year-Old Girl

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According to MRCtv:

Forget being transgender like Caitlyn Jenner or transracial like Rachel Dolezal, there’s a new “trans” frontier: people who are transage.

In an interview with the gay news site The Daily Xtra, Stefonknee (formerly Paul) Wolscht details his struggles with being a male-to-female transgender person.

The Daily Xtra video, however, glosses over a tiny bit of important information about Wolscht: he thinks he is actually a six year-old girl—not just a woman, but a six year-old girl—stuck in the body of a 50-something man.

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Preacher’s “Emotional Harm” Conviction for Quoting “Wrong” Scripture on Homosexuality Overturned

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Christian Research Network reports:

A street preacher in the UK who was charged with making “homophobic” remarks and was ordered to pay a fine for his speech, including to a man to whom he quoted Scripture from the book of Leviticus, has been vindicated of his conviction of causing “emotional harm.”

As previously reported, Mike Overd, a street preacher for five years, was accused of speaking against homosexuality and Islam last June and July on two separate occasions. He was leveled with two charges of using threatening and abusive words and a charge of causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress under the Public Order Act.

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New Vatican document reflects on relations between Catholics, Jews

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From Berean Research:

In a piece over at Catholic News Service – an important read – Cindy Wooden writes:

Catholics are called to witness to their faith in Jesus before all people, including Jews, but the Catholic Church “neither conducts nor supports” any institutional missionary initiative directed toward Jews, says a new document from a Vatican commission.”

How God will save the Jews if they do not explicitly believe in Christ is “an unfathomable divine mystery,” but one which must be affirmed since Catholics believe that God is faithful to his promises and therefore never revoked his covenant with the Jewish people, it says.

More in a moment.

Keep in mind that the apostate Roman Catholic Church (RCC) can say anything it wishes because they say that they alone have the right to interpret Scripture. The RCC “claims to be the one true Church as established by Jesus and His apostles. However, an examination of the doctrines upheld and taught by the RCC demonstrates that it stands in contrast with – and even in opposition to – biblical Christianity. (Source)

As you will see in this piece, it matters not to the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews that the Bible makes it abundantly clear that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. The RCC conveniently ignores the Apostle Paul’s very words: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:9, 10) And they ignore verse 13, where Paul confirms that the Old Testament promise that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even worse, the RCC also chooses to ignore the words of Jesus in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“No one” bears repeating.

Now, continuing where we left off:

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Influence of Churches, Once Dominant, Now Waning in South

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According to Jay Reeves of the Associated Press:

Prayers said and the closing hymn sung, tea-drinking churchgoers fill Marble City Grill for Sunday lunch. But hard on their heels comes the afternoon crowd: craft beer-drinking, NFL-watching football fans.

Such a scene would have been impossible just months ago because Sunday alcohol sales were long illegal in Sylacauga, hometown of both the actor who played TV’s Gomer Pyle and the white marble used to construct the U.S. Supreme Court building. While the central Alabama city of 12,700 has only one hospital, four public schools and 21 red lights, the chamber of commerce directory lists 78 churches.

Yet few were surprised when residents voted overwhelmingly in September to legalize Sunday alcohol sales. Churches lacked either the heart or influence to stop it.

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Homosexuals File Suit to Challenge Law Allowing Judges to Opt-Out of Officiating “Gay Weddings”

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According to Christian News Network:

Several homosexuals in North Carolina have filed suit to challenge a law that was passed this year that allows judges to opt out of officiating “gay weddings” because of their religious convictions.

As previously reported, S.B. 2 was introduced earlier this year by Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, to allow magistrates to recuse themselves from officiating over the services, as well as to permit register of deeds workers to opt out of issuing licenses due to religious objections.

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Paris Conference Leaders Want You to Think the Planet Is Facing a Climate Change Crisis. That’s Not True.

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According to Nicholas Loris of The Daily Signal:

Leaders from around the world, including President Barack Obama, have been saying that the COP21, also known as the Paris climate conference, is the last best hope to save the planet from catastrophic warming.

Evidence and observed data, however, suggest otherwise.

History shows us that this isn’t the only time international leaders have cried that the sky is falling when it comes to global warming.

French President François Hollande said last week that “[n]ever have the stakes of an international meeting been so high, since what is at stake is the future of the planet, the future of life.”

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Texas Court Rules Police May Form Human Barricades to Block Opposition to “Gay” Pride Events

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According to Christian News Network:

The highest criminal court in Texas has ruled that it is permissible for police to form human barricades to physically block dissenters from engaging with attendees of “gay pride” events in situations where there is a possibility that the hearers might become violent.

On Wednesday, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the conviction of a preacher and a member of his congregation who had been previously found not guilty of “interfering with public duties” for crossing a barricade that was meant to separate them from attendees of a homosexual festival in Fort Worth.

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Zombie-themed nativity toys created by atheist cause outrage, offense

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Christian Examiner reports:

An irreverent Kickstarter project by NerdTalk Toys features a five-figurine nativity of Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, an angel, and a donkey—but all of them are zombies.

“I just like to be weird and come up with crazy ideas that typically offend people,” says Ashley Gojic, founder and CEO of NerdTalk Toys, in a promotional video on the Kickstarter site.

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