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Two Evangelists Murdered in Florida

February 9, 2010 by John

from The Palm Beach Post:

Jeriah Woody executed two men who made the mistake of preaching religion to the 18-year-old, a witness has told police.

Woody, who turned himself in to Boynton Beach police Wednesday, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Saturday night deaths of Stephen Ocean, 23, and Tite Sufra, 24, near the Boynton Beach city library.

He was expected to be taken to the Palm Beach County Jail later today and have a bond hearing Thursday. Boynton Beach spokeswoman Stephanie Slater said this afternoon he was still being questioned and she would not immediately provide information about a motive.

A woman who identified herself as Ocean’s sister, but did not want to give her name, said the two men, best friends, were ministers who were ordained last year and had turned their lives around after run-ins with law enforcement. She did not want to identify the church with which they were aligned.

“They go around and minister to boys and say where they came from,” the sister said. “They did that all day and all night.”

Jail records show no adult arrests for Sufra. Ocean was arrested in 2003 on robbery charges and in 2004 for violating probation on previous battery and petit theft convictions. He was arrested in 2006 for carrying a concealed firearm and resisting an officer.

Jail records show no adult arrests for Woody.

According to a Boynton Beach police report, a person who was with the two slain men told police that, about 8 p.m Saturday, the three were walking through the neighborhood, preaching, and encountered Woody under a tree.

They had been preaching to him for about 15 minutes when he received a call on his cellphone.

The three heard him tell the person on the phone that he was “right down the street.”

He then told the three preachers he had to go.

As the three began walking east, they noticed Woody running toward them.

The friend said he saw Sufra walk toward Woody; he then saw a flash and saw Sufra fall.

Ocean began running and was dropped by a shot to the buttocks, the witness said.

He said Woody then walked up to Ocean and shot him in the head execution-style.

The third man was able to flee and call police, the report said.

Officers found the two lying in the 100 block of Southwest Second Avenue.

On Tuesday, a source alerted detectives to a man with the street name of “plug” who matched the description of the shooter.

The man who’d been preaching with the two other men picked Woody out of a lineup, the report said.

Posted in Babylon, Christian Living, Christian Persecution, Current Events, Discerning the Times, Persecuted Church, Post-Modernism, Signs of The Times, abominations, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

More from the Religion of “Peace”:Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys

February 9, 2010 by John

from The Guardian:

Death reopens debate over ‘honour’ killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country’s murders.

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an “honour” killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

The girl had previously been reported missing.

The informant told the police she had been killed following a family “council” meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl’s mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.

The discovery will reopen the emotive debate in Turkey about “honour” killings, which are particularly prevalent in the impoverished south-east.

Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.

Posted in Anti-Christ, Islam, Molech, Signs of The Times, abominations, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

Haiti and the Voodoo Curse

February 9, 2010 by John

from The Wall Street Journal:

Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign aid over the last 50 years, and yet it remains the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere. Its indicators of progress are closer to Africa’s than to those of Latin America. It has defied all development prescriptions.

Why? Because Haiti’s culture is powerfully influenced by its religion, voodoo. Voodoo is one of numerous spirit-based religions common to Africa. It is without ethical content. Its followers believe that their destinies are controlled by hundreds of capricious spirits who must be propitiated through voodoo ceremonies. It is a species of the sorcery religions that Cameroonian development expert Daniel Etounga-Manguelle identifies as one of the principal obstacles to progress in Africa.

Voodoo is practiced mostly by poor Haitians, who make up the vast majority of the country’s population. But all Haitians feel its influence, as one of my sons-in-law, who is Haitian and holds a graduate degree from Harvard, assures me. Wallace Hodges, an American missionary who lived in Haiti for 20 years, observed: “A Haitian child is made to understand that everything that happens is due to the spirits. He is raised to externalize evil and to understand he is in continuous danger. Haitians are afraid of each other. You will find a high degree of paranoia in Haiti.”

But voodoo is not the only progress-resistant force at work in Haiti. The treatment of the slaves in French St. Domingue—the colony that would become independent Haiti in 1804— was particularly brutal. The Haitian slaves won their freedom through an uprising that left them in charge of their destiny, but they were left with a value system largely shaped by African culture and by the experience of slavery. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Arthur Lewis, himself a descendent of African slaves, wrote that those who had experienced it “have inherited the idea that work is only fit for slaves.”

What other factors contribute to Haiti’s endless nightmare? Bad leadership is one obvious candidate. With the exception of Alexandre Pétion (1806-1818), Haiti has never had a president fully committed to modernizing the country. (Once again, we are reminded of the parallels between Haiti and Africa.)

Some stress policies and institutions when they try to explain the country’s tortured history. But bad policies inevitably reflect the agendas of poor leaders—and thus the culture that nurtured them. Those of us who have worked at institution-building in countries like Haiti are well aware of the frustrations that attend such efforts, confirming the truth of Mr. Etounga-Manguelle’s observation: “Culture is the mother. Institutions are the children.”

Others cite the heavy indemnity that the French extracted from Haiti in 1825 for re-establishment of relations (originally 150 million francs over five years, later reduced to 60 million francs over 30 years) as a major cause of Haiti’s poverty. It is also true that for several decades after its independence, Haiti was ostracized by other Western Hemisphere nations, the United States among them, out of fear that Haiti’s successful slave rebellion would spread to their own slaves. U.S. policy was changed by Abraham Lincoln; official recognition was extended in 1862.

Still others argue that Haiti’s problems are largely the result of a mulatto upper class that identifies itself with the former French masters and treats black Haitians as inferior beings. But for a good part of Haiti’s history, black chiefs of state, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier among them, ran the country.

While these and other factors may be relevant, none of them, even collectively, adequately explains the unending dysfunction of Haitian society. Haiti’s predicament is caused by a set of values, beliefs and attitudes, rooted in African culture and the slavery experience that resist progress.

The Dominican Republic, which Haiti ruled between 1822 and 1843, has evolved as a more or less typical Latin American country with political instability and slow development. But even that slow development has clearly outpaced Haiti. The Dominican Republic is No. 79 on the U.N. Development Program’s Human Development Index, while Haiti is No. 146 (out of 177 countries).

Haiti has received far more development assistance than Benin, the country in the Dahomey region of West Africa whence came the slaves the French imported into St. Domingue. And yet today Haiti’s and Benin’s level of development are strikingly similar. The British imported slaves into Barbados from the same Dahomey region, but Barbados remained a British colony until 1966, by which time the descendents of the slaves had become black Englishmen. Today, Barbados is a stable democracy on the verge of First World status.

Culture matters. Race doesn’t.

Mr. Harrison, who ran the USAID mission to Haiti from 1977 to 1979, now directs the Cultural Change Institute at the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts University. He is the author of “The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save it from Itself” (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Posted in Current Events, Discerning the Times, cults, idolatry | Leave a Comment »

Ed Young’s Admissions Are More Damning Than The Original News Story

February 9, 2010 by John

from A Little Leaven:

On Saturday night Ed Young and two members of Fellowship Church’s Board of Directors took the stage to ‘set things straight and move on‘. There’s just one really big problem. The things that they admitted to are more damning than the original news story and only the most blind and unquestioningly loyal followers of Ed Young won’t see through the spin that was fed to them at Saturday’s dog and pony show.

According to Ed Young and Fellowship Church’s Board:

Admission 1. Ed Young doesn’t own a 10,000 square foot home. His home is ONLY 7,000 square feet.

A. Considering the fact that an average home in America is only 1,400 square feet that would mean that a 7,000 square foot home is equal to 5 average homes. In other words, 7,000 square feet is not small or meager. Instead, it is off the chain HUGE.

B. How much do you think a 7,000 square foot lake front home is worth in and around Ed Young’s neighborhood? Answer: under the current depressed real estate market conditions, homes of that size are currently running at the bargain price of $2 million to $3 million dollars, depending on lot size, location, features and view. Since Young had his custom built LAKE FRONT home constructed during the peak of the last real estate market it is highly likely that the original market value was upwards of $4 million dollars, however the assessed value of the home is listed at ONLY $1.5 million. But all this only us leads to the next question.

c. What about the $240,000 per year “parsonage” allowance? Young and his board did not address that issue at all. How can one make sense of that figure? If Young’s home only has a $1.5 million mortgage then his monthly payments would “ONLY” be $7,000 per month or $84,000 per year. (think about that figure for a minute…at a MINIMUM Ed Young pays nearly $84,000 per year for his mortgage). This then leads to the obvious question “what is Young doing with the other $156,000 of his “parsonage” allowance? Is he pocketing that? OR…..

Does Young have a higher mortgage than $1.5 million? A $240,000 parsonage allowance hints at a much higher mortgage, which would have been very likely during the time when the house was built. How high? Answer: $4 million. The monthly mortgage payments on a $4 million home are $20,000.

So Ed either has a much higher mortgage than he is letting on OR he’s set up some kind of shell and pea business deal and is pocketing more than half of his $240,000 per year “parsonage” allowance.

No matter how you slice it, by Ed Young’s own admission he lives in a HUGE, luxurious, custom built, lake front home. Those homes are never cheap.

Admission 2. Fellowship Church doesn’t own a private jet they’re only LEASING it.

Does leasing the private jet mean that Fellowship Church is paying next to nothing for Ed Young to fly to conferences and speak to other pastors? Not on your life!

Here are some pictures of the private jet that Fellowship Church is leasing as well as the standard interior of this model of aircraft. How much do you think it costs PER MONTH to lease an $8.4 million private jet? I’ll give the answer below. . . . .

read the full article HERE.

Posted in Another christ, Apostasy, Discerning the Times, Doctrine of Balaam, False Christians, False Prophets, Humanism, Mega Churches, Post-Modernism, Religious Babylon, Signs of The Times, Wolves, abominations, prophetic | 1 Comment »

False Teaching

February 8, 2010 by John

It is sad that the Assembly of God denomination itself is not listening to pastors like this!

from “The View from 1776″:

Asserting a doctrine as the Word of God doesn’t make it so.

Pastor Dan Gardner’s sermon at the Cohocton Assembly of God church was based upon a principle enunciated by the Apostle Paul:

You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. (Titus 2:1)

Moreover, we must walk the walk, not just talk it, as the Old Testament prophet Malachi told the descendants of Levi, roughly 400 years before the advent of Jesus Christ:

“And now this admonition is for you, O priests. 2 If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me. (Malachi 2:1-9)

3 “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4 And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the LORD Almighty. 5 “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

7 “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty. 8 But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the LORD Almighty. 9 “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

Today, as did the priests admonished by Malachi, too many preachers and others professing to impart God’s teachings are spreading false doctrine or ridiculing people who stand up for the Word of God. 

TV commentator Brit Hume, for example, was lambasted by the liberal-progressive media for suggesting that Tiger Woods would find more comfort and regain his moral path by accepting Jesus Christ as his savior than he evidently had found in Buddhism.  Liberal-progressive criticism, from putative Christian churches as well as from atheists and agnostics, was voiced in the name of toleration, which in the realm of secular materialism means that there can be no standards of morality. Religion is declared to be an unscientific “value judgment.” That is false doctrine amounting to worship of the political state and human reason as the sole route to truth.

Too many purportedly Christian ministers today have abandoned Christianity.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:6-9)

Those Christian-in-name-only ministers have reverted to the Social Gospel of the late 19th and early 20th century.  They intone the aims of Christianity, but invoke it in the name of servility to the socialistic political state.  Not the Bible, but an intellectual elite, is to be the source of morality.

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. (1 Timothy 4:1)

The result is a lack of balance between platitudes about helping people in in the abstract and the difficult path of individual moral responsibility.  Worship in such churches is as likely to advocate abortion, under the rubric of women’s rights, as to preach the Gospel of life and individual brotherly love.  For some, God is a broad concept, as easily viewed as Gaia the Mother Earth goddess, as the God of the Bible.  Too many of these preachers have forgotten the commandment to have no other gods and to worship only God.

They find it socially inconvenient to proclaim Jesus crucified for our sins and resurrected to give us eternal life.  Their preaching becomes self-gratification or grasping for money or power.  They need to follow the lead of the Apostle Paul:

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2)

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Preaching the truth means preaching from the authority of the Bible, the inspired Word of God.  The great throngs who followed Jesus during his ministry loved him and were inspired by him, because, unlike the Pharisees, he taught as one with authority, one who was the Word of God incarnate.  Ministers of the gospel, and we as individuals, must rest our thoughts and utterances in the Bible.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

He 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)

1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For 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. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

Posted in Another christ, Apostasy, Christian Living, Discernment, Emerging Church, Humanism, Post-Modernism, Signs of The Times, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

German Homeschoolers Granted Political Asylum in U.S.

February 8, 2010 by John

from The Local, Germany’s News in English:

An immigration judge in Nashville, Tennessee ruled that parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, and their five children, are free to stay in the US, where they have been since 2008, news agency AP reported late on Tuesday.

The parents, who came from the state of Baden-Württemberg, allege they were persecuted for their faith and defiance of Germany’s compulsory school attendance since those who do not comply face fines and jail time.

According to Uwe Romeike, his family was fined the equivalent of some $10,000 over two years, but could not afford to make payments after their court appeals failed.

“I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to choose the way their children can be taught,” Romeike told AP, later adding that German curriculum was increasingly “against Christian values.”

In October 2006, police forcefully took the family’s children to school in their home town of Bietigheim-Bissingen when they refused to do so themselves. One year later, the country’s high court ruled that in some similar cases the state could take children from their parents.

“We knew we had to leave the country,” Romeike, whose case was represented by the Home School Legal Defense Association, told the news agency.

The US government could appeal the court’s decision to allow the family to remain in Morristown, Tennessee. But advocates for the Romeikes on Wednesday celebrated their victory.

“This decision finally recognises that German homeschoolers are a specific social group that is being persecuted by a Western democracy,” Mike Donnelly, a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said in a statement.

“It is embarrassing for Germany, since a Western nation should uphold basic human rights, which include allowing parents to raise and educate their own children,” he said. “We hope this decision will cause Germany to stop persecuting homeschoolers.”

But German consul general for the southeastern US states Lutz Gorgens told AP in an email that German parents have a variety of choices, among them religious schools, which helps to maintain the country’s educational standards.

However, proponents of homeschooling have not been placated by the chance to have their children attend religious educational institutions.

In November 2009, another Christian couple was fined by a Kassel court for refusing to send their children to school.

The couple from the Hessian village of Archfeld bei Herleshausen has seven children between the ages of two and 17, who they told the court they had hoped to “give the Bible their unlimited trust” through lessons at home.

But after the trial concluded, the parents did not say whether they would obey the court’s orders.

Posted in Christian Living, Christian Persecution, Current Events, Discerning the Times, Humanism, Persecuted Church, Signs of The Times | Leave a Comment »

Biggest Bubble in History Is Growing Every Day

February 8, 2010 by John

from Bloomberg:

Real estate, stocks, credit. China sure has its share of bubbles. Oddly, little attention is paid to the biggest one of all.

China’s currency reserves grew by more than the gross domestic product of Norway in 2009. Its $2.4 trillion of reserves is a bubble all its own, one growing before our eyes with nary a peep out of those searching for the next big one.

The reserve bubble is actually an Asia-wide phenomenon. And we should stop viewing this monetary arms race as a source of strength. Here are three reasons why it’s fast becoming a bigger liability than policy makers say publicly.

One, it’s a massive and growing pyramid scheme. The issue has reached new levels of absurdity with traders buzzing about crisis-plagued Greece seeking a Chinese bailout. After all, if economies were for sale, China could use the $453 billion of reserves it amassed last year to buy Greece and Vietnam and have enough left over for Mongolia.

Countries such as the U.S. used to woo the Bill Grosses of the world to buy their debt. Now they are wooing governments. Gross, who runs the world’s biggest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., is still plenty important to officials in Washington. He’s just not as vital as the continued patronage of state asset managers in places like Beijing. . . . .

read the full article here.

Posted in Babylon, Current Events, Discerning the Times, Humanism, New World Order, Obamination, One World Government, Perplexity, Signs of The Times, Socialism, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

Exposing the Quantum Lie: God is NOT in Everything – DeWaay & Smith New Lecture Series

February 5, 2010 by John

from Lighthouse Trails Research:

A 4-DVD lecture series with Bob DeWaay and Warren B. Smith
The church and the world are being offered a new Christianity, and millions of people are buying into it. But when the outer layers of this New Spirituality are stripped away, what lies beneath is the Quantum Lie that started in the Garden of Eden. This deception will play out as the Bible predicts until the return of Jesus Christ to a world that has become completely deceived into believing that God is in everything.

DVD 1—Bob DeWaay: How Eastern mysticism has been repackaged and presented as a new way to know God.

DVD 2—Warren B. Smith: The Big Picture/A Wonderful Deception

DVD 3—Warren B. Smith: New Age Implications of The Shack, The Message and The Purpose Driven movement and the entrance of the Quantum Lie into the church

DVD 4—Bob DeWaay: Emergence Theory. How pantheism and panentheism have entered the church, convincing millions that this New Spirituality is exactly what the world needs to save itself

Bob DeWaay (B.A., North Central Bible Collage; M.A., Bethel Theological Seminary). Bob is the senior pastor of Twin City Fellowship in Minneapolis, MN, home of the Faith at Risk conferences. He is the author of Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose Driven Movement and The Emergent Church: Undefining Christianity. He is the founder of Critical Issues Commentary and is a frequent guest on KKMS 980am in the Twin Cities.

Warren B. Smith (B.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.S.W., Tulane University). Warren is a free-lance writer and community social worker who was formerly involved in the New Age movement. He is the author of Deceived on Purpose, The Light That Was Dark, Reinventing Jesus Christ, and A “Wonderful” Deception. Warren speaks frequently on radio and at conferences, warning against spiritual deception in the church.

Click here to order and for DVD Set Information (Available 2/25/2010 – Pre-Order Now)

Posted in Apostasy, Discernment, False Christians, Humanism, Panentheism, Post-Modernism, Signs of The Times, Synchretism, Wolves, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

Ed Young’s luxury lifestyle exposed

February 5, 2010 by John

from WFAA.com

Not long ago, the Fellowship Church in Grapevine was one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the nation.

Its pastor, Ed Young, was making national headlines by encouraging married couples to have more sex.

But since that time, sources say membership has waned and some say Pastor Young may have lost his way — putting himself and secrecy over God.

He’s splashy and hip; his message contemporary and cool. His marketing is  tops in the world of mega-evangelism, making huge waves with his sermon in 2008 titled “Seven Days of Sex.”

But in the past few months, it’s not theology but physics that may be impacting Young. Namely: What goes up must come down.

One former staff member who says he was close to Young but wishes not to be identified, described it this way: “The lack of accountability. The lavish lifestyle that keeps increasing, while the attendance keeps decreasing.”

Over the past few weeks, News 8 has been in contact with a number of individuals who were once close to Young at his massive Fellowship Church in Grapevine, disturbed by his direction and treatment of staff.

Young recently replaced his chief financial officer and replaced him with his personal attorney, business partner and fishing buddy, Dennis Brewer Jr.

With Brewer’s help and a complex series of business creations and transactions, Young is now jetting around the country in a French-made Falcon 50 private jet; estimated value, $8.4 million.

Records obtained by News 8 indicate Fellowship Church became the operator of the jet in March of 2007. News 8 discovered the jet parked in a hangar at Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth, tucked away where only a select few can see it.

Those who hear him preach every Sunday have never been told about the aircraft.

“The staff members are told that there is no plane, and several staff members who have actually been on the plane have denied that there is a plane,” said the former employee source.

Young, who declined an on-camera interview, told News 8 through a spokesman he “travels globally offering messages of inspiration and transformation to his peers and other pastors.”

He makes no mention of traveling in a personal jet.

But FAA records show that as soon as Young took possession of the jet in 2007, the aircraft logged a week-long trip to the Bahamas.

One month later, Young’s jet logged a six-day trip to Chetumal, Mexico, also known as the gateway to Belize.

But it’s not just the jet and the international travel the Young keeps out of sight.

News 8 has also learned that Young’s 10,000 square foot, $1.5 million estate on Lake Grapevine is not listed on the tax rolls in his name, but rather in the name of “Palometa Revocable Trust.”

Records show that Young was paid $240,000 a year as a parsonage allowance; that’s in addition what sources say is a $1 million yearly pastor’s salary.

Young declined to discuss his salary and compensation with News 8, but his spokesman said the pastor’s pay “is governed without his participation by an Independent Compensation Committee, relying on outside consultation with knowledgeable and experienced church leaders.”

News 8 has also learned that in 2007, Young sold the intellectual property of Fellowship Church’s marketing Web site, CreativePastors. He also sold the church’s membership mailing list to a newly-formed, for-profit company called EY Publishing.

Today, CreativePastors.com is used by the Youngs to sell his sermons and books for profit.

“When did the intellectual property, when did the preaching and the Bible notes and the books become intellectual property for the pastor?” asked Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation in Dallas.  ”That’s the property of the church.”

Anthony says he and his Trinity Foundation investigative team have been monitoring Ed Young for the past three years. He believes Young has fallen into the same trap as many other televangelists he has investigated over the years.

“But now he’s just bought in to greed in the name of God,” Anthony said.  “They are sanctifying greed, and that’s what’s so evil.”

In the past few years, Young and his attorney, Dennis Brewer Jr., have created a number of for-profit companies generating money apart from Fellowship Church, including: Creative Pastors, CreativePastors.com, Creality Enterprises, Creality Publishing, EY Publishing, Ed Young Resources and UOI Resources.

All the businesses list the fifth floor of Dennis Brewer’s law office in Las Colinas as their office address.

But the resources used to generate the profits come, in part, from the not-for-profit Fellowship Church.  For example, Ed’s favorite sermons that were delivered at the church.

SMU law professor Wayne Shaw is a former IRS agent who specializes in tax law. He says it’s not unusual for pastors to accrue wealth from church resources, but it must be disclosed and separate from any for-profit business.

“They’ve been given a very special duty, and they get benefits for getting that special duty, such as tax exemptions, charitable contribution deductions,” Shaw said.   “I think it’s owed to the public that there is transparency that the public sees that there is not something bad going on.”

According to Young’s spokesman, Larry Ross, “any transactions between the senior pastor and the church are conducted at arms-length with full disclosure to and approval by the board.”

No one is accusing Young of breaking any laws, but perhaps he is violating the covenant of honesty with his congregation.

When we asked Young specifically if he has a personal jet, his spokesman told us only that he travels using commercial, charter and leased aircraft, and that he reimburses the church for any personal trips.

Young’s spokesman also told News 8 his board approves all spending decisions, and their financial books are audited by an outside accounting firm.

Posted in Another christ, Apostasy, Discerning the Times, Doctrine of Balaam, Elitism, False Christians, False Prophets, Mega Churches, Prosperity Gospel, Religious Babylon, Signs of The Times, Wolves, abominations, prophetic | Leave a Comment »

Benjamin Crème’s Maitreya? American Hindu man worshipped as god

February 5, 2010 by John

for more on Maitreya you can go here.

Matthew 24:5

For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many

Luke 21:8

He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.

Mark 13:6; 21-22

Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect–if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

From The New York Times:

Raj Patel’s desk sits in a dusty, cement-floored nook in his garage, just beyond a parked gray Prius, near the washer and dryer. They are humble surroundings for a god.

“It is absurd to be put in this position, when I’m just some bloke,” Mr. Patel said.

A native of London now living on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, Mr. Patel suddenly finds himself an unlikely object of worship, proclaimed the messiah Maitreya by followers of the New Age religious sect Share International.

He was raised as a Hindu and had never heard of the group. He has no desire for deification. But he may not have a choice.

Mr. Patel’s journey from ordinary person to unwilling lord is a case of having the wrong résumé at the wrong moment in history. For this is a time when human yearning to find a magical cure for the world’s woes can be harnessed to the digital age’s instant access to a vast treasure-trove of personal information.

I have known Mr. Patel for four years — he keeps an office down the hall from mine. He is charming, and as a graduate of Oxford, Cornell University and the London School of Economics, he is considered brilliant, although he is self-effacing. He readily admits to being imperfectly human.

People began to believe otherwise on Jan. 14 in London when Benjamin Creme, the leader of Share International, who is also known as the Master, proclaimed the arrival of Maitreya. The name of the deity has Buddhist roots, but in 1972, Mr. Creme prophesied the coming Maitreya as a messiah for all faiths called the World Teacher.

Mr. Creme did not name the messiah, but he revealed clues that led his devotees to fire up their search engines on a digital scavenger hunt that would lead them to The One.

About this time Mr. Patel was publicizing his new economics book, “The Value of Nothing.” With blogging, biographies and talk show appearances, the details of his life and views permeated the Internet ether. Crowds packed his readings, his book debuted on the New York Times best-seller list, and he appeared on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central.

The Maitreya clues — his age (supposed to be born in 1972; Mr. Patel was), life experiences (supposed to have traveled from India to London in 1977; Mr. Patel was taken on a vacation there with his parents that year) race (supposed to be dark-skinned; Mr. Patel is Indian) and philosophies — all pointed to him. Some believe Maitreya will have a stutter. When Mr. Patel tripped over a few words when talking with Mr. Colbert, it was the final sign.

“It became a flood,” said Mr. Patel, referring to a torrent of e-mail messages that asked: “Are you The One?” He removed the contact information from his Web site, but dozens of pages, discussion groups and videos have emerged online proclaiming his holiness.

Mr. Patel has emphatically and publicly denied being Maitreya. Bad move. According to the predictions, “Maitreya will neither confirm, or will fail to confirm, he is Maitreya,” said Cher Gilmore, a spokeswoman for Share International.

Ms. Gilmore said Mr. Creme would not say if he believed Mr. Patel was the messiah.

Ben Shoucair, 24, a college student from Detroit, does not need more convincing. He said he saw Mr. Patel in a dream, and then was stunned to find a YouTube video and discover his vision was real. Last week, Mr. Shoucair and his father spent $990 on last-minute tickets to fly to San Francisco to be in Mr. Patel’s presence at a book promotion.

Reached by phone this week, Mr. Shoucair said meeting Mr. Patel had made him “happy.” He said the Maitreya evidence was irrefutable. “It puts it all on Raj Patel at this time in history.”

Mr. Shoucair seemed amazed when told that Mr. Patel did not believe he was the messiah and had never heard of Mr. Creme. “See how deep the spiritual world is,” Mr. Shoucair said.

Mr. Patel said of their pilgrimage: “It broke my heart. They’d flown all the way from Detroit.”

Share International’s beliefs are rooted in the Theosophical movement popular in Britain in the late-19th century; it later evolved into New Age beliefs, said Ted F. Peters of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Messiahs have been declared before, only to disappoint.

“It’s incredibly flattering, just for an instant,” Mr. Patel said of his unwanted status. “And then you realize what it means. People are looking for better times. Almost anything now will qualify as a portent of different times.”

Posted in Another christ, Babylon, Buddhism, Discerning the Times, False Prophets, One World Government, Post-Modernism, Religious Babylon, Signs of The Times, abominations, cults, idolatry, prophetic | 2 Comments »

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