Category Archives: denominations
Episcopal Bishop’s Demonic Vision of a New World Religion
The Episcopal Church has a history of heading down the fast road of apostasy. Their acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, witchcraft, and its departure from biblical Christianity has led it into the ecumenical movement of interfaith and the one-world false religious system. Retired Bishop William Swing has a vision of forming a United Nation for Religion which would result in a one world religion.
Who is Bishop William Swing ?
Bishop William Swing is the retired Bishop of the Espicopal Diocese of California. He wasconsecrated as the VII Bishop of California at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, on September 29, 1979. He was very active in helping people with HIV/AIDS and advocating for the elimination of homelessness in the city of San Francisco. Bishop Swing is best known for being the founder and president of the United Religions Initiative as a model to the United Nations for all religions. Back in 1996 he traveled to China, Japan, South Korea, India, the Middle East, and Europe seeking guidance and commitment from leaders of many of the worlds’ religions. The religous leaders he met with were the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram, Islam’s Grand Mufti of Egypt, and the Archbishop of Canterbury (source).
Swing is a supporter of homosexuality. His former diocese California has a ministry for LGBT’s called Oasis California. This ministry allows the LGBT community to be involved in the Episcopal ministry. In a letter Oasis California 2001 Convention, Bishop Swing states:
“Heterosexuals are a threat to marriage. Homosexual couples are a threat to the traditional institution of family. Homosexuals are kicked out of families and disowned. Then when they form their own families, they are abandoned by the Church. And when they raise their children, society treats them as being scandalously selfish. Nevertheless, we are all going to have to grow up and realize that the institution of family is changing before our eyes. Churches need to have family values — values for the big, emerging family that has redefined itself.”
He also holds a negative view on true Christian believers that uphold their faith. He believes that these Christians are a threat to world peace. Swing is under the influence of the spirit of anti-christ. He opposes the true church of Jesus Christ. Swing is against Judeo-Christian values and preaches and teach a false ecumenical gospel.
What is the United Religions Initiative?
The United Religions Initiative is an interfaith organization that is modeled like the United Nations for religion. It helps end religious - motivated religion and aid in the peace of Earth. In March of 2001, the URI became an official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) affiliated with the United Nations. Swing’s original vision for the URI began in 1993, when he was invited by the UN to host an interfaith service honoring the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter (source).
The United Religions Initiative involves the following groups: Christians, Islam, Judaism, Buddhist, Hinduism, Taoism Shamanism, New Age, Mormonism, Wicca, and Witchcraft. All of these religions are united for the sole purpose of bringing a false peace and a false one – world religion.
Interesting enough, one of the key groups that was involved with the early stages of URI, was the Covenant of the Goddess , which is the world largest organization for witches. CoG members helped write the URI charter which states: “We the people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions, and indigenious traditiions throughout the world, hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily, interfaith cooperation, to create culture of peace, justice, an healing for the Earth for all living beings (source).” The URI has brought CoG (Neopagans) into the mainstream of the cultures and made it acceptable. Other Neo-Pagan groups that support the URI are as follows: Coven of the Stone and the Mirror, Goddess Holding the World Mural Project, Hippo Haven Wiccan Community, Pagan Educational Network, The Pagan Sanctuary Network, and the SerpentStone Coven in North Carolina(source).
The URI is also supported by Mikhail Gorbachev’s organization, The State of the World Forum, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and New Age Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard . The URI is supported by a variety of religious and political groups that have the same demonic vision of a one-world religion to bring about false peace.
Bishop Swing Endorses the Occult
One of the top members of the URI global council is Donald Frew. He is the High Priest of Gardenerian coven in Berkley, California, and is the national interfaith representative for the Covenant of the Goddess. Frew discussed interfaith gathering with Bishop Swing in which he states:, “A highlight for me was being asked to perform a traditional Wiccan foundation blessing in closing ceremony…I specially invoke Hekate, and Hermes by name, and Hermes by name, and the [Episcopal] bishop was right there.. raising his arms in invocation with the rest of the Circle! We have come a long way (source).”
This shows that Swing has totally abandond the scriptures and he is embracing the Wiccan foundational blessing. It speaks loudly that he is an apostate and a son of Belial. This isn’t the first time an Episcopal Bishop has dabbled with the occult. Bishop James Pike, during the 1960s after his son James Pike Jr. committed suicide, participated in a live television occultic seance to have medium communicate with his dead son (source). Swing has carried on Pike’s apostate legacy. But Swing has traveled to another level of apostasy with his demonic vision for a one-world church, peace, and the rise of Anti-christ. Without a doubt, he is fulfilling Bible prophecy.
2 Thessalonians 2: 3 says, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition.”
1 Timothy 4:1 says, “Now The Spirit, speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrine of devils.”
Can womens ordination open door to gay ordinations?
The Christian Research and Apologetics Ministry (CARM) has an interesting chart on its website tracking the theological drifting of denominations who have ordained women.
The evolving chart lists such liberal denominations as the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church USA and the United Methodist Church who have “progressed” from the ordination of women to sanctioning abortion and performing homosexual ordination.
Is there a connection? While CARM’s chart is certainly no open and shut case, its interesting to observe the theological trajectory of the mentioned denominations.
The United Church of Christ, arguably the most rabidly progay Christian denomination, was not listed as ordaining women, but they do. See here. In fact, the UCC says it has been ordaining women for the last 150 years. It began ordaining open homosexuals 38 years ago.
Charter Matt Slick said, “This chart is not yet fully completed. We released it to help demonstrate the trends of denominations who ordain women. Notice that after the chart are the links to document the positions.”
Diagnosis: CARM needs to get this chart finished.
See the chart’s listings so far here.
COGIC leader confesses to sex crimes against boy
Media outlets in Wilmington, NC reported that a 54 year old Church of God in Christ “superintendent” has confessed to multiple sexual crimes against a 14 year old boy. The crimes occurred in 1998 while the boy stayed in the pastor’s home.
According to several news outlets [see here, here and here] Superintendent Thomas A. Wiggins,Jr., pastor of the Faith Temple COGIC and Bolton COGIC was arrested and charged November 29th with five counts of first-degree sexual offense and five counts of indecent liberties with a minor.
The crimes are of a serious nature. North Carolina law defines the charges thusly:
§ 14‑27.7A. Statutory rape or sexual offense of person who is 13, 14, or 15 years old.
(a) A defendant is guilty of a Class B1 felony if the defendant engages in vaginal intercourse or a sexual act with another person who is 13, 14, or 15 years old and the defendant is at least six years older than the person, except when the defendant is lawfully married to the person.
§ 14‑202.1. Taking indecent liberties with children.
(a) A person is guilty of taking indecent liberties with children if, being 16 years of age or more and at least five years older than the child in question, he either:
(1) Willfully takes or attempts to take any immoral, improper, or indecent liberties with any child of either sex under the age of 16 years for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire; or
(2) Willfully commits or attempts to commit any lewd or lascivious act upon or with the body or any part or member of the body of any child of either sex under the age of 16 years.
(b) Taking indecent liberties with children is punishable as a Class F felony.
The unmarried Wiggins is an “adminstrative assistant” to Bishop CE Anderson in the denomination’s North Carolina 2nd Jurisdiction [source].
Despite numerous high profile sex crimes and cases of sexual immorality among members of its clergy, denominational leaders continue to deny that clergy sexual abuse is a significant problem. In November 2009, the denomination’s chief lawyer Enoch Perry told a church gathering
“Media coverage of any sexual oriented event and the church will have a negative slant. The pessimistic coverage will have a direct impact on the overall public perception of the church involved, its corporate body and its membership. Additionally, this negativity will directly affect new membership and outside donations.”
Report COGIC Abuse has been documenting the shocking examples of disregard for biblical admonitions and the church’s own seemingly selective application of its own constitution.
Despite a letterallegedy leaked by the church’s COO detailing legal failures and ethical violations by Perry, he was promoted to bishop in the 2011 convention in St Louis.
The case with Thomas raises the number of cases in 2011 to four and 47 total documented cases.
Cross posted at COGIC Abuse Watch blog
Progay Episcopal Bishop defended ordination of child molesting cleric
Virtue Online reported that progay bishop Katharine Schori has reached a new low by defending a man who confessed to sexual misconduct with a child. Further evidence that via Schori’s reign of error, the Episcopal Church USA has become become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. Rev 18:2
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is defending her decision to allow a former Roman Catholic monk to become an Episcopal priest even after he admitted to sexual misconduct with a minor.
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori has been under increasing pressure to answer charges that she did not properly investigate the Rev. Bede Parry’s past when she was bishop of Nevada in 2004.
She initially brushed off inquiries and then remained silent till this week when, under increasing pressure from VOL and canon law attorney A.S. Haley, she issued a statement arguing that she knew of only one incident when Parry, now 69, sought ordination as an Episcopal priest. She also said that Parry passed a background check and a psychological evaluation before he was ordained.
The condition of his ordination, said Jefferts Schori, was that Parry was to be supervised by another priest and not permitted to work alone with children.
“I made the decision to receive him believing that he demonstrated repentance and amendment of life and that his current state did not represent a bar to his reception,” she wrote in her official statement.
In a signed statement and newspaper interview this year, Parry admitted to several acts of sexual misconduct with young adults and teenagers while he was a Catholic monk in the 1970s and 1980s. “Frankly, those allegations, most of them are true,” Parry told the Kansas City Star in June.
Parry resigned from All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Las Vegas that month when a civil lawsuit was filed alleging that he abused a minor in 1987. At the time of the alleged abuse, Parry was a monk and choir director at Conception Abbey in Conception, Mo.
Current Nevada Bishop Dan Edwards said Thursday that Parry has not been accused of wrongdoing since his Episcopal ordination. “His voluntary resignation was for the good of the church.”
Parry has not functioned as a priest since his June resignation and will not be permitted to return to ministry, Edwards added. Bishop Edwards does not state that Parry has renounced his orders, but that he “resigned” from the diocese and that he will not function as a priest. We are not clear what “resigning” from a diocese is. Renunciation of orders requires a certification that the renunciation “was for causes which do not affect the person’s moral character.” Has Bishop Edwards given that certification? If he has not accepted a renunciation, has Parry’s ministry been restricted under Title IV? If neither has occurred, on what basis are we assured that Parry will not function as a priest in the future?
Before she agreed to ordain Parry, Jefferts Schori said she wrote to Catholic bishops in Las Vegas and Santa Fe, N.M., and received brief responses that “indicated no problematic behavior.”
Jefferts Schori also said she wrote to Conception Abbey “from whom I received only an acknowledgement that he had served there, been sent for treatment to a facility in New Mexico, and had been dismissed for this incident of misconduct.”
By his own admission, Parry’s statement contained an unequivocal declaration about what was communicated to the Presiding Bishop when she was the Bishop of Nevada: “Also in 2000, I considered joining the Prince of Peace monastery in Riverside, California. Prince of Peace had me undergo a series of psychological tests. After the testing, Prince of Peace’s Abbot Charles Wright informed me I was no longer a candidate. The psychological evaluation had determined that I had a proclivity to reoffend with minors. Abbot Wright called Conception Abbey’s Abbot Gregory Polan with this information.
Read the full story at Virtue Online. You can also read more GCM Watch reporting on the wicked reign of Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori.
SC diocese may break with Episcopal denom over homosexuality
One by one, member groups in the nation’s apostate denominational systems are facing the inevitable. There can be no fellowship with those who accept and celebrate doctrines of devils. In South Carolina, the painful reality of separation seems to have hit home. According to Reuters, officials in the Episcopal Church’s SC diocese believe that the acceptance of homosexuality, ordination of homosexual clerics and the abandoning the scriptures for worldly philosophy has created a crisis. No more business as usual.
The national Episcopal Church’s acceptance of homosexuality has plunged it into “crisis,” the South Carolina Episcopal diocese said
on Wednesday, and the conservative diocese suggested that it could break from the national church.
“The question is not whether we can stay. It is whether they will let us stay and follow what we believe,” the Rev. Jeffrey Miller of the South Carolina diocese said in the statement.
The statement followed the national church formally charging South Carolina Bishop Right Reverend Mark J. Lawrence recently with “abandonment” of the church’s doctrine, discipline and worship.
Lawrence and many in the South Carolina diocese disagree with the tolerance of the national denomination for gays in the church.
The South Carolina bishop accused the national church of preaching a “false gospel of indiscriminate inclusivity … that has suffocated the mission of the Church,” according to the charges leveled against Lawrence.
About 100 clergy members met Tuesday in Charleston to respond to the charges. The South Carolina diocese is one of the conservative Episcopal groups distancing themselves or leaving the national church over the issue of allowing homosexual ministers, and other disagreements.
Breaking fellowship with other “believers” is never easy nor is it to be done with thoughtless haste. But when there is sustainable evidence that leadership is intentionally going against the Word of the Lord, such is cause to break the ties. To an extent, we can’t control what others do, but we certainly do not have to be partakers of their sins against God. Homosexuality no matter what way the Episcopal leadership religiously spins it, in fundamentally sin. All sin is a transgression of the will of God. What’s more, all sin will lead to death. In that regards, separating yourself from those who walk in disobedience is the only right solution that honors God.
Breaking fellowship should only be valid over doctrinal essentials. The fundamentals of our faith are nonnegotiable. What that means is that certain teachings cannot be changed or circumvented for any reason lest they cast doubt on the entire body of belief. As SC bishop Mark Lawrence rightly noted homosexual affirming theology is a “false gospel of indiscriminate inclusivity…” which threatens the entire body of believers.
Renowned bible scholar and author Dr. Norman L. Geisler explains more about “essentials”:
“The ancient dictum ‘In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, charity resonates’ with practically everyone. The question is, What are the essentials? There are three main reasons for seeking the answer to this. First, the essential doctrines are the basis for our unity, since true unity is unity in the truth, and these doctrines are the essential truths. Second, the essential doctrines distinguish cults of Christianity from true Christianity, since these groups claim to be Christian but deny one or more of the essential doctrines of the historic Christian Church. It is not possible to identify these cults, however, unless we know what the essentials are. Third, the essential doctrines are the only truths over which we rightly can divide (i.e., break fellowship). It is better to be divided over truth than to be united in error where essentials are concerned (e.g., Gal. 1:69 ; 2:1114 ; 1 Tim. 1:1920 ; Titus 1:9; 1 John 2:19), but it is a great error for those who hold the truth to be divided where nonessentials are concerned (e.g., Eph. 4:3). It behooves us, therefore, to know the difference; otherwise, we may find ourselves dividing from those with whom we should be united and uniting with those from whom we should be divided.”
The acceptance of homosexual conduct violates many fundamentals of our faith including biblical teachings on sin, repentance, authority of scripture, sexual morality, unity and deity of Christ.
NAACP speaker out of sync with Baptist convention theme
Are Baptists circumventing their own theme?
Based on his past activities supporting homosexual rights, NAACP director Benjamin Jealous doesn’t have solidarity with the National Baptist Convention’s theme “Solidarity with the Savior”. Any person who claims that homosexuality is not a sin, isnt in solidarity with Jesus or the Bible either. So its ironic that the NBC would invite Jealous. In order to be in solidarity with the Savior (Jesus) wouldn’t you also have to be in agreement with his word?
The nation’s largest black religious organization is planning to have Jealous speak at a mission event during its upcoming conference in Orlando. Asked by the Daytona Times about “formally recognizing” deceased Orlando Pastor Zachery Tims, Morris Tipton, the denomination’s director of media made a passing allusion that the NBC wouldn’t do so because Tims died in an unrepentant state. [source]
“We also fully believe what the Bible says in 1 John 1:9; ‘If we confess our sins (to Him), He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’,” he continued.
The events have instead scheduled a full list of other activities, with NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous holding the task as the keynote speaker at the Annual Home Mission Board “Mission Train” Awards Luncheon.
The central theme of the Assembly will be “Solidarity With the Savior.”
Tipton said, “Our goal as a Convention and as individual Christians should always be in harmony with the will of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, every ministry and program that we involve ourselves in as a body of believers is to be in solidarity with the Savior.”
While it seemed to disavow Tims because he was “not in solidarity”, the NBC misses the same problem with Jealous. In Matthew 19:3-6, Jesus upheld and strengthened Old Testament laws which condemned any sexual activity other than covenant marriage between a man and a woman.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
If you’d like to test it on homosexuality, play the role of the pharisee and rephrase the question. It would probably look something like this:
“Is it lawful for a man to have another man as his sexual partner for any cause”?
Jesus’ answer:
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
If you notice, the answer remains the same.
Black is the new gay?
Ready for the NAACP to be co-opted by a National Association for the Advancement of Gay People? Some are already heralding that blacks are a yesteryear minority and that gays are the new minority du jour. In other words, if you want to score points as a civil rights crusader, you would need to take a trip through the homosexual community first. And with white homosexuals desperately seeking to rain money into the depleted coffers of the NAACP, Jealous is the perfect fit.
Under Jealous, the NAACP is fervently ramping up its homosexual coalition building efforts more than ever before.
Last year the NAACP came out against California’s Proposition 8, the recently overturned ballot initiative banning gay marriage. And in July, at its annual national convention, the NAACP rolled out an LGBT Equality Taskforce, a seven-member committee designed to stay on top of justice issues within the gay community.
But it seems as if these activities may have been merely preludes to the upcoming One Nation Working Together march. Led by the NAACP, the Oct. 2 event will find President Jealous and his colleagues stepping out with more than two dozen LGBT partner organizations, an unprecedented showing of public support for gay-rights activists of every stripe.
Homosexuality makes strange bedfellows.
