Friday, December 29, 2006

Purpose Driven Peace Plan & The Vatican sending the same message ?

Vatican booklet cites 'spiritual ecumenism' as route to unity By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS)

Every time Christians of different communities pray together, witness to the Gospel and help people in need, they are promoting Christian unity, said the Vatican's top ecumenist.

Joint prayer and Bible study, attendance at a major event of another denomination and working together for justice and peace are the components of "spiritual ecumenism" suggested by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The cardinal is the author of "A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism," a booklet published in English late in 2006; the Italian edition will be released at the Vatican in time for the Jan. 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Read more...

Speak Up at WND's THE RICK WARREN DEBATE

Joseph VS Goliath
Posted by Watcher's Lamp on Dec 29, 2006 12:16

I applaud Joseph Farah's courage and tenacity in drawing attention to Rick Warren's continued "politicking" in the name of God. If one investigates the roots of Warren's theology, one will quickly see the ecumenical, man-centered philosophy which is repeatedly illustrated in the Biblical narrative as unholy, to say the least.

If one studies the network of churches Warren promotes, one would see the uncanny resemblance to a franchise model. One will quickly see how Warren grows the business, in the name of God.

Now the global PEACE plan is advocating unity among men, based on what we agree on and not what we disagree on regarding God, in the name of God.

The last time I checked, the peace plan in the Bible was designed to create peace between God and man through the death and resurrection of His Son, not the collective handholding of all religions.

If only more Christians, & Christian pastors displayed the same independent courage and tenacity that Joseph Farah has in speaking out against this trafficking and politicking in the name of God.


THE RICK WARREN DEBATE

UK: One step closer to the Mark

UK sets plans in motion to roll out biometric national identity cards for citizens and foreign nationals to begin in 2008.

Physical details of all residents to be held on ID database
HAMISH MACDONELL SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR

"EVERYBODY living in the United Kingdom, including foreigners, will be required to have their biometric details recorded under the government's identity card scheme, it emerged yesterday. John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced that all UK residents, whether or not they were British citizens, would be forced to have their irises scanned and their fingerprints taken for the national database".

UK's Timetable for National Identity Card

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Warren promotes his PEACE plan & Purpose Driven Churches on FOX Christmas Special

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/
"...That's why this message of reconciliation, -- peace with God, of God and with each other -- is one that will ring true in a lot of hearts."
Pastor Warren will culminate his message by sharing the P.E.A.C.E. plan, a worldwide effort to mobilize one billion people to address the five global giants that encompass leadership, finance, health, education and faith. The P.E.A.C.E. plan is currently being tested in nearly 70 countries by Providing hope, Equipping servant leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the sick and Educating the next generation.
At the conclusion of the telecast, Pastor Warren will invite viewers to visit a Web site,
ALERT !
New definition of a follower of Christ from Purpose Driven.com:
"churches will need to help people understand that being a fully devoted follower of Jesus means involvement in P.E.A.C.E."
See Item #6

Read about the force behind Warren's PEACE Plan

Read James Sundquist's online study of Biblical Peace vs Warren's P.E.A.C.E.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ed Young, Jr. say Baptist methodology is "wack"

By JONI B. HANNIGAN
Florida Baptist Witness

"Young said newer, pastor-led churches are "theologically sound" and their leaders are using methodology learned from mega-church pastors like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley.

"The methodology that Baptists have given us is wack," Young said, using a youthful colloquialism. "It will not work in the local church."

"The Baptist thing's not working; we are doing a horrible job," Young said. "Let's just face the music. We have more money, more supplies [and] we've done a pitiful job. In my opinion, over the last 20 or 30 years.

"All the young guys; you know the new generation people, they've gone to Rick Warren, they've gone to Bill Hybels and that's where everybody has gotten their great stuff," Young said. "Our seminaries are great for theology, but you know, in a lot of cases, I do the opposite of what I was told at seminary about how to run a church. The opposite."

Editor's note: Doing the "opposite" is further demonstrated by Young's participation in Robert Schuller's Possibility Thinking / Faith Forward Conference. Sharing the stage with a number emerging church personalities, Anglican & Roman Catholic priests, and a new age sympathizer . The Crystal Cathedral Conference.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Virginia Baptist Mission Board partners with Saddleback Church

From the Watcher's Lamp:

The Virginia Baptist Mission Board announces the partnering with Saddleback Church on the P.E.A.C.E. plan

"This elegant vision of what courage might look like will instruct and inspire us to attack the spiritual giants that cripple our neighborhoods, our commonwealth, and the world. Come and be a part of spreading “P.E.A.C.E. in 21-C!”

The Virginia Baptist Mission Board website offers a variety of resources from church marketing experts, new age sympathizers and purveyors of Roman Catholic mysticism such as:

Dan Kimball's Worship in the Emerging Church

Why Church Size Matters

Willow Creek's Preaching to Seekers

Dallas Willard's The Spiritual Disciplines

Church Marketing

Lee Strobel & friends "Inside the Mind of the Unchurched"

Run the names through database at Lighthouse Research Trails and see for yourself.

What of the salt if it looses it's flavor?

OPEN LETTER TO DR. FRANK PAGE, President of the SBC

From Ken Silva, SBC pastor and founder of Apprising Ministries
"...as an SBC pastor I felt led to write Southern Baptist Convention Embracing Gnostic Mysticism . This piece mentioned both Kent Shirley, who is Director of Missions for Grand Valley Baptist Association (SBC) in CO and the president of the SBC Dr. Frank Page. The response from brother pastors and others in the SBC which would lead to a follow up article SBC Embraces Emergent Church And Contemplative Spirituality. The Lord then moved upon Phil Perkins, a brother in the SBC who teaches at a small SBC school, to contact me and he shared his Open Letter to Frank Page and Kent Shirley."

Additional articles:

AN SBC PASTOR INVESTIGATES EMERGENT AND CONTEMPLATIVE WITHIN THE SBC

Rick Warren Promoting The Emergent Penetration of the SBC

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION EMBRACING GNOSTIC MYSTICISM

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Rick Warren Distorts the Instructions of Jesus to Fit His Global Peace Plan

Editor's note: As Rick Warren uses his PEACE plan and the religious rallying cry to fight against AIDS and now malaria, one need only look back to see the error in his theology

From Lighthouse Trails Research

This interview showed very clearly Warren's dream to see Christians and Catholics join together, stating that "minor doctrinal differences" should not keep them separated. "What I am interested in is bringing the church together ... we are never going to agree on a lot of things, but I found we do agree on purpose." He talked about the purposes that all Catholics and Protestants agree on.

But as he has done so many times in the past, Warren took his ecumenism a big step further than just a union of Catholics and Protestants. As Warren did at the Pew Forum on Religion last year, he explained to Rose his "man of peace" concept and said that every village, every government, every place has a man (or woman) of peace. "The man of peace is open and influential ... and here's the other thing, the man of peace does not have to be a Christian believer ... could be Muslim, could be Jewish."

The Gathering Storm over Israel

By Jerry Golden

We are looking at the possibility of three civil wars in the region, With the Iranian backed Hezbollah Shiites trying to take over Lebanon the so-called Christian Arabs are losing their country and their democracy. With Iranian backed Hamas in Gaza trying to take over the PA (Fatah). And the Iranian backed Shiites in Iraq killing thousands of Sunnis, and the Sunnis infiltrated by al-Qaida killing over 3,000 US troops as well. The two common denominators are they are all three backed by Iran and they all want to destroy Israel.

As for what the International community sees as the demise of Israel even the Pope is making a play to claim land in Israel, Olmert our worse Prime Minister ever is going to Rome to talk to the Pope about giving him the top part of Mount Zion, where the tomb of King David and the Upper Room now sits. This will certainly re-enforce those who believe the Pope will be the anti-Christ. This coupled with the fact that he just stood in a Mosque in Turkey with Moslem Leaders facing Mecca with his shoes off in prayer.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

God, Creation & NASA

From the Watcher's Lamp Dec 8, 2006

This week has been very exciting for scientific community. NASA found stunning evidence that water may even now be flowing on Mars. The concept of water or ice on Mars dates back to the early 1800's. However evidence wasn't confirmed until until the new millenium with images from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. This confirmation now fuels the search for life, albeit microbial, on Mars. It has invigorated a NASA time table to launch manned missions to Mars via a permanent moon base which was also announced this week.

On Monday, December 5, 2006 NASA researchers at Johnson Space Center that they have found Primordial Organic Matter in a meteorite that fell to earth in 2000. The organic matter contained in the meteorite "may have seeded the early Earth with the building blocks of life." Additional research by Nasa, named "Genesis, the search for origins also seeks to substantiate the origins of the universe.

As scientific evidence seems to be building to support the concept of life from the stars, known as panspermia, how will Christians respond ? Will NASA overwrite the Bible the same way the state legislatures and courts have done? How will professing Christians, who have been willing to embrace popular false teachers & false doctrines, respond to images beamed from Mars that may turn man's popular understanding of human history upside down ? Are you standing on the Rock or have you been playing in the sand ? Get back on the Rock before the flood and the strong delusion comes.

Tehran Seeks Ways to Capitalize on Olmert’s Nuclear Admission

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report the Islamic Republic plans an extensive campaign to justify its nuclear program, based on Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s statement in Berlin Monday, Dec. 11, listing Israel with the world’s nuclear powers. Tehran also hopes to rebut the universal revulsion stirred by the Holocaust denial conference president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad staged this week.

(” Israel doesn’t threaten any country,” said Olmert. “Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you see this on the same level when you are aspiring to have a nuclear weapon like the US, France, Israel and Russia?”)

Tehran’s first step was a call Wednesday, Dec. 13, on the UN Security Council and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to combat “Israeli threats.” It was issued by the foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini in Tehran.

See also
Iran president says Israel's days are numbered

UK Government Proposals Approve Human/Animal Embryo Hybrids

By Gudrun Schultz

LONDON, United Kingdom, December 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - British researchers would be permitted to create human/animal embryo hybrids using test tube technology, under sweeping new proposals to be introduced by government health officials this week, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday.

Known as "chimeras", the embryos would be produced by combining human and animal genetic material within a laboratory setting--the North East England Stem Cell Institute has already requested permission to create an embryo that is part human and part cow.


See also Fatherless babies in fertility revolution

Tehran's Holocaust Denial Conference

Tehran's Holocaust Denial Conference
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com

Iran, which has often proclaimed its intent to carry out a second Holocaust, this time against the Jews concentrated in Israel, will be holding a Holocaust-denial conference on December 11-12.

A certain illogic is evident: if you yourself find Jews so loathsome that you seek to exterminate them, why is it implausible that someone else should have had the same idea and acted on it, especially when so many people including all reputable historians say that is exactly what happened just six decades ago?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Why Fight for the Truth

John MacArthur writes:
Truth is under heavy attack, and there are too few courageous warriors who are willing to fight. When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, believers from this generation will not be able to justify their apathy by complaining that the strife of conflict over truth just seemed “too negative” for the kind of culture we lived in—or that the issues were “merely doctrinal” and therefore not worth the effort.

Remember, Christ rebuked the churches in Revelation 2–3 who had tolerated false teachers in their midst (2:14–16; 20–23). He expressly commended the Ephesian church for examining the claims of certain false apostles and exposing them as liars (2:2). Churches have a clear duty to guard the faith against false teachers who infiltrate. Christ Himself demands it.

Friday, December 8, 2006

Vatican: Pope's Prayer In Mosque Is A 'New Horizon' In Interfaith

by Roger Oakland of Understanding the Times
Pope Benedict XVI's moment of prayer at Istanbul's Blue Mosque last week has opened up a "new horizon in interreligious dialogue" according to a top Italian Roman Catholic cleric, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia. "For the first time a Pope appealed to God in a Mosque. Not even Pope John Paul II did it in the Damascus Mosque," Paglia said referring to the 2001 visit to Syria by Benedict's predecessor.
Paglia, who heads the Italian Bishop Conference's interreligious dialogue commission and is bishop of the central Italian town of Terni, made the remarks in an inteview published Thurday on the Rome-based daily Il Messaggero.
Benedict, before his election as pope in April 2005 and as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke out against what he called "relativism" - the trend to regard all religions as essentially equal - a conviction that according to Paglia has not wavered despite the pope's prayer in the mosque accompanied by Turkey's Muslim Grand Mufti.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Warren, Obama: It takes more than wings to fly

By Jill Stanek for World Net Daily
"Despite pressure from social conservatives, Pastor Rick Warren refused to uninvite U.S. Sen. Barack Obama from his AIDS conference last week, although Obama is pro-abortion and pro-homosexual.
During the conference, Warren explained, "You have to have two wings to fly," apparently a right wing and a left wing.

In so many words Warren portrayed conservatives as bigoted for demanding that those we allow in our flock agree on all issues, as if that were actually true, and as if abortion and homosexuality were just issues to be lumped with all others."

The Generation of the Messiah

Jack Kinsella of the Omega Letter writes:
"The Islamic world is so convinced of the soon appearance of their own messiah that they are willing to bring about a global conflagration in order to hasten his appearance. So we have the world's three largest monotheistic religions all convinced at the same point in history that this is the generation of the messiah. All three are actively making preparations in advance of his appearance. The Jews expect their messiah to bring global peace. The Muslims expect their messiah to bring global war. Daniel identifies the antichrist as a false messiah who rises to power by means of the promise of peace and then plunges the world into a global war of annihilation against Christians and Jews."

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE REFORMATION?

by Rev. Ken Silva

Good Ol’ Boy Apostates And Liberals
Now before you get out the tars and feathers and the stack up the green word, I used the Holman Christian Standard Bible on...*ahem*, purpose because it was done by the SBC. I figured maybe then they’d pay attention, though I still happen to doubt they will. Recently I became aware of some serious problems with Emergent and heretical Contemplative Spirituality penetrating deeply into the ranks of the Southern Baptist Convention. I’ve been an SBC pastor since 1994 when I planted a mission church. At first I was involved with local and state ministerial associations etc. until it appeared to be too much of a “good ol’ boy” network for my tastes.

Monday, December 4, 2006

Erwin McManus: The Emergent Penetration of the SBC

by Ingrid Schlueter:
"We have now reached a time of judgment within the American Christian Church due to ignoring warning from godly men like Leonard Ravenhill: "Oh mercy, how we're trying to steady the ark of God these days. We don't just want to steady it. We want to do some new thing." So now I have also been led of God to begin a thorough examination into the theology of rising Emergent SBC "Lead Pastor and Cultural Architect" Erwin McManus of Mosaic, which we're told "emerges as a reference point for the future."

Additional commentary on the in-roads of the emerging church and the Southern Baptist Convention. See the SBC of California's line up of emerging church presenters at On Target Evangelism. See post Here Come the Candles from November 29th.

Sunday, December 3, 2006

John MacArthur's Primer on the Emerging Church

By John MacArthur
"From the very beginning, the battle between good and evil has been a battle for the truth. The serpent, in the Garden of Eden, began his temptation by questioning the truthfulness of God’s previous instruction: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’? … “You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:1,4–5). And this has been his tactic ever since—casting doubt on the straightforward revelation of God."

Purpose-Driven Deception on a Global Scale

By Berit Kjos
"America's Pastor" Rick Warren rarely misses an opportunity to highlight the sales of his books or the influence of his PEACE Plan. But his latest boast to Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily reveals a depth of deception that demands both a sober response and a public warning. And it begs answers to these puzzling questions:
Why would the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) invite a Christian Pastor to join its semi-secret, anti-Christian organization?
How might Rick Warren benefit the elite Oxford Analytica, which works with globalist power brokers such as J.P. Morgan, the Aspen Institute, the World Bank?
What could drive Pastor Warren to lie and deny his taped dialogue with a Syrian Muslim leader?"
See also Kjos' article on Trading the Truth for a social gospel.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Fox News, Zondervan & R. Warren: Follow the money

From Watcher's Lamp
Find it hard to believe that ABC News would attack the Warren / Obama / AIDS collaboration and Fox News would be soft toward the subject? At first blush, "Yes", but once the relationship between Fox News, Rick Warren & his publisher Zondervan and Rupert Murdock, owner of both Zondervan and Fox Media is revealed, the "impossible" becomes probable.

Has Rick Warren Lost Sight of His Purpose?

By Sonja Dalton
Here is my perspective on Rick Warren’s “Global AIDS Summit” (held Dec 1, 2006)…
The key question is: What is the mission of the church? Is it to prevent/treat/cure physical disease - or to cure spiritual disease?
We are told what to do for the sick:
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord… — James 5:14

Friday, December 1, 2006

Another View of Warren's AIDS Conference

from Watcher's Lamp
While "Rick Warren's AIDS conference has drawn well-deserved ire from several directions, one subtle component has quietly been brought to fruition. Nestled in the following quote is a more alarming intention:

"It (the Church) needs to become the third leg of a stool highlighted Dr. Robert Redfield, co-founder of the Institute for Human Virology, explaining the other two legs are the government and businesses. “It is the Church that is the fundamental centerpiece for health.” An effective illustration to an old fashion stool seems innocent until you connect the dots Rick Warren has been promoting in his global P.E.A.C.E. plan.

On the other side of the world, the Pope pays ecumenical homage to rebuild the confidence of the Muslum world by .praying at a mosque.

It is just a matter of time before the ecumenical "Protestants" of our Western culture link arms with the ecumenical Europeans in the name of wellness, peace and community, but not in the Name of Jesus Christ. If you don't know where your pastor stands on the Purpose Driven Church, Purpose Driven Life and Warren's doctrines, ask him. Be prepared, you may not like the answer

Unity in Deeds is NOT Unity Indeed

From Chris Rosebrough at Extreme Theology:
"What is the mission of the church? Well if you believe Rick Warren, then it is something far different than making disciples of all nations... Rick Warren truly believes that the mission of the church is something other than its message. That is what is causing the controversy regarding his invitation to Barack Obama to speak at Saddleback Church. Warren believes that if he puts people together who normally don’t talk to each other (because of their creedal differences) and UNITE them in a good deed, like solving the AIDS crisis then the church will again be united and fulfilling its mission. What could be wrong with that? Fighting the blight of AIDS is a good and noble thing isn’t it? Shouldn't we be working with everyone to solve this problem?"