The recently revealed “peeing pastor,” who drunkenly urinated on a fellow passenger during a late-night Delta Flight has stepped down from his role at Catch The Fire Raleigh.
Daniel Chalmers, Pastor of Love Wins Ministries, was axed from his position at the church after it was determined that his behavior disqualified him from ministry.
The church released a brief statement on Instagram:
Not only has his employment been suspended, but his ministry has also been shut down and social media sites being deleted and his website now simply leading to a locked splash page:
Consequently Alicia Beverly, the victim, filed a lawsuit against Raleigh’s Love Wins Ministries and Daniel Chalmers for $2,000,000+ plus attorney fees, alleging severe emotional distress, anxiety, shock, humiliation, and grief due to the incident.
As far as legal ramifications, Chalmers could receive an assault charge, indecent exposure, and some form of sexual battery, receiving up to 6 months in prison.
Santa Clara County in California, known for having the most brutal and repressive lockdown policies in the Country, is suing a San Jose-based Church in an effort to prevent them from having indoor services after astronomical fines have proven ineffective.
Calvary Chapel San Jose, led by Senior Pastor Mike McMclure, has already garnered more than $350,000 in fines, with the number still growing at a rate of $5000 per day, for what Clara County is charging is a flagrant disavowing of public health and safety protocols. They allege the church is not socially distancing, wearing masks, and is singing in their indoor services – the same charge leveled against John MacArthur and Grace Community Church until they won a hard-fought legal reprieve until 2021.
This is the highest fine accrued by any church in the country for violating Lockdown-related regulations, with the previous being North Valley Baptist Church in the same county that were levied with over $110,000.
Despite the pressure of the fines, the church and pastor have not yielded or complied with these oppressive tactics, resulting in the County turning to the courts to put pressure on them to comply, with the complaint reading:
In light of the frequency and size of Defendants’ indoor gatherings, as well as the fact that COVID-19 spreads so easily and quickly from person to person indoors, Defendants’ conduct creates an immediate and serious risk to the health and safety of the people of the County and the State of California…
Calvary church closed down for a two-month stint between March and April, but has since reopened up and hosts up to 700 congregation members at a time. Though the megachurch can hold 1900, the restrictive policies would limit them to a mere 100.
A court hearing is scheduled for the case on Monday and we will update this story accordingly.
When charismatic “prophetess” and Dr. Michael Brown-approved seer Kat Kerr isn’t commanding 100 million angels to guard the RNC, or making a fool of herself when she tries to control the weather, she making daily trips up to heaven, claiming to have gone up and visited heaven thousands of times, to the point she has lost count.
Such a celebrated celestial tourist has naturally made other charismatics inquisitive about what the afterlife is like, what Jesus, God and the angels are up to, and what sort of mystical revelations she’s been given to bring back to the mere mortals on earth.
It was on this occasion that interviewer Steve Shultz, who oversees a litany of crazy-as-a-rat-in-a-coffee-can malcontent prophets at the Elijah List, (whom incidentally, not a one predicted the pandemic) asked Kerr whether or not God is shocked or disappointed when Trump does something bad.
Absolutely not. He knows exactly who he’s going to pick and you all know none of us are perfect. Is that correct? But he chooses. You know God’s seen the beginning and the end, and he knows exactly who he needs to do those jobs.
After letting us in on a prophetic word that President Trump will win a second term and then after he wins Vice President Pence will run and secure another 8 years, she gives some insider baseball on the nature of those rascally and rapscallion angels, letting us know that heaven is essentially one big MAGA rally.
“God likes bold personalities and I can tell you this: passionate people, that means they’re expressive, they’re fierce about what they believe in, and sometimes those people maybe go over a line we don’t like, but he’s not shocking God at all. That means it’s not necessarily okay, but you get it with the package, ok? And he is definitely accomplishing everything God wants.”
“And Actually, this is hilarious, the angels sometimes will repeat the very things that Trump say. Like they call him ‘Sleepy Joe.’ When God had me prophesying up in Colorado, he actually said these words, ‘Why would you pick a villain for a president when I have already sent you a superhero?’ That would be Trump.”
ICYMI. Charismatic prophetess says angels in heaven will frequently repeat the insults that Trump calls his political enemies, and that even they (the angels) have started calling him 'Sleepy Joe.' See the story https://t.co/IWNnURW5pJpic.twitter.com/BZHzgpGIiP
Lest anyone think that prophtess Kerr is suffering from altituide sickness from her many heavenly voyages, she is not on the fringes of continuationism and charasmaticism, but rather is in the mainstream and represents the center.
Jerry Falwell Jr., the former President of Liberty University filed a defamation suit against his former employer, alleging destruction of reputation, improper, malicious, and politically-motivated haranguing against him, as well as breach of contract following his ousting as leader of the largest Christian university in the world
Falwell is seeking a pretty penny. While the official word is that he’s asking for an “undisclosed sum,” given the nature of what Falwell is alleging, he is effectively seeking tens of millions of dollars along with a gag order and an NDA to prevent the University from publicly criticizing him and his actions going forward.
While Liberty has not responded yet to the charges, we reported last week that they took the next step in their pledge to launch a comprehensive review of their business operations and shady practices, hiring global forensic law firm Baker Tilly US to investigate the University, as well as setting up a website to “facilitate the reporting of potential misconduct to the investigative team.”
David Platt gave an earnestly couched ultimatum to church members who were upset and contemplating breaking fellowship with other congregants who were promoting, working for, or voting for the pro-baby-killing Democratic party: maybe you should leave.
Platt made the comments during his October 25th sermon, where he used 2 Peter 2 to teach his congregation what sort of things ought to be considered when voting. In this, Platt made the same mistake John Piper recently did by contrasting the evil of the Democrat party’s bloodthirsty appetite for abortion and perverted destruction of the family through the promotion and normalization of sodomy and “transgenderism,” with Trump’s vices. First he acknowledges how bad abortion is:
We exalt Jesus by taking seriously the life of a child in a mother’s womb. We abhor abortion. We hate what is happening to children across our country. And it is not an option for followers of Jesus to say that abortion is ok or not a big deal. Abortion is an extremely serious deal of genocidal proportions…we take seriously the evil practice of abortion in an election in our country.
Then he contrasts with the personal character flaws of President Trump, highlighting his name-calling, boasting, sexual immorality, and dishonesty, effectively flattening them out as equally egregious and worthy of rebuke, saying that we likewise must take them seriously.
Platt stresses the importance of the unity of the Church, saying that peoples’ eternity is dependent on seeing unity in the church, which is why, “We exalt Jesus by not letting tension and division from politics creep into the church.” He unironically says that the church must “take evil seriously and avoid it. I see temptations in an election to treat evil lightly, to minimize, overlook, cover-over or even engage in it,” and then explains to members:
Do not divide the church over political positions, convictions, or calculations that are not clear and direct in God’s word… We will not tell people to vote for this candidate or that party…I fear calling you to do something that I can not show you clearly and directly in God’s word he has called you to do…
I have full confidence calling you to oppose abortion and to defend the lives of children in the womb because God makes his work in the womb clear in Psalm 139. You cannot follow Jesus as a member of this church and advocate for abortion. (Editor’s note. This is more than we can say for JD Greear’s church, who does not abide by this maxim.)
I have full confidence to call you to promote a biblical understanding of sexuality and marriage because God makes his definitions of male and female and marriage clear in Genesis 1 and 2 and throughout the rest of the bible. You cannot follow Jesus as a member of this church and disregard God’s word in these ways.
I have full confidence in calling you to care for the oppressed, the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the sojourner, because God says these things multitudes of times to his people in his word You cannot follow Jesus as a member of this church and be calloused to the oppressed, poor, orphan, the widow, or the sojourner.
And I have full confidence calling you to never affirm or overlook sexual immorality, boastful pride, vulgarity, dishonestly, name-calling, and strife -stirring in your life or others’ lives, because God has said all over his word that all of those things are deadly.
So then how do you vote? For this candidate? For that candidate? For third candidate? For no candidate? And I don’t have a verse that answers that question for you. Different, genuine followers of Jesus will therefore come to different conclusions on the answer to that question. And assuming you are applying God’s word as prayerfully and as wisely and as faithfully as you know how to your political decision, then we will not break fellowship in Christ over that decision.
Now as soon as I saw that, I realize some people think we should break fellowship in Christ over the vote. Some people think, ‘I cannot be in the same church with someone who votes for Biden.’ Other people think, ‘I cannot be in the same church with someone who votes for Trump.’
And if you think either of these things, and I say this as thoughtfully and compassionately as I know how, Mclean Bible Church may not be the right church for you. Because we are not going to divide over the vote here. And if you think we should, if you think I or other pastors in this church should promote a political candidate or party, and you think this is worth dividing the church over, then I’m sincerely sad about that, because I treasure our fellowship together in Jesus, but at the same time I’m truly happy for you to be in another church as long as that church is preaching the gospel.
Platt says that people in his church are allowed and encouraged to have strong political views and share them, explaining:
Individually we will all steward our vote and our voice according to our convictions, as men and women who are accountable to God and his word. And some of us will even campaign or work for political parties, or candidates according to our convictions, which is right and good. But let us be clear about the banner that brings us together as a church.
Platt’s position, of course, is terminal. He states that, “You cannot follow Jesus as a member of this church and advocate for abortion,” and yet you can promote, campaign for, vote for, and ostensibly run for office for the party that does all it can to advocate for, protect, expand, entrench and promote it.
He says you can’t follow Jesus as a member of his church and advocate for abortion, but you can do all you can as a member of his church to see the party that wants to paint the town red with the slurry of chopped up baby viscera emerge victorious and win the House, Senate, and Presidency, and then enact a rule of terror for the unborn that will be unmatched in the history of the country.
Mclean Bible Church won’t say anything about it or condemn it, as long as the Democrat-promoter in question is “personally pro-life. In fact, you could promote a party that openly calls for the enslavement of black people and reinstating the notion of persons of color as the property of white folk, and the elders of Platt’s church would be supportive of that, letting you wallow in the tension.
But if you as a fellow member don’t want to fellowship with that man or woman seeking to achieve this foul and polluted end – the one voting for the party of scrambled baby skulls – then you’re part of the problem, the meddler and troubler seeking to cause disunity, and you can feel free to leave.
On today’s podcast, JD explains why the Southern Baptist Convention should repent for its extreme Black Privilege. He also covers the news article of the day and covers other polemics topics.
Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear, in a talk uploaded to The Gospel Coalition’s Ron Burns (aka Thabiti Anyibwile) Youtube page in 2019, breaks down the events in the song of Deborah in Judges 5 where there is a brief mention of God cursing a people for not helping Israel defeat their enemies in battle, and doing so in the most foolish, asinine way possible.
It’s of note that this took place before the bulk of BLM protests rocked the world in the summer of 2020. Greear has increased in wokeness about 666% since then. Check out this nonsense, then with commentary afterwards.
“God curses spectators. As Deborah sings out the victories of God’s people she says coming to a crescendo in verse 23 “curse Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse its people bitterly because they did not come to help the Lord against the mighty.”
Cursed? It doesn’t say they did anything bad, does it? It doesn’t say this tribe hung back and smoked weed and raided everybody else’s [tents?] while they were out fighting, it just says they did nothing. Meroz represents those people of God who failed to act when it’s not their land that’s threatened. If you do the geography Meroz is like ‘it’s not affecting us. These enemies ain’t coming after us so we’re going to hang back.’
Now I want to turn more specifically to some of these issues of justice. Whether we’re talking about racial justice or gender justice or what have you. Tragically when it comes to many issues of justice there’s often been a malaise in the church. That’s usually the kindness word possible. In large part because the injustice did not directly affect those of us sitting in place of privilege. Like Meroz it didn’t affect our tribe. At least we didn’t think it affected our tribe. The church in the west in various generations has been slow, far too slow, to champion the dignity and equality of really anybody that’s outside of their circle.
We’d love to know what Greear has in mind when he talks about “Gender-justice.” According to the Global Fund for Women, they define gender-justice as “the systemic redistribution of power, opportunities, and access for people of all genders through the dismantling of harmful structures including patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia. Similar to terms like racial justice and climate justice, it signifies an intersectional approach that centers the needs, experiences, and leadership of people most impacted by discrimination and oppression.” Something like that?
And some of us ask, we look back with genuine bewilderment, and we say ‘how could some of these great theologians, how could some of our ancestors have either gone along with slavery, some place even defending it, at the very least not really seeming to care about it very much. How could a large majority of conservative bible-believing Christians have just sat out on the sidelines during civil rights?’
And for the most part I think you’ve got to conclude they felt like it didn’t directly affect them, at least in the short run, so they didn’t think that much about it. [Like Dan they sat back in the [ships?] when they should have been out in the fight .
We have to be clear, the scripture says this not getting involved on behalf of others is a matter in God’s eyes of justice. Bearing the burden of our brothers and sisters in God’s kingdom, even when, especially when we think that what is happening doesn’t directly affects us is a matter of justice…
The word justice occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament, and almost always when you see it, or a lot of times when you see it, you’ll see four classes of people who are brought up, as in Deuteronomy 10:18. The widows, the orphans, the foreigner and the poor. What one scholars calls the quartet of the vulnerable. The just person according to the law is the one helping those 4 groups and any others that are marginalized.
The just person is not the one who is just paying their taxes. It’s not the one that’s just going along and not stealing from anybody. The just person in God’s eyes is the one who is taking up the cause of the one who is not him or her.
One scholar said it this way: ‘In the Old Testament, justice is not just putting down the oppressor, it is also helping to lift up the oppressed’. You see with the blessing of privilege, of whatever kind you want to call it, comes a responsibility to leverage that privilege for the less fortunate. I take a moment to point this out because we tend to put helping the needy or the oppressed under the heading of ‘charity’, and we say well if you don’t do that then you’re stingy. But God calls it injustice which is a much more serious thing…
This is where things really started to change for me, and where they continue to change for me as God has graciously put into my life and into our church brothers and sisters of color and it ceases to be a theoretical thing and it starts to be something I’m not reading about on CNN or Fox News. It starts to be a conversation I’m having across the dinner table and you start to realize ‘hey what’s this election look like from that perspective?’
What is that chapter of history, what does it feel like from that perspective? And what is the fact that I never talk about that aspect of that chapter of history, what does that feel like from that perspective? And what does that application process feel like from that perspective, and what is that crime, what does that police shooting, what does that feel like from that perspective?
JD Hall breaks down this fallacy:
Greear argues that “justice” means helping the poor. Of course, nowhere in Scripture – and I mean absolutely nowhere – is the issue of justice conflated with helping the impoverished escape poverty. Justice only demands that the impoverished have the same legal rights (not possessions) as others.
The word used in Judges 5:23 is שָׁפַט (pronounced ‘mish·pat‘) and refers to the handing down of a verdict in a court of law. The concept includes law-following and law-enforcing. Someone who is doing mish·pat is someone following God’s laws or a judge or jury punishing breakers of God’s law.
A survey of this word’s usage in the Hebrew Old Testament demonstrates this. The word, mish·pat, is used in conjunction with “judgment” and law-following in Genesis 18:19, Genesis 40:13, Exodus 21:1, and Leviticus 18:4 (just to name a few).
There are places where mish·pat and poverty or the poor are used together, like in Exodus 23:6, which declares that the poor shouldn’t be denied justice. This only strengthens the argument, however, because that passage, and others like it, are explicitly arguing that the poor should have the same right of legal recourse as anyone else. Neither this passage, nor any like it, argue that mish·pat has anything to do with giving things (possessions, food, clothing, etc…) to the poor. Mish·pat only refers to equal treatment under the law. Furthermore, let me add this strong rebuke here…
To argue the idea that “It is unjust, the OT says in almost 200 places, for those in positions of privilege not to leverage that privilege for those without it” is beyond asinine. It is beyond absurd.
First, this sentence from Greear is nothing but a pile of post-modern, Social Justice gibberish that has gone down the throat and has come back up a jumbled, gelatinous pile of regurgitated, nonsensical vomit. The use of the term “privilege” here (in the way Greear uses it) is absolutely foreign to the Old Testament.
This is a textbook definition of eisegesis. What Greear did was essentially 21st Century cultural appropriation shoved into the Sacred Writ. Not only is the language used by Greear utterly foreign to the Bible, the concept of privilege as a bad thing or as something that creates debt to others, is absent in the entirety of the Bible. What Greear said here was as eisegetical as any time Steven Furtick has read himself into the story of David.
“Leveraging your privilege” is not a thing, Biblically. I would encourage anyone to do a systematic theology on the intersectionality of justice and poverty, and you would find that the only admonitions toward the poor in the Old Testament in relation to “justice” is a demand they be treated the same as the wealthy. Nowhere does the Bible suggest it’s a matter of justice to redistribute wealth. By the way, verses like Leviticus 19:15 explicitly commanded Israel not to mistreat the rich in the name of helping the poor!
Justice – “Getting what one is due, what they deserve, or that to which they are entitled.”
Mercy – “Compassion toward one in a lesser estate, particularly done without obligation, but with empathy.”
How is it possible that someone of Greear’s ability to teach Scripture totally messes this up? Well, it’s necessary to butcher these distinctions in order to push the narrative that the church’s responsibility is “justice.” I further explained the problem:
The presumption of many of the thought-leaders on the side of evangelical Social Justice is that mercy is actually justice and that people are entitled to kindness. They presume this is the case because, as Marxists or collectivists, they have a hard time telling the difference between rights, entitlements, and charity. Sadly, this confusion has soteriological ramifications. If you do not know the difference between justice and mercy, you will have a hard time understanding the concepts of grace and gratitude.
This is your Southern Baptist President, people. Take a bow.
A California church is under fire from the government for what they say are a host of breaches of the state’s repressive shutdown policies.
The congregation of Orchard Community Church in Campbell, California was holding an outdoor service with another congregation on Reformation Sunday when two non-official officials for the County Health Department pinned a series of compliance docs to their doors after the service, charging that they were violating health orders by their service and would be fined if they didn’t change their wayward ways.
Despite the Church following recommended health protocols by being outdoors, socially distanced, wearing masks, had sanitizer stations set up, and had signage present, they were dinged anyway, with the church receiving 6 violations.
1. Failure to submit online compliance protocol
2. Failure to require face coverings while singing
3. Failure to maintain a list of those in attendance for contact tracing
4-6: Official signage violations
The report states that the Church failed to require the use of face coverings while singing and not properly socially distancing, telling Pastor Todd Burgett “We saw that you had one person without a mask during singing, only 6 ft not 10 ft away.” The pastor notes that only 1 out of 82 people weren’t wearing a mask during one song, but that was enough for the decrepit long arm of the law to curl its talons around the neck of the church and squeeze.
They received three violations for improper signs, with Burgett telling us “We had our own signs, not the county official signage that you can only get if you sign the online compliance protocols – which we decided to do on Monday.” Compliance protocols refer to the plan churches and businesses must submit showing how they will abide by the mandated meeting guidelines.
The most offensive violation to the pastor, however, was the insistence that the church records the names and phone numbers of all members or visiting guests, which the pastor calls “reminiscent of communist-controlled countries.”
I found out yesterday that they are supposed to give two warnings before a citation – this was told to me by a church employee who is working as a church liaison between the county and churches. He sent me a document corroborating that the county promised not to just react to an angry neighbor reporting – but that is what started this issue – a neighbor reporting us 3-4 weeks ago for meeting inside (which we were – air quality was dangerous in light of forest fires) but said that we were not wearing masks or social distancing – which we were. They seemed to single us out – nit-picking over details.
Santa Clara County, where the church resides, is one of the top 5 strictest counties in the country. County health director, Dr. Sarah Cody was the first in the country to order a coronavirus lockdown and has been critical of even the small steps Gavin Newson has taken to re-open California. She’s on the record of denoting churches as “not essential” and if she had it her way, they would likely be the very last to open.
Pray for our brothers and sisters at Orchard County Church.
In a notification chain sent out to Church Members, the leadership at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, updated congregants on the LA Times claim that a Coronavirus “Outbreak” has occurred at the Church:
You may have seen a report on the news claiming that there is a COVID-19 Outbreak at our church. There is no Outbreak at Grace Church. We have three part-time employees who tested positive and are now recovering at home, having never been hospitalized. As we enter the flu season, we encourage you to stay at home if you are not feeling well or have COVID-19-like symptoms. We are going to meet for worship this Sunday to celebrate the Lord’s table together.
Grace Chuch made the announcement in order to comply with Los Angeles County’s health protocols, which require all churches and houses of worship to report to the Department of Public Health when three cases of COVID-19 are reported or identified within a period of 14 days.
While it is true that three part-time staff members tested positive, there are other cases of members getting COVID-19 at Grace Church. Tim Hurd at the Biblethumpingwingnut reports that congregation members have contacted him informing him that either they or people they know who attend have it, though to which degree the leadership is aware remains to be seen.
The point remains, however, that a few cases out of more than 7000 people gathered together is hardly news. The overwhelming vast majority of these cases will be resolved in the same way the flu is – with people staying home, feeling sick for a few days, and then recovering. The fact that the media is trying to frame this as an irresponsible superspreader event so that they may point and say, “See? See?!” is beyond the pale.
Furthermore, it has never been the church’s position that it is only safe to hold services if no one ever tests positive. Pastor John MacArthur has acknowledged that congregation members and staff may get sick and even perish, but that the Lord is sovereign and they will not discontinue services for that reason.
In light of this, Grace Church is still going ahead with hosting their annual Fall Fair on Halloween, where the church is hosting a fun afternoon for children. Members are encouraged to invite their friends and neighbors to the event which will take place at the church, and there will be sno-cones, carnival games, bouncy castles, face-painting (a prospect that would be anathema anywhere else) and popcorn for everyone to enjoy.
Black Lives Matter rioters, up in arms over the completely justified shooting of Walter Wallace, have set fire to a Southern Baptist church and burned it down in a despicable act of arson and terrorism.
“I have no idea why they attacked our church,” said Pastor Pham, who was woken by a parishioner with news that their building was burning. “They burned it from the roof. They threw flammable chemicals on the roof and [flames] burned through the roof.”
With the flames ripping through the rest of the building, Pham said the church facility is a “total loss” despite some structure remaining.
The Vietnam Baptist Church in Philadelphia was burned during BLM rioting. https://t.co/UwdFuRnC9E
Mercifully, out of the wreckage, Pastor Pham was able to locate a trio of hard drives that were not destroyed. These drives contained nearly 15 years of legal documents, tax records, and immigration paperwork for members of the community, as the church functioned as something of a community center for congregants and community members. According to the Kentucky Today:
I prayed right away: ‘God, please protect the hard drives.’ Other stuff can be recovered. But those files will never be recovered.
I saw the routers and modems and things surrounding the hard drives all burned, melted. But that piece of hard drive, no harm. No harm at all. Just two feet above that, all melted…That is amazing how God knows our needs and answers our prayers. He is an almighty God. He granted our prayer.
Despite the fire, Pastor Pham said he and the church were in good spirits, but requested prayer from the saints:
Remember us in your prayers in time of need like this…The church members here need encouragement. The majority of us have very strong faith in Christ, but a minority, a few new believers, they need their faith to grow. Pray for their faith to take deep root in the love of God so they can be steadfast in Him. Not focus on the problem, but focus on Jesus. Please remember us in your prayers.
