PATRIOTIC IDOLATRY

Is Kirk Cameron Demonstrating the Compromise that Results from Patriotic Idolatry?

 

By Erin Benziger ∙ 21 September 2012 ∙ In Opinion ∙ Bookmark permalink

 

 

Kirk Cameron is best remembered for his role as Mike Seaver in the 1980s sitcom, Growing Pains. Today he is known as a Christian evangelist with Way of the Master and even more recently, Cameron is recognized for his movie, Monumental, and his persistent urgings for Americans to return to their alleged Christian roots.
Monumental stirred a firestorm of reactions among evangelicals. Many criticized Cameron and the film for its inclusion of Mormon Glenn Beck and controversial historian David Barton. Others who are more involved in the movement to ‘save America’ praised the work in spite of what some deemed to be religious compromise.
Now, Cameron once again has sparked a controversy with his latest endorsement of Glenn Beck on his Facebook page. Cameron writes:

Glenn Beck kindly and enthusiastically helped get the word out about my new film MONUMENTAL, and now I would like to tell you about a hilarious new project from him!
NCM Fathom Events, Mercury Radio Arts and The Blaze Present Glenn Beck Unelectable 2012 in select movie theaters nationwide — live tomorrow night, September 20, 2012 with a second showing on Tuesday, September 25, 2012.
Don’t miss Glenn as he squares off in this mock presidential debate.
Source

This announcement launched a stream of comments (151 as of this writing) both in defense and criticism of this latest partnering of Cameron with Mormon Glenn Beck. Perhaps one of the most unfortunate of these is one that reads,

Mormons are definitely Christians. You are more than welcome to check out http://mormon.org/jesus-christ – it will answer any question about what Mormons believe! Besides, I love that Kirk is cool with being friends with people that don’t believe exactly what he believes. That, to me, is truly being a Christian. Source

As has been demonstrated on CRN’s own Mormonism research page, the differences between Christianity and Mormonism are many. The religion of Mormonism teaches a false and damning gospel. Of course, one could argue that Kirk Cameron did not himself make the above statement, nor has he agreed with it. Nevertheless, this is the type of conversation that now is ensuing on the Facebook wall of evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron. How misleading it is to have individuals claiming that Mormonism is the same as Christianity, and yet, as of this writing, there has been no correction from Cameron.
This reality grieved some to the point of asking Cameron to step down from his role at Way of the Master until or unless he repents of his promotion of and association with Glenn Beck. Christine Pack of Sola Sisters would write,

Tremendous confusion is being sown among the body by Kirk’s continued alliance with Mormon Glenn Beck. Does it matter to Kirk that some people here on his FB wall are now insisting that Mormons are Christians? If he can’t take responsibility for his own FB wall, and he allows that confusion to stand, he needs to resign from Way of the Master and step down from his role as an evangelist for the Christian faith. Source

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Cameron, along with co-host and fellow evangelist Ray Comfort, actually have taught against Mormonism on their Way of the Master television show.
Indeed, it was one thing several months ago for Kirk Cameron to accept the endorsement of Glenn Beck for his movie, Monumental. It is quite another for Cameron actually to endorse Glenn Beck, which is what he seems to now be doing. At this point one must wonder if 2 Corinthians 6:14–16 begins to take relevance.
Another comment from a concerned individual reads as follows:

Kirk, please, I beg you. You are undermining the gospel by your partnership and promotion of Glenn Beck and his projects. The gospel is greater and more important than America. America will pass away. It is temporary, but God’s Word and His gospel is forever. Please. Look at all the people on this thread who have no idea. You are influencing them in a bad way. Source

This person seems to have identified the problem precisely. What was demonstrated in Cameron’s movie, and what he has consistently been preaching in recent months, is the importance of America to return to what he believes are its Christian roots. Yet, could such a focus be perceived as patriotic idolatry? Speaking at the 2012 Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. last Friday, the Christian Post notes that Cameron

said America can get out of the “mess” by returning to the “original factory settings,” which involves listening to the Founding Fathers who relied on wisdom that comes from faith in God and His Word. Source

Is this really the answer? Why not turn directly to God’s Word? Further, were America’s “original factory settings” truly Christian as Cameron alleges? In a conversation with Dr. Al Mohler, Gregg Frazer, professor and author of the book, The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation and Revolution, discussed his research of America’s founding fathers. Speaking here about John Adams, Frazer noted:

John Adams, I argue, is sort of the quintessential theistic rationalist. That is, he wrote the most about theology of any of the key founders and studied the most. He read any and all theology that he could find around the world and he wrote the most about it and revealed his own views the most, and it’s really quite shocking what he came up with. He fundamentally denied basically all the fundamental tenants of the faith. He was raised in a Calvinist community; although, and again this is where denominational affiliations can get you in trouble, his church was listed as Congregationalist and they kept that name, but the church turned Unitarian when he was a young man, and so just the label Congregationalist can get you sort of off-track. But he denied the deity of Christ; he denied the Trinity; he denied the atonement. He actually said what I think is the most striking statement of all the things that I’ve found in all of my study, which was in his explaining his opposition to the Trinity, he actually said that if he were standing on Mount Sinai with Moses, where God gives revelation, and God Himself told him that the Trinity was true, he said he wouldn’t believe it.
He referred to the deity of Christ and the atonement as absurdities, talked about the fabrication of the Christian Trinity. He talked about the incarnation and said it has been the source of almost all the corruptions of Christianity—the belief in an eternal self-existent, omnipresent, omniscient Author of this stupendous universe suffering on a cross—says that that’s the source of most of the problems in Christianity. Speaking of the Bible, he said that philosophy is the original revelation of the Creator to His creature, and no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it, so philosophy trumps the Bible.
Source

If America’s “original factory settings” were not actually Christian, then Kirk Cameron’s admonition for the country to return to these is erroneous and potentially dangerous. It is not the job of the Christian to moralize his country. The Facebook comment quoted above noted a fact of far greater importance: America is temporary. It will pass away. The Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, however, will not. These are eternal.
Where, then, ought the Christian set his sights? Not on a country made of men, but on Jesus Christ (Heb. 12:2) and His eternal kingdom. Those whose focus remains fixed on America, her financial failings and her moral pitfalls find themselves engaging in patriotic idolatry. How does one “get out of that mess”? Repent, remember and return to the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the only true hope.

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship

Thursday, September 20, 2012

by Al Mohler

 

 

The whole world changed on Tuesday. At least, that is what many would have us to believe. Smithsonian magazine, published by the Smithsonian Institution, declares that the news released Tuesday was “apt to send jolts through the world of biblical scholarship — and beyond.” Really?

What was this news? Professor Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School announced at a conference in Rome that she had identified an ancient papyrus fragment that includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” Within hours, headlines around the world advertised the announcement with headlines like “Ancient Papyrus Could Be Evidence that Jesus Had a Wife” (The Telegraph).

The Smithsonian article states that “the announcement at an academic conference in Rome is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world.” The magazine’s breathless enthusiasm for the news about the papyrus probably has more to do with advertising its upcoming television documentary than anything else, but the nation’s most prestigious museum can only injure its reputation with this kind of sensationalism.

A Fragment of a Text, an Even More Fragmentary Argument
What Karen King revealed on Tuesday was a tiny papyrus fragment with Coptic script on both sides. On one side the fragment includes about 30 words on eight fragmentary lines of script. The New York Times described the fragment as “smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass.” The lines are all fragmentary, with the third line reading “deny. Mary is worthy of it,” and the next reading “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” The fifth states, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

The papyrus fragment, believed to be from the fourth century, was delivered to Professor King by an anonymous source who secured the artifact from a German-American dealer, who had bought it years ago from a source in East Germany. As news reports made clear, the fragment is believed by many to be an authentic text from the fourth century, though two of three authorities originally consulted by the editors of the Harvard Theological Review expressed doubts. Such a find would be interesting, to be sure, but hardly worthy of the international headlines.

The little piece of ancient papyrus with its fragmentary lines of text is now, in the hands of the media, transformed into proof that Jesus had a wife, and that she was most likely Mary Magdalene. Professor King will bear personal responsibility for most of this over-reaching. She has called the fragment nothing less than “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” — a title The Boston Globe rightly deemed “provocative.” That same paper reported that Professor King decided to publicize her findings before additional tests could verify the fragment’s authenticity because she “feared word could leak out about its existence in a way that sensationalized its meaning.” Seriously? King was so concerned about avoiding sensationalism that she titled the fragment “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife?”

This is sensationalism masquerading as scholarship. One British newspaper notes that the claims about a married Jesus seem more worthy of fans of Dan Brown’s fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, than “real-life Harvard professors.” If the fragment is authenticated, the existence of this little document will be of interest to historians of the era, but it is insanity to make the claims now running through the media.

Professor King claims that these few words and phrases should be understood as presenting a different story of Jesus, a different gospel. She then argues that the words should be read as claiming that Jesus was married, that Mary Magdalene was likely his wife. She argues further that, while this document provides evidence of Jesus’ marital status, the phrases do not necessarily mean he was married. More than anything else, she argues against the claim that Christianity is a unified body of commonly-held truths.

Those familiar with Karen King’s research and writings will recognize the argument. Her 2003 book, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, argued that another text from the era presented Mary Magdalene as the very model for apostleship.

A Preference for Heterodoxy
The thread that ties all these texts and arguments together is the 1945 discovery of some 52 ancient texts near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt. These texts are known to scholars as Gnostic literature. The texts present heretical narratives and claims about Jesus and his message, and they have been a treasure trove for those seeking to replace orthodox Christianity with something different.

Several ambitions drive this effort. Feminists have sought to use the Nag Hammadi texts to argue that women have been sidelined by the orthodox tradition, and that these Gnostic texts prove that women were central to the leadership of the early church, perhaps even superior to the men. Others have used the Nag Hammadi texts to argue that Christianity was diverse movement marked by few doctrinal concerns until it was hijacked by political and ecclesiastical leaders, who constructed theological orthodoxy as a way of establishing churchly power in the Roman Empire and then stifling dissent. Still others argue that Christianity’s moral prohibitions concerning sexuality, and especially homosexuality, were part of this forced orthodoxy which, they argue, was not the essence of true Christianity. More than anything else, many have used the Nag Hammadi texts as leverage for their argument that Christianity was originally a way of spirituality centered in the teachings of a merely human Christ — not a message of salvation through faith in a divine Jesus who saves sinners through the atonement he accomplished in his death and resurrection.

Professor King, along with Princeton’s Elaine Pagels, has argued that the politically powerful leaders who established what became orthodox Christianity silenced other voices, but that these voices now speak through the Nag Hammadi texts and other Gnostic writings. Writing together, King and Pagels argue that “the traditional history of Christianity is written almost solely from the viewpoint of the side that won, which was remarkably successful in silencing or distorting other voices, destroying their writings, and suppressing any who disagreed with them as dangerous and obstinate ‘heretics.’”
King and Pagels both reject traditional Christianity, and they clearly prefer the voices of the heretics. They argue for the superiority of heterodoxy over orthodoxy. In the Smithsonian article, King’s scholarship is described as “a kind of sustained critique of what she called the ‘master story’ of Christianity: a narrative that casts the canonical texts of the New Testament as a divine revelation that passed through Jesus in ‘an unbroken chain’ to the apostles and their successors — church fathers, ministers, priests and bishops who carried these truths into the present day.”

King actually argues against the use of terms like “heresy” and even “Gnostic,” claiming that the very use of these terms gives power to the forces of orthodoxy and normative Christianity. Nevertheless, she cannot avoid using the terms herself (even in the titles of her own books). She told Ariel Sabar of Smithsonian, “You’re talking to someone who’s trying to integrate a whole set of ‘heretical’ literature into the standard history.”

Orthodoxy and Heresy: The Continual Struggle
Those who use Gnostic texts like those found at Nag Hammadi attempt to redefine Christianity so that classic, biblical, orthodox Christianity is replaced with a very different religion. The Gnostic texts reduce Jesus to the status of a worldly teacher who instructs his followers to look within themselves for the truth. These texts promise salvation through enlightenment, not through faith and repentance. Their Jesus is not the fully human and fully divine Savior and there is no bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead.

Were these writings found at Nag Hammadi evidence of the fact that the early church opposed and attempted to eliminate what it understood to be false teachings? Of course. That is what the church said it was doing and what the Apostles called upon the church to do. The believing church did not see heresy as an irritation — it saw heterodoxy as spiritual death. Those arguing for the superiority of the Gnostic texts deny the divine inspiration of the New Testament and prefer the heterodox teachings of the Gnostic heretics. Hauntingly, the worldview of the ancient Gnostics is very similar, in many respects, to various worldviews and spiritualities around us today.

The energy behind all this is directed to the replacement of orthodox Christianity, its truth claims, its doctrines, its moral convictions, and its vision of both history and eternity with a secularized — indeed, Gnositicized — new version.

Just look at the attention this tiny fragment of papyrus has garnered. Its few words and broken phrases are supposed to cast doubt on the New Testament and the doctrines of orthodox Christianity. A tiny little fragment which, even if authentically from the fourth century, is placed over against the four New Testament Gospels, all written within decades of Jesus’ earthy ministry.
“The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife?” Not hardly. This is sensationalism masquerading as scholarship. Nevertheless, do not miss what all this really represents — an effort to replace biblical Christianity with an entirely new faith.



How to Think About the Embassy Violence

How to Think About the Embassy Violence

 

Kevin DeYoung|11:47 am CT

NOTE: I’ve made several changes to this post from earlier this afternoon. Unlike professional journalists or media outlets I am not equipped to follow a breaking story like this throughout the day. Thus, some of the information in the original post was in need of qualification or correction. In particular, three points:

• The attacks in Libya may have been preplanned and coordinated for the 9/11 anniversary. The YouTube video may be cover for the premeditated actions which were conceived well before the movie. We don’t know all the details yet.
• Terry Jones involvement may be little more than a lurching for the spotlight after things began to escalate. This “pastor” should not be given more credit than he deserves.
• It’s become clearer to me after I first published my post that the remarks from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo came before the attacks in Libya and before the full scale protests arose in Egypt. This puts the “cowardly” comments in a different light. Even if observers think they were too apologetic (which is probably why the White House didn’t want anything to do with them), they should be seen in their proper context. The previous iteration of this post was too quick to cast a harsh judgment, when a more judicious criticism (or saying nothing at all) was in order.

I’ve decided to keep the bulk of the post the same because I think the overarching points are still valid. The tensions between the West and radical Islam are worth commenting on. The big picture problem is not going away, but as a pastor I’m not in a good position to comment on all the specific issues in real time. Lesson learned.

******

What we are seeing unfold is terrible, uncalled for, and has to stop. All the way around.
The U.S. Ambassador to Libya along with three embassy staff were killed by al-Qaeda linked gunmen in a raid on the consulate building in Benghazi. Meanwhile, in neighboring Egypt thousands of protesters tore down an American flag, burned it, and raised a black Muslim flag in its place. Reportedly, the reason for this international upheaval is a video on YouTube which criticizes Islam and mocks the prophet Mohammad (though increasingly it seems the 9/11 anniversary may have more to do with the violence). The film was reportedly produced by an Israeli-American property developer and has been promoted by Florida pastor Terry Jones.
Everything about this ordeal is monumentally unfortunate and unnecessary.

Let’s start with Terry Jones. I wrote about him two years ago when he threatened to burn the Koran (a stunt he dropped and then later carried out). What I said then I’ll say again now: Jones’ actions are stupid and selfish. He puts American troops at risk, American dignitaries at risk, and American church workers around the world at risk. He certainly knows how to get attention. But he doesn’t seem to know how to make a difference for the good of the gospel, or even the good of his country. And as for the video, by all all accounts its depiction of Islam is unsophisticated, undignified, and unwise.

However insulting and detrimental Jones and others like him can be, however, the response of the gunmen in Libya is positively deplorable. To murder an ambassador over a YouTube video–or even over the pretense of a video–is wicked and evil. As I also pointed out two years ago, Muslim extremism cannot be laid at the feet of Western aggravation. No pastor or cartoonist or novelist is responsible for the outrage and violence carried out by some extremists Muslims and by terrorist-affiliated groups. Some may tempted to say, “Well, who can blame them when their prophet or holy book is desecrated.” But we can still blame them, and we ought to. Jesus is mocked in a thousand public ways every day in this country (and in most countries). This is wrong and deeply offensive to Christians. But it gives us no right to riot and threaten and murder. Every Christian should agree that killing people is not an acceptable response to religious offense. Every human being with a little common grace and a functioning conscience should agree with this principle. Muslims included.
This incident underscores one of the most significant challenges facing the Western world in our day. Will peoples who believe in free speech and freedom of religion sacrifice both when faced with the angry shouts and gunfire of those who don’t? As long as top ranking officials plead with crazy pastors every time they are itching to be annoying, the aggravating people among us will wield astronomically more power than they deserve. Citizens in this country have freedom of speech, which means they have the right to be annoying. Our authorities ought to protect that right, no matter whom they offend, including Muslims. No country can apologize (nor should they try to apologize) every time one or ten or three hundred of her citizens do something outrageous.

We don’t yet know all the details of who, what, and why. And, no doubt, we haven’t heard the last word on the matter from our government or our politicians. But we should not hesitate to restate and defend our first principles. In a democracy people are allowed to say and create things others don’t like. What they can’t do is perpetuate crimes that are deplorably wicked and violent. To act like the former offense is the real problem and not the latter is a foreign policy blunder, not to mention a moral one.

Christian Values Cannot Save Anyone

Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - by Al Mohler

A recent letter to columnist Carolyn Hax of The Washington Post seemed straightforward enough. “I am a stay-at-home mother of four who has tried to raise my family under the same strong Christian values that I grew up with,” the woman writes. “Therefore I was shocked when my oldest daughter, ‘Emily,’ suddenly announced she had ‘given up believing in God’ and decided to ‘come out’ as an atheist.”

 

The idea of a 16-year-old atheist in the house would be enough to alarm any Christian parent, and rightly so. The thought that a secular advice columnist for The Washington Post might be the source of help seems very odd, but desperation can surely lead a parent to seek help almost anywhere.

You usually get what you expect from an advice columnist like this — therapeutic counsel based in a secular worldview and a deep commitment to personal autonomy. Carolyn Hax responds to this mother with an admonition to respect the integrity of her daughter’s declaration of non-belief. She adds, “Parents can and should teach their beliefs and values, but when a would-be disciple stops believing, it’s not a ‘decision’ or ‘choice’ to ‘reject’ church or family or tradition or virtue or whatever else has hitched a cultural ride with faith.”

 

That is patent nonsense, of course. Declarations of adolescent unbelief often are exactly what Hax argues they are not: rejections of “church or family or tradition or virtue.” Hax does offer some legitimate insights, suggesting that honesty is to be preferred to dishonesty and that such adolescent statements are often indications of a phase of intellectual questioning or just trying on a personality for style.

 

Hax then tells this distraught mother that she “didn’t throw out what my childhood, including my church, taught me; I still apply what I believe in. I just apply it to a secular life.” In other words, Hax asserts that she maintains many of the values she learned as a child in church, and simply applies these values now to a secular life.

 

“How can I help my daughter see that she is making a serious mistake with her life if she chooses to reject her God and her faith?,” the mother asks. Hax tells the mother to accept the daughter’s atheism and get over her “disappointment that she isn’t turning out just as you envisioned.”

What else would you expect a secular columnist who operates from a secular worldview to say?

The real problem does not lie with Carolyn Hax’s answer, however, but with the mother’s question. The problem appears at the onset, when the mother states that she has “tried to raise my family under the same strong Christian values that I grew up with.”

 

Christian values are the problem. Hell will be filled with people who were avidly committed to Christian values. Christian values cannot save anyone and never will. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a Christian value, and a comfortability with Christian values can blind sinners to their need for the gospel.

 

This one sentence may not accurately communicate this mother’s understanding, but it appears to be perfectly consistent with the larger context of her question and the source of the advice she sought.

Parents who raise their children with nothing more than Christian values should not be surprised when their children abandon those values. If the child or young person does not have a firm commitment to Christ and to the truth of the Christian faith, values will have no binding authority, and we should not expect that they would. Most of our neighbors have some commitment to Christian values, but what they desperately need is salvation from their sins. This does not come by Christian values, no matter how fervently held. Salvation comes only by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Human beings are natural-born moralists, and moralism is the most potent of all the false gospels. The language of “values” is the language of moralism and cultural Protestantism — what the Germans called Kulturprotestantismus. This is the religion that produces cultural Christians, and cultural Christianity soon dissipates into atheism, agnosticism, and other forms of non-belief. Cultural Christianity is the great denomination of moralism, and far too many church folk fail to recognize that their own religion is only cultural Christianity — not the genuine Christian faith.

 

The language of values is all that remains when the substance of belief disappears. Tragically, many churches seem to perpetuate their existence by values, long after they abandon the faith.

We should not pray for Christian morality to disappear or for Christian values to evaporate. We should not pray to live in Sodom or in Vanity Fair. But a culture marked even by Christian values is in desperate need of evangelism, and that evangelism requires the knowledge that Christian values and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not the same thing.

 

I pray that this young woman and her mother find common hope and confidence in the salvation that comes only through Christ — not by Christian values. Otherwise, we are facing far more than a young woman “making a serious mistake with her life.” We are talking about what matters for eternity. Christian values cannot save anyone.

Rick Warren, Islam and King's Way Document

 

 

Article by Erin Benziger (from the Do Not Be Surprised blog, printed in full)

Could it be that Saddleback Church's interfaith initiative, known as the King's Way document, has been a bit more trouble than it's worth?

Last week, Orange County Register reporter Jim Hinch broke a story that quickly went viral. Saddleback church, he reported, in conjunction with the Islamic Center of Southern California, had co-authored a historic interfaith document. Hinch's report reads in part:

The Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and one of America's most influential Christian leaders, has embarked on an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

The effort, informally dubbed King's Way, caps years of outreach between Warren and Muslims.

The effort by a prominent Christian leader to bridge what polls show is a deep rift between Muslims and evangelical Christians culminated in December at a dinner at Saddleback attended by 300 Muslims and members of Saddleback's congregation.

At the dinner, Abraham Meulenberg, a Saddleback pastor in charge of interfaith outreach, and Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at a mosque in Los Angeles, introduced King's Way as "a path to end the 1,400 years of misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians." (Online Source)

Rick Warren quickly responded to this post with the following:

This post by Warren was later removed. Warren followed this up by producing a white paper which first appeared on the blog of Ed Stetzer, and later also appeared on Warren's own blog. Part of this white paper reads as follows:

QUESTION: A recent newspaper article claimed you believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God, that you are "in partnership" with a mosque, and that you both agreed to "not evangelize each other." You immediately posted a brief refutation online. Can you expand on that?

WARREN: Sure. All three of those statements are flat out wrong. Those statements were made by a reporter, not by me. I did not say them ... I do not believe them... I completely disagree with them ... and no one even talked to me about that article! So let me address each one individually: First, as I've already said, Christians have a fundamentally different view of God than Muslims. We worship Jesus as God. Muslims don't. Our God is Jesus, not Allah. Colossians 2:9 "For in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Second, while we urge our members to build friendships with everyone in our community, including Muslims and other faiths, ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), our church has never had any partnership with a mosque. Friendship and partnership are two very different levels of commitment. Some of our members have hosted a Bible study with Muslim friends, which I applaud, but I've never been to it, and a Bible study certainly isn't any kind of partnership or merger! It's just crazy that a simple Bible Study where people explore Scripture with non-Christians would be reported as a partnership and others would interpret that as a plan for a new compromised religion. Just crazy! Third, as both an Evangelical and as an evangelist, anyone who knows me and my 40 year track record of ministry that I would never agree to "not evangelizing" anyone! I am commanded by my Savior to share the Good News with all people everywhere, all the time, in every way possible! Anyone who's heard me teach knows that my heart beats for bringing others to Jesus. (Online Source)

While Warren's words seemed to contradict previous actions, this statement nevertheless was acknowledged by those who initially reported on the story. Not long after this, however, Ken Silva ofApprising Ministries corresponded with OC Register reporter Jim Hinch, who shared with Silva an excerpt of this elusive King's Way document. Upon reading this excerpt, it is not difficult to see why or how Hinch arrived at the conclusions that he did when he stated in his article that the document proposed, "a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God." Below is the excerpt of the King's Way document that was sent by Jim Hinch to Ken Silva:

The document, which was given to me [Jim Hinch] by a source for this story on condition it not be published in its entirety, outlines several areas of theological agreement between Christians and Muslims and commits members of both faiths to three goals: becoming friends; making peace; and sharing “the blessings of God with others.” Here is how the document describes the points of theological agreement:

I. WHO: we believe in ONE GOD:

1. God is one (Mark 12:29; Muhammed 47:19)

2. God is the Creator (Genesis 1:1; Al Shura 42:11)

3. God is different from the world (1 Timothy 6:16; An An’am 6:103)

4. God is Good a. God loves (1 John 4:16; Al Buruj 85:14) b. God is just (1 John 1:19,Romans 3:26; Hud 11:45) c. God’s love encompasses God’s judgment (1 Peter 4:8; Al A’raf 7:156; Al Ghafir 40:7)

The Register story based the phrases “same God” and “one God” on the phrasing in this document, which states that Christians and Muslims believe in one God. (Online Source)

Thus far, the contents of this King's Way excerpt have not been addressed by Rick Warren. This is unfortunate, as clearly some further explanation is necessary.

Today, however, has yielded another interesting discovery. In the post, "Historic Interfaith Document was One Year in the Making," it was noted that the following post was found in the December 2011 archives of the blog of the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC):

Last Sunday, a historic event took place at Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. Saddleback is known for its famous pastor, Rick Warren, who delivered the prayer at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. The Church hosted a number of Muslim communities in based in Southern California for its second annual celebration of Jesus (pbuh). This event is significant because Saddleback is a large evangelical church with over 22 thousand members. Although only a select number of individuals were invited to this dinner, it demonstrates the new theological position of Saddleback. At the celebration, a document one year in the making was presented which encourages Christians and Muslims to appreciate the similarities of our faiths.

The document encouraged that our communities work together towards the common good and to combat bigotry in a 1-2-3 plan. The first step in the plan identifies the belief in one God. The second step acknowledges God’s commandment to love God and your neighbor. Finally, step three is for our communities to commit to three things: making friends, building peace, and serving the world at large together.

This relationship with Saddleback Church was initiated over a year ago with a friendship between one of the pastors, Abraham Meulenberg, and the ICSC’s Jihad Turk. Pastor Meulenberg reached out having heard about the Center and our interfaith work. From this friendship developed an institutional link between their respective organizations. (Online Source. To view pictures of this event, visit here.)

If one attempts to click on the links above, which initially led to the original blog post and to the ICSC Flickr page containing pictures of the event, it will be noticed that these links either lead to a different blog post, or, in the case of the pictures, the link no longer works.

Is this a mere coincidence? If Rick Warren is being so honest with his denials of the claims of the OC Register story, then why is all of the evidence of the King's Way document suddenly disappearing? Well, thanks to today's technology, the missing ICSC blog post has been preserved, captured, and can be viewed right here:

(Click to Enlarge)

This blog post by the ICSC is not just a mere blog post, however. It is important to note some of the language used within this post, specifically the following statement:

This event is significant because Saddleback is a large evangelical church with over 22 thousand members. Although only a select number of individuals were invited to this dinner, it demonstrates the new theological position of Saddleback.

A new theological position? For a Christian church? Perhaps the members of the ICSC misunderstood the intent of this entire endeavor. If so, one wonders why Saddleback did not seek to clarify such a misunderstanding sometime between December and today. One also must surely wonder why the King's Way excerpt that has emerged has been ignored by Warren and his team. Finally, it cannot help but be questioned why it is that the ICSC has suddenly deleted this clear, boastful evidence of the December event and this "historic interfaith document." In the interest of Christian ethic, we certainly hope that there is no "King's Way Cover-up" underway.

Additional Resources

Is King's Way an Interfaith Document or Not? You Be The Judge.

Rick Warren Addresses Chrislam Controversy

A Common Word Between Us and You (Interfaith document created by the Muslim community, aimed at uniting Christians-Muslims)

A Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You (Interfaith document created by the Christian community, signed by Rick Warren)

Controversy Over An Article About Rick Warren's Efforts to Bring Muslims, Christians Together

Islamic Center of Southern California Co-authors Historic Interfaith Document ("King's Way")

"Historic Interfaith Document" (King's Way) was "One Year in the Making"

Critical Issues Commentary: A Biblical Look at Rick Warren's Teaching

One World Religion - Here we come .....

Will Glenn Beck's Restoring Love Rally Be About Ecumenicalism and the Social Gospel?

By Brannon S. Howse

To be "Loving" now means you embrace ecumenicalism and don't divide on theological and doctrinal issues for success in the culture war and you embrace a social gospel. Will this be the message we hear at Glenn Beck's Restoring Love Rally on 7-28-12 in Dallas?

If you don't agree with Beck's spiritual agenda will that make you a bigot? In 2010 I was quoted in a CNN article on why Christians should not unite in a spiritual enterprise with a New Age Mormon to win the "culture war." Beck talked about the article on his radio program and said, "so now the religious bigotry is there too". I wrote about Beck's comment in a column back in 2010.

Beck's rally will center on a three day event of "Celebration of Service". I believe Beck is really pushing a social gospel agenda along with his ecumenicalism. Recently Beck's website announced his global plan which included a visit to the Vatican. Therefore, may I suggest Rick Warren be a keynote speaker at Beck's rally so Warren can talk about his global Peace Plan, the social gospel, and his ecumenicalism. After all, Rick Warren has proven he can work with Muslims so why not a Mormon? After all there are a lot of similarities between Mormons and Muslims. A few years ago Warren signed the Yale document that declared that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. The document declared:

We applaud that A Common Word Between Us and You stresses so insistently the unique devotion to one God, Muslims and Christians do not worship the same god. Glenn Beck, like Warren, is also pushing a social gospel agenda along with ecumenicalism. Beck's website states:

"Glenn Beck will be reaching out to individual organizations, churches, and more across the area and ask them the question: 'If you had unlimited manpower for one day – what would you do?'…I have said enough words. It's time for me to help hold up the arms of community and faith leaders and serve those who are doing the heavy lifting on healing our nation…It is time to deemphasize the political solution and first demand real change in ourselves."

So Beck is going to rally the churches and faith leaders and Beck is going to help hold up the arms of the faith community?

If Beck is going to deemphasize the political solution that really only leaves a spiritual solution and thus the desire to work with the churches. Are you interested in in the spiritual solutions of a New Age Mormon? I for one am not. Christians should not unite with Beck in spiritual enterprise as declared in Romans 16:17, 2 John 9-11, Ephesians 5:11, and 2 Corinthians 6:14.

Beck's social gospel, ecumenicalism, and global plan seem very similar to that of Rick Warren. In the December 20, 2011 Orange County Register it was reported that Rick Warren is opening the PEACE Center as part of his global PEACE Plan. I believe Warren's PEACE plan is really a communitarian philosophy of bringing together the church, corporations and the government for what Warren has called the three-legged stool.

The Irvine woman is one of about 72,000 people who have benefitted from Saddleback's food pantry since its 2009 opening, according to Saddleback officials. The pantry is one of several services that will be part of the church's new PEACE Center.

The OCR reported:

A permanent larger, two-story structure is in the planning stages. It will house a free health clinic, clothing exchange, warehouse and auto-repair shop in addition to services being offered at the temporary center. So far, $600,000 has been raised through donations toward the $2 million cost of the structure.

In the OCR Warren was quoted as saying:

"This is not for members of Saddleback but for people in the community," he said. "When the final building is built, it will be the first thing people see when they come to the campus. It's not about the church but the hope and love that's in that building."

Nowhere in the New Testament Church description of the church do we see the mandate for the corporate church to focus on social programs for those outside the church. While this could be a ministry for individuals as a platform for preaching the Biblical gospel, it is not a function described in the Bible as a calling of the New Testament Church. The New Testament church is to equip and train its members for the work of ministry-the preaching of the gospel.

Pastor Jesse Johnson put it best when he wrote:

There is a very real danger that has been played out through history repeatedly, that when churches embrace a vision for combating poverty, evangelism is one of the first victims of this altered commission…To guard against that, the church is never commanded to show compassion to the poor as a means for expanding the kingdom. Simply put, you owe the poor the gospel; Jesus died to purchase for them the privilege of hearing the testimony of his death and resurrection (1 Tim 2:6). That is both the most and the least you can give, and Robin Hood ethics do not overlap with the Great Commission.

The most loving thing Christians can do is reject the social gospel and preach the Biblical gospel to a lost world. The most loving things Christians can do is expose false teachers and their false teaching. While these Biblical mandates may be declared hateful by those committed to a social gospel, false teaching, and ecumenicalism, it is not. In Revelation 2:15 God declares his hatred of false teaching. A hatred for and not rallying around false teaching, the social gospel, and ecumenicalism is a hallmark of those that love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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SCRIPTURE - And the continuous undermining of it ...

Throwing the Bible Under the Bus - Al Mohler

Giberson and Collins reveal their true understanding of biblical inspiration when they locate it, not in the authorship of the text at all, but in the modern act of reading the text.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

In his 1996 novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies, John Updike told of the Reverend Clarence Arthur Wilmot, the fictional pastor of New York’s Fourth Presbyterian Church, who stopped believing in God one day in 1910. On that day, the Rev. Wilmot “felt the last particles of his faith leave him,” Updike wrote.

Rev. Wilmot’s crisis of faith was rooted in his loss of confidence in the Bible as the revealed Word of God. The influence of liberal critics of the Bible had reached him even at seminary years before, and now he saw the Scriptures as just another human book. In Updike’s words, the Scriptures were “one more human volume, more curious and conglomerate than most, but the work of men–of Jews in dirty sheepskins, rotten-toothed desert tribesmen with eyes rolled heavenward, men like flies on flypaper caught fast in a historic time, among the myths and conceptions belonging to the childhood of mankind.”



Updike’s brilliant and accurate depiction of the liberal approach to the Bible remains shocking. The Higher Critics, as the liberal scholars were then known, did indeed see the authors of the Old Testament as “rotten-toothed desert tribesmen” who could not see beyond “myths and conceptions belonging to the childhood of mankind.”



Well, the Reverend Clarence Arthur Wilmot was fictional, but Dr. Karl W. Giberson is not. Giberson is not a pastor, but a professor at Eastern Nazarene College near Boston. He is also a scientist involved with the BioLogos Foundation, a group committed to the defense and promotion of theistic evolution.



Just recently, Professor Giberson wrote an article published at CNN’s Belief Blog. In the article, Giberson claims that Jesus would believe in evolution, and that the rest of us should accept evolution as well. In the process of making his argument, Giberson castigates those who hold to a literal interpretation of Genesis for forcing the biblical text to be read as “a modern account of origins.” Instead, Giberson asserts, Genesis is “a story that began as an oral tradition for a wandering tribe of Jews thousands of years ago.”



Sound familiar? Giberson went on to argue: “While Genesis contains wonderful insights into the relationship between God and the creation, it simply does not contain scientific ideas about the origin of the universe, the age of the earth or the development of life.”



So, according to Professor Giberson, Genesis contains “wonderful insights,” but no authoritative revelation of how God made the universe. Evidently, he believes that the Bible is not making a claim to historical truth when it tells of the creation and function of Adam and Eve. “We now know that the human race began millions of years ago in Africa — not thousands of years ago in the Middle East, as the story in Genesis suggests,” Giberson insists.



In making his case, Giberson uses the old argument that God has given humanity two books of revelation — the Bible and the created order. This is one of Giberson’s most frequently offered arguments. It is a theologically disastrous argument in his hands, for he allows modern naturalistic science to silence the Bible, God’s written revelation. In another article published last year, Giberson said, “I am happy to concede that science does indeed trump religious truth about the natural world."

Later, he stated even more directly that “science does indeed trump revealed truth about the world.”

In other words, he throws the Bible under the bus. In language hauntingly reminiscent of Reverend Clarence Arthur Wilmot, Professor Giberson describes the human authors of the Old Testament as “ancient and uncomprehending scribes.”

In his new book, The Language of Science and Faith, written with Francis S. Collins, readers will find this strange paragraph:


Biblical interpretation falls short without an understanding of biblical inspiration, of course, as we do not suggest that the Bible is simply another book to be interpreted. But we do a great disservice to the concept and power of inspiration when we reduce it to mere factual accuracy, as though God’s role were nothing more than a divine fact checker, preventing the biblical authors from making mistakes. A dead and lifeless text, like the phone book, can be factually accurate. The inspiration of the Bible is dynamic and emerges through engagement with readers.

That paragraph is, quite simply, one of the most ridiculous statements concerning the Bible one might ever imagine. Who has ever argued that the divine inspiration of the Bible is reduced to “mere factual accuracy”? Giberson’s dismissive language about God as “nothing more than a divine fact checker” is sheer nonsense. Who has ever made such a proposal?

The conclusion of the paragraph is an embarrassing non sequitur. It is patently untrue that only a “dead and lifeless text, like a phone book” can be factually accurate. Giberson and Collins reveal their true understanding of biblical inspiration when they locate it, not in the authorship of the text at all, but in the modern act of reading the text.

As they make their argument for theistic evolution, Giberson and Collins embrace a form of Open Theism and argue, quite consistently with arguments common to BioLogos, against the historicity of Adam and Eve.

They end the book with their own version of “The Grand Narrative of Creation.” This is their climactic conclusion of the narrative:

Eventually, the most advanced of the life forms on the planet, human beings, become deeply religious. Throughout the history of our species belief in God or gods has been close to universal. Abstractions like right and wrong, the meaning of life, the where everything came from have become critically important questions. The religious impulse developed into one of the deepest aspects of our complicated understanding of ourselves.

They conclude: “And God saw that it was good.”

Here is their own rendering of what it looks like when the “Book of Nature” trumps the Bible. Just compare their “Grand Narrative of Creation” with Genesis.

Then again, Karl Giberson believes that the human authors of Genesis were “ancient and uncomprehending scribes” and that Genesis “began as an oral tradition for a wandering tribe of Jews thousands of years ago.”

That sounds strangely like John Updike’s description of “Jews in dirty sheepskins, rotten-toothed desert tribesmen” caught in “myths and conceptions belonging to the childhood of mankind.”

This is what is left, when the Bible is thrown under the bus.

________________________________________

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.


Karl W. Giberson, “My Take: Jesus Would Believe in Evolution and So Should You,” CNN Belief Blog, Sunday, April 10, 2011.


R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “On Darwin and Darwinism: A Letter to Professor Giberson,” Wednesday, August 25, 2010.


R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Science Trumps the Bible? — An Amazingly Candid (and Disastrous) Argument,” Wednesday, October 27, 2010.


Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions [InterVarsity Press, 2011].



EARTH DAY

Earth Day 2011: Celebrating 40-plus years of Deception

Then God said, " Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth" - Genesis 1:26

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." - Genesis 1:28

Wow, what a plan that the Creator of all things had in the beginning! We, as humans, were the crown jewel of His creation. We were made in His image for His glory and according to His word we were meant to have dominion over the earth. We were to subdue it, be fruitful, multiply, and fill all of the earth. That plan was drastically altered when the devil was slithering through the garden and deceived our first parents. From that point on, our earth has never been and will never be the same. Glory to God for sending humanity His Son to save us! Jesus; who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was crucified on the cross for my sins and yours, and on the third day rose from the dead ... who now sits at the right hand of Our Father. It is He who is our hope ... NOT the reduction of carbon admissions.

But, leave it to a corrupt political system and a deceived society to utilize environmental stewardship for their own selfish gain and advancement. You must understand, that the "Powers-That-Be" could really care less about the environment. They are using the "Environmental Movement" as a vehicle to advance their globalist agenda, line their pockets and remove the obstacle of Biblical Christianity from the landscape. Take a step back shall we and let us look at the origins of Earth Day.

"Earth Day" did not start out as "Earth Day" ... it was conceived by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin as a National Environmental Teach-In. Wouldn't you know it, another "teach-in" during the late 1960s and early 1970s ... but I digress. Nelson and his cronies directed the participants to utilize "The Environmental Handbook" to aide in facilitating discussions and putting ideas into practice. Did you know that each stream and tree has its own guardian spirit? I didn't either until I threw out all of my common sense and logic and read from The Environmental Handbook. This type of thinking/worldview can be bucketed into what is called PANTHEISM. Pantheism is nothing more than a form of spiritual naturalism. Its underlying belief is that god and the material world are one and the same thing and that god is present in everything ... all is god and god is all - So, go strike up a conversation today with your willow tree and try to find salvation for your lost soul? What the handbook does throughout its many pages is demonize Christianity and hold it responsible for the miseries of the world. On page 20, they make the claim that Christians believe that it is God's will for us to exploit the planet - I don't recall anything written in Genesis 1 that directed humanity to exploit creation - do you? And on page 25, The Handbook goes as far as to blame Christians for the worsening ecological crisis ... And I thought that this movement was about saving the planet?

I will not be replacing my Bible any time soon for The Environmental Handbook, but those who embrace Eastern Religions and Fundamental Mormonism might. You can see for yourself if you look at page 331 in the handbook. It exhorts society to have a revolution of consciousness and enlightenment while waving the banner(s) of the - Gnostic's, Marxists, Taoists, Quakers, Indians, and Shamans. Turn back a couple of pages to 324 and you will find endorsements for polygamy and group marriage ... bottom line - replace Christianity!

The pity of it all is that Earth Day and the Environmental Movement have been embraced by the mainstream church. Can you believe it? The church has embraced a movement that set out to destroy and replace the very essence of what Christianity stood for in the world. Biblical churches exclaiming and teaching Christ crucified are being replaced with Emergent/Apostate churches chattering about missional awareness. The Lord told us in His word that there would be days like these: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside by fables - II Timothy 4:3-4.

No environmental movement, handbook, agency or government program can save this planet - only God can! We, as a civilization, will cease to exist here on planet earth. It is a matter of biblical fact and a matter of time. Don't get me wrong, we need to do everything that we can to preserve and protect what God has given to us, but that does not change the fact that we are all living on/in a sinful and fallen planet. To exalt birds, trees, plants, and the delta smelt above humanity goes against the design of creation. Take a second and think about something ... there are people on this earth that will do everything in their power to protect and preserve a moose, but will then turn around and make an appointment at the abortion clinic the next week ... how does that make any sense? How is that even justified? We are made to feel guilty about endangering a flock of geese, but we can rejoice in the murder of 50 million babies under the banner of freedom ... insanity? It just doesn't add up to me, but I am open to have anybody explain this line of thinking ... any takers?

On this Earth Day may we gaze upon the face of God. May we allow Him to expose our sins to us and may we fall on our faces crying out for mercy. We do have hope as a planet, as a society, as humanity - it is in the saving work of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Our hope is in Him and any preacher, pastor, book or movement that tells society otherwise is deceiving us.

Forsaking GOD for the sake of a flag ....

CONFRONTING THE PATRIOTIC FAITH

By Christian J. Pinto - http://www.adullamfilms.com/

"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither

hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:2)

Perhaps more dangerous than yoga, psychology, or any of the new age doctrines that have crept into modern churches, is the ongoing love affair that some believers have with patriotic Christianity. Many Christian leaders, who can easily spot the lies of the New Age movement, abandon all discernment when it comes to the history of America and the idea that this country was founded as a Christian nation. Yes, they are well able to recognize the kundalini serpent crawling up the spine of believers at the gym, but can't seem to figure out that the Washington monument is a pagan phallic symbol that glorifies a demonic entity. They are unable to discern that just because certain Freemasons wrote "Glory to God" on it does not make it a Christian icon.

Christians who live in America understand that we are soldiers of Christ, who are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, and who happen to be stationed in a place called America. American Christians, on the other hand, believe that the United States represents the kingdom of God on earth, and their purpose is to promote American values and the revolutionary principles of democracy, rather than the message of life eternal. They will politely refrain from being too forward about such sensitive issues as heaven and hell; but will be bold to speak about freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. "I don't want to intrude my beliefs on yours," they say, "unless it comes to my Constitutional rights!" If their zeal for the Lord Jesus were equal to their love for America, we can only wonder what great things might be done for the sake of the truth. As believers living in America, we must ask: is the core message of Americanism, even at its best, really that of the Bible?


Church and State

If one studies these elite societies at any length, he will quickly realize that their religious views cannot be separated from their political machinations. Their insistence on a separation of church and state does not mean they want to separate religion from government. It means they want to separate The Church (i.e. Christianity) from the state. This is why they demand that all Christian icons (the cross, ten commandments, etc.) be removed from government buildings, seals, etc. Yet the pagan icons, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Eye of Horus, the Washington Monument, along with countless other celebrations of the occult religions are never threatened. Yes, the Ten Commandments must be taken away from in front of the courthouse, but the statue of the blindfolded Themis, the Greek goddess of justice, can remain unfettered. The message is clear: the devils can stay, but God must go.



The Founding Fathers of America

Many Christians are repeatedly told by their pastors, teachers and church leaders that America was founded as a Christian nation. This assertion would not be so bad if it were confined to the arrival of the Puritans at Plymouth, and the early development of the new world. If that were the case, it would be an accurate statement in this writer's opinion. It is very clear that the Puritan/Pilgrims who built the towns, cities and roads for the original 13 colonies did so as Bible believers who were establishing Christian communities.



The problem arises when one marks the foundation of our country at the American Revolution and the establishment of the United States. It is at this point where all bible believing Christians should be very wary, since the working of occult societies during this era was at an unprecedented height in history. Some historians even argue that you simply cannot understand the history of the world for the past few hundred years if you do not take these societies into account. Their members have been the planners, leaders, and engineers of a global agenda, one that they do not readily share with the rest of the world. More importantly, they often use "religion" as an instrument to manipulate the masses, their belief being that the end justifies the means.

For Christians, our concern should be not for their conspiracy to take over the world, which is simply the fulfillment of God's prophecies and proof that His Word is true. Rather, our concern must be their corruption of the faith of Christ from within our ranks. In the New Testament, Jude gives us this important exhortation:


"… it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our
Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 3-4)

Notice that Jude is warning us that we must "contend" (i.e. fight) for the true faith because "certain men" whom he calls "ungodly" have crept into the church. Such warnings are found throughout the New Testament. Jesus warned of "ravening wolves" in "sheep's clothing" (Matthew 7:15), while Paul warned of "grievous wolves" who would not spare the flock (Acts 20:29), while Peter warned that such men would bring in "damnable heresies" (2 Peter 2:1) and would be denying the Lord, just as Jude confirms.

Sadly, all of the above warnings can be found among the chief Founders of the American Revolution, which will be shown in the following articles. The question is, are the Founders men who have crept into the church? The answer can only be "yes." Not only were these men involved in churches in their lifetimes, but even two centuries later, their names and philosophies are sounded regularly among the congregations of the Lord. Their influence is among us, as surely as if they lived and breathed at this very hour.

Consider this: when our Puritan fathers founded Harvard University in 1636, they set forth the motto: Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae which means "Truth for Christ and the Church." That was the original focus of Harvard and they had no problem stating it openly. Nearly four hundred years later, the motto has been shortened to: Veritas. Simply the word for "Truth." As with many things, "Christ and the Church" have been thrust out. But this is no accident, and is not a betrayal of the "original intent" of the Revolutionaries. On the contrary, it is exactly what they wanted. Yes, the Pilgrims would be turning in their graves, but they are separated from Jefferson, Adams and Franklin by more than a hundred years.

Taking America Back: but back to what?
The evidence will show that the troubles for Christianity in America did not begin when they took prayer out of schools in the 1960's. It began with the American Revolution. This is especially bad news for those who think we need to "get back to the founding fathers." George Washington and Thomas Jefferson do not represent the solution -- rather, they were the very beginning of the problem. But to understand this, you must first understand them.
 The Bible vs. Secular Terminology

It may be that the greatest single hindrance to discerning the truth about these men is that they are often defined – not by a Biblical standard – but by secular thinking. It is one thing for teachers and professors in universities to have such a view, but quite another for pastors and ministers in the church. Our first responsibility is to the Word of God and the preaching of the Gospel, not to promote secular philosophies and ideas.

It is often given out that certain founders were "deists" or "theists" or some other such thing. Unfortunately, such worldly terms are very misleading and only succeed in masking the truth. It reminds me of an interview I heard with a woman who said she represented a "Pregnancy Alternative Clinic," which was really an "Abortion Clinic." The words pregnancy alternative helped to soften the blow of what she was really promoting. So it is with those who refer to the founders as "non-religious" or "free-thinkers" etc. It does not represent the Biblical point of view, which is of great concern since Jesus said:

"He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." (John 12:48)

Ultimately, all men will be judged according to the Word of God; so our service toward mankind is to inform them of how their condition is viewed in the sight of God. Imagine a doctor telling a man that he has some "respiratory irregularity," when the truth is that he has lung cancer! Does the doctor do a service to a dying man by misleading him?

I am reminded of a popular TV show, "The Biggest Loser," about overweight people who are brought to a work out camp for weight loss. At some point, these people are made to sit down with a doctor, who often informs them that if they do not lose the necessary weight, they will die in a short time. Often, those who are given such news weep, and are shocked to hear the report. Nevertheless, it is that very shock that compels them to do something about it. A patient needs to know the dire nature of his condition so that he will be compelled to act. Where spiritual matters are concerned, we must seek the Great Physician for an examination of how the beliefs of deists and freethinkers should be viewed.

Judge Not?

Whenever discussions come up about the faith of others, some will often object and cry out that it is wrong to question. "If someone claims to believe God, or says they have faith in Christianity, we ought to take them at their word," they say. But according to the Bible, it is in no way wrong to examine the faith of those who claim to be Christians. If anything, the fault is in failing to exercise discernment. We are not expected to politely accept a confession, especially if we are given cause to doubt it. On the contrary, we are told:

"Beware of false prophets …" (Matthew 7:15)
"Take heed that no man deceive you …" (Matthew 24:4)
"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God …" (1 John 4:1)

In the articles that follow, we will examine some of the beliefs of the key founding fathers, whose own words prove that these men were not Christians and had no intention of founding a Christian country. As you read the words of these men, consider how their so-called "faith" would be viewed in the sight of God. How does the Word of Life judge their testimonies? Remember this verse:

"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."
(1 John 2:22)