Jesus Covered by Ants at the Smithsonian? What Would Muhammad Do?

A recent art exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum entitled Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture has been causing a furor not only because it contains homoerotic art such as genitals, men kissing, and Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, but most especially because it has a video that features an ant-covered Jesus.

The Huffington Post insists the outrage is manufactured by nitpicking right wing nutjobs.

Media Matters is incensed because Glenn Beck suggested that tax dollars were used to pay for this which is true of the Smithsonian in general, but not of the actual exhibit itself which is privately funded.

The Powers That Be at the Smithsonian say they didn’t mean to offend anyone. They’re implying they had no idea this kind of outrage would be the response.

Who are they kidding?

Since they can’t summon up a modicum of common sense when it comes to what is appropriate for the general American public, perhaps they should start using the WHAT WOULD MUHAMMAD DO (WWMD) method of deciding what to green-light when it comes to art that deals with religion. Would you cover Muhammad with ants and then display it in your show? No? Then don’t do it to Jesus (or by extension Buddha or Krishna or any other religious figure.)

They already use the WWMD litmus test when it comes to depicting Islamic topics even when they shouldn’t. They self-censor with the best of them, while congratulating themselves on how noble they are for their sensitivity to Islam even as they continue living in a left-wing bubble where sacrilegious anti-Christian ‘art’ passes for hip and cutting edge. They’re cushioned by the media and their own elitism thus ensuring they have no contact with average, everyday Americans.

They insist Christians should be tolerant of treatment they would never force followers of Islam to undergo. It’s high time for Christians and other fair-minded people who are still the majority in this country to get their outrage off the back burner and turn it up to high. We need to care enough to be offended for everyone’s sake and let others know this kind of disrespect will not stand. The tactic has already had some effect, since the Smithsonian has at least removed the ant-covered Jesus, if not the rest of the offending material.

There’s nothing wrong with a little righteous indignation every now and again, not when there are important principles at work. Thankfully as Americans we don’t resort to the kind of violence that erupts around the world when radical Islam takes offense over a perceived insult to their prophet. So why not draw a similar line in the sand? It’s what Muhammad would do.

From True Grit to True Grope

I’ve been watching the whole Transportation Security Administration (TSA) virtual strip search/grope-y pat down shenanigans with outraged incredulity and yes, disappointment.

What is happening to America? A friend who’s former military sees it as no big deal. People calling into conservative radio talk shows declare they have no problem with this offensive, intrusive, misguided, and ineffectual policy if it would keep them safe. Don’t they know that those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little bit of security deserve neither? Even Bill O’Reilly of "The O’Reilly Factor" stated he had no problem with the scanners like it was some kind of I’m-So-Hip-And-Tolerant badge of honor, or worse, a bone thrown to the politically correct crowd after his Muslim remarks ignited a small firestorm.

Have we become a nation of sheeple? How can people give up their 4th Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure without a whimper just because our government and the Left can’t face the fact of who it is that wants to blow us up and thus must abuse all Americans?

As far as I’m concerned, if we let this pass without protest we might as well all just bend over for the rectal exam and say ‘ah.’

Happily the American people aren’t taking this sitting down as reported by World Net Daily (WND). Many are fighting back with letters of protest, petitions, and boycotts. Even New Jersey state lawmakers are demanding that Congress review the TSA's legally questionable enhanced security screenings. The sleeping giant awakened by the Tea Party is still stomping around, American Grit intact, as people refuse to bow to the likes of Barack Obama, Janet Napolitano, and their dopey elitist solutions to stop terrorists that criminalize and sexually molest innocent citizens.

Still, it’s very troubling that the TSA agents are saying don’t blame us, we’re just doing our job. The policies come from Washington, they insist, and we’re just as helpless and upset as the passengers. Not to be harsh, but this sounds a lot like the typical Nazi response when they protested they were just following orders as they systematically murdered the Jews.

Of course, TSA agents are not killing people... they’re just inappropriately groping their fellow Americans. But the principle is the same. In this climate of political correctness, it seems we’ve gone from True Grit to True Grope. Patriots to Patsies. The Greatest Generation to the Most Spineless. Exactly how much farther are we willing to go?

Speechless

I just finished reading a new book called SPEECHLESS: SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS by Reverend Donald E. Wildmon, the founder and president of the American Family Association. In it he takes up where Janet Folger’s THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY left off.

Both books chronicle various instances of bias against Christians and both books warn that soon it will be tough to speak out as a Christian in our society if we don’t start doing something immediately. Even now, the Hate Crimes bill is making its way through Congress and Obama has vowed to quickly sign it into law. Similar hate crimes laws in Canada have resulted in some scary legal prosecutions. For example, one newspaper was ordered to pay three homosexual men $1500 after the paper ran a paid advertisement that featured Bible verses critical of homosexual behavior. In another case, a man was charged with hate speech when he distributed flyers that listed the medical dangers of homosexual behavior.

This same kind of persecution is already turning up in the United States as Reverend Wildmon clearly shows.

SPEECHLESS is a sort of companion volume to the show of the same name. It documents cases of suppression and general bashing of Christians that seem almost unbelievable and yet are happening all over the country today.

One outrageous story concerns a group of eleven people who went out to evangelize in the midst of the city of Philadelphia’s OUTFest, a celebration in the ‘gayborhood’ of homosexuality. This is an open, public event funded by the city. These eleven Christians stood together and began to sing “Blessed be the name of the Lord’ on a street corner. Organizers of the event had formed a security group called the Pink Angels who linked arms to form human chains and carried large insulation panels to block the Christians and keep them from moving down the street. They also blew whistles and screamed obscenities. This sort of harassment is illegal in Philly, so the police were called. And yes, you guessed it, it was the Christians who were arrested and are now being charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors with a maximum sentence of forty-seven years in prison and $90,000 in fines.

The Boy Scouts are another group that has suffered persecution and bias because they refuse to allow homosexual Scout leaders.

Schools are especially vulnerable when it comes to a student’s right to free speech and freedom of religion. The ACLU has so cowed school administrators and officials that they err way too far on the side of caution rather than be dragged into a lawsuit, even one they will eventually win. How ridiculous does it get??? One fourth grade student was stopped from giving out candy cane writing pens to his friends because the candy cane’s origin is Christian and was originally used as a Christian symbol.

All this should be utter nonsense that’s laughed out of existence before it even starts. These days it’s not. In another, more sobering example, Catholic Charities of Boston was forced out of the adoption business because it refused to place children in homes with same-sex couples. The saddest part of all is that Catholic Charities specialized in ‘special needs’ children who have a harder time being adopted.

This is what happens when a falsehood -- that there is no difference between same-sex unions and marriage -- is elevated to a moral principle and inserted into the law. The end goal of the liberals and homosexual activists is to redefine Christianity as a form of bigotry, thus making it the moral and legal equivalent of racism.

Bottom line: this is an important book that should be read by every Christian.

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I was saddened but not surprised to learn that Christians who believe Jesus is coming again are being targeted -- by other Christians!

Emerging church leader Brian McLaren says that this type of Christian who takes the Bible literally and seriously is the reason there’s no peace in the Middle East. He feels the view that Christ will return to establish his kingdom on earth is morally and ethically harmful. He also believes that what he calls this ‘bogus end-of-the-world scenario’ leads to a kind of death wish for World War III which might all too easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

McLaren hates the notion that Israel is a special nation in the eyes of God. I don’t know which version of the Bible he’s been reading, but it certainly doesn’t correlate with mine.

McLaren feels those Christians who hold to such biblical beliefs must be ‘robustly confronted’ by the rest of the nation. If that isn’t ‘hate’ speech, I don’t know what is... not that anyone is going to call him out on it.

Not long ago, an article was posted on the Internet that said ministries that defend the faith are akin to mentally unstable cultists who are not like typical dissidents or normal people who complain, they are deadly.

Tony Campolo says ‘rigid’ Christians who believe in the possibility of Jesus’ soon return are the real problem for the whole world. He feels they’re to blame for wars and a host of other evils. Mark Driscoll in his book VINTAGE JESUS ridicules Christians who believe there will be an Armageddon and a Rapture.

Rick Warren in THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE tells readers to think about something other than Bible Prophecy because he considers it a distraction.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, a big name on the New Age circuit, feels the world can’t evolve and there can be no peace while such Bible believing Christians are around.

J. Vernon McGee once said many years ago that the persecution of Christians in the end times was going to come from other Christians including the denominations. Looks like he was right on the money.

Good and Evil

The world continues to be turned upside down. It’s like some kind of Alice in Wonderland scenario where, just as the Bible promised, good is now evil and evil is declared good. The evidence just keeps pouring in at a faster and faster clip. If you didn’t think persecution for Christians was coming, now you can count on it.

Hate Crimes laws are just inches away from being passed. This is yet another step in the eventual total silencing of Christians as chronicled by Janet Folger in THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY and Donald Wildmon in his new book SPEECHLESS: SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS. We got a taste of it when Miss California, Carrie Prejean, lost the Miss USA crown because she dared to say she believed in traditional marriage. The backlash against her from the homosexual camp was tremendous, although support for her throughout middle America was also great. Can you imagine such a thing happening even ten years ago?

Now Obama is dithering on going after the Bush Administration for the whole torture controversy. Liberals and others of their ilk have a crazy, obsessive hatred of everything George W. Bush stands for (aka Bush Derangement Syndrome) and have been waiting, salivating, for a chance to get back at him and those associated with him.

Obama has chosen someone for the FCC who’s totally in favor of the so-called Fairness Doctrine and who will probably help him use the back door of the FCC to help ban the Rush Limbaughs and other non-Obama supporting voices in this country.

The Department of Homeland Security recently came out with a report stating that people who are against abortion or a one world government, people who support a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, even returning war vets, are now considered possible right wing extremists and terrorists. Talk about hitting directly at the Christian heartland of America.

Google has shut down links that lead to facts about Hitler and Nazi Germany because so much of it so closely resembles what Obama has been doing with our banks and the economy. Now they don’t even want you to read about evil when it was actually considered evil.

Thanks to Obama, the United States is now funding abortions overseas. And he gave embryonic stem cell research the green light as well, even though it has yielded no breakthroughs as has adult stem cell research that doesn’t kill a potential human life in the process.

Liberals show us more and more every day that they value sexual freedom above anything and everything else in this world. Talk about a direct correlation with the ancient pagan behavior that’s so condemned in the Bible. This is why they support abortion at all stages of a pregnancy thus allowing men and women to have sex anytime they want, and then if the woman gets pregnant, they can abort the child. This is why they want to force health care professionals to perform abortions no matter what their conscience might tell them. This is also why (among other reasons) they support gay rights and gay marriage at the expense of religious freedom or freedom of speech. Sexual freedom trumps all. Forget about teaching abstinence or anything even close. Soon seventeen-year-olds will be able to purchase the morning after pill without parental knowledge.

And the list goes on.

Every so often there’s a glimmer of sanity and hope in the midst of the daily onslaught of bad news...

Miss California standing up for her beliefs even knowing it might be the kiss of death to her chances of winning was heartening, even if it was in the middle of a beauty contest where the women are judged on their looks and their ability to walk across the stage in high heels wearing a bathing suit.

The Tea Parties, although not Christian per se, showed that many, many Americans have not abandoned and do not want to abandon the Biblical principles on which this nation was founded. The shocking and dismissive way the so-called mainstream media treated these demonstrators highlights the impact they obviously had.

More good news comes from the fact that prophecy and other such end times conferences are thriving, with larger attendance than ever before. I find this a sure sign that ordinary, non-political people still seek spiritual enlightenment. Now is our chance to give them the Word of Truth rather than letting various new age and other philosophies fill the God-sized hole in their hearts. As Mark Cahill so aptly pointed out in a Code Blue Rally presentation called LUKE WARM NO MORE, when we get to heaven, we don’t want to be told we were out-evangelized by John Travolta who constantly pushes Scientology. How humiliating would that be!

God's Principles

Most Christians agree we’re living in the end times as prophesied in the Bible. One of the key indicators as spoken of by Jesus himself is that it would be a time of deception with people believing everything but the truth.

I haven’t been a Christian all that long, but even in these few short years, I’ve seen things go downhill, so much so that I hardly know where to turn for good, solid Christian information and teaching.

When I first came to Christ, I went to Christian bookstores and picked up books to enhance my Christian walk. Since I’d been brought up Catholic, I knew little about the endless varieties of ‘Protestant’, but I figured they all pretty much taught the Bible, something the Catholic Church had never done, at least not in my presence. I also subscribed to Christianity Today (CT) never thinking it had the potential to lead me astray.

I’ve long since given up on CT. It contains articles about the emergent/emerging church and contemplative prayer and labyrinths. It features authors, like Brian McLaren, who preach a different gospel from what is given in the Bible. All in all, it’s totally unreliable because it basically presents anything and everything in the ‘Christian’ community with no discernment as to its adherence to truth.

As for Christian bookstores -- I’ve learned they’re basically no safer than Barnes and Noble or Borders when it comes to the books they carry, even if they are supposedly Christian. Compare B&N’s Christian section and the contents of a Christian bookstore and you’ll find little to no difference. Christian bookstores even feature novels like THE SHACK whose bottom line is that God is in and around and through everything here on planet earth. They tout authors like Joel Osteen who’s basically no different in what he teaches than mega-selling new age author Rhonda Byrne and THE SECRET. According to both, we need only think about what we want from life in our thoughts and voila, the universe will respond and we can achieve it.

Rick Warren is another case in point. His Purpose Driven Life has much in it that’s not biblical. Even more distressing, this church leader whom some have called the new Billy Graham, went on Larry King recently and made sure everyone knew he was NOT an anti-gay marriage activist and claimed that he’d never openly showed his support for Proposition 8 in California. (I wonder how people can tell lies like this with a straight face when all anyone has to do is check on the internet where you can hear his actual, earlier endorsement of Prop 8). Pastor Warren even assured the audience that he called and apologized to his gay leader friends for this terrible misunderstanding. Can you believe this? What a blow for the church and what a total dereliction of his responsibility as a so-called man of God. He obviously craves the approval of men rather than God.

I next discovered Christian TV and thought, great, here’s a place where God’s truth is being broadcast to the masses. I soon learned all too many of the people on these stations have sold out as well as the station owners who refuse to allow people on their shows to say anything negative about Islam. I had early on heard about the deception of Benny Hinn, but then I learned that Joyce Meyer and John Hagee and many of the others who preach on these stations are also spreading false, non-biblical ideas. So much for ‘Christian’ TV.

Obviously the best and only remedy for all of us is to constantly immerse ourselves in our Bibles, so we won’t be fooled again as the old song goes.

There’s a war going on right now for the hearts and souls of men, and too many people don’t even realize it’s raging around them on all sides, never mind knowing enough to strap on the armor of God. This war is especially fierce in the United States right now because America is the only nation that was founded on Christian principles and it’s the last bastion of freedom and truth left in the world.

Evolution shoulders a lot of blame for the attitude we now see around us. By teaching that all things evolve, it’s obvious religion must evolve as well and thus ‘old-fashioned’ values and teachings like the abhorrent-to-God practice of homosexuality have clearly become outdated -- or so says our secular, liberal society. Homosexual marriage has been passed in several states with more hovering on the brink. Not even in the heavily homosexual-leaning society of the ancient Greeks was there state-sanctioned homosexual marriage.

In fact, those who hold to biblical teachings and who revere the constitution of this great nation are now considered potential terrorists according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security.

All this and more has come about because Christians have abdicated their role as salt and light in society. I’m not saying that Christians should become political activists, although we can certainly use more of those. But we need to stand up for the word of God and we’re certainly not doing that when the 1% of the population that’s homosexual can hijack and brainwash the entire country into buying the lie that it’s their civil right to be able to marry.

The TEA Parties this past week are a prime example of people acting on their principles. I know some people think the church and Christians should have nothing to do with politics. They argue that Daniel accepted the Babylonian rule he was under and Paul didn’t try to fight the Romans. But there’s a difference. Those governments were dictatorships -- the only way to get them to change their ways was by force, rebellion, revolution. They weren’t governments of the people, by the people, and for the people the way the United States is. This country was set up precisely so that people could have a say. In former times we used this for good and did things like ending slavery and child labor. Modern Christians should be ashamed of themselves that those who have stood up for change in the past fifty years were people like Madelyn Murray O’Hare who got prayer thrown out of the schools and homosexuals who are winning the right to overturn civilization as we know it through homosexual marriage laws and hate crimes legislation. Don’t you think it broke God’s heart to see good and decent Christian Americans do nothing to fight these abominable changes to our laws?

Christians must stand up and make their voices heard no matter how much the tide seems to be turning against us. America is the standard of freedom and hope throughout the world because we are (or at least we used to be) a Christian nation whose government openly operates on Christian principles that guarantee freedom and justice for all. As Christians, we have a clear duty do evangelize. However, as citizens of America, we also have a civic responsibility to stand up for our founding principles.

Isn’t it nice that when we do so, we’re also standing up for God’s principles.

Things You Probably Never Knew About American History

What ever happened to the teaching of the real facts about American history in our schools? We know that most teachers are no longer even willing to admit that this country was founded as a Christian nation even though the population at that time was 99.2% Christian and .8% Jewish. And if you’ve been watching Fox and Friends over the past few months, you’ve been learning how the history textbooks in our schools and colleges have a decided liberal bias and often twist the facts in favor of the liberal agenda.

Well, here’s a story I’ll bet you didn’t know and were never taught in your history class about the great revival in the American colonies in 1746.

We may think the spiritual decay in this country is a current trend and that our ancestors were moral and upright, but back in 1746, there were hordes of people going to bars and brothels. It was a growing national trend that the churches couldn’t seem to stop.

And then everyone learned that France had sent out a fleet of 70 ships whose intention was to wipe out every church in America and kill the pastors.

The English navy had been blown away in a storm, so there was no help coming from that direction. People everywhere did what we should all do in such circumstances -- they figuratively put on sackcloth and ashes by praying and fasting. Even while they were doing this, the men sandbagged and prepared as best they could to defend their homes.

Obviously God heard their fervent prayers, In July 1746, a huge wind blew the French ships into the West Indies where many of the sailors got syphilis. Over 1300 died.

These ships were supposed to rendezvous with 46 other ships at Halifax, but when they tried, they missed each other because of the fog that came up. The admiral committed suicide.

Finally the 70 ships came in under the 3rd-in-command, having also lost their number two man. Another plague swept through the ranks and killed more men.

The colonials called for another day of fasting and prayer on October 16th. The French took off from Halifax and again God answered their prayers -- a hurricane came and wiped them out!

As you can imagine, this story was proudly recounted for over 50 years after the events in question. Today we no longer have even a hint of such a thing happening. There have been other revivals in the United States, too, with just as dramatic results. We never hear about those either. I have no idea how to go about it, but it’s high time we reclaimed our heritage.

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Speaking of history, evangelist Perry Stone has some fascinating insights into patterns in history and in the Bible, and the way they reoccur in other times and places. The Jews use pattern as the template for prophecy whereas we see it as prophecy/fulfillment. It’s interesting and even jaw-dropping to study this kind of 'circular time' where similar events seem to happen again and again.

One example he gives to show how historical patterns often repeat themselves is that of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and the astounding parallels between the two men. Lincoln started his political career in 1846 and Kennedy started his in 1946. They both had VP’s named Johnson. Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln. Both of their secretaries warned them not to go to the places where they were eventually shot. Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater and his killer hid in a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a Ford-Lincoln and his killer hid in a theater. Both were shot in the presence of their wives. These are just some of the patterns; there are many more.

How about these election facts -- the son of a former president who was a Harvard grad beat out a senator from Tennessee who actually won the popular vote with the deciding votes coming from the state of Florida. Do you think I’m talking about the Bush/Gore election of 2000? I could be, but I’m not. This is actually what happened in the election of 1826 when John Quincy Adams, the son of a former president and a Harvard grad beat out Andrew Jackson, the senator from Tennessee who won the popular vote.

Evangelist Stone also points out that Bill and Hillary Clinton brought the spirit of Ahab and Jezebel of Old Testament infamy to the White House. Just like Ahab and Jezebel and their illegal land deal with Naboth, Hillary and Bill were involved in the Whitewater scandal involving land. After Ahab was killed, Jezebel continued on in political power, just the way Hillary has done as a New York senator and the current the Secretary of State under Obama, even though Bill is off the political stage.

Even more interesting are the developing parallels Stone highlights concerning Barack Obama. Did you realize that both presidential candidates and their running mates have Biblical names? JOHN McCain, SARAH Palin, and JOSEPH Biden are easy. But BARACK is also a Biblical name as seen in the book of Judges and the story of Deborah.

The number 400 is important biblically. The Jews spent 400 years in Egypt and then there was a major change in the cycle as God led them away to the Promised Land. If we use that same 400 years and start at the founding of this country in 1607, we arrive at 2007. Strangely enough, this is when major shifts started happening in George Bush’s administration, including an increase in joblessness and the start of our financial woes. And now we have a whole new era of ‘hope and change’ with the country heading in a completely new and uncharted direction, although not a positive one. Our continuing slide into moral decay has gotten a huge boost from Obama’s support of gay marriage and abortion, and the march toward globalism predicted in the Bible for the end times seems definitely underway.

Even Israel’s likely upcoming war with Iran over its nukes can be seen as the culmination of a pattern that has been playing out in the 20th and now 21st centuries.

Check out Perry Stone’s recent CD on PATTERNS OF RECENT AMERICAN PRESIDENTS: BARACK AND ISRAEL’S NEXT WAR for more on this topic along with other fascinating materials at his website at PerryStone.com.

Obama, Globalism, and the Spirit of AntiChrist

Obama pretty much sold out America at the G-20 Summit this past week by turning over our economic sovereignty to the Europeans. Watching all those leaders high-fiving each other like a bunch of giddy school kids was not a pretty sight. Obama has certainly shown no respect for our Constitution or for our freedoms, but has declared over and over again his intentions to take us further and further down the same socialistic path Europe has already trodden.

According to Dick Morris, Obama is deliberately sabotaging the banks, so that he can eventually nationalize them and place them under international jurisdiction. Our forefathers must be getting dizzy with all the turning over in their graves they’re been doing lately.

The Bible tells us that there will be a proliferation of many little antichrists in the world before the final AntiChrist of Revelation shows up on the scene. An antichrist is someone who rejects the God of the Bible and denies that Jesus is our sovereign Lord and the only way to salvation. An antichrist propagates false, anti-biblical teaching by preaching another gospel than the one revealed in the Bible. Sad to say, I believe Obama fits this description to a T. I also believe Obama is laying the foundation for the AntiChrist.

I have many reasons for this belief. For one thing, Obama says he's a Christian who draws on his deep faith. And yet he believes there are many paths to heaven and that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. He has also stated that he believes the passages in Romans about homosexuality are from an ‘obscure’, little read book of the Bible.

Obama says he was raised by his Mom who was a Christian. However, her friends and other documentation show she was an atheist. He claims he studied his catechism while in Indonesia; the records show he was enrolled in Muslim school and was registered in Koranic studies. He can recite the opening prayer in Arabic with a good accent. In his book, Obama also rhapsodized about the Islamic call to evening prayer saying it’s one of the prettiest sounds in all the world. And then there was the ‘slip-up’ during that interview when he referred to ‘my Muslim faith’ and didn’t even realize it. The interviewer had to correct him!

I can’t imagine any Christian saying such a thing, not by accident, not ever.

Obama denies the gospel with his dedicated promotion of abortion and the homosexual agenda. While he was a state senator in Illinois, he voted four times in favor of infanticide. And he struck down Bush’s ban so that now we the taxpayers are funding abortions worldwide.

Last, but certainly not least, he spent twenty years planted in the pew of one of the most radical anti-white, anti-semitic, anti-American churches in America under the leadership of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Is it any surprise he’s pushing globalism which by its very nature is demonic? Satan has been trying to implement this for thousands of years, starting with the tower of Babel. Looks like the devil has all the help he needs in President Barack Hussein Obama.

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Is your church going Purpose Driven and how can you tell?

I had no idea that churches were being targeted for Purpose Driven takeovers and that it often happens as a kind of stealth campaign where the rest of the church membership has no idea what’s going on until it’s too late.

Here’s the way it goes down.

Church Transitions, an associate of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church trains a small clique of church staff, sometimes but not always including the pastor, and they do this without telling the rest of the church membership. Eventually, as the process moves along and people start to learn what’s going on, those who voice genuine concerns are identified and the potential effectiveness of their opposition assessed. Those who are undecided are befriended. Those who persist in resisting are marginalized and eventually vilified until new rules can be established that will silence all resistance.

What it boils down to is that the members must then either embrace the changes or leave the church they may have helped to build. As Rick Warren says, “When you reveal the vision to the church, the old pillars are going to leave. But let them leave... they only hold things up.”

Warren once said that the term ‘fundamentalist’ comes from a 1920's document on the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. He considers this document a narrow and legalistic view of Christianity. Here’s the list of what he objects to:

1) the inerrancy and full authority of the Bible
2) the virgin birth and full deity of Jesus Christ
3) the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
4) Christ’s atoning, vicarious death for the sins of the world
5) the literal second coming of Jesus Christ.

Yikes -- I thought these were the basic, bottom line tenets of the Christian faith!

To start a Purpose Driven church is one thing. To have your church stolen out from under you is something else again.

I previously said some nice things about Warren’s new magazine. Looks like I was sadly mistaken, even when it comes to trusting him with the very basics of Christianity.

For more information on this, check out THE DARK SIDE OF THE PURPOSE DRIVEN CHURCH by N.W. Hutchings.