Malachi Smith's List: EVANjellySPINES

• The Palace Prophets
• by   William Norman Grigg
• A wary and   uneasy peace had prevailed for three years between Syria and Israel   when Jehoshaphat, ruler of Judah, held a summit in Samaria with   Ahab, who reigned over the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
• "Hey,   you know what?" Ahab asked Jehoshaphat, nudging his counterpart   in the ribs. "We really ought to hook up and snatch Ramoth   in Gilead away from Syria. Whadd'ya say?"
• "I'm   down with that," Jehoshaphat replied, "and so are my subjects   and my military – but we might want to ask what God thinks of the   idea."
• Rolling   his eyes in disgust, Ahab summoned his posse of prophets – all four   hundred of them, who were kept on retainer by his administration.
• Solely for the benefit of his would-be ally, Ahab – in a voice well-seasoned   with weary indifference – posed the question to them: "So,   should I attack Ramoth-Gilead, or what?"
• "Yeah,   go ahead," the court prophets replied. "God will be on   your side, and stuff."
• Not surprisingly,   this performance failed to convince Jehoshaphat, who was as cynical   and opportunistic as the next ruler but retained a residue of genuine   piety
• As he examined the collection of Hierophants   for hire masquerading as men of God, the King of Judah probably   reflected on some version of the following thought: Take the King's   shekel, follow the king's script.
• "Isn't   there an actual prophet of the Lord around here somewhere whom we   could consult about the wisdom of going to war?" Jehoshaphat   asked. This request prompted another bout of eye-rolling from Ahab.
• "He's such a defeatist and nay-sayer. He never says anything   good about my administration, and he's outside the mainstream of   prophetic thought. It's always `The Lord is displeased with your   greed and corruption,' and `You are condemned by the Lord for your   idolatry,' and things like that.
• "Well,   there is this one guy, but he's not a team player," Ahab complained.
• Turning   to a military aide, Ahab said: "Bring me Micaiah the son of   Imlah."
• While the   messenger was out fetching the prophet of the Lord, the court prophets   put on a show for the amusement of Ahab and his guest, regaling   them with tales of their impending military conquest. It would be   a "cakewalk," they insisted; the Syrians would be wiped   out and the allied forces of Judah and Israel would hardly break   a sweat.

• When Micaiah   was found, the royal messenger took him aside and tried to prompt   him as to the message "the Lord" would offer through him.

   

  "Look,   Ahab called out the prophets, and they've reached a consensus,"   the messenger explained. "They've all agreed that the war is   going to be successful. So the war is going to happen; you can't   change that, so you might as well try to influence the policy for   good, rather than opposing it, which would just leave you marginalized   anyway.
• You don't have to say exactly what the court   prophets have said, but you really should let your message harmonize   with theirs."
• This is just one of those times you have to choose the lesser   of the available evils.
• "You   don't understand, do you?" said Micaiah. "I'm not in the   business of saying what the King wants to hear, or swaddling the   King's policies in pious language.
• I'm just a messenger, like you,   but my messages come from the Lord, rather than the King – and He   requires that I speak only what He tells me to."
• After expelling   a heavy sigh and shaking his head in resignation, the royal messenger   took Micaiah back to King Ahab – and then promptly made himself   scarce.

• "So,   Micaiah," Ahab said, treating him to what he thought was an   intimidating look, "Should we attack Ramoth-Gilead?"

   

  He's already   made up his mind, Micaiah thought in disgust.

   

  "Yeah,   go ahead," he said disdainfully, casting a contemptuous glance   at the court prophets, who were clinging to the shadows in anticipation   of a very unpleasant confrontation. "Go to war, and may the   Lord prosper you."
• He turned to leave, only to be find his   exit blocked by the King's palace guards.

• Ahab was   many contemptible things, but he was not a fool, and he could recognize   when he was being patronized.

   

  "Look,   why don't you tell me what the Lord says about the matter?"   he said defiantly, expecting that through the force of his royal   bombast he could compel the stubborn prophet to trim his sails.
• "Very   well," Micaiah said, squaring his shoulders as the court prophets   dove for cover. "The Lord has shown me the armies of Israel   scattered in the hills, fleeing in a leaderless retreat, with every   man withdrawing to his own house."
• Throwing   up his hands in frustration, Ahab turned to Jehoshaphat. "Y'see?   What did I tell you? He's a defeatist."

• Emboldened   by the King's complaint and the fact that Micaiah was surrounded   by armed guards, some of the salaried seers were able to summon   a bully's simulacrum of courage. A few of them audibly rebuked Micaiah   for defying the prophetic consensus.

   

  "I   mean, who is this guy to say that he's right, and we're wrong?"   one of the pink-slip prophets protested, his elongated sibilants   testifying of both the softness of his lifestyle and the dubiousness   of his masculinity.

• Boldly approaching   the King, Micaiah prophesied:

   

  "The   ... men you hired didn't ask God about the truth," Micaiah declared.   "They wanted to enlist Him to support their ruler's ambitions. God   doesn't lie, but sometimes, after we persist in lying long enough   He simply lets us live with the consequences of our deceit."
• "As for   me," Micaiah continued, pausing to shoot a look at the cringing   "prophets" before resuming, "I saw the Lord in vision on his throne,   surrounded by the host of heaven. The Lord permitted a lying spirit   to work through Ahab's prophets to persuade the king to embark on   this stupid war."

• At this,   Zedekiah – the royal prophet who had complained about Micaiah's   presumption – strode up to the Lord's prophet and hit him flush   on the jaw. The result was more of an insult than an injury.

   

  "So,   was it a lying spirit from the Lord that made me deliver that message   to you?" Zedekiah sneered, only to feel every particle of boldness   leave him as Micaiah's eyes, radiating the composed courage of   a man who knows the truth and is at peace with it, pierced the poseur's   pretenses.
• "You're   brave enough when the King and his bodyguards have your back,"   Micaiah told Zedekiah, his voice the quiet but penetrating rumble   of a distant, fast-approaching thunderstorm. "But I can see   a day when you'll be cowering in a corner, whimpering in fear."
• "Take   this guy and throw him in prison, until I return victorious!"   Ahab commanded.

• As a brace   of bodyguards started to march Micaiah out of the throne room,   the Lord's prophet shrugged his arms free and turned to utter one   final warning.

   

  "You   won't return at all from this war," he told Ahab. "If   you do, you'll know that the Lord had nothing to do with my prophecy."

   

  Shortly   thereafter, Ahab and Jehoshaphat struck out for Ramoth-Gilead.

• Before the   assault began, Ahab – perhaps haunted by Micaiah's prophecy – decided   to hedge his bets. "You know what – I've got an idea,"   Ahab told his ally. "I'm going to disguise myself as a common   soldier. Why don't you make yourself a more conspicuous target by   parading around in your royal finery."

   

  We're not   told what Jehoshaphat's reaction was to this self-serving proposal   (I'd wager it involved the ancient equivalent of a barnyard epithet),   but he did as he asked – with predictable consequences.

• The Syrian   king had told his military leaders to ignore the rank and file and   concentrate on finding Ahab. In short order Jehoshaphat was swarmed   by the Syrian hosts.

   

  "Hey,   I'm not the guy you're looking for!" Jehosaphat yelped.

   

  The Syrian   charioteers, seeing that this was true, wheeled about and resumed   their pursuit of the disguised Ahab.

• Meanwhile,   some undistinguished Syrian conscript drew back on his bow and let   fly at random. "I shot an arrow into the air," as it were   – and the deadly projectile hit the disguised Ahab in a seam of   his armor, mortally wounding him.

   

  With Ahab   dead and Jehoshaphat's battlefield leadership compromised, the Israelite   army fell apart, each man retreating to the security of his home,   just as Micaiah had prophesied.
• The object   of sharing this rather emancipated paraphrase of I   Kings 22 is to underscore the moral and practical futility of   seeking wisdom from religious leaders who are on the state's payroll,   or who covet the power that comes from proximity to the politically   powerful.
• I do not intend   to interpolate my own views into the Scripture, but from what I   know of human nature it seems likely that many of the payola prophets   who took part in Ahab's "Faith-Based Initiative" probably   believed that their compromises were necessary in order to advance   some worthwhile objective or another.
• After all, working in partnership   with the government is the key to getting things done, isn't it?
• When Christian leaders   are on Caesar's payroll, they have to render to him things to which   he is not entitled.
• Here's a critically   important principle: In any "public/private partnership,"   the state is always the senior partner.
• And when Caesar's tactical priorities change,   those religious leaders who thought they could co-opt the power   of the state to do good will discover, to their dismay, that the   state has co-opted them, leaving it stronger and more hostile toward   the values those leaders supposedly served.

  • Now I wonder who he could be talking about?
• For a generation,   the putatively Christian Right has attached   itself to the Republican Party like a remora   on a Great White.
• During the reign of King George the Dimmer, tens   of millions of dollars of taxpayer money was lavished on various   "Christian" groups run by religious allies of the GOP.
• In many instances,   the grants display every appearance of being vulgar pay-outs to   shepherds more interested in herding their flocks to the polls on   behalf of Republicans, rather than speaking the truth and tending   to the needs of wounded souls.
• Doubtless groups   of this sort flatter themselves by thinking that they are "light   and salt" to the world. But Christians who develop a taste   for the state's subsidy are salt that will soon lose its savor.
• Consider the   fact that Bush was able to mislead the United States into a patently   unjust and undeniably war in Iraq without provoking a protest from   so much as a single significant Evangelical leader.
• Indeed, the   conduct of major Evangelical figures in conferring their benediction   on the Iraq war was more than a little reminiscent of the behavior   of Ahab's palace prophets.

  • True
• Chief among   the GOP's Palace Prophets is Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family.
• A bespectacled,   middle-aged man with a Dick   Van Patten comb-over and the adenoidal whine of a natural-born   scold, Dr. Dobson commands a large and vastly influential media   empire headquartered in Colorado Springs.
• A decade ago,   Dobson declared that he was finished with the Republican Party,   citing efforts by the GOP to built a "Big Tent" with socially liberal   politicians and activists. Yet after the Bushling was installed   as ruler, Dobson managed to cut and stitch his convictions to meet   the prevailing fashion.
• One key example   was Dobson's   rationalization for Bush's executive order of July 2001   authorizing limited federal funding of embryonic stem cell experimentation   – a decision condemned by many pro-life figures, but supported by   Dobson.
• Like many of   his comrades, Dobson endorsed the war of choice in Iraq.
• In a letter   responding to one of his critics, Dobson permitted a   spokesman to explain on his behalf that while the war   wasn't strictly defensive, "this may be one of those moments in   history when we are forced to settle for a trade-off: the lives   of the few in exchange for the lives of the many. This is always   tragic in the extreme; and yet we must face the fact that even more   deaths and greater sufferings would probably have ensued if Saddam   had been allowed to pursue his mad course of oppression, aggression,   and self-aggrandizement."

  • And the blood of thousands of American youth, men and women, smear your hands, Dobson!
• This isn't   a statement growing out of Christian ethics; it's a rationalization   rooted in utilitarianism,   and nourished by unadulterated falsehood.
• Saddam's regime, evil   as it was, committed not a single act of international aggression   without either the active support, or knowing permission, of Washington.
• How a fifth-rate dictatorship penned inside two no-fly zones – a   regime that didn't even control all of its own territory for a dozen   years – could be described as pursuing a course of "aggression ...   and self-aggrandizement" isn't obvious to un-Hannitized minds.
• Last year,   Dobson   was conspicuous among the Christian leaders summoned to a White   House strategy session to help plan for another war of aggression   in the Middle East, this one targeting Iran.
• One would think   that Dobson, given his, ahem, focus on the family,   would   take issue with the damage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are   doing to families – children left fatherless, motherless,   or orphaned outright; women being deployed in combat roles; husbands   and wives deployed simultaneously; the financial burdens of prolonged   overseas service, and the resulting disruption of marriages and   families; the maimed and mangled young bodies, the invisible but   just as grievous injury to thousands of traumatized minds....

  • "Focus on the Wallet"
• As I said,   one would think that Dobson would take issue with at least some   of this. One would be wrong.
• Given his incontinent   zeal to support war and bloodshed abroad, Dobson would seem to be   a natural supporter of John McCain. Yes, there are some disagreements   between them regarding gay "marriage," the McCain-Feingold restrictions   on campaign speech, and other matters.
• But, hey –   Pat Robertson, the only serious competition Dobson faces for primacy   among the GOP's Palace Prophets, managed to choke down his bile   and support Rudolph Giuliani, who not only supports the social agenda   of left-wing hedonism, he lives it.
• Robertson's excuse, of   course, was that the "war on terror" trumps all other issues.
• But Dobson   was different where McCain was concerned. Dobson was resolute –   immovable as the Himalayas, as fixed as the Northern Star: "I would   not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," Dobson declared   during a January 2007 radio interview.

• Well, guess   what?

   

  Mountains,   like the continents themselves, can move.
• The "fixed" stars are   nothing of the sort. And Dobson's position on McCain has, ah, evolved.   'Course, it takes millennia for those natural changes to take place.   Dobson's position on McCain changed in about a year and a half.
• "I never thought   I would hear myself saying this," Dobson said   in a radio program broadcast just days ago (Monday, July 21).   "While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is   there that I might."
• "There's nothing   dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially   in a constantly changing political context," Dobson rationalized   in a statement given to the Associated Press. "Barack Obama contradicts   and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the   family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on   life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the   candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain."
• Rather than   telling the truth without fear or favor, we see Dobson embracing   the role rejected by the prophet Micaiah in the midrash   presented above: He's choosing what he believes to be the lesser   of the available evils, as dictated by the prevailing consensus.
• Actually, as   I've pointed out before, the "lesser" evil isn't; when it is chosen   it is always the greater evil, because it's the one that   is actually done, rather than serving as a convenient rhetorical   device.
• Regarding every   matter of public consequence, John McCain and Barack Obama – for   all their differences in style (Obama actually has one; McCain does   not) are entirely fungible.
• They are both products of the bipartisan   corporatist consensus, surrounded by retainers from the Power Elite   and devoted to enhancing the Welfare/Warfare/Homeland Security State.   Neither poses any threat to the existing architecture of power.
• Whichever   is elected will become the latest in a long line of presidential   perjurers when he takes the oath of office next January.
• Perhaps the   only substantive difference between them is that one is a sleeper   agent for the Jihad, the other for the Vietnamese. I'm only kidding.   I hope.
• But I suspect   that Dobson's chief complaint against Obama is that his election   would result in the installation of a different cohort of Palace   Prophets.
• Many of Obama's   critics believe that the   much-criticized Jeremiah Wright would be prominent in   that group. I suspect the opposite would be the case: For all of   his theological errors and misguided political views, Rev. Wright   did give voice to unpopular but sound criticisms of Washington's   imperialist foreign policy.

• Genuine, principled   critics of political corruption aren't welcome in the Emperor's   court, and they usually have more integrity than to seek a position   of that sort in the first place.

   

   

  July   24, 2008
• William   Norman Grigg [send him mail]   writes the Pro Libertate   blog.

76 more annotations...

• Flight attendant: Osteen's wife pushed co-worker
• By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer   Thu Aug 7
• HOUSTON - The wife of evangelical pastor Joel Osteen got physical when her demands that a small spill on her seat be cleaned up were not immediately met, a flight attendant testified Thursday at a civil trial over the incident.
• Continental Airlines flight attendant Maria Johnson testified that Victoria Osteen grew increasingly agitated and pushed her co-worker Sharon Brown,
• though the flight attendants had remained professional and reassured her a crew had been called to clean the spill, which was about the size of a 50-cent piece.
• "She was demanding that attention be given to her immediately," Johnson said.
• She added that Victoria Osteen kept saying: "This is ridiculous. I'm a first-class passenger."

  • Well, of course you are, dear...and only because some believing single mother, an elderly grandmother, a retirement home denizen and a struggling young family tithed to your husband's mega-church or sent you and Joel money.
• Brown is suing Victoria Osteen, alleging that she threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the breast before the start of a 2005 flight to Vail, Colo.
• Johnson confirmed Brown's claims that Victoria Osteen became so upset she tried to get into the cockpit and had to be physically restrained.
• "She took Sharon by the shoulders and pushed her out of the way. Sharon stumbled," Johnson testified.
• Rusty Hardin, Victoria Osteen's attorney, said the lawsuit is simply a money grab.
• "This is nothing more than an attempted extortion," Hardin told jurors during opening statements in the trial in which he said his client did nothing wrong.
• While questioning Johnson, Hardin suggested that she and Brown might have overreacted or that Johnson might not have remembered the confrontation correctly.
• Just before her testimony concluded, Johnson suggested race might have played a role because of remarks Victoria Osteen made about wanting to deal only with Johnson, who is white, and not with Brown or another flight attendant on the plane, who are black.
• Hardin condemned Johnson's claim and pointed out the racial diversity of the congregation at Lakewood Church, of which Victoria Osteen is co-pastor.
• The Houston church is a converted basketball arena where about 42,000 people flock each week for services where her husband preaches.
• Joel Osteen, who was by his wife's side in court Thursday, has written books that have been sold around the globe, and his weekly television address is broadcast nationally and internationally

• Brown's attorney, Reginald McKamie, told jurors during his opening statement that his client was simply doing her job.

   

  "Sharon was attacked by someone in the community who supposedly represents a higher degree of human decency," he said.
• Brown's suit claims the flight attendants asked to have Victoria Osteen removed from the plane. Hardin told jurors Victoria Osteen and her family left voluntarily. The incident delayed the flight about 2 1/2 hours.

  • If these accusations are true, why wasn't she escorted off by TSA officials, Homeland Security or otherwise manhandled the way you, me or any other ordinary citizen would have been?
• Hardin admitted that Victoria Osteen can be a "very excitable and expressive person," but that she was never out of control.
• "Victoria Osteen never attacked her, never tried to get in the cockpit," Hardin said. "The aggressor and the person who was out of control, who flipped out, was Ms. Brown."
• The Osteens were both expected to testify during the trial.
• Brown wants an apology and punitive damages amounting to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen's net worth as part of her suit.
• "They will say this is about money. But that is the only remedy a jury can offer," McKamie said.
• McKamie said Brown, who had undergone reconstructive surgery before the incident on her breasts due to illness, was injured when she was hit on her chest.
• Her psychiatrist, Shayna Lee, testified that Brown has suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident. She also felt disrespected in her role as a leader and as a black woman, and had her faith affected, Lee said.
• Brown is also suing Victoria Osteen for medical expenses for counseling.
• But Hardin told jurors there is no evidence Brown sustained any injuries, including claims she now suffers from hemorrhoids.
• The Federal Aviation Administration fined Victoria Osteen $3,000 for interfering with a crew member.
• Hardin told jurors Victoria Osteen paid the FAA fine not because she was guilty but as a way to conclude the matter and avoid any embarrassment for her church.

28 more annotations...

• "THE   FAMILY" AND ITS HIJACKING OF EVANGELICALISM
• PART 1
• By   Attorney Constance Cumbey
    August 8, 2008
    NewsWithViews.com
• "Now   all of the resonating core groups with outwardly different purposes   are merging and blending and coming together to do THE ONE WORK."   Barbara Marx Hubbard to a Unity Church congregation, Seattle, Washington,   April, 1988.
• The   Washington Fellowship, a Washington, D.C. and suburbs based Christian   organization has received much publicity in the past two years.
• Jeff   Sharlet’s new book, THE   FAMILY says it reveals “the secret fundamentalism at the heart   of American Power.”
• If only zeal for Jesus were what “The   Fellowship” was about, I might not bother writing this article,   except perhaps to advocate on its behalf.
• Unfortunately it is abundantly   clear that any alleged “fundamentalism” at the “core”   of the Fellowship is much more akin to the New Age networking type than   it is to Christian orthodoxy.
• Another prominent internet researcher,   Wayne Madsen, charges that the Fellowship is using Jesus as a cynical   logo in pursuit of cynical political pursuits.
• He goes so far as to   call it a monstrous criminal plot to seize control of the “biggest   prize of all – the   United States government.”
• Years   ago the New Agers tried to pin the Jim Jones and his kool aid mass murder/suicide   cult on what they called “fundamental Christianity.”
• I was   happy to have played a small role in giving him back to his long time   New   Age Movement confederates.

  • lol..lol..
• Jim Jones had been a New Ager from the   beginning, listed in two major New Age directories in the early 1972s   as a New Age center networking with other New Age centers.
• Now   that “The Family” together with its Doug Coe leadership   is being pointed to as an example of “Christians” trying   to take over the United States government and beyond, it is time that   the record be set straight.
• It is much more akin to a New Age operation   than any Christian one.
• That the Fellowship sometimes known as “The   Cedars” is influential and powerful is hardly disputable.

• As the   Los Angeles Times   reported:

   

  “While   the annual breakfast is a widely known event attended by a succession   of U.S. presidents and foreign dignitaries, the Fellowship's role in   diplomacy and current events has remained in the shadows. That's the   way the organization wants it ..."
• What   I have discovered is that “The Family” and the Institute   for Noetic Sciences, one of the most all time powerful New Age organizations,   have intertwined   core leadership and financing.
• The   Fellowship did not come under my personal radar until late October 1987.
• Colorado friends expressed me tapes of a David Spangler talk at a Boulder   Episcopalian church.

  • David Spangler, one Benjamin Creme's "wonder boy" once..speaking at a Colorado Episcopal Church.
• He explained to the audience that his talk to   the Episcopalian church had been added “almost as an afterthought.”   The real reason he was in town was to attend the latest in a series   of ongoing meetings he had been having with Evangelical Christian leaders.
• This last one just finished had been held at the Gold Lake Ranch near   Boulder, Colorado.
• A prior conference had been held at Hollyhock   Farms in British Columbia. That is another established New Age center.
• I   wrote much of Spangler in my 1983 book, THE   HIDDEN DANGERS OF THE RAINBOW. David Spangler is the New Age leader   who distinguished himself by writing in his innocuously named book,   REFLECTIONS ON THE CHRIST that the required entry point to the New Age   was "a Luciferic initiation."[1]  
• That may be the most honest thing anybody ever said about the New Age   Movement.
• Among   many outrages, in a chapter entitled LUCIFER, CHRIST AND GOD, Spangler   wrote:
• “The   being who chose to embody these energies and to be in essence the angel   of man’s inner evolution is the being we know as Lucifer. (p.   36) . . .
• The being that helps man reach this point [“freedom”]   is Lucifer. That is his role.
• He is the angel of man’s evolution.   He is the angel of man’s inner light. Lucifer is the spirit of   light in the microcosmic world. (p. 37) . . .
• When this great project   of evolution began, man went forth as consciousness to learn his divinity   and Lucifer went with him Lucifer was just what his name implies –   the bringer of light. (pp. 36-37) . . .
• “It is important to see   that Lucifer, as I am using this term, describes an angel, a being,   a great and mighty planetary consciousness. . . .
• “Christ is the   same force as Lucifer but moving in seemingly the opposite direction   . .
• the light that reveals to us the path to Christ comes from Lucifer.   . .
• Lucifer prepares man in all ways for the experience of Christhood   and the Christ prepares man for the experience of God. (p. 43) , ,
• “Lucifer works within each of us to bring us to wholeness and   as we move into a new age, which is the age of man’s wholeness,   each of us in some way is brought to that point which I term the Luciferic   initiation, the particular doorway through which the individual must   pass . . . (p. 44)
• Lucifer comes to give to us the final gift of wholeness.
• If we accept it then he is free and we are free. That is the Luciferic   initiation
• It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will   be facing, for it s an initiation into the New Age . . .”   (p. 45)
• My   path and the path of “The Fellowship” were to unpleasantly   cross in July 1988.
• I rather suspect they were aware of my whereabouts   and work long before that.
• I rightfully suspect that events and donor   trails of the Fellowship had much to do with frantic evangelical leadership   attempts to halt my work and question the very existence of the New   Age Movement.
• Christianity Today, InterVarsity Publishing, InterVarsity   Cbristian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ, Multnomah College,   Spiritual Counterfeits Project, Christian Research Institute, Denver   Seminary leadership (Vernon Grounds and J. Gordon Lewis) were among   those joining hands in an effort to bring into question the very existence   of the New Age Movement on an organized level.

  • So-called "Christian" groups who question the reality of a "New Age" movement that Ms Cumbey has written and warned about..
• Pat Robertson, Harald   Bredesen, and even some of those I counted as friends and allies tried   either openly or surreptitiously to block my work.

  • Pat Robertson is one among many prominent Evangelicals actively opposing Constance Cumbey and trying to block her work.
• The   motivating impulse for the frantic effort to deprive the Christian world   of warnings of a movement publicly working for (1) a “New World   Order; (2) a “New World Religion” and (3) a New Age “messiah”   who was clearly not Jesus may well have stemmed from major financial   support and political ties with one of the most prominent and visible   New Age promoters – billionaire Harvard graduate attorney, Paul   N. Temple.
• Paul Temple, together with astronaut Edgar Mitchell, organized   the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973.

  • This same Edgar Mitchell (moon shot astronaut) who just a few days ago (July 2008) publicly admitted the governments of the world are in cahoots with ETs and space aliens....Now I begin to get a clearer picture of Mr Mitchell..
• Working closely with the two   of them was Stanford Research Institute’s Willis Harman.
• Paul   N. Temple who proudly professes his role in establishing the Institute   of Noetic Sciences in 1973 worked, per the Billy   Graham Center archives, with the Fellowship as early as January   1944.
• He would have been 21 years old that year. In the last few years   he has given millions of dollars to various causes he supports through   his Three Swallows Foundation.
• The information was culled from its 990   reports. Nearly $1.7 million dollars since 1998 went to the “International   Foundation.”
• Although one funding report gave a link to a modest   Arkansas operation, searching the address on the 990 reports quickly   yielded Doug Coe’s Washington, D.C. address.

  • Doug Coe and the Washington D.C. area "The Cedars."
• I detailed those   amounts in an article I posted several weeks ago to my   own blogspot., “The   Harmonic Convergence of Noetic Science and Evangelicalism.”
• That article detailed the financial aid of Paul Temple and his Three   Swallows Foundation to both the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Doug   Coe’s Fellowship Foundation may be read by clicking   here.
• I   am certain that many rationalized this as some did in heated discussions   I had with certain evangelical leaders about their acceptance of largesse   from Rev. Moon by a belief that “it’s ok to take New Age   moneys to build the Kingdom of God on earth.”
• In   my opinion, God does not need twenty five cents of moneys dedicated   to Rev. Moon nor to the Institute of Noetic Sciences to build his kingdom!

  • True....Rather the sticky fingers of some greedy clergy and ministries hunger for the cash no matter where it comes from.
• What was built was not the “Kingdom of God on Earth,” but   silence sufficient to allow the final nails to be built in the long   awaited kingdom of the Antichrist –
• the open and obvious expectancy   of the New Age forces who shamelessly avow their loyalties to Lucifer.
• How   I found it:
• After   listening to David Spangler’s taped lecture of October 26, 1987,   I launched through California helpers an effort to secure the Gold   Lake Ranch tapes.
• Our caller was told by Gold Lake ranch personel   that “the meeting was by invitation only,” She was further   told that the meeting had been fully taped and each and every participant   had been supplied a full set of the tapes.
• When our caller expressed   disappointment, the very helpful Gold Lake Ranch responder said, “why   don’t you contact one of your friends who was there and duplicate   their tapes.” She acted, per my assistant, as if it were no big   deal.
• Good   idea! We called our “friends” at the Spiritual Counterfeits   Project. David Spangler had reported they were in his speech.
• The lady   my research assistant spoke with promised to get information and call   her back which she did a little more than two hours later. She called   saying, “I’m fairly new around here and don’t pretend   to know all the ins and outs, but something is definitely wrong. I have   mailed out hundreds of tapes – of anything and everything. I have   never denied a request for tapes before. When I requested these tapes,   they went into a closed door meeting from which they have just now emerged   and said “no tapes are available. The meeting was not taped.”

  • Cover up and conspiracy by the "Spiritual Counterfeits Project"
• That   was obviously a lie. I placed a plea in my then newsletter, CONSTANCE   CUMBEY’S NEW AGE MONITOR begging for somebody to come forward.   You can read about that frustrating effort which spanned nearly a year   by clicking this link.
• I   made a few telephone calls to Colorado contacts who reported in turn   a few names of disturbed friends there who were there.
• I compiled a   data base using a MicroSoft card file program. As I received new information,   I added same to the data base.
• All   information seemed to cease when I received a telephone call asking   me to do a television debate in April, 1988 against New Age writer,   Marilyn Ferguson. I accepted the challenge.
• A few minutes later I received   a telephone call from Ms. Ferguson herself. She suggested we might want   to consider telling our television audience all the things we agreed   upon rather than our differences.
• I had no intention of doing that,   but as long as she was calling my house in such a nice conciliatory   mood, I decided to take advantage and explore any knowledge she had   of the Gold Lake doings. She told me she had not received her invitation   to that particular party either, but she would see what she could learn   and get back to me.
• She called me back a few minutes later. She said   she had spoken to David Spangler who told her the meeting had been organized   by Evangelicals and Barbara Marx Hubbard had chaired it at the invitation   of the Evangelicals.

  • Evangelical turncoats, apostates and New Age fellow travelers..!!!
• It   was to be several more months before I would learn of Doug Coe’s   purported organization of the event. I say “purported,”   because it now appears that although Doug Coe was an active participant,   the event more likely was organized as part of an effort to neutralize   Christian opposition to the New Age Movement.
• It appears to have been   organized by Paul Temple’s daughter Robin who noted in the invitation   that Doug Coe and Barbara Marx Hubbard had agreed to co-chair the event.
• This was the same Paul N. Temple who was an activist with the Prayer   Breakfast network even before Doug Coe – since the days of founder   Abraham (“Abram) Vereide.
• It was also the same Paul N. Temple   who had bought Mark Hatfield’s Washington, D.C. real estate at   an inflated price in 1981, leading to a Senate Ethics investigation   of the former Oregon governor who went on to serve many years in the   United States Senate.
• Next   Week part two. Buying Evangelical Silence: The Institute of   Noetic Sciences and the Moonies buy Christian suppression and silence.

• Footnotes:  

   

  1.   Spangler, David. REFLECTIONS ON THE CHRIST, published by Findhorn Publications,   Findhorn, Moray, Scotland, Third Edition, 1981.

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• FOCUS   ON THE FAMILY EDUCATION
• Nicholas   Jackson
    August 9, 2008
    NewsWithViews.com
• “In   the state of California, if I had a child there, I wouldn’t put   the youngster in a public school.” I think it’s time to   get our kids out.” And I’m going to get hit for saying that.”   James Dobson, March 28th, (2002 Radio Broadcast)

  • blah..blah..blah...
• Six   and a half years have passed since James Dobson made that bold and honest   statement.
• Focus on the Family has been faithful for years encouraging   and strengthening Christian families, and evangelizing and discipling   both young and old.
• In   a recent broadcast July 16th, 2008 Focus on the Family sought to answer   the question, “Why are we losing our kids?”
• Studies show   up to 3 out of 4 teenagers are walking away from the faith after the   high school and college years, in some denominations it is high as 90   percent.
• At that rate the church will disappear in a few generations.
• A   Proper Diagnosis
• The   broadcast, “How to Shape Your Child’s Faith,” with   Mr. Jack and Dona Eggar (leaders of the Awana ministry), identified   the problem as parents abdicating the spiritual training of their children   to the church.
• With all the resources in the church: Awana, Vacation   Bible school, and Sunday school it is easy to see how parents may step   back from their responsibility as spiritual leaders.
• The   panel stressed the importance of following Deuteronomy 6, living Christianity   as an internal vibrant faith rather than an external legalistic faith.
• They emphasized the importance of living godly lives at home in front   of their children, while modeling a life of humility, and transparency.   “We can’t just drop our children off at church, and expect   them to be spiritual champions.”
• While   the broadcast helped make parents more accountable it ignored a major   reason kids are walking away from the faith when they leave high school.
• The Nehemiah Institute which conducts the PEERS Test examines Biblical   worldview. It determined that the longer children remain in public schools   the more humanistic, and socialistic their worldview becomes.
• We   can’t just drop our kids off at church and expect them to be spiritual   champions.
• How much more must we be concerned dropping our children off in a humanistic,   anti-Christian government school for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week?
• Home   School Heroes.
• James   Dobson was instrumental in sparking the modern home school movement.
• In the late 70’s and early 80s, the late Dr. Raymond Moore, author   of “School Can Wait,” and Better Late than Early: A New   Approach to Your Child’s Education,” became a proponent   for teaching children at home during their most critical years.
• Dobson,   helped launch the modern home school movement when he had Dr. Moore   and his wife Dorothy as guests on his radio program.
• Focus   on the Family’s impact among Christians is remarkable.
• The Truth   Project, a worldview ministry launched by Focus on the Family is one   of the best resources available to come alongside the church and begin   to equip Christians in the church to think biblically on every issue   of life.
• When   my church went through the Truth Project, it was the first time I had   heard people being excited about how the Bible applies to the culture,   to education, to the family, to history and much more.
• A family in my   church with three young children, chose to home school their children   after going through the Truth Project and viewing a video on home schooling   with Del Tackett (The Truth Project creator, and Senior Vice president   of Focus). The father was a public school teacher.
• The   Public School Option?
• It   is not easy finding fault with an organization that has done so much   to promote home schooling, and Christian education.
• With all that Focus on the Family has been doing for home schooling,   they are sending mixed messages on the necessity of k-12 Christian education.
• Times   of great crisis require a clear message, and certain trumpet sound.
• Last February when Justice H. Walter Croskey in the 2nd district Court   of Appeals ruled, “parents do not have a constitutional right   to home school their children.” (Feb 28th), Focus on the Family   had a two part series on education.
• Dr.   Dobson came out strong describing the Courts ruling as “an assault   on the family, and that it must be met with a concerted effort to defend   parents and their children,” He had a great broadcast with Michael   Farris of the HSLDA.
• The   first broadcast, however, was anemic.

  • Focus on the Family and Dobson have been anemic for quite a while now...Must have something to do with Dobson's initial political success with the Washington hack elite.
• Three educational choices were   given home schooling, public schooling and private or Christian schooling.
• The pros and cons of each were discussed and parents were urged to make   the best choice for their situation.
• The   broadcast then referenced a book entitled, “The Handbook on Choosing   Your Child’s Education, A Personalized Plan for Every Age and   Stage.”(Published by Focus) The pros and cons of each “option”   were given.
• They   prefaced the discussion with the following disclaimer,” We won’t   tell you the “right answer” because only you can determine   what that is.”
• “Use this guide as a map to navigate through   unfamiliar territory-right into the center of the best education choice   for your child.” (Handbook, p.12) All were presented as equally   valid choices.
• The   Truth About Public Education
• With   the widespread effectiveness and popularity of The Truth Project, perhaps   each staff member at Focus should enroll in the Truth Project, in order   to learn the truth about public education.
• Bruce   Shortt in his book the Harsh Truth about Public Schools says, “About   85% of Christian children attend government schools, but the message   that Christian parents are obligated to provide a Christian education   is seldom heard from the pulpit.”
• “Our   God is a jealous God. We may not put other gods before Him, and we cannot   be double minded in the way we live our lives. Plainly an education   that attempts to distance itself from a commitment to Christianity,   and to treat all religious beliefs as equal, is profoundly anti-Christian.”
• Shortt   continues, “Parents are directed to raise their children in the   fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Moreover, their obligation   is not to instruct their children in the Word occasionally, but to do   so all of the time (Deut 6:6) yet today, most Christian parents behave   as if there are passages in the Bible instructing them to give the education   of their children over to anti-christian government schools and telling   them that exposing their children to Christianity two or three hours   a week is sufficient.” (Bruce Shortt, The Harsh Truth About Public   Schools, p.21) (www.chalcedon.edu)
• Only   one hundred hours a year of AWANA, VBS, and Sunday school does not fulfill   Deuteronomy 6, and is no match for 1,000 hours of seat time in the pagan   public schools, year after year after year.
• Our children are losing   their saltiness and their light is being extinguished.
• The   Future for Focus on the Family
• With   80 to 85 percent of Christian children attending public schools and   roughly the same number of pastors supportive of public education, it   is easy to see why Focus is reluctant to criticize public schools.

  • I was finished with Dobson and Focus on the Family years ago...
• Times   are tough for parachurch ministries, and with the struggling economy,   giving may be hurt.
• In   a Time magazine report early this year, Dobson’s monthly newsletter   was reported to have a circulation of 2.4 million copies in 1994, and   today has 1.1 million.

  • Dobson's organization, Focus on the Family, in decline?
• Jim Daly, CEO talks about the ministries expenses,   “The ministries expenses have exceeded its revenues for two years-what   Daly calls a drawdown from reserves.” The total donations and   number of donors is also down. (Time magazine, Jan 24, 2008)
• Focus   on the family is currently carried by the force and strength of Dobson’s   credibility and personality and many years of good service in the past.
• It   is hard to pinpoint exactly why Focus continues to provide spiritual   cover for parents who send their children into our failing and spiritually   dangerous public schools.
• However, without some recognition of this   error, and repentance on their part they may lose their leadership role   as a family ministry when the Dobson era ends.
• California   Wildfires
• In   2008 the situation in California and our nation is much more precarious,   since Dobson made his statements on California schools.
• A firestorm   of events has since occurred in California making it ground zero in   the culture war.
• 1.   SB 777 mandated the teaching of homosexuality to children as young as   kindergarten.
• 2. Justice H. Walter Croskey in the 2nd district Court   of Appeals ruled, “parents do not have a constitutional right   to home school their children.”
• 3. The California Supreme Court overturned the will   of the people, attempting to create a right for same sex marriage in   California.
• Many   pro-family advocates believe that if the marriage battle is lost in   California that same sex marriage will spread from state to state engulfing   the nation.
• While   the referendum is important, what happens when twenty five years later,   a new batch of public school trained, indoctrinated voters rise up in   California to reverse it? Christians must develop a long-term vision,   one which seeks to turn children into spiritual champions, and it starts   with K-12 Christian education.
• Right   now numerous ministries and organizations are working together to remove   several hundred thousand children from California public schools before   the Sept 2008 school year resumes. (www.CaliforniaExodus.org)
• Focus   on Your Family Education
• Imperfections   and all, Dr. Dobson remains a leading voice in American Christendom,   and America still has his ear as he continues to be a blessing to many.
• With Focus’   influence and voice, Dobson could help lead American Christians into   the promised land of home education and Christian education, overcoming   the national crisis.
• In   these perilous times, America is in need of a Joshua.
• Will   Focus on the Family be like those in Israel who failed to enter the   Promised Land because of unbelief? (Hebrews 3:19)
• Focus   must call for the removal of our precious children from public schools,   especially in California. Perhaps this will spark a national exodus.   The new school year is upon us. The time to act is now.

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• FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL   PUSHES PRO-ABORTION CANDIDATE
• By Mary Starrett
    August 8, 2008
    NewsWithViews.com
• I   was interested to see how the Family Research   Council would respond to my asking why they’d invited Senators   Barack Obama and John McCain to their upcoming so-called “Values   Voter” Summit while snubbing Constitution Party presidential   candidate Chuck Baldwin.
• Baldwin, a   committed, pro-life, Christian pastor and talk show host (www.chuckbaldwinlive.com)   won the nomination of the Constitution Party, the nation’s largest   and fastest- growing third party at a national   convention where delegates overwhelmingly chose him over Ambassador   Alan Keyes.
• Baldwin has emerged as the ‘antidote’ for voters   who can no longer hold their noses and vote for the ‘lesser of   two evils’ in November.
• The   FRC’s Values Voters Summit, billed as the “largest gathering   of values voters from across the nation”, is sponsored by FRCAction,   the legislative arm of the Family Research Council headed by Tony Perkins,   and Focus on the Family, led by Dr. James Dobson
• (who has alternately   said he “will never vote for McCain” and recently that he   likely will vote for the man who spearheaded the most egregious assault   on the 1st Amendment in recent history- the McCain Feingold Campaign   Finance Reform Act, author John McCain).
• I   asked FRCAction why Chuck Baldwin couldn’t join in at the Summit,   since he is the only authentically pro-life, pro- 2nd Amendment , pro-Constitution,   pro-secure borders candidate from a FEC- recognized party who is running   for president.
• Apparently   the folks at the Family Research Council either had not done their research   or chose to ignore that one of the speakers they have headlining their   conference, Senator Barrack Obama, supported infanticide, and the other   speakers like Mitt Romney and John McCain are anything but representative   of pro-life “values” voters.
• I   jogged their memory a bit so they’d remember that Obama was against   the Born Alive   Infant Protection Act and the Induced Infant Liability Act, legislation   even the rabid pro-aborts at NARAL wouldn’t oppose.
• The bills   simply stated that babies surviving abortions shouldn’t be left   to die in soiled linen rooms at hospitals and that the compassionate   and yes, humane response- even in this culture of death we’ve   allowed through legalized abortion- would be to help those babies, not   finish them off by leaving them to die alone.
• No,   Obama thought that infringed on a woman’s ‘right’   to snuff her child.
• The Christians at the Family Research Council think   that presidential candidate, not the pro-life pastor from Pensacola   should get front and center billing at a summit devoted to “values.”
• I   also reminded the FRC that John McCain has supported federal funding   of embryo-destroying stem cell research.
• FRC’s website says this   about their position on the issue: “Family Research Council   opposes research that destroys, harms, or manipulates an embryonic human   being.”
• By   this point, I was thoroughly confused.
• Another   Values Voter Summit headline speaker is former Massachusetts Governor   Mitt Romney whose pro-abortion pedigree spans generations and whose   legacy includes taxpayer- funded abortions all around for the good women   in his state who might find themselves facing an untimely pregnancy.
• So   you can imagine how much more confused I became when I received this   reply from Ann Simmons at FRCAction saying:
• “Mary, as you know, FRC Action is focused on values issues-such   as marriage, abortion, and stem cell research-and our   stance is well-known throughout Washington, D.C.
• We are also a nonpartisan   organization that communicates these deeply-held values to all political   actors-regardless of party. (emphasis mine)
• We are   holding the Values Voter Summit from a position of confidence that FRC's   pro-life and pro-family work of 25 years has been done with both integrity   and success.
• We will never be persuaded to change those views,   but we believe that we can change the views of those who disagree with   us through engagement and action-and that we must try.”

• “   Integrity?”

   

  Where   is the “integrity” in pre-selecting candidates- ignoring   some and pushing others with stances on issues diametrically opposed   to those FRC supposedly promotes?

• “Success?”

   

  What   “success” can FRC or the ‘Christian Right’ in   general point to? Despite years of Republican control at the legislative   and executive levels, we are no better off than if liberal Democrats   had been in control this past decade. We have compromised while the   left has held fast; we have given in while the left has not. That, despite   millions poured into the coffers of groups such as the Family Research   Center and Focus on the Family.

• “Regardless of party?”

   

  Unless,   of course, you’re a candidate from a solidly pro-life party such   as the FEC- recognized Constitution Party which is growing by leaps   and bounds all across the country.
• The   Family Research Council “tries” to change our political   landscape by inviting pro-aborts to speak at a summit on “values”   while ignoring the only candidate who’d actually work to change   the horrors this country now condones, regardless of party?
• Simmons   went on to explain why Chuck Baldwin was excluded from the summit by   making this mind-numbingly contradictory statement “(I)n order   to preserve our non-profit tax status, it is essential that FRC Action   treat candidates equitably in inviting them to speak-both this year   and in the future..”
• Astounding.
• FRC   is apparently not concerned enough about its tax-exempt status to include   all the candidates.
• The organization furthers the myth   that our Republic was designed for a two party system. The FRC refuses   to acknowledge there’s not a dime’s worth of difference   between the two parties now controlling government.
• The FRC adheres   to a paradigm that concludes that any crumbs tossed from those parties   that control our government are worthy of being gobbled up by donation-seeking   advocacy groups, just for a seat at the table- anybody’s table….   even those who promulgate evil.

  • This is exactly where 99.9 % of the "Christian" conservative Evangelical leadership is at....
• I’m   reminded that in Matthew 7:20 we’re instructed to evaluate the   message of those who desire to lead us. Verse 15 describes false teachers   as wolves in sheep’s clothing.
• That wolf is an outright liar who   distorts God’s message for a seat at the table or a cozy relationship   with ungodly political power brokers.
• And   still the unenlightened send their hard earned dollars to FRC or Focus   on the Family and show up at conferences where the wolves line up the   sheep for slaughter.
• © 2008 Mary Starrett - All   Rights Reserved
• Mary   Starrett was the Constitution Party candidate for Oregon governor in November,   2006, a TV news anchor and talk show host for 25 years and a radio talk   show host for 5 years.
• Executive   Director, Oregonians for Life, Board of Directors, Christian Family Adoptions.
• She   is currently the Communications Director for the Constitution Party.
• E-Mail:   mstarrett@constitutionparty.com

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• Marsha West
   August 30, 2008
• The Holy Spirit is on the move. He's working in the minds and mouths of the false prophets. BAM! They've fallen and they can't get up.
• On June 23rd God moved a mountain — figuratively speaking — and the Charismatic church has been in chaos ever since.
• That day several of the New Apostolic Reformation leaders met in Lakeland, Florida for Todd Bentley's "apostolic alignment commissioning service."
• What happened was mind-blowing. I'm not talking about miraculous signs and wonders. There was no gold dust, no oil soaked hands, no angels with shimmering clothes and bright blue eyes hovering on stage. There was none of that — but there was a whole lot of shakin' goin' on!
• We have had enough of false prophets!
• Such notables as C. Peter Wagner, leader of the International Coalition of Apostles, his wife, Doris, Ché Ahn, John Arnott, Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner and several others came to the 10,000-seat tent to support what Todd Bentley and Fresh Fire were doing and to commission him as an evangelist.
• There was only one problem. The leaders failed to put Bentley through a proper vetting process to find out if he was deserving of their high honor.
• Turns out he wasn't. Now they have egg on their collective faces and everyone knows it.
• As a result, many in the Charismatic church are furious with them — but it's too late.
• The damage is already done and cannot be undone. What's worse, thousands of people believed there was a "revival" going on and traveled from all over the globe to be a part of it.
• Now they realize they were duped and have fallen into despair. People are wondering if they are even saved! (For those who doubt their salvation, remember that anyone who comes to faith in the real Jesus Christ is saved.)
• This article is not about false prophet Todd Bentley; it's about the esteemed leaders and role models who helped create the Lakeland disaster.
• Without getting too far afield, New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement holds that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of Prophet and Apostle.
• Before I proceed, let's unpack the "latter rain" movement.
• The founder of the movement is C. Peter Wagner. (More on Wagner in a moment.)
• The Prophets and Apostles are said to be given:
  
    "...power and authority by God to lead by serving, as described in the biblical letter of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. As such, they believe in the 5-fold offices of the Church first popularized in Charismatic groups; of which the prophet and apostle has been absent from the Church for the last 2000 years, and are now being restored." [1]
• People in this movement believe that the Apostles and Prophets have authority over the Church.
• Even though they hold a high office, the "apostles" and "prophets" don't see eye to eye on everything.
• It has now come to light that some of the "apostles" were concerned about the possible dangers of commissioning Todd Bentley and warned other "apostles" but they were rebuffed —
• and they're not taking it lying down. They wrote letters to apologize for the bad judgment of those who disagreed with them, thus bringing outsiders into the squabble.
• The letters are posted on their websites for the entire world to read.
• Returning to the Lakeland disaster, according to The Voice Magazine:
• "Discerning Christians recognized the tell tale signs of a disaster in the making at the Lakeland Revival.
• We've seen these sorts of tragedies occur time and time again in the Body of Christ over the decades. We all hoped to see a different outcome here, but the fruit of Bentley's personal life reveals he was not ready for the level of public ministry he received and that he should never have been commissioned in an internationally televised 'apostolic alignment commissioning service.'
• Stepping down is an appropriate move in the right direction. Our concern is not only for the Bentleys, but the thousands of people around the world who are questioning everything they saw on God TV from the meetings at the Lakeland Revival.
• A lot of healing is going to be needed in the days ahead and many questions answered." [2]
• Charismatic pastor Dutch Sheets said the following in his official statement on Lakeland, which he deems an apology: (All Dutch Sheets' quotes are from his apology [3])
  
    "But looking past some of the immediate and positive results, I, like many, also looked ahead to the possible fruit from questionable doctrine and experiences, exaggeration and hype, youthful pride, character issues and the frightening potential of a 32 year 'young' man leading a movement that could shape the future of the Church.
• "These things were frightening, very frightening, to others and me. When something has the potential of setting precedent, birthing a movement and being reproduced as a prototype, we are no longer simply endorsing good brothers, good intentions and miracles.
• "Doctrine and foundations will be built on these events. Teachings and paradigms for future ministries will be formed — in short, the next generation of the church and the move of God in the earth could be greatly impacted. This is why I stopped short of endorsing everything at Lakeland."
• Dutch also stopped short of expressing his concerns to the Body of Christ, even though he claims he had a "check" in his spirit.
• He decided to ignore "...the uneasiness, the sickening feeling deep in my spirit telling me something else was wrong — terribly wrong — in this situation."
• Many Charismatic leaders felt something was terribly wrong at Lakeland as well, but they were not candid about their concerns.
• Sheets now comes forward and says he knew something was terribly wrong, yet he tried to push Bentley's "showmanship" out of his mind:
• "...the 'bams,' the head butts and kneeing, along with certain experiences and doctrines, all in order to embrace the good. Like many of my friends I tried to be — and believe I was — gracious, accepting, ready to think 'out of the box,' etc. But try as I may, the uneasiness in my spirit just wouldn't leave."
• It seems it was more important for Rev. Sheets to "think out of the Box" than to warn gullible sheep who were flocking to the "revival."
• Now that the cat is out of the bag, he owns up to the fact that "mistakes were made" (which is the understatement of the year) and says there is plenty of blame to go around in the Charismatic church. Boy, I'll say.
• Sheets confesses:
• "Some of my closest friends endorsed and participated in the Lakeland meetings. ... Should they have been more discerning and have listened to the warnings they received? Obviously.
• Should those who 'aligned' Todd with spiritual fathers (which was a good thing and positioned him to receive help if he chooses to accept it) have realized to do so publicly was a mistake and could be interpreted by those watching in no other way than as a complete endorsement?
• Yes, they should have, especially when the event became a commissioning ceremony, complete with decrees and prophecies of going to higher levels, predictions of Todd's increasing world-wide influence and leading a world-wide revival, emphatic and prolific endorsements of his character, etc.
• How could those watching believe the evening was anything but an aligning, endorsing and commissioning ceremony? It was.
• It really doesn't matter who laid their hands on Todd — all share responsibility. This was unwise at best, naïve at least and at its worst, foolish."
• To me it looks as if their motives were self-serving, that the "apostles" wanted to be in the limelight and what better way than to appear on God TV and YouTube.

  • Exactly....
• Please. The commissioning ceremony was anything but "naïve."
• Don't tell me they weren't thrilled that millions of people were watching them anoint Todd Bentley as he lay quivering like a bowl of Jell-O at their feet.
• "The shot heard round the world" is a well-known phrase that represents the start of the American Revolution. The voices of the false prophets who pretended to speak for God have been heard round the world, thanks to the ubiquitous video camera
• It may not start a revolution. But a battle is brewing among Charismatics and Pentecostals.
• I've gotten off point.
  
    Going back to Dutch, he complains that the leaders involved realized there was a problem:
• "Those of us connected to them relationally, ministerially, and as movements — some even in alignment with them apostolically and as sons and daughters — would feel minimalized, if not betrayed, by the fact that they were in essence taking us onto the stage with them? Yes. These feelings were inevitable, especially when we had such uneasiness and asked them not to."
• Harsh words. But he was their equal — and they ignored his warning.
• More...
  
    "Should there be an acknowledgment of these mistakes to the body of Christ for the sake of accountability and in order to rebuild trust? I believe so, and remain hopeful this will happen."
• If these men and women are truly God's people, it will happen. (They should also acknowledge that the Apostolic movement disregards the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. In other words, it is outside the parameters of orthodoxy.)
• As I mentioned earlier, Bill Johnson is one of the "apostles" who participated in the commissioning ceremony, hence he contributed to the Lakeland disaster.
• Bill pastors Bethel Church and is the founder of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California.
• Both his statement and sermon on Todd Bentley have been posted on his website.
• Here's his reason for going to Lakeland: (All Bill Johnson's quotes are from his statement [4])
• "I went to Lakeland because of his enemies. The relentless criticism and opposition, coupled with the grueling and sometimes unwise schedule, were bound to take their toll on this young man — emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
• It happened two years ago, and it could happen again. It was my intention to bring a deflection into the mix so that he wouldn't take all the heat by himself.
• Little did I realize it was too late. He was at the place of burnout again, abandoning his marriage and pulling out of all public ministry."

  • Oh, so the cause of Bentley's heresy, false-teachings and walking out on his marriage was...uh..just "burnout?"
• Poor Todd. His grueling schedule took a toll on him. He became so spiritually and emotionally drained that he found solace in the arms of another woman.
• It was not the first time this has happened, by the way, which is what Bill meant by "it happened two years ago."
• Nonetheless, he stood by Todd, even counseled the Bentleys through all the turmoil. Which begs the question: Why didn't he pass what he knew about Todd's private life on the other "apostles" and "prophets"?
• In John Arnott's statement he says he wishes he had known Todd was struggling in his marriage but he wasn't told.
• Peter Wagner wasn't told either.
• Yet Bill indicates they all knew about Todd's issues: (My remarks in brackets.)
• "And it was thought to all of us involved that the healing had taken place when in fact there were areas [of sin] that just weren't dealt with. He just drug it into this great outpouring [that turned out to be not so great because they ignored his sin]."
• I asked this question of Fresh Fire Ministries in my recent article, Todd Bentley Separates From Wife and Lakeland: "What did they know and when did they know it?"
• Now I'll ask the same question of the "apostles" who commissioned Bentley: What did they know and when did they know it?
• Johnson calls those who exposed Todd Bentley as a false prophet "sharks." He also says:
  
    "I'll never blame the opponents [sharks] of this outpouring for Todd's choices [sin]. However, it had a greater effect on the outcome than any of his critics will likely own up to in this lifetime. History proves this."
• So Bentley's opponents drove him into an "unhealthy relationship" with a woman on his staff?
• But how can that be when so-called sharks weren't swimming around Todd Bentley two years ago?
• He wasn't that popular until April 2008 when he showed up in Lakeland. (Watch Johnson's sermon video here [5] Note: His "shark" remark is 7 minutes into his speech.)
• "Apostle" Bill Johnson was one of the leaders who "prophesied" over Todd Bentley during the commissioning.
• Here's what he said:
  
    "When David wanted Uriah killed, he sent him into battle and then withdrew from him. As a company of people, we refuse to do that. Many revivals through history have been cut short of their intention, God's destiny and intention over individuals, because of jealousies and fears that get stirred-up in the people of God, and we refuse to do that. We shape the coarse of history by partnering with you, giving honor where it's due. You welcome the glory as well as anybody I've ever seen in my life. I long to learn from you=2 0in that. And I bless you and I pray with the rest of these, that the measure of glory would increase; that Moses would no longer be considered the high-water mark, with the glory shown from his face, but instead the revelation of the goodness of God would change the face of the church, and He would use your voice; He would use your grace, your anointing to alter the face of the church before this world; that the goodness of the Lord will be seen once again. I pray this over you in Jesus' name." [6]

  • Bill Johnson's prayer over Todd Bentley at the "commissioning" ceremony.
• Jealousies and fears, huh?
• I find this disturbing on so many levels. Where to begin... First of all, Bill knew better than anyone that Todd Bentley had deep character flaws. Secondly, he was aware of concerns over: doctrinal error... unverifiable stories... the angel "Emma-O," the money angel "Winds of Change" and other alleged angelic visitations
• (nowhere in Scripture does it say that we should elevate angels, nor did the apostles point us to angels, our focus is to be on Jesus Christ alone)
• .. exaggerated healings... unsubstantiated claims that people were raised from the dead...bizarre and dangerous "healing" practices (assaulting the sick with leg drops, high kicks, head punches, etc.)...
• excessive drinking.
• Thirdly, Todd had been unfaithful to his wife and there was a rumor going around that he was at it again!
• This is the man the "apostles" and "prophets" hoped to "partner with...to shape the course of history?" It's the sort of insanity that goes on in politics — but not in the Church of Jesus Christ!
• May the Lord restore Todd Bentley and heal him.
• Returning to Dutch Sheets' apology:
  
    "With such strong statements of disagreement, what is the affirmation toward my friends who led, participated in or endorsed this ceremony (and the meetings in general)? Simply stated, I know their hearts. It is not a contradiction of my criticisms toward some of their actions to, at the same time, defend and endorse their hearts and character. It is completely appropriate — when true — to defend a person's heart and integrity while disagreeing with their actions."
• He knows their hearts? The Bible says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer 17:9)
• Furthermore, Sheets' states that:
  
    "I think the blunder of that night was huge and very damaging to the body of Christ, but I also realize that in their hearts, those involved honestly felt they were doing the right things. Again, while not defending the action taken, I would defend the character and integrity of Peter and Doris Wagner as vigorously as anyone I know, and do so with absolute confidence. There are no two people, and I mean that literally, who embody the qualities of humility, integrity, holiness (no compromise!), sacrifice, unselfish kingdom-thinking, the tireless giving of themselves to Christ's cause and the body of Christ -and do I need to add risk-taking? — as much as Peter and Doris Wagner.
• It remains my great honor to be associated with them and call them a spiritual father and mother. And again, while not minimizing or 'sweeping under the rug' any wrong decisions, I remain steadfast in my belief that similar affirmations could be made of others involved — either directly or indirectly — in the ceremony.
• And some of them still see their endorsing of Lakeland as an endorsement of revival generally, not of Todd personally."

  • Huh...?! They were wrong in any case!!!
• Spiritual Father Peter Wagner brought the commissioning ceremony to the wide screen and used his "apostolic authority" to endorse Todd Bentley, a man he claims he never met. Now Wagner is back peddling:
• "I could easily see that Todd needs deep inner healing and professional-level deliverance he has not yet had the opportunity to receive.
• One of our critics said that we got it backwards and should have taken him into a back room and ministered to him before the ceremony.
• We had the luxury of a few minutes with Todd before the evening meeting. We had never met the man before. Was I to say 'Hey, Todd, you're a mess and need help in the next five minutes?'"

  • No, but the Bible you claim to teach and the position in the Body of Christ, you maintain for yourself states and should be SOP: "be not hasty in the laying on of hands." You did not follow this simple rule, Wagner; nor you Bill Johnson; nor you Arnott!!
• So instead of taking the "mess" into a back room, he commissioned him as an evangelist?
• Here is what Peter Wagner said to Todd Bentley when he stepped onto the stage: (All "prophecies" are from the VodPod video of Todd Bentley's commissioning [7])
• "This commissioning represents a powerful spiritual transaction taking place in the invisible world. With this in mind, I take the apostolic authority that God has given me and I decree to Todd Bentley:
  
    Your power will increase.
  
    Your authority will increase.
  
    Your favor will increase.
  
    Your influence will increase.
  
    Your revelation will increase.
  
    I also decree that:
  
    A new supernatural strength will flow through this ministry.
  
    A new life force will penetrate this move of God.
  
    Government will be established to set things in their proper order.
  
    God will pour out a higher level of discernment to distinguish truth from error.
  
    New relationships will surface to open the gates to the future." [7]

  • C. Peter Wagner's "commissioning" blessing he prayed over Bentley at the ceremony...
• Wagner admits that he said these words to a man who needs deep inner healing.
• And by the way, those in the commissioning group hold that "professional-level deliverance" means deliverance from demons!
• Here are other "prophecies" uttered by those involved in the commissioning:
• John Arnott:
  
    "We bless you today, Todd Bentley. You're a friend. You're a man of God. You're a man of prayer. You're a man of the spirit. You love the anointing. And I would say that it's not just the Lakeland revival, but the whole world that goes into revival. And you're leading an amazing charge. And, multitudes are getting in behind you and saying, 'Come on. I'm gonna go with you.' And so we bless all of that. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for raising up this young man, to lead such a mighty charge around the world, and to partner with God TV in all that has happened here in the last, uh, several months now, three months almost. We bless it in the name of Jesus, and we stand with you, and we encourage you, and we honor you."

  • John Arnott's commissioning blessing he prayed over Todd Bentley
• We honor you? Does John Arnott now regret his prophecy over Bentley? Not at all. (Read his statement here [8])
• Che Ahn:
  
    "Recognizing that God has chosen you and appointed you to bear much and lasting fruit in this Lakeland revival, and revival around the world. Recognizing that He has called you as an Ephesians 4 evangelist and a revivalist moving in signs and wonders. Knowing that you have walked in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing Jesus in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the intimacy and knowledge of God, we as your brothers and your friends, who have a deep love for you, Shonnah, your whole family, we just esteem you. We are here to stand with you, support you. And we are here to commission you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — in the power of His name — with special oil from Chuck Pierce. It's called 'Revival Oil.' Chuck could not make it, so he sent this Fed-Ex. Special oil for you. He's in Africa. And so we anoint you and commission you in Jesus' name."

  • Che Ahn's blessing he prayed over Bentley too at the "commissioning" ceremony.
• I watched the "commissioning" on YouTube and got a "check" in my spirit.... because I knew from all the research I've done on Todd Bentley that these men and women were out of touch with reality.
• What Todd needs is truth serum!
• Special "Revival oil"? Oh brother.
• I tested the spirits by the Word of God, and low and behold, what these so-called apostles and prophets prophesied over Bentley was not from God!
• And if what they prophesied does not come to pass, God himself labels them false prophets, and he will judge them!
• Dr. Clarice Fluitt:
  
    "Hallelujah! For the word of the Lord would say, Behold the vanguard. Behold the tugboat that is cutting through the ice of religious traditions — the cruel, hard things. The understanding of the mind of men will now bow to the reality of the revelation of the finished work of Calvary. Behold, sayeth God, you have been equipped with cutting power. You have been equipped to go through those traditions of the mind of man. Yea, sayeth God, and you are pulling the church into the realm of glory. Behind you is a great ship that is laden with healing and deliverance and prosperity. This is the word to you, oh man of God- arise, kill, and eat. No longer; no longer; no longer will men call unclean what I have called clean."

  • Dr Clarice Fluitt's commissioning prayer over Todd Bentley
• Apparently, when they "prophesy" in King James English they're hoping to convince those listening to them that they are actually speaking for Almighty God.
• (Try using this tactic on your kids and you'll see amazing results.)

  • lol..lol
• What really threw me off in Fluitt's "prophetic utterance" was her use of the modern term "tugboat" instead of "ship" or "sailing vessel."
• That aside, did Todd Bentley pull the church into the realm of glory as the pretend prophetess said he would?
• Well, not exactly. In fact, he tried to pull the church into the realm of the occult — and he would have succeeded if the "demon of lust" hadn't gotten him off track.

  • Todd Bentley and the occult
• Joshua Fowler:
  
    "Todd, the Lord has made you to be a detonator. I see cables going around the world to different nations. I see Great Britain being set ablaze by the power of God. I see even as you go into places that God says you'll go even with the glory even like William Branham, and the Lord says you'll carry a portal anointing. And whatever city you go over, there will be a portal! 'There'll be a portal that will be opened up,' sayeth the Lord! The Lord says you'll detonate, and BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! There'll be a release of glory through the nations, says the Spirit of the Lord!"

  • Joshua Fowler's commissioning prayer over Todd Bentley...NOTICE too..Fowler's reference to "portals" again and again. A term that is most often used in and about occult and demonic rituals.
• Another "prophet" who believes he speaks for God. Yet he cites William Branham, a "Latter Rain" false prophet who denied the doctrine of Trinity.

  • Branham of the "Latter Rain" movement (a "father" to the Joel's Army and originator of the group "The Manifest Sons of God") denied the doctrine of the Trinity...as does T.D. Jakes.
• He held to a variation of a second century heresy taught by Sabellius know as Modalistic Monarchianism or Patripassianism. And yet Fowler — and Bentley — idolize the man.
• (Bentley acknowledged Branham as the greatest healing evangelist who ever lived!
• Read about Branham here [9])

  • Branham
• The false prophet proclaimed himself an angel of Revelation 3:14 and 10:7.
• He prophesied:
  
    "...by 1977 all denominations would be consumed by the World Council of Churches under the control of the Roman Catholics, that the Rapture would take place, and that the world would be destroyed. He died in 1965, but many of his followers expected him to be resurrected, some believing him to be God, others believing him to be virgin-born.
• Branham's influence has continued in many churches where his prophecies are considered to be divinely inspired. His teaching on the power of the spoken word has been a characteristic of later revivalists." [10]
• Instead of Fowler's promised "release of glory," God released (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!) many of the people who were under the spell of the false teachers.
• Isaiah 44:24, 25: "Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish."

  • This has certainly been fulfilled and seen in the life of Todd Bentley, the Lakeland "Revival" and those around him who laid hands on Bentley and endorsed his deceptive ministry.
• Listen to what Gregory Koukl gleaned from 2 Timothy:
  
    "In Paul's final warning to the church, he does not counsel them to face the challenges of the future by embracing new movements of the Spirit. Instead, he tells them to look backwards, to continue in and guard what has already been revealed.
  
    "This is Paul's message throughout his entire letter. 'Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me' (1:13). 'Guard...the treasure which has been entrusted to you' (1:14). 'And the things which you have heard from me...these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also' (2:2).
• "Paul warns of a time of moral chaos falling on the world and theological chaos falling on the church.
• The antidote for both is the same: Steady at the helm. Guard what has already been entrusted to you. Continue in the things which you have already learned.

  • The Bible's command for real Christians in these chaotic, confused days of deception.
• "Everything we need to be fruitful and productive, to be trained in righteousness, to be adequately equipped for every good work, has already been revealed. For Paul, all the old stuff was all the right stuff.
• "New movement of the Spirit? Maybe. And maybe not.
• I don't have to decide. Instead, I'm taking the safe route by heeding Paul's advice and focusing on the old movement of the Spirit. And so should you." [11]

  • Amen
• It brought to light the highly unorthodox beliefs of the NAR. Those who are a part of this movement should commit 2 Timothy to memory.
• Some good has come out of the "Lakeland Outpouring."
• Another good thing that came out of it is that the Charismatic church leaders who participated in Todd Bentley's coronation ceremony have been exposed as false prophets and fools.
• The chickens have come home to roost.
  
• Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. — Jer 14:14
• Marsha West is the Founder and Editor of the E-Mail Brigade News Report, an online news report for conservative people of faith.
• Marsha is a freelance writer specializing in Christian worldview.
• She's a regular contributor to NewsWithViews.com, CapitolHillCoffeeHouse.com, Webcommentary.com, RWNetwork.net, plus her commentaries appear in MichNews.com, RenewAmerica.us, SierraTimes.com, TheConservativeVoice.com, OpinionEditorials.com, Americandaily.com, and others.
• Marsha is also designer and webmaster of a Christian apologetics website, On Solid Rock Resources. She is currently writing a series of children's books for homeschoolers.

135 more annotations...

• "THE   FAMILY" AND ITS HIJACKING OF EVANGELICALISM
• PART 4
• By   Attorney Constance Cumbey
    August 31, 2008
    NewsWithViews.com
• In   part III I told of my personal experiences witnessing a “CAUSA”   conference.
• It purported to be an “alternative to Marxism,”   non-Unification Church event. However, it was obviously operated and   controlled by Unification Church and nearly all speakers praised Rev.   Moon and Unification Church.
• When its organizers discovered they had   invited an “enemy,” they took steps to immediately isolate   and deport me back to Detroit.
• Two years later, I had an unexpected   encounter with Tim LaHaye on the subject.
• It   was February 7, 1986. I left Washington, D.C. for speaking engagements   in Colorado Springs. I did not see Tim LaHaye again while in Washington.   I was scheduled to speak in Monument, Colorado and thereafter for a   Colorado Eagle Forum Friday-Saturday conference.
• From there I was taken   to Denver for a busy and intense schedule that would span the next two   weeks.
• Monday,   February 10th, I was taken by the Committee to Furrs Cafeteria. We obtained   our food and had just seated. Suddenly we heard, “Paging Wanda   Leonard. Paging Wanda Leonard.”
• We were fearful that there was   an emergency with her husband and/or children. Wanda answered the page.   She then summoned me.
• She said, “Tim LaHaye is on the phone. He   said, “This is the Rev. Tim LaHaye calling from Washington, D.C.   “ she said, “yes,.” He said, “I understand you   had a certain woman named Constance Cumbey speak at your conference.”   Wanda said “yes.”

• He then said, “I understand she   quoted from a sleazy left wing magazine.” Wanda said, “well,   Tim, Constance is here. I think you should speak with her yourself.”

   

  “Fine,   put her on,” said Tim LaHaye.
• I   told Wanda, “Wanda, I am not about to debate with Tim LaHaye on   Furrs Cafeteria’s only phone, located by their cash register,   at the height of their rush hour -- especially when my own lunch is   getting cold. He’ll have to call me later."
• After   lunch I had a cordial meeting with the pastor of a large Presbyterian   church in Colorado Springs. Then we hurried to Wanda Leonard’s   house for the 3:30 telephone conference she had scheduled between Dr.   LaHaye and myself.
• The   phone rang. Wanda answered it and then handed it to me.
• Tim LaHaye started   by apologizing for not getting back to me in Washington, D.C. the week   before.
• Then he abruptly said, “You said that I was part of the   New Age Movement.” I was startled. “I said no such thing,”   I replied.
• He   next said, “well, you quoted from a sleazy left wing magazine.   He was obviously referring to Carolyn Weaver’s important article,   "The Moonies and the Christian Right" that had recently appeared   in Mother Jones Magazine.[1]
• I   said, “well, Tim, was it true?” He repeated, “it’s   a sleazy left wing magazine.”
• I said, “Tim, I don’t   care if it was the Moscow Journal. Was it true? Did she make it all   up?”
• He   did not answer. I then told him of the experience I had with the Unification   Church group, CAUSA and the admission they had made to me combined with   the clear pronouncements that Rev. Moon was “the Lord of the Second   Advent.”
• He didn’t want to hear, but I finished the story.   I then said, “Tim, there were clear biblical warnings about going   to Egypt for help against Assyria.”
• “I   never went to Egypt,” said Tim LaHaye. “No, you went to   Rev. Moon and Bo Hi Pak. That’s even worse."
• I told Tim LaHaye   that in my opinion God did not need twenty five cents worth of Unification   Church money to build his Kingdom.”
• I   was amazed at what Tim LaHaye said next. He said, “I never took   any money from Bo Hi Pak or Unification Church.” “Oh?,”   I replied.
• He   said, “the liberal controlled Washington Post refused to give   ACTV [American Coalition for Traditional Values] any publicity.
• So I   contacted Bo Hi Pak who arranged for a series of stories to appear in   the Washington Times. I was writing to thank him for those stories.
• I   said, “Tim, would you seriously like that explanation presented   to a jury?” He was silent.
• I note for the record that that the   context of the letter was clearly financial. Moreover, it appeared to   be priming the pump for more Unification Church contributions.
• I   said, “Tim, if you only knew how many people have contacted me   about their churches being ruined because their ministers accepted invitations   for Korean trips and came back changed.”
• “I   knew that was happening,” said Tim LaHaye. “That’s   why I resigned from Coalition for Religious Freedom.”
• “Yes,   but you didn’t resign from ACTV, you didn’t resign from   Family Life Seminars,” I replied.
• Tim   then said that he had been involved in Coalition for Religious Freedom   for religious liberty issues. I told him that it was my understanding   that Rev. Moon’s prosecution had nothing to do with religious   liberty issues whatsoever.
• It was a tax fraud case, pure and simple.   Rev. Moon had produced some allegedly 15 year old affidavits to prove   that he had been holding property in trust from Unification Church members.   The IRS had done their standard watermark testing and discovered that   the documents were very new ones.
• Tim   then said, “look, we’re both on the same side. You call   it the New Age Movement. I call it secular humanism – it’s   the same thing.”
• I   said, “well, Tim, I have an idea. Since we both agree that Unification   Church is bad and we both agree they have been using your name unfairly   to their advantage, why don’t you publicly denounce them? That   way, they won’t be able to use your name to advantage anymore.”
• Tim   LaHaye literally snarled, “I’ll be the judge of that!”   Then he slammed the telephone down without saying goodbye. I never spoke   to him again.
• A   few weeks later, I was speaking in the Seattle area. Angie Schiermeyer,   my West Coast coordinator answered a ringing telephone. On the other   end was the Washington Concerned Women of America coordinator.
• She told   Angie she had just returned from a CWA leadership conference, held,   as I recall, in Houston. All fifty state coordinators were there.
• She   said Beverly LaHaye instructed them that nobody should “give Constance   Cumbey a platform.”

  • Nice...
• When they questioned why, she reportedly said   that I had called the LaHayes New Agers in my latest book (none of my   books have ever mentioned the LaHayes)
• and I had attacked a dear friend   of theirs (referring to Pat Robertson whom I had critiqued for among   other things, promoting Jeremy Rifkin’s New Age agenda and telling   his viewers that when the Bible said ‘every eye shall behold him,’   it mean ‘on television.’
• I,   Constance Cumbey, was the new enemy!

• Per   Angie, the coordinator said that until Beverly LaHaye had given her   directive, they didn’t even know my second book was out –   several of them had immediately thereafter rushed to local bookstores   to buy it.

   

  Encouragingly,   however, over the years some courageously resisted Unification Church   lures and pressures.
• A   Minnesota conservative activist James Racer was moved to write a pamphlet   warning about the dangers of networking with Unification Church.
• He   was urge to silence (as I so often was) by those who said he would damage   the conservative cause by speaking.

  • This is the state of and mind set of the new Evangelicals

• Here is what Racer so cogently presented:

   

  "Many   conservatives would rather not have this information made public, fearing   that it will "damage the movement." I suggest that no one   needs to fear the truth. If the conservative movement is based on fraud   and deception, which it would be if this truth is stifled, then it deserves   to be damaged.

  • Exactly...and I am an Evangelical but..still a Biblical based one.
  Add Sticky Note
• "...Moon   has, in the AFC, a tremendous vehicle to assist his political movement   in the USA. Combining the thousands of black church leaders trained   through various Moon-linked organizations with the new-found political   power and savvy of the so-called New Right Christian activists, many   who would be attracted to Christian Voice, would have a profound impact   on America and the world.

  • Black churchs being deceived by Moon's operation
• "What   Moon adds to this political formula which has been missing in almost   all concentrated conservative organizing efforts is millions of dollars   and hundreds of committed 'volunteers,' the true believers and followers   of Moon...
• Regardless of what Dr. [Robert] Grant, Bob Wilson, Richard   Ichord, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Richard Viguerie, Gary Jarmin, Dan Peterson,   or any of the other hundreds of officers and leaders involved in AFC   believe, the documentation I received after my resignation provided   to me that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has a plan for America, and that   his plan includes the American Freedom Coalition.”

  • Moon subverting America and using the Conservative "Christian" Right to do it.
  Add Sticky Note
• Equally   disturbing as Tim LaHaye’s apparent compromise was Jerry Falwell’s.
• Jerry Falwell would speak at the 1997 CAUSA program, 4 years after my   own encounter as a keynote speaker for CAUSA. If he ever uttered a word   against the New Age Movement, I never heard of it. Perhaps others did.   Again the lure for him was obviously money. Moon had reportedly bailed   his university out of a financial crisis.

  • Jerry Falwell and Rev Moon's money
  Add Sticky Note
• What   could have been persuasive voices against religious apostasy and the   New Age Movement, including one of its more odious expressions in the   form of Rev. Moon who claimed to be “the Lord of the Second Advent”   had been either muted or silenced.
• Next   Week: Part V of this expanding series.
• Will include “the twelve”   involved with Abraham (Abram) Vereide and Marian Johnson in the formative   years of Fellowship Foundation.
• Included in the discussion will be Frank   Laubach, Norman Grubb, and Glenn Clark of Camps Farthest Out.”
• Was it Christianity, or was it badly disguised theosophy? The influence   of Frank Buchman and MRA (Moral Rearmament Movement).

56 more annotations...

• INDULGENCE   AND INDIFFERENCE

• By   Paul Proctor

   

  September   3, 2008

   

  NewsWithViews.com
• What   is it about today’s compromised church that compels certain pastors   to emulate the world and call it “evangelism”?
• Is it to quiet their   conscience and camouflage their own cravings? I think some have become   so envious of the lost and the world we were called out of for Christ   that they can’t help but gaze back at their old lives longingly like   Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom.

  • I agree
  Add Sticky Note
• The   news these days seems to be chocked full of Christians trying all sorts   of gimmicks and bribes to entice people into a churchianity that cannot   save them – all the while convinced that the end justifies the means.
• Case   in point is a drive-through church near Nashville where you can wheel   in on your way to work for some supplication and snacks as reported   by The   Tennessean:

• Prayer   doesn't always mean getting on your knees, and it doesn't have to   take hours.

   

   

   

  In   fact, going to church can take only three minutes — at least when   zipping through a drive-through.  

  Living   Word Community Church has started a drive-through prayer program from   7 a.m. to 8 a.m. every Friday at its new location in Antioch.  

  Visitors   pull into the parking lot and can stay in their car, get a coffee   and a doughnut, make a prayer request and be on their way to work   or school.
• But,   is this really answering an individual’s deep spiritual need, or ignoring   it?
• I mean, if someone is too busy to give God any more than three minutes   of their day, how can they ever be expected to surrender their entire   life to Jesus Christ?
• There’s   certainly nothing wrong with Christians making themselves available   to pray with and for those who are hurting and reaching out for answers   to the difficulties and perplexities of life. That’s a great place to   start with one’s witness for Christ.
• But   is accommodating their apathy, aversions and appetites while disregarding   their spiritual poverty and depravity really the answer?
• Are they not   being taught by example an enabling type of spirituality that winks   at waywardness and requires nothing of them – no personal responsibility   or accountability to God?
• Is   this what has become of the postmodern church – a place to drop by and   dump your garbage – grab some goodies and go? I wouldn’t call that a   church – I’d call it a convenience center.
• Tennessean   staff writer, Rachel Stults reported that the senior pastor of the aforementioned   fellowship, Rodney Beard, “came up with the idea after watching a TV   show on drive-through weddings,” adding that, “he knew there might be   a market for people with busy lives.”

• A   market?  

  Is   that what Jesus suffered and died for – a market?
• The   report went on to say: “The program has become appealing to people who   are dealing with heartache, pain or sorrow, but may not have time or   feel comfortable going to a Sunday church service,” quoting Beard as   saying "So many people are fed up with the whole concept of church,   of being judged…”
• I   can’t help but wonder when the Lord will be fed up with our “whole   concept of church.”
• Jesus   had time to be mocked, beaten and crucified for our sins – and yet we’re   going to turn the Bread of Life into fast food?
• How   comfortable do you suppose our Lord was hanging on that cross?   We certainly don’t have to attend Sunday services to feel “judged,”   do we? But I dare say the judgments we face day to day here on Earth   will pale in comparison to the Judgment that is coming for those who   refuse to repent.

• Then   there was this little benevolent bargain found in The   Christian Post: 

   

  Carol   Umsted got more than the word of God during services this summer at   the Congregational United Church of Christ of Valley City.

   

   

   

  She   also got $50 worth of free gas, thanks to winning a raffle. For the   local farmer, it was a nice side benefit, at a time when gas was more   than $4 a gallon.  

  Churches   nationwide are making similar offers, ranging from gas card raffles   to 99-cent gas sales at local stations, to boost attendance during   the vacation season and attract new members.
• According   to the report by Blake Nicholson from The Associated Press, “…the Rev.   Carl Borden, pastor of the congregation, said the overriding goal is   to have a little fun and remind people that the church is there,” quoting   him as saying: “It's a method of marketing for the church."
• Again   with the marketing!

  • Peter Drucker must have avised them

• And   their “overriding goal is to have a little fun”?  

  Is   that Jesus’ overriding goal for sinners?
• Did   the Apostle Paul ever mention this sort of thing in any of his epistles?   Did the early church ever speak to the importance of fun and games?   I wonder how many Christians have been martyred for their amusements?

• And   finally, the Arizona   Daily Star reports on a pastor in Tucson who wants to put the sexy   back in Southern Baptist: 

   

  A Web   site with a name like Puresextucson.com is not something you'd expect   a Southern Baptist pastor to brag about.

   

   

   

  But   not only is 27-year-old Jeremiah McDuffie flaunting the site — he   created it.  

  McDuffie   sent not-so-subtle mailers this week to 35,000 Tucson homes: postcards   showing a photo of four feet peeking out from under bedcovers in a   suggestive pose.  

  He   also took out full-page advertisements in two local newspapers.  

  McDuffie,   pastor of The Element Community Church, explains that he wants Tucsonans   to know that God wants them to have good sex.
• Yes,   if the mainstream media and its marketing masters have taught us anything,   it’s that sex sells.

• So, while the world goes to Hell in a hand basket,   this church is going to focus their attention on the bedroom.  

  What   a testimony to our Christian values and priorities.
• Friends,   I don’t enjoy focusing on the negatives. Frankly, stuff like this makes   me sick. It’s not about bringing down the brethren or who’s more pious   than whom.
• It’s about waking the church out of the stupor and stupidity   that has so seduced us away from the scriptures.
• It’s about stopping   all this carnal nonsense being carried out in the name of Christ that   distracts and defeats us daily and getting back to the Gospel we were   called to proclaim and the “foolishness of preaching.”
• That’s   not a very marketable plan – but it is our calling.
• There   are souls at stake here and Christians need to remember that where sin   is concerned, indulgence and indifference do not result in repentance   and faith.
• Now   if you don’t see anything wrong with the “whatever works” and “whatever   it takes” approach to ministry and you still believe the end justifies   the means, I would invite you to click on the three links below for   a little peek at the perils of pragmatism and what is now being called   “Christian.”
• I’ll   spare any additional commentary and just let the videos speak for themselves:
• “For   after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it   pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”   – 1st Corinthians 1:21

33 more annotations...

• Few Christians Have Biblical Worldview
• by Chuck Baldwin 
   March 31, 2009
• The prolific pollster George Barna just released another startling survey:  among America's professing "born-again" Christians, only 19% possess a  Biblical worldview. That's right. Some 80% of professing Christians do not  possess a Biblical worldview.

• Barna's  criteria for determining a person's Biblical worldview were the following:

   

   *Believing that absolute moral truth exists;

   

   *Believing that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it  teaches;

   

   *Believing that Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely  symbolic;

   

   *Believing that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be  good or do good works;

   

   *Believing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world  who still rules the universe today.
• And it's not as if Barna's survey questions were all that difficult.
• And again, even among professing "born-again"  Christians, only 19% were shown to have a Biblical worldview.
• In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a  Biblical worldview.

• See Barna's research at:

   

   http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years
• This survey helps explain a bunch!
• How in the name of common sense can Christians expect to be the "salt" and  "light" to a lost and dying world when the vast majority of believers do not  even possess a basic Biblical foundation?
• And now it seems that a majority of evangelical  churches are consumed with the politically correct doctrines of Prosperity  Theology and Entertainment Evangelism.
• Of course, many mainline Protestant denominations lost their allegiance to  Biblical truth decades ago.
• Old-fashioned Bible Christianity has  been replaced with avant-garde movements such as the Emerging Church,  Purpose Driven Church, Seeker-Sensitive Church, User-Friendly Church,  Meta-Church, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
• The result of this departure from Biblical Christianity is that some 80% of  professing Christians today do not hold a Biblical worldview and are,  therefore, impotent at being the "salt" and "light" that our Lord requires.
• Let's face it: without a Biblical worldview, these modern "born-again"  evangelicals are walking around with pagan, Christless worldviews.
• Instead  of the Bible, socialist talking heads, globalist media moguls, hedonistic  entertainers, political hacks, and humanistic academicians are the ones to  most influence their opinions, philosophies, and mindsets.
• And just whose fault is it that our churches have become so riddled with  infidelity and apostasy? The preachers, obviously.
• Instead of standing up on their own hind legs and proclaiming, "Thus saith  the Lord," without fear or favor, they are falling all over themselves  trying to emulate Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels.
• Instead of  preaching with the fear of God in their hearts, they preach with the fear of  the I.R.S. and the G.O.P. in their hearts. Or, worse than that, they "tiptoe  through the tulips" for fear of their own church members.
• I will say it one more time, if America's preachers would stand up in their  pulpits every Sunday and not be afraid to preach the truth (and courageously  relate it to America's everyday problems and challenges including our  political problems and challenges), the ship of state could be turned around  overnight! As the pulpits go, so goes the nation. And right now, the pulpits  of America are leading our country over the cliff!
• It is for this very reason that, a few years ago, I began a nationwide  campaign to discover the modern "Black Regiment" pastors and churches in  America. As a result of this effort, we have already identified scores of  pastors and churches across America that have gladly chosen to identify  themselves as being part of America's "Black Regiment."

• See the Black Regiment web page here:

   

   http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php
• If you find a Black Regiment pastor in your area, by all means, join with  and support both him and his congregation. How can pastors be expected to  courageously proclaim the truth unless people who appreciate the truth  support them with both their attendance and offerings?
• It is also for this reason that I am now live-streaming my Sunday morning  messages on the Internet.
• For the most part, these are people who have tried  desperately to find courageous, independent-minded patriot-pastors in their  communities, but have failed to do so. Our live-streamed broadcast gives  them an online home where truth is preached.
• We now have hundreds of thirsty souls watching us  every Sunday morning.

• If you want to join them, use  this url on Sunday at approximately 10:30 a.m. (Central Daylight Time):

   

   http://crossroadbaptist.net/live.html
• George Barna's research is tremendously revealing--and disconcerting.
• It is  a sad day when many unbelievers seem to have more character and conviction  about the foundational principles of constitutional government, liberty, and  independence than do professing Christians.
• But then again, if Christians  cannot be trusted to understand and revere the Sacred Text, how can they  understand and revere the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution,  and Bill of Rights?
• http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/donate.php
• © Chuck Baldwin
• This column is archived as  http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090331.html

31 more annotations...

• Evangelical leader Dobson leaving radio show
• By ERIC GORSKI (AP) – 15 hours ago
• DENVER — James Dobson, the voice of conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, will no longer host its flagship radio broadcast and is cutting formal ties with the organization that he founded more than 30 years ago, the evangelical group said Friday.
• Dobson, 73, and the board of directors both agreed about the moves, which will go into effect at the end of February, ministry officials said.
• The decision to part ways was amicable and long anticipated, said Gary Schneeberger, spokesman for the Colorado Springs-based group.
• Dobson has distanced himself in recent years from the organization he founded in 1977 and built into an influential force — both as a political powerhouse and provider of conservative family and moral advice.
• Dobson resigned as Focus on the Family president in 2003 and as chairman of the board in February.
• "The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — and Dr. Dobson's season at Focus on the Family has been remarkable," Jim Daly, Dobson's successor as president, said in a statement. "He has done a superlative job in modeling the graceful transition of leadership from one generation to the next."
• Dobson did not issue a statement on his departure. Dobson's "health and attitude are great," Schneeberger said. Dobson suffered a minor heart attack in 1990 and a mild stroke in 1998.

• Daly, however, made clear that Dobson "will continue to make his voice heard in the public square."

  "Dr. Dobson is a wordsmith, but one word I don't suspect we'll hear him using is 'retirement,'" he said.
• In announcing his resignation as board chairman earlier this year, Dobson said: "One of the common errors of founder-presidents is to hold to the reins of leadership too long, thereby preventing the next generation from being prepared for executive authority ... Though letting go is difficult after three decades of intensive labor, it is the wise thing to do."
• Earlier this year, Focus on the Family laid off 8 percent of its work force, casualties of a donation shortfall. That came on top of another round of layoffs last year.
• A child psychologist and author, Dobson has become more vocal about politics in recent years. He sharply criticized Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the buildup to the 2008 election, saying Obama distorted the Bible and had a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution — characterizations Obama rejected.
• Critics portray Dobson as part of an older generation of evangelical leaders whose influence is waning, and point to younger leaders who are taking up the environment and poverty as political causes.
• Daly, 48, who has taken on a higher profile as Dobson has receded from the public stage, shares Dobson's beliefs about culture wars issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, but hasn't been as political.
• Daly complimented Obama for his efforts to promote responsible fatherhood but has said he disagrees with Obama's policies on most other issues.
• Dobson will stop writing the Focus on the Family monthly newsletter — which he used to plead for funds in lean times — and turning it over fully to Daly, Schneeberger said.
• No decision has been made about how to fill Dobson's absence as host of the daily radio show, which reaches an estimated 1.5 million U.S. listeners daily. Schneeberger said Dobson will appear as an occasional guest.
• The radio program was a key vehicle for Dobson's message, and replacing him could prove difficult, said Corwin Smidt, executive director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
• "It's going to be hard to replace him given his centrality," Smidt said. "That doesn't mean Focus on the Family and its radio program can't continue to be important. It suggests a challenge before them."
• Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

19 more annotations...

• THE EVIL IN OUR MIDST
• ["We have met the enemy, and he is us."]
• By: S.R. Shearer
    April 12, 2009

• "The wicked are wicked no doubt, and they go astray   and they fall and they come to their own deserts; but   who can tell the mischief the virtuous do?"

     

  - William Thackery

• DICK CHENEY AS THE "BLOODY MONK"  

   

  "Killing for the joy of it is   wrong, but killing because it is necessary to fight   against an anti-Christ system ... is not only right,   but the duty of every Christian."

   

  The words of one Death Squad Member   in Honduras
• INTRODUCTION
• The great conceit of liberalism - of the Left - is its refusal   to concede reality to powers that are greater than man. The   effort by the Left to discount these powers is so absurd that   it borders on the moronic.
• At best, it's innocence masquerading   as "worldliness;" at worst, it's folly pretending to be wisdom   (Romans 1:22).
• The fact of the matter is, however, powers far   greater than man control his destiny - and though unseen and   little suspected by the rulers of the earth, there are "principalities,"   "powers," and "world-rulers of darkness" who are really in charge   of this world and who direct the affairs of man - and with whom,   as Paul tells us, we have to wage a fearful warfare:
• "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against   principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the   darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high   (i.e., heavenly) places." (Ephesians 6:12)
• THE LEFT BATTLES AGAINST PHANTOMS
    IT CANNOT BY ANY MEANS SEE
• The Left, which fails to recognize this fact, but which - nonetheless   - fancies itself an exposer of the "flesh and blood" wickedness   in others, wields little more than a wooden sword against what   are really only shadows.
• The Left can speak only of "good"   and "evil," but not of the dragons beyond those comfortable   conceits.
• It battles against phantoms it cannot by any means   see, and exposes nothing more than the secondhand sins of its   flesh and blood adversaries, while never coming to grips with   the real powers which stand behind that flesh and blood.
• The words, "JURIS PRAECEPTA SUNT HAEC: HONESTE VIVERE   ALTERUM NON LAEDERE SUM CUIQUE TRIBURE" (These are the   precepts of law: to live honestly, to harm no one, and to give   each his due) are the watchwords by which these left-wing agnostics   attempt to order their lives and the lives of other men.
• They   were written by the third-century Roman jurist Ulpian - like   them, an agnostic - and their presence above the entrances of   countless court buildings throughout the Western World attests   to the attempt by such men to believe that they are in charge   - that they control their own destiny; that they rule over the   forces of "good" and "evil" in this world.
• But the fate of Ulpian, who gave these words to Rome, speaks   more to the reality: Ulpian was ultimately slain in the imperial   palace beneath the light of day by the very unseen forces of   evil he had denied in life - forces which proved far more evil,   far more malignant, far more powerful, and much more deeply   set in stone than his words could ever be.
• WHO CAN TELL THE MISCHIEF
    THE VIRTUOUS DO
• But while the Left holds to its conceits, the conceits of the   Right are far more malignant and much more dangerous.
• Unlike   the Left, the Right does not deny the reality of the supernatural;   what it does is much worse: it believes that it can manipulate   these forces - that they are on its side, like "little angels."

• Speaking of this monumental conceit, William Thackery said:

   

   

  "The wicked [which the Right supposes is the Left] are wicked   no doubt, and they go astray and they fall and they come to   their own deserts; but who can tell the mischief the virtuous   [i.e., those on the Right] do?"
• And nowhere is this more true than in America.
• The American   Right has a messianic image of itself and America, and the extent   to which it portrays America's history to the world as a succession   of righteous acts is a clear testimony to this fact.
• GOD   AND AMERICA! CHURCH AND STATE! - these are the watchwords   of the Right.

• Speaking concerning this supposed link between   the Almighty and the United States, Senator Beveridge (1862   - 1927) once said,

   

   

  "We will not repudiate our duty ... WE WILL NOT RENOUNCE   OUR PART IN THE MISSION OF OUR ... [PEOPLE] AS THE TRUSTEE   UNDER GOD, OF THE CIVILIZATION OF THE WORLD; we will move   forward to our work ... with gratitude ... and thanksgiving   to Almighty God that HE HAS MARKED US AS HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE   HENCEFORTH TO LEAD IN THE REGENERATION OF THE WORLD ..."
• Beveridge's belief that America was, in its origins, institutions,   history, and international conduct, God's "Chosen Nation" is   something few in the Right doubt;

• to which we would reply with   Robert Burns,

   

   

  "Would that some power the gift to give us, to see ourselves   as others see us."
• And how do others see us? Maybe Simon Bolivar, the great liberator   of South America - reacting to the arrogance of the Monroe Doctrine   -

• said it best when he wrote:

   

   

  "The United States appears to be destined by Providence to   PLAGUE us with misery In the name of liberty."
• AMERICANS SEE PROOF OF THEIR "DIVINE"
    CALLING IN THE MILITARY POWER THEY WIELD
• Michael Parenti has written,
• "A nation which has spent the better portion of its history   captivated by its own Chosen People mythology will have little   difficulty in believing it is preeminently qualified to uplift   mankind. The salvation impulse is compounded when national   virtue is wedded to national power, for Americans begin to   see proof of their divine calling in the very power which   enables them to thrust themselves upon others."
• Is it God's or does it belong   to some other supernatural agency? That's the question -
• But what exactly is this "divine power" to which America and the   Right feel themselves connected?

• question,   however, that should not be all that difficult to answer in light   of John 18:36:

   

   

  "Jesus answered, My kingdom is NOT of this   world ..."
• But if Christ's kingdom is not of this world, then to whose   supernatural kingdom and power is America (and the Religious   Right) really attached? That's the question!
• And, make no mistake about it! - It is a question full of import   insofar as American Christians are concerned.

• Well did Jesus   say of the this kind of people:

   

   

  "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

   

  "And changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness   of an image ... [they made themselves]

   

  "Wherefore God has given them up ...

   

  "For that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie ..."   (Romans 1:22-25)
• And that is exactly what American Christians have done: Made   God over in their own image; made Him to appear as they in their   titanic arrogance think He ought to appear.
• EVERY TREE IS KNOWN
    BY ITS OWN FRUIT

• Jesus said:

   

   

  "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; NEITHER   DOTH A CORRUPT TREE BRING FORTH GOOD FRUIT.

   

  "Every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men   do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.

   

  "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth   forth that which is good; and AN EVIL MAN OUT OF THE EVIL   TREASURE OF HIS HEART BRINGETH FORTH THAT WHICH IS EVIL:   for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (Luke   6:43-45)

• And again He said:

   

   

  "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather   grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

   

  "Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but THE   CORRUPT TREE BRINGETH FORTH EVIL FRUIT.

   

  "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, NEITHER CAN   A CORRUPT TREE BRING FORTH GOOD FRUIT.

   

  "Every   tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and   cast into the fire.

   

  "THEREFORE BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM." (Matthew   7:16-20)
• IF THAT'S THE CASE ...
• If that's the case, then what Seymour Hersh discovered about   the "goings-on" of Dick Cheney in the White House over the last   eight years should send shivers down the spines of all those   American Christians who have tied themselves to the machinations   of those who are connected to America's right-wing - which is   about every evangelical Christian in the country.
• Hersh reports that Cheney had his own SS-style political assassination   unit that reported directly to him -
• AND WHEN ONE LOOKS CLOSELY   AT THIS PARTICULAR UNIT, ONE CANNOT HELP BUT BE SHOCKED BY THE   PERVASIVE PRESENCE OF CHRISTIANS IN IT
• (and we speak here   of Task Force 121 and General Boykin, which is precisely the   unit Hersh pointed at in his report of March 11, 2009).
• Of course it is if one takes seriously the   words of Christ (see above - Matthew 7:16-20 and Luke 6:43-45),
• unless one is prepared to say that God sanctions the BRUTALITY   and BLOOD-LETTING in which Task Force 121 is involved.   Yes, "A tree is known by its fruit.")
• ONE IS REMINDED   OF
    THE WORDS OF HITLER
• And make no mistake about it, the presence of so many Christians   in this BLOODY business is shocking.
• Sadly, however, it is not the first time that Christians have   become involved in such activity;
• this is precisely what happened   in Germany more than seventy years ago when Hitler seized power   there - promising to "clean things up" in the interest of the   "Prince of Peace."

• To that end, in a speech in Stuttgart on   February 16, 1933, Hitler said:

   

   

  "Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ...   I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want   to destroy Christianity ... We want to fill our culture again   with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the   recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater,   and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison   of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture   as a result of liberal excess during the past ... [few] years."
• Then - in his first radio address to the German people after coming   to power - he promised:
• "The national government ... will maintain and defend   the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It   will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis   of our collective morality."
• CONCERNING THIS POLITICAL
    ASSASSINATION UNIT ...

• Speaking concerning America's new political assassination unit   (Cheney's equivalent to Hitler's Gestapo), Hersh told a University   of Minnesota audience last month,

   

   

  "After 9/11, I haven't written about this yet, but the Central   Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities   against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without   any legal authority for it. They haven't been called on it   yet."
• Hersh then went on to describe how the Joint Special Operations   Command was (is) America's "Murder Inc." charged with carrying   out political assassinations.

• He went on to say:

   

   

   

         

  Hersh

    "It [i.e., the Joint Special Operations Command] is a special   wing of our 'special operations community' that is set up independently.   They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days,   they reported directly to the Cheney office ... Congress has   no oversight of it."
• NOTE: Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh (born April   8, 1937) is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative   journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a   regular contributor to The New Yorker Magazine on   military and security matters. His work first gained worldwide   recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and   its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received   the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His   2004 reports on the U.S. military's mistreatment of detainees   at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.
• The revelation that Cheney had his own private   assassination unit - one that is not too far removed in kind   from Hitler's notorious SA (Sturmabteilung), the much   feared para-military wing of the Nazi party which was used to   beat, torture and kill political opponents of the Nazis in 1930's   Germany, and the Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel), which was   later used in the war to carry out executions and war crimes   - is shocking.
• SWEEPING   ASIDE ALL
    LEGAL PROHIBITIONS
• Tellingly, like America is doing today, German courts quickly   swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial   killings to demonstrate their loyalty to Hitler.
• The Waffen   SS was deemed beyond prosecution despite the fact that it was   blatantly involved in egregious and ongoing war crimes, as well   as domestic assassinations.
• This is exactly the "legal territory"   that the Joint Special Operations Command is described as "inhabiting."

•   Hersh said:

   

   

  "It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's   been going on and on and on. Under President Bush's authority,   they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador   or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and   executing them and leaving. That's been going on in the name   of all of us."
• THE "SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND"
    DID NOT APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR
• The "Special Operation's Command," however, did not appear out   of thin air.
• There is a history that stands behind its "sudden   appearance" - A HISTORY THAT DEEPLY INVOLVES THE AMERICAN CHRISTIAN   COMMUNITY AND ITS FILTHY ENTANGLEMENT WITH AMERICA'S INTELLIGENCE   AGENCIES and the ghastly deeds with which these agencies are   entwined.
• [Please see our article, "The   American Empire: The Corporate   / Pentagon / CIA / Missionary Archipelago."]
• We   say "ghastly" because this relationship originated out   of the same devilish milieu of squalid forces that swirled and   spun around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy;
• the same aloof, clandestine forces from which the 1976 House   and Senate Select Committee - after uncovering the fact that   there had indeed been a "CONSPIRACY" surrounding the   murder of JFK - drew back in fear, refusing to press the matter   farther out of DREAD concerning what they might discover.
• [Please see our article, "The Men   Who Gathered Themselves Together at Clint Murchison's Dallas   Home Forty-Five Years Ago."]
• Most members of the Committee suspected the CIA was responsible,   as evidenced by the words of Democratic Representative Don Edwards   of California -
• a man not much given to conspiracy theories   and who actually chaired the 1976 House committee hearings on   the veracity of the Warren Commission Report, and a former FBI   agent himself - who said:
• "There's not much question (anymore) that ... the CIA   is somewhere behind this cover-up. I hate to think what it   is they are covering up - or who they are covering up for."
• NOTE: And, as if to confirm everyone's worst   fears, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI at the time   of the assassination, was reported to have said many years   later to a close colleague:
• "If I told you what I really know [about the JFK   assassination], it would be very dangerous to this country.   Our whole political system could be disrupted."
• As a result of all this, there was a growing fear by many   committee members that the investigation, if left to find its   own end, would lead to a very "bad" result:
• The committee members   began to sense that should JFK's killers be revealed for whom   they actually were and what they had really done, the rage that   such revelations would produce against America's foreign policy,   intelligence and political establishments among the "masses"   would spell disaster for the American political (and even the   American economic) system.
• [Please see our article, "Conspiracy   Theories."]
• The truth was, the committee had begun to accumulate a good   deal of evidence that seemed to suggest who the real ringleaders   (the killers on the ground) had been;
• specifically, David Atlee   Phillips and a cabal of "agents" consisting of some of the CIA's   most lethal operatives whose careers were profoundly entwined   with the history of agency assassination plots -
• from top echelon   officers such as Richard Helms to E. Howard Hunt, and from Ted   Schackley to the Agency's Mob liaison William Harvey.
• All these   men - everyone of them - had ice in their veins for blood; and   they were UTTERLY convinced of the righteousness of their   cause.
• From ghoules   and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that   go "bump in the night" - GOOD LORD PRESERVE US!
•                    

  The CIA's Special Operations Cabal   that was probably responsible for the assassination   of JFK: From left to right starting at the top: Richard   Helms, E. Howard Hunt, William Harvey, Ted Schackley,   David Atlee Phillips (AKA Maurice Bishop) Thomas Davis,   Christian David and Lucian Sarti.
• Please see the following   video on
    Phillips (AKA Bishop)
• And not only that, evidence was beginning to surface which   indicated to whom these ringleaders actually answered, and to   whom they were connected in the larger society; specifically,   to various high-ranking elements in right-wing political and   industrial circles -
• ELEMENTS WHICH WERE DRAGGED OUT OF THE   SHADOWS AND "EXPOSED" FOR THE FIRST TIME DURING THE IRAN   / CONTRA HEARINGS
• (i.e., those business and political   figures connected to Oliver North's efforts to circumvent Congressional   restrictions on providing military assistance to the Contra   War effort during the Reagan years - the same elements which   supported out of their own not inconsiderable largesse the continuation   of the war despite those restrictions).
• Please see the following   video on the shadowy forces behind the Iran / Contra
• The IRAN / CONTRA   hearings were important because they revealed for the   first time the existence of a "government within a government"
    in the United States.
• Finally - and what is worst of all - the Iran / Contra hearings   exposed the presence of two hitherto unknown entities that were   attached to America's "government within a government" that   no one had suspected prior to the hearings:

• The presence of   -

   
   
  1.  

     The Evangelical Christian Community and the conservative   wing of the Catholic Church (together with the Moonies   and the Mormon religious communities) and,

      
   
  2.  

     The Conservative Jewish Community - both in the   United States and Israel.

  • Hmmm..sounds like some of Twitter's "TCOT" members
  Add Sticky Note
• THE PRESENCE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN
    AMERICA'S GOVERNMENT WITHIN A GOVERNMENT
• Regarding the American Christian community, what the Iran   / Contra hearings did was to reveal for the first time the presence   - on a truly MASSIVE scale - of the American Christian   community in America's "government within a government."
• This   revelation became clear when Joseph Coors was called as a witness   at the hearing.
• Coors was one of the founders of the CNP (the Council on National   Policy), an elite coordinating agency put together by Tim LaHaye,   Pat Robertson, Joseph Coors and Nelson Bunker Hunt as a means   of synchronizing the activities of the Economic Right and the   Religious Right with America's "government within a government."
•    

  Joseph Coors
• PAT ROBERTSON AND
    THE DEATH SQUADS

• Some of the many religious-right   leaders associated with the CNP.

   

  From left to right beginning at the   top:

   

  Lou Sheldon, James Robison, Howard   Ahmanson, R.J. Rushdoony, John Whitehead, Sarah Palin,   Tim LaHaye, Phyllis Schafley, Pat Robertson, John Ankerberg,   Bob Jones III, David Breese, Chuck Missler, Sam Moore.

     
• Moreover, the extent to which the CNP managed to coordinate the   activities of these three entities (see above) is revealed in   the fact that this coordination reached far beyond the mundane   and touched upon the Contra Wars and the death squads - death   squads that were the precursors of Task Force 121.
• Take for example,   how deeply the CNP managed to involve Pat Robertson in these bloody   conflicts:
• In the Spring of 1984 Pat Robertson and CBN reporter   Norm Mintle traveled to El Salvador where they met with the late   Roberto D'Aubuisson. Following the trip, the "700 Club"   aired four 20-30 minute segments on El Salvador, the major theme   being that D'Aubuisson was a "very nice fellow"   who was being maligned by the "biased liberalism" of   Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report.
• D' Aubuisson was   considered to be the most notorious torturer and Death Squad   leader in El Salvador; he was described by Robert White, former   U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, as a "pathological killer,"   and was widely known as "Major Soplete" (i.e., "Major   Blowtorch").
• D'Aubuisson - a very nice fellow? Hardly!
• [Please see our article, "The   Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God through Terror,   Torture and Death."]
• How is it possible that Robertson could have described him   as "a very nice fellow?" - but that's the kind of   "purposeful blindness" which has become altogether   too much the hallmark of those evangelicals who have gotten   mixed up in the kind of DECEIT that marks such partnerships.

• Sir Walter Scott said it best when he wrote:

   

   

  "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to   DECEIVE!" (Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17).

   

           

  Robertson and D'Aubuisson
• When confronted with the facts concerning those with whom they   have allied themselves, evangelical leaders such as Robertson   don't bother confronting the plain truth of the matter, but   with a wave of their hand they simply lie and dismiss the allegations   outright.
• Truly it can be said of these Christians: "Having   ears to hear, they hear not, and eyes to see, they see not!"   (Mark 8:18)
• NOTE:   AND ONE SHOULD MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, THE PEOPLE WITH   WHOM THE EVANGELICAL COMMUNITY HAS MADE COMMON CAUSE IN   THE CNP ARE PUTRID, SMALL-MINDED, SELFISH MEN.
• Take   Richard Shoff, for example, owner of Lincoln Log Homes in   North Carolina; Schoff is a former Ku Klux Klan leader in   Indiana.
• Then there's Jay Parker and John McGoff, both involved   in trying to prop up the extreme racial policies of the   former South African government (again, belying any avowal   that the CNP might make regarding God's love for all mankind,   not just simply the white race.)
• [Please see our article,   "Racism and Right-Wing Christianity."]
• Then there's Reed Larson of the National Right to Work   Committee (NRTWC) and Don McAlvany, a contributing editor   to the John Birch Society's weekly, New American;
• McAlvany once made a statement suggesting that someone might   want to kill Desmond Tutu; he quickly retracted the statement,   but - (?)
• That   people who call themselves Christian can tolerate ties which   so clearly connect them to fascists, anti-Semites and racists   does not say much for the brand of Christianity they represent.
• Exchanging a situation in this country that is dominated   by "secular humanists" for one that is dominated   by anti-Semites, fascists and racists is akin to jumping   from the frying pan into the fire.
• It is no accident that   these are precisely the same three groups which have historically   fostered a belief in conspiracism - specifically, the Illuminist   Myth, each for its own reasons: the business community as   a means of defense against unionism, the Religious Right   as a defense against "atheistic socialism," and   the Political Right against "one-world universalism."
• [Please see our article, "Pat   Robertson, Illuminism and the New World Order."]
• THE SAD PRESENCE OF ISRAEL AS A LACKEY IN
    AMERICA'S "GOVERNMENT WITHIN A GOVERNMENT"
• Also - as we indicated above - in addition to the presence   of the conservative Christian community in America's "government   within a government," a second hitherto little suspected entity   surfaced during the Iran / Contra Hearings: the conservative   Jewish community both in America and in Israel.
• The presence   of this community manifested itself as the Committee's investigation   began turning up evidence regarding Israel's secret involvement   in the swap of money and guns that was being manipulated between   America and Iran:
• Israel was exposed as a sleazy "go-between"   insofar as Iran and the United States were concerned;
• NOT   ONLY THAT, THEY WERE EXPOSED FOR BEING HEAVILY INVOLVED WITH   ORGANIZATIONS INTIMATELY CONNECTED TO AMERICA'S BLOODY CONTRA   WARS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 

• Reacting to Israel's exposure as a participant in these wars,   Jewish writer Y. Karny asked the obvious question,

   

   

  "What vital interest does Israel have in this area of the   world? - She has NO vital interest there at all!"
• Nonetheless, there Israel could be found - up to her neck in   the blood of "innocents" in Central America.
• Writing   concerning Israel's involvement in these shameful wars, Karny   wrote in Yediot Aharonot with tears in his eyes (Jerusalem;   October, 1984):
• "Today, one would be hard pressed to find five countries   in the world which support the [dictatorial, blood-thirsty]   Salvadoran regime [in Central America]. The United States   under Ronald Reagan is at the head of the list of supporters.
• In this 'honorable' company, one can find Guatemala, a huge   concentration camp masquerading as a state [under the headship   of Rios Montt (a devil masquerading as a Christian)]; and   - sadly - ONE CAN ALSO FIND THE STATE OF ISRAEL."
• [Please see our article, "Mystery,   Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots."]
• It was plain to Karny: Israel had been reduced to the status   of a household slave (a "bootlicker," a "puppet") in the service   of the American New World Order System.
• A "MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING"
• And Karny wasn't the only one in Israel who took note of what   was going on.  There was also Dr. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, an Israeli   professor of psychology at Haifa University;
• he confirmed the   fact that Israel's involvement in the Contra Wars was no "happen   chance" coincidence. He traced the origins of Israel's involvement   in these unjust and blood-drenched wars back to a "MEMORANDUM   OF UNDERSTANDING" signed between the United States and   Israel "under cover of darkness" in November, 1981.
• It was an agreement that bound Israel as an American proxy "OUTSIDE   THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN ZONE;"
• one that made Israel a   "full" partner (really, a puppet) in America's gruesome   wars to extend its New World Order System into areas of the world   where Israel had no real interests other than to ingratiate herself   to her American masters;
• in the 1980s, that meant participation   in the Contra Wars in Central America.
• Beit-Hallahmi wrote   in disgust:
• "In Israel the United States has found a more than willing   PROXY. Indeed, in some cases the initiative for Israeli   involvement in third world 'troublespots' has come from Israel   and not the United States.
• This was the case in April 1983,   when the director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry,   David Kimche, arrived in Washington with a grand plan for   an Israeli 'assistance program' in Africa, Asia and Latin   America, financed by the United States.
• From Israel's point   of view such a plan makes much sense: it gains Israel contacts   in the third world, and MAKES HER A MORE INDISPENSABLE   ALLY FOR THE UNITED STATES."
• Beit-Hallahmi went on to elaborate:
• "Israel's involvement in Central America has been a   collaborative venture with the United States ... Part 1 of   this memorandum [see above] deals with military cooperation   between the United States and Israel in areas 'OUTSIDE   THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN ZONE'; the 3rd part called for   arms sales to 'third' parties."
• [Please see B. Bahbah,   "Israelis and Central America," Chicago Tribune, June   21, 1983; see also . P. Taubman, "Israel Said To Aid Latin   Aims of U.S.," The New York Times, July 21, 1983.]
• Beit-Hallahmi continues:
• "A meeting between the Israeli ambassador in Washington,   Meir Rosenne, and then Ambassador-at-Large Vernon Walters is   said to have taken place in early 1984.
• ["Israel and Latin America:   The Second Lebanon War," Smol, June 1984.]
• Walters, former   CIA deputy director and ... [then] U.S. Ambassador to the United   Nations, reportedly asked for greater Israeli involvement in   'defending the free world' on the Central American front, and   Rosenne is said to have concurred. Israel's role in Central   America ... [was] indeed crucial for the United States, which   ... [could not] offer direct and open military aid to states   like Guatemala, because of those countries' blatant human rights   violations.
• BUT ISRAEL CAN AND DOES OFFER SUCH AID, AS IT   DOES IN OTHER REGIONS OF THE WORLD WHERE THE UNITED STATES CANNOT   OPERATE DIRECTLY, e.g., IN RHODESIA [now Zimbabwe] AND   SOUTH AFRICA ..."
• [Please see our article, "The   Catholic / Evangelical Rapprochement."]
• That's pretty heavy involvement; indeed, it's what one calls   "being a good toady" - someone who not only is willing   to do America's dirty work for her, but is actually EAGER   to do it
• The United States couldn't have been more delighted,   and it soon followed up on the Israeli suggestion.
• The reality of what Beit-Hallahmi and Karny were writing about   in the early 1980s was made plain as time passed by the growing   - and, eventually - ubiquitous presence of Israeli "agents"   and "military advisors" in the death squad activity being carried   on in Central America
• under the auspices of "Christian" organizations   such as the Institution on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and   its sister organizations, the "Committee for the Free World,"   "Prodemca" and the "Friends of the Democratic   Center in Central America" -
• all of them, right-wing organizations   that didn't blink an eye in involving themselves with the death   squads associated with the CIA.
• THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE
    AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
• And we speak here not only of the presence of Israeli "agents"   and ""military advisors," but also of very prominent members   of the American Jewish community.
• For example, take the presence   of Jews in the Committee for the Free World (CFW); the CFW,   ostensibly a "Christian" organization, was (is) saturated with   Jewish members. 
• Indeed, its first executive director was an   American Jew, Midge Decter. Decter is married to Norman   Podhoretz, the "guiding light" behind the conservative Jewish   magazine, Commentary.
• The CFW began with funding from   individuals and ultra-conservative foundations, all deeply   associated with the promotion of "Christian worldviews:
• " the   Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Coors Foundation   and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
• [Please see our article,   "Richard Mellon Scaife:   The Evil that Money Can Do;"   please also see "The Rutherford   Institute and R.J. Rushdoony."]
• The CFW's leading members are: Michael Ledeen who was   involved with Col. Oliver North in the Iran-Contra affair.   Ledeen became an editor at the Center for Strategic and International   Studies in the late 1970s.
• He later joined the Reagan administration   where he served as an adviser to North on the National Security   Council and was on the planning group that led to the creation   of the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy.
• Then there   is Richard Perle who has been associated with the infamous   Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). Perle went on to join   the Reagan administration as Asst Sec of Defense for Intl Security   Policy.
• There is also Richard V. Allen who was a National   Security Adviser to President Reagan.
• Another important figure   is Richard Pipes, also a member of the CPD. He too served   on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
• There's also Elliott Abrams, the son-in-law of Midge   Decter; he was deeply implicated in all aspects of the Iran-Contra   Affair and was also DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN DEATH SQUAD ACTIVITY   IN CENTRAL AMERICA IN THE 1980s.
• Finally, there are the   following: Roy Godson who served as the U.S. representative   to the Intl Youth Year conference, an event funded by the National   Endowment for Democracy;
• Lewis Tambs who was a member   of the ultra-right World Anti-Communist League (a Moonie "front"   operation), he served as ambassador to Costa Rica until 1986;
• Ray Cline who was a deputy director   of the CIA from 1964 through 1967;
• William Simon who was Secretary of the Treasury under   President Richard Nixon;
• and Jeane Kirkpatrick   who served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United   Nations during the Reagan administration.
• [Please see our article,   "The Neo-Conservatives."]
• Of these thirteen members, eight were American Jews, which   gives some idea of their pervasive presence in the right-wing   matrix.

• From left to right starting at top:
    Eliot Abrams (J), Daniel Pipes (J), Richard Allen (C),   Richard Perle (J), Lewis Tambs (C), Oliver North (C),   Norman Podhoretz (J), Michael Ledeen (J), Midge Deckter   (J), the late Jeane Kirkpatrick (C), Roy Godson (C),   William Simon (J), Ray Cline (C)

     
• Very obviously, and very SADLY - and we mean   this with all our heart - the CFW was saturated with conservative   Jews, the presence of whom could not help but add to the growing   "INFAMY" in the so-called "Third World" not only of Israeli   Jews, but American Jews as well.
• After all, only a blind man   could miss their overwhelming presence in those American institutions   that were most responsible for the misery of the poor throughout   the length and breath of the American New World Order System.
• A PRECURSOR TO ISRAEL'S
    "AGREEMENT WITH HELL"
• ALL THIS - OF COURSE - MUST BE VIEWED AS A PRECURSOR TO   ISRAEL'S PEOPHESIED DEFENSE PACT WITH "BABYLON THE GREAT" (i.e.,   the United States):

• "Wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, ye ... men that   rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

   

  "Because ye have said, We have made a COVENANT WITH   DEATH, AND WITH HELL (Prophetic Babylon) are we at agreement;   when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall   not come unto us ...

   

  "(But) ... your COVENANT WITH DEATH shall be   disannulled, and your AGREEMENT WITH HELL shall not   stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then   ye shall be trodden down by it." (Isaiah 28:14-15, 18)
• [Please see Part 6 of Chapter XV of the New Antipas   Papers, "Israel's   Agreement with Hell."] 
• PRACTICING PHOENIX IN IRAQ
• Getting back to the death squads with which all these groups   were involved, investigative journalist David Cole writes that   Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, the top counterinsurgency adviser   to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, was reported to have said that   the U.S. has been "practicing in Iraq the Phoenix Program it   developed in Vietnam."
• He was alluding to the notorious Vietnam-era   CIA operation that provoked a worldwide uproar because of the   detention, torture and execution of thousands of Vietnamese.

• From left to right: high-ranking   civilian members of Phoenix (one of whom is David Morales   - implicated in the JFK assassination). Phoenix members   questioning a prisoner hanging upside down; afterwards,   such prisoners were usually killed. Phoenix military   member directing operations.

         
• Phoenix was a totally illegal program   that violated the rules of war. It cost millions of   dollars. The estimate of those killed as a result of   the Phoenix Program is about 76,000.
• The mainstream media never reported on Kilcullen's statement,   perhaps because Kilcullen's  explosive terminology has been   scrubbed clean from all army statements since he first made   mention of "Phoenix in Iraq."
• NOTE: Cole says that Phoenix was first referred   to in connection with Iraq in a forty-eight-page strategy   paper, "Countering Global Insurgency" published   in the obscure Small Wars Journal of September-November   2004.
• In his 2004 article, Kilcullen describes the Vietnam   Phoenix program as "unfairly maligned" and "highly   effective."
• Dismissing CIA sponsorship and torture   allegations as "popular mythology," Kilcullen   calls Phoenix a misunderstood "civilian aid and development   program" that was supported by "pacification"   operations to disrupt the Vietcong, whose infrastructure   ruled vast swaths of rural South Vietnam.
• Cole reports, however, that Phoenix was far from an "aid   and development" program.
• To achieve deniability, the   CIA trained and transferred operational authority to the   South Vietnamese national police, who tortured suspects   indiscriminately.
• CIA officer William Colby, founder of   the program, told a Congressional committee in 1971 that   the Phoenix operation had killed 20,587 Vietcong suspects   in two year (most historians put the figure at around 76,000).
• An official Pentagon evaluation in 1968 found that "the   truncheon and electric shock method of interrogation was   in widespread use, with almost all [US] advisors admitting   to have witnessed instances of the use of these methods   ...
• A Naval Institute   historian later found that "the large majority of South   Vietnamese interrogators tortured some or all of the communist   prisoners in their care" as well as Vietnamese suspected   of collaboration with the Vietcong.
• Cole states that evidence continues to mount that the same   kind of torture that was practiced in Vietnam is now being   practiced in Iraq.
• One of Petraeus's top associates, Col.   Theodore Westhusing, committed suicide in June 2005, leaving   a note saying, "I cannot support a mission that leads   to corruption, human rights abuses and liars."
• The Jones   Commission reported to Congress last year that the Iraqi national   police are "highly sectarian," almost entirely Shi'a,   and should be disbanded.
• The New York Times has reported   that there are as many as ten secret prisons under the Interior   Ministry in Baghdad.
•    

  Westhusing - who committed   suicide after leaving a note saying that he had been   corrupted by his activities.
• The Los Angeles Times has described   the same ministry, funded and advised by Americans, as responsible   for torture and ethnic cleansing.
• A BBC reporter in 2006 showed   footage of tortured civilians and said "it's all happening   under the eyes of US commanders who seem unwilling or unable   to intervene."
• In a July 2007 report to Congress, even   the Bush Administration acknowledged that "target lists,"   emanating from the highest levels of the Iraqi regime, contain   the names of Iraqis that are suspected of sympathizing with   the insurgency.
• THE JOINT SERVICES SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
• Kilcullen went on to advocate the use of a "Global Phoenix   Program" by the United States, not only in Iraq but throughout   the world; A "global Phoenix program," he wrote, would   provide a starting point for dismantling the worldwide jihadist   infrastructure today.
• IT IS, OF COURSE, PRECISELY FOR THIS PURPOSE THAT CHENEY'S   "JOINT SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND" WAS ORGANIZED.

• Cole went on to say that the U.S. has been using some of this   country's "best and brightest" in this effort.

               

  The "best and the brightest"   - students flocking to join the CIA; not only men, but   women as well. [The picture here is of Wellesley]
• He says that the history of university-based counterinsurgency   operatives stretches back to a Michigan State University Vietnam   project in the 1960s, which involved covert CIA officers training   and arming South Vietnamese police.
• Stanley Sheinbaum, for decades   a respected progressive leader and fundraiser, coordinated the   MSU project and later, in disgust, broke the story to Ramparts   Magazine (April 1966). 
• And so it is that nearly fifty   years later, Gen. Petraeus is still recruiting academic anthropologists   and systems theorists.
• Among them are professors at Harvard's   Carr Center, which formally collaborated with him in writing   the current Army and Marines' war-fighting manuals.
• According   to a 2005 New Yorker report, American psychologists and   psychiatrists are enlisted in Behavioral Science Consultation   Teams to design strategies to "exploit the physical and   mental vulnerabilities of detainees."
• Anthropologists are   recruited to study tribal cultural patterns in what Kilcullen   calls "armed social science." All this kind   of takes the "glow" off Petraeus.
• THE CONTINUING CHRISTIAN IMPRINT ON
    THE JOINT SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

• The great Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote:

   

   

  "To do evil a human being must first of all believe   that what he's doing is good ... instead of bad in his own   and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses   but will receive praise and honors."
• It's perhaps for this reason that one finds the imprint of   "Christians" stamped so deeply into the fabric of Cheney's Joint   Special Operations Command.
• Take, for example, the ubiquitous   presence of "Christians" in "Task Force 121," the Joint Special   Operations Command's "action arm" in Iraq. 
• Journalist Seymour   Hersh (New Yorker, Dec. 15) reports that -
• "Task Force 121 is a rapid-deployment assassination unit   built out of elite Special Operations forces from the Army,   Navy and Air Force. The death squads have CIA officers officially   'attached', and come with a large accompanying 'conventional   force' to seal off areas while the killing goes down.
• The unit is patterned   on the notorious 'Operation Phoenix' where CIA death squads   murdered and tortured tens of thousands of people to 'neutralize   the infrastructure' of South Vietnam's National Liberation   Front."
• Operations   are already reported in Iraq and Syria.
• NOTE: It's interesting to note here that Hersh   also confirmed the presence of Israelis in "Task Force 121"   - indicating the continuing toady-like relationship that Israel   has with the United States;

• Hersh reported:

   

   

  "According to American and Israeli military and   intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence   units have been working closely with their American counterparts.
• Moreover, Israeli commandos are expected to serve alongside   the Americans when full-field operations begin.
• The U.S.   high command denies Israeli involvement and an Israeli   official told Hersh: 'Both governments have decided at   the highest level that it is in their interest to keep   a low profile on U.S.-Israeli cooperation'."
• GOD'S WAR WARRIOR: LT. GEN. WILLIAM BOYKIN
• Richard Cooper of the Los Angeles Times reports on the   "Christian mindset" of the Joint Special Operations Command; he   points out that it is plainly visible in its commander, Lt. Gen.   William Boykin.
• Boykin is a much-decorated and twice-wounded   veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993   clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black   Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar   to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran   in 1980, Boykin has been in the thick of things.
• Boykin, a member of the super-secret "Delta Force" (a group   that the intelligence agencies refuse to acknowledge one way   or another) is an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared   in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious   group in Oregon two years ago in June to declare that radical   Islamists hated the United States -
• "... because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation   and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy   named Satan."

• Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia,   Boykin told another audience,

   

   

  "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God   was a real God and his was an idol."

   

   

  He went on to say:

   

   

  "We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom   of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin   said last year.
• [Now you must   understand something here; no doubt Boykin is a Christian,   and no doubt he is sincere; but how does one square   the kind of thinking and life-style that he has engaged   in with God's command in Luke 6:27-29 "But I say unto   you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which   hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them   which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth   thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and   him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take   thy coat also." It is, of course, IMPOSSIBLE!
• THE "CHRISTIAN" ROOTS OF AMERICA'S
    INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
• Boykin's   mentor in the intelligence community was Colonel Joseph A. McChristian,   a "holy figure" in the annals of American intelligence.
• Like   Boykin, McChristian was a TRUE BELIEVER.
• As special assistant to the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group   in Greece from 1949 to 1950 (which coincided with the end of   the Greek Civil War), he had seen that Protestant Bibles were   distributed to every Greek soldier fighting the communists.
• McChristian understood the value of religion in America's war   against communism.
• McChristian believed that if soldiers could   be made to think that they were "fighting for God,"   they would be that much more imbued with a "fighting spirit,"   and that much more confident in what they were doing when called   upon to engage in the dirtier, more sordid side of counterinsurgency   activity.
• After all, not everyone is a sadist and a pathological   killer, especially insofar as conscript armies are concerned.
• It's difficult to kill, and if the killers can be convinced   that what they are doing is "KILLING DEMONS"   in the name of God rather than killing innocent human beings,   it makes the job that much easier. It eases the conscience when   one is alone at night.
• McChristian introduced this kind of thinking wherever he went.   He believed in it!
• o McChristian, spreading the Gospel was synonymous with spreading   the American "free enterprise" system and expanding   the financial interests of people like the Rockefellers, the Milbanks,   the Swifts and the Morgans.
• It's no accident or flight of fancy,   therefore, when peasants - in describing the activities of death   squads throughout Latin America - inevitably tell stories of death   squad members praising God, singing hymns, and "speaking   in tongues" as they go about their gruesome business of butchering   people.
• This is what McChristian and people like him believe!   - and this is precisely what makes it possible for death squad   members to also be "members in good standing" in countless   numbers of Protestant evangelical groups throughout Latin America.
• This is why - in following Oliver North and members of his entourage   around the Contra-training camps in the 1980s - one reporter could   describe it as if he had been following a traveling revival.
• LIMONOCHA
• When, in April 1962, McChristian arrived at Limonocha, Ecuador   (the base camp for the Wycliffe Bible Translators), to fight   the demons that were arrayed against the American imperial system,   he arrived with the silver leaf of an American Green Beret Lieutenant   Colonel.
• Actually, that was just a cover; he was in fact a major-general   working in army intelligence as chief of the Western Hemisphere   Division.
• His counterpart in the CIA was Colonel J.C. King who   was intimately associated with the Wycliffe Bible Translators.
• King had gotten Wycliffe heavily involved in the overthrow of   the Arbenz government in Guatemala, which - like Goulert's government   in Brazil - had threatened to nationalize various American business   enterprises there in the early 1950s,
• and which had cost the   lives of thousands and thousands of peasants, many of whom had   been converted to Protestant Christianity through the efforts   of Wycliffe.
• It seems that in instance after   instance when "push came to shove" and the interests   of the Gospel clashed with the interests of Wycliffe's business   backers, the business backers won out.
• [Please see our article on "The   American Empire."]

•  LIMONOCHA

   

  WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATOR'S (SIL)   BASE
    CAMP IN ECUADOR USED BY THE CIA

               
• McChristian was only forty-seven years old when he made Wycliffe's   Limonocha jungle base the unofficial headquarters for his counterinsurgency   activities in the Amazon basin; but there was no mistaking his   mastery of the techniques of counterinsurgency.
• Moreover, he   was well connected to conservative networks, being the son-in-law   of General A. Van Fleet, who had recently violated military   law by publicly challenging President Kennedy's handling of   the Bay of Pigs.
• Van Fleet was then a top counterinsurgency   consultant to Kennedy's army secretary on guerrilla warfare   -
• and there are many who believe that Van Fleet was involved   in some way in the Kennedy assassination.
• BENDING THE RULES FOR CHRIST
• So convinced of his own righteousness and the righteousness of   the cause he served, and so sure that in battling for the "American   free enterprise" system in Latin America, he was helping   to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
• McChristian was not above   helping things along for the "Lord's side" by bending   the rules a little in its advancement.
• For example, when the government   of President Carlos Julio Arosemena of Ecuador began making moves   which McChristian believed would lead Arosemena down the same   road Goulert had taken in Brazil and Arbenz had taken in Guatemala,   he swung CIA assets in the country against Arosemena and provoked   a rebellion at the CIA advised Cuenca garrison.
• When, in answer   to this rebellion, a group of young intellectuals in Quito associated   with the University of Ecuador began training to defend Arosemena,   McChristian sought to link the students to the local Communist   Party.
• He turned Quito upside down looking for evidence, and finding   none, he doctored interrogation reports to the Ecuadorian military   that falsely linked the students to the Communist Party.
• Most   of the students were shot, and Arosemena was so frightened by   what had happened that he quickly caved.
• In doing so, Arosemena   gave into a CIA demand that he launch a "civic action program"   (utilizing death squads) - the first of its kind in America   - which combined $1.5 million in U.S. military assistance with   another $500,000 in AID funds for public works projects.
• McChristian   took this concept to Vietnam later in the decade and turned   it into the Phoenix Program.
• In 1969, Phoenix was re-introduced   into Latin America as a fully developed counterinsurgency program   - AND THIS IS PRECISELY THE LINK BETWEEN THE DEATH SQUADS   IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE EVANGELICAL "CHRISTIAN" COMMUNITY!!
• A STAGGERING THOUGHT
• THINK ABOUT IT!! THE THOUGHT IS STAGGERING! THE CONCEPT   OF THE DEATH SQUAD WAS DEVELOPED BY A MAN WHO OPENLY PROFESSED   CHRISTIANITY THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE AND WAS CLOSELY LINKED TO THE   WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS.
• And people call this Christianity?   God help all of us, for if this is so, we have all surely lost   our way.
• The Wycliffe Bible Translators, however, thought otherwise.   Wycliffe's Donald Johnson said that McChristian was "...   one of the most impressive officers that I have ever met. If   all of our top commanders and diplomats were of his caliber,   we could be proud and there would not be any 'ugly Americans'."
• McChristian's approach to counterinsurgency utilizing Wycliffe   was enthusiastically embraced by everyone at Wycliffe.
• Wycliffe's   Jerry Elder even sent Cam Townsend, the head of Wycliffe, a   clipping from Lima's La Prensa that reported on a conference   between Ecuadorian and Peruvian army commanders on the border.

• Writing from Limonocha, Elder wrote:

   

   

  "The high point was the fact that they should unite   to fight the common enemy, Communism ... I think this is particularly   significant in light of the fact that one of the reasons that   Commander Melger (CIA) went out there was to give a report   to the military on the possibility of our (i.e., Wycliffe)   doing espionage along the border."
• THE IMPLICATIONS HERE ARE CLEAR ...
• The intimate, the long-lasting involvement of people like Boykin,   McChristian and innumerable Christian missionaries in America's   BLOODY effort to expand the limits of the American New   World Order System stinks to high heaven.
• indicates the casual nature   of America's resort to political assassination and murder to   silence its opponents outside the borders of the United States
• - AND FOR AMERICANS TO BELIEVE THAT THIS WICKED PROCLIVITY   TOWARDS ASSASSINATION DOES NOT EXTEND TO AMERICANS THEMSELVES   IS NAÏVE IN THE EXTREME.
• [Please see our articles, "MK-Ultra   and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate," "Conspiracy   Theories" and "The   Utility of Police Brutality in the Elite's War against the Poor."]
• Moreover, the list of "in-house" Americans who have been "killed   off" by the agents of America's "government within a government"   is not confined simply to these well-known cases.
• It extends well   beyond them to men and women of much less prominence who died   under very murky circumstances (alleged suicides, quick acting   cancers, mysterious plane crashes, automobile accidents, etc.)   - all people who opposed elite power in one way or another.
• Paul Wellstone [Please see our article, "Buy   Oil for Your Lamps While There Is Still Time."]
• Mel Carnahan [Please see our article, "Buy   Oil for Your Lamps While There Is Still Time."]
• Hale Boggs [Please see our article, "Buy   Oil for Your Lamps While There Is Still Time."]
• Nick Begich [Please see our article, "Buy   Oil for Your Lamps While There Is Still Time."]
• Gary Webb [Please see our article, "The   Death of Gary Webb."]
• Mae Brussels [Please see our article, "The   Supernatural, America's Intelligence Agencies, the Republican   Elites, Drugs, and Pedophilia."]
• William Colby [Please see our article, "Ashcroft:   Making a List of Dissenters."]
• Judy Bari [Please see our article, "Judi   Bari, Darryl Cherney and Earth First."]
•    

  Brussels
• David Ferrie - Killed to silence him with regard to the   JFK assassination.
• Rose Cheramie - Killed to silence her with regard to the   JFK assassination.
• Mary Meyer - Killed to silence her with regard to the JFK   assassination.
• Frank Olson - Killed to silence him with regard to MK-Ultra.
• Walter Reuther - Killed because he had become too powerful   as a union organizer.
• THE HORROR OF WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY - THE MURDERS,   THE "DISAPPEARANCES," THE IMPRISONMENTS, ETC.  THAT NO ONE WANTS   TO ADMIT EXIST, AND THE GREATER HORROR OF ADMITTING TO THE PARTICIPATION   OF CHRISTIANS IN ALL OF THIS - IS BREATHTAKING.
• IT'S   FOR THIS REASON THAT WE DARE NOT LOOK IN A MIRROR, BECAUSE THE   MONSTER WE SEE LOOKING BACK AT US IS OURSELVES.
• In defense (so to speak) of those Christians who have involved   themselves in these crimes, it must be admitted that the COMPULSION   that propels these men to their evil deeds is exceedingly forceful.   It has to be!

• Again, it isn't without reason that Solzhenitsyn   wrote:

   

   

  "To do evil a human being must first of all believe   that what he's doing is good ... instead of bad in his own   and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses   but will receive praise and honors."
• It, therefore, has to be concluded that the DECEPTION   that is driving this COMPULSION and that has made these   men and women mad (crazy) is a powerful one - AND THAT IS   EXACTLY WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.
• SO YOU THINK YOU CANNOT BE DECEIVED?
    MAYBE EVERYONE ELSE CAN, BUT NOT YOU!
• Jesus said that in the "Last Days" a great deception will take   hold of Christendom; specifically, he said:

• "There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and   shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it   were possible, they shall DECEIVE the very   elect.

   

  "Behold, I have told you before." (Matthew 24:23-25)

   

   

  NOTE: The words, "if it were possible"   are not in the original Greek.
• In other words, there shall arise in the "end of days" many   "false Christs" and "false prophets" all claiming to speak for   Christ insofar as the Kingdom of God is concerned. "Follow me,"   they will say, "and together we will set up the Kingdom of God   on earth."
• That's what "Dominionism" is all about.
• That, of course, is exactly the message of today's American   Church.
• [Please see   our articles, "The God-Men of the   American New World Order System" and "Luciferic   Christianity;" please also see "The   Superman Theology behind the International Feast of Tabernacles."]
• Naturally enough, you say that you know better. That you can   resist the COMPULSION that is driving these men and women.   But, oh, I tell you, you have no idea how POWERFUL that   COMPULSION is! How demanding; how insistent and unrelenting!
• The fact is, it is so seductive and compelling that Jesus warned   us not to allow ourselves to be subjected its SIREN call.   He warned us to get away from it!

• Specifically, He said:

   

   

  "Come out of her [i.e., Babylon], my people, that ye be not   partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."   (Revelation 18:4) [Please see our article, "The   Kingdom of God Is at Hand."]
• THAT'S GOD'S ANSWER insofar as this seduction is concerned!   - Still, very few people take God's command seriously - EVEN   MANY WHO HAVE FOR YEARS BEEN A PART OF THIS MINISTRY.
•   [Please see our book, WHAT   TO DO AS THE END APPROACHES.]
• AN EXCUSE FOR INACTION
• hence to do nothing   is "spiritual" (Christians call it "trusting   in the Lord"), and "to act" betrays a "rashness"   that is not only carnal, but "ungodly" and "untrusting."
• YES! - WE LIVE IN AN "IN-BETWEEN TIME"
• Yes, we are living in an "In-Between" time - a time that God   IN HIS GREAT MERCY has bequeathed to us. I am afraid,   however, that most people - people who should know better -   are not taking advantage of this gift from God, and have instead   fearfully drawn back from the choices before them.
• [Please see   our article, "The In-Between Time"   and "As the Days of Noah Were,   so Shall also the Coming of the Son of Man Be."]