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Liberty Univ. Under Fire for ‘Destructive’ Counseling, Winking at Sexual Immorality on Campus

LTRP Note: Show us a Christian college that is becoming laxed in its views toward homosexuality, and we’ll show you a college that has been promoting contemplative spirituality for some time. They go hand in hand. Liberty University is just such a place.

By Heather Clark
Christian News Network

Lynchburg, Virginia – Liberty University is coming under fire following a recent essay released by a former student who shared his story of being a practicing homosexual on campus.

As previously reported, The Atlantic published an essay last week penned by former Liberty student Brandon Ambrosino, outlining his personal experience of life on campus after coming out as a homosexual.

“When people find out I underwent therapy at Jerry Falwell’s Christian college, they assume I went through something like gay reparative therapy. But that isn’t what happened,” he wrote in the piece, entitled Being Gay at Jerry Falwell’s University. “I saw two counselors at Liberty … and neither of them ever expressed an interest in ‘curing’ me. Did they have an agenda? Yes. Their goal, which they were very honest about, was to help me to like myself, and to find peace with the real Brandon.” Click here to continue reading.

Related Information:

Jonathan Falwell Becomes Vice-Chancellor at Liberty University

Mark Driscoll and Liberty University Are Good Match – Both Promote Contemplative Spirituality

Liberty University Climbs Deeper into the Contemplative/Emerging Camp

Uruguay becomes 3rd country in Americas to legalize gay marriage after Canada and Argentina

Washington Post
Associated Press

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguayan lawmakers voted to legalize gay marriage, making the South American country the third in the Americas to do so.

Supporters of the law, who had filled the public seats in the legislative building, erupted in celebration Wednesday when the results were announced. The bill received the backing of 71 of the 92 members of the Chamber of Deputies present.

Uruguay’s legislature voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to legalize gay marriage. The country’s president is expected to put the law into effect with in 10 days.

“We are living a historic moment,” said Federico Grana, a leader of the Black Sheep Collective, a gay rights group that drafted the proposal. “In terms of the steps needed, we calculate that the first gay couples should be getting married 90 days after the promulgation of the law, or in the middle of July.” Click here to continue reading.

AWAKE SLEEPER

By Roger Oakland

Times have changed from the past. I was reminded of this not long ago when I spoke to a class of high school students at a Christian school. Three or four minutes into the lecture, about one-third of the students in the class put their heads down on their desks and fell asleep. When I was a student, we were required to stay awake in class. If we didn’t, we were told to sit in the hall until we were ready to come back and pay attention.

Not long after this incident, while I was speaking at another school, I noticed an interesting article that was posted on the bulletin board. The headline read: “Doctor says let sleeping teen lie, they are just ‘resetting their brains.’” [1] According to one psychologist, it has been determined that some teens need more sleep than what was once thought. When they doze off in class, they are just “resetting their brains,” the psychologist said. Although I am not a psychologist, I do have some common sense. If students sleep in class, how can they learn anything?

Another observation I have made is that there seems to be a deep sleep overcoming many who profess to be Bible-believing Christians. It seems fewer people go to a church to learn about what the Scriptures teach. Some are even saying the Bible is not sufficient for our generation. They are looking for some extra-biblical experience or new revelation that will stimulate them or make them feel good. Others have abandoned the truth and have become completely apathetic. Click here to continue reading.

 

Liberty Univ. Under Fire for ‘Destructive’ Counseling, Winking at Sexual Immorality on Campus
Uruguay becomes 3rd country in Americas to legalize gay marriage after Canada and Argentina
Awake Sleeper
SPECIAL REPORT: Assemblies of God “Believe” Conference Makes Bold Move – Brings in Contemplative Key Player Ruth Haley Barton
Book Review – The New Christians by Tony Jones
We Said it Would Happen, and It Has – CNN: “At evangelical colleges, a shifting attitude toward gay students”
A Statement from Lighthouse Trails About Some Who Have Recently Died
Widows in Kenya Basket Project Changes the Lives of Kenyan Widows
News in Review by Understand the Times
VITAL PRAYER REQUEST: Doug Harris of ReachOut Trust Ministries in the UK Very Ill
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Lighthouse Trails is a Christian publishing company and research project ministry. We work with a group of Christian journalists and authors, all who understand the times in which we live from a biblical perspective. While we hope you will buy and read the books we have published, watch the DVDs we have produced, and support our ministry, we also provide extensive free research, documentation, and news on our Research site, blog, e-newsletter, and now our subscription based print journal. We pray that the books as well as the online research will be a blessing to the body of Christ and a witness to those who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
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SPECIAL REPORT: Assemblies of God “Believe” Conference Makes Bold Move – Brings in Contemplative Key Player Ruth Haley Barton

This August, in Orlando, Florida, the Assemblies of God USA will be presenting their General Council Conference, which takes place every two years. The title of this year’s event is ”BELIEVE.” Scheduled to speak to “women in ministry” on one of the nights is Ruth Haley Barton. This is a bold move that the Assemblies of God is making because Barton is a major player in bringing contemplative mystical (i.e., mantra-based) prayer into the evangelical church.

The mission statement for the conference is “Believe we are on the cusp of an unparalleled Spiritual awakening.”1 On the conference website, it states:

GENERAL COUNCIL is the Assemblies of God’s largest gathering. It takes place every two years bringing church leaders together from all around the world.2

It also says that the event will inspire encounters with God, shape the Assemblies of God movement, and enhance [AOG leaders] ”skills and be inspired to advance the kingdom of God.”

While the Assemblies of God denomination has been going in the contemplative direction for some time, especially within the AOG theological seminary, to bring a major contemplative player in as a speaker to the movement’s main leadership conference illustrates how much AOG has absorbed contemplative spirituality over the last few years especially.

As a little background, in 2005, Lighthouse Trails addressed the issue of contemplative coming into AOG when we discussed Professor Earl Creps, director of the Doctor of Ministry at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. Creps is probably one of the earliest figures within the AOG movement to bring contemplative into AOG. In one document titled “Leading Others and Myself,” Creps lists a number of New Spirituality, emerging church and contemplative proponents as people he turns to.3 A 2006 LT article, “Assemblies of God: Committed to Spiritual Formation, Contemplative and Emerging,” stated:

If Assemblies of God Theological Seminary is any indication, then AOG is heading straight towards contemplative spirituality and the emerging church. Earl Creps . . . is a heavy proponent of both contemplative and emerging. In his course syllabi over the last five years, Creps has classes with titles such as “Leading the Emerging Church” and “Models of Ministry in the Emerging Church.” Syllabus reading materials include those from Henri Nouwen, Brian McLaren, Ken Blanchard, Dan Kimball, . . . and Leonard Sweet. A visit to Creps’ “Spiritual Adventures” blog gives a hearty helping of emergent discussion. In one blog, Creps tries to show how there might be a union between Pentecostalism and the emerging church [i.e. contemplative], saying the relationship is “gaining some traction.”

As in most cases now, contemplative starts coming into a denomination through seminaries, colleges, and universities, and in time reveals itself in the main body of that movement. That is now what is happening with AOG bringing in Ruth Haley Barton to the General Council event this year where AOG leaders from around the world will be participating.

For those who have followed Lighthouse Trails, you will know that Barton was trained at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, DC where she, according to her own words, was “under the guidance of Tilden Edwards, Rosemary Dougherty and Gerald May.” On Ruth Haley Barton’s Transforming Center website, she enthusiastically acknowledges being trained there, but the site gives a vague and almost oxymoronic disclaimer saying: “While she values all that she has gained from the teachers and institutions in which she has studied, this does not imply endorsement of everything taught in these environments.”4 (emphasis added)

We could talk about the beliefs of Tilden Edwards, Rosemary Dougherty, and Gerald May, but we have in other articles that can be looked up on our research site and read. Basically, these teachers are contemplative mystics who adhere to panentheism and universalism. It was Edwards who said that, “This mystical stream [contemplative prayer] is the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality (Spiritual Friend, p. 18). In other words, contemplative spirituality draws all religions together in unity under the common denominator of mysticism.

Who is Ruth Haley Barton?

After Barton finished her training at the Shalem Institute, she became the Associate Director of Spiritual Formation at Willow Creek Community Church and co-authored (with John Ortberg) a Spiritual Formation curriculum for Willow Creek. In time, Ortberg moved on to become pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian in California, and Barton left to found the Transforming Center, which claims to train thousands of pastors and leaders in the contemplative way. She has written a number of books – virtually all having the core message that you gain intimacy with God through the silence (that is her predominant message). Some of these books are: Invitation to Solitude and Silence (foreword by Dallas Willard), Sacred Rhythms, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, and one of her more recent ones Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups.

So what is it exactly that Barton teaches? In a Christianity Today article titled “Drawing Closer to God,” Barton describes the practice of contemplative prayer, saying, “Ask for a simple prayer to express your willingness to meet God in the silence . . . a simple statement . . . such as ‘Here I am. . . . ’ Help yourself return to your original intent by repeating the prayer that you have chosen.”

In Barton’s popular book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, she goes into more depth:

• Identify your sacred space and time. Explore all the possibilities for a time and physical space in which you can be alone on a regular basis (p. 40).

• Begin with a modest goal, especially if silence is a new practice for you. Ten, fifteen or twenty minutes of time spent in actual silence is realistic, depending on such factors as your personality, pace of life, reliance on words and activity (p. 41).

• Settle into a comfortable yet alert physical position (p. 41).

• Ask God to give you a simple prayer that expresses your openness and desire for God. Choose a prayer phrase that expresses your desire or need for God these days in the simplest terms possible. It is best if the prayer is not more than six to eight syllables so that it can be prayed very naturally in the rhythm of your breathing. Pray this prayer several times as an entry into silence and also as a way of dealing with distractions. Distractions are inevitable, so when they come, simply let them go by like clouds floating across the sky. Help yourself return to the prayerful intent by repeating the prayer you have chosen. Use your prayer phrase for as long as it captures what is most true about your heart’s desire for God, and link it with a body posture that also helps you express your spiritual desire (pp. 41-42).

In regard to Barton’s disclaimer on her website, she can say that she does not endorse everything she was taught at Shalem Institute, but the fact of the matter is what she just described above is the essence of what Shalem believes and teaches. Everything they teach stems from this mystical prayer. Perhaps she is implying that she does not adhere to their panentheistic (God in all) and universalist (all are saved) views, but that would be ironic because these are the things that are produced by practicing contemplative prayer. Ray Yungen calls them the “fruit” of contemplative prayer. In A Time of Departing, Yungen discusses Shalem and its role in Barton’s spiritual life. He includes a quote found on Shalem’s website to show the underlying roots of Shalem’s ultimate goal:

In Christianity and other traditions that understand God to be present everywhere, contemplation includes a reverence for the Divine Mystery, “finding God in all things,” [panentheism] or “being open to God’s presence, however it may appear. (5)

Yungen shares his concerns about Ruth Haley Barton:

“[Barton] echoes [goddess worshipper] Sue Monk Kidd in many ways, including the general malaise or condition of the human soul. Barton recounts:

A few years ago, I began to recognize an inner chaos in my soul . . . No matter how much I prayed, read the Bible, and listened to good teaching, I could not calm the internal roar created by questions with no answers. (“Beyond Words“)

“The following scenario Barton relates could be the wave of the future for the evangelical church if this movement continues to unfold in the manner it already has:

I sought out a spiritual director, someone well versed in the ways of the soul . . . eventually this wise woman said to me, . . . “What you need is stillness and silence so that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear.” . . . I decided to accept this invitation to move beyond my addiction to words (“Beyond Words”)

“By ‘addiction to words’ [Barton] means normal ways of praying. She still uses words, but only three of them, ‘Here I am.’ This is nothing more than the Cloud of Unknowing or [Henri Nouwen's] prayer of the heart. Like Richard Foster, Barton argues that God cannot be reached adequately, if at all, without the silence. In referring to I Kings 19 when Elijah was hiding in a cave, Barton encourages:

 

God loves us enough to wait for us to come openly to Him. Elijah’s experience shows that God doesn’t scream to get our attention. Instead, we learn that our willingness to listen in silence opens up a quiet space in which we can hear His voice, a voice that longs to speak and offer us guidance for our next step. (“Beyond Words”)

“What Barton fails to mention here is that Elijah was a valiant defender of the belief in the one, unique God – Yahweh (as seen in his encounter with the 450 prophets of Baal), and he never went into an altered state of silence in his personal encounter with God.” (A Time of Departing, 2nd. ed., pp. 172-173)

Those reading this who are skeptical about what we are saying may be asking, “What’s so wrong about repeating a word or phrase and going into an altered state of silence?” To this we answer, this state of silence is the same state that occultists and Eastern meditation practitioners enter when practicing transcendental meditation (TM). We can prove this by the words of one of the men who trained Ruth Haley Barton – Gerald May (from Shalem Institute). May wrote the foreword to a book titled Zen for Christians. In that book, he says the following:

I began to explore Eastern religions . . . I was taking my spiritual business elsewhere. Or so I thought. What surprised me, eventually, was that my foray into Buddhism led me in a kind of circle, back to my Christian roots. Over time, Buddhist practices [meditation] somehow revealed to me the rich resources of Christian contemplative tradition that had been there all along . . . I was not alone in that experience. . . [Those on the contemplative road] in their searching, many turned toward the East and experienced exactly what I had – an eventual discovery of deep nourishment [Eastern enlightenment] within their own original traditions. The phenomenon happened so frequently that we gave it a name: “pilgrimage home.”

May was correct in stating that so-called “Christian” contemplative prayer is the same as Buddhist meditation. As one adherent admitted, “The meditation of advanced occultists is identical with the prayer of advanced mystics” (Kirby, Mission of Mysticism, p. 7). Who are the “advanced mystics”? There are plenty of them, names you probably know: Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and to that list we add Ruth Haley Barton.

Consider this: On Barton’s website, she sells books by Catholic priest and contemplative activist Richard Rohr. In addition, she quotes him (in a prominent spot) in her recent book Pursuing God’s Will Together from his book, Everything Belongs. Typical of other contemplatives, such as Thomas Merton, Rohr believes that everything is connected together and that all is divine (thus, everybody belongs to the kingdom of God). In his 2011 book, Falling Upward, Rohr implies that we all are ”immaculate conception[s]” (p. ix). If these things are true, then there was no need for Jesus Christ to die on the Cross for the sins of mankind. We would not need a Savior because we would already be divine ourselves. In truth, contemplative spirituality is the antithesis of the Gospel. That is why there are countless mystics who claim to know God (or Jesus) but will have nothing to do with the Cross.

In a YouTube teaching video by Barton, she tells viewers, “You have nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain [if you follow her instructions],” but we say you have everything to lose and nothing to gain if you go down the contemplative path. Sadly, instead of being on the “cusp of an unparalleled Spiritual Awakening,” it appears that the Assemblies of God is going to be losing “a whole lot” in the days to come as they further open themselves to the contemplative “silence” and the spiritual deception that accompanies it. Our warning here is to be taken seriously. William Shannon, Thomas Merton’s biographer, validated our concern when he made the following observation:

If one wants to understand Merton’s going to the East it is important to understand that it was his rootedness in his own faith tradition [Catholicism] that gave him the spiritual equipment [contemplative prayer] he needed to grasp the way of wisdom that is proper to the East. (Silent Lamp, p. 281)

This is what Tilden Edwards meant by the bridge to Far Eastern spirituality. Merton didn’t become a Buddhist; rather he grasped the way that “is proper to the East.” That is how Merton, as a Catholic monk, could say, “I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.”* In other words, while you don’t become a Buddhist, you absorb the Buddhist view into your Christianity. This is the underlying herald cry of the contemplative prayer movement, and it is something that can never be reconciled with the message of the Cross.

The ironic thing is that the Assemblies of God has traditionally held to the biblical view of the end times whereas contemplative spirituality lines up with a universal world religion, which will encompass all humanity and unite under the man of sin. There has never been anything on the scene before that would allow a universal religion that appeals to people on a broad scale. But first people have to hook up to the common factor and binding agent of this one-world religion, and that is contemplative prayer!

*David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West” (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969).

Book Review – The New Christians by Tony Jones

LTRP Note: While some try to insist that the "emerging church" is dead, we say it is alive. That can be proven by all the emergent books pouring off the presses of evangelical publishing houses. While the book below came out seven years ago, its influence continues on, forming (and misinforming) the next generation of "Christian" leaders. If you have children or grandchildren in Christian colleges, most likely they have been, either directly or indirectly, influenced by Tony Jones.

“This is the book to read to get the actual insiders’ view of all things emergent.” -Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus but not the Church

“This intelligent and informative book is the only insider story from one of the leading lights of the more progressive wing of the emerging movement, the former national coordinator of Emergent Village.” -Christianity Today

Emerging church leader Tony Jones’ book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, may not come as a shock to those who have already read Jones’ books, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope and The Sacred Way. To those who haven’t read his other books, this one will most likely shock. Either way, The New Christians does provide further insights into the true nature of the emerging church. In The Sacred Way, Jones openly acknowledges his affinity with mysticism. With chapters on labyrinths, stations of the cross, the silence, centering (mantric) prayer, and more, Jones’ leaves no doubt that he embraces eastern-style mystical prayer practices. In An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, he takes it to the next level. The thesis of that book could be described as:

The Kingdom of God is already here on earth, includes all people, all faiths, and in fact is in all people and all of creation and can be felt or realized through mysticism which connects everything together as ONE. (see review

Those who have come to understand mantra meditation know that the usual outcome of going into altered states is a new spiritual consciousness that is open to both panentheism (God in all) and interspirituality (all religions lead to God). 1

In order to have this new spiritual outlook, one’s view of “truth” must be adjusted – Jones’ new book, The New Christians, provides such an outline for this adjustment. A theme of this book could go something this:

Emergents say they believe in truth, but they define it as something that is always changing and being refined, can never be grasped, and enfolds all beliefs, except the ones that insist there is only one truth.

It’s not really any wonder that Jones says this – he credits Brian McLaren as “helping to birth this book” (p. 253). McLaren’s view on truth resonates with the description above.

As is typical with many emerging church books, The New Christians emphatically tries to convince readers that the “church is dead” (p. 4), at least church as we have known it. Jones uses several analogies to describe present day Christianity, such as it being like the nearly-obsolete pay phones, or a dying old growth forest, or compost (rotting vegetables). He says we can almost hear the “death rattle” of “America’s church” (p. 5).

Jones explains that the movement was spawned because a lot of youth pastors had been raised in this dying, superficial Christianity and the emerging church is their way of coming of age. But anyone who has read Roger Oakland’s powerful expose’ on the emerging church (Faith Undone) knows that the movement was actually spawned by big corporate dollars, and it is very likely that these youth pastors’ discontent for traditional Christianity is more the fault of the seminaries they attended rather than their upbringing. Many of the seminaries have been heralding this “new kind of Christianity” for a long time. Incidentally, on page 48, Jones says that those who funded the emerging church through Leadership Network in the 90s weren’t too happy about the direction these young emergents were heading. “The funding for the Young Leaders Network (later to become Emergent),” Jones says, “was about to come to an end.” But this statement is somewhat misleading, giving the impression that the emergents were financially left out in the cold. The publisher for The New Christians (and for many other emergent books) is Jossey Bass, an imprint of a large corporation called Wiley & Sons and a partner with Leadership Network. Between Jossey Bass, Zondervan, Baker Books (Emersion) and Thomas Nelson, the emerging church authors are hardly left to fend for themselves.

In Jones’ efforts to convey to readers that non-emerging Christians do not care about humanity and the earth, he goes into a gory detailed account of a chicken slaughterhouse where chickens are issued an electric shock and then their throats are slit. He says that the typical Christian just doesn’t care about the world’s abuses, tragedies, and woes, and says that when disaster hits, all they care about is whether “victims had invited Jesus into their hearts” (p. 18). Using extreme examples over and over to prove his points, Jones will leave many unsuspecting readers with the notion that up until now Christians have done almost nothing good for this world. And like his cohorts, Tony Campolo and Dan Kimball, who also paint a dismal view of traditional Christianity, Jones believes that the problems of the world are actually caused (at least in large part) by Christians. Jones neglects to admit that when disasters happen throughout the world, Christian-led organizations race to the scenes, often sooner than governmental agencies. While there have certainly been countless occurrences throughout history when those proclaiming to be Christian do fit Jones’ stereotype, he completely (and seemingly intentionally) leaves out the category of true Christianity that has been in existence since the beginning of the church two thousand years ago. A distorted attempt by several of today’s contemplative and emerging leaders would have us believe that true devoted Christians have not existed up until now, until paradigms like Purpose Driven and emerging spirituality came on the scene. This of course, is resulting in a growing hostility and alienation towards biblical Christianity today.

What is even more disturbing about The New Christians is Jones’ attack on truth and the Word of God. Jones insists that it is wrong to accept and believe the Bible to be true without using logic and reasoning. He states:

For the conservative, the sacred text of Christianity is indubitable, established by an internal and circular reasoning: “The Bible claims to be God’s truth, so therefore it’s true.”

Jones emphasizes the role philosophy and reasoning must play in determining whether the Bible is true and God is real. And in fact, he acknowledges how ancient atheist philosophers influenced the early beginnings of the emerging church (p. 43). But in reality, philosophy and reasoning does not bring people to Christ. Most philosophers are atheist or agnostic. The influence of philosophy coupled with the use of mysticism certainly explains why “emergents” are so confused.

Jones’ also believes that the gospel has been dormant throughout most of history, except during specific times when it was able to break through “human institutions.” He states:

And although it [the gospel] has been crusted over for eons, it will inevitably find a time and a fissure, an opportunity to blast through that crust and explode, volcano-like into the atmosphere. (p. 36)

If this were true, then God has failed to keep his gospel alive, or at best has only been able to allow it to come out of dormancy from time to time. Yet we know that there has always been a representation of the true gospel on the earth throughout history.

Ultimately, what one will come away with from Jones’ book is that Jones (and all emergents, he says) believes that truth cannot be pinned down and set in concrete. What is true for today may not be considered truth tomorrow. And he isn’t talking just about negotiable societal and cultural ideologies. He is talking about doctrine too. In fact, that is really the point he wants to get across in this book. Emergents love the Bible, he says, but they are not going to be so arrogant “[t]o assume that our convictions about God are somehow timeless” and to think they are “establishes an imperialistic attitude that has a chilling effect on the honest conversation that’s needed for theology to progress” (p. 114). This progression of theology that Jones speaks of is not limited to areas of theology that are often and legitimately debated by Christian scholars. No; Jones says even the doctrine of atonement cannot be set in stone. He says it is “arrogant and a bit deceptive” (p. 77) to suggest that there can be any one understanding of atonement. He was referencing the difference between a traditional Christian pastor versus Brian McLaren, who has called the doctrine of hell and the Cross “false advertising” for God. 2 Jones states that to “try to freeze one particular articulation of the gospel, to make it timeless and universally applicable, actually does an injustice to the gospel” (p. 96). He says we must “refigure our theology” (p. 104) and that “emergents” are “looking for a Christianity that’s still exploratory” (i.e., theology is flexible – p. 108) and “a gospel that meshes with our own experience of the world” (p. 110). “Theology is not universal, nor is it transcendent” (p. 112), he claims, but it is “temporary” and we “must carry our theologies with an open hand” (p. 114). He adds:

[E]mergents reject metaphors like “pin it down,” “in a nutshell,” “sum it up,” and “boil it down” when speaking of God and God’s Kingdom, for it simply can’t be done (p. 114).

One of those “theologies” Jones refers to is that of homosexuality. He explains: “What I can proclaim with confidence is that in a hundred years, the church will not be debating gay marriage anymore. We will have reached consensus and moved on.” He adds to that: “[E]mergents are pretty humble about the positions we hold today and about the issues that we consider most important” (p. 116).

However, reading Jones’ book is probably not going to help readers get a grasp of just what these positions are. Jones’ is all over the place with his ideas and ultimately says even these ideas are forever changing and being reformed based on the experiential and “comes in all sorts of forms” (p. 160). Quoting Brian McLaren, Jones goes so far as to say that the moment we think we have truth and theology figured out, “we cease being faithful…. The Bible is a companion on the faith journey, not a textbook of proofs” (p. 168).

In the end, Jones leaves his readers with this: “Jesus did not have a ‘statement of faith’” (p. 234). In other words, Jesus was just as vague and unsure about what is truth, atonement, righteousness, the gospel, as are the emergents today. But this is a complete and horrible distortion of Jesus Christ, who did indeed have a statement of faith. In fact, everything He said was a statement of true faith, and He spoke as one knowing exactly what truth is:

For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matthew 7:29)

And He also stated: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13)

Jones says that end-times, last-days thinking Christians “propose the dubious theology that the world is going to get worse and worse and worse until it gets so bad that God has to intervene” (p. 98-99). And like many, such as Tony Campolo, Jones suggests that those who believe in wars, increasing sin, “false teachers,” and “antichrists” are the cause of environmental issues (p. 100). In reality, while it is true that every person in the world who owns a car contributes to pollution, many of the earth’s major environmental problems stem from abuse of land by corrupt governments and profit-hungry corporations (i.e., human sinfulness), not because of Christians who believe what the Bible says about Christ’s return. That’s absurd!

Finally, and not in any way least, Jones makes a case for mysticism when he says that “[E]mergents will use all of the means available to them to quest after this truth we call God.” He says this on the heels of explaining that his wife (a Yoga instructor), has gotten into alternative health. Jones say emergents “quest after God using the tools of the medieval mystics and the ancient monastics (i.e., contemplative prayer)…. some will even be open to sources of truth that are external to traditional [biblical] Christianity, be it philosophy or another religious system (p. 159).” And it is in these other religious systems that Jones and the New Christians find “truth.” He puts it well:

In the aftermath of the myth of objectivity [absolute truth], of fideisims and airtight systems, we’re left to embrace our subjectivity, to revel in it, for it’s only when we accept our own biases that we allow them to be shaped by contrary opinions and biases. One place where this is most poignant is interreligious dialogue” (p. 155).

Fellow cohorts who place their names on The New Christians endorsement include Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, Dan Kimball, Jim Wallis, Mark Ostreicher (former head of Youth Specialties), and a number of others who have proven over time that they too have joined the ranks of a spirituality that cannot lead people to Christ but only to confusion and lostness. And it is for this reason we hope that The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontiers will not end up on the library and classroom shelves of Christian colleges and seminaries and certainly not in the youth groups of Christian churches and organizations.

 

We Said it Would Happen, and It Has – CNN: “At evangelical colleges, a shifting attitude toward gay students”

LTRP Note: For several years, Lighthouse Trails has been warning that thanks to the emerging church and to the mega-leaders who have promoted it, the views on sexuality within the evangelical church would change. And it has, as you can see from this CNN article below. After you have read this article, please read some of our own articles (see links below) on this matter. It’s important to understand that Satan is the author of death. Abortion, evolution, panentheism, mysticism, homosexuality, pedophilia – these all point to death, not to life, not to the Cross. We know Christian families who put their kids into “Christian” high schools and colleges, and those kids came out of high school or college proclaiming to be homosexual. These emerging/contemplative colleges are destroying the lives of kids who have been raised in Christian homes. Parents, grandparents, you better do something and stop putting your kids in these schools. If your heart isn’t breaking over this, then we don’t know what it will take. And please understand that there IS a connection between contemplative spirituality (i.e., mystical practices) and a change in outlook regarding sexuality.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey
For CNN

Wheaton, Illinois (CNN)– Combing through prayer requests in a Wheaton College chapel in 2010, then-junior Benjamin Matthews decided to do something “absurdly unsafe.”

He posted a letter on a public forum bulletin board near students’ post office boxes. In the letter, he came out as gay and encouraged fellow gay Christian students – some of whom had anonymously expressed suicidal plans in a pile of the prayer requests – to contact him if they needed help.

In a student body of 2,400 undergraduates in the suburbs of Chicago, at what is sometimes called the Harvard of evangelical schools, Matthews said that 15 male students came out to him. Other students seemed somewhat ambivalent about his coming out, he said.

No one told him he was wrong or needed to change, Matthews said some students were obviously uncomfortable with someone who would come out as gay and remain a Christian. Click here to continue.

LT Articles:

Biola’s New Gay and Lesbian Student Group – A “Fruit” of Their Contemplative Propensities?

What’s Sex Got To Do With It?

As Obama OKs Homosexual Marriage, Christian Leaders Partly to Blame

A Statement from Lighthouse Trails About Some Who Have Recently Died

Over the past year, there has been a number of deaths among those whom Lighthouse Trails has critiqued for their doctrinal and theological teachings. Last week, we received the following e-mail:

To Lighthouse Trails:

As much as I disagree with the doctrines that are being taught by Rick Warren and his church, we should still “weep with those who weep, and mourn with those who mourn.” Your silence regarding the death of Rick’s son is as loud as anything you might have said. Since you are followed by so many readers, this is an excellent time to show God’s love for a person who is hurting. I was disappointed not to see a condolence to the family on your page, that would speak greatly of the love of God.

In actuality, we did post something on our blog about it the day after we heard the tragic news, and we expressed our sorrow in hearing this news: “Son of Pastor Rick Warren Commits Suicide.”

While we do not always post obituaries or notices about these things, we’d like to state that Lighthouse Trails has never felt or expressed any personal animosity toward those figures we have critiqued. We have never wished for or prayed for any personal tragedy in any of their lives. We have only prayed that their eyes might be opened to the issues discussed on our site and in our books. We believe we have maintained integrity in avoiding any personal smears against anyone. Our focus has been, and by the grace of God, will continue to be contending for the biblical Christian faith. That said, when we hear of these deaths, we do not rejoice at all but feel a sense of sadness for the loved ones of that person and even sadness regarding the one who has departed. We do not have any hate toward any of the people we challenge. Please know that while we may not always post death notices (often because these figures are highly popular and their deaths are covered by numerous media outlets, both secular and Christian, thus not needing the coverage of our ministry) this does not mean we are trying to make a negative statement about that person. On the contrary, posting something could even give the wrong impression that we are somehow attributing their deaths to God’s judgment. In fact, we never would intend to make any public determination regarding someone’s death. So for these and various others reasons, we don’t often make mention of these deaths. We hope this explanation will clear up any concerns by our readers.

Here are a few that have occurred recently:

On Friday, April 12, 2013, popular author and speaker Brennan Manning died at 78 years old. Manning is best known in the evangelical world for his books Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba’s Child. Article by the Christian Post on Brennan Manning His teachings are discussed in several Lighthouse Trails books and articles.

On April 5th 2013, Matthew Warren, 27 year old son of Purpose Driven pastor Rick Warren, died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Article by CNN on Matthew’s death. The Purpose Driven Movement and Rick Warren are discussed in several Lighthouse Trails books, DVDs, and articles.

On February 9th 2013, Richard Twiss, a leader in the Indigenous People’s Movement, died while attending the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC of a heart attack. Twiss was 58. Twiss’ beliefs and teachings are discussed in Muddy Waters: an insider’s view of North American Native Spirituality. Obituary of Richard Twiss

On August 19, 2012, Calvin Miller, a contemplative proponent sometimes discussed in Lighthouse Trails articles, passed away at the age of 75. Article by CT on Calvin Miller.

 
Widows in Kenya Basket Project Changes the Lives of Kenyan Widows

The Widows in Kenya Basket Project that Lighthouse Trails launched last year as a means to help the widows in Rongo, Kenya support themselves is well underway. Already we have purchased several batches of baskets, which have been shipped to us and sold to our readers. In addition to paying for the shipping and materials, Lighthouse Trails is also paying the women a fair trade price for their work. As you can read in their testimonies in this slideshow below, being a part of the Basket Project has altered these women’s lives tremendously. If you would like to purchase one of these baskets, you may do so at the Lighthouse Trails webstore. You may buy just the basket by itself by clicking here (they are $34), or you may buy the “gift basket,” which is filled with numerous Lighthouse Trails products (you choose which ones – those are $85 – click here). In addition to the Basket Project, Lighthouse Trails readers are actively involved in supporting the Bryce Homes in Kenya missions project through Understand the Times Bryce Home Project. There are currently 20 Bryce Homes and over 120 children being supported. Click here if you cannot view the slideshow below.

Click to play this Smilebox scrapbook
 

 

 
News in Review by Understand the Times

 

VITAL PRAYER REQUEST: Doug Harris of ReachOut Trust Ministries in the UK Very Ill

We have received this in from the UK. Doug Harris of ReachOut Trust is very ill with an inoperable cancer tumor. Lighthouse Trails has been linking to ReachOut Trust for many years. Doug has been a fearless defender of the faith. We have often posted his interviews with people like Roger Oakland and Cecil Andrews (Take Heed in Northern Ireland). As the Lord leads, please pray for him. Below the request, you will see a video done in 2012 between Doug and Cecil.

To Lighthouse Trails Readers:

Doug Harris is the Director of Reachout Trust, one of the very few Christian Apologetics Ministries based and operating in the UK. It was founded in the early 1980s and ministers to people caught in the cults and occult. The

Doug Harris

Reachout website is currently not operating but there is a Facebook page for Reachout Trust (see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reachout_Trust). Doug also broadcasts on Revelation TV, a UK Christian TV station (for his broadcasts see YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/reachout/videos?view=0).Doug was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his bile duct (adjacent to his liver) back in December 2012; the medical team treating him have declared it inoperable. After some time in a specialist cancer hospital in London he is now at home but is very ill. Plans are being made for him to receive palliative care if and when necessary.

Please pray for healing for Doug, if that is God’s will for him, but also for God’s hand of comfort to be upon Doug and his family whatever the outcome.

If you cannot see the video below, click here: A Debate: “Mariology: Who Is Mary According to Scripture?” with Doug Harris of ReachOut Trust and Cecil Andrews of Take Heed Ministries

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NOTE:The next issue of the new Lighthouse Trails Research Print Journal will be mailed out on May 1st to all subscribers. This subscription-based journal can be used in addition to this free e-newsletter you are getting (the e-newsletter will continue to be sent out 2-4 times a month via e-mail at no charge). (view 1st issue of print journal) It's never too late to subscribe - anytime is fine. You will receive the current issue.

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Order Bulk Subscriptions and Save: If you would like to order more than one subscription, the cost is $9.55 per subscription (6 issues/12 months), plus whatever it costs to ship the bulk journals to one address (minimum bulk order - 5 subscriptions). Bulk rates are just for when the entire batch is going to one address. Call 866/876-3910 or e-mail sales@lighthousetrails.com for a quote on bulk subscription shipping costs.

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NEW PRINT BOOKLET TRACT: When Hitler Was in Power

When Hitler Was in Power – Memories of a Jewish Girl written by Anita Dittman with Jan Markell is our newest Lighthouse Trails Print Booklet Tract. The booklet tract is 14 pages long and sells for $1.50 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of When Hitler Was in Power – Memories of a Jewish Girl, click here.

When Hitler Was in Power – Memories of a Jewish Girl
by Anita Dittman with Jan Markell

1939 Breslau, Germany
I was twelve years old and entering early teen years living in Nazi Germany. Often as the lights went out at night, I lapsed into self-pity and cried myself to sleep. I knew it would be a long winter with minimum food rations, crowded, substandard living quarters, and that never-ending dread of the Gestapo knock on the door. More and more Jews feared venturing into the streets.

Rising costs for tuition and school books and the increased anti-Semitism made my school life miserable and my future education questionable. In addition, home conditions were difficult. Two of Mother’s sisters had come to live with us in our one room, and we had to share the kitchen and bath with additional families.

Mother’s sisters—Aunt Friede and Aunt Elsbeth—were endlessly annoyed at my strong faith in Jesus and Mother’s growing interest in Him. Their nagging, coupled with the unbearable bedbugs in our apartment, made life a chore. I gave Aunt Elsbeth my bed and slept on a lumpy, bedbug-infested sofa, falling asleep each night while arguments rang through the room.

We hardly dared go to Pastor Hornig’s church. The macabre scenes we saw on the way caused bad dreams at night as our subconscious relived what we had seen: Jews by the hundreds being herded into trucks as they stared glassy-eyed with fear at being separated from loved ones. Since we were in a Jewish ghetto, we could look out our window almost any day and see such scenes on the street below. The more we were identified as Jewish Christians attending a Protestant church, the more free time we were given.

By fall, the war began in earnest. Germany surged ahead, optimistic because of her swift victory in Poland. The frighteningly diabolical trio of Adolf Eichmann, Reinhard Heydrich, and Heinrich Himmler was ordered to find a “final solution to the Jewish problem,” and it was generally understood that the final solution meant total extermination.

Auschwitz and Dachau, two of the more deadly camps, would strike similar terror within the Jews of Europe. Rudolf Ross was put in charge of the genocide at Auschwitz. Upon his orders, two thousand Jews would be gassed at one time. As men, women, and children were shoved together into massive “shower rooms” some were stamped on their chests with a coded number that indicated they had gold teeth. When they finally realized they weren’t taking a shower, they screamed and cried for mercy, but their cries fell on deaf ears. Amused guards watched through peepholes as they suffered and died. Hideous horror stories began to trickle out of the various camps, putting unbearable pressure on European Jews, who knew that they were all potential gas-chamber victims.

In 1939, Germans began experiencing a fear of their own as the country scurried for air-raid shelters. Bombs weren’t falling on Germany yet, but drills had begun. Homes and businesses complied with blackout regulations, and planes frequently raced across the German sky that fall, though without dropping any deadly weapons.

1940—Berlin, Germany—Away From Home
By the summer of 1940, the Führer had made himself the master of western Europe as he invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France. They all would fall before the year’s end. It began to look as though Italy would enter the war as an ally of Germany. But as long as England remained undefeated in the war, a complete German victory was not possible in the West. British resistance stiffened that spring and summer under the incomparable leadership of Winston Churchill. Britain was sending her planes in increasing numbers over the skies of Germany. As the Germans attacked Allied cities and sunk Allied ships, Britain began to retaliate by dropping bombs, and Germany started melting beneath her burning cities.

That August we heard terrifying news: The Germans had bombed a residential section of London, and word got out that the British Royal Air Force would retaliate by hitting Berlin (where I was attending school). Thus, the war was brought home to Germany, and Berlin’s air-raid shelters became my home away from home. If life for the German people had once been an inconvenience, it now was a hellish nightmare. The siege began in Berlin, but soon the whole country would be in rubble.

When the bombing began, we children thought of the nightly air raids as nothing more than dangerous thunderstorms, during which everyone scrambled for the shelters—only basements really. At first the British hit only government centers in Berlin. Sometimes, however, the shrill sirens interrupted our light sleep as often as three times a night. And each time we would dash frantically to the shelter beneath our apartment building.

As the war got worse, so did general living conditions. Yet no true German dared to let defeat or discouragement cross his mind. It was still unthinkable. What about the thousand-year Reich? Hitler surely had things under control; this was only a temporary inconvenience. It was a small price to pay for the Fatherland and the glorious days that lay ahead for the Reich.
The air attack intensified in the fall of 1940 as Berlin received the brunt of the Allied bombing. The basement bomb shelters were almost useless against a direct hit, for a shell would race through ten stories to the basement, burying hundreds of victims. As Hitler intensified the fighting on the battlefront, the Allies intensified their reign of terror from the sky.

Life in the shelters was nerve-racking. We couldn’t move for fear of using too much oxygen. Even if bombs exploded all around us, we were careful not to utter an anti-Nazi statement because several staunch Nazis were sure to be in any given bomb shelter.

As the winter winds began to blow, I missed Mother and the familiarities of home even more. Christmas was in the air, and though Mrs. Michaelis assured me she would send me home for the holiday, I knew that at a moment’s whim she could change her mind. Then early in December, my school principal handed me a note: “Because of your non-Aryan background, you will no longer be allowed to attend classes at this school.”

Early 1941—Home Again in Breslau
Brown-shirted storm troopers were marching through the towns, terrorizing everyone and delighting in making life miserable for the Jews, whether by teasing and taunting or by acts of brutality. They ridiculed and beat Jews everywhere and randomly hauled off individuals or families to prison. Cattle cars were filled daily as trainloads of frightened Jews were shipped to secret destinations throughout the tranquil German countryside.

As I walked to the gymnasium of the school I was attending now, I saw bold signs proclaiming “No Jews Allowed” on nearly every store. Other signs warned Germans to stay away from Jews, who had been banned from theaters, parks, and all recreational areas. Everywhere I looked, I saw anti-Jewish slogans and posters. Many of the posters had the photograph of a Jew who had just been arrested for some concocted crime. In sharp contrast, flashing neon signs illuminated Hitler’s picture.
The Nazi flag was hung proudly outside of most homes in Breslau. Inside, Germans were required to have a picture of the Führer somewhere in the house. Hitler was pressing the Christian pastors to have his picture placed at the front of church altars.

Hitler’s contorted and strained voice blasted hate propaganda from the radio almost daily; he frantically blamed “international financial Jewry” for the war and warned Germans that every living Jew was an archenemy of the Reich. Jews had absolutely no rights and weren’t entitled to own property.

More and more Jews trembled behind locked doors. We learned that a brother and a sister of Mother’s had been picked up and taken to a camp. Another brother and his wife took their own lives rather than face a concentration camp ordeal. It was inevitable that the random confiscation of Jews should hit our house that winter.

Mother tried to be a peacemaker for her three quarreling sisters. However, when she attempted to help them, they would gang up on her because of her growing love for Jesus, who Pastor Hornig had told her was the Jewish Messiah. Mother could no longer deny the power of Christ in our lives. She had to talk about Him; it was a natural overflow of love. But her sisters insisted that it was Jesus’ followers who had hounded the Jews since the first century. They claimed the Nazis were all Christians on the basis of them being Gentiles and having attended Catholic or Lutheran churches. Many of those very churches had now sold out to the Führer, allowing his picture to be on their church altars. It made no sense to my aunts to worship Jesus, a phony dead man in whose name millions of Jews had been persecuted, tortured, and killed.

“But those people aren’t really Christians!” I insisted, not fully grasping the accuracy of my statement. “They just give real Christians a bad name.”

“Nonsense!” insisted Aunt Elsbeth. “All Gentiles are Christians.”

That month Bulgaria was peacefully occupied. Then Germany invaded Yugoslavia, and soon tanks would roll into Athens. Hitler gave an injunction demanding merciless harshness in the war. Whereas at one time the German code of ethics had protected civilians and property, now everyone and everything was to be destroyed by the German soldiers. But every such act of brutality only increased the Allied assault on Germany, so in the end every German paid for the Führer’s madness.

All internal affairs were being handed over to Martin Bormann, who began to carry out a ruthless assault on the Christian churches in Germany. More than ever we feared for the Hornigs and the believers at our church, for they would be prime targets for Bormann’s men because of their interest and love for the Jewish people. Gestapo agents always were planted in the church services now.

The fresh breezes of spring 1941 brought us little relief from our agony. I gave serious thought to dropping out of school because of the rampant anti-Semitism at the gymnasium. My teachers followed Nazi orders to be hard on all students who weren’t Aryans, and the other young people didn’t want to risk being my friend. I felt terribly lonely there—for a fourteen-year-old without a friend is like a violin without a bow.

One by one the apartments in our Jewish tenement were emptying as the arrests increased. In June, we heard the dreaded knock again. This time they came for Aunt Friede, who was seventy-three years old. We tried very hard to swallow our tears again, for we knew it would only upset Aunt Friede more to see us crying over her. Again, no explanation was given and no destination revealed.

A great part of the terrifying fear related to the arrests was the unknown factor of the prisoner’s destination. Was it jail or a concentration camp? Was it a work camp or a gas chamber or a firing squad? One seldom knew until sometimes family members received a postcard from prison or perhaps word was smuggled out that the person had been killed. The fate of millions would never be known. They would simply become statistics.

One by one or all at once, families disappeared and were separated in the ordeal of Nazi Germany in 1941. We never saw Aunt Käte, Aunt Friede, or Aunt Elsbeth again.

Hitler’s hunger for power and blood had no end. Next he invaded Russia in an effort to eliminate the “Eastern menace” of Bolshevism. The Führer didn’t realize, of course, that this was a fatal miscalculation. A world war was now inevitable. America pledged economic aid, and the Allies started fighting back even harder.

Hitler was sure the Russian campaign would be swift, a fair weather war. Thus the Russian winter became as much his enemy as the Russian soldier. More than 750,000 German soldiers would die from the winter elements as they became bogged down in their advance on Moscow. Because of the devastating defeat, the Jews would suffer even more and be made to pay for Hitler’s mistake.

Only one synagogue was left in Breslau after the burnings of 1938 and 1939. Recently it had been made into a prison for Jews who were waiting for processing before being sent off to the camps.

After school one day, I made my way to the crumbling synagogue. During the long walk in the December cold, I considered the paradox of Nazi Germany. As Christmas approached, Germans celebrated the birth of Jesus; yet they worshiped the godless Nazis. The peace, joy, love, and hope that are synonymous with Christmas were strangely muted in Hitler’s Germany, but few gave up the futile dream of the marvelous thousand-year Reich. Few were ready to allow the idea of defeat to enter their minds, even though smoke from burning Berlin rose five miles high in the sky and uncounted thousands of German soldiers were dying on the Russian battlefront. Routinely the Russians announced the names of their captured German prisoners over the airwaves of underground radio stations. The prisoners’ relatives knew they would never see their husbands or brothers again when they heard their names; the camps in Siberia never sent anyone home.

1942
Hitler’s attention was focused mainly on the Russian front in the spring of 1942, though the Africa corps drove further and further east toward the British-held Middle East. The Americans joined England’s Royal Air Force in dropping bombs on German cities. In the coming weeks and months, Cologne, Rostock, Lubeck, and Berlin would become piles of rubble. But, thankfully, the planes still avoided Breslau.

That spring brought both the bitter and the sweet. Our good friends the Sandbergs were finally taken away. We sorrowed as we remembered the longing of their hearts to be reunited with their sons, who had fled to England before the war.

That May I turned fifteen, and I finished my confirmation classes with Pastor Hornig. Mother scraped a few cents together to make me a lovely white dress. Pastor Hornig tested me in front of the entire congregation at St. Barbara’s; it was one of the highlights of my life. I was thrilled to be able to please Pastor Hornig and Mother as I gave all the right answers in my test. Mother looked at me proudly from the audience. My eyes flashed between Pastor Hornig and Mother as I drank in their looks of approval and praise. This was the best gift I could give them.

My eyes also saw an unfamiliar face in the congregation. We learned later that it was another Nazi spy. It was no secret to anyone in Breslau that Pastor Hornig aided Jews—both believers and unbelievers. Gestapo agents followed him frequently and planted themselves in the church services in order to monitor any anti-Nazi statements.

Shortly after this, I was handed another familiar note in school, telling me not to return to classes because of my Jewish heritage.

About the same time that spring, Reinhard Heydrich died. He was one-third of the Eichmann-Himmler-Heydrich trio—the masterminds behind the Jewish persecution. The blood of thousands—perhaps millions of Jews was on his hands.

To this day, the Nazi Holocaust continues to prevent many Jewish people from believing in God. Satan uses it as the biggest stumbling block for the numerous Jews who can’t accept that a loving, all-powerful God would allow such a horrible thing to happen. Granted, millions perished, yet God also allowed millions to survive.

The Reich suffered a terrible defeat at Stalingrad as the Russians captured 220,000 German prisoners in February 1943. Solemn music was played for three days on the radio as all Germans mourned the loss. At last, Germany was experiencing the type of pain she had been inflicting on others.

We had heard that defeat was also occurring in North Africa, and the air war against Germany was merciless now. A layer of smoke blanketed the land as Hamburg and other cities were being hit day and night. A concentrated Allied attack on German U-boats caused the Germans to lose the battle in the Atlantic.

Finally, the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of the Reich, but for Hitler that was unthinkable. Instead, he declared that an attitude of defeatism would be punishable by death, and the empty propaganda that promised a glorious day for Germany continued to be screamed over the airwaves.

How much longer would the German people believe in the illusion of the glorious Fatherland? How much longer would they follow the mad pied-piper and trust him with their sons, fathers, and husbands, many of whom would never leave the Siberian prisoner-of-war camps? How much longer would they be blindly obedient to the Führer, who admittedly had no compassionate thought for a human life? He even willingly sacrificed his own German people if they weren’t perfect specimens of the Aryan race. When would the prayers of Christians around the world hasten the demise of the German demagogue and strangle Satan’s attempt to bring only sorrow and sighing into the world? How much longer, God? We knew that one swift blow of God’s judgment could end the despair, and we believed that real Christians around the world surely had calluses on their knees from praying for the nightmare to end.

1943
As winter turned into the spring of 1943, we heard that the Allies had won the war in Africa, which gave Mother and me a surge of hope. But true to the pattern, as the Reich suffered, our supervisor became more strict and rigid, allowing hardly any conversation during our long workday. Only hungry rats scurrying along the beams above us broke the monotony.

Rumors began to fly about some of the Reich’s concentration camps being liberated in the coming year. The camps now held millions of Jews from Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Balkans.

However, our dreams were suddenly shattered one balmy spring day when we heard about the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. Five-hundred-thousand Jews had been herded into the ghetto to starve to death. Finally the Germans went in to kill them or crowd them into death camps; however, the starving but determined Jews fought back with everything they had. Then Hitler sent in three thousand more troops to quickly take over the ghetto with tanks, armored cars, artillery, and flame-throwers. Only five-hundred Jews lived to tell of the annihilation of the ghetto and its people.

That week we could hardly speak to one another without choking back tears of grief and anger; even within the purest heart, bitterness raged toward the Nazis. Our faith was shaken and our hope dimmed. The atheists among us cursed, while the Jewish unbelievers withdrew into themselves. The religious Jews prayed harder and asked why. We Christians comforted one another and realized that some answers would be available only in heaven.

1944
The Allies landed in Normandy. Rumor had it that everyone who had even one Jewish grandparent was now going to be picked up in a last-ditch effort to wipe out the Jewish race. Hitler would make the Jews pay, of course, for his mistakes in the war, a pattern that was never broken.

The stories from the camps told of massive gassings and shootings. Following a gassing, the bodies would be cremated in giant ovens. Giant smokestacks coughed out soot from burning bodies, blanketing most of Europe. Fellow prisoners, or in some cases family members, would then be ordered to break up the remaining bones and bury them in mass graves.

The worst horrors took place in Auschwitz, from which few ever escaped or lived to tell their stories. It was estimated that almost three million already had perished there, and at the end of the war it would be learned that eighty percent of those sent to Auschwitz died.

The most gruesome story leaked out early in 1944 and would later be documented. Hitler informed Himmler that it was not enough for the Jews to die; they must die in agony, for they were only germs, not people. Himmler was ordered to devise a plan to make thousands of Jews die a horrible death. He got the idea of placing Jewish prisoners in freight cars having their floors coated with a layer of dehydrated calcium oxide. The substance caused terrible burns, and prisoners often suffered for days before dying an awful death in the freight cars, which were left in a secluded place.

Hitler had only to whisper and ten thousand prisoners would die that day.

The human mind and body could not logically withstand such pressures and uncertainties, especially if a person had a loved one in a camp or if he himself was on the Nazi blacklist. Added to the other horrors was the constant threat that a death-camp experience awaited him after a harsh midnight knock on his door. The Nazi blacklist included more than just Jews. Christians who were suspected of hiding or aiding Jews were on it, as well as anyone who uttered an anti-Nazi sentiment. A time would come for all of us to be hauled off to death camps unless the Allies—with God’s help—could rescue us.

To order copies of When Hitler Was in Power – Memories of a Jewish Girl, click here.

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Lighthouse Trails Print Booklet Tracts

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HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR HISTORY:

March 2002 - We officially began Lighthouse Trails Publishing Company.

September 2002 - Published first book, A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen, 1st edition.

2004 - Began Lighthouse Trails Research Project, the From the Lighthouse blog, and this e-newsletter as extensions of Lighthouse Trails Publishing and a way to get free information out to those who were reading our books.

2005 - Published Trapped in Hitler's Hell by Anita Dittman with Jan Markell, the first book in our Remembering the Holocaust category. Later we published a book by Corrie ten Boom and Diet Eman, giving Lighthouse Trails 3 Holocaust survivor authors.

2007 - Published Faith Undone, a powerful expose of the emerging church by Roger Oakland.

2010 - Relocated to Montana from Oregon; also began The Shepherd's Garden, a "tent-making" effort to help support Lighthouse Trails - created our own Shepherd's organic Bible verse tea.

2011 - Began working with Understand the Times mission work, the Bryce Homes for Widows and Children in Kenya - currently, Lighthouse Trails readers are helping to support 15 Bryce Homes (over 110 children).

2012 - Celebrated 10th year anniversary at Lighthouse Trails; also started the Widows in Kenya basket project as a way to help widows support themselves. Began outreach to Native Americans and First Nations people through Muddy Waters and other Native Spirituality books and DVDs.

2013 - Began Lighthouse Trails Research Print Journal, a subscription-based journal mailed to homes and offices; also began the Print Booklet Tracts.


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