Commentary, analysis and opinion.

Rick Warren is the wrong choice for spokesman of the Museum of the Bible

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Apprising Ministries photo

Sandy Simpson of Deception In The Church has written a commentary on the 430,000-square-foot Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. Simpson has some serious concerns about some the museum’s board members, including false teacher Rick Warren. And he presents plenty of evidence to back up his concerns. He writes:

Let me start out by stating that I am all in favor of a museum that shows the historicity of the Bible.  If it weren’t for some of the people involved this would be a valuable resource.  But I don’t support giving credibility to Rick Warren and his friends in support of the Museum of the Bible.  Warren has become the de facto spokesman for this effort.  It is great they are featuring texts and archeological information about the Bible.  But I believe Warren is doing this to set himself up as an authority on the Bible when he is actually guilty, on many counts, of not only disobeying it but of twisting it out of all recognition. … Continue reading →

Brown muddies the waters – damaging James White’s reputation?

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(Churchwatch Central) Dr James White is in serious damage control after his recent program featuring NAR Apostle Michael Brown. At the bottom of this article, you can see further evidence of this on his Facebook page.

James White has refused to factually address the evidence presented to him about Michael Brown’s involvement in the NAR (as a NAR Apostle) and Brown’s NAR theological heresies. Here is the documented evidence of Michael Brown lying about his involvement in the NAR. We encourage you to compare these links to the accusations of James White and Michael Brown. The evidence speaks for itself: Continue reading →

What Worldview Does the Maker of Star Wars Movies Want You to Accept?

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(Wintery Knight) I heard that there was a new Star Wars movie out, and that many of my Christian friends were going to see it. I passed on it, because there is something about that whole series that is creepy to me.

It looks like my concerns have some justification. I noticed a couple of reviews of the movie from Come Reason Ministries and Bnonn Tennant.

Here are 3 points that Lenny makes at Come Reason: (H/T Brian)

  1. Faith and tradition are disposable
  2. You don’t really need to put in years of work to be competent
  3. Men are inconsequential

All three points he makes seem to me to be exactly what the movie communicates, but I want to focus on point #3: Continue reading →

Michael Brown to Take Part in Upcoming Toronto Blessing NAR Conference

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(Pulpit & Pen News) Michael Brown, the charismaniac apologist who is affirmed as an orthodox Christian believer – to be promoted to the church – by Dr. James White, is appearing at the “Light the Fire Again 2018” Conference. It is associated with the Toronto Blessing. In fact, it’s the first thing you see on the website.

It advertises itself – as you can see above – as the “site of the Toronto Blessing.” The advertisement encourages people to come and be “a part of a historic gathering of leaders from the great global moves of God at the close of the last century,” referencing the Toronto Blessing and the development of the New Apostolic Reformation. Continue reading →

Michael Brown attacks Christian authors & defends NAR cult

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Churchwatch Central’s title for their article is “What Michael Brown is hiding from his audience (Part 1): Attacking Christian authors; contends for NAR gospel.” Thus far there are 4 articles in the series. We’re posting part 1 and providing links for those who wish to read CWC’s entire series:  Part 2,  Part 3,  Part 4.

Now to CWC’s exposé on Dr. Michael Brown:

This year, a controversial book has been published and caused a ruckus in the Christian media scene. The book is called, ‘The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape’. It was written by Brad Christerson and Richard Flory. Continue reading →

Fact Checking the Worldview Weekend Newsletter

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Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend (WVW) is under fire once again. Those of you who are unfamiliar with what’s been going on can read about it here.  The reason for the latest brouhaha is that Howse allegedly failed to fact check before sending his WVW newsletter to thousands of subscribers. There are a lot of twists and turns in this story. Find out the details over at Pulpit & Pen:

Well, the financial solicitation letter newsletter for Worldview Weekend has made its way out to their supporters, and to a few people who are not supporters, which is why we have it. It has all the doom and gloom, Elijah-complex sensationalism that one would expect from any ministry selling survival supplies. You may not know it, but Brannon Howse is the last line of defense against the Muslim hordes invading our shores and churches in a global jihad. That’s right. He and his supporters are the last line of defense – unquote – against the imminent Islamocalypse. Continue reading →

Copeland affirms ‘little gods’ doctrine: Todd White claiming he is a ‘god’ (New Breed) in human flesh

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(Churchwatch Central) This is the New Order of the Latter Rain and New Apostolic Reformation heresy that teaches when people are spiritually baptized by this demonic ‘spirit’, they become Sons of God, little Gods or Kings Kids (like Jesus).

Copeland Ministries uploaded an interview on YouTube between Tim Fox and Todd White. In this interview, Todd White recalled his experience ministering to people in a hospital. Remember that Todd White is a ‘little god’, a New Breed:

The ‘New Breed’ Among Us (Part 3): Todd White.

While he later claims he preached ‘the cross’ to them, this was the first thing that came out of his mouth to explain how one is set free from sickness, disease and circumstances: View article →

Resolutions: 6 Ways God Could Sanctify You in the New Year

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Should Christians make New Year’s resolutions? “Is it OK to set a goal to get a certain area of our lives under better control?” asks Bible study author, speaker and blogger Michelle Lesley. In this piece, Lesley offers 6 ways for believers who desire to achieve conformity to the image of God to get there this year. One thing on the list that shouldn’t surprise anyone is daily prayer time, as prayer brings believers into conformity to God’s will in their lives.  So she suggests that God’s people set a daily block of time aside and communicate with Him through prayer.

Here are 5 more goals Michelle Lesley urges Christians to consider: Continue reading →

Leftists Declare War on Thomas the Train

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(Gamaliel Isaac – American Thinker) A conservative cynic from birth, I foolishly thought I had seen it all when it came to leftist madness. But then I saw, posted on CNN’s website, “Why kids love ‘fascist’ cartoons like ‘Paw Patrol’ and ‘Thomas’.” The article referenced several other articles that described Thomas as “a premodern corporate-totalitarian dystopia,” “imperialist racist and sinister,” and “classist, sexist, and anti-environmentalist.”

This caught my attention because my six-year-old boy — like children all over the world — loves stories of Thomas the Train. I recently took my children to Thomasland in Massachusetts and now my boy wants to visit the Thomasland in Japan. The Thomas cartoon is so popular that 1 billion dollars of merchandise related to the show is sold every year. Continue reading →

The Top 10 Child Corruption Trends of 2017

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(Linda Harvey – Mission America) As we look back on 2017, how did our children fare?

Unfortunately, the risk to America’s youth of deliberate corruption is escalating and along with that, the responsibility of parents and public officials to change this picture.

I am not trying to overly sensationalize what’s happening. The facts alone do that. My goal is motivation with prayer points and action steps. Folks, prayer alone is not enough. We must get involved, confront this evil and make it go away.

Here are my Top Ten Child Corruption Trends during last year, hoping they do not continue: Continue reading →

Open Occultism and Millennial Magik

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Here’s an idea. Instead of Christian missionaries heading off to third world countries to evangelize the lost, why not remain at home and evangelize college students. As it turns out, many institutions of higher learning promote paganism; thus, a large number of college educated millennials have bought into pagan beliefs, hook line and sinker. They’re involved in occult practices like astrology, tarot card reading, aura reading, palmistry, Runes, charms, potions, they play the Ouija board game and so on and so forth. In other words, college students are practicing the magik arts, what is commonly called witchcraft. Continue reading →

Evangelical rebel Jen Hatmaker deserved more from Politico than a puff piece

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Journalist and author Julia Duin argues that Politico’s recent piece on “evangelical” Jen Hatmaker, who has become firmly ensconced in the Religious Left, didn’t get anywhere near the same scrutiny as those on the Religious Right receive in the articles written about them. “Why didn’t the writer of this fluff maintain at least some journalistic distance from her subject?” demands Duin. “There was zero attempt (that I could discern) to get an opposing point of view and whoever edited it didn’t demand even a hint of objectivity from the reporter.”

In this piece over at Get Religion, Duin reveals why a large number of evangelical women feel betrayed by the woman they were led to believe shared their biblical worldview. She writes: Continue reading →

Pastors: Stop Trying to be Popular

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The good news about Christ can only be appreciated with the bad news as the backdrop. There are times when the saints must be fed, and there are times when the sinners must be warned (C.H. Spurgeon).

(Shane Idelman – ChristianHeadlines)  A few years back, I listened in astonishment as some​ prominent “Christian” leaders talked about replacing “preaching” with “having a conversation.”

At first, I thought that they might be confusing individual conversations with how we should speak to the masses, but I was wrong. They felt that we should stop “preaching” from the pulpit and start being more passive and less confrontational. Never mind the fact that Jesus said, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent” (Luke 4:43). But according to many, it’s time to replace the pulpit with a couch and preaching with conversing. Continue reading →

In A World of ‘Authentic’ ‘Journeys,’ There’s Always First Things

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(Carl Trueman – First Things) One of the sad things about writing my annual contribution to the First Things end-of-year appeal is that there is always some news headline that indicates why the print magazine and its online content are important. And this year is no exception, with the news that a Roman Catholic priest in Wisconsin has come out as gay, to a standing ovation from his parishioners.

Debates about whether or not same-sex attraction is sinful rage on in Christian circles—but that is not what interests me in this story. Rather, I am interested in the blithe way in which many of the present age’s heterodoxies concerning human personhood are widely accepted as normative. View article →

Handling Stress

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(Brent Aucoin – Answers In Genesis) Our primary goal in handling life’s pressures is to learn how to depend upon God and please Him, not simply get rid of stresses.

The economy, unemployment, terrorism, politics, finances, moral decline, major sickness, a prodigal child, an unhealthy marriage—for most of us, contemplating any one of these pressures will knot our stomach. We become uneasy and tense. Our soul ceases to be quiet like the still waters but instead becomes deafeningly noisy like a wailing infant. In other words, we are “stressed.” View article →

It’s Christmas! ‘Harry Potter’ Visits ‘The Shack’

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Photo credit: Herescope

Who are we going to allow to define God, New Ager Wm. Paul Young and promoter of witchcraft J.K Rowling…or the Lord Jesus Christ? Following is Pastor Larry DeBruyn’s response in a piece he penned for Herescope:

Looks like the concept of “god” in the book and movie The Shack is spreading. Fiction and fantasy have merged. J.K. Rowling, author of the occult Harry Potter series of books, popular reading among even many Christians, has announced that like The Shack, she believes “God is a Black Woman.” (Rowling’s declaration, as well as The Shack‘s fiction, reminds me of The Black Madonna.) Continue reading →

Did a False Teacher Heal You?

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(Costi Hinn – Defining Deception) A few years ago an excited woman in her 20’s ran up to me one Sunday at church – she was a newer attendee who had been kicking the tires on our church for a few weeks when my last name must have clicked. It’s not like we talk about it every Sunday at Mission Bible –  our members don’t really care. We have a lot of important ministry to do and I’m just another one of the pastors. But sometimes it comes out in conversations and you never know what you’re going to get. Angry ex-faith-healer-enthusiast who threatens a shake down if I don’t pay them back what my uncle stole from them?  Excited believer who came out of the jaws of deception like me? It’s hit or miss. Continue reading →

Doing Church Away from Church isn’t Church

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Church means something specific in the New Testament.

(Eric Davis – The Cripplegate) Maybe you’ve heard it. “We can’t make it to church today, so we’ll just do church as a family.” “I can just do church on a hike this morning in God’s creation.” “The church is really the people, so we can do church wherever. God is everywhere, after all.”

Do we really need to go to a building on a certain day for it to count as doing church? If so, isn’t that legalistic?

Continue reading →

Bethel’s house of cards; tarot-rists leading people to Baal/Jezebel by practicing occultism in God’s name

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(Churchwatch Central) If the people of Bethel really read their bibles, they would notice that Jesus was very judgmental at times. Consider these words of Jesus to one of the churches in Revelation:

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” Revelation 2:20

Continue reading →

College Drinking Culture Must Change — Our Kids’ Lives Are at Stake

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Our nation’s college students are abusing alcohol and other drugs in ways that threaten their health, their safety, and their academic success.

(Michael A. Fitts – Lifezette) This is the time of year that many college students return home to see family and friends, and to face nosy but well-meaning questions about school. Just as everyone at the holiday table will press them for information, students will be trying to assert some independence. View article →

Does Jesus’ Reference to Eunuchs Affirm Transgender People?

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(A. Philip Brown, II Answers In Genesis) In a recent Huffington Post article, Mark Olmstead claims that, according to Jesus, some people are born transgender and that expressing transgender identity behaviorally is no big deal. In Olmstead’s view, people who panic, demonize, or make a fuss about nontraditional categories of gender expression should just “get over it.” To justify his claim, Olmstead appeals to Jesus’ statement regarding eunuchs in Matthew 19:12 (NASB). Specifically, he asserts that the phrase “eunuchs, who were born so from their mother’s womb” may legitimately be understood to include traditional eunuchs, intersex persons, and transgender persons.

Continue reading →

Kris Vallotton and Bethel Cannot Escape Link to New Age Occultism

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(CRN Editor) Steven Kozar, curator of the Museum of Idolatry, offers proof that Bethel Church of Redding CA is linked to the world of the occult. According to Kozar, Australian couple Ken and Jenny Hodge, founders of Christalignment, “has been following the Bethel methods to a tee.” In Kozar’s story we learn that the couple has been thrown under the bus by Bethel’s Kris Vallotton, Bill Johnson & Company. This story has many twists and turns!

CRN believes that it is important for the Body of Christ to know what goes on at the infamous Bethel Redding — it will curl your hair! So we recommend Steve Kozar’s informative piece over at MoI:  View article →

Related: Holy Pivec’s piece “The ‘Christian’ Tarot card controversy at Bethel Redding” includes updates at the bottom. Pivec informs us that “Since writing this a couple of hours ago, I noticed that Christalignment has altered their website descriptions of their Destiny Cards, removing the word “tarot” and making other significant changes to the wording I cited above, including distancing themselves from animal totems and their claim that their cards will certainly predict the future. See screen captures of their original page below and compare it to the current page.”

Should Parents Subscribe to Family-Friendly ‘Christian Netflix’?

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Christian Post (CP) has a piece by Leah Marianne Klett urging parents who want to give their families a “clean, uplifting alternative” to the filth Hollywood pumps out to purchase a free one-month trial to PureFlix.com. But is this really a wise choice for Christian parents, as Klett suggests?

In January 2016, she reported on this alleged Christian alternative to Netflix in “Pureflix an arm of dominionist International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders” which we’re reposting for those who may have missed it the first time around, as it’s important for parents to have the facts. As you will see, she actually took the time to research Pure Flix Digital and discovered that the company is part of the New Apostolic Reformation network. Unfortunately some reporters can’t be trusted to do their research, even those who write for popular “Christian” sites such as CP.

So with this background in mind, here’s that report:

Is Christian-themed movie subscription site PureFlix a strategic tool of the New Apostolic Reformation, or does this movie company simply focus on delivering films with a pro-Christian message? I’m about to make a case for the former.

We know that one of the hallmarks of the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) movement is taking dominion over seven spheres of life on Earth, in order to activate the reign of Jesus’ Kingdom. It’s called the “7 Mountain Mandate,” in which Christians are to dominate and fix business, government, media, education, the family, religion, and arts and entertainment.

View article →

Hallmark Christmas movies under fire for spreading ‘Caucasian cheer’

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Todd Starnes, host of Fox News and Commentary has the story:

The Hallmark Channel is a throwback to an age when Hollywood produced family-friendly films and love stories that did not involve leather and whips.

The network has earned millions of loyal fans for broadcasting movies that promote the virtues of faith and family — stories that tug at your heartstrings.

“We are a place you can go and feel good,” Bill Abbott, the chief executive of Crown Media, told the Washington Post.

View article →

Spiritual Poverty

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Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5 ESV)

You may wonder, “What? Do all Christians have to live in complete poverty and not own anything? Do we have to get rid of all of our honor, prestige, and power? What are prosperous people, such as business owners and government officials, supposed to do? Should they sell their possessions and give up their authority in order to buy heaven from the poor?” The answer is no. Scripture doesn’t say that you can buy heaven from the poor. But it does say that you should be counted among the poor and also be spiritually poor. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3) View article →