One of the driving forces between an acceptance of CRT and strife within CRU (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ) has announced that they are leaving the organization, citing the climate with CRU as having become “cautious, unclear and in some places toxic.”
The Lenses Institute, in announcing their departure, note that “there are elements within CRU who feel Lenses is misaligned with the CRU vision and is engaged in a drift from Cru’s central mission” resulting in a “climate of suspicion, mischaracterization, and in some cases direct intimidation” and consequently will be folding up shop.
In a must-read piece by the Capstone Report, they unpack a 174-page report prepared months ago by 350 members and handed to senior leadership that details the extent that wokeness and CRT has infiltrated and affected the organization, leading to infighting, mission drift, broken relationships, loss of membership, and loss of personal and financial support. Capstone noted:
Of particular concern is Cru’s Cultural Training called the Lenses Institute. Lenses was an in-depth “cultural competency training for Cru staff. However, it functioned as an ideological re-education camp where Christian unity was replaced by the primacy of ethnic identity.
The Lenses Institute is also one of Cru’s most closely guarded secrets. According to the report, “Staff are required to disclose nothing about the teaching content outside of the training. Independent thinking is discouraged. Most authors and scholars recommended by Lenses are proponents of CRT.”
And as information on the trainings leak, it becomes abundantly clear, why there was a gag order on discussion of Lenses trainings.
At a Lenses training on September 23, 2020, a speaker was heard to say, “Identity in Christ cannot be elevated above our ethnic identity.”
At this point, it is not known if it was a self-purge and leaving on their own accord, if the remaining conservative faction forcibly removed them, or it’s a case where senior leadership, not willing to bleed funding and support, removed Lenses to appease the conservatives as being the most visible sign of disunity, while still affirming the thrust of Lenses’ messaging.
At the very least we know Cru is better for them leaving; demonstrated by the fact that Kyle J, Howard, Jemar Tisby, and Curtis Yee are shook over it and are lamenting their loss
We pray that Cru can repent and recover, but given how deeply this messaging has been embedded, we are pessimistic that they can be saved.
The Director and Dean of what was formally called the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry have announced their resignation via Facebook, after a season of “lamenting, listening, and learning” in light o the Ravi Zacharias scandal.
Jo and Vince Vitale announced that they are leaving next week, leaving precious few souls still there. Vince is the head of RZIM in the United States and also co-authored a recent book with Ravi, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Counter-Cultural Claims of Christ, and Joe is a frequent speaker and Dean of Studies. They wrote:
Ever since the release of the interim report of the investigation into Ravi Zacharias on December 23rd, 2020, we have lived with three very strong convictions. One of these convictions was that God was leading us to take seriously what we personally needed to repent of—to spend far more of our prayers, thoughts, and words on our own mistakes and failures than on those of anyone else.
They explain they’ve stayed on since the news broke out of their concern for justice and the victims because they “felt the importance of journeying with the team during this season when we had the opportunity to speak directly into significant decisions.” Now that things are on the mend and they feel victims will be taken seriously and care for, they’re resigning so that they can enter “a substantial season of reordering” in order to “embrace the time and space needed to allow ourselves to be deeply formed by all that we have been humbled by and wrecked over in the last year.”
They conclude:
We want to thank God, most of all, for allowing us to begin this journey. Conviction and repentance are indeed gifts of amazing grace. We will always deeply grieve the suffering and the ways in which we contributed to it, but it is our prayer that the grief we carry from this will serve as a lasting reminder of our duty to care for the many whose wounds are far deeper than our own. Christ’s ability to redeem gives hope that healing is worth fighting for and bears witness to the full and final restoration that ultimately awaits.
On January 24, 2021, Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo, held a service unmasked and together as one congregation, violating the government’s shutdown order which at the time prohibited churches from gathering in more than 10 people. For that crime, they were fined $83,000 for contempt—not just the church entity, or the pastor, but all six members of the elder board were handed down fines. This is that breakdown:
Pastor Will and I each owe $5,000. Pastor Randy owes $4,000. Each of the other elders owe $3,000. The church itself owes $15,000. And we have been ordered to pay $45,000 to cover the legal fees of the Ministry of the Attorney General.
These are fines that are a done deal. Because they are for contempt charges they’re essentially unable to be appealed or waived, and are not theoretical “they could get fined up to…” but in fact are judgments rendered.
With that those expenses looming, the church received another court ruling against them on Tuesday July 27, explaining on their website:
On April 25, 2021, we held another extravagant worship service. That service was held in contempt of another court order. We were sentenced today. Here’s how it breaks down: both Pastor Will and I owe $10,000 each, the other elders owe $7,500 each, and the church itself owes $35,000. The judge will review the Ministry of the Attorney General’s legal costs and then order us to pay legal costs at a later date. So in total we owe $85,000 plus legal costs.
That’s $170,000 in real-time fines, and there are likely more on the way. We’ve written before how in many ways, Trinity Bible Chapel has faced the most opposition and steepest price out of any church in North America for being open. GraceLife Church in Alberta had their pastor James Coates arrested and spend over a month in jail. Fairview Baptist Church also had their church building taken away, and their pastor Tim Stephens served nearly 3 weeks in prison, but TBC has endured absolutely brutal, punishing, unending fines for being open, including facing $50 million dollars in potential fines right now.
Despite the blow, Pastor Jacob Rheaume says that they’ve counted the cost of staying open during the pandemic and insisting that Jesus is the head of the church, not the government.
When this is all added up, we’re gonna owe a lot of money. But Jesus is worth it. I’ve heard some people say crazy things like, “Giving up our worship services is a small price right now, just a little inconvenience.” The problem with that is that worship services are not ours to give up. They belong to Jesus. He purchased His worship with the price of His own blood. That mindset only reveals how man-centered many are in their view of church and worship. Really and truly, the mindset should be my money and my comfort and my life are small prices to pay right now to worship Jesus. He’s worth it.
In an act of boldness and courage that should shame any pastor who shut down, and be a balm to the soul of those fellow men who resisted, he told the court this in response to the fines and being chastised for his keeping his church open:
Your Honour, our consciences have been bound to continue ministering as our Lord has taught us and as Christians have done for millennia. Our Lord has taught us to gather for worship at least one day in seven, and that has been the consistent pattern of Christians since the Day of Pentecost. Our greatest sorrow in these contempt findings is not the penalties we have incurred but rather that we defied the orders of this court to uphold the orders of our Creator. We would much rather live in a world where the government and this honorable court provide orders that are in line with the orders of our Lord Jesus.
Jesus purchased us by His own blood. Our sincerely held belief is that we are thus beholden to Him because He owns us and the church. We do not view ourselves as owners of the church. Much rather we are stewards. The One who owns the church—the church not being the building, but the people and their worship—He has entrusted her to us. Therefore, first and foremost we are required to submit to and uphold His supreme Headship over the church and His worship. In these two infractions, we have sought to honour our Saviour.
Our sincere desire is to avoid further penalties and offence, but our consciences have captivated us to obey God over man.
Praise God for this church, pastor, elders, and congregation for their model of faithfulness.
The BBC has released a new documentary on Hillsong Church featuring the global megachurch and the ups and downs they’ve been having over the course of a scandal-riddled year. The video is currently only available for UK audiences who have a subscription to the BBC channel, but journalist Julie Roys shared a video clip from the show that is raising a few eyebrows.
In the clip, Hillsong London youth pastor Daniel Blythe, after he takes his leadership team under-30’s to a tattoo parlor to get matching ’70×7″ tattoos (a reference we assume to Matthew 18:21-22, we would imagine) later heads to a photoshoot where he speaks candidly about the ethos and image that they are trying to purposefully present as part of the ‘Hillsong look:’
We’re the ones that God has empowered. We’re the ones God’s using. Everyone has a role, everyone has responsibility. If you do want to experience Jesus, we know how you can experience Jesus…
…The style of our church has been thought through and it’s aimed to engage young people and communicate the message of Christ to young people. I’m in the full Hillsong starter pack; I’ve got the fedora got the leather got the boots and the skinnies (skinny jeans)
Wife Charlie “and a beautiful wife on his arm!”
….The highlight for me is not when people join the church, but it’s when people encounter Jesus. It’s like if I found the cure to cancer, you know you’d be excited, you’d be given out to everyone because you’d want to see people healed and it’s exactly the same.
“Heavenly Father we thank you that you sent Jesus, so that Jesus could show us how to live fearless. We pray today that we will transform into your likeness, amen.
…You see, we get told between 10 and 200 lies a day. But the good news is today, you are gathering together with a load of people who know the truth, because the truth will set you free.
….If you come to our church you will just see a lot of people, young people, and I guess the question would be like ‘why do they come to Hillsong and maybe not another church where it’s hymns?’ And I don’t want to disrespect any church that sings hymns, but you might as well sing in Spanish because they don’t understand hymns.
Elevation Church has lost their case to have a video critical of them removed from YouTube, according to content creator Colin Miller, who emerged as the victor in a battle between BigHeresy and the little guy.
Last month, the increasingly cultish church filed a copyright strike against Miller for this video, which has 150,000 views. In the video, Miller demonstrated how over a span of 10 sermons, not once did Furtick command people to repent or call anyone out for their sins or mention the fact that humanity has a sinful nature, and not once did he warn people about hell.
Instead, the entire time, Furtick “often made it seem like sin was something that happens to you rather than something you actually participate in. He never really saw it as a verb, he only uses it as a noun.” Miller ultimately concluded that Furtick was trafficking in a woeful unfaithfulness to the scriptures and a watered-down message of sin and repentance, and therefore was disqualified from the ministry.
In response to the video, Elevation Church went on the attack and issued a copy strike for the channel on account of him playing a 18 second clip from an infamous 2007 sermon where Furtick asserts that church is “not for believers” as part of his overall critique.
The strike was not an automated action by YouTube’s algorithms, but rather according to Miller and the information he received, was the result of direct intervention and a personal touch by an employee at Elevation church.
Miller was naturally torqued that the church took what is essentially a legal action against him, one that is being undertaken in a scripturally unjustifiable way. He describes it as an “unbiblical” and “sinful” action because it bears false witness against him, claiming that he did something unlawful when in actuality they have no proof that he did. Furthermore, it is against the law to fraudulently issue false copyright against someone, making Elevation Church doubly in the wrong.
As a result of these bullying tactics, Miller filed a counterclaim, which gave Elevation Church 10 days to respond by taking him to a federally recognized court to offer proof that he violated their claim, or else the video would be reinstated.
10 Days later, Elevation did not respond, and with no case against him, his video was back up and collecting those views.
Emerging victorious, Miller reached out to the Elevation Church employee who reported the video to see if he would apologize for his fraudulent actions, or would do anything in the way of explaining why he did what he did. Unsurprisingly, the employee did not respond, having enough time to personally file a strike, but not worth the time or Christian integrity to be accountable for his actions or offer an explanation.
We are grateful that Miller won, and look forward to more videos in the future.
Backround: Steven Furtick is the Lead Pastor of Elevation Church, a Southern Baptist associated, 25,000-member multisite campus with 17 locations. He is known for having the term “narcegesis” named after him (narcissistic exegesis) based on his inability to exegete scripture in a way that doesn’t make every story revolve around him.
Furtick has incredibly close ties with Trinity-denying modalist TD Jakes, preaching at each other’s churches and conferences and publicly declaring themselves to be the best of buds, with Jakes mentoring Furtick for years.
He’s also known for all things filthy lucre. He wears an insanely extravagant wardrobe, routinely appearing on Preachersnsneakers for wearing shirts and shoes that can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars each, as can be seen here. Furtick is also known for his lavish house – a 16,000 square foot, $1.6 Million dollar mansion sitting on 19 acres that Furtick downplayed as “not that great of a house” when pressed about it after news broke.
Michael Gungor and his wife Lisa of the grammy-nominated band “Gungor” have always been walking the edge of Christian orthodoxy, at least for those who are like-minded. Existing within the outskirt of Christian artistry, they’re the kind of band that Rachel Held Evans would have wanted to be played at her funeral, or perhaps who might be the opening act for Rob Bell or any other professing Christian who actually hates Jesus but doesn’t want to own up to it yet.
While Orthodox Christians wrote them off a long time ago, and the band itself eschews labels of what isn’t and is not Christian belief, they are still very popular with progressives as well as those who pour over the pages of Relevant Magazine, putting shows on at churches and Christian conferences still, despite frontman Michael describing himself as an on-again, off-again “Atheist.”
Thankfully, Michael took the time on Twitter to out himself as a thorough pagan.
Sadly, this won’t matter for professing “Christians” who love him and will continue to invite him to religious gatherings and Christian conferences. His lack of orthodoxy is to them not a bug but a feature. At least he’s brought a bit more clarity to where he stands. That’s no small thing. For this crowd who loves to embrace mystery and doubt and esoteric gnostic mysticism, certainty is perhaps the rarest trait of all.
(Evangelical Dark Web) This article is part of Evangelical Dark Web’s series called Docent Dumps where pastors and churches who use Docent Research Group are being exposed. This article exposes Bob McCartney of First Baptist Church Wichita Falls, Texas as a client of Docent Research Group.
Origin
The Ed Litton plagiarism scandal has revealed just how vast and industrialized sermons are. A company by the name of Docent Research Group was identified to being a kingpin of (errant) teaching in the church. Predictably such a centralization of church material was ripe for corruption and Docent Research Group has a Social Justice Gospel agenda. This was exposed in the initial Protestia article on the subject. This article continues this coverage by exposing a prominent Southern Baptist church using Docent Research Group. This information was found researching the employees of Docent Research Group. An employee by the name of Greg Lamb mentioned multiple clients he worked with as a “Solo Researcher” at Docent. There is considerable existing evidence that suggesting that Docent Research Group writes sermons, and Greg Lamb adds to this account.
Abstract
FBC Wichita Falls is an influential megachurch in the Southern Baptist Convention. It is a particularly impactful church in the Texas Baptist community. On paper FBC Wichita Falls is the least woke church covered in the Docent Dumps series. However, this church is a force for evil in SBC politics. The use of Docent Research Group by Dr. Bob McCartney and FBC Wichita Falls is evident that this megachurch is highly influenced by Big Eva within the SBC.
Greg Lamb
Greg Lamb is an employee or contractor of Docent Research Group, and he is the source for the North Valley Community Church being a Docent client. “I continued serving in both a solo and team leader research role with Pastor Dr. Bob McCartney of FBC Wichita Falls, TX, a seminal SBC church with over 2,000 members (http://www.fbcwf.org). In all these roles, I essentially serve as an extension to the preaching ministry of these growing churches through providing research, exegesis, and connective tissue to help bring God’s Word to life and resonate with contemporary culture.” This the pastor listed by Greg Lamb. After establishing enough trust to work on his own with North Valley Community Church, Greg Lamb’s gig with Docent Research Group improved to being a team leader in handling his largest client yet, FBC Wichita Falls.
First Baptist Church Wichita Falls
FBC Wichita Falls is a multicampus megachurch with at or around 2000 members at three locations. This church could be seen as a pipeline to…
In a wide-ranging interview with Hip-hop artist Ruslan, Lecrae ran the gamut of discussion, talking about topics from deconstructing his faith, white supremacy, and how he lost his faith and renounced God for a time while presenting as a Christian musician.
While he did not going into any detail whatsoever, which is unfortunate, Ruslan asked Lecrae about not talking about the gospel or about Jesus in interviews, as well as an interview he did with DJ Vlad where he sputtered You know…well…um…er….ah….I don’t know’ when asked about the sin of homosexuality, reminiscent of Joel Osteen repeatedly saying “I don’t know” to CNN’s Larry King’s questions about the exclusivity of Christ. In that interview, a visibly uncomfortable Lecrae did not want to answer the question, played dumb, complained that people weren’t giving him “the grace and the space to be a learner” while explaining that he doesn’t have it all figured out. It was embarrassing and shameful, and you can see it below.
Rusland: “You identify as a missionary right, which ultimately the heart of a missionary is to conceptualize the gospel in said culture. Some of the pushback has been when you’ve had this kind of ‘alley-oop’ to make a clear statement about the gospel or about God’s standards, that you’ve kind of shied away from, you know, standing on truth…. like, are these opportunities where if you’re a missionary at the end of the day, when are we going to be unapologetic or unashamed? to clearly confess and profess the gospel in these opportunities?”
Lecrae acknowledges that he’s “dropped the ball” plenty of times as it pertains to the interview, then describes how he basically engages in the equivalent of ‘missionary dating’ in order to speak on the topic of sodomy and God’s design for human sexuality, while explaining he can’t, in fact, give a helpful, cohesive answer on homosexuality in 12 minutes, given how short of time that is:
“In my experience, I have seen more transformation happen through relationships than me just saying something in an interview. And generally, because an interview is for the purpose of sound bites. It’s not really letting me get deep in and letting me really unpack it.
Now if it’s like “you got an hour to just camp out on this particular thing” then it’s like, alright, then I can give you more than a soundbite. But if you’re like, hey, you know, what are your thoughts on homosexuality, this is probably not going to be helpful in 12 minutes. Whenever I say it is not going to be helpful in 12 minutes, its not going to be helpful on one side or the other.”
Lecrae also admits that sometimes fear paralyzes him as well- the fear of sharing his faith or other things- and then unpacks what is the equivalent of ‘friendship evangelism’ if done by a famous 41-year-old rapper with a fear of man and desire to be liked problem:
But then there’s been times where you’re thinking to yourself, you know, I just want them to listen to the album strategically. So let me just get them to pay attention to me and that I’m the type of person that can walk with them and talk with them, and then they’ll listen and hear a consistency of truth. And maybe they’ll watch videos and interviews and on and on and on, and really dive in where you’re going to get the fullness of who Christ is in everything that I’m articulating. So it’s just been a mixture of different things. And, you know, it’s never one reason. And sometimes it’s like, we weren’t even thinking about that. Sometimes it’s like, Bro, I literally was not even on that wave. I would just got off a flight out of bed. And they said, like, you know, something, and I just answered a question. So it’s all it’s always something. Right?”
That’s why the bible says “always be ready to give an answer for the hope….” Lecrae has been a public Christian figure for over 15 years who has been interviewed hundreds of times, and he doesn’t have a short, brief answer that is scripturally sound and biblically faithful, knowing he’s going to get asked about this a lot? How can 12 minutes be too short to answer these questions?
Ruslan: …”Is there ever a point where you are navigating these spaces in trying not to get canceled? Because you know, if you do take the Christian ethic stand or the historical standards, it may create an uprising?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if it was canceled as much as it was, ‘can I at least get in the door?’ You know what I’m saying? Will you at least let me- because a lot of people don’t understand. They don’t know the history. They’re getting the one interview, they’re missing the hundreds I did before that where people make fun to me, where they said, ‘Where’s your choir robe?’
Where it was kind of like, I didn’t even get to talk about real issues, where they wouldn’t ask me anything that pertained to what’s going on in society or football or basketball, they would just immediately go in for like, ‘what do you think about homosexuality? What do you think about gay marriage?‘ You know, ‘what do you think about marijuana? Is drinking a sin?’
Unsurprisingly, Lecrae believes that the ‘real issues’ revolve around sports and how a certain sports team is doing in the playoffs, but the fake issues would be the societal attacks on the sanctity of marriage, the abandonment of any semblance of biblical ethics, and transgendered craze. Also, all the more reason to have an answer. Take the question, answer it, make God’s glory known, and then use it as a springboard to something else.
And immediately, that’s what they’re coming at me with. And I’m like, well, first and foremost, are you a follower of Christ? Because that’s where we got to start. None of these questions even matter if you’re not a follower of Christ. Like that, now we’re talking about legalities. Because I can tell you to stop doing something but only the Gospels will give you the power to become a slave to Christ and no longer a slave to sin? Right? So what are we talking about? So let’s see Lecrae as a person, not as this alien preacher, who you got to just get off these polarizing questions so your views can go up.”
There’s about a hundred things wrong with that aforementioned statement, chief among them why wouldn’t they matter? Do you think he’d ever say this?
Question: “Hey Lecrae, is slavery a sin? Is white supremacy a sin? Is racism a sin?” Lecrae: “None of these questions even matter if you’re not a follower of Christ. Like that, now we’re talking about legalities. Because I can tell you to stop doing something but only the Gospels will give you the power to become a slave to Christ and no longer a slave to sin? Right? So what are we talking about?
No? We didn’t think so.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/eQ73k9vNNvFc/
Bonus: He also did an interview with the Christian Post where he says he’s been deconstruction and reconstructing his faith, where’s come to conclude “I love Jesus, but I’m not churchy”
The seventieth and last album in our series documenting faithful churches gathering for Sunday service in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. We started documenting April 7th, 2020, back when there were only a handful of churches daring to gather- and even then half of them were doing drive-in services, which would frequently result in arrests or fines from the police and law enforcement.
16 months later, most churches are worshipping as they please, at least in the United States. Many countries aren’t so lucky, however, and are subjected to rolling lockdowns whereby gathering for church is still prohibited, with threats of fines and jail time if they disobey. Yet with the pandemic functionally over in our country, these are the congregations who are meeting faithfully at the command of Scripture (Heb. 10:25). All are being safe. All are being obedient to the scriptures. All are loving their neighbors.
Also, while this series may be ending, it’s only a small conclusion. Starting next week we will be commencing our new series, which will leave off where this one ended. In a similar fashion, we will be simply documenting other Christian congregations out there, posting pictures of our brothers and sisters in Christ, with a particular emphasis on different countries, If you want your church family documented, send your pictures to protestia@outlook.com
Every Tuesday evening Jordan Hall and the gang crack open their bibles and have an interactive bible study. “Witness Level” patrons can take part in it, and can ask questions and interact in an intimate setting, hearing personal stories and anecdotes from JD along the way.
Because many people have heard about it, but have never seen it or listened to it, we wanted to give you just a glimpse into what they’re like.
In this study from 1 Corinthians 8, we were asking in what ways we can make “the weaker brother stumble” from alcohol, yoga, to music, etc. What’s so neat about this perk is that you can interact and share your thoughts as we go through the Bible. To take part in Bulldogmatic (or just to watch it) sign up as a patron below.
We’d love to offer it for free, but as you can see, it has to be limited to ensure healthy interactions (and stop hecklers). Check out Witness Level Patronage Here: https://www.patreon.com/pulpitandpen?..
