Protestia

Author: Staff Writer

  • SBC Megachurch Justifies ‘Willy Wonka Christmas Worship Service’ with Stupidest Bible Twisting Ever

    SBC Megachurch Justifies ‘Willy Wonka Christmas Worship Service’ with Stupidest Bible Twisting Ever

    Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, FL, an 8000- member Southern Baptist megachurch, continues its celebration of all things fleshly. Known for their extravagant attempts to keep their members entertained, in the past few months alone, they played a cover of Run D.M.C’s sleazy and sexual song Walk this Way in church, as well as performed Kendrick Lamar’s N95, only cleaned up and sanitized for church audiences, removing the curse words and racial epitaphs for a sermon illustration.

    Now, as part of their worship service earlier today, immediately after a rendition of Hark the Herald Angel Sing, demonstrating how creative and relevant they are, they perform a modified version of Bow Wow Wow’s I want Candy with a Willy Wonka theme, seamlessly interchanging between “Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth” with “I know a guy who’s tough but sweet. He’s so fine, he can’t be beat. I want candy. I want candy.”

    This is not part of the sermon illustration, but rather is purely meant to entertain, with the senior pastor and Chief Entertainer David Hughes previously explaining that they are a “hyper-creative church”, and they embrace a “whatever it takes” mentality in order to “entice a lot of families to come check out our church.” He reveals after the show:

    Welcome to this… I don’t know what to call this anymore. I really don’t. The team does such a great job. Give it up for our creative people, if you would-thank you guys, for making this so much fun.

    I guess technically we’d call it a service, it’s a worship service, that’s kind of short for worship service, a service, our Christmas service. But it’s an experience. It’s a Christmas experience. It’s now an event. In fact, I love my friends who don’t do church a lot, the last few years they say, “David, what time are your Christmas shows? What time of your Christmas shows?”

    And it used to be I try to reframe that “no, it’s actually a worship..-” Guess what? It’s a show. Yes. Welcome to our Christmas show. And if you’re deeply spiritual that offends you, like we shouldn’t have show. No. We should have a show.

    The church should have a show- every weekend we should have a show. I’ll tell you why. For my super spirituals right now, don’t log off, because Jesus promised and Matthew’s Gospel that anytime two or three or more would gather in his name, he would SHOW.

    Note. The I want Candy song was abbreviated, leaving out these lines:

    I go to see him when the sun goes down
    Ain’t no finer boy in town
    You’re my guy, you’re what the doctor ordered
    You’re so sweet, you make my mouth water

    I want candy
    I want candy

    Hey

    Candy on the beach, there’s nothing better
    But I like candy when it’s wrapped in a sweater
    Some day soon I’ll make you mine
    Then I’ll have candy all the time

    I want candy
    I want candy

  • Hillsong Christmas Featuring Ballet Chefs, Breakdancing Santa Clauses, and Exploding Flour Pastries

    Hillsong Christmas Featuring Ballet Chefs, Breakdancing Santa Clauses, and Exploding Flour Pastries

    Hillsong has put on a lot of awful productions in their time. There was the satanic Budhist dance, the  insane one we just featured, the one depicting Jesus born in a riotous bar (since deleted), Hillsong’s sensuality Christmas show with fleshly dancers, the Hillsong show with women writhing in nothing but towels, and their infamous ‘Silent Night Sleazy Night’ Christmas special from several years ago (also since deleted).

    Hillsong Sweden has released another strange one, this time the 2021 Christmas extravaganza, featuring a scene with chefs doing ballet, breakdancing Santas, even more dancing, and exploding flour pastries,

    It’s all done to entertain the congregants, because what you win them with, you’ll have to keep them with.

  • After Famously Leaving SBC, Pastor John Onwuchekwa has Left the Pastorate

    After Famously Leaving SBC, Pastor John Onwuchekwa has Left the Pastorate

    John Onwuchekwa, who gladly accepted $175,000 in SBC money to renovate his church (as well as NAMB money to secure the loan for the building), only to leave the convention in 2020 after accusing the denomination of not being woke enough and insinuating that churches made up of mostly minorities should do like his – take the money and run, has left the pastorate.

    At the time Onwuchekwa had this to say about his former denomination.

    I do not see the utility of our church made up predominantly of ethnic minorities remaining in the SBC. Because rather than being an agent of change, I fear our presence has largely been an advertisement for other churches of similar makeup saying “Come in…the water’s fine.” The sign I’d rather hold up is “Enter at Your Own Risk!”

    He would later co-found the Crete Collective with Thabiti Anyabwile Ron Burns a church planting network that specifically excluded white pastors. He explains in an announcement:

    On Monday, October 17th, after much prayer, consideration, and conversation, I have concluded that my season of pastoral ministry at Cornerstone Church has ended. December 18th, 2022, will be my last official sermon as Teaching Pastor of Cornerstone Church, and January 31st, 2023, will be my last official day on staff. At that time, I will be stepping out of the office of pastor and more fully into the role of member.

    Onwuchekwa goes on to say that “this particular season and shape of ministry is giving way to something else. That something else isn’t yet fully formed or known” and assures his readers that his stepping down is not due to “personal frustration, scandal, or moral disqualification.” He notes that his transition is the “culmination of ongoing angst and wrestles I’ve had over the past few years regarding calling, passion, and even vocational fit.”

    He concludes:

    Pastors aren’t meant to stand between you and God. Pastors exist to make sure nothing else does. We are not priests, nor are we mediators. We are merely servants (seasonal ones at that…all of us are here for a season predetermined by God) of God to help you grow closer to Him.

    Owunchekwa will not be going away, completely, however, but will continue to grow the Crete Collective and plans to work at Portrait Coffee, a coffee roasting company in Atlanta.

    h/t RNS

  • Brian Houston Claims Sex-Abuse Victim Begged Him Not to Report Father’s Abuse+ New Revelations

    Brian Houston Claims Sex-Abuse Victim Begged Him Not to Report Father’s Abuse+ New Revelations

    Former Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, testified in court Friday that his father’s abuse victim, Brian Sengstock, begged him not to report it to police or authorities, a wish he says he honored and a claim the victim vehemently rejects, after Sengstock’s mother made the abuse known.

    Houston is on trial responding to charges that he concealed sexual abuse by his deceased father more than 30 years ago. He was made aware of the allegations in 1999, five years before his father passed, but did not go to the police and turn his father in. He has pled ‘not guilty’ and, if convicted, faces five years in prison.

    Houston described the meeting where he confronted his father, saying it was “tense” and “awkward” and lasted around 45 minutes.

    “He simply said ‘that did happen’…He told me it only happened once, he told me it involved fondling his genitals. He was, I think, a mix of embarrassed, humiliated, shamed, remorseful.”

    As a result of the confession, Houston told his father that he would not be able to attend church at Hillsong anymore, then known as Sydney Christian Life Centre.

    He asked why, and I told him we have a ‘one strike and you’re out, no tolerance policy’ towards pedophiles, and it can’t be any different for you than it is for anyone else.”

    He reiterated several times that Sengstock did not want any of this reported, describing him as “paranoid” that he might be identified.

    (Mr Sengstock) was very dogmatic that he didn’t want the police involved… He said ‘you are not to go to the police’. He said ‘if anyone’s going to go to the police, it’ll be me and I don’t want to do that’.

    I told him that I had no option but to disclose it to the national executive of the Assemblies of God and then his demeanor changed. He got angry, sort of panicky. And he said ‘I don’t want to be part of some big church investigation’.

    He said ‘I don’t want my name splashed all over the church, you know how gossipy they all are’….He said ‘if strangers from the church try to contact me I won’t talk to them, I’ll deny it, I’ll hang up’. He was just very blunt and clear he didn’t want to be having any conversation with any people from the church. He was very concerned about his anonymity.”

    The trial continues Monday.

  • Phil Vischer Accuses @WokePreacherTV Of Being a RACIST Who Picks on Black Pastors

    Phil Vischer Accuses @WokePreacherTV Of Being a RACIST Who Picks on Black Pastors

    VeggieTales creator and Holy Post podcast host Phil Vischer has gotten beat up on social media over the last few days, and with good reason. The shots have been coming after he criticized a conservative TV network for not featuring LBGTQ characters in films,  compared christians who oppose legal same-sex marriage to ‘confederate theologians’, and refuses to publicly condemn same-sex marriage, all the while doing so in a smarmy voice that would make even Andy Stanley jealous.

    This is on top of knocking creationists as a bunch of dummies, crediting his white privilege for the success of his show, claiming he didn’t know there were such things black Christians until he was an adult, thumbing his nose at “Cracker Barrel Christians,” getting upset at Christians for opposing LGBTQ, and coming out as pro-choice.

    After pointing out how Vischer’s podcast host Skye Jethani has been mainstreaming LBGTQ+-affirming impastorette Samantha Beach Kiley, and after several posts featuring some of the vexatious vegetable creator’s heterodox hot takes, Vischer played the race card against the venerable @WokePreacherTV, who functions as Christian culture’s canary in the coal mine.

    He also played the Turn card.

    And finally the River.

    The charge is groundless, of course. As a long-time follower, the race of the person being criticized will ebb and flow, depending on the focus and subject matter. Sometimes the speakers will skew white for a while, and other times black. Recently they’ve been predominantly black pastors, with much of the discussion centering around Christian nationalism and churches hosting and praising pro-LBGTQ, pro-choice ‘pastor,’ and Senator Raphael Warnock.

    But to say he has a “special fondness” for pointing out the foibles of “black pastors”?

    He’ll never win the pot with that hand.

  • Tavner Smith’s Venue Church Sold to Seventh Day Adventists, Who Were Renting Building

    Tavner Smith’s Venue Church Sold to Seventh Day Adventists, Who Were Renting Building

    Venue Church in Chattanooga used to be among the fastest-growing churches in the nation, topping 1500 people spread across four services and two locations. Then the pastor and senior leader, Tavner Smith, cheated on his wife, divorced her, and subsequently had an illicit affair with his worship leader/ personal assistant. 

    This resulted in a mass exodus of staff and congregants. Attendance is down an estimated 95%, and the church filed for bankruptcy, hoping to hold on to its church building. With the news of their implosion, several churches sought to buy the property and building, including RockPoint Church, but in the end, Tavner Smith found a savior of sorts: a Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) church. 

    Crosswalk Church is a 5-location multi-site SDA church* led by lead pastor Tim Gillespie. Growing and expanding, they’ve been renting out Venue Church for months for their Saturday services and now are no longer renters, but owners, having purchased the property. The church raised 2 million dollars, cash, in 15 days, from 225 donors.

    They made the new building announcement on their Facebook page.

    According to sources, because all Seventh-Day Adventists have church services on Saturdays, the Venue Church will be able to continue renting from Crosswalk for an undisclosed amount of time.

    Editor’s Note. We believe here at Protestia that SDA is a cult and their prophetess Ellen G. White was as crazy as a rat in a coffee can. That being said, depending on their view of her writings’ authority, there is a slight possibility that genuine believers may exist within the SDA. For this reason, we would encourage anyone part of this denomination to flee from it and join a biblical church.

    They made the new building announcement on their Facebook page.

  • Frank Houston, Despite Being Defrocked, Kept Preaching Till He Died (Contradicting Son’s Testimony)

    Frank Houston, Despite Being Defrocked, Kept Preaching Till He Died (Contradicting Son’s Testimony)

    Despite Hillsong’s Brian Houston stripping his father of his ministry credentials after discovering he molested at least one seven-year-old boy, the elder Frank Houston continued to preach and teach unabated, delivering sermons until his death, according to court testimony.

    In 1999, Houston took away his dad’s preaching credentials. This was told to Assembly of God leaders, who met in secret and decided not to make the shocking confession public, providing in part that the pedophile pastor never preached again. In multiple interviews, Brian Houston testified to this fact that his father never preached again until he died in 2004.

    This morning, the court heard that Frank Houston was still preaching at the Hunter Valley Christian Life Centre eight weeks before his death and would occasionally lead prayer over those attending the services. The church’s pastor Robert Cotton said he was unaware of the child sex abuse and that if he had known, he would have never let him preach in 2004, saying:

    “There’s no way in the world I would have had him back in the church. I wouldn’t have had him near any of the kids in the church. I wouldn’t have had him around my son who was in the church.”

    In audio from the 2004 sermon, Frank can be observed commenting on a child’s looks:

    “This curly haired little man here … But what a fantastic young fellow he is, curly hair, sort of. Good looking. It’s not your fault you’re good looking. So thank God you are. Who wants to be ugly when you can be good looking.”

    The trial continues.

  • Creflo Dollar Falsely Prophesies People Will Be Saved Because Of How Rich God Makes Them

    Creflo Dollar Falsely Prophesies People Will Be Saved Because Of How Rich God Makes Them

    Creflo Dollar is one of the most infamous and successful prosperity preachers ever, joining such men as Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland as the trio of arch-heretics most responsible for exporting the false prosperity gospel throughout the world.

    A televangelist and pastor of the 30,000-member World Changers Church International (WCCI) in Atlanta, he’s known for his wealth and extravagant lifestyle, owning several multi-million dollar homes, expensive luxury cars, being a proponent of “little gods’ theology, and making headlines back in 2015 when he asked followers and supporters to fund his purchase of a $65,000,000 private jet. We wrote about him a few weeks ago after he urged his whole church to vote for Stacey Abrams as governor after she visited his church.

    At the end of 2021, he preached a sermon where he claimed to have a word from God, prophesying that 2022 would be a bountiful year where the greatest move of God the world has ever seen will take place, and that enemies of God would repent and get saved because of how much God will bless them financially. (How did that turn out?)

    Here’s what the Lord said to me, he says “I am about to release the beginnings of the manifestations of a move of God on the earth like has never been seen. I’m gonna cause the wicked to turn to me. Imma cause the devil worshipper to turn to me. I’m gonna break the yoke of those who have been deceived by the devil to turn to me.

    And I said, ‘Well Lord, how are you gonna do that?’ He says ‘I’m about to show people who don’t deserve my goodness my goodness. But for you who know me and for you who fellowship with me and claim me…if you believe for the goodness you are going to show that there is profit in serving God and these last days, amen?

    Dollar asks “how is God going to change the mind of that atheists? How is God going to save that family member in your family?” and then quotes Romans 2:4 “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” Based on this, he offers this theory;

    And God says, ‘I’m going to change their mind. How? I’m going to be so good to them, that they’re going to fall on their face one day and say, ‘God, I don’t deserve it but I want to receive you into my life,’ amen? And that goodness has already begun in the name of Jesus. I’m believing tonight, that a tsunami of God’s goodness is about to go over this planet, amen?

    I need you to start believing that you’re going to see the goodness of the Lord in 2022. I believe in this coming year, when everybody’s gonna be prophesied about economic collapse, I believe those of you who are gonna begin to declare the goodness of the Lord in the face of badness, there’s gonna be a wealth transference that is gonna hit your house.

    They’re gonna be opportunities that are gonna hit your house, you’re gonna spend a number of days gathering up because it’s so much. Because when you declare the goodness of the Lord, His goodness, is gonna show up in all kinds of areas in your life…honey, when God releases his goodness, it’s gonna start spreading on everything that concerns you.

    And 2022 is going to be a breakthrough year in your life like you’ve never seen before. I’m so excited about you. I’m excited about your family and the things that are going to happen. Something good is going to happen to you.

    Yet there is nothing in the bible that says God uses money to convince people to come to him in repentance, or that Jesus used the blessings of extreme wealth as a means to save the wicked and have them come to him. The kindness and goodness of God in Romans 2 has nothing to do with getting rich and material blessing, but rather his forbearance, patience, and withholding of our just and deserving judgement.

    This is all just a ploy to accrue more of that mammon, which he made his god long ago.

    h/t iThink Biblically. For his video with better commentary click here.

  • Lutheran Church Celebrates ‘The Day of the Dead’ with Aztec Dancing and Altars to Deceased Ancestors

    Lutheran Church Celebrates ‘The Day of the Dead’ with Aztec Dancing and Altars to Deceased Ancestors

    Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Fresno, CA, thought up a ruinous way to be relevant, putting on a “Día de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead) celebration in church, bringing in idols and Aztec Dancers into the sanctuary for sessions of pagan blasphemy. 

    The sodomy-celebrating church, led by the apostate impastor Bill Knezovich, is a member of the ELCA denomination, which frequently finds itself in a bare-knuckle brawl with the PCUSA and United Methodist Church to see who can visibly hate Jesus the most. According to Sally Isais:

    “El Día de los Muertos, translated as the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday also celebrated in many US communities. It has roots both in the Catholic observances of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days and in indigenous Mexican beliefs about the dead.

    According to the ancient religion of Mexico, Day of the Dead traditions help the spirits of the dead return to their families, keeping them happy and forestalling the difficulties the dead could inflict on the living. Celebrations vary by region, but they have much in common: altars with offerings to dead relatives, skull-shaped sugar candies, marigolds, incense, votives, and food; candlelit cemeteries; tissue-paper cutouts; and calaverita (“little skull”) decorations everywhere.”

    GotQuestions explains:

    The idea behind the Day of the Dead is that dead loved ones participate in the ceremonies. It’s traditionally thought that the boundary between the spirit world and the world of the living grows weak from October 31 through November 2, allowing people to commune with their departed relatives. The rituals required in preparing for the Day of the Dead are deemed important based on another notion: “It is believed that the dead are capable of bringing prosperity (e.g. an abundant maize harvest) or misfortune (e.g. illness, accidents, financial difficulties) upon their families depending on how satisfactorily the rituals are executed.

    This church has celebrated it for years, with pictures from 2019 and 2022 showing the shrines to the spirits called Ofrendas, which are decorated with candles, bright marigolds, tequila, skulls, food for the spirts, and pictures of the deceased.

    They also brought Aztec dancers into the sanctuary, dancing in order to bring the spirits back into communion with the living form their resting place in Mictlán.

    The whole thing is thoroughly satanic, which is why no one at this den of goats bats an eye.

  • TGC Op-Ed Defends Cancelling Christmas Day Services For This Stupid Reason

    TGC Op-Ed Defends Cancelling Christmas Day Services For This Stupid Reason

    Christmas is falling on a Sunday this year, and a new article by The Gospel Coalition writer Fletcher Lang titled Why Our Church Canceled Christmas Day Services seeks to defend skipping service and honoring the Lord by breaking his commandments.

    Lang, who is an SBTS grad and the lead pastor of City on a Hill Church in Somerville, Massachusetts, argues that his church’s ‘context’ makes it too difficult and burdensome to have a Sunday service. Therefore they’re canceling it in favor of a candlelight gathering with another church the day before. 

    Arguing that “context is key,” Lang says that he and his church plant of 100 people live in an extremely transient and secular city and that getting things ready is extremely troublesome and labor intensive.

    Like many church plants, we meet in a shared space. We can’t just roll up on Sunday, flip a few switches, and be ready for a church service. We need to put out chairs, set up sound equipment, and place signs outside. While we have less work to do than many church plants, there’s still a considerable amount of setup required. Many churches in our context meet in public spaces where meeting on Christmas Day is just not an option.

    He goes on to note that “The transient nature of our city also means many of our most committed members are traveling around the country or world for Christmas and are unable to set up chairs and run sound” and that “The problem is around 80 percent of our church travels for Christmas.”

    This is the fatal flaw. Having only 20 percent of the congregants attending would make having the service much, much easier. If only a fifth of the people are around, they can easily have church in someone’s house, therefore negating the need to set up chairs and a sound system and all the burdens he just decried. In what world are these prerequisites for celebrating the Lord’s day, especially with such a small flock? 

    Lang concludes by pointing out that “the secular nature of the city also means our neighbors are uninterested in visiting our church on Christmas morning.” This is utterly irrelevant to whether or not they should have a church service, and if he had a proper ecclesiology, he would know that church is for believers, not unbelievers.

    For more swill from TGC, see here:

    TGC Senior Editor’s Favorite TV Show Contains Graphic Homosexual Sex Scene
    TGC Author: Christians Have Endured No ‘Hostility’ or ‘Ill-treatment’ From Govt During Pandemic
    TGC Contributor Argues Pro-LGBTQ Xtians and Universalists Are Still In the Faith
    TGC’s Thabiti Anyabwile: Resisting Reparations is ‘The Echo of Cain’s Voice’
    TGC Author: Believing in ‘Big-Government Overreach’ Is a Denial of ‘Objective Reality’
    TGC Author: Straight Men Should Consider Singleness Out of Solidarity for Celibate Homosexuals
    TGC Canada Again Argues that Their Churches Aren’t Being Persecuted
    TGC Author Advocates for Using Trans Personal Pronouns, Suggests Not Using them Makes one a ‘Weaker Brother’
    TGC’s Senior Editor Watches Sex Scenes on TV to be Better at Evangelizing
    Pacifist TGC Writer Says The World Should Have Let Hitler and Nazis Conquer Unopposed
    Woke TGC Contributor Suggests Mary Taught Jesus The Sermon On The Mount
    TGC Author Suggests Campaigning for the Democrats is A-OK
    TGC Contributor Ironically Praises Enneagram On Podcast about ‘False Teaching’
    TGC Author Says that the USA is too ‘Exhausted’ to Handle Overturning Roe v. Wade + Deletes Tweet
    TGC Author Rebecca McLaughlin Says We MUST Repent of our Parent’s and Grandparent’s Racism
    TGC Senior Editor Criticizes ‘What Is A Woman’ Doc for Not Being ‘Empathetic’ Enough
    TGC Author Suggests ‘Deadnaming’ Transexuals is ‘Disrespectful’
    TGC Author: Stopping Active Shooter in Church Is Just Like Peter Cutting Of Servant’s Ear: Jesus Says Not To
    TGC Author Claims That Deconstruction May Just Be Smashing Cultural Idols
    TGC Finally Edits Article Describing Rittenhouse as ‘Mass Shooter’+ Still Compares him to Mass Murderer

    And many, many more