Tag Archives: Christianity

What Kind of a Methodist are You?

05 Sunday Jan 2020

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Last year, the UMC voted to remain a nominally Christian denomination. So, this year, a mediator “helps” them draft a separation plan which calls for the Christians to leave?

Factions in the United Methodist Church (UMC) have reached an initial settlement around its intractable division over LGBT marriage and ordination—offering $25 million to a group of conservative congregations who want to break away and form a new denomination.

For both conservatives and progressives in the church, this compromise comes as an answer to prayer.

Various groups were slated to once again propose different plans for a split at the UMC’s general conference in May, but under the new agreement, they will abandon the proposals and put their full support behind the Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation, which was announced Friday.

So, even when you win, you lose. Got that? All courtesy of Mr. Feinberg (trying not to use echoes… Every single… Etc). His resume reads like a criminal indictment. The 9/11 Fraud Fund and TARP. And now, this.

Happy Sunday, Methodists! All remaining Christians, your day is coming too.

Beware of Soroses in Human Clothing

23 Monday Dec 2019

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Building on the Chruch’s succumbing to the worldly, the Eye of Soros is up to something (again). Churchians aren’t just falling for it, they’re eating it up.

What’s going on here is not so much Christianity as it is partisan politicking under cover of religious teaching. It’s the furtherance of a George Soros style of progressivism, but cloaked in Christianity — and backed by George Soros bucks — and made all the worse by the initial denials of the George Soros ties.

Wallis ultimately admitted the Sojourners received money from Soros-tied groups. Pagitt, when asked on C-SPAN about Vote Common Good’s sources of funding, ducked and racked it up to “private donations,” before spinning the conversation off rapidly in a public relations direction.

But isn’t truth a core concept of Christianity?

If there’s nothing to hide — if the Sojourners and the Vote Common Good bus tour and all this so-called Christian political activity is really aimed at doing Christian works — why not blare forth the sources of funding? Why not shed the light on the behind-scenes influencers?

The answer’s obvious.

“Americans hate manipulation,” said AAE spokesperson Kelly Monroe Kullberg, in a statement. “Anti-American globalists like Soros are funding a growth industry of paid anarchists and political activists to divide and weaken America, including the Church.”

If Americans (or US “citizens”) hated manipulation, then they’d pitch creatures like Soros out on their asses.

No Christianity = No West

22 Sunday Dec 2019

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This Pope… I’m just not sure what to make of the following other than that there is a deep, deep problem with both the Church and with the society.

The Catholic Church must adopt new approaches to evangelization in a post-Christian West, Pope Francis said in a Christmas message to Vatican officials.

“We need other maps, other paradigms that might help us change our ways of thinking. We are not in Christianity, not anymore!” the pope said Saturday.

“We are no longer under a Christian regime because the faith—especially in Europe, but also in much of the West—no longer constitutes an obvious premise of common life. On the contrary, it is even often denied, derided, marginalized and ridiculed,” the pope said.

The pope’s remarks echoed those of his predecessors St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, who spoke of a “new evangelization” to revive the faith in historically Christian lands. Pope Benedict established an office explicitly dedicated to the task.

Those popes stressed a need to clarify and reaffirm traditional teachings in response to liberalizing tendencies within the church and wider society. By contrast, Pope Francis has tended to play down such teachings and focus on social causes such as economic equality, the rights of migrants and efforts to counteract global warming.

He’s certainly correct that the Christian institutions have failed miserably in the face of savage modernity. But, playing the world’s game of refugees, climate, etc. would appear to be the opposite of reinforcing tradition. And, it is the traditions that can potentially reverse the slide. So many people have departed the churches, Catholic and Protestant, precisely because those churches have given up on the Gospel in favor of preaching worldly theology. To be clear: without Christianity, there is no Western Civilization. The effects of the slide and transition couldn’t be any clearer.

Sayeth the Pope:

“Rigidity arises from fear of change and ends up strewing the ground of the common good with stakes and obstacles, turning it into a minefield of lack of communication and hatred. Let’s remember always that behind every rigidity lies some derangement,” he said.

?

Might there be some derangement behind and afore those feared changes? With, say refugees and the new Tower of Babel, how can there be proper communication? A new language study just reaffirmed the Biblical account of what happens when they ignore God’s nationalism and ram together everyone under the Sun (and not necessarily under The SON). Rigidity may be what holds back the minefield, or be what held it at bay for so long – until the changes of the insane world swept the West. The same might placate the hatred (a double given per the Father and the Son). And, what’s the opposite of rigidity? Squishy Christianity? What’s the use?

This conversation might have been better timed during Vatican II or even Vat. I. Well, at least it’s been broached now. Happy Sunday.

A “Priest” on the New Exorcisms

27 Friday Sep 2019

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I was initially suspicious both of this story and of the subject Priest. Then, I saw that he’s a cigar smoker. A good guy, huh? Anyway, digging through the yeah, still questionable article, he states the fact of the growing darkness.

“Standing your ground, standing firm, really honing your spiritual life,” he advised.

That’s not an easy thing in today’s culture, Cloud warned. He said drugs, ouija boards and a whole host of dark materials on the internet can open you up to dark spirits.

“As the years go by, the cases are getting darker.”

One has to but look around each day, and see the truth in that last quote.

More Sincere Than Ever – Out with the Prosperity BS

10 Tuesday Sep 2019

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Benny Hinn publicly repudiates false gospels. A great start!

When you have done things a certain way for almost your entire career, it can be exceedingly difficult to admit that you were wrong. This is true in any field, but it is especially true for those in the ministry. So Benny Hinn showed an enormous amount of courage when he completely repudiated the “prosperity gospel” on Monday night during a Facebook Live broadcast. This represents a 180 degree turn for his ministry, and it could be a watershed moment for American evangelical Christianity as a whole. For decades, an extreme emphasis on wealth and prosperity has virtually drowned out the message of the cross on Christian television, and this has greatly damaged the evangelical movement. Having high profile leaders such as Benny Hinn renounce the “prosperity gospel” would do much to heal the damage that has been done, and he should be greatly applauded for his public repentance.

I first (indirectly) praised Hinn over six years ago, here: Via a (now) nearly 25-year-old conversation with my friend A. Smith, Jr.:

I had just seen him on the Benny Hinn show and had some questions about Hinn’s performances, which, honestly, look as scripted as anything from the WWF. Roberts assured me that Hinn was a sincere Christian and that he exuded an uncanny “electric” presence – one that could be felt physically.

Electric!

I was going to call it: ‘”Christians” Against Christianity’

29 Monday Jul 2019

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“Churchians against Christian nationalism” works too. Thanks to Vox for writing this better than I could:

It’s very clear what the next rhetorical battle will be:

A group formed by Christian leaders is warning against the rise of “Christian nationalism,” saying the merging of Christian and American identities poses a threat to U.S. democracy and religious communities.

“As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith,” Christians Against Christian Nationalism’s statement reads.

“Whether we worship at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, America has no second-class faiths. All are equal under the U.S. Constitution.”

The statement is endorsed by at least 17 Christian leaders from various churches and organizations, according to the group’s website.

It won’t be even remotely surprising to discover that their funding is coming from distinctly not-Christian sources, most likely the same people who fund the (((Edmund Burke Institute))) Nationalism is under attack by the globalist gatekeepers and Christian nationalism will be targeted by the Churchians.

Well and good. We have the truth, the Bible, history, science, and Jesus Christ on our side. They have lies, usury, and elite pedos on theirs. I like our odds.

Notice how they can’t even bear to state the name of Jesus. That’s because they serve a very different god.

Christ is anathema to them.

Caesar Gets Zilch

13 Monday May 2019

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Sayeth the Lord. Jeffery Barr explains away any confusion about what Jesus said to the Rabbinate in re allegiance (and taxes).

…

The Catholic Church considers Herself the authoritative interpreter of Sacred Scripture. The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church “is a statement of the Church’s faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Church’s Magisterium.”

The 1994 Catechism instructs the faithful that it is morally obligatory to pay one’s taxes for the common good. (What the definition of the “common good” is may be left for a different debate.) The 1994 Catechism also quotes and cites the Tribute Episode. But the 1994 Catechism does NOT use the Tribute Episode to support the proposition that it is morally obligatory to pay taxes. Instead, the 1994 Catechism refers the Tribute Episode only to justify acts of civil disobedience. It quotes St. Matthew’s version to teach that a Christian must refuse to obey political authority when that political authority makes a demand contrary to the demands of the moral order, the fundamental rights of persons, or the teachings of the Gospel. Similarly, the 1994 Catechism also cites to St. Mark’s version to instruct that a person “should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Caesar is not u2018the Lord.‘” Thus, according to the 1994 Catechism, the Tribute Episode stands for the proposition that a Christian owes his allegiance to God and to the things of God alone. If the Tribute Episode unequivocally supported the proposition that it is morally obligatory to pay taxes, the 1994 Catechism would not hesitate to cite to it for that position. That the 1994 Catechism does not interpret the Tribute Episode as a justification for the payment of taxes suggests that such an interpretation is not an authoritative reading of the passage. In short, even the Catholic Church does not understand the Tribute Episode to mean that Jesus endorsed paying Caesar’s taxes.

V. CONCLUSION

St. John’s Gospel recounts the scene of a woman caught in adultery, brought before Jesus by the Pharisees so that they might “test” Him “so that they could have some charge to bring against Him.” When asked, “u2018Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say,’” Jesus appears trapped by only two answers: the strict, legally-correct answer of the Pharisees, or the mercifully-right, morally-correct, but technically-illegal answer undermining Jesus’ authority as a Rabbi. Notably, Jesus never does overtly respond to the question posed to Him; instead of answering, “Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.” When pressed by His inquisitors, He finally answers, “u2018Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’” and, of course, the shamed Pharisees all leave one by one. Jesus then refuses to condemn the woman.

The scene of the woman caught in adultery and the Tribute Episode are similar. In both, Jesus is faced with a hostile question challenging His credibility as a Rabbi. In each, the hostile question has two answers: one answer which the audience knows is morally correct, but politically incorrect, and the other answer which the audience knows is wrong, but politically correct. In the scene of the woman caught in adultery, no one roots for Jesus to say, “Stone her!” Everyone wants to see Jesus extend the woman mercy. Likewise, in the Tribute Episode, no one hopes Jesus answers, “Pay tribute to the pagan, Roman oppressors!” The Tribute Episode, like the scene of the woman caught in adultery, has a “right” answer – it is not licit to pay the tribute. But Jesus cannot give this “right” answer without running afoul of the Roman government. Instead, in both Gospel accounts, Jesus gives a quick-witted, but ultimately ambiguous, response which exposes the hypocrisy of His interrogators rather than overtly answers the underlying question posed by them. Nevertheless, in each instance, the audience can infer the right answer embedded in Jesus’ response.

Read the whole thing and what brought him to this sound, extraordinarily well-researched conclusion. Taxation is more than theft, it’s slavery. Show me the money!

Christians the Most Persecuted Religious Group

03 Friday May 2019

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Vox Day on an issue we just don’t hear much about for some off reason:

Christian genocide

If you think the prospects for persecution isn’t invading Christendom along with all the various non-Christians, you simply aren’t paying attention:

The persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near “genocide” levels, according to a report ordered by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The review, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, estimated that one in three people suffer from religious persecution.

Christians were the most persecuted religious group, it found.

Mr Hunt said he felt that “political correctness” had played a part in the issue not being confronted. The interim report said the main impact of “genocidal acts against Christians is exodus” and that Christianity faced being “wiped out” from parts of the Middle East.

It warned the religion “is at risk of disappearing” in some parts of the world, pointing to figures which claimed Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq they had fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.

I assume that any day now President Trump will hold a service in the Rose Garden about this. Let’s hope it’s not a funeral service.

The difference between our current potential options and the Crusades was that the Crusaders didn’t have to start their work at home.

Chuch Baldwin on Parallel Trends

26 Friday Apr 2019

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As the one goes up, the other goes down. It’s almost like they’re related or something.

I realize that the vast majority of Christian conservatives will choose to totally ignore this column (just as they do most of my columns), but the stark reality is that under so-called Christian conservative presidents G.W. Bush and Donald J. Trump, America’s wars are way up, while church attendance is way down. And, yes, I absolutely believe there is a direct link between these two trends.

That wars increased exponentially under Bush is not debatable. The ramifications of Bush’s illegal and immoral military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are still strongly reverberating around the world to this very day. Much of the ongoing “war on terror” in the Middle East is a direct result of the Bush/Cheney military adventurism (putting it mildly) almost two decades ago. And Trump has escalated America’s missile wars to unprecedented levels.

Judeo Christ or Jesus Christ?

Make sure to watch his short video.

More Anti-Messianic Hatred on Full Display

23 Tuesday Apr 2019

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The “intelligent” progressives are at it again, trying to persuade us of their inherent superiority through the typing of word salads and by living in cities filthy by third world standards. And, of course, they can’t stand Jesus and his Followers. Both of today’s examples regard this weekend’s Islamic terror bombings of Christians in Sri Lanka.

Carlos Slim’s blog – and I’m not making this up – ran the following today:

Screenshot 2019-04-23 at 4.43.33 PM

Forensics teams scour a bombed-out Catholic Church and the Times ponders “privilege” vs. persecution. That’s low even by their pitiful, post-literate standards. Something about “Judeo-Christianity” and Ben Shapiro and Western Civ has got to go. People pay for this drivel.

People don’t, that I know of, pay for Twitter. And, they get their money’s worth – like this outpouring of anti-Christian hate:

A British reality TV star sparked outrage by urging people not to send “prayers” to victims of the Sri Lanka terror attacks — instead attacking Christian missionaries in the devastated nation as “cult leaders.”

Andy West, who found fame in 2016 on the UK’s “Big Brother,” sent the controversial tweet about the suicide bombings that killed at least 321 and injured 500.

“There is no excuse for terror attacks against innocent people but as a journalist I saw Western Christian missionaries unscrupulpusly [sic] converting Buddhist orphans for food and shelter after the Asian tsunami. Don’t send your prayers,” he wrote.

I had a hunch so I checked. Sure enough, Mr. West is a sodomite. His bio on some kind of Wikipedia site dedicated to this Big Brother show I’ve never seen says two things. First, West was the LGBTQAWTFBBQXYZ+P&C character on an episode or two. Second: “He believes he is intelligent and he likes people to know that. He believes his opinions and views are correct and he likes to have them heard.” Yeah…

He may believe whatever he likes. However, based on what I’ve read from him (literally the above, only) and on reading his bio picture physiognomy, I’d say his weight and his IQ are roughly equal – maybe 110 soaking wet. But, hey, sometimes it takes a mental and physical lightweight to make a point. That, or a Times Op-Ed.

Point made, gents. Your opinions and views are incorrect but we hear you loud and clear.