True Discernment

“My Faith Teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want. But I wont be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work” - Barak Obama

Isaiah 5:20:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Mr. Obama considers going out and campaigning for the murder of live babies to be the “Lord’s Work”

Mr. Obama considers going out and campaigning for Homosexual rights to be the “Lord’s Work”

Of course he is doing the work of HIS “lord”: Satan!

from ChristianNewsWire:

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin recently stated that Christians should not evangelize during the Olympic Games as it is against the law. He recently talked to reporters in China while visiting communist officials. The Chinese government has stated that evangelism will not be tolerated during the Olympics.

The underground church thinks differently. “It is a matter of who heads the church and it is certainly not the government,” says Bob Fu, China Aid president in an interview with OneNewsNow. He believes the underground church welcomes evangelistic efforts.

4 Winds believes Christians should witness during the Olympics. Since the summer of 2006, 4 Winds has collected testimonies of potential Olympic athletes and has allowed outside groups to take them into the underground church, estimated to be over 100 million people.

Track and field athletes who have won many gold, silver, and bronze medals have had their testimonies put in the underground church. The athletes are not active in distributing them. More testimonies are being collected.

4 Winds president Steve McConkey states, “Underground church leaders asked to use the testimonies of the athletes. We hope that the Lord would use them.”

Athletes are not paid for their testimonies and the testimonies are not sold for publication. 4 Winds is located in Madison, Wisconsin and is an international evangelistic and teaching ministry involved in track and field.

Steve and his wife Liz have been in track and field ministries since 1981. They have ministered at the Olympics, the Olympic Trials, and the USA Championships. Steve was a former USA National Track and Field Club Coach from 1982 through 1992.

On evangelism during the Olympics, Steve believes “Christians should use caution and do as God leads.” 4 Winds is encouraging athletes not to change their routine during their preparation for the Olympic Trials that will be held from June 27 through July 6 in Eugene, Oregon.

The Trials will be held at Hayward Field, site of the 1972, 1976 and 1980 Olympic Trials. The largest national championship track meet in the world, the U.S. Olympic Trials hosts more than 1,000 athletes. More than 350,000 fans attended the last two Olympic Trials in Sacramento.

After athletes make the Olympic team, 4 Winds is encouraging athletes to concentrate on their performances at the Olympics. After their performances, win or lose, athletes are encouraged to share their faith through the media as they normally do every year.

“Athletes should not change who they are,” states McConkey. “These men and women love Christ and are not mean-spirited. We are asking Christians throughout the world to pray for all Christians who will go into China.”

4 Winds recently had an anti-boycott statement distributed throughout the United States. A boycott of the Olympics is not the answer as that would only hurt athletes. Also, “Jesus and the apostles went into challenging countries and did not boycott them.”

from msnbc:

Constitutional initiative drive under way in state to restrict unions

The California Supreme Court has overturned a ban on gay marriage, paving the way for California to become the second state where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

The justices released the 4-3 decision Thursday, saying that domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

“Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest,” the court said in a majority decision.

“Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.”

The cases were brought by the city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco’s monthlong same-sex wedding march, which took place at Mayor Gavin Newsom’s direction.

By James Alexander Stewart, D.D.

Satan is dishing out today in the Name of the Lord a potpourri evangelism.

The dictionary suggests, among other definitions, that pot-pourri means a “mixed pot with a bad odor.”

In 1940 I preached the message on “Hollywood Evangelism” which girdled the globe and which was read by a vast number. This message was a protest against a cheap vulgar “amateurish” evangelism which robbed the Christ of God of His dignity and reduced the glorious gospel to a message of entertainment. “Pot-pourri Evangelism” robs the gospel of its power and the Cross of its reproach.

I have waited again for someone to sound the alarm in God’s holy mountain.

The time has come when I can keep no longer silent. This loving message of warning burns within me. “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” I believe pot-pourri Evangelism is more sinister that “Hollywood Evangelism.”

As one of the Puritans quaintly expressed it, “The face of error is

highly painted and powdered so as to render it attractive to the

unwary.” Satan comes as a roaring lion to persecute, or as an angel of light, to patronize (1 Pet. 5:8; 2 Cor. 11:14). Satan as an angel of light is more to be dreaded than Satan as a roaring lion. A patronizing enemy is more dangerous than a persecuting enemy. John Bunyan warns us of this in his Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian had a hard fight with Appolyon in the Valley of Humiliation, and the enemy nearly overcame him; but the Sword of the Spirit in the hand of Christian put even his strong enemy to flight. Later, Christian and Hopeful, having been up the Delectable Mountains, and coming to a cross-way, stop and confer as to which road they shall take.

Presently a black man in a light robe asks the travelers the reason of their standing there. They tell him their perplexity, and are led by him, as they supposed, the right way. But, instead of conducting them aright, the black stranger has brought the travelers into the compass of a net, and they wake up to know the wiles of a flatterer.

We must beware of the flattery of the world in its commendation and patronage.

We must be more afraid of flattery from the camp of the enemy than persecution. Read the pages of Church history. Persecution never did the Church of God any harm, but compromise with the world has always robbed it of the power of its purity. Heroic Bishop Latimer knew this truth of persecution when, dying at stake, he turned to saintly Ridley with these blessed words, “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust will never be put out.” We must never forget that Satan as an angel of light is a most beautiful spectacle, and that is why so many dear saints are deceived. “Pot-pourri Evangelism” consists of two features: mixed evangelistic campaigns and mixed Christianity.

MIXED EVANGELISTIC CAMPAIGNS

By mixed evangelistic campaigns I mean the alliance of Modernistic and Evangelical churches together in an evangelistic effort. The devil is very religious and the world system he controls has its own worldly religion. In Deut. 22, verses 9 to 11, God has stated clearly His laws of separation:

“Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together. Thou shall not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.” The mixed seeds speak of mixed teaching.

The mixing of the ox and ass speaks of mixed service.

The mixture of wool and linen speaks of mixed conduct.

The message of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy is that God is a holy God and demands a holy people. The Israelites and their cattle were stamped with the marks of separation. By forbidding the intermingling of seeds, and animals, and garments, God teaches us the great eternal truth of sanctification. The Scripture abounds with

this blessed teaching. “No man can serve two masters: for either

he will hate the one, and love the other; else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matt.

6:24). Christ did not say that it is difficult but that it is IMPOSSIBLE to serve two masters.

“No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.

Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved” (Matt. 9:16-17).

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light and darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God: as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:14-17).

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet.

2:9).

You will remember the very solemn lesson we have in the experience of the Children of Israel. In Exodus 12:38 they flagrantly violated God’s holy command in allowing the mixed multitude to come out from Egypt with them.

This mixed multitude of uncircumcised people was a continual source of weakness and trouble to the saints of God. They caused them to stumble and fall and compromise their position as a holy people (Num.

11:4).

Thank God that during the times of reviving in the days of Nehemiah the saints dealt with this God-dishonoring compromise. When they rediscovered the law of God they separated the mixed multitude from Israel. They once again became a peculiar people unto the God Who had redeemed them. Remember, an unequal yoke makes for bad ploughing and crooked furrows.

HUMAN RELIGION

As one aptly said,

When religion gets up a revival, it must have from five to twenty churches of heterogeneous creeds and sectarian bodies go into a great union effort; it must have a mammoth choir with great musical instruments, and many preachers and multiplied committees, and each committee headed by some banker, judge, mayor, or millionaire’s wife.

It signs cards as a substitute for the broken-hearted cry of scriptural repentance. It must count its converts by the hundreds in a few days’ meeting. It must apologize for natural depravity. Human religion thinks it will conquer the world; it curls up its lips at the coming Jesus, thinks the world is growing beautifully better and is forever forming itself into fresh organizations of “leagues,”

“endeavors” and “brigades.” It denies holiness, ignores the omnipotent personal agency of the Holy Ghost, steers clear of all divine manifestations, is terrified at the supernatural in Grace, discounts personal testimony, is afraid of weeping, is terrified at a “hallelujah,” and thinks that the sobs of a penitent should be stifled with a lavender- scented handkerchief. Human religion’s enterprises have an atmosphere of earthliness about them. It despises the day of small things and scorns little humble people and lonely ways. It is easier to jump to the height of prosperity. Its music has no pathos in it, its laughter lacks divine cheerfulness, its worship lacks supernatural love, its prayers bring down no huge answers, it works no miracles, calls forth no criticism from the world, and it has no light of eternity in its eyes. It is a poor, sickly thing, born of the union of the heart of the world with the head of Christian theology–a mongrel, bastard thing with a backslidden church for its mother and the world for its father.

Oh, my dear brother and sister, never forget that this unnatural monster will be destroyed at the coming-again of our Blessed Lord Jesus. The above described human religion is the “mixed multitude”

with which evangelical fundamental churches sometimes find themselves allied in an evangelistic campaign.

MIXED CHRISTIANITY

In our Christian world today Satan has created a mixed Christianity by destroying the meaning of our evangelical terms and the great fundamental words of the gospel. He has also succeeded in removing the line of demarcation between the world and the redeemed. By defective gospel preaching and subtle usage of evangelical phrases, we have bastards and sons mixed together in evangelical circles (Heb.

12:8). By robbing the cross of its stigma, and failing to demand a supernatural experience in the “new birth,” many preachers have reduced the Message of the Cross to a meaningless Evangel.

It cannot be denied that there is a religious revival in America today. The Modernistic churches are in many cases full to capacity.

The Roman Catholic church is experiencing its greatest revival, while two of its leaders have once again been voted as among the ten most prominent figures in American life. False sects are “mushrooming”

everywhere and one of them can bring together one hundred and twenty-five thousand delegates daily for a week’s convention.

Along with this religious revival has come a wave of popularity for

so- called Evangelical Christianity. On the surface it seems very flattering encouraging, but in reality it is dangerous and deathly.

Almost everybody is religious. It is popular to be religious. It is fashionable to be a church member and even to talk about being saved.

(Of course the phrase “supernaturally born again” is not popular, because that demands a new creation in Christ Jesus as the result of a new birth.) Movie stars, popular entertainers, Disc Jockeys, Sportsmen, Mayors, and Politicians, all are fluent in talking about religion. It is not uncommon for one of these personalities to tell you to “go to [the] church [of your choice] on Sunday,” and “read

your Bible,” and “God is the only hope of America.” A story with a

religious slant will hit the front page.

A religious jazzy song will be among the ten top tunes in the Hit Parade. Our evangelical Christians seem to be thrilled and flattered when some ungodly outstanding figure of the world condescends to say something nice about the gospel. We have reached such a low state of spirituality that we are excited when a prominent personality professes conversion and speaks our evangelical vocabulary–even though his life shows no evidence whatsoever of the revolutionary change wrought by the gospel of Christ. We have so lost the vision of the power and dignity of our blessed Lord that we think it very wonderful when one of these unregenerated leaders “helps God out” in His great enterprise of evangelism.

SATAN’S STRATAGEMS

In the mixed corrupt Christianity we see Satan’s masterstroke exhibited.

The Protoevangelion of Gen. 3:15 describes the Conflict of the Ages, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. This battle will continue through the ages until Satan is finally cast into the Lake of Fire. The conflict goes on today. We must not be ignorant of his “wiles” (Eph. 6:11) Satan sought to destroy the seed royal to hinder the promise of God from being fulfilled. (See 2 Ki.

11:1-3.) The devil’s business now is to hinder the completion of God’s work for this age through the spread of the pure gospel. Both Paul and Peter warn us of the wiles of Satan in these last perilous days. “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” (2 Tim. 3:8). Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses by duplicating the work of God by satanic power (Ex. 7:10-12). This is exactly one of Satan’s wiles today.

R.B. Jones has left on record the following warning:

“Satan is not the enemy of Revival in itself. It would not be difficult to show historically that at times Satan, somehow aware of God’s purpose in this respect, has managed to forestall God by sending a counterfeit of the revival God intended. Also, when he had failed in forestalling, it could be shown how he has succeeded in troubling the stream of Revival, which though pure as crystal at its source at the throne of God, gradually became turbid and impure.”

Thus by counterfeiting, Satan hinders the believers praying for the real, supernatural, spontaneous outbreaking of the Spirit of God.

Blasphemous semi-evangelical songs with the music composed in Hell are the “hits” of the hour. What a violent contrast to the hymnology that was born in the great Revivals!

Satan hates the Cross, because the Cross is the symbol of his defeat.

The object of Satan’s attack has always been the Cross of Christ.

“And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15; see also Isa. 53:12).

His be the Victor’s name, Who fought the fight alone; Triumphant saints no honor claim, His conquest was their own.

Bless, bless the Conqueror slain, Slain in His Victory! Who lived, Who died, Who lives again, For thee, my soul, for thee!

In Exodus we have four strategies of Satan. The first suggestion is the most dangerous, and it is highly popular today: “Go sacrifice to God in the land” (i.e. “You don’t have to leave Egypt to serve your

God.”) Exodus 8:25.

In “Pot-pourri Evangelism,” the Cross is no longer the Church’s symbol of stigma and reproach (Gal. 5:11; 6:14). General William Booth, with great prophetic insight, stated over fifty years ago:

“The chief danger of the twentieth century, will be

Religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, Forgiveness without repentance. Salvation without regeneration, Heaven without hell.”

What would this man of God say to our day and generation regarding this new danger? Satan does not mind our worshiping and preaching a Cross without its stigma. He has garlanded the “Old Rugged Cross of shame and reproach” with bouquets of flowers from worldings who have never left his employment.

How different is the attitude of two godly bishops of the Church of England. “Oh God,” cried Bishop Taylor Smith, “we are neither fit for earth nor heaven, but only to be hung between on a cross!” Bishop J.C. Ryle rightly says, “A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity without a crown.” We are in grave danger when we court the applause of the world.

Think of how Paul bore the stigma of his message! “For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were, appointed to

death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.

Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day” (1 Cor. 4:9-13).

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned He stood,

Sealed my pardon with His blood:

Hallelujah! What a Saviour.

In “Pot-pourri Evangelism” there is very little emphasis on separation from this present evil age. The challenge of Mark 8:36 is unnecessary. The story of saving grace as described by Paul in Ephesians, chapter two, is meaningless in “Potpourri Evangelism.”

Puritan John Bunyan and Bishop John Commenius in their strikingly similar books, Pilgrim’s Progress and Labyrinth of the World portray a Christianity which is sheer nonsense to the friends of “Mixed Christianity.” “Vanity Fair” and “The Market Place of the World” are unrecognized places to many of the adherents of “Mixed Christianity.”

WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTURES?

The gospel will ever be foolishness unto the natural man (1 Cor. 1:18).

The gospel will always be unpalatable to the natural man (Isa.

53:2,3; Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14).

The natural man is unable to comprehend and appreciate the things of God (Jn. 3:10; 1 Cor. 2:14).

Christ crucified will always be a stumbling block and offense to the unregenerate man (1 Cor. 1:23).

The unregenerate man is dead and needs new life in Christ (Jn. 3:7; Jn. 5:24).

The unregenerate man can only be born again by the miraculous work of the Holy Ghost, resulting in a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

A regenerate man is a new creation in Christ Jesus and is delivered from this present evil age (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:12-13).

The regenerate man must bear the stigma of the reproach of the Cross of Christ (Gal. 2:20; Heb. 13:13).

The regenerate man will glory in all the implications of the Cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14).

THE TRUE MESSAGE

In closing, I feel that in order to counteract this “Pot-pourri Evangelism” we must emphasize three definite phases of the gospel Message.

First: Regeneration is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost which man himself cannot accomplish.

How can we believe in the latter part of John 6:37 and not believe the first part? “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing me of my sin and misery, enlightening my mind in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing my will, He did persuade and enable me to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to me in the gospel.

Second: We are saved from a life of sin to a life of holiness. The gospel is not just that Christ died to save us from the penalty of sin (Jn. 3:16).

That is only part of the gospel Message. What saith the Scriptures?

“Who gave Himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.” (Gal. 1:4).

“Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people” (Titus 2:14).

“Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.” Why? That He might save it from the future punishment of sin alone? No! “That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

(Eph. 5:27).

Salvation is more than a passport to Heaven; it is deliverance from the dominion of sin in this life (Titus 2:11-12).

Third: Receiving Christ as Saviour means repenting from sin and acknowledging Christ as Lord (Luke 13:3; Acts 11:18; Acts 17:30; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9).

Evangelical repentance is a breaking from the dominion of sin. True repentance is always accompanied by a heartlonging after holiness. It is a false gospel that divorces Christ the Saviour from Christ the Lord. The sinner is a rebel who must repent and lay down his arms of rebellion before the king of Kings. “Christ will save none but those who are brought to resign themselves sincerely to the obedience of His Royal authority and laws” (Walter Marshall, 1692). “God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” The gospel is not “believe on Jesus, and thou shalt be saved,” but “believe on THE LORD JESUS Christ and thou shalt be saved.” “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the LORD JESUS, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom.10:9).

As in “Hollywood Evangelism,” I plead for true evangelism in the old-fashioned way. Let us preach a full-orbed gospel, setting forth all the implications of repentance and forgiveness. Let us go outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

Our Lord is now rejected,

And by the world disowned;

By the many still neglected,

And by the few enthroned.

But soon He’ll come in glory!

The hour is drawing nigh,

For the crowning day is coming by and by.

Let all that look for, hasten

The coming joyful day,

By earnest consecration,

To walk the narrow way;

By gath’ring in the lost ones,

For whom our Lord did die,

For the crowning day that’s coming by and by.

. . . Into the Church

from Herescope:

How has the New Age morphed itself over the past 35 years since the public launching of “The Aquarian Conspiracy”?

Herescope readers can listen to a Steel on Steel broadcast hosted by John Loeffler on this topic. The following description is posted at www.steelonsteel.com/broadcasts.php:

05/10/2008
The New Age Morphing

Time to clear the decks for a conference call today. We haven’t done one in a long time so it’s overdue.

Almost thirty years ago Detroit attorney, Constance Cumbey, published a book entitled, /Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow/, warning of a major paradigm shift transforming politics and religion, moving us to a global blend of politics and pantheism, socialism with Christianity.

Many shrugged it off as a passing fad. Today the New Age has not only persisted and flourished, but is embraced by churches from Catholic to Pentecostal. How did so many people — especially pastors — miss the warning?

Our participants today are attorney Constance Cumbey (www.cumbey.blogspot.com), Warren Smith, author of The Light the was Dark,[*] Sarah Leslie (www.herescope.blogspot.com, plus Mitch and Machelle Wright.

John’s boralogue frames the entire hour and a half conversation.

Herescope readers can log in to the full recording for free by using the word “herescope” (all lower case) for both login and password when it requests member information.

To read about the history of the several evangelical “Consultations on the Future” referred to in this broadcast click on the archive months of September 2005 and October 2005. This post series begins with the amazing statement that: “Evangelical leaders were meeting together with New Age leaders openly by the late 1970s.”

The Truth:

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Romans 13:11)

No Surprise here!

from Bretibart:

John Hagee, an influential Texas televangelist who endorsed John McCain, apologized to Catholics Tuesday for his stinging criticism of the Roman Catholic Church and for having “emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews.”

Hagee’s support for McCain has drawn cries of outrage from some Catholic leaders who have called on McCain to reject Hagee’s endorsement. The likely Republican nominee has said he does not agree with some of Hagee’s past comments, but did not reject his support.

In a letter to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, Hagee wrote: “Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.”

Donohue, one of Hagee’s sharpest critics, said he accepted the apology and planned to meet with Hagee Thursday in New York.

“I got what I wanted,” Donohue said in an interview. “He’s seen the light, as they like to say. So for me it’s over.”

The controversy had threatened to pursue McCain throughout the campaign, potentially hurting his standing with Catholic voters. A majority of Roman Catholics voted for President Bush in the past two presidential elections, critical votes in close elections.

The letter came after Hagee met Friday for lunch in a French restaurant in downtown Washington with 22 influential religious activists, virtually all of them Catholics.

Hagee has cited the Inquisition and the Crusades as evidence of anti- Semitism within the Catholic church and has suggested that Catholic anti-Semitism shaped Adolf Hitler’s views of Jews.

“In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms, I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholics and Protestant relations with the Jews,” Hagee wrote. “In the process, I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church. It most certainly does not.”

Hagee has often made references to “the apostate church” and the “great whore,” terms that Catholics say are slurs aimed at the Roman Catholic Church. In his letter, Hagee said he now better understood that the Book of Revelation’s reference to the Catholic Church as “the apostate church” and the “great whore” are “a rhetorical device long employed in anti-Catholic literature and commentary.”

He stressed that in his use, “neither of these phrases can be synonymous with the Catholic Church.”

The remarkable 2 1/2-page letter was no doubt inspired by the political storm Hagee’s endorsement caused. Hagee leads a San Antonio, Texas, megachurch with a congregation in the tens of thousands. He has an even wider television audience.

When he endorsed McCain in late February, Donohue and other Catholic leaders demanded that McCain repudiate him. The Democratic National Committee also weighed in, highlighting Hagee’s remarks over the years. Some commentators even likened Hagee’s affect on McCain to the controversy Democrat Barack Obama faced as a result of the views expressed by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

McCain initially embraced the endorsement, eager to reach out to religious voters by securing the support of a prominent Christian conservative. But he was soon forced to put some distance with Hagee.

“It’s simply not accurate to say that because someone endorses me that I therefore embrace their views,” McCain told reporters at a March news conference in Phoenix. Then in April, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain said: “Any comments that he made about the Catholic Church I strongly condemn, of course.”

During the early primaries, McCain won strong support from Catholic voters. But Hagee threatened to become an issue heading into the general election.

Donohue said Hagee, by offering his apology now, may have defused a potential problem from the Arizona senator.

“Had this happened after Labor Day I think it would have been an insurmountable problem for McCain to reach out to Catholics,” Donohue said. “Now, with this behind him, I think the raised eyebrows in the Catholic community will begin to normalize.”

In a statement posted in the Catholic League’s Web site, Donohue added: “What Hagee has done takes courage and quite frankly I never expected him to demonstrate such sensitivity to our concerns.”

from The Christian Post:

Weak preaching and cultural adaptability are just two of many reasons Southern Baptists give to explain the decline of membership and baptisms.

“[T]he shallow state of preaching has exacerbated the lethargy of the church and left the lost with no real Word from God,” said Paige Patterson, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in a column in Baptist Press.

“The pastor ought to be the major source of theological understanding and the most able teacher of the Bible,” he added.

“Anemic pulpits create anemic churches and denominations.”

Since the release last month of the latest data on Southern Baptist membership and baptisms, both of which declined, Southern Baptists have speculated why the largest Protestant denomination in the country has been seeing lower numbers.

“Well, the time has come to identify the real problems,” said Patterson.

Many church leaders have been calling for change to respond to what many identify as a shift from modern to postmodern culture. And the latest statistics showing shrinking numbers has made that call even more urgent. But cultural relevance has led many churches to lose the holiness of God and a thirst to be like God, Patterson noted.

While acknowledging the theological dangers of adapting to culture, Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research and a Southern Baptist, believes that rather than some churches going too far, the bigger problem is that churches haven’t gone far enough.

“They’re still sitting back doing church from the ’50s,” he said.

Patterson, a prominent conservative Southern Baptist, said he is the first to admit that “dullness and ‘Baptist tradition’ were too often the rule in our churches.” But the suggestion that churches must chase after culture in order to be effective in evangelistic efforts is “misguided,” he said.

“The more attune to culture Southern Baptists have become and the more we have incorporated the world into our worship, the more our baptisms have dropped!” Patterson noted. “Although I am not certain that there is a connection, as will become evident in what follows, I admit that I am suspicious.”

Conservatives have not yet seen the revival that they hoped for following the “conservative resurgence” or what some opponents call “fundamentalist takeover” that began in the 1960s. But Patterson highlighted that they have not abandoned that hope and stressed the importance of not abandoning doctrine.

To be unapologetically Baptist – embracing the exclusivism of Christ in salvation, the inerrancy of God’s Word, and the concept of a regenerate church witnessed by baptism and disciplined to live for Christ – may come off as being “mean-spirited” to the world, especially when opposing abortion and the practice of homosexuality, and doctrinal clarity is not popular in the world, the conservative leader admitted. But when following Christ and the Bible, Baptists have no choice about what they endorse and what they reject, he said.

Among other major causes Patterson listed for the Southern Baptist Convention’s downturn are prayerlessness and a failure to share Christ individually on a consistent basis.

“The great need is for us to sense our spiritual poverty, seek God’s face, and do His bidding. Folks, it is really that simple,” he said.

Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination’s lowest level since 1987, dropping nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, according to LifeWay Christian Resources’ Annual Church Profile (ACP). Total membership also declined by 0.24 percent to 16,266,920.

from The August Review:

The most powerful of the latter-day pagan gods that have guided the destinies of humanity for the past two-score years is irredeemable debt. Before August 14, 1971, debts were obligations, and the word “bond” was to mean literally what it said: the opposite of freedom. The privilege of issuing debt had a countervailing responsibility: that of repayment.

On that fateful day all that was changed by a stroke of the pen. President Richard Nixon embraced the woolly theory of Milton Friedman and declared the irredeemable dollar a monad, that is, a thing that exists in and of itself.

According to this theory the government has the power to create irredeemable debt - debt that never needs to be repaid yet will not lose its value - subject only to a “quantity rule”, for example, it must not be increased by more than 3% annually. This idea is so preposterously silly that “only very learned men could have thought of it”.

If the thief is thieving modestly, then he will not be detected. It never occurred to the professors of economics and financial journalists that a modest thief is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. How did they get to believing in irredeemable debt? The explanation is most likely found in Schiller’s dictum: “Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable. But taken as a member of a crowd - he at once becomes a blockhead.” Economics professors and financial journalists are no exception.

For a time it appeared that Friedman was right. The world has become dedicated to the proposition that it is possible, even desirable, to expand irredeemable debt in order to make the economy prosper. Never mind the default of the US government on its bonded debt held by foreigners. Never mind people victimized by theft. Thanks to the quantity rule, they will never notice the difference.

For all its seductive attractiveness, Friedmanite economics is ignoring the effect of irredeemable debt on productivity. It watches debt per GDP and is happy as long as this ratio stays below 100% by a fair amount. However, what should be watched is the ratio of additional debt to additional GDP. By that indicator the patient’s condition could be diagnosed as that of pernicious anemia. It set in immediately after the US dollar debt in the world was converted into irredeemable debt.

The increase in GDP brought about by the addition of $1 of new debt to the economy is called the marginal productivity of debt. That ratio is the only one that matters in judging the quality of debt. After all, the purpose of contracting debt is to increase productivity. If debt volume rises faster than national income, there is big trouble is brewing, but only the marginal productivity of debt is capable of revealing it.

Precipitous decline
Before 1971, the introduction of $1 new debt used to increase the GDP by as much as $3 or more. Since 1971, this ratio started its precipitous decline that has continued to this day without interruption. It went negative in 2006, forecasting the financial crisis that broke a year later. The reason for the decline is that irredeemable debt causes capital destruction. It adds nothing to the per capita quota of capital invested in aid of production. Indeed, it may take away from it. As it displaces real capital, which represents the deployment of more and better tools, productivity declines. The laws of physics, unlike human beings, cannot be conned. Irredeemable debt may only create make-belief capital.

By confusing capital and credit, Friedmanite economics obliterates truth. It makes the cost of running the merry-go-round of debt-breeding disappear. It makes capital destruction invisible. The stock of accumulated capital supporting world production, large as it may be, is not inexhaustible. When it is exhausted, the music stops and the merry-go-round comes to a screechy halt. It does not happen everywhere all at the same time, but it will happen everywhere sooner or later. When it does, Swissair falls out of the sky, Enron goes belly-up, and Bear Stearns caves in.

The marginal productivity of debt is an unimaginative taskmaster. It insists that new debt be justified by a minimum increase in the GDP. Otherwise capital destruction follows, a most vicious process. At first, there are no signs of trouble. If anything the picture looks rosier than ever. But the seeds of destruction inevitably, if invisibly, have sprouted and will at one point paralyze further growth and production. To deny this is tantamount to denying the most fundamental law of the universe: the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter.

The captains of the banking system in effect deny and defy that basic law. They are leading a blind crowd of mesmerized people to the brink where momentum may sweep most of them into the abyss to their financial destruction. Yet not one university in the world has issued a warning, and not one court of justice allowed indictments to be heard from individuals and institutions charging that the issuance of irredeemable debt is a crude form of fraud, calling for the punishment of the swindlers issuing it, whether they are in the Treasury or in the central bank. The behavior of universities and courts in this regard could not be more reprehensible. Rather than acting to protect the weak, they act to cover up plundering by the mighty.

The inconspicuous beginnings of irredeemable debt have blossomed into a colossal edifice, a fantastic debt tower that is bound to topple upon the prevailing complacency and apathy. Actually “tower” is a misnomer. Rather, what we have is an inverted pyramid, a vast and expanding superstructure precariously balanced on a tiny and ever-shrinking gold foundation - the only asset in existence with power to reduce gross debt.

The construction has no precedent in history, and no place in theory, whether Ricardian, Walrasian, Marxian, Keynesian or Austrian. As a matter of fact, no one is analyzing the process. Research has been placed under taboo by the powers that be, lest diagnosis reveal the presence of cancer caused by irredeemability. There is no known pattern or model that would apply to its mechanism in terms of equilibrium analysis.

Two negative conclusions emerge. One is that the edifice of irredeemable debt must grow at an accelerating pace as markets for derivatives providing “insurance” to holders of debt proliferate. The insurer of debt must also be insured, as must the insurer of the insurers, and so on, ad infinitum. This is due to the fact that the risk of collapsing bond values has been created by man. In contrast, the risk of price changes of agricultural commodities are created by nature, and the futures market provides insurance, with no need to re-insure. The other conclusion is that the unwieldy size of the debt structure excludes the possibility of a normal correction: a major liquidation would dwarf the calamities of the Great Depression.

The debt delusion
It is a delusion to think that the government can splatter debt all over the economic landscape to cover up its warts, and reap everlasting prosperity as a result. The stimulation and leverage of debt has always caused stock markets to boom, so that the impact of debt was aided and magnified by the added paper wealth which, in turn, increased the propensity to spend and borrow still more.

Businessmen are supposed to be more realistic in contracting debt. Yet the pattern of increase in corporate debt has also changed tremendously. Whereas traditionally corporations used to finance their capital needs in a ratio of $3 in debt for every $1 in stock, in the years leading up to 1971 they issued $20 in debt for every $1 in stock, with the ratio sky-rocketing thereafter.

We hear arguments that economists have by now learned how to control the economy with the so-called built-in stabilizers. Debt has largely lost its sting as a consequence, we are told. For example, bank deposits can now be insured. They couldn’t in the 1930s. But when the government itself is loaded with debt, and runs boom-time deficits, the built-in stabilizers may backfire and destabilize the economy further.

The government has commitments so great that its endeavor to offset a depression in our vast economy can only result in a loss of confidence. Anxious withholding of purchasing power in the private sector could far outweigh anything the government can add. To make matters worse, government income is highly dependent on a prosperous economy. The magnitude of the problem of offsetting a depression is grossly disproportionate to resources available.

One of the marks of great delusions is that nearly everyone tends to share them. It is a sorry tale - any delusion gives rise to a rude awakening in due course. Public attitudes to debt have changed so radically since 1971 that today indebtedness is practically a status symbol, instead of the shameful condition it used to be in a bygone era. The most striking reversal in traditional American attitudes towards debt is the widespread acceptance of perpetual national indebtedness, copied by perpetual personal indebtedness - a never-ending lien on future income.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the regime of irredeemable debt is the lowest level of morals followed by governments in modern history. It is epitomized by an elaborate check-kiting (using a bad check to get money) conspiracy between the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

Treasury bonds, contrary to appearances, are no more redeemable than Federal Reserve notes. It’s all very neat: the notes are backed by the bonds, and the bonds are redeemable by the notes. Therefore each is valued in terms of itself, rather than by an independent outside asset. Each is an irredeemable liability of the US government. The whole scheme boils down to a farce. It is check-kiting at the highest level.

At maturity the bonds are replaced by another with a more distant maturity date, or they are ostensibly paid in the form of irredeemable currency. The issuer of either type of debt is usurping a privilege without accepting the countervailing duty. They issue obligations without taking any further responsibility for their fate or for the effect they have on the economy. Moreover, a double standard of justice is involved. Check-kiting is a crime under the Criminal Code. That is, provided that it is perpetrated by private individuals. Practiced at the highest level, check-kiting is the corner-stone of the monetary system.

But our world is still one of crime and punishment, tolerating no double standard. The twilight of irredeemable debt is upon us. The sign is that banks are reluctant to take the promissory notes of one another. Significantly, this also includes overnight drafts. The banks know there is bad debt at large, and they don’t want to be victimized by taking in some inadvertently. What the banks don’t yet know, but will soon learn, is that all irredeemable debt is bad debt, and there is no way to rid the system of poison through administering more.

Redeemability of debt is not a superfluous embellishment. It has a function of fundamental importance: the proper allocation of resources to the different channels of their utilization.

The obligation to redeem debt hangs as the sword of Damocles over the government, just as it does over the head of every economic participant. It compels economy and foresight. It forces balancing of income and expenditures. It adjusts claims and commitments. It limits expansion by shifting resources away from the incompetent, and away from unhealthy projects.

The regime of irredeemable debt creates an escape route from commitments by the promise of eliminating the pressure of solvency. Whether it promises eternal prosperity, or it promises eternal subsidies, it does not matter. The results are the same. They consist in misleading people, enticing them to skate on thin ice, and luring them into financial adventures, private or public, which are not warranted by the ability to pay. The logical consequence is wholesale bankruptcy of individuals as well as that of the political setup. Losses breed more losses, until they become an avalanche. The present crisis is just the first sign of that denouement. More is on the way.

It is still possible to escape the catastrophe which this process would entail. The way out is to open the US Mint to gold and silver, as advocated by presidential candidate Ron Paul. The logic of this remedy is that it would mobilize potentially unlimited resources, presently tied up in idled gold, and re-introduce the indispensable means of debt-retirement into the economy.

Failing to bring gold back, where are we heading? The short answer is: we are marching into the death-valley of collectivism. The alternative to re-introducing redeemable currency is that the debt behemoth will force the imposition of a capital-levy type of taxation - along the lines of Solon, back in the Athens of 594 BC.

“Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” –Jeremiah 1:9-10

A church can wither as surely under the ministry of soulless Bible exposition as it can where no Bible is given at all. To be effective, the preacher’s message must be alive–it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God’s present voice to a particular people. Then, and not until then, is it the prophetic word and the man himself, a prophet.

To perfectly fulfill his calling, the prophet must be under the constant sway of the Holy Spirit. Further, he must be alert to moral and spiritual conditions. All spiritual teaching should relate to life. It should intrude into the daily and private living of the hearers. Without being personal, the true prophet will nevertheless pierce the conscience of each listener as if the message had been directed to him or her alone. This World: Playground or Battleground?, 85-86.

“Lord, I pray that my preaching and teaching might never become routine. Keep me fresh; keep me under the ‘constant sway of the Holy Spirit;’ keep me alert and alive always. Amen.”