CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
Franklin Graham says America is waging war on Christmas
December 4, 2014 — ChristianToday.com reports: “The United States is experiencing a ‘war on Christmas’, according to Franklin Graham.
Writing in December’s Decision magazine, the leading evangelical and founder of Samaritan’s Purse said that in the last few decades the US ‘has witnessed increased hostility toward the sacred nature of Christmas, erupting into what has become a blatant war on Christmas’.
He went on: ‘Stores, schools and communities across America continue to find new and intolerant reasons to remove any religious references to Christmas, stripping it of any holy or historical significance. Christian songs, prayers and other spiritually vital connections to the Lord Jesus Christ are deleted or diminished.’
He instanced cases around the country where authorities had removed Christian symbols or rebranded the Christmas holidays, claiming that in Ramsey County, Minnesota, the courthouse banned red poinsettias and that the city of Pittsburgh referred to the Christmas holidays as ‘Sparkle Days’.
Graham concluded that ‘at its root and core, the war on Christmas isn’t really about Christmas at all—it’s about the Son of God. The war on Christmas is a war on Christ and His followers.’…” (Millions of Americans including atheists, Muslims and other Christ haters are fulfilling John 15: 18 – 21: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.” Study Matthew 25: 31 – 41.)
Satanic Temple Approved For Capitol Holiday Display
December 5, 2014 — CBS Miami reports: “Florida’s Capitol will have a new holiday decoration this year. The Satanic Temple will be among its nativity scenes and secular presentations.
It’s for Festivus, a non-commercial festival ‘for the rest of us,’ is close to coming back as a 6-foot stack of empty beer cans.
The Florida Department of Management Services this week approved the proposed holiday display from the Satanic Temple, which a year ago was rejected because the agency said its proposal was ‘grossly offensive.’
The temple’s entry was one of five displays that got approval to be put up in the first-floor rotunda of the Capitol for the end-of-year holiday period.
Two additional requested displays, including one to mark the sitcom-created Festivus holiday, are pending final approval.
The state agency offered no explanation with its approval of the displays…” (The heading above informs and labels this crowd and the Bible tells us why they promote such stupidity in Psalm 14:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”)
U.S. Chaplain Reprimanded for Quoting Religious Sources
December 11, 2014 — Israel National News reports: “A U.S. Army chaplain has been reprimanded for ‘using Christian scriptures and solutions’ at a suicide prevention training session.
The chaplain, Joseph Lawhorn, spoke at a seminar held at the University of North Georgia three weeks ago. He was issued a punitive ‘Letter of Concern’ by Col. David Fivecoat, the commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
‘You provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a biblical approach to handling depression on the other side,’ Fivecoat wrote, as reported by Fox News. ‘This made it impossible for those in attendance to receive the resource information without also receiving the biblical information.’
The letter aroused the ire of a U.S. Congressman, Dough Collins (R) of Georgia, who wrote his own letter to Col. Fivecoat. ‘I find it counterintuitive,’ he wrote, ‘to have someone lead a suicide prevention course but prohibit them from providing their personal testimony.’ He added that the Army’s Equal Opportunity policy was formulated precisely to protect the personal beliefs of military personnel.
Ron Crews of Grace Churches International, which organized the training session, explained that Lawhorn ‘did nothing wrong. At no time did he say his was the only or even the preferred way of dealing with depression.’ Crews added that the chaplain simply discussed his own struggles with depression, and outlined the methods and techniques he personally used to combat depression.
‘His story involves his faith journey,’ Crews said. ‘He was simply being a great Army chaplain – in ministering to his troops and providing first-hand how he has dealt with depression in the past. That’s what chaplains do. They bare their souls for their soldiers in order to help them with crises they may be going through.’…” (Christian Chaplains are being silenced and being replaced by Muslim clerics, and guess who is behind this move – President Obama who stated in The Chicago Sun Times “There are many ways to heaven”. Those who make this assertion make Christ a deceiver and liar and do not know Christ as Savior. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3:36; I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins John 8:24; Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me John 14:6.”)
Death penalty for smuggling Bibles?
December 16, 2014 — WND.com reports: “Unconfirmed reports of a new decree imposing the death penalty on anyone caught smuggling Bibles into Saudi Arabia has many Christian ministries and support groups on edge.
Practicing any religion other than Islam has long been illegal in the desert kingdom, and that includes rules against foreigners bringing in any type of religious material that does not conform to the royal family’s strict Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam. Foreign nationals living in Saudi Arabia are often detained for purely religious reasons, sometimes resulting in deportation.
But applying capital punishment, which in Saudi Arabia often means death by beheading, to Bible smugglers would signal a new level of persecution even for the Saudis.
Several Christian missionaries said they were seeking to confirm a recent report by the Virginia-based Heart Cry Missionary Society that a new death penalty law has been adopted citing an ‘official statement’ in Arabic on a Coptic Christian website called CoptsToday.
The law reportedly extends to the importing of all illegal drugs and ‘all publications that have a prejudice to any other religious beliefs other than Islam.’…” (There is not one Christian church in this Islamic nation. Its leaders are Wahhabis, the Muslim sect of Osama bin Laden. This group looks at all other Muslim groups – Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Alawites – as infidels and worthy of death by beheading. The above heading is the report of things to come. The leader of Saudi Arabia in the one our President bowed to after his inauguration in 2009.)
‘Hip’ church gives biblical Christians new label: ‘Hater’
December 19, 2014 — WND.com reports: “Oddly, within American evangelicalism and media circles, a concept and term have emerged that place conservative Christians on the outside, in effect, becoming ‘other.’
And we all know what happens when a group is labeled ‘other’ (see Jews, World War II).
Sometime back, the progressive mega church pastor, Steven Furtick (Elevation Church, Charlotte, North Carolina), mentored as he is by evangelical bigwigs like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, felt bold enough to post a YouTube video in which he sneeringly challenged what I’d call traditional Christians to basically get out of the way, because their time is past.
Presumably, to Furtick, it’s the ‘new generation’s’ time now, so step aside with your stodgy hymns and expositional preaching style.
Never mind that Furtick’s goofy/disturbing video/rant looks like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ parody.
His view is somewhat main stream among Christian Millennials. Masked a bit by a pious nod toward humanitarian causes, the leadership of this group is quite nasty, albeit in subtle ways…” (My new video entitled Beware: False Prophets, Damnable Heresies, and Doctrines of Demons names some of the leaders of this apostate crowd as antichrists –I John 2:22 and rightfully so. Order my video study immediately. The apostasy has arrived proving Christ’s return is imminent. “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” II Thessalonians 2:3. “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us… Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” I John 2:18, 19, and 22.)