Responding to the deserved beating he’s taken this week on Twitter over obfuscating Christian morality as pertains to abortion, voting Democrat, and unity; Tim Keller fired back at his critics by playing the victim card. In what’s sure to surprise no one, he didn’t respond to the substance of the backlash. Instead, he painted himself as persecuted likely because he’s important:
Important? He’s certainly prominent. Keller at least got the dangerous part right. He’s dangerous because he’s effective at teaching white guilt, deconstructing, softening on the sin of homosexuality, promoting social justice and marxism, and undermining belief in Genesis while promoting BioLogos and evolutionary thought. The man has 484,000 + Twitter followers and is the darling of modern Evangelicals. He appeared on Fox News in 2021 on Easter Sunday to proclaim the Gospel is “V-shaped”. Whatever that means.
The fact that he has the audacity to say that criticism he receives might be “ill-meant” is laughable. A great deal of his criticism is for swaying from Biblical truth. This is projection at its finest. Man up and take the heat, Tim. Or better yet, repent.
Editor’s Note, This article was written by Brad Schoolfield for Protestia
The headquarters of a pro-life organization was set on fire yesterday morning, with criminals throwing a Molotov cocktail through a window and setting fire to another part of the building, scrawling “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” on the walls and leaving behind an A1312 symbol, which stands for All Cops Are Bastards. Despite the symbol behind left behind, no group has openly taken credit for it.
In a statement issued by Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, she condemned the violence used against them, as well as the propensity of Governor Tony Evers to look away when violence erupts across his state, such as happened recently in Kenosha. She says far from discouraging them, it will instead stiffen their resolve.
…this attack fails to frighten us, and instead steels the resolve of law-abiding, common-sense, every-day folks to stand up and push back. We know today it is Wisconsin Family Action getting Molotov cocktails tossed through broken windows and fires ignited, but tomorrow it could be anyone in our state or another state who is attacked because we disagree with a policy or action, give voice to the voiceless, or stand up for what’s right.“
Americans see through the hypocrisy of the left. The violence needs to stop and stop now. It’s not the answer to any question or any problem. Just because the liberals don’t get their way, doesn’t give them license to threaten bodily harm or to burn and destroy.”
…We will repair our offices, remain on the job, and build an even stronger grassroots effort. We will not back down. We will not stop doing what we are doing. Too much is at stake
The move comes in light of a few other protest in churches across the country Sunday morning
Seattle: Pro-choice protesters ignored warnings to stay away from St James Cathedral but they continued to move on the property. One of them grabbed a security man’s arm before she is pushed back. Video by @KatieDaviscourt:pic.twitter.com/OStU9i4tIX
(Dissenter) Louis Giglio, the pastor of Passion City Church and the leader of the highly popular youth-oriented Passion Conference that regularly features people like Christine Caine and John Piper, says that making everything about God puts you outside of God’s will.
Giglio posted his quip on his Facebook page where it received thousands of likes and tons of affirming comments.
His comment appears to be a rewording of the old adage, “don’t be so heavenly-minded that you’re of no earthly good.” Of course, he’s attacking a straw man and that is certainly no biblical adage. It’s really an attack on the sovereignty and supremacy of God in all things. To translate what Giglio actually means when he says this, he’s essentially saying that if all you do is think about God all the time, you’ll wind up with a theology that doesn’t take into account social justice and commands to love your neighbor, and so on and so forth…
Nobody who is actually heavenly-minded by the Bible’s definition is outside of the will of God. Whatever earthly good they may be is a result of their being truly heavenly-minded. It’s not that…to continue reading click here
Editor’s Note. This article was written by Jeff Maples and published at Dissenter.
Christine Caine is one of Lifeway’s most prized possession. She’s the golden goose-one of the famed ‘Lifeway Women’ who have her own landing page, where the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention promotes her relentlessly, along with a gaggle of other women. In fact, the ratio of women authors to men is so great, that we’ve had to seriously ask Does Lifeway Only Carry Women Authors?
Caine is the charismatic, egalitarian, one-time leader from Hillsong who preaches the word/faith prosperity gospel. Caine holds to the notion that Jesus died on the cross to give you possessions, wealth, and health, and that it is there for the taking if you have enough faith and confess it positively. It’s no surprise then that she cut her teeth on Hillsong, the Brian Houston-led boondoggle that has the reputation for being among the most immature, Scripturally ignorant, and carnal people in the history of the world to ever call themselves Christians.
She also leads Propel Women, a network designed to empower women to become preachers and pastors, and they just graduated a bunch of them yesterday, ready to unleash upon the world prospective pastrixes who have cut their teeth on Caine’s own teaching. She shared on Twitter:
Given that 10% of the biggest SBC churches already have women pastors, they’ll likely have far more job opportunities than previously imagined. Retweeting the picture and in fact featured in the picture is none other than Ed Stetzer, the former Executive Director of Nashville-based LifeWay Research. To quote JD Hall:
Stetzer is a guy who has projected himself as a church planting specialist, even though he’s never once successfully planted a church (he’s done so unsuccessfully on multiple occasions). He has projected himself as an expert on culture, which might be his only accomplishment, but only because his devotion to momentary fads is his shtick. Every time we see him on stage giving advice on the church’s decline it reminds of what a hypothetical absurdity it would be to see a whore have a day job of selling antibiotics out of her trunk to clear up all the venereal diseases she passed around during her night-job. In short, he is the problem in the church, but makes a living selling the latest evangelical elixirs.”
While Lifeway has been a lost cause for a long time, it’s nice to see a bit of clarity now and then in order to assess how badly the rot has set in within the organization, to what degree they’ll partner and promote folk so bent on undermining the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and their own denomination.
Pastor Andy Stanley of Northpoint Church, no stranger to taking the occasional peckish potshot at those he disagrees with, ran up against the wall that is Phil Johnson of Grace Community Church after taking exception to the complementarian position.
Responding to claims by Virgil Walker, the Executive Director of Operations for G3 Ministries and co-host of the always-excellent ‘Just Thinking Podcast, that women pastors aren’t real pastors but rather mere feminists who ignore the scriptures, Stanley chimed in that Walker’s assertions were “rude and incorrect, leading Johnson to make the following astute observation:
If someone stands up every Sunday and tells stories and makes remarks that constantly attack the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, he’s not a pastor, either.
Fact check: true. What Phil is referring to here is a 2006 interview Stanley did with Leadership Journal, where the corporate Pastor made the following comments:
Leadership:What is distinctly spiritual about the kind of leadership you do?
Andy Stanley:There’s nothing distinctly spiritual. I think a big problem in the church has been the dichotomy between spirituality and leadership. One of the criticisms I get is “Your church is so corporate.” I read blogs all the time. Bloggers complain, “The pastor’s like a CEO.” And I say, “OK, you’re right. Now, why is that a bad model?
Leadership: Should we stop talking about pastors as “shepherds”?
Andy Stanley:Absolutely. That word needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture he could point to. But to bring in that imagery today and say, “Pastor, you’re the shepherd of the flock,” no. I’ve never seen a flock. I’ve never spent five minutes with a shepherd. It was culturally relevant in the time of Jesus, but it’s not culturally relevant any more.
Nothing works in our culture with that model except this sense of the gentle, pastoral care. Obviously that is a facet of church ministry, but that’s not leadership.
In the aftermath, Stanley didn’t have much to say- sending out a couple more feeble tweets on peripheral issues, then he was done.
and
Sadly for Stanley, things have not gotten any better since that 2006 interview came out.
Stanley argued that Jesus’ birth and the events surrounding the nativity don’t really matter, thus casting doubt upon his supernatural birth by saying “If somebody can predict their own death and then their own resurrection, I’m not all that concerned about how they got into the world” and “Christianity doesn’t hinge on the truth or even the stories around the Birth of Jesus.”’
Women pastors are basically spiritual lesbians. They’re trans-pastors. Ie: not real pastors, but some garbled, cobbled together monstrosity, possessing approximations of biblical appendages and authority, but never the real thing. They can get their whole undiscerning congregation to call them pastors- to use their preferred spiritual pronouns, but in the eyes of God and men, no amount of seminary training can overcome the created order and the clear words of scripture on the matter, no matter how they look.
This is something Stanley would know, if he were a real pastor.
Months after Tim Keller argued that talk-show host Stephen Colbert is a believer who has shown the world a “brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square” and who has been a ‘witness’ for his faith in a “form the culture can handle,” the Liberal Roman Catholic went on a tear against the Supreme Courts pending decision to overrule Roe and Casey, blasting the judges for destroying a half-century of protections for reproductive rights.
“I’m going to talk about another group of out of touch people and crazy outfits pretending that it’s 1895: The Supreme Court.”
Colbert mocks the idea that abortion is not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions, saying “Nothing says ‘looking toward the future’ like adhering to the earliest days of common law. That’s why I believe that life begins at white land-owning male and why horses who read should be arrested for witch mischief.”
He further chastises the notion that the issue of abortion should be returned to the people’s elected representatives, calling the elected representatives crazy and out of touch, and that Roe was an “important precedent that has been repeatedly reaffirmed.” He exclaims:
“Alito was joined in the decision by no one who would surprise you, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. So congratulations, ladies, decisions about what you can do with your body are now being made by four old dudes and a woman who thinks The Handmaid’s Tale is a rom-com.
Normally we’d ask Keller if he is so theologically bankrupt that he’s pointing to a liberal Roman Catholic, one whom the world loves because he has the exact same perspective they do on every sort of unbiblical sexual ethic, as someone whose example and whose nuance and whimsy is to be lauded and followed. But this time we have a simpler one:
Is this the ‘brilliant example of how to be a Christian in the public square’ you were referring to?
Saying that they “cannot wait for the Supreme Court”, Lousiana lawmakers have advanced a historic bill that would not only criminalize abortion, but classify it as a homicide. Further, it would criminalize In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) and abortifacient birth control.
Louisiana State Representative Danny McCormick introduced the bill, HB813 or the “Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022″ in March, and a committee voted 7-2 to approve it. It now moves to the state’s full House of Representatives for consideration. According to Free the States:
“It amends the Louisiana homicide codes to define “unborn child” as “an individual human being from fertilization until birth,” and “person” as “a human being from the moment of fertilization.” These redefinitions would classify abortion as homicide by including preborn children among those protected by the laws against murder.
The bill then establishes that this classification of abortion as murder shall be enforced by the State regardless of any federal violation of the right to life: “Any federal statute, regulation, treaty, executive order, or court ruling that purports to supersede, stay, or overrule this Section shall be in violation of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Louisiana and is therefore void.”
HB813 also deals with Louisiana State judges which violate the right to life by establishing that they are subject to impeachment: “Pursuant to the powers granted to the Legislature by Article X, Part III, of the Constitution of Louisiana, any judge of this state who purports to enjoin, stay, overrule, or void any provision of this Section shall be subject to impeachment or removal.”
Rep. McCormick said of his bill:
“If more than 15 states can defy the federal government over marijuana, we can do it to save the lives of innocent babies. We cannot wait on the Supreme Court to confirm that innocent babies have the right to life in Louisiana.”
This is historic, in that it is the first true abolition bill to pass committee in any state in the nation so far.
The next step toward abortion being abolished in LA is the bill being heard and passed on the House floor.
Accordingly, please call and email LA House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and Speaker Pro Tem Tanner Magee respectfully requesting that they hear and vote in favor of the HB813, the Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act.
A month after 9 out of 16 Hillsong churches in the United States announced they were either cutting ties with the global church or disassociating from them, representing a third of the megacorp’s US locations and 10% of their worldwide locations to close in the last year, another church has joined the fray, with Grace City Church in Lakeland, Florida announcing they were distancing themselves from the toxic brand.
Though not one of the official churches within the network, they were strongly associated with the Australian mothership, which acted as their spiritual covering and who they would go to if their own pastor found himself in deep sin. This loss represents another blow after 6 congregations within the Nevada network, along with Dallas, Kansas City, and Atlanta permanently closed their doors, with only the East and West coast locations remaining.
Pastor Andrew Gard said it wasn’t the Hillsong documentary that informed his decision, according to The Ledger, though it did have an impact, but rather the misdeeds of former Hillsong founder and Global Senior Pastor Brian Houston who was fired after it revealed that he was embroiled in his own sex scandals, with at least two instances that we know about.
One of these involved sending a staff member flirtatious messages about a decade ago. “It was along the line of, ‘If I was with you, I’d like to kiss and cuddle you,’ words of that nature.” The second one was more recent, and it involved a visibly intoxicated Houston spending almost an hour in a woman’s hotel room alone with her, after a Hillsong conference at Qudos Bank Arena in 2019, with Dooley explaining that Houston violated Hillsong Pastor’s Code of Conduct.
Gard explains:
(The documentary) It impacted us in that these are people I love. Carl Lentz was and is a friend. So it’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking. We feel bad for everyone that is involved…(but) For us, it wasn’t really about the documentary. It was about the news that came out about Pastor Brian.”
…We’re heartbroken and sad like everybody. I don’t think it’s reflective of not just our church but churches in general. I think there’s a lot of amazing people doing a lot of amazing work.
…Decisions have consequences, and we understand that. Character matters in what we do, and rightfully so. Our church for the last few years has operated in a way that’s above reproach and above board.”
(Faithwire) Amazon.com, Inc., the second-largest private employer in the country, announced Monday it will pay U.S. employees up to $4,000 in travel expenses for non-life-threatening treatments and procedures, including abortions.
According to Reuters, Amazon is not alone in its pro-abortion offering. Other companies offering similar reimbursements include Yelp, Inc., and Citigroup, Inc. The corporate actions are in response to Republican-led states whose lawmakers have approved so-called “trigger laws” that will ban abortions should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the precedent established by Amazon.com, Inc., the second-largest private employer in the country, announced Monday it will pay U.S. employees up to $4,000 in travel expenses for non-life-threatening treatments and procedures, including abortions. Roe v. Wade granted nationwide legal cover to abortion in 1973.
The high court looks poised to do exactly that, according to a leaked opinion on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which centers on a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. Should the leaked document become official, abortion would move from a federal issue to a states’ rights matter.
Amazon’s newly announced benefit — effective to Jan. 1 retroactively — applies if an operation is more than 100 miles away from the employee’s residence and a virtual visit is not an option. It is worth… to continue reading, click here:
Editor’s Note. This article was written by Tré Goins-Phillips and published at Faithwire. Title changed by Protestia
The Gospel Coalition author Duke Kwon, the woke-as-a-joke lead pastor of Grace Meridian Hill church, posted and then deleted a tweet after pushback, claiming that the nation is too fractured and exhausted to handle overturning Roe v Wade right now.
It’s not an out-of-character take for the PCA pastor. He’s the same guy who employs a gay rights activist as his personal pastoral assistant at his Church.
Kwon has even written a book on why white people (and Asians and Hispanics) must give people a whack ton of money in order to be properly reconciled with their black neighbors, and in fact, that true reconciliation can never happen and race relations can never be healed without a sacrificial monetary compensation.
Rather than being overjoyed at the overturning of Roe v Wade and expressing some sort of happy, elated sentiment, Kwon tweeted out:
6 hours later, after receiving substantial feedback, he deleted the tweet and wrote:
It’s been nearly three days since then, and apparently he never found the time or energy, as he’s written other tweets, but has not said another word about this.
