MEGA CHURCH PASTOR, FRIEND & PROMOTER
OF PAULA WHITE, BENNY HINN;
FROM "ONENESS PENTECOSTAL" TO WORD OF FAITH HERETIC
TO LGBT NEUTRALITY
T.D. JAKES COMES OUT FOR "GAY RIGHTS"
& "LGBT" AFFIRMING CHURCHES;
SAYS HIS POSITION IS "EVOLVING"
SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/t-d-jakes-comes-gay-rights-lgbt-churches-says-position-evolving/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
ChristianNews.net original source: http://christiannews.net/2015/08/07/t-d-jakes-comes-out-for-gay-marriage-and-lgbt-churches-says-position-is-evolving/
Megachurch leader and author T.D. Jakes says that homosexuals should attend congregations that affirm their lifestyle and that politics do not need to reflect biblical ethics, adding that his position on homosexuality is both “evolved and evolving.”
During an interview with the Huffington Post on Monday, Jakes was asked by a viewer if he believes that homosexuals and the black church can co-exist.
“Absolutely… I think it is going to be diverse from church to church. Every church has a different opinion on the issue and every gay person is different,” he replied. “And I think that to speak that the church—the black church, the white church or any kind of church you wanna call it—are all the same, is totally not true.”
Jakes said that he thinks homosexuals should find congregations that affirm their lifestyle.
“LGBT’s of different types and sorts have to find a place of worship that reflects what your views are and what you believe like anyone else,” he outlined.
“The church should have the right to have its own convictions and values; if you don’t like those convictions and values [and] you totally disagree with it, don’t try to change my house, move into your own … and find somebody who gets what you get about faith,” Jakes added.
He said that the issue of homosexuality is “complex.”
“Paul spends a lot of time wrestling back and forth, trying to understand should a woman wear a head covering, should you cut your hair,” Jakes stated. “I mean, they grappled back then and we’re grappling now because we’re humans and we are flawed and we’re not God.”
“Once you understand you’re not God, you leave yourself an ‘out’ clause to grow,” he said.
When asked if his position on homosexuality has “evolved,” Jakes agreed that it has.
“Evolved and evolving,” he replied. “I think that where I am is to better understand we, the church, bought into the myth that this is a Christian nation.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states must legalize same-sex “marriage,” igniting a battle between the Church and State over the issue. In his comments on Monday, Jakes advocated for the separation of Church and State, which would allow for “all types of people” to have whatever rights they desire despite biblical prohibitions. He said that politics don’t need to be based on Christianity.
“[O]nce you get past [thinking America is a Christian nation] … Once you begin to understand that democracy—that a republic actually—is designed to be an overarching system to protect our unique nuances, then we no longer look for public policy to reflect biblical ethics,” Jakes explained.
“If we can divide—or what you would call separation of Church and State—then we can dwell together more effectively because atheists, agnostics, Jews, all types of people, Muslims, pay into the government. The government then cannot reflect one particular view over another just because we’re the dominant group of religious people in [this] country because those numbers are changing every day,” he asserted. “We need a neutralized government that protects our right to disagree with one another and agree with one another.”
Jakes had visited the Huffington Post to discuss his new book on “destiny.” The interview focused on motivational subject matter in following one’s dreams and passions as opposed to the eternal destiny of the soul.
______________________________________________________________________
THE WORLD IS THE WORLD & THE CHURCH IS THE CHURCH?
NOT ALL THAT CONCERNED ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE?
LGBT COMMUNITY & THE CHURCH CAN CO-EXIST?
"EVOLVING" AWAY FROM AMERICA SEEN AS A CHRISTIAN NATION REQUIRES NO LONGER EXPECTING POLITICS
TO DEFEND BIBLICAL "ETHICS"?
HUFFINGTON POST INTERVIEW
KEN SILVA (DECEASED) HAS AN ARCHIVE OF ARTICLES THAT EXPOSES T.D. JAKES:
The Elephant Room
By David Cloud
http://www.wayoflife.org/index_files/elephant_room.html; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Apr/05/12 15:15
The Elephant Room is a dialogue forum invented in 2011 by emerging star Mark Driscoll, together with James MacDonald, Steven Furtick, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Greg Laurie, and Perry Noble. The stated objective is to discuss controversial doctrinal issues with “guests from all places and belief systems” with the goal of theological sharpening.
THE ELEPHANT ROOM AND HEGELIAN DIALECTICS
Digging a little further, we see that the real objective is ecumenism. Driscoll and friends say plainly that their “goal is unity” and that they are opposed to “crouching behind walls of disagreement.” Though they claim to “hold the essential tenets of the faith with a ferocious intensity,” in typical emerging style they contradict this by saying we should “not isolate ourselves from relationship even with those who believe much differently.” There is a Hegelian dialectic at work here. By having public “conversations” with people who “offend you or deny the faith as you see it,” walls are broken down and attitudes are changed.
At first we are shocked by theological error, but through dialogue with heretics the very concept of heresy becomes quaint. Through the Elephant Room we learn that “heretics” are likable people who “love Jesus” and merely have another way of looking at things. We are told that we all “see through a glass darkly,” so no one can claim a corner on the truth. Therefore, instead of separating and condemning, let’s relax and dialogue.
The apostle Paul was so old-fashioned and non-emerging when he persisted in pronouncing God’s curse on the Galatian heretics instead of inviting them to a dialogue. Apparently he just wasn’t clever enough. And he certainly wasn’t cool enough to build a big church in Seattle.
(See also “Hegelian Dialectics: The Devil’s Winning Tool” at the Way of Life web site. There is a search engine.)
Digging a little further, we see that the real objective is ecumenism. Driscoll and friends say plainly that their “goal is unity” and that they are opposed to “crouching behind walls of disagreement.” Though they claim to “hold the essential tenets of the faith with a ferocious intensity,” in typical emerging style they contradict this by saying we should “not isolate ourselves from relationship even with those who believe much differently.” There is a Hegelian dialectic at work here. By having public “conversations” with people who “offend you or deny the faith as you see it,” walls are broken down and attitudes are changed.
At first we are shocked by theological error, but through dialogue with heretics the very concept of heresy becomes quaint. Through the Elephant Room we learn that “heretics” are likable people who “love Jesus” and merely have another way of looking at things. We are told that we all “see through a glass darkly,” so no one can claim a corner on the truth. Therefore, instead of separating and condemning, let’s relax and dialogue.
The apostle Paul was so old-fashioned and non-emerging when he persisted in pronouncing God’s curse on the Galatian heretics instead of inviting them to a dialogue. Apparently he just wasn’t clever enough. And he certainly wasn’t cool enough to build a big church in Seattle.
(See also “Hegelian Dialectics: The Devil’s Winning Tool” at the Way of Life web site. There is a search engine.)
T.D. JAKES IN THE ELEPHANT ROOM
In the most recent Elephant Room conversation, which was held at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, in January 2011, Mark Driscoll and friends gave prosperity gospel preacher T.D. Jakes a forum to smokescreen his compromise pertaining to the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity.
Mr. Jakes, who is a master of facing two ways and for whom someone like Driscoll and MacDonald are pushovers, said on one hand that he has moved away from a Oneness, “Jesus Only” view to embrace the Trinity as “one God, three Persons.” But he hastened to say that he still “prefers” the term “manifestations,” believes that men on both sides of the issue are “saying the same thing,” and has fellowship with those on all sides. He issued no repentance that he admittedly preached Oneness heresy for years. In fact, he is still at least sympathetic to Oneness theology, still defends its unscriptural terminology (by the misuse of 1 Timothy 3:16, for example), still falsely claims that this doctrine is an issue of “seeing through a glass darkly” and thus no one has it right, and refuses to obey the Bible by separating from heretics. In fact, he’s not sure there are any heretics, and he’s far too busy promoting unity to worry much about them, even if they exist.
Far from challenging Jakes in a serious way, a pathetically fawning Driscoll and MacDonald treated the man like a religious rock star. They were so busy praising him as a man of “courage and humility” that they gave him a pass on the aforementioned contradictions and didn’t challenge his sloppy biblical exegesis. So much for boldly unveiling the “elephants.”
ELEPHANTS THAT ARE INVISIBLE IN THE ELEPHANT ROOM
In typical Emerging New Evangelical fashion, there are lots of elephants that will always be invisible in Driscoll’s Elephant Room.
Consider the elephant of biblical separatism. God’s Word clearly demands separation from false teaching and end-time apostasy and even from compromise by true brethren (e.g., Romans 16:17; 21 Corinthians 6:14-18; 2 Thessalonians 3:13-14; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 3:5; 2 John 10-11; Revelation 18:4), but Driscoll and friends ignore this injunction. Separatism is a foreign concept to them, as it interferes with their unity/friendship/kingdom building agenda.
Consider the elephant of “cultural liberalism,” which is espoused by Driscoll. He claims to be “theologically conservative and culturally liberal,” which is a contradiction of terms, but the emerging crowd has learned the fine art of holding contradictions in harmony.
Cultural liberalism means that Driscoll is free to drink deeply of the pop culture and to baptize huge elements of it in his church, such as Christianizing filthy rock & roll, imitating the world’s sensual fashions, traveling to Las Vegas to attend Extreme Fighting championships, having champagne dance parties, hosting a secular rock theater, and writing X-rated sex books.
These and many other elephants won’t be discussed in the Elephant Room for the simple fact that it is not possible to see an elephant when you have been flattened by it.
PASTOR LOSES SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT FOR DISAGREEING WITH ELEPHANT ROOM
The movers and shakers of the Elephant Room claim that it is all about promoting dialogue, but the treatment of a pastor in their own circles who protested Jakes’ appearance proves that it is all about ecumenical unity. In an ecumenical atmosphere, you aren’t allowed to “judge” or “criticize.” You can hold private opinions but you must not express them in a disruptive way, and if you do you are marked as a troublemaker.
Pastor Voddie Baucham of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, learned this recently. To his credit this he spoke out against Jake’s appearance in no uncertain terms and refused an invitation to participate in the Elephant Room conversation.
In fact, this Southern Baptist pastor was bolder in his stand for truth, at least in this particular context, than a lot of milk toast Independent Baptists preachers who are keeping quiet in the face of the greatest spiritual war that has ever faced them. In his blog, Baucham rightly identified Jakes’ “masterful dodge” on questions pertaining to the Trinity, but he went further and warned of Jakes’ Word-Faith heresy which was another elephant that was totally ignored in the Elephant Room. Baucham wrote:
“Having studied the ‘Word of Faith’ movement, and seen the devastation it leaves in its wake, I was disinclined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the man who has been this country’s most popular purveyor of this heresy in the past two decades. ... [Jakes] has brought a charismatic, theatrical, excessive, ‘Word of Faith’ flavor to the city [Dallas] that permeates many churches (especially black churches)” (“Texas Pastor Reveals Rift,” Christian Post, Jan. 30, 2012).
Elephant Room leader James MacDonald took offense at this outspoken criticism of his dialogue partner Jakes, even though Baucham was speaking the truth, and when Baucham arrived at MacDonald’s church for a previously scheduled preaching engagement at a men’s conference, he was informed that he had been cancelled. “MacDonald had already selected Baucham’s replacement as a speaker, and Baucham and his assistant were escorted to a waiting car and taken back to the airport” (Christian Post, Jan. 30, 2012).
I have been treated the same way by some Independent Baptists who have gotten too big for their britches and who mistake godly reproof for cheap gossip and who can’t countenance the truth.
(We deal extensively with the Word-Faith heresy in the illustrated book The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements, which is available in print and eBook editions from Way of Life Literature -- www.wayoflife.org.)
SEEING THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
At the January 2012 Elephant Room dialogue, T.D. Jakes claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity is a matter of “seeing through a glass darkly,” and the men who conducted the dialogue agreed with him. Jakes said, “We are both attempting to describe a God we love, that we serve, and that we have not seen. And that we are viewing Him through the context of the Scriptures, but that with a glass darkly. Why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when all that I know and understand, be it very orthodox, is still through a glass darkly?”
Jakes was referring to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Jakes is abusing this Scripture by applying it to Bible doctrine. Paul was talking about the fact that we don’t have full knowledge of everything we would like to know. He was most definitely NOT referring to Bible doctrine, which is bright light rather than dark glass. The things God has revealed, we can know for sure and we can understand by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Deut. 29:29). It is only the things that God has not revealed that we cannot yet know.
Jakes’ reference to “hate” is typical ecumenical-speak. In the ecumenist’s mind, to earnestly defend the faith and reprove heretics is “hate,” but if this is hate, then the apostle Paul and the apostle John and the apostle Peter and Jude and all of the prophets of old were great haters!
Jakes said further, “I think it’s so important that we realize that our God is beyond our intellect. And if you can define Him and completely describe Him and say you are the end-all definition of who God is, then He ceases to be God.”
No one is saying that we can define God completely. That is a ridiculous straw man. The real issue is that God has revealed certain things about Himself in Scripture, and the question is whether we are going to believe what He has revealed and take a stand for it, or not.
Paul told Timothy that men can rightly divide the Word of God and that we will be held accountable before God for doing so (2 Timothy 2:15).
Jakes further said, “Because the reason Paul says it is a mystery, is that we deify the fact that God does things that don’t fit our formulas.”
Here Jakes grossly misdefines the New Testament term “mystery” and none of the Elephant Room theologians called him on it. Paul plainly and consistently defined “mystery” as a doctrine that was hidden in Old Testament times but is now revealed. “... the mystery ... which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:3-5). See also Romans 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 2:7-10; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26.
The Elephant Room outfit is the blind leading the blind; they can’t even see the elephants!
_____________________________________________________________
T.D. JAKES, ONE OF AMERICA’S PREACHER POLITICIANS (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2015,www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The very popular T.D. Jakes is considered a great preacher, but in reality he is a a great politician. When questioned on his position on the Trinity, he fudges and faces two ways. (See “The Elephant Room,” April 5, 2012, www.wayoflife.org.) When questioned about his position on homosexuality by a liberal secular newspaper, he fudges again. In a recent interview with the Huntington Post, he not only fudged about the issue of homosexuality, he also questioned the divine inspiration of Paul’s epistles, which is a fundamental error. Instead of plainly stating what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, Jakes described his views as “evolved and evolving.” To justify evolution in doctrinal and moral thinking, he used the example of the apostle Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11, saying, “Paul spends a lot of time wrestling back and forth, trying to understand should a woman wear a head covering, should you cut your hair. I mean, they grappled back then and we’re grappling now because we’re humans and we are flawed and we’re not God” (“T.D. Jakes Comes Out for ‘Gay Rights’ and ‘LGBT Churches,’” Christian News Network, Aug. 7, 2015). This is a frightful and terrible error on the part of a supposed Bible-believing pastor. Paul was not “grappling” with anything that he wrote in 1 Corinthians 11. He was writing under divine inspiration, which is why he prefaced the chapter by commending the church for keeping his teaching (1 Cor. 11:1-2). Yes, the preacher is human and not God, but the preacher has the infallible Word of God in the canon of Scripture, and he has the Spirit of God as his Interpreter, and he is solemnly commissioned to preach God’s Word without question and compromise, in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:1-2). God has spoken on the issue of homosexuality. There is no more for a preacher to say than what God has already said. America’s preachers are her fundamental problem. America doesn’t fear God today because America’s preachers don’t preach the fear of God. Like T.D. Jakes, they are too busy building megachurches by preaching smooth things (e.g., motivational psychology). “Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. ... But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings” (Jeremiah 23:15, 22).
In the most recent Elephant Room conversation, which was held at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, in January 2011, Mark Driscoll and friends gave prosperity gospel preacher T.D. Jakes a forum to smokescreen his compromise pertaining to the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity.
Mr. Jakes, who is a master of facing two ways and for whom someone like Driscoll and MacDonald are pushovers, said on one hand that he has moved away from a Oneness, “Jesus Only” view to embrace the Trinity as “one God, three Persons.” But he hastened to say that he still “prefers” the term “manifestations,” believes that men on both sides of the issue are “saying the same thing,” and has fellowship with those on all sides. He issued no repentance that he admittedly preached Oneness heresy for years. In fact, he is still at least sympathetic to Oneness theology, still defends its unscriptural terminology (by the misuse of 1 Timothy 3:16, for example), still falsely claims that this doctrine is an issue of “seeing through a glass darkly” and thus no one has it right, and refuses to obey the Bible by separating from heretics. In fact, he’s not sure there are any heretics, and he’s far too busy promoting unity to worry much about them, even if they exist.
Far from challenging Jakes in a serious way, a pathetically fawning Driscoll and MacDonald treated the man like a religious rock star. They were so busy praising him as a man of “courage and humility” that they gave him a pass on the aforementioned contradictions and didn’t challenge his sloppy biblical exegesis. So much for boldly unveiling the “elephants.”
ELEPHANTS THAT ARE INVISIBLE IN THE ELEPHANT ROOM
In typical Emerging New Evangelical fashion, there are lots of elephants that will always be invisible in Driscoll’s Elephant Room.
Consider the elephant of biblical separatism. God’s Word clearly demands separation from false teaching and end-time apostasy and even from compromise by true brethren (e.g., Romans 16:17; 21 Corinthians 6:14-18; 2 Thessalonians 3:13-14; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 3:5; 2 John 10-11; Revelation 18:4), but Driscoll and friends ignore this injunction. Separatism is a foreign concept to them, as it interferes with their unity/friendship/kingdom building agenda.
Consider the elephant of “cultural liberalism,” which is espoused by Driscoll. He claims to be “theologically conservative and culturally liberal,” which is a contradiction of terms, but the emerging crowd has learned the fine art of holding contradictions in harmony.
Cultural liberalism means that Driscoll is free to drink deeply of the pop culture and to baptize huge elements of it in his church, such as Christianizing filthy rock & roll, imitating the world’s sensual fashions, traveling to Las Vegas to attend Extreme Fighting championships, having champagne dance parties, hosting a secular rock theater, and writing X-rated sex books.
These and many other elephants won’t be discussed in the Elephant Room for the simple fact that it is not possible to see an elephant when you have been flattened by it.
PASTOR LOSES SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT FOR DISAGREEING WITH ELEPHANT ROOM
The movers and shakers of the Elephant Room claim that it is all about promoting dialogue, but the treatment of a pastor in their own circles who protested Jakes’ appearance proves that it is all about ecumenical unity. In an ecumenical atmosphere, you aren’t allowed to “judge” or “criticize.” You can hold private opinions but you must not express them in a disruptive way, and if you do you are marked as a troublemaker.
Pastor Voddie Baucham of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, learned this recently. To his credit this he spoke out against Jake’s appearance in no uncertain terms and refused an invitation to participate in the Elephant Room conversation.
In fact, this Southern Baptist pastor was bolder in his stand for truth, at least in this particular context, than a lot of milk toast Independent Baptists preachers who are keeping quiet in the face of the greatest spiritual war that has ever faced them. In his blog, Baucham rightly identified Jakes’ “masterful dodge” on questions pertaining to the Trinity, but he went further and warned of Jakes’ Word-Faith heresy which was another elephant that was totally ignored in the Elephant Room. Baucham wrote:
“Having studied the ‘Word of Faith’ movement, and seen the devastation it leaves in its wake, I was disinclined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the man who has been this country’s most popular purveyor of this heresy in the past two decades. ... [Jakes] has brought a charismatic, theatrical, excessive, ‘Word of Faith’ flavor to the city [Dallas] that permeates many churches (especially black churches)” (“Texas Pastor Reveals Rift,” Christian Post, Jan. 30, 2012).
Elephant Room leader James MacDonald took offense at this outspoken criticism of his dialogue partner Jakes, even though Baucham was speaking the truth, and when Baucham arrived at MacDonald’s church for a previously scheduled preaching engagement at a men’s conference, he was informed that he had been cancelled. “MacDonald had already selected Baucham’s replacement as a speaker, and Baucham and his assistant were escorted to a waiting car and taken back to the airport” (Christian Post, Jan. 30, 2012).
I have been treated the same way by some Independent Baptists who have gotten too big for their britches and who mistake godly reproof for cheap gossip and who can’t countenance the truth.
(We deal extensively with the Word-Faith heresy in the illustrated book The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements, which is available in print and eBook editions from Way of Life Literature -- www.wayoflife.org.)
SEEING THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
At the January 2012 Elephant Room dialogue, T.D. Jakes claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity is a matter of “seeing through a glass darkly,” and the men who conducted the dialogue agreed with him. Jakes said, “We are both attempting to describe a God we love, that we serve, and that we have not seen. And that we are viewing Him through the context of the Scriptures, but that with a glass darkly. Why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when all that I know and understand, be it very orthodox, is still through a glass darkly?”
Jakes was referring to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Jakes is abusing this Scripture by applying it to Bible doctrine. Paul was talking about the fact that we don’t have full knowledge of everything we would like to know. He was most definitely NOT referring to Bible doctrine, which is bright light rather than dark glass. The things God has revealed, we can know for sure and we can understand by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Deut. 29:29). It is only the things that God has not revealed that we cannot yet know.
Jakes’ reference to “hate” is typical ecumenical-speak. In the ecumenist’s mind, to earnestly defend the faith and reprove heretics is “hate,” but if this is hate, then the apostle Paul and the apostle John and the apostle Peter and Jude and all of the prophets of old were great haters!
Jakes said further, “I think it’s so important that we realize that our God is beyond our intellect. And if you can define Him and completely describe Him and say you are the end-all definition of who God is, then He ceases to be God.”
No one is saying that we can define God completely. That is a ridiculous straw man. The real issue is that God has revealed certain things about Himself in Scripture, and the question is whether we are going to believe what He has revealed and take a stand for it, or not.
Paul told Timothy that men can rightly divide the Word of God and that we will be held accountable before God for doing so (2 Timothy 2:15).
Jakes further said, “Because the reason Paul says it is a mystery, is that we deify the fact that God does things that don’t fit our formulas.”
Here Jakes grossly misdefines the New Testament term “mystery” and none of the Elephant Room theologians called him on it. Paul plainly and consistently defined “mystery” as a doctrine that was hidden in Old Testament times but is now revealed. “... the mystery ... which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:3-5). See also Romans 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 2:7-10; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26.
The Elephant Room outfit is the blind leading the blind; they can’t even see the elephants!
_____________________________________________________________
T.D. JAKES, ONE OF AMERICA’S PREACHER POLITICIANS (Friday Church News Notes, August 14, 2015,www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The very popular T.D. Jakes is considered a great preacher, but in reality he is a a great politician. When questioned on his position on the Trinity, he fudges and faces two ways. (See “The Elephant Room,” April 5, 2012, www.wayoflife.org.) When questioned about his position on homosexuality by a liberal secular newspaper, he fudges again. In a recent interview with the Huntington Post, he not only fudged about the issue of homosexuality, he also questioned the divine inspiration of Paul’s epistles, which is a fundamental error. Instead of plainly stating what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, Jakes described his views as “evolved and evolving.” To justify evolution in doctrinal and moral thinking, he used the example of the apostle Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11, saying, “Paul spends a lot of time wrestling back and forth, trying to understand should a woman wear a head covering, should you cut your hair. I mean, they grappled back then and we’re grappling now because we’re humans and we are flawed and we’re not God” (“T.D. Jakes Comes Out for ‘Gay Rights’ and ‘LGBT Churches,’” Christian News Network, Aug. 7, 2015). This is a frightful and terrible error on the part of a supposed Bible-believing pastor. Paul was not “grappling” with anything that he wrote in 1 Corinthians 11. He was writing under divine inspiration, which is why he prefaced the chapter by commending the church for keeping his teaching (1 Cor. 11:1-2). Yes, the preacher is human and not God, but the preacher has the infallible Word of God in the canon of Scripture, and he has the Spirit of God as his Interpreter, and he is solemnly commissioned to preach God’s Word without question and compromise, in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:1-2). God has spoken on the issue of homosexuality. There is no more for a preacher to say than what God has already said. America’s preachers are her fundamental problem. America doesn’t fear God today because America’s preachers don’t preach the fear of God. Like T.D. Jakes, they are too busy building megachurches by preaching smooth things (e.g., motivational psychology). “Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land. ... But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings” (Jeremiah 23:15, 22).
