Author: Staff Writer

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Featured podcast Polemics Report

Podcast: A Tale of illegitimate Ex-Communication, New SBC Name, Calvinists Supporting Slavery, and Sincere Questions

On today’s Polemics Report for September 15, 2020, JD Hall answers several sincere questions about theology, and then discusses Jacob Brunton’s ex-communication. JD uses it as a starting point to discuss Biblical church discipline and moves on to Chris Bolt’s subjective complaints about discernment ministry. He also discusses JD Greear wanting to rename the SBC and “Calvinists” supporting slavery (so says Baptist News Global).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:26 — 139.3MB) | Embed

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News

After Concert, Bethel Worship Leader Leads ‘1000 People’ on a ‘Jesus Walk’ Through the Streets of Chicago

Worship leader Sean Feucht, a Bethel Church School of Supernatural Ministry alum who has been touring across America on his #LetUsWorship tour, defying governor lockdown orders by gathering in large groups, not wearing masks, not socially distancing, and singing out loud Bethel worship tunes, played a concert in Chicago last night to several thousand worship-goers. This event took place despite the fact that the mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot brought in dozens of police to restrain the group from having their intended gathering. Feucht recounts:

We’re gathered here in south Chicago, we notified the authorities, the park service and the police, and the mayor alerted the police to show up and shut us down. The police told us that if we set up right now that they’re going to take all our gear and put is in prison. But Christians are rising up. I’m telling you guys this is a new day for the church, there is our 26th city and we’re not about to stop now.

Feucht and those gathered had the concert anyway in a pivoted form, interspacing the music with preaching and altar calls. Upon hearing word that some people attending had given their lives to Christ, the gang brought in a pickup truck, filled a tub with water, and baptized several people in the streets in the flat bed, while hundreds looked on, prayed and cheered.

After the concert, Feucht and those remaining took to the streets in some festivities, marching up and down throughout the streets of Chicago in the darkness while singing praise songs with over 1000 people in tow. (Numbers according to Feucht, we have not been able to independently)

Up and down they marched, playing guitar, banging a drum, and singing, many at the top of their lungs.

While Feucht may be generous with his estimations of the number of people attending in person, his presence is becoming massive online. His events are being watched by literal millions across his social media pages, accruing 70k comments across a few videos from today. Even a brief live stream by Feucht updating online viewers on the police situation has half a million views, and the event ended mere hours ago.

Feucht will continue his trek across the country, with over a dozen shows between now and mid-October.

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News

Tim Keller: Christians have ‘Liberty of Conscience’ to Vote for Pro-Abortion Democrats

Tim Keller, founder of the Gospel Coalition and cultural Marxist extraordinaire, has a long history of saying awful, terrible things, such as when his church called for more same-sex intimacy in churches, tweeting out patently, biblically absurd things, walks, talks and acts like a Marxist, trashed the ‘Social Justice and the Gospel Statement’ endorsed the notion of a ‘gay Christian‘, and claimed that people cannot be reached without art. That’s just a small sampling of his shenanigans.

It’s no surprise then that he has come out again with a frustratingly foolish Facebook post where he makes the case that Christians can vote for anyone or any party they want and that they ought not to be judged for doing so, in a further effort by Big Eva to drive the vote to the Democratic party.

Keller argues that a policy may be evil, but because the scripture doesn’t directly command a Christian to address that policy in a certain way, then the political party who holds that policy can rightfully be supported, despite displaying and uplighting great moral monstrosities. This naturally leads to more than a few queries.


“The Bible binds my conscience to care for the poor, but it does not tell me the best practical way to do it. Any particular strategy (high taxes and government services vs low taxes and private charity) may be good and wise—and may even be somewhat inferred from other things the Bible teaches– but they are not directly commanded and therefore we cannot insist that all Christians, as a matter of conscience, follow one or the other.”

Question. What if one party wants to kill the poor?

The Bible binds my conscience to love the immigrant, but it doesn’t tell me how many legal immigrants to admit to the U.S. every year. It does not exactly prescribe immigration policy.

Question. What if one party want to kill the immigrant?

The Bible tells me that abortion is a sin and great evil, but it doesn’t tell me the best way to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which policies are most effective. 

Question. What if one party wants to kill the babies and entrench baby butchery into law, being the party of infanticide, who want to remove all restrictions and restraints on abortion so that the country runs red with the blood of the innocent under the guise of freedom and the right to choose?

Keller finishes it off with this caution:

“This means when it comes to taking political positions, voting, determining alliances and political involvement, the Christian has liberty of conscience. Christians cannot say to other Christians “no Christian can vote for…” or “every Christian must vote for…” unless you can find a Biblical command to that effect.

This of course makes it so that that there isn’t a single political party or even politician that one could not in good conscience vote for, no matter what they believe, practice, or have as their platform.

The Communist party? Go right ahead. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party? Sure. After all, “Christians cannot say to other Christians ‘no Christian can vote for the Nazi Party’ unless you can find a Biblical command to that effect.” The fact that they want to round up the Jews and turn them into oven crisps in concentration camps is not a good policy, but you have Christian liberty of conscience to vote for them if you want and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, given that the bible doesn’t address the best policy as it pertains to alleviating jew burning.

The post was written only 4 hours ago at the time of this writing and has nearly 7000 ‘likes.’ May God help us if this is what passes for Christian wisdom.

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Featured LGBTQQIP2SAA News

Kroger Workers Fired for Refusing to Wear Aprons with ‘LGBT logo’ Sue Company

Human Rights Campaign Foundation recognizes Kroger as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.

Grocery store giant Kroger, deemed one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality in 2020 by the Human Rights Campaign, receiving a 100% score on the Corporate Equality Index and whose website says ” we embrace diversity and inclusion as core values, and we ingrain these in everything we do” has been sued by two employees for violating the Civil Rights Act when it reportedly fired them for refusing to wear a store apron they say supports the LGBTQQIP2SAA community and cause. According to the Miami Herald:

“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, filed suit Monday in federal court against the Kroger Co. on behalf of two store employees in Arkansas, Brenda Lawson (Age 72) and Trudy Rickerd (Age 57), who say they believe homosexuality is a sin.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discriminatory employment practices on the basis of religion.

“(Kroger) refused to accommodate the religious beliefs of Lawson and Rickerd, and disciplined and terminated them because of their religious beliefs and in retaliation for requesting a religious accommodation,” the EEOC said in the complaint.”

The two employees who were both fired in 2019 had worked for Kroger for 8 years and 13 years respectfully. Believing homosexuality to be a sin and against their religious beliefs, they were aghast when Korger instituted a new employee dress code policy that required them to wear a new apron with a rainbow heart embroidered on it, which they believed to be supporting LGBTQQIP2SAA advocacy.

The two employees asked the store manager multiple times for accommodation or exception, such as wearing the name stage over the logo or wearing a different apron, but these were denied and the two eventually fired or refusing to abide by the dress code.

While the two are seeking ” an injunction barring the grocery chain from future discriminatory practices, back pay, relocation and job search expenses, compensation for emotional pain and suffering, and punitive damages” they may not get their wish.

Critics have pointed out that the colorful heart symbol has nothing to do with LGBTQQIP2SAA advocacy, but rather part of the stores ‘promise campaign.’ They note that the tri-colored heart doesn’t in any way represent or look similar to the rainbow flag that ‘has long been recognized as a symbol of the Romans 1:26-27 community and is often flown in June to celebrate Pride Month’, but rather has different coloring, design, and has never been communicated that it has anything to do with that advocacy and promotion.

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Church Featured Righteous Defiance

John MacArthur Says Calif. Lockdowns Based on ‘False Science.’ Compares Tactics to Hitler and Nazi Regime

Pastor John MacArthur appeared on Eric Metaxas show to update on things were at with Grace Church, providing nothing new in terms of teh case, but he did provide a bit of information on how things are progressing internally.

Speaking against the impossibility of his church gathering outside in any practical sense, as social distancing protocols would leave them with only 300-400 congrats allowed to attend, MacArthur blasted Governor Gavin Newsom’s unscientific basis for locking the state and churches down, comparing the same justification that California is using to the ones that the Nazi’s used in Germany.

Hitler used false science. Hitler used false science about race as a people, about black people and about jewish people. He tried to basically use that false science to lock down the Reichstag in Nazi power. That is essentially what’s happening in California and even across the country, the false science of this virus is being used again as a club by the governor of California and others across the country to affect the political change they want to see.

Speaking to anecdotal evidence, MacArthur relays that they’ve met for 9 weeks and don’t know anyone in the congregation of 7000 who have had COVID and disputes that it should be properly classified as a pandemic in the first place, given the low number of deaths comparatively. MacArthur shares that Grace Church being open has been met with overwhelming support by congregants and guests who have been attending his services in great numbers have been encouraged and given hope to to see other brothers and sisters holding the line.

We are absolutely shocked at the number of people pouring into this church who have not been here before, filling up the worship center, filling up the chapel, filling up a tent in the parking lot, going into other buildings. Several hundred thousand devices are connected for online. We’re now broadcasting every service in six languages around the globe.

People want to hear the truth and they want hope in the midst of what seems a bleak kind of history for them. They see churches kind of folding up under the pressure and it frightens them if their own churches aren’t gonna stand and hold the line, where will they turn? So there’s almost a rush, there’s an exhilaration in the people that are coming here and freely worshipping the Lord.

It’s not normally that they can defy the government, but they watch this government collapsing in every sense that they hold dear, and for them to be able to take a stand against that and know its right because they are obeying Christ is an exhilarating spiritual experience, and there’s a joy here that’s beyond what I’ve seen in 50 years.

One member who attends Grace Church estimated perhaps 5500 people attended one of the earlier services after they first opened up again, and that many people attending were not members, but either Christians wanting to go to church whose local churches are not open, or were attending to encourage Pastor MacArthur. He even recounted “I met a couple who flew in from Texas just to participate in a Sunday meeting time.”

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cancel culture Conspiracy Featured

The Gospel Coalition Suggests Boomers are Sinfully being ‘Radicalized into Conspiracies’ by Ben Shapiro, Fox News

Students against hate speech holding signs to protest Ben Shapiro's visit at Boston University (Marsh Plaza) 10/28/2019

A Gospel Coalition article has taken aim at evangelical boomers who support and will vote for Trump, painting them as foolish, prone to conspiracy theories, inconsistent in ideology, and likely racist and xenophobic in some manner.

The article, written by senior editor Brett McCraken, seeks to discuss the generational voting divide between younger evangelicals and their parents. The writer opens up with this canon blast, framing the queries as facts to be assumed.

I’m hearing more and more young, conservative-leaning evangelicals express disappointment at the political behavior of their conservative parents—a growing concern that they’re being radicalized into the conspiracy-spreading far-right by a steady diet of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Ben Shapiro.

The correct response to these young evangelicals would be to rebuke them for such silliness and conspiratorial thinking, crushing and disabusing them of their propensity to propagate progressive talking points. Yet McCraken buttresses this scenario by providing another, remarking:

One young pastor shared that, as much as his peers want to glean from the wisdom of their parents’ generation, it seems there is little wisdom left. In the words of one pastor friend:  ‘They’ve all given themselves over to the foolishness of America.’

Meet the New Conservatives

Pivoting to favorably quoting Michelle Obama about how American kids are being lied to by their parents about their values and can’t trust them anymore, in the context of voting and having wisdom, McCraken points out how Obama’s words “resonated with many young evangelicals” like Michael Wear.

Wear of course is a proud Democrat who worked for the Obama White House for several years as part of his faith-based initiative to get Christians to vote for Obama and to overcome arguments that he was “pro-choice.” He also worked in the office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, framing democratic policies in Christian language to make them palatable. Wear also founded the @ANDCampaign, a democratic organization that serves to disincentivize conservatives from voting for Trump while pretending to be politically neutral.

Is this what the Gospel Coalition understands “young, conservative-leaning evangelicals” to be?

The Shame is Palpable

Pointing out that he can see why some “Christian voters might find Trump the lesser of two evils,” McCraken says that the real disappointment and tragedy is that these boomer parents don’t find Trump evil at all, and don’t frame their vote as one between the lesser of two evils, but rather of good vs evil, or good policy vs bad. He points out again that “reasonable arguments for Christians to vote for Trump can be made” while being sure to add “as can arguments to vote for other candidates.” by which he means Democrat candidates.

Summarizing, we get the notion if your parents are listening to Ben Shapiro or Rush Limbaugh, don’t believe that Christians should vote for Biden the Baby-Butcherer, and don’t necessarily view a vote for Trump as a vote for “evil,” then it’s right to be disappointed but that you shouldn’t be disrespectful about it:

Seek to understand. Don’t assume the worst. Don’t instantly ascribe their political preferences to racism, xenophobia, greed, or some other vice. Be slow to chalk up their politics to idolatry. While their political leanings may indeed be partially rooted in sin and idolatry, recognize that yours likely are as well…

Instead of judging them, give grace, and engage in conversation.

Why is the correction being framed as racism or xenophobia necessarily being part of the conversation, as if those are legitimate, likely motivators for voting Republican?

The caution coming from McCraklen is that “racism and xenophobia likely are motivators, but be slow in that accusation – you’ll get there eventually, no need to be hasty.”

Furthermore, what is partially sinful about voting for the Republicans? Where’s the sin in that, O Great Gospel Coalition? Where’s the sin in voting for Republicans up and down the ticket, local, statewide, and national? And not even just voting, but how is having a “political leaning” an issue that is rooted in sin that must be examined and mortified? Why is grace needed, unless the underlying assumption is that political preferences like voting for the GOP are on some level sinful, racist, xenophobic, and seen as a way to score some filthy lucre? The posture is that the fears and grievances of these young pastors are assumed to be factual and true, and not hypothetical queries.

A Final Swipe

McCraken finishes with a caution that seeks to come across as fair and even-handed, but instead strikes as overwrought and indicting, a final potshot to assuage the righteous anti-Trump freedom fighters of their righteous emotions.

Immaturity is thinking your parents or grandparents are totally wrong about everything in politics and are wholly driven by sin-born blind spots. Maturity is admitting you are just as prone to blind spots yourself, even if they are different ones. 

Again, what is being said is simple – your parents and grandparents voting Republican after being riled up by that conspiracy guy Ben Shapiro is a “sin-born blindspot” – but be humble because you have your blind spots, even if they are “different” ones and not “political ones” like theirs are.

Expect to see more articles like this from TGC as November 3 approaches.

Categories
Church Featured Righteous Defiance

John MacArthur on Defying Courts: ‘I Don’t Mind Being a Little Apostolic if they want to Tuck me into Jail…Bring it on’

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church appeared on Laura Ingraham ‘The Ingram Angle’ last night for a brief chat and update on his situation with being ordered to ceast and desist from having indoor services . Explaining why it’s so important to stand up to onerous edicts, Macarthur stated that the government leaders are going against the constitution and reiterating that the odds of getting the novel coronavirus are 1/100th of 1%, saying it’s not a legitimate basis for eliminating worship.

“The constitution supports us, and by the way, I am so thankful that President Trump has told me personally that he supports the church as essential, and that the churches need to stay open. So with the constitution on our side and the president’s backing, we’re open.”

Ingram references Kamala Haris saying that the United States needs to have a ‘time of crisis’ mentality as they did during World War 2, where society sacrificed for the needs of the collective. In this case, shutting down churches where the coronavirus may spread for the sake of the community. Ingram asks if that’s where America is now, and MacArthur rejects the idea

“The church preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ- that Jesus died and rose again and is the only source of eternal salvation. The church doesn’t exist to make sure it navigates around politicians whims, the church exists in the world to preach the saving gospel of Christ. We’re not concerned about the flu, we’re concerned about eternity, eternal life, salvation, and the more dire circumstances become in the world around us, the more critical, the more essential the church becomes and the more important the gospel becomes.

I’ll tell you something, our church is literally flooded with people. We have them in every nook and cranny, jammed together, inside, outside, on several floors, in our children’s education building, in the gym, in a tent outside. They’re flooding the place to hear the message of forgiveness and salvation in a time where fear is being propagated on every street.”

Ingraham, a Roman Catholic, says that admires MacArthur’s conviction, courage and strength, describing it as admirable and inspiring and relates how disappointed she is that her own Church has rolled over and has been hesitant to return. Praising MacArthur for his willingness to preach and face jail time, she asks whether or not Gavin Newsom threatened to do anything to MacArthur personally for defying his orders.

No, not personally, but we received a letter with a threat saying that we could be fined or I could go to jail for a maximum of 6 months. Of course, my biblical hero apart from the Lord Jesus Christ is the Apostle Paul. And when he went into a town he didn’t ask what the hotel was like, he asked what the jail was like because he knew that’s where he was gonna spend his time. So I don’t mind being a little apostolic if they want to tuck me into jail. I’m open for a jail ministry. I’ve done a lot of other ministries and I haven’t had the opportunity to do that one, so bring it on.

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Church Featured LGBTQQIP2SAA

New Strict UK Shutdown Orders Exempt LGBT Support Groups, Not Bible Studies

In order to prevent a second shutdown, the United Kingdom is now under the ‘Rule of Six’, a new set of strict social distancing laws making it a criminal offense for more than six people from different households to gather together, as well a host of different policies based on what region one is in.

The draconian law brings with it a limiting of normal activities. A mother and father with 4 kids would not be able to socialize with other families, or even stop to talk on the street for a brief chat with their in-laws or friend while wearing masks, as that would be ‘mingling’ and against the law. Lest one think that an extreme example, the health minister cited that very thing as being against the rules.

Church is allowed, but families may not cluster in more than 6 people and must socially distance while wearing masks, with singing strongly discouraged. Small groups bible studies may also take place in people’s private homes or in church, but they must be limited to 6, and all participants must socially distance and wear masks, under threat of punitive monetary damages.

At the same time that small group bible studies or small group prayer groups of more than 6 are absolutely prohibited, even in a private residence, the new regulations allow those attending ‘support groups that ‘provide mutual aid, therapy or any other form of support to its members or those who attend its meetings’ to be exempt. What are some of those categories? Those suffering bereavement, those caring for persons with, any long-term illness or terminal, condition, and anyone ‘facing issues’ related to being gay or transgendered.

If you are a heterosexual needing spiritual support, facing issues relating to your identity in Christ, then you’re out of luck. If you’re transgendered deciding whether or not to get top surgery, then you’re fine.

The government is encouraging neighbors to snitch on each other and to report all breaches to a non-emergency number, with the police being given the power to fine rule-breakers up to £3,200.

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Church Evangelical Stuff Featured

Jim Bakker Offering 27,703 Servings of Apocalyptic Food for $10,000

Jim Bakker hasn’t had a very good 2020. First, he released a magical potion that was said to cure venereal diseases, AIDS and Coronavirus. This naturally got him into trouble with some very important people, with the New York Attorney General telling him to knock it off, and then the Missouri Attorney General filing a suit against the doomsday prophet, alleged rapist, and tax-evader for making his snake-oil cure-all claims that we’ve been complaining about at Protestia and Pulpit & Pen for years.

This resulted in Bakker having his money-processing companies cutting him off so that he was unable to process things sales from his store, having to process sales by cheque over the phone, and then declaring that he was near bankruptcy. A few months later the 80-year-old he had a stroke, took a sabbatical, and how he’s back on the horse doing his schtick. And what a shtick it is.

Bakker brings in “prophets” like Bill Johnson, Paula White, Rodney Howard Browne, or Jonathan Cahn who issue doomsday revelations. Then, Bakker sells survival supplies. However, he’s technically not “selling them.” He’s giving them in exchange for a “gift” as a gift-for-gift transfer. “Purchases” are actually tax-deductible gifts to his ministry and what is “sold” doesn’t have to have tax added on because it’s only a “gift” in exchange for their contribution. Doing so allows Jim Bakker to under-sell his doomsday profiteering competitors.

It’s in this spirit that we see he’s selling the motherlode on his website. Brought to our attention by the hive of scum and villainy that is Right Wing Watch, Bakker is selling what has been creatively described as Joseph’s Storehouse Food Offer for a whopping $10,000

That’s 115 buckets of Freeze-dried food which some reviewers have described as thusly: “Save for the pudding, the dishes were extremely salty and had odd, lingering aftertastes. We couldn’t agree on which was worse — the thick potato soup that felt like eating wet cement, the strong chemical overtones in the chocolate pudding or the disturbing radioactive orange of the macaroni and cheese.” One professional chef called it “one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

By all accounts, it’s tempting enough to make someone take the mark of the beast rather than forced to live off it in hiding.

Broken down, it would support a 100 member church for three months, assuming one serving per meal, thee times a day. At this rate, you’d be paying $0.36 per serving. It must be said, however, that this is more expensive than the bundle Bakker used to sell, the Peace of Mind Final Countdown Offer which had 31,000 servings of food for $4,500, or 0.14$ a serving.

Pray that thing never get so bad that you need to feast on Bakker’s Apocalyptic meal kit.

Categories
abortion Featured

‘Pro-Life’ Texas Mayor Compares Opening Planned Parenthood Clinic to Planting a Church

A Texas mayor who campaigned on the platform of being pro-life is receiving much-deserved backlash after comparing the opening of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in his town to starting a new grocery store or church.

Lubbock Mayor Dan Pope, professing to be ‘unequivocally pro-life’ made the grotesque comments on The Chad Hasty Show, after receiving pressure from State lawmakers and hundreds of local residents to designate Lubbock as a Sanctuary City for the Unborn.

“Telling Planned Parenthood they can’t come to Lubbock would be in some ways like telling United they couldn’t build another store or telling the Southern Baptist Convention they couldn’t do another church start in Lubbock”

The mayor described the ordinance as a “slippery slope” and has bristled at putting it into effect, arguing that he shouldn’t be telling businesses “what to do.”

“It’s not the lane we need to be in. We need to do the things we were elected to do: provide police and fire services, make sure that our parks are maintained, make sure that we take care of our streets. Do the things that citizens elect us to do.”

Lubbock used to have an abortion clinic in town, but it shut down in 2013. Now looking to begin the baby-killing anew, the apex predator of the abortion industry, Planned parenthood, has begun posting job opening s in town for the proposed new abortuary and has given notice on their website of the impending new business.

If the ordinance passed, Lubbock would join 14 other cities in the state which have similar laws which outlaw abortion within city limits, with the proposed ordinance stating: “It shall be unlawful for any person to procure or perform an abortion of any type and at any stage of pregnancy in the City of Lubbock, Texas.”