Category Archives: polemics
Understanding church and kingdom: violence cometh
The kingdom of God is suffering violence, but its not from without, its from within. A trifecta sickness of false teachings, idolatrous practices and deadly, but alluring voices are systematically pushing and luring us closer and closer to the edge of a pit with no bottom. Fear of the tricks of the false prophets has caused us to mollify them with silence.
Misconceptions about the church and the kingdom of God have colored and influenced the contemporary church to the point to where it is barely recognizable as representative of God. We are living in the age of an out of control church reminiscent of a wild jackass. A spiritual run-a-way bride. But beloved please know that such things should not be mentioned once among the people of God.
These misconceptions —which in reality are false doctrines— have pierced the body to its core and are wreaking havoc on our outward witness and out inward compass.
People of God, look at what has been spawned among us:
In recent years, especially during the Earl Paulk sex abuse saga, we heard about “kingdom relationships”. Said kingdom relationships centered around the idea that in the “kingdom” leaders such as Paulk were entitled to sex from whomever they chose. Somehow “kingdom relationships” transcended the moral boundaries of scripture. But in reality it was nothing more than a church harem for a deluded sexual addict with a big church title. Last week, Atlanta’s WSB-TV made the connection between Paulk and Long and the sexual ideology both seemed to incorporate into their religious empires.
Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, a watchdog organization which monitors clergymen like Long, says the late Bishop Earl Paulk mentored Long as a young pastor.
When WSB Radio asked Anthony about Long and the three lawsuits filed by three former members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, said he was shocked.
“But his mentor was Earl Paulk,” said Anthony.
Paulk, who died last year, was an evangelical mega church leader accused of having sex with many women in his congregation including his brother’s wife and his own granddaughter.
Anthony compared Long’s “Spiritual Sons” program in which his three young accusers were members with Paulk’s “Kingdom Relationships,” saying both were really designed to sexually gratify the clergymen.
We’ve also heard of “kingdom principles” from a number of megachurch and junior megachurch leaders. Perhaps those in the prosperity movement have capitalized the most on these principles which generally can be traced to the lust for mammon. The rather unseemly practice of throwing money at the altar or at the feet of a preacher while he is speaking emanates from the idea that when you hear what you believe to be a “good word” you pay the speaker. The act has been attributed to Word of Faith heretic Leroy Thompson of the “money cometh” fame. The practice is eerily similar to men throwing money at strippers in a club, especially when she performs titillating lewd acts.
As we noted in our previous post, people are attaching the word “kingdom” to their doctrines of devils and effectively deceiving many people who are marginally in the faith. I might also add that it is being attached to the music of devils and achieving equally disastrous effects. Everyone wants to cash in.
Also, the idea that a particular church or denomination is the only right organization has truly hindered the work of the kingdom. I grew up in a denomination (COGIC) that taught merely going inside a Baptist church was a sin. We could only fellowship with other COGIC churches and the only way we could go into a church of another denomination was if we went to accompany the Pastor. Out of that belief was the idea that if you left COGIC, you were backslidden. It didn’t matter if you were saved, you’d left “the greatest church in the world”, therefore you could not possibly remain saved. This idea is still prevalent (although somewhat subdued) in that denomination’s mindset. This is a pride that is not from God.
While some organizations most certainly embrace doctrinal error, the idea that one church (physical building, association) was the only true church is a fallacy within itself. And while I cite COGIC, I’m certain other dogmatic organizations have some of the same beliefs at varying degrees.
A radical return to holiness
I wrote sometime ago that we desperately needed a radical return to holiness. But I soon realized that such a return to holiness cannot occur without first a radical return to the Word of the Lord. Above all, his word is our source document for life. We cannot even begin to understand holiness if we do not return —now and fervently— to his Word.
If the church is ever to mirror the glory of the Kingdom —and it will— we must find the will to purge the wicked thing from among us. It doesn’t matter if that wicked thing takes the form of a person or a passion, it must go. And we must re-inaugurate God as King and Christ as Lord.
A history lesson should help us get the passion and the will to do what must be done in this hour. Reputations must be laid aside and the each of us must see ourselves as needed volunteers in the restoration of the glory of God.
Consider the passion of one Phinehas, recorded in Numbers 25:
And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
And those who died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned My wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for My sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in My jealousy. Therefore say: `Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace.
Of course God is not in the business anymore of ordering us to kill those who sin. That price of death was satisfactorily paid in full by Christ on the cross (that’s what propitiation means).
But we still have an obligation and a mandate to restrict, restrain and remove sin and those who refuse to repent from our midst. This is an act of discipline which protects the integrity of the body as well as protects us from opportunistic spiritual infections.
Phinehas’ radical passion to honor the will of God infused the blessing of God to his legacy. Too many of us see the abominations being loosed in the body, we know that it is against the word of the Lord, but we stand on the sidelines fearful. I will tell you why. Our thinking is not in snyc with God’s. A great majority of the universal church is locked into a carnal processing mindset. The case of Bishop Long has exposed that in many places.
But we need a radical return to honoring the will of God by adhering to the Word of God. That’s what Phinehas did. Take special note that he didnt steal away into prayer and fasting. He acted. There is a time to pray and there is a time to act. Now, is the time to act and restore order in the house of God so that it may accurately reflect the glorious kingdom of God.
Bishop Long’s revelations are not the only ones which will arise. Others are in the pipeline. And there will be many more opportunities for us to speak up and stop what we know dishonors God and his kingdom. The only other alternative is for us to continue this insane game of musical church chairs.
The “inclusive” Jesus scam
Myths are central to mythology. Beware, another Jesus is being built to specifications before your very eyes.
Talk to any gay christian movement adherent and you’ll get an earful about inclusion, inclusive theology, inclusive Jesus, radical inclusion and the likes which if the truth were told are antithetical to the Christ revealed in the scriptures. In fact the gay christian movement’s entire worldview is filtered through the defense of their sexual proclivities. Let me emphasize that it really doesn’t matter what the Bible says, if it does not affirm their worldview of sex and sexuality, it is counted as an enemy. You’ve probably heard them deride Romans 1 as a “clobber passage”. The fundamental premise behind the whole inclusion dogma is the idea that everyone is supposed to be celebrated and affirmed no matter what they do or say. There’s a bankrupt streak of hypocrisy threaded in that premise which we’ll talk about later.
A matter of literary poverty?
The United Church of Christ’s inclusive language guide portrays the bible as a book which doesnt affirm the diversity of human experience. So they have decided to help God out and tell us what about depravity should actually be affirmed.
“Inclusive language is far more than an aesthetic matter of male and female imagery; it is a fundamental issue of social justice. Language that is truly inclusive affirms sexuality, racial and ethnic background, stages of maturity, and degrees of limiting conditions. It shows respect for all people. Scripture proclaims the world is created, redeemed, and sustained by the Word of God, and the church attests to the power of language and words, recognizing that words have the power to exploit and exclude as well as affirm and liberate.”
Its a historical fact that new language ushers in new movements. Whether they are good or bad, words help to drive and define the movement’s goals. Thus, so-called inclusive language is part of satan’s scheme to create a competing Christ. Like the mythological gods of Greece and Rome, a separate Christ is designed for each faction, each diversion, each sinful affirmation until we have so many false Christs, the real Jesus is buried amidst all the counterfeits. We know that this false Christ is in the pipeline already. He will be preceded by his false prophets and their false theologies to help prepare the way for him.
Will the real Jesus please stand up?
Well, he already has.
On the third day after his crucifixion, he was supernaturally brought back to life. Today, he lives and he alone occupies a seat at the right hand of the Father.
Some still haven’t got that newsflash yet and will become enamored with the loving, nonjudgmental Jesus because they refuse to believe the truth about him as recorded in scripture. There’s identification malfunction. You don’t identify false things by studying the false thing. You know the real one and that serves as your basis of judgment. That’s why only a real, consistent and obedient relationship with Jesus Christ of the scriptures will be your greatest protection against the deception of all things in partnership with the false Jesus.
Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts researched and wrote about the newly manufactured inclusive Jesus in his exhaustive paper “Christian Inclusiveness And The Inclusiveness of Jesus”
Roberts says it was written “to address a current crisis in the Episcopalian church, that of using the concept of inclusiveness, to include practicing gay and lesbian people in the church. However the topic carries a wide variety of applications. It seems to be a common belief that Jesus ‘hung out’ with sinners and this is often used as an excuse for doing the same thing.. for a friendship with the world.”
But listen to the apostates in the United Church of Christ and you will be bowing at the altar of idolatry before you know it. The slick ad they’ve launched uses a potpourri of images to imply that God doesn’t have a problem with how we want to live our lives. As long as we declare that it is good, he is just supposed to sign an X on the dotted line of approval. And what God is this? Its the same one mentioned in Romans 1. When people reject the authority and good will of God, they recreate a god in their own image who thinks like them, acts like them and looks like them. Just like the pagans of ancient times. Their superstition drove them to create gods who were just a immoral as they were.
For the love of sound doctrine
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 1 Tim 4:3 NIV
[An elder] must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. Titus 1:9 NIV
You must teach that which is in accord (in harmony with) sound doctrine. Titus 2:1
There is no way we can accurately ascertain the scope of God’s will and then live out the will of God without an balanced and consistent understanding of his word. That balanced and consistent understanding is given to us primarily through the teaching of sound doctrine. Sound doctrine accomplishes two things: (1) it guards against deception, and (2)it guides others into spiritually healthy men and women of God (Ephesians 4:14-15).
Paul instructed both Titus and Timothy to be careful not to change what he had taught them and to anticipate that some in the church would depart from the faith and pay attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. And consequently, reject sound doctrine.
The word “sound” comes from the Greek word hugiaino translated as “hygiene” or “health.” This obviously has a medical aspect to it. So in short sound doctrine is healthy doctrine. The opposite of healthy its unhealthy. Thus, we can conclude that not everything which sounds good to the ear or feels good to the body, is healthy for the soul.
What we need today if we are to be effective and remain steadfast in the work of the Lord is a radical return to God’s word and the foundations that produce good, healthy fruit.
Doctrine has gotten a bad rap in the contemporary church. Its been compared to heartless dogma and legalism which restricts and controls people unnecessarily. The truth is that doctrine is simply a body of principles presented for acceptance or belief. But not all doctrine is good doctrine.
How do we convey sound doctrine?
The primary tool of conveying sound doctrine to others is through teaching because teaching is about the how and the why. Its instruction that must be given carefully and received with diligence. Thus, the best way for you to show me properly is to teach. Remember the old saying “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.” Its the same with sound doctrine. If you really want me to become a healthy, fruit-bearing follower of Christ, you will teach me sound principles. If you want to keep me locked into a unhealthy co-dependency on you do the opposite. And that’s exactly what false teachers do.
The word “teach” occurs twenty times in Matthew alone, and Jesus is called Teacher there about ten times. If we look at the whole NT, the two nouns for teaching or doctrine occur over fifty times, while the verb to teach occurs over ninety times. The word teacher appears at least fifty-eight times. Half a dozen other related words appear on another twenty occasions.
When Paul urges Titus to “refute” (this is what I consider polemics) those who oppose sound doctrine, we must take it seriously and do it. One tactic used by those who oppose balanced healthy teaching is the “mystery” approach. In essence, they claim no one can really know the truth, so we are responsible for finding and living our own truth. Judges 21:25 gives us insight on such a teaching: In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Dr. Bob Wright of Denver says this is a mockery of Christian maturity:
We do not need answers; we need to grow up and learn to accept the paradoxes of life! True Christian maturity is said to be measured by our commitment in the face of final paradox rather than by any kind of knowledge. People who want answers are just immature, that’s all.
Our faith is recognized by specialists in comparative religion as being by far the most intellectual religion of all; that the New Testament puts a heavy priority on the regeneration of the intellect that the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New makes it perfectly plain that the term heart means the seat of the intellect, or the mind as our capacity to reason; therefore all the problems we face are to be solved first by allowing the Bible to change our minds about the truth, and then by learning what God’s answer is to our problem, as God defines and explains both problem and answer.
The results are predestined to be successful and to infallibly meet the needs of the believer sooner or later. The Bible itself calls this process “making disciples,” and the primary method is said to be by something called teaching.
Sound doctrine and homosexuality
The teachings of homosexual affirming theology stands against much of the cornerstone tenets of our faith.
- Teaching that same gender sexual expression is normal opposes the creative nature of God (Col 1:16, Romans 1:25)
- Teaching that homosexuality is acceptable by God opposes the biblical definition and penalty of sin (Dan 9:5, 1 John 3:4)
- The teaching that Christ was ignorant of contemporary homosexual relationships, thus silent opposes the divinity of Jesus Christ specifically his omniscience. (John 8:58, Ps 33:13-15) (
- Teaching that homosexual have no need to repent opposes the authority and applicability of the Word of God. (Mt 4:4)
Homosexual affirming doctrine isn’t different from other unhealthy teachings, it is unhealthy teaching.
Gay clergy serving as pack mules for the gay political movement
Personally, I believe the entire gay christian movement is about as legitimate as a nazi christian movement but that’s another post for another time.
But here is more proof gay christian clerics are nothing more than pack mules for the gay political movement. Perhaps in total, that is their chief purpose: abetting the homosexual political movement’s church domination fantasy. [source]
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Joe Solmonese called clergy a powerful new lobbying force for the gay and lesbian community.
In an interview with Dan Gilgoff, religious correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, the gay rights leader agreed that clergy were becoming powerful advocates of gay rights.
“LGBT people, many of us are people of faith, and there are religious leaders in this country who support LGBT equality, and it has taken us too long to empower those voices and ensure those people are out there fighting on the front lines on our behalf. Our Clergy Call for Justice brought 300 clergy, more than five from each of the 50 states, and we worked with them to walk the halls of Congress and lobby on behalf of LGBT issues in full religious vestments,” Solmonese said.
“One of the most profound things I see whenever we do this is the staff members in those congressional offices oftentimes are confused about whether they’re there to lobby for LGBT causes or against them. That itself says to me that we’re woefully overdue on that. So clergy will continue to be a powerful front line lobbying force for us.”
The group’s new religious programs turn conventional wisdom on its head as clergy lobby for gay and lesbian rights instead of oppose them.
Full religious vestments. Right. Dress to deceive. We’ve documented as far back as 2002 the salivating of the Human Rights Campaign when they first discovered that donning a religious mask would help advance their attempts to get access to the church. Although those efforts failed, they decided it would be better to enlist double agents. Hence they fed the gay christian movement its social justice dung who in turn it humped it into the church.
I hate to be blunt, but passive leaders, greedy hirelings and spiritually illiterate pew members opened the doors.
You should also read:
- Gay clergy part of antichrist plan
- False prophets line up to support “hate crimes” laws
- And the question is…?
The passive church redux
Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia and is the author of The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity and the forthcoming License to Sin.
In his just released article “Unhappy fault: on the integration of anger into the virtous life”, which appeared in Touchstone Magazine, Dr. Podles writes a rather stunning analysis of the contemporary Christian church and its failure (or fear) to properly employ Godly anger to effect change. In particular, on destructive moral issues of sexual immorality and sexual crimes by clergy, Dr. Podles says the church is bound by “emotional deformation”.
If you have ever asked yourself what in God’s name is wrong with today’s church with so much shocking open sin, blasphemy, heresy and likes going virtually unchallenged, this will answer why.
Laurie Higgins of the Illnois Family Institute said the article is of “critical and urgent importance to both the life of the church and Amercan society.” I agree.
Writes Dr. Podles:
Any institution tends to preserve itself by avoiding conflict, whether external or internal. In addition to this universal tendency, many Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.
In the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, those who dealt with the bishops have consistently remarked that the bishops never expressed outrage or righteous anger, even at the most horrendous cases of abuse and sacrilege. Bishops seem to think that anger at sin is un-Christian. Gilbert Kilman, a child psychiatrist, commented, “What amazes me is the lack of outrage the church feels when its good work is being harmed. So, if there is anything the church needs to know, it needs to know how to be outraged.”
Cowards in the army of the Lord?
Some today believe secret prayer is a panacea for all of the church’s problems. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with prayer, there is something wrong with using prayer as an cloak for fearful inaction. Certainly, God has not given us the spirit of fear. Taking the path of least resistance in order to avoid confronting aggressive attacks on our faith is nothing short of cowardly.
Higgins’ commentary looked at the passive stance of the German Evangelical Church in Germany as Adolf Hitler began gaining power and the parallels are eye opening. She noted:
The German Evangelical Church acted in ways virtually all Christians now view as ignoble, selfish, and cowardly:
- Pastors resigned from the resistance out of fear that they might lose their positions in the church.
- Frightened by the boldness of the resistance movement, church leaders issued public statements of support for Hitler and the Third Reich.
- Some pastors believed that a “‘more reasonable tone would be more honoring to those with different views.’” One bishop told Martin Niemoller that those pastors who refused to join the resistance were “‘trying to bring peace to the church’” rather than “‘seem like . . . troublemakers.’” In response, Niemoller asked “‘What does it matter how we look in Germany compared with how we look in Heaven?’” The bishop responded, “‘We cannot pronounce judgment on all the ills of society. Most especially we ought not single out the one issue that the government is so sensitive about.’”
Most alarming she said about the two seasons of crisis is “its similarity to the ongoing disheartening story of the contemporary American church’s failure to respond appropriately to the spread of radical, heretical, destructive views of homosexuality.”
Since July 2007, we have painstakingly documented some of the most egregious examples of blasphemy and heresy occurring in the Christian context today. That’s not to mention the epidemic of sexual misconduct among black clergy. Yet, it has barely elicited a yawn from those in leadership. As Dr. Podles notes, the church’s sleepy-eyed attitude seems to say “let’s just all get along and be happy”. Its really a desire to protect what they have sold themselves to gain: money, positions, influence and prestige. This is what really controls them rather than any concern for what has already breached the doors of the church. Dr. Podles says we should emulate Jesus and allow righteous anger to move us into righteous action.
“The emotions that are now suppressed are hatred and anger. Christians think that they ought not to feel these emotions, that it is un-Christian to feel them. They secretly suspect that Jesus was being un-Christian in his attitude to the scribes and Pharisees when he was angry at them, that he was un-Christian when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple or declared that millstones (not vacations in treatment centers) were the way to treat child abusers.”
Make no mistake, we are not talking about bombing abortion clinics, killing abortion doctors or committing acts of violence against homosexuals. That is demonic. But there is a doable balance where a combination of open resistance and denunciation of wicked legislation, educating those in our circles of influence and demanding that our leaders publicly take a biblical stand. Or else.
In doing so we should never stray from the inspiration example of Moses, a man noted for his meekness.
“Meekness, which is the virtue that moderates anger, is misunderstood as passivity. Moses angrily confronting Pharaoh was the meekest of men, because he moderated the plagues to allow Pharaoh time to repent. Meekness moderates anger so that it is in accord with reason. Since most people suffer from an excess of anger, the virtue that increases anger in those who are deficient in it so that it is in accord with reason does not have a name, but it needs one.”
Jesus himself warned the indifferent church Laodiciea unless they changed their position he would violently reject them. Is he saying the same to us today? The world and those who hate the church should hear very clearly from us:
1. Our meekness is not synonymous with weakness.
2. Jesus said he was the door, not the doormat.
Arthur Pink on apostles of satan
Many people forget that satan is at work in the church with equal destructiveness as he is in “the world”. This is precisely why the ministry of polemics is needed in this season of apostasy.
The apostles of Satan are not abortionists and sex traffickers, but are for the most part ordained ministers. Thousands of those who occupy our post-modern pulpits are no longer engaged in presenting the fundamentals of the Christian Faith, but have turned aside from the Truth and have given heed unto fables. Instead of magnifying the enormity of sin and setting forth its eternal consequences, they minimize it by declaring that sin is merely ignorance or the absence of good. Instead of warning their hearers to “flee from the wrath to come” they make God a liar by declaring that He is too loving and merciful to send any of His own creatures to eternal torment. Instead of declaring that “without shedding of blood is no remission,” they merely hold up Christ as the great Exemplar and exhort their hearers to “follow in His steps.” Of them it must be said, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” ( Romans 10:3).
Their message may sound very plausible and their aim appear very praiseworthy, yet we read of them— “for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves (imitating) into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing [not to be wondered at] if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works” ( 2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
In addition to the fact that today hundreds of churches are without a leader who faithfully declares the whole counsel of God and presents His way of salvation, we also have to face the additional fact that the majority of people in these churches are very unlikely to learn the Truth themselves.
—A. W. Pink (1886–1952)
thanks to Extreme Theology for posting this!
