Category: bad theology

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bad theology Evangelical Stuff Featured Heresies

Must-See Video: Famous Christian Apologist Mockingly Laughs at Thought of Talking Snake, Literal Adam

On a recent podcast, famed debater and philosopher William Lane Craig, in the news recently on account of his article in First Things where he decries Genesis 1-11 as “myth” while explaining that “Adam and Eve” were basically beatified cavemen that lived 750,000 years ago, mockingly laughs at all dumb young-earth creationists who take the first 11 chapters of the Bible literally, and who believe there was a talking snake and a literal Adam. Watch the video—his chortling is quite gruesome.

The story of Adam and Eve, I think it should prompt us not to be over literalistic in the way we read these narratives. And once you begin to look at them in terms of mytho-history, it’s difficult to look at them in any other way.

I mean, when you read a story, about two people in an arboretum, with these magical trees, whose fruit if you eat it, will grant you immortality, or knowledge of good and evil.

And then there’s this talking snake who comes along and tempts them into sin. And then you have this anthropomorphic God walking in the cool in the garden and calling out audibly to Adam in his hideout, you think
‘Well, of course, this is figurative and metaphorical language.’ This isn’t meant to be read in this sort of literalistic fashion.

And so once you begin to see these narratives this way, I think you’ll begin to ask yourself, ‘how can I read them any other way?’ It would be like reading Aesop’s Fables literalisticly, as really about talking animals, for example, rather than as figurative or metaphorical, in order to teach some moral lesson.

This is not the first time that Dr. William Lane Craig has sounded off on Young-earth creationists. During his 2019 weekly Sunday school class on Christian doctrine and apologetics, he mocked them endlessly, saying among other things:

I think it’s evident that unless one adopts the literal young earth creationist interpretation, Genesis one doesn’t really say anything about how God created life on Earth…Truly, young-earth creationists live in a different universe than most of us do. This is crank-science, and Christians should not be attracted to it.

Bonus comments from the interview

I think that’s right. And I am not willing, Shawn, to write Neanderthals out of the human race. I think that kind of dehumanizing attitude is, frankly morally unconscionable. It’s a kind of racism in a way. These were people just as much as ancient Homo sapiens were, just as much as we are, and we should not dehumanize them in that way.

For those who hold to the doctrine of original sin, that is to say that we are culpable for Adam’s sin, or that Adam’s sin corrupted human nature. And we all bear that disease, the historical Adam is absolutely crucial, because if he is merely a fictional character that never existed, obviously, we cannot be culpable for the wrongdoing of a fictional person or be corrupted by his fault. Now, I myself don’t hold to that classical doctrine of original sin. I think that that is neither taught in Genesis three or in Romans five.

Now, I would be disingenuous, Shawn, if I were to say, I don’t want the young earth creationist interpretation to come out true. Okay. To me, that is a nightmare. My greatest fear is that the young earth creationist might be right in his hermeneutical claim—that Genesis does teach those things that I described earlier. And I say that would be a nightmare. Because if that’s what the Bible teaches, it puts the Bible into massive, I think irredeemable conflict with modern science, history and linguistics, and I don’t want that to happen.

This is a distinction which is widely made among New Testament scholars, when it comes to dealing with how the New Testament treats figures in literature that the New Testament authors cite. So, for example, when they talk about Moses, is this the Moses that actually lived? Or is it the Moses as described in the Pentateuch? When they talk about Adam, is this the actual historical Adam? Or is this just the Adam of the story, and you cannot assume too quickly, that the literary figure is the same as the historical figure.

[Editor’s note: The denial of Original Sin is a form of Gnostic heresy (that in fact led to Arminianism!), and seems to be very common with the “intellectual” crowd these days.]

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bad theology Featured Heresies News

Apologist William Craig Denies Genesis 1-11: Adam was Caveman that Lived 750,000 Years Ago

Frequently viewed as evangelicalism’s foremost Christian apologist, William Lane Craig’s name is most often associated with his ministry organization Reasonable Faith, the name of his most famous book and also weekly podcast. 

A proponent of ‘mere Christianity theology,’ the professional philosopher gained prominence by pummeling atheists in the name of a ‘bare theism,’ seeking to have them acknowledge that, with the use of a well-executed presentation of Kalam cosmological argument, the preponderance of the evidence is that there is a First Cause in the universe. 

While Craig is a member of and a Sunday School teacher at a Southern Baptist Church, he is Wesleyan in his soteriology. He is also a Molinist and social Trinitarian who has proposed a controversial Neo-Apollonarian Christology. Although Craig rejects Open Theism, he has stated (in the course of explaining Transworld Depravity) that God “has to play with the cards He’s dealt.”

In a new essay for First Things, Craig explains that Genesis 1-11 are all myths and ‘mytho-history’ that didn’t happen and are not to be taken literally, but it’s only in Genesis 12 with the story of Abraham that things become real and historical.

As far as how Craig does explain the references to Adam by Jesus and Paul, he uses the language of ‘true-in-story:

A statement is true-in-a-story if it is found in or implied by that story. So if I say, for example, that Gilgamesh slew the Bull of Heaven, my statement, though true-in-the-Epic of Gilgamesh, is false.

In the same way, references to Adam are true-in-a-story. They are true in the sense that Genesis records them as happening, but are similarly actually false. Craig asserts, “we can see how naive it is to argue that merely because some New Testament author refers to a literary figure, whether found in the Old Testament or outside it, that figure is asserted to be a historical person.”

Despite believing the stories in Genesis 1-11 never happened, Craig does not discount the idea that there was a ‘progenitor of the entire human race’ – some sort of ‘first couple’ which he ultimately surmises is a pre-homosapien caveman that lived nearly a million years ago.

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bad theology Coronavirus

Famous ‘Christian’ Scientist: In-Person Public Schooling Is A Higher Priority Than In-Person Church

We are quickly discovering that the beliefs of Francis Collins, one of the world’s leading geneticists, scientists and professing Christians, are more thoroughly compromised than we imagined (including his views of Pride Month and LGBTQ) Collins is the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the founder of BioLogos, the self-described “Christian organization” that seeks to bridge the bible and evolution while insisting that humans evolved from apes 200,000 years ago and that Adam and Eve never actually existed.

In an interview with Ed Stetzer, who tried to smuggle him in as an authoritative voice Christians should be listening to, Collins informs Stetzer that it’s more important that kids have in-person school than adults and kids have in-person church.

Stetzer: If kids need in-person school, and we don’t have any clear end to this pandemic, do people need in-person church? Are there ways to do this more safely?

Collins: The consequences of missing out on that personal interaction for educational progress, for social interactions, just for human development as a child are really significant. Those of us who are adults that are missing our church gathering, we’re suffering too. But if I have to make a priority, it’s getting those kids in school is even higher in my list...

…It troubles me greatly, that somehow we’ve gotten in this big political debate about whether masks need to be worn in school for kids under 12, who can’t be vaccinated, who could therefore get infected and could then spread it to others. If we don’t have mask wearing in school, it’s guaranteed we’re going to have outbreaks and then the kids will be back home again, doing the virtual thing that we were trying to avoid. Really too bad that it’s turned into such a strange argument that’s going on… In special circumstances, especially if your church can meet outside, well, take advantage of that because we know it’s safer. Otherwise, if there was an absolutely critical need, keep that physical distance and insist that everybody wear masks.

Stetzer: What I’m not sure I’m on the same place as the esteemed Dr. Francis Collins is, if kids need in-person school and we can take appropriate mitigations, why don’t we also say that we need in-person church? You’ve been a Christian a long time, you know, they’re gonna have to quote the verses to you, but people want me to quote the verses to you. But you know the verses. Church is not just about electrons and avatars, it’s about feet and faces. If we can have kids sitting in desks and follow mitigations, can we do that in church?

Collins: We can do it. And again, the question is, what’s the risk? And how strongly do we feel that that risk is worth taking? If Christ’s strongest recommendation to us; how love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, we’re supposed to use our mind about this. And of course, the next is the commandment love your neighbor as yourself. This is a ‘love your neighbor’ circumstance.

Because if you are gathering in person, in a church, even being careful about it, there may be somebody sitting there who’s got an immune deficiency, maybe they know it, maybe they don’t. And then that individual, despite thinking they were protected, turns out to get COVID, ends up in the ICU and maybe loses their life.

So how do we balance that risk, which is not zero, against the deep desire that we all have to gather together? What is God calling us to do in that circumstance? I guess I come back to love your neighbor. And if I’m doing something that I think might be putting my neighbor at risk, then I’m worried about moving in that direction.

Collins concludes by explaining that if he were the ‘king of evangelicals” overseeing the churches who insist on meeting in person, he would “certainly continuing to insist on mask-wearing for everybody vaccinated or unvaccinated physical distancing, trying to maintain that six-foot distance” and explains that the most dangerous part of a service is afterward, where everyone wants to stop and greet and hug each other.

h/t to @wokepreachertv

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bad theology Evangelical Stuff Featured Heresies News

San Diego Church Co-Pastor is also an Active Porn Star

Living Faith Church in San Diego seems like a normal church. It has an orthodox statement of faith:

A run of the mill seeker-sensitive “vision and mission” statement:

And a pastor and wife team who look normal-ish enough

Check out their Church Facebook page. You would never know anything is amiss.

There’s only one problem: She is a practicing porn star.

Living Faith Church in San Diego has existed for some time, operating since at least November of 2020. Led by ‘Pastors’ Stephen and Angela Dela Cruz, they have a full band that sings regular praise and worship songs, have tithes and offerings, serve communion, have altar calls, and preach sermons each Sunday with bible verses sprinkled throughout, frequently urging members to go out into the world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ

Now, they are announcing that they are coming out in a big way, having completed their “Beta” for the last few months and launching it officially to all members of the public, using the fact that she is a porn star as a hook to get potential congregants interested, promoting them to “peek behind the curtain” of their plant.

The couple met each other and started dating in Bible college, with one bio explaining “They are both ordained ministers who put God as the foundation for everything they do. Stephen, who also advertises himself as a Hypnotist was also an Associate Pastor/Youth Pastor at the Message of Peace International Church from 2009-2010.

Amid the sermon titles like “hearing God through people,” “prophetic Proclamation,” and “Mastering Money” there are unconventional sermon titles like “Doggy Style” God’s Big Butttt!” and “Do you, Boo” the latter which is featured below and shows their whole service.

Their YouTube channel, which features their church services, bible studies, and inspirational messages, also features videos of their pastrix visiting “Exxxotica Chicago 2021” Adult Entertainment expo.

Angela Dela Cruz’s operates under a stage name, and her content is about as filthy as it comes, as she regularly posts nude photos and videos of herself, doing everything that a porn star would do in order to get attention and money.

We were unable to find any explanation in their sermons or any interviews where these grifters explain their theological justification for this sexually deviant and blasphemous abuse of God’s grace, other than these words by ‘Pastor’ Dela Cruz:

My wife and I are the biggest sinners out there and we wanted to create a Christian spirit-filled church that accepts us for our sins, flaws, and who we are. So our slogan is ‘a church for sinners by sinners.’

These two “pastors” are sinners that are both lost and going to hell, and they need God to save them to rescue them from his righteous wrath and fiery expectation of judgment.

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bad theology Charismatic Nonsense News

Charismatic Prophetess Talks Underwater Mansions, BBQ Mansions, Pooping in Heaven, and Disappearing Cucumber Peels

When Kat Kerr, our favorite pink-haired charismatic meme-bot and “Dr. Michael Brown-approved prophetess” isn’t weaving an unbiblical tale of witchcraft and false theology by claiming that she has a picture of thousands of lioned-faced angels frog-marching chained demons across the sky in order to go to heaven for judgment, or she’s talking about how heaven is filled with giant 20ft sasquatches, unicorns, 200ft high cryptids, and other fantastical creatures – the result of visiting heaven “thousands of times” – she’s explaining how all the secret ins and outs of the angelic realm.

Speaking to chief-enabler Steve Shultz on Episode 40 of Wednesdays with Kat and Steve, Shultz asks what the mansions will look like in heaven, as they won’t have a need for washroom, kitchens or bedrooms. Kerr confirms that even though there will be feasting 24/7, there won’t be a need for bathrooms or toilets, but rather the mansions are found everywhere, in the air, trees, even underwater.

Kerr has previously explained that in heaven, the food will become a part of our spiritual bodies, where the “atoms” of the food somehow merge with the spiritual “atoms” of the bodies and have no need to be “processed” and expelled, likening it to taking Flinstone vitamins that nourish the body.

In most mansions, because they’re so old, they’re all so different and in different places in heaven. I mean, some are in the trees in the rainforest of heavens. Some are in the mountain, the mountain of spices, there’s sky mansions, mansions under the crystal sea.

So you can understand just by me saying those few words, it’s going to be more than you ever expected. It will so delight you…So everyone has a crown room. Everyone has a glorious – I would call a great – hall. Like a great hall, where you get many, many people come to have events there, people have events in their own home.

Kat shares how she met a state trooper in heaven who died just a few weeks before she met him, and he had a mansion by the tributaries of the “crystal sea,” where he would fish all day, and be entertained by his dog who would talk to him.

Schultz: Wow [sustained], in other words, they could – they understand each other’s language?

Kat: He had a dog with him. He had a dog with him, it was like salt-and-pepper colored. Laying next to him while he was fishing, the dog was talking to him…he was actually having a conversation like in English with this, this person who had taken care of him.

Turning back to the topic of food, people will likewise be able to cook and engage in heavenly delights, with all the ingredients readily available for free, with no waste!

But if you love to cook, you’re going to have those magnificent kitchens. I was actually shown a good friend of mine, I saw her mother’s kitchen or her grandmother’s kitchen, I was shown her grandmother’s kitchen. And it was glorious.

It had things in it, I didn’t even know what they did, what they could do. Except I did see this part. She was making a salad for like 50 people. And she would peel a cucumber. And as the cucumber peeling left the cucumber it disappeared. There was no garbage. It disappeared, the peel disappeared into nothing.

Lastly, Kerr explains how if you love to cook, you can barbeque all day, without explaining exactly where the source of the meat is coming from for said feast. Are there pigs being killed in heaven to make some delicious pulled pork? Is there a heavenly slaughterhouse with the pigs (who can probably talk too?) go to be butchered? She doesn’t say.

If you really want a kitchen, maybe that’s your favorite thing is to cook, maybe you are a chef…you’re gonna have a restaurant like a barbecue restaurant. That barbecue restaurant would be part of your mansion.

In other words, in heaven you don’t have a mansion to live in then you go to another place like here – we usually work one place and we live one place – in heaven it’s all incorporated into the property, into the buildings on that property that is yours, and everybody comes to taste your wonderful barbecue in heaven…

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bad theology Heresies LGBTQQIP2SAA

PCA Pastor Promotes Pastrix Daughter’s Pro-Abortion Message

We want to talk about “Pastrix” Michelle Higgins and the PCA that made her. We’ve covered the Truth’s Table host a bit in the last few weeks, particularly how she is pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, and has crafted a theology developed to promulgate the queering of the Trinity. While it might be easy to surmise that she’s just some random pastrix who cut her teeth on liberalism and progressivism since she was a child, and now is all grown up, she is anything but.

Michelle grew up within the Presbyterian Church of American, which is by and large a conservative denomination (contrasted to those devils at the PCUSA). Her Father is Mike Higgins, who is the senior pastor at the PCA South City Church St. Louis, while also being a professor and administrator at Covenant Theological Seminary—which is a PCA denominational school. In fact, it was in that very same school that she earned her M. Div.

Before she became senior pastrix, she was on staff at South City Church as a “Director of Worship and Outreach.” It was during her tenure there that she sought to host an event through her organization “Faith and Justice” at her church in 2019, where she invited an openly lesbian speaker to preach. Once this was discovered, South City, after sustained fire and criticism, announced they would no longer be holding it, and Michelle found another church to host it—Oak hill Presbyterian Church, an inclusive church that supports homosexuality and abortion.

This event caused quite a brouhaha in the PCA, and after enough people complained, this incident came under “investigation” by the Missouri Presbytery. This is the same presbytery that “investigated” Greg Johnson and exonerated him, and basically concluded “no harm, no foul.”

Shortly after the controversy, Michelle was no longer on staff at South City. In the summer of 2020 Michelle became a pastor at the ultra-progressive St. John’s Church), which is part of the United Church of Christ denomination.

Pastor Mike Higgins is still her biggest fan, however, and continues to promote and praise her many acts of bible butchery. One discernment minion brought this salient fact to our attention, writing:

To scroll through Mike Higgins’ Facebook page and see his statements and reading habits shows that Michelle is not rebelling against the teaching she received from her father but following in his footsteps and taking his teaching further! Overall, he has been somewhat ambivalent (publicly) about his daughter being a preacher. But in case there were any questions about where his allegiance is, he recently preached from her pulpit (July 25, 2021).

After learning of her calling [by Satan no doubt] to lead St John’s church, Mike Higgins likewise sent her congrats on Facebook:

Then when Michelle Higgins appeared on ABC’s Soul of a Nation promoting abortion as a form of “Reproductive Justice” her father likewise gave her a shout out on Twitter:

He gave her a similar shoutout after she gave an interview with NPR where she voiced her support for the LGBTQ community.

It’s hard not to surmise that he shares her views, given what he said a few years ago as well.

Our researcher further explained more ties that Michelle has:

Michelle has gained a following outside of St. Louis through her Truth’s Table podcast and social media activism. This is known in many PCA circles. For instance, both Michelle and her father have been promoted, protected, and (in some cases) platformed by woke PCA leaders. One notable example of this can be seen in a series of leaked email from the National Partnership (NP) leader Mike Khandjian. These leaked NP emails mention the need to defend Michelle for her statements on the Truth’s Table podcast and a hearty promotion of that podcast to others. 

[Note for context: The National Partnership is a “secret” invite-only group of left leaning PCA pastors and elders created to guide voting and invigorate left-leaning pastors to be involved in PCA denominational politics. It seems to be headed by James Kessler and Mike Khandjian, although no official list of leadership is available.] 

While Higgins is no longer affiliated with the PCA, her biggest cheerleader is. He and other theological malcontents, while still reeling from the Revoice curb stomp that took place a few months ago at the 2021 PCA General Convention, are bound and determined to continue pushing the PCA away from Christ and into the open arms of their father the devil.

Editor’s Note: Bonus rant by Higgins when she got mad on her show that some people believed women couldn’t be pastors:

What does that word mean? What does the word ordainable mean? It literally means possesses a penis. It does not mean is currently in seminary, has graduated with an M. Div., and has gone before a licensure committee. Ordainable means that the person is able to be set to the practice of potentially becoming a church leader.

And specifically in some denominations church leaders may only be male and therefore when you whittle it all down that word is how we live out a theology that we have proof-­texted to death, to twist and to turn, in order to re-­erect a wall that God, I believe, tore down in his flesh.

Jesus, in his male body, tore down a dividing wall that now allows me to be just as complete as a woman, and yet in my own context no one will hear me unless maybe I develop and design a penis­-shaped microphone cause if all you need to have is a penis in order to be heard then maybe we should have a line of penis microphones. Because it is all that you need to have to pass out communion, to take up the offering, to shake hands with the visitors when they come in.

[Editor’s note: Although the qualifications for an elder, including a pastor, do include being a man, it includes MUCH more. For a complete list, please consult 1 Timothy 2-3, and Titus 1 as starting points.]

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bad theology

‘Wiggly Baby’? Tim Keller Sounds off on a Simpering God

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, said that if you have white skin, the bible says you’re involved in injustice, trashed the Social Justice and the Gospel Statement, endorsed the notion of a “gay Christian,” affirmed Christians have “liberty of conscience” to vote for pro-abortion Democrats, and explained that Christians will be purged from government and schools and that they brought it on themselves.

In fact, he’s usually so bad and distinctive in his wrongness, that we created a Tweet Generator about him.

Now, in all his wisdom, he posted a new tweet this morning that sounds like something you’d hear by a newly converted 13-year-old girl at a Hillsong Church youth camp, given how self-centered, self-absorbed, and wrongly focused it is.

His tweet is barely a step above the cringy and icky classic “Jesus loves you so much and died on the cross to prove His love for you.”

As @machencyberwarr aptly points out:

I’ll disagree because it obfuscates why Christ became man. God is omnipresent, He’s “close” regardless of our state. He became man to satisfy His justice to save mankind. While seemingly small, one take is to God’s glory while the other is close to man’s glory.

Exactly.

It is not hard to not say foolish, unbiblical things on Twitter, and yet Keller has a bad habit of tossing out his pithy little Kellerisms that half the time barely make a lick of sense, and the other half is little more than esoteric ramblings. We’d ask him to stop, but he’d probably just tweet back at us something like “Stopping is a refusal to let God start something in the moments that stop your heart,” or whatever else would engender golf-clapping and scores of retweets from his frenzied followers.

Bonus beatdown:

Categories
bad theology Evangelical Stuff Featured

Why Todd Friel is Completely Wrong about Romans 13 and Vaccine Mandates

(Evangelical Dark Web) Todd Friel is most certainly one of the most trustworthy more establishment voices in Evangelicalism. However, there is a great split in Evangelicalism on the role of government and whether civil or even violent disobedience to government is on the table for Christians. Todd Friel takes a near absolute stance on Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, with the only exception being if the government commands a person to sin. On the issue of vaccine mandates, Todd Friel’s argument is leads to a convoluted and squishy justification for defying vaccine mandates. But first, we should take a look at Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17.

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (NASB1995)

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. (NASB1995)

In both of these passages, the sphere of government is laid out. It is to punish evil and reward good. These passages establish why God ordained these institutions in the first place. Commanding people to sin is acting outside of their sphere of authority but that’s not the only way in which the government can act outside of its authority, thus justifying a Christian to defy.

Todd Friel rejects sphere sovereignty as laid out in the Magdeburg Confession, and therefore rejects the Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates and interposition. He says so explicitly. This leaves Todd Friel in a no-mans land of navigating these “unprecedented” waters. John MacArthur famously held the same position on Romans 13, but would ultimately invoke the Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates in order to reopen his church during lockdowns.

Sphere sovereignty would establish the four spheres of authority: self, family, ecclesiastical, and the civil magistrate. On the issue of vaccines, the self and family are the proper spheres of authority, depending on the situation.

However, Todd Friel’s position that you can only defy government when it commands you to sin has him pondering strange arguments about situations where taking the COVID Vaccine is sinful. Essentially he takes a roundabout way to come to the conclusion that if and when the government mandates a vaccine, defying them is a conscience issue.

Things that are conscience issues are issues in which the state and the church have no authority over you on, per sphere sovereignty. Yet, Todd Friel’s pathway of coming to the same conclusion by a different name promotes eisegesis. In other words, his deconstructive theology on civil magistrates rewards or gives ample liberty to defy the government using the Bible to do so. The idea that the body is a temple to the Holy Spirit and doing something that puts the body at risk you could determine is sinful is a logical path that leads to dark places. Yet these are arguments that Friel employs, perhaps to not alienate a hesitant audience.

Instead, the Christian needs a…

To continue reading, as well as watch a video where this is broken down further, click here

Editor’s Note. This article was written by Ray Fava and posted to The Evangelical Dark Web