In Jordan, pope stresses Christian-Muslim harmony

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- On the second day of his visit to the Middle East, Pope Benedict XVI stressed the need for harmony and unity between Christians and Muslims.

"Muslims and Christians, precisely because of the burden of our common history, so often marked by misunderstanding, must today strive to be known and recognized as worshippers of God, faithful to prayer, eager to uphold and lift by the Almighty decrees," the pontiff said in an address at the King Hussein Bin Talal mosque in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Often, "it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is a real catalyst for tension and division" between faiths, the pope said.

Pope Benedict also spoke about Iraq's Christians, asking the international community to "do everything possible to ensure that the ancient Christian community of that noble land has a fundamental right to peaceful coexistence with their fellow citizens." Watch how Jordanians feel about the pope's visit »

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the pope did not pray inside the mosque.

The pontiff arrived Friday in Amman for a weeklong visit to the Middle East that he said he hopes will "foster good relations between Christians and Muslims."

It is the first papal visit to some of Christianity's most holy places since Pope John Paul II made the pilgrimage in 2000. Watch the difference between two popes: the populist and the professor »

"My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community and to be treated to the leadership shown by his majesty, the king ... in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam," the pontiff said in a brief address shortly after arriving in the city.

Two years ago, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech that caused friction between the Muslim and Christian communities when he quoted a Byzantine emperor who said the teachings of Islam's Prophet Mohammed were "evil and inhuman."

The remarks sparked an outcry from Muslims around the world, and the pope later apologized, saying the emperor's words did not express his personal convictions.

On Monday, the pope flies to Tel Aviv to begin his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is scheduled to pay courtesy visits to Jerusalem's Muslim grand mufti and two chief rabbis. The pontiff will return to Rome next Friday.

The pope has also faced tension with Jews during his four years as head of the Roman Catholic Church, after he reinstated a bishop who had been excommunicated after he denied the Holocaust.

Bishop Richard Williamson was one of four bishops excommunicated 20 years ago for belonging to a group that rebelled against the Vatican's modernizing reforms in the 1960s.

All four bishops were reinstated in January, but shortly before that, Williamson said in an interview with Swedish television that he did not believe that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler deliberately set out to murder Jews, or that there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp.

The Vatican ordered Williamson to recant and said the pope was not aware of Williamson's views on the Holocaust when he lifted the excommunication.

Pope Benedict later admitted to making mistakes in the decision, saying the church should have been aware of his views. Williamson apologized for his remarks but did not recant them.

Rick Warren disavows support for Prop. 8

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 4/8/2009 7:00:00 AM

California mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says he apologized to his homosexual friends for making comments in support of California's Proposition 8, and now claims he "never once even gave an endorsement" of the marriage amendment.

 

Monday night on CNN's Larry King Live, Pastor Rick Warren apologized for his support of Prop. 8, California's voter-approved marriage protection amendment, saying he has "never been and never will be" an "anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist."
 
"During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never -- never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop. 8 was going," Warren claimed.
 
However, just two weeks before the November 4 Prop. 8 vote, Pastor Warren issued a clear endorsement of the marriage amendment while speaking to church members. "We support Proposition 8 -- and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8," he said.
 
The following is a complete transcript of Warren's comments just weeks before the Prop. 8 election:

"The election's coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you're praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of marriage that has been going for 5,000 years.
 
"Now let me say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8 -- and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear.
 
"This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain, I flat-out asked both of them: what is your definition of marriage? And they both said the same thing -- it is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. And every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years, has said the definition of marriage is between one man and a woman.
 
"Now here's an interesting thing. There are about two percent of Americans [who] are homosexual or gay/lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.
 
"This is not even just a Christian issue -- it's a humanitarian and human issue that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love, and procreation.
 
"So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I'm going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this. But everybody knows what I believe about it. They heard me at the Civil Forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views."

During his CNN interview on Monday, Warren expressed regret for backing Prop. 8. "There were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends -- the leaders that I knew -- and actually apologized to them. That never got out," he admitted.
 
Additionally, Pastor Warren said he did not want to comment on or criticize the Iowa Supreme Court's decision last week to legalize same-sex "marriage" because it was "not his agenda."

 

---

 

Bryan Fischer with the Idaho Values Alliance says Warren is abdicating his biblical role as a pastor. "For Pastor Warren to say that shoring up marriage is not something that's on his agenda is just something that's hard to believe for somebody who believes the Bible is our rule for faith and practice," Fischer notes.
 
Dr. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, helped spearhead the Prop. 8 effort in California. Garlow admits he is confused and troubled by Pastor Warren's decision to apologize for supporting Prop. 8.
 
"Historically when institutions and individuals back away from convictional biblical truth, it is driven primarily by one single factor -- and that is the respectability of other people. In other words, much more caring about what other people think about them than what God thinks about them," he concludes.
 
Pastor Warren did not respond to a request from OneNewsNow for an interview.

Brian McLaren Denies Historicity of Genesis Account of the Fall of Man

Here is Brian McLaren proving once and for all that he is nothing less than a post-modern LIBERAL. In no uncertain words, he flat out denies the Historicity of the Genesis account of the fall of man into sin as it is recorded for us in God's Word.

Brian McLaren's view of scripture is FAR AFIELD from Jesus' view of the scriptures. Either Jesus was right and McLaren is wrong or Jesus was wrong and is not your savior because he was a liar

1 in 3 'Christians' say 'Jesus sinned'

Barna poll shows adults
develop their own beliefs
Posted: January 16, 2009
11:40 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily


Half of Americans who call themselves "Christian" don't believe Satan exists and fully one-third are confident that Jesus sinned while on Earth, according to a new Barna Group poll.

Another 40 percent say they do not have a responsibility to share their Christian faith with others, and 25 percent "dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches," the organization reports.

Pollster George Barna said the results have huge implications.

"Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible," he said.

"Growing numbers of people now serve as their own theologian-in-residence," he continued. "One consequence is that Americans are embracing an unpredictable and contradictory body of beliefs."

The results are a dramatic departure from the nation's foundings, when leaders held prayer meetings in the halls of Congress and attributed to Almighty God the victory in the Revolutionary War.

Barna noted the millions of people who describe themselves as Christian and believe Jesus sinned, or those who say they will experience eternal salvation because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, "but also believe that a person can do enough good works to earn eternal salvation."

Barna's private, non-partisan, for-profit research group in Ventura, Calif., has been studying cultural trends since 1984. For this study, the organization randomly sampled 1,004 adults across the continental U.S. The study has a margin of error of 3.2 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

For the study, "born-again Christians" were defined as people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. The results highlight the significant shift in beliefs held by Americans, the study said.

"For much of America's history, the assumption was that if you were born in America, you would affiliate with the Christian faith," the report said. Now however, "half of all adults now contend that Christianity is just one of many options that Americans choose from and that a huge majority of adults pick and choose what they believe rather than adopt a church or denomination's slate of beliefs."

Fifty percent of Americans believe Christianity no longer has a lock on people's hearts. Two-thirds of evangelical Christians (64 percent) and three out of every five Hispanics (60 percent) embraced that position, making them the groups most convinced of the shift in America's default faith.

In contrast, the poll showed the importance of belief was growing along with the number of options about what to believe.

"By an overwhelming margin – 74 percent to 23 percent – adults agreed that their religious faith was becoming even more important to them than it used to be as a source of objective and reliable moral guidance."

Forty percent of respondents who do not affiliate with Christianity confirmed the increasing influence of their beliefs.

The result "underscored the fact that people no longer look to denominations or churches to offer a slate of theological views that the individual adopts in its entirety," the report said.

By a margin of 71 percent to 26 percent adults "noted that they are personally more likely to develop their own set of religious beliefs than to accept a comprehensive set of beliefs taught by a particular church," the report said.

Nearly two-thirds of "born again Christians" adopted that stance.

"In the past, when most people determined their theological and moral points of view, the alternatives from which they chose were exclusively of Christian options - e.g., the Methodist point of view, the Baptist perspective, Catholic teaching, and so forth," Barna noted. "Today, Americans are more likely to pit a variety of non-Christian options against various Christian-based views. This has resulted in an abundance of unique worldviews based on personal combinations of theology drawn from a smattering of world religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam as well as secularism."

Rick Warren praises Obama for inviting homosexual bishop

Fred Jackson - OneNewsNow - 1/16/2009

Rick Warren is applauding Barack Obama's decision to invite homosexual Episcopal bishop V. Gene Robinson to pray at an inauguration event next week in Washington, DC.

Christianity Today quotes a statement from Warren, who says "President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground. I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen." Warren's comment came in the wake of a controversy over Obama's decision to invite Warren to give the invocation prayer at the swearing-in ceremony at next Tuesday's Presidential Inauguration.

Robinson, who became the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop back in 2003, joined other homosexual activists and their supporters in condemning Obama for inviting Warren, saying "it was like a slap in the face."

Warren has received heavy criticism for openly supporting California's Proposition 8 last November, a voter intiative that amended the Golden State's constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Obama eventually gave into the pressure over Warren and has invited Robinson to give a prayer at another inaugural event next week.

Robinson has said he will not use the Bible when praying, and states "I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer."

"Touch Not Mine Anointed"

by Kevin Reeves

Perhaps the single biggest factor hindering acknowledgment and genuine repentance of false doctrine is the unwillingness for believers to relinquish the superstar status of their spiritual heroes. And how many times had our [church] leadership supported this by telling us not to name names? It was the one thing above all others that tied my hands and put a gag in my mouth. Although I was told to go ahead and speak to whomever I wanted to within our group, such presentations were always followed up with appropriate damage control by the leadership. And I was forbidden to breach the unwritten hyper-charismatic code and expose people like Kenneth Copeland during the times I filled the pulpit....

This fear of exposing God's anointed, even if they are guilty of repeated heresies, bordered on (may I use the term?) paranoia. Regardless of the evidence presented, there was simply no way anyone in our leadership would even admit the word heresy was applicable. Even when the blood atonement of Christ on the Cross is denied; even when those doing the denying are becoming rich through the tithes and offerings of believers who are often materially far worse off; even when these same ministers threaten divine judgment on those in opposition (the old Ananias and Sapphira tactic. Acts 5: 1-11).

Both the Old and New Testaments are replete with examples of the Lord's apostles and prophets condemning false brethren. Check out Ezekiel 34 sometime, plus the entire books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Then look at Jesus' exposure of the hypocrisy and false teaching of His day, or the apostles' stern warnings in the epistles, such as found in the entire epistle of Jude. Anyone who claims the Bible commands silence on the subject simply doesn't know the Word as well as he thinks. Although false prophets are not stoned today (fortunate for them!), their sin will always be one of grave consequences.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8-9)

We must name them. How else will the church be warned? Would that we had the courage of a Nathan, to thunder with the righteous anger of the Almighty, "Thou art the man" (II Samuel 12:7)!

The false shepherds among us have too long used I Chronicles 16:22 and Psalm 105:15 as a blank check to do as they please. "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm" was God's warning to the nations through which the Israelites passed during their sojourn through the wilderness. It implied swift judgment for any pagans who would come against the chosen people of the Lord. To wield this like a saber at a sincere brother alarmed at false doctrine smacks of spiritual tyranny, cowardice, and dishonesty. Hammered also with the Acts 5 account of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, a concerned believer in Jesus is usually bullied into silence or into leaving the congregation. It's already been used right here in our town to squelch close examination of extra-biblical manifestations.

While a big part of me just wanted out, Kris and I continued to hang on to a shredded hope for change, and we wound up staying months longer than we otherwise would have.

In the end, I'm glad we did. Had we left sooner, some nagging doubts may have remained in both our hearts, and could have become a wedge between us. New Covenant leadership, although not present in our home, would possibly have kept a foot in the door of our lives. So we settled down to wait, and what was hidden finally came full-blown into the light. (an excerpt from The Other Side of the River by Kevin Reeves, chapter 12)
LTRP Note: Kevin Reeves, a Lighthouse Trails author, was an elder in a River (Latter Rain) movement church for many years until the Lord showed he and his wife the truth about the spiritual deception they were involved with. What happened to him is much the same that is happening to many Christians today who have become involved with Purpose Driven, contemplative, or/and emerging churches.

A Post-Evangelical America

The religious building blocks of Obama's victory.

Lisa Miller

Nov 6, 2008 | Updated: 4:01 p.m. ET Nov 6, 2008
Just as "race" has a whole new meaning in America this week, so, too, does "faith." For at least four decades, white evangelicals have been the religion-and-politics story in this country. Their power, their rhetoric, their numbers, their theology—all have been so dominant that many of us in the media had forgotten that religious faith could be expressed any other way. Last summer, a colleague and I wrote a profile of president-elect Barack Obama that described his Christian faith—a journey that started with a deeply spiritual but not religous upbringing, progressed through a considerable amount of reading, searching and ambivalence, and culminated in an emotional homecoming in a socially active, black church in Chicago.

A great many readers of that story expressed the view that because Obama is pro-choice, because he did not go to church with regularity—and because his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, held some radical views and expressed them aggressively—the senator from Illinois was not a Christian. "Obama is without a foundation of faith," wrote one reader.

If this week's exit polls tell us anything about religion, they remind us that there are tens of millions of voters in this country who believe in God, read their Scripture, pray, regularly attend a house of worship—and do not consider themselves born-again Christians. In 2008, 44 percent of Americans who go to religious services more than once a week voted for Obama; in 2004, just 35 percent of those people voted for Kerry—a nine-point increase and the most surprising number in all the religious polling. "It's very cool," says Jim Wallis, founder of the left-leaning evangelical group Sojourners, "that the story is not white evangelicals again."

Other than that, the exit polls provided few surprises. White evangelicals did not like Kerry, and they do not like Obama. Just 26 percent of evangelicals voted for Obama compared to 23 percent for Kerry—a negligible change despite estimates from Wallis and others that Obama's numbers in this particular precinct would be much, much higher. Other faith groups also played to type. Nonwhite religious voters went overwhelmingly for Obama—79 percent, compared to 69 percent in 2004—as did Jews (82 percent compared to 75 percent in 2004). Forty-six percent of Roman Catholics voted for Obama—a factoid that pro-choice advocates were touting earlier this week as an unprecedented victory. Here, a little historical perspective helps: Catholics have voted for the winner in every presidential race since Kennedy and for a generation have been split nearly down the middle on choice, with those supporting the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade slightly ahead.

Drill down a bit, and the numbers get more interesting. In states such as Colorado, Indiana and Florida, where the Obama camp worked incessantly to convert red to blue, the number of evangelical converts to the Democratic Party was surprisingly high. In Colorado, for example, 27 percent of evangelicals voted for Obama, compared to 13 percent for Kerry in 2004.

Overall, the religious vote for Obama did not reflect a massive shift in ideology and priorities among evangelicals but rather muscle-flexing by a coalition of others of faith—including and especially African-American churchgoers and Latinos who tend to be both more religious and more socially conservative than the population at large. The pro-Obama faithful represent a wild diversity of the American religious experience, including mainline Protestants, church-shoppers, the curious, the spiritual but not religious, the heterodox (those who subscribe to several traditions), the intermarried, the community-minded, the intellectually provoked but skeptical, and the traditionalists. Indeed, it includes almost every committed person of faith except those whose church culture insists on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The exit polls echo findings by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which last year published a massive study showing Americans to be deeply spiritual—90 percent of them say they believe in God—but less and less concerned with denominational orthodoxy. Like Obama, a quarter of Americans practice a faith different from the one they were raised in, the Pew survey showed. Among Protestants, that number is a third. Even a quarter of atheists say they believe in a higher power or a universal spirit.

Darrell Bock is a professor at New Testament Studies at the Dallas Theological Seminary who voted for Obama. For Christians like him, social issues such as abortion and gay marriage were not litmus tests this year. If Christians were concerned about "the economy, competence, our role in the world, the way we've prosecuted the war on terrorism—then they switched their vote and made the middle group larger." George Bush came to power telling an evangelical story that appealed to his base, a story of sin and redemption, of simple faith, of good and evil. This familiar story—and stories like it—has overshadowed every other religious theme in America for 40 years. Obama—his deep religious faith and his peripatetic spiritual biography—shines a light on all other religious paths in America, various as they are, and infinite.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167917

Obama Redefines Christianity and Socialism As Election Nears -

Bill Wilson

By Bill Wilson, KIN Senior Analyst

WASH—Oct 28—KIN-- A recent poll of voters indicated that Christians were about evenly split between supporting Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Hussein Obama for President. It seems that McCain has convinced most Christians that he is a Christian, but not necessarily a strong enough Christian. Obama has convinced many that he is a Christian, however, his commitment to his faith by his actions is sorely lacking. Hence, its about 50/50 among Christians, who essentially determined the last two presidencies by their strong vote en masse for George W. Bush.

McCain tried to solidify the conservative Christian base by choosing Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. While this solidified some of the most conservative Christians, it appears McCain still has not closed the deal. Meanwhile, there are many Christians who are voting for change no matter what. Obama represents that change. But Christians are warned in Philippians 2:12-13 to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” If Christians are to do of God’s good pleasure, then they had better be forewarned of the ramifications of voting for Obama.

First off, Obama is not a Christian. Obama explained his Christianity in a March 27, 2004 interview with Cathleen Falsani, author of "The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People." Obama told Falsani, "I am rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are a connected people." Then he used a more traditional Muslim description of Jesus, saying he was a "historical figure," a “bridge between God and man," and "a wonderful teacher." Christians believe the words of Jesus when he says in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.”

So if Obama is not a Christian, what is he? He was once a Muslim and his campaign has declared that he is not a practicing Muslim. But more recently, it has been revealed that in 2001 Obama said that the US Constitution was flawed and that the Founding Fathers were wrong by not writing into it a means for wealth redistribution. This is consistent with his October 13th declaration to Joe the Plumber, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." This is Marxism. Obama was mentored by Communist Party USA leader Frank Marshall Davis and was a member of the socialist New Party in Chicago dedicated to electing socialists as Democrats. Marxism is the replacement of God with government.

The Rapture... Not yet!

2 Th 2:1-4

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Multi-Religious Retreats Offer Variety in Faith

Religious retreats are traditionally focused on strengthening a particular faith, but a new type is cropping up where believers of a variety of faiths are worshipping together.

Mon, Aug. 11, 2008 Posted: 11:07 AM EDT

Religious retreats are traditionally focused on strengthening a particular faith, but a new type is cropping up where believers of a variety of faiths are worshipping together.

Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Zoroastrian, Judaic, Christian and Islamic texts are read aloud during the same Sunday service at a Muslim Sufi religious retreat in New York, according to The Associated Press. The Sufi Muslim retreat leader speaks about Jesus and the peace that he has inside.

This is the scene at Abode of the Message in New Lebanon, New York, about 25 miles southeast of Albany. At this retreat center, guests are invited to deepen their faith without converting. There is a woman who even described herself as a Sufi Christian.

Nearby, the Buddhists at Zen Mountain Monastery say they see no conflict with Buddhist practice and a person’s search for God.

During instruction, guests are taught how to sit, breathe, and meditate. Buddhist leaders at the temple consider the mind a sense organ and believe people spend their lives daydreaming or worrying about the same thing instead of living in the moment.

Likewise Elat Chayyim Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut, welcomes “seekers who have walked other spiritual paths” and those with no Jewish eduction.

Perhaps the multi-faith retreats are part of the increasing openness Americans have towards their personal faith.

A landmark survey released in June found that although America remains a deeply religious nation, most Americans don’t believe their religion is the only way to eternal life.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey of 35,000 adults found that 57 percent of evangelical church attendants said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, which contradicts with traditional evangelical teaching.

Overall, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation had the same openness towards the path to eternal life. Sixty-eight percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.

"The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion, to AP.

"There's a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences," he said.

Eighty-three percent of mainline Protestants, 59 percent of those at historic black Protestant churches, 79 percent of Roman Catholics, 82 percent of Jews, and 56 percent of Muslims said many religions can lead to eternal life.

"What most people are saying is, 'Hey, we don't have a hammer-lock on God or salvation, and God's bigger than us and we should respect that and respect other people,'" said the Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

"Some people are like butterflies that go from flower to flower, going from religion to religion — and frankly they don't get that deep into any of them," he said.

Some Christian leaders do not welcome this new inclusive outlook on religion.

"If by tolerance we mean we're willing to engage or embrace a multitude of ways to salvation, that's no longer evangelical belief," said Roger Oldham, vice president with the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. "The word 'evangelical' has been stretched so broadly, it's almost an elastic term."

Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter

John Piper on "Revival," Truth, and the Antichrist

August 14, 2008


John Piper writes:

Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma, one of the main charismatic magazines, has written a lament and critique of the Lakeland "revival" which is now in a tailspin over the leader's announced separation from his wife. Grady's summons to pray for the church and our nation is right, and among his commendable questions and observations are these:

"Many of us would rather watch a noisy demonstration of miracles, signs and wonders than have a quiet Bible study. Yet we are faced today with the sad reality that our untempered zeal is a sign of immaturity. Our adolescent craving for the wild and crazy makes us do stupid things. It's way past time for us to grow up."

"True revival will be accompanied by brokenness, humility, reverence and repentance--not the arrogance, showmanship and empty hype that often was on display in Lakeland."

"A prominent Pentecostal evangelist called me this week after Bentley's news hit the fan. He said to me: 'I'm now convinced that a large segment of the charismatic church will follow the anti-Christ when he shows up because they have no discernment.' Ouch. Hopefully we'll learn our lesson this time and apply the necessary caution when an imposter shows up."

Charismatics will not be the only ones who follow the Antichrist when he rises. So will the mass of those who today in thousands of evangelical churches belittle the truth of biblical doctrine as God's agent to set us free (John 8:32).

Discernment is not created in God's people by brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance. It is created by biblical truth and the application of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit to our hearts and minds. When that happens, then the brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance will have the strong fiber of the full counsel of God in them. They will be profoundly Christian and not merely religious and emotional and psychological.

The common denominator of those who follow the Antichrist will not be "charismatic." It will be, as Paul says, "they refused to love the truth."

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)

Our test for every Lakeland that comes along should first be doctrinal and expositional. Is this awakening carried along by a "love for the truth" and a passion to hear the whole counsel of God proclaimed?

Tony Blair's Faith Foundation Advisory Council

The Foundation will have an International Religious Advisory Council to give advice and help to Tony Blair on the Foundation's work and plans.

The Council will be composed of individuals from each of the six faiths with which the Foundation initially intends to work. The members will generally be either religious leaders or significant scholars. They will often be nationally or internationally known but the most important thing will be the expertise and wisdom each can bring to bear from his or her individual experience.

Council members will keep the Foundation attentive to the religious nuances and implications of the Foundation's proposals. In addition to responding to specific requests for advice they will of course be welcome to offer views whenever they think fit and to suggest new areas in which the Foundation might work. Tony Blair hopes they will help to keep the Foundation focused and creative as well as sensitive to the traditions of each of the six faiths and alert to developments within them.

Members will be drawn from many parts of the world, in order to represent a range of perspectives from within each of the faiths and a variety of social, political and geographical contexts.

Finally, to allow for a wide-ranging and flexible contribution from the Council, it will have no formal, legal responsibilities. The Foundation does of course have a board of trustees who discharge the traditional responsibilities required of the trustees of any charitable organisation.

So far those who have agreed to be members are:

* Dr Ismail Khudr AL-Shatti, Advisor in Diwan of HH the Prime Minister of Kuwait and former President of the Gulf Institute for Futures and Strategic Studies
* HE Dr Mustafa Ceric , Grand Mufti of Bosnia -Herzegovina
* The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, Lord Bishop of London
* The Reverend David Coffey, President of the Baptist World Alliance
* The Reverend Joel Edwards, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance
* Professor Jagtar Singh Grewal, former Chairman of the India Institute of Advanced Study and former Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University
* Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot of the Upaya Zen Center
* Right Reverend Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of Kaduna
* Anantanand Rambachan, Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf College, Minnesota
* Rabbi David Rosen, Chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations
* Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth
* The Reverend Rick Warren, Founding and Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church

In addition, HE Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, will join the Advisory Council once he has retired as Archbishop.

Christian-Muslim Statement Among First Fruits of 'Common Word' Gathering

Following a four-day conference, Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world announced the first fruits of the "Common Word" exchange through a joint statement that affirmed their support for religious freedom and further interfaith dialogue based on their common love for God and neighbor.

Sun, Aug. 03, 2008 Posted: 10:23 AM EDT

Following a four-day conference, Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world announced the first fruits of the "Common Word" exchange through a joint statement that affirmed their support for religious freedom and further interfaith dialogue based on their common love for God and neighbor.

During the "Loving God and Neighbor" meeting at Yale University, the high-profile leaders discussed how Christians and Muslims might work together to address world poverty, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation in Palestine and Israel, the dangers of further wars, and the freedom of religion.

On Thursday, over 140 conference participants unanimously approved a cooperative statement that signaled a new beginning of collaboration between Christians and Muslims where stronger assertions of faith would be not just be allowed but required.

Leith Anderson, president of National Association of Evangelicals and Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance were among top evangelical leaders at the July 28-31 conference who agreed to sign the document.

The statement began by affirming the "unity and absoluteness of God" and God's merciful love as central to both religions.

The most weight was placed on the second paragraph in which religious leaders affirmed a mutual respect for each other's faith.

"We recognize that all human beings have the right to the preservation of life, religion, property, intellect, and dignity. No Muslim or Christian should deny the other these rights, nor should they tolerate the denigration or desecration of one another's sacred symbols, founding figures, or places of worship," declared the statement, read by Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan at a news conference Thursday.

The statement also denounced a death threat by Al Qaeda last week against Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for hosting an interfaith conference this month in Madrid.

The leaders agreed to "denounce and deplore threats made against those who engage in interfaith dialogue."

"Dialogue is not a departure from faith," the statement affirmed. "[I]t is a legitimate means of expression and an essential tool in the quest for the common good."

Additionally, conference participants also planned for a week every year when Muslim and Christian clergy would preach to their congregations the good aspect about the other's faith. Other practical steps to promote understanding between the two faiths included a website with notable Christian and Muslim books and a study guide with frequently asked questions about the two faiths.

The recent four-day gathering stemmed from a letter, titled "A Common Word Between Us and You," issued by 138 Muslim clerics last October calling for sincere dialogue between Muslims and Christians. In November, Christians responded with a statement that agreed to work with Muslims on pressing issues based on their common principles of love for God and neighbor. Over 500 Christian leaders endorsed statement issued by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Some evangelical theologians and Christian leaders had criticized the Christian letter, saying it didn't assert the correct Christian view of God as the trinity.

But as the conference panel discussions would reveal, no one backed away from the core assertions of their faith as they engaged in highly academic and often theological conversations on topics that ranged from God's love to world poverty.

In an opinion piece, Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a consultant in West-Muslim relations, welcomed the "strong evangelical component" at the meeting.

"These were religious people; they weren’t interested in diluting their faiths," he wrote in a commentary published Saturday by The National, a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates. "And in that, a type of sincerity emerged that was perhaps the greatest benefit of the initiative."

Professor Miroslav Volf, a leading organizer of the conference who also heads the Center for Faith and Culture, said during the news conference that the most important learning between the two communities took place over "coffee, tea and meal conversations."

WEA leader Tunnicliffe, who represents some 420 million evangelicals worldwide, invited Muslim leaders to take their bridge-building initiative one step further by learning more about evangelicals.

"Muslims feel they have been stereotyped and stigmatized in the media. As evangelical Christians we feel the same stereotyping," he said during closing remarks Thursday.

"We are a diverse community of Christians yet we are often portrayed through the media as being tied to one political agenda, one view of eschatology, and intolerant of all others," shared Tunnicliffe.

He said evangelicals share a "commitment to some core biblical truths" but hold a "diversity of views on many issues."

"Just as we promise to seek to move beyond the stereotyping of Muslims found in the media, can I ask you, my Muslim friends, to get to know us beyond what is reported in the newspapers and television programs? If we are going to continue to build this new bridge this must be a part of the architecture."

The "Common Word" conference was the first of a series of conferences to take place in the fall and next year that will center on promoting peace and understanding between the Abrahamic faiths. Future conferences are scheduled in October at Cambridge University, November at the Vatican, March 2009 at Georgetown University, and October 2009 at Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute in Jordan.

Katherine T. Phan
Christian Post Reporter