Rome, 1982: When Rome Could No Longer Be Home .. One Ex-Catholic's Remembrance

I will never forget the moment when it fully dawned on me, a newly born again believer, just how completely opposed the religion of Roman Catholicism actually is to Biblical truth. It was for me a turning point in my life.  

Raised a Roman Catholic, it was Baptist and then Church of God believers who began to break down my religious ignorance propped up by pride, carnality and ingrained tradition ... by simply sharing the Gospel of a loving God who wanted to save me from my own sinful self. I came to Jesus and begged him to be my Savior in 1981 while I was in the Navy.

Not having any mentors or believers to fully declare the truth to me, God's Spirit took me on a journey in which one by one all of the connections and revelations began to be made clear to me as to how hideously I'd been deceived into following purely human Roman tradition and not God's Word .. and I don't think it was an accident that the last one finally clicked while I was on a whirlwind 2 day tour of the Eternal City, Rome itself while my ship was anchored in the Bay of Naples in the summer of 1982. The burning into my soul of that moment still blazes in my heart, mind and spirit 32 years later.

I had been in the Vatican Museum and saw all of the unbelievable wealth, ostentation and artwork collected by the papacy over centuries of temporal power. Blow after blow of the truth kept kniving into me. Those who have not lived such a religiously blinded life completely dominated by religious programming can ever appreciate just what kind of white knuckled and soul-shattering agony it is to come to understand how wrong you've been led to live .. and all it means to you, your loved ones, your dead, your past and the present .. and all of the world itself.

This is why I feel the lonely and painful connection with those I minister to who are exiting or considering exiting leaving truly cultic organizations as they agonizedly share on how they have encountered the same kind horrific shock and the uglier consequences of losing faith. While Roman Catholicism is not a cult in the sense of the word as I have defined it, it's underlying culture at many levels can only exist by leveraging blind faith and the suspension of critical thinking the same way real cults actually do. To see this cloak finally slip and be seen for what it is provides a disillusionment like no other.

It took me, however, a quick side stop at some "famous" church in Rome to look at their own little collection of religious stuff when I came across a fresco in the ceiling of one of the church naves that froze my blood solid. Done with no expense spared, it was one of those massive works of stunningly painstaking public oil works that were meant to convey to the faithful an illustration of the faith they were to cling to.

To my old Roman Catholic sensibilities, it should have been absolutely stunning. It instead made me sick.

                            

It showed Mary, standing in heaven with the masses of the world all turning their pained eyes to her with hands outstretched in papal benediction. Jesus Christ was not depicted - but Mary herself was carrying a cross, the symbol of redemption, and was illuminated in a great aura of what could only be heavenly glory in which the Spirit as a dove was hovering above her bestowing it. The painting itself was a magnificent and massive portrayal of the power of the painters of the Renaissance at their best when the papacy put them to work to create the imagery they've used ever since to plug this uniquely grotesque and decidedly unbiblical apostasy as "Christianity."

You simply cannot begin to relate to what I'm about to say until you've lived in a culture bent toward worship prompted by artistic props and images and icons and incense and darkened alcoves filled with candles and pews. I find it difficult to begin to describe the terrible shaking that gripped me momentarily there. A tension of heart, mind and soul that completely tore all of my illusions away made me actually tremble and a cold sweat start out. All of my religious training almost drove me to my knees to do a sign of the cross and genuflect .. I could almost feel myself being pulled down to do so (no, it wasn't demons .. it was only that tradition that I'd been steeped in). All I did, however, was stare at it and feel horror and revulsion fill me to the depths of my soul at what that picture really meant in light of the Bible's teaching on the exclusivity of Jesus as Savior alone.

I had been worshipping a goddess and not God.

I had been deceived!

The Catholics I knew and loved all around me were deceived!

This was a blasphemy of the highest order I was staring at, just one lone man, in the vast, hushed marble-pillared opulence of an ancient Roman Catholic church in Rome itself. For the first time in my life, I understood what the term "seat of Satan" really meant and it filled me with a life-changing heaviness and sobriety I've never forgotten and never shaken since. A line had been crossed in my life from which I would never be the same.

Without really realizing it, still awash in the emotion and impact of the moment, I lifted my new Canon AE-1 with me and I had to snap a picture of the thing to remember this day. I still have it - as if I would forget that kind of abomination, which can be routinely seen in Roman Catholic settings globally.

So when my father, who forsook his pagan Catholic religiosity to become a Good Catholic pulled out in his home a few summers ago a vast 6 foot tall image of Our Lady of Guadelupe he's had brought to his Roman Catholic church home to have it venerated, I had to leave the room.

Roman Catholics are a harvest field of souls of unbelivable proportions that the Protestant Church has largely forsaken and almost abandoned .. but in this Laodicean age in which the church is slouching toward the end of times, why am I not surprised? With a Pope who has buffed off the Christ-figure mythos of his office more thoroughly than any other Pope in recent history, and who receives accolades from televangelists that include high fives, would I really expect the Protestant Church to look beyond Francis' mild image and the mad devotion it has inspired? 
And the band played on.

Just a friendly reminder for the Spiritual among us ..

How You Can Love Jesus, Hate Religion, And Still Miss Out With God

In 2012, a Christian poet named Jeff Bethke  released a video called "Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus." You can view the video and read the poem here.  It highlighted like never before in social media circles how profound the serious juncture is which the Christian faith is at,  a major crossroads of truth showing that like never before perhaps in the Church's history, there are those within it who still believe in God, Christ and the Gospel and yet are abandoning formal attendance or connection to the Christian Church in droves.

According to one online source, "the four minute video had received 6 million views three days after its release on 10 January 2012, as well as 64,000 comments. By Saturday, 14 January 2012, the clip received 10.2 million views and over 100,000 comments.  As of today, August 10, 2014, YouTube shows it has had 27,866,608 views. 

A friend of mine decided to recommend it on their Facebook channel and I finally felt I needed to make a statement on it that is more an exhortation for those online who make clear, through their comments, that despite Bethke's apparent realization and subsequent statement that he wasn't making the video to condemn the Church, they apparently feel that way.


This is what I wrote:

This video has a lot of truth .. wrapped around one very serious assumption that is very WRONG ..

If religion = legalism, cultism and judgmentalism making Christian spirituality out to be a social club of rules, spiritual abuse and oppression, I can get where this kid comes from.

The problem is too many of you young in faith have never known what real Christian spirituality in a FELLOWSHIP based around glorifying Him and loving others in and OUT of it is really like.

You've been in a group of religious people who made a liveable faith out to be something it is NOT. You want to believe, but you don't want the bondage. I get that. I've been there. So understanding your turn off from "religion" is completely understandable.

But to despise the Christian church for the unreality, intolerance and abuse you suffered is a big, big BIG mistake.

Do you stop driving a car because you had a car accident?

Do you quit school and education because you didn't connect with people there or the teachers?

Do you stop going to doctors because you had a bad treatment with one?

The Bible teaches very plainly that you are just a member of a Body, the Church that Jesus has called out from the darkness of this world to live in heaven NOW. Jesus Christ died for the church. Jesus created the Church, Jesus passionately intercedes for the Church.

DO you hate what Jesus loved? Do you despise what He gave His life for? How deeply, authentically, honestly can the love of God dwell in you if you hate what He hung on the cross for, what His Blood was spilt for?

Think about it, my brothers .. my sisters .. those who my common faith in Christ with you makes us family.

This deeply concerns me when I see those of you who are my spiritual house hate something so precious out of misunderstanding you've been led into by those who were no doubt in horrible error. Hating religion is a passion I share .. but I know that to hate the Church is to hate what God loves. Please, please think about it.

I have been in the ministry since 1983. I came out of dead religion into new life in Jesus in 1980. I've been helping people ripped off by abusive religion for years and I completely get why people leave religion off their checklist they draw up when they escape it. I do. And I totally understand the total disillusionment with the hypocrisy and horrid example that has ripped you off in places called churches and fellowships where God was supposed to have been known. I know that.

But the Bible teaches that your spiritual destiny and potential can never healthily grow in isolation from the very thing you must turn to .. the community and support of the Body of Christ found only in the Church, the same one Christ died for ..

I hope you'll think about this. You may feel you don't need the Church, but the truth is you do .. more badly then you can possibly believe. It's not screwy religion and scam piety I urge you to seek .. but the very real places of the Spirit where the people of God, in humility and obedience, truly seek to focus their walk with God as well as their service, that they might encourage you as much as you might encourage them. They are there. They are real. Seek them, They are real.

Just Another Day In The Apostasy: When Perps Blame Victims ..

There are like 640 posts here in the system I need to finish and actually post. Ay, chihuahua.

Alright, not quite that many. But life has truly been coming at me fast and I've ridden the crest of just now. So I'm going to attempt to start catching up on these long delayed works. I know, I know, I've been saying that off and on for the past few years but when reality in the present tense works on you, you have to go with it.

So in the next few days, we'll see how often I can get back into a daily discipline of blogging about the apostasy at hand which this blog is devoted to. But for now, let's reflect briefly on the recent loathesome chutzpah of convicted felon, sexual deviant and of course ex-pastor Jack Schaap shall we?

Schaap would be the former pastor of Hammond's First Baptist Church (FBHC), who was the heir to the Jack Hyles megachurch fundamentalist empire and who played his hand very badly. You see, when you become leader of one of the flagship churches of fundamentalism, a culture that makes branding itself more Christian than Christianity itself its obsessive self-focus, you simply shouldn't get caught doing what you castigate the world outside your immediate circle for doing. And that's to exploit and use young girls like play things while clutching the Superman cape about you .. certainly a "discipline"  learned at the knee of his mentor.

Hyles, while erecting a personal facade of ultraorthodox purity and fidelity to true Christianity, encouraged an idolatry around his fundamentalist vision and authoritarian control that turned the church into an abusive organization filled with secrecy, legalism and manipulation. His long-standing affair with a woman who attended FBCH has long been completely denied by Hyles to the day of his death in 2001. The sheer hypocrisy of Hyles was completely lost on his well-indoctrinated flock who were taught to look the other way and to continue to uphold "the man of God" as the center of their universe, never questioning his manufactured holiness and excoriating all who might question it as puppets of Satan.

But Schaap, found that he couldn't snap the whip to drive his followers as well as Hyles did, although his legendary demonstration of how to polish a shaft before his entire church as an object lesson of faith building certainly was an attempt to do so. When incriminating evidence came out that he was having decidedly unclerical relations with a teenage girl, it was discovered it had been an ongoing perpetration with her, and within a couple of years, he was defrocked, indicted and convicted for his crime and is now serving some hard time.

But, and we come to the really icky part, not if Reverend Jack Schaap's assertion is believed. That is to say, not unless we all learn that his victim was actually responsible for seducing him and this none of this was really his fault due to mitigating circumstances. That's if his recent filing is believed by the judge who put him away.

Incredible, but true. Following the modern evolution of scandal as played out by the deviants of our day, as we see it in this apostate age, the perpetrators brazenly and unashamedly will accuse their powerless victims of being responsible for their perversion.

You can't, as they say, make this stuff up. Here's the grotesque details.

I hope Judge Lozano gives him another 10 or 20 just to think about how pathetic his complaint is. He can polish his shaft all he wants to in the darkness of isolation there. Hopefully, he'll repent and not find outer darkness closing in on him. That kind separation is eternal, fiery and unending. Jack Schaap's disgusting defiance of the judgment on earth he's incurred will be rudely interrupted by an eternal one far more literally damning than any "hell" he's face in prison might be if he doesn't repent.

Why False Teaching Is To Be Called Out In The Church

Exclusion of false teaching from among the Christian congregation is a Biblical command when it comes to truth. You cannot get around it. We call it out because we are called to do so by Scripture.


Ephesians 5:11

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

There are indeed false teachings delivered by false teachers that the Church is to discern and reject for the sake of the spiritual health of the congregation and the preservation of Biblical truth. It's done through the tough, unglamorous but vital discernment of unbiblical falsehood and a publicly revealing and refutation of it. Too many churches turn into authoritarian cults or havens of dead, frozen irrelevant orthdoxy when the errors of false teachers are not challenged and corrected by Scripture by the power of the Spirit of God.

The dialogue that should occur during discernment is actually an act of faith, not intolerance, hate or any of the foolish deprecation that those who are so questioned like to sling right back. Those laboring under error are to be admonished and if they choose to remain in their error, they are to be shown as such. The Bible makes clear that correction of error is to be done with longsuffering and doctrine, as well as reproval and rebuke (2 Timothy 4:2). It is meant to be redemptive and restorative and engaged in civil dialogue (2 Timothy 2:22-26) but when the admonitions are ignored, these who Scripture calls "HERETICAL" are to be put away from among the church (Titus 3:10)

My rocky relationships to those in the church I've called out over the years weren't made rocky overnight. I've contended with many professing Christian teachers for several years over their falsehood. They got ugly because they cannot handle being called out. This was not the case with them when I first met them in a variety of venues and tried to dialogue with them after coming to observe their unscriptural teaching. The heat expressed in their rancor increases with the additional light of Scriptural truth I've had to display. 

I don't hate any of them and in other instances we might be civil face to face, but I won't back down from what Scripture says about being exclusive with those who make truth a chess piece on their boards.

The New Testament's record on how this is done is plain, direct and unambiguous apostolic mandate. The language is indeed exclusionary. It may offend our inclusive Western mindset, and it doesn't seem to keep the heat level down, but that comes with the Biblical territory.

Read Jude 3-4. The verses described defending the faith as a full contact contention with the sneaky wiles stealthy men who slip into the church to distort and warp the Faith. An apostle commanded through an Epistle for the church to have that kind of passion. The sleeping church of today doesn't begin to come to grips with that kind of command. We don't do personal evangelism, tithe properly, pray and study as we should either, keep ourselves holy, so that's not surprising.

But boy do we want to be NICE and unoffensive. That's the new holiness of the age.

Acts 20:28-31

28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Here is the great apostle Paul who, with tears, constantly warned the entire Ephesian church to "take heed" of those he called wolves who would enter in to divide them with speech of perversity and polarization around their own lust for leadership and authority. That Pharisee of the Pharisees wept "day and night" for 3 years over this. Don't tell me you aren't supposed to be passionate about truth and protecting the church! He used the very same expression Jesus used in Matthew 24:4 when he said to "take heed lest no man deceive you."

Years later, the apostle's admonition to watch out for these characters took a decidedly exclusive explication:

Romans 16:17-18

17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

Spiritual deception, division and offence coming by false doctrine spewed by false teachers is a spiritually destructive influence. The apostle begs the church to "mark" (or identify) those who labor under this malign spirit and to completely avoid them. In this Laodicean era of vast compromise, where backslidden churches, dangerous cults and deceptive claims are able to be media-magnified and replicated a thousand fold instantaneously, the need to address this is just as critical, crucial and necessary.

Don't look at me narrowly. It's what the Word says.

1 Timothy 4:1-7

1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5 for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. 7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

The work of a minister is not just to preach the Gospel but to defend it against backslidden and errant men and women who, upon departing from the Faith, will preach doctrines of devils in hypocrisy that are to be refused (there's that exclusion again. How intolerant those apostles get). Putting the Church in remembrance of this end times peril is a testimony to the worthiness and integrity of a minister. Those who would rather just play this down are tools of the very devils they think they have underfoot. I could go on to cite other verses from the Bible about this, but we'll leave it at that.

Now, just why "others" choose to include among the flock of the Lord these wolves in sheep's clothing boils down to one of several reasons, which I list off the top of my head in no particular order.
 
They want to be 
1) Nice 
2) Open Minded 
3) Dont Want To Seem Intolerant 
4) Are Biblically illiterate or 
5) Delusional About Deception..

I don't think I need to unpack that any further other than to say one can be so open minded to the point of ventilation when their brains fall out, along with any semblance of discernment. You'll have to ask those who want to violate Scriptural precept on this why they choose to do it.

They will answer to God for their folly .. and I will answer to God for my attempt to keep the flocks of God warned. I think I'll sleep better at night for what I do. I may not please men, but that's not what I'm here for. I may not do it perfectly, but I do what I know the Spirit empowers me to do.

1 Timothy 4:16

16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Trouble In Zion's Harvest Fields: The Curious Cases Of LDS Missionary Failure

Since the beginning of the so-called "dispensation" of time that has occurred since the death of its founder Joseph Smith, the total number of missionaries deployed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints went over the million mark in 2007.  With their scrubbed, youthful visages seeking to engage converts globally in whatever halting command of their prospects' local languages they have, the LDS mission force has been on the go since 1830. No one can deny how completely focused upon Mormon missions work their church is or how from the earliest days of their life within their church, they are continually conditioned to seek their future participation in a mission anywhere in the world. Today, the typical LDS mission lasts 2 years, 18 months for young women, and is expected to be completely funded by the LDS missionary and his family - not the church itself.

The gospel according to the Mormon church is hardly the Biblical Good News Christ commanded, however. It is a crushing legalism of graceless perfectionism meant to compel illegitimate submission to the dictates of church authority mediated through a hierarchy headed by the Mormon prophet.  Beginning with a subjective experience of enlightenment about the church's claim to be the only true church, the mystical manipulation of LDS spirituality is drawn from its aberrant theology positing that all people are gods in embryo who are to strive to become gods in the ages to come. The practical and usually unspoken implications this belief brings offer tough enough challenges for LDS members to strive for, resulting in an unspoken Mormon perfectionism and equally unspoken spiritual burden laid upon every Latter Day Saint,  beginning in patriarchal family circles through service projects, personal piety, as well as marriage and religious "temple work". But for children raised under the influence of belief in godhood as the highest eternal reality and the need to strive accordingly to be counted worthy enough of such an accomplishment, the pressure to be perfect in temperament, morality and personal development is relentless and neverending. The sheer amount of behavioral problems many Mormon youth struggle with in the years before approaching missionary candidacy years is a well documented reality showing that, for all of their parental and church influence, they are not much better off then non-LDS youth.

M. Russell Ballard, one of the "Twelve Apostles" of the LDS Church leadership quorum, has in a "private audience" of "various news organizations" gone on record in June 2005 stating that there was only one way for anyone to explain this apparent fervor of LDS youth for LDS missions callings: 

"The only reason missionaries would make such sacrifice is because they know their message is true ..They wouldn't do it for any other reason."

We beg to differ.

For LDS culture to remain under the control of the dictates of the Mormon prophet as articulated by its First Presidency leadership, the conditioning of LDS youth to unquestioningly and unhesitatingly obey their leaders continues from their cradlehood onward. The paramount coaching LDS youngsters are given is to implant and nurture a desire to be called to a Mormon mission later in life. Generations of LDS youth are reared under the expectation that they are to pursue a missions call, beginning with - for example - grandparents setting up funds to start creating their missions support as an act of patriarchal love as much as obedience to church mandate. The impact this has had on LDS children and youth is profound and pervasive and it certainly plays to the Mormon Peoria very well indeed: this has been a good way for LDS leaders to piously cloak their well-honed practice of church indoctrination as youthful conviction of the truth of their creed.

A child born into LDS circles is fated to feel this compulsion weighing upon their minds all of the rest of their life and is a viewed by the church as paramount to their spiritual and personal development, as Ballard bluntly observed earlier that same year in 2005:

.. we must increase our efforts to see that every 12-year-old young man is worthily ordained a deacon; every 14-year-old, a teacher; every 16-year-old, a priest; and that every 18 to 19-year-old worthily receives the Melchizedek Priesthood. We can do this by filling the hearts of our young men with love for the Lord, understanding and appreciation of His Atonement, and a clear vision of the marvel of the Restoration.

When our youth understand the significance of the Restoration of the gospel and know for themselves that God is our Heavenly Father and He loves all of His children, that Jesus is the Christ, and that together They personally visited Joseph Smith to open this, the final dispensation of time, they will want to help carry this message to the world. When our youth see the Book of Mormon as tangible evidence that the message of the Restoration is true, they will be filled with a desire to do their part in teaching these truths to our Heavenly Father’s children.

With this demand for a completely mobilized populace of LDS youngsters inexorably drawn into embracing such lofty church ideals as "the marvel of the Restoration", the compulsion blurs into a coercion: every child "will want to help" once they "understand" the need regardless whether they like it or not. The road to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) is one paved with good intentions, sparkling idealism and a firm conviction that the world must come to hear of the  "Restored Gospel." 

Mormon youth are to fixate all of the energies their hearts and souls generate upon obediently bearing that torch. Ever compliant and desirous of pleasing their parents and church culture, they seek to please their God Elohim by preparing for that 2 year journey the rest of their young lives .. and it is their obedience and indoctrination into LDS religion that the MTC essentially fixates them with, as seen in this video clip from a PBS documentary from several years ago. The only questioning and reflection advisable is connected only to their usage of it to empty themselves of critical thinking and any actual considerations as to whether the Restoration is true or not suddenly become matters in which doubt is quashed:

Inevitably, muted voices of dissent arise within absolutist groups and are recognized off key notes in the symphonies of conformity to authoritarianism such organizations publicly broadcast and promote as the cutting edge Truth. This jarring of their idealism with harsh reality has been coming home for years to the Mormon Church in hurriedly packed bags and hushed private international phone calls. It's now becoming more and more apparent that recognition of an urgent problem within the LDS missions enterprise is starting to finally surface.

And what is the problem? The realization among Mormons is that their cookie-cutter stamping plant of LDS culture created to mold their youth into trail blazing missionaries has serious quality issues. More and more LDS youth have been coming home early from their missions much to the dismay and even bewilderment of their church and are failing to keep the commitments their youthful zeal and religious culture thrust them into making. Moral failure and illness alone cannot account for these aborted mission assignments and to attempt to cover it with such a fig leaf of unreality is no longer possible.

In the June 2005 article linked above, the belief that the need to demand more personal accountability and preparation of LDS missions candidates was cited as one of the reasons that the number of their mobilized missions force dramatically dropped from the years 2001-2007.

So the input provided from a more recent Deseret News article from earlier this month now attempted to explain why this is happening. It mentioned - as drawn from a study done with 348 returned LDS missionaries - a lack of personal preparation, stressful mission field environments and even mental health issues as part of the reasons that this is occurring. These young people's failures are said to arise from their own personal failings. While this is entirely possible and even probable given the nature of religious crosscultural mission as engaged by young adults with little to no life experience outside their own immediate life circles, the fact that so many of them fell prey to these kind of problems indicates a failure by their peers, mentors and leaders to prepare them for what they encountered which pulled them down. And I think that a supernaturally driven True Church should have more to show for than this - since they assume for themselves a pinnacle of spiritual enlightenment and social development far superior to the "Gentile" non-LDS world around them, the Latter Day Saint church should - it would follow - be able to field young people not as prone to failure.

The reality seems to be rather that LDS youth and young adults are more driven by their cultural expectation to take upon themselves a proselytizing burden complete with regimens, presentation scripts and the pressure to make converts than their noble yet misguided conviction that the Restoration is the ultimate truth. Apostle Ballard, seeking to provide lemonade out of missions lemons, speaks about an issue he seems completely disconnected from. The video I included in this blog gives a glimpse into the kind of high demands for submission to authority and control of their message delivery that the MTC requires of LDS missions trainees and is a brief glimpse into the kind of institutionalized mechanisms the church has erected to provide the formative leverage it sees the trainees as needing. The role of divine "truth" actually is supplanted by the greater and much more compelling influence of authoritarian culture within the lives of  LDS youth. 

Youth called to be a missionary are to engage in one of the noblest roles to play in the Mormon Church and the social elevation and status they will enjoy engenders great respect and honor, as well as a proof that they are truly a defender of the LDS faith. The beckoning of social aspiration as well as their ambitious desire to please God, parents and their church is a form of compulsion impossible to underestimate. To aspire to this and fail to withstand the load, with so many family and friends (and prospective fiances) watching you, let alone your religious leaders, is a tragic reality that many of them face with fear and trembling - knowing what their community could say about it.

To see LDS youth fail and be so stigmatized and feel so completely alone within the wombs of the One True Church says more to me about how human the organization is than for its presumption to exclusive divine truth. What it says to me is that the LDS missions calling is part of a Mormon Sacred Science that can and does demand the personal sacrifice of the LDS missionary no matter the cost. The sacrifice includes a painful stimulation of personal spiritual and mental aberration that can scar and maim the inner being of an idealistic young man or woman, often at the hands of their own church community. Such insenstive and abusive treatment cannot be dignified as Christian fellowship. The fact that supposedly orthodox Christian movements and churches also fail their own when they too struggle and fail is beside the point. For the Restoration should know and do better, much better. But too many LDS youth are given that kind of cruelly "tender mercy" when they fail. It only shows just how "filled with the Spirit" that the "Restoration" actually is .. and how vastly different that this gospel and spirit actually is (2 Corinthians 11:4)!

And a truly tragic case of how the fear of failure in one young and struggling LDS missionary became manifest is another study of how cultic coercion is driven by they underlying dynamics of fear itself to enslave a struggling member. It is a classic case of doctrine over person, of the individual embracing self-destruction with the noble belief this is for their good and that of the community they belong to. In short, it is a demonstration of how powerful the dynamics of thought reform and mind control truly are within Mormonism.

And will the LDS Church's leaders wake up and smell the pizza?  

 As long as they think it smells like potato casserole, I highly doubt it.

When Late Night TV Gets It Right: Aunt Chippy On Miley Cyrus

As the great philosopher Willy Wonka once said: "For some things in life, there are no words."

That's correct because Aunt Chippy knew what those words should be .. about the relatively tame expression of pop decadence that Southern Baptist Miley Cyrus bestowed to her fans at a music awards show not even worth remembering.

Thanka, Tia.

Wolf Creep, Part 12,692,500,075 - When Shepherds Are "Unaware" Of Danger To The Flock

Bullying is a repugnant social aberration indulged in freely ever Adam and Eve ate humanity out of a divine house and home and has been around as part of the universal depravity of human society. It's become a major social concern everywhere and should rightly be so.

When children kill themselves to avoid  verbal abuse, shaming and criticism they face, it should be stopped. When homosexuals are made the subject of vicious personal attacks for the lifestyle they live, they should also be stopped ( with an important qualification that disagreeing with the lifestyle on Biblical grounds shouldn't be viewed "homophobia" but too many in the culture war surrounding it who want to defend homosexuality take it as such).  When minorities find themselves the center of racial slurs, it's an evil that should be addresed. Bullying is indeed WRONG.

It's the bullying you don't actually recognize as such that will storm your life .. coming from people with the faces of angels, the tongues of the spiritual and the hearts of beasts. I speak of the bullying in social circles in which you'd never expect it was going on .. in places you'd think would be a bastion of defense against it. Surely, you might say, you'd NEVER find that in those warm places of fellowship like churches, right?

BUZZ!  OH, I'm sorry. You are WRONG also!

Bullies exist in churches. That's a clear fact that few in leadership in the Laodicean era we live in want to recognize let alone do anything about. The abuse of power and authority within them is, in effect, a traumatic manifestation of religious abuse and manipulation that is indeed nothing more and nothing less than bullying on a profoundly warped level. And the tragic murder of a young Charismatic Christian woman  attending a Christian ministry school allegedly at the hands of a fellow male student being accused of being a cult leader is a horror I've been meaning to post on for a while.  The picture above is of this very student, Micah Moore, who is accused of murdering Bethany Deaton because of his concern that his religiously-tinged sexual exploitation of her was going to be exposed .. and because of his literally walking into a police station to confess that he had killed her. The dominance, influence and control over her life, her will, and in the end, her body and well being is bullying cubed and squared and made all the more grotesque since it occured among "Christian" people.

It's another sordid and ugly tale of how easily wolves in sheep's clothing can rise up among flocks of sheep completely unaware of their presence .. and how the shepherds were asleep at the wheel, their discernment and apparent will to do what is right completely checked out. This school failed its' students by failing utterly to provide clear levels of pastoral oversight among students supposedly preparing for ministry. I've been writing for years about how this happens, especially in so-called "five fold ministry" circles and have voiced my own views on how it can be addressed. The death of Bethany Deaton allegedly while under Deaton's faith community control is nothing you can sweep under the rug and speaks volumes  about how out of touch the church is with the bullies it unintentionally harbors and empowers. This is done when accountability in its community goes unasserted and pushes the maturity of its young lions seeking to lead within it.

I don't know if former YWAM  leader Floyd McClung had this hideous tragedy in Kansas City in mind when he wrote this excellent article on the abuse of spiritual authority, but it touches on the issue and is worth the read. When the wolves creep in and the shepherds check out, you can be sure it's another sign of the end time apostasy .. just as Ezekiel 34 points out.

Yet Another Sign Of The Apostasy: When Educators Do Stupidly Apostate Things

As usual, the ethos, bravery and finesse of the intellectualistas who act like they are molding tommorrow's minds can take your breath away in the midst of the ongoing apostasy.

Stop me if you've heard this before: the Christian faith is trampled on by a college professor singlemindedly pursuing teachable moments in the bold quest to encourage rational thought. As usual, you really just can't make this stuff up.

And it's a Mormon I've got to give the kudos to for standing up to this learned moron. Another weird day in the falling away and part of the New Normal.

I hope his community service gets him all the publicity he deserves. If I was in Palm Beach county, I'd definitely give him some debate. But that's why blogs are helpful. I think I'd like to ask him why the name of Mohammed wasn't put on that paper and walked upon.

 Excuse me while I email the good doctor.  Oh, it's invalid now, is it? 

Pity.

The Preyer Life Of An Abusive Church: First Baptist Hammond.

Religious abuse as we have defined it in other places in our website articles, is the inner psychological and emotional trauma suffered by members of churches/religious organizations which have used authoritarian and manipulative teachings and practices to control both their thought and behavior - whether the abuse was intentional or not. The bottom line of spiritual abuse is that it occurs when edification is cloaked manipulation. 

Unscrupulous leaders inflict spiritual abuse through the domination and control of followers who are compelled by induced fear or pride to adopt lifestyle changes that serves their own agenda - not the love of God or the spiritual health of the follower. Ultimately, this exploitation leaves them in a piteous dependence upon their association with the church or religious group to provide them meaning, a relationship with God, and even any notion of personality or significance. This is a tragic and all too common reality in both cultic movements and aberrant churches. 

What is even more tragic, however, is that most spiritually abusive leaders of aberrant churches sincerely believe that the degree of unbiblical submission they are demanding of their followers is necessary for their good. There are few more devastating personal intrusions into life then the spiritual trauma inflicted by twisted people who claimed divine authority to gain trusted access into the deepest part of someone's heart, soul and mind and to manipulate them at their will in degrading, terrifying ways beyond belief.  


These are the kinds of things you'd expect would occur in "those" people "over there." You'd never suspect to see it anywhere else among a bunch of fanatics in the backwoods of Appalachia or among the neanderthal Islamic jihadi culture. But when it occurs in church settings, it is almost always systemic, generational and deeply entrenched as a pillar of the larger community, in a household of faith harboring hundreds of thousands of souls featuring dazzling programs, well-scrubbed children, and the reputation of being a moral repository of Christian values.

And you'd never dream it could become a global engine of institutionalized abuse that colors the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions with a blacklight of twisted doctrine and practice that enslaves them, and makes them subject to the dictates of unquestioned and yet highly questionable authority figures.

When I left Chicago for Tennessee in 1986 to go to Lee College to prepare for the ministry, I never dreamed about such a thing. Like many, I thought cultism and religious abuse was something only among "those" out there. Upon moving back to the Hammond area in 2012, I was so completely focused on the transition at hand (buying a home, packing, saying goodbye to the area and ministry partners in the Volunteer State, etc.) that as part of my look ahead, I completely forgot about how great a black hole of anti-spirituality exists downtown off Sibley Avenue. It is a prime example of how excess, sin, depravity and exploitation has been sanctified as "old time religion".

Let this tragically necessary yet altogether disturbing article tell you a little bit more about the abyss called First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana and the "higher institution" it spawned called Hyles-Anderson College. It's not for the faint in heart. But it needed to be written. Stay tuned ..

The Forked Tongue Of An Atheist Superstar

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

With all the evangelical zeal of an Elmer Gantry plugging atheism, Dr. Richard Dawkins is one of the atheist culture's most enduring superstars, having become successfully ensconced in the larger global culture as the poster child for disbelief. He has taken his skeptic's road show around Western civilization speaking circuits, published best selling books on what he calls the "God Delusion" articulating with his richly erudite delivery his rationalization for the non existence of God on the basis of the sacred reality of science.

It is funny, however, when you realize that Dawkins' diatribes only seem to work and find traction in Judeo-Christian social settings. When the good doctor was asked about how Islamic views of theism in the Koran stack up to his airtight fortress of intellectual atheistic impregnability, he became curiously quite silent.

Douglas Murray on why Richard Dawkins is so quick to indict the God of the Bible but goes quiet when asked about the God of the Koran..


In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster", and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction". Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about."

How can it be that the world's most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct.

Yep.  Oh wait, there's more:

Listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday may have been left open-mouthed as the Reverend Giles Fraser, former Canon of St Paul's Cathedral, wiped the floor with devout secularist Richard Dawkins.

The pair clashed over a poll commissioned by Professor Dawkins designed to show that since most Britons had not read the Bible thoroughly in the last year or that they were unaware of details of the New Testament, this meant that Britain could not be designated a Christian country.

Far be it from us to crow on the matter but it would seem a delicious irony that Dr Fraser, who is of Jewish extraction, stopped Prof Dawkins in his tracks by challenging him to give the full title of Darwin's Origin of Species. He couldn't. Game, set and match to religion.

Spiritwatch Ministries At The Village Bible Church, Carol Stream in March!

On Sunday March 17 and March 24, I will be speaking twice to a joint Sunday School class and preaching to the congregation of the Village Bible Church of Carol Stream, Illinois. I deeply appreciate Pastor Ray Gurunian's openness to our ministry and am seeking the Lord for what He would have me share there on cults and apologetics.

This will be in the context of Village Bible's annual missions conference. This fellowship of believers believes passionately in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and supports several missions works, including that of Rodgers Atwebembeire, one of the frontline missionaries of the Center For Apologetics Research, a unique countercult and apologetics ministry aimed at equipping Christian ministers and leaders in mission fields around the world. This is truly cutting edge ministry for which I am thankful to have some small part in our world today and I thank God for Paul Carden, the fine man of God who has founded CFAR after leaving a fruitful ministry in the organization Walter Martin created. 

For information on times and directions, click here.

The Light At The End of The Tunnel Has Arrived

I have returned home .. finally, by the sheerest grace of God.

I now live back in the Northwest Indiana city of Hammond, where my walk with God, the ministry and my life are undergoing a complete transformation and rebooting. I cannot begin to express how joyous a moment this has been and a turn in my life I have long, long prayed for and waited for.

It was a pleasure to serve the Southeast parts of Tennessee and North Georgia in discernment ministry (and in fact, we travelled all over the Southeast itself to meet and minister with people there).  I never thought I'd ever have stayed there so long, since 1986 and after 5 years of life at that furnace called Lee College, now Lee University. But the Lord had other plans for me that went completely out of the box and put me on the path of discernment and countercult ministry. As I've shared here, God sovereignly put me on this path squarely on a cold fall night in 1993. 

I cannot but follow where He has led.

Now that I have arrived back home, I am prayerfully assessing my next steps. Traditional parish ministry in my Church of God roots is where I am going to be establishing myself in. But the work of discernment goes on. The work of evangelism remains unfinished and the work of edifying a church shattering under its own immaturity, carnality and sufferings of abuse remains far from started, let alone finished.

Stay in touch, folks. The ministry continues to the glory of God. I'll post again later tonight, God willing.

Ok, Remnant moles. You can copy this for your records if you like.

When "Mormon Moments" Go Wrong. Very Wrong.

Religious prejudices, we are told in our pluralistic day, are very bad for you. They are indications of serious moral, intellectual and personal errors in judgment as well as all of the other suspect kinds of behavior that are politically incorrect and socially unacceptable. Labels like "intolerance", "hater" and  "narrow minded" get thrown around at that point and people surely can't abide being seen in that light in our present day of broad minded inclusiveness. Prejudice is an ignorance, we learn, that must be dispelled by an open minded approach to those outside our understanding and an acceptance of their truth claims as equally valid. While moral absolutes can be agreed upon, however, this typically humanistic bit of postmodern social engineering commends a mind so open that the brains also slip out rather inconveniently.

The continued basking of the apostate LDS Church in the full klieg lights of attention received by Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney can be a double edged sword, though. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints continues to methodically market itself as just another ordinary Christian church that just so happens to believe it's the only true one on the planet, it's LDS culture is being given close scrutiny and its teachings reexamined. In return, the "Mormon Moment" - this season of cultural engagement by non-LDS "Gentiles" of the Church's consummate self-image and representations - has been a talk of many a blogger and many a conversation in social settings across the nation, from coffee breaks to political action committees. And the LDS Church is only too happy to oblige "investigators" at all levels with perhaps the best oiled machine of self-promotion that any religion under the sun has created. It has dazzled millions of them and deployed hundreds of thousands more LDS missionaries to spread the word of their "Restoration" and of course, among the newly dazzled are Christian ministers who feel that to harbor significant and serious questioning of LDS teaching is just a sign of the need to "rethink" that kind of prejudicial bigotry.

So when an LDS bishop requested the presence of a couple of Anglican ministers at a "fireside" dinner in an central New York LDS church, I would assume that he was doing so hoping to show how really insignificant the divide is between Mormons and Anglicans and that "what unites us is greater than what divides us", a classic mantra of ecumenical accomodation. Certainly, the erudite and essentially thoughtful approach of Anglican clergy are far more noble minded than many bigoted philistines like Baptists and other evangelicals - so it would seem to the good bishop. So I am sure he was expecting a warm endorsement of "faith in Christ" as the common ground between Saints and their Gentile neighbors.

He got very rudely surprised and the "Mormon Moment" seemed to go south. Very south.

In our frigid day of apostasy, the story is something to warm your bones by if Biblical truth and the Gospel of Jesus Christ matter to you still. Click here to read these Anglican brothers' wonderful response.

And pardon me: hold my mules while I shout a bit.

The Televangelists Of Islam: Some Information

The lands around the world where the religion of Islam has had full sway have among them fully functioning, thriving and vital cultures and peoples who all look to the revelation of Mohammed, their prophet for ultimate truth. What most Westerners, blinded by their revulsion and fear of radical Islamic jihadists, do not realize is that Islam's teaching and philosophy has long been a dominant source of transformation among those who embrace it. The extremist movements like Al Qaeda have been increasingly marginalized and shut out of many Islamic societies for being the mad berserkers of rage that they are.

In a world bound by the false religion of Islam itself and subject to its violent and authoritarian influence, this cannot be - to quote the distinguished scholar of comparative religion Martha Stewart - but "a good thing."

But it must be understood that while the vast majority of Muslims practice Islam peacefully every day, in ways meaningful to their personal spirituality, they are also aware that the goal of Islam is to spread all over the earth and to establish a monolithic Islamic culture where ever it can be done. It has never hidden this agenda, one which too many of the same Western crowd of media-savvy pluralists completely refuses to see. When a website set up to proseltyze for Islam, whyislam.org, was given prime time exposure on the American USA Network, it became clear that ignorance is an equal opportunity brain lock:

The ad is part of the network's "Characters Unite" campaign against bigotry. According to an ICNA statement, the group teamed up with the network to show the ad on 130 times on USA and other networks including A&E, AMC, Animal Planet, CNN, Planet Green, Hallmark, History, Headlines Network, MSNBC, National Geographic, Oprah Winfrey Network, Travel Channel and the Weather Channel.

Rather than promote an understanding and tolerance of Islam, however, WhyIslam tells its audience that Islam is the only way. "Islam, as a way of life, is the solution to all problems of the human race, and is the only hope for the present as well as the future," the group says in one pamphlet, "Islam Explained," that is regularly handed out from WhyIslam tables and booths across the country.

Another free ride for apostasy has come about thanks to the undiscerning credulity of Westerners so devoted to stamping out "intolerance" at the cost of sound judgment of a false religion that targets the personal freedoms they claim to enjoy.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the tragic confrontations  between Muslims across the Middle East in the "Arab Spring" have come about due to their passionate attempts to shape many a competing vision of Islamic theocracy and Islamic democracy while taking on rulling authoritarian regimes that have used Islam for it's own agenda. They have fought to gain an audience for their visions of the future from one end of Africa to deep within Asia Minor itself and beyond.

In light of these ongoing controversies ranging from the liberalism of Kuwait to the iron fist of Syrian dictatorship, the drive to set forth Islam as a way of life that engages their lifestyle continues unabated. Since the aftermath of September 11, 2001 as felt across many Islamic lands, many of those same thinking Muslims have been turning toward new expositors of their faith to help them engage with it's "five pillars".  For many years prior to that fateful day in 2001 and since then, they have attracted an enormous following.  They are, in effect, the "televangelists" of Islam.  These aren't radical mullahs who scream that Israel should be bombed back into the Stone Age. They are articulate, friendly and persuasive men who are reinvigorating Islam in a way never seen before. Without fuss, fanfare or feuding, they have become some of the most influential people in the world today you've never heard of.

Click here for an excellent article that traces their development and parallels their influence with Christian televangelists, and click here for an interesting insight into a WikiLeaked document authored in the American embassy in Cairo on the rising influence of Egyptian figures like Moez Massoud, Amr Khalid and Khalid Al Ghindy.

Christians have long needed to understand why Islam, for all of its espoused ethical superiority, is a spiritual dead end and a world religion that perpetuates blindness to the truth found in Christ alone that will save the soul and change a world of wickedness. Muslims have also long needed to understand why Christians, who can agree with them on many points, still must object to the supremacy they believe the religion of Mohammed has brought them. For both Christian and Muslim to get up to speed on this, click here for an excellent Christian assessment by a seminary professor. One outstanding website devoted to carrying on Christian and Muslim dialogue that is frank and ongoing, can be viewed here.

Organized To Accomplish Their Molestation: A Spiritwatch Video Presentation On Pedophilia Among Jehovah's Witnesses

Every religious community has its own distinctive character and cultic movements are no different. But few groups around are as systematically devoted to seeking absolute control over its membership as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, which takes the title "Mother" from the loyalty it demands from them. It demands complete submission to it’s claim to be as God’s “visible organization,” the only true faith in the world where salvation can be found.

And underlying Watchtower authority is a performance-based spirituality focused entirely upon Society proscribed religious works meant to prove one’s worthiness to Jehovah, in sharpest contrast to Christ-centered Christian faith as Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly defines it. Proving one’s worthiness before God comes down to doing what one is told by those who are deemed spiritually higher than you.

This unbiblical and manipulative social dynamic has been exploited by Jehovah’s Witness child molesters to gratify their own twisted lusts at the expense of thousands of children for years. Child molestation has been a filthy blight among the dark underbelly of Witness society that recent history shows they refuse to admit is a majofr issue among them. But what is far more tragic and abominable, as hard as it is to grasp, is the plain fact that the Watchtower Society’s conditioning of Jehovah’s Witness social circles and self-proclaimed religious authority is largely responsible for the perpetuation of this horror. Briefly, this is how it happens:

Jehovah’s Witness family life is relentlessly dominated by the Society’s endtimes theological compulsion to reinforce conditional love and grace in relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents. It is impossible to overemphasize how fundamental the principle of obedience is in the overall direction of the lives of Jehovah’s Witnesses as entirely dictated and proscribed by the Watchtower Society. Drawn from the Watchtower emphasis on works-based religion, obedience is seen as vital to spiritual life. Total obedience to the Watchtower’s interpretation of “Bible principles” is essential for salvation. This is a long standing social binding that is found in all authorian cults like the Watchtower. And tragically, children are then the most defenseless of all. They are to be completely and totally compliant with adult authority and are enjoined by their abusers to follow their lead and obey them completely - thus enabling them to sexually and socially exploit them at will.

How do these child abusers get away with it? They use the organization of Watchtower authority itself to do so. First of all, the Watchtower’s policy concerning internal disciplinary matters ensures that investigations into such horrid sexual misconduct must be pursued only by elders under Society instructions. Any intervention by non-Society authorities such as law enforcement and human services agencies of the state are in practice totally rejected by the Watchtower itself. So the police and child protection services in an area where the outrage was committed are kept completely in the dark due to Watchtower precept as mediated by their Legal Dept, citing “clergy confidentiality” protected under the First Amendment.

Secondly, Witnesses themselves, the products of a lifetime of organizational conditioning to obey the Society without question in their lead relating to judicial/disciplinary matters will think twice about going to secular authorities if they’ve been told otherwise, and will not do so. Fear of being viewed as a talebearing gossip who will sully the "good name" of the Watchtower Society and compulsion to follow their outrageously and impossibly unrealistic standard for judging the report of a child who has been abused (unbelievably, they must have had two eyewitnesses who saw the abuse to corroborate an act that was certainly done in a foul secrecy) have muted the natural outrage of a Witness parent whose daughter was molested by a congregation member.

And thirdly, over the years, a trilogy of Watchtower publications have defined the manner in which all local bodies of elders in Kingdom Halls around the world are to conduct disciplinary matters as “Mother” desires. For all of their lofty moral tone, there are several major guidelines set forth in these publications which in the guise of the pursuit of truth serve only to inflict spiritual abuse on sexually traumatized families. These policy guidelines in effect completely forbid any discussion of abuse by Jehovah's Witness victims as inflicted by Witness perpetrators and shame them into a quiescent silence. When the "two witness" rule mentioned above can't be followed, the matter is essentially to be dropped that and "left to Jehovah." To “leave it for Jehovah” is simply to just let the matter drop under the pretensively pious belief that Jehovah will sort things out and intervene in affairs when necessary, so therefore, no one else should deal with it. In essence, all efforts to make the offender accountable and justice to be served are to be quashed by all involved – from the molester to his victims.

The silencing of the cries of the victimized in such an isolated world by these policies couldn’t be more thoroughly and ruthlessly executed. It goes on to this day. And on and on. But the silence long ago has been broken ...

Click here to view a video presentation of a talk I did several years ago on this horrific scandal at the Witnesses Now For Jesus convention at the express invitation of the legendary Joan Cetnar, well known ex-Witness who with her husband, the inimitable Bill Cetnar, both came to faith in Christ and not an organization for their salvation.

To watch how this hell on earth has been borne by its victims, watch this video below: WARNING IS GIVEN that graphic descriptions of sexual violence done on children are part of the testimony.