From Berean Research:
Pastor Rick Warren is asking people to donate their hard earned money to open 10 more Saddleback campuses in Southern California. Even teens are getting into the act as you will see in Orange County Register’s piece. They’re called PEACE centers and they’ll provide assistance locally with food, medical help and counseling, Helping people is what churches do, right? But is it prudent for God’s people to spend their money this way?
Religion News Service reports:
The foundation of Madeleine L’Engle, the late National Book Award-winning author of “A Wrinkle in Time,” has awarded OneWheaton, an independent community of LGBT students and alumni from Wheaton College, a $5,000 grant.
OneWheaton is committed to affirming LGBT students but is not officially recognized by the prominent evangelical school, which can expel students caught in homosexual behaviors.
The group plans to use the money to fund public discussions and forums about LGBT issues and evangelical culture.
“We couldn’t be happier to receive this grant from L’Engle’s Crosswicks Foundation,” said Paul Canaday-Elliott, a OneWheaton board member.
“Wheaton tells a very one-sided narrative about LGBT persons without making room for dialogue,” he added. “So this will help us continue to supply something that the college isn’t.”
Amy of Berean Research has written a follow-up story to Emergent Church leader Tony Campolo’s call for full inclusion of gay and lesbian “Christians” in the Church. She reports that some well-know Christian leaders are wavering. She writes:
In his newsletter, Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian and founder of The Reformation Project (to reform biblically-based churches to accepting homosexuality and gay marriage), wrote this:
Pretty amazing news: Yesterday, evangelical leader Tony Campolo announced his support for “gay Christian couples” in the church, changing his position in a moving statement on his website after many years.
And then this morning, the work of The Reformation Project made the front page of the nation’s paper of record, The New York Times. The headline of the landmark article: “Evangelicals Open Door to Debate on Gay Rights.”
From Berean Research:
The founder of Red Letter Christians and Emergent Church leader Tony Campolo has called for full inclusion of gay and lesbian “Christians” into the church. Campolo is a “Progressive Christian” (read: liberal) so it comes as no surprise that he would go against the clear teaching of Scripture on the sin of homosexuality. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Campolo and red letter Christianity, listen to Apprising Ministries Ken Silva describe what he believes:
[O]n March 10, 2008 on his PBS show Tavis Smiley asks Tony Campolo, “what is a ‘Red Letter Christian?’” Campolo replies:
Well, he or she is somebody whose beliefs are very traditional in a sense. It’s a person that believes in the Apostles’ Creed, who believes salvation comes from Jesus, who believes that the bible was inspired by God, but whose politics are not aligned with the religious right. (Online source)
Hmm, that doesn’t sound quite right. Let me see if I can fix that:
“Well, he or she is somebody whose beliefs are very ‘traditional’ in an ecumenical sense where most any belief that considers itself Christian is accepted as simply another ‘tradition.’ It’s a person that relishes the brevity and non-specifiity of the Apostles’ Creed, who believes that the Bible becomes inspired by God as a given passage ‘speaks’ to them, but whose politics are not aligned with anyone we broad-brush as being part of some nebulous religious right.”
Now the stage is set for the reading of Campolo’s statement…
Center For Family & Human Rights reports:
A source within the federal government has informed the Friday Fax that the White House is quietly moving forward with a policy change that will require charitable humanitarian groups to accept LGBT applicants in order to qualify for government funding, even those religious groups that might have religious objections.
The policy change is linked to an executive order President Obama issued last July that prohibits federal contractors from discriminatory hiring practices based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Faith-based groups were already wrestling with that order.
Things are about to get exponentially worse for faith-based groups who perform humanitarian tasks and receive not contracts but financial grants for doing so.
According to Baptist Press:
Abortion pro-choicers significantly outnumber pro-lifers in the U.S. for the first time in seven years, according to the Gallup 2015 Values and Beliefs poll.
Half of Americans identified themselves as pro-choice in the poll that has since 2001 tracked Americans’ views on abortion. The last time pro-choicers accounted for such a large chunk of the populace was in 2008, when they also numbered 50 percent.
Of those polled, 44 percent identified themselves as pro-life, the same percentage found in 2008, Gallup reported.
According to Fox News:
The Islamic State has released a series of horrifying photos showing blindfolded men tossed head-first off a building because, ISIS claimed, they were gay.
In photos obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), ISIS militants are shown publicly executing the unidentified men for violating Sharia law.
A crowd of spectators, including children, was gathered below the 100-foot building in Mosul as the men were held by their ankles and then sent plunging to their deaths. The photos were believed to be recent.
Christian News Network reports:
Prosperity Preacher Creflo Dollar’s recent pleas for money to buy him a mega-million dollar jet are no longer needed since his ministry’s board has now agreed to buy him one.
Dollar, whose teachings state that God wants all Christians to be prosperous and that material wealth is a sign of God’s favor, will get the coveted jet after the board of directors for his nonprofit organization known as “World Changers Church International” approved the purchase.
“A long-range, high-speed, intercontinental jet aircraft is a tool that is necessary in order to fulfill the mission of the ministry,” the board said in a statement. “We plan to acquire a Gulfstream G650 because it is the best, and it is a reflection of the level of excellence at which this organization chooses to operate.”
After a public uproar questioning the way in which The Village Church, a megachurch in Dallas, handled a situation that involved the worst sort of sexual perversion by a TVC missionary, Jordan Root, lead pastor and president of Acts 29, Matt Chandler, apologized from the pulpit for the elder’s “exuding domineering behavior” over Root’s wife. Berean Research has been closely monitoring the situation and has Karen (Root) Hinkley’s side of the story.
According to a CNN Money report humans are going to be artificially intelligent in the future. At least that’s what Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, predicts. Kurzwell believes “humans will become hybrids in the 2030s. That means our brains will be able to connect directly to the cloud, where there will be thousands of computers, and those computers will augment our existing intelligence. He said the brain will connect via nanobots — tiny robots made from DNA strands.”
According to a recent Gallup poll:
While a select few actions remain deeply taboo for much of the country, there has been an increasing shift to moral acceptability for some of these over time. Such actions include suicide (which 19% of Americans call “morally acceptable”), polygamy (16%) and cloning humans (15%). On the other hand, “married men and women having an affair” has remained at the bottom of a list of 19 moral behaviors Gallup has measured, with only 8% considering it morally acceptable.
According to Christian Examiner:
Just a few weeks after the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down an Idaho law that bans abortions after 20 weeks.
The Idaho law was signed into law four years ago — the third of its kind at the time — called the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” designed to shield an unborn child from pain during an abortion procedure.
The lawsuit was the first of its kind brought against any of those that have been passed, according to Lifenews.com.
According to a Miami Herald report, our president, who says he’s a born again Christian, honored a Roman Catholic saint:
President Barack Obama extended a symbolic olive branch Thursday to Miami’s Cuban Americans by paying his respects to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Coconut Grove.
Earlier in the day, Obama visited the National Hurricane Center and met privately with the Pinecrest family of Steven Sotloff, the journalist slain last year by the Islamic State, to offer condolences.
The surprise afternoon stop at the shrine by the sea, better known by its Spanish name, La Ermita de la Caridad, comes at a time when many Cuban exiles remain miffed by the president’s decision last December to restore diplomatic relations with the communist island, especially since Obama made no effort to reach out to Miami leaders prior to his announcement.
Christian News Network reports this not so surprising story:
A group of female priests with the Church of England have moved for the denomination to start referring to God as a “she” during the weekly liturgy, stating that to make mention of God solely in the male pronoun is sexist.
According to reports, the group Women and the Church (WATCH), which was behind the push to allow women to serve as bishops in the denomination, is now in talks with the Liturgical Commission for a change in the pronoun used during services when speaking of God. The group says that to refer to God in the masculine devalues women.
“When we used only male language we reinforce the idea that God is like a man and, in doing so, suggest that men are therefore more like God than women,” member Emma Percy, who leads services at Trinity College in Oxford, said in a statement. “If we take seriously the idea that men and women are made in the image of God, both male and female language should be used.”
What is surprising here is not that Elton John is named “father” and David Furnish is named “mother” on their children’s birth certificates. It’s that Germaine Greer, who was a major promoter of women’s liberation in the 70’s, would have a problem with it. Seems she’s a bit worried that the motherhood concept has been deconstructed. According to Daily Mail Greer complained: “Sir Elton John and his ‘wife’ David Furnish have entered on the birth certificate of their two sons that David Furnish is the mother. I’m sorry. That will give you an idea of how the concept of motherhood has emptied out. It’s gone. It’s been deconstructed.”
Berean Research writes,
Oh Canada. Transgender Canadians who have already successfully lobbied provincial and federal governments to make it easier to amend sex designations on key identity documents are now pushing for another change: to abolish gender references altogether from birth certificates.
Christian News Network reports this story from Belfast:
The Christian owners of a bakery in Northern Ireland have decided to appeal a ruling declaring them guilty of discrimination for declining to print the phrase “Support Gay Marriage” on a cake.
As previously reported, in May of last year, Ashers Baking Company in Newtonabbey—named after Genesis 49:20—was approached by a same-sex “marriage” supporter to bake the cake, which also was to feature the logo for the homosexual advocacy group QueerSpace. According to the Belfast Telegraph, the cake was for an event in observance of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Berean Research reports:
On Friday, a long-time Lighthouse Trails reader contacted our office regarding the following situation. The person who called had attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa for several years but has not been attending for some time.
According to an article titled “Can I Attend My LGBT Friend’s Wedding?” written by Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa’s senior pastor Brian Brodersen, it is sometimes OK to attend a LTGB (Lesbian, Transgender, Gay, Bisexual) wedding. He says it’s not OK to attend the wedding if the two people getting “married” proclaim to be believers in Christ, but if they don’t claim to be believers then it may be OK. He says he bases his conclusions on 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, stating:
[If] the person is a rank-and-file unbeliever, perhaps a relative, an old friend, a work colleague, or whatever the case might be, and they invite you, this is where I would say pray about it and be open to the Lord having you there as part of the “bigger picture” work that He’s doing in the lives of those who presently are lost but could one day be found.
Christian New Network reports:
Approximately 100 third graders from Lincoln Elementary School in Glendive were scheduled to visit the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum on Thursday as they have done for the past seven years. The museum is stated to be the second largest in the state and contains “more than 23 full-size dinosaurs, numerous individual fossils and artifacts, informative exhibits explaining the origin of the geologic column and fossil record,” as well as a variety of other archaeological and historical displays.
Permission slips had been sent home to parents to allow their children to go on the trip.
Christian Examiner informs us that the very liberal Supreme Court Justice “gave a sly look and emphasized the word ‘Constitution’ when she pronounced the two men married by the powers vested in her by the United States Constitution.” So according to Judge Moore this means she’s “actually commenting on a case that is the same issue that is before her – the constitutionality vel non of same-sex marriage, and she’s pronouncing a marriage by saying under the authority of the Constitution.”
Berean Research reports:
Doing the research and investigative work that the major U.S. media have all but abandoned, an organization called the American Life League (ALL) has uncovered dramatic evidence of links between the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church and an international communist group known as the World Social Forum. The evidence suggests overt Marxist influence on the climate change movement that Pope Francis and his top advisers are now embracing.
The ALL report, a 76-page PowerPoint presentation complete with original source material and numerous photographs, documents how Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican’s top social justice organization, is actually “providing leadership” to the communist group.
Berean Research reports:
A new television drama to be released by Fox next year will seek to glamorize the devil in a hypothetical story about Satan’s earthly life as the owner of a posh nightclub in America’s City of Angels.
“Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar has abandoned his throne and retired to L.A., where he owns Lux, an upscale nightclub,” a description of the series reads on the Fox website.
“Charming, charismatic and devilishly handsome, Lucifer is enjoying his retirement, indulging in a few of his favorite things—wine, women and song—when a beautiful pop star is brutally murdered outside of Lux,” it continues. “For the first time in roughly 10 billion years, he feels something awaken deep within him as a result of this murder. Compassion? Sympathy? ”
Berean Research reports:
Ireland on May 22 became the first country to hold a public vote amending its constitution to allow gay marriage, but the change will not force houses of worship to perform the unions.
Instead, gay couples will be able to enter in “civil marriage,” a separate institution from but affording all the legal benefits of “religious marriage,” according to the Yes Equality civil group that spearheaded the drive for the constitutional change.
According to Baptist Press:
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission will cosponsor a conversation on church and culture, launch a new equipping initiative for ministry to gays and lesbians, and relaunch a magazine during its participation at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting June 16-17 in Columbus, Ohio.
The ERLC will partner with 9Marks church health ministry for “Connecting Church and Culture” on the eve of the SBC meeting. Russell Moore, the ERLC’s president, and Mark Dever, president of 9Marks and senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., will discuss cultural engagement by the church and answer questions from the audience. The event will be at 9 p.m. June 15.
We’re posting this Christian News Network piece to alert parents that their child may be attempting to summon a demon. Doing that sort of thing “just for fun” is dangerous for both children and adults. In the Bible, God makes it clear that Christians are not to attempt to contact the spirit world.
We must also point out that some of the weird and scary experiences kids who have played “Charlie Charlie” claim they’ve had does not line up with the Bible’s teaching on demons.
A new challenge being shared on Twitter has youth across the nation and around the world engaging in an Ouija board-like ritual in an attempt to summon a demon.
According to reports, the “Charlie Charlie” challenge involves a Mexican occultist ritual of writing “yes” and “no” on a sheet of paper and crossing two pencils. The ritual is stated to be a type of “rite” for Mexican children.
“Charlie, Charlie, are you there?” those sitting around the paper chant, and then wait to see if the pencils move to point to either yes or no. If yes, those involved ask the demon questions to see how he will answer.
