Glenn Beck have been great in bringing awareness to the dangers in the rise of the Progressives and educating the country on U.S. history. However, when he begins to expound on what he claims to be Christian theology and specifically about Christian salvation, the alarm bells go off. Beck is a unabashed Mormon which is a Christian cult.

In this podcast program from Alpha and Omega Ministry, James White analyzes Beck’s concept of salvation.

I want to tell you a story about a man name Gene Orthodoxy, who grew up in the turbulent 1960s and ‘70s. Gene Orthodoxy became a committed Christian in the ‘70s through the Jesus Movement. What was the Jesus Movement? It was a movement in the late ‘60s and ‘70s where born again Christians came from former hippies, drug addicts, occult and eastern religion practitioners, rock and roll musicians, basically postmodernists from the beatnik generation. The hippies adhered to a counter-culture movement, rebellious of authorities, anti-war, anti-doctrinal orthodoxy. Hippies espoused peace, love and personal freedom.

Gene became a Christian in this postmodern backdrop. Becoming a Christian is a radical change. It means an about-face. It is 2 Co 5:17 ”Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” and Ro 12:2 ”Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Gene wanted to be an English teacher and as such, being a Christian, C.S. Lewis naturally became his role model. While Gene participated in Christian activities, he was never transformed. It is not uncommon for individuals to profess and even think they might be Christians without ever being born again. They have not been regenerated and their hearts and minds have never been transformed, Gene Orthodoxy is such an individual. Gene is able to go through the motions of Christian activities but void of its power. (2 Timothy 3:5) ”having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is just what Jim Spiegel did while he was a graduate student of philosophy. Everyone at one time or another will have some doubt; even atheists have doubts about atheism. Read Spiegel’s post on how he reasoned through his doubts.

McLaren wrote an article on the Huffington Post, “Why Do Evangelicals Dislike Me So Much?”, supposedly in response to the SBTS forum. HT: Denny Burk

McLaren asks why evangelicals dislike him so much? This is not just a question by McLaren, it is a statement that he desperately needs to be true and I will explain what I mean by this shortly. But first, everyone should notice the personal nature of his question. Is this about him? McLaren gives great value and preaches how he is just a part of the community, but now all of a sudden it is about disliking him and not the community? “He invites me to be part of this community to experience his saving love and participate in it.” (A Generous Orthodoxy pg 108). When did this emergent conversation became all about Brian McLaren and not what the emergent community believes? Let me make it crystal clear to Mr. McLaren I have nothing against McLaren personally. I don’t dislike him. I don’t even know him personally. The problem I and most Biblical evangelicals’ have with McLaren is the theology that he has been promoting. So the answer to his slightly misplaced question is this,

That’s right, look in the mirror and asks yourself why are you preaching another gospel? Why do you feel the need to demonize the evangelicals?

Let me begin with this quote from the Huffington Post article.

It’s not hard to fall out of the good graces of the most conservative elements of any religious community. And those authority figures often become even more testy under stress.

Not hard? How hard do you have to move to deny the centrality of the gospel message i.e., the atonement of Jesus Christ? How hard do you have to move to deny that there is no other name under heaven other than the name of Jesus Christ to be saved? How hard do you have to move before you believe that one’s eternal destiny of heaven and hell is less important than McLaren’s construct of community, especially since McLaren doesn’t believe there is a hell? Contrary to McLaren, it is very hard to fall out of the good graces of not just “conservative” evangelicals but any evangelical. These are the essential of Christianity. When McLaren is so far off the reservation he is no different than an atheist.

McLaren’s article follows the typical motif of his writings and theology, a kind of straw man that he erects just to slap it down and paints himself as the wonderful savior offering an alternative Christianity. If he is offering such a wonderfully generous orthodoxy (”envisioned a day when Christians would move beyond our current polarities of liberal/conservative, Protestant/Catholic, and seek for common ground in worship and mission. And he called that common ground a generous orthodoxy” ), why not allow these “so called” conservatives practice their own belief and find common ground. Why does McLaren find it necessary to demonize evangelical? Is it just to make him look better by stepping on others? Maybe McLaren thinks that what he preaches does not apply to him? Maybe McLaren thinks that he is only defending himself from attacks by evangelicals? But wait, evangelical have been around before McLaren ever wrote his first book. As a matter of fact he claims to have come out of the conservative tradition, so isn’t he the one that started demonizing the evangelicals first? Isn’t that how he gained his support? But even putting aside who started it first, shouldn’t McLaren adopt rabbi Gamaliel’s “wait and see” approach to these evangelical’s criticism of his theology? Doesn’t he believe in Gamaliel’s approach? (look here for more of McLaren’s tactics.) Read the rest of this entry »

In the last few years some Christians have been warning and denouncing the emergent movement as outside the pale of orthodoxy. Unfortunately, we’ve been criticized as alarmists, divisive and uncharitable. In the past false teachers like McLaren have been deliberately obtuse, obfuscatory, equivocal and pretentiously flowery in his language, during the beginning of the movement. Sadly, many Christians have been deceived by his Socratic style of false teaching, resulting in the rapid growth of the emergent heresy.

The only glimmer of good as a result of McLaren’s success is that he is becoming more arrogant and thus more bold in revealing his true nature. The wolf is finally becoming more obvious behind the sheep’s clothing.

In Sun Tzu’s Art of War “know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss”.
Even if you are confident that you will not be deceived by McLaren, it is every Christian’s responsibility to give an answer to those who might be open to his false teaching. “A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, And a word spoken in due season, how good it is!”
Read the rest of this entry »

Dallas Willard (Dallas to role-play an evangelistic conversation with a 20 year old girl)

But you cannot stay at such an abstract level for very long. You’re going to have to bring it down to a practical level with questions like: what do you believe about Jesus?

“Okay,” she says, “I can acknowledge that. You know, I have read the gospels, and I think that Jesus was the greatest teacher there ever was. In fact, I’d like to live my life like him. But it feels like I have to ‘buy’ an awful lot more.”

What I would say is this: you don’t have to buy anything you don’t want. We have to help people understand that belief is something that comes along as you experience. You don’t have to fake anything. The way faith works is this: you put into practice what you believe. If you’re attracted to Jesus, what do you believe about him that you can act on? Experience shows again and again that when you allow people to act on the little that they do believe, the rest will follow.

“But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I’m not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?”

I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: “God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that? I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say “he can’t save them.” I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: “There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.” (emphasis are mine)

The above excerpt was taken from his own website. As you can see Willard is unambiguously promoting a form of universalism and salvation outside of Jesus Christ. Willard knows exactly what Christians believe, that is absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The reason we know this is because God tells us so. Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Romans 3:9-18; Romans 8:7-8; Jeremiah 13:23; Isaiah 59:7-8; Psalm 36:1 (ESV) It appears Willard disagrees with God that there are people like some Buddhists who are worthy to be saved, because they are almost totally good. As a Christian given the choice of choosing between God and Willard as to who is right? I think I will choose to side with God. Almost totally good is not enough to be saved. We need to be perfect as God is perfect. Hebrews 4:15; Galatians 3:3 (ESV) Besides, let us be realistic for a second, are there really any almost totally good people around. I know I’ve sinned more than my fair share.

The other question is what does it mean to be almost totally good? Does it mean that a person is perfect as Jesus Christ was perfect but only missed the message about Jesus? We know that can’t be true according to the Word of God. Willard is making a claim that a person is almost totally good according to Willard’s own standard and judgment. The problem for Willard is that I don’t think he is omniscient and his standard is irrelevant for salvation. There is no way Willard can know what is inside the heart of even an almost totally good person just by his external actions.

The most offensive statement by Willard is this: “What kind of a God would do that?“. Who is Willard to question God. What Willard is saying is that if God would allow someone to go to hell because they didn’t believe Jesus then that is something wrong with God’s morality. How dare of Willard to challenge God that way. Willard’s platitudinous statement, “but anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus.”. What does that mean? It would appear that Willard is saying he will only believe in a God that conforms to his sense of morality. Willard has just created a god in his own image. Willard in one fell swoop has eliminated the necessity of Christ’s propitiation. Christians no longer need to preach the gospel anymore, all we need to tell the Buddhist, Hindu, New Ager and Muslim is that you just need to be almost totally good within your religion and you will be saved by Jesus. Willard is preaching another gospel.

Additionally, this is nothing more than an empty rhetoric. It blows my mind that Christians can’t see through this veiled deception. What is missing from that vacuous platitude? It should be obvious. Willard makes the connections that God will save all those almost totally good people and if we disagree with that then we are standing in the way of God. Yes, that’s right when you start with a false presupposition then you will get the wrong conclusion. The God of the Bible does not save those almost totally good people.

And to be honest Willard has to twist Scripture to do it when he refers to Romans 2:6-10. Willard is a well trained scholar and therefore I can’t imagine that he could have made such an exegetical error by accident. I am trying to avoid being pedantic so let me just say this, Romans 2:1-11 is Paul’s indictment of the Jews thinking that they are better than the gentiles merely because they have Abraham as their father. Paul was chastising them against their faith on their ancestry and their lack of faith in the obedience to God’s laws, that becomes clear in Ro 2:17. Paul was not saying that Jesus will save someone outside of the gospel that he is preaching. That becomes even more clear in ch. 3. But even if Willard would only quote Paul a little further in Ro 2:12 he will see that all who sin will be judge by the law and perish by the law. Most importantly Willard seems to have forgotten about Ro 3:9-18.

What Willard is promoting is a heresy. Willard is creating a new standard for salvation, that an almost totally good person is worthy of salvation. For the sake of argument, what if we tweak his statements above. Do we think this would be acceptable?

I am not going to stand in the way of Hitler whom God wants to save. I am not going to say “he can’t save Hitler.” I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for Hitler who does not know Jesus to be saved. But Hitler who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: “There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.”

The hope of salvation and humanity is not in our ability to save ourselves outside of the gospel, but in the finished work of Jesus Christ and His imputed righteousness to sinful Man.

What Todd Bentley does is to exploit people’s most basic fleshly desires (maybe his ministry should be called Flesh Fire). One of those desires is to be healthy when we are sick. But he also appeals to our desire for power and be extraordinary. In all the messages that I’ve heard and read from Bentley he twists Scripture to exploit these desires to attract people. Bentley twists Scripture to his brand of sensationalism.

Here is an example of how he does this, in one of his sermons “The Goodness of God”. First, he starts by appealing to your greed and desire.

God want to give you good gifts, but abundantly above what we can ask or think.

He continues to build this idea that God is waiting to give you these great gifts with other selected verses from the Bible, e.g. God shall carry out great exploits, Jesus performs miracles as gifts, God delights in mercy for you. Like an infomercial scam artist he is showing you the jetsetters lifestyle, the champagne and caviar dreams, but never showing you the details and the methodology of how you can get there.

Second, he wants to convince you that this rich lifestyle is yours for the taking if you would only believe and just reach out and take it.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ ….” (Rom 8:15, RSV). “We need to be able to relate to God as Daddy. … His goodness causes Him to look for someone, anyone who loves Him, so that He can bless them. That someone might as well be you!”

Is Bentley saying those who don’t get healed are not blessed by God and they don’t love God?

Bentley then elevates these gifts to such importance, it becomes heretical.

What’s more, when Jesus saw their faith, He also saw their hearts acknowledging Him not only as the Son of David, the One who forgives their sins, but also as the One who is mercy and compassion personified, always willing to release healing. Ponder that, because so often Christians only think of Jesus in terms of forgiveness of sins. As born-again believers we know our sins are forgiven, but so often many of us have difficulty understanding Him as the Healer.

This sounds like Bentley is trying to put healing on equal par with the forgiveness of sins. This is the crux of the problem; Bentley is more interested in emphasizing the sensational rather than the gospel. He either deliberately misrepresents our Lord?s ministry or he has no understanding of why our Lord was here. The miracles that the Lord performed were not his main emphasis. Miracles are only a tool to authenticate his ministry, which is the propitiation of our sins. Mt 5:17, Jn 9:39 Miracles were also performed to move people to repentance. Matthew 11:20

Bottom line why did Jesus came?

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, ?You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.? Jn 18:37, Jn 14:6, Jn 3:16-17

The Bible is explicitly clear on why Jesus came and what the most significant reason for His ministry is. For Bentley to even try to twist and cast healing (as wonderful as that might be) with the same emphasis as eternal salvation is despicable. The reason Christians think of Jesus in terms of forgiveness of sin, first and foremost, is because that is what the Lord wants. For Bentley to twist it by adding the emphasis on miracle is for his benefit not ours or God’s. I think he has to do this because if Bentley stays true to the Bible he has nothing to gain. Our Lord has already completely all the work necessary in a Christian’s life. We only need to go to the Lord. But now if we need to seek miracles we need to come before Bentley and beg for this miraculous healing power.

Bentley is a false teacher by the evidence of his fruits. Matthew 7:15-23 What fruits do I see from Bentley? Does Bentley deliver some spirit filled sermon that leads Christians to a greater commitment to live as disciples of Christ? Does he inspire Christians to be more holy through the exposition on the Fruits of the Spirit?

Bentley likes to entice people with promises of healing and fantastic visions but does he tell people about a Christian’s vocation to suffer with Christ?¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. php 3:10-11

Bentley is nothing more than a prophesy peddler version of Joel Osteen. He offers a form of escapism for Christians who has been beaten up by atheistic scientism and a plethora of New Age spiritualities. Sensational peddlers like Bentley are popular because it makes the Christians feel superior to other competing worldviews. Christians are an easy target for Bentley because we are already predisposed to sensationalism. Remember the Y2K mania from the Christian churches or just look at all the end time prophesy theories and fiction books. So when Bentley comes along and offers what appears to be a cool drink to a dry thirsty audience, he because extremely successful. There is just one small problem. He is not Biblical. Why does he not teach on the nobler calling of God.
³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: ?For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.? ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ro 8:35-39, 2 Co 4:6-10

I share with other Christians the desire to have healing from illnesses. Who doesn’t worry or fear about cancer, heart disease and a slew of other deadly diseases. America is facing a boom in an aging population, health and well being is bigger than ever. The Christians are not immune to these real physical needs. However, a Christian’s life is not about our physical well being. It is about our heavenly well being. As Paul shows clearly that our present bodies are to be likened to jars of clay, we will have persecution, face death and even to be slaughtered if it comes to that, but we can still rejoice in the love of God.

Bentley said we don’t understand what it means to be sons and daughters of God. He reminds us of Rom 8:15 as evidence to free ourselves to receive God’s gift.

He is looking over the ‘balcony of heaven’ saying, “I want to bless somebody! I want to give somebody mercy! I want to be moved to compassion! I want to begin to release My love right now! I want to release the Father’s love!”

It is true that it is an immeasurable blessing to be adopted into the family of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ we have gain this inheritance. The key here is that our inheritance is the blessing. If that is not enough for Bentley then I am sorry but I can’t imagine any other gift that could possibly be greater than what I’ve already received from God, Abba, Father. As a matter of fact in php 3:8 ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.

I am curious does Bentley think that our privilege of knowing Christ is sufficient or does he think that maybe we need some sort of healing miracles to make our life more complete and abundant.

Bentley also forgot to read a little bit further to verses 16 and 17. ¹⁶ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Is it possible that Christians might suffer? Is it possible that through our trials even in illness that we might share in his glory? Should we, ² Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. ⁴ Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

I wonder who is being glorified when Bentley describes his prophetic experiences of being transported to a surgical table in heaven by a pillar of fire. He had his chest and stomach cut open so that God can stuff gift boxes inside. God tells him that He doesn’t have 30, 40 years to prepare a vessel so this is a supernatural gift of 10 years worth of knowledge and character maturity.

What I don’t understand is that why do so many of these sensation teachers always make God out to be so weak. Why is God so press for time? Did He miss a schedule somewhere? Did He mismanaged His time in the past? Is there something that He didn’t foresee popped up and now He is running out of time?

It is presumptuous for Bentley to preach against God.
¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11
¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End Revelation 22:13
¹¹ In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. Ephesians 1:11

As Christians we are commanded to test every spirit.
¹ Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

In testing Todd Bentley’s words and deeds, there is no doubt he is clearly teaching contrary to the revelation of God’s Word. Bentley is a false prophet.

Pastor Kimball is a self proclaimed orthodox Christian with a loving and gentle heart to reach the unbelieving world. He is sometimes disheartened by the meanness of the so called “watchdog” Christians. I didn’t understand what Dan meant by “watchdog” type until now. I had always wondered if Dan was a bit hypocritical when he accused the critics of emerging churches who have never visited an emerging church.

Unlike those who write about “the emerging church” either in books or blogs, yet never actually visit one or take the time to specifically talk to leaders of existing emerging churches – Bob had the integrity and just plain common journalistic sense to go actually visit 12 different emerging churches.

Why would this be hypocritical? Well, because Dan also accused other Christians (possibly these “watchdog types”) as being barking poodles who are mean, bitter and angry Christians. The hypocrisy should be immediately obvious, did Dan actually visited any of the churches of these mean, bitter and angry Christians or take the time to specifically talk to leaders of existing watchdog types? Did Dan have the integrity and just plain common sense to go actually visit 12 different watchdog type churches? I don’t know but I doubt Dan did.

However, I’ve recently discovered some evidence that my suspicion of Dan’s hypocrisy might be unjustified. You see I had always assumed that when Dan said “watchdog types”, he meant orthodox Christians. It seems that his criticism was directed at his friend Doug Pagitt. When Dan refers to these “mean, bitter and angry” christians, he meant emerging christians like Doug Pagitt who say some of the meanest things. Since Dan and Doug are such close friends I am sure he must have visited Doug’s church often so he is speaking from knowledge, therefore there is no hypocrisy in Dan.

HT: Ken Silva posted this on his blog.
Doug Pagitt scolds John MacArthur. Pagitt writes,

I think it might give you a more full understanding of the gospel than the one perverted by the likes of John MacArthur. I do not say “perverted” lightly, either. I really think what he communicates is so distant from the message of the Bible that it is dangerously harmful to people.

I find myself fully agreeing with Pagitt. John MacArthur is in fact preaching a perverted emergent gospel that is incongruent with the emergent beliefs. This is to be expected since MacArthur worships a different God than the god of Pagitt. MacArthur preaches a gospel that gives reverence and sovereignty to God, our Heavenly Father, Creator and Savior. Pagitt preaches a gospel where his god is a chick, and the atonement of Jesus is akin to cosmic child abuse. So I agree with Doug Pagitt 100% that MacArthur is preaching a pervert emergent gospel.