Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Catholic Chronicles By Keith Green

Years ago, in the mid 1970's when contemporary Christian music actually was a Christ-centered countercultural force that truly edified and energized the Christian church, one musician rose above it to bring to bear upon it a radical call for consecrated holiness and world missions unlike any other. Taken from us far too soon in 1982, that man was Keith Green, the legendary piano playing prophet whose music contained not only some of the most beautiful and passionate Christian ballads of all time (such as "Easter Song", "Your Love Broke Through" and "Oh Lord, You're Beautiful") but also the most biting, satirical and convicting as well (listen to "Altar Call", "Asleep In The Light" and "The Sheep And The Goats" and be ready to feel for broken bones afterward).

Over the years, his music has become a collection of musical ministry that has encouraged, rebuked, challenged and blessed millions of people. But what a lot of people have forgotten is that Keith was also a dynamic personal evangelist and Bible teacher as well as a writer. He used his Last Days Ministries outreach to advance his ministrations by writing, printing and distributing newsletters and tracts that tackled many hot button issues no one else was talking about such as abortion, homosexuality, the need for Christians to be involved actively in world missions and the encroaching of worldliness in the church. What many forget is that Keith's studies led him to tackle these issues at a time when the evangelical movement long before the so-called "religious right" arose and that his focus did indeed captivate a church relatively unencumbered by the plastic cultural glitz it would create in the 1980's that has made it so irrelevant in so many circles in society today. In short, his influence was profound and yet, profoundly all too brief.

One of those studies led him to address, in a singularly memorable style, one of the most untouched issues of all and that being the divide between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. He authored, in his own direct, factual and uncompromising fashion four classic articles he called the Catholic Chronicles through LDM that were turned into tracts. One of the very first tracts I ever got in my hands after leaving the Navy in 1983 was his "Chronicle I"  that for a young ex-Catholic like myself who at the same time was coming to discover his music was a life changing work. I had already come to realize how completely blinded Catholicism had made me to the truth of the Gospel and found an absolutely chilling 1982 visit to a church in Rome itself bringing that agonizingly home to me. But Keith's in the Chronicles would be my first introduction to what a defense of the Christian faith should be and I never forgot them, having saved those tracts in my files here even to this day.

Sadly, LDM, not long after Green's death, discontinued publication of the Chronicle tracts. In a letter I have somewhere filed away in the Spiritwatch archives which I can't get my hands on, Green's widow Melody explained that Keith had been having a change of heart about them and was going to have them pulled any way before the plane crash that killed him and several other people, including two of his children. So they were quietly iced away .. and certainly, none of the influence of the Roman Catholic pro life movement who worked closely with Melody's "Americans Against Abortion" outreach could have had anything to do with that. Of course not.

You can tell, I guess, that I'm more than a little skeptical about this and how profoundly disappointed and saddened by Melody and LDM's position on this.

Conscience and conviction of the Holy Spirit has gripped me for years and I can no longer sit on this explanation as the final word on this magnificent work that Keith has done.


Once again, Spiritwatch Ministries is relinking the original webbed versions of the Chronicles to our home page which we created years ago and took down at LDM's request. What Keith sang years ago is still true:

Make my life a prayer to you
I want to do what you want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers no compromise

I wanna shine the light You gave
Through Your Son You sent to save us
From ourselves and our despair
It comforts me to know You're really there

Ironically, Melody wrote this song .. about not compromising and about shining light to those in need of it.

Keith said God led him to write them. I feel God has led me to reissue them in a form that will help others blinded like myself. I must obey Him and not the fear of man which a corrupt and apostate church can so easily impose on you. Roman Catholics clinging to Catholicism are still lost and need their blinders removed, such as I did. They need the Gospel and Keith knew that, Betty. You'd better deal with it.

Therefore, if you'd like to read these, click here to do so. They are linked on the Spiritwatch site also.

                              

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Another Sign Of The End Time Apostasy: When Bad Movies About The End Go To The $5 DVD Bin And Beer Commercials Bluescreen It In.


This will be another attempt to try to blog regularly.

I feel awful that between my busy personal life, my work and a lot of other to-dosm I have so much going on locally here that I don't get time to write here as much as I can. The political extravagances we've seen this past week just demanded I plop myself down here at the computer to stir some up. So, if you're following the progress of our research on the website articles, I want to thank you for your patience and emails and support. So here's an update:
  • I'm presently working on a long awaited article on Jimmy Swaggart's so-called "Message Of The Cross."  The tenor of the ravings I've read in the nasty emails I've been getting from some of his disciples has finally convinced me I need to do this. More than a few of them just can't see how truly confused the Lone Ranger evangelist actually is despite the megalomania he displays on his massive new media presence as well as his rule from the JSM HQ in Baton Rouge.  I'd love to follow it up with one about his Expositor's Study Bible, but I just don't have time for that, unfortunately, just now.
  • The response to paganism that has also been under glass for years is finally getting finished. This article is the completion of the work I started out years ago on how Wicca and paganism has been digging into our society. It's so completely mainstreamed, as well as the New Age itself, and has largely been forgotten by a no less dangerous and yet far more literally destructive spirituality, that being Islamic jihadism.
  • I have much so work for the Strange Fires page to get cracking on that I've been unable to do as I contended with the Remnant Fellowship cult heavily the past decade or so. The completion of foundational articles on the dumbing down of the Pentecostal movement from its Biblical roots as well as on the utter lack of discernment rampant within it are two very big articles we've had on the back burner for some time. 
Now, back to our blogging here ..

As I see it, one of the sure signs we are actually in the Biblical end times, apart from bad theology on church signs, is when awareness of the coming end of all things has become so widespread it's used for the backstory of television shows and CGI-driven movies put out by Hellywood - I mean Hollywood.  It's when we can contemplate mass global destruction

Themes drawn from an army of screenwriters who offer flashy send ups of the book of Revelation as well as a graphic depiction the end of the world are now a dime a dozen. Humanity has long been given prophetic insight by the Christian scriptures, among other places, that the end of the world is a very real event more known by how many people live ignoring its arrival. Movies about the end of the world got a real spike around the cultural non-event called Y2K that was supposed to spell the end of civilization as we knew it. But they've been long preceded by all kinds of other treatments, from the 1950's science fiction prophecies of alien invasions ("War Of The Worlds") the thirty years of fear of a Cold War nuclear holocaust ("Fail Safe" among them), and even worries about meteor strikes on the earth itself ("Armageddon"). 

So with the culture's renewed interest in ancient prophecy, from the ramblings of Nostradamus to ancient cosmologies, as well as Biblical prophecy itself  that refers to the utter devastation of the world in places like Revelation 6 , the film makers have to up the ante, raise the unthinkable, and milk these themes for all they can to fill seats with concession chomping and bored movie goers in search of what they know is a cheap thrill.  Movies from the "Dunwich Horror" to "The Omen" to "End Of Days" have horrified and also delighted millions of them over the past 40 years, and have ensured enough of a cash flow that Madison Avenue won't ignore .. and, as I saw earlier this afternoon, are exploiting themselves ..


It shows how jaded, calloused and completely self-deluded we've become. When the end comes, no one will believe it because it wasn't seen on TV or the big screen. Just another bit of slouching to Gommorah.

The real horror of real destruction that visited New York, Shanksville and Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2001 has been far more urgent, terrifying and life changing. We're already tuned out over that, long ago. A letter to the editor at a newspaper on the eve of the 10th anniversary of that day of infamy couldn't say it any better: click here to read it.  

Between Harold Camping's offspring and the Mayan calandar, we'll see more of this. I'm sure.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Dissing Protestantism: Rick Santorum's Just Being Roman Catholic. What's The Surprise?

The strange phenemonon of electoral opportunism that is the annual presidential elections in the United States, has taken another one its' patented weird twists among the Republican candidates in a campaign that seen some really bizarre ones.

Recently a clip of a talk given by Roman Catholic and Republican candidate Rick Santorum surfaced in the media. He said this at a 2008 forum with students at Florida's Ave Maria University, founded by Domino's Pizza mogul Tom Monaghan. In it, Santorum essentially dismisses the Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic and Protestantism as being "gone from the earth." 

It's a rather revealing look into the mindset of hardline Roman Catholicism as it sees those not under its control. It has once again opened up in public discourse the very real divide between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism itself.

“We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic, but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic. Sure, the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic. Mainstream, mainline Protestantism. And of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious — to use both vanity and pride to go after the Church.”

While pundits, talking heads in the media, commentators and others fuss over Santorum's supposed distinction between "mainline" and "mainstream" Protestantism (of which Evangelicals are a part), they miss a big point here. Catholicism doesn't care how Protestants define Protestantism. Those who are doctrinally or practically Protestant rather are fond of the labels, revel in them, and even use them to show how much "righter" we are from others.

But Catholicism doesn't care. The entire Protestant world is under the curse of God for questioning Rome's doctrine and authority. Don't believe me? Google "Council of Trent" and do some reading. Check this church's document tracing how many curses of God that the Roman Catholic institution has placed on anyone who doesn't agree with them .. or this nifty site.

Tom Monaghan is a Roman Catholic uber conservative and is known for his philanthropic penchant as well as RC uber conservative community creation. He flies in the rarefied atmosphere of blissfully dogmatic and supremely self-confident Roman Catholic uber conservatism. In short, in Monaghan's worldview and therefore in the places he's bestowed his millions of dollars, Rome is home and the Council of Trent is the word of God.

It's hard for Protestants to understand the complete subjugation of independent thinking, dialogue and autonomy of faith in Christian liberty that the culture of hardline Roman Catholicism exerts. You simply can't get the impact of Santorum's statement until you grasp that point. In traditional Roman Catholicism, especially the species that Santorum played to, this has been an unquestioned authoritarianism for centuries.

Santorum and Monaghan are among the many Roman Catholic powerbrokers who rub shoulders with all kinds of interesting people - like Catholic cardinals who protect deviant pedophile priests, part of the dark underbelly of Catholic religio-politico social realities no less Byzantine or secretive than those in Protestant ones. Monaghan has the unusual burden of having to explain his close association with a specific Roman Catholic cardinal who has been under grand jury examination in Philadelphia for his collusion with covering up the filthy and abominable deeds of priests who molested children.

The sharp media will start asking questions about the propriety of a Presidential candidate whose worldview INTOLERANTLY (there's the 25 cent PC word) and summarily dismisses Protestantism as a corrupt aberration. I have had toe to toes with RC apologists who said the exact .. same .. thing, and known that is what they truly actually believe because that is what Rome says about it, end of discussion.

Romney is going to get a huge bump out of this one .. but the sharp media will ask about his cult's history of feral rejection of non-LDS Christianity as a "perfect pack of nonsense" itself.

But LDS and Roman Catholic cultism aside, the point is that in this RC worldview Santorum speaks to, Rome is home. Protestants need to submit to it without question or languish under God's curse. Santorum knew his audience and knew the patronage it enjoyed from hard liners like Monaghan, who represent Catholicism at its hard linest: he chose his statement deliberately because it shared in this obviously bigoted worldview.

Never mind that morality in largely Roman Catholic lands across the world is degenerate and spirituality is as nominal/seasonal as always - that Catholics turn up in church only at weddings, baptisms, funerals, Christmastime and maybe at Easter. Never mind that free indulging of sinful pleasure is celebrated in places like Rio's de Janeiro's Carnival and New Orleans' Mardi Gras just before Roman Catholics then put their holiness game faces on and start practicing Lenten sobriety. This is what goes on when Rome is home.

Papal blessings on order .. down the street from the Vatican, 1982

The spirituality and morality of Protestantism is under the curse, right? We'd EXPECT, per Santorum, to see it failing. But never the Holy Roman Catholic Church, founded on Saint Peter. Ohh, noooo ..

But - God forbid - the votes of the accursed Protestant electorate get passed over! That would be ... unchristian!

Just when I thought I might have found the least odiferous of candidates I might vote for, I think I will sit this election out. They all stink.


rafael