On today’s episode, JD goes through the news of the day including Trump slipping in polls among evangelicals and Frankenstein doctors trying to put a corpse’s penis on a woman so she can be a man. Is it science or fiction? He then discusses “verbicide” as it pertains to Webster’s Dictionary changing the definition of “preference.” Afterward, he discusses Mohler’s pathetic reparations to soothe both sides of the debate, and moves on to teach how conservatives can handle the “if you’re not woke you’re not loving” argument.
We’ve written for you before about Karen Swallow Prior, how we continually find ourselves vexed and nonplussed that she’s viewed so favorably and regarded as conservative within Christian circles despite the plethora of problems with her. The list is extensive and has been enumerated below.
Recently, however, she took to calling out Christians who don’t want to wear masks at Church and those arrested while engaging in public worship as not really being persecuted, but rather profaning “True Martyrs” who suffered more severely.
It’s at this point that it’s hard to imagine that the gatekeeping Prior is an English professor, as she seemingly doesn’t understand that there is a semantic domain and range of meaning for the term “persecution” and that’s not all about having one’s toes chopped off or being boiled alive.
No one is saying that the persecution endured by participants in the Psalm Sing event, in which the government arrested Christians for singing hymns in public while not social distancing, despite allowing all sorts of secular public gatherings without the same constraints, is akin to the sufferings of Hugo Jacob Kraen, his wife Mary, and two other unknown souls of Asserow.
In their case, after they became converted they were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church who captured Mary and drowned her in A.D. 1532. Hugo and the two others were likewise soon apprehended and taken to prison into Gravenhage. They were made to renounce their faith through hideous torture but refused to do so. Consequently, they were tied to the stake and burned alive.
No one is saying that the two are comparable. It’s not comparable to having a lion take a hunk out of one’s neck and then feel its bite shatter bits of skull and spinal tendons, but it is indisputable that they are on the same broad spectrum of meaning, particularly when we understand it to include forms like “harassing treatment,” “oppression” due to “religious beliefs and practices” and “persistent troubling.”
Was it persecution when Churches were forbidden from singing in church at all? How about when police threatened to fine churches and arrest pastors having drive-in services where the congregants never even left their cars? Is it persecution when the government said Christians cannot meet in groups of more than 6 for bible studies in private homes and that if they do meet they must wear masks at all times under threat of arrest or fine?
When there is one rule for Churches and Christians, and another for pagans and secular businesses, that is a form of persecution, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of having one’s skin flayed and salted.
Harvest Bible Chapel (HBC) announced that after several months of arbitration, starting in August 2020, that they came to an agreement with their former pastor and leader James MacDonald, to settle all open issues between them and bring this messy, shameful blight on the church to an end.
James MacDonald’s employment was officially terminated by the elder board in November of 2019, declaring the money-grubbing guzzler to be so not above reproach, that they raked him over the coals sixty ways to Sunday and called him out for the abusive, greedy, two-fold son of hell that he is.
As a result of the arbitration, Macdonald walks away with the following, among other things:
-Walk in the Word (WITW) will no longer be a ministry under the umbrella of HBC. As part of the merging of WITW to HBC, there was an agreement that MacDonald could remove WITW and its assets to an external organization. This includes:
-Cash and real estate. Our insurance company paid MacDonald $1.2 million. HBC also agreed to transfer a vacant parcel of property adjacent to our Crystal Lake Campus which we had listed for sale on the market since mid-2019. These funds and this land are for the assets that Walk in the Word brought to HBC when it came under the church in 2010.
The Parties shall cooperate to accomplish HBC’s transfer of the deferred compensation funds that had been established for MacDonald’s benefit. This plan was in place prior to his departure from HBC and relates to a retirement plan of which MacDonald is the beneficiary.
In addition, HBC will pay MacDonald $250,000 cash for reimbursement promised to him prior to 2019 in connection with selling his prior home.
More about his luxury $2,000,000 home can be found here., but it was a beaut.
You’ll recall that MacDonald was living the high life prior to being ousted, likely rolling around naked each night in his Scrooge McDuckian Money Bin, reveling in the filthy lucre he was amassing and spending as if it were candy.
Harvest Bible Church, who is far from innocent in this whole mess, gave MacDonald a multi-million dollar checking account, and over a period of just three years he spent:
$286,096 In personal expenses for he and his family unrelated to the following expenses below. These included $100,000 in counseling, a pair of motorcycles, tuition, car repairs, etc. $416,139 was spent on travel (including those expenses related to James MacDonald’s “refreshment”), of which $94,046 was added to his W-2s as additional compensation. $170,851 was spent on hunting and fishing trips and related expenses. Expenses within this category include hunt cost, airfare, lodging, gas, food, gratuities, apparel, guns, and taxidermy (and related shipments). $139,502 was spent on meals and entertainment. Entertainment expenses within this category include golf, club dues, boat tours, and event tickets. $94,017 was spent on apparel and eyewear, of which $17,277 was added to James MacDonald’s W-2s as additional compensation $114,159 for “refreshment” expenses for other members of the Senior Executive Leadership Team.
As a result of being post-arbitration, MacDonald sent out a newsletter to his fans, of which sadly some still exist. In the letter, he calls on his former church to:
Abandon the false narrative in financial matters – HBC’s most grievous sin against us.
Hold accountable the particular leaders who led the hostile takeover and what followed.
Be transparent about HBC’s wrongful seizure of millions in Walk in the Word (WITW) assets.
Be transparent about HBC’s destruction of WITW and other efforts to end our ministry permanently.
As one might imagine from swindlers who go gaga for greedy gain, MacDonald is completely unrepentant, writing that the church needs to publicly confess for the falsehoods about him.
In a section where he addresses where and how exactly he failed in all this, assuming HBC is making everything up, MacDonald responds in a way that is reminiscent of a job interview where the employer asks the hopeful candidate what his biggest weaknesses are, and he replies, “I work too hard. I care too much, and I become too invested in my job.”
I struggled increasingly under the weight of it all. I stepped away from the ministry multiple times with Elder support to regain my health and capacity to lead. In the end, I just burnt out, and had to “pull over” for extended time away from ministry. I had carried too much for too long, and I am grieved by the impact that had on several good leaders working most closely with me. Three times in 2019, I confessed my role in those relational failings to the board in writing, and multiple times publicly…
MacDonald worked too hard, carried too much, and as a result had some “relational failings.” That’s all folks. Just a couple of relational failings. Nothing more. The rest is conspiracy. Just a bit of burnout from doing too much.
As far as what’s in the future for MacDonald? Now that he has another cool million, he intends to rebuild Walk in the Word, continue to build his Home Church Network, and preach and teach and be a pastor again, while accruing more financial “Change Partners” to donate to his ministries to help them grow and turn into the multi-million juggernauts of their former glory.
And we think we know who will benefit most from that.
A church in Kentucky has released a public statement saying they are investigating charges of sexual abuse against CCM artist Chris Rice after one of their previous male students came forward and alleged that Rice sexually assaulted him on several occasions 20 years ago.
Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington announced that they were commissioning GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), a Virginia-based non-profit organization run by Boz Tchividjian (brother of unrepentant, notorious womanizer Tullian Tchividjian) that helps Christian groups confront sexual, psychological, and physical abuses. (In the interests of full disclosure, Protestia and formerly Pulpit and Pen are financial donors to GRACE.)
Tates had an incident last year when one of their past youth pastors named Brad Waller was accused of engaging in impropriate sexual activity with several students between 1995 and 2006. In that case, the youth pastor was rubbing and touching his student’s feet and tricking them into rubbing their feet on his face, filming it, and then using it for auto-erotic stimulation. The Church hired GRACE, they investigated, found it credible, and the youth pastor confessed.
As a result, Tates takes allegations of abuse seriously, and even though Rice has not been employed by the Church for nearly 20 years, the pastor rightfully feels it is their duty to investigate these charges that happened to their students under their care. They released this statement, which can be found in full here:
On multiple occasions between 1995 and 2003, a musician named Chris Rice was hired to lead worship at our youth and college retreats. Mr. Rice was not an employee or member of our congregation…
Through his involvement in our ministry, Mr. Rice developed close relationships with multiple students.
Last week, one of those male students called to inform me of allegations that Mr. Rice had sexually assaulted him on multiple occasions. While these remain allegations at this point, we are treating them as credible because of the source of the allegations and corroborating evidence we have discovered.
Immediately, I informed the police and called a meeting of our church elders. At that meeting, the elders unanimously voted to once again contract with GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) to conduct another independent investigation into these new discoveries. We are determined to uncover the extent of the alleged abuse, along with any way our church and the leadership at that time may have been complicit.
While Rice hasn’t been relevant in the music space for a long time now, he was active and a big deal in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. He is best known for writing the Michael W Smith hit “Welcome to Our World,” releasing albums Deep Enough to Dream and Smell the Color 9, and releasing the controversial (at the time) “Cartoon Song.” Rice also was nominated for and won several Dove awards.
At the time of writing, these are only allegations, and Rice has not publicly commented on it.
Kanye swept almost all the Christian categories at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards on Wednesday night, winning 4 of a possible 6 and his work receiving a total of 9 nominations, the most of the night.
West, who is busy promoting his possible spoiler presidential campaign, gave glory to God for the recognition his Jesus Is King album received, saying in an uploaded video:
Thanks (to) all of my Christians that’s been praying for me, praying for the day where I would serve the kingdom. You know God just keeps showing up. Incredible increase and the favor.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1316741623682871297
Kanye took home Top Gospel Artist, Top Christian Album, Top Gospel Album and Top Gospel Songs, losing only to Lauren Daigle for Top Christian Artist and For King and Country’s “God Only Knows,” for Top Christian Song.
Artists he beat include Kirk Franklin, Bethel Music, Hillsong United, Casting Crowns and Skillet. None have yet commented on their losses.
If there weren’t another reason to reject calls from our #BigEva intellectual betters to vote for the Democrats as a viable option, we were given another when Joe Biden took to national TV and said that children as young as 8, and maybe younger, should be able to decide to transition from boy to girl or vice versa, and that their choice should be fully supported by parents and the government without any discrimination or intervention.
The comments came during last night’s Townhall, with Biden taking the question from a parent currently foisting acts of child abuse against their child. In a transcript provided by Breitbart, we read Biden’s response
Haeck:I’m the proud mom of two girls, eight and ten. My youngest daughter is transgender. The Trump administration has attacked the rights of transgender people, banning them from military service, weakening nondiscrimination protections, and even removing the word “transgender” from some government websites. How will you, as president, reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and ensure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under U.S. law?
Biden: I will flat-out just change the law. Eliminate those executive orders, number one. You may recall, I’m the guy who said — I was raised by a man who, I remember, I was being dropped off, my dad was a high school-educated, well-read man who was a really decent guy, and I was being dropped off to get an application in the center of our city, Wilmington, Delaware, the corporate capital of the world at the time, and these two men are getting out to get an application to be a lifeguard in the African-American community, because there was a big swimming pool complex And these two men, well-dressed, leaned up and hugged one another and kissed one another. I’m getting out of the car at the light, and I turned to my dad, and my dad looked at me, he said, Joey, it’s simple. They love each other.
The idea that an 8-year-old child, a 10-year-old child, decides, you know, I want to be transgender, that’s what I think I’d like to be, it’d make my life a lot easier — there should be zero discrimination. And what’s happening is, too many transgender women of color are being murdered. They’re being murdered. I mean, I think it’s up to now 17, don’t hold me to that number. But — it’s higher now?
Haeck: Yes.
Biden: And that’s just this year. And so, I promise you, there is no reason to suggest that there should be any right denied your daughter or daughters, whichever, one or two —
Haeck: One.
Biden: — one your daughter, that your other daughter has a right to be and do. None. Zero. And by the way, my son, Beau, passed away, was the attorney general of the State of Delaware. he was the guy that got the first transgender law passed in the state of Delaware and because of a young man who became a woman, who worked for him in the attorney general’s office. And I’m proud of that.
While one would think the Democratic party couldn’t get anymore ghoulish in their beliefs, it actually is an unsurprising admittance, as this sort of unqualified support seems to have long been the position of many progressive politicians. Now Biden, the possible future President of the United States, has made his own view clear.
Despite this mephistophelian grotesquerie, there are a host of “evangelicals” who work and write at 9 Marks, TGC, and the ERLC who still will either vote for the Democrats and their support for the chemical castrations and sex-organ mutilations of children made in the image of God, or will argue that it is perfectly fine and acceptable to support them, suggesting that nothing about ballot-box support is incompatible with a biblical worldview.
Tom Buck, whose Twitter account is a must-follow, had this to say about it:
The Babylon Bee, the most famed of all Christian satire pages that is both praised for its wit by normal folk and accused of racism by the Kyle J. Howard‘s and Beth Moore’s of this world, added another notch in their belt of high-profile people who have fallen for their shenanigans when President Donald Trump tweeted out their post earlier this morning accusing Twitter shutting down in order to protect the Democrats.
The ensuing traffic to the Bee resulted in the website crashing several times over the course of the morning, flickering in and out of usability, but seems to have restored stability at the time of this writing.
Headline considering, it is pretty evident that Trump did NOT read the article before posting, as this one was particularly ridiculous. The article involved the Hunter Biden email controversy, and the post imagined Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey smashing “a glass box in his office reading “Break In Case Of Bad Publicity For Democrats.” Inside the case was a sledgehammer for smashing Twitter’s servers.”
Dorsey then proceeds to smash all servers with sledgehammers, tires out, then has a robot come and help them, after which “hearing the Twitter employees talk about critical theory, the robot got woke and began attacking all the cis white males.”
In lieu of this article and Trump’s response to it getting millions of shares on social media. We expect fact-checkers like Snopes to go after the Babylon Bee and rate the article false, or CNN to continue to accuse the Bee of being fake news again.
The Bee, for their part, seem tickled pink, publishing a new article where Trump declares them the most trusted news source.
Pro-life speaker and alleged “Christian” activist Shannon Dingle has publicly announced she has disavowed and repudiated her pro-lifeism, declaring she believes abortion is morally acceptable and is coming out as pro-choice.
Dingle, who appeared at the ERLC’s Evangelicals for Life conference in 2016, released an op-ed outlining that she now supports abortion rights and legislation to keep abortion legal, even detailing how she planned to have an abortion just last year.
The apostate, who is a “Christian” in the same way that Jenn Hatmaker is or Rachel Held Evans was a Christian, (progressive, pro-LGBTQ, left a SBC church to attend a United Methodist one) recounts that after her husband died in a freak accident in December 2019, she discovered she was pregnant.
Already moving away from her past beliefs before this occured, she decided that it would be too difficult to be a single mother to another child (she already has six) and suffering from depression and physical disabilities, she made plans to kill her baby, enlisting a friend to help her.
Before she could terminate her baby, the last child of her deceased husband, she miscarried. Consequently, she writes:
I’m not pro-life anymore, not in the political sense. I firmly believe that decisions regarding pregnancy should be between a patient and doctor, not predetermined impersonally by a mostly male governing body. My body shouldn’t be up for public debate…
The pro-life movement can make up all the caricatures they want about people who didn’t plan well, but I was happily married to a living husband when I got pregnant. If I could have planned for him not to die, I would have.
Caricatures make for good propaganda but terrible policy. People, real people, become pregnant. And those people each carry their own stories, nuanced and unique.
Does God cause Sickness? “I refuse to create a theology that allows for sickness… You can only give away what you have. Can God give away sickness? No: He’s not sick. You can’t give cancer if you don’t have it….Does God ever choose not to heal? No. ~Bill Johnson.
Shasta County in California has announced that they are implementing stricter lockdown policies and curtailing a host of business activities on account of a dramatic spike in COVID cases, the vast majority tied to Bethel Church’s School of Supernatural Ministry (SSM).
The County, which has been in Tier 2 up to this point, made the decision to entered into Tier 1 after 274 positive diagnoses of COVID cases were reported at Bethel’s SSM. As a result of the downgrade, the County is enforcing the following restrictions:
Places of businesses like hair salons may be open while abiding by the mask and social distancing rules.
Retail stores can be open but with only 25% capacity.
Places of worship, gyms, movie theaters, wineries and restaurants will be required to move all services all outdoors.
Bars that don’t serve food will be required to close.
People who work in offices will be required to work remotely.
The Megachurch of 11,000 has been called out specifically by Dean Germano, chief executive officer for Shasta Community Health Center, after Bill Johnson’s wife, Beni, called masks “worthless” in a since-deleted (but saved here for posterity) video.
“It’s disconcerting to see leadership in any role disavowing the basic public health tenets of distancing and masking…It’s infuriating particularly for those working in the health care side of things (who are) dealing with the repercussions of people failing to do this.”
Many residents of Shasta county are outraged over the actions of Bethel Church, which already has a mixed “love them or hate them” public image, with one business owner saying “It’s because of these idiots that I have to close my business again. I can’t sustain this. I’m going to go bankrupt because these a****** hate science. And I’m not the only retailer who thinks so.” and another commenting “Can you imagine being responsible for a quarter of a million people re-entering lockdown? From a church that is all about miraculous healing and supernatual [sic] miracles? Unreal. ”
Kris Vallotton, a spokesperson for Bethel speaking about the virus spreading among church members, called the criticism unfair:
“I think it’s important to note although we’ve had some spread and our students have participated in that spread, there are churches that have been having services in our city,” he said. “We’re not one of them.”
Bethel shut down their healing houses 8 months ago, discontinued in-person classes at the School of Supernatural Ministry weeks ago, and Bethel Church has been closed since the pandemic began.
Three Sundays ago, after church, I drove up to Alpharetta to meet with Anurag Sharma. Sharma was, along with his friend Ravi Zacharias, the co-owner of Jivan Wellness, the now infamous spa where the world-famous apologist has been accused (by multiple witnesses) of asking for “happy endings” and sexual intercourse. The story of Jivan Spa came as a shock to some but not those who believed the account of Lori Anne Thompson.
Having been bound by a nondisclosure agreement, Thompson can’t provide a lot of details of her cyber affair with Zacharias but what is clear to any reasonable observer is that Thompson was groomed by the older, charismatic “man of God” for an exploitative sexual relationship. Having read an open letter penned by Lori Anne and her husband and published by Julie Roys tonight, I am convinced that Lori Anne is not the only woman who was approached this way by Ravi Zacharias.
Human depravity, basic statistics, and my experience with disgraced evangelist Clayton Jennings (and what little I know about massage parlors) tell me that Lori Anne is probably not the only woman Ravi solicited nude photos and sex from over his many years of popular ministry and world travels. I am left wondering how many more women there are out there who remain silent, bound by shame or a nondisclosure agreement. I am also left wondering how many witnesses and confidants remain silent as well.
Consider the case of Anurag Sharma. When I pressed him for further details of his dealings with Ravi his response was “I plead the fifth”. Now, I don’t think Anurag meant to imply that he did anything wrong himself (because I clarified it with him), he only meant to say that he didn’t want to say anything other than what he had already let slip to Steve Baughman (the atheist attorney and banjo enthusiast who first exposed Zacharias for what he truly was to the public).
A new spa with a new owner has replaced Jivan.
Silence. Surely it is not as bad as the offense itself. But can it be excusable. As a I left Alpharetta and a silent Sharma I was left thinking about another investigation in the same city where I was left with few answers. Last year, I published two articles about sexual abuse in the home of a prominent SBC leader. They were entitled “Sexual Abuse in an SBC Leader’s Home? I Need More Information” and “Sexual Abuse in an SBC Leader’s Home? More Details Released.” The articles were written in the response to the following letter received by Pulpit & Pen.
As the author of the letter encouraged me to do, I investigated. I tracked down the name of the girl, her brother and the school, Covenant Christian Academy in Cumming, Georgia. I was unable to speak with any teacher or student at the school, including the alleged victim. I tracked down the brother, who had become an athlete at Truett-McConnel University (a local Baptist school) but he did not respond to my attempts to contact him. An uncle, whom I already knew, told me that the allegations weren’t true…but I think they are. The more I learn about the SBC leader in question (and his associates) the more believable this letter gets to me. Outside of his family, the man in question has been involved in lawsuits, accused of underhanded dealing, and caught in documented lies. I suspect the Southern Baptist trustees who have oversight of him are just as compromised and partial as those RZIM trustees who were supposed to be keeping and eye on Ravi Zacaharias.
Last week I talked to another Christian writer who has done much reporting on the scandals, cover-ups, and outright ungodliness that has been perpetrated in what is sometimes called “big Eva.” We lamented the stories we “knew” were true but simply couldn’t publish because of the standards of journalism. The unnamed teacher and the silent Sharma, if only the witnesses would speak.
I am convinced of two things.
Many of the men who guide the Southern Baptist Convention and other large evangelical organizations are money-driven, power-hungry, self-serving, and crooked.
Many of the insiders who have been witnesses to #1 are convinced that the church is better of if nobody knows just how wicked the men who are driving the train are.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is that God became man and dwelt among us. He died for our sins on the cross. His blood paid our debt. Through the risen Lord Jesus we can be reconciled to God the Father and have eternal life. Somehow, things have been pointed away from Jesus and his work and towards the schemes and industries of the vision-casting mega-men in the church business. Are we really protecting Jesus by protecting the reputations of the men who pretend to serve in His name? Shouldn’t we first clean our own house? And what of these men, like Ravi Zacharias. He is dead and can never be called to repentance. Shouldn’t we be calling men like Ravi Zacharias and the SBC leader to repentance, if only for their own good?
Instead, silent people sit back as they gobble up more and more money and power. Stop it. Stop it by stopping the silence.
talkback@protestia.com
I await your emails from Alpharetta, especially yours Mr. SBC megaman. You know who you are. If it’s not true, you can deny it. If it is, your silence speaks volumes.
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
