Search Results for: KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS BECOME AGGRESSIVELY CORRUPT: GLOBALIST, SOCIALIST, PRO-GAY, ANTI-TRUMP, PRO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT & PRO FAKE NEWS~ALL GUIDED BY APOSTATES RUSSELL MOORE & KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR

AT THE FOREFRONT 

OF THE SBC’S DECLINE

KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR

RUSSELL MOORE WITH GEORGE SOROS

SBC Leader Russell Moore Goes on CNN to Decry Immigration Policy


Southern Baptist Writer Accuses Attorney General of “Subverting Christianity” with Biblical Defense of Immigration Policy


Russell Moore Denies Knowledge of Revoice (LGBT) Conference and Gives Karen Swallow Prior Glowing Accolades


ERLC Allegedly Has Dallas PD Toss Pastor From SBC Meeting After He Questions “Revoice”


Revoice, Concupiscence, and Cosmic Treason


SBC Messengers Reinstate ERLC Trustee in Support of Russell Moore


SBC Resolution On Social Media is “Truly Dangerous,” 

Says Dr. Robert Gagnon


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SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT THE CORRUPTION IN THE SBC:
IN PARTICULAR: PRO GAY, PRO ABORTION, PRO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR, WHOM RUSSELL MOORE SUPPORTS: 


JANET MEFFERD TAKES ON KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR; ASKS WHEN SHE’LL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

JANET MEFFERD TAKES ON KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR; ASKS WHEN SHE’LL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE 
SEE: http://pulpitandpen.org/2018/05/21/janet-mefferd-takes-on-karen-swallow-prior-asks-when-shell-be-held-accountable/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Pulpit & Pen was the first to sound the alarm bell about the gay-affirming research fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, Karen Swallow Prior (KSP). In our post, Gay Affirming Research Fellow at ERLC, Shocking Liberalism, we explained that Swallow Prior exhibited behavior, associations, and speech that was affirming to those who had and practiced Same Sex Attraction (SSA). James White soon-after confirmed, in his opinion, that Swallow Prior had used gay-affirming language in her writing. Pulpit & Pen took the full brunt of wrath from many in evangelicalism who saw the feminist leader as a benign novelty, with at least one Pulpit & Pen contributor resigning due to our explicitly and meticulously documented claims. Thankfully, many have gone on to see that KSP is exactly who we have claimed her to be. One of these is syndicated radio host, Janet Mefferd.

KSP on the red carpet with her “gay besties” at the Level Ground LGBT Fundraiser
To recap our research regarding KSP, who is both a research fellow at the ERLC and an English Literature professor at Liberty University:
KSP regularly associates with and wrote for Sojourner’s Magazine, the publication that has financially benefited from the politically-oriented cash of George Soros.
KSP “chose not to take a side on the gay marriage issue.”
KSP has been cited by gay activists as their inspiration.
KSP promoted the “It Gets Better Campaign,” which affirms LGBTQ youth in their homosexuality.
KSP attended the “Level Ground” LGBT fundraising event, using soft and compromising terms to speak of the sin of homosexuality.
(All of the above were cited from primary sources in this post)
Likewise, other facts came to light about KSP:
KSP promotes illegal immigration (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP promotes gay Black Lives Matter activists (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP said that abortion was not murder and calling abortion murder is unchristlike (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP demanded an end to industrialized farming and modern animal husbandry, even if it destroys the economy and people suffer as a result (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP was chosen as a Change Agent in evangelical circles for radical animal rights by animal rights groups as early as 2007 (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP promoted Fun Home, gay erotic propaganda (follow this link for primary sources).
KSP congratulated Rachel Held Evans and lauded her appointment to Obama’s White House council (follow this link for primary sources).
And if those aren’t enough, there are many more links here. In spite of the evidence, the social media socialite is still supported by many in the “Reformed” blogosphere including Kofi Adu Boahen, Mr. and Mrs. Erin Harding, and more. For some, digging-in seems to be a hobby.
For Janet Mefferd and her recent guest, Tom Littleton, however, they knew exactly the role that KSP was playing in the current Tet Offensive of Social Justice Warriors who are hell-bent on replacing the Gospel of Grace for the gospel of justice. You can listen below to what is a very, very good podcast conversation between Littleton and Mefferd.
Karen Swallow Prior is mentioned in two different timestamps; the first is at 15:22.
Littleton says (at roughly 15:22):
The ERLC fellow, Karen Swallow Prior, has come out and endorsed [social justice garbage]. This is Russell Moore’s gal-pal who he found up at Liberty and she has already been on the fringes with the LGBT and some of their entertainment celebrations. So, we’re already seeing this mainlined in the SBC and PCA churches that are under the influence of the Gospel coalition.
Mefferd later adds (at 21:07):
At what point, when you see all of the tentacles going off in an event like this and touching repeatedly on people from The Gospel Coalition and the [ERLC] of the Southern Baptist Convention, at what point do those leaders have to answer for all the garbage they’re involved in?…Karen Swallow Prior, a research fellow at ERLC. At what point do these leaders need to answer to the people.
It was a fantastic episode from Mrs. Mefferd, and you should really listen. However, if you want to hear us say these same things more than three years ago, you can listen to old podcasts of the Polemics Report at Bible Thumping Wingnut.
_______________________________________________________________
SEE OUR PREVIOUS POST:

KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR PROMOTES ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, ABORTION, ANIMAL & GAY RIGHTS, COMMON CORE, ETC.~APOSTATE INFLUENCES YOUTH AT LIBERAL LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

Karen Swallow Prior,
the gay-friendly animal rights activist and
feminist is a research fellow for the ERLC 
and a contributor to The Gospel
Coalition:
 https://thinkchristian-webassets.imgix.net/contributorImages/Profile_Images/Karen-Swallow-Prior.jpeg?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5769&fp-y=0.3523&h=800&ixlib=php-1.1.0&q=80&w=800&s=41ab570ac15af9f940cbb7538d21cad0
 “She might also – if she wasn’t a Marxist Manchurian
candidate using Jesus as a way to inject the church with rabid feminism,
animal liberation theology and general theological ugliness”
 Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T.S.
Poetry Press) and serves on the faith advisory council of the Humane
Society of the United States. She and her husband, Roy, serve as deacons
in their church and keepers of their 100-year-old homestead, where they
live with their horses and dogs—and, more recently, Karen’s mom and
dad.
EXCERPT:  “Prior is a Research Fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty
Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, a Senior Fellow with
Liberty University’s Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement, and
a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the
United States.”
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR PROMOTES 
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

Karen Swallow Prior is a radical animal rights activist who believes animals go to Heaven because naming them gives them personhood, says she’s more upset over animal abuse than abortion, says abortion isn’t murder and calling it such is unchristlike, promoted erotic gay literature, and has attended gay fundraisers and uses gay-affirming language. She calls herself a feminist and attacks complementarianism as unbiblical.

Karen Swallow Prior is also a professor at Liberty University and a
research fellow for the leftist Southern Baptist organization, the
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). The ERLC has been
striving ardently to push amnesty for illegal aliens, and its president,
Russell Moore, serves on the globalist Evangelical Immigration Table, which is funded by George Soros. In fact, the ERLC has even been caught retweeting anti-borders globalist propaganda produced by Soros.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Karen Swallow Prior
(associated as she is with the ERLC), has been busy promoting an
open-borders, globalist position on immigration that is disguised as
Christian charitability. Of course, progressive-left faux-Christianity
is always disguised as bleeding heart Christian charitability, so we
should see it as of little surprise. Swallow Prior wrote an article for The News and Advance along
with one of her students who is an illegal immigrant. The article
guilt-shames Christians for not doing enough to help those in the
country illegally, known as DREAMers.
The term, “DREAMer” comes from a 2001 piece of legislation and
references the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors
(Dream) Act. The Act was never passed by Congress and the DREAMers (the
minors it references) are not protected by any enacted law. In other
words, “DREAMers” don’t really exist because the Development, Relief,
and Education for Alien Minors Act was never passed into law. The
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was a highly
unconstitutional executive action by President Obama that would
prioritize enforcing immigration law on childhood arrivals last, thus
effectively legislating by executive fiat what was never passed by
Congress.
The ERLC’s Russell Moore, the Progressive Liberals as the Social
Gospel Coalition, Karen Swallow Prior and their acolytes (all of which
are in one way or another beneficiaries of George Soros) have been
trying to convince evangelical Christians that it is our responsibility
to overthrow existing law, embrace illegal immigration as a Christian
duty, and allow the executive branch of government to go unchecked.
Prior wrote the article with Bruno Yupanqui, who is a high school
English teacher and a student of Swallow Prior’s at Liberty University.
Yupanqui is an illegal immigrant, meaning that he came here criminally,
against the laws of the United States and he remains here illegally,
against the laws of the United States. Yupanqui writes:

…I don’t know how much longer I have to continue
defending my humanity. I don’t know how much more I have to clarify that
I’m more than just a statistic, whether that’s used positively or
negatively. I don’t know how much more I have to continue telling others
that I am American.

Because I am.

I am American when I teach students about Hawthorne’s
short stories, or brag about how much the English language has changed
over its life, from old to middle to modern. I am American when I donate
money to just causes or donate blood two or three times a year. I was
American when I purchased my first car on July 4, 2013, and when I
bought a newer model exactly three years later.

Sadly, Yupanqui doesn’t know what it means to be an American. He
thinks teaching English literature, donating blood or spending money
here makes someone an American. In fact, three things make a nation;
laws, borders and language. Without laws, borders and a common language
there is no such thing as a nation-state. Yupanqui seems to have a grasp
of our common language, but he is in violation of both our laws and
borders. He has not taken a loyalty oath to the United States
Constitution. He has not taken a test on the United States Constitution,
as is required of immigrants who apply for Citizenship legally. He
continues:

I have always been American, but it was Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that made it official, however temporary.

Actually, not. Yupanqui has not always been an American, is not an
American now and never has been. I mean that in the most literal of
ways. In no meaningful, legal, constitutional, or real way is he an
American; he is a foreign national living illegally in America. There is
a difference between the two. Furthermore, DACA made nothing –
absolutely nothing – official. It didn’t make a single person a Citizen.
It simply meant that a United States President, who took an oath to
uphold the Constitution, chose to use his power of the Justice
Department to order them to make enforcing U.S. law when it comes to
childhood arrivals the last departmental priority. It made literally
nothing official, and that’s the problem.

Then, the feminist, Karen Swallow Prior, writes:

Furthermore, as a Christian, I cannot ignore my neighbor
Bruno — nor his fellow DACA recipients. Bruno is not only my former
student; he is my brother in Christ, one who has served at my own
church. Protecting Dreamers aligns with what the Bible tells us: All
immigrants are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and deserve to be treated with dignity. Whatever policies we think best to advocate, Christians must not fail in this.

Of course, we Christians don’t want to ignore “Bruno,” nor do we want
to ignore the sin of violating a nation’s laws and borders. While Bruno
may be a “brother in Christ” (we strongly question whether or not
Swallow Prior is a rightful judge of such things, her own Christianity
being greatly suspect), there is absolutely no reason why being made in
the image of God (which can be said of every criminal on the planet)
means that we have to provide a path to Citizenship for people who are
here against our nations’ legal provisions.
Swallow Prior makes statements that – at face value – all Christians
can agree with. All people are made in God’s image and all people are
due dignity. But what Prior means it is somehow our Biblical
responsibility to show dignity by giving people an undeserved
Citizenship and ignore the rule of law. The documentedly wicked woman
writes:

Bruno has shared with me that his experiences of being
undocumented, of hearing others (including fellow Christians) speak
degradingly and derisively of “illegals,” has made him wonder why he
would be considered an enemy rather than a brother in the faith. He has
wondered why those with whom he worshipped, prayed and broke bread would
treat the foreigners in their land so differently than the Bible
commands.

Ms. Swallow Prior would be better off taking time to explain to Bruno
that he doesn’t have a right to be in a country illegally, that the sin
of his parents (yes, it is “sin”) has put him in the predicament where
he now is, and that he is not entitled to Citizenship in the United
States of America. Furthermore, if Ms. Swallow Prior was an expert in
the Bible rather than in fiction, she might be able to explain that in
the Bible, invaders in the land of Israel would be met with deadly
force, and that criminal invaders are different than innocent sojourners
traveling through. She might also – if she wasn’t a Marxist Manchurian
candidate using Jesus as a way to inject the church with rabid feminism,
animal liberation theology and general theological ugliness – have
explained to her student some basic Biblical texts on the rule of law
and role of government, like Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2.
________________________________________________________
SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ALSO:
https://ratherexposethem.org/2017/10/major-theological-error-in-sbcs.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2017/09/feminist-socialist-jory-micah-denies.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2017/02/southern-baptists-are-erlc-tgc-merging.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2015/10/level-ground-chick-fil-listed-as.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2013/10/liberal-liberty-university-professor.html (Prior a supporter of Common Core)

KAREN PRIOR SAYS DISCERNMENT HURTS HER WORSE THAN BEING HIT BY A BUS

EXCERPT:

“My focus was on doing right and calling others to do right, as well. I wonder now if being focused on these things is what led me to get lost on my walk that morning. Similarly, those in leadership (along with the rest of us) can, by focusing on one right thing, sacrifice countless other right things along the way. But to neglect other goods in the service of one other good is sin.”
Karen Swallow Prior: Sin Is Like Walking in Front of a Bus
KAREN PRIOR SAYS DISCERNMENT HURTS HER WORSE THAN BEING HIT BY A BUS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:

Never underestimate the desire of a leftist to engage in victimology. If they are not the victim of an actual crime or act of aggression, they will go so far as to make up their grievances (like Jussie Smollett or Kyle J. Howard) or even lament their own ability to look both ways before crossing the street.



Drawing from her accident, caused by stepping foot in front of a bus, Karen Swallow Prior said on Twitter that what hurts even worse are discernment ministries documenting her leftist agenda and the harm it has caused her reputation.



I’m going to say something, and I am not looking for pity or anything like it.



I’m going to say it because it’s true, and because some who are true brothers and sisters in Christ need to hear it.



Here goes…



1/3— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) (@KSPrior) February 19, 2020



I was literally hit by a bus and suffered multiple serious, life-changing injuries.



But the pain & trauma of that was nothing compared to what I have endured as a result of the trolling, lies, misrepresentations I have endured by a few in and adjacent to the #SBC.



2/3— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) (@KSPrior) February 19, 2020



(Of course, others have endured far worse.)



I don’t expect many of the critics to “hear” this. But maybe a few whose criticisms are rooted in pure, good intent will. I pray so.



Brothers and sisters, we must do better. Not only for each other, but for our Lord. #SBC2020



3/3— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) (@KSPrior) February 19, 2020



Karen Swallow Prior ought to feel hurt and saddened by the work that exposes her as a liar and a twister of Scripture. We agree.



Although Prior characterizes polemics reporting as “trolling, lies, and misrepresentations,” all reporting has thus far been accurate and has served to warn evangelicals of her subversive agenda as a political change-agent in evangelical institutions.



For a summary of concerns regarding this dangerous woman, includes the first post written about her, Gay Affirming Research Fellow at ERLC, Shocking Liberalism, attended pro-LGBTQ fundraisers, supported pro-LGBTQ ad campaigns, and backpedaled and soft-handed abortion while pretending to have been a pro-life advocate (various claims about her past activism cannot be substantiated), radical animal rights activists saw Prior as an “ally and resource contributor” to “invade right-wing evangelical institutions with an animal-first agenda” as far back as 2007, she gave glowing accolades of a book that argues against the pro-life position, said in Christianity Today that abortion is not murder and defended abortionists from the accusation of being “murderers,” said that calling abortion murder is unchristlike, is on record saying that animal cruelty (in this case, dog-fighting) bothers her more than abortion ,is glib about dining with the director of Planned Parenthood, and many ministries and sites have noted Prior’s compromise on abortion.



Additionally, Dr. Prior seems intent on corrupting young people, praising the “It Gets Better Campaign,” which is a pro-LGBT campaign targeted at youth and children and produced videos from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton encouraging kids in their homosexuality. Dr. Prior praised Common Core curriculum, calling it Good News (I kid you not). Prior endorsed the use of gay porn propaganda in high schools and colleges. She believes that pets go to Heaven because when you name them it gives them personhood. Prior says she wants an end to modern animal husbandry and factory farms “even if the economy of the country be damned.”



Dr. Prior was thrilled when Bernie Sanders came to Liberty University. When the late Rachel Held Evans was appointed to Obama’s faith advisory council, Prior was giddy with excitement and enthusiastically applauded her. Prior has given affirming words towards the anti-cop hate group, Black Lives Matter. Prior ridiculed Mike Pence for following the Billy Graham Rule. Prior promotes and supports illegal immigration. Prior says that poor people in bad neighborhoods shouldn’t have firearms.



As a feminist (that’s a term she uses to describe herself), Prior has launched a ministry program with other progressive-liberal women to promote what they call “hospitable orthodoxy.”




We hope and pray that discernment ministries metaphorically hit Dr. Prior like a bus. We pray it takes her off her feet and places her on her knees in repentance.



This verse applies to her…“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11)



It has to be a painful thing for Prior to hear that people consider her to be a liar and almost surely not even regenerate.



However, we would also cite Romans 12 in regards to her…



14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.



We pray that the wicked will understand our desire that all the harm we do to their feelings and reputation will bring them to repentance and eternal joy, not to suffering.

_______________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://lifewayvoices.com/culture-current-events/karen-swallow-prior-on-what-she-learned-after-being-hit-by-a-bus/

On May 23rd, 2018, author and Professor of English, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior, was hit by a bus in a freak accident while visiting Nashville. Through that experience, Karen learned a lot about herself, the Church, and God. In this video, Karen recounts all the things that God taught her through her accident and the days, weeks, and months following.

Donald Trump’s Lawyer Rebukes Southeastern Seminary Professor For Being a Liberal

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/11/02/donald-trumps-lawyer-rebukes-southeastern-seminary-professor-for-being-a-liberal/;

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

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS), increasingly one of the most liberal seminaries in the Evangelical Church, recently hired a liberal English professor — who supports ministries that promote woman-to-woman and man-to-man intimate relationships — from Liberty University. Karen Swallow Prior, who served many years on the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) as a research fellow, has been outspoken in her support of “gay Christianity” over the years.

Prior makes no qualms about her unbiblical positions as many have been warning about her for years. It wasn’t until recently, however, that Swallow Prior has completely unveiled herself as a totally “woke” leftist without a conservative bone in her body and people are finally starting to notice.

Recently, Donald Trump’s lawyer, who also represented John MacArthur’s church in a battle against Los Angeles over religious freedom, called out Swallow Prior for defending far-left radical Vice-Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. While conservative Malachi O’Brien tweeted favorably that Kamala Harris had been “canceled” because of a lack of support in Texas, Swallow Prior jumped in to defend Harris.

Swallow Prior’s defense when Trump’s and MacArthur’s attorney, Jenna Ellis jumped in:

Here is where Ellis’ response was gold.

Karen Swallow Prior is a liberal activist and sadly, she represents a large majority of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Evangelical Church. Increasingly, the divide between the liberals and the conservatives is growing, and thankfully so. Christians cannot in any way support the Democrat party — to do so is to support the things that God hates.

_______________________________________________________________________

SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT MS. PRIOR:

https://ratherexposethem.org/?s=KAREN+SWALLOW+PRIOR

 

LATEST SBC FIASCO IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LEADERS IGNORE DISCERNMENT MINISTRIES

LATEST SBC FIASCO IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LEADERS IGNORE DISCERNMENT MINISTRIES
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:

David Uth was elected as SBC Pastors’ Conference President to the sound of thunderous applause. Nominated by leftward-drifting former SBC president James Merritt, father of prominent homosexual journalist Jonathan Merritt, Uth had already been on the radar of Pulpit & Pen for several years.



We first noted Uth’s penchant for inviting troublesome speakers to fill the pulpit when he had Seventh Day Adventist cultist Ben Carson to speak at his church, FBC Orlando, in June of 2014. After Ben Carson was invited – and then disinvited – to speak at the 2015 SBC meeting, we reported that it was David Uth who rebuked the Convention for being closed-minded. In June of 2016 we reported that David Uth invited pro-homosexual clergy to speak at his church after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and stood by applauding when a preacher said that homosexuals were the chief cornerstone of the church. His church then laid “hands of anointing” on homosexuals present, praying God to bless their lifestyle, a controversy that went on for weeks and ended with David Uth praying that God would take the lives of discerning Christians because they complain so much. We then reported the foolishness of Uth being chosen as the 2020 SBC Pastor’s Conference President in light of his history of inviting cultists and pro-gay preachers to speak from his pulpit (in a post with 37.4 thousand Facebook shares, it had wide circulation).



In a perfectly predictable fashion (in fact, we predicted it), Uth went on to stack the deck of the Pastors’ Conference with heterodox preachers including female pastors, pastors with females on their church’s pastoral staff, a crazy charismatic with a past of controversies (Jim Cymbala), and a man whose church engages in gimmickry that ranges from Storm Trooper choreographed dance to a Game of Thrones sermon series.



An orthodox speaker, let alone a Southern Baptist, could hardly be found in the lineup at all.



James Merrit, who foolishly nominated Uth, showed anger toward discerning Christians upset at the speaking lineup.The “poison pen” referred to by Merritt isn’t the writing of his flamingly homosexual son who writes leftist dribble regularly dripping with journalistic faggery, but discerning believers with polemics blogs. He thinks discernment is ruining the SBC and not his trash nomination for SBC Pastor’s Conference President.



In light of public outrage, the Executive Committee of the SBC has sandbagged the conference space until Uth changes the lineup to conform with Southern Baptist beliefs.



The real story here is that the Body of Christ has suffered because a large portion of SBC leadership has a visceral hatred for Christians gifted with spiritual discernment who warned and warned them about David Uth.



4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: 5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us (Romans 12:4-6).



The Evangelical Intelligentsia has routinely ignored the pleas by an important segment of the Christian church…discerners. We have been treated like second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God, routinely mocked, ridiculed, maligned, marginalized, and attacked as though unworthy of being members in Jesus’ Body.



This giant mess of a problem caused by Uth’s speaker lineup was 100% avoidable and 100% predictable – if only SBC leaders had listened to discernment ministries like Pulpit & Pen and Justin Peters (who wrote a detailed series on the problems with David Uth). Instead, they chose to “kick against the pricks,” insisting on doing things with no regard for the opinion of people gifted with the ability to discern truth from error.



In fact, if truth be told, SBC leaders often do things, coalesce with people, and make decisions based upon what is likely to make discernment ministries upset (like hiring Karen Swallow Prior at Southeastern Seminary), almost as though they get a cheap thrill from it.



Each and every single time the Evangelical Intelligentsia chooses to ignore discernment ministries they suffer for it. That’s because they despise important members in the Body of Christ and detest wise counsel.



This latest controversy is caused by nothing but the arrogance of those who ignore polemics.



______________________________________________________________

SOUTHERN BAPTIST ERLC PASTOR BART BARBER HOSTS RACIST, DEMOCRAT, EGALITARIAN LIBERAL, W. DWIGHT MCKISSIC, AT CHURCH

DECLINE & FALL OF SOUTHERN BAPTISTS
SOUTHERN BAPTIST ERLC PASTOR BART BARBER HOSTS RACIST, DEMOCRAT, EGALITARIAN LIBERAL AT CHURCH
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:
Bart Barber is the pastor at FBC Farmersville and serves as a research fellow on the 
Democratic Wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Ethics and Religious Liberty 
Commission (ERLC). 
Run by a former Democratic staffer, Russell Moore, the organization works in tandem with George Soros on open borders and amnesty-centered immigration, lobbied for a Mosque to be built in New Jersey, has largely abandoned the fight against abortion, and exists to attack conservative Republican candidates for office while bilking Southern Baptists in the charade that they’re fighting for a conservative worldview. Instead, the ERLC is hosting Obama campaign staffers who created the blueprints for the Democrat Party’s takeover of the SBC.



The ERLC relies upon its lesser-known research fellows to serve as attack-dogs against conservative Republicans, which is well-documented. These men, like Barber, are lackeys and useful idiots who help to push the ERLC’s radical leftist agenda inside their churches.



Over the weekend, Barber hosted a radical Democrat leftist, feminist, and charismatic at his church, using the church’s stage as a podcast studio for Barber’s upcoming podcast debut that will be called the Plowshare Podcast.







How interesting and fun! Last night’s podcast recording with William Dwight McKissic Sr. was inspirational and informative. When it publishes, some aspects of the evening may surprise you.



Dwight McKissic is a Jessie Jackson-level race-baiter who uses his position as a token spokesman for progressives in the SBC to drive the convention to the left. McKissic proudly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, a rabidly pro-choice politician who believes in elective abortion up to the point of birth. McKissic, a tongue-speaking charismatic, resigned from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2007 over the matter of speaking ecstatic gobbledegook nonsense. Recently, McKissic lashed out at former president of SWBTS, Paige Patterson, accusing him of “racism” when, in fact, he was celebrating the hire of the SBC’s first black president (but that’s what race-baiters do). Then McKissic accused FBC Naples of “racism” because they didn’t hire a woefully unqualified (and liberal) black man. He attacked Founders Ministries for “sowing discord” for speaking up against the Social Gospel.



McKissic claims that it’s possible to vote for Democrats and still be pro-life. Like the ERLC, McKissic redefines what it means to be “pro-life” to support his baby-murdering political party.







McKissic is an egalitarian feminist and denounces the traditional Southern Baptist position on women preachers, debating Tom Ascol on the subject in 2019 and held to a radical position. In fact, McKissic likened SBC treatment toward women to the antebellum treatment of slaves. He’s repudiated esteemed revivalist preachers, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, on the grounds that they were “racist,” questioning whether or not they were Heaven. At the same time, McKissic has venerated the homosexual sex-trafficking heretic, Martin Luther King, who denied the deity of Christ and his resurrection.



McKissic received an award from the hyper-charismatic New Apostolic Reformation organization, the Asuza Street Mission. Only the most outrageous charismatics get that award (other recipients include TD Jakes, Myles Munroe, and Lou Engle).



McKissic is notoriously anti-law enforcement and regularly attacks the reputations of police officers (and has cited Bart Barber as early as 2014 as a compatriot in his racist worldview). McKissic took part in the horrible anti-cop Ferguson riots. In fact, McKissic claims that “racial profiling exists in the SBC.” To counter this, McKissic demands affirmative action hiring in the SBC.



In defense of his choice to violate 2 John 1:10, Barber claimed that McKissic was “differently complementarian.”



This double-speak term is like saying that Karen Swallow Prior is “differently conservative.” McKissic believes that women should be performing pastoral functions, including preaching to men in the gathered assembly. He quibbles on the point of senior pastors (for now), which makes no matter of difference. He’s a functional egalitarian, not merely “differently complementarian.”



If you can’t see the doctrinal compromise in Bart Barber, you aren’t paying attention.



Bart Barber’s congregation, Farmersville First Baptist, is no doubt trusting of Barber, who has served them twenty years. Little do they know that their pastor is associated heavily with the most vehemently leftist, unbiblical, compromised change-agents in the Southern Baptist Convention. Little do they know that Barber is treating them like guinea pigs, slowly but surely putting them through leftist experimentation and, like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, is changing his and their own beliefs so slowly and subtly they do not see it.



The Bible does not tell us to “dialogue” with rank heretics and God-haters but to mark them and avoid them Romans 16:17. To bring one into the assembly, as Barber did, is a dereliction of his duty as a shepherd of God’s flock.



It’s never good to introduce your congregation to a wolf in the guise of only hearing them out.

SOUTHERN BAPTIST APOSTASY: AL MOHLER DEFENDS FIRING OF EX-GAY PROFESSOR WITH BIBLICAL VIEWS ON SAME-SEX ATTRACTION

SOUTHERN BAPTIST APOSTASY:
AL MOHLER DEFENDS FIRING OF PROFESSOR WITH BIBLICAL VIEWS ON 
SAME-SEX ATTRACTION
SEE: https://pulpitandpen.org/2019/12/13/al-mohler-defends-firing-of-professor-with-biblical-views-on-same-sex-attraction/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

By this point, almost everyone knows that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, free from the conservatism of Paige Patterson and newly staffed by an army of Social Justice drones from Albert Mohler’s Southern Seminary, fired Dr. Robert Lopez because he kept preaching that God would change the desires of homosexuals if they’re born again.
Dr. Lopez is one of those who God washed, saved, and sanctified from homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:11), so he was just telling his own testimony. However, the influence of progressivism is pervasive in the SBC thanks to The Gospel Coalition tentacles reaching places like the six seminaries and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Their message is clear; homosexual desire is not a sin unless acted upon and a homosexual cannot expect to be set free from their desires.
After threatening Lopez and trying to intimidate him into silence, Lopez was fired. Southwestern denied it had anything to do with his position on homosexuality and claimed in a press release they had no problem with his perspective. Then, Dr. Lopez released audio of his personnel meetings, email correspondence, and multiple witnesses that verify beyond a doubt that he was fired for his position on Same-Sex Attraction and under pressure from the ERLC.
Dr. Lopez’s story has been covered by lots of media including American Family Association radio’s Focus Point, One News Now, The Baptist Standard, Inside Higher Ed, Lifesite News, and of course the real Baptist press, Capstone Report, Pulpit & Pen, and Reformation Charlotte. The only article on the subject run by the sunshine-pumping Baptist Press owned by the denomination just published Southwestern Seminary’s initial damage-control press release.
But have no fear…Albert Mohler can always find time to defend the indefensible.
Albert Mohler recently defended Danny Akin after he went under attack for hiring a radical animal rights activist, feminist, and evil woman who said “abortion is not murder,” Karen Swallow Prior.
Albert Mohler also defended Russell Moore when he was in trouble over attacking the U.S. President and lobbying to build a Mosque in New Jersey.
Albert Mohler did not say of word in defense of either Tom Ascol or John MacArthur in recent weeks when they were attacked by rabid feminists.
Mohler, in case you could not tell, is not on our team. He’s a leftist. He speaks like a conservative, but he behaves like a progressive. Do not trust the man. He is double-minded and unstable.
________________________________________________

SBC Professor Threatened and Fired for Publishing Orthodox Views on Homosexuality

LOPEZ: The radical LGBT impact on 

educational institutions

SEE ALSO:
VIDEOS: 
RESOLUTION SUBMITTED TO SBC:
FULL RESOLUTION IN PDF:
“On Ministry and Counseling to Lead People
from Homosexuality to Heterosexuality”

NATIONAL RADIO HOST DEMONSTRATES SOUTHERN BAPTIST ALBERT MOHLER IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE~HIS POSITIONS ARE FROM POLITICS RATHER THAN CONVICTION

NATIONAL RADIO HOST DEMONSTRATES SOUTHERN BAPTIST ALBERT MOHLER IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE~HIS POSITIONS ARE FROM POLITICS RATHER THAN CONVICTION
BY PULPIT & PEN
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Nationally syndicated radio host and conservative Christian pundit, Janet Mefferd, used her time on America’s airwaves yesterday to discuss Albert Mohler’s nomination for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Going to great pains through the use of audio clips (provided by Jon Harris at Conversations that Matter), Mefferd revealed three of Mohler’s professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary espousing Critical Race Theory and the most extreme progressive philosophies.
Then Mefferd played audio from Albert Mohler, saying at the 2019 Shepherd’s Conference that who he “platforms” speaks for where he stands on this issue. Mefferd followed up by demonstrating that Mohler platforms some of the most radical progressives in evangelicalism.
Mefferd demonstrated in the episode that on top of platforming extremist leftists, he has also been quiet regarding the leftism of Russell Moore, the complete take-over of leftists at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the hiring of Karen Swallow Prior, and silence while the SBC passed Resolution 9 in favor of Critical Race Theory.
However, the smoking gun evidence provided by Mefferd against Mohler was audio clips from interviews conducted in 1997 with key leaders in the SBC during the tail-end of the Conservative Resurgence who claim that Mohler is a convinced progressive and liberal and did not change his views (or appear to) until it was clear that his side would lose the denominational battle.
These SBC leaders – on the other side of the progressive-conservative aisle – explicitly said that Mohler’s newly-found conservative positions were entirely political AND even said that “if the wind shifted” Mohler would turn back into a liberal at a moment’s notice.
Mohler himself, as the press records and these men recall, led a protest movement at SBTS in his earliest days to fight for the ordination of women.
The episode is absolutely devastating for anyone trying to argue that Mohler is a tried-and-true conservative and has legitimate conservative convictions. Mohler is a political beast, and he serves as the weather cock for the SBC. Whichever direction the wind is blowing, that man will lead.

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” RECENT ARTICLES

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” RECENT ARTICLES

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/20-45.php; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Stacks Image 337004
ABOVE: Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands on Originals
KENTUCKY SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF PRINT SHOP OWNER WHO REFUSED TO PRINT MESSAGES VIOLATING HIS BELIEFS 
(Friday Church News Notes, November 8, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Supreme Court Rules in Favor, Daily Wire, Oct. 31, 2019: “On Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a unanimous 6-0 ruling in favor of a Lexington-based print shop owner who refused to print messages that violated his deeply held religious beliefs. The case dates back to 2012, when the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO) filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission against print shop owner Blaine Adamson, who, citing his Christian beliefs, declined a request to print shirts promoting the Lexington Gay Pride Festival. Adamson reportedly declined politely and referred the organization to another printer who was willing to print the shirts. The GLSO complained that Adamson was discriminating against LGBT customers by refusing to promote the event. In 2014, the commission ruled that Adamson must print messages conflicting with his religious convictions. The court system subsequently ruled repeatedly against the commission’s order, until the case eventually made its way to the state’s highest court. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who helped represent Adamson in the case, maintained that the business owner has demonstrated that he ‘serves all people, including LGBT customers,’ as he did when his shop, Hands On Originals, printed promotional materials for an openly lesbian singer who performed at the Lexington’s 2012 Pride festival. Adamson also has taken a consistent stand on the issue of free speech, ADF underscored, refusing to print other messages that likewise conflict with his Christian beliefs, including shirts advertising a strip club, shirts containing violent messages, and ‘pens promoting a sexually explicit video.’ ... The ruling by Kentucky’s highest court, ADF argues in the release, ‘highlights why the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the important First Amendment issue at the heart of the case and decide whether governments may force creative professionals who serve everyone to print messages or create art that violates their beliefs.’”






YOUNG PEOPLE WHO LEAVE CHURCH NO LONGER RETURNING LATER 


(Friday Church News Notes, November 8, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following research is confirmed by the many Southern Baptist and fundamental Baptist churches that are populated predominately by elderly people. The young people are gone. This is excerpted from ‘Young People Who Leave Church,’ Christian Post, Oct. 23, 2019: “While pastors have long banked on social science showing that young people who leave church generally return when they're older, a recent analysis of that trend suggests it might be over. In his analysis of data from the General Social Survey of five-year windows in which individuals were born spanning from 1965 to 1984 and published by the Barna Group, Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and pastor of First Baptist Church of Mt. Vernon, Illinois, shows that younger generations raised in the church aren’t typically returning to church when compared with members of the ‘Baby boomer’ generation born between 1945 and 1964. In Burge’s analysis of the boomer generation, four different five-year cohorts reflected the ‘trademark hump’ supported by traditional social science ‘when each birth cohort moves into the 36–45 age range. That’s exactly what the life cycle effect would predict: People settle down, they have kids, and they return to church.’ When he examined data for the younger cohorts 1965-1969, 1975-1979 and 1980-1984, the data show a fading of the life cycle effect. While the hump is still there in the cohort measured from 1965-1969, a shift in the life cycle effect begins to emerge by around 1970. ‘That trend line is completely flat—those people didn’t return to church when they moved into their 30s. You can see the beginnings of a hump among those born between 1975 and 1979, but in the next birth cohort the hump is actually inverted. That trademark return to church—which pastors and church leaders have relied on for decades—might be fading,’ Burge said. For anyone concerned with church growth, Burge says ‘this should sound an alarm.’” CONCLUDING NOTE FROM BROTHER CLOUD: Of course it should “sound an alarm,” but the young people shouldn’t be leaving churches in the first place, and we do not believe this is a lost battle by any means. The book Keeping the Kids: How to Keep the Kids from Falling Prey to the World, is filled with practical biblical help for homes and churches on this important subject. It is available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.



CHINA’S STATE-SANCTIONED ORGAN HARVESTING 


(Friday Church News Notes, November 8, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Survivors and Victims,” Fox News, Oct. 26, 2019: “[Forced organ harvesting is] the stuff of nightmares. And it has been buried from public view, hard to prove, and shrouded beneath the cloak of silence for almost two decades. ... After 12 months of independent assessment of all available evidence, the seven-person China Tribunal panel – which was initiated by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an international human rights charity--delivered its final findings in June. The tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic in the International Criminal Trial for the former Yugoslavia, stated with ‘certainty’ that ‘in China, forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time.’ ‘Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years, and Falun Gong practitioners have been one--and probably the main--source of organ supply,’ the report concluded, pointing to the growing transplant industry already worth more than $1 billion. The report underscored that there were ‘extraordinarily short waiting times for organs to be available for transplantation,’ and numerous websites advertised hearts, lungs, and kidneys for sale--suggesting an on-demand industry. The Tribunal concluded that the commission of Crimes Against Humanity against Falun Gong and Uighurs had been committed. Witness testimonies provided to the tribunal, and interviewed by Fox News, paint the picture of an unfathomably callous trade often performed when the victims are still alive. ... Moreover, the China Organ Harvest Research Center (COHRC), which also testified before the China Tribunal, published its own incriminating report in July after years of underground research and analysis, deducing that the ‘on-demand killing of prisoners of conscience is driven by the state, run on an industrial scale and carried out by both military and civilian institutions.’ ... According to the COHRC, there are mountains of money to be made. Data from 2007 shows that hospitals charged more than $65,000 for a kidney transplant, $130,000 for liver, and more than $150,000 for lung or heart. Desperate patients might make a high-price ‘donation’ for a new organ at top-speed. The practice is alleged to have started in the 90s on a small-scale, but kicked into high gear around 2000 and focused on the Falun Gong. It was initially characterized as targeting the forcible removing of organs of prisoners on death row.”



A SOUTHERN BAPTIST SEMINARY HIRES “GAY AFFIRMING FEMINIST” WHO SAYS ABORTION ISN’T MURDER 


(Friday Church News Notes, November 8, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Pulpit & Pen, Oct. 25, 2019: “Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forrest, a seminary belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention, just hired a radical leftist and gay-affirming feminist to its faculty. Karen Swallow Prior’s days at Liberty University were limited after promoting her pro-gay book on Liberty’s campus only months ago and her increasingly brazen liberal stances becoming more apparent since Pulpit & Penbegan to report on her shocking liberalism since 2015. Our first post on this exceedingly wicked woman aged exceedingly well, and over the years, verified on every point beyond a question of a doubt. That article, Gay Affirming Research Fellow at ERLC, Shocking Liberalism, laid out how Prior repeatedly uses affirming language toward the LGBTQ ... attended pro-LGBTQ fundraisers, supported pro-LGBTQ ad campaigns, and back-peddled and soft-handed abortion while pretending to have been a pro-life advocate (various claims about her past activism cannot be substantiated). Radical animal rights activists saw Prior as an ‘ally and resource contributor’ to ‘invade right-wing evangelical institutions with an animal-first agenda’ as far back as 2007. Prior said in Christianity Today that abortion is not murder and defended abortionists from the accusation of being ‘murderers.’ Prior said that calling abortion murder is unchristlike. ... Prior has been hired by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which has reverted to a pre-1979 liberalism every bit as progressive as it was prior to the Conservative Resurgence.”

IN WAKE OF BETH MOORE CRISIS, SOME EVANGELICALS WARN PEOPLE AGAINST DISCERNMENT


MATT EMERSON, PASTOR
IN WAKE OF BETH MOORE CRISIS, SOME EVANGELICALS WARN PEOPLE AGAINST DISCERNMENT
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Beth Moore is in crisis mode, and along with her, are the whole army of Social Justice Warriors who have relied upon her shrill, ignorant voice to champion their cause over the last year. Discernment ministries have warned for years that Moore was unorthodox, and they didn’t listen. In light of her dramatic shift on homosexuality, and with no one else to blame for their embarrassment, Social Justice Warriors are out in force today, trying to warn people to stay away from discernment ministries.



Pulpit & Pen published a post earlier today about ERLC board member and SBC Voices blogger, Dave Miller, claiming that discernment blogs are a giant threat to the SBC. He was the man who previously called discerning Christians “wolves” for criticizing Beth Moore. When one has been so embarrassingly and provenly wrong, it’s natural to lash out at the people who can say, “I told you so.”



Another Social Justice Warrior (one of many) is out attacking discernment ministries today in an attempt at suppressing that still, small voice that says, “I told you so.” His name is Matt Emerson, and he’s a pastor at Frontline Church, a multi-site church in Oklahoma. And this pastor really, really hates discernment.



Emerson is also an associate professor of religion at Oklahoma Baptist University and holds the Dickinson Chair of Religion. He received his B.A. from Auburn University and his Ph.D., unsurprisingly, from ultra-woke Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.



He also has connections with and a strong affinity, so it seems, for SJW leaders Duke Kwon, Russell Moore, and Andrew Walker. And birds of a feather flock together.



Emerson writes…





“Shepherd the flock of God that is among you,” not, “spend all your time on social media trying to build a cyber army against anyone who disagrees with you theologically.”





Please note that Emerson is on social media…arguing…about theology. He just has a problem when others do it.



He continues…





If you’re aspiring to the pastorate or are already a pastor, pay attention to the people you follow/read. If they’re pugilistic – always looking for a fight, willing to do intellectual violence to whoever disagrees with them, etc. – stop following them. Mute them. Find others.





Of course, Beth Moore has been throwing fists for over a year. The Gospel Coalition guys are the most caustic, divisive fellows you’ve ever met, and they have an entire skinny jeans-wearing, Starbucks-sipping mob ready to Burn Book their enemies, who are aptly called, “The Latte Mafia.”

It seems that Emerson himself is looking for a fight…on social media.



But this begs the question. What in the world is “intellectual violence”? I sent Emerson a question on Facebook messenger, but haven’t been given a response back yet. I’d love to know what that is.









No, seriously. What the heck is “intellectual violence”? Somebody explain that to me. It sounds like something some millennial snowflake would cry about in their gender studies safe space.



I can’t even read the words “intellectual violence” without hearing it in a lisp or in Kyle J. Howard’s “transcultural accent.”



“Intellectual violence.” It sounds as gay as Jonathan Merritt. And that’s pretty gay.



I mean, is “intellectual violence” like this clip of a Ben Shapiro having to explain that words aren’t violence to a college student? So, what? We’re afraid of ideas now? Ideas are violent?



Poppycock.



The anti-discernment pastor continues…





These pugnacious peddlers of theological dog fights aren’t worth your time. Their attitudes will infect how you treat others, desensitizing you to their antichrist tactics and limiting your ability to grow in the fruits of the Spirit.





Them are some mighty pugnacious words you got there, snowflake.



“Pugnacious peddlers.”



“Not worth your time.” Dang, that’s dehumanizing, dude.

“Theological dog fights.”



“Antichrist tactics.”



Does something about being against discernment also keep you from being self-aware? Like, “Hello, you’re being pugnacious, angry, and accusatory.”



Of course, one can only wonder what Pastor Emerson would say about the Apostles Paul, Peter, or John, all of whom wrote polemical treatises against heretics and picked theological fights.





They, too, are providing what itching ears want to hear. Avoid their writing, their tweets, their published material, their content distributed in any way. It’s not worth the infection that will surely come through prolonged contact.





Lol, right. We discernment ministries do it for the popularity. Alas, let us bask in our popularity. The line for our fan club forms to the left.



But notice how desperate Emerson is in his pleas that people avoid reading our blogs, tweets, or content “in any way.” Emerson must be afraid of all the “intellectual violence” (sorry, I can’t get over how stupid that is).



Real academians and intellectuals would be eager to contend against our ideas, if only they were able. Censorship is the sign that one side is losing the argument. I wrote about this is Millennials: Asking for Censorship is Conceding the Argument.



These people can’t contend for the truth. They don’t know it. The best they can do is beg people not stare at the light. And it’s a good thing, too, because when people read discernment blogs they turn on their ideological captors.





I also wonder how many of these pastors with “discernment ministries” or whatever on Twitter inform their church about their social media use? My fellow pastors at my local church absolutely know about and follow my account, and I know they hold me accountable.





What’s weird is that Emerson’s Facebook comment here is set on private, and can’t be seen by the public. Weird, so long as we’re talking about secrecy.

Furthermore, why is Emerson putting “discernment ministry” into scare-quotes? Discernment is a gift of the spirit, like teaching, mercy, and evangelism.



Does Emerson put “Teaching Ministry” or “Mercy Ministry” or “Evangelism Ministry” into scare-quotes? What’s with the hatred of the Holy Spirit’s handiwork, here? Oofta.



Of course, this is an implied threat toward discerning pastors, “Don’t make us get your church involved, pal.”



Yeah, we get the threat. It sometimes works, and Emerson seems to be the type of guy that would ask a church to put the screws to their pastor to get him to not do his job.





Final thought – Christian higher ed clearly needs to do a better job at training students not only in knowledge but also in spiritual formation. I include myself in this critique.





Yes, that’s right. Evangelicalism would be a far better place if students were told to not read opposing views, not go near discernment ministries, and not become objective thinkers. We can call it “virtue.”



Yeah, that’ll produce some fine disciples there, pal.



What Emerson (and the rest of the Intelligentsia) don’t grasp is that urging people not to read discernment blogs actually makes people read discernment blogs. SBC Voices urged people to boycott us. Karen Swallow Prior has urged people to boycott us. The Gospel Coalition contributors have urged people to boycott us. And yet, here we are…winning over the minds of students at Oklahoma Baptist University.



By the way, one of the people Emerson was trying to encourage not to look at discernment material sent this to us because, you know, the strategy backfires.

ARTICLES FROM LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH ON NEW AGE, ISLAMIC MYSTICISM, APOSTASY

THE ENNEAGRAM: DOES IT HAVE A PLACE IN CHRISTIANITY?

“Definition of Enneagram: System of spiritual psychology based on an ancient Sufi [Islamic mysticism] typology of nine personality types or primary roles with the recognition of one’s type tantamount to a spiritual awakening” from Alternative Health Dictionary


Enneagram

Recently, Lighthouse Trails has received numerous inquiries from readers about the Enneagram because of it being used in their churches or by Christians with whom they are acquainted. Below, we are posting some various items we have on file regarding the Enneagram. We hope they provide enough information to cause any believer to stay away from the Enneagram (or to at least do further research before utilizing it). The first item is a letter to the editor we received a couple years ago that will help illustrate the problem.

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

I wanted to write and share with you yet another example of church leadership embracing New Age methods. Recently, an acquaintance on Facebook posted a link to an Enneagram chart happily reporting her number and encouraging others to contact her if they want to know more about the Enneagram. What concerned me the most is that this acquaintance is the wife of a pastor of a young, but rapidly growing church in our area. Though not familiar with the Enneagram, I knew it likely had mystic / New Age origins by its very description. It broke my heart that a pastor’s wife would encourage such a thing. A day after her post, and after researching it for myself, I reached out to her privately warning her of its roots. I encouraged this pastor’s wife that God’s Word is enough and then hoped for a gracious response.

Her response was quick and indeed gracious, but defended their use of the Enneagram by explaining how they have looked at several resources tying what the Enneagram reveals back to the Gospel and that they were using it much like the Myers-Briggs or other personality type system to learn more about each other in order to build one another up.

Sadly, that is how so many of these New Age ideas enter even the conservative church. Someone somewhere at some point put a Christian spin on such an idea, wraps it up in attractive packaging, and tags it “christian.” And the young, hip, “relevant” pastors / leaders gobble it up. All discernment thus goes out the window. For the discerner, it is both sad and frustrating.

I did reply back to my acquaintance and gently yet firmly challenged her that if they were indeed just using the Enneagram as a personality test such as the Myers-Briggs, why not then just use the Myers-Briggs? Why use something that opens up the door to other mystic / occult type practices that seekers or young-in-faith believers might choose to explore?

She never replied back.

This is yet another reminder of how Satan is the master of deceit and confusion. What better way to continue to destroy the church by “innocently” introducing things that seem otherwise “harmless”? Both leaders and lay people need to be courageous at speaking up and warning others about such practices and reject them unequivocally. 
Sincerely ___________

The following is an excerpt of an article written by Mike Oppenheimer:

Enneagram claims to be an entry point for deep personal healing and renewal. Enneagram is a psychological and spiritual system for a higher consciousness. We are told it will help us understand the personality types and the differences in each other which should reduce unnecessary conflicts (transforming one into a more tolerant person). We can transform our habits by being our own observer in  how we think and go from unconscious behavior to conscious behavior. This is done through a series of probing questions called a PERSONALITY PROFILE questionnaire where one learns what his or her type is.
The Enneagram symbol is a nine-pointed, star-like figure. The nine lines comprise a perfect triangle and a twisted hexagon contained within a circle. This is a New Age type mandala, a mystical gateway to personality classification. The drawing is based upon a belief in the mystical properties of the numbers 7 and 3. (source)

Excerpt from an Article by Ed Hird:
Enneagram and the Occult

Gurdjieff’s work led to the formation of the New-Age cult, Arica, founded by his disciple Oscar Ichazo. It was Ichazo and his colleague Claudio Naranjo (an instructor at the Esalen Institute) who together developed the Enneagram in the 1960s as an indicator of personality in its current form.(14) Naranjo merged the Enneagram with 9 of Freud’s 10 personality defense mechanisms….

Barbara Metz, SND, and John Burchill, OP, recommend the Enneagram as a way of engaging in “kything prayer”. Kything Prayer can be done with any other person, present or absent, dead or alive, whose Enneagramic reading ‘moves against your numerical arrows’. The key is to “let your center find itself within the person with whom you are kything” and to “Picture yourself within the [other] person.” An alternative form of Enneagramic kything is to “invite the other person’s spirit into themselves.”(19) One may very well ask how appropriate it is for Christians to be inviting the spirits of the dead into themselves. Does this not slide into occultic channeling/mediumistic practices that are clearly forbidden by Holy Scripture?(20) Is it enough for Enneagram advocates like Jim Scully of Pecos Abbey to say “that ‘occult’ and ‘satanic’ are not synonyms? God told me back in 1979 that the greatest issue facing the Church in the 1990’s would be the deception of inter-faith syncretism. Maybe it is time for us as Anglicans and Christians to truly wake up and repent of our syncretistic mixing of Christ and the occult, of good and evil, of truth and deception, of light and darkness. “Gurdjieff and the Enigmatic Enneagram” by Ed Hird, Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada


An article from The Berean Call
Are You My Type? The Enneagram Catches on with Christians
The Enneagram came to the United States in the 1970s, where it initially caught on among Catholic seminarians and priests and became a tool for spiritual formation.
In its present form, the Enneagram includes nine personality types, or numbers, illustrated by a nine-pointed geometric figure. (The term Enneagram comes from the Greek words meaning “nine” and “drawing” or “figure.”) Each, at its worst, is tied to one of the deadly sins – plus two more traits that have been added in.
A person’s “type” is determined by self-examination; the goal being to better understand oneself – and one’s strengths, weaknesses and tendencies – and those of others.
But it may not be as modern as it sounds, or as alien to the faith as some might fear. In fact, some trace the Enneagram to a fourth-century Christian monk and ascetic named Evagrius, whose teaching later influenced the formation of the seven deadly sins, according to Cron and Stabile. Others detect elements of the Enneagram within Sufism and Judaism. (source)
_______________________________________________________________

Marianne Williamson: If I Am President, I Will Take Control of Your Children and Make Them New Agers

By Philip Gray
Course in Miracles promoter, Marianne Williamson, who is running in the 2020 presidential election, has big plans for the children of this country if she is elected. Among other things, part of those plans is to make sure children in American public schools are trained in mindfulness meditation. While tens of thousands of public schools in the U.S. are already teaching children mindfulness meditation, no doubt, with a New Age president, every school would be including it.

As president, I would advocate for the following: Mindfulness training in the schools.—Marianne Williamson, 2019 (source)

Williamson also promises to advocate for “universal pre-K.” This would help make sure that children as young as 3 and 4 would be placed into the public school system. Advocates of universal pre-K believe they need more time with America’s children and want to get their hands on them much earlier than 5 or 6 (Kindergarten).
Parents beware. If Marianne Williamson (or another candidate with her “values,”) becomes president, this country’s children will be at even greater risk than they are now. And you can be sure, she will not be advocating for homeschooling families.
(photo from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission for editorial purposes)
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The Significance of Understanding Leonard Sweet’s 
“More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ”

LTRP Note: Over the past few decades, a number of New Age sympathizers have had a significant influence in the evangelical church. One of the chief is Methodist author, speaker, and teacher Leonard Sweet. Sweet openly calls the Father of the New Age Movement—the late Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin—“twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.” Sweet also teaches the foundational New Age doctrine that God is “in” everyone and everything—that God is embedded in all creation. Brought forward and popularized by Rick Warren, Leonard Sweet and his New Age sympathies have not been adequately addressed by today’s pastors and church leaders. A look on Sweet’s website shows he has partnered with numerous popular figures such as Brian McLaren, Mark Batterson (Circle Maker), Erwin McManus, Mark Driscoll, Frank Viola, and Karen Swallow Prior (professor at Liberty University). The following booklet by Warren Smith reveals the “New Age Christianity” that Leonard Sweet has helped to bring into the church.

By Warren B. Smith
To survive in postmodern culture, one has to learn to speak out of both sides of the mouth.1—Leonard Sweet

Who is Leonard Sweet?

Leonard Sweet is an ordained Methodist minister who is presently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He is also a visiting distinguished professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon. On his various websites, he is described as a “scholar of American culture” who has authored over 60 books and 200 articles and has published over 1500 sermons. A “Phi Beta Kappa graduate,” he is a “frequent speaker at national and international conferences, state conventions, pastor’s schools, retreats” and “serves as a consultant to many of America’s denominational leaders and agencies.” Descriptive terms such as “distinguished,” “most influential,” “widely quoted,” “highly sought after,” and “the Picasso of Preaching” give visitors to his website the distinct impression that this is a man they should definitely pay attention to. And many people are doing just that.
Day-to-day believers may or may not be familiar with Leonard Sweet, but many in Christian leadership are very familiar with this self-described “semiotician.” According to his website, a semiotician is someone who “sees things the rest of us do not see and dreams possibilities that are beyond most of our imagining.” And as a “cultural futurist” and “Christ follower,” he seems to be very comfortable assuming the role of a postmodern prophet who provides hip observations of what is and what will be. His mission is to help the church become more culturally relevant in the 21st century. However, as he attempts to walk the narrow line between the Gospel and the world, he frequently walks over that line into the false teachings of the New Age/New Spirituality. When he does, legitimate questions need to be raised about what he is doing.
In June 2010, Sweet became the object of a swirling controversy, and his name suddenly disappeared from the list of scheduled speakers at a National Worship Conference taking place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The controversy centered around the New Age implications of many of the quotes and teachings found in his 1991 book Quantum Spirituality: A Post Modern Apologetic. Prior to the conference, a number of people were starting to ask pertinent questions about Sweet and what he was teaching. In my 2009 book A “Wonderful” Deception, I wrote three chapters on Leonard Sweet and the obvious New Age implications of what he was teaching. In the first chapter on Sweet, I described some of my initial impressions regarding this man, and in particular, his book Quantum Spirituality:

Highly intellectual and well-read, Leonard Sweet almost dares you to keep up with him as he charges through the spiritual marketplace. Operating at lightning speed and quoting from countless books and articles, he will impress many readers with his quick wit and spiritual insights. However, as he treacherously dives into New Age waters and challenges his readers to go there with him, serious problems arise within his “postmodern apologetic.”
In reading Quantum Spirituality, I recalled the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus warned that you can’t serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Leonard Sweet may be a professing evangelical Christian, but he also simultaneously praises New Age authors and their teachings.2

Sweet’s “Response” to Critics

Keenly aware of the controversy he has created, Sweet has a statement prominently posted on his present home website titled—“A Response to Recent Misunderstandings.” While his attempt to explain himself might satisfy the uninformed reader, his “Response” does not address the specifics of what he has written and is actually teaching. His simplistic denunciation of the New Age is unconvincing. His statement that the “New Age rhymes with sewage” and his encouraging the use of a “daily ritual of starting the day by standing in front of a mirror and saying: “God is God and I am not” do not speak to the fact that he has never even addressed, much less renounced, the specific New Age teachings that he was otherwise appearing to deny and disparage. And his stating “back when the New Age was a movement” completely misses the fact that the New Age movement never went away. Those of us who came out of New Age teachings and have been observing the New Age over the past several decades know that contrary to Sweet’s claims, the New Age movement has actually grown exponentially and is now mainstream and an inherent part of our culture. Due to its continued wide-spread growth and influence, the New Age threat to the church (and the world) is larger than ever before. But now it is just hiding in plain sight behind the facade of other names like “New Spirituality,” “New Worldview,” or in Sweet’s case—the “New Light” teachings of a “Quantum Spirituality.” But by any other name a rose is still a rose and the New Age is still the New Age.
Because Sweet’s “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings” left so many unanswered questions and because of his continued influence in the church, it seems imperative that thoughtful Christians take a deeper look at what Leonard Sweet is really teaching. For starters, here are five immediate concerns to consider.

FIVE IMMEDIATE CONCERNS

1) Leonard Sweet teaches the New Age doctrine of “Immanence” that would have the church believe God is “in” everyone and everything

In her 1948 book The Reappearance of the Christ, New Age matriarch Alice Bailey and her spirit guide Djwhal Khul describe how the path to their New Age God will be based on an “immanent” God that is “within every form of life”:

. . . a fresh orientation to divinity and to the acceptance of the fact of God Transcendent and of God Immanent within every form of life. These are the foundational truths upon which the world religion of the future will rest.3 (emphasis added)

Likewise, in his 1980 book, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, New Age channeler Benjamin Creme, states that the New World Religion will be based on the proposition that “Christ” is “immanent”—“in man and all creation”:

But eventually a new world religion will be inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approach of the East and the approach of the West. The Christ will bring together, not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God transcendent—outside of His creation—and also the concept of God immanent in all creation—in man and all creation.4 (emphasis added)

In Leonard Sweet’s 1999 book SoulTsunami—with its front cover endorsement by Rick Warren—Sweet introduces this same New Age idea of God not only being transcendent but also immanent. He writes:

To survive in postmodern culture, one has to learn to speak out of both sides of the mouth. It should not be hard, since Christianity has always insisted on having things both ways. Isn’t it based on the impossible possibility of Jesus being “beyond us, yet ourselves” (poet Wallace Stevens)? Biblical theological is not circular with a fixed center, but elliptical, revolving around the double foci of God’s immanence and God’s transcendence.5 (emphasis added)

Sweet clearly spells out what he means by “immanence” in his 1991 book Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic. As a self-described “radical,” he presents his “radical doctrine” that God is immanently embodied “in” His creation. He writes:

Quantum spirituality bonds us to all creation as well as to other members of the human family. . . . This entails a radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation. . . . But a spirituality that is not in some way entheistic (whether pan- or trans-), that does not extend to the spirit-matter of the cosmos, is not Christian.6 (emphasis added)

But Sweet’s “radical” panentheistic doctrine is a key New Age teaching—as is so much of what he wrote in Quantum Spirituality. In his “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings,” Sweet tries to dispel questions about Quantum Spirituality by saying, “Would I write the same book today? No. Would I say the same things differently? Yes. I started working on the book in my late 20s. I hope I’m older and wiser now.” But when it comes to the New Age implications of what he is teaching, he is not any wiser in regard to his previously stated New Age doctrine. In several subsequent books, Sweet reintroduces his New Age doctrine of immanence—that God is immanently embodied “in” His creation. For example, in his 1999 book Soul Tsunami, Sweet writes:

Postmodern evangelism is first of all telling people how special they are, how much God loves them, how unique each and every one of them is. The fourth-century theologian Athanasius said in one of his letters that God became one of us “that he might deify us in Himself.” Similarly, elsewhere he wrote that Christ “was made man that we might be made God.”7

In Sweet’s 2010 book Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There, he expresses in different words what he wrote in Quantum Spirituality about the “embodiment of God in the very substance of creation”:

An incarnational God means that God-stuff is found in the matter of the universe.8

In this same book he also wrote, “Nudgers help people discover their inner Jesus.”9 But God is not “in” everyone and everything. Jesus is not “in” everyone and everything. Sweet may seem to denounce the New Age, but what he is teaching is New Age. This is dangerous and unbiblical leaven. The apostle Paul lamented that it only took “a little leaven” to lure the Galatians away from the Gospel they once knew so well.

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?  This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. (Galatians 5:7-9)

God states in the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The New Age “God” who is “in” everyone and everything is another “God” and therefore a false God. Contrary to Leonard Sweet’s teaching in Quantum Spirituality, God is not embodied in His creation. Contrary to his teaching in Nudge, “God-stuff” is not found in the matter of the universe, and everyone does not have an “inner Jesus.” Scripture is very clear. Man is not God because God is not “in” everyone and everything. In Jeremiah 16:20, God warned: “Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?” In Matthew 23:12, Jesus warned, “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” For further scriptural references on why God is not “in” everyone and everything and how this false teaching has entered both the world and the church, see my booklet Be Still and Know that You Are Not God.

2) Leonard Sweet describes the “Father” of the New Age Movement” as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice”

Sweet describes heretical Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—the “Father of the New Age Movement—as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.” 10 In her best-selling New Age classic, The Aquarian Conspiracy, author Marilyn Ferguson describes Teilhard de Chardin as “the individual most often named as a profound influence by the Aquarian Conspirators who responded to a survey.”11 He is also the most frequently referenced New Age leader in her book. The Teilhard quote “This soul can only be a conspiracy of individuals” is found on the very first page of her book and inspired her to title her book The Aquarian Conspiracy. Ferguson wrote that “Teilhard prophesied the phenomenon central to this book: a conspiracy of men and women whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change.”12
Evident in his posted “Response,” Sweet appears to be baffled by everyone’s concern about some of the things he is writing. He seems to take any criticism as a personal attack. But this criticism, if you will, is not about him personally, it is about what he is teaching. Jesus didn’t say “Get behind me Satan” to Peter because he thought Peter was Satan. He said “Get behind me Satan” because of what Peter was saying. And because Sweet describes the “Father of the New Age movement” as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice,” I believe the Lord would tell Leonard Sweet the same thing today. This should become especially evident when you read the following unbiblical statements made by Teilhard de Chardin in his book Christianity and Evolution:

What I am proposing to do is to narrow that gap between pantheism and Christianity by bringing out what one might call the Christian soul of pantheism or the pantheistic aspect of Christianity.13 (emphasis added)
The cross still stands . . . But this is on one condition, and one only, that it expand itself to the dimensions of a New Age, and cease to present itself to us as primarily (or even exclusively) the sign of a victory over sin.14
I can be saved only by becoming one with the universe.15
I believe that the Messiah whom we await, whom we all without any doubt await, is the universal Christ; that is to say, the Christ of evolution.16
[I]f a Christ is to be completely acceptable as an object of worship, he must be presented as the saviour of the idea and reality of evolution.17
A general convergence of religions upon a universal Christ who fundamentally satisfies them all: that seems to me the only possible conversion of the world, and the only form in which a religion of the future can be conceived.18

Teilhard Again?

Sweet’s affection for Teilhard de Chardin surfaced again in his 1999 book Aqua Church. After quoting a strong Bible-based stanza from the hymn “Jesus Savior Pilot Me,” Sweet follows it with a very revealing quote from Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard stated that those who “see” Christ as he does understand Christ in “a much more magnificent way” than all those who went before him:

Christ is in the Church in the same way as the sun is before our eyes. We see the same sun as our fathers saw, and yet we understand it in a much more magnificent way.19

Really? Teilhard and his followers understand Christ in a much more magnificent way than their “fathers”? More than all the martyrs? More than the original disciples? This seems to indicate that Teilhard and Sweet and their “semiotic” emergent postmodern “Christ followers” are “seeing” something about Christ that the rest of the church does not see. Would Sweet have the church believe that Chardin’s seemingly updated New Age “Christ” is the real Christ? Is the “semiotic” Sweet trying to show us that if we adopt the New Age teachings of Teilhard, we, too, will “see” Christ in a “much more magnificent way” than the Christians who came before us? Sadly, it would seem that this is so.
Sweet seems to believe that with new understandings from quantum physics, a New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality/Quantum Spirituality would enable Christians to see Christ in a much deeper and “more magnificent way.” The church would finally understand that the science of quantum physics proves that God is an energy force that interpenetrates and embodies His creation. Therefore, we are all “connected” because we are all “God” because God is “in” everyone and everything. Sweet argues that Christians of the past weren’t ready to deal with things like quantum physics, quantum wavelengths, and the New Age implications of a Quantum Spirituality that would totally transform their faith and challenge everything they thought they knew about being a Christian. In his 2016 book Jesus Speaks, Leonard Sweet writes:

The Holy Spirit brings Jesus’ voice to life through history, theology, science, and social experience. Jesus told the disciples, “I have much more to say to you” (John 16:12). In other words, Jesus was saying, “You can’t handle everything I have to say to you right now. Some of my truth has a wavelength, and it needs time, maybe even centuries, to play itself out.20

But this implies that God’s Word is incomplete and insufficient and therefore in need of new revelation. This is simply not true. Besides, when Jesus said “I have much more to say to you, He was talking to His disciples—not to the church today. It is also important to notice how Sweet conveniently squeezed “wavelength” into his interpretation of Jesus’ words to set up his Quantum Spirituality. But Jesus wasn’t withholding spiritual insights that would have to be delivered to His people two thousand years later. This kind of false teaching is an inherent part of the New Age deception. The fact is Jesus has already given us everything we need to know in His Holy Bible.
Jesus warned of false prophets who would come in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). And there would be those who honor Him with their lips, but their hearts would be far from Him (Matthew 15:8). He also warned of those who serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Psalm 144:11 warns of vain men who deceive with the “right hand of falsehood.” In Psalm 12:2, David warned of those who speak with a “double heart.” In James 1:8, James taught that “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. In 1 Timothy 3:8, Paul referred to these same men as “double-tongued.” For Leonard Sweet to exalt the “Father of the New age movement”—Teilhard de Chardin—and suggest that Teilhard’s way of seeing Christ is a “much more magnificent way” than our forefathers is to fall prey to our Adversary’s deceptive devices. One thing is for sure: The New Age movement hasn’t gone away—it has entered the church through men like Teilhard de Chardin and those like Sweet who exalt him as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.”

(3) Leonard Sweet Praises New Age leaders as his “Heroes” and “Role Models”

While some Leonard Sweet defenders argue that his postmodern “New Light” apologetic flies right over the heads of “Old Light” “fundamentalist” types, the facts tell a different story. But what one learns in reading Quantum Spirituality is that Sweet wants to transform biblical Christianity into a Quantum Spirituality that is, in reality, a New Age/New Spirituality. Without any apology, Sweet writes that he is part of a “New Light” movement, and he describes those he especially admires as “New Light leaders.” But many of Sweet’s “New Light leaders” are New Age leaders who are in the process of overturning biblical Christianity through obliging New Age sympathizers like Leonard Sweet.

Sweet’s New Age “role models and heroes”

In the acknowledgments section of Quantum Spirituality, Leonard Sweet expresses his deep gratitude and admiration to various “New Light leaders” whom he openly praises as “the most creative religious leaders in America today.” But many of these “New Light leaders” are New Age leaders. Included in this group are a number of men I was very familiar with from my years in the New Age—among them are Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, and M. Scott Peck. Sweet describes these three men—along with numerous other New Age figures cited—as “extraordinary” and “great” New Light leaders. He goes so far as to say that they are his “personal role models” and “heroes” of “the true nature of the postmodern apologetic.” Sweet writes:

They are my personal role models (in an earlier day one could get away with “heroes”) of the true nature of the postmodern apologetic. More than anyone else, they have been my teachers on how to translate, without compromising content, the gospel into the indigenous context of the postmodern vernacular.21

But many of the men and women Leonard Sweet cited have compromised the “content” of the Gospel by translating it into the “postmodern vernacular” of a New Age/New Spirituality. For example, Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, and M. Scott Peck have all played leading roles in the initial establishment and popularization of today’s New Age/New Spirituality movement. But rather than commending these New Age/New Light leaders, a self-professing Christian leader like Sweet should be warning the church about them. A brief look at these three “New Light” leaders and their teachings will make this very clear.

Willis Harman (1918-1997)

Willis Harman is listed as one of the most influential Aquarian/New Age conspirators in Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy. Harman was a social scientist/futurist with the Stanford Research Institute and one of the chief architects of New Age thinking. He wrote the book Global Mind Change:The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think. A review by The San Francisco Chronicle on the front cover of the book reads: “There never has been a more lucid interpretation of New Age consciousness and what it promises for the future than the works of Willis Harman.”22

Matthew Fox (1940- )

Another one of Sweet’s self-described “role models” and “heroes” is Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest who was dismissed from the Catholic church for openly professing heretical New Age teachings—teachings that include those of his revered mentor, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Fox, like Teilhard, teaches that all of creation is the “Cosmic Christ”—therefore the Cosmic Christ is “in” everyone and everything. In his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Fox writes: “Divinity is found in all creatures.”23 and “We are all royal persons, creative, godly, divine, persons of beauty and of grace. We are all Cosmic Christs, ‘other Christs.’ But what good is this if we don’t know it.”24 Leonard Sweet actually credits Fox in a footnote in Quantum Spirituality for inspiring Sweet’s own description of the “cosmic body of Christ” and actually refers readers of Quantum Spirituality to Fox’s New Age book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.25

M. Scott Peck (1936-2005)

M. Scott Peck, the late psychiatrist and best-selling author of The Road Less Traveled, is another one of the “role models” and “heroes” that Leonard Sweet cites in his book Quantum Spirituality. The Road Less Traveled was on the New York Times best-seller list for over ten years. In a subsection of his book titled “The Evolution of Consciousness,” Peck describes God as being “intimately associated with us—so intimately that He is part of us.”26 He also writes:

If you want to know the closest place to look for grace, it is within yourself. If you desire wisdom greater than your own, you can find it inside you . . . .To put it plainly, our unconscious is God. God within us. We were part of God all the time.27

When Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ was published in 1988, the lead endorsement on the back of Fox’s book was written by M. Scott Peck. Peck and Fox were obviously in New Age agreement. Peck, like Fox and Sweet, describes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in glowing terms. He describes Teilhard as “[p]erhaps the greatest prophet” of the “mystical,”  evolutionary leap that will take mankind toward “global consciousness” and “world community.”28 And it is this mystical New Age Christ of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, M. Scott Peck, and Leonard Sweet that challenges biblical Christianity today.

4) Leonard Sweet thanks New Age Leader David Spangler for helping him develop his Quantum Spirituality’s “new cell understanding of new light leadership”

If we want to possess a magic crystal for our New Age work, we need look no further than our own bodies and the cells that make them up.29—David Spangler, 1991
I am grateful to David Spangler for his help in formulating this “new cell” understanding of New Light leadership.30—Leonard Sweet, 1991

In his “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings,” Leonard Sweet states: “Because I quote someone does not mean I agree with everything that person ever wrote.” He goes on to say that “Some of the quotes I chose were meant to provide contrasting positions to my argument, some to buttress my argument, some even to mock my argument. The key consideration to whether I quoted someone was not ‘Do I agree with them?’ but ‘Does this quote energize the conversation?’ ‘Guilt by association’ is intellectually disreputable and injurious to the whole body of Christ.” But there is a big difference between “guilt byassociation” and “guilt by promotion.” Leonard Sweet is praising, thanking, and glorifying many of these New Age leaders—hardly guilt by association, especially when Sweet writes:

I believe these are among the most creative religious leaders in America today. These are the ones carving out new channels for new ideas to flow. In a way this book was written to guide myself through their channels and chart their progress. The book’s best ideas come from them.31

Ironically, one of the “channels” guiding him was an actual New Age channeler—David Spangler. A pioneering spokesperson for the New Age, Spangler has written numerous books over the years. His book The Revelation: The Birth of the New Age is a compilation of channeled transmissions that he received from his disembodied spirit-guide “John.” At one point in the book, Spangler documents what “John” prophesied about “the energies of the cosmic Christ” and “Oneness”:

As the energies of the Cosmic Christ become increasingly manifest within the etheric life of Earth, many individuals will begin to respond with the realization that the Christ dwells within them. They will feel his presence moving within and through them and will begin to awaken to their heritage of Christhood and Oneness with God, the Beloved.32

In a postmodern-day consultation that bears more than a casual resemblance to King Saul’s consult with the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28), Leonard Sweet acknowledges in Quantum Spirituality that he was privately corresponding with New Age channeler David Spangler. Sweet even thanks Spangler for assisting him in forming his “new cell understanding” of “New Light leadership.”33 But as believers we are to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” Rather than thanking them, we are to reprove and expose them (Ephesians 5:11).

(5) Misapplication of Quantum Physics: Trying to Draw Spiritual Truth From Physical Theory

Leonard Sweet—just like New Age leaders—tries to use Quantum Physics to prove that God indwells his creation.

The coming together of the new biology and the new physics is providing the basic metaphors for this new global civilization that esteems and encourages whole-brain experiences, full-life expectations, personalized expressions, and a globalized consciousness.34—Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami
When we experience such a quantum of transformation, we may simultaneously feel that the whole of the New Age is happening right now, that we are on the verge of overnight transformation—the fabled quantum leap into a new state of being.35—David Spangler, Reimagination of the World
We have the epitome of a great science . . . quantum physics . . . Everyone is God.36—New Age Channeler J.Z. Knight, What the Bleep Do We Know

In his book The Tao of Physics: An Explanation of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, New Age physicist Fritjof Capra describes the union of mysticism and the new physics. He wrote “this kind of new spirituality is now being developed by many groups and movements, both within and outside the churches.”37 As an example of how this “new spirituality” is moving into the church, he actually cites one of Leonard Sweet’s “role models” and “heroes”—Matthew Fox.38
When Sweet refers to the new biology and the new physics as metaphors, he stretches these “metaphors” to the position of being actual fact. From his understanding of quantum physics, he asserts that all things are composed of energy and that this quantum energy must be God, hence God is embodied in all things. Yet, this metaphor falls on its face when we learn from Paul’s writings that God and creation are two separate things as is illustrated in chapter one of Romans: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). Paul further exposes the error of spiritualizing physical creation showing that all things are not God, nor are they even spiritual. As he points out, the “earthy” is only temporary and will be done away with:

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption . . . There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. . . .  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. . . . Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. (1 Corinthians 15:42, 44, 48, 50)

Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren’s “New Spirituality”

In their 1995 joint presentation The Tides of Change, Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren had a quantum conversation as they discussed “waves,” “quantum metaphors,” “revival,” and what they were calling—even back then—a “New Spirituality.” Sweet told Warren:

Yeah, this is a wave period. I really love that metaphor of the wave and the wavelength. First of all, it is a quantum metaphor. It brings us out of the Newtonian world into this new science.39

Quantum waves, quantum wavelengths, quantum metaphors—all leading to a universal Quantum “God” and the Quantum New Age “Christ” of a New Spirituality, a New Worldview, and ultimately a New World Religion—a New World Religion that will be based on New Age teachings that have been labeled scientific but are, in reality, “science falsely so called”:

Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:19-21)

Conclusion

Teilhard de Chardin, Leonard Sweet, and an ever-growing band of New Age sympathizers would have us believe that all those who preceded us in the faith were unable to “see” the big picture, because, after all, they didn’t have access to all the new scientific discoveries that we have today—scientific information that would have helped them gain the new spiritual understandings that Leonard Sweet claims to have acquired.
In that vein, Leonard Sweet, Rick Warren, and other Christian leaders are now teaching that God is in the process of bringing a new “Reformation”40 and a “great spiritual awakening” to the church. Sweet writes: “God is birthing the greatest spiritual awakening in the history of the church.”41 Yet this new reformation and great awakening Sweet heralds, is falsely founded on his hybridized New Age Christianity with its “radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation.”42 Ironically, while Sweet—as previously mentioned—encourages “a daily ritual” of standing in front of a mirror affirming “God is God and I am not,” he at the same time tells people that, as a part of creation, God is embodied in them. He also encourages people to be “nudgers.” He says “nudgers are not smudgers of the divine in people.”43 “Nudgers help people discover their “inner Jesus.”44
When the true Christ was asked what will be the sign of his coming and the end of the world, He said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.”(Matthew 24:4)—that many false prophets would arise and deceive many (Matthew 24:11). He specifically warned us to beware of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing. He said we would know them by their fruits.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7:15-16)

We must exhort one another daily. We must continue to preach the Word and not fall prey to those who would diminish the Word with their worldly wisdom, clever stories, metaphors, and false teachings. The Bible and our Lord Jesus Christ always have been and always will be sufficient for all our needs.

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:2-4)

Regarding Leonard Sweet’s “radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation,” Jesus warns:

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.45 (Matthew 15: 7-9)

To order copies of Leonard Sweet—A More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ?, click here. 
Endnotes
1. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), p. 28.
2. Warren B. Smith, A “Wonderful” Deception: The Further New Age Implications of the Emerging Purpose Driven Movement (Magalia, CA: Mountain Stream Press, 2009), p. 106.
3. Alice A, Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ (New York, NY: Lucis Publishing Company, Lucis Press, Ltd., 1948), 1996, p. 150.
4. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (London, England; The Tara Press, 1980), p. 88.
5. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 28.
6. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic (Dayton, OH: Whaleprints for SpiritVenture Ministries, Inc., 1991, 1994), p. 125.
7. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 304.
8. Leonard Sweet, Nudge:Awakening Each Other to the God Who Is Already There (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010), p. 157.
9. Ibid., p. 40.
10. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 106.
11. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 1980), p. 50.
12. Ibid., p. 25.
13. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanivich, Inc., 1971), p. 56.
14. Ibid,. pp. 219-220.
15. Ibid,. p. 128.
16. Ibid,. p. 95.
17. Ibid,. p. 78.
18. Ibid,. p. 130.
19. Leonard Sweet, Aqua Church: Essential Leadership Arts for Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, Inc., 1999), p. 39.
20. Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, Jesus Speaks: Learning to Recognize & Respond to the Lord’s Voice (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2016), p. 85.
21. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. viii.
22. Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1988), front cover.
23. Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988), p. 154.
24. Ibid., p. 137.
25. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op cit., pp. 124, 324.
26. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 281.
27. Ibid.
28. M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988), pp. 205-206.
29. David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson, Reimagination of the World: A Critique of the New Age, Science, and Popular Culture (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company Publishing, 1991), p. 62.
30. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 312.
31. Ibid., p. ix.
32. David Spangler, The Revelation: Birth of A New Age (Elgin, IL: Lorian Press, 1976), p. 177.
33. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 312.
34. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 121.
35. David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson, Reimagination of the World, op. cit., p. 126.
36. What the Bleep Do We Know (DVD) (20th Century Fox, 2004, http://www.whatthebleep.com), transcribed by author.
37. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Explanation of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1999), p. 341.
38. Ibid.
39. The Tides of Change (A 1995 audio presentation with Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren that was part of an ongoing series called “Choice Voices for Christian Leadership,” distributed by Abington Press). On file with publisher.
40. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 17.
41. Ibid., p. 34.
42. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 125.
43. Leonard Sweet, Nudge, op. cit., p. 31.
44. Ibid., p. 40.
45. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p 125.
To order copies of Leonard Sweet—A More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ?, click here. 
Related Reading:
Be Still and Know That You are Not God!—God is Not “in” Everyone and Everything

ATLANTA ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST CAUGHT AT GAY CLUB WHEN TAGGED IN PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK

Roman Catholic Atlanta-Area priest being kissed by “friend,” 
recently seen partying at gay club.
ATLANTA ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST CAUGHT AT GAY CLUB WHEN TAGGED IN PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK 
SEE: https://pulpitandpen.org/2018/10/16/atlanta-roman-catholic-priest-caught-at-gay-club-when-tagged-in-photos-on-facebook/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
ATLANTA, Georgia – A Roman Catholic priest – who happens to be appointed as “spiritual director for victims of sexual abuse by clergy” recently attended a drag show and LGBT film festival that would make Karen Swallow Prior blush.
Monsignor Henry Gracz is the pastor of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta, which is commonly known as a “gay parish.” Gracz regularly attends “outreach booths” at LGBT events (including the Atlanta Pride event that Pulpit & Pen open air evangelism team preached at last year) and his social media shows that he frequents Atlanta’s “queer subculture.” He also sponsors potlucks for homosexual couples to fellowship with other homosexual couples.
Gracz’s parish maintains a “Pride Outreach,” including running a booth at Atlanta’s gay pride week each year, and sponsors LGBT couples potluck socials, which are “for LGBT couples who are in committed relationships for couple support by providing a venue for socializing with other LGBT couples,” according to the parish website.
As reported by Lifesite News, in an August 1 Facebook post, Msgr. Gracz announced he was celebrating with friends at “Lips,” a popular Atlanta drag bar. Readers grabbed the screenshots before his account went private and posts deleted.

Image

The club hosts a show called “Taboo: The Forbidden Show” and is advertised on the “Lips” website as “dirty and nasty” and is hosted by a “mistress of seduction.” The website (which we will not link) reads, The Taboo Show is our dirty late-night show. 21 +… if you can’t handle dirty and nasty… STAY HOME! 
Gracz can be seen sitting at the drag bar in one photo taken by friends at the August 1 event.  His Facebook settings apparently allowed his friends to tag him in photos, and one tagged him in these photos while present at the gay club. After several hours of revelry, apparently, Gracz saw what had happened and made his page private.
Keep in mind, this priest is designated to handle sex abuse by the Roman Catholic church in the Atlanta area.
[HT Lifesite News]

REVOICE CONFERENCE BANS PRO-CHRISTIAN ACTIVIST FROM ATTENDING, REFUNDS REGISTRATION FEES


REVOICE CONFERENCE BANS PRO-CHRISTIAN ACTIVIST FROM ATTENDING, 
REFUNDS REGISTRATION FEES 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

In case you’ve yet to hear, the Revoice Conference is an event designed to celebrate “Queer Culture” within the Christian Church, to “de-sin” Same Sex Attraction (SSA), and to move American evangelicals to abandon a traditional, historic and orthodox understanding of human sexuality. Although a conference like this is standard fare among mainline liberal denominations like the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church USA, or the United Methodist Church, embracing and celebrating celibate homosexuality is not typical among more conservative denominations like the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) or the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The Revoice Conference, however, will be hosted by the PCA, is being promoted by Southern Baptists affiliated with the SBC entity, the ERLC (Matt Chandler, Karen Swallow Prior, and many more), is being organized by a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate and former faculty member (Nate Collins) and is even being promoted by a Master’s Seminary graduate (Preston Sprinkle). The conference is seen as a bellwether   for the direction of conservative evangelicalism, or at least the remnant of it that still exists. Members of the Evangelical Intelligentsia who aren’t promoting the conference explicitly are (laughably) claiming they’re unaware of it (as Russell Moore claimed at the annual meeting of the SBC, even though his ERLC research fellows are helping to promote the conference, and its infamy has been reported widely in the media). As Revoice is aiming to make the evangelical church more inclusive to the LGBTQXYZLMNOP lobby, its organizer, Nate Collins, has rejected the registration of conservative Christian advocate, Peter LaBarbera, excluding him from the event.



LaBarbera is the founder of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). AFTAH was founded in 2006 and educates the public regarding homosexuality and argues that homosexuality is not inborn or innate, but a decision made by the homosexual and is in part created by the environment rather than genetic variables. LaBarbera was once the editor for the highly esteemed Family Research Council (FRC), and has a long track record of social conservatism, particularly on the issue of human sexuality. Prior to serving the FRC, LaBarbera was a reporter for the Washington Times. He first came to wide acclaim for his 1994 video, The Gay Agenda, which was promoted by the Christian Coalition. That documentary is seen in the eyes of many as being nearly prophetic in its accuracy of the homosexual goals and their fulfillment in America. LaBarbera has promoted traditional marriage and the Sanctity of Life in both the United States and Canada and is a well-known opponent of the normalization of sodomy as a valid lifestyle choice or identity group.



LaBarbera tweeted out that Nate Collins, the former SBTS faculty member and Revoice organizer, contacted him to return his registration fees and inform him he could not attend. The following is from his Twitter feed…







It is certainly odd that Revoice is actively researching its attendees – even from publicly available information. This seems to be of the same neighborhood of odd behavior that led to ERLC employee, Brent Leatherwood, to make a false report against a media member at the SBC annual convention and having him forcibly removed from the convention hall for doing nothing but asking Russell Moore a question about the upcoming Queer Culture-celebrating Revoice Conference. Like with The Gospel Coalition’s meeting that excluded all white women, inclusion seems to be only a one-way street for leftists and progressives.



The message of Revoice seems clear…conservatives need not attend.







It’s exceedingly odd that a conference that is ostensibly designed to increase dialogue and understanding would shut out someone with an opposing point-of-view.



[Editor’s Note: LaBarbera has not returned a request for comment sent to his Twitter account, by the time of publication]



________________________________________________________________



SEE ALSO:

MAJOR THEOLOGICAL ERROR IN SBC’S STATEMENT ON IMMIGRATION LAW AMNESTY FOR CHILDREN OF ILLEGALS~RUSSELL MOORE SERVES ON THE “EVANGELICAL IMMIGRATION TABLE” FUNDED BY EX-NAZI JEW HATER GLOBALIST GEORGE SOROS

  
MAJOR THEOLOGICAL ERROR IN SBC’S STATEMENT 
ON IMMIGRATION
BY SETH DUNN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 You didn’t eat any forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. It was Adam. It was 
Eve. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do it. Yet, you are suffering the consequences of 
the offense of your first parents. The Apostle Paul made this clear in his Epistle 
to the Romans:

“Therefore,
just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through
sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the
Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless
death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned
in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to
come.” Romans 5:12-14

Death reigned even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam. That doesn’t sit right with many but it is nevertheless true.
Paul’s statement from Romans concerns our first parents
but what about our actual parents? Do children suffer for the offenses
of their parents? Yes. Moses made this clear in his biblical writings:


“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You
shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on
the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:4-6

Moses quotes the passage above in Numbers 14:18 when conversing with the Lord and remind the Israelites of it in Deuteronomy 5:8-10.
The people of God are clearly not meant to forget it. The Lord gives
his warning to parents in the specific context of committing idolatry
but there is a an obvious principle: children suffer for the iniquity of
their parents. Even outside of specific divine punishment, this is a
truism of which parents are generally aware. When a parent makes a bad
decision, be it sinful or merely stupid, his child will suffer the
consequences. Unfortunately, this truism is lost among a group of professional theologians, chief among them top Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, who recently drafted the Evangelical Leader Statement of Principles on Dreamers.
This statement advocates for immigration law amnesty in the cases of
certain children who were illegally brought into the United States by
their parents. While their outlook on government policy is debatable,
their clear flouting of biblical theology is completely unacceptable.
Their offense is summarized in a single sentence from their statement:

“We believe it is unjust to punish children for offenses they did not commit.”

How can this be so, if God has visited the iniquity of fathers on their children? Even if God no longer does it, he has done it. Justice
itself, in eternity past and going perpetually forward, is objectively
grounded in the nature of God. How can God have ever done something that
was unjust? Did Paul and Moses make false statements about God or did
the authors of the Evangelical Leader Statement of Principles on Dreamers, which does not include a single biblical citation, impugn the character of God?
In
the long history of the United States, immigrant parents have come to
this country to give their children a better life. This is true of
parents who have emigrated both legally and illegally. The logical
implication of the Evangelical Leader Statement of Principles on Dreamers
is that those parents who broke the law in an effort to give their
children a better life (despite any negative impacts on the children of
their neighbors) should be rewarded. Their children get to stay even
though they broke the law to bring them to the United States. The
parents did wrong; their children benefit because it’s apparently
“unjust to punish children for offenses they did not commit”. So, what
exactly is the consequence of the parents breaking the law? Their
children benefit and it’s unjust for the government to remove the benefit.

That’s hogwash.
How
is it that these leaders continue to be funded and given positions of
influence by Southern Baptists? Why are they given a platform to make a
patently unbiblical statement? Their sense of justice is obviously
grounded in a popular idea of human fairness and not the infallible word
of God. Southern Baptists should stop giving them money to contradict
the word of God to in the course of scoring political points.
*Please
note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily
the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church of which I
am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution
at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced
is done under the doctrine of fair use.

[Editor’s Note: JD Hall also explained the error of this, and compared the promises of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 to the promise of punishment upon children in Deuteronomy 6.
He elaborates more fully on the theological problems presented by the
claim that it is “unjust” to punish children for the sins of their
parents. You can see that post here]
_________________________________________________
 SEE ALSO: 

 http://polemicsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/16558947_10103170891754858_2076273678_n.jpg
 https://occamsrazormag.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/evangelicals-whining-over-immigration.jpg
Southern Baptists Cry Foul About DACA, 
Immigration Laws
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has become the shallow
remnants of what it once was. Now with a former Democrat staffer at the
helm, the ERLC has been busy promoting animal rights, racial disharmony,
Cultural Marxism, and has followed other liberal mainstream
denominations in fighting against immigration law.

George
Soros, who funds the Evangelical Immigration Table, an organization of
liberal Christians fighting border security, on which serves Russell
Moore

Russell Moore – who serves on the Evangelical Immigration Table funded by George Soros and called a border wall a “golden calf” – has begun a document petition at the ERLC, requesting that DACA be reinstated. Moore, who implied that Southern Baptists disagree
with President’s Trump’s temporary terrorist-nation immigration ban, is
busy fighting for his progressive-liberal agenda with the full faith
and 4 million-a-year backing of the Southern Baptist Convention.
DACA stands for “Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals” and refers to
President Obama’s decision in 2012 to not enforce standing immigration
law for those called “Dreamers,”
illegal aliens between the age of 18 and 35 who have been in the United
States more than five years and who were brought here illegally as
minors. DACA was not legislation, but “procedural law” of Obama’s
executive branch that essentially said it would use prosecutorial
discretion to simply not enforce immigration law. This presented a
Constitutional crisis, because even though law enforcement can exercise
discretion in deciding which individual cases to prosecute, they
typically have not essentially nullified legislation by applying that
discretion to entire classes or demographics of people. The Trump
Administration’s Department of Homeland Security rescinded Obama’s DACA
in September of this year on the grounds that it was an unconstitutional
power-grab by the executive branch of government.
Ironically, as President Trump’s DHS rescinded DACA, he said that he hoped congress would legally pass such an exemption
through the legislature. Virtually everyone – on both sides of the
political aisle – have said that they want to work out something similar
to DACA through the proper legislative (and constitutional) channels.
However, the social justice warriors at the ERLC and among the Evangelical Intelligentsia want to bleed their heart all over the blogosphere and signal their progressive virtue. The document says…

Biblically understood, a just system of law always has in
view human flourishing. We advocate for change to particular laws when
needed because of our respect for the rule of law. Many of us have
participated in our nation’s debate over immigration policy reform for
well over a decade, and these conversations within our churches about
the national immigration crisis have produced significant consensus
among members of our churches and communities.

“Human flourishing.” That’s the catch-all word used by the Jim
Wallis-wing of leftist Christianity. The document goes on to say, “We
believe Dreamers deserve to be recognized as our fellow Americans” and
calls on Congress to grant amnesty and a path of permanent Citizenship.
Signing the document include virtually all the names one would expect
to see from the inner-club of Intelligentsia, including DA Carson, Matt
Chandler, David Dockery, JD Greear, and newly minted Southern Baptist,
Greg Laurie. Other names include Rosaria Butterfield, whose most notable
accomplishment is having once been gay, and Karen Swallow Prior, a feminist and animal rights activist. Also signing is NAR charismatic, Samuel Rodriguez.
If you’re a Southern Baptist, do you agree with how your money is being spent and with the trajectory of the ERLC?

You can download the PDF here.
__________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:

ABOVE: “THE STRANGER” PROPAGANDA TRAILER 
BELOW: APOSTATE MAX LUCADO 
 THE FULL VIDEO:
 The Evangelical Immigration Table Exposed 
As Another Soros Front
EXCERPTS QUOTED VERBATIM, UNEDITED:

“EIT reportedly does not legally exist and is an arm of the George Soros funded National Immigration Forum,
which as a “neutral third-party institution” facilitated EIT’s $250,000
radio ad campaign urging Evangelicals to back mass legalization of
illegal immigrants.

So if the EIT is just a front, then what exactly is the National Immigration Forum? NIF received over three million dollars from Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) in 2009-2010 alone, as well as one million dollars from the left-wing Ford Foundation. Furthermore, Sojourners is also a recipient of Soros’ money, and their President and CEO, Jim Wallis, is prominent within EIT.
 EIT organized events on religious college campuses, primarily focusing on their “I Was A Stranger” campaign (which, if you haven’t seen it, is a truly masterful piece of emotional blackmail).
 But there remains the nauseating fact that some Evangelicals are
peddling a new sort of liberation theology to American Christians, aided
by a man who has actively supported and financed organizations that
directly go against Evangelical beliefs about marriage, abortion,
euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research.”
______________________________________________________
AND ALSO:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/02/pro-amnesty-christian-groups-receiving-1-billion-feds-double-syrian-refugees/ 
AND:
http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/ 
AND:
http://g92.org/ 

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS: ARE THE ERLC & TGC MERGING INTO ONE?

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS: 
ARE THE ERLC & TGC MERGING INTO ONE?
BY GIDEON KNOX
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

There are two primary engines driving the popularity of Social
Justice into the heart of quasi-conservative evangelicalism. Once
bulwarks for a solid Biblical worldview and stalwart defenders of the
Gospel, both organizations have experienced serious mission drift in
recent years. Both organizations have developed a penchant for
terminology from the social progressive lexicon, like “racial justice.”
Both use the term social justice in a positive, rather than
negative, way. The two organizations share board members. The two
organizations share regular contributors to their websites. While the
ERLC’s president, Russell Moore, was daily attacking Donald Trump, The
Gospel Coalition’s Thabiti Anyabwile was endorsing Hillary Clinton in a
brilliant and cooperative one-two punch. And now, they will share a
conference. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the Southern
Baptist’s ERLC and the cool kids at The Gospel Coalition are becoming
nearly indistinguishable.
The ERLC is now hosting
The Gospel Coalition’s Pre-Conference on April 3. The theme of the
pre-conference is,”Relentless: Gospel Courage in a Complex Culture,” and
is right up the alley of trajectory for both organizations, which have
shirked their prospective missions (ethics and religious liberty for the
ERLC, promotion of the Gospel for TGC) to become cultural commentators.
Their theme is typical and predictable, because it’s the mantra they’ve
been repeating for years; courage (or boldness or a “prophetic voice,”
you get the point) in culture, which typically means having the courage
to repeatedly side with social progressives, race-baiters and Marxists
and to treat conservative evangelicals like the enemy of all that is
good and pure.

Russell Moore is the president of the ERLC, and serves on the board of directors for The Gospel Coalition.
Joe Carter, who is the editor for The Gospel Coalition, is the “Communications Specialist” for the ERLC.
Karen Swallow Prior, the gay-friendly animal rights activist, and
feminist is a research fellow for the ERLC and a contributor The Gospel
Coalition.
Samuel James, a nepotistic, sycophantic hire at the ERLC, is now a contributor at The Gospel Coalition.
Daniel Patterson, the “chief of staff” at the ERLC is a contributor for The Gospel Coalition.

There are many more examples…Are you seeing a theme, here? While The
Gospel Coalition is a parachurch ministry that’s not really accountable
to any local churches, the ERLC is accountable to local
churches (in theory, not in reality) because it is a Southern Baptist
entity. Do Southern Baptists care if their entity is quickly merging
with an organization that allowed an explicit endorsement for Hillary
Clinton on their website? Should Southern Baptists be concerned that a
parachurch ministry seemingly has so much influence and control over
their entity?
One wonders if Southern Baptists are giving 4 million dollars to the
ERLC annually so they can help a non-denominational parachurch ministry
throw a party.

“LEVEL GROUND”: CHICK-FIL-A LISTED AS SPONSOR OF APOSTATE, HERETICAL “FAITH BASED” HOMOSEXUAL FILM AND ARTS FESTIVAL


CHICK-FIL-A LISTED AS SPONSOR 
OF “FAITH BASED” 
HOMOSEXUAL FILM AND ARTS FESTIVAL 

BY HEATHER CLARK
SEE: http://christiannews.net/2015/10/26/chick-fil-a-sponsors-faith-based-homosexual-film-and-arts-festival/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
An online petition has been launched over revelations that the popular evangelical-owned fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A has been listed as a sponsor of a “faith-based” homosexual film and arts festival.
Level Ground began as a student-organized event in 2013, and was touted as the “world’s first faith-based LGBT film festival.” It has since expanded to six cities across the country and includes not only film, but music, theater, visual arts, comedy, and various workshops with the goal of “elevating the public discourse around the otherwise polarizing topics of gender identity and human sexuality.”
“The Level Ground Festival draws a unique audience that reflects the full spectrum of religious (and non-religious) beliefs, gender identities, and sexual orientations,” the festival website outlines. “All denominations, theologies, beliefs, races, and ages are welcome.”
Earlier this month, the Level Ground Festival opened in Nashville, being sponsored by the pro-homosexual Gracepointe Church and Vanderbilt Divinity School, among others. The event featured panel talks that included former Contemporary Christian artist Jennifer Knapp, who came out as a lesbian in 2005 and went on to found a homosexual advocacy group, as well as folk musician Derek Webb, known for his song “I Repent” and his former role in the Christian group Caedmon’s Call.
Other attendees included Melissa Greene, formerly of the group Avalon and worship leader at Gracepointe, and Karen Swallow Prior of Virginia’s Liberty University.
But Level Ground has general sponsors as well, which the group has posted on its website. Included on the page among Whole Foods, Hilton Pasadena, and Stone Brewing Company is the popular fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A.
On Friday, a concerned Chick-fil-A patron launched a petition to bring the sponsorship to the attention of the company’s leadership.
“Per our research and findings, Chick-fil-A is a sponsor of ‘Level Ground’ … [a]nd upon further inquiry, your sponsorship of this organization supports pro-gay organizations … and many other groups that promote an agenda which is contrary to Chick-fil-A’s corporate stance on Christian values regarding marriage and stewardship,” the petition reads.
“In light of these findings, we ask that Chick-fil-A issues an official response regarding this sponsorship, along with any statement your team feels is necessary to clarify Chick-fil-A’s corporate stance regarding previously stated Christian values on marriage and stewardship,” it says.
As previously reported, Chick-fil-A came under fire in 2012 from homosexual advocates after President Dan Cathy spoke in favor of Biblical marriage.
“We are very much supporting of the family—the Biblical definition of the family unit,” he told the Baptist Press. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives,” he said. “We give God thanks for that.”
According to the Washington Post, Cathy had also stated on a radio broadcast that he believed that the promotion of homosexual “marriage” was evoking the wrath of God upon America.
“As it relates to society in general, I think we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’” he opined. “And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Cathy Tweeted, “Sad day for our nation. [The] founding fathers would be ashamed of our generation to abandon wisdom of the ages re: cornerstone of strong societies.” He later deleted the post.
Following uproar about the matter, including assertions that the company donates to organizations that oppose same-sex “marriage,” Chick-fil-A issued a statement outlining that it had never sought to donate to groups that speak against homosexuality, and that “[g]oing forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”
“For many months now, Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving has been mischaracterized,” the fast food chain wrote in a separate news release. “Our intent is not to support political or social agendas.”
Christian News Network reached out to Chick-fil-A for comment and explanation regarding its sponsorship of Level Ground, but a response was not received as of press time.
______________________________________________________
SPONSORS LIST: 
COMMUNITY PARTNERS:
MEDIA PARTNERS:
LEADERSHIP, MENTORS, THEOLOGICAL ADVISERS: 

LIBERAL LIBERTY UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR SUPPORTS COMMON CORE

SUCCUMBS TO DAVID COLEMAN;

SWALLOWS HIS “CHARM OFFENSIVE” 

WITH CHRISTIANS

Karen Swallow Prior

Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T.S. Poetry Press) and serves on the faith advisory council of the Humane Society of the United States. She and her husband, Roy, serve as deacons in their church and keepers of their 100-year-old homestead, where they live with their horses and dogs—and, more recently, Karen’s mom and dad.
See: http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/writers/karen-swallow-prior.html.
Prior’s article: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june-web-only/good-news-of-common-core.html?paging=off, reprinted in full, unedited here below:

The man behind the Common Core State Standards, a set of robust learning measurements that have the potential to change the state of American education, recently reached out to Christians to discuss the role of literacy in our society.
David Coleman, also the president of the testing organization the College Board, recognized that Christians, as a “people of the book,” would take a particular interest in the next generation’s ability to read, think, and understand texts. Coleman invited about a dozen Christian thinkers and scholars to join him for a two-day conference held this spring to discuss the challenges and implications of the new literacy standards for people of faith.
For while the development of reading skills is essential to college and career readiness (the mission of the College Board and the goal of Common Core), no one more than evangelicals can appreciate the importance to a people and a culture of the ability to read, and read well—or the devastating effects of being unable to do so.
From the carving of God’s commandments on stone tablets to the narratives and letters circulated within the early church, from the painstaking preservation of the scriptures at the hands of medieval scribes to the Protestant Reformation’s birthing of the printing press and the invention of the modern university, ours has been a faith centered on the Word—and words.
The Christian obsession with text is not only a part of our history—but something that continues to shape contemporary Christianity. We readily engage questions around biblical interpretation in deep ways, as we consider infallibility, inerrancy, context, hermeneutics, canonicity, and scriptural authority. Even in the 21st century, entire spectrums of denominations, doctrines, and practices center around our reading, studying, and understanding of Scripture.
Thus, despite my own skepticism toward the countless education reforms I’ve seen in almost 25 years of teaching, the Common Core reading standards hearten me not only as an educator, but more so as a Christian who recognizes the centrality of words to our faith.
The deep, reverent reading that we find so essential to the Judeo-Christian tradition is one of Coleman’s driving passions. And it is this passion that informs the reading standards of Common Core. So far, 45 states have adopted these new standards, which push for deeper, more applicable, concept-based understanding in reading and math.
At this point, if you’ve heard of Common Core, you’ve probably heard from the opposition. Critics complain that it’s a federal program (it’s not) or that it’s too dramatic and difficult a shift for our public education system. As a college professor, I can tell you such a rigorous approach is needed, even if it’s a struggle for teachers and students to adopt. My colleagues and I in higher education see the deficits in reading comprehension far too often in the college classroom. The kind of sustained, deep reading taught through Common Core will require more discipline—on everyone’s part—but the rewards will have exponential results.
The vision behind the literacy standards boasts that the skills taught through Common Core—engagement with literary and informational texts, critical reading, cogent reasoning—will apply beyond the classroom and workplace. It’s easy to see the parallels between these skills and the close reading and study of Scripture upheld by today’s evangelicals. The Common Core Reading standards require students to understand a text in deep and meaningful ways, prompting them to:
  • cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly
  • determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings
  • analyze how the parts of a text contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
Such an approach represents a sharp turn from the subjective reader-response methods of teaching reading that have trickled down over the past several decades. No longer will there be an emphasis on politicized readings over what texts actually say.
This kind of deep reading has been shown in recent research in the cognitive sciences to be an experience distinct from the more superficial decoding of words that comprises much of our daily reading. In fact, these studies demonstrate that deep reading cultivates the brain’s ability to feel empathy and makes readers “morally or socially better”—but only through the kind of slow, reflective reading the Common Core standards encourage.
Despite whatever bureaucratic or pragmatic difficulties the Common Core State Standards pose (and surely, there are some), evangelicals can take heart that others share our understanding of the significance of reading. “Reading is resonant,” Coleman explained during the meeting. “It’s not important just for academic life, but for work life and spiritual life, too.”
Indeed, the kind of careful readers the Common Core literacy standards seek to develop are exactly the kind of readers that people of a Word-based faith seek to cultivate, too: readers encouraged to develop command of textual knowledge, to ask reverent questions of the text, to rely on textual evidence making judgments and drawing conclusions, and to demonstrate these skills by producing their own skillful texts.
In short, the Common Core standards of reading promise to revitalize the fading art of reading well. For Christians, this is indeed good news.
Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D., is a professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me and a regular writer forHer.meneutics.
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Common Core Hurts Education, Biblical Knowledge

Jane Robbins answer to the Prior article above:
“David Coleman, the non-English teacher who wrote the Common Core national English language arts (ELA) standards, is conducting a charm offensive to persuade Christians to embrace the new national standards. According to Mr. Coleman, students “educated” under Common Core will be better readers and better able to understand Scripture, and thus will enjoy deeper and more satisfying spiritual lives. Quite a claim for any set of school standards – much less standards based on an arid view of workforce-training rather than true education.
The central organizing theme of the Common Core ELA standards is that study of creative literature must be diminished in favor of nonfiction “informational texts.” The idea is that students should be drilled in the types of documents they are more likely to encounter in their entry-level jobs (and make no mistake, Common Core is a workforce-development model, not an education model).
What is Coleman’s evidence that switching focus from classic literature to nonfiction (including Federal Reserve documents and the EPA’s “Recommended Levels of Insulation”) will create better readers? There is none. To the contrary, all the historical and empirical evidence confirms the opposite. As Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. Mark Bauerlein have shown, “classic literary texts pose strong challenges in vocabulary, structure, style, ambiguity, point of view, figurative language, and irony.” Isn’t this the kind of education students need to be able to understand Scripture – much of which, obviously, is constructed as stories, parables, and creative literature?
The premise that great literature creates great readers is validated by the Massachusetts experience. Massachusetts rejected the workforce-training model in 1993, embracing instead a reading curriculum rich in high-quality literature. This curriculum was incorporated even into the vocational high schools, so that students who chose that path would still be expected – allowed – to explore the classics. The result? Massachusetts SAT scores rose for 13 consecutive years beginning in 1993, and Massachusetts students routinely scored highest in the nation on national reading tests. Sadly, this was before Massachusetts jettisoned its high standards for Common Core.
When not trying to win over Christians, Coleman himself promotes a method of teaching that is greatly at odds with true Bible study. Coleman advocates “close reading” of a text, unencumbered by anything that might help the reader actually understand the text. For example, he has trained English teachers to present the Gettysburg Address “cold,” with no instruction about the historical situation, the purpose of the address, or the scriptural allusions, and no dramatic reading of the speech. Students are to consider it as merely a collection of sentences that fell from the sky and arranged themselves on a page.
Apply that technique to Bible study. Christians should read the Scripture closely, of course, but in isolation from the breadth of Biblical truth? How are we to truly understand Jesus’ teachings without reference to the Mosaic Law that came before? How is it possible to fully appreciate the instruction concerning, for example, marriage and family without locating it in the center of God’s covenantal love throughout Scripture? How can the poetry of the Psalms touch our hearts if it is severed from the deep faith – the souls — of the people who composed it? Or are the Psalms even worth our time? When has a supervisor asked any one of us to explain Psalm 37?
The fundamental problem with the Common Core approach is that, to achieve its job-training goals, it recognizes no difference between one “complex” text and another “complex” text. A great work of literature has value far beyond the complexity of the words used – it allows students to understand the eternal human condition; it allows them to confront human challenges that recur throughout the ages; it teaches empathy, prudence, forgiveness; it transports the readers to places and times not their own. The Common Core ELA standards are, quite simply, indifferent to this type of education. Training, not educating, is their goal. They are not interested in helping students become the people God created them to be; they are interested in creating workers.
So although Coleman argues that the ELA standards promote “slow, deep, reflective” reading, Christians should ask exactly what types of texts are being offered. Why does Common Core reduce the type of texts that can actually help develop good Christian men and women – and that comprise most of the Scriptures? “Recommended Levels of Insulation,” read slowly, deeply, and reflectively, is still “Recommended Levels of Insulation.” Students deprived of the great stories are less likely to embrace, fully, the greatest Story.”
Jane Robbins is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project.
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Shane Vander Hart responds to Prior’s article here:
http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2013/07/consider-the-bad-news-of-the-common-core/

NARCISSIST SOCIAL JUSTICE “CHRISTIAN” LEADERS EXPOSED~FREAK OUT OVER DOCUMENTARY CITING THEIR “OWN WORDS”

SEE DOCUMENTARY TRAILER AT:
QUOTE FROM ABOVE WEBPAGE:
“In 1979 the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) formally entered into the “Battle for the Bible” that was raging within North American evangelicalism. Over the next 15 years, the SBC was returned to its historic commitments on the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. Many of those who resisted this conservative resurgence were driven by religiously progressive convictions.
Their advocacy of ideals and positions that developed out of radical feminism and deviant sexualities were exposed and refuted by those holding to orthodox, Protestant and historic Baptist positions on the issues.
Now, 25 years after the clear success of the conservative resurgence, it seems like evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, are in danger of loosening their commitments to those basic, Christian commitments. Dangerous ideologies like Critical Theory and Intersectionality are gaining inroads into the thinking of some leaders, churches and organizations.
These ideologies are even being promoted among some evangelicals as reliable analytical tools that can assist our understandings and efforts in gospel ministry.
The result is that, in the name of social justice, many unbiblical agendas are being advanced under the guise of honoring and protecting women, promoting racial reconciliation, and showing love and compassion to people experiencing sexual dysphoria. 

By What Standard? God’s World, God’s Rules is a documentary that presses those questions by showing how godless ideologies are influencing evangelical thought and life.


Founders Ministries is producing this cinedoc to sound an alarm and issue a call for pastors and churches to stand firm against this onslaught by reaffirming the authority and sufficiency of God’s written Word. If we care about true justice—what God has revealed to be just—then we must stand against what is being promoted under social justice. If we care about the true gospel—the gospel revealed in the faith once-for-all-delivered to the saints—we must reject the agendas being promoted by godless ideologies.”
BIBLICAL DISCERNMENT REPLACED WITH 
GUILT & SHAME, COMPLIANCE, WORLDLINESS 
FOR CONGREGANTS
NARCISSIST SOCIAL JUSTICE “CHRISTIAN” LEADERS EXPOSED~FREAK OUT OVER DOCUMENTARY CITING THEIR “OWN WORDS” 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Southern Baptist leaders who are proponents of the leftist-oriented Social Justice Movement are absolutely irate at a 3.5-minute trailer for a new documentary citing their own words. Their behavior in social media after release of the trailer by Founders Ministries is best described as something halfway between sheer panic and an unbridled hissy fit.



The short trailer, giving insight into the documentary’s fuller content, shows fiery clips of Founder’s president, Tom Ascol – a Social Justice opponent – interlaced with video of SBC leaders who are widely recognized as Social Justice proponents.



THE CONTEXT



The documentary, called By What Standard, details the current skirmish over Social Justice, an ideology rooted in Marxism and tailored-fit for theists in the Western Hemisphere by Jesuits during the build-up to the First International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974. The wedding of Marxist principles tweaked at the Frankfurt School and western evangelicals was bolstered at that event mostly by the participation of John Stott and Billy Graham, two non-Catholics at the event. Both Stott and Graham used the World Council of Churches to promote the newly founded ideology of “Social Justice.” 

However, America’s conservative evangelicals rejected those efforts to Christianize Marxist principles until – so it seems – Tim Keller took part in the Third International Congress of World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010. Keller’s influence in Reformed evangelicalism has been sizable, especially since he founded The Gospel Coalition (TGC) in 2005. From its beginning, TGC’s left-of-center tentacles spread over the evangelical landscape, to include the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention. As that SBC entity and Keller’s TGC melded into a singular organization (they largely share council members, writers, speakers, and contributors), the ideology of Social Justice has spread far and wide in what was once America’s most conservative denomination. Soon, TGC council members would include the SBC’s most prominent names and entity heads, like Southern Seminary’s Albert Mohler, Southeastern Seminary’s Danny Akin, 9Marx’ Mark Dever, and others. Through these key leaders, the Southern Baptist Convention got ‘woke.’



THE CONTROVERSY



As SBC institutions – especially Southeastern Seminary – began to explicitly teach (and promote) the work of Black Liberation Theologian James Cone, promote Critical Race Theory and Identity Politics (inventions of Marxists inspired by Frankfurt School ideology that developed inside America’s law schools in the 1980s), speak in terms of “sexual minorities” and other identity-driven language, and promote gender egalitarianism – it caught the attention of conservative Southern Baptists, many of whom (but not all) are Calvinists, but of the more traditional or Confessional variety than those associated with TGC or the ERLC who are better called New Calvinists.



These concerned conservatives drafted and promoted The Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, which sought to distinguish between Social Justice and the Good News as preached in the Bible. Largely, that statement has proven to be a practical failure (or at least, unproven), as – thus far – the drafters of The Dallas Statement have refused to make Social Justice an issue large enough to divide over, even as they deride it as being toxically dangerous.



Two prominent Calvinist conferences – Shepherd’s Conference and G3 – hosted TGC board members as guest speakers, in spite of the fact that they are the de facto heads of the Social Justice Movement among Reformed evangelicals. Both made attempts to address Social Justice (G3 at a pre-conference event and Shepherd’s Conference with a Q&A). Both events failed to provoke fruitful interaction with Social Justice proponents, with the Shepherd’s Conference attempt at discussion going so poorly that its moderator, Phil Johnson, publicly apologized for its fruitlessness.



When the Dallas Statement was circulated, Albert Mohler said he disagreed with its content, but was not specific regarding with what he took exception. However, Mohler claimed that the statement would allow the opportunity for “fruitful discussion,” but it was a discussion he clearly was not willing to have at the Shepherd’s Conference or at any time, any place, or any occasion since the document’s publishing. Other TGC council members and SBC leaders like Mark Dever and Danny Akin have been equally slippery about where they stand on the issue. The closest point of clarity yet presented was by Albert Mohler, when he said at the Shepherd’s Conference Q&A that “Who I platform speaks for where I stand on the subject,” and given that Mohler platforms the most radical proponents of Social Justice in evangelicalism at both his seminary and at TGC, his position should be evident even in his silence.



THE CONFLICT



From the brief 3.5-minute-trailer, it appears that By What Standard seeks to clarify the position of Social Justice proponents in the SBC and contrast them with Social Justice opponents. The trailer was to-the-point, direct, and clear. If it’s any indication of the film itself, it will (we hope) pull no punches.



However, after the release of the trailer (which at this time cannot be embedded, so you will need to click the hyperlinks we provided above), the squirmy, squishy, Social Justice leaders of the SBC blew a proverbial gasket.
















Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary – which is rightfully perceived as the most radical Social Justice entity in the SBC – took to Twitter to condemn the film. Inexplicably, Akin made accusations about the film from assumptions not knowable from the trailer itself.

You may have to click and expand this to read it, if you’re viewing it from a mobile device.

Akin claimed that the trailer contained “edited footage,” which of course it did because it was 3.5-minutes-long. Akin also claimed – without any explanation whatsoever – that the trailer “misrepresented important issues and what leaders in the SBC actually affirm.” We find it interesting that after Akin was suckered into doing a promotional video for an atheist organization, he voiced no such regret in social media even after discovering he accidentally endorsed an anti-Christian ad campaign.



It’s unknown how Akin knows that the documentary misrepresented what leaders in the SBC affirm, who those SBC leaders are, or how their **own words on video** somehow misrepresented them. Akin is only present in a very brief portion of the trailer.



Albert Mohler also leaped in with an attack on Founders and its By What Standard documentary.



Again, the documentary trailer was 3.5-minutes-long and contained actual video footage of the “respected SBC leaders.” Mohler has not seen the full documentary, although he was present for interviews which he voluntarily engaged in and spoke candidly on the subject of Social Justice (which no doubt he regrets).



It should be pointed out that while Mohler said via Twitter that “we expect and deserve a respectful and honest exchange of ideas” that he has had more than a year to give us the “fruitful discussion” he promised us was coming from The Dallas Statement.



Mohler has not made a single attempt thus far to have an open and honest dialogue on the subject. The last time (and only time) he publicly spoke about the issue, he angrily snapped at Phil Johnson and refused to give his honest position on the subject.



One would argue that the Founders’ documentary is an attempt to honestly and respectfully exchange ideas on the subject, and Mohler is deriding it.



Even Kyle J. Howard, a radical racialist and leftist political activist who manufactured a false life story of victimization, got in on the documentary-bashing, denouncing whatever footage of him might be used in its production.



During one part of the documentary, Owen Strachan – who has vocally opposed Beth Moore’s attempts to change Southern Baptist views on women in church leadership – was speaking about their ideological opponents while background footage seemed to show a blurry image of Rachel Denhollander, a woman who suffered abuse at the hands of predator, Larry Nassar. Denhollander’s husband, Jacob, has largely capitalized on Denhollander’s abuse and turned her victimization into his own cottage industry, and made a virtual career of it. In doing so, Denhollander has taken questionable positions on a number of issues that intersect with Social Justice.



It is not known the intention of including Denhollander’s image during Strachan’s speech, but Mr. Denhollander began to wage an attack on Founders’ Ministries this afternoon (again, with whom he is already a staunch ideological opponent).

You may to need to click on this image and stretch it to view it if you’re using a mobile device.

Dwight McKissic, whose footage from a debate in which he advocated for female preachers was used in the trailer, was also outraged his own words were used to convey his own positions.



Founders’ has been repeatedly attacked in Social Media today by the proponents of ‘woke evangelicalism,’ incensed that the short trailer would seem to indicate that the documentary will use the words and videos of Social Justice proponents to adequately state their positions. Marxism and all of its ideological subsets require subtlety, secrecy, and subversiveness. Clarity is their enemy. It should be no surprise these Social Justice advocates are angry their positions will be clarified using their own words.



THE CHAOS TO FOLLOW



Reports are coming into Pulpit & Pen that certain Social Justice proponents highlighted in the film – some mentioned above – are threatening civil action against the documentary makers for including their own words, from both public videos and in interviews they knew they were being conducted (which were not seen in the trailer, but are planned for use in the documentary itself).



Founders Ministries is bracing for legal action by Social Justice proponents who desperately don’t want footage of their own words to be made public. Sadly, those Social Justice proponents may turn to litigation to get the footage concealed, Canerized, and canned.



Pulpit & Pen would like assurances from Founders Ministries that they will not cave to such pressure and bullying tactics from the Social Justice Guild and Latte Mafia. People need to know the truth as to where these leaders stand (as though Pulpit & Pen has not been documenting it for years).



If Founders will stand firm in their effort to provide a truthful, accurate, and honest documentary without kneeling to threats by elitist bullies, they will find a helpful and faithful ally in the discernment community.



_____________________________________________________________





SBC and Social Justice: A List of Links To Prove 



the Agenda is Real

SEE: https://pulpitandpen.org/2019/07/26/sbc-and-social-justice-a-list-of-links-to-prove-the-agenda-is-real/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:



This post is designed to provide an extensive but not comprehensive list of articles from Pulpit & Pen documenting SBC leaders pushing so-called “Social Justice” upon its membership. It is designed to be simple and straight-forward. 

The Problem: Social Justice is a term invented by South American Roman Catholic Priests and the churches affiliated with the World Council of Churches, combining Marxist ideology with Christian theology. It does not simply imply “doing justice.” It is a politically-loaded term with a well-established history and non-conspiratorial and verified founding in deeply unChristian ideas. 

The Claim: We assert that Southern Baptists would never have been promoting the type of leftist ideology they are now promoting if it weren’t for a fundamental shift in focus away from the Gospel and toward cultural appeasement. We believe this movement has been lead by SBC entity heads and “influencers” who are enamored with worldliness.



The Solution: The solution is for Southern Baptists to focus on preaching the Gospel, wrapped in a Biblical worldview. Idealogues and the propaganda being pushed by Southern Baptist elites must be rejected by believers in the pew. SBC churches need to leave (or stop cooperating) with the SBC until its leaders come to repentance.











The following links provide the evidence of how far leftward the SBC has gone politically, and how they have fully embraced Social Justice ideas that come from “vain philosophy and empty deceit” that the Apostle Paul warned us about.



Every link goes to a P&P article, and every P&P article contains hyperlinks to original and primary sources that substantiate our claims. Where necessary, screenshots are provided. 

Critics might say, “These all go back to Pulpit & Pen. I want a different source.” We cannot emphasize enough to click on the links provided in each article, and they will take you to an outside primary source. All it will take is a few clicks of your mouse. This research is being handed to you on a silver platter. You just need to click.



Titles may be changed for the sake of brevity or clarity.



Also, please keep in mind these links are not comprehensive. There are far, far more in the archives of Pulpit & Pen.



Finally, not all links may be about a Southern Baptist leader. Some may take you to articles about leaders of other organizations, like The Gospel Coalition. Please understand the connection between these organizations. like the mutual boards, contributors, speakers, and writers between TGC and the Southern Baptist Convention’s ERLC. Or, the article might be provided because its content addresses Southern Baptists, even if the title does not.



DOCUMENTING THE SBC PUSH FOR POLITICAL LEFTISM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE





SBC Elites Angry at Documentary Exposing Identity Politics in the Church











































































































































































Major Theological Errors in ERLC’s Statement on Immigration



If you have any questions about any individual in particular, please type their name in the search function of P&P. If you would like to help us fight Social Justice, click here.



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PRAGER U VIDEO: WAS JESUS A SOCIALIST?













Dissecting one of the secular Left's favorite arguments.



SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274401/prager-u-video-was-jesus-socialist-prager-university; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:



Did Jesus support socialism? Do the teachings of Jesus Christ condemn the accumulation of wealth while pushing for the equal distribution of resources? In the latest video from Prager University, Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains the misconceptions surrounding one of history’s greatest figures. Check out the short video below:

FEMINIST, SOCIALIST JORY MICAH DENIES INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE, DOUBLES DOWN BY DENYING THE TRINITY

 http://www.jorymicah.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/storm.jpg
JORY MICAH DENIES INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE, DOUBLES DOWN BY DENYING THE TRINITY
BY BRANDON HINES
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 

Jory Micah, a feminist theologian with deeply concerning theology,
took to Twitter to promote another doctrine of hers that should give us
concern. She Tweeted, “Jesus’ words are our primary source. Paul’s
words are our secondary source. Secondary sources are great, but not as
great as primary ones.” At first, this sounds like the heresy of Red
Letter Christianity, which proclaims that the words not directly said by
Jesus are less inspired than those that were. Karen Swallow-Prior
rightly inquired about this ambiguous statement:

Though inspired – Jory says – Paul and his writings were not
inerrant. One must question if she even understands what the word
“inspired” means. It refers to the fact that God was writing through
Paul (Or James, Jude, Luke, Moses, or any other Biblical human author).
If inspiration doesn’t necessitate inerrancy, then the Spirit who
inspired must not be infallible. As John Calvin said, “The highest proof
of Scripture is uniformly taken from the character of him whose Word it
is.” Any assault on the Bible is an attack on the character of He who
inspired it.

Jory continued to cite Jesus on the Sermon at the Mount saying, “You
have heard it has been said… but I say to you,” as evidence that the
Scriptures aren’t inerrant. What Jesus was not correcting was the
original meaning, but rather the distortion that had become the common
tradition of the Pharisees. At no point did Jesus speak against
something that the Holy Spirit inspired.

However, Jory did not stop at indirectly blaspheming God by attacking
His word. She continued to embrace the heresy of Modalism, which
confuses the persons of the Godhead by saying that they are all one
person. She said:

It is likely because of her rejection of inerrancy that she was able
to embrace many of the heresies she does in the first place, including
this blatant apostasy.

This line of Tweets reveals Jory as an Errantist, a Red Letter
Christian, and a Modalist. It puts her further at odds with the
Christian faith and shows that she is not a sound teacher, but rather
one who would attempt to secretly introduce destructive heresies.
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SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS:
https://ratherexposethem.org/2016/10/jory-micahs-false-feminist-socialist.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2017/04/jory-micah-sarah-bessey-christian.html 
https://ratherexposethem.org/2017/08/with-help-of-christian-feminists.html