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| FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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The secular media frequently tell us that America's population is around 80% Christian. Often this assertion is made to justify discrimination against Christians and the erosion of their rights, the theory being that anything a "Christian" does may be seen as threatening to a minority while what a minority does is unlikely to pose a threat to such a strong majority. Even if America were 80% Christian this thinking would be way off base. But is America anything like 80% Christian? Christianity Today published the findings of a survey they conducted and they posit five kinds of Christians. Here they are: Active Christians 19% Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ-Committed churchgoers-Bible readers- Accept leadership positions-Invest in personal faith development through the church- Feel obligated to share faith; 79% do so. Professing Christians 20% Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ-Focus on personal relationship with God and Jesus-Similar beliefs to Active Christians, different actions-Less involved in church, both attending and serving-Less commitment to Bible reading or sharing faith Liturgical Christians 16% Predominantly Catholic and Lutheran-Regular churchgoers-High level of spiritual activity, mostly expressed by serving in church and/or community-Recognize authority of the church Private Christians 24% Largest and youngest segment-Believe in God and doing good things-Own a Bible, but don't read it-Spiritual interest, but not within church context-Only about a third attend church at all-Almost none are church leaders Cultural Christians 21% Little outward religious behavior or attitudes-God aware, but little personal involvement with God-Do not view Jesus as essential to salvation-Affirm many ways to God-Favor universality theology. As soon as you read this survey one things stands out with startling clarity: the vast majority of those who claim to be "Christian" have, by biblical standards, absolutely no right to the name. In other words, America is far from 80% Christian. The truth is that America is a vast mission field. The vast majority of its citizens are not saved and desperately need to be saved. Those who are saved should seek to reach them with the gospel, bring them under the sound of the gospel and labor before God in prayer for the visitation of His Spirit with power to make their evangelistic efforts effective. Christianity Today speaks of some things churches need to do, such as community-oriented service, to be effective in the modern setting. What they really need is the power of God falling on a people truly separated unto the gospel. In other words, it takes real Christians to reach the vast mass of empty professors who are trudging the broad road to destruction. |
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| THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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In the first case of its kind, a wife of a New York State pastor who is suing for divorce has asked the courts to treat his church as a personal asset. She wants her share of the net worth of the church when her divorce comes through. She says her husband put $50,000 of their savings into the church to get it going. She alleges that he uses the church funds as his personal piggy bank, that he sets his own salary and that he has misused church tithes and other funds, even paying his mistress out of them to the tune of either $750 per week or per month. The pastor has said that he is merely an employee of the church who receives a salary for his services and that therefore the church cannot be treated as a marital asset. However, a New York Supreme Court Justice has agreed to hear her case and has asked for the value of the church to be appraised. This is a scary development. Let me state categorically: a church and its finances cannot be a personal or marital asset. For a NY court to consider making a church an asset to be divided in a divorce settlement is a scandalous innovation, a departure from legal precedent and a threat to the rights of every local congregation. If a court were to allow this crazy claim, what may be next? Who knows? I have sympathy with a woman whose preacher husband has kept a mistress. Such a man should be drummed out of the ministry and never allowed to return to it. I can understand her desire to make sure she receives her fair share of the community property and wealth built up over 31 years of marriage. But she is wrong to try to make a local church a marital asset. If her husband has been guilty of all she alleges, there are laws under which he should be dealt with. For example, if he invested her money in starting up the church without her knowledge or consent, a court may hold him responsible and keep this in view in splitting the remaining assets. If he has misused church funds, the police and courts have the power to investigate and charge him. If he is guilty I would hope he would be made to face the full rigor of the law. But to make his church a marital asset is preposterous and dangerous. To give the courts the right to filch the giving of a congregation and distribute it in ways for which it was never intended is an unwarranted intrusion by the State into the Church. The separation of Church and State works both ways. This NY case threatens to overthrow one aspect of that separation. Perhaps this is just another of America's seemingly endless trivial lawsuits. I hope so and I hope that the judge looking at it will dismiss it. But I fear it may also be a trial balloon, a testing of the waters or however you want to describe an attempt to find out just how far opponents of the rights of churches can push their agenda. We need to send the message loud and clear: keep the State out of the business of the Church. Keep its greedy hands off the money people give sacrificially for the ministry of their churches. |
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| WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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A court has struck down Pennsylvania's version of a "hate crimes" law, ruling that what officials there call an "Ethnic Intimidation Law" restriction was "unconstitutional and therefore null and void." The challenge to the law arose because a group of people who testified on public property at a large homosexual event had been arrested and charged and faced going to jail for up to 50 years. The charges were dismissed but Repent America believed that the "Hate Crimes" law under which the charges had been brought should be challenged as unconstitutional. When that case reached the courts the judges by a 4-1 majority agreed with petitioners and declared the law unconstitutional and therefore void. The court's decision has been hailed as a victory for constitutional government. I believe there can be little doubt of that. However, I am not so sure that it is a victory for the rights of Christians to preach publicly what the Bible says about homosexuality or false religion or a host of other controversial subjects. The challenge to the law was based on a constitutional technicality, an important technicality but a technicality none the less. The petitioners said the passage of the bill, which originally criminalized agricultural crop destruction but was altered to become the first proposal in Pennsylvania to recognize "sexual orientation" as a protected class, failed to follow Article III of the state constitution. That provision prohibits the complete overhaul of a bill in the course of its passage. The court agreed but it also said, "It is well established that a legislative enactment enjoys a strong presumption of constitutionality and it will not be declared invalid unless it clearly, palpably, and plainly violates the constitution." In other words, if the legislature had introduced the bill without contravening the constitutional requirements for passing it, the court would most likely have let it stand, even though it plainly discriminates against Christians' right to free speech. That is an ominous thought. America is in the midst of a "Hate Crimes" onslaught from the far Left, who by the way are most hate-filled people in the country. They are determined to stamp out every semblance of opposition to their sodomite agenda and legislatures around the nation are buckling to them. Nobody has the right to take the law into his own hands and beat up a homosexual. There are laws in place to guarantee as far laws can do so the safety of the individual. The intention of the criminal who mugs or robs does not make the crime any more or less heinous. All should be treated equally under the law. We don't need "Hate Laws." They are a smokescreen to cover another agenda, namely, the eradication of the constitutional right, especially of Christians, to oppose the evil of homosexuality and to do so in the public square. Don't let the small victory in Pennsylvania blind you to the real danger that faces us. |
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| TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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Christiantoday.com reports news from Norway and its Lutheran Church that shows just how deep into sin many of the once Christian churches of the world have fallen. Here is the salient part of the report: The Lutheran Church of Norway voted last Friday to allow members in same-sex partnerships to serve in ordained ministry. The vote came towards the end of a difficult week of debate on the issue during the Church's General Synod, held last Tuesday to Saturday. The Church remains deeply divided over homosexuality, with many feeling that the acceptance of homosexuals in the clergy goes against Scripture. Last Friday's compromise vote was testimony to the lack of clear consensus on homosexuals within the Church. While the long-standing absolute ban on employing homosexuals in the clergy has been lifted, the ultimate decision on whether or not to appoint them has been left to individual bishops to make. Here is apostasy. The Church of Norway and every other church that takes the same attitude toward the acceptance of practicing sodomites has cast off God's law and has bowed down to another god. They may continue to use the names and titles of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ but they have given up both God and truth as they bow at the shrine of all inclusive antichristianity. With sickening hypocrisy, the Lutheran Church of Norway and other such apostate institutions make a vain show of wrestling with Scripture, as if they really cared what the Scripture said. They don't. There is absolutely no difficulty in understanding the Bible's attitude to homosexuality. No, what these hypocrites do under the guise of studying Scripture is to look for ways in which to evacuate the Bible of its plain meaning and replace it with the mumbo jumbo of modern godless secular religion. And what has been the response of the so-called conservatives in the Church of Norway, those who on Scriptural grounds oppose allowing homosexuals into the Christian ministry? They dialoged, to use a word compromisers employ to cover their weakness, and then they reached a "compromise." Now, I put it to you that there is just one response that true Christians should make to what the Church of Norway has done and that is to separate from it completely-either eject the apostates or, if that is not possible, abandon them and establish a biblical witness for Christ and His gospel. There is no other way. This is the path of obedience for every Christian whose church has gone into apostasy. I once read a modern parable. Two skeletons were in a cupboard and one said to the other, "If we had any guts, we'd get out of here!" I hope you get the message. If Christians had any guts they would never consent to remain in churches like the Lutheran Church of Norway. |
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| MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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Here is a report that should not be a surprise to any Bible believer and yet should make America sit up and think. It is about the modern phenomenon of cohabitation without the benefit or commitment of marriage and the dark threat that it poses to many of our most vulnerable citizens. This report comes not from any right wing think tank but from MSNBC, which is, I believe, a fairly liberal organization. Listen carefully. Six-year-old Oscar Jimenez Jr. was beaten to death in California, then buried under fertilizer and cement. Two-year-old Devon Shackleford was drowned in an Arizona swimming pool. Jayden Cangro, also 2, died after being thrown across a room in Utah. In each case, as in many others every year, the alleged or convicted perpetrator had been the boyfriend of the child's mother - men thrust into father-like roles which they tragically failed to embrace. Every family is different. Some single mothers bring men into their lives who lovingly help raise children when the biological father is gone for good. Nonetheless, many scholars and social workers who monitor America's families see the abusive-boyfriend syndrome as part of a broader, deeply worrisome trend. They note an ever-increasing share of America's children grow up in homes without both biological parents, and say the risk of child abuse is markedly higher in the nontraditional family structures. "This is the dark underbelly of cohabitation," said Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist. ‘Cohabitation has become quite common, and most people think, ‘What's the harm?' The harm is we're increasing a pattern of relationships that's not good for children." You cannot flaunt the law of God and not suffer dire consequences. MSNBC makes no moral judgment. In fact it speaks fairly glowingly of some men who "lovingly raise children when the biological father is gone for good." However, in every case, defying God's moral law carries an awful penalty. It abuses every child affected by the relationship by instilling immorality, lack of commitment, disregard for God and His word as the norm. This is child abuse of the worst order for even if it does not damage them physically, it introduces them to a life of sin and shame that, apart from the intervention of divine grace, will cost them their souls. That is too big a price to pay because adults want to indulge their lust. |
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| THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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According to the Mormon religion, its Founder "Joseph Smith unearthed a set of gold plates from a hill in upstate New York in 1827 and translated the ancient text into English. The account, known as The Book of Mormon, tells the story of two Israelite civilizations living in the New World. One derived from a single family who fled from Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and eventually splintered into two groups, known as the Nephites and Lamanites" (Salt Lake Tribune). The book's current introduction, added by the late LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, says, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians." Now Mormon leaders have changed their claim to read: "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians." The change has caused a real row among Mormons. Why? Because while some Mormons want to hold on to what Joseph Smith claimed as history no matter what evidence there is to the contrary, others are seeking to head off a serious objection to Smith's invented history from DNA evidence. In 1971, Spencer W. Kimball, who would become Mormon president in 1974, said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."
The problem for this fairytale masquerading as history is that DNA testing of American Indians shows that the continent's early inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait. In the words of ex-Mormon, Simon Southerton, who wrote the book Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church, "DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors. The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors." In other words, there is not a shred of evidence that the Mormon religion's proposed history is anything but pure invention. Mormonism, as any Bible believer should know, is built on fiction masquerading as fact, fairytale dressed up to look like history, and worst of all, false religion made to appear as a Biblical expression of Christianity. Some Mormons believe they can lessen the damage to Mormon credibility by saying that the DNA evidence is complex and that the Book of Mormon doesn't preclude the idea that there were other ancestors than their claimed Israelite families for American Indians. It is a futile effort. Mormonism fails on every front. Its history is fiction. Its religion is anti-Christian. It is a house of cards built on the delusions and deceptions of an unscrupulous man, a liar and a plagiarist. This anti-Christian religion is gaining a lot of publicity as a result of the efforts of one of its members to win the Republican nomination to stand for President in the 2008 election. Mitt Romney may be an able politician but his growing fame should not be allowed to cast an unearned glow of acceptability on the ludicrous meanderings of his chosen religion. |
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| WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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Here in the West we have become so comfortable with our lifestyle that we hardly take any notice of what is happening to Christians in many parts of the world. If we have to pay an extra penny in taxes or the price of gas goes up yet again we know about and we sound off against it-and perhaps rightly so. But why the almost universal disinterest in the mass persecution of our fellow believers around the world? Consider the following headlines: Baptist Publicly Tortured for "Spreading Christianity;" Religious Freedom in India Declining; Indian pastor Attacked While Escorting Believer Home; EU Passes Resolution Against Persecution of Christians. This last headline is interesting. The European Parliament recently passed a resolution condemning persecution against Christians. I realize that by "Christian" the EU means all who call themselves Christians, not just Bible believing Christians. Nevertheless, their resolution is important because not only do all have the right to safety and security as they go to whatever church they desire but the reports before the EU demonstrate that there is a widespread attack by heathen religions on all whom they perceive as Christian. The EU referenced a string of violations of religious freedom including acts of violence and particularly mentioned countries in Asia including Iraq, China, Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan. Gaza and the Philippines were also shown to be some of the worst offenders in persecuting Christians and violating religious freedom. Missing from this list is India which is one of the worst offenders on the planet against Christians. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, Vipin Mandloli, 27, was shot dead October 14, 2007 by Hindu priests who were angry at his conversion to Christ. Prior to his conversion Mandloli had fallen into alcohol abuse and endured a failed marriage but since his conversion was reputedly a new man. He worked as a shepherd and on October 14 he left home to graze his sheep on a nearby mountain in the vicinity of a Hindu temple. This was a new temple, dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali, a particularly bloodthirsty idol to whom even human sacrifices are sometimes made. So when three Hindu Pujaris, priests, came and shot Mandloli with a pistol the strong suspicion is that they did so to placate their bloodthirsty goddess. In other words, a Christian was sacrificed as a victim to a Hindu idol. And all this was a just couple of months ago. Where is the outcry in the Western press? If the press could find a case where a Hindu was butchered by professing Christians it would scream the story to the world. And I have no difficulty with their doing so. What is utterly reprehensible is their perceived indifference to the ceaseless and murderous campaigns being carried out against Christians. But then how can we be critical of the secular press when most of our churches and church members seem equally indifferent? It's time to wake up. Soon the persecution that appears to be confined to foreign countries will be just as rampant at home. I suppose that will get our attention! |
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| TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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The British press has announced that ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will officially leave the Church of England and become a Roman Catholic. Blair's wife is a Roman Catholic and he had his children raised as Roman Catholics. It has long been expected that since he has attended Roman Catholic services with his wife and family for years he would take the final step and join that church. Before he left office, Blair met with the Pope and told him of his intention to leave the Church of England and join the Church of Rome. According to the Roman Catholic weekly paper The Tablet, the ex-Prime Minister will be received into the Roman Catholic Church in a mass at the private chapel of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster. No doubt Rome will boast of yet another high profile defection to her ranks. Blair is the latest of quite a number of people who have left Protestantism and entered Roman Catholicism. Of course, it should also be noted that there is a steady stream moving in the opposite direction-priests, nuns and laity leaving the soul destroying darkness of the Roman system to enter into the light and liberty of the gospel of Christ. But, as I say, Rome will boast of Blair and he may even become a voluble evangelist for the Vatican and seek to use his celebrity to lure others into the Roman fold. Others have done this and Rome's most effective apologists are men, especially ministers, who were once Protestants but have repudiated their former faith in favour of Rome and her dogma. To be honest, I cannot fault Tony Blair for leaving the Church of England. A more moribund, effete and spiritually useless denomination would be difficult to find. The Church of England is an amalgam of ritualists, rationalists, revisionists (those who want to reinterpret Christianity to make it the vehicle for a godless political, environmental and social agenda) and evangelicals who are too weak to take their stand for God and get out of the apostasy of the national church. However, I do fault Blair for converting to Rome. He is not doing this out of ignorance of the truth. At one time, I believe, he professed to be an evangelical. That is, he had at least a head knowledge of the doctrine of the gospel. I cannot say how deeply he ever understood the truth of justification by faith in Christ's finished atonement and the imputation of Christ's righteousness as the only way of gaining acceptance with God. What I can say is that no man who has any regard for God's truth or the welfare of his own soul should embrace the Roman dogma of justification, because it lies under the clear condemnation of God (Romans 3:28; Galatians 1:8, 9). Any man who knows God's clear revelation on this subject and leaves it for Rome's evil perversion of it renders himself liable to the fierce judgment of God: "Let him be accursed." I fear for the soul of Tony Blair and for every other well informed or instructed Protestant who turns his back on the gospel of free grace for Rome's degenerate dogma. Tony Blair and those who choose Roman darkness over gospel light are, theologically speaking, perverts not converts. May God in mercy deliver Mr. Blair before it is forever too late. Perversion and perdition are not far apart. |
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| MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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I have often said that we don't believe the Bible because archaeology "proves" it accurate. That would be to erect an authority superior to God's Word. That Word is never wrong. Man's translation of it may be wrong. Man's interpretation of it may be wrong. But the Word itself can never be wrong. God makes no mistakes. On the other hand archaeological "findings" may well be wrong. Many a time archaeologists have dated what they have dug up only to find on further examination that their previous opinions have been way off the mark. This was illustrated recently by some new research by a Jewish archaeologist of some remains from Jerusalem's ancient past. Dr. Eilat Mazar was working on an emergency project to shore up remains of a tower long believed to date from the Hasmonean period, 142-37 B.C., that was in danger of collapsing. However, she did a lot more than shore up an ancient tower. In a recent presentation to the 13th Annual Conference of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies on "New Studies on Jerusalem," she concluded with an announcement that took her audience by surprise. She had discovered remnants of the fifth century B.C. wall built by Nehemiah. Dr. Mazar reported, "Under the tower, we found the bones of two large dogs - and under those bones a rich assemblage of pottery and finds from the Persian period. No later finds from that period were found under the tower." Had the tower been built during the Hasmonean dynasty, the Persian-era artifacts would represent an unexplained chronological gap of several hundred years. The tower, said Mazar, had to have been built much earlier than previously thought and the pottery data placed it at the time the Bible says Nehemiah was building it. So now once again archaeology appears to have caught up with Scripture. Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt countless times over the centuries. Until now, there has been no archaeological evidence of the wall that Nehemiah built. We have had the assurance of the Old Testament that he did build again the walls of Jerusalem in a record 52 days, despite formidable opposition from Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem and some well placed Jews who for personal advantage were in league with these enemies of their people. No Bible believer ever doubted the accuracy of Nehemiah's account because no modern archaeologist had managed to find evidence of the existence of the walls that he built. Now, however, even an unbeliever has to admit that Bible history was accurate all along. The ironic thing is that it was with the help of a king of Persia-or what we would call Iran-that Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and reestablished the identity of Israel as a nation in its own land. Now Iran wants to wipe Israel out. It cannot succeed. The same Bible that records Nehemiah's building exploits also guarantees that the Jews would return to their own land, though still in national unbelief toward their Messiah. Despite all the opposition of men and all the suffering they may inflict on the Jewish people, Israel will hold on to her land and her holy city. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may fulminate against Israel but in the end he will be no more successful in thwarting God's purpose for the Jews than Sanballat and Tobiah. God's Word is true. |
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| THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2007 | 16 years ago |
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Here's a story to warm your heart a little, to give a little cheer amid what seems to be the endless advance of secular madness. Last week I reported on the case of a Christian minister and his wife in Somerset, England, who had big hearts for needy children and who had fostered many kids over the past six years. You may recall that the local authority decided to interpret current "Equality Law" to mean that Rev. Vince Matherick and his wife Pauline would have to promote homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle to their foster children. When they refused because to do so would have run counter to their beliefs as Christians they were told they would be de-registered. Their 11 year-old foster son was immediately removed from their home and placed in a council hostel. That was the bad news. Now for the good news. The council's decision has been reversed in that the Mathericks may continue to be registered foster parents and they won't have to promote homosexuality to children in their care. This decision followed a meeting of the couple and local social services leaders. Andrea Williams of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship commented, "This is a significant step forward for Christian freedoms in that the Council has agreed not to force Mr and Mrs Matherick to act against their Christian beliefs. This should be of enormous encouragement to all Christians who want to take up the important role of caring for vulnerable children." This is indeed good news-at least up to a point. There is no word yet that the lunatics in the Somerset Council's social services department are willing to return the 11 year-old boy they yanked from his home for the bleakness of a council hostel to the comfort of his loving family. One would have thought that such a step might have commended itself even to the zealots who removed him in the first place. However, we may celebrate one small victory for decency and common sense. Hopefully the Somerset Council's social workers will act on the agreement made and actually place needy kids with the Mathericks. And hopefully this case will mark the first step in rolling back some of the egregiously stupid and wicked decisions that have been made in support of the Sodomite agenda-decisions not merely to protect homosexuals from assault by people who hate their lifestyle but to force public acceptance of that lifestyle as a perfectly normal alternative to a family built on a heterosexual marriage. Expect a kick back from homosexual activists. Get ready for their cry of "discrimination" and "homophobia." They are so self-absorbed that they are willing to sacrifice the right of children who languish in soulless hostels to be received into stable families on the altar of their own perverted lusts. However, this case shows that good sense can prevail. Now we need to ensure that in every such case it will prevail. |
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