See also Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of our 2017 Year in Review. The following are the 10 top stories for 2017 written by the editors at Lighthouse Trails. Listed in order of date posted.
Have you heard of the IF: Gathering? If you haven’t, you most likely will soon enough. The women’s movement started just a few years ago but is already making some big inroads into the evangelical scene. On the outer appearance, this looks like a legitimate Christian movement – the women who lead and speak at IF: Gathering are young and vibrant; they talk about Jesus, they go to church; some of them homeschool their kids—it all looks so Christian. But underneath this outer thin Christian layer lies an emergent atmosphere . . . and the target is your young evangelical daughters and granddaughters.
2/Fresno, California “Church Calendar” Illustrates Major Paradigm Shift in “Church in America”
Purpose Driven, ecumenism, eastern meditation, the road to Rome, social justice, interspirituality, Chrislam, Oneness, and the New Age. This is the new landscape of church in America.
3/What Your Church Needs to Know Before Doing a Priscilla Shirer Study
This week, our office received a call from a woman who was concerned that her church is going to be doing a study using material by Priscilla Shirer. Our caller wanted to get some information she can show her pastor as to why her church should not be doing a Priscilla Shirer study.
4/Discernment Ministries Not Needed? Would the Apostle Paul Agree?
This week, someone sent us an online article, written by a pastor who said that the church does not need discernment ministries anymore. While the pastor’s comments that such ministries are making great money by doing this kind of work were erroneous, it was the pastor’s rationale and conclusions about discernment ministries as a whole that were most troubling. His rationale was that discernment ministries should not be criticizing and challenging leaders and teachers within the church (but rather outside the church; e.g cults, Mormonism); his conclusion was the church does not need discernment ministries and people should stop listening to them.
5/Dr. George Wood Responds to Lighthouse Trails Article on AoG Resolution 3 and Israel
On July 28th, Lighthouse Trails posted a commentary titled “Assembly of God (AOG) General Council to Vote on Resolution Against Israel.” This commentary set off a fire storm on the Internet, and on Saturday July 29th, Lighthouse Trails editors received an e-mail from Dr. George Wood (General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God). Dr. Wood is familiar with Lighthouse Trails because of a controversy in 2013 where Dr. Wood gave his blessing and permission for contemplative emergent Ruth Haley Barton to speak at the 2013 AoG General Council Conference resulting in some Lighthouse Trails articles addressing the seriousness of such promotion.
Hundreds of Protestant and evangelical scholars, pastors, and theologians have signed a document called “Reforming Catholic Confession” to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which will be commemorated on October 31, 2017. According to Dr. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, who co-chaired the Confession’s steering committee, “a significant motivating factor of the Confession’s participants is to call the Church to spiritual renewal.”
7/The Las Vegas Shooting—Mourning the Loss in So Many Ways
We mourn deeply for the tragic event that took place in Las Vegas on October 1st. We mourn for the families and friends of those who were murdered, knowing their lives will never be the same. We mourn at the thought that some of those who perished may not have been ready to meet their Maker. And while it’s hard at a time like this to even think of mourning for the man who caused this horrific rampage of death, we mourn because another pitiful soul has chosen death and Hell over eternal life.
As groups around the world celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with highly ecumenical events and speeches, Brian McLaren, once likened to Luther,1 has outlined his view of what the next reformation will look like in an article he wrote on November 1, 2017 titled, “The Last Reformation … and the Next Reformation.” A disgruntled former evangelical Christian, McLaren says that the first reformation was led by white European men whose belief of an inerrant Bible was “papal authority with paper authority.”
9/What You Need to Tell Your Local Public School Officials About Children and Mindfulness Meditation
Whether you have children at a public school or not, do what you can to help prevent your own local public school from incorporating meditation into the lives of the children. And keep in mind, it’s just a matter of time before Christian schools will be introducing mindfulness meditation and Yoga as well. We know this because the condition of today’s North American Christianity is of such a nature that Christians are being persuaded to go along with the culture; and, of course, with contemplative meditation so prevalent in the church, Christians are being conditioned to accept all forms of New Age meditation.
10/Mysticism Takes the Place of Christianity – Hostility Against Believers Will Grow
As many of you may know, Lynne Hybels is part of the emergent church and someone who has proven herself to be against the nation of Israel. If someone were to ask us what are two of the main characteristics of the emerging church, we would say mysticism and an anti-Israel sentiment. It is interesting to note that Hybels says she lost the Christianity of her youth 25 years ago.