Posts Tagged ‘persecution’

by Manny Silva
Concerned Nazarenes

Disturbing trends continue to develop in our denomination.  Recently, I sent out a prayer request for a pastor and his church that decided to leave the Nazarene denomination, rather than stay and bow to emergent ideology and priorities.  Soon, I will be posting some information regarding those who have been forced to leave their churches (“Divorced From The Church”).  More and more Bible believing Nazarenes are finding themselves ostracized and are even being labeled as cult members, hateful, dividers, “used by the devil”…etc.  On and on it goes, with no biblical justification!  Students are subject to ridicule or harassment for standing up against unbiblical teachings at their universities.

The following story is also another scenario, that of a pastor being fired for daring to speak out against a movement which has not even been officially welcomed into the Nazarene denomination.  Please understand that it is the desire of this pastor not to target leadership, but to make you aware of the magnitude of this problem.  Hopefully, some of you will begin to look at this, and not be overcome by it:

The Story:

As many of you know, Pastor Joe Staniforth joined Concerned Nazarenes – a group of Nazarenes troubled by false teachings in our academic institutions and many of our churches in the Western world. These teachings can be summed up as “emergent ideology.”

For more information on the emergent church movement and the mission of Concerned Nazarenes, please visit www.concernednazarenes.org or one of the websites listed below.

In September 2008, Pastor Joe and his wife Claudia answered God’s call to work as missionaries, evangelists and church planters on the Texas-Mexico border. Although they’ve witnessed the Lord at work – especially in ministries in Matamoros, Mexico – Pastor Joe became increasingly concerned about emergent teachings in the Nazarene denomination. In obedience to the Lord’s leading, he began preaching against the ideology and practices of the emergent movement . Please click here to read the rest of this story.

Related Information on the downslide of the Nazarene denomination into emerging/contemplative:

Buddhist/Universalist Sympathizer Woos Nazarene Students at NNU

G12 Master Plan Could Expose Thousands of Nazarenes to Contemplative/Emerging Spirituality

LTRP Note: To read more about former Plymouth Brethren, now emerging church leader, Brian McLaren, and the emerging church’s views on Israel, eschatology, and the return of Jesus Christ, please see our links below this news article. The following article is courtesy Understand the Times from their monthly e-newsletter.

Mark Tooley
FrontPageMag
(out-of-house news source)

“Emergent Church” guru Brian McLaren is a key figure on the Evangelical Left who is trying shift Evangelicals, who are America’s most pro-Israel demographic, into a more neutralist stance. Currently, he is leading a delegation through Israel and “Palestine” to broadcast the sins of Israeli oppression against Palestinians by “listening, learning, thinking, observing, reflecting.”  His blog is providing daily updates of his discoveries, all of which confirm his previously often declared bias against Israel.

“I hope you will start questioning what you think you know about the situation here,” McLaren warned on his blog recently, with the assumption that most readers are deceived by pro-Israel partiality. “I’ve been an avid reader on the subject for quite a while, but being here now, I see how many of my most basic assumptions were skewed from a lifetime of half-truths, unfair and imbalanced news, well-planned propaganda, and misinformation.”

McLaren, of course, used to be a more traditional, conservative Evangelical.  So his emergence into the Evangelical Left in recent years, including the requisite negativity towards Israel, is part of an ongoing spiritual rebirth into which he invites his fellow Evangelicals.  Of course, McLaren insists that he is not anti-Israel, and certainly not anti-Jewish.  He simply wants to liberate both Palestinians and Jews from the enslaving mindset of the “occupation” that holds both peoples captive. Click here to continue reading.

Related Information:

Is the Emerging Church Right? – “There is No Second Coming of Jesus Christ!”  by Larry DeBruyn

Brian McLaren Wants End Time Believing Christians Robustly Confronted

Will the Evangelical Church Help Usher in the “Age of Enlightenment” and the Coming False One? by Ray Yungen

Evangelicals and Catholics Together and the Rejection of End-Time, Bible-Believing Christians by Roger Oakland

Why the Heathen Rage in a World Gone Amiss by Bill Randles

LTRP Note: Lighthouse Trails has now spoken with Liberty Counsel, the legal defense for Lisa Miller. For those who would like to financially help with Lisa and Isabella’s legal defense, please send contributions to Liberty Counsel and earmark checks for Lisa Miller. You can also contribute directly online on their website. Please continue praying for Lisa and Isabella’s protection as they have become fugitives in their own country and scapegoats for activists of the homosexual movement in the U.S.

Charles Butts
One News Now

A Vermont judge has ruled that the birth mother of a Virginia girl must turn custody of the child over to a former lesbian partner.

Lisa Miller was in a homosexual relationship with Janet Jenkins in Vermont, but Miller became a Christian, gave up her former lifestyle and moved to Virginia with her daughter. Although Jenkins is not the biological mother and never tried to adopt the now seven-year-old Isabella, Vermont Judge William Cohen ordered Miller to turn the girl over to Jenkins this Friday. Attorney Steve Crampton tells OneNewsNow that Liberty Counsel argued before a Virginia judge last week, asking for Miller’s protection.

“There’s a very serious constitutional issue regarding whether Virginia must enforce the Vermont court order,” the attorney notes. “So the clock is ticking quite loudly right now, and it remains to be seen whether we can get any relief in Virginia.”

Virginia is a state that only recognizes the union of one man and one woman, and Crampton explains that “there is an enormous conflict between the laws of Vermont that have decreed a lesbian legal stranger to be a full parent and the laws of Virginia….” Click here to continue.

Related Article:

Lesbian-Turned-Christian Mom Fails to Give Up Child to Ex-Partner

Related:

You may join Lisa Miller’s Facebook account by going to www.facebook.com and searching for: Only One Mommy: The Story of Lisa and Isabella Millerstrong

Liberty Counsel Update on the Hearing in Lisa Miller’s Case (Jan. 09)

Biological Mom Ordered to Give Up Child (Nov. 09)

Lisa Miller and daughter “disappear” (Jan. 10) – World Magazine

Added 1/10/10: YouTube, Protect Isabella

LTRP Note: The following article is posted partly in relation to our recent article about the Manhattan Declaration. This is an excerpt from Roger Oakland’s book, Another Jesus: the eucharistic christ and the new evangelization, which uncovers the efforts by the Roman papacy to bring back the lost Protestant brethren. We also urge you to get a copy of A Lamp in the Dark from Adullam Films to better understand these efforts.

“The New Evangelization”
by Roger Oakland
Understand the Times

When Christians speak of evangelism, they are usually referring to efforts to fulfill the Great Commission. Just before ascending to heaven, Jesus commissioned every believer to proclaim the good news when He said: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

This Gospel of Jesus Christ is very simple. It is a message that even a child can understand. It is about God’s plan to save us from our sins. Since the fall of man, all have been born into this world separated from God our Creator by sin. About two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ, God’s Son, supernaturally came to this earth, born of a virgin. While here on earth, Jesus lived a sinless life. He died upon the Cross at Calvary, and His blood was shed as a sacrifice for our sins. All those who will accept and believe in Jesus (that is, who Jesus is and what He has done) can enter into a relationship with Him, the Creator of the universe. This relationship will then last for eternity. This is the simple Gospel.

Unfortunately, Satan has always had an agenda to complicate the Gospel or confound people into believing in something less or something more than what the Gospel message teaches. Paul talked about “another gospel” when he was warning the Corinthians (II Corinthians 11:4) and the Galatians (Galatians 1:6) about the dangers of being deceived. Satan is a clever schemer. Deceiving people  in the name of the Savior is part of the devil’s ultimate plan.

Not everything labeled the gospel is the true Gospel. Further, it follows that the term evangelization, if it is based on a counterfeit gospel, will seduce people into believing they are going to heaven, when instead they may be on their way to hell.

 The New Evangelization [is] a program currently being promoted by the Catholic Church and designed to win the world to Christ—the Eucharistic Christ.

What is the New Evangelization?

While reading a book or an article, have you ever come across a term you have never seen before and suddenly your mind was illuminated? Just as if a light switch was turned on and a darkened room was lit, the significance of what you read became apparent. Such was the case for me when I came across the phrase the New Evangelization.

 I was reading an article published by Zenit (The World Seen from Rome) that presented a news item based on statements made by Pope John Paul II. The article caught my attention because it was about an announcement the pope had made about the Eucharist. The article was titled “Why the Pope Would Write an Encyclical on the Eucharist: To Rekindle Amazement.”1

While I was already aware the pope had declared the Eucharist to be the focal point for the Catholic Church’s missionary vision at the Eucharistic Congress in June of 2000, the idea that the pope had written an Encyclical on the Eucharist to “Rekindle Amazement” in the Eucharist was new to me. I found the following statement made by the pope very enlightening:

[T]he Church will only be able to address the challenge of the new evangelization if she is able to contemplate, and enter into a profound relationship with Christ in the sacrament that makes his presence real.2

For me, this statement helped solve a puzzle that was now beginning to fall into place—this new evangelization program was directly linked to the Eucharistic Christ.

Further, the Zenit article gave more details on how the pope wanted to see this program develop:

I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic “amazement” by the present Encyclical Letter, in continuity with the Jubilee heritage which I have left to the Church in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the programme which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization.3

Making it clear that the new evangelization program would be tightly associated with the sacrament of the Eucharist, the pope concluded:

To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist, by him she is fed and by him she is enlightened.4

The Facts about the New Evangelization
To find out more about this New Evangelization program, I decided to look for more information. It did not take long tofind out there were many sources available confirming such a program existed. One article that was particularly helpful was found on the EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) web site. Under a heading “The New Evangelization: Building the Civilization of Love,” I read:

 As the Holy Father entrusts the Third Millennium to the Blessed Virgin Mary, EWTN inaugurates it’s New Evangelization specialty site. This site will forever be a work in progress, as we continue to bring to you information about the Catholic Faith on the 5 continents. We hope that the information on the synods will be a help to those whose mission is to evangelize, a mission which belongs to all of us at least through prayer. The historical, statistical and devotional material should give every visitor a sense of the universality of the Church and its mission.5 

Then one additional and very significant statement: 

Under the protection of St. Therese of Lisieux, Patroness of the Missions, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, to whom the Pope has committed the New Evangelization, may the Spirit of God bring about the New Pentecost to which the Church looks forward with hope.6

 This above statement may come as a surprise to Protestants who are enthusiastically joining hands with Catholics for the sake of evangelism. The Catholic program is committed to “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” Furthermore, it would be good to check out what is meant by this “New Pentecost.” Paul also warned the Corinthians about “another spirit” that was associated with “another gospel” and “another Jesus.” 

(This is from chapter 6 of Another Jesus by Roger Oakland. To read the entire chapter, click here.

Notes:
1. Zenit: The World Seen From Rome, “Why the Pope Would Write an Encyclical on the Eucharist: To Rekindle Amazement,” (cited April 17, 2003, http://www.zenit.org/english).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “The New Evangelization: Building the Civilization of Love,” cited April 2003, online posting: www.ewtn.com/new_ evangelization/introduction.htm, Eternal Word Television Network.
6. Ibid.

by Kjos Ministries

Their crime? They were Christians who refused to compromise or recant.  They would rather die than deny their faith and betray the Lord they loved!

 Speratus, the apparent leader of the small group of faithful disciples, answered,

‘We have never done ill, we have not lent ourselves to wrong, we have never spoken ill, but when ill-treated we have given thanks….”

“We too are religious,” answered the proconsul, “and our religion is simple, and we swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor, and pray for his welfare, as you also ought to do.”

“The empire of this world I know not,” explained Speratus, “but rather I serve that God, whom no man has seen, nor with these eyes can see. I have committed no theft; but if I have bought anything, I pay the tax; because I know my Lord, the King of kings and Emperor of all nations.”

“Be not partakers of this folly,” said the proconsul. Click here to continue.

 Taken from the powerful film, The Radicals, based on the true story of Michael and Margaretha Sattler, who defected from the Catholic church and who were martyred for their faith in Christ.

The Hiding Place: A listening adventure A dramatic audio presentation adapted from The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom

At one time Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that there would ever be a story to tell. For the first fifty years of her life, nothing at all out of the ordinary had ever happened to her. She was an unmarried watchmaker living contentedly with her sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house over their shop. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. However, with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, everything changed.

Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially-built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. THE HIDING PLACE is their story.

Narrated by Susie Sandager
Click here to listen to a 6 minute preview of this amazing presentation.

Narrator:

Susie is the developer of a one woman show based on the life of Corrie Ten Boom. This moving drama recounts the efforts of one family to stand for God, and to stand with and for the Jewish people during the darkest days of the Holocaust. Audiences are constantly surprised that the 80 year old Dutch woman they see on stage is really the much younger Susie.