By Philip Pullella

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from [...]]]> Vatican calls for global authority on economy, raps “idolatry of the market”

By Philip Pullella

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.

It condemned what it called “the idolatry of the market” as well as a “neo-liberal thinking” that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. “In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,” it said, adding that world economics needed an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations.

“If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid,” it said.

It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.

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Catholic cleric: Christ nullified God’s promises to the Jews

A Catholic synod called at the Vatican to address the rising persecution of [...]]]> [ Next to Islam, the Catholic Church is the largest purveyor of "replacement theology" in the world, with many Protestant denominations (including even some so-called "Evangelical" churches) following suit. ]

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Catholic cleric: Christ nullified God’s promises to the Jews

A Catholic synod called at the Vatican to address the rising persecution of Christian in the Middle East wrapped up on Saturday with a joint statement that focused a lot of attention on demanding Israel end its “occupation” of Arab lands.

The gathering was meant to address the various acts of persecution, intimidation and discrimination that are resulting in a severe dwindling of Christian communities across the region.

But the bulk of the two-week meeting was spent discussing how Israel is the root cause of all the Middle East’s woes, including those faced by its Christians.

The final statement reflected that position. It listed the “occupation” of Arab lands, the building of Israel’s security barrier, military checkpoints, the jailing of terrorists (defined in the statement as “political prisoners”) and the general disruption of Palestinian life as some of the main reasons behind the exodus of Palestinian Christians and Muslim attacks on the Jewish state.

Cyril Salim Bustros, the Lebanon-born Greek archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts was responsible for delivering the final statement.

In clarifying remarks, he stated that “the Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands.”

He then escalated the situation by declaring that the original promises made by God to the children of Israel “were nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people.”

Bustros rejected the idea of Israel as “the Jewish state,” and insisted that eventually all the so-called “Palestinian refugees” must return to the land, a sure recipe for the demographic destruction of the world’s only Jewish nation-state.

Mordechai Levi, Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, decried Bustros’ comments and the damage they had done to strengthening ties between Israel and the Church.

A Vatican spokesman later stated that the Church’s official position is the synod’s declaration, and not Mr. Bustros’ explanatory remarks. However, he did not outright reject what Mr. Bustros said, even though it would appear to contradict more recent Vatican declarations that God’s promises to the Jews remain intact.

It should be noted that the synod declaration, in its section addressed to the Jews, insisted that “recourse to…biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable.”

The only thing Israel and its supporters use the Bible to justify in this case is the Jews’ right to the land, including Judea and Samaria. If the Vatican is now saying that the Bible and the divine promises therein no longer give the Jews claim to the land, as Mr. Bustros tried to clarify, then for many the Vatican’s commitment to its earlier declaration regarding the Jews and God’s promises to them remains at least partially in question.

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By: Lisa Gartner

President Obama’s top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.

“ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and [...]]]> Education secretary urged his employees to attend Sharpton’s rally

By: Lisa Gartner

President Obama’s top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.

“ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other leaders on Saturday, Aug. 28, for the ‘Reclaim the Dream’ rally and march,” began an internal e-mail sent to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday.

Sharpton created the event after Glenn Beck announced a massive Tea Party “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial, where King spoke in 1963.

The Washington Examiner learned of the e-mail from a Department of Education employee who felt uncomfortable with Duncan’s request.

Although the e-mail does not violate the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from participating in political campaigns, Education Department workers should feel uneasy, said David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute.

“It sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It’s highly inappropriate … even in the absence of a direct threat,” Boaz said. “If we think of a Bush cabinet official sending an e-mail to civil servants asking them to attend a Glenn Beck rally, there would be a lot of outrage over that.”

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by Steve Watson

The Imam of the now infamous “ground zero mosque” is a member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations and receives financial backing from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation.

This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move [...]]]>

by Steve Watson

The Imam of the now infamous “ground zero mosque” is a member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations and receives financial backing from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation.

This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.

The proposed mosque, to be known as Cordoba House is the project of the Cordoba Initiative, an organisation founded by ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf, who, in addition to being a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100, is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Religious Advisory Committee.

The Cordoba Initiative’s website cites “Christian support for the Cordoba House” in the form of Christian publication, “Sojourners”, which is owned by evangelical Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, also coincidentally a sitting member of the CFR’s Religious Advisory Committee.

The CFR, as regular readers know, is populated exclusively by major players with the biggest corporations, banks and defence contractors in the world – all of whom are making vast profits and securing more power from continued global conflict. The CFR also exerts far reaching influence over the U.S. government.

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(WND) JERUSALEM – A Jewish Temple organization has slammed as “a hubris-inspired act of self-aggrandizement” controversial plans by a Pentecostal church to reportedly build a $200 million replica of the First Temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“This planned church is a mockery which stands in diametric opposition to everything that [...]]]> By Aaron Klein

(WND) JERUSALEM – A Jewish Temple organization has slammed as “a hubris-inspired act of self-aggrandizement” controversial plans by a Pentecostal church to reportedly build a $200 million replica of the First Temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“This planned church is a mockery which stands in diametric opposition to everything that the Holy Temple of Jerusalem represents,” Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the international department of the Temple Institute, stated in a press release.

“The Bible, bequeathed to the world by the Jewish people, emphasizes the preeminence of Jerusalem and its spiritual and prophetic role in the future of both Israel and all mankind,” Richman said.

“We are witness today to the phenomenon of nations that seek to de-legitimize Israel’s connection to Jerusalem. This planned megachurch represents the next logical step, the de-legitimization of the significance of Jerusalem altogether,” he said.

Richman slammed the reported plans by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God as a “cynical and manipulative attempt to morph the Bible’s universal message into its own self-serving agenda.”

According to the U.K. Guardian, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God will construct a church in Sao Paulo based on King Solomon’s Temple, including a replica of the Ark of the Covenant at its center.

“We are preparing ourselves to build the temple, in the same mold as Solomon’s,” Bishop Edir Macedo, the church’s leader and founder, was quoted as saying in the report.

“[Solomon's] Temple … used tons of gold, pure gold. … We are not going to build a temple of gold, but we will spend tons of money, without a shadow of doubt,” said Macedo.

Macedo told the British newspaper his church had signed an $8 million contract to import stones from Israel.

“We have signed the contract and commissioned the stones that will come from Jerusalem, just like the ones that were used to build the temple in Israel; stones that were witnesses to the powers of God, 2,000 years ago,” he said. “It is going to be a knockout, it is going to be beautiful, beautiful, beautiful – the most beautiful of all. The outside will be exactly the same as that which was built in Jerusalem.”

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Presbyterians push to demonize Israel

You probably don’t remember but before June 1967 there was peace in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. There were no fedayeen, no terror attacks, no PLO. [...]]]> [ Further fruits of the odious heresy of Christian "replacement theology" and her theological sibling, "Covenant Theology" ... ]

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Presbyterians push to demonize Israel

You probably don’t remember but before June 1967 there was peace in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. There were no fedayeen, no terror attacks, no PLO. Only after it was “colonized in the 20th century” by Jewish immigrants from Europe who took “the land of Palestine from a majority of its inhabitants at gunpoint” did things go sour.

First came the Nakba, the catastrophe that was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, followed 19 years later by the “illegal” occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

That’s the view the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) will be asked to endorse next month when it meets in Minneapolis to consider a report by its Middle East study committee.

Peace could again prevail over the land if the Israelis would only withdraw from all the lands occupied in 1967. To that end, the report calls for the US to halt all military and economic assistance for Israel.

“If there were no occupation, there would be no Palestinian resistance,” says the report.

The Israeli occupation is “the major obstacle to regional stability” and is “an evil that must be resisted and removed.” The authors show they understand “resistance” is a euphemism for terrorism, but say it is the Israelis’ own fault for inflicting so much suffering on the Palestinians.

“Resistance is a right and a duty for the Christian.”

IT WOULD be too easy to dismiss such unreality as terminal naïveté, but there is something much more poisonous here.

The 172-page PCUSA report says the “primary” cause of the Middle East conflict is “the ongoing Israeli occupation…

and American complicity in this unjust enterprise.”

You can read it at http://www.pcusa.org/middleeastpeace/ pdf/middleeastpeace- fullreport.pdf. It also includes a lengthy Kairos Palestine document, by an affiliated group of Christian Palestinians, that further pushes the demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

Taken together, the contempt for Israel is so blinding that it not only justifies Palestinian terror against the Jewish state but is little bothered by the avowed goal of Hamas and Hizbullah, like their Iranian mentors, to wipe Israel off the map.

But that may be because the authors question whether Israel should be on the map in the first place. The report insists “we support the existence of Israel,” but that is unconvincing in the context of the entire document.

This document ignores Arab refusal to recognize the Jewish state, the attempts to destroy it at birth and the threats to drive it into the sea. It was the Jews’ own fault for being there in the first place. The report reaches back to biblical times to delegitimize Jewish claims to the land. Jacob, aka Israel, stole the birthright from his brother Esau and refused later entreaties to combine their interests and dwell in the land together.

(Proof those Jews can’t get along with anyone.) It denies that the Jews have “rights” to the land as Abraham’s descendants, only “responsibilities… for what is being done in and with it.”

Abraham’s covenant applies equally to Jews and Christians.

The ancient Hebrews under Joshua took the land illegally from the Canaanites by “holy war.” In a very revealing footnote (p. 21), it says: “The phrase ‘the right of Israel to exist’ is a source of pain” for authors of the report, “who are in solidarity with Palestinians who feel that the State of Israel has denied them their inalienable human rights.”

While questioning Israel’s Law of Return for Jews, it insists there must be a “right of return or compensation” for Palestinians “to Palestine- Israel.”

National Jewish organizations, which the report accuses of “complicity in the excesses of Israeli policy,” have unders t a n d a b l y denounced the document.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has said it is “distinctly onesided, traffics in troubling theology, misr e p r e s e n t s Jewish history.”

ADL has called it a “toxic mix of bad history, p o l i t i c a l l y motivated distortions and o f f e n s i v e attacks on Judaism and Israel.” The Jewish Council of Public Affairs has called it “blatantly anti-Israel and reduces the Arab-Israeli- Palestinian conflict to a caricature of right and wrong.”

“It’s a highly-selective use of text, history and circumstances to form an anti-Israel narrative,” said JCPA’s Ethan Felson. “They give significant voice to anti-Zionists, condemn companies that sell to Israel and allow for the demonization of Israel. That’s several red lines.”

AT ITS 2004 meeting PCUSA voted for divestment from Israel but was forced to back down two years later when many members objected, but this latest report leaves little doubt its authors endorse the policy. The group promised to take a more balanced approach but so far there the evidence points in the opposite direction.

Next month’s PCUSA meeting in Minneapolis has an opportunity to reject the anti- Israel, anti-Jewish excesses of its study committee or to inflict further damage on the church’s relations with the Jewish community.

“The church has a choice to make,” Felson added. “There is much valid witness for Palestinians that does not call into question the church’s integrity or endanger its relationship with Jews, or they can choose this brand of witness with all its toxicity.”

The Presbyterians say their goal is peace, but their heavily biased assessment can only make peace harder to attain by reinforcing the growing skepticism by an Israeli public that sees delegitimization, not a twostate agreement, as the goal of the Palestinians and their supporters – and give fuel to those Palestinians who believe the time is coming when the world will force Israel to, in the immortal words of Helen Thomas, “get the hell out of Palestine.”

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Tragically, these types of devaluing [...]]]> Last week I read a blog post that noted how prayer was banned at a high-school graduation in Indiana but not in Alabama. Then I read another news report about how another California high school changed its graduation “opening prayer” to “a moment of silence.” No big shocker there.

Tragically, these types of devaluing religious news stories are a dime a dozen today. Spiritual regression is not only a trend but an epidemic.

The Fuller Youth Institute just reported that less than half (40 percent) of even church-going high-school seniors “significantly struggle with their faith and with finding a church after graduation.” And other statistics show that, by the time they end their college education, 90 percent will have dropped out of church.

The Barna Group reports that only 29 percent of teenagers say they “will definitely” be attending church after graduation. That’s about one in three if you’re an optimist – about one in four if you’re a pessimist. And about one in five if you believe these polled teenagers are either overly optimistic or over-exaggerators. Any way you look at it, the “Leave It to Beaver” family seems so passé and archaic in our times.

Long ago the Creator was replaced by natural causes in public classrooms. Prayer was ousted by human potential. Humans have become the kings of their castles and captains of their souls. Preaching has been overturned by political correctness. Church has been replaced by the NFL and Sunday commerce. And the government is now God, granting to all who has need. And we’re shocked that more and more of our children and grandchildren want nothing to do with church?

Attrition in church attendance and faith in God is definitely on the rise. And so is animosity toward America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

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(CNN) — A federal judge [...]]]> [ Watch soon how the Big O will "save the day" on this ridiculously unnecessary and carefully crafted "outrage."  Throw a bone to the "conservatives" to promote the illusion that Obama and his cabal are really devout "men of prayer." ]

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National Day of Prayer declared unconstitutional

(CNN) — A federal judge on Thursday struck down the federal statute that established the National Day of Prayer, ruling that it violates the constitutional ban on government-backed religion.

“[I]ts sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function,” a Wisconsin judge wrote in the ruling, referring to the 1952 law that created the National Day of Prayer.

“In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience,” wrote the judge, Barbara B. Crabb.

The injunction against the National Day of Prayer will not take effect until the defendants in the case, President Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, have exhausted their appeals, the decision said.

The Obama administration said in a Twitter message on Thursday that Obama intends to recognize this year’s National Day of Prayer, which is May 6.

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WARR ACRES — Churchgoers are outraged over a crucifix in a [...]]]> [ Perhaps this is part of the reason the Torah explicitly forbid the use of "graven images" (פסלים) to refer to deity (Exod. 20:4)...  Perverse humanity's conceptions of the divine are often degrading and absurdly anthropocentric.  This "crucifix" is an example. ]

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WARR ACRES — Churchgoers are outraged over a crucifix in a Catholic church that they say shows an image of genitalia on Jesus.

The controversial crucifix has caused a deep divide among members of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, where it hangs above the main altar.

“There are a couple people who have left the parish,” said the Rev. Philip Seeton, the church’s pastor. “There are people in the parish who don’t like it and have stayed.”

Critics of the crucifix take issue with what appears to be a large penis covering Jesus’ abdominal area. Seeton said the portion of the crucifix in question is meant to be Jesus’ abdomen “showing distension” — not a penis.

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In interviews this week with Reuters, Christianity Today, and a prominent homosexual publication, Dove Award-winning and Grammy-nominated musician Jennifer Knapp made public that she is a lesbian who has been in a relationship with a woman for eight years. The announcement comes roughly one month [...]]]> Christian pop singer Jennifer Knapp confirms she’s a lesbian

In interviews this week with Reuters, Christianity Today, and a prominent homosexual publication, Dove Award-winning and Grammy-nominated musician Jennifer Knapp made public that she is a lesbian who has been in a relationship with a woman for eight years. The announcement comes roughly one month before the release of her new album titled “Letting Go” and after several years’ hiatus from the music scene.

Reuters alludes to “rumors about her sexuality” over the past several years — rumors her Christian fans “faithfully shot down” — but quotes her saying about her concerts: “I’m definitely getting a lot more friendly winks from the girls than I have in the past.” And she told Christianity Today that she is not a “pro-gay activist” but “just a normal human being who’s dealing with normal everyday life scenarios. As a Christian, I’m doing that as best as I can.”

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Irony gushed from the White House on Tuesday as the head of one empire praised the scorned, tortured and executed Victim of another at an “Easter Prayer Breakfast.” “Hypocrisy” doesn’t begin to describe this brazen performance from a corrupt, arrogant, and thieving liar — but after all, Barack Obama [...]]]> by Becky Akers
NEW AMERICAN

Irony gushed from the White House on Tuesday as the head of one empire praised the scorned, tortured and executed Victim of another at an “Easter Prayer Breakfast.” “Hypocrisy” doesn’t begin to describe this brazen performance from a corrupt, arrogant, and thieving liar — but after all, Barack Obama would not be where he is today had he not mastered such vices. Politics is dirty, and only the filthiest of criminals triumph at it.

Those criminals have co-opted religions for their assorted administrations since time began. And their ploy worked as long as the religion was the pagan sort that worshipped power, whether in nature or in gods that were only sinful men writ large. Zeus was capricious, lustful, supercilious, ruthless, vain — not only a model but an excuse for Roman emperors who deified themselves. False religion was — and still is — the handmaid of the State. Both originate from the pit of hell to bamboozle and manipulate their devotees. Both genuflect to the same idol: power, i.e., control over other men.

Then along came the Bible with its revelation of God’s love for sinners and the Christianity that love begot. For the first time, the world saw a “religion” that opposed the State, that defied it, in fact, by denouncing its brutal grip on men, that said, “Wielding power over others is wrong. Men are not cogs in a machine to achieve rulers’ wills but infinitely valuable beings created in God’s image. Love them instead — which means treating them as you would want them to treat you.” I have yet to hear any politician ask us to ticket him because he didn’t buckle up in his limo, force him to buy health insurance we select for him, waterboard him, raise his taxes, throw him in jail because he chooses a drug we disapprove, or send his children to bomb folks he’s never met who’ve never harmed him.

God is love. But government is power, love’s antithesis. Beneath every law, regulation, tax, and program lies the threat of physical power — lethal power, ultimately, if we don’t yield to the State all it demands. The freedom love requires, its voluntary nature, are government’s direst enemies: the State would wither overnight were its minions Christian enough to grant taxpayers the liberty and voluntariness that are love’s sine qua non.

That makes government, limited or totalitarian, elective, despotic, or monarchic, Satan’s citadel. Which explains why the State naturally and inevitably violates the Ten Commandments. It murders and steals, then lies by pooh-poohing its sins as “war” and “taxation.”

Satan himself boasts about owning government when he tempts Jesus after His forty days in the wilderness: “Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’” Does Satan show our Lord the marketplaces of the world, its homes or shops? No. Rather, he points out the “kingdoms” (βασιλεία in Greek, “kingdom or dominion”).

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One would have to be a blind man to not see that America is fast losing the fundamental principles of liberty upon which our once-great country was established. And, without a doubt, the single biggest reason for this decline is the lack of concern and effort on the part of today’s [...]]]> By Chuck Baldwin

One would have to be a blind man to not see that America is fast losing the fundamental principles of liberty upon which our once-great country was established. And, without a doubt, the single biggest reason for this decline is the lack of concern and effort on the part of today’s Christians and pastors to resist it.

All over America, when one approaches our pastors and church leaders with the obvious decay and ruination of constitutional government and Declaration principles taking place in our land today, the response flippantly comes back: “God hasn’t called me to do that; I’m supposed to win souls and that’s it.” (Or words to that effect.) As if the call to Gospel preaching, evangelism, and missionary endeavor negates our responsibility as citizens of a free land.

Of course, this call to “win souls” doesn’t interfere with these preachers’ golf games; it doesn’t interfere with their family vacations; it doesn’t interfere with their active membership in whatever local civil organization they happen to belong to; it doesn’t interfere with their hiring of a lawyer if they are falsely accused or defrauded; it doesn’t interfere with their invitations to celebrity politicians for special church recognition on patriotic holidays; it doesn’t interfere with them going to the polls to vote; it only seems to interfere when they are personally asked to take a stand in the gap for our country’s liberties. Then, all of a sudden, they haven’t been “called,” or “God will take care of it,” or “Jesus is coming soon,” or “Religion and politics don’t mix,” ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

As a result of America’s preachers’ indifference (and that of the Christians they influence), our country is on the brink of becoming an oppressive and tyrannical state. No, let me rephrase that. America is already in the process of becoming an oppressive and tyrannical state. And it’s the preachers’ fault!

For some, it is a matter of ignorance (I think “willful ignorance” is more appropriate). For some, it is a matter of convenience. For some, it is comfort. For some, it is ambition. Whatever the reason, America’s preachers are contributing to the collapse of the greatest free country the world has ever known–all in the name of saving souls.

What these preachers seemingly do not comprehend is that when the hammer falls on liberty in this country, it is going to FALL RIGHT ON TOP OF THEM–HARD. There is no mistaking it: when oppression’s hammer strikes, Gospel preachers and Bible believers will be the anvil. And when it happens, it will not matter that a preacher was popular, or was likeable, or was non-controversial, or was compassionate, or was a Moose or Elk club member, or had a big church, or was a friend of the governor, or had “Law Enforcement Appreciation Day” in his church every year, or that he was sought out by political candidates for his endorsement. None of that will matter to a tinker’s dam. The boot of state oppression will squash him like a bug! It will not spare him, his wife, his children, his health, his finances, or his feelings. And, ladies and gentlemen, at this very moment, we are not very far away from the hammer falling.

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What follows are some quotes from Mega-Pastor Rick Warren taken directly from a transcript of the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life (May 23, 2005).  I [...]]]>

The church used to be a lifeboat, rescuing the perishing; now it is a cruise ship, recruiting the promising. – Leonard Ravenhill

What follows are some quotes from Mega-Pastor Rick Warren taken directly from a transcript of the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life (May 23, 2005).  I think Rick Warren’s banal words speak for themselves.  Warren’s a real “Groyseh Macher” for Jesus, hobnobbing with all the “influencers” to get his pragmatic “social gospel” message out to the masses.

Warren is a self-confessed “pragmatist” and therefore would doubtlessly excuse his excesses under the rubric that “the end justifies the means…” He  is willing to sacrifice truth and theology for the sake of a recipe or “methodology” that seems to work.  Jesus, on the other hand, would never sacrifice duty to God for the sake of political or religious expedience. After all, Jesus was offered all the kingdoms of the world with all their “glory” in exchange for merely a “compromise” on the subject of “theology” (Matt. 4:8-10).  Jesus’ rebuke of the devil (and repudiation of idolatry) is a rebuke to all pragmatists like Warren who likewise reason that the end justifies the means…

Indeed, the devil is the ultimate pragmatist, appealing to people to abandon the idea of unchanging truth for the sake of expediency.  Satan is the ultimate liar, the ultimate propagandist, the ultimate con artist.  He is a “master” at enslaving and deceiving people.  Jesus, on the other hand, brings OFFENSE.  There is NO GOSPEL MESSAGE apart from offense — first, the offense of being convicted as a law breaker, and second, the offense of the Cross of Jesus Himself.  People like Rick Warren offer up an “inoffensive” gospel that appeals to the “felt needs” of seekers (i.e., pagans).  There is NO model for this approach given in Scripture, and especially not in the teaching and ministry of Jesus…

Warren and other false teachers regard big numbers, big events, big money, “big deals” to be the measure of the success of the Gospel.  Nonsense.  There is more power in the lowly faithfulness of one unknown soul working in the vineyard than 10,000 Rick Warrens and other Christian entertainers…   Look, drawing a crowd never resulted in large-scale conversions in Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus called individuals to take up the Cross and follow Him. Jesus knew the nature of the crowd, the mob, the power of “groupthink” (John 2:23-25). The fickle crowd that once hailed Him as King later chanted “crucify! crucify!”

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RICK WARREN QUOTES:

You know, when you speak to 23,000, 24,000 people every weekend, crowds don’t impress you anymore….

Last night, I was in Miami speaking to this huge international convention of all of the Spanish-language publishers and they gave me the city key to Miami….

As you can imagine, I get a lot of invitations to speak – I get about four or five a day – and so I have been choosing pretty carefully which ones to accept. And I came here because I only speak to influencers, and God has given you a degree of influence.

You know, when you write the best-selling book in the world for the last three years, that changes your life and I’m not the same person I was three years ago….

Today there really aren’t that many Fundamentalists left; I don’t know if you know that or not, but they are such a minority; there aren’t that many Fundamentalists left in America.

Bono called me the other day and said why don’t you come up to the U2 concert at the Staples Center because we’re both active in AIDS prevention. My wife and I have given millions to the prevention of AIDS and those afflicted and those orphaned by AIDS. And we were working together with him and he came back to us and I said, “What have you learned in this data plan that you’ve got?” And he said, “That I was wrong about the church. They have been the most receptive, and I didn’t expect them to be receptive.” And we began to talk about that, but that’s a trend, and one of the trends you’re going to be hearing about in the future is a thing called the Global Peace Plan…

Ten percent of the churches in America have now done 40 Days of Purpose and that’s just now. We will take another 10 to 15 thousand through it this year, and on and on and on. And there’s a little story of how that got started in churches and then it spread to corporations like Coca-Cola and Ford and Wal-Mart, and they started doing 40 Days of Purpose. And then it spread to all the sports teams. I spoke at the NBA All-Stars this year because all of the teams were doing 40 Days of Purpose. LPGA, NASCAR, most of the baseball teams – when the Red Sox were winning the World Series, they were going through 40 Days of Purpose during the Series. So the story of the 40 Days of Purpose is more than the story of the book. And maybe we can get back to why that touched such a nerve around the world, because The Purpose Driven Life is not just the best-selling book in American history; it’s the best-selling book in about a dozen languages.

And that’s why, by the way, the religious right does not represent evangelicalism. I’m not a part of the religious right and I don’t know any of my friends who are part of the religious right.

Then the other story that I would encourage you to look at is this evolving alliance between evangelical Protestants and Catholics, particularly in the evangelical wing of Catholicism. In 2004, there were three big surprises in our culture. One of them was the success of the movie The Passion, which was roundly panned by everybody and then went on to become the third biggest best-selling movie in history – grossing $600 million. The second was, for the second year in a row, my book was the best-selling book in the world. A book by a pastor – how’s a book by a pastor selling that many, almost a million a month? And the third was some of the so-called “values voters” from this past election. And really, I happen to agree with some of what’s been said, that there’s a lot of over-emphasis laid on that. But in all three of those, Catholics and evangelicals came down on the same side of the fence in many areas. Now when you get 25 percent of America, which is basically Catholic, and you get 28 to 29 percent of America, which is evangelical, together, that’s called a majority. And it is a very powerful bloc, if they happen to stay together on particular issues….

I spoke at Harvard last month. I did a series of lectures for the faculty in the Kennedy School and also in the law school. I spoke to several groups of faculty and several groups of students and I started with this quote from Peter Drucker: “The most significant sociological phenomenon of the first half of the 20th century was the rise of the corporation. The most significant sociological phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century has been the development of the large pastoral church – of the mega-church. It is the only organization that is actually working in our society.”

Now Drucker has said that at least six times. I happen to know because he’s my mentor. I’ve spent 20 years under his tutelage learning about leadership from him, and he’s written it in two or three books, and he says he think it’s the only thing that really works in society.

There is a difference between “evangelicalism” and “fundamentalism” and “the religious right.” And people use them like they are synonyms. They are not – they are very, very different. I am an evangelical. I’m not a member of the religious right and I’m not a fundamentalist….

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