Parents from mainline protestant denominations (Episcopalians, United Methodists, PCUSA, ELCA, and the SBC if it doesn’t get it’s act together) are twice as likely as parents who go to churches that actually believe the bible to end up having atheists or agnostic kids, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.
In a report released Thursday, the study discovered that 80% of evangelicals surveyed had at least one teenager who shared the same beliefs that they did and attended the same church, unlike mainline protestant denominations whose numbers were barely hovering above 50%. When all children are factored in, mainliners report that 25% of them had teenagers that were atheists or “religiously unaffiliated.’
Furthermore, 88% percent of self-described evangelical teens said they talk about their faith and belief with their family, while only 60% of teenagers from woke liberal churches said the same.
And the whole thing makes sense. The parents aren’t getting Jesus from their woke churches, and as a result, they’re not passing it on. Why would they? They can get lame platitudes, vague moral encouragement, and rainbow stickers from anywhere. Given that the teens also likely don’t see the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in their parents, with their parents have chased him away long ago, it’s not hard for them to see that they don’t need a church for that.
Two months ago, controversial Arizona pastor Steven Anderson, the firebrand KJV-Onlyist from Faithful word Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ, was permanently banned from YouTube, having his entire operation shut down accross multiple accounts. Not only did he lose years of content, but he reported he was prohibited from accessing, possessing, or creating any other YouTube accounts.
Anderson has the dubious distinction of being banned from 34 countries, including every English-speaking developed country. You don’t get to say things like “If I had a button right here on this pulpit, I could just push this button and every fag would just fall over dead. I would push it until it breaks,” without raising a few eyebrows.
Prior to being “burninated,” Anderson’s YouTube pages had uploaded nearly 7000 videos, which were watched by more than 135,000 subscribers, and resulting in over 100 million views.
At the time we reached out to him and asked what his intentions were, and he said:
My staff and I will start approximately 10 new YouTube channels in the next couple of days, each using unique phone numbers and email addresses. None of them will contain the words “faithful word Baptist church” or “Steven Anderson” in their names, and we will re-upload all the videos to those channels according to topic.
I have most of them backed up, but lots of other people have them backed up as well. People are uploading scores of my videos to YouTube per day and will continue to do so. I also am personally going to be uploading hundreds of videos to YouTube over the next few weeks.”
Anderson was successful for a while and made good on his promise. Since July he had his staff and followers post them on smaller channels, none including his name, but usually something nondescript to the effect of “Baptist preacher preaches hard against feminism” or “Not Broadcasting People’s Sins.”
His team created and launched channels such as JTankentaur 2000, I Baptist, The Son of Uri, Daily Baptist, Jonah 3:2, Servis Flame Zone, Baptist Burner, and Preserving the Word, along with likely a dozen others which have yet to be discovered – a testament to the dedication he and his followers have in spreading his influence and preaching.
This naturally attracted the attention of “The Friendly Unfriendly Atheist” who made a spreadsheet to track Andeson’s progress and spread, cataloging as many of his moves as possible.
Once all this information was gathered, the Atheist handed it over to YouTube who brought down the hammer of injustice and promptly banned all the new accounts that had been discovered.
The Atheist is also coming after the companies that handle Anderson’s online payment systems for donations to his website, seeking to have them drop Anderson on the charge of being a hate group, and no longer process his payments.
Anderson, though highly peeved and annoyed, is undeterred. In comments given exclusively to Protestia, he declared:
Every time our church creates a new account, it gets deleted within a few weeks. There are so many other channels mirroring my preaching [though] that they’ll never be able to get rid of it all. We plan to keep creating new accounts, every week if necessary. Every time they kill us, we simply respawn.
[As far as payments go] We have already had literally eight companies cancel us, many whom specialize in church donations. Apparently one viewpoint is allowed in America today, and it isn’t the biblical point of view.
YouTube Screenshot. From Tips for Ongoing Racial Learning and Growing - Dr. Jarvis Williams
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s ‘outtess yet in’ Critical Race Theory (CRT) supporter Professor Jarvis Williams has shared how he intentionally chose to pass over white congregants when choosing people to be a part of his small group, instead choosing minorities and ‘multi-ethnic’ persons of color, in order to serve as a ‘model’ for the church.
Williams, one of the professors hooping CRT into the SBC’s flagship university, (see here and here) made the comments during an interview with Verge Networks. The video has been posted below and the salient part starts at the 2:20 mark, but the whole short clips is worth a listen.
First, for his affirmation of white privilege existing, but then for his rejection of ‘colorblindness;’ which in CRT-speak is the definition that someone ‘doesn’t see color’ or ‘is colorblind’ or ‘doesn’t have a racist bone in their body.’ This view is seen as Very Bad because critical race theorists want you to see race and want you to focus on racial differences.
If you treat a black guy the same as you’d treat a white guy, because in your mind their skin has no impact on how they ought to be treated or viewed, (being colorblind) you’re simply ignoring discrimination, lying to yourself, and are inflicting ideological violence on the POC you’re not treating differently. Williams says:
“I recently had this conversation, someone said ‘well what can I do as a white person to help the cause of racial reconciliation?’ To which I responded ‘you want to get rid of the white saviorism mentality and not view yourself as the savior who’s going in to help these poor people, but rather take the posture of the learner.
Put yourself in spaces where there are people from different ethnic groups, but then also learn that person’ narrative. Because quite often I think that one reason why certain people in the majority group reject white privilege or…of affirm that there’s colorblindness, is because their narrative is not the same as the counter-narrative of the marginalized group…
Turning to the small group, Jarvis explains his rationale which sounds perhaps reasonable, until you consider how insidious it actually is.
In my small group, I intentionally chose people who were multi-ethnic to be in my small group to serve as a model for our church what this looks like before we have an officials mall group ministry that the church is behind.
So in my small group you have me, my wife’s Latino. We have a white brother who’s engaged to an Indian sister who are going to be married soon. We have my multi-racial cousin and his black girlfriend, we have a brother from Pakistan in my small group -he’s gonna get married to another Pakistani so he’ll be in the group.
And so it’s majority-minority, and we have at the moment one white person, and the rest of the group is minority, but it’s diverse minority groups, and then we’re going to pick up a couple more white brothers and sisters and so we’re trying to model what this looks like; we’re putting ourselves in spaces with different people and we’re doing life with each other.
In essence, the selection of small group participants by Williams was not based on the spiritual needs of the congregants, or on their growth and maturity, or proximity to the location the group would be gathering at- things which all would actually be relevant and perhaps worthy of consideration.
Rather small groups were chosen based on skin color and ethnicity as the primary, driving factor. Even the white guy seems to have been chosen because he has an Indian fiance. This is not a benevolent, thoughtful plan for how to build a small group, but rather is the laying of a rotting, fetid foundation.
This is shameful to the extreme, but you’d be hard-pressed to find Mohler or any of the SBC elites to say anything about it. After all, it’s already been passed around the yard and is in nearly every cell.
Several days after three of Ravi Zacharias old colleagues and employees, including his business partner and co-owner Anurag Shamra accused the renown, now deceased Christian Apologist of sexual harrasment at a Spa he co-owned, RZIM has released a statement on the incident, saying they believe the allegations to be false, and that it would be ‘virtually impossible’ to investigate them.
In a statement released to Protestia by Ruth Malhotra, Public Relations & Community Manager, RZIM commented:
We, the family and ministry teammates of Ravi Zacharias, can say that the accusations being made against Ravi do not comport in any way with the man we knew for 74 years, nor do we believe them to be true. These accusations pertain to businesses closed nearly a decade ago. While we would like to respond in more detail to these accusations, it is virtually impossible to do so at this time given these accusations were only made months after his death and were never raised during his 74-year life.
While we appreciate receiving a statement, it doesn’t make much sense. Given that his accusers are still alive, including his business partner who has made the accusation, and in fact still lives in the same city as RZIM headquarters, it seems that the ability to investigate is not ‘virtually impossible’ but rather ‘imminently doable.’
RZIM could likewise easily interview and reach out to Steven Baughman, the one who has interviewed all three alleged victims. Furthermore, one of the alleged victims, while not wanting to have her name released publicly, said she would be willing to speak directly to Margie; Zacharias widow, about the incidents that she claims occurred.
Even if RZIM completely disbelieve the story, this is certainly more of a case that they don’t want to investigate, rather than they can’t.
John MacArthur and Jenna Ellis appeared on Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream last night, where the 80-year-old preacher currently embroiled in a battle with L.A county health officials over his church having indoor services, elaborated on what his plans were for this coming service, after a Judge gave the county a preliminary injunction and ruled he was to cease having indoor services at full capacity.
“We’re going to have Church on Sunday. There is absolutely no reason not to have church as far as safety goes. A statistic- one in 100th of 1 percent of Californians have COVID. That’s the number. And yet no one in the entire state of California is allowed to go inside a church. Doesn’t make sense. Plus we’re under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and he says have church, and we’re gonna have it.
Shannon points out that the law is not discriminating solely against churches but also affects any other large gatherings, but Ellis disagrees, saying that it is targeting churches because the state doesn’t have the same restrictions and enforcement on other large gatherings like protests, which they have lauded and encouraged participation in, nor did the ruling acknowledge or consider any meritorious constitutional arguments they claimed.
“When the government is allowed this type of broad, and arbitrary, unlimited and indefinite power, then our rights become mere privileges. And for the judge to characterize this simply as the county ‘allowing’ these types of worship services, that’s not for the county to decide. That’s why our founders put ‘free exercise of religions’ as a fundamentally, constitutionally protected right, so we’re going to stand up for pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church because he’s absolutely right, he gets to hold church.
Ellis noted that she will file a formal notice of appeal tomorrow
Mark Galli kneels during Mass at St. Michael Catholic Church on Sept. 8, 2020, in Wheaton, Illinois. RNS photo by Tom Killoran
The former Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, perhaps best known for a parting editorial in the flagship magazine where he blasted Donald Trump for being “profoundly immoral” and called for his impeachment, has left the Christian faith and become a Roman Catholic.
Galli has a long and storied history of converting from one denomination to another. He started out Presbyterian, then became an Episcopalian, then traded that in for Anglicanism. He attended a Greek Orthodox Church, then finally found himself swimming the Tiber and jumping into Rome’s sweet false-gospel embrace.
I’m not rejecting evangelicalism…I’m only taking Anglicanism deeper and thicker.
Galli, who has been attending daily mass at St. Michael Catholic Church for the past two years, even while editor of Christianity Today, intends to be officially confirmed on Sunday, said in an interview with RNS.
“I want to submit myself to something bigger than myself. One thing I like about both Orthodoxy and Catholicism is that you have to do these things, whether you like it or not, whether you’re in the mood or not, sometimes whether you believe or not. You just have to plow ahead.
I want that. If it’s left up to me, I am one lazy son-of-a-bitch. I will not do anything unless someone comes along and says, ‘You need to do this. This is really important. This will shape your life. Come on, Galli. Get off your butt.’
Reflecting on his love for the service, which he can be in-and-out in less than 30 minutes, he is appreciative.
“The Mass is a perfect Mark Galli service. There’s no singing. There are no hymns. The homily is five minutes. The whole service is 25 minutes. They give you a single thought, a single illustration, a quote, and you’re done. Wow.”
With joining the Roman Catholic church, Galli will be accepting the width and breadth of Roman Catholic false doctrines, such as the infallibility of the Pope, and the idea of the Pope being an ‘Alter Christus” or “Another Christ.” He accepts the sinlessness of Mary, that Mary was an “ever virgin,” and that she did not die but ascended into heaven, being unable to perish due to her sinless perfection.
He accepts purgatory and rejects salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ’s work alone. He accepts the treasury of merit and the belief that sacred tradition is equally true as scripture. He believes that grace can be merited and that the church magisterium is the true infallible source of doctrine and truth. He believes that forgiveness of sin and salvation is by faith and works, penance being necessary for salvation, the practice of indulgences, and a host of other spiritually poisonous and biblically noxious beliefs that culminate in a plethora of damnable heresies.
Mark Galli, taking his cue from 1 John 2:19 went out from us, because he was not of us; for if he had been of us, he would have continued with us. But he went out, that it might become plain that he is not of us.
L.A. County officials are celebrating after L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff sided with the public health officials hell-bent on shutting down Grace Community Church (GCC), giving the adversarial officials a win after a string of losses against the Church.
The judge overseeing the case ruled Thursday that the MacArthur-led megachurch would be barred from having indoor services this coming Sunday, as well as every other Sunday for the foreseeable future, arguing that the church being open is an “immediate threat to public health and safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
With the county obtaining a preliminary injunction, it means that GCC cannot meet indoors until it is resolved, but may still meet outside, so long as they socially distance, wear face masks, and meet in smaller groups. Judge Beckloff wrote in his decision:
While the court is mindful that there is no substitute for indoor worship in the ‘spiritual refuge’ of a sanctuary, the court cannot ignore the County Health Order does not dictate a ban on worship…
[Furthermore] The potential consequences of community spread of COVID-19 and concomitant risk of death to members of the community, associated and unassociated with the church, outweighs the harm that flows from the restriction on indoor worship caused by the county health order.
While both he and Judge James Chalfant had denied four of the county’s previous bids for a temporary restraining order against the church, the county was able to persuade them on the fifth time. He writes:
“The county persuasively argues congregants of the church are not isolated amongst themselves, but circulate within the county outside of their times together in religious worship. All citizens of the community therefore — even those who do not worship at the church — would be at risk of infection through community spread.”
The order also requires that GCC allow public health officials into their church and onto their property to carry out inspections and ensure the church is in compliance. According to court documents, the church has not allowed them to do this up to this point.
There have been no updates yet or comment from Special Counsel Jenna Ellis of the Thomas More Society, who is representing MacArthur and the Church.
Pray for Grace Community Church and the wisdom of the elder board.
Popular mommy-blogger, podcaster, and pseudo-Christian pagan Jen Hatmaker continues to wield her platform to promote theologically perverse teachers saying theologically perverse things, this time with guest Alicia Crosby on her September 8th ‘For the Love’ podcast.
Alicia Crosby is a justice educator and equity consultant, whose job it is to “help individuals, communities, and institutions explore and unpack topics related to identity, inclusivity, journey, and intersectional equity.” She co-founded the Center for Inclusivity, an organization that “fosters important conversations across faiths, sexual orientations, and gender identities to create shared community.”
She is queer and pansexual. She refuses to go to white doctors, supports looting and cities burning of cities during BLM protests, loves the WAP song, wants the police defunded, and expressed how upset she was because she had to have a white, cis-gendered history professor. She doesn’t come across as a particularly nice person, although Hatmaker heavily promotes her, heaps praises on her, and tell her audience that they should “follow her and sit under her leadership.”
Hatmaker describes the content of the podcast:
“We are going to look at the church’s role in the wholeness of Black lives. Without mincing words, this has been a place of profound failure for the American white church, because the center of the American church remains white, straight, and cis-gendered. All kinds of people groups who fall outside of those lines have not been valued, much less centered. And this has had tragic consequences…”
If it is a profound failure for the center of the church to be white, straight, and cis-gendered, what can only be meant is that the center of the church must also be black, gay, and transgendered, at least in some way. That is the radical revision she envisions.
Hatmaker, of course, is openly supportive of all things same-sex, having an out and proud child that she has denied the gospel to, hiding it from her daughter in an abhorrent act of parenting and supposed Christian witness.
Apart from mere description, the podcast says few things of note. In one segment, Crosby describes how she was “ecumenically promiscuous” and eventually gave up on attending institutional churches and congregational settings, saying they weren’t for her, as she couldn’t function in a church with power differentials and church service where she couldn’t just turn around and start have a conversation to the person next to her in the middle of a sermon. Rather, she says she lives on the outsides of the margins, away from churches traditional church settings, and that she’s happy there.
Hatmaker “ooh’s and ‘aaah’s” through the entire discourse, murmuring “Wow. That’s right. Yeah. Hmmm. That’s good. So powerful.” to a story of a clearly false convert forsaking congregationally gathering for a church service. She comments afterward:
Like that gave me butterflies in my stomach. I’m thinking of how many people heard you walk through that, and say that in plain terms and probably felt a million pounds roll of their shoulders. The sense of duty and obligation and should…shoulding…around institutional church attendance and involvement is so high…and so just the powerful theological framework that the people of God have been in and out of buildings since the beginning is so liberating like what beautiful and wonderful thing to say.
In another segment, Hatmaker says ‘that’s good’ and ‘that’s right’ to Crosby describing “the white church” as “not a curious place” and that “it relies on absolutes – being an imperialist space – because it seeks to control what is and isn’t permissible, which is what white Christianity has done.” One of the examples of the church not being a curious space is the use of horoscopes and the practice of astrology, with Crosby chiding the white church and white Christians for suppressing their use, upset that they call it “demonic.”
Eventually, Hatmaker elaborates on her own faith journey and paints for us a picture of how she went from a Lifeway best-selling author to a wild-eyed Christ-hater (our words). Sadly, she still believes her and the God of the Bible are tight and that she has a personal relationship with Him. She’s mistaken of course, unless she’s referring to the fact that the relationship she has with God is that He personally regards her as his enemy and the object of his wrath. But Hatmaker explains:
Once I stepped into a place of spiritual curiosity I rotated so many new teachers into my life, completely different voices, totally different faith experiences, absolutely different perspectives, whole new systems of faith and theology and doctrine and interpretation…[Once that happened] I experienced absolute spiritual flourishing.
David A.R. White and Andrea Logan announced on Saturday that the couple was divorcing, after revealing that marriage ended years ago, but that it was only being formalized now.
White, known as the founder of the Christian movie studio Pure Flix that has released such fare as God’s not Dead, The Case for Christ and Unplanned, as well being an actor in many of the films he produces, informed the world on Instagram that the decision to rend the marriage asunder came after “a great deal of prayer and counseling over many years.”
Logan released her own statement, writing:
“We made the most difficult decision to end our marriage years ago — a decision that came after a great deal of prayer and counseling over many years. Divorce is an unbearable grief and is being reminded of the death of a family dream every single day.
We have waited quite a while to share this news with the public, as we wanted to give our family the time and space to heal and process all that unfolded during such a difficult time.
We would appreciate your encouragement and prayer and would request privacy in this matter. Our priority is to continue to seek the Lord’s guidance for our family, as we lovingly co-parent our three amazing children. We value your prayers for our family and grateful for your understanding.
While the future is unknown, I have faith in God , and we stand on this: Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a future and hope.”
The couple has three young kids together.
Ironically, one of his most recent projects is the producer of Redeeming Love, the big-screen adaptation of the bestselling Francine Rivers novel due out next year.
Redeeming love is a fictional portrayal of the story between a farmer, Michael Hosea, who marries a prostitute. Though she repeatedly cheats on him and runs out on him, back to a life of whoring and selling herself with the result of unimaginable anguish and pain, Michael continually takes her back, woos her, and loves her. He refuses to divorce her, and they ultimately remain together and build a joyful marriage despite years of pain and infidelity.
The story is a metaphor for the Book of Hosea, with Hosea marrying the prostitute Gomer to represent the Lord and unfaithful Isreal, and yet the Lod continually calling her back.
On today’s episode of Polemics Report for September 8, 2020, JD goes through Part II of his refutation of Tim Keller’s Theology of the City. Is urbanity REALLY God’s main tool for human flourishing? Nah, the city is awful; JD explains. Then, JD goes on to discuss a worship album promoted by the Gospel Coalition that contains worship songs to George Floyd and other lefty causes. Finally, JD goes on to discuss Calvinism and Limited Atonement.
