In a surprising move, Bethel Church in Redding, CA has launched a YouTube Web series titled “Rediscover Bethel’ featuring an in-depth Q&A that addresses some of their beliefs and distinctives.
‘Rediscover Bethel’ is a video series that addresses common questions and misconceptions about Bethel Church in Redding, California. This series specifically covers Bethel’s theological beliefs, teachings, and practices—featuring Senior Leader Bill Johnson, Senior Associate Leader Kris Vallotton, and Associate Pastor and Dean of BSSM Dann Farrelly. This series includes videos on Bible translations, Jesus’ deity, physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, theology of healing, the gospel of repentance, prophecy, and much more.
During the first episode, they address topics like:
Jesus Christ is Perfect Theology
The Theology of Sickness and Healing
The Sovereignty of God
Is The Passion Translation Heresy?
What Bethel Believes About The Gospel and The Cross
Communion and The Sacrifice of Jesus for Humanity
They spend about 20 minutes on each topic, with the pastors fielding questions from the host that offer the controversial leaders the opportunity to sit in the hot seat.
While he does offer some clarity to a point, unfortunately he might as well be sitting on a block of ice with the air conditioner cranked to 11 for all the tough questions and follow-up Johnson is given.
For example, in the topic of healings and miracles, he clarifies what he believes, but a very obvious follow-up question is, “Then why do you wear glasses?” or “Then what about your deaf son?” or “Then why did your church and the supernatural school of ministry repeatedly shut down their school and the healing rooms on account of COVID?” or “Why was an outbreak at your school responsible for shutting down a county of over 175,000 people if your ministry has such an emphasis and belief on healing?”
But these were left unasked and unanswered. Rather, he says that he believes it is God’s will to heal everyone and then later contradicts it with a story of how “one lady, as I was praying for I could tell you…that if I prayed for healing, it would grieve (The Holy Spirit).”
He explains that when it comes to healing “I can’t pray ‘if it’s your will’ because for me, that’s a prayer of unbelief.”
When the host brings up Joni Eareckson Tada, who’s been paralyzed for years, and what to make of that and her faith, Johnson is introspective and falters, offering:
[I] can’t wrap my head around it…I would never want them to somehow feel less than, or that they don’t have enough faith, or that somehow this is, you know, God’s punishment on their life for that nonsense. I don’t want to do that. But I also don’t want to create a theology…around what doesn’t happen? You know, I mean, I don’t have good, I don’t have explanations at all.
Famed Modalist T. D. Jakes has taken a potshot at white evangelical Christians, saying they’ve lost their way on account of putting too much emphasis on decrying abortion and same-sex marriage, and not enough on poverty and criminal justice problems.
T. D. Jakes, though continuing to be platformed by those at the Christian Post and Charisma News, has gone on record as saying he doesn’t believe that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, but rather is just a “manifestation” of God. In fact, even now his church website reads, “There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
In an interview with the Atlantic’s Emma Green, Jakes recounts how COVID-19 has caused much suffering in his church, including “marriages imploding, self-medication, and serious bouts of depression” along with death and permanent disability.
As a result, one of the hardest things for black people has been not being able to attend funerals, given that the funeral, or homegoings, are more important and meaningful to black people than to white folk.
Speaking of the black experience vs the white one and the disproportionate way COVID-19 has affected the black community, he notes:
Jakes: It is amazing to me that we can live in the same city and have two completely different experiences. You can kind of be willfully blind to the pain of the people who are in your own city and have ladies’ meetings and come together to solve poverty around the world and not think a thing about poverty right in your own city.
Green: You know, when I hear you say that, I can’t help but hear an implication about the way certain other Christians—maybe white Christians in particular—live, with a kind of international orientation toward helping kids in Africa but not caring that much about helping people who are their neighbors in their own city. Am I hearing you right?
Jakes: [Laughs.] I think that’s true in some cases, but I don’t think that they are a monolith. I’ve met pastors who cared, and who have joined hands and tried to help and serve, and who were first responders in times of crisis. But by and large, it makes people uncomfortable to look at complicated problems. And the problems in underserved communities are complicated by poor education, poor access to medical care, crime, and the distance in culture. As a whole, I think white evangelicals lost sight of “What would Jesus do?” because they only define Jesus in very narrow terms.
Green: Well, you’re going to have to say a little bit more about that.
Jakes: [Laughs.] I think that social issues define the spaces where faith and politics and society intertwine—Roe v. Wade and same-gender-loving people. [White evangelicals] don’t always put the same level of weight on the poor, the disenfranchised, or criminal-justice problems. They don’t see that as important.
Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church announced yesterday during the June 6 service that after 40 years as their lead pastor, he will be soon stepping back from his current role with the church, having begun the process of searching for his successor.
Warren, 67, oversees the 25,000-member, 14-campus Saddleback Church that has been peddling poison and spiritual strychnine in the form of The Purpose Driven Life for over four decades now, told the congregation:
Now, if you registered with our church family and you read your email today, you know that this next week, we are going to begin the official search for my successor. That’s a big deal. The official search for my successor. This isn’t the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of the beginning.
But we’re going to start looking for the next-generation pastor who will replace me and lead our family into the future.
Taking the time to answer a series of questions, Warren explains that they have no intention of leaving the church, and in fact hope to die by it, but that he’s looking forward to the transition into a less visible role as “founding pastor.”
They don’t have anyone in mind to succeed them yet, but will be looking both internally and externally for someone “already doing purpose-driven ministry” that “fits the biblical qualifications.”
With the recent announcement that Warren and company have begun to ordain women, it’s not unthinkable that they would have a woman take over as Senior Pastor. He further explains that the number one qualification they are looking for in a pastor is one who will love them as Warren does.
They have no timeline or timetable of how long the transition team will take, only that the search team will be lead by the elders and will begin right away.
Continuing our series in the ways that World Vision has gone woke, we bring you Session Eight of their May We Be One social justice curriculum, which is taught to tens of thousands of people and pastors and moderated by Dr. Soong-Chan Rah and Rev. Sandra Maria Van Opstal.
In this segment, Dr. Efrem Smith, the Co-lead Pastor of Bayside Church Midtown in Sacramento, lauds Liberation Theology as being highly transformation in his own life. This is no surprise, as last year he tweeted out that this damnable heresy is a gift to the entire church.
For those who have been doing discernment and polemic work for a long time, you may also remember Dr. Efrem Smith attacking Voddie Baucham, saying that he was a racist and that his internalized racism is black-on-black violence when he addressed the Ferguson riots in 2014.
During his World Vision segment, he shares how Black Liberation Theology is a great tool for having a proper understanding of justice and gospel evangelism:
That’s why I’m so glad that today we are exploring the Latinx, the Hispanic, the brown story and experience. As an African American Christian who grew up in the black church, and who also in seminary was invaded in a transformative way by Black Liberation Theology, I soon learned that the liberation theology, the reconciliation and justice theology within the black church, has intersections with the church of Latin America. Slave ships didn’t just hit what we know as the United States.
And so there is a deep historic connection between the black story and the brown story. And so I learned from the liberation theology of Central and South America, more about the biblical journey, that the gospel is encompassing of evangelism, discipleship, of course, and justice. Empowerment to the most vulnerable among us. Resisting, not just sin housed in the soul, but systemic sin. And so I’m so blessed as a black Christian male to have the insights, the theology, the liberation of my brown brothers and sisters impacting me, even to this day.
Another one of the panelists is Kat Armas, who has taught extensively on “the brown church” through her podcast and books. She writes for progressive publications like Sojourners and Relevant Magazine and tells the audience that the colonizers, which is the dominant culture in America today, still continue to perpetuate the myth that persons of color are colonized and are viewed as chaotic, irrational, and evil.
So why do we even need an ‘Abuelita (affectionate name for grandmother) theology?’ What gifts does it offer the Latina church? Well, the dominating culture has othered many of our Abuelitas because of the language or the dialect they speak, their accent, the pigmentation of their skin, their cultural customs, their lack of Western education, as I mentioned, their socio-economic status and/ or their gender, right?
And so while the self, the colonizer is ordered and rational and masculine and good, the other, the colonized is chaotic and irrational and feminine and evil. And we see this in how indigenous and native folks were regarded as “savage” or inherently evil and carnal compared to the white European colonizers when they first arrived to the so-called New World.
And the current dominating culture may not say this with its words or it may not be, you know, “the intention,” but what is presented as normal or common in our current culture oftentimes perpetuates this myth.
You know, for example, we see that theology done by black and brown or Asian or indigenous folks is often relegated to a lecture in a theology course, right? Contextual theology in many ways. But throughout history, the colonizer has been the one to know or theorize while the colonized can only be known or theorized about.
Therefore, when we talk about a decolonizing or decolonial or post-colonial look, we are advocating thinking with the marginalized, a thinking with our Abuelitas, rather than a thinking about them.
Bonus. Another of the panelists for this session, Robert Chao Romero, founded an organization that teaches “Jesus died not only for our personal sins, but also for the structural and systemic sins of our society which perpetuate poverty, racism, sexism, classism, and injustice of every kind (Romans 13: 8-10).”
(Capstone Report) NAMB VP Dhati Lewis recommends book that denies penal substitutionary atonement. Book argues that justice is not always impartial. Book argues God demands preference for Oppressed classes.
What is biblical justice? It isn’t remotely close to what a book promoted by the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board church plant leader claims. In fact, a book recommended by NAMB VP Dhati Lewis argues that to do justice often requires injustice and to be fair sometimes requires acting in unfair ways. The Little Book of Biblical Justice was recommended by Dhati Lewis in an email exchange with Kyle Whitt. (Emails available here.)
In the NAMB VP recommended Little Book of Biblical Justice the writer argues:
“In some circumstances justice requires a disinterested impartiality, a repudiation of all favoritism. In other circumstances it demands an unequivocal partiality, a definite bias towards the interests of certain parties over those of others. Justice is both impartial and partial, biased and unbiased, equal and unequal, depending on the issues at stake” (p. 38).
The partiality, of course, is only shown to certain favored classes.
A new podcast has been released which details the rise and fall of Mars Driscoll and the Mars Hill empire. Released by Christianity Today and hosted by Mike Cosper- the founder of Harbor Media and Director of podcasting for Christianity Today- this podcast covers the period from their founding in 1996 Seattle, where the novelty of the ‘cussing pastor’ had taken Christendom by storm, to their public implosion and now current status where history seems to be repeating itself.
The podcast draws upon “hundreds of hours of interviews with people who were part of Mars Hill. Some are serving in ministry or volunteering in churches. Some have migrated into other traditions. And some have left the faith altogether.”
Friom their onesheet description:
This podcast takes you inside the story of Mars Hill Church in Seattle – from its founding as part of one of the largest church planting movements in American history to its very public dissolution—and the aftermath that followed. You’ll hear from people who lived this story, experiencing the triumphs and losses of Mars Hill, knowing it as both an amazing, life-transforming work of God and as a dangerous, abusive environment. The issues that plague Mars Hill and its founder, Mark Driscoll — dangers like money, celebrity, youth, scandal, and power—aren’t unique, and only by looking closely at what happened in Seattle will we be able to see ourselves”
Adam Edgerly, a pastor, consultant, and member of Biola University’s board of trustees, hosted a lecture during the school’s 2021 Student Congress on Racial Reconciliation (SCORR) where he proudly declared that he spoke out against the Christian University putting out a statement condemning Critical Race Theory (CRT) like the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) did. Instead, he argued it was the wrong path and that CRT is a marvelous and untapped tool for understanding the scriptures.
Specifically, he “revealed” that Paul appealed to his Intersectionality, and that Mary the mother of Jesus checked all sorts of intersectional boxes which if we acknowledge, will help us understand her better. He said:
Let me give you an example of that: intersectionality. Look at the Apostle Paul from an intersectional point of view. He would declare boldly, ‘I am a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, raised in Tarsus, studied under Gamaliel, in the city of Jerusalem, Pharisee of Pharisees, etc., right?
He is using in what a modern-day sense is called an intersectional approach to describing his own identity.
He embraces his Jewish heritage, he embraces his tribal heritage. He embraces his family line. He embraces his hometown of Tarsus. He embraces the university that he went to in Jerusalem and the professor that he studied under, Gamaliel. And he recognizes that all those things have shaped his thinking.
He also embraced the fact that he was an artisan, a business, a tentmaker, and that he was single. And so those things, he described himself that way. But if you think that way when you read his writing, you will see those characteristics of his identity showing up in the way he encounters God. And it gives him a unique perspective that he shares with us in scripture.
[Editor’s note: Although it is true that Paul did describe himself that way, if you read the passage in context, Paul’s point is anything but intersectional.] He continues:
You do the same thing with Mary. Now you’ve got a single girl, from a poor family, who is now a single mom, with all that that means. She is a colonized person living under Roman oppression. Now read the Magnificat, her poem to God, and her declaration of God overturning unjust people and sending the rich away while he blesses the poor, and you got a deeper understanding of who Mary is and why she thinks and talks the way she does.
That’s an example of this tool of thought coming out of Critical Race Theory called intersectionality informing even the way we understand scripture.
Mary's intersectionality: "A single girl from a poor family who is now a single mom…a colonized person living under Roman oppression. Now read the Magnificat…her declaration of God overturning unjust people…and you've got a deeper understanding of who Mary is." pic.twitter.com/FURWgOnniB
— Woke Preacher Clips (@WokePreacherTV) May 26, 2021
Starting mid-May and for the first time in conjunction with Pride month, Kellogg’s Together With Pride cereal will be available at select major retailers nationwide. The delicious new recipe features berry-flavored, rainbow hearts dusted with edible glitter.
With the slogan “Boxes are for cereal, not for people,” Kellog’s newest collaboration with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD) brings all their cereal mascots into one place, featuring berry-flavored, rainbow hearts dusted with edible glitter for their “Together with Pride” cereal.
Whereas previously their special edition LGBTQQIP2SAA cereals were only available online, this one is coming to stores and will be featured prominently in the cereal aisle.
Of note is the side of the box, which prompts children to write in their own personal pronounces, along with he/him and they/ them, with the goal that kids will want to fill it in, and the parents will have to explain their gay propaganda talking points.
In a press release, Doug VanDeVelde, General Manager of Kellogg U. S. Cereal Category, explained they couldn’t be happier and more honored than to release this cereal, announcing that they will donate $3 to GLADD for every picture of the cereal’s boxtop uploaded to the socials.
In a recent Gospel Coalition podcast, author and contributor Rachel Gilson answers the question of whether Christians should use people’s personal pronouns, noting that this issue “is probably one of the most difficult to answer well in a space like this, and I mean like in a digital question and answer type space.”
We do not know what is difficult about it: the answer is simple.
No. No, we should not use them.
This is true of the more benign ones like he/she/them/etc., but also the grotesque world of “nounself-pronouns” and “neo-pronouns” where people identify as “xe/xem/xyr, moon/moonself, star/starself, bee/beeself, bun/bunself, and anything else under the sun.
However, the question is a bit more complicated for Gilson, who has been smuggling unbiblical perspectives on biblical sexuality into the church for years. She previously advocated (or at the very least, gave a tacit approval) that if one partner in a “gay marriage” becomes saved, then they should not necessarily divorce their same-sex “spouse,” because “God hates divorce,” but rather continue in the marriage and remain celibate.
She’s also expressed her belief that becoming saved and having a new heart has essentially zero effect on one’s sexual orientation, and that for all intents and purposes, sexual orientation is not something that is touched by the sanctifying process of the Holy Spirit. She believes that the number of gay people who get their sexuality redeemed by Christ and oriented towards the opposite sex is a fraction of a fraction of a percent, but that this reality is “ok” because her homosexuality is a “gift” to the church.
In her podcast answer, Gilson goes straight to the scriptures which talks about the weaker versus stronger brother, and says that if people do not wish to use these [ridiculous and made up] pronouns, that is their choice, but that “you have to recognize that when you are interacting with a transgender person your inability to use their preferred name or pronoun could actually be received as very offensive by them or deeply hurtful by them.”
In contrast, she explains the “stronger brother” position, which according to her warped theology is that “others of us have no problem at all using preferred names and pronouns. We’re like, “Yes! This is a way of showing love. I’m ready to do this.” And in that case, your conversation partner is probably easily going to feel loved and accepted by you.”
Once this compromise is made, calling a boy a girl or a girl a boy, or a boy “bunself” or a girl “fairyself,” Gilson explains that this grants you “access to the heart of your friend,” which then in turn lets you talk about spiritual things with them by getting those pronouns and lies “in.”
Sadly, Gilson has it completely backwards. It is not the weaker brother who refuses to call people by their preferred pronouns, but rather the stronger one who is not willing to compromise the truth of God’s reality and break the 9th commandment despite enormous pressure from the world and once formerly reputable Christian organizations like the Gospel Coalition telling them to do so.
[Editor’s note: If you aren’t familiar with Paul’s thoughts on this, you can look the up in Romans 14. In context, weaker brothers are the ones that make up rules that they try to make “religious” and impose on everybody else. Kind of like Rachel Gilson is doing.]
Transcript below, provided by WPC
I think the question of preferred pronouns…really can come down to a question of conscience. So if you’ve done a quiet time recently in the weak brother/strong brother passages of scripture, Paul has a category for the reality that some Christians are going to come to issues and fall in different spots. And one of the most important questions there is how are we going to relate to each other when we fall in different spots? So, on the one hand, some of us would feel incredibly compromised using a transgender person’s preferred name or pronouns, because it feels like we’re complicit in a lie. It feels like we’re breaking the ninth commandment, right?
Like we’re bearing false witness about a neighbor, and we need to take that really, really seriously. It is never safe to go to a place that your faith doesn’t allow you to go against your conscience. And if that is your position, you have to recognize that when you are interacting with a transgender person, your inability to use their preferred name or pronoun could actually be received as very offensive by them or deeply hurtful by them.
And so I would encourage people in that category to think, “Okay, well, my truth is clear. How can I communicate clearly the grace of Christ here? How can I go above and beyond to show love, knowing that my posture on pronouns is going to be tricky for the person I’m talking with?” Others of us have no problem at all using preferred names and pronouns. We’re like, “Yes! This is a way of showing love! I’m ready to do this.” And in that case, your conversation partner is probably easily going to feel loved and accepted by you.
So then I would challenge you, since you have access to the heart of your friend, what would it mean for you to use that access to have truthful conversations either about who Christ is, maybe, if you feel competent about the nature of the body, even just beginning conversations of if your friend has thought about how God relates to these questions in their lives. But no matter where we come down, I want us to be able to relate to each other with honor and respect, because the church has not had to answer these questions before, and we we need to have grace with each other, right? We know that God loves desperately the transgender people in our lives, and so we need to be thinking as a community: how can we expose them to the love that we have received ourselves?
The capitalism-hating, socialism-loving Vicar of the Roman Catholic Church has come up with a seven-year plan to greenify the world and heal “Mother Earth” on account of the “wounds that we cause by our predatory attitude, which makes us feel that we are masters of the planet and its resources,” in order to “inaugurate a lifestyle and a society that is finally eco-sustainable.”
In a video released by the Vatican, Francis explains that because humanity has been so abusive towards the earth, “we need a new ecological approach, that can transform our way of dwelling in the world, our styles of life, our relationship with the resources of the Earth and, in general, our way of looking at humanity and of living life.”
Doubling down on the theme of predation, he reiterates that we need to “care for our Mother Earth” and “overcome the temptation of selfishness that makes us predators of resources.”
For this reason, he’s launching a project called “Laudato si’ Action Platform.” It is a seven-year undertaking designed to see communities “totally sustainable, in the spirit of integral ecology.”
It is based on his own Laudato Si’s writing, which even has its own chaplet for faithful Catholics to pray over
And not just praise, but repentance too, where you can apologize to “Sister Water” or “Brother Air” for abusing them.
Like some grotesque morphing of Roman Catholicism, the New Apostolic Reformation’s Seven-Mountain Mandate, and the Democrats’ Green New Deal, Francis reveals that there are seven sectors of the church that need to be pulling together. These are “parishes and dioceses – schools and universities – hospitals – businesses and farms – organizations, groups and movements – religious institutes.”
In tandem with this announcement, Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development revealed the sustainability goals of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which include, according to the National Catholic Reporter:
Adopting renewable energy;
Achieving carbon neutrality;
Defending all life;
Solidarity with Indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups;
Adopting simpler lifestyles;
Fostering ecological education and spirituality;
Advocating for sustainable development;
Following ethical investment guidelines, including divestment from fossil fuels and other industries that harm the planet.
All this, so “mother Earth may be restored to her original beauty.’
