₦airaland Forum

It is not for me to rationalise the pastor's wearing of earrings. For all I care, if he wants to wear shackles on his ears or lips, or rings on his dick, that is his business. The question is that why are some Christians so hot under the colar about his wearing of the earrings. Why all the deception from within his camp about the whole issue? Why have his people sought to mislead the public about it. Was there something to hide?

mazaje:
nothing new people do this all the time. . . .

Yes, I know. The reason I posted it is because it shows that, much as Christian would loathe to be informed, they "suffer" from the self-same "ills" the the rest of "ordinary folks" have to deal with. They are no less prone to porn, divorce, diseases, corruption, etc, etc. That said, what then are the earthly "benefits" of being a christian when they have the same issues that non-christians face too? Has their god failed them?

Bastage:
Huxley.

Understanding is not just about being able to quote Bible passages. One has to study the history, sociology and the politics of the time.
When I debate you on the Bible, I don't do so on the pretext of defending Christianity - I do so on the basis of the literature itself and the context it was written in. One has to take into account the evolution of the god in that book.

If I were to give you the purely Christian argument, I could say that Christ bought the New Covenant and that he brought a totally new approach to god's relationship with man, thereby negating the passages in your opening post. That's a very difficult answer to argue with as it is borne out by the NT.
But to me, that is a cop out and running away from the history, sociology and historical aspects.

When we look at the Bible, we have to look at it as a book of it's time. A book written by many people over a long period and where the god evolves in it's pages. To begin with, we have a universal god who creates, this then evolves to the wrathful war god of the Jews and finally, into the loving God of the NT.
Is it all the same god? The answer is yes and no. To a degree it is the same god (omnipotent and eternal) but he has also been changed so much by the writers of the Bible as to become indistinguishable. The trick is to look behind the politics, sociology and history.
Go to the vast mojority of churches and you will see god preached in this way - the authorities quite often look behind the atrocities and look for the goodness of the god of the OT. The god has evolved yet again only this time not in the literature but in the preaching.

Some do. Some don't. In fact there was a very strong movement that totally discarded the OT and regarded the god as evil in the early days of Christianity. These days, the movement is coming back in a more casual and informal way -  a lot of Christians don't tend to dwell on the OT god and see the only link to the NT god being omnipotence. It only tends to be the fundamentalists who rabidly cling onto every aspect of the OT god.

My personal belief is that the OT is a book that is not relevant to Christianity in any way other than as a historical marker. It has done it's job.
It was used to sell the new religion to it's new converts and those converts needed something familiar to help them change from one belief system to another. I see it as a stepping stone that was used to give early Christianity authority. But I also believe that the river has been crossed and that the stepping stone is not needed any more.

You call me an apologist for Christianity. That simply isn't true. I have no need to apologise, and truthfully, if you were to write that my God is all the bastards under the Sun, I wouldn't mind. I am comfortable with my beliefs and don't feel the need to defend them. [size=18pt]The reason I pick you up on these points, as I've already stated, is to defend the literature alone - not the god it's pages contain.[/size]

Ignoring the myriads of other problems with this comment for now, you seem to fail miserably with what you claim to care about - the literature.

1) The biblical literature conveys that direct continuity between the OT and NT gods.

2) Jesus himself associates strongly with the OT gods and commandments. See Matt 5: 17-22


What grand truth about the nature of reality does the bible (both OT and NT) reveal? There was a time when the bible was used as the oracle for questions about reality and at such times no one objected that it was being used incorrectly. The bible was used to explain the origins of everything (universe, humans, matter, etc, etc) with god being the mastermind behind this.

Now, should we continue to hold the literal biblical narratives of the nature of reality? If not, why not? These are things pertinent to the matter you claim to care about - the literature. Basically, how should we read the literature and how would you justify objectively your approach?

Bastage:
I'm a Christian and I don't.

Well, if you are, then I am surprise. Christianity has a very long history of displaying all manner of doctrines and also various types of conflicting Christologies. If you are a Christian, can you inform us what is you Christology and how you come to know this?

FYI, this is how a well known Christian website defines Jesus:

Is Jesus Christ a man, or is he God?

Jesus Christ is most definitely God. He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, in his image. He is the Creator of the universe. The Bible says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3). This includes all the stars, all the original animals and plants, and even the angels (Colossians 1:15-17).

It is important not be confused. God did not create Jesus. Jesus is God, and he has always existed.

Jesus proved that he is God by doing many things that only God could do. These are called miracles. He made dead people alive. He walked across a great lake. He made blind eyes see perfectly again. He healed deadly diseases with a word.

Source: http://www.christiananswers.net/kids/ednk-jesusgodorman.html

Bastage:
Huxley.

Yet again you come across as the rabid, fanatical type who goes on the attack merely for the sake of it.

The title of your thread is not only misleading but to tell the truth, it makes you look pretty despicable. It seems like just a desperate, badly thought out attack on some of the Christian posters here.

You are well aware that the passage refers to the Jewish OT god and was written for the Jewish people in the context of those times and you would also be well aware that Jesus was the antithesis to that god in word and deed according to the NT.


I don't feel the need to defend Christianity but I do feel that it is only right to point out that you should try to be more truthful in future, if only for your own sake.

Now, tell me.  What does Christian aver about the nature and identity of their God?  Does Christianity not claim that Jesus is God and identifies him with the God of the OT?  Or am I mistaken?

As an apologists for Christianity, can you tell me the nature of the Christian god and whether this god is identically equal to Jesus?

God works in mysterious ways. Just watch here

All I can say is that "God works in scandalous ways with is nearests and dearests"

[size=18pt]The Reading Room: RECENT PENTECOSTAL SCANDALS
By Paleo Pat, on April 8th, 2009
[/size]
Reposted from http://www.politicalbyline.com/2009/04/08/the-reading-room-recent-pentecostal-scandals/


This is an great series, and I encourage all believers to read it, it is long. Read this might help you understand why I left that group of believers. More after the jump:

Enlarged April 7, 2009 (first published July 18, 2006) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

From its inception the Pentecostal movement has been marred deeply by scandals, as we have documented in our illustrated 317-page book The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: Its History and Its Error. If the movement had the fullness of the Holy Spirit unction and power that it claims, we would not see such an exhibition of the flesh, but in fact moral and other scandals have continued to plague it in recent history. The following are some prominent examples:

In 1977 ORAL ROBERTS claimed that God had appeared to him and instructed him to build a medical center called the CITY OF FAITH. In 1980 he claimed that he had a “face to face” conversation with a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him that he was going to solve the City of Faith financial problems. Seven years later, Roberts said that God had appeared to him yet again and told him that he would die if he did not raise $8 million within 12 months. The wild-eyed visions and unrelenting appeals could not save the City of Faith. In 1989 Roberts closed it to pay off debts! Yet the Pentecostal world in general did not decry Roberts as a false prophet and a religious phony. Thousands continued to flock to ORU from Pentecostal churches across the country, and millions of dollars continued to flow into Roberts’ ministry from gullible supporters.

In 1989 JIM BAKKER, head of the very influential Pentecostal PTL television program went to prison for defrauding his followers out of $158 million. He was paroled in 1994 after serving five years of a 45-year sentence. His trial brought to light his lavish lifestyle, which included six luxurious homes and even an air-conditioned dog house. Prosecutors charged Bakker with diverting to his own use $3.7 million of the money that had been given to his “ministry.” Bakker also committed adultery with church secretary Jessica Hahn and paid more than $250,000 in an attempt to hush up the matter. Bakker’s wife and the former co-host of the PTL Club, Tammy Faye, divorced him while he was in prison and married Roe Messner, an old family friend whose company helped build PTL’s Heritage USA resort complex. Today Tammy Faye has a non-judgmental ministry to homosexuals. She appears at “gay-pride” events nationwide, including a Tammy Faye look-alike contest in Washington, D.C., where she was “surrounded by men in falsies and pancake makeup…” (Charisma News, November 2002). In January 2000 Bakker told Larry King, “Every person who died in the [Jewish] Holocaust is in heaven.” Bakker defended this heretical doctrine in a letter to the editor that appeared in Charisma magazine in June of that year.

A year after the PTL scandal first hit the world’s headlines, JIMMY SWAGGART, one of the leading Pentecostal preachers of modern times, created his own scandal when he was caught with a prostitute. At the time, Swaggart had a 6,000-member congregation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a 270-acre headquarters, a Bible College, an influential television ministry that reached to many parts of the world (broadcast on 9,700 stations and cable outlets), and a ministry income of $142-million per year. Swaggart is the cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and both can pound the piano, but whereas Jerry Lee pursued a flamboyant rock & roll career Jimmy pursued a flamboyant gospel career. A report from a Swaggart crusade in Calgary, Alberta, described the “gospel music at acid-rock volumes” and said “it is a good show” with Swaggart “hammering away at the grand piano, sweating and gesturing like Elvis Presley” and “working the audience like Frank Sinatra” (The Courier News, Elgin, Ill., May 20, 1991, p. 5A). Swaggart refused to stay away from the pulpit for a year as the Assemblies of God in Louisiana stipulated for his discipline, so he was disbarred but he continued preaching anyway. He lost three-fourths of his television audience and his Bible college students and a large percentage of his church members; his finances crumbled. But the Jimmy Swaggart scandal wasn’t over even though he claimed that when he asked God, “Lord, do you still want me to take this work?” God replied emphatically, “Yesssss! You’re in better shape today that you’ve ever been before” (”Swaggart Back in Pulpit with Tales of Nightmares and Revelation,” Religious News Service, May 23, 1988; reprinted in Christian News, June 3, 1988, p. 5). In a television broadcast in May 1988 Swaggart had the audacity to boast, “You are looking at a clean preacher!” and “I do not lie!” (Don Matzat, “The Same Ol’ Jimmy,” Christian News, May 16, 1988). Perhaps this is because Swaggart had sought counseling from Oral Roberts and Roberts had observed demons with long fingernails digging into Swaggart’s flesh and had cast them out (Huntsville Times, Huntsville, Alabama, AP report, March 31, 1988; reported from Calvary Contender, April 15, 1988). Just like that. The exorcism didn’t last though. In 1991 Swaggart was again in hot water when police in Indio, California, stopped him on a traffic charge and found that the woman riding with him was a prostitute. In spite of all of this Swaggart is still swaggering, though his crowd isn’t very large. On his Sept. 12, 2004, program he said, “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.”

By the 1980s Pentecostal evangelist PETER POPOFF had a ministry on 51 television channels and 40 radio stations and an annual income of seven million dollars. He also held healing crusades in many cities, during which he would exercise a “word of knowledge” by calling out the names, addresses, and illnesses of strangers who were in attendance. In 1986 the news broke that Popoff’s amazing “revelations” were actually broadcast to him by his wife after she had conversed with members of the audience. She transmitted her information by radio signal and Peter could hear her voice through a tiny receiver in his ear. A team of skeptics discovered the ruse and recorded the private broadcasts using a scanning receiver and recording equipment (Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1986). When questioned about the matter by John Dart, religion writer for the Los Angeles Times, Popoff replied that his wife only supplied him with about 50% of the information and the rest he got from the Lord! Popoff was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1987 but by 1990 he was back in business with a new book entitled Dreams, which he announced in a full-page ad in Charisma magazine

ROBERT TILTON, who was voted one of the most popular Pentecostals by Charisma magazine readers in 1983 and appeared on the cover of Charisma in July 1985, was the founder of the Word of Faith Satellite Network, host of Success-N-Life broadcasts, and founder and pastor of the Word of Faith World Outreach Center in Farmers Branch, Texas. He taught the Kenneth Hagin Word-Faith doctrines and promised prosperity and healing to those who supported his ministry and exercised faith. He wrote, “You are … a God kind of creature” (Tilton, God’s Laws of Success, pp. 170–71). In 1990 he said: “Being poor is a sin, when God promises prosperity. New house? New car? That’s chicken feed. That’s nothing compared to what God wants to do for you” (John Macarthur, Charismatic Chaos, p. 285). In 1991, when his ministry was taking in $80 million, Tilton’s empire was shaken when ABC-TV’s PrimeTime Live exposed his extravagant lifestyle and his shady fund-raising practices. His estate included an 11,000-square-foot home near Dallas, a condominium in Florida, a yacht, and other assets worth $90 million. The show reported that Tilton’s ministry threw thousands of unread prayer requests into the trash even though Tilton claimed to pray over them. He had even claimed: “I laid on top of those prayer requests so much that the chemicals actually got into my bloodstream, and … I had two small strokes in my brain” (Robert Tilton, Success-N-Life, November 22, 1991). Though Tilton protested that he was the victim of falsehood and sued ABC for libel, the case was thrown out of the courts. Because of the scandal Tilton lost much of his television audience and most of his church members, but he is still on the air and still preaching the prosperity gospel and still begging for donations and still promising God’s blessing on those who give.

In 1991 Kansas City prophet BOB JONES’ tapes were removed from the Vineyard Ministries International product catalog after he admitted to “a moral failure” (Lee Grady, “Wimber Plots New Course for Vineyard,” Charisma, Feb. 1993, p. 64). Jones was using his alleged spiritual authority and “prophetic anointing” to induce women to disrobe.

Pentecostal preacher JAMIE BUCKINGHAM (1933-92) was the author of 40 books that sold 20 million copies, editor-in-chief of Ministries Today magazine, a columnist for Charisma magazine, and pastor of the 2,000-member Tabernacle Church in Melbourne, Florida. Buckingham began his ministry as a Southern Baptist pastor but after being “baptized by the spirit” at a Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship meeting, he became a Pentecostal. Buckingham’s “spirit baptism” made him a radical ecumenist who called for unity between Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, and Pentecostals. In an article entitled “Bridge Builders” (Charisma, March 1992, p. 90), he said there is no higher calling than ecumenical bridge building and he praised David Duplessis for building bridges between Pentecostals and Roman Catholics, and Jewish rabbi Yechiel Eckstein for building bridges between Jews and Christians. Buckingham taught that God has promised healing through Christ’s atonement, and when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1990 many Pentecostals, including Oral Roberts, prophesied his healing. Buckingham said that God told him personally that he was going to live to be “at least 100 years of age in good health and with a clear mind.” The April 1991 issue of Charisma magazine featured this testimony in “My Summer of Miracles.” Note the following excerpt from that article:

“One day my wife … suddenly spoke aloud [and] said, ‘Your healing was purchased at the cross.’ … Here is what I discovered. YOU HAVE WHAT YOU SPEAK. If you want to change something, you must believe it enough to speak it. … If you talk poverty, you’ll have it. If you say you’re sick, you’ll be (and remain) sick. … despite what the doctors said, I refused to say ‘My cancer.’ It was not mine. It was the devil’s. I didn’t have cancer. I had Jesus. The cancer was trying to have me, but THE WORD OF GOD SAID I WAS HEALED THROUGH WHAT JESUS DID ON CALVARY. … I popped a videotape into my VCR and lay down on the sofa. … The tape was an Oral Roberts’ sermon … I came up off the sofa, shouting, ‘I’M HEALED!’ My wife leaped out of her chair and shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’ For the next 30 minutes all we did was walk around the house shouting thanks to God and proclaiming my healing” (Jamie Buckingham, “My Summer of Miracles,” Charisma, April 1991).

Ten months after the publication of this article, on February 17, 1992, Jamie Buckingham died of cancer about 40 years shy of his 100th birthday. Not only did Jamie Buckingham lead others astray with his false teaching but he also deceived himself.

The Cathedral at Chapel Hill near Atlanta, Georgia, founded by EARL PAULK, has been plagued with moral scandals and radical false teaching. At the height of his power Paulk was exceedingly influential. He authored many books, had a large television ministry, was the founder of the International Charismatic Bible Ministries, and a “prophet” in Bill Hamon’s Christian International Network of Prophetic Ministries. Paulk amalgamated the Word-Faith doctrine with Reconstructionist or Dominion theology and promoted it widely among Pentecostals. As for the Word-Faith doctrine, Paulk echoes Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland and others when he wrote: “Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, God has little gods. Until we comprehend that we are gods, and begin to act like little gods, we can’t manifest the Kingdom of God” (Paulk, Satan Unmasked, pp. 96, 97). Paulk merges this Kingdom Now Word-Faith theology (that Christians are little gods with the authority of Christ on earth) with the dominion doctrine the churches are to unify and then retake the world from Satan and ruler over it before Christ returns. He gives this teaching in books such as Satan Unmasked (1984), Held in the Heavens Until (1985), and Ultimate Kingdom (1986). Paulk wrote in his book The Wounded Body of Christ, “We need not wonder whether He [Jesus] will come back; HE CANNOT. Christ can only return when the people of God have reached that place of unity in which the Spirit and the Bride can say, ‘Come’” (p. 73). By 1992, Chapel Hill Harvester Church had 12,000 members and was one of the most prosperous churches in America, but that year DON PAULK, who had taken over as senior pastor from his brother Earl, admitted having an “improper” relationship with a woman staffer. He resigned but was immediately reinstated by the church council. Allegations were made by a group of women about sexual relationships with the Paulks and in 2001 another female church member filed a lawsuit claiming that Paulk molested her when she was a child and into her teenage years, but the accusations were denied and swept under the rug. In August 2005 long-time church member and soloist Mona Brewer and her husband Bobby, who was a major financial supporter of the church, filed a lawsuit against Earl Paulk alleging that she was manipulated into being his paramour for 14 years. Brewer says that the members were conditioned to give unconditional obedience to the pastor, who called himself “Archbishop Paulk,” and that he taught her that those who are spiritually exalted can have sexual relationships and it isn’t adultery. He called it “kingdom relationships.” She says that Paulk even shared her with family members and visiting Charismatic preachers. This case was featured on CCN’s Paula Zahn Now program on Jan. 19, 2006, but as of March 2006 Paulk’s television program was still broadcast on Trinity Broadcasting Network.

In 2000, CLARENCE MCCLENDON, pastor of Pentecostal Church of the Harvest International in Los Angeles and prominent “bishop” in the International Communion of Charismatic Churches, divorced his wife and a mere week later married another woman. His first wife, who accused him of fathering a child out of wedlock, took their three children and moved to Hawaii, but Clarence went right on as if nothing had happened and he had all of the support he needed. Charisma magazine observed that “in just a few months, members of his new congregation were dancing in the aisles in their new facility, and the talented young preacher was back on the conference circuit, no questions asked. … McClendon enjoys the spotlight on Christian television, and he shares pulpits with top leaders in our movement” (Lee Grady, “Sin in the Camp,” Charisma, Feb. 2002).

In 2002 ROBERTS LIARDON, pastor of Embassy Christian Center in Irvine, California, and influential Pentecostal author, acknowledged that he had “a homosexual relationship” (Charisma News, Jan. 31, 2002), though he was back in the ministry within weeks.

On September 12, 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported that PAUL CROUCH OF TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK had paid $425,000 in 1998 to Enoch Lonnie Ford, an employee at TBN, to keep him from going public with his allegation that they had a homosexual encounter. It was after Ford threatened to sue that Crouch paid almost a half-million dollars to keep the matter quiet. TBN also paid thousands of dollars in debts that Ford had accrued. Crouch denied the allegations and tried to blacken the character of his accuser, which was not difficult to do. Ford is a convicted sex and drug offender, but it seems very strange that Crouch would pay such a large sum to a man if there was no truth to his allegation. Ford wrote his testimony of the affair but it was sealed by the courts after Crouch sued to have the matter squelched.

In October 2004 PAUL CAIN, the most prominent Pentecostal prophet, was exposed as a homosexual and an alcoholic by Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle, and Jack Deere, who said that Cain had refused to submit to discipline (”Paul Cain, “Latter Rain Prophet of Renown Is Now Discredited,” The Plumbline, December 2004). Eventually Cain admitted his sin, saying, “I have struggled in two particular areas, homosexuality and alcoholism, for an extended period of time. I apologize for denying these matters of truth, rather than readily admitting them” (”A Letter of Confession,” February 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/20050225053035/http://www.paulcain.org/news.html).

In November 2006, TED HAGGARD resigned as senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and as head of the National Association of Evangelicals on revelation of exploits with a homosexual prostitute named Mike Jones. Though Haggard denied the accusation at first, he eventually admitted his ‘dark side.” A letter from Haggard was read to the New Life Church on November 5 in which the founding pastor admitted that he is “guilty of sexual immorality” and “a deceiver and a liar.” He said, “There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.” Haggard is a Charismatic, a New Evangelical, and a radical ecumenist. In October 2005 Haggard said, “New Life doesn’t try to ‘convert’ Catholics” and “the church would never discourage its members from becoming Catholic or attending Catholic Mass” (Berean Call, Jan. 2006). In January 2009, Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor at New Life Church, disclosed that Haggard also had a homosexual relationship with a member of the church that “went on for a long period of time” (”Disgraced Pastor Faces More Gay Sex Allegations,” AP, Jan. 24, 2009).

In 2007 wrongful termination suits were filed against Oral Roberts University by former professors alleging that the founder’s son RICHARD ROBERTS and his wife LINDSAY misappropriated school money and other improprieties. According to the suit, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their lavish lifestyle, including a stable of horses for their daughters, a $29,400 trip to Orlando and the Bahamas aboard a university jet for a daughter and her friends, and a $39,000 shopping spree at one clothing store for Lindsay (”Healing ORU,” Christianity Today, September 2008). The suit also alleges that the Roberts’ home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years, that Lindsay spent nights in the ORU guest house with an underage 16 year old male, and that she frequently had cell phone bills of more than $800 per month, with “hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. to underage males who had been provided phones at university expense” (”Oral Roberts University Faces the Blue Screen of Death,” http://shakespearessister..com/2007/10/oral-roberts-university-faces-blue.html). The professors were fired for trying to expose “the leadership’s moral failings and financial improprieties.” On November 13, 2007, the tenured faculty of ORU approved a nonbinding vote of no confidence in Richard, and he resigned as president on November 23, 2007. Lindsay is his second wife. He and his first wife, Patti, divorced in 1979.

In August 2007 televangelist JUANITA BYNUM accused her husband, THOMAS WEEKS III, bishop of the Global Destiny Church in Atlanta, of pushing, beating, choking, and stomping her to the ground in a hotel parking lot. The couple subsequently divorced (it was the second married for both of them), and in November 2008 a sheriff’s deputy served Weeks with a notice of eviction from the church property because the rent was a half million dollars in arrears (”Prosperity Gospel on Skid Row,” Christianity Today, Jan. 15, 2009).

On August 23, 2007, RANDY AND PAULA WHITE, co-pastors of WITHOUT WALLS INTERNATIONAL, a charismatic megachurch based in Tampa, Florida, announced that they were divorcing after 17 years of marriage. Randy said he takes responsibility for the breakup, but the couple ultimately blamed the two different directions their lives are going (”Interruption during Megapastors’ Divorce Announcement,” Tampa Tribune, Aug. 23, 2007). That is not a biblical reason for divorce. Christ gave only one legitimate cause, and that is fornication, yet the two said “the split involves no third party on either side.” If they are going in two different directions, that is sin on both their parts. God says the wife is the husband’s help-meet and she is to be the keeper of the home (Titus 2:4-5), and the husband is to “dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). Randy has spent months commuting to Malibu, California, where he has a beachfront home. Paula, a preacher and motivational speaker, makes many speaking trips to San Antonio, where she recently purchased a home and is “oversight pastor” to the Family Praise Center. She also travels frequently to New York City where she has a Trump Tower condo and leads monthly services at New Life by Design Empowerment Center. This is open disobedience to God’s Word, which forbids her to be a preacher or a pastor (1 Timothy 2:12). And this is not the first divorce for the two charismatic preachers. They have four children from previous marriages. In reality they are sinning against God’s Word while pretending to be undergoing a “trial” and to be victims of circumstance, and this, sadly, is typical for charismatics today. When Paula appeared on Carman’s show on Trinity Broadcasting Network on September 12 and 13, 2007, she was greeted with loud applause. She told the enthusiastic crowd, “Some of the greatest development in the men and women of God … were those in adverse situation, those in opposition. … You can either gravitate and put your hand to the plow and say, ‘Okay, God, I don’t get this one; I don’t even like this one. But still what do You have to say to me? I will not be moved.’” Joseph and Job could say things like that and take a stand on simply trusting God in undeserved adversity, but when you are suffering for your own sin and rebellion to the Scriptures that is an entirely different story! “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” (1 Peter 2:20). An article in the Tampa Tribune in May 2007 included statements by former Without Walls staff members who testified that the Whites have shifted their focus to money and fame. They preach a charismatic prosperity message and live lavishly. Their home in Tampa is valued at $2.22 million and the condo in New York, at $3.5 million. In November 2008 the Evangelical Christian Credit Union began foreclosure proceedings, demanding payment of a $12 million loan on the church’s property.

In August 2008 the four-month long “Lakeland Outpouring” led by TODD BENTLEY ended in scandal. Some had prophesied that the healing crusade in Lakeland, Florida, was the beginning of a national revival and that entire cities would be “shut down.” In fact, it was the Lakeland Outpouring that was shut down after Bentley announced that he was separating from his wife (”Todd Bentley, Wife Separating,” Charisma, Aug. 12, 2008). A week later it was further announced that Bentley was stepping down as head of Fresh Fire Ministries, after the ministry revealed that he had an “unhealthy relationship” with a female staffer (”Bentley Stepping Down,” OneNewsNow, Aug. 19, 2008). The Lakeland meetings began on April 2, 2008, at the Ignite Church, and continued nightly in various venues for more than three months, with Bentley dispensing his medicine by slamming people on the forehead, shoving them, flinging the Holy Spirit, yelling “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” crying out, “Come and get some,” and staggering around like a drunk. He has kicked an elderly lady in the face, banged a crippled woman’s legs on the platform, kneed a man in the stomach, and hit another man so hard that a tooth popped out. My friends, God has given us clear instructions in Scripture about healing, and James 5 does not describe a raucous “healing crusade.” We believe in divine healing for today, but we don’t believe in Pentecostal showmen. See “I Believe in Miracles” http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/ibelievein-miracles.html.

Also in August 2008 MICHAEL GUGLIELMUCCI of the Assemblies of God in Australia admitted that he had been lying about having an advanced stage of cancer. For the past two years Guglielmucci, a popular contemporary worship leader and former pastor, had claimed to have terminal cancer. He even recorded a song called “The Healer” that became a hit and was featured on Hillsong’s latest album. For two years he allegedly fooled even his wife and parents and closest friends into thinking that he had cancer. He sent e-mails to his wife from phony doctors, shaved his head, walked with a cane, and carried around an oxygen bottle. In one church performance that attracted one-third of a million hits on YouTube, he sang with an oxygen tube in his nose! He claimed that God gave him the song after he learned that he had “an aggressive form of cancer.” Guglielmucci now claims that he faked cancer to hide a longtime addiction to pornography. He is the former pastor of one of Australia’s largest youth churches called Planetshakers. More recently he was the worship leader at Edge Church International, an Assemblies of God congregation pastored by his father, Danny. Hillsong is the ministry of Hillsong Church in Sydney, the largest church in Australia and prominent in the contemporary worship field. Brian Houston, who co-pastors the church with his wife, is the head of AOG in Australia (which has been renamed the Australian Christian Churches).

______________________________

THE PENTECOSTAL-CHARISMATIC MOVEMENTS: THE HISTORY AND THE ERROR. I have been examining and re-examining the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements for more than three decades since I was led to Christ by a Pentecostal in 1973 and began to seek God’s will about tongues-speaking and the miraculous gifts of the early churches. I have built a large library of materials on this subject and have interviewed Pentecostals and Charismatics and attended their churches in many parts of the world. I have also attended large Charismatic conferences with press credentials. I have approached these studies with an open mind in the sense of having a commitment only to the truth and not to anyone’s tradition. I am a member of an independent Baptist church but Baptist doctrine and practice is not my authority; the Bible is. Each fresh evaluation of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement has brought an increased conviction that it is unscriptural and dangerous. This book begins with my own experience with the Pentecostal movement. The next section deals with the history of the Pentecostal movement, beginning with a survey of miraculous signs from the second to the 18th centuries. We then examine the movements in the 19th century that led up to the creation of Pentecostalism and the outbreak of “tongues-speaking” at Charles Parham’s Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901, and at William Seymour’s Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906. We examine some of the major Pentecostal denominations, the Latter Rain Covenent, the major Pentecostal healing evangelists, the Sharon Schools and the New Order of the Latter Rain, the Manifest Sons of God, the Word-Faith movement and its key leaders, the Charismatic Movement, the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the Pentecostal Prophets, the Third Wave, and the recent Pentecostal scandals. We conclude the historical section with a look at the Laughing Revival. In the last section of the book we deal with the theological errors of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements (exalting experience over Scripture, emphasis on the miraculous, Messianic and apostolic miracles can be reproduced, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of fire, exalting the Holy Spirit, tongues speaking is for today, sinless perfectionism, healing is guaranteed in the atonement, spirit slaying, spirit drunkenness, visions of Jesus, trips to heaven, women preachers, and ecumenism). The final section of the book answers the question: “Why are people deluded by Pentecostal-Charismatic error?” David and Tami Lee, former Pentecostals, after reviewing a section of the book said: “Very well done! We pray God will use it to open the eyes of many and to help keep many of His children out of such deception.” And Mary Keating, also a former Charismatic, said, “The book is excellent and I have no doubt whatever that the Lord is going to use it in a mighty way. Amen!!” 317 pages. $9.95, available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.

[size=18pt]Pentecostalism‘s Dark Side
by Roger K. Olson[/size]

Reposted from: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3338

Roger Olson teaches at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco. Texas. This article appeared in The Christian Century, (March 7, 2006, pp. 27-30 .) Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation: used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.

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I was raised in a tiny Pentecostal denomination, the Open Bible Standard Churches, founded in part by disillusioned followers of 1930s revivalist Aimee Semple McPherson. My parents were Open Bible pastors, many of my uncles and aunts were missionaries, and one uncle served as the denomination’s president.

During my late teens and early 20s I was the quintessential Pentecostal preacher-boy. I first spoke in tongues at age 14, raised my hands in exuberant worship at revivals and camp meetings, witnessed to my friends at school and tried to convince Christian friends that they needed the "sign gift" of speaking in tongues to be fully Spirit-filled.

But in my high school years I began to be bothered by some Pentecostal teachings and practices. Eventually my doubts and questions led to a difficult departure from the spiritual movement of my youth; I became a Baptist immediately after graduating from a Baptist seminary at age 26. I recall breathing a great sigh of relief when I finally exited the Full Gospel movement, as we liked to call Pentecostalism. And yet, my heart was heavy because it meant leaving my spiritual home. And I knew my loved ones were all praying for me to recover my spiritual fervor.

Over the years I’ve met many other men and women who grew up in the thick of North American Pentecostalism and left it under similar circumstances and for similar reasons. Although the movement has matured since I turned in my Pentecostal credentials, it has a ways to go before it becomes a fully healthy and health-giving part of the Christian community.

I say this without rancor or bitterness, and I do not intend any harm to Pentecostal churches or individuals. The movement is still relatively young as religious movements go; I have confidence it will continue to mature. Some of my dearest friends are Pentecostals; I admire them for their passion and self-denial in the face of subtle persecution. In many places being Pentecostal is still wrongly considered tantamount to being a "hillbilly Holy Roller." People who think that way should take a look at the parking lots of many suburban Assemblies of God churches.

In this centennial year of American Pentecostalism’s founding, however, I feel compelled to register some concerns about its enduring immaturity as a movement. Some non-Pentecostal religious scholars, such as Harvey Cox (Fire from Heaven) and Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom), have succumbed to "Pentecostal chic" -- a kind of romantic view of Pentecostalism as a much-needed spiritual movement of the poor and oppressed that fills the Western world’s "ecstasy deficit." Missing in some of these accounts is an awareness of the movement’s dark side.

Endemic to Pentecostalism is a profoundly anti-intellectual ethos. It is manifested in a deep suspicion of scholars and educators and especially biblical scholars and theologians. Yes, there are some Pentecostal scholars who are respected outside the movement: Russell Spittler served as a dean at Fuller Theological Seminary for years; Gordon Fee taught New Testament at Regent College in Vancouver and produced highly regarded volumes in biblical studies; Amos Yong holds a Ph.D. from Boston University and teaches in the doctoral program at Regent University Graduate School of Divinity. Yet too many Pentecostal leaders hold even their own scholars at arms length and view them with suspicion. Merely being a member of the Society for Pentecostal Studies often brings a Pentecostal scholar’s commitment to the movement into question.

This is without doubt the main reason I drifted away from the movement and eventually broke from it. I was not satisfied with the pat answers I was given by my mentors and teachers to questions I had about Pentecostal doctrines and practices.

For example: Billy Graham was and is a great hero to most Pentecostals, but he says he has never spoken in tongues. Is he not Spirit-filled? My questions on this issue were deftly turned aside, and subtle aspersions were cast on my spirituality merely for asking such questions. In the end, I was told that Graham is fully Spirit-filled even if he has never spoken in tongues. He’s the one exception. But were I to take up a career teaching theology in a Pentecostal college (I was told), I couldn’t teach that there might be exceptions to that distinctive doctrine. The cognitive dissonance wrought by this and other answers boggled my mind.

Not all Pentecostals are anti-intellectual or revel in incoherence. But a deep antipathy to critical rationality applied to theology is a hallmark of the movement. Too often spiritual abuse in the form of shame is directed at those, especially young people, who dare to question the teachings of highly placed Pentecostal ministers and evangelists.

I was one of the first Open Bible members to attend seminary and, like most Pentecostals who did that, I left the movement. I felt pushed out for wasting my time on intellectual pursuits rather than becoming a missionary or evangelist. Today evangelical seminaries are full of Pentecostal youths. Many of them still find doors closed when they return to their home denominations for ordination or for leadership positions in churches. Pentecostal scholars too often have to work outside Pentecostal institutions and live in the shadows and on the margins of the movement.

Shaking off this anti-intellectual attitude won’t be easy for the movement; it is part of Pentecostalism’s DNA. A good beginning would be to draw those Pentecostal scholars who work on the margins into the movement’s centers of power and leadership. Honest and open dialogue between Pentecostal leaders and the movement’s own intellectuals -- with promises there will be no negative consequences -- could help shake off some of the mutual suspicion and fear that haunts their relationships. And Pentecostal leaders need to pledge never again to subject eager, faithful and intellectually inclined young people to shame merely for asking tough questions about Pentecostal distinctives.

Another part of Pentecostalism’s dark side is rampant sexual and financial scandals. From early Pentecostal leader Charles Parham to Aimee Semple McPherson to Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, the movement has been wracked by charges of misconduct, many of which have been substantiated by investigators.

In recent days a new scandal has been brewing over the conduct of Atlanta-based megachurch pastor Earl Paulk. Allegedly the Pentecostal bishop-pastor of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit engaged in sex with several parishioners over a period of years. One accuser claims that he told her sex with him was necessary to revitalize his ministry and that he also lured her to engage in sex with a visiting pastor. Another woman brought a lawsuit claiming Paulk had sex with her when she was a teenager. Although Paulk has denied such charges and so far no verdicts have been delivered, the number and weight of the accusations add to the impression that not only Paulk but Pentecostalism has a problem with scandals.

Other Christian movements have suffered similar scandals, but Pentecostalism seems particularly rife with them. Insiders know some of the reasons. Deeply embedded within the Pentecostal movement’s ethos is a cult of personality; charismatic leaders are put on pedestals above accountability and are often virtually worshiped by many of their followers.

Too few courses in basic ethics are required in Pentecostal colleges (perhaps because many Pentecostals, especially older ones, assume that being Spirit-filled guarantees right behavior), and too many pastors handle the churches’ money and travel alone without having to account for their whereabouts or activities. It’s the movement’s own dirty little secret: sexual promiscuity and financial misconduct are rampant within its ranks, and little is done about this unless a scandal becomes public.

Several Pentecostal denominations have instituted policies to handle cases of pastoral moral turpitude and financial misconduct, but they have found those policies hard to enforce. At least one Pentecostal denomination has a policy that forbids investigation of charges that are more than five years old. One can only wonder why the leaders decided on that limit.

There is no body that regulates independent churches and ministers, but Pentecostal leaders could work harder to expose their colleagues who transgress and to warn their flocks (and others) against them. Far too much nervousness about powerful television and radio preachers infects well-intentioned and ethically sensitive Pentecostal leaders. It’s time for the movement to own up to its sometimes sleazy history and go the extra mile in cleaning house in the cases of ministers and evangelists who are less than honest and chaste. It should not be left to publications like Christianity Today and Charisma to reveal scandals involving Pentecostal ministers, evangelists and denominational executives.

Still another aspect of Pentecostalism’s dark side is its tendency to condone dishonesty on the part of influential and popular evangelists and ministers. One day I was browsing through the books at a publishers’ overstock sale and came across the autobiography of a Pentecostal evangelist who held tent revival meetings in the small Midwestern city where I grew up. I remembered his rather farfetched sermon illustrations of miraculous occurrences in his life and ministry. The book contained a chapter on a miracle that supposedly happened during his revival in our town.

When I read his account of the incident I was shocked but not surprised; I had encountered enough similar evangelistic stretchings of truth to know they are rampant in revivalist and perhaps especially in Pentecostal circles. According to the evangelist, a high wind caused by a tornado reduced buildings around his revival tent to rubble but left his tent undamaged. He even claimed that local television crews filmed the aftermath of the storm and his intact tent.

What I vividly recall is a windstorm that sent men from our church to the tent in the middle of the night; they held it down as the winds whipped its sides. But no tornado touched down near it and no buildings around it were destroyed. I would have remembered if they had been. That evangelist is probably still traveling around telling his tall tales and whipping up fervor and offerings. Denominational leaders to whom he is accountable need to challenge his exaggerations and insist on honesty. To the best of my knowledge they have not done so.

Playing fast and loose with truth is rampant in Pentecostal circles, and is excused and even joked about as "speaking evangelistically." Numbers are inflated and stories of healings exaggerated if not invented. To be sure, many Pentecostal ministers are honest and truthful. One thinks of noted Full Gospel pastor, speaker and writer Jack Hayford, who was labeled "The Pentecostal Gold Standard" by Christianity Today. Would that all Pentecostal ministers were as squeaky clean and honest as Hayford. The movement’s leaders could do more to ensure that.

As a former insider, I know that Pentecostal leaders reading this article are defensively bristling at what they know is true about their movement. Telling it publicly either inside the movement or to outsiders is considered traitorous behavior. As one denominational leader told me, "If you see a problem among the leaders you should pray to God about it and keep it to yourself, you have no business challenging them or making it public." This is a common attitude among Pentecostals.

A favorite Pentecostal saying is "Touch not God’s anointed" (a paraphrase of Psalm 105:15). The saying is meant to forbid criticism of the movement’s leaders. When I was a boy the worst label my parents and Pentecostal relatives could put on a person within the movement was "critical" or "negative." Too often Full Gospel leaders insist on total, abject loyalty and uncritical acceptance of whatever they say. Too many Pentecostal organizations lack any structure for safe criticism of dysfunctional behavior, aberrant teaching or abusive practices on the part of leaders and powerful ministers.

Pentecostal leaders need to take the next step in the movement’s maturation process and institute safe means of criticism and correction within their organizations. They need to become more self-critical and less defensive of leaders’ positions and pronouncements. A hallmark of spiritual abuse is treating the person who dares to point out a problem as the problem. Such behavior is widespread in Pentecostal circles. Full Gospel leaders can prove that their movement is coming of age in its second century by establishing means by which their denominations and organizations can nurture healthy self-examination, allowing constructive criticism with impunity even by younger members.

One example of this happening is the "Memphis Miracle." Some Pentecostal leaders knew that racism plagued their movement and determined to do something about it. They did little while the older guard was still alive, but once the senior leaders who practiced racism (e.g. by excluding black denominations from the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America) died or went into retirement they exposed the problem and proposed a radical solution: disband the PFNA and ask African-American Pentecostal leaders to start a new umbrella association for Pentecostal cooperation and, if they wanted to, to invite white Pentecostals into it. That is what happened. The new group founded in Memphis in 1994, the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches of North America, includes approximately 40 denominations and networks of churches. It was started by black Pentecostals, who graciously invited their white brothers and sisters into it. This is a model of the kind of self-criticism that should characterize a maturing Pentecostal movement to a greater extent.

In spite of exposing the continuing dark side of the movement born on Azusa Street a century ago, I love Pentecostalism. They say you can take the boy out of Pentecostalism but you can’t take Pentecostalism out of the boy. Most of the formerly Full Gospel men and women I know still remember fondly the excitement and passion of the movement. Some of us listen to Pentecostal music on CDs and occasionally raise our hands or clap to its ecstatic words and beat. But I long to see the movement that taught me to love Jesus and the Bible mature further in the ways I’ve outlined here. It is happening, but too slowly.

What if your male spiritual leader, pastor, or bishop wore earrings? Would that disturb you? Where would you draw the line? Would you be disturb if you saw you male pastor in female garments?

Watch Bishop TD Jakes in lovely earrings here

I feel for the poor son. He has really been dealt a bad hand to be the son of such a deceitful and exploitative man is reason enough to loose one's composure.

What manner of human is this that discriminate against the weak, infirm and destitute of society? Ohhhh, it is the Lord god of host, also called Jesus Christ. Turn to Leviticus 16:


Leviticus 16:

10 And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes;
11Neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
12Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
13And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
14A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.
15Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.
16And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
17Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
18For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
19Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.
22He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy.
23Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
24And Moses told it unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel.

[size=16pt]Contemporary Christianity and the ethics of vanity fair (3)
Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 03 May 2009
[/size]
Reposted from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/34914/71/


NOW, even if the “facts” presented by Isiekwene were true, it does not follow that flying around in an expensive aircraft by “the man of God” is in harmony with the example of true leadership which Jesus showed to his disciples.

Mr. Isiekwene should go back and read very carefully Jesus’attitude to material wealth and worldly comfort as recorded in the gospels. He would realize that, indeed, on the issue of the appropriate attitude of a genuine spiritual leader to worldly comfort, contemporary church leaders in Nigeria have derailed considerably from the examples of Jesus.

Interestingly, Pastor Adeboye has off-handedly brushed off his critics by saying that he is indifferent to both praise and criticism. Now, whether a human being can truly be totally indifferent to criticism, especially when such criticism is persuasive, I am not competent to judge.

But Pastor Adeboye can be rest assured that he does no need to defend himself against reasonable criticism; his impressive battalions of foot soldiers are doing the job for him, most times to the ridiculous extent of bigotry and blind adulation.

Yet, he should remember that all humans, no matter how highly exalted, can err. An essential trait of a well cultivated and enlightened spiritual leader is the ability to humbly accept responsibility for his mistakes, not pachydermatous snobbishness towards valid criticism.

Those who believe that because somebody is the pastor of a big, popular and materially successful church and that, therefore, he or she must never be criticized are spiritually immature and intellectually lazy.

If Jesus was criticized, and on several occasions responded to criticisms, I do not see why a pastor should not be criticized whenever the need arises, or why she or he should not respond to criticisms. Now back to the question of what should be, in the light of Jesus’ example, the appropriate attitude of pastors to material possessions.

I believe that the best bequest of a genuine spiritual leader should be: “I leave no property.” The late Pope John Paul II followed the example of Jesus in this regard. But most of our pastors have a philistine, capitalistic and immature conception of spirituality.

They tend to think that the more spiritually developed a person is, the more materially “blessed” the person would be. Nothing can be farther from the truth, going by what is known about the greatest and most profound spiritual leaders the world has produced.


We have already shown that Jesus, in his sermons and conduct, unreservedly condemned material wealth and its tendency to detract from genuine spiritual development. Classic Buddhism stresses the crucial importance of eschewing the craving for riches and material comfort.

According to Buddha himself, the path to nirvana or spiritual enlightenment is the Eightfold Path, of which cessation of craving for anything is a key component. Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic of the Dominican order espoused views on craving and materialism which bear a close resemblance to Buddha’s thoughts on the same subject.

He maintained that the fundamental causes of human suffering are greed, craving for things and for one’s own ego. He speaks of freedom in the sense of being unfettered or free from the craving for holding unto things and one’s ego, which is the condition for love and productive living.

Unlike our pastors who are full of themselves, who constantly delude themselves and their congregation that material prosperity signifies spiritual progress, Eckhart argued that our aim should be to get rid of the chain of egocentricity and acquisitiveness in order to arrive at full being.

Fromm, whose book To Have or To Be?, celebrates Eckhart’s philosophy of life, believes that while the basic material objects we need in the quotidian details of our existence are not intrinsically bad, they become really destructive when we hold on to them, when they become encumbrances that interfere with our freedom and the quest for self-realization.

Whenever I watch pastors preach on television, I feel it in my bones that they have derailed by making themselves the centre of attraction and worshipful adoration by members of their churches. Some of them are so egocentric that they create the impression of being totally immune from the concrete existential reminders of our frailty and limitations in this chequered world - sicknesses, disappointments, failures, anxieties and, ultimately, death.

Some pastors arrogate to themselves superhuman powers of churning out miracles which, on closer inspection, are hocus pocus or legerdemain.

The dapper expensive clothes, shoes and other fashion accessories, intimidating worship centres, hollow demagoguery, soap-box histrionics and irrational adulation by church members give them a feeling of pseudo-omnipotence. Consequently, instead of drawing attention to the kingdom of God which Jesus said was within all of us, our pastors try to fill up the existential vacuum in their egos by drawing undue attention to themselves whenever they preach.

Most of the wealthy people who spend millions to “boost the work of God” use it as a form of psychotherapy, as a means of buying their way into heaven. Many of them are wicked hypocrites, shylock businessmen and businesswomen, profiteers and others whose sources of wealth are immoral.

They naively believe that by spending a lot of money on pastors and their families, building churches and financing all sorts of projects “in the vineyard of the Lord” - all of which are disguised forms of Indulgences - they are contributing to the work of God on earth.

Yet, how can a wicked person or someone who made money through immoral methods genuinely serve God with filthy wealth? Surely, the person might deceive others and enjoy praise and admiration for his “philanthropy”.

But deep down, he knows that his “contributions” are spiritually worthless, because they are based on greed, fraud and, sometimes, ritual murders. In this connection, no one should be surprised that big men and thick madams are investing heavily in churches nowadays.

For the pastors and other church workers, church is business, whereas for the “cheerful givers”, giving to the church is a back-door bribe for divine protection, prosperity and, eventually, heaven. With time all these will evaporate because no condition is permanent.

To any objective observer, contemporary Christianity is gradually losing its spiritual raison d’etre, because unlike Jesus who stressed pursuit of spiritual goals, contemporary Christians have embraced primitive accommodation of wealth lock, stock, and barrel. Jesus said: “By their fruits we shall know them.”

While I acknowledge that there are genuine Christian clergy who are truly interested in the spiritual growth of their flock, the fact remains that Christianity as a whole, especially its Pentecostal variants, are no longer credible routes to spiritual rebirth. It has capitulated to the delicious but life-destroying ethics of vanity fair by shamelessly distorting the spiritual content of Jesus’ teachings for material gain. Too bad!

dogmafree:
I hope this thread is not dead. I stumbled upon this website while searching for Nigerian atheists. I'm glad I found it. I am still a closet atheist like many Nigerians out there. I didn't realize Nigerians could be so open about this stuff. Thats the power of the internet i guess. I have never disclosed my true feelings to any of my family members. I have always been skeptical of religion, but never had the guts to face reality. I grew up a muslim in Nigeria. My dad is so religious. He even prays 5 times daily. I and my siblings attended "ile keu" or islamic madrasa. I honestly feel my childhood was wasted on all this nonsense. I am glad I have come to my senses and would never put my children true this.

         Religion is the biggest 419 in the world. A scam. Parasites. An unappointed middleman between people and "God". They make so much money tax free. Whao! Total mind control. I think religion is worse than slavery. At least a with slavery, you know what the master is doing to you is totally wrong.  Religions has control over your body, mind and money. They use hell fire and the afterlife to scare you into submission. How can anyone be so sure of the afterlife that they blow their selfs up? Its sick.

         For those of you who are religious. Ask yourself. Why are there thousands of different religions out there? And why is your religion the true one? You happen to be in your faith today because you were born into your religion. All religions cannot be true, right? If the bible is gods word and the koran is gods word, then god must have two words, or may i say thousands of words. You belivers need to study history to see how religion has evolved over the centuries. Religion was invented by man and is been refined from generation to generation, with man modifying it as he see fit. Look at resent history, life expectancy was so bad. you had to have several children because you know not all of them would survive. Look at all the diseases that have afflicted our civilization.  The Black Plague killed off half of Europe's population in the 14th century. Look at the what Hitler did. Killed 6 million Jews! What god? People actually believed that disease was punishment from god. So why don't we have millions of people dying today then? The answer is the advancement of man. or, science. Also, slave traders justified slavery with the bible. The church made it legal. I mean how can your people be enslaved and then give you their religion to? Its insane.

       I believe religions were invented to help explain the world and control people. Karl Marx put it best when he said " Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." It is used as a painkiller or sedative. This is why people turn to religion when the are oppressed in life, or when the face prosecution. They use it to justify their situation thinking there is a better life after this one. Unfortunately, this is the only life their is.
       Imagine the world with no religion. No crusades, No wars, No September 11. Just Imagine. All the wars are a result of religion! Israel vs Palestine. Look at the situation in Nigeria. muslims vs christians. Sharia law. Honor killings. I think the world would be a much better place without religion. Science would progress much faster. scientist would be able to do their research without the christian fundamentalist getting in the way. Unfortunately, religion is a cancer that is here to stay. It will take a while to fight off this cancer. Religion has served its purpose and its time to move on people. This is the only paradise we would every know. pls don't ruin it for everyone else.

Very well said and welcome to Nairaland and am glad you found us here. There are a few atheists you grace this section in NL and to the best of my knowledge, the atheists posts have helped some people see the unbridled scam the religion is.

It is a shame that you live in an environment that is intolerant to ideas, particularly such salutory ideas as rationalism and skepticism, and you are forced to lead a life that is inconsistent with your innermost feelings. Over the years, the religionist have so persecuted all skeptics in their communities that all nascents seeds of rationalism and atheism have been eliminated. Little did the religionists reckon that the rationalism which they sought to eliminate was going to produce such technologies as the internet which will ensure that religion henceforth would enter into a terminally dying spiral. The fact that you found atheists on NL is testament to that. At the very least, if you are not able to do some rationalist (and atheism ) activism in the flesh in you community, I hope you stay here and help rid that world of this monstrosity of religion. In fact, we need people with roots in the islamic tradition who would spearhead the challenge against the islamicists.

So once again, we are happy to see you here.

Uche2nna:
Nice to hear that the world population came from East Africa. lol, I think thats just a confirmation of studies that have being done long ago rather than a new finding or concept.

However, I dont understand how that negates the concept of creationism (or maybe thats not the purpose ). If we all came from one man, does that not make sense that we could all be traced back to one location?

Well, it is hard to know what dress Creationism wears as it dresses itself up differently each time one takes a look. However, literal biblical creationism, the belief help by the vast majority of fundamentalist (evangelical/pentacostal) Christian is the view that it all got started by God about 6000 years ago in the garden of Eden - basically all of nature and reality was created in one vigorous week of activity by Yahweh 6000 years ago.

The result from science clearly is in opposition to this version of creationism. If science shows that humans all originate from Africa about 200000years ago, that CANNOT be in agreement with the creations of the bible, can it? Is this hard for you to understand or are you simply deluded too?

m_nwankwo:
In the largest genetic study sampling african populations, a team of international scientists led by Sarah Tishkoff provide compelling evience that all africans are decended from 14 ancestral populations. The study also confirms earlier work that modern humans originated from Africa and that east Africa is the source population for the out-of-africa migration of modern humans to other parts of the world. The study also shows that about 71% of african-americans can trace their ancestry to west Africa. This study is published in the May 1, 2009 issue of the journal Science. I will post the full length paper later on. In the meantime, find below a popular summary(understandable to biologists as well as non-biologists) of the findings as published in the journal Science. See below:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/324/5927/575.pdf

Great stuff and thanks for posting lost of link on this post. I have followed up most of them.

Many thankx.

na.com:
@huxley

Quite a very dumb thread you started. And to prove how dumb it is, The thread had to wait 5 good months before someone could notice it.

How dumb can some poster be on this forum.

Can you demonstrate how reluctance to deal with the thread indicates the dumbness of the thread?

When Gregor Mendel performed his groundbreaking experiments on peas that eventually proved demonstrated the factors involved in sexual reproduction, his work went unappreciated for decades. Does that mean that his ideas where dumb. Many other ideas and discoveries have goes unappreciated at the time of the discovery, only to be appreciated by later generations of people. Does that mean that such ideas/doscoveries were dump?

I think I know the dump one in this NL and it is not me or my ideas. I predict that you will have nothing more to say to defend your dump and silly arguments, just as you had nothing to say on the main subject.

Take you dumb-ass religious brain into where it rightly belongs - the cesspit of the bible and the churches where you will be brainwashed and exploited of the last bit of self-respect you have.

god works in mysterious ways, doesn't he/she/it?

mactao:
I wonder why I didn't see this since December last year.

I'll tell you why those people came out of their graves. Because in that time when Jesus died, every single evil spirit, including those who were holding them in death, left the earth.

You just made that up, didn't you?

mazaje:
you believe in the unsubstantiated writings of unknown men who thought the world was flat or that the earth was the center of the universe and you say that naturalism is intellectually lazy? does christianity not thrive on intellectual laziness? does the bible not warn you not to seek for knowledge and accepet everything on based on faith? does christianity not label intellectuality as blasphemy? even the bible god did not want adam and eve to eat the tree of "knowledge" according to the bible. . .we have so many anti intellectual statements in the bible like man' cleverness is foolishness in the eyes of god. . . but the same man has shown that he is much more clever than the imaginary bible god. . .such statements are there to keep people in line because the writers of the bible know that their assertion can not stand for them selves. . .

now to naturalism. . .the cause of lightning was once thought to be god's wrath, but it turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces the same goes for earth quake. people once thought an intelligent being must have arranged and maintained the amazingly ordered motions of the solar system, but now we know it's all the inevitable outcome of mindless natural forces. disease were once thought to be the mischief of supernatural demons or due to the wrath of god(the bible says that alot), but now we know that tiny, unintelligent organisms are the cause, which reproduce and infect us according to mindless natural forces. in case after case, without exception, the trend has been to find that purely natural causes underlie any phenomena. not once has the cause of anything turned out to really be god's wrath or intelligent meddling, or demonic mischief, or anything supernatural at all. The collective weight of these observations is enormous: supernaturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always lost; naturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always won. naturalism is the belief that there is nothing supernatural.

you are just throwing words here. . .the basis of naturalism is that nature is all there is and all basic truths are truths of nature. . .does it require any sacred convictions? what do you mean that naturalism can not be substantiated?  . . .i have defined and given you the concept of naturalism. . .naturalism can sand on its own. . .i for one just like ridiculing and pointing out the inconsistencies of all religions. . . .does christianity not depend on disproving others? christians always discard or try to explain all the super natural claims of other religions through natural means but fail to do that to their own faith. . . .you can't have it both ways. . .

naturalism is what you see every day and everytime, while the whole christian concept relies on faith in unproven and unsubstantiated words of unknown men that are sometimes not in accrodance to the laws of the natural world. . .why do you keep throwing words around? do you really know what you are saying when you keep on using words like lack of conviction?

i believe you do not know what irrationalism means. . . .do some of the writers of the bible not concede that some of their writings are completely irrational and should be accepted based on faith alone because of how irrational they sound and appear?

because such a being does not exist. . . of course. . .it has stood the test of logic and objective analysis. . .even the bible discorages objective and logical analysis. . .it relys only on faith. . .christains have conceded that logic and objectivity belongs to science labs. . because christianity demands complete faith. . .why does the bible discourage logical thoughts and objective analysis?

why do you keep using the word rationality when you belief strongly discourages rationality? what is the rationality in believing that jonah survived inside a fish for 3 days? is it rational to believe that a man can walk on water, or die and raise from the dead after 3 days? what is the rationality in your believing the jacobs genetic engeneering model? can you rationally explain the jocobs genetic engineering model or how the fig tree immediately withered(depending on the gospel account) after it was cursed by jesus? do you not just accept as them as true without rationally thinking about how true the claims really are are?

[b]based on such ontology that god is impossible to exist, let me give you and example. . .amongst the ontology of the christain god is that he is perfect. . .but we know that if something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. and yet this "perfect" god created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "imperfect" humans. the ultimate source of perfection is god according to one of his ontology. what is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. what is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so god must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. a poisonous wild desert fruit can never grow on an good orange tree. a perfect god who creates imperfect humans is impossible. the bible says that god is Omniscient meaning he knows all things, but the same bible shows or says that the omniscient god is surprised. how is that possible? how can a god that knows everything be suprised? a god who knows everything cannot have emotions. the bible says that god experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger,jealousy, sadness, and happiness. we humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. a man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger, suprise and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. in contrast, the omniscient god is ignorant of nothing. nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react. we humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. the perfect, omnipotent god, however, can fix anything. humans experience longing for things we lack. the perfect god lacks nothing. an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect god who experiences emotion is impossible.[/b]

completely irrelevant. . .

I concur with Toneyb that the highlighted is pure brilliance.   In fact, the entire post is just great.   Well done mazaje.

2tait:
@ I-fy

No vex. Take it easy.

Things are not exactly what they seem to be.
Mildred wrongly assumed that parking my car in front of the bar meant I was at the bar and indulging in alcohol consumption and other related vices contrary to the church's doctrine (?). This may not be true, in the sense that any other thing could have been the reason why my car was parked there.

Using her line of thought, I parked my car in front of her house to let her know that even though my car was parked in front of her house I was not in her house. This realisation made her understand that not all that glitters is gold. That things are not exactly what they seem to be- always. I did not debase myself, it was just my way of passing a message to a fellow church member. I can assure you, the method was effective. Mildred got the message.

I bet this is apocriphal, or did it really happen to you?

noetic:
This was ur lie: u said that I never said that I dont believe in Nflah-nflah, I said:
ur misrepresentation of my view was a lie.

How could that be a lie when you yourself said this:

noetic:
I neither belief or disbelief Nflah-nflah, cos i dont even know who/what it is.

but u dont believe in GOD, right?

I was simply paraphrasing you. How could that be a lie?

noetic:
when did u become a full time LIAR?

"I dont know" is different from "I dont believe".

I dont know and have never heard of Nflah-nflah, that explains why i dont discuss or open threads about him/it.

U know who Jehovah God is that explains why u discuss HIS works by opening threads and criticising the scriptures.
That also explains y u dont believe in HIM.
so to help clear the irrationality of ur beliefs, I ask: who is Jehovah GOD? what is HIS ontology?

You keep bearing false evidence against me and calling me a liar. Can you show evidence that I have lied?

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2: 8, that the "Rulers of this Age" or the "Princes of this World" crucified Jesus. But Who are they?

1 Corinthians 2: 8

Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known [it], they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Young's literal Translation

which no one of the rulers of this age did know, for if they had known, the Lord of the glory they would not have crucified;

So, according to Paul, Who crucified Jesus?



References:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R3liALvyss&annotation_id=annotation_861022&feature=iv

noetic:
I neither belief or disbelief Nflah-nflah, cos i dont even know who/what it is.

but u dont believe in GOD, right?

Just as you don't believe in Nflah-nflah because you do not know who/what Nflah-nflah is (ie you do not know or have his ontology), atheist don't believe in Yahweh because we do not know who/what Yahweh is.  If you give me an ontology that is plausible, maybe I might change my mind.

Pastor AIO:
I think that we are not taking into account that there are two regimes being referred to here.  One is the temporal and the other is the eternal.  It is a common mistake to look at eternal things and try to understand them with a temporal way of thinking, mainly because our brains evolved to deal with temporal reality. 

That is why we have questions like 'what precedes God'? or 'Who created God'?  There is no before or after when we talk about eternal things.  There is no time, so before and after do not come into play.  Language fails to deal with the eternal because Language is designed to articulate temporal things that's why in grammar we learn the different tenses, past tense, present tense, future tense. 

Slain at/from the foundation of the world does not refer to a point in time. Time is a part of creation.  We could also say slain at the foundation of Time. 

An event in eternity can have an avatar in time and it will not matter when it time it occurs, whether in the past, now, or in the future.  That event already exists eternally in Eternity but will exist for a short span of time in temporal reality whether this is in the past or in the present or in the yet to come. 
In fact it was a common philosophical and religious idea that temporal events are just copies of eternal events.  Plato was big on this, the idea that the physical world is but a likeness of the eternal world.  So events in the temporal are just pseudo-manifestation of events in the eternal.  Things are translated from Being to Becoming.  Eternally they exist always as Being, but temporally they Become for a short span and then Pass away again.  Literally THEY HAPPEN (in French ILS PASSent, in old english They come to PASS). 

The cruxifiction 2000 years ago was a temporal passing event, an avatar of an eternal event that IS prior to the foundation of TIME and CREATION. 
Hebrews 9

You have come back again with this eternal/temporal business without so much as defining or giving examples as to what they are. In fact, nothing in the above address the question I asked. And then you expect me to respond!

Another write-up of the saga follows:

Zacharias Tanee Fomum:
Born Again Prophet succumbs to 70-day prayer fast!

The committed and firing evangelist Fomum had a following of 10,000 born again Christians spread over 700 congregations across Cameroon. His activities took him abroad where he implanted his church in 60 countries. He died on Saturday completely exhausted by a 70-day prayer fast. He was also professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Yaounde 1

By Takang Bisong in Yaounde

The estimated 10,000 adherence of the Christian Missionary Fellowship International (CMFI) with headquarters in Obili Yaounde are mourning the passing of their leader Zacharias Tanee Fomum who died on Saturday. Fomum died at the Yaounde University Teaching Hospital (CHU) of exhaustion following a 70-day prayer fast.

He had collapsed in Bamenda the day before soon after he arrived there for an evangelical activity.

At the Yaounde headquarters at Obili where born again members met, Sunday, the mood was sad and solemn and the pastors were contemplating how the work will continue with the passing of their leader.

This reporter was told that Fomum said he was told spiritually to end the 80 day fast on the 70th day.

The fast was intended to combat Buddhism, Islamism and Communism which adherents said are the major cause of poverty in Cameroon.

Zacharias Fomum was a profoundly committed evangelist who claimed that he received a word to take the gospel to the furthest regions of Cameroon and to all countries of the world.

He founded the Christian Missionary Fellowship International in 1975. He created 700 congregations that presently attract 10,000 members in Cameroon.

He travelled abroad frequently where he established his church in about 60 countries of the world.

Fomum wrote more than 100 books and pamphlets on prayer, missions, leadership, Christian living and services.

Fomum rose to the rank of a prophet in his church and was called prophet Fomum. Besides his evangelical work, Fomum lectured Organic Chemistry at the University of Yaounde 1 where he rose to be professor.

He earned a doctorate in Organic Chemistry in Sierra Leone where, he said, he received his convention and calling to his spiritual task. He was born in 1945 and hailed from Momo division of the North West region of Cameroon.

As we went to press yesterday evening, we had information that he would be buried today.

Source: http://www.theheraldcameroon.com/


Taken at face value, is it true that the cause of the problems of Cameroon are Buddhism, communism and Islam?

Early Christians, particularly Paul who was the first to write a surviving work about Jesus and Christian belief,  believed that Jesus was the first to die and the first to be raised from the dead. His writings suggest as much. According to Paul, a flesh and blood Jesus never walked on earth, but died and ressurected in the spiritual realm in heaven. Almost all of Pauls writings about Jesus's visit to the earth talks in terms of a COMING and not a RETURN or NOT a second coming.  This is strongly indicative that Paul never believed in an earthly Jesus who would have lived only a couple of decades early.  Let's look at some of Pauls verses:

1 Corinthian 15: 20-23:

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.



Colossians 1: 18


18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.




Watch this video for more info.

noetic:
question: what are the beliefs of an atheists?

answer: That there is no GOD.

Who then is Jehovah GOD? what is HIS ontology?

I believe in Nflah-nflah? Why don't you?

It also cannot decide whether animals went into the ark's in pairs or in sevens.  Or whether the flood lasted  150 days or one year.

The bible also get pi woofully wrong. It says pi=3 when we know it is at least 3.14 . . . .