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Pastor David E. Taylor Claims Followers Can See Jesus and God the Father Face-to-Face at Zoom Conference

Pastor David E. Taylor is known for his name-it-and-claim-it faith-healing and prosperity gospel antics. The ministry of fleecing the desperate, ill, and elderly has been so good to Taylor that his ministry recently purchased an $8.3 million Tampa mansion. Taylor, who self-identifies as an “apostle”, claims that in 1997 he was “given the keys to the Kingdom of heaven by Jesus in a face-to-face appearance in a dream.” Taylor has parlayed the alleged experience to sell his book Face to Face Appearances from Jesus: The Ultimate Intimacy, in which he claims to offer readers the formula to “Meet Christ face-to-face in person”, as well as several other more typical name-it-and-claim-it promises:

When the self-proclaimed apostle isn’t pedaling self-centered Gnosticism or interpreting dreams on his 24/7 dream interpretation hotline, Taylor likes to pose with wheelchairs and medical devices that he claims belong to those who have been healed at his conferences. 

In a recent promotional video for his upcoming online conference, “One Night With The King”, Taylor reiterated his ongoing claim to be a gatekeeper to Jesus. In the fever pitch of the promotional video, which sounds quite like a late-night television infomercial, Taylor presented clear evidence that Jesus has indeed been in attendance at his previous conferences in the form of this definitive high-definition cell phone photo of Jesus on stage, taken by one of the conference attendees.

But wait, there’s more! At this year’s conference, which can be viewed online only, Taylor says that he has “covenanted” with God to make big things happen. 

 The promotional video hype-man promises this year will be even greater than last year’s zoom adventure.

“Jesus Promised that when you’re watching online, he’s going to make a personal visit to your home and walk through it in order to bring healing and release of the supernatural open heavens to your entire house for the next year. How amazing is this! But it Gets Better. Jesus told Apostle Taylor that the Greater One, the Father, is coming to visit you.”

Never mind that God specifically told Moses in Exodus 33:20 “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Never mind that any man in his unglorified state, who entered the presence of God, would be utterly undone in the presence of God the Father, as Isaiah described his sense of depravity in the presence of God in Isaiah 6:5. 

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Those who believe that David E. Taylor is an Apostle should compare his pompous self-aggrandizement to the disposition of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29, when he described the sacrificial call of an Apostle who lived a life that emulated the life of Christ.

 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

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MA Schools Calls Cops+ Social Services on Parents whose Kids Miss Zoom Classes

(Boston Globe) Massachusetts school officials have reported dozens of families to state social workers for possible neglect charges because of issues related to their children’s participation in remote learning classes during the pandemic shutdown in the spring, according to interviews with parents, advocates, and reviews of documents.

In most cases, lawyers and family advocates said, the referrals were made solely because students failed to log into class repeatedly. Most of the parents reported were mothers, and several did not have any previous involvement with social services.

The trend was most common in high-poverty, predominantly Black and Latino school districts in Worcester, Springfield, Haverhill, and Lynn; advocates and lawyers reported few, if any, cases from wealthier communities.

Among those parents is Em Quiles, who struggled to work her full-time job while overseeing her young son’s schooling. During remote class time, her 7-year-old was largely supervised by his teenage brother, who had his own school work to do.

Quiles said she told staff at Heard Street Discovery Academy in Worcester in the spring that her work schedule made it tough to assist with virtual schooling and she struggled to navigate the school’s online platforms. “They didn’t offer any help,” she said.

Then in June, Quiles was stunned to receive a call from the state’s Department of Children and Families. The school had accused Quiles of neglect, she was told, because the 7-year-old missed class and homework assignments.“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

Quiles lived one of the worst nightmares for a parent: A neglect charge, if substantiated, can lead to removing a child from their home. It came during a period of unprecedented educational disruption, in which parents, students, and schools all struggled with ad-hoc routines that challenged even the most engaged, but would result in some being singled out…

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Editor’s Note. This article was written by Bianca Vázquez Toness and posted at The Boston Globe. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen

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Teacher Complains Online Learning lets Parents see ‘What Happens’ at ‘Gender/Sexuality’ Lessons

(LifeSiteNews) A teacher within the school district of Philadelphia is lamenting the increased chance of parental oversight if classes are taught online amid the coronavirus crisis — especially when it comes to so-called sex education.

“I am most intrigued by the damage that ‘helicopter/snowplow’ parents can do in honest conversations about gender/sexuality,” the teacher said.

The teacher, Matthew R. Kay, works for Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. In 2018, he published his book Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom.

While his tweets are private, one Twitter user posted a screenshot of his thread of complaints.

“So, this fall, virtual class discussions will have many potential spectators — parents, siblings, etc. — in the same room,” Kay began. “We’ll never be quite sure who is overhearing the discourse. What does this do for our equity/inclusion work?”

“How much have students depended on the (somewhat) secure barriers of our physical classrooms to encourage vulnerability? How many of us have installed some version of ‘what happens here stays here’ to help this?”

Kay then went on to mention “honest conversations about gender/sexuality” as an issue where parents who are involved in their children’s education would be unhelpful.

Kay admitted that “‘conservative’ parents are my chief concern” but said “that the damage can come from the left too. If we are engaged in the messy work of destabilizing a kids [sic] racism or homophobia or transphobia — how much do we want their classmates’ parents piling on?”

The Family Research Council (FRC) in May released a publication on “Sex Education in Public Schools” outlining how “sex ed programs push the limits on what is appropriate, both in terms of the material presented to students and the age at which it is presented.” Often, parents are unaware that these things are happening at school.

According to the publication, “parents have two main concerns about sex ed today: That it sexualizes children and that it is load-ed with LGBTQ indoctrination.”

“Even if parents identify problematic lessons in sex ed and manage to opt their kids out, that won’t protect them from sex propaganda elsewhere in school, sometimes where they least expect it,” Cathy Ruse, the author of the publication, pointed out.

Sometimes, parents are intentionally deceived about what their children are taught at school. Parents in Fairfax County, Virginia are told that an abstinence lesson will talk about “the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage.” However, as Ruse found out, “the word ‘marriage’ never appears anywhere in the lesson!”

In any case, students are not simply taught how sexual intercourse works, focusing on the biology of it. Instead, pre-pubescent children in Austin, Texas, for instance, are encouraged “to consider ‘vaginal intercourse,’ ‘oral intercourse,’ and ‘anal intercourse.’”

“Schools in Indiana actually send teens shopping for condoms…

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Editor’s note. This article was written by Martin Bürger and published at Lifesite News.