Month: April 2015
COMMON CORE: ARNE DUNCAN THREATENS THOSE WHO OPT OUT OF TESTS~SOUTH CAROLINA DISCIPLINES NON COMPLIANT STUDENTS
The Office of Inspector General is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of Education and is responsible for the detection of waste, fraud, abuse, and other criminal activity involving Federal education funds, programs, and operations. As such, OIG operates with full statutory law enforcement authority, which includes conducting search warrants, making arrests, and carrying firearms.
At the time of Strauss’s article, Dave Workman of the Washington Examiner pointed out that in the Department of Education’s solicitation notice to purchase the weapons, the 27 shotguns bought in 2010 were “compatible with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.”
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ALSO SEE: http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/state-threatening-anti-common-core-parents-with-jail/
ALSO SEE:
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2015/04/29/greenville-students-disciplined-refusing-act-tests/26609973/;
EXCERPT:
BALTIMORE: WITH MAYOR’S OK, CHAOS & RIOT SPREADS~MARTIAL LAW DECLARED, NATIONAL GUARD REQUESTED
BALTIMORE RIOTS:
STORES LOOTED & BURNED, COPS INJURED,
NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYED
TO ORDER MARTIAL LAW
EVIDENCE THAT MAYOR BLAKE
SUPPORTS FEDERALIZED POLICE
SEE: http://www.infowars.com/breaking-baltimore-mayor-key-player-in-obamas-federal-takeover-of-local-police/;
EXCERPT:
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who gave rioters “space to destroy” property and reportedly told police to stand down, was a key player in the Justice Dept.’s plan to expand federal control over local law enforcement.
What They Won’t Tell You About Baltimore Riots:
Published on Apr 29, 2015
After admitting a “safe space” was given to violent mobs hellbent on destruction, police officers in Baltimore reportedly told journalists that they were ordered by the Mayor not to stop looters during yesterday’s riots.
We saw the same stand down when riots took place in Ferguson, Missouri last year.
Now activists groups say they are preparing for an even more violent summer. The founder of Hands Up United says, “People have become more radical. They’ve realized the power that they have. They’re no longer afraid of the police, the state, but also you have a police and a military force that’s been training for a year to deal with this type of circumstance.” Warning that activists are not only prepared for more unrest but with the violent state oppression that will surely come along with it.
SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_Up_United
Since it’s been revealed that George Soros donated $33 million to bankrolling Ferguson demonstrators, creating an ‘echo chamber’ to keep events and messages at the top of news agenda and drive national protests, there’s no denying there’s a bigger play going on.
SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Society_Foundations
Take a look at this passage from Capitalist Conspiracy Booklet written in 1971 by G. Edward Griffin:
“If those who seek world dominion can stimulate leftist mobs into violent confrontation with local law enforcement, and also provide exhaustive news coverage so that the entire nation can see and tremble, then the peaceful and freedom loving majority can be programmed to accept a vast expansion of government powers and even a national police force offered supposedly to end the violence.”
As race riots and civil unrest continue to fester nationwide, can you say with certainty JADE HELM 15 and other “training exercises” aren’t preparation for martial law?
We saw the same stand down when riots took place in Ferguson, Missouri last year.
Now activists groups say they are preparing for an even more violent summer. The founder of Hands Up United says, “People have become more radical. They’ve realized the power that they have. They’re no longer afraid of the police, the state, but also you have a police and a military force that’s been training for a year to deal with this type of circumstance.” Warning that activists are not only prepared for more unrest but with the violent state oppression that will surely come along with it.
Since it’s been revealed that George Soros donated $33 million to bankrolling Ferguson demonstrators, creating an ‘echo chamber’ to keep events and messages at the top of news agenda and drive national protests, there’s no denying there’s a bigger play going on.
Take a look at this passage from Capitalist Conspiracy Booklet written in 1971 by G. Edward Griffin:
“If those who seek world dominion can stimulate leftist mobs into violent confrontation with local law enforcement, and also provide exhaustive news coverage so that the entire nation can see and tremble, then the peaceful and freedom loving majority can be programmed to accept a vast expansion of government powers and even a national police force offered supposedly to end the violence.”
As race riots and civil unrest continue to fester nationwide, can you say with certainty JADE HELM 15 and other “training exercises” aren’t preparation for martial law?
Anatomy Of A Planned Riot:
Published on Apr 28, 2015
Alex Jones breaks down how the situation in Baltimore Maryland has been allowed to escalate and why.
http://www.infowars.com/soros-group-a…
http://www.infowars.com/soros-group-a…
Areas of Baltimore are under siege for a third day as rioters battle with cops
Baltimore Riots: 15 Officers Injured; State Of Emergency Declared
Martial Law To Be Declared As Solution To Baltimore Riots
Baltimore Is On Fire; Interview With Dan Bongino, Former Secret Service Agent
RELATED?: BALTIMORE BLACK RIOTS & BLACK RUTGERS PROFESSOR ACCUSES CONSERVATIVE WHITE CHRISTIANS AS RACIST & GAY BIGOTS~CLAIMS THEY WORSHIP A “WHITE SUPREMACY JESUS”
Any time right-wing conservatives declare that they are trying to restore or reclaim something, we should all be very afraid. Usually, this means the country or, in this case, the state of Indiana is about to be treated to another round of backward time travel, to the supposedly idyllic environs of the 1950s, wherein women, and gays, and blacks knew their respective places and stayed in them……And given our current anti-Black racial climate, there is no reason to trust that these laws won’t be eventually used for acts of racially inflected religious discrimination, perhaps against Black Muslims or Muslims of Arab descent, for instance…As a practicing Christian, I am deeply incensed by these calls for restoration and reclamation in the name of religious freedom. This kind of legislation is largely driven by conservative Christian men and women, who hold political views that are antagonistic to every single group of people who are not white, male, Christian, cisgender, straight and middle-class. Jesus, a brown, working-class, Jew, doesn’t even meet all the qualifications.
…when I reflect on the Christian story of Christ crucified, it is a story to me of a man who came, radically served his community, challenged the unjust show of state power, embraced children, working-class men and promiscuous women and sexual minorities (eunuchs). Of the many things Jesus preached about, he never found time to even mention gay people, let alone condemn them. His message of radical inclusivity was so threatening that the state lynched him for fear that he was fomenting a cultural and political rebellion….This white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, gun-toting, Bible-quoting Jesus of the religious right is a god of their own making. I call this god, the god of white supremacy and patriarchy. There is nothing about their god that speaks to me as a Black woman of working-class background living in a country where police routinely murder black men and beat the hell out of black women, where the rich get richer while politicians find ever more reasons to extract from the poor, and where the lives the church imagines for women still center around marriage and motherhood, and no sex if you’re single.This God isn’t the God that I serve. There is nothing holy, loving, righteous, inclusive, liberatory or theologically sound about him. He might be “biblical” but he’s also an [expletive deleted]…We need to reclaim the narrative of Jesus’ life and death from the evangelical right… They have pimped Jesus’ death to support the global spread of… the abuse of native peoples, the continued subjugation of Black people, and the regulation of the sexual lives of women and gay people.
Baltimore Mayor Let Rioters And Vandals Run Rampant:
Published on Apr 27, 2015
Alex Jones plays a clip of the Baltimore Mayor admitting that they deliberately let the rioters have control of the streets.
BALTIMORE MAYOR: CITY ‘GAVE SPACE’ TO RIOTERS ‘WHO WISHED TO DESTROY’:
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said her city government “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that,” seemingly approving of the rioters who smashed the city’s police vehicles in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.
1968:
BALTIMORE RACE RIOTS REPLAYED 47 YEARS LATER:
#BLACKLIVESMATTER ‘PROTESTERS’ ATTACK INNOCENT DINERS, SPORTS FANS, SMASH UP RESTAURANTS, LOOT IN BALTIMORE
Idiotic display labeled ‘justice’ for Freddie Gray
Another day in USA: Obama yucks it up in front of drooling press crowd as Baltimore spirals with race riots #WHCD pic.twitter.com/DtOpJXT3Iy
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) April 26, 2015
A Baltimore restaurant gets destroyed during the riot via /r/videos http://t.co/d2YstlXuxI#videos #reddit pic.twitter.com/wqGZHCpzGv
— Reddit Subreddits (@subredditsbot) April 26, 2015
My report from Baltimore last night, including the only video of a big 9.15pm clash at the western district police HQ http://t.co/0iuP37Ehi4
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) April 26, 2015
After peaceful start #FreddieGray protest turns violent. Robberies, so WP finds a 63yr old.http://t.co/6JWBfHEXrM pic.twitter.com/h2eXs1dqLU
— Shaughn (@Shaughn_A) April 26, 2015
Martial law in effect in Baltimore. We can’t leave Camden Yards. Mayor has locked down everything.#baltimoreprotests pic.twitter.com/6vvOuJU1wU
— Garrett Wingate (@Garrett_Wingate) April 26, 2015
Main gates closed at #OPACY bunch of people filming at the outfield bar #Baltimore#Orioles pic.twitter.com/DliNn5E7ds
— Kara (@karmba) April 25, 2015
In Baltimore, hundreds jam the streets in protest of Freddie Gray’s deathhttp://t.co/GLPrXp7ktA pic.twitter.com/8C6WbW24aB
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) April 25, 2015
The fire rises RT @The__Tactician: RT @cmcampbell6: #FreddieGray protesters smashing windows of Baltimore police cars pic.twitter.com/gYX5R1AYJk
— سيباستيان العظيم (@CbazzThaGreat) April 25, 2015
The constitution guarantees citizens the rights to protest. Please remain peaceful. Several of our police cars have been damaged.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) April 25, 2015
Police have just started chasing protestors. #FreddieGray pic.twitter.com/KVVDLVP1OH
— jelani cobb (@jelani9) April 25, 2015
Downtown. Now. Wild. #FreddieGray pic.twitter.com/aQRFUbtX93
— deray mckesson (@deray) April 26, 2015
.@deray and @Nettaaaaaaaa say Baltimore the most organic protest they’ve seenpic.twitter.com/uoZqJCeDn7
— Baynard Woods (@baynardwoods) April 25, 2015
This is disgraceful of @deray & is in no way representative of all blacks. Shame on you, I’m disgusted #FreddieGray pic.twitter.com/6dtgbqU74s
— Alexiis Starr (@AlexiisStarr) April 26, 2015
RT @MandaBoo1194 PSA: This does not scream justice for #FreddieGray Stop destroying#Baltimore pic.twitter.com/oKpL6Wp7f4
— SalenaZito (@SalenaZitoTrib) April 26, 2015
@AlexiisStarr @deray There is NO DEFENSE of #looting U don’t represent me or mine.
— Tessa (@curlyque007) April 26, 2015
ALWAYS FUNNY: Obama Made a Funny About Taking Executive Action and White House Reporters Howled with Laughter http://t.co/QyUvJp9xm4
— slone (@slone) April 26, 2015
I want y’all to see the juxtaposition of DC’s media elite yukking it up @ the #WHCD while 45 minutes away hell is breaking loose in Bmore.
— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) April 25, 2015
As no shortage of people have pointed out, DC’s most powerful sipping wine as people take the streets an hour away in Baltimore
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) April 26, 2015
Good work at the #BaltimoreRiots guys. #looting #violence is going to give us a world of change as always. Except it doesn’t/won’t. Go home
— J Spencer Fox (@jspencerfox) April 26, 2015
#FreddieGray #riots #looting destroying #Baltimore #BlackPrivilege #BlackLivesMatter ? Losers. have some respect. pic.twitter.com/byvMHIQkeV
— WakeUpAmerica (@MyCrazyAmerica) April 26, 2015
Smashing windows, #looting, destroying #civilian and #police cars…this is why no will listen to you guys, so stop. #FreddieGray #Baltimore
— Kourosh Shah (@ShahKourosh) April 26, 2015
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Protesters take to Baltimore’s city hall over Freddie Gray’s death:
DEFIANT CREFLO DOLLAR: YOU CAN’T STOP ME FROM BUYING $65 MILLION JET PLANE~SPACE SHUTTLE IS NEXT NAME AND CLAIM IT ITEM
CREFLO DOLLAR:
“IF THEY FIND LIFE ON MARS, I’LL HAVE TO BELIEVE GOD FOR A SPACE SHUTTLE”
“‘You Cannot Stop Me’:
Televangelist Creflo Dollar Defies Opponents
in Effort to Buy $65 Million Jet”
PAYPAL’S INSANITY ON DISPLAY: ABSOLUTE OWNERSHIP OF USERS MATERIAL AND BRAIN CHIPS IN THE BACK OF YOUR SKULL
“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sublicensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”
Paypal Assert Copyright Ownership
Of All Intellectual Property
Paypal Wants Brain Chips to Replace Passwords:
Published on Apr 20, 2015
Paypal’s ‘Global Head of Developer Evangelism’ Jonathan LeBlanc is pushing implantable brain chips as a replacement for passwords, but insists that such technology must be made to fit inside “cultural norms” before it is accepted by the general public.
MARINES CONDUCT RIOT CONTROL DRILL IN VIRGINIA~DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MADE PROFESSIONAL VIDEO TO PRODUCE PUBLIC FEAR
Troops repel angry protesters with pepper spray & rifles
Per the usual the exercise was given the cover story of overseas preparation. Sgt. Andrew S. Wilbur, a non-lethal weapons instructor said of a similar exercise “Consider they are hypothetically operating within an EMBASSY.”
However, As we’ve been following for weeks, public concerns are running high amidst the recent ft Lauderdale FEMA Camp Roundup drills, and the Ontario California martial law train.
Participants in This latest training exercise were the Bravo Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team Company.
Oddly the high production footage you’re seeing right now is directly from the Department of Defense. As a professional news package intended for the public to see.
This has a twofold effect. First. The Marines are training for riot and crowd control on American soil where tea partiers and Constitutionalists are constantly demonized by politicians and the media. In the event of civil unrest these same Marines could deploy this training upon Americans.
Second. The media production aspect of this is chilling because it shows they are doing this in full public view. They want this to be seen. Because they want the public to accept Marines not police conducting riot control during the coming martial law and societal breakdown.
While training is a common part of military life these tactics a suspect in context of other reports we’ve done here at the next News Network. Please review our previous reports to gain the full perspective.
And most importantly. Please be prepared for the unknown days that lie ahead.
For the next News Network, I’m Gary Franchi.
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Citizens Fear Jade Helm15 Is Out Of Control:
Published on Apr 24, 2015
The citizens of Bastrop TX are looking at backing out as a host city for the Jade Helm 15 Training Operation.
Host Rob Dew talks with Ret Staff Sgt Joe Biggs about this, the newly releases Marine training video, the WalMart Deathcamp conspiracy and new updates from FEMA.
http://www.infowars.com/bastrop-count…
Host Rob Dew talks with Ret Staff Sgt Joe Biggs about this, the newly releases Marine training video, the WalMart Deathcamp conspiracy and new updates from FEMA.
http://www.infowars.com/bastrop-count…
GOOGLE & PAYPAL WANT “BRAIN CHIPS” INSTEAD OF PASSWORDS~TRACKING EVERY MOVE, THOUGHT, DESIRE~WHY DON’T YOU THINK THAT’S COOL?
Today we have Google (GOOGL). Don’t let the geeky façade, whimsical multicolored logo and “don’t be evil” mantra fool you. Google may very well be the most sinister threat and wicked incarnation of them all. http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology…
PAYPAL ASSERTS COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP OVER ALL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF ITS USERS
Payment processor announces alarming update
to terms of agreement
“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sublicensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”
Paypal Wants Brain Chips to Replace Passwords
Published on Apr 20, 2015
Paypal’s ‘Global Head of Developer Evangelism’ Jonathan LeBlanc is pushing implantable brain chips as a replacement for passwords, but insists that such technology must be made to fit inside “cultural norms” before it is accepted by the general public.
“DEATH WISH”?-JEB BUSH & HILLARY CLINTON; THE WORST OF EVILS FOR AMERICA
Jeb And Hillary: The Worst Of Evils
COLLECTIVIST POPE FRANCIS TO HOST CLIMATE CONFERENCE
Vatican To Host Major Climate Conference
ECUMENICAL DOMINIONISM: AN ALLEGED UNIFIED FRONT TO SAVE AMERICA? WILL PASTORS & CHURCHES EXCHANGE THE WORD OF GOD FOR HERESY?
As America is fast approaching another presidential election year, Dominionist/Kingdom Now political and religious figures are joining forces with evangelical Christian groups. While having concern for the state of America is more than legitimate, will Christians replace commitment and loyalty to the Gospel for commitment and loyalty to a dominionist agenda? If they do, they will learn the hard way that compromise and a “whatever it takes” attitude will do more harm to the cause of Jesus Christ than good.
This article is not a statement that Christians should not be involved in or concerned about the political state of their countries. Rather, the intention of this article is to exhort believers to use discernment in understanding the times in which we live. It is to show how a present ecumenical, dominionist movement (that is heading toward a one-world religion to “establish the kingdom of God on earth”) is operating and deceiving many Christians. As Christians, we are to be witnesses for Jesus Christ and His Gospel message of salvation. But today, many Christians may be on the brink of buying into a plan that will ultimately create a global religion and global government.
The apostle Paul was very clear that we are not to entangle ourselves with those who say they are of the faith but preach “another gospel” (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10, 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15).
The definition below of dominionism is helpful in understanding the goals of the dominionist movement:
The Gospel of Salvation [according to dominionism] is achieved by setting up the “Kingdom of God” as a literal and physical kingdom to be “advanced” on Earth in the present age. Some dominionists liken the New Testament Kingdom to the Old Testament Israel in ways that justify taking up the sword, or other methods of punitive judgment, to war against enemies of their kingdom. Dominionists teach that men can be coerced or compelled to enter the kingdom. They assign to the Church duties and rights that belong Scripturally only to Jesus Christ.1
Dominionism shares some of the same ideologies as the emerging church, the primary similarity being the belief that a utopian “kingdom of God” will be set up on earth prior to the return of Jesus Christ, and in fact there won’t actually be a bodily physical return of Christ; but rather His presence will become more manifest within us the more the kingdom of God on earth is created. This is totally contrary to Scripture that tells us that Jesus Christ will return physically (where every eye shall see Him), and it will be to a world that has become completely chaotic and reprobate, not utopian and godly.
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. (Revelation 1:7)
An article titled “7 Mountains – Set to Go Viral” by Discernment Ministries examines the goals of this dominionist agenda, expressing “concern that this radical mandate for dominionism, and the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) which birthed it, are becoming part of the political Right and evangelical mainstream.” The article states that the “7 mountains mandate is already becoming a unifying rally point among evangelicals from many diverse theological camps and from some very unexpected quarters.”
The Dominionist/Reclaiming our Culture mind-set is a dangerous path that leads, not to biblical truth, but rather to an ecumenical, Road to Rome, “Army for God” that will attempt to force culture to be “Christian” (something Jesus Christ or the disciples never mandated) and will end up leading all down that Road to Rome and eventually into a one-world religion and one-world government.
The Discernment Ministries article assesses:
Not only does the Kingdom of God have a different King to the kingdoms of the world, but it has different citizens, has a different future and it operates by different principles. One of the principles that makes God’s Kingdom radically different to that of the world is the lust for power as opposed to the willingness to serve.
“Jesus said: ‘Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.’” (Matthew 20:25-28).2
This is not to say that Christians should not try to be a light and the “salt” in a fallen culture (Matthew 5:13). But there is a difference between what Scripture instructs us to do and what the 7 Mountains movers teach; they believe they are “building an actual PHYSICAL kingdom here on earth — structurally through man’s mechanisms. This is the 7 mountains that they want to take over. They believe they can take them over by political, scientific, and psycho-social means.” And like the New Agers, they also want to build the spiritual kingdom within, “which they believe they can perfect themselves here on earth via mysticism” thus “they will begin to ‘manifest’ Christ — become the sons of God.”3
A Civil War?
In a radio transcript titled “Blues and Grays,” Roger Oakland of Understand the Times states:
Christianity is about to be purified through a civil war, they say. Is this behavior indicative of a revival as some claim? Or is this exactly what occurred in the past when “enlightened Christians” became the “manifested sons of God”?
[In] an article written by Rick Joyner called the Coming Civil War in the Church. . . . Joyner states he believes a civil war will soon be breaking out within the church. He states: “There is a huge portion of the church which is being held bondage to the same religious spirit that manifested itself to the Pharisees, and it will attack any new movement that arises in the church. The more anointed the new movement is, the more these traditionalists will be threatened by it, and the more vehemently they will attack it.”
Joyner’s solution for removing the people who oppose this “anointed new move” sounds rather militant. Listen to what he says:
“The longer we continue to compromise with such institutions which use manipulation or control for the sake of unity or for any reason the more it will ultimately cost us to remove the cancer from our midst.”
Joyner then went on to describe how the conflict in the church will develop:
“The coming spiritual civil war will be between the Blue’s and the Gray’s. In dreams and visions blue often represents heavenly-mindedness, and gray speaks of those who live by the power of their own minds – which is equivalent to the brain’s gray matter. This will be a conflict between those who may be genuine Christians, but who live mostly according to their natural minds and human wisdom, and those who follow the Holy Spirit.” 4
In Kevin Reeves book, The Other Side of the River, Reeves discusses Rick Joyner. Reeves, a former elder of a Latter Rain/dominionist church, states:
Joyner’s blatant Latter Rain beliefs were assimilated into our congregation on the wings of the mythical end-times revival which would supposedly sweep millions into the kingdom. A super-spiritual elite group of prophets and apostles will be raised up, Joyner states, and will transform the world of these last days, doing greater miracles than even the apostles who walked with our Lord. Whole nations will tremble at the mention of their names.
Interesting. Sounds a lot easier to deal with than Jesus’ prophecy that “[Y]e shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9).5
In Final Quest, Joyner says he hears from a dead saint (one of the foolish virgins mentioned in Scripture), who has told him the things that are to come. According to researcher Sarah Leslie, “Rick Joyner was one of the ‘Kansas City Prophets’ who now wields considerable influence through his ‘prophecies’ about a coming militant church.”6 Joyner states:
We are coming to the times when passive Christianity and passive Christians will cease to exist. There is a maturity, a discipline, and a divine militancy coming upon the people of God. Those who have succumbed to humanistic and idealistic theologies may have a hard time with this, but we must understand that God is a military God. The title that He uses ten times more than any other in Scripture is “the Lord of hosts,” or “Lord of armies.” There is a martial aspect to His character that we must understand and embrace for the times and the job to which we are now coming.7
We know that the Lord will return with a cloud of witnesses to bring down judgment on the earth, but we don’t believe Rick Joyner or the self-proclaimed apostles and prophets will be leading the way.
Will the Christian Church Sell Out?
During the years just prior to the 2008 presidential election, an all out effort was made by leaders in the emerging church to help get elected a liberal, far left president. Many of these leaders, such as Rick Warren, said things that made many conservative Christians feel guilty for voting on moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality. Books by emerging “progressive” authors suggested that Christians shouldn’t even become involved in politics (e.g. Shane Claiborne’s book, Jesus for President) (see our booklet on this issue). And while the older conservatives were being manipulated not to vote, young Christians were being persuaded to vote differently than their “old fashioned parents,” to vote for social justice regardless of biblical standards or lack of them. And, well, no need to say what these emerging efforts did to America.
No single political party can save the world. The Bible says that the closer we draw to the second coming of Christ, the worse the state of the world will be in. Rather than “evolving” into perfection, mankind is disintegrating.8 It’s because of man’s sin and a world that has for the most part rejected the Savior of the world. Revelation 12:9 states that the day will come when Satan will “deceiveth the whole world.” Yet just as Jesus gave the coin to pay the tax to Caesar, so too we as Christians can be responsibly active in our world. But foremost, let us remember that the Bible says we cannot serve both God and man at the same time (Matthew 6:24).The true calling of born-again believers is to preach the Gospel, make disciples, and contend for the faith. And we must never compromise by embracing dominionist agendas and interspiritual Peace Plans and joining forces with those whose goals and ambitions are contrary to the Christian commission given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We must ask ourselves, is a militant dominionist agenda what we really want to embrace and support? Is it what we want to serve?
In a powerful radio interview a few years ago, former radio host Ingrid Schlueter addressed this dominionist agenda. She stated:
We have a group of leaders who are horrified with the moral collapse in this country. I am horrified with the cultural collapse in this country. We have a problem in identifying and discerning why our culture is collapsing. What we are seeing around us is not fruit of Christians not caring. It’s fruit of Christians abandoning the gospel. And if we’re not going to define the gospel along biblical terms, and we’re going to allow false teachers in among us, and we’re going to link arms with said false teachers, and we’re going to work with them who are preaching another gospel, who are teaching lies, if we’re going to link arms with them to save the culture, we are not only engaged in a futile effort, but God is going to, in turn, judge that conduct. Because judgment, Scripture tells us, begins at the house of God.9
A Herescope article on this issue states:
The sad fact is that great opportunities to present the message of the gospel of salvation are being lost. Precious time is being wasted . . . Those who truly need to hear a message of repentance, salvation and hope aren’t being witnessed to. Discipleship isn’t happening. . . . It is a false gospel that preaches that the culture/nation can be changed rather than focusing on the lost who will perish in hell if they do not repent. . . . And when the lost are truly saved and born again, their lives will change and this is when the miracles begin to happen and when the culture around them begins to be positively impacted by the salt and light of their changed lives.10
Lighthouse Trails is dedicated to warning the sheep about last-days spiritual deception. While it is difficult to have to sound this warning at a time when many are concerned about the state of their countries and the world at large, Jesus made it very clear about how we are to view the world, behave in the world, and reach out to the unsaved. He never told his disciples to form associations with those promoting spiritual deception in order to establish a kingdom on earth. On the contrary, Jesus said:
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. (John 15:18-19)
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. (2 Corinthians 6:17)
My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. (John 18:36)
Notes:
- “Dominionism and the Rise of Christian Imperialism” by Sarah Leslie:http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/sarah-leslie/dominionism.htm
- “Seven Mountains Set to Go Viral by Discernment Ministries”:https://ratherexposethem.org/2010/06/seven-mountains.html
- Sarah Leslie, Discernment Ministries in an e-mail conversation on 8/15/2011 with Lighthouse Trails.
- “Blues and Grays” by Roger Oakland:http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/radio%201299%20BLUES%20AND%20GRAYS.doc
- Kevin Reeves, The Other Side of the River, (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2007), p. 99.
- http://www.discernment-ministries.org/ChristianImperialism.htm
- “TAKING THE LAND—“We Are Establishing Our Eternal Place And Position Here On Earth” by Rick Joyner, 11/29/05, http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=3617
- Please watch Roger Oakland’s powerful DVD lecture series on evolution vs creation. It shows the connection between evolution and the current spiritual deception in the world today: Searching for the Truth on Origins.
- VCY America interview between Ingrid Schlueter and Sarah Leslie:http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=4590
- “May Day Prayers: What Repentance?” by Herescope:http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/010/discernment/5-may-day.htm
Other Resources:
CrossTalk on WorldNetDaily Article – Challenge to Dominionist Leaders – The Gospel Should Come First!
Jesus Camp Film Reveals the Mystical and the Militant, Not Biblical Christianity
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)
The Coalescing Of The Christian Right With Apostolic Dominionism
Will the Evangelical Church Help Usher in the “Age of Enlightenment
_________________________________________________________
By David Dombrowski
Editor at Lighthouse Trails
The church of today is very much astir. Everywhere we turn, embellishments are being added to Christianity as if to improve it. The old ways do not seem to satisfy anymore. A great influx of new teachings and practices have exchanged the God of old as depicted in the pages of the Bible with a deity much more palatable to the post-modern mind. Brennan Manning illustrates this when he stated in one of his books, “ . . . the god who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist.”1 This “progressive” contemplative/emerging church has gone so far as to place in pulpits men who blaspheme God and who deny the atonement. But let us step back for a moment to see how emerging thought has developed. Such a statement did not come out of the blue, but as Ray Yungen suggests, a “creeping” effect made it all possible.2
Over the years, Christian leaders and pastors have stopped defending the faith and have exchanged the Word of God for things that outwardly appear very spiritual and promise a “quantum leap” into a “new spirituality.” Though there have always been those who deny Christ’s substitutionary death on the Cross, most of this kind of thought and teaching has been kept out of the evangelical/Protestant church. But as the walls of biblical truth were gradually torn down, it is no longer unusual to hear this kind of teaching in Christian colleges and seminaries. Much of what we see today began with men who pioneered the way to apostasy, then as a domino effect these ideas caught on and accelerated to the unbiblical thoughts and teachings we are witnessing in so many Christian circles today.
An example of this creeping effect can be seen in the Brennan Manning quote above from his 2003 book because it is nearly a word for word rendering of several lines from New Age sympathizer and mystic William Shannon’s 1995 book Silence on Fire.3 This book is the biography of Thomas Merton who possibly had more to do than anyone else in giving mysticism (namely contemplative prayer) that initial push whereby it has now avalanched into the mainline evangelical/Protestant churches. But it all began as a creeping or rippling effect with the initial momentum almost imperceptibly slow.
Over the last couple of decades, countless pastors and religious leaders across North America have pulled out for their evening reading books written by mystics like Henri Nouwen hoping to glean something to carry them to the next level of spirituality. Unfortunately, that quantum leap ends in the web of apostasy. As you may know by now, Henri Nouwen (also a great admirer of Thomas Merton) wrote in a provocative intellectual style that has intrigued many pastors, but what happened when these pastors stumbled upon these words:
Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to God.4
Nouwen said these words toward the end of his life after spending years involved with mysticism. And yet, pastors, leaders, and professors are enamored with Nouwen. And on goes that seemingly subtle creeping in of deception slowly but surely.
Pastors of North America, it’s not too late, but the North American church is in on borrowed time. We have become weak and spoiled, and it is time to change course, return to a no-compromise faith, the kind many of us had when we first became Christians. To straddle the fence, as has been the case for way too long, has cost the church dearly and could mean a steady erosion of biblical faith and a fall into the mire of full-blown apostasy.
While the mystics and emergents attempt to strip Jesus of who He is and what He came for, we should never forget that in Him we have a priceless treasure. Isaiah said of Him, “his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Most importantly, Jesus came to redeem us from our sins:
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. (Ephesians 1:7)
When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven, he used a number of illustrations, one of which should have special significance in our churches today:
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. (Matthew 13:44)
While the emerging, purpose-driven, contemplative “progressives” of today are casting biblical doctrine on the dung heap more than ever, we should be holding on to it as something truly sacred, for it is biblical doctrine that defines our faith and gives to us living water. Hebrews 4:12 tells us:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
No wonder the devil wants to undermine and get rid of the Word of God, and he is attempting to do it through many who call themselves Christians.
Contending for the faith may cost us everything we have, but it is worth it, a jewel far about price. This life will soon be over, but eternity will last a very long time. Shouldn’t we be putting our treasures in heaven no matter what it may cost us now?
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46)
Notes:
1. Brennan Manning, Above All, pp. 58-59 as quoted from Roger Oakland in Faith Undone, p. 195. (2003)
2. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 94. (2nd ed. 2006)
3. William Shannon, Silence on Fire, pp. 109-110. (1195)
4. Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, p. 51. ( 1998 Hardcover Edition)
________________________________________________________________
WARNING: TONY CAMPOLO ADVISES CHRISTIANS TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON
“I think there are Muslim brothers and sisters who are willing to say, “You live up to the truth as you understand it. I will live up to the truth as I understand it, and we will leave it up to God on judgment day.” – Tony Campolo
“I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.” – Tony Campolo(1)
By Heather Clark
Christian News Network
PHILADELPHIA – Tony Campolo, false teacher and former spiritual adviser to Bill Clinton, is urging Christians to vote for Hillary as president, claiming that she is a Christian woman who will help to lower the abortion rate in America.
“I like Hillary Clinton. We are personal friends,” he wrote in a recent article for Religion News Service. “I am more than willing to do all I can to help Hillary Clinton get elected. Should she ask me to organize an Evangelicals for Hillary committee, I would be more than willing to do so. I believe in her. And you should too.”
As previously reported, Campolo serves as one of the leaders at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, which is part of the National Baptist Convention USA and American Baptist Churches USA. In the 1990’s, he served as a spiritual adviser to then-President Bill Clinton, including during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Campolo’s wife, Peggy, is a homosexual activist and believes that the Church should be accepting of same-sex “marriage.” While Campolo personally opposes same-sex nuptials, he believes the government should recognize civil unions. Campolo is also regarded as being a mystic as he teaches that his “intimacy with Christ was developed gradually over the years, primarily through what Catholic mystics call ‘centering prayer.’” Click here to continue reading.
Related Information:
2010 Film “With God on Our Side” – Championed by Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren & Steve Haas (World Vision) – Has Changed the Minds of Evangelicals
“They Hate Christianity But Love (Another) Jesus – How Conservative Christians Are Being Manipulated and Ridiculed, Especially During Election Years”
DOCTOR OZ ACCUSED OF MEDICAL QUACKERY BUT GETS A PASS FROM RICK WARREN & THE CHURCH ON NEW AGE/SPIRITUAL QUACKERY
Major secular and Christian news media sources are reporting on an effort by 10 doctors to oust celebrity doctor, Dr. Mehmet Oz, from his faculty position at Columbia University for what the doctors are calling “egregious lack of integrity” and promoting “quack treatments.” The ten doctors wrote a letter to New York’s Columbia University, calling Dr. Oz a quack and an endangerment to his followers for advice he gives about diet and health-related issues. A few reports are coming out stating that at least some of these 10 doctors may not be all that reputable and intentions may have more to do with Dr. Oz’s stance against GMOs and pesticides in food than in does telling his audience how to diet and lose weight. One thing is most likely given Dr. Oz’s high popularity, this will be a story that will stay in the secular headlines for quite awhile.
Amidst this media blitz focusing on some of Dr. Oz’s questionable medical practices, there is another side of this story that has affected mainstream Christianity. Rick Warren and the church seem to be totally unphased by Dr. Oz’s New Age occult spiritual practices. Author Warren B. Smith states that for Rick Warren to invite Dr. Oz into the church (through the Daniel Plan) is “the inconceivable equivalent of the first century church inviting Simon the sorcerer into the church to help it become more healthy.”
Dr. Oz has involved himself with a number of occultic practices, one being his association with psychic John Edwards who supposedly helps people to talk to their dead loved ones. Oz and Edwards did one TV show together titled “Psychic Mediums: Are They the New Therapists? Find Out if Talking to the Dead Is a New Form of Therapy,” in which the answer to this question from both men was YES. Oz has also written the forewords to a number of New Age and occultic books including Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation and Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness.
What would the Old Testament prophet Daniel have thought to know that his name is used in a diet plan that was created by New Age occultic teachers such as Dr. Oz. In the appendix of Warren B. Smith’s book A “Wonderful” Deception and in Smith’s booklet Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan: The New Age/Eastern Meditation Doctors Behind the Saddleback Health Plan, Warren Smith states:
One can only wonder if the prophet Daniel’s vision of the end days included a look at Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan—a compromised pastor and three New Age doctors with their psychics, spirit guides, tantric sex, necromancy, Yoga, Reiki, Transcendental and Kundalini “sa ta na ma” meditations and more—all in Daniel’s name. If so, it is no wonder the Bible records that he “fainted” and became “sick” for a number of days (Daniel 8:27).
Rick Warren has put countless unsuspecting people in harm’s way through his Daniel Plan and brought in “doctrines of devils,” which inadvertently undermines the Gospel. The Gospel message that is presented in the Bible is the antithesis of New Age teaching that says man is God and in no need of a Savior.
Below is a reposting of Warren B. Smith’s article/booklet titled Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan – The New Age/Eastern Meditation Doctors Behind the Saddleback Health Plan:
By Warren B. Smith
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.—(2 Corinthians 2:11)
Who would have believed it? Occult/New Age doctors being invited into the church to teach Christians how to be healthy? On January 15, 2011 a fifty-two week health and wellness program—the Daniel Plan—was initiated at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. More than six thousand people attended the well promoted and carefully staged event. Warren took the opportunity to announce that his own personal goal was to lose 90 pounds in 2011. The Daniel Plan website states that “the Daniel Plan envisions starting a movement so the result is better physical and spiritual health for current and future generations.”1 It describes how Rick Warren “recruited three best-selling authors” to create and oversee the Daniel Plan Curriculum—Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Daniel Amen, and Dr. Mark Hyman.2 Although these three physicians are all involved with New Age teachings, they describe themselves respectively as a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew.
On their church’s Daniel Plan website, Saddleback pastor Brandon Cox tried to defend Rick Warren’s indefensible decision to recruit three New Age doctors to implement a Christian health and wellness program. In his “Pastoral Response” to the question “Why did Saddleback Church choose to use these Doctors who have been linked to other beliefs?,” Cox wrote:
“Pastor Rick knows each of these Doctors personally and has the utmost trust in their ability to advise us about matters related to physical health.” In a statement reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood’s “grandmother,” Cox goes on to state: “These Doctors are helping us as friends, but are in no way advising our church on spiritual matters.”3
By repeating and emphasizing the term “physical health” three times in the response, Saddleback was obviously trying to distance itself from Oz, Amen, and Hyman’s New Age beliefs. But the “we’re only using them for physical health purposes” defense was not convincing. All three physicians are alternative medicine/holistic health practitioners who teach the indivisibility of “mind, body, spirit” in achieving optimum well-being. In other words, their New Age spiritual beliefs are necessarily embedded in their medical practice, their best-selling books, and their public appearances.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Dr. Oz is the cardiovascular surgeon who was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show for five years before gaining his own popular daytime TV show. He also has a daily talk show on Oprah & Friends satellite radio and writes columns for several magazines including Oprah’s O Magazine. Operating out of Columbia University’s Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Oz is like a modern-day shaman as he mixes traditional medicine with a wide variety of occult/New Age practices. In The Way of the Shaman, a “foremost resource and reference on shamanism,” Michael Harner—an anthropologist who “has practiced shamanism and shamanic healing” for several decades4—gives the following definition of a shaman:
A shaman is a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness—at will—to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power, and to help other persons. The shaman has at least one, and usually more, “spirits” in his personal service.5
The following is a sampling of what Dr. Oz subtly, and not so subtly, incorporates into his medical practice and into his life. For instance, Dr. Oz’s prominent endorsement is displayed on the front cover of self-described psychic Ainslie MacLeod’s book The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended. Juxtaposing the phrase “spiritual well-being” with the word “purpose,” Oz writes:
I recommend this book to those who seek greater spiritual well-being and a better understanding of their life’s purpose.6
In Oz’s endorsement of another Ainslie MacLeod book, The Transformation: Healing Your Past Lives to Realize Your Soul’s Potential, Dr. Oz makes it clear that his approach to physical health is inextricably bound up with his beliefs regarding spiritual health. They cannot be neatly separated out as Rick Warren’s Saddleback staff would have everyone believe. Dr. Oz’s front cover endorsement states:
Ainslie MacLeod is at the frontier of exploration into the soul and its profound influence on our physical selves.7
In The Transformation, MacLeod’s spirit guides tell MacLeod’s readers “that we are standing on the brink of the greatest leap in human consciousness in 55,000 years.”8 Later, in a psychic reading that MacLeod gives to one of his clients, his spirit guides refer his client to Dr. Daniel Amen for help.9 Amen, of course being one of the other two Daniel Plan physicians. In The Instruction, among other things, MacLeod teaches readers how to meditate and contact spirit guides. In fact, spirit guides are referred to a whopping 175 times in the book—40 times before you even get to Chapter One. In his introduction, MacLeod describes how the skeptic in him used to read a book like his and think—“Who died and made this guy an expert?” In his own case, MacLeod said the answer was his spirit guides—one of them being his deceased Uncle John.10
Dr. Oz’s New Age affinity for psychics, spirit guides, past lives, and contacting the dead was showcased on his March 15, 2011 program—just two months after the launch of the Daniel Plan—titled, “Psychic Mediums: Are they the New Therapists?” The promo on his website read: “Can talking to lost loved ones heal your grief? Hear why psychic John Edward believes you can talk to the dead.”11
On a January 6, 2010 Dr. Oz Show, Dr. Oz revealed what he believed to be “the most important alternative medicine treatment” for his viewers in that coming year. His #1 “Oz’s Order” was to “Try Reiki”12—an occult bodywork practice that incorporates the channeled guidance of spirit guides. Dr. Oz was reported in one press release as stating: “Reiki is one of my favorites, we’ve been using it for years in the Oz family, and we swear by it.”13
On a video on Dr. Oz’s website, New Age leader Deepak Chopra teaches viewers how to meditate.14 Chopra’s 2009 book Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul features Dr. Oz’s back cover endorsement.15 Dr. Oz is a personal practitioner of Transcendental Meditation,16 which was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He has also practiced Yoga for over twenty years17 and is devoted to the New Age teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg—teachings that resonate with the mystical Sufi branch of the Muslim faith that he and his wife most identify with.18
Dr. Oz wrote the Foreword to US—a New Age book written by his wife Lisa, who is a Reiki Master19—a book that opens with a quote on oneness by New Age patriarch Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In his Foreword, Oz credits his wife’s spiritual influence while also mentioning that a number of years ago he “matriculated at Oprah University.”20 Dr. Oz endangers those who put their trust in him by interjecting his occult/New Age beliefs into his medical practice.
Presumably, the “Open Heart meditation” given to Ainslie MacLeod by his spirit guides21 is not used by Dr. Oz before he does open heart surgery. One thing is for spiritual sure, Dr. Oz may be a skilled cardiovascular surgeon, but spiritually he is overlooking one of the most important aspects of the heart. God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, warns, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Multiple references in the Bible also warn about the extremely dangerous and deceptive nature of “familiar” and “seducing” spirits that Dr. Oz is in the process of normalizing through his extreme influence in the world and now in the church (see Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:10-12; 1 Timothy 4:1, etc.).
Dr. Daniel Amen
Dr. Amen is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, best-selling author, and medical director of the Amen Clinics for Behavioral Medicine. In his book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, he encourages readers to “Learn and use self-hypnosis and meditation on a daily basis.”22 In Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, Amen, a self-professed Christian, specifically recommends a Hindu Kundalini form of meditation called Kirtan Kriya. He instructs his readers to chant “sa ta na ma” repeatedly while simultaneously doing repetitive finger movements.23 In a New Age world that says “everything happens for a reason” and “there are no accidents,” the first five letters of this Hindu meditation spell the name of Satan. The last three letters just so happen to be the abbreviated letters of the American Medical Association (AMA). Is this pure coincidence, some kind of cosmic joke, or spiritual mockery?
In his book The Brain in Love (formerly titled Sex on the Brain), Dr. Amen recommends tantric sex to his readers. He writes that tantra “is a term applied to several schools of Hindu yoga in which sex is worshipped.”24 He states that “[s]ome tantra yoga teachers recommend meditative practices that also share elements with Kundalini yoga, where subtle streams of energy are raised in the body by means of posture, breath control, and movements.”25 He later adds:
After you have agreed to safe boundaries, you can take sex to a new level by investing in a few books or magazines. I write for Men’s Health magazine and it is always filled with great sex tips for couples. Cosmopolitan and other magazines have playful ideas as well. Books on tantric sex or role-playing games can also be fun.”26
Dr. Amen’s fascination with tantric sex and Kundalini yoga is very similar to the teachings of Indian gurus like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Swami Baba Muktananda. Dr. Amen’s New Age sympathies are also evident in his willingness to write the Foreword to author Lucinda Bassett’s The Solution. In her book, Bassett quotes New Age leaders Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama, Neale Donald Walsch, and others. She describes Walsch as “a spiritual messenger whose best-selling books and lectures profoundly touch the world.”27
Dr. Mark Hyman
Dr. Hyman is the chairman of the Institute of Functional Medicine and author of the best-selling book The UltraMind Solution. With its front cover endorsement by Dr. Mehmet Oz, The UltraMind Solution offers practical medical advice while at the same time recommending a number of New Age resources to his readers. For example, he recommends the website of New Age author and guided imagery proponent Belleruth Naparstek.28 Her books and materials are designed to help people meditate, become more psychic, and connect with spirit guides. Her website describes how her materials are used worldwide by patients, hospitals, HMO’s, government agencies, etc. Dr. Hyman and New Age leader Dr. Bernie Siegel are listed as two of Naparstek’s “contributing health and mind-body health practitioners.”29 Siegel, of course being the New Age leader Rick Warren used to introduce the idea of hope and purpose in The Purpose-Driven Life. Like Dr. Oz and Dr. Amen, Dr. Hyman recommends meditation and yoga to his readers.30
Dr. Hyman endorsed a New Age book titled Power Up Your Brain—The Neuroscience of Enlightenment. It is co-authored by shaman/medium Alberto Villoldo and neurologist David Perlmutter. The Foreword from the publisher states:
And now two men, two seers—a shaman and a scientist—are combining their experiences and expertise to explore the totality that includes all of the spirit world and all of the scientific world—as One.31
David Perlmutter writes:
For it had become clear to us that access to the Great Spirit or Divine Energy—that natural force which is called by so many names—is available to all. In a sense we are all shamans, and the most advanced teachings in cellular biology are validating lifestyle activities that for centuries, have been paving the way to enlightenment through meditative practices not just for the chosen few but for all who care to learn. Our collaboration explores the implications of this not only for individuals but for all of humanity.32
Villoldo—who spoke at a 2011 Palm Springs Prophets Conference with New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard33— writes:
During my years studying with the shamans, I learned about their belief in the Divine Mother, which we each have the potential to discover in nature. This was not the bearded old man whose image I had come to associate with “God.” Rather, this was a force that infused all creation, a sea of energy and consciousness that we all swim in and are part of. I came to understand that our Western notions of the divine are perhaps a masculine version of this life force that infuses every cell in our bodies, that animates all living beings, and that even fuels stars.34
Power Up Your Brain includes a chapter recommending various “Shamanic Exercises” that include an invocation to the “Great Serpent.”35 Dr. Hyman’s back cover endorsement of this book sits alongside New Age leaders Bernie Siegel and Greg Braden.
In his endorsement, Hyman betrays his belief in shamanism and the inextricable New Age link between physical and spiritual health. He writes:
The shaman and physician for millennia were the same person until the 19th century when they were split apart in the name of science. Now through the lens of 21st-century science, Villoldo and Perlmutter bring them back together, illuminating the web that links together our physical and metaphysical energy. For anyone feeling a loss of energy of body or soul, Power Up Your Brain is your guide to restoration and rejuvenation of your deepest energies.
Also referring to “restoration” in The UltraMind Solution, Dr. Hyman lists three New Age centers in his “Resources” section. Under the heading of “Restorative and Educational Retreats,” he recommends the Omega Institute, the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, and the Shambhala Mountain Center.36 Ainslie MacLeod—the Dr. Oz endorsed psychic—is a “faculty member” at both the Kripalu Center and the Omega Institute.37 The Omega Institute offers a number of workshops led by key New Age leaders like Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, and Alberto Villoldo. Classes such as “Conversations with God,” “Contacting the Spirit World,” “How Shamans Dream the World into Being,” and “Bootcamp for Goddesses,” are readily available to those following Dr. Hyman’s advice.38 And at the Dr. Hyman endorsed Kripalu Center, New Age leader Deepak Chopra offers a workshop on his Dr. Oz endorsed book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul. In case people can’t make it to Saddleback Church, Dr. Daniel Amen also teaches a workshop at Kripalu.
Key Scriptures Regarding Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. —(2 Corinthians 6:14)
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. —(Ephesians 5:11)
Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils. —(1 Corinthians 10:21)
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. —(Romans 14:13)
Shepherding the Church into a New Age/New Spirituality
In the 1990s, a well-known Christian leader rightly warned that alternative medicine and holistic health can provide an easy entryway for deceptive New Age teachings. He further warned that changing your diet can also end up changing your worldview. In other words, sometimes losing weight can also mean losing your soul. Speaking from his leadership role with the Christian Medical Association, Dr. David Stevens also urges great discretion regarding alternative health practitioners. He states: “Not only do we have to make a choice; we also have to evaluate the trustworthiness of each messenger and the validity of the message.”39
The Christian Handbook to Alternative Medicine also warns, “Consider carefully not only the therapy but also the character and worldview of those offering the treatment.”40 Thus, it is definitely “buyer beware” when it comes to mixed-bag physicians like Oz, Amen, and Hyman. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Rick Warren as he openly aligns himself with these New Age doctors and promises to make their joint Daniel Plan a worldwide phenomenon. Instead of sounding a warning trumpet and protecting the church from three New Age physicians, Warren praises them and trumpets his ungodly alliance with them.
One can only wonder if the prophet Daniel’s vision of the end days included a look at Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan—a compromised pastor and three New Age doctors with their psychics, spirit guides, tantric sex, necromancy, Yoga, Reiki, Transcendental and Kundalini “sa ta na ma” meditations and more—all in Daniel’s name. If so, it is no wonder the Bible records that he “fainted” and became “sick” for a number of days (Daniel 8:27).
It doesn’t make any difference in God’s scheme of things if Rick Warren stands slim and trim in front of an adoring church audience after losing 90 pounds. What may be remembered is that in the midst of all the self-congratulatory statistics and frenzied media hoopla, a finger suddenly appeared on the wall behind Rick Warren and wrote the following:
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. —(Daniel 5:27)
To order copies of Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan, click here.
Endnotes
1. Week 11: Re-Focusing The Daniel Plan (http://danielplan.com/blogs/dp/dp-week-11-re-focusing-the-daniel-plan).
2. The Daniel Plan: What Makes it Different?(http://www.saddleback.com/thedanielplan/healthyhabits/whatsdifferent).
3. Pastoral Response, Brandon Cox, Saddleback Church (http://www.danielplan.com/toolsandresources/pastoralresponse).
4. Michael Harner, Ph.D., The Way of the Shaman (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1980, 1990), back cover.
5. Ibid., p. 25.
6. Ainslie MacLeod, The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc., 2007, 2009), front cover.
7. Ainslie MacLeod, The Transformation: Healing Your Past Lives to Realize Your Soul’s Potential (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, Inc., 2010), front cover.
8. Ibid., front flap.
9. Ibid., pp. 243-244.
10. Ainslie MacLeod, The Instruction, op. cit., pp. 9, 12.
11. “Psychic Mediums: Are they the New Therapists?,” The Dr. Oz Show, aired 3/15/11 (http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/are-psychicsnew-therapists-pt-1).
12. “‘Try Reiki,’ Dr. Oz Tells Millions on TV,” 1/9/10, The Reiki Digest(http://reikidigest.blogspot.com/2010/01/try-reiki-dr-oz-tells-millions-on-tv.html).
13. “Dr. Mehmet Oz Declares Reiki as His #1 Alternative Medicine Secret,” 1/9/2010, Bio-Medicine (http://news.bio-medicine.org/?q=medicine-news-1/dr–mehmet-oz-declares-reiki-as-his–231-alternative-medicine-secret–64270).
14. “Meditation Techniques Demonstrated by Deepak Chopra,” The Dr. Oz Show, added to videos on 2/25/10, (http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/deepak-chopra-meditation).
15. Deepak Chopra, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul: How to Create a New You (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc., 2009).
16. AARP The Magazine, May/June 2010 issue, p. 82.
17. Ibid.
18. Lisa Oz, US: Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships That Matter Most (New York, NY: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2010), p. 179.
19. “‘Try Reiki,’ Dr. Oz Tells Millions on TV,” op. cit.
20. Lisa Oz, US, op. cit., p. x.
21. Ainslie MacLeod, The Instruction, op. cit., p. 17.
22. Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Change Your Brain, Change Your Life (New York, NY: Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1998), p. 302.
23. Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Change Your Brain, Change Your Body (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc., 2010), p. 223.
24. Daniel G. Amen, M.D., The Brain in Love (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc., 2007), p. 144.
25. Ibid., p. 145.
26. Ibid., p. 148.
27. Lucinda Bassett, The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future (New York: NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2011), p. 146.
28. Mark Hyman M.D., The UltraMind Solution (New York, NY: Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2009), p. 402. (Belleruth Naparstek’s website recommended by Dr. Hyman: http://www.healthjourneys.com).
29. Our Practitioner Bios, Health Journeys (http://www.healthjourneys.com/practitioner_bios.asp).
30. Mark Hyman, The UltraMind Solution, op. cit., p. 384.
31. David Perlmutter, M.D., F.A.C.N., Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment (New York, NY: Hay House, Inc., 2011), p. xiv.
32. Ibid., p. xviii.
33. The Prophets Conference (http://www.greatmystery.org).
34. David Perlmutter, Alberto Villoldo, Power Up Your Brain, op. cit., p. xxi.
35. Ibid., p. 154.
36. Mark Hyman, The UltraMind Solution, op. cit., p. 403.
37. Ainslie MacLeod, The Transformation, op. cit., About the Author, p. 327.
38. Omega Institute (http://www.eomega.org).
39. Donald O’Mathuna, Ph.D. and Walt Larimore, M.D., Alternative Medicine: The Christian Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001, 2007), p. 9.
40. Ibid., p. 123.
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(Friday Church News Notes, April 24, 2015,www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ten top medical doctors have called upon Columbia University to remove Mehmet Oz (“Dr. Oz”) from its faculty. Oz is vice chairman and professor of surgery, but in spite of his impressive credentials, he is a promoter of quackery. The open letter, issued by a group of doctors led by Henry Miller of Stanford University, says that Oz has “misled and endangered” the public and has “manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain” (“Physicians Demand Removal of ‘Dr. Oz,’” Fox News, Apr. 17, 2015). Last year, a U.S. Senate panel accused Oz of endorsing products that are medically unsound and making claims that are not substantiated by fact. Mehmet Oz, together with Daniel Amen and Mark Hyman, have been highly promoted by Rick Warren in spite of their New Age principles. The three men created Warren’s Daniel Plan. Oz is not only a promoter of quack diets; he is a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg, who entertained spirit guides and was deeply involved with Eastern mysticism (“Special Report,” Lighthouse Trails, Jan. 11, 2011). Oz also promotes Reiki, an occultic practice that allegedly channels “universal healing energy.” Amen teaches Eastern meditation, promotes Reiki, and deals in pop psychology and self-help. Amen’s The Brain in Love and Making a Good Brain Great promote Hindu-style meditation through the vain repetition of the alleged primal sounds. Mark Hyman promotes meditation based on Buddhist principles. He claims that “diseases don’t exist; their symptoms are related to effects” (“Rick Warren’s Celebrity Health Plan Draws Thousands,” The Orange County Register, Jan. 16, 2011). To say that disease doesn’t exist apart from human causes is New Age nonsense. While it is true that diet and exercise can affect one’s health, all diseases are not the result of lifestyle. We are fallen sinners who live in a sin-cursed world, and disease and death are realities that affect every individual regardless of his lifestyle. In the book The Bible and Diet, we warn that the alternative health care field is permeated with New Age philosophy. A friend observed that health food stores are New Age chapels. Beware! Although we know that it is wise and godly to take care of one’s body, the Bible doesn’t have very much to say about it. What the Bible does have a lot to say about is spiritual health and separation from paganism! “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils” (1 Corinthians 10:21).
RAND PAUL EXPOSES OBAMA LAPDOGS GRAHAM, MCCAIN, AND OTHERS
RAND PAUL FIRES BACK AT OBAMA “LAPDOGS” LINDSEY GRAHAM, JOHN MCCAIN
Republican Senators characterize Paul as dangerous libertarian isolationist
Kentucky Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul has fired back at harsh criticism leveled against him by two neocon senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
CORPORATIONS IN STEP WITH GOVERNMENT OUTLAWING AMERICAN FREEDOMS~STARTING WITH CASH; THEN MEDIA
Obama’s Propaganda Legalized And Expanding:
Published on Apr 23, 2015
Back In May of 2012, While America slept, An Amendment overturned the longstanding Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and The Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987. Allowing for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within US borders. Thats right, propaganda targeted at the U.S Population is now legal.The tentacles of the Obama Administration are quietly stretching into large sections of media.Why the Obama Administration would need total propaganda control of media to fight the CIA conceived War On Terror is moot. There is absolutely no reason, other than to brainwash the liberty beholden minds of the American Public. Jon Bowne Reports.
Banks To Soon Outlaw Cash
RED HIGH HEELS MANDATORY FOR U.S. ARMY CADETS
U.S. ARMY FORCES CADETS TO WEAR HIGH HEELS TO PROMOTE FEMINIST CAMPAIGN
ROTC cadets told their careers would be finished if they refused to participate
MILITARY BUILD UP FOR JADE HELM IS BIGGEST EVER SEEN
MILITARY GEARING UP TO DEAL WITH THE ENEMY: AMERICANS WHO RESIST TYRANNY ARE THE “ENEMY ADVERSARIES”~LATEST PICTURES OF ARMORED VEHICLES ON INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS
DOCUMENTS: NATIONAL GUARD ORDERED TO CONSIDER AMERICANS AS ‘ENEMY FORCES’ AND ‘ADVERSARIES’
Internal briefings read like a strategy for going to war
Jade Helm EXCLUSIVE UPDATE! Troops in Corona & Ontario CA, Turkish Troops in TX Walmart & MORE:
America To Be Occupied This Summer
Published on Apr 17, 2015
Alex Jones plays a compilation report by Rob Dew that puts together solid proof that the government is preparing for war with veterans.
VIDEO OF TANKS, HELICOPTERS ARRIVING BEFORE JADE HELM
Published on Apr 18, 2015
Residents of Big Spring, Texas are reporting the “scary” sight of helicopters and tanks arriving in advance of Jade Helm.
That’s in addition to Video footage out of Ontario, California shows armed National Guard troops patrolling residential streets and practicing traffic control.
That’s in addition to Video footage out of Ontario, California shows armed National Guard troops patrolling residential streets and practicing traffic control.
Military Lied! Jade Helm Is Training To Kill Americans Who Resist
Published on Apr 18, 2015
Footage out of California shows armed National Guard troops patrolling residential streets and practicing traffic control.Helicopters and tanks “scare” residents in Texas ahead of the Jade Helm military exercises, and American protesters are referred to as “enemy forces” and “aversaries” in National Guard documents.
http://www.infowars.com/documents-nat…
http://www.infowars.com/video-armed-n…
http://www.infowars.com/video-shows-t…
http://www.infowars.com/scary-big-spr…
http://www.infowars.com/documents-nat…
http://www.infowars.com/video-armed-n…
http://www.infowars.com/video-shows-t…
http://www.infowars.com/scary-big-spr…
Coast Guard Labels Patriots & Militia
‘Domestic Terrorists’
Published on Apr 17, 2015
A military bulletin called patriot groups and the militia “domestic extremists” who may launch terrorist attacks, a claim which follows a trend by the government to demonize libertarians and constitutionalists. http://www.infowars.com/military-bull…
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS GIVEN TO 541,000 ILLEGALS
Government Gives Social Security Numbers to 541,000 Illegals
COMMON CORE NEWS: FOURTH GRADER’S POWERFUL SPEECH AGAINST TESTING~”RELIGIOUS” REASONS TO OPT OUT OF TESTS, NOT THE CHRISTIAN ONES, BUT MORE THE SECULAR HUMANIST, GLOBALIST ONES
Fourth Grade Student Gives Powerful Speech About The Problems With Common Core Testing
“This testing looks at me as a number. One test defines me as either a failure or a success through a numbered rubric. One test at the end of the year that the teacher or myself will not even see the grade until after the school year is already over. I do not feel that all this FSA testing is accurate to tell how successful I am. It doesn’t take in account all of my knowledge and abilities, just a small percentage.”
“I do not feel good about a form in the FSA that you have to sign ensuring that you can’t even discuss the test with your parents. I am not comfortable signing something like this. I have the right to talk to my parents about any and everything related to school and my education.”
Mom: The religious reasons my kids won’t be taking Common Core tests
April 10, 2015Dear Dr. Lane and Ms. Kinzel-Nath:Pursuant to Pennsylvania Code Title 22 Chapter 4, section 4.4 (d)(5) I am hereby exercising my right as a parent to have my children, ____________, excused from PSSA testing on the grounds of my religious beliefs. Please allow ___________ to pursue alternate educational activities such as a research project or volunteering in younger classrooms during testing.I could stop my letter right there, as that is all that is legally required by the state in order to excuse our children from testing. However, as this is our third year writing such letters, I would like to explain the religious grounds we have for refusing to allow our children to be tested. Even though, under law, no state or school official is permitted to ask us about our faith nor require “proof” of our beliefs, I would like to share these religious reasons with you.We belong to First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, a member of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN), which is active in education justice. Every Sunday, we recite seven principles that unite Unitarian Universalists. Most of these principles are basic moral and philosophical statements shared by all of the world’s major religions. They reflect the common values of most faiths, from “love one another” and “do unto others,” to respect for the spark of the divine in each of us, and the ethical-humanist imperative to leave this world a better place. Please allow me to explain how each of these seven principles has led us to refuse high-stakes-testing for our own children, and on behalf of all children.
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Every child is valuable – priceless – and has the human right to a rich, full education. Respecting the inherent worth of every child also means treating each student as an individual, and not a widget being produced in a factory. Standardized testing, tied to an ever more standardized common core curriculum, sorts students into categories (“below basic,” “basic,” etc.) There are serious consequences to this sorting and labeling (see below), but the underlying premise of this standardized high-stakes-testing is to compare and rank students – not to support the individual learning of each student.This is clearly evident when schools use standardized, normed tests, which force all students into a bell curve, guaranteeing that a large proportion of the children will fail. To get that nice bell shape of test results, with exactly half of the children falling on the “below average” side of the curve, the tests are carefully designed with purposefully misleading questions. For instance, test makers will use tricky sound-alike answers to intentionally trip up English language learners, or culturally specific clues most easily decoded only by students from wealthy families. Pittsburgh is subjecting students to the normed GRADE test not once, but three times a year (a result of accepting state money that came with testing strings attached). Teachers have been reporting the problematic GRADE test questions for years, but the test-maker has not changed them because this “assessment” requires a set failure rate. In what way does this kind of standardized testing respect the inherent worth of our students? When students’ test scores are then displayed for all to see on “data walls” (an increasingly common practice in our schools), how does this respect the dignity of each child?
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
While advocates claim that high-stakes-testing will hold teachers and schools accountable for student learning and therefore promote equity, it often does the exact opposite by reinforcing inequality. High-stakes-testing labels our schools as “failures,” but never results in additional resources to actually help kids. Instead, “failing” schools are often targeted for closure. When you look at the pattern of school closures across the country – including here in Pittsburgh – you can see that districts have closed schools in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods, displacing some students multiple times. Our communities of color have been harmed the most, with places like Oakland and Hazelwood turned into education deserts without a single neighborhood public school.Schools labeled as “failing” on the basis of student test scores are often targeted with other “reforms” that rarely help children. Our own beloved Colfax provides an excellent example of the “disruptive innovation” imposed on supposedly failing schools. Nine years ago when our family first started at Colfax, its large achievement gap had recently earned it a designation as a “turnaround school.” The district fired every single teacher and the principal then handpicked an entirely new teaching staff. The idea, of course, was that we had to get rid of the “bad” teachers and hire only “great” teachers and that would solve the problem of low test scores. Fast forward almost a decade and you can see that this didn’t work: Colfax still has one of the largest achievement gaps in the city (which is really an opportunity gap made highly visible by the presence of families from some of Pittsburgh’s wealthiest and poorest communities together in the same school).During this same decade, Colfax students also experienced a relentless series of “reforms,” all aimed at increasing test scores. When we started, Colfax was a Spanish language immersion school, then we lost the extra language instruction to become an “Accelerated Learning Academy” focused on reading and math. We got an America’s Choice curriculum that was supposed to solve everything and added extra periods of reading. We got a longer school day and a longer school year. We got a Parent Engagement Specialist. Then we lost the curriculum, lost the extra time and days, and lost the parent specialist. The district changed to a 6 day week, so we could cram in extra reading and math periods, since these are tested subjects, resulting in a net loss of music, art, language, and physical education. With state budget cuts we lost more music and athletic programs, and we even lost our after school tutoring program aimed at those very students whose test scores continue to cause so much alarm. And class sizes ballooned to 30, sometimes 35 and more students.Imposing constant churn and disruption on our most vulnerable students in the pursuit of higher test scores is not education justice. Worse, the relentless high-stakes-testing has served to re-inscribe inequality. We recently heard from Jon Parker, a Pittsburgh high school teacher, who explained what high-stakes-testing is doing to students’ sense of self worth in his classroom. Every year, he asks his students to write him a letter introducing themselves. In his class of struggling readers this year, over half of the students included their most recent PSSA rating as part of their introduction. They literally said things like, “I’ll work hard but I’m below basic.”Mr. Parker explains, “the tragic message from our high stakes test environment is ‘you are your score.’ And if we tell a student he’s below basic regularly from the time he’s in kindergarten, what else would we expect of him? One of the stated goals of No Child Left Behind was to combat the ‘soft racism of low expectations.’ But instead it has created a vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies. ‘You have failed in the past; you will fail forever.’ I cannot imagine where I would be if I had that school experience, but I can guarantee you I wouldn’t be here.”Mr. Parker also examined the ways in which high-stakes-tests are used to exclude students from high-quality courses and programs. He gave the example of a young woman of color in his class right now with a 4.0 GPA – “one of the most well-rounded and motivated students I’ve ever had” – who will be excluded from taking the advanced math and science courses she would like to take next year solely because of a test score.What’s more, Mr. Parker argued that if high-stakes-tests are meant to indicate which students need support so teachers can help them, they are miserably failing this most basic task. Instead, administrators and teachers makes lists of “bubble students” who are close to the passing mark and focus their energy on moving these students up to “proficient.” The students with the most needs, struggling at the very bottom, are passed over: “they are neglected, perpetuating what has probably been the whole of their educational experience. ‘You’re a failure; you’re not worth our time.’ Then we wonder why we have such disparity in opportunities, a lack of student or family buy-in, negative attention seeking behaviors (for which we then suspend students).”So if our students who need the most help never get that help, where is the equity? If a young woman of color with 4.0 GPA wants to take advanced math and science classes but and can’t because of a single test score, where is the justice? If children now label themselves with their own test scores and literally believe themselves to be “below basic,” where is our compassion?
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.
Part of accepting one another is recognizing that we each have unique gifts and strengths. We are not all the same. Some students excel in trombone or slam poetry, or are highly empathetic or fantastic story tellers: none of which gets measured by high stakes testing. I am concerned about the intellectual growth of our students as well as the nurturing of their individual spirits. I believe in real learning and more learning time for our children. I support quality assessments that help our children learn and provide meaningful information to teachers to help them meet the needs of individual students. I want tests, ideally designed by teachers, which align with the curriculum and give timely, informative results to parents and students.
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
As a scholar, I am committed to a free and responsible search for truth and I highly value data and evidence in that quest. We now have a mountain of evidence about the negative consequences of the high-stakes attached to testing, as well as the over-use and misuse of testing. To summarize, these are some of the high-stakes for students:
- Lost learning time: there’s less time for learning with testing and test prep (for instance, Pittsburgh students now take 20-25, or more, high-stakes tests a year). We have reports in the district this week of students covering up the walls to prepare for testing, rather than spending their time learning.
- Reduced content knowledge: research shows that students are learning how to take high-stakes-tests, but cannot demonstrate subject mastery when tested in a different format. In other words, they are not actually learning. [Koretz, 2008]
- Narrowed curriculum: with a focus on reading and math scores, students lose history, civics, world languages, the arts, and other programs.
- Decreased ability to write: writing portions of high-stakes standardized tests are graded by hourly employees – not teachers – who are often recruited from Craigslist and paid minimum wage. To “pass” these tests, students are taught a narrowly confined way to answer writing prompts.
- Subjected to stale, dull methods: educators report that the focus on high-stakes-testing and test-prep means they cannot be creative and innovative in their teaching.
- Missed teachers and classes: intense security measures prevent teachers from overseeing testing in their own classrooms, so teachers from non-testing classrooms (such as Kindergarten teachers) are frequently pulled from their students to proctor exams.
- Used as guinea pigs: schools and districts routinely agree to allow their students to “field test” new questions and entire exams for testing corporations without notifying parents or compensating students. Teachers are expected to give a test they did not design, on material they did not teach, to students who will not learn anything from the experience. Those teachers, students, and their parents will never see the results. Last year when the district field-tested text dependent analysis, one principal told us students ripped up the tests and said they couldn’t do it. Field testing further reduces actual learning time and contributes to the stress imposed on our children.
- Shut out of programs: high stakes exclude students when test results count as extra weight in magnet lotteries or for entrance to gifted programs or advanced courses.
- Diverted resources: the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on testing in Pennsylvania are not available for classroom education. Most high-stakes tests are written by and benefit the bottom line of a handful of large international corporations. For instance, the new School Performance Profile system, largely based on student test scores, cost Pennsylvania taxpayers $2.7 million to develop and it will cost an estimated $838,000 every year to maintain. This does not include the five-year, $201.1 million contract with Data Recognition Corporation to administer high-stakes-tests to our students. Dr. Greg Taranto, Pennsylvania Middle School Teacher of the Year and member of Gov. Wolf’s education transition team, recently shared with us that state testing will cost us $58 million this year!
- School closures: schools labeled as “failing” on the basis of test scores can be threatened with closure. These schools are usually in communities of color.
- Loss of curiosity and love of learning: bubble tests are developmentally inappropriate for the youngest learners, yet are routinely being pushed down into Kindergarten in an attempt to get students “test ready.” The emphasis on “skill drill and kill” fails to stimulate children’s imagination and limits their natural curiosity. At Colfax, I’m concerned this has meant that our “enrichment” period has turned into an extra period of reading skills for most students.
- Blocked access to facilities: as more and more tests are given on-line, many schools find their computer labs taken over by testing for weeks on end and not available for learning.
- Harmful stress: children are pressured to not only demonstrate their knowledge but to represent the effectiveness of their teachers and their schools. Teachers are reporting children throwing up, losing control of their bowels, and increased commitments for psychiatric and anxiety issues. Mandated testing conditions, particularly for some special education students, border on child-abuse and some parents are reporting evidence of self-harming behaviors.
- Internalized failure: struggling students forced to repeatedly take tests that label them “below basic” begin to believe they are “bad” or “worthless” students who cannot succeed in school.
- Grades: some high-stakes tests are included in students’ grades.
- Graduation requirements: as Pennsylvania introduces the Keystone graduation exams, evidence suggests that up to 60% of our students of color will be forced out of school without a diploma on the basis of a single score.
- Altered school culture: schools must empty their walls and hallways for many weeks; classes are under lock-down with limited access to restrooms; some turn to daily announcements or even pep rallies to “prepare” students for testing and all-school field trips to “celebrate” testing (rather than actual learning).
- Private data tracked: testing companies are tracking an enormous amount of information on our students, from test scores to even discipline data on children. Dr. Tarantotold us, “this fact is not disclosed to parents” and he asks, “Who has access to this information? Who will have access to this student data down the road?”
- Loss of enrichment: schools are eliminating academic field trips and pressuring teachers not to participate in activities that would take students out of school to maximize classroom time (for test prep). During PSSA testing, Pittsburgh’s gifted center also closes so those teachers can be reassigned to proctor the exams in other district schools.
With all of that evidence that high-stakes testing is hurting students, changing their schools for the worse, and reducing real learning, why are we still giving so many standardized tests? Steve Singer, a teacher in the Steel Valley School District, points out that some tests can serve a political purpose. For instance, the DIBELS test, used to evaluate reading, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and “cut scores are being artificially raised to make it look like more students are failing and thus our schools aren’t doing a good job.” Yet Mr. Singer explains that the DIBELS “doesn’t assess comprehension,” and “rewards someone who reads quickly but not someone who understands what she’s reading.” Also, he explains that, “focusing on pronunciation separate from comprehension narrows the curriculum and takes away time from proven strategies that actually would help [a student] become a better reader.”My son’s experience with the DIBELS illustrates the way in which standardized tests can be used as gatekeepers, excluding even very high-achieving students from accessing appropriate programs. My son was a “late” reader (which is not really true: he learned to read when he was developmentally ready in the third grade, and became a voracious, wonderful reader). But when he was in second grade, we were told his DIBELS score was too low to allow him to take an accelerated math class. He had taught himself multiplication at the age of four and was bored out of his mind in class. But the teacher had her orders: students needed to be reading 100 words per minute or could not advance to anything else. During our conversation with her about this, she called our son over and said, “I notice that you spend a lot of time looking out the window, like you were just now. Why are you daydreaming?” To which he answered, “Well, I was thinking about how if you have a ball in your hand, and drop it, and it hits the floor but doesn’t come all the way back up, where did that energy go?” I kid you not. He was seven years old and this was his response. The teacher looked right at us and said, “But see? He’s not reading 100 words per minute.”Ideally, teachers are able to use test scores as just one data point among many to determine what students need to support their learning. But the hyper-focus on testing – and accountability measures that hold teachers responsible for getting every student over developmentally-arbitrary thresholds – means that time and again students are not treated as whole, complex learners, but rather reduced to a single score.Testing advocates tell us that we must test every child, every year in order to identify inequality and drive reform (something no other high-education-achieving nation in the world does). But we have ample evidence from education researchers that high stakes-testing is not improving schools. Over 2,000 education researchers recently sent an open letter to the Obama administration and Congress: citing reams of data, the researchers wrote, “we strongly urge departing from test-focused reforms that not only have been discredited for high-stakes decisions, but also have shown to widen, not close, gaps and inequities.” The letter went on to quote evidence at length from a new policy memo from the National Education Policy Center, which effectively summarizes a “broad research consensus that standardized tests are ineffective and even counterproductive when used to drive educational reform.”Evidence also shows serious problems with using high-stakes-testing to evaluate and rate schools. For example, a detailed analysis of the state’s new School Performance Profile (SPP) rating system found that – despite its claim to use “multiple measures” to evaluate schools and teachers – 90% of the calculation is based on high-stakes standardized tests. Yet “these measures are closely associated with student poverty rates and other out- of-school factors.” In other words, the tests are very good at measuring one thing: a family’s socio-economic status. Even the much-touted Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS) component of the score, which is supposed to calculate projected student growth while controlling for out-of-school factors, instead strongly correlates with poverty. The report raises “questions about whether the measures are a valid and reliable measure for purposes of school accountability.” In essence, schools are being held accountable, not for what students learn, but for the poverty level of the families they serve.Similarly, teachers are being evaluated on the basis of the test scores of their students. This is an invalid use of data, violating a basic principle of assessment, since those tests were never designed to measure teacher effectiveness. You can’t take a test created to measure one thing and use it to measure another. Nevertheless, the entire teacher evaluation system is built on just this assumption. In fact, the Value Added Model (VAM) used to evaluate teacher “effectiveness,” assumes that student test scores are the result of a specific teacher, independent of all other factors. Yet the American Statistical Association (ASA) released a report last spring strongly warning about the limitations of VAM models, explaining, “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores” and that “Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.” The statistical researchers concluded, “This is not saying that teachers have little effect on students, but that variation among teachers accounts for a small part of the variation in scores. The majority of the variation in test scores is attributable to factors outside of the teacher’s control such as student and family background, poverty, curriculum, and unmeasured influences.”My son’s situation reveals how inappropriate the entire VAM system can be. He is now several years ahead in math and takes his class at the high school each morning, before returning to Colfax for the rest of the day. However, the state would require him to take a PSSA several grade levels below where he is currently working. In what way would this assess his actual learning this year? This test is clearly not about helping my son in any way: it’s about evaluating his teacher. But if he scores at the very top of the PSSA, as he is bound to do, he is simply demonstrating the ceiling effect – there is no way to “show growth” for this student. Yet his teachers are accountable for the “growth” in each student’s test score. Furthermore, which teacher should we hold accountable for his score – the math teacher at Colfax who does not even have him in school this year? His math teacher at the high school who is not teaching him the material covered on the PSSA?The American Education Research Association and the National Academy of Education released a report showing that VAM models are highly unstable: teachers rated highly effective one year, are frequently rated ineffective the next. Their ratings also differed substantially between classes taught in a single year. The report also confirmed that teachers’ VAM ratings were significantly affected by the demographics of the students they taught: even when VAM calculations tried to account for this, teachers’ scores were negatively impacted by working with poor students, English language learners, and students with special education needs. Finally, this report demonstrated that VAM ratings “cannot disentangle the many influences on students progress” and stated “most researchers have concluded that VAM is not appropriate as a primary measure for evaluating individual teachers.”Yet as we place more and more emphasis on holding teachers, principals, and entire schools accountable for student test scores, we have seen a plague of adult cheating scandals erupt across the country. We should not be surprised, since Campbell’s Law in social science states that the more a quantitative measurement is used to make decisions, the more subject it becomes to corruption and the more likely it is to corrupt the thing it was supposed to measure. This is exactly what has happened, with the conviction of 11 former teachers in Atlanta this week who are now facing 5-20 years in prison for changing answers on student tests to raise scores. The superintendent of El Paso, Texas is currently in prison for taking low-performing students out of classes in order to increase the district’s test scores. In Ohio several cities apparently listed low-performing students as “withdrawn” toremove their scores from school totals. Some charter schools are well known for the “charter dump,” pushing students out just before testing season in order to inflate their test scores (sending students back into traditional public schools, where their new teachers will be held accountable for their learning). In Washington D.C. former superintendent Michelle Rhee – now the darling of the corporate reform movement who is famous for publicly firing a principal and massive school closures – oversaw her own “Erasure-gate” but was never held accountable. And right here in Pennsylvania our own former state Secretary of Education, Rom Tomalis, was caught bothlying and cheating about student test scores (and then went on to occupy a ghost-job in the state capitol, making $140,000 a year but not showing up for work).So why are we doing this? Why are we using our children’s test scores to feed a teacher evaluation system that not only doesn’t work, but actually harms teachers who work with our most vulnerable children? Finally, this Unitarian principle requires a commitment to a responsible search for truth, which means we have to be willing to examine the consequences of our own seeking. What if the collection and use of data on student achievement, as measured by test scores, is actually causing harm?
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
I am exercising my right of conscience by refusing to allow my children to take these tests. Our family cannot and will not be complicit in a system that we see harming others and damaging our common good.High-stakes testing has also interfered with the democratic process. In many cities that lack democratically elected school boards, mayoral appointees have used high-stakes testing to label schools as failures and then moved to close them in unprecedented waves. Chicago is still reeling from the mass closure of 50 schools in 2013, almost entirely in communities of color. In cities like Philadelphia and New York, state or mayoral control has resulted in the privatization of public schools, handing over large numbers to private charter operators. Where is the democratic process when parents and communities no longer have a voice in public education and what is best for their children? When hedge fund managers are pouring enormous amounts of money into local school board races across the country to stack the deck in favor of privatization? When private charter operators are some of the biggest political donors in the state and refuse to comply with Pennsylvania’s sunshine open-records laws?
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
Pennsylvania’s new Keystone exams pose a particular concern for education justice, as they threaten to fail enormous numbers of poor students and students of color, preventing them from graduating (one of the highest stakes of all for students). The Pennsylvania NAACP has demanded the removal of the Keystones as graduation requirements, calling the use of these tests a “present day form of Eugenics.” With pass rates last year at some impoverished schools in the single digits, how will this form of high-stakes-testing create justice for all? And where there is no justice, there is no peace.In a letter to the PA Department of Education, the NAACP wrote, “Attaching the Keystone Examinations to graduation is clearly based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society through selective scores on a paper and pencil test. … Pushing masses of students out of high school without a diploma will create a subculture of poverty comprised of potentially 60 percent of our young citizens.” The letter uses strong language to object to the impact of high-stakes-testing on our most vulnerable children, including: “human rights violation…unspeakable horror…holocaust on our youth and society…life-long trauma… a system of entrapment for the youth of Pennsylvania…depraved indifference…deficient in a moral sense of concern…lacks regard for the lives of the children who will be harmed, and puts their lives and futures at risk…lynching of our own young.”If we are serious about the goal of education justice, how can we ignore the impact these tests will have on an entire generation of children denied diplomas, with life-long consequences? Where is their liberty and their freedom?
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
To me, this principle evokes Martin Luther King’s famous quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We are all connected – in an interdependent web of existence – and the oppression and harm caused to other people’s children, causes harm to all of us. We are all harmed by allowing oppression and oppressive systems to continue.It doesn’t have to be this way. This entire system is only about 15 years in the making. Other countries that we admire greatly for their highly effective education systems do not test like this. If researchers need data to compare we could test sample groups of students, rather than every child. We could test every few years, instead of every year. We could remove the high-stakes for kids and teachers, and go back to using assessments to measure student learning, with the goal of helping students. We could admit that our most vulnerable students – our students living in poverty, our English language learners, our students with special education needs – don’t need more testing, but rather smaller class sizes; a rich, engaging, culturally relevant curriculum; and well supported teachers with adequate resources.Respectfully submitted,Jessie B. Ramey, Ph.D.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD CAUGHT AIDING SEX TRAFFICKERS
CHRISTIANS PURGED FROM OBAMA’S MILITARY
CHRISTIANS ARE BEING SYSTEMATICALLY PURGED
FROM THE U.S. MILITARY
If you are a Bible-believing Christian, there is no place for you in Barack Obama’s version of the U.S. military
Christians are leaving the U.S. military or are discouraged from joining in the first place because of a “hostile work environment” that doesn’t let them express their beliefs openly, religious freedom advocates say.Michael Berry, senior counsel at the Liberty Institute, a Texas-based legal organization dedicated to defending religious liberty in America, said recent high-profile cases of military chaplains facing punishment for private counseling sessions that reflected the teachings of their religion could cause devout Americans who are qualified for military service to think twice about joining the military.
“People of faith are going to stay away from the military,” said Mr. Berry in an interview with The Washington Times.“I can’t tell you how many moms and dads I’ve spoken to who say, ‘My son or daughter wants to join the military, [but] in light of what you’ve described, I’m not sure I want to let them join the military anymore,’ and I don’t blame them. I would have serious reservations about my own kids joining,” Mr. Berry said.
In December, a chaplain for a Ranger training battalion was sent an administrative letter of concern after a soldier complained that he had promoted Christianity and used a Bibleduring a mandatory suicide-prevention training session.Last month, a Navy chaplain was removed from his job and may lose his career after complaints about his private counseling during which he discouraged homosexuality and sex outside of marriage.
Consider what Obama—who is on record saying “we are no longer a Christian nation,” and who never notes the Islamic identity of murderers or the Christian identity of their victims, and who ignored a recent UN session on Christian persecution—had to say about Christians at the Easter Prayer Breakfast: “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”
The MRFF is a very insidious organization. It is headed up by a man named Mikey Weinstein. He has called Christians “human monsters” and “enemies of the United States Constitution“. Weinstein is convinced that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ while in the military is “sedition and treason” and should be punished as such.
Several dozen U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told last week that theAmerican Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, should be classified as a domestic hate group because the group advocates for traditional family values.The briefing was held at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and listed the AFA alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.
COMMON CORE GLOBAL WARMING INDOCTRINATION~NEW YORK PARENTS KEEP THOUSANDS OF KIDS OUT OF TESTS
- There is no scientific consensus on the human role in climate change.
- Future warming due to human greenhouse gas emissions will be much less than the United Nations forecasts.
- Carbon dioxide has not caused weather to become more extreme, polar ice and sea ice to melt, or sea level rise to accelerate.
- Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is extremely expensive and won’t affect the weather.
- Public policies should aim at fostering economic growth to adapt to natural climate change.
- Scientists don’t know how much of the global warming (or “climate change” as it is often called now) of the twentieth century was man-made and how much is natural?
- Scientists don’t know whether temperatures in the future will be higher than they are now, or lower.
- The benefits of warmer temperatures and more carbon dioxide in the air will be greater than the costs they create for at least the next 100 years or longer.
N.Y. Parents Keep Thousands of Students
Out of Common Core Testing
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