Over a year ago Apprising Ministries began warning you that Word Faith Heretics Like Creflo Dollar Draw Nearer To Evangelical Acceptance. I’m sure many thought, “Silva, you’ve lost what’s left of your mind.” But since then we’ve had the Elephant Room 2 try and tell us that T.D. Jakes Is Not A Word Faith Prosperity Preacher.

It seems the inmates are running the evangelical asylum now as postmodernism’s influence wraps itself around the sappy sentimentality produced by corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism and slithers its syncretism deeper into the weak heart of the mainstream of the church visible. I wish I had better news; but, I don’t.

Here’s another example of an evangelical odd couple; and I do admit I was a bit surprised to discover this. As you can see below, popular Southern Baptist pastor David Jeremiah was a featured speaker for the March 5 2012 spring version of Praise-A-Thon for the nefarious haven of heretics known as Trinity Broadcasting Network:

(source)

If you didn’t know, Mark Chironna and “Bishop” Clarence McClendon are typical TBN Word Faith (WF) heretical snake oil salesmen along the order of Paul Crouch himself. While Jeremiah doesn’t appear with them, he was the first featured speaker during this time TBN uses as a main vehicle to fleece their flock each year.

Rather odd that David Jeremiah, an ostensibly conservative evangelical, would wish to rub shoulders with WF prosperity preachers. Yet here he is below where you’ll see Jeremiah lavish his praise upon Paul Crouch as well as TBN itself. In this first clip Crouch touches upon the classic sow a seed (money) so God is obligated to bless you.

Then he introduces David Jeremiah as “one of my dearest brothers in the whole world” while putting his arm around him:

In this next clip Paul Crouch is telling the faithful they should support TBN because of it’s continued expansion with new networks, which he says he can’t even name because there are so many. Crouch informs us that God is behind their having to continue to grow and introduces David Jeremiah, who discloses an interesting tidbit.

Jeremiah says, “I’ve been involved with this organization over these last few years” and tells us it’s “an incredible thing” TBN is doing:

Before going any fruther it’s important that you understand a couple of core doctrines of WF heretics like Paul Crouch. In his helpful Understanding Word-Faith Teaching Christian apologist Rob Bowman explains:

The distinctive ideas about God and man in Word-Faith theology are the basis for its views on faith and prayer. Faith is not only believing what God says but also believing that we have whatever we say. Prayer is not only speaking to God but also speaking to things and circumstances and commanding them to do as we say. This is the basis for the concept of positive and negative confession, the idea that what we believe and say, whether good or bad, will happen for us…

On the basis of a positive confession – itself based on faith that we are divine spirits created and redeemed to rule our circumstances by speaking words of faith – Word-Faith theology says we are to obtain health and wealth. Since Christ died to free us from the curse of the law, reason the Word-Faith teachers, this must mean that Christians need no longer accept sickness or poverty in their lives. Christians ought to live in divine health and wealth as testimony to the power of God and as evidence that they are children of God… (source)

One of the ways WF teachers tell us that we acquire this wealth is their twisted “law of sowing and reaping.” You often hear them tell their flocks to “sow a seed” into their ministry in order that God will then return them more than they gave as a “blessing.” For example, here’s TBN favorite Paula White at the “church” of T.D. Jakes:

Considering where he is, David Jeremiah appears to be trying to straddle the fence in his Praise-A-Thon sermon at TBN. It seems, at best, an attempt to blur the lines between orthodoxy and and heretical WF teaching. You’ll see Jeremiah expressing praise for Paul Crouch below so his discernment certainly leaves much too be desired.

In this next clip, Jeremiah also reveals a real misunderstanding concerning the sovereignty of God. While elaborating on how people say, “if we give to God, He’ll give a lot back to us,” Jeremiah tells us we often misunderstand how this happens. So, at 1:44 he muses:

Here’s how it works. The Bible says that if we’re faithful over a few things, God will make us ruler over many. So, here’s how it works. God sits in heaven and He gives to us a stewardship. When He watches us manage that, in His behalf—and we do it effectively—He says, “I think I can trust that person with some more.”

So He gives us more to manage. And, as long as we manage what He gives us effectively, God can trust us with even more resources.

What Jeremiah has just said would be true of the fictitious WF god, who is at the back and call of mankind; but the one true and living God of the Bible is completely sovereign. He already knows before He gives us anything what we’ll do with it; and the LORD God almighty already knows that He can’t trust any of us—period.

Apart from what Jesus Christ has done for us, and is now doing in us, we have no ability on our own to do anything “effectively” by God’s perfect standards. After using the law of gravity as an example of how God’s laws work, whether we believe them or not, Jeremiah begins to shares laws that “go along with stewardship.”

Right on the line between WF and orthodoxy he tells us, “God says, whatever we invest, that’s what we get back,” which is a principle Jeremiah assures us works “across the whole link and breadth of life.” Using the desire to be loved as an example, he tells us that if we want to be loved by more people, we need to invest love in more people.

The reason, Jeremiah explains, is “because that’s what you’re gonna get back.” Later he turns the topic of sowing and reaping specifically to TBN and offers that some in the audience may be saying, “Well, I’ve been giving to TBN and I don’t see anything going on in my life.” To that person at 2:09 in Jeremiah says:

Well, you probably have a big harvest coming because God’s saving the best… You only reap what you sow. Let me ask you this: Do you get blessed by this network [TBN]; by watching the teaching programs and the music and the things that come to your life?… Do you get blessed by this ministry?…

If you wanna get blessed by TBN, then the problem you have to solve is, “how am I investing in TBN?” Let me tell you something, we have this incredible network today because people before us—for many, many years before us—have invested their dollars, their time, their effort, in this network so that it could be what it is today.

So, I wanna stop right now and ask you to do this; if you’ve been blessed by TBN this year—and you haven’t called to say, “I wanna be a part of TBN going forward”—I want you to go to your phone and find out how you can help make this network even more successful than ever before.

In this next clip David Jeremiah continues his pitch for people to send money to TBN and then gets to his third principle; “the principle of increase.” Jeremiah explains:

If you don’t call, if you don’t go to the phone, if you don’t help, then this ministry can go no further than the people who join with it, and become part of the team… I want you to go do it [call to pledge money]; because it depends upon all of us together.

If I get up in my church and I don’t take an offering, then the church is gonna be out of business in a short time, amen? So, this [Praise-A-Thon] is how TBN takes the offering; and you have to participate., if it’s gonna work…

“What is the principle of increase?” Watch. [reviews his principles] You only get what you sow; you get later than you sow; and you get more than you sow, amen?… The Bible says that God works, in His plan for us, men and women, by the principle of sowing and reaping.

Now at 1:49 of this next clip you’ll see David Jeremiah teaching us that God Himself even believes in this principle of sowing and reaping; so much does He live by this principle that He even “sowed His own Son into the world” for the harvest of men’s souls. So, apparently this principle is actually more powerful than God Himself:

Let me tell you something that’s real special about what we do here at TBN… Do you know the Bible said that God believed in this principle [sowing and reaping]; did you know that?… Did you know that God believes in the sowing principle? How does He believe in it?

He believes in it because He sowed His own Son into this world. Did you know that? One day God sent His own Son into this world. He sowed His Son into the world. Why? Hebrews says He did it so that He might reap many sons to glory. Isn’t that how it works?…

So tonight, I wanna encourage you, with all of my heart, to understand your part in the ministry of TBN… Everybody needs to do it [send money], and especially now… It’s really encouraging to hear Paul talk about how God has sustained [TBN], and it hasn’t gone backwards.

But unless everybody who’s involved in this ministry gets underneath it and says, “This is part of my life”—I mean, if you sit and watch this program [Praise The Lord] at home—if you use this to grow spiritually, then the Bible says you should be involved with it. You should invest in it.

You should make it part of what you do for almighty God.

Finally, David Jeremiah concludes his pitching for pledges for TBN and lauds the vision of Paul Crouch, which Jeremiah offers came from God. I’ll spare you his closing prayer where Jeremiah calls TBN an “incredible delivery system” for the Gospel and how thankful he is that God gave this vision to Crouch:

We can do this together. These 14 networks aren’t gonna just keep going because we started them. They’re gonna keep going because we have a part in financing them and working to make them happen. So tonight I wanna ask you, help us do this. Help Paul do this.

I’m so amazed at the vision God has given to this man… I want to be a part of helping him continue… I hope you will do that, too. Be a part of what’s happening at TBN. And let’s pray together that God will enable you to do more than you even thought… [A]fter you support the [local] church, you need to support the ministries that feed your soul [like TBN].

See also:

TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK FIRES BACK REGARDING FINANCIAL FRAUD ALLEGATION

ELEPHANT ROOM 2′S T.D. JAKES SAYS TBN’S PAUL CROUCH LED BY GOD TO LAUNCH JAKES’ MINISTRY

EMERGING ECUMENICAL EVANGELEPHANTS AND THE WORD FAITH MOVEMENT

And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? (Joshua 5:13-14)

A crimson line runs between the righteous and the wicked, the line of atoning sacrifice; faith crosses that line, but nothing else can. Faith in the precious blood is the great distinction at the root, and all those graces that spring  out of faith go to make the righteous more and more separate from the ungodly world, who having not the root, have not the fruit.

Do you believe on Jesus Christ? On whose side are you? Are you for us or for our enemies? Do you rally at the cry of the cross? Does the uplifted banner of a dying Savior’s love attract you?

If not, then you remain still out of God, out of Christ, an alien to the commonwealth of Israel, and you will have your portion amongst the enemies of the Savior. There is a sharp line of division between the righteous and the wicked, as clear as that which divides death from life.

A man cannot be between death and life; he is either living or dead. A clear line of demarcation exists between life and death, and such a division is fixed by God between the righteous and the wicked.

There are no betweenites; no amphibious dwellers in grace and out of grace; no monstrous nondescripts, who are neither sinners nor saints. You are this day alive by the quickening influences of the Holy Spirit, or else you are dead in trespasses and sins.[1]

Charles Spurgeon

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End notes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, At the Master’s Feet [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], May 15.

See also:

JERRY FALWELL, JR: LIBERTY UNIVERSITY “NO OFFICIAL POSITION” ON CULT OF MORMONISM

OPRAH WINFREY IS NOT A CHRISTIAN

ANDY STANLEY TAKES JAB AT CHRISTIANS

“Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day [a]our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’

‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’] For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” (Matthew 6:9-15)

In the words of this passage, Jesus provides a concise but comprehensive model outline of genuine prayer. First our Lord addresses God’s glory (Matt. 6:9-10), then He speaks to humanity’s needs (Matt. 6:11-13a).

Three petitions make up each of the sections. The first three deal with God’s name, kingdom, and will; the second three appeal to the Father concerning daily bread, forgiveness, and protection from temptation.

Jesus says nothing specific about where we should pray. During His earthly ministry, He prayed in many different places and situations, both public and private. Paul instructed his readers to pray “in every place” (1 Tim. 2:8).

There is also nothing specific about a time to pray. Jesus prayed at many different hours, around the clock. Scripture pictures believers praying at every conceivable occasion—at regular, habitual prayer times; at times of special danger and special blessing; before and after meals; and when arriving at or leaving a certain location.

At any time and under any circumstance, prayer is appropriate. It should be a continual, comprehensive way of life—an open communion with God (Eph. 6:18; 1 Thess. 5:17).[1]

John MacArthur

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] John MacArthur, Daily Readings From the Life of Christ [Chicago: Moody, 2008], May 15.

See also:

JERRY FALWELL, JR: LIBERTY UNIVERSITY “NO OFFICIAL POSITION” ON CULT OF MORMONISM

CHURCH REMOVED FROM HARVEST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP SAYS “WE SPOKE TRUTH TO THEM…”

OPRAH WINFREY IS NOT A CHRISTIAN

Yesterday in Liberty University, Mitt Romney, And Mormonism here at Apprising Ministries I reminded you of a mini-flap when it was announced that Mitt Romney, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) was to address Liberty University (LU) graduates at the 2012 Commencement ceremony.

If you didn’t know, Romney did so this past Saturday, May 12. As far as the contention is concerned, CNN reporters Dan Merica and Laura Bernardini told us in their April 23rd story Liberty University responds to Romney controversy, angers online students, it erupted on LU’s Facebook page.

The announcement was eventually taken down. Merica and Bernardini filled us in on the other side of the story courtesy of “Janet Loeffler, a 53-year old freshman at Liberty who takes classes online.” According to Loeffler, “a frequent poster to the Facebook page,” it:

was the statement about online students familiarity with Liberty’s traditions that she says deeply offended her. “It is just a complete lie. You cannot get through your first semester at Liberty Online without taking their Theology 101 and Apologetics 101,” Loeffler said.

Loeffler provided CNN with a copy of the page in the freshman textbook “The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics” which includes a number of passages on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called Mormons. “Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism,” reads the passage, “which teaches that there is only one true God and that every other ‘God’ is a false god.”

Liberty’s handling of the situation “has very much altered my thinking of Liberty,” Loeffler said. “I haven’t registered for my fall classes yet because of it. I am offended that they would talk to us like that, telling us that we just don’t understand.”

Many of the anti-Liberty comments, including Loeffler’s charged that Mormonism goes against the teachings of the school and claimed that the religion is a cult. (source)

Well, the LU students are correct; Mormonism was classified as a non-Christian cult many, many years ago. However, responding in an interview yesterday morning on CNN with Kyra Phillips, apparently this is still open for discussion at LU according to Jerry Falwell, Jr., president and chancellor of Liberty University.

Near the end of the interview below you’ll hear Phillips remind Falwell, Jr. that he’d mentioned “some of the students that were protesting this commencement speech” Romney would deliver. Then she tells Falwell, Jr. that:

I was reading through the Facebook petitions and even one student cited your own theology course there at Liberty that labels Mormonism a cult. What’s your response to that and the fact there were a number of students that came forward and said this shouldn’t be happening and this is not what Liberty preaches when it comes to Mormon religion? (source)

LU president and chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr’s reply is rather curious being that Liberty University is reputed to be “the world’s largest” evangelical Christian university “in the world,” which he happened to manage to work in a couple of times in these seven+ minutes:

Liberty has no official position on Mormonism. Our statement does not define Mormonism as a cult. There are hundreds of professors here and I’m sure you could find someone like the professor who authored that course that you just mentioned. I’m sure there are some that believe it is a cult. That’s not part of our doctrinal position and not our official position. (source)

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] You can see the CNN interview in its entirety here.

See also:

MORMONISM DECLARED WAR ON CHRISTIANITY

THE “JESUS” OF MORMONISM ALA GLENN BECK

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS VS. THE GOSPEL

Christian Research Network is a sister work of Apprising Ministries. Today CRN Associate Editor Erin Benziger of Do Not Be Surprised… brings more detail on fallout from the ecumenical Elephant Room II of James MacDonald:

On 9 May 2012, Christian Research Network reported the following:

After speaking to Harvest Bible Chapel Grayslake, Christian Research Network has confirmed that this church has been “removed from Harvest Bible Fellowship by the leadership.” HBC Grayslake declined to provide additional details at this time. Source

HBC Grayslake reportedly shared this information with their congregation in the Sunday service on 6 May, however their statement was not available to the public. The decision by Harvest Bible Fellowship (HBF) to remove HBC Grayslake appeared to be a result of discussions surrounding the controversy of the Elephant Room 2 (ER2) conference. Now, HBC Grayslake has provided additional information through the sermon delivered this past Sunday. In the middle of a sermon on 2 Cor. 4:7–15, Senior Pastor Mike Bryant shared the following:

There is hope amidst the suffering. Loved ones, we have hope. And for our church, as I am studying this passage, I am amazed at the pertinence of God’s Word. Can I just tell you that? I am amazed that God sees what we are going through, and a year in advance knew that we would be in this passage. And with the suffering that we are going through as a church – if you were here last week, you heard about the sufferings that our church is enduring. That we have a sign out there that says, Harvest Bible Chapel. And did you know that we are no longer a Harvest Bible Chapel? Because our denomination decided they wanted to kick us out. And why did they want to kick us out? Because they wanted to choose to embrace, to invite and affirm somebody who teaches false doctrines about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and about the Trinity. And so because of that loved ones, I don’t know about you, but I’m perplexed right now at this situation. I’m confused. I’m discouraged. And I’m grieving over this. I’m perplexed at the reality that the men—for some of us in this room, we’ve served with them for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 plus, I’ve been a part of Harvest Bible Chapel for 23 years now! And guess what, I cannot believe that these men have embraced this false teacher. I can’t understand how they have done that. I’m perplexed about that. And you’re probably perplexed as well, like I am. I’m perplexed about the reality that they would invite and they would affirm this man and they would embrace him and share fellowship with him, while kicking those of us who have been with them and supported them and built God’s Kingdom through the work of Harvest Bible Chapel for 20 plus years, and to kick us to the side. I’m perplexed by that, as I’m sure you are perplexed by that this morning. I’m perplexed that when brothers came, when our elders went to them and spoke truth to them and said, “Hey, the things were seeing, I don’t think this is good.” And when we spoke truth to them and said, “This is wrong according to what Scripture says. Why are we doing this? We need to go in a different way.” And they attacked us instead! I’m perplexed by that. I don’t get that. It discourages my heart and it grieves my heart. ((CRN thanks Scott Bryant of Blood Stained Ink for bringing this to our attention and for providing the transcript. The full sermon may be heard at the website of Harvest Bible Chapel Grayslake. Transcript begins at 35:32.))

It is important to note that Pastor Bryant has been preaching through the book of 2 Corinthians for some time, and the preaching calendar was set well in advance of these recent events. The full sermon was, as intended, an exposition of the text. As such, it cannot be claimed that this sermon was written specifically for the purpose of decrying the behavior of Harvest Bible Fellowship. Rather, Pastor Bryant had the opportunity to use these events as a very relevant illustration.

From the statements made by Pastor Bryant, it seems that the inference can be made that the removal of HBC Grayslake from Harvest Bible Fellowship was due to disagreements surrounding the invitation of prosperity preacher T.D. Jakes to January’s ER2 conference. To date, three additional churches have voluntarily left Harvest Bible Fellowship in the wake of the Elephant Room 2 conference. Harvest Bible Church, Detroit West, Cornerstone Church of Lincolnway (formerly Harvest Bible Chapel New Lenox), and Harvest Bible Church in Prescott, AZ, each decided earlier this year to dissociate from HBF due to concerns surrounding the ER2 event. Statements from each of these three churches are available on their respective websites.

FOOTNOTES

1. CRN thanks Scott Bryant of Blood Stained Ink for bringing this to our attention and for providing the transcript. The full sermon may be heard at the website of Harvest Bible Chapel Grayslake. Transcript begins at 35:32. ↩

See also:

THIRD CHURCH LEAVES HARVEST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP

ER2 SHOCKWAVES HIT HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL

EMERGING ECUMENICAL EVANGELEPHANTS AND THE WORD FAITH MOVEMENT

As Apprising Ministries monitors the Net and social media one of the trends I’m seeing is postmodernism’s effects slithering more deeply into the professing Christian community. Combined with the sappy sentimentality spread by practice of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism people are now deciding issues by their feelings.

My point being, it simply doesn’t matter one iota how we may feel about a given subject; it’s truth or falsehood is based upon factuality, not feelings. A case in point right now is Oprah Winfrey. Once again people are becoming convinced that the media mogul is a Christian. As a matter of fact, Winfrey even makes that claim herself.

The clip below is from Spiritual Lives – Oprahs Lifeclass a few weeks ago on April 24th 2012. At 0:26 you’ll hear Winfrey say, “I am a Christian; that is my faith,” and also says that she can show us how to be one:

You can also see Winfrey’s tolerant statement, “I respect for all faiths” was a real crowd pleaser. Of course we respect people of other faiths but with such as those as Oprah Winfrey those religions are actually irrelevant because, in their warped and toxic perceptions, the New Spirituality they espouse transcends these faiths.

What’s imperative in this tolerant time in which we live is to make people define their terms. If we hope to understand Winfrey’s claim we simply can’t let her go off-roading mentally into the mud of the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where the meanings of words descend into its muck and mire.

So now, from her own—pardon the pun—words we’ll let Winfrey testify as to what she means by Christian. When we do you’ll clearly see she’s not a Christian despite her claim to the contrary. The following clips come from A New Earth Online Class which Winfrey did with Eckhart Tolle, a leading guru of the New Spirituality.

This was Winfrey’s first stab at webcasting while the two promoted the mythology in Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (ANE). Following is Winfrey’s “Christian” testimony from her own lips; and keep in mind this is taken directly from the transcript of the online class, produced by Winfrey herself.

I want you to know that I purposely left the commercials in this opening clip to give you a better idea just how dangerous Oprah Winfrey really is. As you’ll see, she literally reaches, and impacts, millions of people around the entire world with her deadly spirituality; and with some heavyweight sponsors as well.

What we want to note in this first clip is that Winfrey calls Living Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle’s ANE “one of the most important books of our time.” This is clearly an endorsement of Tolle’s spiritual mythology:

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Welcome to our very first live worldwide interactive event. We are here tonight breaking new ground. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. Right now, you all are online with me from every corner on our planet. Places like Albania, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Finland, Hong Kong, China, India, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe. Along with, of course, all 50 states here in our United States of America. Over 139 countries are represented in our class tonight. Welcome to you all.

So I want to get started. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but I am most proud of the fact that all of you have joined us in this global community to talk about what I believe is one of the most important subjects and presented by one of the most important books of our time, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.”

I don’t think there’s anything more important than awakening and also knowing what your purpose is. And for the next 10 weeks, author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and I will be here in our virtual classroom here on Oprah.com every Monday, 8 p.m. Be on time for class—8 p.m. Central. (source, emphasis mine)

Here’s what Dr. Gary Gilley tells us about Tolle’s ANE in his review:

A New Earth is little more than the standard New Age (New Spirituality) fare which would be highly familiar to those having knowledge of this doctrine. What makes A New Earth unique is its adoption and promotion by Oprah Winfrey who has become perhaps the biggest cheerleader for New Age spirituality in modern times. Because of Oprah’s endorsement, millions of Eckhart Tolle’s books have been sold and New Age ideas have spread to a whole new segment of Western society…

Tolle believes that all things are one (monism) (pp. 4, 26, 106) with the universe. This Eastern pantheistic teaching ultimately leads to all things being God. We are not surprised when he tells us that, “we are light” (p. 28), we are “I Am” (pp. 57, 60, 64, 79), “you are the Truth” (p. 71), we have a “common divinity” (p. 74), “I am life…I and life are one…I Am” (p. 128), we are God, or Being (p. 220), etc. (source)

Obviously, this is not Christian theology and no genuine Christian would think ANE’s a most important book; we’d reject it as blasphemy. This next clip comes as Winfrey is praising an earlier book by Tolle called The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, which she says was a “book [that] was a life-changing book for me.”

Shifting back to Tolle’s ANE Winfrey then asks the guru, “How did this come to be? How did this come through you—to you?” Tolle tells her it was essentially what is known as automatic writing where the spiritual writer claims the work comes through them from another source:

Well, it comes out of the space of stillness, and that’s where all creative endeavor is born. So it’s getting in touch with the stillness within, where there’s no mental noise, and out of that stillness, when the time is right, sometimes an impulse comes. Something—a feeling, a strong sense that something wants to be born into this world…

I had the same strong sense before writing The Power of Now. That was 13 years ago…and suddenly this came. I bought a notepad, and suddenly the strong stream came through, and I wrote, “What is Enlightenment?” The beginning of The Power of Now. The moment I wrote that, I knew this is the book that wants to be born. So rather than me wanting to write a book, there was a book that wanted to be written. (source)

Winfrey wonders if Tolle thought it was “like Michelangelo” who said “the angel’s in the marble and he just cuts away the marble.” Tolle then replies:

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Yes. So and I find—I’ll come back to that in a second—for most people that is the approach to “What is my purpose?” To look at what the greater purpose is, “What does the greater purpose want from me? What does life or God want from me?” Rather than, “What do I want from life?” So that’s the starting point. I know that sometimes in New Age you have the question, “Well, what do you want?”

It’s fine to ask that question, but a more powerful question is, “What does life want from me? How do I fit into the—what is the totality? What is my place within the whole?” So this is how it started, as knowing that this is what life wants from me. The book wants to be born. And the same thing happened later with the New Earth, again, a similar sense of “Oh, there’s another book that wants to come.” I didn’t know why because everybody told me, “Well, you’ve said it all in The Power of Now, why write another book?”

And I, intellectually, I couldn’t have answered, “Why am I writing another book?” And it happened.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): And it happened. Were you asking life, universal energy? I don’t know. What do you call that? As a word do you—I call it “God.” What do you, what word do you use for that?

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Consciousness…

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Were you asking consciousness, were you saying, “What do you want from me?”

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Yes. (source)

Again, this impersonal, unknowable, ”consciousness” is a repudiation of the Christian position concerning the nature of the one true and living God of the Bible Who is Personal and known through Jesus Christ. If Oprah Winfrey was a Christian she would just not be endorsing and promoting this New Spirituality of Eckhart Tolle.

This next clip comes as Winfrey then opens the discussion to her online web class. It also gives you another peek at how Winfrey is now shipwrecking people’s faith:

This is classic New Age mythology aka the New Spirituality and actually couldn’t be further from a Christian testimony. Jesus didn’t come to show us some laws “to know that way.” No, Jesus is the way to the Father; and He didn’t come “to show us Christ consciousness because the Bible tells us God the Son is the Christ.

In this last clip Oprah Winfrey asks Eckhart Tolle “how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?” After his rather confused and conflicting foray into the doublespeak of the New Spirituality, finally, as she continues on with her answer to the caller she leaves no doubt that Oprah Winfrey is not a Christian:

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): And how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?

See also:

CHRISTIANS DON’T DENY JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD OPRAH WINFREY

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS

WILL THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP?

By Apprising Ministries special correspondent Bob DeWaay

There are no extraordinary Christians; but being an ordinary Christian is an extraordinary thing. How I wish I would have understood that when I was a new Christian. But I didn’t. Soon after my conversion I began a quest to become the best possible Christian. In so doing I fell prey to teachings that promised me a Christian life superior to that of ordinary Christians. What I did not know was that I had embraced pietism. I didn’t become an extraordinary Christian and I did walk straight into error.

My journey into the “deeper life” oftentimes involved embracing contradictory teachings. For example, two of my favorite teachers in the early 1970’s were Watchman Nee and Kenneth Hagin. One taught a deeper Christian life through suffering [1]) and the other taught a higher order Christianity that could cause one to be free from bodily ailments and poverty.[2] The hook was that both claimed to have the secret to becoming an extraordinary Christian. I found out that they didn’t.

My dissatisfaction with the Christianity taught in Bible College[3] led me to join a Christian commune some months after graduation. That group’s founder taught that all ordinary churches and Bible Colleges were caught up in “religious Babylon.” He taught that the kingdom of God was to be found by quitting one’s job, selling one’s possessions, giving the money to the commune, and moving in together to be devoted to the “kingdom” twenty four hours a day. So in my search to become an extraordinary Christian I did what he said and joined.

By the time I had fully explored many versions of pietism seeking to escape the tainted Christianity found in ordinary churches, I had squandered the first ten years of my Christian life. I was converted in 1971 and by 1981 I had given up on becoming a superior Christian. I bought a house for my family and began a car repair business to pay the bills while I tried to figure out what to do with my calling to preach now that most everything I had been taught, practiced, and taught others had failed.

By God’s grace I went back to the Bible and determined to merely teach verse by verse from that point on. It took another five or six years to rid myself of the various errors I had embraced and then I taught Romans in 1986. Through that study I came to appreciate the doctrines of grace. That understanding opened my thinking and was the turning point for my ministry. I also came to realize that the wrong-thinking that attracted me to pietism was that I held to a theology based on human ability rather than grace alone. Once I grasped that, I never looked back.

If the “secret” to a higher order Christianity is based on something we discover and implement (the secret to the deeper life), then it makes sense that some Christians could achieve a higher status than others. But if salvation AND sanctification are God’s work through His grace, then we are all in the same boat, and there’s no higher order.

Pietism is difficult to define because it can be taught and practiced in an unlimited number of ways. Some versions appear to be innocuous while others are so radical that most people would see that something is wrong. I now know that no version of pietism is actually innocuous. If a teaching is called pietism but teaches no more than what God has always used to sanctify Christians, then it is not really pietism. Real pietism always harms those who embrace it.

The essence of pietism is this: It is a practice designed to lead to an experience that purports to give one an elite or special status compared to ordinary Christians. The Bible addresses this error in the book of Colossians.[4] The false teachers in Colossae claimed to have the secret to a superior Christian experience that would cause people to rise above the bad “fate” they feared. Paul went on to explain that they already had everything they needed through Christ and His work on the cross. Another way of stating this is: If after having fully trusted Christ’s finished work on the cross, you are told that you are still lacking something, you are being taught pietism.

Church history is littered with misguided pietistic movements. Many of them are linked with mysticism. I will give examples later in this article. Pietism can be practiced many ways including enforced solitude, asceticism of various forms, man made religious practices, legalism, submission to human authorities who claim special status, and many other practices and teachings. The fact that pietism has many forms can be seen by the litany Paul gives in Colossians:

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Colossians 2:16-23)

Paul calls this approach “self-made religion” which is exactly what all forms of pietism are. They all suggest that having been converted by the Lord through the cross and practicing His ordained means of grace by faith are inadequate. They have discovered a better way that leads to a higher order experience. Paul says they have “the appearance of wisdom.”

His list includes ascetic practices. These appear to most poorly taught Christians to be what the Lord wants. They reason, “Of course God is happier with a person who sells all and moves into a convent where he takes an oath of poverty than He is with someone who goes to work forty hours a week and uses some of the money to buy things.” Is He? When I was a pietist, if someone told me he prayed two hours a day, then I had to pray three hours to make sure I wasn’t missing out on something. I reasoned, “Of course God is happier with a Christian who prays three hours than one who prays two.” Is He? When I was a pietist I would work on cranking up my desire for holiness because I reasoned that holiness is found through something in the person rather than through God’s grace. Based on sermons I’d heard I reasoned, “Christians are not experiencing a higher degree of holiness because they do not desire it enough.” Is that true? No, none of these pietistic statements are true.Such teachings lead to elitism and comparing ourselves to others. The Bible tells us not to do that. Paul stated that these practices “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

God is committed to the holiness of everyone He has redeemed. He makes them holy through His ordained means of grace. Paul warned both the Galatians and the Colossians against adding anything to the work of Christ: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6); “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). This means that salvation is by grace through faith and sanctification is by grace through faith. There is no secret principle to be discovered that creates higher order Christians. Here is how it is explained in Hebrews: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10, 14). Pietism is an attack on the scriptural truth that Christ has already done it all and that this is true for all Christians. I believe in progressive sanctification, but God is sanctifying all Christians by the same means.

Pietism in Church History

Since pietism existed in Colossae in Paul’s day it has always been in the church. But we want to analyze some expressions of it to see why it arises and how it works. Church historian Justo Gonzalez chronicles the beginnings of the monastic movement which was apparently a reaction to a perception that popularity and success had tainted Christianity after it was endorsed by Constantine.[5] The question they dealt with was how to overcome Satan (pietism often offers special protection from Satan) who was tempting people with success now that martyrdom was no longer available. Gonzalez writes, “Many found an answer in the monastic life: to flee from human society, to leave everything behind, to dominate the body and its passions, which gave way to temptation. Thus, at the very time when churches in large cities were flooded by thousands demanding baptism, there was a veritable exodus of other thousands who sought beatitude in solitude.”[6] This version produced the Desert Fathers as they have come to be known.

Some documents from the early church fathers describe the lives of “anchorite” monks who fled society to live in the desert. One was Anthony who gave away all his riches before entering his new life: “He then [after leaving his teacher] went to live in an abandoned cemetery, where he subsisted on bread, which some kind souls brought him every few days. According to Athanasius, at this time Anthony began having visions of demons that accosted him almost continuously.”[7] Ironically, fleeing the city to escape Satan’s temptations did nothing to actually deliver him from Satan.

The monastic movement led to the idea that one could become a higher order Christian and be more pleasing to God. The movement also introduced mystical practices that today are being brought back into the church under the guise that they came from a time when Christianity was pristine and not tainted by modernity.[8] What is really happening is a repeat of history. When Christians perceived that the success of churches in times of prosperity caused certain ills, they fled to solitude where they became mystics. This process is happening today again. But these pietistic movements did not lead to a more pristine Christianity in the past, nor do they do so today. They lead to elitism as Gonzalez points out: “On the other hand, this sort of life was not free of temptations. As years went by, many monks came to the conclusion that, since their life was holier that that of most bishops and other leaders of the church, it was they, and not those leaders, who should decide what was proper Christian teaching.”[9] Some today have determined that ordinary Christians[10] are so tainted by modernity that these elite ones refuse to be called “Christian” but rather prefer the term “Christ followers” because the elite deem themselves to be following Christ in a pristine way that is not true of the rest of us.

The monastic movement became more organized and still exists today. The Roman Catholic Church acclaimed their deeds done beyond what is required of ordinary Christians and developed a teaching called “works of supererogation,” a teaching rejected by the Reformers.

An example of the ‘works done beyond’ are the monastic vows taken by certain monastic orders: They are considered works of supererogation in Rome. Those who take the vows are deemed more pious than ordinary Christians.

Luther wrote a lengthy essay demonstrating that scripture rejects the validity of monastic vows.[11] His essay is also an interesting look into the issues that were debated at the time of the Reformation. One key issue for Luther was that the monastics went beyond the gospel and made commandments out of matters that God has not commanded and in so doing sought to achieve a superior standing before God. One such example was celibacy. Luther argued that vowing something that God had not commanded is sinful: “The very foundation of the monastic vows is godlessness, blasphemy, sacrilege, which has befallen them because they spurn Christ, their leader and light, and presume to follow other things they think better.”[12] They thought they could improve on the teachings of Christ and live a superior spirituality by swearing oaths to live pious lives beyond anything Christ required of His people. Luther condemned this as sinful. Luther wrote, “If you obey the gospel, you ought to regard celibacy as a matter of free choice: if you do not hold it as a matter of free choice, you are not obeying the gospel. . . . A vow of chastity, therefore, is diametrically opposed to the gospel.”[13] So in Luther’s day, he taught that Christians were in error and sin if they bound themselves by oath to a practice not required by Christ. Though they may think themselves more pious than ordinary Christians because of their special vows, Luther called them gross sinners…

Some of our Evangelical denominations have been pietist from their very inception. Charles Finney’s teaching in the mid 19^th century caused the problem. Finney’s teachings, as I have argued before, were heretical. He too taught Christian perfection. Wesley at least held to prevenient grace so as to avoid Pelagianism.[14] Finney was fully Pelagian in his approach to both salvation and sanctification.

[15] And his innovations permanently changed much of American Evangelicalism. After Finney other perfectionist movements arose. The Holiness movement, for example, came not long after Finney. Both the Holiness movement and the subsequent Pentecostal movement held to second blessing doctrines that by nature are pietist because they create an elite category of Christians who have had a special experience that ordinary Christians lack. The Keswick Holiness (also known as the “Higher life” movement) movement is an example of pietism and elitism as well. The Holiness movement in general is a pietistic movement that claims a special experience that creates higher order, (often supposedly perfected) Christians. They are in error. Ironically, the deeper life or higher order Christians do have something distinct about them—they have embraced error.

Today the largest new pietist movement is the Emergent Church. As I pointed out earlier, pietism often arises in response to the perception (sometimes warranted) that the church has become too worldly and it seems true once again today. Some now assume that since ordinary Christianity is compromised, they must discover an extraordinary way to become better Christians. One Emergent leader has even entitled one of his works, “A New Kind of Christian.”[16] But this movement really isn’t all that new. It draws on teachings and practices found in other pietist movements in church history. In fact, a recent Emergent book includes essays by those experimenting with communal living, something I tried in my pietist days![17]

Furthermore, the Purpose Driven movement is also a pietistic movement. Rick Warren claims there are world class Christians that are in a better category than ordinary Christians. He had his followers take a long oath at a baseball field to pledge themselves to serving his new reformation. I already mentioned the apostles and prophets movement that is pietistic. So ironically, three huge movements in American evangelicalism (Purpose Driven, Emergent, and C. Peter Wagner’s latter day apostles) are all based on pietism. The three movements seem radically diverse, but each one claims to be a new reformation and each offers a higher status than that of ordinary Christians. (source)

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

1.  Nee had an unusual anatomical sanctification scheme that requires distinguishing between body, soul and spirit with the spirit being the pristine source of sanctification and the body needing to be subdued as the soul learns to follow the regenerated human spirit.
2.  One thing Hagin and Nee had in common that probably attracted me to both of them was the idea of the primacy of the human spirit and the idea of gaining special knowledge by following ones spirit.
3.  Though the college had a pietistic 2nd blessing doctrine, my teachers were sound and pointed me in the right direction. I could have been saved from years of error had I listened more closely to some of them.
4.  See CIC Issue 69; March/April 2002 The Colossian Heresy Part 1 for a detailed, theological explanation of Colossians chapter 2. HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE69.HTM
5.  Justo L. Gonzalez The Story of Christianity Vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 1984) 136, 137.
6.  Ibid. 137.
7.  Ibid. 140, 141.
8.  The Emergent Church movement is well known for doing this.
9.  Gonzalez vol. 1, 143.
10.  When I speak of “ordinary Christians” I mean those who are truly converted but claim no special or elite status. Nominal “Christians” who are actually unregenerate are not Christian at all in the Biblical sense.
11.  Martin Luther, The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows from 55-Volume American Edition Luther’s Works on CD-ROM (Fortress Press, Concordia Publishing: Minneapolis, 2001) Vol. 44, page 243.
12.  Ibid. 260.
13.  Ibid. 262.
14. Pelagius was an early heretic, condemned by church councils, who taught that all humans have the ability to obey God without a prior work of grace.
15.  See CIC Issue 56 Charles Finney’s Influence on American Evangelicalism – HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE53.HTM
16.  Written by Brian McLaren
17. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones editors (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007)

See also:

“DEAD ORTHODOXY” AND PIETISTIC MISUSE OF 1 CORINTHIANS

RICHARD FOSTER—CELEBRATION OF DECEPTION

MATT CHANDLER AND VILLAGE CHURCH PROMOTING CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

Apprising Ministries began our coverage in What’s Up With Liberty Universary where I told you that Mitt Romney, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) was to address Liberty University (LU) graduates at the 2012 Commencement ceremony this past Saturday, May 12.

You also saw that another practicing Mormon, Glenn Beck, gave the Commencement last year, which struck me as a little odd for LU. Especially when we’re told we have “the largest Christian university in the world,” with a “vision to train Champions for Christ,” hosting “some of the world’s best-known Christian speakers.”

LU also boasts “a solid doctrinal statement” while claiming it “promotes a lifestyle of Biblical morality” and everything that’s done there “is designed to develop Christ-centered men and women.”[1] Be that as it may, initially there was a bit of controversy with students at LU surrounding this decision to have Romney speak.

In their April 23rd story Liberty University responds to Romney controversy, angers online students CNN reporters Dan Merica and Laura Bernardini told us about:

a brewing controversy over the fact that the evangelical school has selected Mitt Romney, a Mormon, to speak at the school’s graduation.

In a statement from Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., the school says that the complaints have significantly died down and that many of those complaining “had no affiliation with the university.”

“We have also noticed over the last few days that students with reservations about Romney’s appearance at Liberty basically fit into one of two categories,” Falwell, Jr. wrote. “They were either strong supporters of other candidates who were seeking the Republican nomination or they were online students who were not as familiar with Liberty University’s traditions.” (source)

Apparently the decision to have Romney at LU ignited a bit of a Facebook war, which can get pretty nasty:

After last week’s announcement, hundreds of comments were registered under the announcement on Liberty’s Facebook page. While some were supportive of the decision to invite Romney, a number of respondents were angered and posted their frustration to Facebook… the announcement was [later] deleted from the page, along with all the comments…

According Johnnie Moore, vice president of executive projects and spiritual programs, the post was removed because “people who had no affiliation with the university were using our Facebook page to air their grievances and to engage in conversations that violated our policies with regard to social media etiquette.”

“We just decided to eliminate the post all together rather than let our page be the place where these arguments were taking place,” Moore wrote in an e-mail to CNN. “With regard to our students, the university has a number of channels for our students and constituents to express feedback, and that feedback is attended to by Liberty staff who have input in, and understanding of, the university’s operations and decision making.” (source)

Merica and Bernardini also told us the other side of the story was shared by “Janet Loeffler, a 53-year old freshman at Liberty who takes classes online.” According to Loeffler, “a frequent poster to the Facebook page,” it:

was the statement about online students familiarity with Liberty’s traditions that she says deeply offended her. “It is just a complete lie. You cannot get through your first semester at Liberty Online without taking their Theology 101 and Apologetics 101,” Loeffler said.

Loeffler provided CNN with a copy of the page in the freshman textbook “The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics” which includes a number of passages on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called Mormons. “Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism,” reads the passage, “which teaches that there is only one true God and that every other ‘God’ is a false god.”

Liberty’s handling of the situation “has very much altered my thinking of Liberty,” Loeffler said. “I haven’t registered for my fall classes yet because of it. I am offended that they would talk to us like that, telling us that we just don’t understand.”

Many of the anti-Liberty comments, including Loeffler’s charged that Mormonism goes against the teachings of the school and claimed that the religion is a cult. (source)

Well, the LU students are correct; Mormonism was classified as a non-Christian cult many, many years ago. In closing this, for now, in his day Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989), author of the classic textbook The Kingdom of the Cults, was a universally recognized expert in the field of Comparative Religion and non-Christian cults.

Particularly those cults having their origins in the United States, such as Mormonism. In defining a religious cult Dr. Martin wrote:

A cult, then, is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ.[2]

Martin classified Mormonism as a non-Christian cult because:

The Savior of Mormonism, however, is an entirely different person, as their official publications clearly reveal. The Mormon “Savior” is not the second person of the Christian Trinity,… Mormons reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and he is not even a careful replica of the New Testament Redeemer.

In Mormon theology, Christ as a preexistent spirit was not only the spirit brother of the devil(as alluded to in The Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:1-4, and later reaffirmed by Brigham Young in the Journal of Discourses, 13:282), but celebrated his own marriage to “Mary and Martha, and the other Mary,” at Cana of Galilee, “whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified” (Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, 4:259; 2:82)…[and] the Mormon concept of the Virgin Birth alone distinguishes their “Christ” from the Christ of the Bible.[3]

You can read the text of Mitt Romney’s speech right here; and stay tuned, it seems there may be more to this story…

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] http://www.liberty.edu/aboutliberty/, accessed 5/14/12.

[2] Walter Martin, The Rise Of The Cults [Santa Ana: Vision House, 1980] , 11, 12, italics his.

[3] Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, Ravi Zacharias, Gen. Ed. (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2005), 252, emphasis mine .

See also:

MORMONISM DECLARED WAR ON CHRISTIANITY

THE “JESUS” OF MORMONISM ALA GLENN BECK

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS VS. THE GOSPEL

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. (Luke 17:15-16)

The man fell down at Jesus’ feet; he did not feel perfectly in his place until he was lying there. “I am nobody, Lord,” he seemed to say, and therefore he fell on his face.

But the place for his prostration was “at Jesus’ feet.” I would rather be nobody at Christ’s feet than everybody anywhere else! There is no place so honorable as down at the feet of Jesus. Ah, to lie there always, and just love him wholly, and let self die out!

Oh, to have Christ standing oner you as the one figure overshadowing your life henceforth and forever! True thankfulness lies low before the Lord. Added to this there was worship. He fell down at Jesus’ feet, glorifying God and giving thanks unto him.

Let us worship our Savior. Let others think as they like about Jesus, but we will put our finger into the print of the nails and say, “My Lord and my God!” If there be a God, he is God in Christ Jesus to us.

We shall never cease to adore him who has proved his Godhead by delivering us from leprosy of sin. All worship be to his supreme majesty![1]

Charles Spurgeon

________________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, At the Master’s Feet [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], May 14.

See also:

ANDY STANLEY TAKES JAB AT CHRISTIANS

BEWARE OF EMERGING SPIRITUALITY AND EMERGENCE THEORY

ELEPHANT ROOM 2′S T.D. JAKES SAYS TBN’S PAUL CROUCH LED BY GOD TO LAUNCH JAKES’ MINISTRY

HT: Pyromaniacs

See also:

THE “JESUS” OF MORMONISM ALA GLENN BECK

TONY JONES ARGUES FOR OPEN MARRIAGE AND POLYAMORY

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS