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Anti-theists all aflutter over a street sign.

No one can trample on the memories of fallen firefighters and spit in the face of their families quite like the anti-theists.

Now, I know that not all atheists are angry and walk around with a chip on their shoulder (some are actually pleasant to be around), but here is a classic example of why atheists have still not found broad acceptance among the populace.

Below are some morsels from a FoxNews article (found here) about what has anti-theists in a tizzy . . . this week:

A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because they say the sign violates the separation of church and state.

The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men.

“There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s really insulting to us.”

Never mind that your words and actions are insulting to everyone else.

Bronstein then shares this revelation:

“We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell.”

Then Bronstein shows his sensitivity regarding the matter:

He was nonplussed over how his opposition to the street sign might be perceived – especially since the sign is honoring fallen heroes. “It’s irrelevant who it’s for,” Bronstein said. “We think this is a very bad thing.”

Of course we’ll never be told how it’s “a very bad thing.” 

Then the president of the American Atheists makes this statement:

David Silverman, president of American Atheists, agreed calling on the city to remove the sign. “It implies that heaven actually exists,” Silverman told Fox News Radio.

See, in Silverman’s world it’s ok to claim Heaven doesn’t exist but don’t you dare suggest otherwise.

“People died in 9/11, but they were all people who died, not just Christians. Heaven is a specifically Christian place. For the city to come up and say all those heroes are in heaven now, it’s not appropriate.”

I agree with this last sentence from Silverman, but for different reasons.

Now it’s time to muddy the waters:

“All memorials for fallen heroes should celebrate the diversity of our country and should be secular in nature. These heroes might have been Jews, they might have been atheists, I don’t know, but either way it’s wrong for the city to say they’re in heaven. It’s preachy.”

Don’t you think it would be important to find out if one of the seven firefighters was an atheist before taking up this cause? Not knowing reveals that you are driven by your agenda and facts don’t really matter.

Perhaps the seven firefighters comprised several beliefs. Maybe one was a Christian, one a Jew, one a Roman Catholic, one a Muslim, one a Mormon, one a Jehovah’s Witness, and one a Seventh-day Adventist. All of these believe in a Heaven. So if none of the seven were an atheist, then this whole argument is moot.

And believing the seven firefighters are in Heaven is “preachy” but declaring that there is no Heaven is not?

Also, how does one “celebrate the diversity of our country” and at the same same time “be secular in nature?” That’s called doublespeak.

And then there’s this interesting fact:

City leaders seemed dumbfounded by the atheists’ outrage because no one complained about the sign as it was going through a public approval process. “It’s unfortunate that they didn’t raise this as an issue while it was undergoing its public review either at the community board level or when it came before the City Council on their public agenda,” said Craig Hammerman, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 6.

Hammerman told Fox News Radio that the community was “solidly behind this proposal. Not a single person stood up to speak out against it. I think it’s a little late in the process for someone to be bringing this up now.”

That’s because they wanted the sign to be approved so they could protest it on a grander scale and get the publicity they so desperately seek. There would have been much less press if they protested the matter during the city council meetings.

“The patriotic and right thing to do is to obey our own law and to realize that we are a diverse nation, a melting pot full of different views,” Silverman added.

We’re a melting pot but don’t you dare reflect the religious part of that melting pot, because if the majority of religious views conflict with the minority of anti-religious views, by golly, it’s time to knock the pot over. So much for diversity, huh?

But the city has no intention of removing the sign. If that’s the case, Bronstein said he may consider a lawsuit.

Good for the city! What’s one more threat of a lawsuit? Muslims use threats of terrorism, anti-theists use threats of litigation. They’re both designed to cause terror in an attempt to destroy an enemy. I hope NYC stands up to these anti-theist threats as they do to the Islamic threats.

Bottom line, is it’s just a street sign. It’s not going to cause anyone to become a Christian nor is it going to alter the course our nation is currently on. In the grand scheme of things this sign is much to do about nothing and the anti-theists know it. They’re just using it to reach for another 15 minutes of fame.

The families of those seven firefighters are ok with the memorial, as well as the overwhelming majority of the city; the only ones with objections are a small band of anti-theists who seem to exist only to be a nuisance to others.

I’m still waiting for these atheists to muster up the courage to cackle and threaten lawsuits over the Islamic festival held every year in Dearborn, Michigan.

While I’m waiting, I think I’ll protest the signs in my city that are “anti-Christian.” Signs like First Street, Thurston Way, and Riverview Lane.

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Mother charged with a felony for spanking her child.

Unbelievable news coming out of Texas.

“You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a “pretty simple, straightforward spanking case.” They noted she didn’t use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.

Read the article here.

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Sermon of the week: “The Grim Reality of the Last Days” by John MacArthur.

John MacArthur Your sermon of the week is The Grim Reality of the Last Days by John MacArthur. This is not a topic Joel Osteen would dare touch, and it’s definitely not a message for the faint-hearted.

Mike Ratliff had this to say about this sermon:

John MacArthur preached something I had never heard before, which compared the eschatology of Islam with that of the Book of Revelation from our Bible. The main character in Islam’s eschatology is called the Mahdi. Also, according [to] their eschatology, Allah sends Jesus back to Earth to serve as the Mahdi’s greatest servant to convert the world to Islam. John MacArthur shows in his sermon how all of this lines up with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Toward the end of their reign on earth, a false prophet comes to earth who opposes them and there is a great war. In Muslim eschatology, they win and this false prophet is overthrown, but as we know in the book of Revelation, This “false prophet” is the real Jesus Christ who will win that war. My summary pales in comparison to Dr. MacArthur’s fine sermon. I suggest you listen to it.

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How “socialized” government school kids “interact” on the bus.

It’s pretty bad when a local news station has to get involved in a matter like this because the school won’t help to put a stop to the violence perpetrated against a four-year-old girl.

You can see the video and read the article here.

If this is the Lord of the Flies socialization I keep hearing that my home educated kids are missing out on, then I think they’ll be just fine.

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Well . . . is he or isn’t he?

Is Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney pro-life or pro-abortion? I often hear that Christians are willing to vote for him because he “shares their values,” and being pro-life is one of those values often cited. But is he really?

In the following video Mitt Romney makes his pro-abortion position very clear, so those expecting to vote for him because he’s pro-life may need to find another reason to do so.

And then there’s this whopper of a video in which for five minutes Romney defends his pro-abortion position, distancing himself from those nasty rumors that he might be pro-life.

At 4:22 seconds into the video Mitt Romney unequivocally decalres:

“I do not take the position of a pro-life candidate. I am in favor of preserving and protecting a woman’s right to choose”

But he’s changed, some may say. Has he? He’s now pro-life, some may say. Is he?

These final two videos reveal why it’s hard to determine Mitt Romney’s actual stance on the murder of unborn children because he flip-flops back and forth on the issue

I have to wonder if double-mindedness, pandering, and deception are just some of the character traits Christians voting for Romney consider to be their “shared values.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to vote for the lesser of two evils.

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Should a Christian vote for Mitt Romney?

I recently read a piece entitled A Vote For Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church written by Warren C. Smith (not to be confused with the Warren Smith who exposed Rick Warren’s New Age agenda and ties to Robert Schuller in his book Deceived on Purpose).

Here’s a quote from the thought-provoking article that–for the record–I completely agree with:

“To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church. Non-Christians likely don’t care much about this point one way or the other. But for the Christian, this is a vital issue. . . . The validation of the false religion of Mormonism would almost certainly have the effect of leading many astray. Evangelical Christians should have no part of that effort. . . . A Romney presidency would have the effect of actively promoting a false religion in the world. If you have any regard for the Gospel of Christ, you should care. A false religion should not prosper with the support of Christians. The salvation of souls is at stake.”


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Are Americans Getting Comfortable With Immorality?

Interesting article by the Christian Post on the state of America’s morality. Here’s a sample from the article:

“You would never know by watching American television that 61 percent of Americans say religion is very important in their lives.”

For Philbin, one message in particular that the media is continuously throwing at Americans is that of affirming homosexuality and gay marriage.

A poll released by Gallup last week found that for the first time since 1996, more than half of Americans say marriage for gays and lesbians should be legal.

Philbin clarifies the data as the result of Americans being brow-beaten through various forms of media and being constantly sent a message that says “you’re wrong, now change your view.”

“I think frankly Americans are just tired of getting beat up over their resistance to it,” he explained. “I think that at a certain point cultural fatigue sets in and you get tired of being told that you’re backward, being told you’re puritan troglodyte (a caveman) and a homophobe who hates people. So you shrug and say, ‘yea, I’m for it’ and go about your business.”

Civilization, he lamented, is headed in a direction that devalues the family unit.

“If a family is just a group of people cohabitating or pooling resources, and ceases to be the very basis and building block of society, I think you’re in a sort of moral quicksand where things lose meaning,” Philbin cautioned.

Read the entire article here.

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Married couples are now in the minority of households.

From the Associated Press:

“The data supports that, as the Census Bureau reported last year that opposite-sex unmarried couples living together jumped 13 percent from 2009 to 7.5 million. . . . And attitudes on marriage are changing, too. About 39 percent of Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete, according to a Pew Research Center study published in November, up from 28 percent in 1978.”

Read the entire article here.

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What receiving the Bible in your native tongue for the first time looks like.

Rejoice with me and be greatly encouraged (and deeply convicted) by watching this video of the Kimyal tribe receiving the New Testament in their language for the first time on March 16, 2010.

Quote from the video:

“We [in the West] have no idea. We have had the Word of God for so long. We have taken it for granted. We have resources, we have translations . . . and we don’t cherish it. We don’t realize what a precious gift we have and hold in our hands.”

Find out more about the Kimyal tribe of Indonesia here.

HT: The Gospel Coalition

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Pay no attention the the government education professionals behind the curatin.

Here is a quote from a great article by Bruce Shortt writing for WorldNet Daily:

“Of course, evidence of catastrophic educational failure is always dismissed by highly trained education professionals by alternately screeching ‘socio-economic status’ and ‘demographics.’ These phrases are the education establishment’s equivalent of squid’s ink: When cornered by inconvenient facts, shouts of ‘socio-economic status’ and ‘demographics’ usually allow highly trained education professionals to create confusion and slip away quietly from embarrassing revelations about what they have done to the children entrusted to them.”

Read the entire article here.

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May 21, 2011 . . . much to do about nothing.

Since Harold Camping is once again predicting Judgment Day to arrive on a specific day (a day that even the Son does not know), I figured I’d turn on Family Radio this past Monday to see how those expecting the world to end in less than a week would spend their valuable air time.

Besides playing a lot of music, they had a vignette on how to help your children to stop focusing on the needs of today and instead look further into the future at bigger things like college and career, and they even had a radio appeal for more financial donors to help keep the radio station broadcasting.

I found all that to be very odd. Less than a week before the demise of the world and Family Radio is worried about finances to keep the station on the air and concerned about telling you how to get your kids to focus on their future?

Did I miss something?

And then there was the music. I don’t know about you, but if I knew that Christ was returning for His bride in less than a week, I’d be using the airways to deliver the Gospel message of repentance and faith, not playing music.

I wonder why the nonchalant approach toward such an impending day of doom. Do they not even take themselves seriously?

Could Christ return on May 21, 2011? Absolutely, for He told us to keep watch because He will indeed return. But not only did He say that no man knows the time of His return (Matthew 24:36), He also said He will come at an hour when we least expect Him (Luke 12:40).

ABC News has a piece on some Atheists who are taking this Sunday’s event more serious than Camping’s own radio station, even if it’s only to line their own pockets with the money of the gullible. Here’s a quote from the article:

Wondering about the fate of your pets after Judgment Day?
Well, for $135, a loving atheist will care for your animal if you’re not around anymore.

Eternal Earthbound Pets offers a service to rescue and take care of pets once their owners have been taken away to the heavenly realms.  Though doomsayers say this Saturday will be the latest day of reckoning that’s not expected to leave animals behind either.

Bart Centre of New Hampshire, co-owner of the pet business, launched it in June 2009. He has zero belief in Judgment Day, but began to see an increase in sales inquiries in December, which, he believes, is related to Family Radio’s heavy marketing campaign around the May 21 date.

The retired retail executive said he has sold 258 contracts so far.

ABC News also has a brief piece by Calvin Lawrence Jr. (reprinted below) on past judgment days that have come and gone, including predictions by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Chuck Smith (yes, the Chuck Smith of the Calvary Chapel™ franchise).

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

The Bible couldn’t be clearer, right there in the Book of Matthew: chapter 24, verse 36.

But doomsayers have sworn since at least Roman times that they’re better sourced than the angels themselves, boldly trotting out predictions down to the day for the Final Judgment, when, Christians believe, Jesus will descend to earth and set off a chain of events resulting in the end of the world and a new heaven.

May 21, 2011, is the latest attempt to get a jump on Judgment Day, courtesy of Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio, a nonprofit evangelical Christian group. And, assuming we’re all here to follow up, it will make a nice addition on May 22 to this random list of predicted Second Comings we’ve survived so far.

1. Let’s start with Family Radio, whose president, Harold Camping, predicted the End of Days before: Sept. 6, 1994. Camping had been “thrown off a correct calculation because of some verses in Matthew 24,” a company spokesman told ABC News this month.

The Christian radio broadcaster is apparently more confident this time around, spending big bucks on 5,000 billboards, posters, fliers and digital bus displays across the country.

2. Edgar Whisenant didn’t get it right the first time, either, when he predicted a mid-September 1988 Rapture, even publishing the books “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988” and “On Borrowed Time.” No Apocalypse, no problem. The former NASA engineer simply pushed his predictions off to three subsequent years and wrote books along the way, none of which reportedly sold as well as the first two.

He died in 2001. We’re unable to confirm where he’s awaiting the big day.

3. Jehovah’s Witnesses first anticipated the end of times in 1914, now noting on their official website that “not all that was expected to happen in 1914 did happen, but it did mark the end of the Gentile Times and was a year of special significance.”

4. In the century before, renowned New England Baptist minister William Miller triggered what ultimately became known as the “great disappointment” after his failed prophesies that Christ would return sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, and then on Oct. 22, 1844.

5. More recently, Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church Los Angeles told a Trinity Broadcasting Network audience that the “most cataclysmic experience that the world has ever known since the Resurrection … is going to happen,” according to the Christian Research Institute, which is home to “Bible Answer Man.”

Hinkle said God, “in the most awesome voice,” told him that “on Thursday, June the ninth [1994], I will rip the evil out of this world.”

You might have missed it, however, because the prophesy came to pass invisibly, he said, according to the Christian Research Institute.

6. Chuck Smith, the prolific author and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in California, turned to scripture and simple math to prepare his flock for the Tribulation. “If I understand Scripture correctly, Jesus taught us that the generation which sees he ‘budding of the fig tree,’ the birth of the nation Israel, will be the generation that see the Lords return,” he wrote in his book “End Times” (1978). “I believe that the generation 1948 is the last generation. Since a generation of judgment is forty years and the Tribulation period lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for His Church any time before the Tribulation starts, which would mean any time before 1981. (1948+40-7=1981).”

“I could be wrong,” he wrote in “Future Survival” (1978), “but it’s a deep conviction in my heart, and all my plans are predicated upon that belief.”

Smith was wrong and has not only abandoned his prophesying ways but since has looked askance at others who have gone down that road.

“The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, thought the world was sure to end in 1914,” Smith wrote in his book “Dateline Earth: Countdown to Eternity” (1989). “When it didn’t happen, they merely moved the date up a few years.”

7. The prophetic-sounding year 2000 inspired too many doomsday predictions to list here. Suffice it to say that, in hindsight, there was really no need to party like it was 1999.

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Lying: When being yourself just isn’t good enough.

It is not uncommon to hear about a pastor (i.e. hireling) lying about one thing or another: Lying about personally seeing the dead raised (usually in some foreign country where verification is not possible), lying about their “relationship” with their secretary, lying about the church finances, or lying about what the Bible says on a particular subject (just to name a few). But every now and then you read about a pastor’s lie that just makes no sense.

Take for example the lie that Pastor Jim Moats told about his military experience, even going so far as to give an interview in the local paper about his military exploits that never occurred.

In the wake of the dramatic Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound earlier this month, it was perhaps to be expected that some expansive soul would step forward to claim the prestige of a fabricated tour as a SEAL for himself. Such tall tales are not uncommon, after all, amid high-profile military actions.

This time the exposed fabricator was a preacher–though at least one person who monitors this brand of public lie notes that members of the clergy are often tempted into such misrepresentations. More curious still, the prevaricator in question seems to have lifted at least some details of his account from the 1992 Steven Seagal SEAL-themed blockbuster, “Under Siege.”

Since when does preaching Christ and Him crucified fail to be enough to get you out of bed in the morning?

Perhaps Mr. Moats will do well to meditate on John’s statement “He must increase, but I must decrease”(John 3:30).

You can read the entire article on Jim Moats here.


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Samaritan Ministries endorsement.

I wanted to share with the readers of DefCon how thoroughly thrilled my wife and I are about Samaritan Ministries. As an alternative to the high cost of secular insurance companies (many of which fund practices opposed to Christianity), Samaritan Ministries helps Christian families cover medical expenses by use of a network of contributors (members).

Instead of paying a monthly insurance fee, your monthly contribution goes directly to an actual family in need. You receive the name, address, and need of the family assigned to you, then you send your designated share amount directly to that family (along with a card or note of encouragement if you wish). Other needs that are not publishable (meaning they are not covered by Samaritan Ministries) are advertised in the monthly newsletter and members can give to those needs if they choose.

In the event that you incur a medical expense, you simply submit your need to Samaritan Ministries and you receive checks (along with cards or notes of encouragement) from other members to cover your medical expenses. 

I wholeheartedly endorse this ministry and can speak first hand about the value and effectiveness of it. We’ve been members for over a year and have benefited twice: once when one of our children was having breathing problems requiring two separate trips to the E.R. and most recently when our youngest was born, Samaritan Ministries covered the entire cost of the midwifery services and all associated tests and bloodwork. It is virtually impossible to find an insurance company willing to cover maternity unless it is through an employer. Samaritan Ministries recognizes that children are a blessing and by covering maternity needs they don’t perpetuate the idea (directly or indirectly) that children are a burden (financially or otherwise).

Notable members of Samaritan Ministries include Doug Phillips and Voddie Baucham. Baucham offered this endorsement:

Coming into the whole Samaritan Ministries thing and not knowing how it worked, not understanding anything about it, and just really wondering…was terrifying. Then I turned around and watched how Samaritan took care of that whole need [for a fellow pastor’s son]. Samaritan members came along, helped them…the doctors were happy to work with them…it was after that I signed up.

I understand better now than I did before how corrupted medicine has become because of the insurance industry. We walk in and say we’re self-pay, and immediately they take 30, 40, 50 percent off the top. That’s just because all the markup that exists because of insurance and also because of Medicare. These doctors are so happy to not have to deal with all that stuff, that they pass those savings on to you.

When you’re going to the doctor’s office and all you have to do is pay the $10 co-pay, you’ll go for any little thing. Your sense of independence, your sense of trusting in the Lord, your sense of trying to take care of things and do preventative medicine-that goes out the window if the only thing you have to think about is that $10 co-pay, not realizing at all that by participating in that system, you’re actually contributing to these escalating prices.

We love it. I enjoy sitting down, writing my check to a family, feeling that I’m just directly partnering with them, partnering with that need, praying for them. It’s wonderful, and that has been helpful to us.

I encourage readers to check out this wonderful ministry of Christians helping Christians. You can learn more by going to their website:

http://www.samaritanministries.org/

Also check out their blog:

http://www.samaritanministries.org/blog/

And you can even find them on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/samaritanministries

You can also learn more about this incredible ministry for Believers by Believers by viewing this video:

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Slouching toward Soylent Green?

From One News Now from March 30, 2011:

According to a Florida-based pro-life organization, a biotech company is using aborted fetal cell lines to test food flavor enhancers.

Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, is calling for a boycott of major food companies partnering with Senomyx, a San Diego-based firm that produces artificial flavor enhancers using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products. She explains the process.

“They take their artificial flavor enhancers, which are made using little molecules, and they put them on that aborted fetal cell line [which] elicits a response…,” says Vinnedge. “So they know whether they’re getting the right reaction, whether it’s going to produce that proper sweet taste as opposed to maybe another flavor.”

The pro-life activist argues there is no need to use aborted fetal tissue in this process, saying the truth is that Senomyx can use other cell lines, such as from animals. That, she says, raises the question of why those alternative sources are not used instead.

“…In one of their responses to us, [Nestlé] said this is such a well-established cell line that was used widely in scientific research — and so what? It doesn’t matter that it is. It’s just readily available,” she remarks.

The tissue in question comes from a baby aborted in the 1970s. Scientists create a cell line, freeze it in liquid nitrogen, and then take it out for use in their experiments.

The primary firms doing business with Senomyx are Pepsico, Kraft, Campbell Soup, and Nestlé.

A follow-up from One News Now from April 05, 2011 shows Cambell Soup is severing ties with the Senomyx, but Pepsico is standing firm:

Outrage continues over major food companies and their relationship with a firm that uses aborted fetal cells to test food flavor enhancers.

Campbell Soup, Nestlé, Solae, Pepsico and Kraft have been listed as partners with the bio-tech firm Senomyx (see earlier story). Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, tells OneNewsNow one company was quick to respond.

“Campbell Soup actually met earlier and made the decision to sever all relations with Senomyx,” she reports. The firm has also been removed from the Senomyx website.

Solae has responded by saying it does not have an active relationship with Senomyx, but it is still listed as a partner on the latter’s website. Nestlé points out the fetal cell line being used worldwide is from a baby aborted in the 1970s, and it would be difficult to stop using them. The response from Vinnedge?

“Well, that’s ridiculous. Of course they can do it,” says the spokeswoman. “There’s no reason to use aborted fetal cell lines to test food additives.”

She adds that Pepsi was “very, very evasive” in its response. “Pepsi simply talked about how great it was going to make their beverages taste,” she states, “and that their goal was to reduce sugar and MSG in products.”

Vinnedge says the boycott continues against the remaining firms.

You can read the original alert to boycott these companies here, and you can read the e-mails to these companies (and their responses) here.

HT: RevivalAndReformation

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Morality without God?

The following article is from World Magazine:

Confirmation of biblical wisdom came earlier this fall from an unlikely source: an Ivy League savant who says it’s wrong to depend on the Bible.

The prestigious Oxford University Press sent me the new book Morality Without God by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a Dartmouth professor. (I’m going to quote him a lot, so I’ll use his initials.) WSA begins by complaining that his students quote to him Dostoevsky’s favorite line, “If God is dead, everything is permitted.” WSA then argues that we don’t need God: We all should simply agree not to harm others—cause death, pain, or disability—unless there is “adequate reason.”

Wondering if WSA is one of those exceedingly rare secular professors with the courage to be pro-life, I emailed him to ask. He responded that there is no “simple solution to this complex problem . . . the moral problem of abortion cannot be solved by citing religious texts or religious leaders.”

Hmm . . . How can it be solved? WSA wrote, “What matters is the present and future harm to the fetus and others. This does not solve the problem, but it tells us where to focus our discussions. I hope this helps.”

Hmm . . . It helps only if WSA can tell us how to compare “harm to the fetus” (death) to other harms, so I emailed him again. He responded, “The bottom line is that I think some moral problems are insoluble. . . . They are just too difficult for us to figure out. . . . The answer, ‘I do not know,’ should become common.”

Read the entire article here.

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“Can we warn about a ravening wolf spiritually while simultaneously throwing an arm around him?”

That’s a fantastic question from a fantastic article recently posted by Worldview Weekend entitled:

Rick Warren’s Infiltration of the Reformed Faith

This is a must-read for everyone who’s concerned with what’s been happening lately in Reformed circles.

Here’s a quote from the article to whet your whistle:

“Rick Warren desires credibility and influence more than anything else, and he has been able to accomplish both over much of the religious landscape in America over the last decade. Some important holdouts have been the celebrity pastors of the Reformed book/conference circuit who were in stated opposition to him for his handling of Scripture and his man-centered, false gospel. All of that is changing quickly. What Rick Warren needed was to win over a leader whose status was great enough among Reformed evangelicals who could deliver the holdouts into his arms. He found such a man in John Piper. . . . Warren’s photo ops with Reformed leaders do nothing for the truth, and they do everything for Rick Warren’s relentless campaign for credibility and influence among those who should know better.”

Read the entire article from Worldview Weekend here.

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John Piper, Rick Warren redux.

A few years ago those who observed that John Piper was heading down a bad road when he began validating Mark Driscoll were all but crucified by those who thought the ones raising the concern were jumping to conclusions.

But then the next shoe dropped: Piper invited Rick Warren to speak at last year’s Desiring God conference (and I noticed there were a lot less voices being raised from the defend-Piper-at-all-costs crowd). Rick Warren was unable to make it to that conference but this year Piper is traveling to Warren’s church.

This link contains the video (and other information) for John Piper’s upcoming Desiring God regional conference on “Meditations of a Christian Hedonist” being held at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church.

It appears that the slippery slope some of us were talking about over the past few years is rapidly turning into a cliff.

Will Piper surprise us and preach a non-compromising sermon on Christ and Him crucified to those who’ve been nursing on Warren’s  messages for years (we can only hope and pray), or will things only get worse as the years go by and perhaps next year we’ll see an endorsement of Thomas S. Monson? I guess time will only tell.

Nasty, snarky, condescending, and vitriolic comments will not be approved.

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Roman Catholicism’s competition in Mexico.

I recently read an article about cults in Mexico that I found absolutely fascinating. It seems that the Roman Catholic organization is experiencing some competition in one of their stronghold nations.

Here’s a quote from the article about the growing worship of fictional drug-trafficking saint, Jesús Malverde:

“The emotional pressures, the tensions of living in a time of crisis lead people to look for symbolic figures that can help them face danger,” says José Luis González, a professor at Mexico’s National School of Anthropology and History who specializes in popular religions. Among the helper figures are Afro-Cuban deities that have recently found their way to new shores and outlaws that have been transformed into miracle workers, like a mythical bandit from northern Mexico called Jesús Malverde. There are even saints from the New Testament repurposed for achieving not salvation but success. In this expanding spiritual universe, the worship of a skeleton dressed in long robes and carrying a scythe—La Santa Muerte—is possibly the fastest growing and, at first glance at least, the most extravagant of the new cults.

There’s a reason for God’s prohibition against graven images and the bowing down to them. Our hearts are truly idol factories and here’s an example of how one such idol was created:

Eligio had been working as a driver in 1976 when he was knifed and shot in a holdup and left for dead. He prayed to Malverde, whose only monument at the time was a pile of rocks where his grave was said to be, promising to erect a proper shrine in Malverde’s honor if the saintly bandit saved his life. When he survived, he kept his word. González appears to have understood that people would grasp Malverde’s real importance only if there were an image of him they could worship, but unfortunately no photograph of Malverde existed—and, in fact, no evidence at all that he’d ever lived. In the 1980s González asked an artisan in the neighborhood to create a plaster bust: “Make him sort of like Pedro Infante and sort of like Carlos Mariscal,” Infante being a famous movie star from Sinaloa and Mariscal a local politician.

And then there’s the skeletal idol of death known as La Santa Muerte reminiscent of the Grim Reaper:

Antonio explains what gives La Santa Muerte her powerful attraction: “La Muerte is always beside you—even if it’s just a little postage stamp that you put up above your cot, you know that she’s not going to move, that she’ll never leave.” . . . El Niño and Antonio say just that La Santa Muerte will grant your prayers—but only in exchange for payment, and that payment must be proportional to the size of the miracle requested, and the punishment for not meeting one’s debt to her is terrible.

I find it ironic that the official position of the Roman Catholic organization is in opposition to the worship of Jesús Malverde and La Santa Muerte when they are one of the worst offenders of idol worship around and seem to have no problem when the idol being worshiped is one that they’ve created.

Mexicans who retain a strong connection to the Roman Catholic faith might turn instead to St. Jude Thaddeus. At a time when no-win situations abound, he is experiencing a rise in popularity comparable only to that of La Santa Muerte, perhaps because he is known in the Catholic Church as the patron saint of desperate causes. . . . St. Jude’s official feast day is October 28, and thousands of his followers feel inspired to come and pray to him on that day every month. Sixteen Masses are celebrated in the parish from dawn to evening, and worshippers crawl to the statue of the saint on their knees, praying for help, protection, and survival.

But let me caution you, before we look down on these souls in Mexico who are steeped in idol worship, let us not forget that we in America are equally as guilty of this sin; our idols just come in different forms (cars, sports, money, status, possessions, self, etc.).

To read the entire National Geographic article (and to view more pictures) visit National Geographic online.