Street preachers rile up Mystic

Interesting issues here:

Last Saturday, one of the preachers, a polite young man from the Victory Bible Baptist Church in Ledyard, 18-year-old Jayson Hill, was issued a $103 ticket by Stonington police, accused of creating a public disturbance.

I was there when police wrote Hill the ticket, and it was a remarkably subdued and, yes, quiet confrontation. Hill and a companion preacher lingered afterwards, still holding big signs suggesting the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.

Hill stopped preaching that afternoon, but he said he would plead not guilty to the ticket, hire a lawyer if necessary and return.

“We have the right to do what we are doing,” said Hill, who lives in Ledyard and works as a construction laborer. “This is America. We have the freedom to do this. We are spreading the Gospel. We are not going to whisper.”

More here at the Day, and here.

A Christian blog worth reading - from an unlikely source

Over the years many Christians have looked down their noses at Charisma magazine. Some complain that its too gossipy, others that it's simply one big advertisement. Although some may consider the magazine an unlikely source to generate a blog worth reading, I continue to be impressed and challenged by the "Fire In My Bones" blog written by author J. Lee Grady, Charisma's editor.

Grady is seemingly on a personal mission to grab the American church by the lapel and slap it. I think he's succeeding. His latest column shares a meeting the late Kenneth Hagin had in 2003 with various preachers in which he attempted to correct their overemphasis and outright false teachings on giving and propsperity:

4. The “hundredfold return” is not a biblical concept. Hagin did the math and figured out that if this bizarre notion were true, “we would have Christians walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars, but quadrillions of dollars!” He rejected the popular teaching that a believer should claim a specific monetary payback rate....

Hagin condemned other hairbrained gimmicks designed to trick audiences into emptying their wallets. He was especially incensed when a preacher told his radio listeners that he would take their prayer requests to Jesus’ empty tomb in Jerusalem and pray over them there—if donors included a special love gift. “What that radio preacher really wanted was more people to send in offerings,” Hagin wrote.

Thanks to the recent resurgence in bizarre donation schemes promoted by American charismatics, the prosperity gospel is back under the nation’s microscope. It’s time to revisit Hagin’s concerns and find a biblical balance.

Hagin told his followers: “Overemphasizing or adding to what the Bible actually teaches invariably does more harm than good.” If the man who pioneered the modern concept of biblical prosperity blew the whistle on his own movement, wouldn’t it make sense for us to listen to his admonition?

In his previous post, Grady had discussed the call to holiness being put forth by noted pastor Larry Stockstill:

Stockstill became alarmed about the anemic condition of American churches in 2006, when he had to step in and help bring discipline to Ted Haggard, the Colorado pastor who was removed as senior leader of New Life Church because of a moral failure. Stockstill offered correction and oversight to Haggard and his family and helped the leaders of New Life pick up the pieces after the scandal. Many observers praised Stockstill for his level-headed leadership and compassionate but strict adherence to biblical principles during the crisis.

What Stockstill learned during that painful process became the basis of a new book, The Remnant: Restoring Integrity to American Ministry. He hopes the message will trigger a movement of holiness and integrity in the American church, which has suffered a long string of embarrassing sexual and financial failures since Haggard’s fall 15 months ago.

“We look like a sleaze bucket in the eyes of the nation,” says the 54-year-old pastor, who has avoided the national spotlight during most of his 33 years in ministry. Once a missionary in Africa, Stockstill has focused most of his ministry on church planting and missions. Bethany has helped start more than 17,000 churches worldwide since 2000.

Stockstill says the level of dysfunction among American ministers concerns him because their unhealthiness is then passed down to their congregations.

This is all a good corrective to some of what's flying at us over the Christian airwaves.

Obama and the Book of Romans

Barack Obama weighs in on the Scriptures:

I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in the hospital or transfer property to each other.

I don't think that it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state.

If people find that controversial, then I would refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think, you know, is in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.

That's my view.

But we can have a respectful disagreement on that.

Here's the obscure passage I think Sen. Obama is referring to:

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. Romans 1:26-27.

Let us know about your Christian event or news quickly!

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How are Christians treated in Egypt?

The double-standard that allows for no minority religious rights in much of the Middle East is beyond belief. In fact, it's a tenet of Islam that non-Muslims should have second-class "dhimmi" status. Watch this video to see the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the recipient of billions of dollars in U. S. aid.

Why people can't tolerate the MSM

I'm not pulling for Gov. Romney, but here's why people have just had enough of the mainstream media, in this case an AP reporter.

Federal lawsuit seeks to overturn Massachusetts homosexual marriage

Rev. John Rankin of the Theological Education Institute has filed a lawsuit in a Federal District Court seeking to overturn the regime of homosexual marriage that was imposed on Massachusetts by its Supreme Judicial Court.

As someone who practiced law for nearly 15 years, I can tell you that his argument is extremely interesting and very fine. In essence, Rankin says that the Massachusetts Judicial Court has destroyed our concept of unalienable rights and thus our system of Constitutional Law by declaring that classes of people possess rights, not individuals. In American law, individuals possess unalienable rights for they have derived them from the Creator.

Goodridge violates the nature of personhood as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment, where the unalienable rights of life, liberty and property are ascribed equally to all persons, as individual persons, and not due to membership in any given group, whether objectively or subjectively defined, whether fixed or malleable in declared nature.

The class of people who would engage in same-sex "marriage" is not even a true class of people, as it is "malleable" or changeable. The result has actually been to destroy the rights of others and create "super rights" before which all others must yield. Thus, while claiming it was upholding rights, it has actually destroyed all rights by making them alienable. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did this without even considering what it was doing with respect to Federal Law and our Federal Constitution. The result is that courts or legislatures can create new rights according to the whims of the season.

Under current federal law (e.g. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), civil rights, congruent with the Fourteenth Amendment, cannot, nor ever have otherwise been assigned to a malleable identity, to subjective choice. Goodridge thus rewrites federal law, and without examining the issue. If such malleability and subjectivity were consistently applied in this context, there would be no boundaries in place to restrict the possibility of consanguineous, polygamous or group marriage. And beyond this context, if applied consistently, malleability of individual and group identity for the sake of perceived government benefit opens up a Pandora’s Box which Balkanizes civil rights.

Notice what Rankin is saying: under the current regime, there is no brake or impediment to a government legalizing incest, polygamy or group marriage. I can't say what success Rev. Rankin will have - in this political climate, probably none apart from a Divine intervention - but I believe he has posed important questions, questions which no one seems to be articulating or which at any rate no one has dared to argue where it might count.

Pray CT site up again

Thanks for your patience!

Pray CT main site temporarily down

For some reason unknown to me, our main site at www.prayct.org is down. I've contacted the host and hopefully we'll be up and running soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to ask your prayers for Harvest Time Church in Greenwich, which is running an ambitious Alpha Course this winter and has over three dozen groups meeting both at the church and in other locations. Pray that people will find new life in God through this outreach.

Watertown Episcopal Church leaves denomination

In his 2007 Annual Report, Rev. Allyn Benedict ripped the modern Episcopal Church to shreds.

Significant news today in Connecticut's religion and culture wars: Christ Church in Watertown has left the Episcopal Church.

It was the last Sunday service at Christ Church. Unable to go "further in a church that continued in a false gospel," the entire congregation, including the rector and church leaders, will sever ties with the national Episcopal Church and reform under a new name: New Hope Anglican Church.

One of the "Connecticut six," the half-dozen churches in the state diocese that disagree with national leadership on departure of scripture, including the appointment of a gay bishop, the congregation will trade its historic building on the town green for a free community room at the Thomaston Savings Bank around the corner.

The Sunday service will be held at the bank, starting Jan. 6, until they find or build another house of worship.

"We need to celebrate today, but we need to recognize there is a dying," the Rev. Allyn Benedict said in his final homily at the church. Reading off an overhead projector, church members sang hymns enthusiastically, clapping and raising hands in acknowledging their faith. They hugged one another, wishing peace.

Read the rest here from the Courant. Channel 8 reports that they will give up the $7 million property.

Merry Christmas from Pray Connecticut

Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2008 from Pray Connecticut!

We will resume publishing in January.

Last minute Christmas gifts

One more week to go to get that special something for that special someone! If you're stuck, here are some suggestions.

BOOKS: The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Bestsellers List, December, 2007:

1. Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life, Tony Dungy

2. 3:16: The Numbers of Hope,Max Lucado

3. 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life, Don Piper with Cecil Murphey

4. Between Sundays, Karen Kingsbury

5. Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance, Beth Moore

6. Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1), Jan Karon

7. Breaking Free Day by Day: A Year of Walking in Liberty, Beth Moore

8. Become a Better You, Joel Osteen

9. Jesus: 90 Days With the One and Only (Personal Reflections), Beth Moore

10. Facing Your Giants: The God Who Made a Miracle Out of David Stands Ready to Make One Out of You, Max Lucado


MUSIC: Praise and Worship Bestsellers, from Amazon's sales reporting

1. All That Is Within Me by MercyMe (Audio CD - 2007)

2. Remedyby David Crowder Band (Audio CD - 2007)

3. The Christmas Sessionsby Mercy Me (Audio CD - 2005)

4. See the Morningby Chris Tomlin (Audio CD - 2006)

5. Portable Soundsby Tobymac (Audio CD - 2007)

6. Coming Up to Breatheby MercyMe (Audio CD - 2006)

7. Open the Eyes of My Heartby Various Artists (Audio CD - 2005)

8. Thirstyby Marvin Sapp (Audio CD - 2007)

9. I Can Only Imagine: Ultimate Power Anthems of the Christian Faith

10. See the Morning (CD/DVD)by Chris Tomlin (Audio CD - 2007) - Special Edition

The demonstrable falsity of Mormonism

I've been having a reasonably civil discussion in a comment thread with a lady who is apparently a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). The recent Mitt Romney stories have threatened to bring what Mormons really believe to the forefront. But American society has so compartmentalized religious belief that it will no longer analyze it rationally. True to form, most Americans either don't care what a person's religious beliefs are (which can in a sense be a good thing) or else say that a thorough inspection of a person's religion is bigotry.

What to do then with a religion which seemingly has no basis at all in historical fact? Does it matter at all that Mormonism purports to reveal (or restore) a lost revelation about God and history for which there is no evidence? The history of North America put forward by Mormons is such a fabrication that it is actually painful to relate it. It is not worthy in this regard to be compared to the historical evidence, say, for Christianity, and for the trustworthiness of the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Witness this excerpt from the Baptist Press:

Hill Cumorah is located in New York, southeast of Rochester. Joseph Smith claimed that when Moroni appeared to him, he was told that Moroni's father, Mormon, buried the gold plates upon which the Book of Mormon was based on the hill Cumorah just before the great final battle there (Mormon 6:6). In the Pearl of Great Price, Smith writes that the day after his second vision, he went to a large hill outside of the village where his family lived (the hill Cumorah) and found the gold plates (endnote 26). This identifies the hill where Smith dug up the plates as the same hill where Mormon buried them and where the great battle took place. In Mormon 6:10-15, it is claimed that hundreds of thousands of people were killed on or near the hill Cumorah during that final battle. It says that "their flesh, and bones, and blood lay upon the face of the earth, being left by the hands of those who slew them to molder upon the land, and to crumble and to return to their mother earth" (Mormon 6:15). In other words, their bodies were left there, unburied.

To help you understand the magnitude of casualties at hill Cumorah, let us consider another major battle. During the Battle of Gettysburg of the American Civil War, 55,000 soldiers were wounded, including 6,000 of them killed on the battlefield and 4,000 more whose wounds were mortal. Eyewitnesses said that there was so much blood from the dead and injured that there were parts of the battlefield that seemed like streams of blood. So many men and horses died that all could not be buried at once and many corpses were left on the battlefield until a few days later when others were hired to do the task.

If 6,000 men died on the battlefield at Gettysburg, what would a battlefield look like with hundreds of thousands dead? Since they were left unburied at hill Cumorah, wouldn't there be some artifacts made of metal and stone? Bullets by the thousands are found at Gettysburg. Nothing, however, has been found at hill Cumorah.

University of Rochester paleontologist and stratigrapher Carl Brett has worked in the Palmyra, N.Y, area where hill Cumorah is located and is familiar with the hill and its geologic conditions. He says that if hundreds of thousands were slaughtered at the hill and not buried, there would still be skeletal remains on the surface today, even after 1,600 years. Scavengers and weather conditions would account for why much is gone, but there would still be quite enough left to look at. Metallic artifacts from weapons and armor would also be easily found (endnote 27). But nothing has ever been found at hill Cumorah.

This is just one of many things that could be cited. Is it wrong to discuss this type of information, or to discuss Mormon teachings about the spirit brotherhood of Jesus and Satan?

Not only is Mormonism not a Christian religion, it also is untrue as a matter of historical fact. We know there was a Pontius Pilate; we know that James the Lord's brother was killed in a certain manner; etc. But there was no battle at the hill Cumorah.

Do you have your "Jesus glasses" on?

If a public high school teacher were to say to his students, "When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can see the truth," you can bet the American Civil Liberties Union and others would say that the teacher was promoting Christianity, that it was a violation of the separation of church and state. And the school administration would probably agree.

But what if a public high school teacher tells his students that "When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth"? Isn't that essentially the same thing? Isn't disparaging a certain religion in a public school classroom just as legally improper as promoting a certain religion?

Interesting stuff regarding a Federal lawsuit against a high school teacher.

Flickr photo by Ben Ostrowsky; some rights reserved.

How can you make sure people leave your church this Christmas?

Sadly, this is an all-too-common example of the rhetoric that drives people from churches. The Rev. Dr. Gary A. Wilburn of New Canaan, Connecticut says:

“When I hear language like, ‘You can’t be saved unless you accept Christ as your personal savior,’ I know that it is usually sincere and heart-felt. But what it most likely means is ‘We are on the inside and you are on the outside. Ours is the only true faith. If you do it our way, you’ll have better access to God than the followers of Buddha or Mohammed, or Mary Baker Eddy, or Charles Darwin, or the ‘inner light,’ or whatever, We welcome everyone into God’s family as long as you’re willing to become like us,” he said.

“That kind of insular theology makes Christianity a religion of exclusion, not inclusion,” Dr. Wilburn added. “A far cry from the universality of which the Bible speaks when it claims, ‘There is one God who is father of all, over all, through all and within all,” and “God is love, and anyone who lives in love, lives in God and God in him [or her].’ As a progressive Christian, I see in Jesus the true image and likeness of God. For me, Jesus is the face of God, the heart of God, the way of God. Jesus shows me what a life full of God looks like. For Christians, Jesus is our access into the realm of God. But at that same time I recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for their access into God’s realm. Because at the end of day, I believe that God is bigger than any of our ideas about God.”

But what if there actually was a revelation from God that told us what God thinks about things and, particularly, about Himself, who He is and what He is like?

At the risk of sounding rude: Attention! People go to Christian churches because they want to worship God through Jesus Christ. When liberal Christian theologians stop castigating people for - well, for believing what it is that Christians believe, they may be able to reverse the trends of departure and demographic winter in their denominations.

Colorado shooter allegedly heard voices, talked with them

Colorado shooter Matthew Murray was "troubled," in today's parlance. The reality of the situation is that he was not only emotionally disturbed but under spiritual influences he could not control and, indeed, seemed to welcome. From CNN:

I-Report contributor Richard Werner, 34, said Monday he was a worker at the center in Arvada, Colorado, in 2002, the same time as Murray.

Werner said five days before Murray was told in 2002 he could not make the Bosnia trip, Murray performed a pair of dark rock songs at a concert at the mission that made fellow workers "pretty scared."

The performance -- which included a song by rock band Linkin Park and another that had been recorded by controversial rocker Marilyn Manson -- followed months of strange behavior, Werner said.

Werner, of Balneario Camborius, Brazil, said he had a bunk near Murray's and that Murray would roll around in bed and make noises.

"He would say, 'Don't worry, I'm just talking to the voices,' " Werner said. "He'd say, 'Don't worry, Richard. You're a nice guy. The voices like you.' "

Werner said he instantly suspected Murray when he heard the news of Sunday's shootings.

"I turned to my wife and I said, 'I know who did it. It's Matthew,' " he said. "It was so obvious.

"For four months, he was sleeping right next to me. Those are the things you don't imagine, but when it happened it was so obvious."

I'm sure these things will be little reported, and understood even less. In North America even Christians have a difficult time coming to grips with the reality of demonic forces.

Connecticut's crime rate low

Statistics from the FBI show Connecticut ranks among the dozen safest states in the U.S., with a below-average number of all types of crime except robberies, according to a new report compiled by state officials.

It is unclear how the report will influence the current debate on criminal justice reforms triggered by July's triple-murder in Cheshire. Gov. M. Jodi Rell's task force on parole, which requested the report, is scheduled to recommend changes by the end of the year.

The legislature's Judiciary Committee will hold a special session to debate several proposals, including a so-called three strikes law, before the regular session starts in February.

Thank God for this, although many sore spots remain. More here.

Breakup of the Episcopal Church begins in earnest

Ridley and Latimer meet their end.


And so it begins, although it won't happen in our Cute Little State.

A California diocese overwhelmingly voted on Saturday to sever ties with The Episcopal Church, becoming the first diocese in the church's history to do so.

Despite warning from the head of the national church, delegates of the Diocese of San Joaquin voted 173-22 to secede and realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

"This is the first time, I believe, that a diocese has finally said 'enough' in terms of the liberal theology of The Episcopal Church," said Bishop John David Schofield of the San Joaquin diocese before the vote.

Can you shake the hand of a Jew?

I received this commentary from Glory of Zion:

"So they served him [Joseph] by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians" (Genesis 43:32; emphases ours).

The verse above was included in the Torah Reading for this week, and released in us a corresponding note to a bizarre happening at the recent "Annapolis" conference. Referring to her childhood as an African American girl in the segregated American South, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying, "I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness." Yet at the conference, bowing to Saudi demands, the Americans refused to allow the Israeli delegation to enter the hall through the same door as the Arabs. The Israeli Foreign Secretary Tzipi Livni was reportedly required by Rice to instead enter the conference hall through the service entrance. At a meeting of foreign ministers, Livni was driven to explain, "Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand? Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?" This at a conference to which Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries had been invited for "contributions" they might have towards furthering peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

In fairness, I'm aware from other reports that Ms. Rice also drew parallels between her childhood sense of terror and the Israelis' fears of terrorism, but why should the U. S. government bend over backwards to legitimize the hatred of Jews?

Speaking of atheists...

Dinesh D'Souza writes forcefully today about why atheists are so angry:

One reason I think is that they are God-haters. Atheists often like to portray themselves as "unbelievers" but this is not strictly accurate. If they were mere unbelievers they would simply live their lives as if God did not exist. I don't believe in unicorns, but then I haven't written any books called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion. Clearly the atheists go beyond disbelief; they are on the warpath against God. And you can hear their bitterness not only in their book titles but also in their mean-spirited invective.