Judge Blocks Biden’s Deportation Moratorium~

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/26/not-so-fast-judge-blocks-bidens-deportation-moratorium-n1411638

EXCERPT: On the very first day of Joe Biden’s presidency, acting Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske ordered the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not to deport any illegal aliens except in limited circumstances such as terrorism or espionage. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) challenged the order in court and on Tuesday, a federal judge barred the federal government from enforcing the deportation moratorium.

Stephen Miller Explains Biden's Immigration Order

Former Trump Aide Stephen Miller Details How Awful Biden's Immigration Order Actually Is

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/01/26/former-trump-aide-stephen-miller-details-how-awful-bidens-immigration-order-actually-is-n1411009

EXCERPT: Former Trump administration staffer Stephen Miller appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to detail the impact of President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on immigration enforcement. While Biden billed the order as a temporary halt on deportations for 100 days, it appears to include much more. Biden may not be abolishing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE); he is just ensuring they have nothing to do.

 

Empowered by Biden Presidency, Leftists Bomb Conservative Church in California

A worker cleans up the scene where authorities are investigating an explosion at the First Works Baptist Church.

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2021/01/25/empowered-by-biden-presidency-leftists-bomb-conservative-church-in-california/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Radical leftists and LGBTQ supporters bombed a church in El Monte, California over the weekend after threatening them last month over their “extremist” views on gay people. Someone threw an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) into the church on Saturday which blew out windows.

Last month, the church’s pastor, Bruce Mejia, filed a police report after receiving arson threats from a leftist group — ironically named Keep El Monte Friendly — which claimed that the Fundamental Baptist Church preached “hateful rhetoric” toward gay people.

At the time of this writing, the terrorist group has a petition on change.org with nearly 16,000 signatures calling on the mayor of the community to “shut down” the church. “Mejia twists God’s word and actively discriminates against the LGBTQIA+ community,” the petition by the left-wing terrorist group reads. “We are asking Mayor Jessica Ancona of El Monte to recognize FWBC as a hate group and take them out of our city.”

“As someone who grew up in El Monte and is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, I am saddened to see that we are allowing this type of bigotry to freely exist in our neighborhood. We need to let Bruce Mejia and his following know that they are not welcomed. The city of El Monte and its constituents do not condone this “church” and want their members to know that they cannot congregate here.”

The petition additionally complains about the church’s lack of adherence to COVID-19 guidelines.

Joe Biden and his comrade, Kamala Harris have championed themselves as pro-LGBTQ and anti-“bigotry” and have run on the platform that “extreme” “right-wing” views will not be tolerated. Biden’s presidency, along with his cabinet appointments, have led many to embrace far-left divisive tactics against conservatives. Leftists, supported by the media, have been calling for “re-education” for conservatives and for the “de-programming” of conservative views. There is no doubt that these types of attacks on conservatives are empowered by the far-left radicals in political office.

____________________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-23/controversial-el-monte-church-rocked-by-ied-attack-fbi-says

 

SBC Leader Blames Trump Supporters for Destroying Church’s “Witness,” Calls on Joe Biden to Unify Christians~Moore wants illegal immigrants to be given amnesty; associated with & funded by George Soros

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2021/01/25/sbc-leader-blames-trump-supporters-for-destroying-churchs-witness-calls-on-joe-biden-to-unify-christians/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

The hypocrisy of leftist Evangelicalism is like a column in the comic section of the New York Times, except it’s not. Top Southern Baptist leader, Russell Moore scolded Christians who supported Donald Trump and blamed them for destroying the Church’s witness. In an interview with Time Magazine, Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, blamed the recent riot at the nation’s capitol on “Trump-worshiping” Christians.

 “The biggest threat facing the American church right now is not secularism but cynicism. That’s why we have to recover the credibility of our witness,” he told Time. “I don’t know a single family that’s not been divided over President Trump, and politics generally. I don’t know a single church that hasn’t been.”

While there are certainly those who claimed to be Christians who acted poorly and should be dealt with harshly during the attack at the Capitol, to assume that these were Christians — or that the attack was instigated by Christians — is irresponsible. And to assert that these attacks were instigated by Donald Trump is also irresponsible.

What Moore, the former Democrat staffer, doesn’t understand is that the reason Donald Trump was so divisive is because he, unlike any other president in modern history, has actually governed like a conservative. Conservatism, in the eyes of leftists like Russell Moore, is taboo. Russell Moore is no conservative and the Time Magazine article appeared to acknowledge this.

“He says both he and his family have been the subject of threats and that people have tried to dig up information that would prove he is a liberal,” the article stated and followed up with a sarcastic, “Heaven forfend!”

But what should concern Christians the most is that Moore believes that Joe Biden — a man who has promised to codify Roe and increase access to abortion, to promote child sexual immorality in public schools, and to silence conservative religious viewpoints in every facet of society — will be the man to “unify” the Church and the nation.

After tweeting that he would be praying for Biden’s success, in a follow-up interview with the Christian Post, Moore state that he’d be praying for Joe Biden’s “ability to unify.”

Biden has shown he is “willing and eager to listen to people” who disagree with him, he told the Christian Post.

“I hope that that’s the way that he decides to be as president,” he continued. “And what that’s going to mean is saying, ‘There are going to be some things that would make my base happy if I said or if I did, and I’m going to have to take into account the whole country and maybe disappoint people who support me just like I will disappoint people who oppose me sometimes.’”

After spending five years denouncing Donald Trump and lampooning anyone who supported him — instead of Hillary Clinton — Russell Moore, the Southern Baptist Convention’s most influential leader, now calls on Christians to unify around the most radical administration the nation has ever seen in the presidency.

____________________________________________________________________________

Southern Baptist-Led Organization Praises Joe Biden For Giving Illegal Alien Felons Citizenship

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2021/01/22/southern-baptist-led-organization-praises-joe-biden-for-giving-illegal-alien-felons-citizenship/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Russell Moore is one of the heads of the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), a front group for the George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) which calls for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. The fact that the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission head, Russell Moore, has never had to explain his association with George Soros is telling of the direction the denomination has gone. The Southern Baptist Convention is now primarily an outlet to propagandize semi-conservative pew-sitters with left-wing politics.

The EIT recently gave glowing accolades to Joe Biden who has just ordered a cease on the construction of the Trump-era border wall. Matthew Soerens, one of the co-leaders of the EIT, told Christianity Today, “I see it as a positive sign, the new administration is leading on this issue as a day one priority.”

Joe Biden’s proposed policy will give all illegal aliens currently in the United States amnesty and an 8-year path to citizenship. The bill, dubbed the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, reads, in part:

The bill allows undocumented individuals to apply for temporary legal status, with the ability to apply for green cards after five years if they pass criminal and national security background checks and pay their taxes. Dreamers, TPS holders, and immigrant farmworkers who meet specific requirements are eligible for green cards immediately under the legislation. After three years, all green card holders who pass additional background checks and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics can apply to become citizens.

This bill, if passed, would give up to 20 million or more illegal aliens — which, is at the very least, a misdemeanor for a first offense and in many cases, a felony — currently in the United States amnesty and citizenship. It would also give them voting rights which, is well-known, that the vast majority of illegal immigrants into the United States support Democrats. This would solidify the Democrat majority for decades to come.

Last year, Russell Moore joined with George Soros to call on the United States to implement a “restitution-based” immigration plan — a plan that they say would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country legally so long as they pay restitution to the government over a period of 7 years.

 

 

 

John MacArthur Warns Biden About Placing Hand on Bible to Blaspheme God

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2021/01/25/john-macarthur-warns-biden-about-placing-hand-on-bible-to-blaspheme-his-name/

EXCERPTS:

Pastor John MacArthur had a dire warning for the incoming president, Joe Biden, after the inauguration. “You’d better be careful when you put your hand on God,” MacArthur warned, speaking of Biden placing his hand on the Bible to take the oath of the presidency has he promised to use his position to blaspheme God’s name.

“You can say whatever you want to say,” MacArthur warns, “but when you touch the ark, when you place your hand on the throne of God, because God is enthroned in His Word, and you place your hand on the Word of God and pledge to do the very things that blaspheme His name.”

“Don’t tell me you advocate for the slaughter of babies in the womb. Don’t tell me you want to destroy masculinity, femininity, marriage. Don’t tell me you want to fill the world with LGBTQ people in leadership, you want to justify transgender activity. Don’t tell me you want to invite more Muslims in who represent a religion from Hell and then put your hand on the throne of God.”

Merck Scraps COVID Vaccines; Says It’s More Effective To Get The Virus And Recover

Shots generated an 'inferior' immune system response in comparison with natural infection

BY STEVE WATSON

SEE: https://www.infowars.com/posts/merck-scraps-covid-vaccines-says-its-more-effective-to-get-the-virus-and-recover/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Vaccine manufacturer Merck has abandoned development of two coronavirus vaccines, saying that after extensive research it was concluded that the shots offered less protection than just contracting the virus itself and developing antibodies.

The company announced that the shots V590 and V591 were ‘well tolerated’ by test patients, however they generated an ‘inferior’ immune system response in comparison with natural infection. 

The company stated that instead it will focus on research into therapeutic drugs labeled as MK-7110 and MK-4482.

The drugs aim to protect patients from the damage of an overactive immune response to the virus.

“Interim results from a Phase 3 study showed a greater than 50 percent reduction in the risk of death or respiratory failure in patients hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19,” the company’s statement noted of the MK-7110 drug.

Merck is to receive around $356 million from the US government to fast-track production of the potential treatments under Operation Warp Speed.

Chief Marketing Officer Michael Nally recently told Bloomberg that Merck is aiming to produce some 20 million courses of the MK-4482 drug, an oral antiviral which patients will take twice a day for five days.

Alex Jones and Owen Shroyer expose the Covid bioattack cover for the globalist plan to ramp up the posthuman era.

Meanwhile, in related news, German scientists have claimed that the UK Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is less than 8% effective in over 65s, prompting the vaccine developers to hit back, rubbishing the claims.

The German media published the claims, alleging it had been ‘confirmed’ by ‘multiple’ unnamed senior German government sources.

UK government ministers have suggested that the claim could be related to the ongoing dispute over delivery of the vaccine between the European Union and AstraZeneca.

The EU, which is yet to approve the vaccine, has threatened to block exports of shots to Britain, in a move that has been branded ‘spiteful’ by British government sources.

In an effort to make sure its member states get their ‘fair share’ of vaccines, the EU has also threatened to block the delivery of Pfizer vaccines to the UK, demanding that drug companies provide detailed information on when they plan to export Covid jabs to countries outside the bloc.

 

Trump Establishes Office of the Former President

President Trump restores line of communication with the American people to continue his administration's agenda.

SEE: https://www.infowars.com/posts/breaking-trump-establishes-office-of-the-former-president/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

President Donald Trump established the Office of the Former President on Monday that will restore a line of communication with the American people after Big Tech silenced him online.

“The Office will be responsible for managing President Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump Administration through advocacy, organizing, and public activism,” Trump’s office said in a statement from Palm Beach, Florida.

“President Trump will always and forever be a champion for the American People.”

This development is no doubt an epic troll to Chairman Joe Biden and the Big Tech technocrats who suspended him from their platforms in the days leading up to Biden’s coronation on January 20.

It won’t be long now until the mainstream media accuses Trump of running his own shadow government through Mar-a-Lago, because his words, through the Office of the Former President, will likely carry more weight and gravitas than anything Biden says in the eyes of the American people and world leaders.


The world as we know it is about to completely change unless we wake up and resist.


Biden Puts Anti-Israel BDS Activist in Charge of NSC Intel

From calling for the destruction of Israel to the National Security Council.

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/biden-puts-anti-israel-bds-activist-charge-nsc-daniel-greenfield/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

"Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?" an op-ed in the Washington Post had asked. 

The group was the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a BDS anti-Israel hate group whose conferences had a history of antisemitism, supporting Hamas and the murder of Jews.

Maher Bitar, one of the executive board members of Students for Justice in Palestine, was one of the principal organizers of the 2006 conference which was being hosted by Georgetown University's SJP hate group. A photo appears to show him dancing in a keffiyah in front of a banner reading, “Divest from Israel Apartheid”. 

Despite protests from Jewish groups, the Georgetown BDS conference went ahead 

Now, Biden has picked Maher Bitar as the Senior Director for Intelligence on the NSC.

In 2006, the American Jewish Committee was pleading with Georgetown to distance itself from the anti-Israel hate of PSM and SJP. Now the anti-Israel hate occupies the top of the foreign policy establishment and is set to define the foreign policy of the Biden administration.

In his new position, the former anti-Israel activist will coordinate intelligence between the White House and the intelligence community, receiving material from intelligence agencies, informing the intelligence community of White House policy, and deciding who gets access to secret information. The office also contains some of the most classified information around.

The job of Senior Director for Intelligence at the National Security Council is supposed to go to an intelligence professional. How did an anti-Israel activist go from helping host a conference for an organization whose speakers have supported Islamic terrorism to a top intelligence job?

At the PSM conference in Georgetown, Bitar had run a session describing how to best demonize Israel. Next year, he facilitated a Palestinian Student Society summit addressed by Joseph Massad who had called Israel a "Jewish supremacist state" and praised terrorism.

Massad had also argued that the idea that "any manifestation of hatred against Jews in any geographic location on Earth and in any historical period is 'anti-Semitism' smacks of a gross misunderstanding of the European history of anti-Semitism."

A few years later, Bitar could be found presenting at a Sabeel conference featuring some of the worst bigots like Rebecca Vilkomerson of JVP ,who had invited a terrorist to address the BDS hate group, and Richard Falk, who had endorsed a book which wondered whether “Hitler might have been right after all”.

Maher Bitar went to work for UNRWA, interned at the misnamed and militantly anti-Israel 

Foundation for Middle East Peace, and studied at Oxford's Refugee Studies Centre, writing papers on the so-called 'Nakba' and on 'Palestinian' activism. He appeared to describe Israel’s security barrier as a “segregation wall” 

Israel's "political existence as a state is the cause for Palestinian dispossession and statelessness," Bitar wrote in one paper. “Israel’s rejection of their right to return remains the main obstacle to finding a durable solution.”

The so-called ‘right to return’ would mean the destruction of Israel.

He helped assemble a BADIL publication: a BDS hate group which seeks to eliminate Israel through the ‘right of return’ and which has opposed bans on working with terrorists

The issue in question denounced “Jewish colonization” 

And yet before long, Bitar could be found working for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace. From there he went on to serve as the NSC’s Director for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs and as Samantha Power’s Deputy at the UN. In under a decade, Bitar had gone from anti-Israel activism through the private network of BDS organizations to key positions shaping American intelligence and foreign policy at the National Security Council and the UN.

Even while Bitar was engaged in anti-Israel activism, he was also volunteering for the Obama campaign, and working for the UN. He started working for the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace as an extern while studying for his JD at Georgetown.

In 2016, Bitar came back to Georgetown to tell students that "those of you who might feel conflicted about or even disagree with American policy and want to change it" could do it.

When President Trump was elected, Bitar became the general counsel to House Intelligence Committee Democrats, serving as the top legal adviser to Rep. Adam Schiff and playing a key role in the first Democrat attempt to impeach President Trump. Now he’s back at the NSC.

Bitar’s rise through the ranks speaks to the abandonment of Israel by the Democrats and the ineptitude of pro-Israel advocates at fighting the personnel battles that define the government. 

During the Obama administration, organizations that claimed to be advocating for Israel would come out to D.C. and take pride in receiving a personal briefing from Bitar about Israel’s security without having a clue about who Bitar was or how hard he must have been laughing at them.

Policy battles aren’t won at the executive level, but at the personnel level. The Left keeps winning policy battles even when moderates and conservatives win elections because it understands that having its people in a position to make policy matters more than elections.

Obama had put the author of "Ethnic Cleansing and the Falling Apart of Palestinian Society" in charge of the NSC desk on Israel. Biden put him in charge of NSC intelligence. 

Israel will accordingly return to its old Obama understanding that it can no longer share the truly sensitive intelligence with its American counterparts because the NSC is once again tainted.

But the tainting of the NSC has larger implications that go far beyond Israel. 

The Obama administration initially began spying on members of Congress who were speaking to Prime Minister Netanyahu after monitoring any effort to take out Iran’s nuclear program. 

Pro-Israel legislators should once again expect to be spied on by the Biden administration.

The NSC was a key gateway for Obama’s surveillance of opposition politicians. Putting the right people in place at the NSC will be crucial to protecting the next wave of illegal surveillance. 

And any effort by Israel to take out Iran’s nuclear program with its new Arab allies will be closely monitored and sabotaged by the Obama veterans who are back in charge of the NSC.

At the 2006 Georgetown anti-Israel conference, Bitar was advising attendees on how to infiltrate and blend in. Now that he has reached a career pinnacle at the NSC, he had the honor of being profiled by Politico as a “Palestinian”. But earlier versions of Bitar's story had him being "of Palestinian and Egyptian descent" and claiming "family roots [that] trace back to Palestine". 

Bitar claimed that his family were “refugees”. 

At the PSS summit, he described the group as those "who actively identify as Palestinian because of a shared national, historical, and cultural experience".

The dirty little secret of the ‘Palestinian’ myth is that its identity is imaginary.

The radicalism of the Democrats and their abandonment of the Jewish State however is all too real. That’s how Maher Bitar went from anti-Israel activism, from calling for the destruction of Israel, to the Israel desk at the NSC, and then the top policy intelligence position at the NSC. 

"Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?” a Washington Post op-ed had asked in 2006. The question now is why are Joe Biden and the Democrats?

And what do pro-Israel groups intend to do about it?

 

Biden Ends TRUMP’S Transgender Troop Ban in Boost for Military Equality

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/politics/transgender-military-reverse-ban/2021/01/25/id/1007094;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday lifting the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops serving in the military.

The order fulfills a Biden promise to reverse the policy in his first days in office and could affect hundreds or even thousands of service members who were barred from serving openly or transitioning to their preferred gender under former President Donald Trump.

Lloyd Austin, Biden’s defense secretary, supports overturning the ban.

“If you are fit and you’re qualified to serve and if you can maintain the standards, you should be allowed to serve,” Austin said at his confirmation hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

Trump surprised his own aides, Pentagon leadership and Congress with a tweet in 2017 announcing that he would roll back 
an open-service policy, citing costs and disruption. A restrictive new policy was designed by former Defense Secretary Jim 
Mattis and took effect in April 2019.

The Supreme Court allowed the Trump policy to remain in place as federal lawsuits filed by transgender troops continue to be heard.

The Obama administration spent nearly two years studying transgender service before ordering a 2016 policy that allowed those troops to serve openly and prohibited them from being discharged or separated based on their gender identity.

While the Trump ban was in effect, roughly 900 already enlisted transgender service members were allowed to continue serving under the previous Obama administration policy. But new transgender troops were barred.

Biden promised during his presidential campaign that he would allow transgender troops to serve and get required medical care, calling the ban “discriminatory and detrimental to our national security,” on his campaign website.

“Allowing all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform is better for the military and better for the country because an inclusive force is a more effective force,” the new administration said in a fact sheet Monday announcing the change. “Simply put, it’s the right thing to do and is in our national interest.”

The executive order also requires a review of any troops who were separated due to transgender status.

“This is a major step in the defense not only of America but of American values,” Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center advocacy group, said in a statement.



Are We Becoming a Drug Culture? (Interview with McMahon and Teichrib)

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2021/newsletter20210126.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
LTRP Note: The following interview between T.A. McMahon of The Berean Call and Carl Teichrib (author of Game of Gods) highlights the increase of drug use in our present culture. Tied in with the spiritual atmosphere of today where esoteric experiences are sought after by both secular and religious people and recreational marijuana is becoming legalized in more and more states of the U.S. (and fully in Canada), this is a recipe for a disastrous outcome.

The very people who have been advocating for [marijuana’s] legalization, those are the same people who are [saying] that what the legalization of marijuana does is it opens up a gateway—[to] the legalization . . . psychedelics. . . They recognize that human evolution can only take place through a spiritual reawakening via the psychedelic substance.—T.A. McMahon

By T.A. McMahon and Carl Teichrib

Tom: Welcome to Apostasy Update. I’m T. A. McMahon, and in this program, we’re addressing biblical eschatology—what the Bible has to say prophetically about the last days prior to the return of Jesus Christ. 

My partner in this discussion is Carl Teichrib. He’s the author of Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-enchantment.

Carl Teichrib

Carl, welcome back, and thanks for joining me in our ongoing discussion of where the world and Christendom are headed according to the Scriptures as history draws to a close.

Carl: Good to be back, Tom. Looking forward to this discussion.

T.A. McMahon

Tom: Yeah. Carl, as you know, and hopefully many of our viewers recognize that we’re—what we’ve been presenting in this series is taken from four books: your book, Game of GodsAmerica, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice; Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict; and most importantly the Bible, which is God’s direct communication to mankind.  Click here to read the rest of the interview or to listen to it.



Related Information:

Discernment Materials by Carl Teichrib

The Cross and the Marijuana Leaf by Linda Nathan

Where Are We Going? by David Dombrowski

 

InterVarsity’s “2030 Calling” – Raising Up Young Evangelicals to Be the Mystics of Tomorrow

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2021/newsletter20210126.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

For many years, Lighthouse Trails has tried to warn the church about evangelical publishing houses that are releasing countless materials which promote and teach contemplative spirituality. One of the publishing companies that is at the forefront of this effort to bring the New Age/new spirituality practice of contemplative prayer into the church is InterVarsity Press which has a particular focus on young evangelicals. In light of this, our concerns have only heightened upon learning of InterVarsity’s “2030 Calling,” especially when we consider how contemplative spirituality is one of the most robust vehicles that lead young evangelicals into an anti-biblical, anti-moral, “progressive,” pro-emergent outlook.

What is Contemplative Prayer?

For those unfamiliar with the term “contemplative prayer,” it is a mystical prayer practice which uses repetition of a word or phrase to enter the “silence,” “stillness,” or so-called “sacred space” in order to, supposedly, hear the voice of God. In fact, contemplative proponents like Beth Moore say you cannot even be close to God without this inner stillness. However, as author and researcher Ray Yungen points out, it is a great deception for Christians to believe this is a safe and legitimate method of communing with God, and nowhere in Scripture are we admonished to do this. In actuality, though one’s intent may be to seek the Lord, practicing something that is virtually identical in method to eastern meditation practices such as Transcendental Meditation is dangerous and will get the same result as TM practitioners—and that is to reach a spiritually demonic realm. And as Yungen explains, the “fruit” of practicing contemplative prayer is interspirituality (all paths lead to God), panentheism (God is in all), and universalism (all are saved).

InterVarsity Press—A History of Promoting CP

Lighthouse Trails began tracking the contemplative propensities of InterVarsity Press (IVP) about 15 years ago.

In 2006, we examined the connection IVP had developed with the now-defunct Conversations Journal (a “Forum for Authentic Transformation”). The Journal, founded by three contemplative advocates (Larry Crabb, Gary Moon, and David Benner) and promoted by many contemplative emergents such as Dallas Willard, John Ortberg, Richard Foster and Catholic mystic Basil Pennington, hoped to “transform” Christian believers into Christian mystics through contemplative prayer.

Also in 2006, we wrote an article that listed some of the books contemplative publishers had recently (at that time) published. InterVarsity’s list contained The Garden of the Soul by Keri Wyatt Kent, Sacred Companions by David Benner, Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton, Meditative Prayer by Richard Foster, and Solitude and Silence by Jan Johnson. These authors are some of the major heavyweights in the contemplative prayer (aka Spiritual Formation) movement, and IVP was right in the middle of this all-out effort to transform the church.

Over the next 14 years, Lighthouse Trails often included InterVarsity Press in articles and reports on contemplative spirituality in the church as IVP consistently continued publishing these materials. Today, Meditative Prayer by Foster and Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Barton are still on IVP’s book list. The following is from our booklet Is Your Church Doing Spiritual Formation? just to give a small snapshot of what contemplative figures in the church today teach:

[In his book] Meditative Prayer, Foster says that the purpose of meditative prayer is to create a “spiritual space” or “inner sanctuary” through “specific meditation exercises” (p.9). Foster references several mystics in the book who can point the way to these exercises: Madame Guyon, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Henri Nouwen, and Thomas Merton. Foster breaks the contemplative process down into three steps. He says:

“The first step [into meditative prayer] is sometimes called “centering down.” Others have used the term re-collection; that is, a re-collecting of ourselves until we are unified or whole. The idea is to let go of all competing distractions until we are truly centered, until we are truly present where we are.”(p.9)

Foster suggests that practicing visualization methods helps us center down. In the second step of meditation, Foster suggests that mystic Richard Rolle experienced “physical sensations” (p.17) (kundalini) during meditation which perhaps we may or may not experience as well. (p.18) Step three of meditation, Foster says, is that of “listening” to God. Once the meditative exercises have been implemented and the “spiritual ecstasy” is reached, this entered realm is where the voice of God can be heard. (p.23) However, as any New Age meditator knows, this ecstatic state is an altered state of consciousness where everything is supposed to be unified and one with God. Foster acknowledges the interspiritual attribute linked to contemplative prayer when he states: “[Jesus] showed us God’s yearning for the gathering of an all-inclusive community of loving persons.” (p.5) Foster defines more of what he means by “all-inclusive” in his book Streams of Living Water when he says this “all-inclusive community” includes everything from a “Catholic monk” to a “Baptist evangelist.” (p.12)

InterVarsity Press Today

Today, you will find that InterVarsity Press has not just continued on the contemplative publishing path, it has embraced it wholeheartedly to the nth degree. IVP books feature everything from Enneagrams to labyrinths to many forms of meditation practices, and as is the “natural” course for those practicing contemplative prayer, IVP also includes a growing number of books and authors that promote social justice and all that goes with it including Critical Race Theory.

Thus, when we read about IVP’s goal for the year 2030 (“2030 Calling”), knowing that the main target is young evangelicals, we shudder. Here is the description of “2030 Calling”:

Longing for revival, we catalyze movements that call every corner of every campus to follow Jesus [the mystical contemplative “Jesus”] For over 75 years, InterVarsity has worked to establish witnessing communities on almost 700 campuses. But did you know that of the 2,500 US college campuses (with 1,000+ students), more than half have no known campus ministry presence? God has given InterVarsity the 2030 Calling, to reach all 2,500 campuses by the year 2030. To do this, we will start ministries on new campuses, mobilize millions to pray, and partner with other ministries and churches. (source, emphasis added)

The Mystics of Tomorrow

Catholic mystic and panentheist Richard Rohr (who is praised on the IVP website) said once that one of his publishers told him his biggest audience is young evangelical men. That would suggest that the future pastors, fathers, and leaders of the “Christian church” are going to be mystical meditators! So mystic Karl Rahner was right (as Ray Yungen often pointed out) when Rahner said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will be nothing.” Did we mention that one of IVP’s authors, Ron Highfield wrote a book titled Great is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of GodBarth and [Karl] Rahner: Toward an Ecumenical Understanding of Sin and EvilGod, Freedom & Human Dignity?

In the last chapter of Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing titled “The Christian of the Future,” Yungen states:

Within the evangelical world, contemplative prayer is increasingly being promoted and accepted. As a result, it is losing its esoteric aspect and is now seen by many as the wave of the future. . . .

Contemplative advocates propose that there has been something vital and important missing from the church for centuries. The insinuation is that Christians have been lacking something necessary for their spiritual vitality; but that would mean the Holy Spirit has not been fully effective for hundreds of years and only now the secret key has been found that unlocks God’s full power to know Him. These proponents believe that Christianity has been seriously crippled without this extra ingredient. This kind of thinking leads one to believe that traditional, biblical Christianity is merely a philosophy without the contemplative prayer element. Contemplatives are making a distinction between studying and meditating on the Word of God versus experiencing Him, suggesting that we cannot hear Him or really know Him simply by studying His Word or even through normal prayer—we must be contemplative to accomplish this. But the Bible makes it clear that the Word of God is living and active, and has always been that way, and it is in filling our minds with it that we come to love Him, not through a mystical practice of stopping the flow of thought (the stillness) that is never once mentioned in the Bible, except in warnings against vain repetitions. . . .

Mysticism neutralizes doctrinal differences by sacrificing the truth of Scripture for a mystical experience. Mysticism offers a common ground, and supposedly that commonality is divinity in all. But we know from Scripture “there is one God; and there is none other but he” (Mark 12:32).

In one book that is sold on IVP’s website (of which they are distributors, not the publishers) titled The Teenage Prayer Experiment Notebook by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, it states, “Each chapter of the book introduces a prayer practice, eg using labyrinths, Lego Bible modeling, prayer beads, prayer walking.” The book also includes a chapter titled “Breathing Meditations” and one on the meditative prayer exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits).

As InterVarsity Press races to reach millions and millions of young people by 2030 with its mystical message, please do what you can to educate and equip your children and grandchildren before they pick up an IVP book or attend an IVP meeting in college and have their lives and their spirituality turned upside down.



All of President Biden’s Key Executive Orders in One Chart

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2021/newsletter20210126.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.—Jesus (John 17:15-16)

LTRP Note: The following is posted for informational and research purposes as we strive to live in the world, but “not of the world” in these days.

Source: Biden administration, Biden transition team

Subject Type of action Date
Re-engage with World Health Organization End withdrawal process Jan. 20
Create position of COVID-19 response coordinator Executive order Jan. 20
Rejoin Paris climate agreement Sign an “instrument” Jan. 20
Revoke permit for Keystone XL pipeline, pause energy leasing in ANWR Executive order Jan. 20
Ask agencies to extend eviction/foreclosure moratoriums Request Jan. 20
Ask Education Dept. to extend student-loan pause Request Jan. 20
Launch an initiative to advance racial equity, end “1776 Commission” Executive order Jan. 20
Revoke order that aims to exclude undocumented immigrants from census Executive order Jan. 20
Preserve/fortify DACA, which helps “Dreamers” Memorandum Jan. 20
Require masks/distancing on all federal property and by federal workers Executive order Jan. 20
Reverse travel ban targeting primarily Muslim countries Executive order Jan. 20
Stop construction of border wall Proclamation Jan. 20
Combat discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity Executive order Jan. 20
Require ethics pledge for executive-branch personnel Executive order Jan. 20
Modernize and improve regulatory review Memorandum Jan. 20
End “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement” Executive order Jan. 20
Extend protection from deportation for Liberians in U.S. Memorandum Jan. 20
Revoke certain executive orders concerning federal regulation Executive order Jan. 20
Freeze any new or pending regulations Memorandum Jan. 20
Fill supply shortfalls in fight vs. COVID-19 with Defense Production Act, other measures Executive order Jan. 21
Increase FEMA reimbursement to states for National Guard, PPE Memorandum Jan. 21
Establish “COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board,” expand testing Executive order Jan. 21
Bolster access to COVID-19 treatments and clinical care Executive order Jan. 21
Improve collection/analysis of COVID-related data Executive order Jan. 21
Mount vaccination campaign amid goals such as 100 million shots in 100 days Directives Jan. 21
Provide guidance on safely reopening schools Executive order Jan. 21
OSHA guidance for keeping workers safe from COVID-19 Executive order Jan. 21
Require face masks at airports, other modes of transportation Executive order Jan. 21
Establish a “COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force” Executive order Jan. 21
Support international response to COVID-19, “restore U.S. global leadership” Directive Jan. 21
Ask agencies to boost food aid, improve delivery of stimulus checks Executive order Expected Jan. 22
Restore collective bargaining power for federal workers Executive order Expected Jan. 22