BETH MOORE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO PREACH OR SHARE THE GOSPEL AT THE “PROTESTS”

SEE: https://pulpitandpen.org/2020/06/09/beth-moore-doesnt-want-you-to-preach-or-share-the-gospel-at-the-protests/;

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

Beth Moore has been relatively silent through most of the last week’s protests and riots, with only a few general comments here and there. She supports the protest, of course, and in fact, informs that many of the staff at Livin Proof Ministries have been marching, and she hopes to join them soon.

But as far as what those protesters will look like for Beth, what she thinks Christians should be doing once they are there, how we are to interact with others and what role our faith ought to play in our motivations for attending, we no longer have to guess.

There you have it. Nice to know that we have some clarity from Lifeway Superstar and darling of the SBC, Beth Moore.

If you think of the protests as a mission field where you might share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people you encounter there- don’t

If you’re going to “love on them”- don’t

If you’re going to lead people in prayer- don’t

If you want to be a “Christian voice in the crowd”- don’t

If you want to share God’s love- don’t

If you want to witness to people – don’t

Just be a warm body to march and fight violence and racism, but keep your Jesus and the Gospel out of it.

Of course, it should go without saying that this from advice from Kristen only applies to White Christians. If you are a Black Christian, you can go and preach the gospel, pray with people, share god’s love, witness, etc. If you’re not a person of color, then don’t even think about it.

 

 

THE CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE IS BOWING THE KNEE TO RACIALLY DIVISIVE RADICALISM

BY MANNY SILVA

SEE: https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/the-church-of-the-nazarene-is-bowing-the-knee-to-racially-divisive-radicalism/;

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

I am no longer a Nazarene.  I have primarily shifted my focus on pastoring my church and taking care of my family. So it’s been a while that I posted.  But when I saw the latest statement by an official Nazarene group, I was outraged and could not let it go.

My outrage is at the Church of the Nazarene leadership, and their continuing deviation from emphasizing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to a capitulation to divisive social justice politics, and now divisive racial politics. Instead of seeking to unite the church behind the Gospel of Jesus Christ, leaders in the church are bringing it further into chaos and confusion by choosing a stark political viewpoint based on skin color. The following Nazarene statement was written by the ‘Black Strategic Readiness Team’ of USA/Canada Region.  I was never aware that such a group existed!  Is there a ‘White Strategic Readiness Team’? In a church that serves the Lord Jesus Christ, and that preaches holiness, is there really a need for such polarization?

In the statement by this group (which probably does not even represent a majority of Nazarenes), assumptions are made which are insulting and condescending. Proposals are made which, ironically, are actually racist, as I will point out. Their statement as a whole is racially divisive, and will serve no purpose other than to further create a schism in the denomination that has been adrift for years now. No Christian denomination should be creating racial division, and yet this is what exactly has been done here.

You be the judge for yourself after reading the statement.  And we are not simply calling out this group, because surely this is with full approval of the General Superintendents.  Here are just a few of the disturbing issues I have summarized:

  1. The group recommends hiring on a National level a Chief Diversity Officer, and of course, the person must be “of color.” And he/she will have the authority to implement hiring quotas, based on… race!  This is racism.
  2. They also want to create a list of candidates for District Superintendent- based only on the color of their skin! Apparently the content of a pastor’s character will matter far less than the color of his skin. This is clearly racism.  Absolutely outrageous.
  3. From their document: “As a denomination, the Church of the Nazarene heralds a message of holiness and transformation but tends to remain comfortable with the status quo as the calls for racial justice ring through our congregations and communities.” This is such a polarizing statement. How do these folks come to the conclusion that the church is “comfortable with the status quo”?  And what is the status quo?
  4. They recommend that on the District level, “cultural sensitivity training” for all pastors and leaders be done. And… it must be led by a person of color!  Racism again! And what an insult to the many pastors who have faithfully served the Lord without a single bit of racism in their body and mind, to now ask them to be “re-trained?”.  What is the purpose? To make sure that all white Nazarenes are singing along with the same chorus of Black Lives Matter?
  5. They “affirm the significance of black lives”. They “affirm black lives matter.” They may not like this, but all lives matter! They are focusing on racial division. It will not go well.
  6. From their document: “…unjust and systematically unheard stories of unarmed Black and Brown people at the hands of those who are tasked to “protect and serve.” As many others are doing, they are seemingly lumping all law enforcement officers as being problematic, which would be a lie. It is a disrespect of those who work so hard to defend their very lives.These are just a few of the disturbing things in this document. But to summarize again, these people do not speak for the vast majority of honest, loving and totally non-racist Christians in the church.  They have bought into an idea which they feel is the only correct one, and that is that there is systemic racism in the country and in the church.  It is a lie, and there are countless blacks and other people of color who would disagree almost completely with this document. Many will say that they will not play the victim card, and that it is time to stop the racial division now in the church.

    So why is this racial division being exercised?  I believe these Nazarenes mean well, but they have made a huge mistake.  They have bought into the Marxist ideology of a hateful and terroristic organization (Black Lives Matter).  They have been duped by a tool of Satan. Instead of bringing the church together, they have helped further sow the seeds of division by emphasizing the color of one’s skin.

    A Phony Outrage

    Has this group ever expressed their concern for the thousands of blacks who die at the hands of other blacks in Chicago and other war-torn cities?  Has this group expressed their outrage at 1,000 black innocent babies that day on a daily basis? Has this group, or the church leaders, expressed outrage at the killing of police officers as a result of these protests and riots? Have they expressed outrage at the many blacks whose livelihoods have been destroyed- by other blacks! Has this group, and the General Superintendents, ever expressed outrage at ALL racism, including black on white racism?  Have they called out Black Lives Matter, a totally racist organization led by people who promote an unbiblical and Marist agenda?  No.  Instead, they shamefully stand with them. Sadly, I don’t see any evidence that they truly care about racial justice for all. 

    What a shame, and what an insult to God’s word. I am no longer a Nazarene, but as many others like me, I cry in my heart as this holiness denomination is becoming a tool of the radical leftist agendas, just as it has been captured by the emergent church ideology already. But there are no watchmen anymore at the top of the leadership, and so it’s up to the people in the pews to do something about it.

    And as Dr. Everett Piper stated recently regarding Black Lives Matter:

    “How can you stand with an organization that mocks God, denies the Bible, belittles men, demeans women and subjugates generations of black children to the dysfunction of fatherless families?  What is wrong with you?”  (Evangelical Pastors Pander to Black Lives Matter)

    —————-Here is the link to the full statement: 

    https://resources.nazarene.org/index.php/s/X8A8zQjoprHTJFB#pdfviewer

     Statement Toward Racial Justice and Righteousness Black Strategic Readiness Team – Church of the Nazarene USA/Canada June 5, 2020

    We, the Black Strategic Readiness Team of the Church of the Nazarene – USA/Canada Region, long to see our denomination better connect with and support Black communities, churches, and leaders throughout the United States and Canada. Be it known to all that we stand against racial injustice. We are personally affected and also caring for many who are affected by the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. We acknowledge that their deaths represent many similar unjust and systematically unheard stories of unarmed Black and Brown people at the hands of those who are tasked to “protect and serve.” Words cannot adequately express our heartbreak for families, churches, communities, and all of humanity in this season of communal grief and urgency.

    A national outrage ensued that has rapidly spread across the nation and many parts of the world. “Enough is enough!” is the wearied outcry reverberating through the streets of our cities as protesters and allies call for change, not only against another incidence of racial injustice, but against the structures and systems that have historically and continuously devalued and marginalized the lives of Black and Brown people. Indeed, the historical sin of racism is very much a present reality and challenge for the church to address. We are seeking more than a statement.

    The complex issues of racism are deeply ingrained in the fabric of our nation, and a mere statement does not alleviate the constant searing anguish Black families and communities continue to endure. As a denomination, the Church of the Nazarene heralds a message of holiness and transformation but tends to remain comfortable with the status quo as the calls for racial justice ring through our congregations and communities. We acknowledge those who recognize and empathize with our raw pain, and we recognize our denomination’s Manual statement against racial “discrimination.” However, this is a crucial moment for the Church of the Nazarene to make commitments toward real change. We sense the need to move toward prayerful, thoughtful, and expeditious action.

    Our denomination’s growth in righteousness and justice must not be separated. Let us take seriously the Word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Isaiah: Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6) We ask leaders and congregations in the Church of the Nazarene to commit to breaking the chains of racial injustice. Join us in both lament and advocacy: We lament. We lament that racism continues to narrate the nation and negatively affect Christians’ imagination of what is possible. With the Psalmist, we cry out, “How long, O Lord?” We plead for the Holy Spirit to open calloused hearts and closed minds. We plead for the Holy Spirit to make the truth plain to those accustomed to finding their away around the Way of Jesus.

    Amidst this lament, we recognize that God has given human beings agency to participate in the Way forward and has empowered the church to bear witness to the kingdom of God here and now.

    We stand. We stand with every church and pastor who continues to trumpet the call for true justice and peace. We stand in alignment with God’s heart for justice to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18)

    We affirm. We affirm God’s call to holiness of heart and life, which necessarily includes a commitment to racial justice. God chose the oppressed Hebrew community. God also identified with the oppressed people of Nazareth. We are called to illuminate the lives of people who have been systematically devalued in the United States. Affirming the significance of black lives is an essential way of resisting the evil fist of an unjust and prejudiced system that capitalizes on the suffering and death of Black people. We affirm that Black lives matter.

    We call. We call on the church to welcome and support courageous conversations about race and take bold action against racism in America and the Church of the Nazarene. This includes reflection upon the way racial injustice may be linked to other forms of injustice and will take commitment and intentionality from all levels of our denomination.

    We seek. We seek unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We seek the peace of our communities. We seek shalom for all, recognizing that we can no longer settle for false notions of amity and

    reconciliation. True peacebuilding requires the uncomfortable work of unmasking and naming oppressive power structures as well as embracing the diligent work of change.

    We, hereby, recommend the following immediate action steps as we engage in longer-term planning:

    Action Steps on the National Level

    1. The General Board should facilitate an honest conversation with church leaders at every level about systemic racism in the Church of the Nazarene.
    2. The General Church (GMC) should hire a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) of color for the USA/Canada region. He/she must be a member of the senior leadership team and be given full authority/power to enact hiring practices and recommendations and to ensure their implementation. He/she must also work with District leaders on developing objectives to ensure that districts reflect the diversity of their locality at every level.
    3. The General Superintendents should include and recommend on their short list qualified persons of color to fill District Superintendent vacancies in the USA/Canada region.

    Action Steps on the District Level

    1. District Superintendents and DAB (District Advisory Board) should conduct ongoing cultural sensitivity & diversity training for all local pastors and leaders. This training should be led by someone of color, preferably from outside the district.
    2. During pastoral assessments, District superintendents should openly engage the local church board/congregation about racial injustice in their congregation.
    3. The (DAB) should reflect the cultural diversity of the district that it serves.
    4. District Superintendents and DAB’s should develop relevant action steps aimed at increasing the presence of Black leaders and churches of color.

    Action Steps on the Local Level

    1. Pastors should intentionally address the challenges that people of color face.
    2. Pastors/church boards should promote and encourage intercultural activities.
    3. Pastors should seek opportunities to exchange pulpits with ministers of color who are in harmony with the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness.
    4. The local church and leadership should develop a plan for the church to reflect the diversity of the community at large and provide resources and support to its constituency.
    5. Churches should promote and provide a platform for open dialogues on racism with children, youth and young adults.

    Action Steps for Black Pastors and Leaders

    1. Pastors should encourage their parishioners to exercise their right to vote.
    2. Pastors should seek opportunities to exchange pulpits with Anglo pastors and ministers who are in harmony with the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness.
    3. Pastors should seek opportunities to preach about racial harmony, justice and a proper response to unjust treatment (e.g. nonviolent direct action, voting, participation in police merit boards, etc.…)
    4. Pastors/churches should open their doors to community forums that address their community’s racial disparities (i.e. health, economic, education, etc.)
    5. Pastors, church leaders, and parishioners should participate in District and General church activities throughout the year. May we move together toward racial justice and righteousness as we seek to bear witness to the kingdom of God here and now. May we move with faithfulness and urgency.

    Grace and peace, Dr. Charles A. Tillman, Facilitator Rev. John Wright Rev. David Solomon Dr. Sidney Mitchell Dr. Montague Williams Rev. Dianne Bonner Rev. Althea Taylor Min. Cassandra Trotman

 

SOUTHERN BAPTIST PRESIDENT TO JOIN PRO-GAY MILITANT ANARCHY GROUPS IN NORTH CAROLINA TO PROTEST THE GOVERNMENT

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/06/08/southern-baptist-president-to-join-militant-anarchy-groups-in-nc-to-protest-the-government/;

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

Raleigh, North Carolina is home to Summit Church, which is subsequently home to the Southern Baptist Convention’s current president, JD Greear. For those of you who don’t know who Greear is, he is the symptom of a massive influx of leftism in the denomination.

Greear is now promoting an initiative by one of his underling pastors, Michael Georges Jr. who is leading a team from Summit Church to join with militant anarchy groups like the pro-LGBTQ Black Lives Matter and domestic terrorist group, ANTIFA to protest the government. While we support the Constitutional right to peacefully assemble, this protest has clearly devolved into anything but peaceful and has accomplished nothing but more chaos, destruction, vandalism, and even death — clearly something the Church has no business being involved in. Yet, for woke social justice warriors like Greear, their pet cause of social justice has once again overshadowed the mission of the Church by officially supporting from the Church platform an organized protest against the civil government.

The call to “protest and pray” while “lamenting” can be reduced to effeminate white people virtue-signaling while getting down on their knees and apologizing for their “white privilege” — a concept heavily promoted by Greear and the vast majority of his colleagues in the denomination. After the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, JD Greear had a pro-abortion feminist and a Sunday School teacher at his church write up a statement lamenting “white privilege” and several hundred Summit church members signed the statement. Let that sink in.

All Christians believe in justice and all Christians should speak up for the injustice of those who don’t receive it. But the Southern Baptist Convention has proven to be nothing more than a Democrat social activist platform and they are using the tragic deaths of these people to advance an ideology that has no business in the Church.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/06/08/sbc-leaders-marching-with-violent-anarchist-groups-essential-corporate-worship-is-not/

https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/06/05/southern-baptist-leader-ed-stetzer-marches-in-antifa-black-lives-matter-protest-in-chicago/


DAVID CLOUD: QUESTIONS FOR ANTIFA, BLACK LIVES MATTER

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/questions_for_antifa_black_lives_matter.php;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
June 8, 2020
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
Stacks Image 18268
The demonstrations and rioting following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minnesota policeman represent a diverse group of people, but Antifa and Black Lives Matter are front and center.

Black Lives Matter (BLM), a social media creation by three women in 2013, has grown into “an international human rights movement that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.” Observe that they are against, but not for. Black Lives Matter claims that “virulent anti-Black racism permeates out society,” that America “continues to thrive on the brutal exploitation of people of color,” that “structural oppression prevents so many from realizing their dreams.” They claim that blacks are routinely “de-humanized” and rendered “powerless at the hands of the state” and targeted for “extrajudicial killings ... by police and vigilantes.” They claim that America is a “white supremacist system.” Black Lives Matter is closely aligned with Marxist-Leninist and anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian organizations.

Antifa stands for “anti-fascist,” but it acts like textbook fascism. Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime that EXALTS NATION AND OFTEN RACE above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and FORCIBLE SUPPRESSION OF OPPOSITION.” That does not describe America, but it describes Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Just try to oppose them in any way and see what happens. Originating in Germany, Antifa’s red and black flag represents anarchism and communism. Anarchy is “the absence of government, a state of lawlessness,” “political disorder and confusion,” “chaos,” “a group of people that totally rejects a set hierarchy,” “ruthless self-help,” “war as normal,” “a situation in which there is no organization and no control.” Antifa’s web site vaguely speaks of “organizing against racial and economic injustice.” Again, they are against but not for, tearing down but not building up. Antifa’s supporters “subscribe to a range of left-wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism” (“Antifa,” Wikipedia).

These ill-defined organizations are getting support from high-placed politicians, international corporations, even Christian leaders. Former President Barack Obama has spoken in favor of Black Lives Matter. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer marched with Black Lives Matter in Detroit. Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a knee at a Black Lives Matter rally in Ottawa. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had Black Lives Matter painted onto a street near the White House. Apple replaced its home page with a black screen and a link to a message by CEO Tim Cook, insinuating that America is a racist nation and blaming the problems of the black communities on systemic racism. Joel Osteen, pastor (so-called) of America’s largest church (so-called), marched with Black Lives Matter in Houston. Southern Baptist leader Ed Stetzer, Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, marched with Black Lives Matter in Chicago. Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz proudly posted a video of his daughter screaming rage at police at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in New York City.

Do Cook and Trudeau and Whitmer and Osteen and Stetzer and Lentz, et al, know what these people want? Property valued at many millions of dollars has been destroyed. People have been beaten, murdered. Police have been assassinated. They have been forced to stand by while mayhem is committed on communities. Their hands have been tied from effective policing. Violence in black communities has increased.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HELP BLACK PEOPLE IN A POSITIVE WAY?

Antifa and Black Lives Matter, what exactly have you done to build up the black communities? What have you done to stop black people from murdering black people at an unprecedented rate? What have you done to stop Planned Parenthood from murdering 91,000 black babies every year? What have you done to eliminate the drug culture that is devouring black lives like an insatiable monster? What have you done to help single black mothers raise their children? What have you done to build up black families so they don’t continue to produce generation after generation of delinquents? What have you done to stop hate and to help people love one another? What have you done to stop the victimization mentality that has enslaved generations? What have you done to help create order and peace? What have you done to communicate with the police to create better understanding and a better environment for everyone? What have you done to stop violent gangs that prey upon black people? What have you done to lift up the economic prosperity of black communities? How many jobs have you created?

Other than criticize and spew out cursing and bitterness and create mayhem and cause division, what have you done to contribute to man’s plight? You have proven that you can tear down, but what have you built? America’s founding fathers did the hard work of nation building. What nations have you built? What just cities and communities have you built? Where is the showcase community that Antifa and Black Lives Matter have built?

WHY DON’T YOU GIVE AMERICA CREDIT?

Why are you lying about America? Why do you charge America with a systemic racism that clearly doesn’t exist? From its inception, a large percentage of Americans were opposed to slavery. Eventually, America fought a terrible civil war to grant the black man his freedom, and he was granted freedom. England and America were at the forefront of destroying the slave trade and liberating black slaves in an era when it was almost universally accepted. America has passed unprecedented Civil Rights legislation. America has black governors and black congressmen and black judges and black supreme court justices and black mayors and black sheriffs and black police captains and black police by the thousands. America has had a black president who won two terms. American blacks have more than $1 trillion in buying power (blackenterprise.com). America is not the white supremacist nation that you claim. It is a myth. It is a lie. To make such a claim is ridiculous on its very face. There is irrefutable evidence that the vast, vast majority of America’s police forces and courts are not populated by racists who hate black people and are daily itching to oppress them. Why are you lying? Why are slandering America? What is your real agenda?

WHY DO YOU REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE BLACK COMMUNITY’S OWN RESPONSIBILITY?

Who is to blame for the single mom, absentee father culture, the wife abuse culture, the drug culture, the gang culture, the rape culture, the murder culture, the abortion culture? Black Lives Matter calls for more government spending. Since Lyndon Johnson announced his socialistic “war on poverty” in 1964, America has spent about $45 trillion on welfare, and the largest part of that has gone into black communities. In 2020 alone more than $8 trillion will be spent on welfare (www.usgovernmentspending.com). It is never enough. The problems have increased with the spending. Even when the majority of a city or community government is black, the buck never stops there.

WHY DO YOU HATE BLACK PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUPPORT YOUR AGENDA?

A great many blacks don’t support your agenda, but they are viciously slandered by you. You try to censor and shout down their voices. If Black Lives Matter, why don’t black voices matter? Why are you against freedom of belief and freedom of speech for black people? Why do you support the ridiculous principle that if you don’t vote Democrat you aren’t really black? Why does everyone have to march to your tune?

Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks says the recent violence has set his black community back decades. “We worked tirelessly to turn around the city's most violent neighborhood, only to see it burned and looted. All of the CVS and Walgreens buildings were looted. The result is that we no longer have a pharmacy in our neighborhood. The grocery stores were also looted, leaving us without options to purchase local food. The question lingers on many of our minds: Will these stores and pharmacies—so essential for daily living here—ever come back? ... Liberal politicians in Illinois and across the country have fanned the flames of anger over the past several years. Their policies and worldview emphasize government as the solution to all problems, except, paradoxically, when we need police. Our mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has been unable or unwilling to put a stop to the violence in the streets of our home city, in part because she has been unable to offer a strong defense for good law enforcement agents doing the necessary work of making our neighborhoods livable. Lost in the liberal messaging is the reality that the foundation of our society is the rule of law. The tragic killing of George Floyd reminds us that we need better training and screening for police officers. But the vast majority of the law enforcement agents in our nation advance racial equality, and help black Americans participate in the American dream. ... Violence is rampant in Chicago, and it has nothing to do with isolated incidents of police brutality. Over Memorial Day weekend, ten African-Americans were shot and killed in drive-by shootings. ... We need justice in the George Floyd case, and we need assurances that these hateful acts will not take place again. At the same time, we need partnerships with the police so they will help us re-establish law and order in our neighborhoods. Democrats, however, cling to wrongheaded rhetoric that does nothing to stop the destruction of our homes. It is no coincidence that the most violent looting and destruction took place this past week in cities heavily controlled by Democrats” (“Chicago Pastor,” The American Conservative, June 4, 2020).

WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU WANT FROM AMERICA?

Antifa and Black Lives Matter, what do you want? Do you want no police forces? Black Lives Matters’ web site calls for defunding the police. What exactly does this mean? How do you propose to make people safe in their personal lives, their homes, their businesses? Will Black Lives Matter and Antifa protect them? Will social workers and welfare administrators protect them? Do you want no laws, no courts? Do you want the liberty to commit mayhem without consequence? If you want laws, exactly what laws? Do you believe in the U.S. Constitution? The Bill of Rights? If not, with what would you replace them?

WHAT COUNTRY IS BETTER THAN AMERICA?

You demand a perfectly just nation from people who are inherently selfish and morally corrupt. The Bible is right when it says, “There is none righteous, no, not one,” and, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:1023). That is the man of color and the man of no color. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). That’s every man’s heart.

What nation in ancient history was better than America? The Egyptians? the Babylonians? the Hittites? the Phoenicians, the ancient Chinese? the Greeks? the Assyrians? the Olmecs? the Mayas? the Aztecs? Vedic India? the Bantus or Noks or Yorubas? the Mongols? the Delhi Sultanate? the Mughals? the Persians? the Romans? the Sasanians? the Byzantines? the Berbers? the Umayyad Caliphate? Al-Andalus? the Franks? the Vikings? the Ottomans? Tutor England? the French? the Spanish? Imperial Germany? the Russian Empire? Where in history is that wonderful nation that you are demanding where everyone is treated with perfect justice and equality and the government provides everything for everyone? In most of the ancient nations we have listed, half and more of the inhabitants were pure slaves with zero rights. Their masters could treat them however they pleased, even unto death.

What nation of more recent history is greater than America? If America is so terrible, why have millions upon millions of people flocked there from the far-flung regions of the earth? Why haven’t they flocked to Zimbabwe? Sudan? the Barbary Coast? Ethiopia? Nicaragua? Brazil? Mexico? Denmark? Japan? Egypt? India? the Soviet Union?

How about China? That is a pure socialist nation. It should be an Antifa/BLM hog’s heaven. What about social justice in China? Internet access and social media are strictly censored. Christians and Muslims are oppressed. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press. Legal rights are non-existent in practice. How does China treat its minorities? Their abuse of the Uighurs is so wretched that it has been labeled genocide. How does China treat the opposition? Do they have plenty of rights? Are they coddled? No, they can be tortured and summarily “disappeared.” Chinese people have only one right, and that is the right to do whatever the government says and to believe whatever the government demands. Do the Chinese police and military treat demonstrators with kid gloves? No, they run over demonstrators with tanks and machine gun them. Estimates of the death toll of the Tiananmen Square Massacre run from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded and imprisoned. Is there economic equality in China? No, it is a land of the grossest inequality. China has 2.3 million millionaires, but 600 million Chinese live on $35 a week (“China’s Premier Acknowledges Serious Economic Crisis,” The Epoch Times, May 30, 2020). Why doesn’t Antifa/BLM have offices in China?

America is deeply imperfect, but what nation is greater in liberty, opportunity, economic prosperity, and justice? I’ve lived half of my 70 years overseas, traveled to 40 nations, and I haven’t found a better one than America. They all have deep problems, because the inhabitants are all sinners like the Bible says.

Millions upon millions of Americans, including millions of blacks, are working hard to make America better. They aren’t crying victimization. They aren’t killing policemen and laughing about it. They aren’t tearing down, they are building up. They are building businesses, manufacturing things, transporting, farming, creating jobs, parenting, grand-parenting, operating America’s great health care system, saving unborn babies, feeding the hungry, working to liberate those in bondage to drugs and alcohol, doing the work of science and invention, working with troubled youth, aiding troubled marriages, helping single moms, adopting orphans, active in politics, educating, governing, manning the courts, policing, protecting the people from thieves, charlatans, rapists, arsonists, and murderers, maintaining safety on the highways, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, teaching God’s Word.

Why are people marching with Antifa and Black Lives Matter and “taking a knee” with them without clear answers to such questions?


 

 

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” RECENT ARTICLES

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” RECENT ARTICLES

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/21-23.php;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
PESTILENCES AND LOCUSTS - IS IT THE END OF THE WORLD? (Friday Church News Notes, June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 
The coronavirus pestilence has caused a reported 365,000 deaths worldwide. At the same time, a locust plague is devouring tens of thousands of acres of cropland 
and pasture in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, and India. “In Kenya, the locusts are eating in one day the amount of food consumed by all Kenyans in two 
days” (“Locusts attack crops,” The Times of India, May 26, 2020). “Iranian officials say the current swarm has already attacked more than 494,000 acres of orchards 
and farmland in seven of Iran’s 31 provinces, and caused damage exceeding $7 billion” (Israel Today, May 23, 2020). But this is not the Day of the Lord. The wars 
and pestilences and locusts of the Day of the Lord will make the current problems seem like a picnic. At the very beginning of the Day of the Lord one-fourth of the 
earth’s population will die from “sword, hunger, and death [pestilence]” (Revelation 6:8). Currently the world population is 7.8 billion, so the death toll would be 
2 BILLION! Global health care and emergency systems will be completely overwhelmed. The locusts of the Day of the Lord that are described in Revelation 9 are 
not ordinary locusts. They are demonic. They don’t hurt the grass of the earth, they attack men with a tormenting sting like a scorpion, but the torment lasts five 
months and is so terrible that men will “desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Revelation 9:5-6). There will be no vaccination. After this, one-third of the 
remaining world population will be killed by a rampaging two million-man army spewing out fire and brimstone (Revelation 9:16-19). That will be another 
1.7 BILLION. And those are only some of the judgments that will fall on the earth during the Day of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ described it as follows: 
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, 
there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Mt. 24:21-22).

TWITTER EXECUTIVE WHO IS CENSORING PRESIDENT TRUMP IS MASSIVELY BIASED AGAINST CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL VIEWS (Friday Church News Notes, 
June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Twitter’s “Head of Site Integrity,” Yoel Roth, boasts of being in charge of “developing and 
enforcing” Twitter’s censoring rules. Twitter placed a warning label on two of President Trump’s tweets concerning mail-in balloting on May 26 and a tweet about 
the racial violence in Minneapolis on May 29. Roth should not be in charge of such things. He is a braggart who is incredibly biased against conservative thinking. 
“Roth has previously referred to Trump and his team as ‘ACTUAL NAZIS,’ mocked Trump supporters by saying that ‘we fly over those states that voted for 
A RACIST TANGERINE for a reason.’ ... Roth compared senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels” (“Twitter exec,” Fox News, 
May 27, 2020). Roth has no business doing this type of thing, but, in fact, no one at Twitter should be censoring political speech. Who has appointed Twitter as a 
speech censor or “fact checker”? Our concern here is not politics. Our concern is freedom of speech in an age when the majority of social media is owned by a few 
extremely biased, activist-oriented, anti-Christian companies. If they will censor the President of the United States, they will definitely censor you.

FACEBOOK CEO CRITICIZES TWITTER’S WARNING LABELS ON TRUMP’S POSTS (Friday Church News Notes, June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 
866-295-4143) - Mark Zuckerberg went on record criticizing Twitter’s decision to apply warning labels on President Donald Trump’s posts. Zuckerberg told Fox News’s 
“The Daily Briefing” that privately-owned digital platforms should not act as the ‘arbiter of truth. We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe 
strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform 
companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.” To that we say a loud Amen! But Facebook has a massive censorship program. It has 15,000 “content 
moderators” who search through Facebook pages and determine whether or not the content is acceptable. In December 2018, a Facebook employee “leaked more 
than 1,000 pages of documents detailing its content moderation policies and how it polices speech on a global scale” (“After Facebook apologizes for ban,” Fox News, 
Dec. 31, 2018). In December 2018, Facebook temporarily blocked Franklin Graham’s Facebook account because in 2016 he supported North Carolina’s state law HB2 
that banned cities from requiring businesses to allow transsexuals to use the bathroom of their choice (“After Facebook apologizes for ban,” Fox News, Dec. 31, 2018). 
One of Facebook’s 15,000 “content moderators” judged this to be “dehumanizing language,” which shows how much they have capitulated to the homosexual rights 
agenda. Simply to speak out in support of a state law is considered some kind of hate toward homosexuals. Graham said the social network is “trying to define truth. 
They’re making the rules and changing the rules. Truth is truth. God made the rules and His Word is truth. Actually, Facebook is censoring free speech. The free 
exchange of ideas is part of our country’s DNA. ... I think it was just really a personal attack towards me” (Ibid.). In December 2018, Facebook censored pro-life 
advocate Obianuju Ekeocha who had posted a link to an article about her pro-life work. Facebook said it “goes against our community standards” (“Big Problems with 
Big Tech,” The Stream, Dec. 20, 2018). Obviously Facebook’s “community standards” support the murder of unborn children. Recently Facebook and Instagram 
(owned by Facebook) have threatened to ban permanently the account of Olga Shirnina, a professional German-Russian translator and one of the world’s best 
colorizers of historic black-and-white photos. Why? For posting beautifully colorized photos of historic World War II events such as the iconic photo of Russian soldiers 
raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. It’s a ridiculous policy, to say the least. Anyone who can’t distinguish properly between the promotion of 
violence and violent organizations today and the innocent posting of historic photos has no business in the role of censor.

CHINA FORCES SCHOOL TEACHERS TO RENOUNCE CHRISTIAN FAITH (Friday Church News Notes, June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 
866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Teachers Forced to Renounce,” Bitter Winter, May 18, 2020: “After President Xi Jinping stressed during a national 
education conference on September 10, 2018, that the fundamental task for education is to train builders and successors of socialism, the pressure on teachers to 
indoctrinate students increased significantly. In June last year, a primary school in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang threatened to dismiss a teacher after 
finding out that she also preached in a house church. She was told to stop doing that, or the government would punish the entire school. In August, authorities 
investigated a kindergarten teacher in Shenyang, the capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning, because she is a practicing Protestant. She was forced to quit 
her job. In November, Chen Qiufa, the CCP Committee secretary of Liaoning Province, demanded to suppress ‘religious influences’ on teachers and students at a 
meeting for Party members and provincial government officials. In December, at a training event for local Party members in Liaoning’s Anshan city, participants were 
demanded to carry out ‘four investigations’— scrutinize schools, teachers, students, and their actions—to ensure that no CCP members, teachers, and students in 
kindergartens, primary or middle schools hold religious beliefs. Similar measures have been implemented at the end of last year in many counties and cities in the 
northeastern province of Heilongjiang and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A teacher from the eastern province of Shandong told Bitter Winter that last July, 
local education departments carried out investigations targeting newly employed middle school teachers. The primary focus was to find out if they hold religious beliefs 
and support the Communist Party.”

LOVERS OF PLEASURES CHURCHES (Friday Church News Notes, June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Paul’s prophecy of the last 
days in 2 Timothy 3 describes apostates as “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Ti. 3:4). This is a perfect description of last days society, which is 
pleasure mad. There has never been more economic prosperity and there have never been more avenues for pleasure. Even most professing Christians love 
pleasures more than God. There is some love of God, but there is more love of pleasure. Consider the test of time. How much of one’s time is spent on God 
compared with how much is spent on pleasures? Consider the test of money, energy, and enthusiasm. A great many Christians, even in the staunchest Bible-
believing churches, are as sports mad as the secular crowd. Christian youth are as much in love with video games and rock & roll and hip hop and mature-rated 
movies and Facebook self-expression as the secular crowd. Consider the typical church’s calendar, which is filled to the brim with entertainment, not only for 
children and teens, but also for the “senior citizens.” Over the pleasure program is a thin veneer of God. Think of the average evangelical or even “fundamentalist” 
Christian home. There is a little prayer, a little Bible, a little evangelism, a little ministry, perhaps, but there is a whole lot of pleasure. This is accepted as normal 
Christianity, but it is actually apostasy.

DEPRAVITY: FBI CELEBRATES GAY PRIDE MONTH; THE RELIGIOUS CULT OF SEXUAL PERVERSION

DEPRAVITY: FBI CELEBRATES GAY PRIDE MONTH; THE RELIGIOUS CULT OF SEXUAL PERVERSION

SEE: https://dojpride.org/

AND: https://www.loc.gov/lgbt-pride-month/about/

fbi gay pride

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/06/02/fbi-celebrates-gay-pride-month/;

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

So much for abandoning state-sponsored religion. The United States government is now promoting the religious cult of sexual perversion, also known as “gay pride.” In the name of “diversity” and “inclusion,” the taxpayer-funded FBI is celebrating, according to their own words, “the contributions that our LGBT colleagues have made to our country and mission.”

It wouldn’t be funny if this were a joke, but the fact that it’s real just makes this even worse. Exactly what contributions have homosexuals contributed to our country and mission? Sexual depravity? A normalization of a movement that is completely and totally destructive to society? Disease? Not to mention the LGBT movement is diametrically opposed to the worldview this country was founded upon.

Nonetheless, our once-great country is going down the abyss of depravity only to be remembered in textbooks many centuries from now as the country that once stood as a shining light in a largely uncivilized world.

FBI

@FBI

At the FBI, we know that diversity makes us stronger. During , the FBI celebrates the contributions that our colleagues have made to our country and our mission.

A graphic featuring Lady Justice, the FBI seal, and text that says, "LGBT Pride Month June 2020."
4,278 people are talking about this

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” — Romans 1:28


GAY PRIDE MARCHES CANCELED, SO JOEL OSTEEN MARCHES WITH ANTIFA & BLACK LIVES MATTER IN HOUSTON INSTEAD

GAY PRIDE MARCHES CANCELED, SO JOEL OSTEEN MARCHES WITH ANTIFA & BLACK LIVES MATTER IN HOUSTON INSTEAD

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/06/03/pride-marches-canceled-so-joel-osteen-marches-with-antifa-and-black-lives-matter-in-houston-instead/;

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

In the midst of outright chaos across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, anarchy has broken out in cities all over the country. Stores are being looted. Buildings are being burnt to the ground. Cops are being murdered. And complete and total destruction is the end goal of far-left activists like Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA who, for the most part, are running the show in these city streets.

Despite the fact that there are a few peaceful protesters, it is undeniable that these protests are not peaceful. And in the midst of the complete and total act of defiance against law and order, anyone in these streets marching with these people should be seen as participants. Their very presence is an act of approval of what is taking place — even if you speak against it.

From a Christian perspective, it is normally best to disassociate from chaotic rebellion against government–especially when the cause has devolved from a righteous movement to an unrighteous power grab with an end goal of the destruction of Western civilization. But, Joel Osteen is not a Christian — so what should we expect?

Joel Osteen — a fake pastor and pretend Christian — has, however, been spotted marching along with these hooligans in the streets of Houson, TX, where his multi-million dollar enterprise is headquartered. Almost exactly a year ago, he was spotted marching with Lady Gaga at a gay pride march. I guess since pride festivals have been canceled, this is second best for him. At least he’s wearing a mask.

 


			
		

NEW BOOKLET: PUBLIC SCHOOL OR HOMESCHOOL?~HOW PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CORRUPTING CHILDREN’S VALUES

NEW BOOKLET: PUBLIC SCHOOL OR HOMESCHOOL?~HOW PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CORRUPTING CHILDREN’S VALUES

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2020/newsletter20200602.htm;

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

NEW BOOKLET: Public School or Homeschool?—How Public Schools Are Corrupting Children’s Values by Maria Kneas and Berit Kjos is our newest Lighthouse Trails Booklet.* The Booklet is 18 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are available. Our Booklets are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of Public School or Homeschool?—How Public Schools Are Corrupting Children’s Valuesclick here.

Editor’s Notes: Lighthouse Trails began preparations for this booklet prior to the current “coronavirus pandemic.” With this and other recent events, we believe the release of this booklet is providentially timed.

**Some of the information in this booklet is of a very sensitive nature, and some readers may find it difficult and uncomfortable to read.

Public School or Homeschool?—How Public Schools Are Corrupting Children’s Values

By Maria Kneas and Berit Kjos

Part One—True-Life Examples at America’s Public Schools
By Maria Kneas

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

Children spend about six hours every weekday—which is about half of their waking hours—in school. Some of those remaining waking hours are spent doing homework. Thus, it is safe to say that children’s school experience is one of the most, if not the most, major influences in their lives. So, it stands to reason that parents should be aware of what their children’s school is teaching them. This booklet you are about to read capsulates how America’s public schools are using deceptive and dangerous tactics to change the values and behaviors of children in their care. And thus, the question every parent should ask—public school or homeschool?

For generations, American children have been taught humanist beliefs and values in public schools. Christian morals have been undermined by values clarification and other techniques. This has caused a radical change in the beliefs and moral values of children in this country.1

The psychological brainwashing techniques used on our children have resulted in children accepting alternative values as opposed to having them reach those decisions rationally. In a 1993 Forbes magazine article titled “Indoctrinating the Children,” Dr. Thomas Sowell recognized this was taking place:

The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children.2

In stark contrast, Dr. Chester M. Pierce, once a professor of Educational Psychiatry at Harvard University, stated that American children are “insane” because they are loyal to America, to their parents, and to their belief in God. He said it is the job of teachers to heal these “sick children” by turning them into the “international children of the future.”3

Dr. Paul Brandwein, a leading child psychologist, evidently agrees with Dr. Pierce. In his book, The Social Sciences, Dr. Brandwein said, “Every child who believes in God is mentally ill.”4 This must have a practical impact on our education system because government schools have psychologists.

For years, the National Education Association (NEA) has been promoting sex education with the goal of radically changing how students think about sex.5 Sometimes, the results are drastic enough to make the news. One such case was reported in an article in October 2019 stating that an Austin, Texas school district will teach children as early as sixth grade about oral and anal sex, and this includes role playing. The children will also pretend to have sex when they are drunk and will pretend to put a condom on somebody. In addition, the homosexual and transgender agenda will be integrated into the children’s lives. The article explains:

As detailed by Texas Values, the curriculum discourages gender-specific language like “mother” and “father” because it “can limit [children’s] understanding of gender into binaries,” [it] encourages children to attend LGBT “pride” rallies and explore other ways to become LGBT “allies.”6

A 16-year-old girl at a Colorado high school was required to role play getting raped in front of her classmates. She was also required to read out loud a poem which has such an indecent attitude towards sex that I cannot describe it here in this booklet. That poem is full of four-letter words. The girl was traumatized by having to do these things in front of her classmates.7

The NEA has also been promoting “death education,” with a goal to change thinking about death as radically as they were able to change thinking about sex. Do you remember that shooting at Columbine? Prior to that horrific shooting by two teens, for years that school had been teaching death education.8

Some schools even have a “suicide talking day.” On that day, students write suicide notes. They write their own obituaries and discuss what they will look like in their caskets. One student said that before “suicide talking day,” she never considered the possibility of suicide. After that day, she began to contemplate it. She thought it would “liberate her spirit” so that it would no longer be “enslaved to her body.” In addition, it would help with the problem of global overpopulation. She said that the suicide training made her “brave enough” to commit suicide.9

In 2019, a 13-year-old girl in Kansas was asked to indicate which students she would kill if she wanted to kill five students in her class. She pointed at four of them and at herself. While pointing, her hand was in the shape of a “finger gun” (the index finger pointing and the thumb raised). Because of that, her teacher took her to the principal. That girl was handcuffed, arrested, and taken to a juvenile detention center. The girl was charged with committing a felony.10

Public schools are also promoting occultism. There is a reading series called “Impressions” that is used in the second and third grades of some public schools. It teaches the students how to cast spells. One of the exercises is to pretend that some children have had a magician cast a spell on them. In order to help the children, it is necessary to reverse that spell. The students are told to write the spell that the magician used and then write another spell to reverse it. Then they are told to chant their spells. By making them chant the spells, the teacher is requiring them to do role playing. They are taking on the role of a sorcerer or a witch.11

Some public schools teach reincarnation. This is contrary to Scripture. The Bible says that we die once (as opposed to being recycled), and then we are judged (Hebrews 9:27). One student said that death was portrayed as being glamorous and living was portrayed as being hard. She said students were taught that reincarnation would solve their problems, because they would return in a better life form and eventually they would “become like God.”12
This teaching makes death look like a helpful friend, instead of an enemy. Therefore, it could make some vulnerable students become more likely to commit suicide or murder.

Seventh grade students in California were required to study Islam for three weeks. This included mandatory role playing. The students had to pretend they were Muslims. They prayed to Allah, chanted praises to Allah, and adopted Muslim names. They played a game that simulated a jihad (a holy war against enemies of Islam), and they planned a pilgrimage to Mecca. Students were encouraged to dress like Muslims and to use Muslim phrases. They were required to memorize Muslim prayers. During Ramadan, they had to fast at lunchtime. Teachers told the students that, while they were taking this intensive course about Islam, they would “become Muslims.” The textbook about Islam did not mention Islamic conquest or Islamic violence against Jews. The Muslim religion was only shown in a good light.13 You can be sure you will not find a public school in this country that would permit Christianity in the same scenario.

Some public schools have After School Satan Clubs. These are being promoted by the Satanic Temple. As of October 2016, there were clubs in Washington D.C., Arizona, Missouri, Washington, Utah, Florida, California, and Georgia. In addition, the Satanic Temple in Portland, Oregon got permission to have a club at an elementary school there.14

Part Two—Understanding Values Clarification and How It Destroys Values and Behavior
By Berit Kjos

Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding: but that which is in the midst of fools is made known. Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. (Proverbs 14:33-34)

Should schools teach values? They inevitably do. So, the essential question is: Whose values?

Years ago, history books presented honorable heroes who modeled faith, courage, honesty, and integrity. Elementary readers introduced children to memorable characters who demonstrated genuine love, not a fleeting loving feeling, but the deep, laying-down-your-life kind of love that is so often ridiculed today.

A daring curriculum replaced those former virtues, while carefully combing through textbooks for any trace of biblical bent. Curriculum change agents made sure literature was free from “biased” words like wife, husband, or marriage and hunted for books that emphasized what they considered reality and relevance by modeling adultery, homosexuality, dishonesty, and drug abuse.

Called “values clarification,” this “progressive” program challenges our children to defend or deny all the cherished goals and guidelines of earlier days. It insists that the only true values are those a child chooses himself in response to his immediate needs, desires, and circumstances. It tells him, “Do your own thing!” The result is a growing social chaos among people who, like Israel during the time of the Judges, do what is “right in [their] own eyes” (Judges 17:6 and Judges 21:25).

A mother from Kenosha, Wisconsin felt the painful effects of what her children were learning in school:

By the time my first two children had reached third grade, I realized something was wrong. The child I took to school in the morning was not the child I picked up after school in the afternoon. If this change had been a positive change, reflecting academic progress, I would have been delighted. However, the change I noticed was in their value system. They seemed to be desensitized to the morals I had been trying to instill in them as their mother, and I thought that I had failed. . . .

I failed because I had assumed the schools my children were attending were like the schools I had attended.

I found instead that the thrust of schools had turned from education to indoctrination. I found the values I instilled in my children were not reinforced or respected by the schools, but were systematically challenged in the classroom.15

Spreading like cancer, this values transformation extends from the very core of our educational system to all its parts. In the name of progress, it promotes a self-centered kind of freedom from commitment and self-control.

Junior and senior high school students in Michigan were told to relax and “fantasize” in order to design a device for birth control “they would enjoy using.” They were to discuss the criteria used for planning and the advantages of one design over another. Finally, they compared their design with existing contraceptives.16 This scenario took place over thirty years ago; you can imagine how much worse it is today.

What do students learn from this kind of exercise? The answer lies in the common goals of the humanist NEA, the New Age movement, and Planned Parenthood—three social forces that have surged forward together, dead-set on accomplishing their purpose. All three of these groups saw the need to break free of “traditional” and “religious” authority that hampers the desires of young people for sexual expression and activity according to whatever proclivity and lifestyle they desire. As Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger put it, sex is the “radiant force” enabling mankind to “attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise.”17

Such hedonistic philosophy cannot bring fulfillment. Instead, it stirs insatiable cravings. Luring children into this sensuous, self-centered lifestyle is Satan’s most effective way of turning them away from God. If they embrace sin, they cannot see God’s glory (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Back to “Nature”

Humanism inflamed the intellectual community because it mirrored what they already believed. Likewise, Darwin’s theory of evolution became an instant hit because he put a plausible “scientific” framework around a myth that had already found acceptance—thus validating it. This explains why “creative” scientists could produce a full-bodied drawing of their mythological missing link from fractions of bones and get away with it. Though admittedly false, the familiar monkey-to-man line-up may remain in textbooks—as if true—until evolutionists find better “proof” for their popular beliefs. The probabilities of chance-evolution have been likened to that of a tornado sweeping through a scrap yard and accidentally forming a Boeing jet.

Far more than an attempt to explain origins, evolution has become a social philosophy—the way to view all of life. Evolutionists see man simply as a higher form of animal. Since we train animals to serve society, why not use psychological techniques like behavior modification in the classroom? Why not “free” children to exercise their natural instincts, satisfy their evolving animal nature, and thereby fulfill their human potential?

Humanist goals have not changed since Darwin’s days. In fact, the educators who signed the Humanist Manifesto II in 1973 stressed a “natural” and evolutionary way of life:

In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized . . . Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.18

Even before the signing of the revised manifesto, two innovative humanists, William Glasser and Sidney Simon, showed the way to implement it. Published in 1969, Dr. Glasser’s book, Schools Without Failure, presented a “daring new program”19: The class, led by the teacher, would become a counseling group. Somehow, by airing uncomfortable circumstances and feelings each day, this encounter group was supposed to teach social responsibility and solve behavioral problems. Consider the effect of this suggestion by Dr. Glasser:

Children will often become very personal, talking about subjects that ordinarily are considered private. . . . The teacher should keep in mind that in class meetings, free discussion seems to be beneficial and that adult anxieties are often excessive. Nevertheless, a child who discusses drunken brawls at home might quietly be asked to talk about something that has more relationship to school.

Changing the subject in this way is sometimes unwise, however because it is just those drunken brawls at home that have the most relationship to his school progress.20

Professor Sidney Simon went a step further. His book, Values Clarification—A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students, is packed with classroom exercises which filtered into textbooks and public schools. A popular strategy called values voting is “a simple and very rapid means by which every student in the class can make a public affirmation on a variety of values issues.”21

The teacher simply asks a question. The students respond affirmatively by raising their hands. They give a negative reply by pointing their thumbs down. If undecided, they fold their arms. To pass, they do nothing. After the teacher has asked about ten questions, the class discusses the answers. Each child is forced to take a public stand—even if he passes. Imagine the effect of this kind of peer pressure on a child who feels insecure.

The teacher asks, “How many of you:

. . . think there are times when cheating is justified?”
. . . regularly attend religious services and enjoy it?”
. . . think that women should stay home and be primarily wives and mothers?”
. . . would like to have a secret lover?”22

Simon recommends this list for all ages. For secondary students, he adds questions such as: “How many of you think sex education instruction in the schools should include techniques for lovemaking, contraception?” and “How many of you think you will continue to practice religion, just like your parents?23

Clarifying Values Clarification
Parents and teachers across the nation have agonized over the emotional damage caused by the psychological manipulations of values clarification. In response to their outcry, the Department of Education held hearings in seven locations across the country to implement the Protection of Pupil Rights (Hatch) Amendment of 1978 (modified in 2001). Hundreds of parents testified at the hearings held in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Phoenix, Orlando, Concord (New Hampshire), and Washington, D.C. An amazing book written by Phyllis Schlafly in 1988 titled Child Abuse in the Classroom reported violations from the official transcripts of the proceedings. They fell into these categories:

Bias against Christian values. A mother from Oregon, whose son became “very confused as to the rightness or wrongness of stealing,” shared this testimony:

Young children are expected to fill in sentences such as, “the trouble with being honest is ______.” They are asked, what would be the hardest thing for you to do: “steal, cheat, or lie?”

This question was discussed in the third grade: “How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?”24

Bias toward humanist/New Age values. A first-grade lesson in “sex equality” shows the cruel pressure to conform.

The students each had two naked dolls, one male, the other female. They were asked to dress the dolls in work clothing to show that both genders could work at any job. . . . there were no dresses. All clothing was male-oriented. Then the teacher had the students sit in a circle while she pulled out objects from a sack, like a pancake turner or a tape measure. She asked, “Who uses this, mom or dad?”

If the students did not answer the way she had wanted, she would say, “Well, who else uses this?” Finally one little boy raised his hand and said, “I don’t care. Men ought to be doctors and ladies nurses.”

The teacher then asked how many of the students agreed with him. By the tone of her voice, they knew no one should raise a hand, so no one did. The little boy was so humiliated by the peer pressure and class manipulation . . . that he started to cry.25

Striving with religious zeal to convert children to “moral relativism” or “situational ethics,” humanist educators argue that anything other than “value-free” teaching is religion. To them, only values that fit man’s desires are valid. For if man is his own god, he has divine authority to choose his own rights and wrongs. Frequent changes in terminology block the kind of “clarification” that exposes the mental manipulation. Programs might be called “values education,” “self-awareness,” “decision-making,” “self-acceptance,” or “interpersonal relationship skills.”

Values clarification is neutral, argues Simon, since every value is as valid as any other. To him, the only wrong position is one that believes in absolute values—and therefore opposes his belief that all values are relative.26

Parents from New Jersey “could not find . . . in any of the hypothetical situations, a single portrayal of parents in a positive manner. Parents were shown to be overreaching, nagging, unfair, and overcritical of their children’s friends.” No wonder many children are confused about values, question their faith, and resist their parents.27

Another popular technique described in Child Abuse in the Classroom makes home problems the focus of classroom discussion:

Earlier this year, my fifth grader came home from school telling me about a new classroom activity called Magic Circle. . . . He told me the children sit in a circle and tell each other positive and negative things about each other. The teacher is not a trained psychologist, and this type of group therapy can be harmful to a child if done improperly.

I also resent the probing questions asked by the teacher in this setting:

“How many of you have unemployed parents?”
“How many of you have divorced parents?”
“If any of you are abused sexually, I want you to tell me, because by law I have to report it.”

One mother summarized her feelings, “I consider this curriculum an invasion of family privacy, a subtle effort to erode all authority and undermine the traditional values that have made this nation great.28

Many of the ways schools gain private information about the home life of its students are so subtle they escape notice. Often personal projects are hidden in curriculum that appears unrelated, such as physical education, English, or history. A teacher in the Lansing, Michigan school district observed:

Students are all treated as in need or as having problems. Children are being pre-tested, then subjected to an affective [relating to feelings] values program as treatment for the disturbed child; then the child is post-tested to see what measurement of change has been produced by the affective values program.

No parent has ever been notified or allowed to view the materials, nor have they ever consented to psychological diagnosis or treatment by an unlicensed psychologist or a psychiatrist. The children have even been promised that their parents won’t be allowed to see their answers, “so be honest.”29

Peer pressure is used for conforming children to group standards—or to the values of the more popular students.

Common Core
In 2013, I wrote a booklet titled A “Common Core” For a Global Community: What’s in Store for the Education of Today’s Children?. In that booklet, I stated:

I came across a headline that illustrates the corrupt values and shameless propaganda behind UNESCO’s Common Core indoctrination. The headline read: “Students Asked to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ and Prove Nazi Loyalty in Assignment Linked to Common Core.” In other words, traditional values are out! Shocking propaganda is in! . . .

The goal of education has changed! Our public schools no longer teach the kind of literacy, history, math, and morality we once considered essential to responsible citizenship. The new agenda infiltrating our schools is designed to train a new generation of postmodern “progressive” students to believe whatever might serve a pre-determined “common good.”

If their educators succeed, tomorrow’s students will have neither the facts nor the freedom needed for independent thinking. Their “common core” will be based on a global collective agenda, not on Western democracy or Christian values. Like Nazi youth, they will be taught to react, not think, when nudged to do the unthinkable.30

If you want to gain some understanding about Common Core, I encourage every parent who has a child in public school to order the booklet. It’s also available to read for free on my publisher’s blog.

Part Three—What Can Parents Do?
By Maria Kneas

The scenarios we have described in this booklet are just a fraction of what has been happening in public schools. Children, from the moment they walk through the school doors in kindergarten (and even preschool), are being transformed and their values corrupted with ideologies that promote and encourage homosexuality, evolution, atheism, transgenderism, suicide, abortion, rebellion against parents, sexual promiscuity, occultism, and New age meditation (partly through the mindfulness programs now in most public schools). Are we saying that every public school teacher is part of this agenda? No, there are Christian teachers in the schools who are trying to have a truly positive and godly influence on children, but, for most of them, their hands are tied in just how much they can share; if they don’t go along with the curriculum and school districts’ plans, they’ll be out of a job.

How can such things happen here in America? It’s being done incrementally, in small continual steps, over a long period of time as this booklet shows. It’s part of the anti-biblical, anti-Christian agenda of modern “progressive” education. This was promoted by John Dewey (the “father” of modern education), and it continues to be promoted by the National Education Association.

When incrementalism is combined with values clarification, sex education, death education, and in more recent years, occultism, the result is a deadly onslaught against the faith and morals of children from Christian homes. It also puts incredible stress and confusion on children as they experience daily the vast contrast and conflict between home life and school life. Values clarification denies the reality of good and evil, and it gets school children to make immoral decisions. Those immoral decisions often involve sex and death. This is a pressure that no child should have to undergo.

Hitler said, “He alone who owns the youth gains the future,” and he developed the Hitler Youth in order to indoctrinate the children into complying with his agenda. The communists did the same thing with the Young Pioneers. Today’s progressives also know that in order to take over our culture, they have to change the thinking of our children. The apostle Peter warned us:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

We need to be vigilant to protect our children from being devoured by those who are out to destroy their faith and their morals.

The most obvious way to avoid exposing your children to the corruption in our public schools is to homeschool them. Instead of handing over your children for six or seven hours a day to teachers, curriculums, and administrations who have purposed in their hearts to alter their values, Christian parents can be the ones who are the greatest influencers of their children’s lives.

Thus far, we still live in a country where parents are legally allowed to homeschool. Some parents may feel they are not qualified to homeschool, but there are many excellent Christian resources available, both online and in print. There are also organizations that help homeschoolers and their parents. Plus, many communities have very active homeschool groups, which provide group activities and support for parents. Interestingly, during the 2020 “coronavirus pandemic,” schools worldwide were shut down, forcing children to school at home. Parents were now having to do what many had feared they would never know how to do. One article describes one such family from Australia:

Arianwen Harris used to joke that homeschooling was her “worst nightmare.” “I’ve never wanted to homeschool . . . I just never thought it was something that I would be capable of doing.”31

Now, this family has decided to continue homeschooling even after the schools re-open seeing how her children are thriving since being home taught.

When you stop and think about it, the widespread attempt to undermine the faith and morals of our children is actually a form of persecution. It’s not as obvious as slaughtering people and burning churches, but the goal is the same—to wipe out Christianity and replace it with something else. In my book How to Prepare for Hard Times and Persecution, I discuss these things while offering helpful biblical antidotes.

For families where homeschooling is simply not an option, parents can send their children to private Christian schools. But beware, and do your homework—even some private Christian schools have bought into the cultural lies permeating our society today. Churches can deceive people, and so can schools.

Some say that children from Christian homes should attend public school so they can be a light and a witness to their unbelieving classmates. That’s certainly something to consider. But for that to work, parents would need to devote possibly as many active participative hours in a week with their child as he or she is spending at school. That would be roughly thirty hours a week (four plus hours a day) teaching, praying with, and counteracting the influence of the secular school with no guarantee that the schools won’t win your child to their side. The facts speak differently with story after story of children from Christian homes either forsaking the faith of their parents or at least being severely traumatized by the deluge of ungodly teaching and influence found in the public schools.

What we have shared with you in this booklet is heavy and certainly could be cause for despair. And apart from God, we have every reason to be discouraged. But God is greater than the social, political, and spiritual forces corrupting our world, and we know that our Redeemer lives. Someday, we will live in a Holy land with our King. He has promised this to those who name the name of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, let us remember that in the light of His sufficiency, we can face unafraid the future of our children, and we can pray daily for His wisdom and His guidance in the way in which we should go.

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. (Isaiah 58:11)

In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. (Proverbs 14: 26)

Above all, we need to pray, and keep on praying. And we need to keep reading the Bible and be serious about basing our lives and our practical decisions on what the Bible says. Remember that, as parents, it is ultimately our responsibility to see that our children are brought up in the ways of the Lord; when fostered with truth and grace, the homeschooling experience may be the most loving option for our children.

A Few Resources for Homeschool Families

While we are providing the following resources, please always do your own research and use discernment no matter what resources you are using. As the Bible tells us, we are to be bereans (Acts 17:10-11) and to test all things to make sure they line up with God’s Word.

There are many different homeschool curriculums available today. Some have been around for a long time and have proven to be trustworthy, effective, and easy to use (e.g., Abeka, BJU Press, Switched on Schoolhouse by Alpha Omega Publications, LIFEPAC by Alpha Omega Publications, and A.C.E. (Accelerated Christian Education). There are some free programs available as well. (Regarding a very popular homeschool program, Classical Conversations, we have some strong concerns about it.32)

  • The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) defends the rights of parents to “direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms.” They have e-newsletters and their website gives information about homeschool laws by state (https://hslda.org/content). The site also has curriculum reviews, which are helpful when choosing a curriculum.
  • Homeschool.com has a list of homeschool support groups, listed state by state (and also includes other countries): https://www.homeschool.com/supportgroups/united-states. You can also find local homeschool support groups through social media such as Facebook.
  • A few helpful books on homeschooling are 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum (Duffy), What Your Child Needs to Know and When (Sampson) and Educating the Wholehearted Child (Clarkson). Disclaimer: By listing these books, we are not necessarily giving an endorsement. As with everything, use discernment, and weigh everything you read with Scripture. An excellent resource is Berit Kjos’ book, How to Protect Your Child From the New Age and Spiritual Deception, which offers many practical and biblical ideas.

If you are going to homeschool your children, we commend you. Pray for discernment so you can spot curriculum or materials that do not line up with God’s Word. Just because a curriculum is advertised as Christian homeschool curriculum does not necessarily mean it has biblical standards. Today, there are curriculums that promote all kinds of false and dangerous teachings (e.g., legalism, Calvinism, New age meditation practices such as mindfulness and centering prayer, and Word-Faith). If you are not sure how to recognize false teachings, we encourage you to read some of the Lighthouse Trails topical booklets. They are inexpensive and cover a vast array of vital issues. Before you choose your homeschool curriculum, research, ask questions, find reviews, and most of all, pray.


To order copies of Public School or Homeschool?—How Public Schools Are Corrupting Children’s Valuesclick here.

Endnotes

  1. Berit Kjos, How To Protect Your Child From The New Age & Spiritual Deception (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2013), pp. 53-66.
  2. Thomas Sowell, “Indoctrinating the Children” (Forbes, February 1, 1993), p. 65.
  3. “‘Expert?’ Says American Children Mentally Ill.” (http://www.gospelweb.net/CultureWar/childrenmentallyill.htm).
  4. “New Age Professors Teach Our Children’s Teachers” (http://www.tpromo2.com/gko/aug01/vampire.htm), note: To find the quotation by Dr. Paul Brandwein, search for his name.
  5. Carl Sommer, Schools in Crisis: Training For Success Or Failure? (Houston, TX: Advance Publishing, 1984, http://www.advancepublishing.com/schoolsincrisis/sicch12.pdf), chapter 12, “Education for Sex or Immorality.”
  6. Calvin Freiburger, “Texas School District to Teach Third Graders About Sodomy, Condoms” (Life Site News, October 31, 2019, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/texas-school-district-defies-community-outrage-to-ok-radical-sex-ed; see also https://txvalues.org/2019/09/24/planned-parenthood-sex-ed-not-radical-enough-aisd-proposes-canadian-curriculum-to-indoctrinate-children).
  7. “Colorado Parents Upset High School Teacher Assigned Sexually Explicit Material Without Their Consent” (Fox News, November 19, 2019; https://www.foxnews.com/us/colorado-parents-upset-high-school-teacher-assigned-sexually-explicit-material-without-consent).
  8. Phyllis Schlafly, “What Caused Columbine?” (The Phyllis Schlafly Report, Vol. 32, No. 11, June 1999; https://eagleforum.org/psr/1999/june99/psrjune99.html).
  9. David Limbaugh, Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christians (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003), pp. 84-85.
  10. WorldNetDaily Staff, “Real Gun is a Misdemeanor, But ‘Finger Gun’ is a Felony” (WND, November 17, 2019; https://www.wnd.com/2019/11/real-gun-misdemeanor-finger-gun-felony).
  11. “Halloween Origins and Customs” (The Jeremiah Project, October 2019; https://web.archive.org/web/20190805030223/https://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture-war/halloween-origins-and-customs).
  12. David Limbaugh, Persecution, op. cit., p. 84.
  13. Ibid., pp. 76-77.
  14. Megan Briggs, “Satanic Temple in Portland Obtains Permission to Hold After School Club in Elementary School” (Church Leaders, October 4, 2016; https://churchleaders.com/news/288381-satanic-temple-portland-obtains-permission-hold-school-club-elementary-school.html).
  15. Phyllis Schlafly, Child Abuse in the Classroom (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988), p. 195.
  16. Ibid., p. 146.
  17. Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (New York, NY: Brentano’s Publishers, 1922), p. 271.
  18. Humanist Manifesto II (http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II).
  19. William Glasser, M.D., Schools Without Failure (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1969), back cover.
  20. Ibid., p. 161.
  21. Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum, Values Clarification (New York, NY: Hart Publishing Co., 1972), p. 38.
  22. Ibid., pp. 39, 41-46.
  23. Ibid., pp. 49, 54.
  24. Phyllis Schlafly, Child Abuse in the Classroom, op. cit., p. 57.
  25. Ibid., pp. 45-46.
  26. Richard A. Baer, Jr., “Teaching Values in the Schools: Clarification or Indoctrination?” (American Education, January 1982, https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/11542/Teaching_Values_in_the_Schools.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1338225531000), p. 11.
  27. Phyllis Schlafly, Child Abuse in the Classroom, op. cit., p. 126.
  28. Ibid., pp. 83-84.
  29. Ibid., p. 137.
  30. Berit Kjos, A “Common Core” for a Global Community (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2013, https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=13825).
  31. Ellen Coulter, “Coronavirus Turned These Families into Accidental Homeschoolers, and They’re Not Looking Back” ( ABC News, Australia, May 10, 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-11/coronavirus-education-homeschool-after-pandemic/12228762).
  32. A thought-provoking article about Classical Conversations is at: https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2018/06/20/classical-conversations-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/.

To order copies of Public School or Homeschool?—How Public Schools Are Corrupting Children’s Valuesclick here.

 

WARNING: ZONDERVAN INTRODUCES ITS FIRST-EVER FILM “NINE: THE ENNEAGRAM DOCUMENTARY” TO RELEASE IN THEATERS FALL 2020

SEE: https://enneagram.movie/

WARNING: ZONDERVAN INTRODUCES ITS FIRST-EVER FILM "NINE: THE ENNEAGRAM DOCUMENTARY" TO RELEASE IN THEATERS FALL 2020

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2020/newsletter20200602.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
The promotional poster for the Enneagram documentary by Zondervan; used in accordance with the U.S. Fair Use Act for the purpose of critique, analysis, and review.

LTRP Note: The news release below regarding the Christian publisher, Zondervan, is posted for informational and research purposes. Lighthouse Trails warned about the Enneagram in our booklet, The Enneagram—An Enlightening Tool or an Enticing Deception? (written by Lois Putnam), which we released last Fall. Obviously, when one of the largest evangelical publishers releases a film (their first film ever) on the Enneagram, it’s clear this is a fast-growing trend within evangelicalism. We believe the Enneagram (as is Lectio Divina) is a gateway “tool” to further integrate the occultic contemplative prayer movement into the church, a movement that has so significantly influenced millions of Christians.

News Release from Zondervan Publishers

Zondervan announces the first-ever Enneagram film, NINE: THE ENNEAGRAM DOCUMENTARY, will debut in North American theaters fall 2020, featuring internationally renowned Enneagram expert and bestselling author Christopher L. Heuertz.

The documentary, produced in association with Sandoval Studios, marks Zondervan’s first foray in producing a film. Zondervan sees film as a way to broaden key messages from its authors to reach a wider audience and is actively exploring this format. Click here to continue reading.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT HEUERTZ & THE ENNEAGRAM:

https://ratherexposethem.org/?s=HEUERTZ

https://ratherexposethem.org/?s=ENNEAGRAM 

TAKING A QUANTUM LEAP INTO THE NEW AGE

TAKING A QUANTUM LEAP INTO THE NEW AGE

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2020/newsletter20200602.htm;

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

From Roger Oakland and Caryl Matrisciana’s book,
The Evolution Conspiracy.

There is a clear but complex marriage between physical evolution and transcendental evolution. Ironically, while forcing out creationism, many scientists and educators push for an equally religious alternative. They cling to the Eastern concept that the next stage of man’s evolution will arrive in spiritual terms. Many “prophesy” a development—a quantum leap from biological evolution into a sort of “mystical emergence.”

Fritjof Capra, an American physics professor and author of The Tao of Physics, is a prominent advocate of New Age thought who says:

The universe is no longer seen as a machine, made up of a multitude of objects, but has to be pictured as one indivisible, dynamic whole whose parts are essentially interrelated and can be understood only as patterns of a cosmic process.1

After so much indoctrination in and exposure to the unproven ideas of evolutionary thinking, growing numbers of people are now accepting the concept of this “cosmic process” as the most natural thing in the world. Natural, but deadly—for this blending of physical and spiritual evolution thickens into a hot spiritual porridge made up of a variety of assorted cereals. Mystical alchemy, charading as spiritual evolution, combines with speculation about physical evolution. This fuses with “Eastern maya,” the belief that the physical (the real, what we see) is merging with the not-yet-physical (maya) and that the mind is able to create reality (shamanism, witchcraft). This opens the door to every form of New Age deception.

The New Age movement is a hybrid of spiritually eclectic pagan consciousness that embraces every idolatry named in the Bible. Though it poses as a spiritually tolerant mindset, it is extremely intolerant of biblical Christianity.

The philosophies under its umbrella are numerous. A general summary would be any mental techniques involving altered states of consciousness through deep-breathing relaxation exercises, guided imagery, and visualization. It may also include the application of dietary or mystical folklore promising power.

Interwoven into its philosophy are a proliferation of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. It includes guru movements, psychotherapy cults, aberrational Christian movements, blatant satanism, witchcraft, the practice of nature worship—and the list goes on. Beliefs and practices that used to be considered overtly heathen, rooted in pantheistic evolution and confined to the streets of India or the Far East, are now common practice in tens of millions of homes across North America and Europe.

Finding the Higher Self

The road to one’s “higher self” can be long and bumpy, and those who travel it may partake of a good deal of New Age healing along the way. Many New Age/New Spirituality magazines advertise a myriad of these therapies and techniques. Such materials are often given away at health food stores throughout America and promote transcendental meditation, Yoga, Reiki (energy healing), astrology, visualization, and numerous other occultic practices.

Many modern health practitioners, including doctors and psychologists, have fallen under the spell of “holistic” medicine, a discipline in which the human body, mind, and spirit are recognized as a part of the cosmos at large. When one part of the body is ill, the healer will claim that the “spirit” must be treated by drawing on the manipulation of cosmic forces, powers, and energies. There are countless examples in the news of how New Age practices have entered the medical arena. One news article states:

Once a practice that appealed mostly to mystics and occult followers, meditation now is reaching the USA’s mainstream. . . . The medical establishment now recognizes the value of meditation and other mind-over-body states in dealing with stress-related illnesses.2

What’s more, Yoga, Eastern mediation, visualization, and other forms of hypnosis are designed to train the use of occult “energy” to escape from reality, pacify stress, and nullify ills. These notions are based on the unbiblical premise that mankind has the authority to alleviate all suffering through mind-altering techniques.

The Deceptive Promise of Godhood

The basic idea of man progressing from simple to complex, from mortality to godhood, is the underlying notion in New Age thinking. . . . The delusion that man is “literally taking control of his own evolution” is ludicrous in light of events reported daily. To imagine that we can draw from resources within ourselves as we “realize our godhood” is clear deception. The Bible says that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). Solutions of goodness cannot come from man’s imagining that his heart is evolving to a higher state of purity when it is only God who can put a clean heart inside of man:

Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)

Humanism based on a foundation that rejects God is gaining spiritual momentum among millions today who believe that within man is the potential of “God power.” A new generation is turning back to paganism rooted in evolutionism, which promotes this religious theory.

John Randolph Price, originator of World Healing Day, in his book The Superbeings says:

A new species of man is coming forth to lead us out of darkness and into a new dimension scarcely dreamed of by ninety percent of this world. This will be the New Age of Enlightenment, and science and religion will join hands in spreading the truth that man is not the man we thought he was. I thank God that I live at this time and will be able to see the next great leap forward in man’s expanding consciousness.3

This “superconsciousness” is renamed “god consciousness within,” “the god-power,” or “the christ-within.” These are just some of the names given to man’s prideful claim that he is God and can do what only God is able to do. This spiritual mirage leads millions to what they think is soul-satisfying water. But as with any mirage, it is only an illusion.

If the “enlightened” human chooses to imagine he has the ability to control his immortality, Satan will impress upon him the means with which to do it. If the would-be reincarnationist wants to believe he has the ability to come back in another life, Satan will find a form of deception that will cause him to believe it. The same principle applies to the evolutionist who has been duped into believing he came from nothing and goes to nothing. Satan is like a chameleon and can change his color to suit the need of the moment. The apostle Peter understood this. His warning is clear:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

Jesus also spoke of the reality of the devil and his deadly plot:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

There are millions today who have chosen to reject our Creator’s grace through Jesus Christ. Countless others have not yet been presented with the choice. Tens of thousands are turning away from the traditional Judeo-Christian faith of their parents or grandparents and choosing this “new” spirituality instead. Disillusioned by materialism, churchism, secularism, and humanism, seekers of self-fulfillment are turning to this new evolutionary religiosity and embracing the lie that they can become gods, or at least have the power to control their lives and destiny. Assured of inward resources and psychic powers, they attempt to fill the spiritual vacuum they feel inside.

Every Man a God

The concept that man can evolve into higher states or godhood is fraudulent, scandalous, and a complete sham that should motivate Christians with a burning desire to fight the good fight.

The new enlightened age promise of spiritual control is the same lie perpetrated by Satan when he seduced Eve in the garden of Eden (Genesis.3:4,5). It was the same spirit of rebellion that resulted in Satan being cast out of the presence of God. Isaiah 14 recounts Satan’s story from God’s perspective. Lucifer, the “son of the morning,” with all his God-given beauty and authority, brought rebellion into the universe when in his heart he said “I will” and set his mind on ascribing God’s glory to himself.
Today this rebellion continues. Listen to some quotes by well-known religious leaders and writers who believe that man is God or that God is in all humanity.*

If you want to know the closest place to look for grace, it is within yourself. . . . To put it plainly, our unconscious is God. God within us. We were part of God all the time.4—M. Scott Peck (popular New Age writer)

One of the most important books I think I’ve read in my life was a book by Eric Butterworth. . . . Discover the Power Within You. And what Eric Butterworth said in that book is that Jesus didn’t come to teach us how divine he was, but came to teach that there is divinity within us.5—Oprah Winfrey

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.6—Leonard Sweet (emergent church author)

[D]ivinity will no longer be only heavenly, other, out there, up there, beyond time and space, beyond body and death. It will also be right here, right now, in me, in the earth, in this river and this rock, in excrement and roses alike.7—Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees)

You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.8—Eugene Peterson (author of The Message)

. . . underneath each of us is a “golden Buddha,” a “golden Christ” or “a golden essence,” which is our real self.9—Jack Canfield (author of Chicken Soup for the Soul books)

For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. (#460)10—from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is also the God who dwells in the inner sanctuary of every human being.11—Henri Nouwen (Catholic contemplative priest)

Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”12—Rick Warren (said in The Purpose Driven Life)

“God” who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things.13—William Paul Young (in The Shack)

I am above all as well as in all.14—Sarah Young (said by “Jesus” in Jesus Calling)

Word-Faith leader Kenneth Copeland says, “We are partakers of the divine nature . . . you don’t have a God in you, you are one!”15 and “Adam is as much like a god as you could get, just the same as Jesus . . . he’s God manifested in the flesh.”16 “I say this and repeat it so it doesn’t upset you too bad . . . when I read in the Bible where He [Jesus] says, ‘I Am,’ I say, ‘Yes! I am too!”17

These statements declaring that man is God or is becoming God and that God is in all His creation fit into the spiritual evolution agenda all too well. Satan’s deception, that man is God or can become God, is now being taken dangerously further. As man schemed to build a unified government with spiritual aspirations in Babel, so again today he is attempting to manipulate mass consciousness. It is the hope of many world leaders that global unity and man-made “peace” will ultimately overcome what the Bible says about the coming end of the world and that we will be able to create a world-wide Utopia. It will be the long-awaited “Age of Aquarius” when man will realize his own divinity and a world ruler will bring “peace” to the whole planet. Even religious leaders are telling us we should take the book of Revelation as a warning and not as a prophecy and bring God’s “kingdom now” to the earth. But the book of Revelation will someday be fulfilled to the last detail when Jesus returns to a planet on the brink of destruction.

Satan’s Final Strategy

There is a school of thought which states that when the collective consciousness of the “spiritually attuned masses” attains a certain level of awareness, there will be a quantum leap into global spiritual oneness.
When this critical mass happens, it will form a spiritual basis for the coming new-world order. Growing numbers await the day when their efforts of spiritual consciousness will make the quantum leap into peace possible. This outlook plays right into the hands of Satan, who has one final strategy left in his battle for men’s souls. . . .

In his last ploy, Satan will lure men away from allegiance to their Creator. He will satisfy men with a false peace and ultimately usher in a false world leader, whom the Bible calls the Antichrist. This man will deceive the masses as they perceive him to be the global leadership they have all awaited. With accelerating speed, we see mankind being conditioned to just such a scenario. Today’s media reports detail extensively the trends of global political unity, man’s hope of a new-world order, and discussions of a global financial economy.

What’s more, mainline Christian denominations and ministries are moving toward religious ecumenism that embraces both a spiritual evolution of consciousness and evolutionary views on man and the world’s existence.

Coupled with the changing views on evolution is the view by many that we need to remove the barriers that separate the world’s religions. In a 2014 NBC news article, it reported on the Roman Catholic head Pope Francis’ views on evolution:

Big Bang theory and evolution in nature “do not contradict” the idea of creation, Pope Francis has told an audience at the Vatican, saying God was not “a magician with a magic wand.” The Pope’s remarks on Monday to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences appeared to be a theological break from his predecessor Benedict XVI, a strong exponent of creationism.18

At the same time, the Pope has become a spokesperson for bringing all the religions together. In January 2016, the Pope issued a world-wide YouTube message, stating:

Many think differently, feel differently, seeking God or meeting God in different ways. In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty that we have for all: we are all children of God.19

The Catholic News Agency reported:

[T]his month’s prayer requests focus on Francis’ desire for Interreligious Dialogue and Christian Unity. Francis offers his universal petition so that “sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice,” and expresses his evangelistic prayer that “by means of dialogue and fraternal charity and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, Christians may overcome divisions.”20

In 2014, Pope Francis demonstrated his views on “sincere dialogue” when he visited Turkey’s Islamic Blue Mosque “expressing reverence during a moment of prayer observed by the nation’s grand mufti, who led him on a tour of the Islamic facility.”21 An article on the event stated:

According to reports, Francis took off his shoes, folded his hands and bowed his head, standing silently next to Rahmi Yaran, who serves as the nation’s highest Islamic leader as grand mufti. The two faced Mecca as Yaran prayed with his palms raised. . . .

Francis held his first ecumenical meeting last March, greeting Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders, as well as those who ascribe to no faith at all. During the occasion, he praised the Muslim leaders that had come for the meeting, remarking that they were men who “adore the one, living, and merciful God and who call upon Him in prayer.” 22

Profoundly revolutionary are the new missionary goals of this blossoming ecumenical, evolutionary movement. It vehemently challenges age-old values, morals, and doctrines rooted in the Bible for which the apostles, prophets, and many others were willing to be martyred. Old ways of thinking, no matter how cherished and useful in the past, have no place within post-modern man’s massive religio-political trend.

Jeremy Rifkin, leading New Age spokesperson, summarized it well:

We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of preexisting cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.23

The Kingdom, Here and Now

The idea that man can build his own kingdom of heaven on earth distorts the Christian’s biblical hope of the true heaven and breeds horrendous apostasy in the church. This condition is prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, which says that before the Antichrist, or false messiah, can assert himself as world leader of Satan’s kingdom on earth, there will be a “falling away” from the faith by the church. Millions of proclaiming Christians have become corrupted by the world’s agenda and are even now playing into the hands of the enemy in his quest to dupe men into believing that world consolidation will bring about a satisfying peace.

Reconstructionism, a movement significantly affecting the evangelical church, claims that Christ’s return is dependent upon a global political takeover by Christians who must establish His kingdom on earth before He can return. Advocates of Kingdom Now and Dominion Theology join in this dangerous perpetration of such heresy. Certain charismatics in mainline denominations fall into the same apostasy, adopting Latter Rain and Manifest Sons of God theology which claim that a “raising” of Christian consciousness is necessary to restore God’s earthly kingdom.

How presumptuous to think that God needs the help of either Christians or nonbelievers to accomplish His destiny! The Christian’s citizenship is not here on Earth but in Heaven (Hebrews 11:8-10, 16). To conquer the world for God is not the ministry to which God called His church. To compromise the Great Commission is to do a corrupt disservice to the command of Christ.

Jesus said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19,20).
The emerging church, a movement that began in the late 1990s and by some estimates claims over twenty million mostly young people,24 holds to the view that the kingdom of God is already here on Earth and that there will be no second return of Christ.

People who are deceived by these various movements will also be deceived when a world leader comes on the scene and proclaims himself to be the “Christ” that they were able to usher in due to their “important” political and social justice maneuvering.

Everywhere on Earth, Christians and other groups will praise him as a genius of global political peace. The Jews will gratefully acclaim him as the peacemaker, their long-awaited “Messiah.”

The evolutionists will see him as naturalistic emanation that formed from the cosmic universe, which at last scientifically proves that order can come out of chaos.

The Infinite Wisdom of God

As we analyze our society, it is easy to see we are being steeped in the concept that physical evolution is responsible for shaping the past and that spiritual evolution is able to create our future.

To accept the outrageous idea that godhood lies within man, not only as a personal evolutionary pilgrimage but on a grand scale, brings heavy warnings from God:

Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God . . . Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. (Ezekiel 28:2,7)

History has proven that man’s godhood can never happen. Anytime that man attempts to rule the universe, he must fall as we see in the humbling process that befell King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:30-35. To believe that man can bring in an age of lasting peace apart from God is to believe the lie that out of chaos comes order. But method cannot come out of madness.

Method and order are the faithful characteristics of a God of love and are transparently seen in His creation. Method and order belong to a God with eternal intentions, who gracefully shows that every jot and tittle in the Bible have an ultimate purpose in revealing Him as Truth and Love. Method and order are part of the infinite wisdom of a God filled with the purpose of bringing mankind into a loving relationship with Him, through His Son, Jesus, who died as a remission for the sins of the world “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).


*This set of quotes can be found in Warren B. Smith’s booklet, Be Still and Know That You Are NOT God .

(photo from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission)

Endnotes:

  1. Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (Toronto, CA: Bantam, 1982), pp. 77-78.
  2. USA Weekend Sunday Supplement, July 24-26, 1987, p. 12.
  3. John Randolph Price, The Superbeings (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1981), p. 17.
  4. 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.
  5. The Oprah Winfrey Show # W265, “The New Age Movement,” Air Date: September 18, 1987.
  6. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic (Dayton, OH: Whaleprints for SpiritVenture Ministries, Inc., 1991, 1994), p. 125.
  7. Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers Inc.,1992), p. 160.
  8. Eugene Peterson, The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: Nav Press, 1993, 2003), pp. 21-22.
  9. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit (Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 1993), p. 69.
  10. Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1995), p. 229.
  11. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997 edition), p. 22.
  12. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p. 88.
  13. William P. Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity (Newbury Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007), p. 112.
  14. Sarah Young, Jesus Calling (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), p. 199.
  15. Kenneth Copeland, “The Force of Love” cassette tape #02-0028.
  16. Kenneth Copeland, “Following the Faith of Abraham” cassette tape, 1989.
  17. Kenneth Copeland, “Believers Voice of Victory,” broadcast on TBN. July 9, 1987.
  18. “Pope Francis: Evolution and Big Bang Theory Are Real” (NBC News, October 28, 2014, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-evolution-big-bang-theory-are-real-n235696).
  19. The Pope Video—Inter-religious Dialogue—January 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq7us5Lf5IU.
  20. Elise Harris, “In First Prayer Video, Pope Stresses Interfaith Unity: ‘We Are All Children of God’” (Catholic News Agency, January 7, 2016, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/in-first-video-message-pope-francis-stresses-unity-we-are-all-children-of-god-39381/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email).
  21. Heather Clark, “‘Pope Francis’ Bows Head in ‘Silent Adoration’ Beside Islamic Grand Mufti in Turkey’s Blue Mosque” (Christian News Network, November 29, 2014, http://christiannews.net/2014/11/29/pope-francis-bows-head-in-silent-adoration-beside-islamic-grand-mufti-in-turkeys-blue-mosque.
  22. Ibid.
  23. Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny (New York, NY: Viking Press 1983), p. 244.
  24. Antonio Mora, “New Faithful Practice Away From Churches” (Chicago News, CBS Broadcasting, July 10, 2006, http://www.religionnewsblog.com/15295/Some-Say-20-Million-Participate-In-Emerging-Church-Movement).
 

MIKE GENDRON: THERE ARE ONLY TWO KINDS OF FAITH

MIKE GENDRON: THERE ARE ONLY TWO KINDS OF FAITH

SEE: http://www.proclaimingthegospel.org;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
When you interact with any religious or spiritual person, you will discover that there are only two kinds of faith. One is trusting what the Lord Jesus Christ has DONE to save sinners; the other is trusting what man must DO to be saved. One faith recognizes that salvation is by grace alone; the other faith nullifies the grace of God by requiring good works (Rom. 11:6). One is gloriously revealed in Scripture, while the other is based on religious traditions that nullify or oppose the Word of God. One was demonstrated by the tax collector, who was so burdened by his sin that he cried out to God for mercy, the other was demonstrated by the proud self-righteous Pharisee, who boasted in what he was DOING (Luke 18:9-14).
The glorious promise of the Gospel is eternal, everlasting life. This divine assurance can be offered unconditionally because of all that Christ has DONE to save believers completely and forever. Yet, over half of “professing” Christians deny the assurance of eternal life because they have been deceived by “another” gospel. They have embraced a works-based salvation, which perpetuates the fatal lie that you must DO good works and perform religious rites and rituals to be accepted by God. They fail to understand that finite men, with their limited capabilities, could never cancel their own eternal sin debt. What man could never DO, the eternal Son of God has DONE. The eternal sin debt was nailed to His cross (Col. 2:13-14). Thus man’s only hope is to exchange his worthless religion for an eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Eternal security and the assurance of salvation can only be realized when a person’s faith is based on the Lord Jesus Christ alone and what He has DONE.
How will those who have been blinded by religious deception know what Christ has DONE? The Lord Jesus must be proclaimed as the all-sufficient Savior. This is the royal privilege and awesome responsibility of every Christian. We must proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His glorious light (1 Pet. 2:9). People will never know they are deceived until they are confronted with the truth. They will not seek a substitute to die in their place until they know they are condemned to death. No one will seek a Savior until they know they are destined for the torments of hell. They will not seek to be reconciled to God until they know they are separated from Him. No one will try to get on the narrow way that leads to life until they know they are on the broad way that leads to destruction. People can ever receive the righteousness of Christ as a gift until they are first stripped of their own righteousness.

No one will ever appreciate what the Lord Jesus has DONE until they come to the end of themselves and realize how hopeless and helpless they are to DO anything about it. Only then will they be willing to repent of all their dead works, which are an insult to the perfect, finished and sufficient work of Christ. May our Lord Jesus Christ receive honor, praise and glory for all that He is, and all that He has DONE to redeem His people!

He is the way for those who are lost (John 14:6)
He is the truth for those who are deceived (John 14:6)
He gives life to people who are spiritually dead (John 14:6)
He testified to the truth and truth seekers listen to Him (John 18:37)
He is the only one who can save sinners (Acts 4:12)
He bore His people’s sin in His body on a tree (1 Peter 2:24)
He makes believers perfect forever (Heb. 10:14)
He cancels the eternal sin debt of believers (Col. 2:13-14)
He reconciles believers to God (2 Cor. 5:18-20)
He redeems believers from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13)
He saves His people from God’s wrath (1 Thes. 5:9)
He is able to save forever (Hebrews 7:25)
He gave His life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28)
He satisfied divine justice as a sacrifice for sin (1 John 2:2)
He shed His blood to purify His people from all sin (1 John 1:7)
He died once for all sins to bring believers to God (1 Pet. 3:18)
He offered one sacrifice for all sins for all time (Heb. 10:12)
He saved us from divine condemnation (Roman 8:1)
He delivered His people from the dominion of Satan (Acts 26:18)
He rescued believers from the domain of darkness and transferred       them into His kingdom (Col. 1:13)
In these days of growing uncertainty and anxiety over the global pandemic, we need to warn people that there is a much more hellish and fatal virus called sin that has infected every human being. The bad news is that there is nothing man can DO because there is no human cure. The good news is that there is a divine cure because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has DONE. Here is the greatest news anyone could ever hear from our Savior: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

			
		

DAVID CLOUD: WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING?

DAVID CLOUD: WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING?

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/what_in_the_world_is_happening.php;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
We thank God for His revelation in Scripture. What compassion He has for sinners to give them His Word! What a light in a dark world! Apart from God’s Word, 
we cannot know what is really happening. We cannot rightly understand even those things that we see and hear. We have no power to see the spiritual and 
eternal things. They are hidden behind a veil that cannot be pierced by our physical senses and natural thinking. The scientists’ electron microscopes and space 
telescopes cannot see them. The greatest thinkers cannot pierce that veil.

God’s Word tells us what is happening in spiritual realms behind the veil, and it gives us the wisdom to understand what men themselves are doing.

The devil is using the crisis to work out the mystery of iniquity, which is the plan to put his man on the throne of this world and to have all men worship him by that 
man (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). We see this plan moving forward by the increase in the power of government over men’s lives, by the advance of global government, 
by the breakdown of the old religions and the spread of religious skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism, by global banking and a cashless society, by creating the 
desire for a great leader, and many such things. We must understand, though, that the devil’s doings are under the hand of God and can only proceed as God allows. 
God holds the reins of the times, and though the stage is being set for the devil’s man, he cannot come until the Restrainer be taken out of the way. “And now ye 
know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out 
of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 
Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

God is using the crisis to work out His eternal plan, which is that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both 
which are in heaven, and which are in earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:10). Every “time” or age in man’s history is a time that God made and in which God is 
working out this glorious plan. Among the countless things that God is doing, He is using the coronavirus crisis to judge men of this world for their stubborn rebellion 
to their Creator and their presumption that they can live independently of the One in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.” God is using the crisis as a 
wake up call to His people and His churches, to chasten them for worldliness, to wean them from trusting in things other than God, to turn their focus to eternal 
things, from partying and selfie-ing and social media-ing and the wasting of countless precious hours on vanity to surrender and obedience and holiness and separation. God is using the coronavirus crisis to remind men of their mortality and to bring sinners to repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). In our church, we have seen ten souls come to Christ in born again conversion during the lockdown. God is using the crisis to finish His business in this present age, which is to call out a people for His name among all nations. God is bringing things ever nearer to the next big event in His eternal program, which is the Rapture of the church saints, followed by the day of the Lord. Only He knows when this will happen. For God’s people, it is always “at hand.” The coronavirus pandemic and the strange global shutdown response is a big wake up call from God!

The communists are using the crisis to increase their totalitarian, God-usurping power over men’s bodies and minds.

The socialists are using the crisis to increase the power of government and their own power and to make people ever more dependent on government.

The anarchists are using the crisis to bring mayhem and destruction.

The indolent are using the crisis to get more handouts.

The lawless are using the crisis to increase their lawlessness.

The preppers are using the crisis to strengthen their prepper caves and store up more arms and to work themselves into a greater frenzy of fear-mongering.

The conspiratorialists are using the crisis to prove their pet conspiracies and to be consumed with them.

The global warming fanatics are using the crisis to push their myopic, mythical agenda.

The gullible think the crisis is simply about caring, selfless leaders who are saving people from coronavirus.

The hopeless are using the crisis as an excuse to commit suicide.

The covetous are using the crisis to get more wealth.

The redeemed of the Lord are using the crisis to stay focused on God’s will and the business He has given them, and to listen more intently for “the shout”! 
The following solemn command of the eternal Son of God is in force until “the end of the world,” and that, my friends, has not yet come. “And Jesus came and 
spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world. Amen” (Matthew 28:18-20).

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IS A HERETIC FROM THE LEFT’S SECULAR RELIGION~THE REAL REASON WHY THEY HATE HIM

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IS A HERETIC FROM THE LEFT’S SECULAR RELIGION~THE REAL REASON WHY THEY HATE HIM

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/columns/robert-spencer/2020/05/29/the-real-reason-why-they-hate-him-donald-trump-is-a-heretic-from-the-lefts-secular-religion-n462307;

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

Donald Trump is a heretic. He is persecuted by the Church.

No, not any of the Christian Churches. For them, although few realize or will admit it, Donald Trump, the famous playboy womanizer, is the most pro-Christian President in recent memory. Trump is a heretic from the Leftist church, the secular religion of today’s political and media elites, and as such he must be treated as heretics were in the old days of the Spanish Inquisition: he must be burned at the stake. Actually, that’s inaccurate, as archaism is frowned upon by this religion’s clergy. He need not be burned at the stake, but by whatever means, he must be destroyed.

Although most people in the United States today still identify themselves as Christians, the dominant religion of those who have dominated the political arena, own the establishment media, and set the cultural tone for the nation is not Christianity, but Leftism.

Leftism is a religion without a being who is identified as god as such, except insofar as the atomized individual is exalted to deity status and its every whim canonized as tantamount to divine writ, but it is as rigidly dogmatic, as fervently held, and as fanatically divorced from rationality as the worst and most destructive religious manifestations in human history. It is also extremely influential and all-pervasive. Every President since Franklin D. Roosevelt, with two notable exceptions, has held to this religion to varying degrees, and in some way paid obeisance to its gods and made offerings at its altars.

The first exception was Ronald Reagan. Richard Nixon was virulently hated by the high priests of Leftism, almost as much as Trump is now, but as President, instead of fighting them, Nixon endeavored in numerous ways to show that he was as good a Leftist as those who were determined to drive him from office and destroy him. They were, obviously, not appeased. As is shown in the forthcoming Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster, it was Reagan who was the first post-FDR President to blaspheme the Leftist religion by refusing to adhere to the Leftist dogma that the best way to deal with the Soviet Union was through the admixture of naïve self-abnegation and suicidal concession known as détente.

But Reagan, too, lit incense at the Leftist altars, opening the floodgates to millions of migrants, including all too many with little understanding of, much less love for, the founding principles of the American Republic, when he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, on November 6, 1986. This act made it unlawful to hire people who had come into the country illegally, but also granted amnesty to virtually all illegal immigrants who had entered before 1982—some three million people.

It was left to Donald Trump to challenge the very religion of Leftism itself. The Leftist religion is fervently internationalist, believing that any and all manifestations of nationalism or patriotism are evil in themselves and a recrudescence of Nazism. Trump, by contrast, has repeatedly declared that as President he puts America first, refusing to be intimidate by ongoing efforts to discredit the America-First slogan, and the imperative behind it, as neofascist or racist. Never-Trump commentator William Kristol enunciated the Leftist dogma when he tweeted: “I’ll be unembarrassedly old-fashioned here: It is profoundly depressing and vulgar to hear an American president proclaim ‘America First.’”

As far as Kristol was concerned, the President of the United States should put the interests of the entire world first. This would involve sending American troops on “humanitarian” missions all over the globe, even when no conceivable American interest was involved. Economically, it would require the United States to tie itself into the global economy, another sacred Leftist dogma that Trump has rejected.

It doesn’t matter to the adherents of the Leftist religion that the coronavirus pandemic has shown why it is unwise to depend on China to manufacture anything that America needs. Their beliefs are not rational. Religious faith can be rational, but it often is not, and the Leftist religion is not rational. It is a set of feelings, and emotions, and manifestations of wishful thinking about the world that can be frankly dangerous when it collides with reality – as the coronavirus showed yet again.

But religious faiths can survive all manner of disconfirming evidence. And so Trump is a heretic, and nothing but a heretic, and as such he is persecuted. As far as Leftists are concerned, he must be destroyed, because if he is not, he will destroy their religion. This will be for them a fight to the death.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 19 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

 

EX-MUSLIMS EXPOSE MUSLIM-CATHOLIC DIALOGUE AS DECEPTIVE EXERCISE IN PROSELYTIZING FOR ISLAM

EX-MUSLIMS EXPOSE MUSLIM-CATHOLIC DIALOGUE AS DECEPTIVE EXERCISE IN PROSELYTIZING FOR ISLAM

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEEhttps://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/05/ex-muslims-expose-muslim-catholic-dialogue-as-deceptive-exercise-in-proselytizing-for-islam;

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

“The chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam.” — Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, chapter 10. (Mother Mosque Foundation edition p. 140)

It is abundantly clear from this report that the Muslim framers of the bu Dhabi declaration were following Qutb’s guidance and crafting a document designed to lead Catholics to Islam. Meanwhile, the Catholic partners in the dialogue had no idea that this was happening, and assumed that their partners were operating in good faith as they were. Their naivete will cost the lives of the Christians murdered in the lands of Islam while no one speaks up for them, for fear of harming the dialogue, much less lifts a finger to defend them.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Ex-Muslims Unmask Abu Dhabi ‘Deception,’” by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, May 27, 2020:

ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) – A network of Muslim converts, who face the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, are denouncing the Abu Dhabi declaration as a “deception” for “subtle but significant differences” in the Arabic text of the document.

The ex-Muslims from the Arab world are also lamenting Cdl. Gerhard Müller’s naïveté after the orthodox prelate defended the covenant on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in the May-June issue of Communio.

Müller insists that the text focuses on “fundamental human rights” with “God as their originator and guarantor,” because “all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights” and “human rights are based on the dignity that God himself bestowed on every human being.”

In a preliminary analysis of the declaration shown to Church Militant on condition of anonymity, the Arab-speaking converts say that Cdl. Müller’s reading is not based on the “Islamic theological implications of the Arabic text,” and this reflects his inability to see through the “deception” and fall for the “fake human rights rhetoric.”

Deception in the Details

The ex-Muslims note that the “linguistic/theological dissimulation” begins in the very first sentence of the covenant: “Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved (emphasis added).”

In the Arabic version, the “believer” is the “mu’min” — an Islamic term referring only to a believer in the rigid oneness of God with a rejection of the Trinity (Tawheed) and in Muhammad. Surah 24:62 states, “The believers (mu’min) are only those who believe in Allah and His Messenger … .”

Also, in the Arabic version, there is no mention of “sister” as the reference here is to the Muslim community (ummah) and not to the universal fraternity of all who believe in a generic God.

Again, while the declaration states: “In the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and who has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, to fill the earth,” the converts maintain that in the Arabic version “equality” is not attributed to “human beings” but refers instead to other “beings,” termed “creatures.”

In Christian anthropology, humans are created in God’s image and called to share God’s life. Both of these notions are anathema to Islam, which considers them blasphemous.

“This is a critical distinction since in Islam there is no equality among human beings. Non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims, nor are women equal to men,” a convert who practiced Islamic jurisprudence in an Arab country told Church Militant.

“‘Creation’ in the Koran is different from creation in the Bible,” he said. “The term ‘God’ in English is generic, but in the Arabic version, the focus is on the Islamic God who created (a) human beings, (b) the universe and (c) other beings, termed ‘creatures’ — which, in Islam, also includes all non-human beings, i.e., animals, the jinn (supernatural spirits below the level of angels and demons), and satanic beings.”

The Sharia scholar further observes that in the Arabic version the term for “God” in the opening sentence of the declaration is Bismillah ( باسمِ الله), which excludes all other understandings of God. It also imposes the Islamic concept of Tawheed and the rule of Allah.

“The rest of the text of this quotation is based on Surah 49:13, ‘O mankind, indeed we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most pious of you … .’ Implicitly, this applies to Muslims only,” he explains.

When referring to fraternity among all human beings, the English version states: “In the name of freedom that God has given to all human beings creating them free (emphasis added) … .” But the Arabic translation of “creating them free” ( وفطَرَهُم عليها ) states that God has created them according to the fitrah.

“This fitrah is an Islamic doctrine that states that all humans are created ‘Muslims,’ i.e., the DNA of every human is Islam, as per Surah 30:30, ‘So direct your face toward the religion (Islam), inclining to truth. [Adhere to] the fitrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] mankind … .” the expert underscores….


 

JEN HATMAKER SAYS “LGBTQ CHRISTIANS” PREACH IN HER CHURCH; CALLS FOR MASS EXODUS OF CONSERVATIVE DENOMINATIONS

JEN HATMAKER SAYS “LGBTQ CHRISTIANS” PREACH IN HER CHURCH; CALLS FOR MASS EXODUS OF CONSERVATIVE DENOMINATIONS

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/05/27/jen-hatmaker-says-lgbtq-christians-preach-in-her-church-calls-for-mass-exodus-of-conservative-denoms/

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

Jen Hatmaker, who first publicly renounced Christianity in an interview with Jonathan Merritt — a gay activist and son of former Southern Baptist Convention president, James Merritt — and says she first questioned Evangelical Christianity because gay people couldn’t have sex with each other, is now calling for a mass exodus from conservative, biblical denominations.

Hatmaker writes on her Facebook page a scathing denunciation of conservative biblical beliefs referring to those who hold to a biblical sexual ethic and treat the Scriptures as the inerrant and authoritative Word of God as denominations and churches that “diminish women” and “harm or exile LGBTQ Christians” and “peddle shame and guilt and sorrow.”

What Hatmaker fails to understand is that “shame and guilt and sorrow” for the unregenerate — like her — are actually a sign of mercy from God and a call to repentance and faith in Christ. Instead, Hatmaker continues to lift her middle finger to God by peddling sin and rebellion to those who need to actually hear the gospel.

Hatmaker conflates freedom in Christ with freedom to sin. Her version of “freedom” is actually a bondage to sin — an inability to escape sin and its consequences — and she inflicts this eternal damnation upon those who need to be set free.

The wrath of God is inescapable. Jesus was very clear: lest you repent, you too will perish (Luke 13:3,5).

Instead, Hatmaker is glad that gays preach in her church. I wonder if the “LGBTQ Christians who preach in her church ever preach on 1 Corinthians 6 or Romans 1. The fact remains that those who are in bondage to sin have not been set free in Christ and will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

She is right about one thing though: those who remain in rebellion to God’s design for us have demonstrated themselves to not be part of the body of Christ and should, well, “come on out.” In fact, they should be purged from among us as the Scriptures command.

God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” — 1 Corinthians 5:13


			
		

GOVERNMENT ACTION PUTS CHURCHES UNDER “THE GUN”

GOVERNMENT ACTION PUTS CHURCHES 
UNDER “THE GUN” 
BY ROGER KATZ
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- America is first and foremost a Christian Nation. This isn’t hypothesis, or hyperbole, or manifestation of hysteria. It is fact. This fact is the backbone and linchpin of our Constitution. It is the foundation of our natural rights; rights bestowed on man by a loving, Divine Creator. It is a self-evident truth.
In recent years, the would-be destroyers of our Nation have attacked this notion; and, with the intentional or reckless unleashing of a pandemic on our Nation and on other nations by the amoral, irreligious, autocratic, and diabolical, Communist regime of Xi Jinping of China, the would-be destroyers of our Nation have renewed their assault on the Christian Church. They have done so with unusual feral ferocity.
Who are these would-be destroyers of our Constitution; these betrayers of our National heritage, of our natural rights and liberties; these sowers of ill will; these destructive, hateful forces who disingenuously, hypocritically, coldly, callously, calculatedly assert a need, an impulse to tear down the Christian framework of our Nation, ostensibly, as they say, or so they claim, to save it? We know them. They are all around us. They comprise an heterogeneous, amorphous conglomeration of malcontents both here and abroad who seek to remake the world in their own image: Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Neoliberal Billionaire Globalists, and others. They share the same belief system, the same value system: distrust of the common man; a strong, tenacious, insatiable desire to subjugate humanity; and a bias toward and a disturbing penchant for Atheism, Agnosticism, Satanism, and concomitant amorality, immorality, or pseudo-morality albeit disguised as seemingly benign secularism, moral relativism, and nontheistic humanism.

A Modern Civil War

America is in the midst of a Civil War. This war isn’t fought with guns or bombs, at least for the moment. But it’s war, nonetheless. We see this war waged in the attempt to control the mind, the thoughts of Americans. The despoilers of our Nation have sought to drive a wedge between Americans and their sacred rights and liberties. If successful, our Nation will cease to exist, for the sovereignty of the American people exists and thrives only in the unfettered exercise of their God-given rights and liberties. For only in the exercise of those rights and liberties may the power of Government be restrained and constrained.
These would-be annihilators of our Nation use calamity to drive a wedge between the citizenry and their fundamental rights and liberties. They are adept at seducing many Americans to surrender their rights and liberties for security. Recall Benjamin Franklin’s famous, oft reiterated, prescient quote: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
After the attack on the World Trade Center, the assassins of our Bill of Rights said Americans don’t require freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures because Government must protect Americans from terrorists; ergo, Americans came to lose their sovereignty through a slow, inexorable process toward creation of the Surveillance State, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred right embodied in the Fourth Amendment.
After some lunatics went on a shooting binge, in the last couple of decades the assassins of our Bill of Rights said Americans ought not exercise their unalienable God-given right to keep and bear arms because Government must promote public safety and ensure public order; ergo, we see the rapid evolution toward restricting ownership and possession of firearms, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment.
And now, with the Chinese Communist Coronavirus unleashed upon us, the assassins of our Bill of Rights have said Government must constrain the free exercise of religion, restrain the freedom of speech, preclude the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to curtail the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; ergo we see the rapid evolution toward controlling the thoughts and actions of the citizenry; the subjugation of the people, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred rights embodied in the First Amendment.

State Governments Prepared To Use Force To Demand Church Closures

Ironically, it isn’t the Federal Government, but the Governors of a few States who seek to curtail the free exercise of religion.
With all the bluster of the Radical Left that calls President Trump an autocrat, the actions of Radical Left Governors make plain who the autocrats really are.
Radical Left New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, California Governor, Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have closed churches claiming, as a rationale, the need to promote public health due to the Chinese Coronavirus.
Unsurprisingly, a website that calls itself, the “Friendly Atheist,” says, that State Governors can do this:
“ ‘Policies don’t violate religious freedom laws if they’re created in order to save people’s lives,’ said Michael Moreland, director of the Ellen H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University.” ‘So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them,’ he said. . . . So, yes, governors can and should shut down church gatherings in the same way they’re shutting down public schools and restaurants. Treat them fairly. Treat them equally. There’s nothing illegal going on no matter how many pastors whine about religious discrimination.”
Let’s parse a couple of these comments. First, the “Friendly Atheist” draws a false dilemma, claiming that either Churches remain closed or people fall sick and die. That’s untrue. Churches are cognizant of the threat. They have been implementing proper protocols to preclude the spread of the Chinese Coronavirus. Second, the remark of the legal expert, Ellen McCullen is vague and ambiguous. She asserts, “So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them.”
Is Ellen McCullen saying that, so long as State Governors force every religion to close its doors, not just Christian denominations, then Church closure orders are lawful? Or is McCullen saying that, as long as those restrictions apply to all political, social, and business organizations and establishments—truly, literally everyone, and every establishment, throughout a State, apart from hospitals, pharmacies, and food establishments—then Church closure orders are lawful? If the former statement is what McCullen means, then the Church closure actions are not “content-neutral,” and are therefore unconstitutional. If the latter statement is what McCullen means, then the Government ordered Church closure actions are likely still unconstitutional. Why? It comes down to what constitutes an “essential service,” terminology that State Governments themselves have concocted. No one would deny that severely ill people need the care of health care providers that, in many cases only hospitals can effectively provide. And no one can honestly deny that many people require prescription medicines to remain well. And no one can deny that everybody requires food sustenance to survive. What about Churches?
Is attendance at Church an essential service? Well, under both the test created by State Governors that like to draw distinction between essential and non-essential services, houses of worship do fall into the category of essential services, as spiritual need is arguably just as essential to well-being and survival as are food, medicine, and medical care. Moreover, the free exercise of religion isn’t a mere privilege, nor is it a minor right. It is a fundamental right. That right and the right of self-defense and personal autonomy are the most sacred of rights.
These State Governors are simply wrong. Churches must remain open in our free Republic.
Curiously, it is the U.S. President, not the State Governors who recognize the importance of our sacred rights and liberties. As just reported in the website, U.S. News, for one:
“President Donald Trump on Friday said he has deemed churches and other houses of worship ‘essential’ and called on governors to allow them to reopen this weekend despite the threat of the coronavirus.”
“ ‘Today I’m identifying houses of worship — churches, synagogues and mosques — as essential places that provide essential services,’ Trump said during a hastily arranged press conference Friday. He said if governors don’t abide by his request, he will ‘override’ them, though it’s unclear what authority he has to do so.”
Who is the autocrat? Who is the tyrant? It isn’t Donald Trump. The real autocrats and tyrants are those State Governors who usurp the sovereignty of the American people by daring to deny to them their fundamental right to worship the Divine Creator: the one Being who gave man free will, and who bestowed on man fundamental, unalienable, immutable rights.

There are those of us who adore the Divine Creator.

But for those who would deny the Divine Creator, there is no limit to their capacity for evil. They use a catastrophe as an excuse to destroy rights and liberties they never created yet have the effrontery to strike down. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste:” Rahm’s Rule—the arrogant “first principle” of the deniers of the Divine Creator.

Arbalest Quarrel
About The Arbalest Quarrel:
Arbalest Group created `The Arbalest Quarrel’ website for a special purpose. That purpose is to educate the American public about recent Federal and State firearms control legislation. No other website, to our knowledge, provides as deep an analysis or as thorough an analysis. Arbalest Group offers this information free.
For more information, visit: www.arbalestquarrel.com.

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” RECENT ARTICLES

DAVID CLOUD’S “WAY OF LIFE” 
RECENT ARTICLES
SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/21-21.php;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
DARLENE ZSCHECH SOLD HER SEASIDE MANSION FOR $4 MILLION 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
Darlene Zschech, former worship leader of Hillsong Sydney, has sold her seaside mansion for a reported $4-$4.4 million. The cliffside property, with a nearly 360 degree view of the ocean, is 1,258sqm with three levels, multiple entertainment areas, private movie theater, pool, and several cliff facing balconies (“Former Hillsong Church Leader,” Warwick Daily News, May 13, 2020). Zschech was “worship pastor” at Hills Christian Life Centre, Sydney, for 25 years, and published many of the most popular contemporary worship songs, including “Shout to the Lord,” “This Is Our God,” and “Mighty to Save.” In 2010, Darlene and her husband became the senior pastors of Hope Unlimited Church, but she continues to be involved in music projects with Hillsong. The New York Times reported that Hillsong is “without a doubt the most influential producers of worship music in Christendom” (“Megachurch with a Beat Lures Young Flock,” Sept. 9, 2014). Hillsong pushes one-world church ecumenism. Zschech says, “There is a new sound and a new song being proclaimed across the earth. It’s the sound of a unified church, coming together, in one voice to magnify our magnificent Lord” (“You Shine” album cover). Zschech and Hillsong performed for the Roman Catholic World Youth Day in Sydney on July 18, 2008. Pope Benedict XVI was present and conducted a papal mass. In July 2015, Darlene Zschech and Hillsong joined hands with the pope at the Convocation of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit at the Vatican. On her Facebook page, Zschech said: “Honoured to be singing this week, with Andrea Bocelli, Don Moen, Noa [Israeli singer], with Pope Francis and thousands of worshippers gathering in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. This is a celebration of unity and peace in the Renewal of the Holy Spirit. Amazing days for the Body of Christ.” Sadly, she doesn’t know the “body of Christ” from a pineapple, has zero spiritual discernment, yet she has vast influence among all denominations, including independent Baptist. In January 2019 and 2020, Hillsong Phoenix hosted the annual Alpha Conference which featured a Catholic mass. Fundamental Baptists and Bible-believing churches that use charismatic contemporary praise music are playing with fire. They will learn, probably too late, that this music brings with it a philosophy that will change the character of any fundamentalist church. It builds bridges to the “broader church,” which is progressing toward the formation of a “one-world church.”

WHEN HEBREW WAS PROPOSED AS THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The following is excerpted from “How Hebrew Almost Became the Language of America,” Israel Today, May 5, 2020: “William Gifford, an English poet and essayist, received a report that ‘In the rebellion of the Colonies, a member of that state seriously proposed to Congress the putting down of the English language by law, and decreeing the universal adoption of Hebrew in its stead.’ Some believe this was intended as a mockery of the mutinous colonists, but there is sufficient evidence to show that this was a very real and serious consideration. New England Puritans held a profound connection with Israel, the Hebrew language and the Jewish people. In their conviction that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, they held the original Hebrew in great reverence and of particular importance in interpreting and understanding Scripture. ... William Bradford (1590-1657) was a Puritan separatist who immigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Bradford, who went on to serve as governor of the new colony for 25 years, taught himself Hebrew because he wanted to read the Scriptures in their original language. On his gravestone he had inscribed in Hebrew, ‘The LORD is the help of my life’ ... Their love of Hebrew led these early New England Christian ministers to develop relationships with Jewish rabbis. Rev. Ezra Stiles, who was driven out by the British in 1776 and immigrated to New England, struck up a close friendship with Rabbi Haim Isaac Carigal. ... With his knowledge of Hebrew, Stiles translated large portions of the Hebrew Old Testament into English. As did many Christian ministers at the time, he understood that knowledge of the original Hebrew was crucial to the proper interpretation of Scripture and even the basis upon which one could properly understand the New Testament as well. Credit is sometimes given to Stiles for proposing that Hebrew replace English as the official language of the newly forming United States. When Stiles was elected president of Yale University, he initiated a course in Hebrew as a freshman requirement. The Hebrew words Urim and Thummim worn on the breastplate of the High Priest, perhaps signifying ‘Light and Perfection,’ became part of Yale’s official seal along with the Latin Lux et Veritas (light and truth).”
DUTCH SUPREME COURT RULES THAT DOCTORS CAN EUTHANIZE ELDERLY WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The following is excerpted from “Dutch Supreme Court Rules,” Reformation Charlotte, May 6, 2020: “If abortion against the unwilling infants still inside the mother’s womb isn’t bad enough, why not legalize abortion against elderly patients with dementia against their will? In a landmark ruling last month, the Dutch Supreme Court said that a doctor who committed euthanasia on an elderly patient with dementia while her family physically restrained her is not legally responsible for any wrongdoing. The Guardian reports: ‘Doctors in the Netherlands are able to carry out euthanasia on patients with severe dementia without fear of prosecution even if the patient no longer expresses an explicit wish to die, the country’s highest court has ruled. The supreme court’s decision followed a landmark case last year in which a doctor was acquitted of wrongdoing for euthanizing a woman in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s who had requested the procedure before her condition deteriorated.’”
NINTH CIRCUIT COURT REVIVES CHURCH’S LAWSUIT AGAINST CALIFORNIA ABORTION INSURANCE MANDATE 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The following is excerpted from “Ninth Circuit,” Christian Post, May 15, 2020: “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has revived a California church’s lawsuit against a state law mandating insurance coverage for abortion. Skyline Wesleyan Church of La Mesa sued the California Department of Managed Health Care over letters from 2014 stating that insurance companies could not limit abortion coverage. ... The [Ninth Circuit] panel vacated the earlier district court ruling in a unanimous decision released Wednesday, sending the case back to the lower court for further proceedings. Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland authored the panel’s opinion, concluding that ‘Skyline has suffered an injury in fact. Before the Letters were sent, Skyline had insurance that excluded abortion coverage in a way that was consistent with its religious beliefs,’ Friedland wrote. ‘After the Letters were sent, Skyline did not have that coverage, and it has presented evidence that its new coverage violated its religious beliefs. There is nothing hypothetical about the situation.’ The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that represented the church before the Ninth Circuit, celebrated the panel’s decision. ‘The agency has unconstitutionally targeted religious organizations, repeatedly collaborated with pro-abortion advocates, and failed to follow the appropriate administrative procedures to implement its abortion-coverage requirement,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus.”
LOOKING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN THE MARK OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN 
(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
“I believe it is a mark, that every true believer should be continually at,--to live so as to be ready to meet Christ. ... It is vain to tell me that a man may be a very good man, and yet not be ready for the kingdom of Christ. I deny it altogether. I say that every justified and converted man is ready, and that if you are not ready you are not a justified man. I say that the standard I put before you is nothing more than the New Testament standard, and the Apostles would have doubted your religion, if you were not looking and longing for the coming of the Lord. ... Yet a little while and the last sermon shall be preached,--the last congregation shall break up. Yet a little while and carelessness and infidelity shall cease and pass away. The believers among us shall meet with Christ, and the unbelievers shall be in hell. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand” (J.C. Ryle, Coming Events and Present Duties, 1879). “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28).

TOP SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER, RUSSELL MOORE, BEGS NANCY PELOSI TO RELEASE MORE PRISONERS AMID CORONAVIRUS “PLANDEMIC”

WHEN THE “SLOWLY BECOMING CATHOLIC” SOUTHERN BAPTISTS KNEEL & BEG FOR HANDOUTS & RELEASE OF PRISONERS FROM THE VERY CATHOLIC, POPE SYCOPHANT NANCY PELOSI 

TOP SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADER, 
RUSSELL MOORE, BEGS NANCY PELOSI 
TO RELEASE MORE PRISONERS 
AMID CORONAVIRUS “PLANDEMIC”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
Nothing says anti-Christ statism like turning the Church into a government-funded 
institution. While church leaders around the country are caving to the state’s demands 
that they shut their doors and Democrat governors are blaming the spread of coronavirus on Christians, some Evangelical leaders are tramping around begging Caesar to give money to these churches.
This is exactly what top Southern Baptist leader and president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Russell Moore is doing.

Moore, who has a difficult time grasping the concept of the Separation of Church and State from numerous fronts, sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi begging her for money to keep the doors of churches from shuttering permanently. In this letter, he asks for restrictions on charitable businesses to be removed and more money to be handed out to them through the Payment Protection Program in Phase 4 of the COVID-19 Relief Package.
The inability to access those loans will hinder the good work of many nonprofits, and could permanently close other charitable organizations. This could be solved through a nonprofit charity grant program that would be accessed by faith-based charities to support employee retention, hiring, and programming. The funds could be administered through a nonprofit PPP program, and a nonprofit grant program administered by the U.S. Treasury.
It’s bad enough that the most influential leader in the largest Protestant denomination in the country is begging Nancy Pelosi — of all people — for more money. But that’s not all he’s doing. He is also begging her to release more prisoners from federal prison.
He writesIncarcerated men and women are especially vulnerable in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis because of contained physical space. This is especially true for aging and immunocompromised incarcerated populations. Congress should expand compassionate release during the pandemic, so that higher-risk individuals would be protected from medical harm. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and federal courts use this tool to reduce sentences for federal prisoners on a case-by-case basis for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.”
Congress should temporarily reduce the 30 day waiting period for federal prisoners to file a motion for compassionate release directly with a federal court in order to speed up the process and provide quicker physical and medical relief to those incarcerated.
We learned last night on Tucker Carlson that Nancy Pelosi — who joined Russell Moore and other Southern Baptist leaders last year at the NAE Conference to oppose the border wall — has taken Russell Moore’s concerns to heart and has included massive provisions that would release enormous amounts of prisoners into the streets of America.
Southern Baptists are paying for this. And church leaders who keep sending money to this rogue entity rather than speak out boldly and publicly against him are part of the problem.

APOSTASY: LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP, JUST LIKE ROMAN CATHOLICS

Lutherans Pray to Mother God
LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP
BY DAVID CLOUD
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP
(Friday Church News Notes, May 8, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
On April 28 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America posted a prayer tweet addressed to “Mother God,” asking her to “raise us up to salvation ... so we may share the sweetness of your holy word with all the world.” This was one of the ELCA’s #Bread4theday Twitter posts. The ELCA is the largest Lutheran denomination in America, and it is obviously apostate. The ELCA Publishing House has printed countless volumes which promote unbelief. For example, in 1988 an ELCA book by Ragnar Leivestad, entitled Jesus in His Own Perspective, goofily claimed that Jesus never invoked for himself a special position and did not claim messianic titles. The World Council of Churches, of which the ELCA is a member, is filled with mother goddess worship. ELCA women participated in the WCC’S “Re-imagining Conference” in 1993 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Star Tribune reported that “throughout the conference worship experiences will celebrate Sophia, the biblical goddess of creation” (Nov. 3, 1993). On Sunday morning, the conferees joined together in repeating a prayer to their female goddess, including these words, “Our maker Sophia, we are women in your image. ... With the honey of wisdom in our mouths, we prophesy a full humanity to all the peoples.” At the WCC’s Seventh Assembly in 1991 South Korean Presbyterian Chung Hyun-Kyung evoked a female Holy Spirit (Religious News Service, Mar. 5, 1991). The WCC publication No Longer Strangers, a joint project with the Lutheran World Federation, which includes the ELCA, suggested that God be addressed as “The Source, Lady of peace, Lady of wisdom, Lady of love, Lady of birth, Lord of stars, Lord of planets, Mother, Home, Presence, Power, Essence, Simplicity.” Consider the poem “Bakerwoman God,” which is to be used in church services: “Bakerwoman God, I am your living bread. Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God ... Put me in your fire, Bakerwoman God ... Break me, Bakerwoman God. ... Bakerwoman God, remake me.” The hour is very late, folks!

OVER 100 PASTORS SIGN LETTER TO OHIO BOARD OF EDUCATION OPPOSING YOGA, MEDITATION BEING TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS~HOW THE NO LONGER “CHRISTIAN” YMCA & YWCA PROMOTE YOGA

VIDEO:

OVER 100 PASTORS SIGN LETTER TO OHIO BOARD OF EDUCATION OPPOSING YOGA, MEDITATION BEING TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS

BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
(Christian News Network) — More than 100 pastors recently signed a letter to the Ohio Board of Education, which was also sent to 39 school districts, to express opposition to yoga and transcendental meditation being taught in schools as they are rooted in Eastern religion and are a spiritual practice at their core.
The letter, signed by 105 pastors from various denominations, notes that yoga has been taught during school hours in Clear Fork, Galion, Lexington, Lucas, Mansfield and Shelby counties and asks for an assurance that such practices will be discontinued.
“Yoga is not merely an external physical practice with a purely physiological effect, but rather an internal spiritual practice advertised as being able to provide the power to change an individual and transform the world,” it reads. “Specifically, yoga’s ‘stretching’ and ‘breathing’ components, called ‘asanas’ and ‘pranayama’ in Sanskrit, are intended to be spiritually transformative.”
The correspondence points to various court decisions characterizing yoga as being rooted in Hinduism, including the 1988 case of Powell v. Perry, which concluded that “yoga is a method of practicing Hinduism,” and the 1995 case of Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, which spoke of the “Hindu-yoga spiritual tradition.”
The pastors further provide examples of classroom or physical education sessions that incorporated yoga, including where a Lexington language arts teacher allegedly taught sixth-graders how to “salute the sun god Surya,” or “bow to the sun,” as well as how to get into a “praying hands posture.”
In Plain School District, an elementary school is said to have created a “mindfulness room” that featured quotes from the Dalai Lama. Its yoga program was discontinued in 2013 following complaints from parents.
One of the groups behind in-school teaching cited by the pastors also teaches Reiki to its followers. Examples of general Facebook posts include, “We will use ushas mudra this week to support the awakening of new and creative possibilities in this new year. What are you ready to manifest in 2020?” “How is your third eye? Are you connected to your vision center?” “How will you raise your vibration today? Come play some yoga with us!” and “Take a screen shot and see what you the Universe wants to tell you.”
The letter also notes that those involved in Eastern religion refute assertions that yoga is not a religious activity. It cites Subhas Tiwari, professor at the Hindu University of America and graduate of Bihar Yoga Bharati University, who once said, “The simple immutable fact is that yoga originated from the Vedic or Hindu culture. Its techniques were not adopted by Hinduism, but rather originated from it.”
The pastors concede that while “[m]ost initiate yoga practice for exercise and stress relief,” for others, “spirituality becomes their primary reason for maintaining practice.” They point to a study of mindful yoga retreat participants, which found that “longer-term meditators were less likely to be religious monotheists and more likely to identify as Buddhist or with ‘all’ religions.”
Photo Credit: Facebook
Further, “[w]hile proponents of Eastern religion allege yoga brings benefits to student practitioners, our biblical faith tradition brings just as many, if not more, scientifically-proven benefits,” the clergy contend. “Yet, ironically in a nation with Judeo-Christian heritage, it is school sanctioned prayer, Intelligent Design curriculum and the display of the Ten Commandments that are strictly prohibited from public schools.”
They therefore ask that the school districts discontinue teaching yoga and transcendental meditation to students.
Signees include pastors Howard Burnett of Perryville Baptist Church, Floyd Allen of Philippian Community Church, Ron Smals of Woodville Grace Brethren, Paul Larson of First English Lutheran Church, Russ Smith of Shiloh Wesleyan Church, Dan Zediker of Mission Point Mansfield, Bill Strader of Bucyrus First Alliance Church, Sylvester Ginn of Hesed Agape Fellowship, Layton Broom of Paradise Hill United Methodist Church, and William Jordan of Faith Temple Church of God in Christ.
Read the letter in full here. View some of the pastors sharing their thoughts at the end of the article.
As previously reported, in a booklet entitled “Yoga: Exercise or Religion — Does it Matter?”, author Ray Yungen outlines that while many view yoga as harmless exercise, there is no denying that the practice is rooted in Eastern New Age religion.
Hindu god Shiva. Photo Credit: Kalyan Kumar/Flickr
“The word ‘yoga’ actually means to be yoked to or united in body, mind, and spirit with Brahman (the Hindu concept of God). It doesn’t get more spiritually obvious than that,” he outlined. “… Even the traditional Hindu greeting, Namasté, that is said at the end of yoga classes, is spiritual. When translated, it means, ‘The god in me bows down to (or salutes) the god in you.’”
“If you go to the fitness section of any bookstore and look in the yoga subsection, you will find references to the spiritual aspects of Yoga such as the chakra system, kundalini, etc. in almost every book on yoga. It is quite rare to find a book on yoga that does not incorporate spiritual concepts found in classic Hinduism,” Yungen explained. “To devout Hindus, yoga cannot be separated into physical and spiritual parts. Both are relevant to the practice, with the end desire being a profound religious experience.”
He said that some Christians have wrongly concluded that yoga can be adopted by believers as long as it is stripped of its pagan aspects.
“We live in an age where the acceptance of trendy practices, such as yoga, is hammered into us from every side, with the end result being an ecumenical generic inter-spirituality that fits everybody,” Yungen lamented.
“Believers in Christ have fallen prey to some dangerous ideas. One is that we feel free to draw from pagan sources. Or, as is popularly stated, we can chew the meat and spit out the bones. But this doesn’t make any sense from a biblical standpoint,” he said. “As a Christian, we can’t segregate into portions what part we think will do us harm and what part will profit us. If the foundational spirituality is contrary to God’s word, then it will be folly to interact with it.”
SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT YOGA & THE YMCA, YWCA:

THE ROMAN GLOBALIST CHURCH

THE ROMAN GLOBALIST CHURCH
Pope Francis accelerates Catholicism’s descent into humanist utopianism
BY JOSEPH HIPPOLITO
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
As Christians worldwide celebrated their most significant holiday, their most recognizable figure delivered a distinctly secular message.
On Easter Sunday, the Vatican released a letter Pope Francis wrote to Catholic organizations in South America. Francis wrote that the coronavirus pandemic “might be a good time to consider a universal basic wage” that would enable the poor to enjoy “the benefits of globalism.”
Such a measure, Francis wrote, “would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.”
Toward the end of his letter, Francis hoped the pandemic would generate “a humanist and ecological conversion that puts an end to the idolatry of money, and places human life and dignity at the center.”
Nowhere in his letter did Francis mention Jesus Christ.
The letter conclusively proves that Francis is transforming the Catholic Church into another non-governmental organization. In the process, he is destroying the church’s identity and credibility.
Francis’ activism reflects and culminates the Vatican’s embrace of humanist utopianism, which Front Page Magazine briefly addressed last year in “They Died For ‘Dialogue’?” That article traced the Holy See’s policy of appeasing Islam and China to the radical globalism adopted at the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.
A pastoral document written on politics and economics during the council stated that “there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter. … Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person.”
In 1967, Pope Paul VI called for international agencies to create “a full-bodied humanism,” he wrote, by managing the world’s economic and political development:
Such international collaboration among the nations of the world certainly calls for institutions that will promote, coordinate and direct it, until a new juridical order is firmly established and fully ratified. We give willing and wholehearted support to those public organizations that have already joined in promoting the development of nations, and We ardently hope that they will enjoy ever growing authority.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI took that concept to its logical conclusion ​by advocating that the United Nations direct both international and domestic​ economic policies:
In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need…
for a reform of the United Nations…and, likewise, of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth….
To manage the global economy…to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority…
This authority, Benedict wrote, must “seek to establish the common good” and “have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums.”
The ultimate purpose, Benedict wrote, would be to design a “directed” global economy that would “open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale” – – including “a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them.”
In promoting such an authority, Benedict subtly redefined the Catholic Church’s primary role from proclaiming the Gospel to ensuring economic benefits for all — or, at least, redefining the Gospel in materialist terms. Benedict even presumed that global economic management through a “true world political authority” can achieve spiritual harmony.
When animated by charity, commitment to the common good … has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man’s earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family.
Like his predecessors, Francis believes globalism is pivotal. In an August interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa​​, Francis criticized nationalist movements threatening the European Union:
Europe cannot and must not break apart. It is a historical, cultural, as well as geographical, unity. Never forget that ‘the whole is greater than the parts.’ Globalization, unity, should not be conceived as a sphere but as a polyhedron. Each people retains its identity in unity with others.
Francis’ bishops promote the new prime directive. “They Died For ‘Dialogue’?” mentions the praise Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Council for Sciences and Social Sciences, gave China in February 2018:
Right now, those who are implementing the Church’s social doctrine the best are the Chinese.
They search for the common good and subordinate everything to the general welfare.
Sorondo particularly praised China’s implementation of “Laudato Si,” Francis’ environmental encyclical, for “defending the dignity of the person” and “assuming a moral leadership that others have left,” a criticism of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on carbon-dioxide emissions.
Sorondo issued his praise despite the fact that China ranks among the world’s worst air polluters, performs between 10 million and 23 million abortions a year — many of them forced by the government — and persecutes Christians who worship outside of state-approved churches.
In June 2018, Cardinal Pietro Parolin became the first official from the Holy See to attend the Bilderberg Meetings, where international figures from business, finance, government, communications and academia gathered to discuss such topics as political populism, free trade and economic inequality. Eighteen months earlier, Parolin had addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Parolin — the Vatican’s second-most powerful figure as its secretary of state — received an invitation from the Bilderberg organizers, who insisted upon his presence.
Nearly three months later, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich vividly illustrated the papacy’s priorities. Immediately after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano alleged that Francis protected and promoted sexual predators among the bishops, Cupich performed his best imitation of Marie Antoinette.
“The Pope has a bigger agenda,” Cupich told Chicago’s WMAQ-TV. “He’s got to get on with other things: talking about the environment, protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”
Cupich repeated that theme the next day at Mundelein Seminary in suburban Chicago: “We have a bigger agenda than to be distracted by all of this,” Cupich told the seminarians, one of whom spoke anonymously to the Chicago Sun-Times about the archbishop’s address. The Sun-Times published the story after receiving confirmation from other sources, including several seminarians.
If Catholic prelates are willing to disregard the victimization of the innocent, nobody should expect them to uphold the church’s historic opposition to abortion and contraception.
In February, one month before California‘s primary, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy issued voting guidelines for Catholics in his diocese. But McElroy did more than reiterate support for Francis’ positions on environmentalism and immigration. He essentially stated that those positions held greater significance than the church’s stance against abortion and contraception.
While conceding that abortion was “intrinsically evil,” McElroy criticized the idea that “candidates who seek laws opposing intrinsically evil actions automatically have a​ primary claim to political support in the Catholic conscience.”
“The problem with this approach is that while the criterion of intrinsic evil identifies specific human acts that can never be justified, this criterion is not a measure of the relative gravity of the evil in particular human or political actions,” McElroy wrote. “Telling a lie is intrinsically evil, while escalating a nuclear arms race is not. But it is wrongheaded to propose that telling a lie to constituents should count more in the calculus of faithful voting than a candidate’s plans to initiate a destabilizing nuclear weapons program.”
Similarly, contraception is intrinsically evil in Catholic moral theology, while actions which destroy the environment generally are not. But it is a far greater moral evil for our​ country to abandon the Paris Climate Accord than to provide contraceptives in federal health centers.​ (emphasis added)
Perhaps no better example of the Vatican’s embrace of humanist globalism exists than the presence of economist Jeffrey Sachs as a papal advisor. Sachs, who drafted the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, supports abortion as an integral part of population control. Nevertheless, he participates frequently in Vatican conferences on sustainability.
So why would Francis have Sachs as an advisor? Consider these comments the economist made to the National Catholic Register ​​after one such conference in February:
Asked whether by the Church’s teaching on human dignity he meant respect for life from conception to natural death, Sachs replied: ‘I mean everybody’s economic needs should be met, that people should have the dignity of work, that the poor should be helped, that this is about the core ideas of human well-being.’
Asked if by helping the poor he meant wealth creation, he said: ‘Jesus said, “He who feeds the least among me, feeds me.” He was talking about helping the poor. When Aristotle talks about politics or the common good, he’s talking about a society in which people afforded dignity.’
‘We know why our current system leads to massive inequalities, leaving billions of people behind,’ he said, ‘and so this is about public policy, about individual ethics, social organization. It’s about our attitudes towards others.’
When questioned by Pontius Pilate, Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world. Yet as Sachs demonstrates, Catholicism is trying to gain the whole world by being like the world. By doing so, the church is losing its own soul.

WHY THE NAR IS NEW AGE WITH A CHRISTIAN VENEER

WHY THE NAR IS NEW AGE 
WITH A CHRISTIAN VENEER 
THE NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION EXPOSED
Why do so many ex-new agers fall into the NAR? Tara Chelioudakis, author of “The Narrow Path,” discusses the similarities between the new age and NAR, and how to avoid deception by being grounded in Scripture. Tara’s book, “The Narrow Path” is available at: https://amzn.to/2yBEIE6 Tara’s website is Narrow-Path.net and her Facebook page is:
Author Tara Chelioudakis.

OVER 100 PASTORS SIGN LETTER TO OHIO BOARD OF EDUCATION OPPOSING YOGA, MEDITATION BEING TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS~HOW THE NO LONGER “CHRISTIAN” YMCA & YWCA PROMOTE YOGA

VIDEO:

OVER 100 PASTORS SIGN LETTER TO OHIO BOARD OF EDUCATION OPPOSING YOGA, MEDITATION BEING TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS

BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
(Christian News Network) — More than 100 pastors recently signed a letter to the Ohio Board of Education, which was also sent to 39 school districts, to express opposition to yoga and transcendental meditation being taught in schools as they are rooted in Eastern religion and are a spiritual practice at their core.
The letter, signed by 105 pastors from various denominations, notes that yoga has been taught during school hours in Clear Fork, Galion, Lexington, Lucas, Mansfield and Shelby counties and asks for an assurance that such practices will be discontinued.
“Yoga is not merely an external physical practice with a purely physiological effect, but rather an internal spiritual practice advertised as being able to provide the power to change an individual and transform the world,” it reads. “Specifically, yoga’s ‘stretching’ and ‘breathing’ components, called ‘asanas’ and ‘pranayama’ in Sanskrit, are intended to be spiritually transformative.”
The correspondence points to various court decisions characterizing yoga as being rooted in Hinduism, including the 1988 case of Powell v. Perry, which concluded that “yoga is a method of practicing Hinduism,” and the 1995 case of Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, which spoke of the “Hindu-yoga spiritual tradition.”
The pastors further provide examples of classroom or physical education sessions that incorporated yoga, including where a Lexington language arts teacher allegedly taught sixth-graders how to “salute the sun god Surya,” or “bow to the sun,” as well as how to get into a “praying hands posture.”
In Plain School District, an elementary school is said to have created a “mindfulness room” that featured quotes from the Dalai Lama. Its yoga program was discontinued in 2013 following complaints from parents.
One of the groups behind in-school teaching cited by the pastors also teaches Reiki to its followers. Examples of general Facebook posts include, “We will use ushas mudra this week to support the awakening of new and creative possibilities in this new year. What are you ready to manifest in 2020?” “How is your third eye? Are you connected to your vision center?” “How will you raise your vibration today? Come play some yoga with us!” and “Take a screen shot and see what you the Universe wants to tell you.”
The letter also notes that those involved in Eastern religion refute assertions that yoga is not a religious activity. It cites Subhas Tiwari, professor at the Hindu University of America and graduate of Bihar Yoga Bharati University, who once said, “The simple immutable fact is that yoga originated from the Vedic or Hindu culture. Its techniques were not adopted by Hinduism, but rather originated from it.”
The pastors concede that while “[m]ost initiate yoga practice for exercise and stress relief,” for others, “spirituality becomes their primary reason for maintaining practice.” They point to a study of mindful yoga retreat participants, which found that “longer-term meditators were less likely to be religious monotheists and more likely to identify as Buddhist or with ‘all’ religions.”
Photo Credit: Facebook
Further, “[w]hile proponents of Eastern religion allege yoga brings benefits to student practitioners, our biblical faith tradition brings just as many, if not more, scientifically-proven benefits,” the clergy contend. “Yet, ironically in a nation with Judeo-Christian heritage, it is school sanctioned prayer, Intelligent Design curriculum and the display of the Ten Commandments that are strictly prohibited from public schools.”
They therefore ask that the school districts discontinue teaching yoga and transcendental meditation to students.
Signees include pastors Howard Burnett of Perryville Baptist Church, Floyd Allen of Philippian Community Church, Ron Smals of Woodville Grace Brethren, Paul Larson of First English Lutheran Church, Russ Smith of Shiloh Wesleyan Church, Dan Zediker of Mission Point Mansfield, Bill Strader of Bucyrus First Alliance Church, Sylvester Ginn of Hesed Agape Fellowship, Layton Broom of Paradise Hill United Methodist Church, and William Jordan of Faith Temple Church of God in Christ.
Read the letter in full here. View some of the pastors sharing their thoughts at the end of the article.
As previously reported, in a booklet entitled “Yoga: Exercise or Religion — Does it Matter?”, author Ray Yungen outlines that while many view yoga as harmless exercise, there is no denying that the practice is rooted in Eastern New Age religion.
Hindu god Shiva. Photo Credit: Kalyan Kumar/Flickr
“The word ‘yoga’ actually means to be yoked to or united in body, mind, and spirit with Brahman (the Hindu concept of God). It doesn’t get more spiritually obvious than that,” he outlined. “… Even the traditional Hindu greeting, Namasté, that is said at the end of yoga classes, is spiritual. When translated, it means, ‘The god in me bows down to (or salutes) the god in you.’”
“If you go to the fitness section of any bookstore and look in the yoga subsection, you will find references to the spiritual aspects of Yoga such as the chakra system, kundalini, etc. in almost every book on yoga. It is quite rare to find a book on yoga that does not incorporate spiritual concepts found in classic Hinduism,” Yungen explained. “To devout Hindus, yoga cannot be separated into physical and spiritual parts. Both are relevant to the practice, with the end desire being a profound religious experience.”
He said that some Christians have wrongly concluded that yoga can be adopted by believers as long as it is stripped of its pagan aspects.
“We live in an age where the acceptance of trendy practices, such as yoga, is hammered into us from every side, with the end result being an ecumenical generic inter-spirituality that fits everybody,” Yungen lamented.
“Believers in Christ have fallen prey to some dangerous ideas. One is that we feel free to draw from pagan sources. Or, as is popularly stated, we can chew the meat and spit out the bones. But this doesn’t make any sense from a biblical standpoint,” he said. “As a Christian, we can’t segregate into portions what part we think will do us harm and what part will profit us. If the foundational spirituality is contrary to God’s word, then it will be folly to interact with it.”
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