Hillsong Church found themselves being retweeted by scores of atheists and critics late Tuesday night, but not for the reason they hoped. A now-deleted screenshot from the heretical and spurious name-it-and-claim church’s official Twitter handle shows whoever has access to their social media page taking a shot at President Trump during the debate, seeking to have Trump’s mic muted, calling him a bully, and saying they have no respect for the embattled incumbent.
Naturally, this prompted a host of retweets, with the primary punchline that Hillsong Church finally says something right, even if by accident, with people asking “Can I sow a seed on this word?” and “Hallelujah! Testify!”
Within mere minutes, however, the Tweet was gone – disappeared into the ether, with a brief apology and explanation that the tweets were from a staff member (ex-staff member?) who likely forgot to log into his or her own personal account when posting the offending tweet, and that the views expressed do not represent Hillsong.
The Gospel Coalition, that hive of scum and villainy who have completely soiled their reputation as a once formerly biblical organization and now sit on the floor and crying and whining in their own filth about white supremacy, Q-anon conspiracies, white privilege, black lives matter, social gospel, racial injustice, and whatever other chunks of foul theological matter they’ve pulled from their diaper and have managed to fling at their social media pages, has announced a new Podcast airing in October that is sure to pass on sound, biblical wisdom on race, justice and unity. Wink wink.
We are thrilled to announce ‘As in Heaven,’ a new addition to our podcast network featuring Christian conversations on race, justice, and unity.
Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts. Episode 1 debuts October 5.
Like a kick to the groin or a punch to the side of the head, this podcast can count themselves among those vexations in terms of how badly it is needed. Even from the promo, we get such gems as:
White supremacy has no problem destroying white people. To love a white person, to me, is to say ‘you don’t want those chains of white supremacy that deludes around your ankles. It means to drag you to the pit.’
We fully expect to see a litany of every racial trope the Gospel Coalition has been passing on these last few years to be brought up. To say we are unenthused by such prospects would be an understatement.
On the flip side, if anyone does want to hear an actual biblical podcast on those matters, we would recommend Darrel B Harrison and Virgil Walker’s The Just Thinking Podcast. They’ve already covered many of these subjects or topics and you won’t suffer from brain aneurysm from listening to TGC chatter about why all white people are racists or how white skin necessarily means you are a colonizer or whatever other racist postulations come into their imaginations.
A series of billboards have cropped up across large metro cities in Canada encouraging families to stop having children in an effort to promote population control and consequently minimize climate change.
The campaign, put on by World Population Balance (WPB) , is designed to disseminate long-discredited propaganda that says the world is overpopulated. Taking their ideological cues from China’s murderous one-child policy, the group wants every family to only have one child and drastically lower birth rates, lest the world be consumed in a fiery apocalyptic terror.
The group’s vision is “a world where no one suffers in dire poverty and misery for lack of enough food, water, and other basic needs.” and where “all species thrive and where lower consumption and population are in balance with Earth’s finite resources.” They routinely post inspiring stories of brave men and women who have chosen not to have any children, emphasizing how much financial freedom and less stress they have.
What some have found particularly galling is that one of the ads, along with “congestion begins at conception” and “conservation begins at conception” is the claim that “The most loving gift you can give your first child is not to have another.”
Not a loving home, or loving parents, or affection and security – but rather a tubal ligation from mom or a vasectomy from dad- that is more loving than all those things. That’s a strange assertion from the group that wants to eliminate the notions of “brothers” and “sisters.”
All this is notwithstanding the fact that this group is spreading basic misinformation about population trends. In June, the BBC ran an article about the “jaw-dropping global crash in children being born” noting that countries aren’t reproducing at rates enough to sustain them, and by the year 2100, if current trends continue or escalate, many countries will see their population halved, with whatever population is left being primarily comprised of senior citizens. They note:
Japan’s population is projected to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century.
Italy is expected to see an equally dramatic population crash from 61 million to 28 million over the same timeframe.
They are two of 23 countries – which also include Spain, Portugal, Thailand and South Korea – expected to see their population more than halved.
While WPB is seeking to stop people from having babies, virtually no one agrees. Currently, there are dozens of countries trying to increase their population, either by immigration, such as Canada, or by employing “enhanced maternity and paternity leave, free childcare, financial incentives, and extra employment rights” in order to encourage greater fertility, often to dismal results. Sweden, in a herculean effort to raise its birth rates through vast social benefits and programs, only raised it from an average of 1.7 children to 1.9, an amount quite shy of the 2.1 children per family needed to sustain their country.
The group says it plans to expand its billboard campaign to other cities in the very near future.
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church (GCC) gave a brief update to his congregation yesterday morning during the morning service, touching on the Church’s ability to stay open for the rest of the year, news we mentioned here, and commenting wryly on their parking situation.
I want to express my profound gratitude for the Lord for the way he has protected our church all these weeks. It is really amazing. This week was the seventh time that we have been brought into court. And we’re still here. And the court basically put no compunctions on us whatsoever. The reason is that all the efforts to hold us in contempt of court were for violation of health orders or to take away our parking lot can’t be adjudicated until the first amendment issue is dealt with, religious freedom, and that is a wall that the county has not been able to climb or go around.
So we’re still here and we have more parking than ever.
The parking comment is especially salient. The county announced several weeks ago that they were cutting GCC off from one of the parking lots they had been renting, ending a lease that had been in effect for 45 years, in an effort to force them to meet in fewer numbers, and prompting their lawyer Jenna Ellis to say:
The Church has peacefully held this lease for 45 years and the only reason the County is attempting eviction is because John MacArthur stood up to their unconstitutional power grab. This is harassment, abusive, and unconscionable.
While that is still an ongoing logistical issue to navigate, earlier in the service one of the announcers shared with the congregation the good news that Valley Beth Israel, the synagogue east of the church, has agreed to let the GCC use their parking between lot between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm, giving them additional much-needed space.
This will give the church nearly 100 additional parking spots and will certainly alleviate some of the pressure put on GCC, particularly with the lease set to expire before the next service.
As always, you can listen in to the original comments from MacArthur on the Bible Thumping Wingnut below, along with helpful commentary and context from Tim Hurd who has been aggregating and then sharing the segments.
Members of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, along with fellow believers from other congregations who have had their spines stiffened by the efforts of the Church leadership and the courage of other like-minded believers, put on another Psalm Sing event on Friday in front Of City Hall, tripling their attendance, but also drawing counter-protesters bent on drowning out the worship.
The 15-minute event, which consisted of 3 acapella hymns and a doxology, grew considerably in size, but also brought out counter-protesters. They gathered in the allocated circles and made a ruckus in an effort to antagonize and disrupt the worship. One woman brought her young sons along, and they beat the drums while wearing masks. One protester said, “We’re trying to teach Christians how to love thy neighbor,” and proceeded to accomplish that task by loudly and repeatedly banging his drum.
Despite law enforcement officers citing and arresting several members for congregating in violation of Public Health Emergency Order 20-03 a few days ago, this time the police demurred and did nothing. No tickets were handed out, though all were in violation of the lockdown orders and behaved no differently than last time.
In a statement made to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Gabe Rench, one of the men arrested on Wednesday but left unaccosted today, despite doing the very same thing as last time, said about the banging drums.
It shows the contrast between pretty music and what godlessness looks like. Godlessness is ugly. It doesn’t produce pretty noise. And it was actually kind of a funny contrast between what was going on between our beautiful singing and their ugly protest.
While Christ Church will likely have another Psalm Sing event very soon, drawing even bigger crowds than this, the idea for this sort of event has already spread to other cities, with at least two other demonstrations planned soon for San Diego and the greater Atlanta area.
The twenty-seventh album in an on-going series documenting faithful churches gathering for Sunday service in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. With some churches still not gathering in-person in these dark times, others being persecuted by the government for being open, and others ending services for the rest of the year, these are the congregations who are meeting faithfully at the command of Scripture (Heb. 10:25).
These churches are using FM transmitters to pipe audio to the cars directly, are preaching outside, or are back in their buildings having in-person services. Some with masks. Some without masks.
All are being safe. All are being obedient to the scriptures. All are loving their neighbors.
In light of a recent Christian Post article going live about the new supporting evidence Julie Roys uncovered in the Ravi Zacharias sexting scandal, RZIM has released a new statement denying any and all wrong doing while also pledging to never release the woman involved, Lori Thompson, from her Non-Disclosure Agreement (DNA) .
The impetuous stem from emails, phone records, and first-hand testimony brought to light by Jerry and Denise Basel, two Christian counselors who counseled Thompson in 2016 while the incident was happening. Stepping in to help the couple deal with the fallout, they were the ones that were with Thompson when she sent an email to Zacharias telling him she was going to tell her husband about their alleged illicit affair, which prompted Zacharias to famously respond with threatening to commit suicide if she went through with it.
And while RZIM has not responded further to our queries regarding new allegations that have surfaced, including the revelation that Ravi Zacharias co-owned a spa that employed pseudoscientific Ayurveda services, yoga, and that Ravi’s former business partner accused him of sexually assaulting the staff- a claim co-signed by several women who worked there and were the object of his unwanted advances, we are hopeful with enough pressure they may yet.
In the new statement to The Christian Post, RZIM says:
“In April 2017, Ravi Zacharias received a letter from an attorney representing Bradley and Lori Anne Thompson of Ontario, Canada, presenting allegations and threatening litigation by the Thompsons against Mr. Zacharias. The letter threatened that litigation was forthcoming, or, ‘in the alternative of protracted and public litigation, the Thompsons will sign a release of you and your church and ministry in exchange for a certified check in the amount of $5 million dollars made payable to the Bryant Law Center, Lori Anne Thompson and Bradley Thompson within thirty days of today’s date and mailed to the above address.’
“In response to this demand letter, Ravi notified the board of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and personally filed a lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in August 2017. The Thompsons, through their attorneys, then requested to enter into mediation to resolve the matter without going to trial. In November 2017, Ravi consented to resolve his lawsuit and the matter through mediation—a process that resulted in a resolution agreed to by both parties.
“In addition to these legal proceedings and the investigations underlying them, this matter was independently and rigorously investigated in 2018 at the initiative of the denomination that issued Ravi’s ministerial credentials, the Christian & Missionary Alliance. That investigation included multiple interviews with the parties and a review of all available documents and records. The denomination concluded, ‘…the available evidence does not provide a basis for formal discipline…’
“As is widely known, Ravi Zacharias died May 19, 2020. Subsequently, some have called on his family and/or ministry to release the Thompsons from the confidentiality agreement they entered into with Ravi some two-and-a-half years prior to his death. Since RZIM was not a party to the agreement, it is unable to alter it, and his family does not feel it proper to alter it without Ravi’s knowledge or consent. Before he died, however, Ravi addressed allegations that he solicited inappropriate photos from Lori Anne Thompson or otherwise engaged in communications of a sexual nature with her in an 800-word public statement in December 2017. In that statement, he denied any sexually or romantically inappropriate conduct. He stood by that statement until his death. His denial is consistent with the character of the man we knew and worked alongside for years.
“Also since his death in May, allegations by Mrs. Thompson against Ravi have resurfaced in the public domain. This prompted calls for RZIM and/or the Zacharias family to conduct further investigation into this matter. In light of these developments, we, the Board of RZIM have reviewed the matter again and conclude the following:
1) Ravi Zacharias was never physically alone with Mrs. Thompson nor did he send her photos of himself.
2) There is no evidence that he solicited photos of her—an allegation Ravi vehemently denied in his public statement in December 2017. Furthermore, no evidence to the contrary has ever been presented.
3) Ravi addressed his communication with Mrs. Thompson in his December 2017 statement and we agree with him that it was wrong to have engaged in ongoing communication of a personal nature with a woman other than his wife.
4) We believe Ravi should have immediately disclosed the fact that Mrs. Thompson sent inappropriate photographs to him.
5) We have long had policies regarding physical safeguards to protect both our team members and leaders as well as those they come in contact with to prevent interactions that could ever prove harmful to either party. In 2018, we implemented electronic communication safeguards and policies for that purpose as well. We regret not having put the electronic communication safeguards in place sooner.
“We respect that there are those who disagree with us about this process and our current disposition. Finally, we reaffirm our commitment to the mission and work of RZIM—to reach and challenge those who shape the ideas of culture with the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
(DISRN) A translation of the Bible in American Sign Language has just been completed after 39 years of work.
Work on the translation into ASL began in 1981 with Independent Christian Church minister Duane King.
In 1970, after meeting a deaf Christian couple who avoided going to church because they did not understand what was going on, King decided he wanted to learn how to sign so that he could help the deaf community.
After King and his wife, Peggy, planted a church and a mission for the deaf in Iowa, King started working on an ASL Bible.
“Most hearing people don’t understand how difficult it is to learn to read what you cannot hear,” King said last year. “Deaf people rely so much on their eyesight that they want everything to be tangible — they want to be able to see everything.”
Harold Noe, who worked with Deaf Missions and was a Hebrew and Greek scholar, said in a 2004 interview that the translation is sometimes difficult due to ASL having a different syntax than English.
“The same sign used for `resurrection’ is the sign for `stand up,'” explained Noe. “I recall working with some children at the Iowa School for the Deaf. When I signed that sign for resurrection, the kids would stand up. I kept saying, `No, it’s not time to go yet.'”
To watch the ASL videos or for more information on Deaf Missions, visit the organization’s website at deafmissions.com. The organization…
Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church scored a big win on Thursday when Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff ruled against LA County for the fifth time. The county wanted a decision against MacArthur for contempt of court charges; the result of the Church having Sunday services indoors after specifically being told not to by the court.
Before contempt charges could be adjudicated, however, lawyers for GCC argued that the Church was first entitled to a full-blown trial on the merits of their lawsuit challenging Gavin Newsom’s shutdown orders, proposing that “a final determination on the constitutionality of the orders must occur before the county could seek contempt against MacArthur for merely holding church.” The Judge was persuaded and agreed. Special Counsel Charles LiMandri explains in a statement from the Thomas More Society:
We are pleased that Judge Beckloff indicated he agreed with the major points that we made on behalf of Pastor MacArthur and Grace Community Church and we are very gratified that the judge’s ruling today reflects that he appreciates the importance of the constitutionally protected rights at issue in this case.
Special Counsel Jenna Ellis likewise said in a Statement:
This is significant because no person can or should be held in contempt of a constitutionally invalid order. Los Angeles County continues to presume that its order is valid, with utter disregard for First Amendment protections. It’s tyranny to even suggest that a government action cannot be challenged and must be obeyed without question. This case goes to the heart of what our founders designed for the purpose of legitimate government—not to be above the rule of law. Pastor MacArthur is simply holding church, which is clearly his constitutionally protected right in this country.
With LA’s Superior Court suspending civil trials the rest of the year, this decision effectively lets GCC continue holding services for at least 3 and a half months- January 2021 at the earliest. It will cost the church substantially in legal fees, but for now, it guarantees them the freedom to have their services unimpeded.
MacArthur will get a reprieve for a while, barring any funny business on the part of LA County. The next hearing is scheduled on November 13, 2020 to discuss the extent, scope, and merits of the trial.
As news breaks nationally and internationally about the arrest of several congregants at Christ Church’ Psalm Sing, an event designed to be a brief time of public worship (three songs and a doxology) that took place at Moscow’s City Hall and attended by nearly 150 Christians singing acapella hymns, the usual mélange of harpies and professional tut-tutters have perked up and come out to play.
Predictably, out of their indignant displeasure for what one has called ‘Muscovite cultists’, one of the biggest falsehoods being passed around is that the congregants were arrested for not showing his ID to the police. Critics have been making the case they purposefully provoked the officers by not giving their ID, that they were arrested for not giving their ID, and that if only they would have shown their precious identification and complied with all Law Enforcement Officer directives they would have not been arrested.
The narrative is this: ‘You are not being persecuted and your rights are not under attack. You are being arrested for not showing your ID, and not some perceived slight or ‘violation of your constitutional rights.’
While it is true that at least some of the arrested attendees did not give their identification, reasoning that they were not committing a crime by singing worship publicly and therefore the police had to right to ask them that, that’s not the reason they were arrested. They were specifically arrested for violating “PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY ORDER No. 20.03”
By way of background, the city passed that ordinance back in July and then announced on Monday that they were extending the mask mandate until at least January 5th, 2021. On Tuesday Gabe Rench, one of the men eventually arrested, emailed the chief asking him to refuse to enforce the order, telling him this was his “Daniel Moment” and pleaded for interposition and for the chief to stand up for them. On Wednesday they had Psalm Sing, with Pastor Doug Wilson telling attendees that if they didn’t plan on social distancing during the event, they may get a ticket or get arrested.
Rench explains what happened with his arrest- comments edited slightly for clarity.
“The cops just walked up to me and my mom first because we were kind of the closest to them- they weren’t signaling anybody else. And they asked my mom ‘are you guys together?’ and my mom’s like ‘we’re family’ and she grabs my arm. And then I grabbed my buddy Tyler’s arm…and I said to the cops ‘but we’re not.’
After that, the cop came to talk to me and said ‘give me a license, I’m going to write you a ticket.’ So I said to the cop ‘you don’t need to do this, you don’t need to write me a ticket.’ And the cop repeated himself ‘give me your license.’ And I said ‘look, you’re better than this. It’s your job to actually defend the people… your job is for the citizens, not the mayor.’
And so we kind of went back and forth on this, and then he said ‘this is my last time. I’m gonna arrest you’ and I said, ‘you don’t need to do this’ And then I looked at [Police Chief James Fry] as they’re starting to arrest me, (They’ve had Chief Fry in the studio before and have met in person) and told him this could be his ‘Daniel Moment.’
As Rench was taken into custody, one of the videographers asked what crime he was charged with. Officer Thueson answers:
“He’s been charged with a violation of the city’s ordinance 20-03“
“Every person in the city of Moscow must wear a face covering that covers their nose and mouth when in any indoor or outdoor public setting where the 6-foot physical distancing is not able to be maintained with non-household members.”
In accordance with Moscow City Code Section 1-11-10, any person who knowingly violates the provisions of this order may be charged with a misdemeanor. The maximum penalties for this offense are up to 6 months in the county jail and a $1,000 fine.
Not only do we have confirmation from the arresting officer, but we also have their police report from the city of Moscow. Notice how there is nothing about the refusal to show an ID or resisting arrest.
Contrary to unpopular wokefolk opinion, this story is as egregious as it sounds, and the violation of social distancing, not the refusal to present ID, is the reason at the worshippers were arrested.
“Upon confirmation that the individuals were unwilling to comply with the Order by either social distancing from non-household members or wearing a face covering, five attendees were cited for violating the Order. Of those cited, two individuals were also cited for Resisting and Obstructing, and three individuals were arrested and released from custody the same day. The five individuals that received citations will be prosecuted according to law. “
