heresy

by

“Disciple Shades” spammed the wrong blog.

DefCon oftentimes deals with the shameless marketing of Christianity. In fact we have a whole category devoted to this foolishness entitled Den of Robbers.

What makes this one so special, though, is the irony behind it. I discovered these despicable Disciple Shades because the company actually sent their product advertisement to me via the DefCon e-mail!

Apparently they didn’t take the time to read how DefCon views their shameless marketing of Christianity. But what more would you expect from a company who links to TBN and the Crystal Cathedral on their links page? Apparently they didn’t take the time to read how DefCon views TBN and Robert Schuller.

Here’s a picture from their website:

disciple-shades

What exactly is this supposed to be depicting? Does it remind you of anything? Perhaps an event that transpired in the third chapter of Genesis?

But I digress.

Here’s part of what their e-mail to DefCon said:

For those who desire to dwell on their devotion and stay focused on their faith, Disciple Shades is pleased to offer the first and only collection of Christian-based reading and sunglasses with different meaningful biblical verses on the inside of every style. Created as simple reminders, our glasses provide a unique way to keep our attention on what is truly important – our faith and spirituality.

Then if you go to their Good Works Brigade page you will learn all about their good works brigade, but there’s not one mention of Jesus Christ nor His Gospel. The following is an excerpt from that web page:

Doing “good” is about being the best you can be and giving the most you can—to yourself, your friends, your community, and our world. Wherever you live on this big, beautiful planet, whether you wear a beret or a burkha, a serape or sweats, we’re all part of one universal family. Committing a single act of kindness can set the stage for inspiring the next person—and the next person and the next person and the next—to follow suit. It’s in this spirit of keeping that connection going and growing that we created our Good Works Brigade web forum.

We know your good deeds come from the heart and that you don’t expect material recompense. (You know your ultimate reward comes after this lifetime!) But Disciple Shades nonetheless wants to give you a big pat on the back—and a t-shirt to go with it. Yep, we’ll send you a free t-shirt with the Disciple Shades logo on the back and, on the front, our Works Brigade slogan: Think Heavenly, Act Locally.

What kind of universalist drivel was all that? “We know your good deeds come from the heart“? They do? Apparently they know nothing about man’s total depravity and that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).

So how can you too take advantage of the weak minded like these den of robbers? Here’s how simple it is: Find something mundane like a pair of sunglasses; smack a feel-good (usually out of context) Bible verse on it (in a place where no one can see it); slap a cross or dove on it in a place where people can see it, and then market it to shallow professing Christians. The same also works with shoe inserts & socks and tight-fitting “Christian” jeans with stilettos.

by

What did C.S. Lewis really believe?

cslewis Every time I turn around I discover some respected Christian preacher, teacher, pastor, scholar, etc. is affirming some doctrinal error or flat out heresy (and/or rubbing elbows with known heretics). And now I’ve come across this shocking examination of C.S. Lewis’ creed on Christian Research Network.

It asks the question whether or not C.S. Lewis is in Heaven. After reading this article which reviews some of Lewis’ beliefs (and teachings), I not only realized that it is a legitimate question to ask, but one whose answer is not as simple as you might think.

by

Here we go again.

Last February I reported on the 30-day sex challenge that came from a “church” aptly named Relevant Church (imagine that).

Sadly this same gimmick is being regurgitated by Ed Young but now it’s only a 7-day sex challenge. You may remember Ed Young from his other ridiculous attempt at courting the mistress of relevance in this previous post.

by

Quotes (421)

John MacArthur Although the Bible primarily focuses on the human agents propagating false doctrine, it also deals with the source of false doctrine: Satan and his demons.  Behind all false teachers are invisible demons. No false teacher teaches from his own wisdom; a demon or demons inspire him to teach. False teachers are mouthpieces for Satan.

– John MacArthur

by

How seeker-friendly churches skew the Gospel like a cult.

“If the ark and the tabernacle had to be built exactly according to God’s plan, should not the Church also be built according to His plan? Surely the Bride of Christ is of even greater importance than the ark or the tabernacle.”

– Trevor Mcllwain

by

Doug Pagitt to run for the Minnesota State Legislature in 2010.

doug-pagitt After congratulating comrade Barack Hussein Obama on his win, emergent heretic Doug Pagitt has now announced his intention to run for political office (see his announcement here).

To find out more about who Doug Pagitt is, check out an interview here and here on Youtube from Way of the Master Radio in which Doug Pagitt denies the existence of Hell. You can download the audio from this WOTMR episode by right clicking here.

You can also learn more about who Dog Pagitt is by viewing the video on this link of John MacArthur challenging Doug Pagitt on the issue of “Christian” Yoga. I also recommend an inside look at Pagitt’s “church” Solomon’s Porch in the video found on this link.

HT: Slice of Laodicea

by

Pope tells Rick Warren that he doesn’t pastor an actual church.

Check out the following piece from Apprising Ministries on the pope throwing a monkey wrench into Rick Warren’s ecumenical machine:

Ok, here’s the latest scoop on the religious scene from Apprising Ministries. Well, it turns out that Rick Warren Is Saying Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin Were Wrong because in opposition to what these Reformers taught Purpose Driven Pope Warren has now pontificated that the Roman Catholic Church is no longer apostate and is, in very fact, once again a part of the Body of Christ.

O but wait, it gets even better because meanwhile, back at the ol’ Vatican ranch Benedict XVI, the papal pretender to being the Vicar of Christ, has said instead that Rick Warren is the one who is actually wrong. I know, I could hardly believe it myself when I heard it! Just imagine the nerve; someone dares to criticize America’s favorite social worker and Megapastor. Zowie; good thing he’s a god on earth, huh.

So now here’s the deal; you see, Rick Warren is not a Roman Catholic but is instead a decidedly—er, non-protesting *ahem* “Protestant” in the SBC—which might actually stand for Slowly Becoming Catholic. Ok, because of that fact, according to the RCC Pope it now seems that the PD Pope can’t even be “America’s pastor” anymore because he doesn’t actually pastor a real church:

Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday [July 10, 2007] that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches…

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position. (Online source)

If only this was as silly as a Hollywood gossip column. But with people’s eternal souls in the balance I’m afraid there’s nothing funny about men such as these, who for now, are peas in a very corrupt spiritual pod and speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5).

Thanks to Pastor Ken Silva for this piece. I’d like to add that I find it ironic when the very apostate Roman Catholic Church that the very apostate Saddleback Church is trying so hard to merge with refuses to consider them a legitimate Church at best and anathema at worst. What Rick Warren fails to realize is that if the world’s religions are going to merge into one anti-Chirst led conglomerate, it’s going to be under the RCC and it’s going to be on their terms, not his.

See also: All roads may not lead to Rome, but according to the pope, only Rome leads to Heaven.

by

Zero church to perform a “demonstration seance.”

Zero church is making news on DefCon again (see the previous post here). This time they are holding a “Halloween fun” service on November 1st in which the following description is provided:

“Ghost”

. . . More than Halloween fun, although we will have plenty of that with illusions and a demonstration seance. We ask the big question, what happens after you die? Can we communicate with the dead?

You can see the advertisement here.

by

Yet another church, and yet another Beatles service.

Apparently Trish from Fish With Trish isn’t immune to these Laodicean mailings.

I think Keystone Church is running behind the “relevance caboose” as they’re a little behind the times. The whole Beatles thing was like so five minute ago.

I checked into Keystone and found the following “trailer” for their Beatles “sermon” series.

by

Zero church rethinks faith as they replace preaching for “a talk.”

Back in July I published a post entitled When the Church Stops Being the Church. In this post I  highlighted a trend in which churches claiming to be “Christian” are refusing to preach the Gospel (one of the church’s primary purposes for existence). In this previous post I exampled three particular churches and their (proud) refusal to preach the Gospel

Note: the assembling of the Body together is for our encouragement, building up, instruction, and edification, however, outside the walls of the building the “Church” should be evangelizing.

Now, sadly, I have to make another addition to this commentary: Welcome Zero Church to the repository of the new era of man-centered Christianity as they begin “rethinking faith together.” In their attempt to be edgy and relevant they throw out “preaching” for “a talk” and they have “a band” but “not much worship music.”

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Are we on the slippery slope or are we already face down in the bottom of the canyon?

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

Romans 10:14

by

Tickling ears is big business . . . and business is good.

Portfolio.com is reporting in this article that megachurch ear-tickler Joel Osteen, aka “Reverend Feelgood,” and his wife Victoria (whose new book Love Your Life which is in direct contradiction to Jesus’ command not to love your life) are reportedly taking in $75 million dollars a year through their Lakewood church (not counting his $13 million dollar advance for his latest book). Here’s a quote from the article:

We are a nation stumbling through our worst financial crisis in a generation and our worst housing market in a lifetime. And so we come, seeking gentle salvation, inspiring prayers, steadying words, soothing notions, and calming thoughts that will allow us to become, in Joel Osteen’s words, “victors, not victims.”

And Time.com is reporting that the prosperity “gospel” may have actually contributed to the current economic crisis. Read their article here.

by

Do you need any more proof that Kenneth Copeland is a wolf in sheep’s clothing?


“[Jesus] was the first man to be born again from sin, sickness, demons, death to life.“

And yet the multitudes continue to sit under his teachings and send this wolf their money.

by

Quotes (383)

awpink.jpg And what about apostate Christendom, where every possible form of sin is now tolerated and practiced under cover of the holy name of Christ? Why does not the righteous wrath of Heaven make an end of such abominations? Only one answer is possible: because God bears with “much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.”

– A. W. Pink

1886 – 1952

by

Who will be sharing the stage with John Piper?

The list of those invited to speak at John Piper’s 2008 National Conference includes Mark Driscoll (see this post from Coram Deo). In the following video of John Piper, he does his best to “defend” and “justify” why he has invited Mark Driscoll.

But while the debate rages over Mark Driscoll’s appearance at this conference, it seems that there’s much less  discussion over another individual who is scheduled to speak at this same conference. His name is Paul Tripp. And Paul Tripp has a little video in which he discusses What makes bad language bad?

I was hesitant to post the video of Paul Tripp due to its nature (I refused to watch the whole thing myself) but I think it illustrates for people the severity by which John Piper is compromising by having people like Driscoll and Tripp at his conference.

I have reservations about posting the video on DefCon, but for those who simply wouldn’t believe it if I told them about it, here’s the link to the video of Paul Tripp’s flippant use of profanity (you have been warned).

by

Longing for the preachers of old.

Be prepared to witness one of the most pointless, narcissistic, self-centered, and shallow preaching testimony drivel in just under six minutes that you’ll ever subject your senses to.

This monologue is completely devoid of any reference to Jesus Christ and not supported by even one shred of Scripture, but it fits perfectly in today’s mile-wide, inch-deep church of “entertain me.”

After watching this video you will long even that much more for the preachers of old.

For some background and to better understand the foolishness that she’s talking about, see this post, this post and this post.

by

Ravi’s crash and burn.

I’ve previously reported on Ravi Zacharias’ failure to preach the Gospel to those following a counterfeit Christ after he was invited to speak at the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City (see here). Then I posted on Ravi’s descent into the abyss of compromise (see here) when he refused to pray in the name of Jesus Christ at the latest National Day of Prayer (Coram Deo even wrote a piece on Ravi’s compromise here).

And now Ravi Zacharias is proving yet again that compromise will always take a man where he never intended to go.

RAVI’S CRASH:

Ravi speaks favorably of Henri Nouwen and can be seen in the following video (at the 5:47 mark) calling this Roman Catholic mystic “one of the greatest saints of recent memory.”


Ken Silva has also weighed in on this here.

RAVI’S BURN:

And what started as a little compromise here and there, seems to have started a snowball rolling for Ravi. Slaughter of the Sheep is reporting that Ravi Zacharias will now be speaking at none other than the Crystal Cathedral at Robert Schuller’s infamous ReThink Conference scheduled for February 2009. Lighthouse Trails is also on top of Ravi’s latest compromise with the rank heretic Schuller in a piece they did here.