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| Deportation of German homeschool family affects US homeschool freedom |
The Washington Times DALLAS — In 1938, the practice of homeschooling was outlawed in Germany by Adolf Hitler and the infamous Third Reich. It was a rough period in German history, as thousands of young people were being pried from their parents’ direction and authority and drafted into the Hitler Youth program, where they were supposed to be trained as Aryan supermen (and women). In a few short years, vast numbers of these youth would be bleeding out on the battlefields of Europe, on the wrong side of the war for the soul of the world. Sadly for freedom and for many families, Germany has never lifted this archaic and totalitarian ban on homeschooling. On the contrary, the German government seems to have stepped up its opposition to homeschooling over the past decade, forcing several families to flee, and others to enroll their children in state-approved schools against their will. The German Supreme Court has stated that the purpose of the homeschooling ban is to, “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.” It sounds like they aren’t really big on religious or philosophical diversity over there. Some notable victims of this small-minded and grasping totalitarianism are Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their five children. Uwe and his wife are music teachers and evangelical Christians who for years have been unsuccessfully seeking the right to homeschool their children. The Romeikes withdrew their children from German public schools in 2006, after becoming concerned that the educational material employed by the school was undermining the tenets of their Christian faith, and that the school was not providing their children with an ideal learning environment. “I don’t expect the school to teach about the Bible,” Mr. Romeike said, but “part of education should be character-building.” After accruing the equivalent of around $10,000 in fines, and facing police visits to their home and the forcible removal of their children from the home, the Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 to seek asylum in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Click here to continue reading. Related Articles: Proposed Connecticut Bill Mandates Mental Health Assessments for Homeschooled Children Homeschooler’s neighbor sparks social services case Judge OKs social workers’ invasion of homeschoolers Emerging Church Tony Jones Says: “Death to Homeschooling!” War on U.S. homeschoolers escalates Cultural Collapse in America – Christian Leaders Partly to Blame for Abandoning the Gospel
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| Food for Thought |
By Roger Oakland From time to time a news article catches my attention and provides an excellent analogy for a spiritual lesson. Such was the case when I read the following headline posted by the Associated Press: “Doctors Find 350 Coins in Patient’s Belly.” [1] Here’s how the article began: French doctors were taken aback when they discovered the reason for a patient’s sore swollen belly: he had swallowed around 350 coins – $650 worth – along with associated necklaces and needles. The 62-year-old man came to the emergency room of Cholet General Hospital in western France. He had a history of major psychiatric illness, was suffering from stomach pain and could not eat. [2] When the man was brought to the hospital, his family warned the emergency staff that the man sometimes swallowed coins. When an x-ray was taken, the examining doctors could not believe their eyes. An enormous opaque mass in his stomach turned out to be twelve pounds of metal. It was so heavy it had forced his stomach down below his hips. Obviously, the man had a problem. Although the doctors operated, the man died twelve days later due to complications. He was diagnosed with a condition known as pica – a compulsion to eat things not normally consumed as food. The name of this condition comes from the Latin word for magpie, a bird that is thought to eat just about anything. Obviously, this was a very sad and tragic situation. Let me make it clear that by mentioning this poor man’s malady, I am not intending to make light of mental illness. Click here to continue reading. |
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Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, who recently re-released his New York Times bestseller, “The Purpose Driven Life,” for the online generation, on Sunday joins Oprah Winfrey for a second episode of her show, “Oprah’s Lifeclass.”
| NEXT ISSUE OF LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH JOURNAL - MAILED MARCH 15TH | ||||||||||||||||
NOTE:The next issue of the new Lighthouse Trails Research Print Journal will be mailed out on March 15th 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) Note: The new subscription-based print journal can be ordered at any time during the year. Your subscription (which will entitle you to a full twelve months of journals-6 issues) will start when you subscribe. Click here to read more information or click here to sign up. When you sign up, you will receive the most current issue of the journal at the time you subscribe. Click here to subscribe now. 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. For various addresses, just order single subscriptions.
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| Evangelical Christianity Catapulted into Seeing "God" with New Interspiritual Eyes | ||||||||||||||||
by Ray Yungen Contemplative advocates propose that there has been something vital and important missing from the church for centuries. The insinuation is that Christians have been lacking something necessary for their spiritual vitality; but that would mean the Holy Spirit has not been fully effective for hundreds of years and only now the secret key has been found that unlocks God’s full power to know Him. These proponents believe that Christianity has been seriously crippled without this extra ingredient. This kind of thinking leads one to believe that traditional, biblical Christianity is merely a philosophy without the contemplative prayer element. Contemplatives are making a distinction between studying and meditating on the Word of God versus experiencing Him, suggesting that we cannot hear Him or really know Him simply by studying His Word or even through normal prayer—we must be contemplative to accomplish this. But the Bible makes it clear that the Word of God is living and active, and has always been that way, and it is in filling our minds with it that we come to love Him, not through a mystical practice of stopping the flow of thought (the stillness) that is never once mentioned in the Bible, except in warnings against vain repetitions. In chapter three of my book, I quoted Thomas Merton’s statement that he saw various Eastern religions “come together in his life” (as a Christian mystic). On a rational, practical level Christianity and Eastern religions will not mix; but add the mystical element and they do blend together like adding soap to oil and water. I must clarify what I mean: Mysticism neutralizes doctrinal differences by sacrificing the truth of Scripture for a mystical experience. Mysticism offers a common ground, and supposedly that commonality is divinity in all. But we know from Scripture “there is one God; and there is none other but he” (Mark 12:32). In a booklet put out by Saddleback Church on spiritual maturity, the following quote by Henri Nouwen is listed:
When we understand what Nouwen really means by “time and space” given to God we can also see the emptiness and deception of his spirituality. In his recent biography of Nouwen, God’s Beloved, Michael O’ Laughlin says:
In his book, Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic, Nouwen talks about these “new eyes” that Merton helped to formulate and said that Merton and his work “had such an impact” on his life and that he was the man who had “inspired” him greatly.3 But when we read Nouwen’s very revealing account, something disturbing is unveiled. Nouwen lays out the path of Merton’s spiritual pilgrimage into contemplative spirituality. Those who have studied Merton from a critical point of view, such as myself, have tried to understand what are the roots behind Merton’s spiritual affinities. Nouwen explains that Merton was influenced by LSD mystic Aldous Huxley who “brought him to a deeper level of knowledge” and “was one of Merton’s favorite novelists.”4 It was through Huxley’s book, Ends and Means, that first brought Merton “into contact with mysticism.”5 Merton states:
This is why, Nouwen revealed, Merton’s mystical journey took him right into the arms of Buddhism:
Become aware of what? The Buddha nature. Divinity within all.That is why Merton said if we knew what was in each one of us, we would bow down and worship one another. Merton’s descent into contemplative led him to the belief that God is in all things and that God is all things. This is made clear by Merton when he said:
Nouwen adds:
This has been the ploy of Satan since the Garden of Eden when the serpent said to Eve, “ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:4). It is this very essence that is the foundation of contemplative prayer. In Merton’s efforts to become a mystic, he found guidance from a Hindu swami, whom Merton referred to as Dr. Bramachari. Bramachari played a pivotal role in Merton’s future spiritual outlook. Nouwen divulged this when he said:
Why would a Hindu monk advocate the Christian mystical tradition? The answer is simple: they are one in the same. Even though the repetitive words used may differ (e.g. Christian words: Abba, Father, etc. rather than Hindu words), the end result is the same. And the Hindu monk knew this to be true. Bramachari understood that Merton didn’t need to switch to Hinduism to get the same enlightenment that he himself experienced through the Hindu mystical tradition. In essence, Bramachari backed up what I am trying to get across in A Time of Departing, that all the world’s mystical traditions basically come from the same source and teach the same precepts . . . and that source is not the God of the Old and New Testaments. The biblical God is not interspiritual! Evangelical Christianity is now being invited, perhaps even catapulted into seeing God with these new eyes of contemplative prayer. And so the question must be asked, is Thomas Merton’s silence, Henri Nouwen’s space, and Richard Foster’s contemplative prayer the way in which we can know and be close to God? Or is this actually a spiritual belief system that is contrary to the true message that the Bible so absolutely defines—that there is only one way to God and that is through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice on the Cross obtained our full salvation? In this book, I have endeavored to answer these questions with extensive evidence and documentation showing the dangers of contemplative prayer. If indeed my concerns for the future actually come to fruition, then we will truly enter a time of departing. My prayer is that you will not turn away from the faith to follow a different gospel and a different Jesus but will rather stay the course and finish the race, so that after having done all you can, you will stand.
(To better understand contemplative spirituality and the spiritual formation movement, read A Time of Departing, 2nd edition.) Notes: |
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| Obey God or man? | ||||||||||||||||
From A Small Price to Pay (Part 4) From Kjos Ministries This book tells the story of Mikhail (Misha) Khorev, a persecuted Russian pastor who gladly paid that "small price": giving His life to God and sharing in the suffering of Jesus during Stalin's cruel reign. Through the times of torture, imprisonment and near starvation, he demonstrated God's matchless love, endurance and forgiveness to all who knew him. God had been preparing young Misha to share the gospel in some of Russia's most hostile places. World War 2 had now ended, but the Communist determination to quench the true Church was growing stronger. This next event would equip Misha for the intensifying spiritual battles ahead.
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| NEW BOOKLET TRACT: “I JUST HAD A VISION!” | ||||||||||||||||
“I Just Had a Vision!” written by Kevin Reeves, is our newest Lighthouse Trails Print Booklet Tracts. The booklet is 16 pages long and sells for $1.50 for single copies. Quantity “I Just Had a Vision” There is perhaps nothing so powerful as a vision. When the heavens open and our eyes look upon fantastic things once hidden, it can alter the course of our lives:
A glimpse into heaven itself to behold the God of all flesh made Isaiah panic with self-loathing. His innermost heart was revealed in the light of the Lord’s glory, and there was no place to hide. Who wouldn’t want to have a vision of this magnitude? And why shouldn’t we? On the day of Pentecost, the Christians present experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: “[A]nd your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). Never in the history of our planet have so many who call themselves Christian claimed visions from God. Encounters with Christ, angels, demons, even saints long departed have begun to appear in book form, crowding the charismatic section of our local Christian bookstores. The popularity of visions never seems to wane, and the more a person has and the greater the scope, the quicker he is skyrocketed to Christian stardom. People with virtually no genuine theological training are suddenly propelled into the teaching arena, regaling vast audiences with tremendous accounts of their own spiritual derring-do. And while the stories continue to scale the heights of plausibility, an amazed public looks on, vicariously a part of the panoramic excitement and often with hands folded atop a closed Bible in their laps. Sadly and without exaggeration, Sunday services at New Covenant Fellowship, my former church, were routinely stopped to give opportunity to report a vision that occurred during worship. Many in the congregation would listen with rapt attention as one person after another would share what had transpired “in the spirit.” Sometimes demons would make an appearance; sometimes it was the Lord Jesus Himself. Angels were a particular favorite. I can’t tell you how many times angels have made an impromptu appearance at our services. Jeannette McElroy seemed graced with multiple visitations. On this particular Sunday afternoon, Jeannette had gone up to the front of the sanctuary, in the middle of a worship song, to speak privately with worship leader Beth Clayton, Pastor Phil’s wife. Beth held her hand over the microphone, listened momentarily to Jeannette, and then nodded. At the end of the song, Beth in triumph noted the presence of the two angelic beings seen by Jeannette. They were there to worship with us, she exclaimed, and she led the congregation into a brief period of shouting praise to God for sending His angelic emissaries. No one halted the festivities to suggest examining the claim in the light of God’s Word. It was merely taken at face value and used to bolster our self-image as the church on the cutting-edge of God’s worldwide movement. By then several months into my own charismatic research, I exchanged a brief, frustrated glance with my wife, Kris. When I later brought up the angel incident in an eldership meeting, Beth staunchly denied she’d promoted the vision. She maintained she had merely acknowledged Jeannette’s word and left it to the congregation to decide its veracity. But my wife and I were both there. The way it is described above is exactly the way it happened. Interestingly, none of the rest of the leadership in the room nixed Beth’s version, despite the fact that some were present during the “angelic visitation.”
Never having been much involved with either prophecy or visions, I had no foundation of experience from which to judge. I left the decision to the rest of the leadership, to accept or reject whatever came forth with the label of vision. Finally, during my last year as elder, I did my own Bible study on the subject, and what I discovered left me angry, frightened, and delighted. Angry, because I felt we had been duped personally and congregationally. Frightened, because so many visions were coming forth on a regular basis with no real safeguard as to their origins. Delighted, because I was no longer held captive by supposed visions from God, which I had long suspected were other than from Him. Many people cannot appreciate the gravity with which visions are accepted in many charismatic circles, and consequently cannot understand the bondage that results. If someone has a vision of “the Lord Jesus” and is given a message to convey to you, for you to treat it lightly is to despise the very words of God. You are bound to carry out the instructions of this visionary or face the consequences. The ensuing fear can be devastating, especially if the message contradicts your own conscience or understanding of the Scriptures. The new believer is especially vulnerable because he is led to believe that all these visions are from God. Furthermore, any hindrance to, or lack of visions on his own part is due, he is told, to lack of maturity and failure to fully trust the leadership. Accepting everything that comes down the pike as from God is like driving a car while wearing blinders. You can’t see the big picture. Your actual focus becomes so constrained that you miss necessary landmarks to indicate proper direction—not to mention the fact that sooner or later you’ll get sideswiped by a vehicle you never saw coming. On the Wings of Angels I have come to the conclusion that visions are not the norm for a believer, but a rare occurrence. Of those saints in the Bible described as having bona fide visions from God, a mere handful had more than one recorded vision in their entire lifetime. Furthermore, none of these occurrences were initiated by the individual, but were the result of a divine act of God. In explaining mystical experiences, which is the category visions fall into, I like this explanation by research analyst Ray Yungen:
Compared with the frequency of modern visions by many charismatic churchgoers, these past biblical heroes seem almost deficient in their relationship to the Lord. Concerning the visitation of angelic beings themselves, the scriptural record directly conflicts with such experiences. In our own meetings, those with frequent visions of angels had often depicted them as merely standing around, enjoying or participating in a worship service with us. Contrast this with the biblical model of angelic visitation. In both Old and New Testaments, angels are beings sent by God to give verbal messages (often concerning the future), to administer divine judgment, to strengthen and comfort, and to give specific direction, warnings, and deliverance from dangers. Their appearing was an amazing event; fear was the natural human reaction to their presence, or at the very least an awed respect. Visions of angels in the church of today, however, nearly always produce glee or a giddy joyfulness, little awe, no fear, and often the “angels” are just standing enjoying themselves and have no message from God. In heaven this may sometimes happen (we simply don’t know), but the scriptural precedent demonstrates their earthly visitation always heralded a direct message from the Lord and their very presence caused an immediate shock to the person witnessing it. In those times when angels hid their identity (Genesis 19) they were viewed as mere men, and when they made their identity known, the reaction was fear, shock, and awe. Likewise, visions of any kind, in both Old and New Testament, appeared to be very rare occurrences. Acts 2:17 has been used to support the argument of increased occurrence of visions in the end-times, but the context of Scripture shows that we have been in the last days for the past two thousand years. If anyone should have had a preponderance of visions, you’d think it would have been the apostles, who knew the Lord Jesus face-to-face and wrote the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. All in the Mind? This conclusion really upset my wife Kris (the first dozen times I mentioned it!) because she had often relied on mental pictures as a guide when praying for others. Encouraged by the leadership as prophetic, Kris watched the pictures that arose in her mind for clues to the spiritual condition of the person she was praying for, and the subsequent remedy. After personal Bible study and serious prayer, she came to question this method and eventually discard it as a valid practice in ministry. The practice itself can be dangerous, actually maneuvering an innocent Christian in the wrong direction. In many cults, and, unfortunately in much of the Pentecostal arm of the church, it has already done just that. That is not to say that all images we see are wrong. Some may be quite correct at times. But “[w]e have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place” (II Peter 1:19). The Word of God is the mirror in which to examine all our practices, thoughts, deeds, and desires. If God had left anything out of His written record, the void would allow all manner of personal interpretations or inventions to prosper. The resultant chaos would cripple any objective discernment.
I cannot stress this enough—contrary to popular fallacy, there is no such thing as a harmless false vision. Its fraudulent nature alone is enough to condemn it in the eyes of God; those who give ear to it will eventually have their faith in Christ contaminated, perhaps shipwrecked. Attendees of the Peoples Temple were regaled with stories of angelic visitations and “revelation knowledge.” The reverend Jim Jones capitalized on his self-proclaimed intimacy with heaven to lead a group of followers into mass suicide in the Guyana bush.2 Don’t think that the average believer in Christ is immune to this kind of deception. In the wake of gold teeth and gold dust miracles showing up in various River congregations worldwide, stories of angel feather sightings have set a portion of the charismatic church wild with jubilee. One West Coast church said that “tiny white feathers and gold flakes” appeared during the service.3 Such occurrences were the next logical step in an already deception-heavy system of super-spirituality, rationalization, and the frenzied pursuit of illusion. While there could be genuine godly visions that do take place today, they are very rare and not apt to guide people into the fantastic or to gather a following. Contrast this with the nearly cult status accorded some presumed seers, who not only relate a plethora of dreams and visions that contradict biblical foundations but who make a rather decent living doing it through books, conferences, special engagements, etc. The overused mantra of “God is doing a new thing and therefore the Scriptures don’t specifically address it” should be relegated to the ash heap. Any true heavenly vision may only confirm what is already in the Scriptures:
Do not go past that which is written. Through Scripture, the Holy Spirit repeatedly makes the same statement in manifold ways:
A master of camouflage, “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (II Corinthians 11:14). We are admonished to put to trial those things we see or hear claiming to be from the heavenly realms:
To confess means to agree with. Any spirit, vision, dream, prophet, experience, whatever, that does not agree with the revelation of Jesus Christ as set down in the Scriptures is not of God. Water may look pure, but unless we know the source from which it is drawn we may drink to our own ill health. A close examination with a magnifying glass may betray bits and pieces of debris, or worse yet, organisms roaming its depths that, taken internally, would cause debilitating disease. Am I suggesting we carry around a magnifier to inspect anything coming our way? Perhaps that is just what is needed. For too long, we’ve covered our eyes with blinders instead and accepted a testimony to our detriment, simply because the person giving it named Christ and seemed sincere. Paul said even deceivers within the church would attempt to pass themselves off as the real article (II Corinthians 11: 3–4, 13). We can judge without being judgmental. Peripheral issues we can overlook, knowing full well the sole reservoir of truth does not rest with us. But in the presentation of Christ, there can be no leeway. A false image of the Savior—His character, words or deeds—will lead us away from the truth, and consequently, away from God. And eventually, that is what every fraudulent vision will do—take away from the person of Christ and demand our attention and adherence to its personalized message. I have seen it happen, as one vision after another proclaimed in my former congregation boosted our elitism and remolded Jesus just a bit more into the user-friendly image we preferred. With virtually no accountability, fear of redefining Christ’s biblically revealed character faded bit by bit into obscurity. This current state of things within the church is just the outgrowth of an inner movement attempting to differentiate between truth and revelation. It is being stated by popular charismatic authors that truth is where God has been, but revelation is where He is at the moment. This dichotomy is a contrived one. The Word of God is truth and revelation both, and the timeless truth of God’s Word applies to all saints throughout all ages. Again, the implication of this kind of compartmentalized thinking is that the Scriptures fall embarrassingly short when it comes to equipping the saints for life in today’s world. What should shame us as believers is the wholesale disregard for the only visible, objective, sure, written Word of God. In our mad dash to embrace the new thing, we have run right past the only place of refuge, God’s Promise, that can keep us from hurtling down the face of an impossibly steep cliff. I can testify to the broken lives and empty spirituality that remains when the initial high wears off. We had congregation members regularly spending their cash to jet to this or that prophetic conference. They just had to keep up with the latest move of God, and bring it back with them to New Covenant. Running after other gods, ancient Israel attained to this spiritual bankruptcy on a regular basis. But we can take heart, for their failures can be our lessons:
For those former seers willing to swallow a large helping of humble pie, there is most certainly hope. For those willing to repent, the grace of our Lord will lead past every soulish and narcissistic revelation, helping us to walk in humility and the simple freedom of Christ Jesus. For the rest, the road can only lead further into deception and confusion, compounding itself with every new revelation that adds to, subtracts from, or contradicts Scripture.
To order copies of “I Just Had a Vision!,” click here. Endnotes To order copies of “I Just Had a Vision!,” click here.
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FREE BIBLE VERSE TEA SAMPLES WITH EVERY ORDER! 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. As a way to say thank you to our readers and customers of our catalog and online store, we are offering, indefinitely, to our U.S.A. customers a $5 flat rate shipping on all orders (you can choose a lesser rate for smaller orders). When you get to the third step at check out, just choose the FLAT RATE shipping option. Click here to enter store. |
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discounts are as much as 50% off retail. This booklet is specifically geared toward passing out to those who are involved in movements such as the River movement, Latter Rain, Word Faith, IHOP, Kansas City Prophets, Toronto Blessing, or Brownsville Revival, etc.). Below is the content of the booklet (the names of people and churches have been changed). To order copies of “I Just Had a Vision!,” 
