Former Mars Hill Bible Church pastor and Emergent leader Rob Bell is a controversial figure. Recently, Bell was invited by Oprah Winfrey to host The Rob Bell Show on her OWN channel. Bell denies the existence of hell, promotes “Mother God,” and insists that homosexuality is not a sin, thus our “homosexual brothers and sisters” must be accepted by the Church. Therefore, it is no surprise that he is reportedly thrilled by the idea that same-sex ‘marriage’ may soon become legal in America. Berean Research offers Christians this advice:
When it comes to heretical teachers like Bell, we are NOT to “eat the meat and spit out the bones (advice found nowhere in Scripture), but instead we are to follow the command to mark and avoid false teachers.
Christian Headlines reports:
The Florida high school that told a student not to say “God bless America” during morning announcements said this week that the student did not violate the U.S. Constitution.
“Upon consultation with legal counsel and review of legal advisories, the Nassau County School District has taken the position that a student’s use of the phrase “God Bless America” during the morning announcements at Yulee High School does not violate the Constitution of the United States,” the school district said in a statement.
In 2014 WORLD Magazine revealed that Seattle’s Mars Hill Church paid a California-based marketing company somewhere around $250,000 to ensure that a book by its pastor Mark Driscoll and coauthored with his wife, Grace made the New York Times best-seller list. Some say the practice is “dishonoring to the Lord.” The magazine now reports that popular pastor and author David Jeremiah’s ministry, Turning Point, purchased copies of at least three of Jeremiah’s books to ensure that they would make the New York Times bestseller list. Last year WORLD asked Jeremiah about his book marketing practices, to which he replied: “You can’t just write a book and say I’m not going to have anything to do with marketing. If you don’t care enough about it to try and figure out how to get it in the hands of other people, nobody else is going to either.” In the acknowledgments section of his 2012 book God Loves You, Jeremiah even credits the man who got Driscoll in so much trouble – the president of Result Source, Kevin Small – as the “genius behind the plan.”
Yahoo News reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue.
“Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe,” Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four Jews were among the dead.
Over the weekend, a video surfaced showing Islamic terrorists beheading 21 Coptic Christians for no other reason than for their religious beliefs. There are anywhere from 10 million to 60 million Coptic Christians worldwide. What do Coptics believe? According to Christian apologetics site GotQuestions.org, Coptic Christianity is similar to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in that it emphasizes faith-plus-works in salvation as well as liturgical ritual.
The Daily Mail reports that New Age guru Shirley MacLaine “has provoked widespread fury by claiming the victims of the Holocaust may have brought their fate upon themselves.” Moreover, she insinuates that the “six million Jews and millions of others systematically murdered in Hitler’s death camps in the 1940s were ‘balancing their karma’ for crimes committed in past lives.” The Hollywood star also offered this bizarre speculation:
‘What if most Holocaust victims were balancing their karma from ages before, when they were Roman soldiers putting Christians to death, the Crusaders who murdered millions in the name of Christianity, soldiers with Hannibal, or those who stormed across the Near East with Alexander? The energy of killing is endless and will be experienced by the killer and the killee.’
According to My Way:
The Supreme Court is inappropriately signaling it intends to clear the way for gay marriage across the nation, Justice Clarence Thomas complained Monday in a stinging dissent to the court’s refusal to block the start of same-sex marriages in Alabama.
Bitterly objecting to Monday’s action, Thomas provided a rare insider’s perspective on the widely held view that the court’s embrace of gay marriage is a done deal.
According to Christian News Network:
Much of the audience attending the Grammy Awards on Sunday donned light-up devil horns for the opening performance of the annual event—a presentation of the AC/DC hit “Highway to Hell.”
“Party time/My friends are gonna be there too/I’m on the highway to Hell,” the Australian rock band blared out as flames blazed on the jumbotron behind them, along with pyrotechnic effects. “Hey Satan/Payin’ my dues … I’m on the highway to Hell/Don’t stop me.”
Former gospel singer Katy Perry has made it clear that she is not a Christian. She once declared, “I’m not Buddhist, I’m not Hindu, I’m not Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God.” The “higher power” she says she believes in allegedly spoke to her before her Super Bowl performance. According to Christian Headlines:
She told E! News’ Ryan Seacrest, “It’s funny, I was praying and I got a word from God and He says, ‘You got this and I got you.’ And then I was on top of the lion and a guy, a random guy, just looked on me with a headset that I’ve never communicated with before and he just looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘You got this.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, this is God confirming I can do this.”
Rick Warren is on a mission to unite with the apostate Church of Rome in an effort to solve society’s social ills. As usual, Warren downplays the wide divide between Rome and biblical Christianity. CNS News writes:
Evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who leads the eighth largest church in America, Saddleback Church, and is the author of the hugely popular book The Purpose Driven Life, said that Protestants and Catholics must form a “unity of missions” to defend the sanctity of life, sex, and the family, stressing that, “If you love Jesus, we’re on the same team.”
Christian Research Network reports:
During Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, NASCAR great Darrell Waltrip shared his Christian testimony with the thousands gathered, including Barack and Michelle Obama and the Dalai Lama, stating that he thought he was once a pretty good person, but “good people” go to Hell without Christ.
Christian News Network reports:
During the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington on Thursday, Barack Obama spoke against violence committed in the name of religion, and stated that Christians have been just as guilty as Muslims and other terror groups of this crime.
“It’s not unique to one group or one religion,” he said. “There is a tendency in us—a sinful tendency—that can pervert and distort our faith.”
According to Christian News Network:
In an article published by the faith site Patheos on Wednesday, one of the original co-founders of the popular Christian band Newsboys revealed that he has since renounced Christianity and now identifies as an atheist.
“I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity,” George Perdikis, who co-founded the group in 1985, wrote in the guest post. “All I wanted to do was create and play rock and roll … and yet most of the attention I received was focused on how well I maintained the impossible standards of religion. I wanted my life to be measured by my music, not by my ability to resist temptation.”
Live Action News reports that Pampers released a new ad in January entitled A Newborn Journey of Firsts:
Pampers has been known in the past for its beautiful, visually stirring ads that broadcast a pro-life message. A previous ad called babies miracles who “deserve protection” and referred to a baby on an ultrasound screen as a “he” instead of an “it.”
This time, Pampers’s ad — which has already received over 860,000 views on YouTube — opens as a mother lovingly caresses her pregnant belly. The scene switches to an incredible ultrasound where a baby is moving in the womb and, as Pampers puts it, is giving her “first hello.”
According to the Christian News Network:
A Christian theology professor says that it was the fear of man, not God that led a Tennessee megachurch minister to announce full acceptance of homosexuals in his congregation, including the allowance of those involved in sexual sin to serve in leadership roles and to “marry.”
“If you fear man, God will become small to you,” wrote Owen Strachan, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky. in a post on Friday. “The approval of fellow sinners will matter more to you than obeying God by the witness of His word.”
Stand Up For The Truth reveals that Steve McSwain, an influential leader who has the ear of Christian leaders, political leaders and leaders of other religions, recently commented that “the church must ‘repent’ of how we have handled homosexual Christians.” McSwain also made the following heretical statement in a piece he wrote:
Today, I realize that what Jesus was really saying is this: “I am the way,” as in, “I know the way.” “I’ve discovered it” which, by implication means, “you can, too.”
Millions are going to perish in 2015, says Stephen John. And, while this is going on, the dying world will be keeping an eye on professing Christians. What will they see? Will they see superficial, self-absorbed “Christians” having a hand in the spiritual demise of the lost, or will they see believers actually doing what they are supposed to do – pointing to the Truth, to the only One who can bring eternal life to those dying?
Christian News Network reports:
While speaking on the last day to his trip to India, Barack Obama urged acceptance of religious pluralism in the nation, adding on a personal note that sometimes his profession of Christianity is questioned and that he is instead thought to be a Muslim.
“Our nations are strongest when we see that we are all God’s children—all equal in His eyes and worthy of His love,” he stated to approximately 2,000 youth gathered at the Siri Fort auditorium.