by John Lanagan
My Word Like Fire Ministries

Before a packed auditorium at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon,  activist Shane Claiborne gave his message of peace, love, and brotherhood. An engaging speaker, and a man dedicated to his beliefs, Claiborne had the crowd laughing and reminiscing with him as he recounted past adventures and experiences. During the time he spoke he emphasized again and again our Christian duty to help the poor and the oppressed.

“God is creating a holy counter-culture,” said Claiborne, author of Jesus For President, The Irresistable Revolution, and several others.

I sat there in the crowd, taking notes, wanting to believe that Claiborne was truly a believer. I knew he was tight with contemplative Tony Campolo. In his interview with Campolo several years ago, Claiborne made a troubling statement:

Tony Campolo: We don’t have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.

Shane Claiborne: That seems like a healthy distinction—between converting and condemning. One of the barriers seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently?  Click here to read more.

Related Articles:

Cedarville University Cancels Shane Claiborne Event

“God’s Dream” or a Deceptive Scheme?

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow

A Christian student in the Los Angeles Community College District is carrying his free-speech case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

 Jonathan Lopez had an assignment in a public speaking class and was required to give an informative speech on any topic. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney David Hacker tells OneNewsNow that Lopez chose to speak about his Christian beliefs. ”And during that speech, when he mentioned that marriage is between a man and a woman according to his Christian beliefs, the professor called him this horrible name, refused to let him finish the assignment, and told other students in the class, ‘If you’re offended, you can leave,’” Hacker explains.

When no students left, the professor dismissed the class. Hacker adds that Lopez is an “A” student – ”but the problem is he never got a grade on that informative speech, and in fact, the professor wrote on his evaluation form, ‘Ask God what your grade is.’” To read this entire article, click here.

Note: See related articles on this ongoing story below video.

ABC News
Lynchburg, VA – Friends of Lisa Miller say they don’t know where she and her seven-year-old daughter are, but they say they support her decision to leave.

A Vermont court ordered Miller’s ex-partner Janet Jenkins custody of their daughter in May, and now it’s been six months since Miller’s friends say they’ve had any contact with her.

The case has drawn national attention and has strong ties to Lynchburg.  Liberty Counsel is working on filing an appeal to the latest court order, which included handing over Isabella.

Related Stories:

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Woman Forced to Share Daughter with Lesbian Ex-Partner

Vermont Judge Threatens Mother in Hiding With Arrest

Today is World AIDS Day – I Am Free From Homosexuality While Homosexual Activists Continue To Glorify The Sin That is Leading Cause of AIDS in U. S.

The Walk to Emmaus is a program put on by Upper Room Ministries. Upper Room promotes Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative spirituality), and if you want to understand the dynamics of Walk to Emmaus, then understanding the spirituality of Upper Room will help you.

“The Walk to Emmaus is an adaptation of the Roman Catholic Cursillo Movement, which originated in Spain in 1949.” from the Walk to Emmaus website

Walk to Emmaus is widely spread. It is estimated that over half a million persons have experienced a Walk to Emmaus weekend and today the Movement counts more than 300 communities distributed all over the United States as well as all over the world.1

Mantra Meditation is promoted at Upper Room Ministries also:

“Mantra — The word comes from Sanskrit. Its two-syllabus mean: man or mind and tra or deliverance. A mantra is sound vibration that is intended to deliver the mind from distractions and a focus on the material world. A mantra is repeated like a chant and has a spiritual effect associated with the physical vibration. A mantra can be as simple as one syllable ‘OM’ or as more complicated such as, ‘OM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM’.” From the Upper Room website

“The Walk to Emmaus is an adaptation of the Roman Catholic Cursillo Movement, which originated in Spain in 1949.”2

Tres Dias is an offshoot of the Cursillo Movement and should be avoided as well.

List of places that do Walk to Emmaus

The Walk to Emmaus (The Upper Room) website

Upper Room and Lectio Divina

Chrysalis Walk to Emmaus

Book Alert: Soul Feast by Marjorie Thompson

“After reading dozens and dozens of comments by young people enamored with the theology in Avatar, it is apparent that its false gospel is finding fertile soil worldwide as it introduces and attracts millions of moviegoers to shamanism.” Dave Hunt

by The Berean Call

Movies are today’s most popular means of influencing cultures on a worldwide scale. They have been effective in that way for the greater part of a century. They are, and always have been, teaching machines.

 Although most people regard them as simply escapist fare or a mode of entertainment, they nevertheless always teach something. That fact became shockingly clear to me in my pre-Christian days when I was in Iran as a screenwriter on a Hollywood production. The time was just prior to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. The revolution was literally ignited by Muslim clerics who had ordered their followers to set fire to movie theaters (packed with audiences). It was a protest against the teaching and influence of Western culture contained in the films, particularly the immorality and degenerate conduct displayed. With obviously less drastic reactions and consequences, no place seems to be out of the reach of the influence of movies no matter where one travels these days.

That is certainly true of one of the most expensive films to date, the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar production of Avatar, which has already grossed 2 billion dollars. No film thus far has matched its stunning production value in creating a fantastic world of computer-generated characters that seamlessly match and interact with the physical actors and the world we know. Believability is the “do or die” quality of every movie of any kind, and Avatar makes believers of all but the most critical film goers–few of whom could complain that this extraordinary production did not give them their money’s worth.

My objective in writing this article is not to complain about the movie production (I paid the matinee, senior-citizen price, so I hardly felt cheated) but rather to give my view of the theology communicated in Avatar. We at TBC have received questions from concerned parents who aren’t sure the film would be appropriate for their young teens to see and want to know how to discuss the movie’s content with them. Avatar’s theology is my primary concern.

First of all, it shouldn’t be surprising that the beliefs of most people are not derived from Sunday school or church teaching but rather religious ideas they pick up from a wide variety of sources as they go through life. Prior to being born again and becoming a biblical Christian, for example, I had received a great deal of religious instruction, growing up Catholic, to which I added all kinds of contrary spiritual ideas, from reincarnation to the denial of hell to the universal salvation of everyone. I’ve had conversations with those who claim to hold the Bible as their only source of faith and practice yet who also hold ideas they have gleaned from Oprah Winfrey or some of her New Age guests. Humanity in general seems to be a magnet for all kinds of beliefs about God, and this would include not only the very religious but the agnostic and the atheist as well. Click here to continue reading.

by Ken Silva
Apprising Ministries

…and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. (Romans 8:8-9, NASB)

Mysticism Is Opposed To Sola Scriptura

Should you be a regular reader of Apprising Ministries you will know that an alleged “greatness” within man is a very common theme of the delusion people eventually receive through prolonged practice of meditation in altered states of consciousness i.e. transcendental meditation. Professing Christians who are involved in this corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), such as Rob Bell or Emerging Church mentor and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, will often speak of this type of “wordless” Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) as going into “the silence.” 

Since my ministry involves apologetics and Comparative Religion I’ve been studying the subject of meditation in various religions and traditions for years now. At its humanistic heart is the false belief that those who practice meditation will eventually progress into a higher form of consciousness, which is commonly referred to as “transformation” or “enlightenment.” In a recent AM article For Brian McLaren And Marcus Borg Being “Born Again” Is Reaching “Enlightenment” you’ll even see “Progessive Christian” scholar Marcus Borg teaching that Buddha himself reached transformation and was “born again.”

And there’s one thing that all mystics e.g. in the Living Spiritual Teachers Project have in common, whether they be of the Christian persuasion like Borg and Brian McLaren, or if they be of the New Age variety, such as Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson. They will eventually begin to go on and on about these supposed “great enlightened ones,” who are the mystics of meditation in each of the religious traditions. As an exact case in point consider the following from Rob Bell’s sermon I will say it again, and again, and again last October:

It’s interesting how many traditions (pause) When you read the great enlightened ones; meditation, centering prayer, reflection—in every tradition you can find the mystics—and what’s always at the heart of the spiritual lives, the everyday lives of the great ones was always a period of time.

Whether it’s prayers, chanting, meditation, reflection, study—whatever you call it—what is it essentially; it’s taking time to breathe. Because when you’ve been breathing, (slight pause) in a proper sort of way, you’re far better equipped to handle what life throws your way. (5:41-6:23)

I’ve said elsewhere that if one doesn’t recognize here that Bell is praising “the mystics” for their supposedly superior spiritual insight and understanding, which is actually a new form of Gnosticism, I personally believe it’s simply because they just do not wish to see. Bell has just stated in the clearest terms possible that these “enlightened ones”—who’re not just Christians but from “many” religious “traditions” as well—are thought to ”great” because they “breathe.” This is classic mystic-speak by Bell for the practice of CCP i.e. the centering prayer/meditation ”at the heart of” their “spiritual lives”; there’s absolutely no way around it. Click here to read this entire article.

Related Articles:

Book Review: Rob Bell’s Drops Like Stars

Why Rick Warren Should Not Tell Rob Bell: “Just wanted to encourage you to ignore critics.”

Everything is Not Spiritual

See also the new DVD series, Exposing the Quantum Lie, with Warren B. Smith and Bob DeWaay addressing the emerging church including Rob Bell.

from the Independent (UK)
(courtesy of True Discernment blog)

Gay men and women will finally be allowed to marry in churches after the House of Lords dramatically voted in favour of lifting the ban on religious premises holding same-sex partnerships. 

 The amendment to the Equality Bill, which was tabled as a free vote by gay Muslim peer Waheed Alli, received overwhelming backing in the Lords, including from a number of prominent Anglican bishops.

Under current UK law religious venues are forbidden from holding civil partnerships, although some liberal denominations within Christianity and Judaism have been willing to bless gay unions once a partnership ceremony has taken place elsewhere.  

The lifting of the ban, which still needs to be approved by the House of Commons, will now give religious venues the option of conducting civil partnerships – but it will not compel them to do so, as some traditionalists had feared.  

Lord Alli denied the suggestion that religious communities would be forced to accept gay marriages.  . . . . . . (source)

LTRP Note: This week, we received the following note from an American missionary woman who is serving in Africa. This woman works with an African pastor and his wife and children. Together, they travel to various villages to train pastors and to warn them about the spiritual deception that is coming out of America, specifically the emerging church, the Purpose Driven movement, and contemplative spirituality. While we cannot reveal the identity of this woman, for safety’s sake, we ask you to pray for her and for this pastor and his family who are speaking up and defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

Can you believe that some of the pastors here in _____ made the trip to ______ (5+hours) to a seminar held by a group from the U.S. (The  church transformation project).  The teachings sounded great from the reports that I was given; however, some little “phrases” and “words” just did not sound “right,” so I checked it all out on the computer and lo and behold I discovered they are well into contemplative prayer, and they have dominion theology.  They were highly recommending the teachings of Mike Bickle (IHOP).  So, right away, I knew there was something that was not right.

After checking everything out, I called the pastors to come to my home, and we had a good discussion.  Of course, nothing had been said at that particular meeting they had attended, but after my research into the “bottom line” of what they were aiming for, I showed the pastors what I had found.  Having already shown them the dangers of the contemplative prayer and emergent church doctrines and that of dominionism, the pastors could quickly see what was happening and want nothing else to do with this group.  I was so proud of the pastors!!  All that I have learned from your site has already proven to be very positive in combating the “evil of the day.”  God bless you.  Here, we will contine to Contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints!!

The pastors now want me to teach them how to browse the Internet so they can check these people/groups out for themselves in case I am not around to help them (remember I am __ yrs. young!!).  I have cautioned them I will teach them but they are never to go looking for “donors”!!  They are to trust in God alone.

Just wanted to share this little current event with you.  Keep up the good work at Lighthouse Trails!!  Alice B. (Not real name)

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