Berean Research reports:
This is not good news. If you know anything about the theology of Sid Roth (“It’s Supernatural”) or his guests, then you understand that the announcement that Sid will reach an additional 150 Million viewers in the Middle East is concerning.
How many of them will be duped into the New Apostolic Reformation’s signs and wonders, spiritual warfare and demonic indwellings as told by false teachers that frequently promote their latest book or DVD programs on Sid’s show?
In his piece over at Acculturated, Jonathan V. Last says he believes that one of the incongruities in our culture is that “polite society currently insists that you are ‘born this way’ if you are homosexual or misgendered. But when it comes to boys who like to play with swords and build fighter jets? For some reason, this is viewed as a societal construct that should be eradicated so that they’ll want to play with dolls.”
Most parents will tell you that boys do not play with dolls. Give a boy a doll and he’ll want to blow it up. Give a girl a GI Joe and he’ll become her Barbie doll’s boyfriend. Boys and girls are different.
So now to Last’s article:
Christina Hoff Sommers—who literally wrote the book on the war on boys—notes that there’s a movement afoot to de-gender toys. Target has pulled the “boys” and “girls” labeling from their toy aisles. The White House recently hosted a “summit” on the perils of gender-specific toys. Time proclaims that “the next generation of kids will play with gender neutral toys.”
This is crazy on two counts. First, the kind of people who obsess about gender-neutral toys don’t, as a demographic fact, have many children. In America these days, childbearing tends to be the counter-cultural province of people who aren’t social justice warriors.
Second, even if you give kids gender neutral toys, they’ll gender the heck out of them on their own. Trust me, I know.
Berean Research has the story:
Matthew Vines, Author of “God and the Gay Christian,” has been working hard to infiltrate churches across the United States to convince leaders to relax their biblical stance against the sin of homosexuality. Now Vines is personally waging war against one of the largest evangelical organizations on college campuses nationwide because of its stance against homosexual marriage.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA recently released its new position statement on sexuality, telling its 1,300 staff members that they will be terminated – with severance – if they voluntarily wish to ‘fess up to personally supporting gay marriage. Starting November 11th, InterVarsity will begin its process for “involuntary terminations” for any staffer who comes forward to disagree with its positions on human sexuality, which hold that any sexual activity outside of a husband and wife is immoral.
In a blog post entitled To My Sisters In Christ, Todd Pruitt, co-host of Mortification of Spin, expresses his view that Jerry Falwell Jr, Mike Huckabee, Robert Jeffress and Dr. Ben Carson’s continued support of Donald Trump demonstrates that the old “moral majority” are the new moral relativists. He writes:
Over the weekend the world was given the distasteful surprise of the now infamous recording of Presidential nominee Donald Trump bragging in the crudest terms about his adulterous sexual conquests. He even bragged about his success in groping women. Later he explained it away as nothing more than “locker room talk.” By now we have come to expect this sort of disgraceful behavior from Mr. Trump.
However, what is even more disconcerting than Mr. Trump’s fond reminiscences of his lecherous behavior are the vigorous apologetics offered up by his “evangelical” supporters. They have explained away his words by appealing to the fact that the NBC recording was 11 years old (Trump was a carefree youth of 60 years at the time). They have even echoed Trump’s “locker room talk” explanation.
Andy Snider of ParkingSpace23 has constructed a biblical way of thinking about the Holy Spirit’s role in corporate worship and offers three do’s and a don’ts:
While listening to worship music recently I was struck again with the particular category of songs asking the Holy Spirit to “fall on us,” “come down,” or something similar. I can say just from my own experience that there have been a steady trickle of such songs at least since the Jesus music of the 1970s. I’ve always held these more or less at arm’s length, not hating or loving them, thinking they’re too Pentecostal or—something. But when I realized how relatively unformed my criticisms of these songs were, I decided to think it through a bit more.
The Daily Signal reports:
This November, there are a record number of ballot initiatives in at least nine states regarding so-called medical marijuana or outright legalization of the Schedule I drug. The pot pushers, both small businesses and large, want more people smoking, eating, and consuming more pot because it is good for their bottom line.
Before voting yes, voters—and, in particular, employers—should take a look at more disturbing data that was released two weeks ago at a national conference.
At the annual Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association conference, Quest Diagnostics—one of the nation’s largest drug-testing companies—unveiled the results of its Drug Testing Index. The index examines illicit drug use by workers in America each year.
Bud Ahlheim of Pulpit & Pen ties up all the loose ends:
The concluding line from the Charisma News article that reported on the erroneous announcement of wolf Joyce Meyer’s death is itself a perfect example of rhetorical touche.
“And please remember, not everything you see on the Internet is true!”
(Insert melodic drumroll of ignominy here while pondering exactly how much on Charisma News can actually be deemed as trustworthy! Another source on Meyer’s rebuttal about her rumored death is HERE. Frankly, given that this sheepishly-clothed charlatan so grossly distorts the Truth of God, I cannot confirm that her denial about her death is not, in fact, itself deceptive.)
Despite the Internet announcements that reported her demise last Thursday, Joyce Meyer isn’t dead. On the one hand, then, there remains time for this charlatan to repent of her theological wickedness and seek salvation by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. On the other hand, countless souls will continue to be the gullible targets of her damning false gospel. But if Meyer’s hope – and that of her followers – is in the word-faith, prosperity gospel heresy she hurls, together they remain, as Jesus said in John 3:18, “condemned already.”
But … speaking of prosperity … heresy pays, doncha know?
Clint Archer of The Cripplegate shares the three ingredients for his Humble Pie recipe “so you can cultivate humility in the presence of true greatness…”:
In elementary school I was really bad at playing soccer. But my school tried to be inclusive and didn’t want any kid to feel left out, so they had as many teams as there were players.
The coveted “A team” was kitted out in glamorous, white, satin shirts and shorts with golden trim, while the rest of us had itchy yellow and brown shirts. But at least we got to play. I was too maladroit to qualify for the talented B or promising C team, or even the undaunted D team. No, I was cast down to the freakish menagerie of hopeless misfits known as the E team.
We seldom actually played games since few other schools even had an E team, but when we did, we played our uncoordinated hearts out!
The culture of Bethel Church in Redding CA “is one that is defiantly non-orthodox and non-biblical,” warns Bud Ahlheim of Pulpit & Pen. “So experience-driven and Word-avoiding are the faithful at Bethel that it is reported that Johnson’s wife, Beni, engages in ‘grave sucking,’ a maneuver that presumably allows one to absorb ‘the spiritual anointing of deceased Christians by lying atop their graves.'”
Ahlheim begins with a quote from Charles Spurgeon: “That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.” Now see why he believes God abhors self-professed “apostle” and lead pastor Bill Johnson’s “church.”
Bethel Church of Redding, California was founded in 1952 and was affiliated with the Assemblies of God until 2006, when current pastor Bill Johnson led the church to dissociate itself from the denomination. The current attendance at Bethel’s Redding location is just under 8,700 each Sunday. The now denominationally independent church operates on a $9 million annual budget.
But Bethel’s impact in terms of numbers of souls it touches is far beyond the confines of its Redding headcounts. Bethel is, like Hillsong, an international influence, gaining traction for the prosperity/dominion theology that undergirds it through the primary mechanism of music.
In March 2016, Billboard Magazine noted that, since its first top ten hit on the Top Christian Albums ranking, Bethel Music has had a total of nine Top Ten appearances since that initial 2012 entrance. The album Have It All: Live At Bethel Church sold 25,000 copies in the first week of its release, placing it at number two on the Top Christian Albums chart and taking the twelfth spot on the overall Billboard 200.
Blogger, author and pastor Tim Challies answers the burning question:
Heaven is far too perfect, far too sinless, far too other for us to imagine in our fallen minds. Our attempts to put brush to canvas have led to depictions of cherubs on clouds, idyllic colors of dawn, Christ as a blinding light, a faceless adoring throng. Some of these attempts to capture heaven’s splendors are beautiful and even captivating, yet we know they are also incomplete. They are, at best, the barest reflection of what awaits. Our imaginations must always fall short of heaven’s glorious perfections.
Revelation 21:4 assures us that in heaven God himself will wipe away our tears, that there will be no death, no sorrow, no crying, and no pain. There is a deeply comforting certainty in our future—a certainty of joy, bliss, comfort, peace, love, and perfection. However, those of us with non-believing family members and friends can find this certainty an area of intense struggle. Why? Because we know that not everyone will be there with us. Many we love today will have an eternal experience of pain, torment, and separation. How could we ever enjoy heaven if our loved ones are in hell? R.C. Sproul tackled this question at a Ligonier Ministries conference years ago and I appreciate his answer.
According to NewsBusters:
President Barack Obama spoke to reporters on Wednesday afternoon on the Paris climate change agreement and, almost on cue, NBC’s Ron Allen connected global warming to Hurricane Matthew set to bear down on the Bahamas, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.
Speaking on MSNBC Live to host Kate Snow, Allen first gushed about how the President “believes so deeply in protecting the environment” that the deal marks “one of the most significant aspects of his legacy” before bringing in Hurricane Matthew as a intriguing “practical matter.” It was “what the president was talking about as the threat that the planet faces and this is what this whole climate agreement signed by 190 nations and now ratified by 60 or so is designed to stop.” [emphasis in original]
Author, speaker and blogger Michelle Lesley reminds us that when women are suffering the spiritual forces of wickedness are never far away. They often exploit a woman’s pain “and can make things worse by molesting them spiritually,” says Lesley. Angels of darkness will send “false teachers to whisper sweetly in their ears, ‘It hurts, doesn’t it? But I can make all that pain go away, now.’” But does God always make the pain go away, as false teachers that line their pockets exploiting vulnerable women promise, if you’ll just do this…or that?
In this excellent piece, Michelle Lesley offers 7 biblical things we can do to help women who are suffering.
Jonathan V. Last of The Weekly Standard asserts that, according to a lengthy report by two esteemed psychiatrists, the scientific literature available on gender and sexuality “demonstrate that much of what has been foisted on the culture in recent years in the name of science has little solid basis in scientific research.” As previously reported, the doctor’s concluded that “a combination of biological, environmental, and experiential factors likely shape how individuals experience and express themselves when it comes to sex and gender.” The doctor’s dispute the media’s penchant for proclaiming homosexuality and transgenderism normal and natural. In the September 12 issue of The Magazine, Last examines the report. He writes:
There are two ways to challenge politically correct orthodoxies. One is to toss off outrageous remarks designed to épater les bourgeois. This requires little and accomplishes less. The other is to take the commanding orthodoxy, put it under a microscope, and dismantle it piece by piece. This is what Lawrence Mayer, an epidemiologist trained in psychiatry, and psychiatrist Paul McHugh have just done to the regime of gender and sexuality politics.
In a lengthy report for the journal the New Atlantis, Mayer and McHugh survey a broad expanse of the scientific literature on gender and sexuality and demonstrate that much of what has been foisted on the culture in recent years in the name of science has little solid basis in scientific research. Their conclusions: (1) “The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings—the idea that people are ‘born that way’—is not supported by scientific evidence.” And (2) “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’—is not supported by scientific evidence.”
It may sound modest, but this is earth-rumbling stuff.
CNSNews reports:
The silence is stunning. The lack of public outcry, the absence of outrage about the recent mandate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (Canada) is deeply disturbing.
This summer, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario adopted and published a new ethical policy binding upon doctors in that Canadian province. The policy mandates:
“Where a physician declines to provide medical assistance in dying for reasons of conscience or religion, the physician must not abandon the patient. An effective referral must be provided. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician, nurse practitioner or agency. The referral must be made in a timely manner to allow the patient to access medical assistance in dying. Patients must not be exposed to adverse clinical outcomes due to delayed referrals.”
The Catalyst Circus Conference starts today. According to Berean Research here’s what those who attend will experience:
The eight-year-strong Catalyst franchise conference aimed at millennials has long pushed a leftist social justice message rather than the Gospel of the Cross. But as we see more and more leadership conferences pushing the message of UNITY, I’ve been noticing of late the premiere Catalyst Conference is spreading a wider net to include Word of Faith and Dominionism (NAR) celebrities. This year’s theme doubles down on unity, with “Uncommon Fellowship.” Here are this year’s seeker-mergent growth gurus gathering Oct. 5-7 in Atlanta:
Bud Alheim of Pulpit & Pen analyses a survey commissioned by Ligonier Ministries which is a must read — or read it and weep. The following explains what the survey is about:
In 2016 Ligonier Ministries commissioned LifeWay Research to implement a survey tasked with, as much as surveys are capable, assessing Americans’ theological understanding. The survey quantified fundamental beliefs that have been key doctrines adhered to by two millennia of orthodox Christianity.
The results reflect what the observant believer already knows … error abounds. As false teaching gains footholds and favor, as churches forsake sound doctrine to instead scratch itching ears, the prevalence of error will continue to grow. Ligonier’s survey highlights the most serious errors contemporary to us.
In a recent sermon, Andy Stanley of North Point Church made the argument that the Christian faith rests on a person, Jesus, and a historical event, the Resurrection, not on the Bible (here). Pastor Stanley said, “I would ask preachers and pastors and student pastors in their communications to get the spotlight off the Bible and back on the resurrection.” Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, disagrees and responded with a strong rebuke.
“Jesus loves me — this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This is a childish error?
Evangelical Christianity has a big problem, says Andy Stanley, and that problem is a reliance on the Bible that is both unwarranted and unhelpful. In a recent message delivered at North Point Community Church and posted online, Stanley identifies the evangelical impulse to turn to the Bible in our defense and presentation of Christianity as a huge blunder that must be corrected.
Some years ago, in light of another message Stanley preached at North Point, I argued that his apologetic ambition was, as we saw with Protestant liberalism a century ago, a road that will lead to disaster. No doubt, many Christians might be surprised to see an apologetic ambition identified as an entry point for theological liberalism, but this has held constant since Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theological liberalism, issued his book, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers in 1799.
Journalist and media critic Cliff Kincaid reports on an editorial written by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, where he goes after the far left for working through the Democratic Party to censor the views of people who believe in traditional values as well as “destroying institutions that convey these values to young people.” According to Kincaid “not all Catholics are remaining silent. The EWTN Catholic cable channel, which reaches tens of millions of people in the U.S., has been running a blockbuster film, “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” examining how Marxists have subverted the church from within by recruiting clergy into revolutionary socialist activities that divide people and cause conflict. The film is described as “a lens into America’s cultural Marxism euphemistically called ‘progressivism.’”
Kincaid included a quote by Wuerl where he warned that “the ease with which today a politically correct morality is being forced on our Catholic institutions in place of our own Catholic moral tradition.”
The archbishop’s editorial “should cause headaches among Democrats who think they can dupe Catholics in another election year,” says Kincaid.
CRN’s Research Paper on the Roman Catholic Church examines the doctrines the RCC teaches and demonstrates that it stands in stark contrast with – and even in opposition to – historic orthodox Christianity.
Wintery Knight has the story:
Something interesting happened at a recent meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, which is a group of left-leaning philosophers who are (apparently) neither Christian, nor Philosophers.
How so?
Rightly Considered blog explains what happened:
[A]t the latest Midwest meeting of the SCP, Richard Swinburne presented a paper in which he argued for the view that homosexual acts are immoral and that homosexuality is a disability that should be cured. The response from some quarters was predictably hysterical and unremarkable. What is remarkable is that the President of the SCP, Michael Rea, shamefully acquiesced to the leftist hysteria by issuing an ingratiating public apology, accusing Swinburne of causing pain and undermining the SCP’s mission of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion:
Bible study teacher, best-selling author, speaker and TV host Joyce Meyer is a false teacher for the reason that she promotes a Word of Faith/Health and Wealth gospel that saves no one. Richard Haas of Pulpit & Pen reports that Meyer has been on Twitter pushing her new book to undiscerning Christians and anyone else who doesn’t see a problem with elevating man above God. Her tweets are “problematic at best and heretical at worst,” says Haas. He writes:
Just earlier this month on September 13th, Joyce Meyer released her new book entitled “Seize The Day.” As it seems to be the case more and more every form of a distributor that can distribute anything seemingly “Christian” is jumping on the bandwagon of this nomenclature of sub-Christian literate.
Over the past couple of week’s Joyce Meyer has been releasing tweets on Twitter to draw attention to the publication of her book. She has been promoting her book with colorful, but often inaccurate statements. One of those more theologically inept utterances was tweeted out on September 22nd. The shallowness of these 140 words pulls back the curtain and allows us to see one of the biggest lies in the Word of Faith theology and the movement itself — Self-Entitlement.
Julie Zauzmer, reporting for the Washington Post, brings to light how divorce has helped erode religion:
Two widely recognized trends in American society might have something to do with each other.
Divorce rates climbed to the highest levels ever in the 1980s, when about half of all marriages ended in divorce.
And in the present day, Americans are rapidly becoming less religious. Since 1972, the share of Americans who say they do not adhere to any particular religion has increased from 5 percent of the population to 25 percent.
According to Rebecca Boyle of The Atlantic, geologists admit that the scientific community is very quick to criticize those who operate on faith but that’s exactly what they do. Mark Harrison, a geologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, confessed: “We as a scientific community created an origin myth that has no more intellectual value than Genesis.” Boyle writes:
Humanity’s trips to the moon revolutionized our view of this planet. As seen from another celestial body, Earth seemed more fragile and more precious; the iconic Apollo 8 image of Earth rising above the lunar surface helped launch the modern environmental movement. The moon landings made people want to take charge of Earth’s future. They also changed our view of its past.
Earth is constantly remaking itself, and over the eons it has systematically erased its origin story, subsuming and cannibalizing its earliest rocks. Much of what we think we know about the earliest days of Earth therefore comes from the geologically inactive moon, which scientists use like a time capsule.
CNSNews has a piece by economist Walter E. Williams dealing with “biological determinism,” professional sports and the armed forces. In it he brings up some interesting “what ifs” that many Americans probably haven’t even considered. He writes:
North Carolina’s legislative body passed the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which mandates a statewide policy banning individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex, as opposed to their opinion of their sex. That means people must use bathrooms and other public facilities where occupants can be in various stages of undress according to whether their sex chromosomes are XX, in the case of females, or XY, in the case of males. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community claims that the use of biology to determine sex is oppressive and limits alternatives. I agree. I all but argued this in a column earlier this year titled “You Are What You Say You Are.” Let’s look at some possible benefits of freeing oneself from the oppression of biological determinism.
Here’s the Wallstreet Journal’s view of last night’s debate:
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clashed Monday night in one of the most eagerly awaited presidential debates in modern political history, offering dramatically different visions of how they would lead the country as they attacked each other’s biggest vulnerabilities.
Both nominees came to the stage at Hofstra University sharing the burden of being among the best-known and least liked candidates ever to run for the White House.
Mrs. Clinton, who had prepared methodically for the showdown, managed to put Mr. Trump on the defensive for most of the night and avoided being knocked off her own message as was the fate for many of his opponents at Republican primary debates.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, pressed the Democratic nominee on her email practices at the State Department and her shifting position on trade, but didn’t raise questions about the Clinton Foundation and the influence of its donors.
Berean Research has the answer:
Modalism was declared a heresy by the early church centuries ago, but it keeps popping up like a Whack-A-Mole game. Unfortunately, Modalism is rearing its head once again in our time. It is a growing theological error within evangelicalism that twists the very the nature of God revealed to us through His Word, by denying the Trinity.
Rather than God being three distinct persons, Modalism states that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes or forms. In other words, God in the Old Testament was Father God. Then He became Jesus 2,000 years ago. At Pentecost, God morphed into the Holy Spirit.
you have no problem with denying the doctrine of the Trinity, yourself this: To Whom was Jesus praying in the garden? And what about all those other times Jesus was doing what His Father was doing? (There are hundreds of questions you should struggle with as you read Scripture.)
Do you see the problem?