Journalists like Cokie Roberts admit that they’ve known for years about how wicked that serial sexual harasser Representative Conyers is but they did nothing. Nancy Pelosi knew as well, and she has aggressively protected other predators like Bill Clinton. But those politicians help keep abortion legal, they helped bring in more illegal aliens that take jobs and suppress wages for the low income folks that the Left pretends to care about, they help mainstream perversions and more.
And those are women who have hidden these things. They valued their own wealth and power over all else. Surprise! They care as much about the average woman as they do minorities, the poor, etc.
They just now pretend to realize that, by their standards, Bill Clinton is a rapist. Of course, they still ignore how Hillary was his great enabler in trying to further destroy his victims, and they insult us all by acting as if we’ll believe that they would have had these realizations about Bill had Hillary won. It is a transparent and desperate attempt to attack President Trump.
And are “Christian” Leftist feminists so naive and ignorant as to not realize these truths, or are they malicious partisans? People like Rachel Held Evans went on for days about Roy Moore. I’m not a fan of his, but allegations that he did things 40 years ago as a Democrat that just happen to come out a month before an election drive Mrs. Evans et al into full “Oh, the humanity” mode. Yet they are completely silent on Conyers, Franken et al and, more importantly, the wicked cover-ups and enabling by people like Pelosi and Cokie Roberts.
While most of these perverts and abusers (Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Harvey Weinstein, John Conyers, Al Franken, Matt Lauer, George Stephanopoulos, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose and so many more) and enablers (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Cokie Roberts and countless other journalists, politicians and entertainers) are Lefitsts, I realize that Republicans have their share of bad guys, too (just a lot less of them). But you don’t see any Leftists having to defend their equivalent of the “Pence Rule.” People like Mrs. Evans couldn’t stop complaining about how awful the VP’s standards are for women. They’ve even tried to keep those criticisms up as this tsunami of Leftist perverts has hit them. They are truly shameless. Does it ever occur to them that the conservative principle of having smaller government would help rein in these injustices? Less power = less opportunities for corruption.
Keep those frauds in mind the next time the Left wrings their hands about a supposed “war on women” from Republicans just because we oppose killing children to their first breath. Those Molech-worshiping ghouls of the Left — including the “Christian” Left — will fight for that above all else. Conservatives will critique the Left and the Right, including highlighting Trump’s errors, but the Left is all in for their perverse agenda. Just keep going through the giant list of perpetrators and enablers — who were key leaders in politics, media and entertainment — and mock them for trying to lecture you on morality.
Public school teachers, who are mostly Leftists, are getting mugged by reality. Why? Because the Obama administration’s Department of Education required equal racial outcomes for student discipline. Of course, student behavior is similar to criminal behavior in that it is much more dependent on home life (i.e., no solid male presence at home) than race. Via School discipline issues reach fever pitch as districts fear the racial bean counters:
The bane of “racial proportionality,” which in many ways personified the Obama administration, continues to burden school districts across the country.
Over the last decade, school officials have loosened the “discipline grip,” so to speak, out of fear their schools’ racial percentages may not be viewed as “correct” by government bureaucrats.
Ironically, it’s that very reliable Democratic voting bloc — teachers — which have borne the brunt of this slackening, which no doubt explains why even they frowned upon the previous Department of Education’s race-based “discipline” measures.
Take a recent story from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: City schools have lost almost four dozen teachers since July due to what they deem as “an unprecedented level of misbehavior among children” . . .
So whenever a student misbehaves the teachers must clairvoyantly know the racial discipline ratios to date for their school and/or district to know if they can punish the student. And you can imagine how quickly the students will pick up on that. If they know the minority quotas have been achieved then they can do almost anything without getting punished.
Maybe the teachers will reconsider their political views. The elites don’t care if teachers suffer as long as they prop up the charade that disparate outcomes are always driven by discrimination.
And what about the poor students who can be victimized at will by those who aren’t permitted to be punished? Hopefully their parents will protect them by home schooling or at least protesting — and voting for true conservatives!
And this would be a good time to remind the elites of the one set of disparate outcomes that they ignore: Blacks are aborted at three times the rate of whites and Hispanics at twice the rate. Why not oppose abortion because of that?
This is one of the many reasons we should eliminate the Department of Education to save money and improve schools. Polices like this are transparently ridiculous and, ironically, racist at their core. Parents should know that if their children chronically misbehave then the rest of us are under no obligation to fund their education.
Are you equipped to answer those questions in a clear, winsome and biblical way?
I actually got an email with those two questions in the subject line. The sender was a guy from a Sunday school class I was teaching. He attended with his wife, who was a committed believer, but he was a skeptic. We ended up having a great conversation about the real Gospel, the importance of reading the Bible, etc. (We ended up leaving that church so I’m not sure of his current beliefs. But I trust the process.)
Those are the ultimate softball questions for Christians, right? They recognize that you believe in Jesus, they are interested in the reasons and they want to know how to do it as well. Not all encounters will be that tailor made, but my question is this: Are you ready to give effective answers to those questions? If you aren’t then you need to equip yourselves starting now.
I always start any evangelism / apologetics training with that anecdote. I want people to get away from thinking that evangelism is only about knocking on doors (not that there is anything wrong with that) and pushing through hostile encounters (Jesus gave us the pearls before swine commandment in Matthew 7:6 for a reason). I want people to be prepared, but not to give up before they start.
I highly recommend reading this book and having extra copies to share with people. You will learn how to give an effective presentation of the Gospel, explain the main themes of the Bible and Christianity and address common objections.
P.S. There was an interesting side note with the email. The guy was a trustee of a 3,000 person Methodist church at the time. They didn’t even know he was an explicit non-believer. I knew the church had agnostics in other roles who thought they are Christians, but this guy knew his real spiritual status. Maybe churches should get to know their leaders first, and as a bonus, their members. /sarcasm
. . . is that it will make it easy to spot wolves. It is bad as The Message, just for different reasons. From GotQuestions.org:
The most important problem with The Passion Translation of the Bible (TPT) is actually found in its name—specifically, the term translation. In truth, The Passion Translation is a re-worded and re-written Bible, apparently intended to support a particular strain of theology. If the same material was marketed as a “commentary” or as a “study guide,” it would still be concerning. As it is, The Passion Translation cannot honestly be called a translation or even a paraphrase. The TPT goes well beyond the idea of “translation” and reimagines the Bible as one human author thinks it ought to be written.
The article goes on to list many of the places where the book makes huge translation errors to fit bad theology. It was written by one guy, which a red flag. But here’s the biggest problem to me: The author, Brian Simmons, insists that his changes were divinely inspired.
The work, according to Simmons, was commissioned directly by the Lord in a spiritual encounter. Simmons explained that in the encounter, God breathed upon him and spoke to him, clearly commissioning him to do this work. Jesus promised Simmons he would help him, there would be persecutions and misunderstandings because of the work, but he would be with him.
Until recently I was a fence-sitter on the continuation/cessation of spiritual gifts debate topic, never really researching it enough to pick a side. My position was that while the gifts could continue, I’d never seen them done properly (e.g., those enamored with the gift of tongues never obeyed the handful of verses governing their use, the faith healers were obvious fakes, etc.). Other than some “sloppy God talk” that I’ve addressed many times, I never went to a church where leaders took things too far (e.g., the Benny Hinn / Bill Johnson – Bethel / etc. nonsense). And most importantly, I didn’t understand that the point of cessationism isn’t that all gifts ceased, just the apostolic gifts.
But in a very real and relevant sense, both sides are cessasionists, just with one side being less so than the other. Many who believe in the continuation of the “sign” gifts (healings, tongues, prophecies) are very sound when it comes to the essentials of the faith, the inerrancy of scripture, etc. , yet they concede that many things have indeed ceased since the 1st century. Consider these:
The canon of scripture is closed. Even when you point out the claims made by books like Jesus Calling, which insist that the authors heard directly from Jesus, the continuationists don’t think that anything should be added to the Bible.
The New Testament-style healings have ceased. The healings of Jesus and his apostles were vastly different from what charismatics claim to do today. Biblical healings were 100% successful, immediate and public. The continuationists explicitly redefine “healings” to be private, partial and not always successful — and of course, dependent on the faith of the healer and/or the sick person.
Things like Philip’s miraculous transportation to see the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 ceased. If Charismatic leaders thought that sort of thing continued they wouldn’t ask for money to buy top end jets.
Things like Paul’s encounter with the snake in Acts 28 have ceased. Wait, I take that back . . . some Pentecostal pastor did try to replicate that. And died.
Church discipline a la Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 has ceased. Ironically, if it hadn’t ceased, these Charismatic leaders would be the first to be slain for lying about the Holy Spirit.
The office of apostle has ceased. Even charlatans like Bill Johnson and Bethel don’t embrace the “New Apostolic Reformation” tag (although their buddies consider them part of it).
The gift of foreign language tongues has ceased. In Acts 2, people miraculously spoke in foreign languages that they previously didn’t know, and the other references to tongues use the same terms. Continuationists explicitly redefine what “speaking in tongues” means because none of them have that gift of speaking in foreign languages. That is why their “tongues” aren’t recognizable to anyone.
Infallible prophets ceased. Continuationists explicitly redefine what prophecy is to allow for the obvious errors of their “prophets.” In the Bible, prophets had to be 100% right 100% of the time – and the penalties for being wrong were severe. The charismatic “prophets” readily concede many errors and can’t name a single infallible prophet among them, yet they cling to their belief that their random correct “prophesies” are divinely inspired. They have to ignore 2 Peter 1:21 and more to do that (For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit).
The receiving of gifts has also been redefined. In the Bible, the gifts were immediate and full. With the continuationists you usually need to be trained to heal, prophesy or speak in tongues — hence the Harry Potter Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (it makes up for its cost by being unaccredited).
That is a significant list of things that we agree have ceased or significantly changed. So there is no debate with these folks that some things have ceased, just about what other things have ceased.
And I think it is significant that, as noted above, they have had to redefine healings, tongues and fallibility of prophets from the original biblical definitions and even the nature of what a gift is. That is a huge liability for them. If the three main things they focus on don’t resemble what we see in the Bible and now you have to be trained in the “gifts,” have they truly continued?
And even with the redefined gifts, did they really continue? No. History is clear that they did not, so the continuationists need to twist scripture to say that they did cease for 19 centuries but are back now. Again, most agree that even the redefined gifts didn’t exist during that time frame.
Other considerations:
If babble tongues (my term for non-real foreign language tongues) is a gift of the spirit, why do some fringe Catholics and many other non-Christians practice them? Since when does the Holy Spirit give supernatural gifts to non-believers?
These healing ministries unwittingly breed contempt for those without enough “faith” to be healed. The sick and hurting people feel pressure to at least show some improvement so they don’t let the healers down or give “evidence” of a lack of faith. Then groups like Bethel chalk up those improvements (not even full healings) as miracles.
John Piper acknowledged that one charismatic leader was completely wrong about multiple prophecies about him, but then was impressed when the guy got one right about someone else. But the prophecy was about a guy who was nervous about whether a visa was going to come through. How do people like Piper forget about Satan and his demons?! The man’s visa issues were easily known to the demons, and the “prophet” got one right. So what? But Piper et al have let the charismatics’ redefinition of a prophet stand, so they can’t be dismissed even when they get loads of prophesies wrong. It is hard to believe they can get such a simple thing so wrong.
If the gifts have really continued, why would the charismatics have to argue for their position and not just show us with legitimate signs and wonders?
The sign gifts were to demonstrate the authority of the Apostles or those under them. 2 Corinthians 12:12 The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
These gifts weren’t mentioned in the Epistles after the end of 1 Corinthians, which was one of the earliest letters.
The signs and wonders were already phasing out towards the end of the Book of Acts. The last recorded miracle was when Paul cured someone from a stomach ailment on the Isle of Malta. When Timothy had stomach ailments Paul didn’t send a piece of fabric he had touched, he just told Timothy to drink some wine.
So many things have ceased and even those that allegedly continued have significantly different definitions, which would make them more like new gifts — if real — than continued ones. How is that biblical?
One of the biggest problems with the continuationist/charismatic movement is that it conditions people to look outside the Bible for new revelations and experiences. It also encourages people to speak for God when He hasn’t spoken. And it makes newer believers question their faith unnecessarily since God isn’t “speaking” to them that way. Those things are dangerous and blasphemous. The movement claims to be all about the Holy Spirit but they ignore what He really does and fixate on things that He doesn’t do. Giving lip service to the Bible while constantly seeking experiences and allegedly new revelations from God is not Christianity.
Eternity Matters 