True Discernment

from the Lakeland Ledger:

“Evangelist” Todd Bentley, whose unorthodox appearance and methods have attracted worldwide attention, will leave the long-running revival he has led here, it was announced Monday, although the local pastor who brought Bentley to Lakeland vows the revival will continue.

Bentley’s last day leading the Florida Outpouring revival will be Aug. 23, said Lynne Breidenbach, revival spokesperson. The enormous white tents on the grounds of Sun n’ Fun Fly-in, where the revival has been held since early June, will be taken down after that night’s service.

The Florida Outpouring began at Ignited Church of Lakeland on April 2, with Bentley, a 32-year-old Canadian, as a guest evangelist. Bentley was originally scheduled to lead services for a week, but when large crowds began flocking to the church, he agreed to stay on, and the revival has continued every day since then.

Hundreds of thousands of people from across the United States and the world have attended the revival, which outgrew at least four venues before tents were set up at Sun n’ Fun. Early on, the services were streamed live over the Internet, and some observers have credited the Internet for the rapid growth of the revival.

During the past several weeks, Bentley occasionally has been absent from the evening services, turning them over to guest evangelists or associates of his evangelistic ministry. He will return to lead the services tonight, but he already has scheduled appearances at revivals in Los Angeles; Louisville, Ky.; and Spokane, Wash., before Aug. 23.

“He’s going to be here regularly, just not seven nights a week,” Breidenbach said.

After leaving the Florida Outpouring, Bentley will conduct revivals overseas, including in the United Kingdom and Sudan, according to his ministry’s Web site.

The Rev. Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church, said Bentley made the decision to relinquish leadership of the revival last week.

“He and I had both been praying about what God wants us to do,” Strader said. “There have been all sorts of rumors, but everything is OK. This has nothing to do with anything else.”

Ignited Church will continue the revival, holding services every night after Bentley leaves, Strader said. And he is negotiating with other Lakeland churches to host services a few nights a week.

“We’re ready to take over. We don’t know at this point what venues we’ll use,” he said. “Most services we’ll be able to handle here at Ignited. We do anticipate crowds dropping off after Todd leaves.”

But Bentley may put in an occasional appearance. He plans to keep an office in Lakeland, in addition to his Fresh Fire Ministries headquarters in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Breidenbach said.

One of the churches that might participate in ongoing services is Believers Fellowship, at which Jeff Garvin, a Bentley associate, has preached in recent weeks.

“Stephen Strader is really the right man for this,” said the Rev. Wayne Friedt, pastor of Believers Fellowship. “He’s experienced, he’s prepared. They’ll still pack out Ignited Church.”

Bentley, covered with tattoos and employing antics borrowed from professional wrestling, has proved controversial. The revival has drawn attention for its claims of numerous miraculous healings of serious illnesses. Bentley has also claimed that more than two dozen people have been raised from the dead as a result of prayers offered at the revival.

Even some fellow Pentecostals have questioned whether Bentley’s revivals have placed enough emphasis on preaching and calls for repentance. A recent set of guidelines from the Assemblies of God, the largest predominantly white Pentecostal denomination in the United States, seemed to question the Florida Outpouring’s emphasis on miracles. Local pastors have expressed skepticism about exaggerated claims.

Recent news reports have been unable to verify any of the claims of healing, although Strader said privacy concerns and laws forbidding the release of medical records have prevented revival officials from releasing complete information about the identities and conditions of people claiming to be healed.

from One News Now:

The producers and contributors to a fall PBS documentary titled The Bible’s Buried Secrets purport that the special proves much of the book should not be taken literally. Armed with that news, a major pro-family Christian group isn’t waiting until the program’s airing to decry tax dollars being spent on a TV special that it says undermines Christianity. 

 

The documentary airs as part of Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) Nova series on November 18, and media reports quoting statements from religious experts and the creative crew involved give a sense of trying to turn the established world’s understanding of the Bible on its “literal” head. Michael DePrimo is a spokesman for the American Family Association (AFA).

According to the producer of The Bible’s Buried Secrets, they believe that the Bible – especially the Old Testament – was written by up to 100 authors; that it was never meant to be literal; that the story of Abraham and Sarah likely was not a real story, but simply an allegory,” DePrimo explains.
 
He notes the difficulty of some of those alleged facts about biblical history are that they serve a dangerous purpose of undermining the faith of many who believe the scriptures are the Word of God – and undermining statements in the scriptures, including from Jesus when he quotes the existence of Abraham. Because PBS is subsidized heavily with tax dollars, DePrimo says AFA does not believe those dollars should be funding a documentary that says the Bible is a bunch of “made-up stories.”
 
“I think what we need to do is write to our congressmen and urge them to withhold funding of PBS if they’re going to broadcast documentaries that directly attack the scriptures,” DePrimo urges.

Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord. “Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” –2 Corinthians 6:17

The church’s mightiest influence is felt when she is different from the world in which she lives. Her power lies in her being different, rises with the degree in which she differs and sinks as the difference diminishes.

This is so fully and clearly taught in the Scriptures and so well illustrated in Church history that it is hard to see how we can miss it. But miss it we do, for we hear constantly that the Church must try to be as much like the world as possible, excepting, of course, where the world is too, too sinful….

Let us plant ourselves on the hill of Zion and invite the world to come over to us, but never under any circumstances will we go over to them. The cross is the symbol of Christianity, and the cross speaks of death and separation, never of compromise. No one ever compromised with a cross. The cross separated between the dead and the living. The timid and the fearful will cry “Extreme!” and they will be right. The cross is the essence of all that is extreme and final. The message of Christ is a call across a gulf from death to life, from sin to righteousness and from Satan to God. The Set of the Sail, 35,36.

“Lord, help me to be willing to be different. Forgive me for the sin of blending in. I pray that our neighbors would see something different in our church and our people and be drawn to the Savior.

Amen.”

from Way of Life:

The following is excerpted from our book The New Age Tower of Babel, available from Way of Life Literature.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the founder of analytical psychology, has been influential, not only in society at large, but also in the New Age movement and within almost all aspects of Christianity. Jung has influenced both modernists and evangelicals. His writings are influential within the contemplative movement. He has been promoted by Paul Tillich, Morton Kelsey, John Sanford, Thomas Moore, Joseph Campbell, John Spong, Richard Foster, Agnes Sanford, and Gary Thomas, to name a few. Jung’s psychological typing provides the underpinning for the Personality Profiling part of Rick Warren’s SHAPE program, which is used by countless churches and churches and institutions.

Jung (pronounced Young) has been called “the psychologist of the 21st century” (Merill Berger, The Wisdom of the Dreams, front cover).

Ed Hird says, “One could say without overstatement that Carl Jung is the Father of Neo-Gnosticism and the New Age Movement” (Hird, “Carl Jung, Neo-Gnosticism, and the Meyers-Briggs Temperament Indicator (MBTI),” March 18, 1998; reprinted in Who’s Driving the Purpose Driven Church by James Sundquist, Appendix C).

Jeffrey Satinover says:

“Jung’s direct and indirect impact on mainstream Christianity–and thus on Western culture–has been incalculable. It is no exaggeration to say that the theological positions of most mainstream denominations in their approach to pastoral care, as well as in their doctrines and liturgy–have become more or less identical with Jung’s psychological/symbolic theology” (Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, p. 240, quoted from Ed Hird).

Jung collaborated with Sigmund Freud from 1907 to 1912, but after a falling out they went their separate ways.

In true New Age fashion, Jung explored Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, I Ching, astrology, Spiritualism, Gnosticism, alchemy, dream interpretation, mandala symbolism, Theosophy, Greek Mythology, and more. He spent time in India studying eastern religion and folk lore. He wrote the first introduction to Zen Buddhism. He amassed one of the largest collections of spiritualistic writings found on the European continent (Jeffrey Santinover, The Empty Self, p.

28). Jung used the divination methods of I Ching in the 1920s and 1930s and the training program of the Jung Institute of Zurich originally included this practice (Richard Noll, The Jung

Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, 1994, p. 333, quoted from Ed Hird). In a letter to Freud, Jung said: “I made horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth. … I dare say that we shall one day discover in astrology a good deal of knowledge which has been intuitively projected into the heavens” (Richard Webster, Why Freud Was Wrong, 1995, p. 385). Beginning in 1911 Jung quoted G.R.S. Mead, a practicing Theosophist, “regularly in his works through his entire life” (Richard Noll, The Jung Cult, p. 69).

Jung communicated with spirits all his life. He “experienced precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and haunting” (Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience). His mother and maternal grandmother were “ghost seers.” His mother spent much of her time in her separate bedroom, “enthralled by the spirits that she said visited her at night”

(”Carl Jung,” Wikipedia). Her family was heavily involved in séances. For many years Jung attended séances with his mother and two female cousins (John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein, 1993, pp. 50, 54, quoted from Ed Hird). His grandmother, Augusta Preiswerk, “fell into a three-day trance at age twenty, during which she communicated with spirits of the dead and gave prophecies”

(Harper’s).

As a child Jung felt that he had two personalities, one was himself the schoolboy and the other was a man from the 18th century. This other personality, named Philemon, had a life of its own and talked with Jung. Obviously it was a familiar spirit. When Jung had a breakdown following his separation from Sigmund Freud and was nearly suicidal he renewed communication with this spirit and Philemon became his guide. Jung said, “Philemon represented a force which was not myself. … It was he who taught me psychic objectivity” (James Sundquist, A Review of the Purpose Driven Life). Philemon appeared to Jung variously as “an old man with the horns of a bull … and the wings of a fisher” and as Elijah and as Salome. The latter addressed Jung as Christ (C.G. Jung: Analytical Psychology: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1925, Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 86, 98).

After Jung’s split from Freud, he suffered a six-year-long breakdown “during which he had psychotic fantasies” and experienced “numerous paranormal phenomena” (Harper’s). He became immersed in “the world of the dead” and wrote the book Seven Sermons to the Dead under the name of a Gnostic writer named Basilides.

Jung’s father was a pastor, but he doubted the Christian faith. Jung openly rejected Christ. He said:

“Lord Jesus never became quite real for me, never quite acceptable, never quite lovable, for again and again I would think of his underground counterpart [referring to a reoccurring immoral dream he had]. … Lord Jesus seemed to me in some ways a god of death. … Secretly, his love and kindness, which I always heard praised, appeared doubtful to me” (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 13).

There are other things that Jung said in relation to Christ that are even more abominable but I do not want to quote them. It is enough to say that he was a demonically-deceived blasphemer and Christ rejecter of the highest order.

Jung considered all religions to be myths, but he felt they were useful. He believed that the secret of life is found “at the mystical heart of all religions” and that it consists of a “journey of transformation” to find the true self and bring it into harmony with the Divine.

Jung said that man should love himself for in so doing he is loving Jesus, because Jesus is “you”

(Bill Isley, “The Ragamuffin Gospel: A Critique,” PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries Newsletter, July-August 2003).

Jung said that Jesus, Mani, Buddha, and Lao-Tse are all “pillars of the spirit” and that he “could give none preference over the other” (John Dourley, C.G. Jung and Paul Tillich, p. 65).

Jung believed in the “Collective Unconscious,” which is supposedly the universal consciousness of mankind that lies at a subconscious level. It apparently consists of the sum total of man’s thinking since he evolved from animals, and through psychiatry and mystical religion man can delve into this realm. Jung defined the collective consciousness as “the sediment of all the experience of the universe of all time, and is also the image of the universe that has been in process of formation from untold ages”

(Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, “The Psychology of Unconscious Process,” p. 432).

This, of course, is one of the foundational doctrines of the New Age and doubtless came from Jung’s study of eastern religion and various forms of occultic mysticism such as Theosophy.

The “collective unconscious” is pure myth.

Richard Webster wisely observes that “the Unconscious is not simply an occult entity for whose real existence there is no palpable evidence. It is an illusion produced by language–a kind of intellectual hallucination”

(Richard Webster, Why Freud Was Wrong, p. 250, quoted from Ed Hird).

Jung was heavily involved in trying to understand “the psyche” through dream analysis. It is a part of “depth psychology” which seeks to understand the hidden or deeper parts of human experience.

He believed that dreams reflect both the personal and the “collective” unconscious and that they contain revelations as well as fantasies.

Jung held to the blasphemous gnostic belief that good and evil can be reconciled.

“For Jung, good and evil evolved into two equal, balanced, cosmic principles that belong together in one overarching synthesis. This relativization of good and evil by their reconciliation is the heart of the ancient doctrines of gnosticism, which also located spirituality, hence morality, within man himself. Hence ‘the union of opposites’” (Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, p. 240).

Jung held to the New Age-emerging church principle that “both paths are right” (Dourley, C. G. Jung and Paul Tillich, p. 279). The emerging church calls this “orthoparadoxy.”

Jung believed in reincarnation and “drew many of his beliefs from the Tibetan Book of the Dead”

(Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mysticism).

Jung believed in the power of visualization. He said that holding the mental images of Jesus and Mary has power for overcoming negativity and producing good (Bob Guste, Mary at My Side, p. 58).

Jung believed we are entering the Age of Aquarius. In a 1940 letter to Godwin Baynes he said: “1940 is the year when we approach the meridian of the first star in Aquarius. It is the premonitory earthquake of the New Age” (Merill Berger and Stephen Segaller, The Wisdom of the Dreams, p. 162, quoted from Ed Hird). Jung “feared greatly for the future of humankind, and said the only salvation lay in becoming more conscious” (Harper’s). This is a reference to attaining a higher state of consciousness through psychology and mysticism.

Later in life Jung became interested in UFOs and wrote a book on the subject entitled Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.

Jung was married to the same woman for 52 years, but he had illicit relationships with other women.

Acts 20:29-31:

For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

from NEWS24:

Johannesburg - God’s blessing would last only two minutes and it would create 500 churchgoing millionaires or even billionaires - all they had to do was use their credit cards to pay $1 000 in offerings to televangelist Benny Hinn.

Pastor Tommie Ferreira of the AGS Church in Johannesburg was so upset about the “blessing” that, after a week, he wanted to know who of the donors actually had become millionaires.

Ferreira told Rapport he did not mean to bring about Hinn’s downfall.

He merely wanted to know if any of the hundreds of churchgoers who donated amounts of up to $1 000 (about R7 500) to Hinn’s Miracle Crusade last week Saturday had now become millionaires.

About 18 000 people streamed to the Coca-Cola Dome in Randburg to hear Hinn’s message of healing and miracles.

Ferreira, who is a keen choir singer, voluntarily sang in the Miracle Crusade’s choir.

He said one of Hinn’s American guest speakers, Pastor Todd Koontz, spoke about financial burdens and said 500 audience members would receive “an exceptional blessing”.

“He said the service would yield millionaires and billionaires within 24 hours.

“Everyone had to donate $1 000 because an exceptional blessing rested on $1 000.”

Koontz apparently really had the congregation scrambling when he said, “This blessing will be poured out for only two minutes.”

Had credit-card machines

Ferreira said: “People stormed to the front - poor people, rich people, people from all sections of our society.”

Hinn’s co-pastors apparently had credit-card machines ready with which they could take donations.

“He (Koontz) said God would bless the people’s credit cards and they would be able to rule over South Africa with their money.

“Eventually there were no fewer than 1 000 people who made such donations.”

According to Ferreira’s calculations, Hinn must have collected millions of rands with these donations - perhaps more than R7m if each of the 1 000 church-goers donated $1 000 in the hope of becoming millionaires.

Furthermore, after Koontz’s collection of the $1 000 donations, Hinn collected general donations.

Ferreira said: “It makes my hair stand on end.”

He said he could not live with his conscience if he did not speak to others about this possible trickery.

Still collecting money

“I’m not attacking them (Hinn and Koontz). It just really gets my goat when people make unfounded claims and then they’re off with these people’s money.”

Dr Sarel Smit of the AGS church Lofstad in Hursthill, Johannesburg, who supported Ferreira as he spoke to Rapport, was equally worried about the method by which Hinn collected donations.

“Especially at a time like this when there is dire need, people run the risk of losing their faith in the Lord in this way. God will provide for your needs, but not your greed.”

Rapport spoke to an employee in Hinn’s South African office in Durban who said on Friday morning that they were still busy collecting money.

“We’ve had a very good reaction from last weekend,” said the employee, who asked not to be named.

He said that before the collection of the $1 000 donations, Koontz had delivered a message about “you reap what you sow”.

“Americans always talk in dollars. If some of the churchgoers believed that they would not be blessed, then they should not have given their money.

“The church-goers did not have to give $1 000. If they couldn’t afford it, then they could’ve given less. And, some of them did.

Will build an orphanage

“Pastor Todd (Koontz) spoke of good seeds. If you don’t actually sow them, you’ll never have a good harvest.”

The employee told Rapport that Hinn’s congregation soon would build an orphanage in South Africa.

Hinn’s South African office feeds about 1 000 children in Durban daily.

Rapport asked for a recording of Koontz’s sermon, but Hinn’s office said they could only provide one in four to six weeks.

The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross; before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully staged histrionics–but upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear.

I well know how many smooth arguments can be marshalled in support of the new cross. Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers and so carry the advantage of numerical success? Should we not adjust ourselves to the changing times? Have we not heard the slogan, “New days, new ways”? And who but someone very old and very conservative would insist upon death as the appointed way to life?

And who today is interested in a gloomy mysticism that would sentence its flesh to a cross and recommend self-effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced by modern Christians? These are the arguments, along with many more flippant still, which are brought forward to give an appearance of wisdom to the hollow and meaningless cross of popular Christianity. The Pursuit of Man, 53,54.

“Lord, it’s not popular today to be ‘old-fashioned.’ But I commit myself today to the old cross. Help me today to deny myself, to take up my cross, and to follow You. Amen.”

 

from forbes:

IndyMac has failed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been hobbled but kept alive by a government and Federal Reserve rescue.

All of this happened just weeks after President Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson claimed that the worst of the credit crisis had passed. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that the worst is over until the banks, insurance companies, investment funds and mortgage companies that hold securitized debts fess up to what those securities are actually worth. The problem isn’t that the securities are illiquid, it’s that the prices should be lower than the financial institutions are willing to admit.

Probably by the end of the month, Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) will auction off assets from a $7 billion structured investment vehicle that was previously owned and managed by Cheyne Capital Management, a London hedge fund shop that faced massive losses this summer when its commercial paper went illiquid. The Goldman auction might give us a clue about how inflated these assets are, despite the more than $400 billion in write-downs that banks have taken since the credit markets went south last summer.

Throughout the industry and around the world, investment banks and other financial companies that own structured mortgage securities have advanced the fiction that because the market for these securities is illiquid that they have no fair market value. Up until August 2007, when banks were able to sell these securities at attractive prices, they marked the securities to market, just as they would with a liquid stock. When prices plummeted, the banks ignored the inconveniently low “buy” prices and decided to price them based on their own secret algorithms. Mark-to-market has given way to mark-to-model.

Since every multinational bank is playing the same game, and every bank has a different model, we’re seeing banks give different prices for identical securities. What Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ) might say is worth $0.80 on the dollar could be worth $0.60 to Goldman Sachs. Who’s right? Nobody knows. But this is why LIBOR, the lending rate between banks, has shot up despite lower Fed Funds rates–the banks no longer trust one another, even on overnight loans.

The banks claim that since the securities aren’t trading, these models are appropriate. But even in the absence of a trade, bid/ask prices exist for all marketed products. A conservative firm will usually mark an illiquid position to an average of three “bid” quotes. The banks will counter that they don’t intend to sell these securities for the current bids. But they might not have a choice. A leveraged institution like a bank–and the investment banks have leverage in excess of 30-to-1–doesn’t always get to decide when it’s going to sell securities.

Marking-to-model is so subjective and secretive that it practically begs bankers to commit fraud. Traders who work on proprietary trading desks almost always report different prices for the same security that was being held in another department of the bank, such as the asset management department for a fund managed for clients. In some cases, a bank allows such inconsistencies because it has spent millions to hire a star trader and doesn’t want to look like an idiot for doing so.

Banks use third parties like State Street to build models for valuing these securities when they’re in client or mutual fund accounts. But sometimes clients or account managers disagree with their contractor. When that happens, the manager or client might push for a different valuation, and they usually get their way. The third party can only proffer a number; it can’t force anyone to accept it.

So long as the banks refuse to mark their securities to market (a task they claim is impossible), investors will have to blindly navigate the credit crisis. There’s too much fog for us to be able to tell if we’re on the near shore, the middle of the river or nearing the next bank. Definitely watch Goldman’s auction. It won’t change anything, but it will offer some clues as to how much more pain will have to be endured.

In this article you see over and over what typifies the “false Church” This woman actually believes she can be considered a follower of Christ, while at the same time treating Jesus commandments as “political footballs” ones that can be put on the table and negotiated, including abortion!

I have said it before and I will say it again. You cannot be a supporter of abortion and still consider yourself a follower of Christ! As abortion violates a fundamental tenet of Jesus teachings: Defending the widow AND ORPHAN! The unborn ARE ORPHANS who have been abandoned by their mother!

You also see the anti-Christ message of “interfaith unity” and the belief that other faiths have valid traditions which should be recognized!

This woman and others like her are truly ones who:

Isaiah 5:20:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!â€

 

from onenewsnow:

DENVER - The request befuddled Leah Daughtry. The experienced political hand in charge of planning next month’s Democratic National Convention - a self-described “black chick from Brooklyn” and ordained Pentecostal minister who keeps a Bible in her purse - didn’t know what to tell the atheists.

Daughtry, 44, was preparing for an Aug. 24 interfaith service that will open the Democrats’ gathering here - a first for a party that hasn’t always gotten God. Before her was an angry letter from a secularist group that wanted to know whether atheists would be on the podium.

“Atheists speaking at an interfaith service … does that work?” Daughtry asked this week. “I don’t quite know. But they’re part of the party, you treat them with respect. I’ll give them an answer.”

On a larger scale, it’s what Daughtry and a growing number of Democrats of faith are setting out to do: hold together and grow their party by claiming ground on religion and values that Republicans have successfully mined for years.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has incorporated faith themes and outreach into his campaign since the primaries began. A new political action committee, Matthew 25, is running pro-Obama ads on Christian radio. “People of faith” will have a caucus of their own at the convention, just as blacks, Hispanics and military veterans do.

Such efforts come with challenges, including answering nonbelievers, Democrats uncomfortable with any mingling of church and state, and religious Americans at odds with Democratic positions on social issues.

“All Americans, all people, have values,” said Daughtry, a fifth-generation minister. “For some of us, values come from faith. For others it comes from what your parents taught you, what your grandmother taught you on the porch in the summertime. These are values that make us Democrats. We all have them.”

Daughtry, Howard Dean’s chief of staff at the Democratic National Committee, was tapped last year as chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention Committee. More accustomed to working behind the scenes, she has adopted a more public role that has taken her from speaking at a Denver synagogue to witnessing the installation of a Mormon church president in Salt Lake City.

“When Leah Daughtry walks in a room, nobody needs to underestimate her,” said Burns Strider, who led religious outreach for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and is now an independent consultant. “At once she’s a tough-minded political pro and at once she is a God-centered believer and follower of Christ. She marries those two personally very well and she understands how they interplay in the public square.”

Growing up the oldest of four children, Daughtry was a “quiet organizer” who spent her time reading books or developing a seating chart for rides in the family car, said her father, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry.

Herbert Daughtry’s father had converted the family to Pentecostalism, a fast-growing growing branch of evangelical Christianity that emphasizes the supernatural, including healing, prophesy and speaking in tongues. His House of the Lord Church, which grew into a small denomination, was at once strict about things like the length of women’s skirts yet open, even in the 1930s, to ordaining women and biracial worship.

From his Brooklyn church, Herbert Daughtry immersed his family in the civil rights struggle. Responding to police violence, he helped start the National Black United Front, bringing together parties as varied as the Black Panthers and the Urban League. He espoused black liberation theology, presenting the Gospel as deliverance for the oppressed. It’s the same belief system held by Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

At the same time, Herbert Daughtry weathered criticism in the black community for not sending his children to all-black colleges and for urging them to explore Europe instead of Africa. Heeding her father’s words, Leah Daughtry earned a government degree at Dartmouth and studied for a semester in France.

“My argument was, ‘I can and will teach them African history,’” Herbert Daughtry said. “They will never have to worry about being comfortable in their own skin. I wanted to broaden their scope of knowledge.”

Leah Daughtry has married faith and politics, holding positions in the Clinton-era Labor Department, working on the 1992 Democratic National Convention and heading her party’s outreach to faith groups, Faith In Action. And she continues to lead her own House of the Lord Church of 20 or 30 people in Washington, D.C.

Daughtry considers it all “ministry _ a way to give of yourself.” Several of her party’s positions, though, put her at odds with most evangelical Christians. That includes her support for abortion rights.

“Theologically, we believe that in the greatest decision of our entire lives - whether to follow God or not - God allows us to choose,” she said. “If God is big enough to allow that choice, then who are we to dictate choices to other people? Your choices have consequences, but you should be allowed to make those choices.”

Daughtry credited the party for changing the way it talks about abortion - “not just in terms of a woman’s right to make her own health-care choices, but also in terms of our society’s responsibility to make sure women have the resources that they need to make appropriate decisions.”

Tony Campolo, a liberal evangelical author and pastor and member of the Democratic platform committee, said he and others hope to move the party toward stronger advocacy for reducing the number of abortions.

He declined to discuss specific proposals, but he mentioned ensuring that pregnant women are able to go on maternity leave without fear of losing their jobs, and making day care more accessible.

“If we are going to win over evangelicals, language that speaks to abortion reduction will be very necessary,” Campolo said.

Daughtry believes the party already is making inroads with evangelical voters, particularly young ones sympathetic to Democratic positions on poverty and the environment.

But a survey released last week called that into question. Despite Obama’s robust religious outreach, only about one-quarter of white evangelicals support him, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life - about the same number that supported Democrat John Kerry at this juncture four years ago.

As for those worried that Democrats are acting like Republicans when it comes to religion, Daughtry said: “The difference between us and the Republicans is, one, we don’t claim a monopoly on God. We don’t try to be dogmatic about this or make it a litmus test. For us, values come from different places.”

That will be reflected in the interfaith service - which may or may not include an address from an atheist but will be open to anyone regardless of belief or political party, Daughtry said.

“For me as person of faith who has made God first in her life,” Daughtry said, “it is symbolically important that the first thing we’re doing is coming together as people of faith to celebrate our faith traditions and to ask the blessings of God on us as we undertake this great civic responsibility.”

The “Truth” and Richard Abanes are mutually exclusive, neither will ever meet the other!

Nice Article Bud very well put!

from nogoofyzone:

Dear Tim:

This post is for the benefit of your readers who are interested in truth. Although this post does not reveal the entire story, it may very well develop into an informative article in the future.

There are truths and there are lies, and it is up to us to discern the difference between the two. When faced with truth we have a choice: deny it, compromise, and make excuses, or accept it–regardless of personal agendas, personal feelings, or personal ties.

Indeed, solid, irrefutable documentation stands on its own and cannot be denied. Documentation displaces ad hominem, innuendo, and off-the-cuff statements. It also provides people with the other side of the story and allows them to “test†and think on their own, as opposed to accepting someone’s word.

People deserve truth at all times, even if it hurts, for it is truth that sets people free.

This year, I spent a considerable amount of time carefully reviewing and preserving the articles on Richard Abanes’ website, specifically those that dealt with Ken Blanchard and his involvement with and participation in the New Age Movement. I have also monitored and preserved Abanes’ movements on numerous internet blogs and elsewhere.

Later, I felt led to contact Abanes and provide information on Ken Blanchard that he may not have been aware of. Despite his treatment of myself and others, and despite Ken Blanchard’s strong ties with Rick Warren, I gave Abanes the benefit of the doubt and reached out to him in love.

During an exchange of e-mails, Abanes requested updated information on Ken Blanchard, to which I gladly provided. On numerous occasions, Abanes gave his word to issue a public statement on Ken Blanchard, and even went so far to say he would privately inform his pastor, Rick Warren.

But as of this writing, Richard Abanes has not kept his word, and has even gone so far as to help me with the following “tantalizing conspiratorial scenario†on Ken Blanchard:

“Ken Blanchard, who is really my Uncle Kenny, called and pleaded with me to not expose his true New Age agenda, which is to teach the church how to Lead Like A New Age Jesus. And to bribe me, he deposited $30 million into a Swiss Bank account with the last 3 numbers being 666. I told him that this would be acceptable, and that I’d never say anything negative about his book endorsements or associations with new Agers as long as I not only got the cash, but also was promoted to the Regional Director of the Illuminati, complete with my own special ‘I’ embroidered blazer, a coat of arms pin, and a direct special hot phone line to the Vatican†(CRN.Info blog, June 6, 2008 at 10:32am, http://christianresearchnetwork.info/2008/06/04/oh-the-propaganda/ ).

This is disturbing. Equally disturbing is that in the same post Abanes accused me of harassment, and stated in part that:

“I told you that I’d get to Ken Blanchard and make my report when possible, given my responsibilities. I’ve already begun the research, and have even posted a caution about him to persons visiting my website.â€

But again, as of this writing, Richard Abanes has not kept his word. And, because of the strong ties between Ken Blanchard and Rick Warren, I will be surprised if Abanes keeps his word on this issue at all.

My first letter to Richard Abanes was on March 11, 2008–over 4 months ago! During our exchange of e-mails I granted Abanes permission to link to my articles on Ken Blanchard and post my e-mails on his website. I have nothing to hide, and would like to see Abanes post ALL of our correspondence on his website and blogs, in their entirety, for the world to see.

Richard Abanes reached out to me and asked for updates on Ken Blanchard. But behind-the-scenes, he reached out to his constituency with something entirely different.

For example, one of Richard Abanes’ excuses for not dealing with the Ken Blanchard issue was the responsibilities with his new book. But since my first letter to him on March 11, those responsibilities didn’t stop Abanes from spending an incredible amount of time posting lengthy messages in various blogs and dealing with New Agers on “YouTube.†Many of his blog posts had nothing to do with his new book.

I knew exactly when Abanes’ part in the book was finished. I talked to his editor.

Speaking of blog posts, in the Phoenix Preacher blog on April 17, 2008, a poster named “Dusty†asked the question, “Anyone heard of Christian Research Service?†Yet, despite the fact that Abanes had requested updates from me on Ken Blanchard, he stated to Dusty with the following:

Richard Abanes
April 17th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Dusty: Anyone heard of Christian Research Service?
RA: Yes. Bad. False. Slander. Sensationalistic. Knee-jerk. A guy named Bud Press. I am pretty much a heretic, iar, and compromiser to them.
[ http://phoenixpreacher.com/cms/?p=2833 ]

One minute later in the same blog, Abanes stated:

Richard Abanes
April 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I’ve tried to take civilly with Bud Press, but he will have none of it. He is one of the people whose thoughts about me are echoed in the above list I posted of accusations that have ben made against me this year. [Ibid.]

Again, in the same blog at 8;27 pm, Richard Abanes stated:

“ROFL. Yeah, it’s called truth. Oh, and I actually get along very very well with the REAL discernment folk out there. Lots of very good ministries that have nothing to do with these Bud Press types.â€

On April 29, 2008, Richard Abanes wrote me a “DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN†e-mail, then turned around on May 10 and requested additional information on Ken Blanchard and asked me to “Please send it again.â€

Needless to say, all Abanes had to do was go to the “Ken Blanchard/Lead Like Jesus?†page of my website and find the information I had provided to him in the first place.

But here we are now, Tim, months later, and Abanes is still ranting and raving about all the “lies/slander†being spread about him. Sadly, he is too spiritually blinded to see that he is his own worst enemy. It is he who has destroyed his reputation and integrity, and it is we who have nothing to fear from him or others like him.

With dedicated vengeance, Richard Abanes has waged a battle and attempted to destroy many solid, Bible-based ministries. But he is fighting a loosing battle.

Many of those I have spoken to within the apologetics and cult-evangelism communities have had their own encounters with Richard Abanes. They all maintain, as I, that there is no reasoning with him and that he has damaged his reputation and integrity on his own.

Unless Abanes fully repents and reconciles, he is on his way to self-destruction and judgement from God.

“When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest†(Proverbs 29:9)

So I say to Richard Abanes and those like him, keep Rolling On the Floor Laughing (ROFL); keep mocking ministries called of God to share the truth and defend the faith; keep twisting the truth and causing the innocent to stumble. After all the dust has settled, God will have the last word.

“The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; the one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin†(Proverbs 13:3).

“At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention†(1 Timothy 5:13).

“Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting†(Romans 16:17-18).

God bless you, Tim. Stay strong in the Lord.

Bud Press, Director
Christian Research Service
http://www.christianresearchservice.com
Jude 3

–Psalm 89:6,7

Christianity at any given time is strong or weak depending upon her concept of God. And I insist upon this and I have said it many times, that the basic trouble with the Church today is her unworthy conception of God. I talk with learned and godly people all over the country, and they’re all saying the same thing.

Unbelievers say, “Take your cowboy god and go home,” and we get angry and say, “They’re vile heathen.” No, they’re not vile heathen–or at least that’s not why they say that. They can’t respect our “cowboy god.” And since evangelicalism has gone overboard to “cowboy religion,” its conception of God is unworthy of Him. Our religion is little because our god is little. Our religion is weak because our god is weak. Our religion is ignoble because the god we serve is ignoble. We do not see God as He is….

A local church will only be as great as its conception of God. An individual Christian will be a success or a failure depending upon what he or she thinks of God. It is critically important that we have a knowledge of the Holy One, that we know what God is like.

The Attributes of God, 41,42.

“O God, help me to capture once again a realization of the greatness of my God. May the God I represent in my ministry today be a God worthy of lavish worship. Amen.”