Wednesday, October 8
Broadcaster Hints Ebola Plague Could Be Retribution For Violating Mosaic Dietary Guidelines
In his analysis, he pointed out that the virus can be spread through the fruit bat, which a number of Africans consume as part of their native cuisine.
Crismier interjected that such a practice is not Biblical.
If the apologist is insisting that Old Testament dietary regulations are binding upon New Testament non-Jewish believers, he is not correct.
In Matthew 15:11, Christ Himself counsels that an individual is not defiled by what goes into one's mouth but rather by what comes out of the elocutionary orifice.
This New Testament alteration of the Old Testament law seems to be sustained by a number of other passages.
In I Timothy 4:4, the Apostle Paul asserts that ALL foods (not just the list of Mosaic kosher foods) can be enjoyed with thanksgiving.
To clarify that God was the God of both the Jews and the Gentiles, in Acts 10 Peter was instructed to eat from a selection of foods that up until that point that he had been conditioned to avoid as unclean.
God would not have compelled Peter to do something that was still a violation of God's law.
It's not like Peter was told to marry a man or to offer worship up towards a false god.
It is a correct observation that very few Americans would want to eat a bat.
However, is Chuck Crismier going to insist that he has never eaten or since repented of partaking of crab, shrimp, or lobster which are also forbidden under Old Testament dietary guidelines since these creatures are essentially underwater coach roaches?
Likewise, if Chuck Crismier believes this strongly about strict adherence to the Mosaic law in its entirety, does he intend to broadcast an episode of his Viewpoint news and cultural analysis program condemning the Duck Dynasty clan for the consumption of yet another food clearly forbidden in the pages of Old Testament revelation?
And what about the fast food industry such as Burger King and McDonald's?
A common complaint among certain factions of the more doctrinally enthusiastic is that contemporary Evangelicals are insufficiently Hebraic in their approach to the interpretation and application of Scripture.
So if Africans are to be condemned for consuming bats which might be one of the very few food items available to such impoverished populations, does one have to be consistent and declare an all out crusade against the All American cheeseburger?
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, October 7
Will Colleges Be Required To Brownnose Perverts In Order To Retain Accreditation?
Monday, October 6
Have Demonic Entities Sustained Heathen Savage Without Food Or Drink For 70 Years?
Would Jesus Attend Your Halloween Party?
In all fairness, I doubt He wants to be at most church services either.
Click On The Headline
Does The Archbishop Of Canterbury Prefer Fellowship With Perverts & Apostates?
Sunday, October 5
Is The Southern Baptist Missions President More Interested In Your Stuff Than Your Soul?
A Facebook meme attributed to Southern Baptist International Missions Board president David Platt is quoted as saying the following: “Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don't we need Him? Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.”
Is there really a reason to get one's backside up on one's shoulders over a pastor or evangelist that phrases the soteriological appeal in terms of accepting Christ as Lord and Savior?
Granted, as part of the infinite triune Godhead, Jesus can hobble along quite fine without us no matter how much Pastor Platt believes world missions might collapse without his particular brand of religious over-enthusiasm.
What it simply means when someone accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior is that the person assents to the truth and validity of the claims and conditions made in the Gospels.
What is interesting is Rev. Platt's phraseology of immediate and total surrender.
Traditionally, that is what occurs when the sincere individual comes to a saving knowledge of Christ, meaning one makes a concerted effort with the help of the Holy Spirit to resist those more sinful desires.
However, what Platt may mean by that, given the perspective taken in a number of his books such as “Radical” and his sermons available on sites such as Youtube, is a bit different.
To Platt, it is not so much that your life and possessions are Christ's to determine directly how these are to be used to His glory but rather that is to be determined by your betters up the ecclesiastical food chain.
According to sermons from the likes of Rev. Platt, in taking up your cross, it is not sufficient to endure a particular struggle or trial that has come into your life but rather that you are to think of yourself as on the way to execution in terms that you are supposed to be wracked with profound guilt for a standard of living above that of the subsistence level.
However, religious superstars such as David Platt are to enjoy a semi-luxurious lifestyle flying across the country and around the globe having accolades and wads of cash tossed in their direction over how wonderful they are for being outraged that you have what you have.
Christ Himself says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
The text does not say that Jesus will beat down the door.
Customarily, when someone knocks at the door, it is your right to either open the door to invite them into your dwelling or to decline their request along with whatever it is they might be happening to bring you.
But then again, we are in the age where apparently the theological celebrities know more than Christ ever did.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, October 3
Thursday, October 2
Pastor Apparently Selective In What Pagan Practices He Condemns
To this, the podcaster interviewing Pastor Cooley remarked that he knew there was a reason why he did not like cats.
Pastor Cooley concurred with an “Amen.”
But who is it that created cats?
Surely it was not Satan.
Was it not the God that we are supposed to be so dedicated to that we can't even participate in a festival that does not possess any meaning for most other than dressing up in a silly costume to collect candy from door to door?
Cats are not inherently evil.
That is merely the connotation they have been imbued with from a cultural and literary standpoint derived from subjective existential or psychological sources.
In other words, from nothing more than what someone happened to think or feel regarding them.
Should something be abandoned because a number construe a conceptual or ontological category to be evil rather than it actually being so?
So does this include Fundamentalist Baptist Churches?
For years, that form of ecclesiology's most ardent adherents rightly condemned the pedophile scandals that wracked the Roman Catholic Church.
However, it turns out that nearly the same perversion had gripped a number of hardline Independent Fundamentalist ministries.
Therefore, isn't it logical to contend that there have been more innocent people hurt in a spirit of appalling wanton sin perpetrated by those that should have known better than were ever hurt by cats exhibiting a similar degree of deliberate malice?
So does that mean we should refrain from attendance at these particular houses of worship to avoid offending the weaker brother?
Often, the conspicuously pious will homiletically insist that Halloween ought to be avoided altogether not so much to refrain from actual wrongdoing but to avoid the appearance of such and out of the necessity to separate from unclean things as counseled by Scripture.
As such, shouldn't we also consider the source of this sentiment against cats if the propriety or impropriety of a thing is to be determined not so much by how it is practiced today but rather by ideas affiliated with it at the time a custom came into existence?
By the pastor's own admission, this particular prejudice is supposedly Druid in origin.
Thus, if we are to severe all connections with Halloween for being pagan in origin, why not this unfounded contempt for felines as well?
By Frederick Meekins
Albert Mohler Praises Islamist Call To Reduce Women To The Status Of Breeding Cows
Wednesday, October 1
Will The Roman Catholic Church Attempt To Deny The Divorced Access To Salvation?
Tuesday, September 30
German Perverts Insist Incest Prohibitions Undermine Sexual Self Determination
Apostate Insists The Bible No More Binding Than Star Wars Or Lord Of The Rings
Monday, September 29
Secularist Jews Condemn Duggar Lass For Exposing Holocaust's Disturbing Implications
When The Filthy Heathens In The Neighborhood Want Quiet, Everyone Must Be Quiet
Saturday, September 27
Does Enslavement Uplift Spirits?
If a woman wants to wear such an outfit, that might be her business.
However, isn't the more pressing issue at hand the women being forced to wear these getups in areas where the particular form of extremeism such garments exemplify is on the rise?
Is one to conclude that the jihadists that hacked off the breasts of Christian women were instead simply trying to liberate these women from body dysmorphic disorder?
Regarding adherents of this creed that parade about in full heathen regalia to the extent that even their faces are concealed.
What assurances does an instructor in an academic setting have that it's the same student that shows up everyday adorned in such a potentially deceptive manner.
What if a member of the Ku Klux Klan showed up making their daily rounds in public in complete costume?
Tolerancemongers will insist what the Klansman is doing is intended to excite a spirit of fear and express hatred.
But so is the Mohammedan.
For such ensembles are not donned so much out of sincere religious devotion but out of contempt for our liberties that allow such imbeciles to cavort about without opposition or even question.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, September 26
Thursday, September 25
Wednesday, September 24
Apparently Only Certain Deaths Worthy Of Nazarene Reflection
It might be one thing to light a candle on behalf of his memory as a human being.
However, if he had not met his parting from this world in a manner that could be exploited to further assorted politically correct agendas, would this church have lit a candle for him?
Given that his church is located in the Washington/Baltimore corridor with its own disturbingly high rate of homicide, does this church post photos of candles lit on behalf of other murder victims explicitly by name?
Tagged on to the name of Michael Brown is mention of “our work to end racism”.
There is really no proof that the Michael Brown incident had anything to do with racism.
The foremost examples of racism involved surrounding this issue were of those that rampaged in the streets of Ferguson.
Does this Nazarene church intend to post candles lit beseeching divine protection for the shopkeeper brutalized by Michael Brown in the last hour of his life and the owners of the property pillaged by his supporters?
Or has the Church of the Nazarene been so given over to the social gospel embraced by much of the Emergent Church to the extent that the leadership of this particular congregation contends that property owners get whatever they deserve at the hands of the allegedly disadvantaged?
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, September 23
Monday, September 22
Why Aren’t You Entitled To Know The Background Character Of A Potential Mate?
However, if a relationship begins to progress beyond the stages of merely going out casually, especially if the person claims to never have been married before, aren't you entitled to know more about this aspect of an individual's character?
Why shouldn't someone that has lived a morally chaste life be able to decide for themselves based on all of the available information if they are willing to settle for soiled goods? Jesus does indeed forgive.
However, His record really isn't all that impressive in preventing the spread of the AIDS virus or other related diseases.
Are we to also avoid questions about other important issues such as previous marital status or doctrinal preferences in ascertaining the suitability of a potential mate?
According to this logic, one is suppose to accept being saddled in a relationship with a Baptist that has been a total whore rather than a Catholic or a Holy Roller that has kept their pants on and their legs together. Interesting how a sense of forgiveness or whatever one wants to call it should be so blind and stupid regarding one particular sin but if one decides to marry someone that is honest about a divorce about the only thing you will be allowed to do in some of these hardline churches is to empty your wallet into the collection plate.
by Frederick Meekins
A pastor mentioned that, during Puritan times, if someone in the congregation nodded off during the sermon, the somnolent could be whacked by a roving usher. The pastor joked that perhaps we should return to our heritage. If one is to hold to the sola scruiptura of rigorous Protestantism, in what passage is such a use of force called for? How about pastors introducing or suggesting ideas nowhere called for in the pages of the Bible being beaten with a rod?
Where does it say if you are committing a sin when Jesus returns that you will be punished for that throughout all of eternity if you otherwise embrace Christ as Lord and Savior? And why is that moment any different than at the moment of a traditional death? What if you see a car barreling towards you and the moment before you die you shout “HOLY SH-T”? Even Paul admitted that he did that which he did not want to do.
A pastor remarked that there is no greater service than Christian service. The pastor than limited Christian service to those instances where one directly shared the Gospel. But given that we are not solely spiritual beings, shouldn't service intending to meet these other needs if those are the specific fields one has been called to address as one's vocation also be considered Christian service? Do you really want a Christian fireman to be exegeting the Scriptures to you when he should be putting out your house fire? Wasn't one of Protestantism's initial goals to correct this kind of errant perspective that had crept into medieval Christianity?
Saturday, September 20
Would Graham Have Preferred To Meander Down The Canterbury Trail?
A Harvard University Press biography of Billy Graham claims that, if the world's most famous Baptist had his life to live over again, he would consider becoming an evangelical Anglican.
Such a spiritual and ecclesiastical path would have a number of things to commend it.
Foremostly, to be baptized into such a church, one would not necessarily have to be dunked underwater.
Anglicans also accept sprinkling and pouring as appropriate modalities of this primary Christian rite.
To Baptists, it is immersion or nothing at all.
Though identifying as Protestant and distinct from Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism is not so hostile to the other form of Western Christianity so as to forsake that which it is still capable of teaching the believer despite the shortcomings that have taken root in that particular theological expression over the centuries.
Some Baptists, on the other hand, are energized by little more than just how much they can stick it in the eye of the Church of Rome.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, September 18
Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty has enunciated more than his dislike of homosexuals. He has also made known his disapproval of fat kids, city dwellers, men that like cats, and females not married by the age of 15. In one episode, his wife insinuated that it is inappropriate for unmarried couples to hold hands. Wonder if they will make similarly doctrinaire statements regarding their granddaughter shaking her backside in a skimpy outfit on national TV. Or, as “Christian leaders”, do they get the customary exemption from the standards we non-celebrities are expected to adhere to.
Wednesday, September 17
Tuesday, September 16
Southern Baptist Missions President Applauds Family Neglect In God's Name
As an example, Pastor Platt praised John Bunyan who was tossed into prison for refusing to stop preaching when ordered to by Anglican authorities despite the hardship endured by his family in general and his blind child in particular.
The Christian should not deny Christ.
However, Bunyan was initially imprisoned for preaching without a license.
Whether we agree with that or not is a secondary matter.
Often in a fallen world, the situations are so bad that the individual is forced to prioritize from a list of less than ideal options.
From the Wikipedia entry on John Bunyan, one gets the impression authorities were not initially inclined to imprison Bunyan until he blurted out that he'd be out preaching again the next day.
That causes one to ponder was it necessarily Christ that Bunyan was infatuated with or the adrenaline rush one can get from a good fight.
I Timothy 5:8 admonishes that those that do not take care of their own family are worse than an infidel.
The same ones praising John Bunyan for in their minds putting Christ in a proper place above the needs of his family would turn around and heap condemnation upon others for not taking care of the Bunyan urchins.
However, shouldn't taking care of the spiritual and physical needs of these children have been the foremost life's mission of the Bunyan parents?
Why couldn't have Bunyan been as an upstanding Christian example ministering to the needs of his ailing child and instead return to spreading the Gospel to others behind the back of authorities at a later time?
Jesus did indeed counsel that the believer's love of family should look like hate in comparison to that for Him.
However, the most profound expression of devotion to Christ may be in loving our family members in those times we feel like loving them the least or get distracted by a cause we deem much more exciting than the mundane duties of this world.
By Frederick Meekins
Monday, September 15
Halloween Sermon Exposes Minister's Desire For Religious Dictatorship
Rather he argued against it from the standpoint of the Reformed belief against the impropriety of man authorizing holy days not found in Scripture.
In this homily, he seemed to praise and certainly did not criticize Scottish authorities at the time of the Reformation that forbade under penalty of law those celebrating such commemorations after Presbyterianism became that nation's established church.
However, if man does not have the authority to compel extra-biblical holy days, on what grounds does one then forbid an individual from incorporating these practices as part of their individual devotion after they have been informed that observation of the day is not necessarily a requirement?
For does not Romans 14:5-6 seem to indicate that these sorts of matters are more in the realm of individual conscience?
In a sermon against Halloween, Presbyterian Brian Schwertly described a prank he use to engage in during that particular time of year where he would light a bag of, in his words, “poop” on fire and leave it on someone's porch.
Instead of remorsefully recounting this story in a tone of repentance, he actually laughed about it.
If Halloween really is as evil as the hardline Fundamentalists make it out to be, wouldn't that be the equivalent of fondly recalling before the congregation how Buffy down at the gentleman's club would twirl as she was giving him a lap dance?
Wouldn't an ultalegalist such as himself consider a person exhibiting such glee in the House of God sufficiently contrite?
Yes, he should be classified as an ultralegalist as he insinuated at another point in the sermon series that Roman Catholics and Arminians should be denied citizenship in the idealized Christian Reconstructionist regime.
In the sermon “Halloween: A Biblical Critique Of James Jordin & American Vision, Part 2”, Brian Schwertly examined the argument that Christian participation in Halloween is valid and legitimate as a way of ridiculing the power of Satan.
Schwertly contends that such a perspective is inappropriate in light of Jude 1:9 in which it is suggested that even the mightiest of angels are cautious about underestimating the Old Deluder.
However, it has been suggested that often conceptualizing of evil in a literary or narrative form similar to a fairy tale can assist the young in placing these kinds of fears and terrors in a proper perspective.
Why can't the symbology of Halloween play a similar kind of role?
But more importantly, perhaps the argument about justifying Halloween as a way of minimizing Satan's influence through good old fashioned ridicule came about as a result of the need in some of the more rigorous wings of Evangelicalism to always find itself in an “on position” in terms of some grand outreach effort or engaged in some never-ending confrontation.
Can't a kid just go out for a night dressed in costume to collect some candy without it being as if the Apocalypse was looming or the fate of the world hanging in the balance?
By Frederick Meekins