MICHIGAN: PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FULL SPEECH
AT THE AMERICAN CENTER FOR MOBILITY
Published on Mar 15, 2017
Making The Auto Industry Great Again. Wednesday, March 15, 2017
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY GROUP PUSHES BACK AGAINST EFFORTS TO STOP CEREMONIAL PRAYERS AT AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY GROUP PUSHES BACK AGAINST EFFORTS TO STOP CEREMONIAL PRAYERS
AT AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE
BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — A Texas-based religious liberties
legal group is pushing back against an atheist activist organization’s
efforts to put an end to prayers and Bible readings that are presented
by a chaplain during ceremonies at a Air National Guard base in New
Hampshire.
The First Liberty Institute sent a letter
on Tuesday to Col. James Ryan, the commanding officer at Pease Air
National Guard Base, to advise that it believes the Freedom From
Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) assertions about the prayers are
fallacious.“The FFRF’s position and legal argument are incorrect. Federal law, military regulations, and court precedents belie the FFRF’s specious claims. Uniformed chaplains are clearly permitted, indeed protected, when they offer invocations at military functions,” senior counsel Mike Berry wrote.
He pointed to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the National Defense Authorization Act, as well as the Department of Defense (DoD) instruction entitled “Accommodation of Religious Practices Within the Military Services.” Berry said that under these rules, “the DoD must accommodate individual expressions of religious belief, which undoubtedly include a military chaplain’s invocation.”
First Liberty also noted the 1997 federal court ruling in Rigdon v. Perry, which upheld the rights of two chaplains who desired to preach in favor of banning partial-birth abortion.
“Thus, when military chaplains engage in religious conduct, their conduct is protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution,” he said, concluding that the U.S. Constitution, federal law and DoD regulations alike all permit chaplain-led prayer at military events.
“Moreover, those legal authorities actually forbid military commanders from censoring or prohibiting such invocations,” Berry contended.
As previously reported, last month, FFRF sent a letter to base leadership to assert that the inclusion of the chaplain-led invocations and Scripture readings at official Air National Guard ceremonies is unconstitutional. It said that it had been contacted by a concerned guardsman, who informed them of the chaplain’s offerings.
“Christian prayers delivered at an official military event violate the Constitution’s mandate of government neutrality between religious beliefs,” FFRF contended. “Any prayer—including non-denominational prayer—violates the required neutrality between religion and nonreligion.”
“By imposing prayer on its guardsmen at mandatory events, the Air National Guard is violating the constitutional limits on government religious endorsement,” it said.
The organization also opined that the inclusion of the prayers is “unnecessary and divisive,” as well as “coercive” and “insensitive.” FFRF said that the invocations exclude those who don’t identify as atheists, and noted that military members are “free to pray privately or to worship on their own time.”
“The Air National Guard must refrain from lending its power and prestige to religion, amounting to a government endorsement that excludes the over 23% of military personnel who either express no religious preference or are atheists,” it said. “It is also simply insensitive for a government employer to inflict prayer on employees regardless of their personal beliefs.”
FFRF requested that it be assured in writing that the invocations would be discontinued at future events to “protect the rights of conscience” of guardsmen, such as those who do not share in the religious beliefs of the presenting chaplain.
The base has not yet released a statement or decision about the matter.
As previously reported, in 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee said to his troops, “Soldiers! We have sinned against Almighty God. We have forgotten His signal mercies, and have cultivated a revengeful, haughty and boastful spirit. We have not remembered that the defenders of a just cause should be pure in His eyes; that ‘our times are in His hands,’ and we have relied too much on our own arms for the achievement of our independence.”
“God is our only refuge and our strength. Let us humble ourselves before Him,” he declared. “Let us confess our many sins, and beseech Him to give us a higher courage, a purer patriotism, and more determined will; that He will hasten the time when war, with its sorrows and sufferings, shall cease, and that He will give us a name and place among the nations of the earth.”
NEW YORK STATE TO END LITERACY TEST FOR ASPIRING EDUCATORS, CLAIMING IT HURTS DIVERSITY
SOCIALIST-GLOBALISTS GUARANTEE THE DUMBING DOWN OF THE ENTIRE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
LITERACY OF TEACHERS IS NOW RACIST
NEW YORK STATE TO END LITERACY TEST
FOR ASPIRING EDUCATORS,
CLAIMING IT HURTS DIVERSITY
BY RAVEN CLABOUGH
SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/25582-new-york-state-to-end-literacy-test-for-aspiring-educators-claiming-it-hurts-diversity;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Officials at the New York State Board of Regents believe it is more
important to be politically correct than to ensure that the individuals
educating New York’s students have a mastery of the English language.
Associated Press reports that the Board of Regents plans to scrap a
literacy test for potential teachers today because too many non-whites
are failing the test. Critics claim the test is making it difficult to
achieve diversity within the teaching profession.The test in question is the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), which “measures whether a prospective teacher can understand and analyze reading material and also write competently,” according to the New York Post.
The ALST was introduced in the 2013-2014 school year, along with three other assessments, ostensibly to raise the quality of teachers in New York by assessing reading and writing skills and testing an individual’s ability to master the Common Core standards for English. New York State Deputy Commissioner of Education Ken Wagner defended the test as one that would help to “ensure that each newly certified teacher entered the classroom with certain minimum knowledge, skills and abilities.”
Improving the quality of teachers is of prime importance to the education reform movement, according to AP. A December 2016 study by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that 44 percent of teaching programs accepted students from the bottom half of their high school classes.
The ALST is comparable to a 12th grade-level assessment, states the executive director of the New York office of the Education Trust Ian Rosenblum, and is comprised of multiple choice questions based on reading passages such as President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address.
When the test was first rolled out, the statewide pass rate was 68 percent, prompting State Education Commissioner John King to announce that New York’s teacher-prep programs needed to improve or be closed.
“It’s better to have fewer programs that better prepare teachers than having many schools that have teachers who are unprepared for the classroom,” King said.
But focus has been redirected from failing teacher-prep programs to the test itself. Critics claim it hurts diversity because too many non-white individuals are failing it. AP reports that just 46 percent of Hispanic test-takers and 41 percent of black test-takers passed the test at first try, compared to 64 percent of white test-takers.
In 2015, individuals who had failed the ALST challenged the test in court with claims that it is discriminatory, but a federal judge determined that the test was not racially discriminatory.
Judge Kimba M. Wood, a failed Bill Clinton nominee for U.S. attorney general, ruled that just because racial minorities scored lower on the test did not mean it was discriminatory. Wood determined that the test accurately evaluates the skills necessary to teach successfully and therefore has a place in determining which individuals should be permitted to teach.
Judge Wood ruled that the state and Pearson, the testing company that helped devise the exam, had adequately ensured that the “content of the ALST is representative of the content of a New York State public-school teacher’s job.”
At the time, New York State Education Department spokesman David Tompkins celebrated Wood’s ruling in favor of the test.
“Our students need and deserve the best qualified teachers possible, and the ALST helps make sure they get those teachers,” Tompkins said, according to the Times.
Despite this ruling, however, members on the Board of Regents assert that the test is hurting its agenda of achieving a diverse workforce of school teachers. Professor of Education at Pace University Leslie Soodak, who served on the task force behind the recommendation to eliminate the ALST, said, “Having a white workforce really doesn’t match our student body anymore.”
Soodak contends that the test is not necessary to make sure that teachers are meeting high standards.
“We want high standards, without a doubt. Not every given test is going to get us there.”
Soodak and other critics claim that basic literacy tests only measure a person’s ability to write and speak, which may not be as important as other aspects.
Alfred S. Posamentier, former education dean at Mercy College, told the Times that the test is not an indicator of who would be a good teacher because it measures “how eloquent a person is in the English language.”
“The question is, is that one of the criterion for determining who will be a good teacher?” Posamentier adds, “My sense is that the answer is no.”
Supporters of the ALST understand, however, that eliminating the test could open the doors to having weaker teachers in the classroom.
According to Kate Walsh, the president of National Council on Teacher Quality, minorities tend to score lower on these exams as a result of other factors, such as poverty and the "legacy of racism," but that should not warrant the exam’s eradication. “There’s not a test in the country that doesn’t have disproportionate performance on the part of blacks and Latinos,” she said, but removing it as a prerequisite for teachers would be “a crying shame.”
This is not the first time critics have claimed that expectations of reading and writing in proper grammatical English is discriminatory, unfortunately.
An anti-racist poster at the writing center at the University of English claims that American grammar is inherently “racist.” The poster contends that students should not be penalized for using slang or poor grammar in speech or in writing assignments.
According to the poster, “there is no inherent ‘standard’ of English” and that “language is constantly changing.” As a result, there is no real justification for “placing people in hierarchies or restricting opportunities and privileges because of the way people communicate in particular versions of English.”
The irony of this, of course, is that the poster’s message is racist in that it presumes that minority students are incapable of speaking and writing in proper English and require the protection of academia to safeguard them from such unfair expectations. But what happens to these students when they are out in the so-called real world away from the “safe spaces” of college campuses and need to construct a well-written cover letter and professional resume?
Apparently, they can go teach in New York State, where literacy will no longer be a requirement for teachers.
_________________________________________________________
REPORT: NEW YORK TO DITCH LITERACY TESTS FOR TEACHERS BECAUSE MINORITIES KEEP FAILING
New York Eliminates Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) for Teachers
Published on Mar 13, 2017
The Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) is being removed in the state of New York because too many “minorities” are failing the exam. So apparently examining the literacy qualifications of our teachers and having high standards of them is now racist.
MYSTIC HERETIC BRIAN ZAHND'S BOOK "WATER TO WINE"~HIS "CONFESSION & APOLOGY" TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY
MYSTIC HERETIC BRIAN ZAHND'S BOOK
"WATER TO WINE"
Letter to the Editor: Former Pastor and Popular Author, Brian Zahnd, Becomes a Mystic
I read the story behind Lighthouse Trails a couple of times, and it hit me that we are going to reach only a fraction of evangelical believers because the movement has progressed so much farther into Contemplative Spirituality (CS) than I had realized. I became aware of CS five years ago, so when I read that Ray Yungen wrote his book (which I am re-reading currently) in 2002, it occurred to me that the battle is nearly won by the forces of evil. Out of all the people I have tried to reach, only two have been receptive to my warning. Of course, your ministry can reach many more than any one individual. Jesus told us we would see this apostasy in the end.
I
sent the link for your story of LHT to a friend, who said she had the
very same reaction I had—that is, CS has infiltrated the Church more
than she realized and that she felt it is too late. Neither she nor I
will give up on trying to warn believers—if only a few have their eyes
opened, we will have done what Jesus commands.If you were to read his blog and his Twitter account, you’d see just how far he has gone into apostasy. https://twitter.com/BrianZahnd
He has said he is a friend of Eugene Peterson. He quotes Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and many other CS authors and “theologians” on Twitter. One tweet said: “The future of Christianity belongs to the Thomas Merton kind of Christian, not the heirs of Jerry Falwell.”
Recently he had a reply to one of his tweets from Ann Coulter, so he is not an unknown.
He has jettisoned the OT (though he says not, but then he says he’s not Emergent) and is against substitutionary atonement.
I sent my current pastor your booklet on Brennan Manning and got no response. So I guess I’ll be looking for a new church again.
May God bless you in your vital work.
Ruth
Lighthouse Trails Comments: As Ruth has perceived, Brian Zahnd is a mystic. If you asked him if he was, he would proudly tell you yes. He’s not ashamed of it. His book Water to Wine tells of his mystical experiences and the outcome of those experiences. It’s in that book that Zahnd made the Merton/Falwell quote. Here is a little more of that quote:
The way forward is far less political and far more mystical. A generation ago the great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner famously predicted, “The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’, one who has ‘experienced’ something, or he will cease to be anything at all.” The future of Christianity belongs to the Thomas Merton kind of Christian, not the heirs of Jerry Falwell. This should be seen as a welcome change. It is only our false hopes that are being disappointed in the death of Christendom. (Zahnd, Brian. Water To Wine: Some of My Story (Kindle Locations 1606-1610). Spello Press. Kindle Edition)
Photo: Brian Zahnd
Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love. (Zahnd, Brian. Water To Wine: Some of My Story (Kindle Locations 1897-1900). Spello Press. Kindle Edition, emphasis added)As Ray Yungen often pointed out, the “fruit” of contemplative prayer (which Zahnd refers to over 40 times in the book) is interspirituality (all paths lead to God) and panentheism (God in all). Zahnd explains in his book that when he moved from the moral (doctrine) to the mystical, he became interspiritual:
When I was converted from sectarian to eclectic [mystical], I obtained a passport that allowed me to travel freely throughout the whole body of Christ. In my theological travels I have discovered a Christianity that has both historical depth and ecumenical width. Now I can’t imagine not being able to access all the great contributors to contemporary Christian thought. Orthodox thinkers like Kallistos Ware and David Bentley Hart. Catholic thinkers like Richard Rohr and William Cavanaugh. Anglican thinkers like Rowen Williams and N.T. Wright. Mainline thinkers like Walter Brueggemann and Eugene Peterson. Without them my Christianity would be horribly impoverished. (Zahnd, Brian. Water To Wine: Some of My Story (Kindle Locations 459-463). Spello Press. Kindle Edition)Water to Wine is filled with interspiritual statements like the one above. Using words such as “tribalism,” he says we must get rid of this notion that traditional (biblical) Christianity is more true or right than other religious traditions. Just prior to the statement above, Zahnd quoted Thomas Merton saying:
If I can unite in myself the thought and the devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russian with the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians… If we want to bring together what is divided, we cannot do so by imposing one division [doctrine] upon the other. If we do this, the union is not Christian. It is political and doomed to further conflict. We must contain all the divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ. (Kindle Locations 454-459, quoting Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Colorado Springs, CO: Image Books, 1968, 14).You may recall when Thomas Merton spoke via letter with a Sufi master (an Islamic mystic) and told him that doctrinal differences needed to be laid aside, and we must turn to esoteric experiences as a common ground for unity and fellowship between all . He actually used the Cross as an example of one of those doctrines that had to be laid aside. (Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Editors, Merton and Sufism, Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999, p. 109)
While Zahnd’s book is filled with examples of his “new life” as a mystic, we’d like to bring out just one more point about Zahnd because it reveals some insight that affects a huge percentage of today’s Christian culture, and it is the person who initially pointed the way for Zahnd to become a mystic. You will know the name. Most likely, your own pastor has read at least one of his books. Read what Zahnd has to say:
On a summer afternoon I was at home browsing my bookshelves. I was deliberately looking for a book that would “give me a breakthrough.” I couldn’t settle on anything. So I prayed, “God, show me what to read.” And I sensed…nothing. I went downstairs feeling a bit agitated and slumped into a chair. Within a minute or two my wife, Peri, walked into the room, handed me a book and said, “I think you should read this.” She knew nothing of my moments ago prayer, but she had just handed me a book, and told me to read it. This was my Augustine-like “take and read” moment. It sent chills down my spine. Somehow I knew it was the answer to my prayer. The book was Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. The strange thing was Peri had not read this book and had no more idea who Dallas Willard was than I did. (As I said, I was embarrassingly ignorant of the good stuff.) Neither of us were sure how the book had even made its way into our house. But, oh my, was it ever an answer to prayer! The next day I was flying somewhere and I took out the book providentially given to me by an angel. I began to read. And my life changed forever. Hyperbole? No. Stone cold fact. Reading Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy was like having a door kicked open in my mind. It opened my eyes to the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is, well, everything! In his foreword to The Divine Conspiracy, Richard Foster writes: “The Divine Conspiracy is the book I have been searching for all my life. Like Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, it is a masterpiece and a wonder… I would place The Divine Conspiracy in rare company indeed: along-side the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Wesley, John Calvin and Martin Luther, Teresa of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen, and perhaps even Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. If the parousia tarries, this is a book for the next millennium.” That’s exactly what I needed! Augustine and Aquinas for the twenty-first century! Dallas Willard was my gateway to the good stuff. Directly or indirectly reading Willard led me to others: N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Eugene Peterson, Frederick Buechner, Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, RenĂ© Girard, Miroslav Volf, Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, David Bentley Hart, Wendell Berry, Scot McKnight, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and so many more. (Kindle Locations 116-133)Sadly, the spirituality that Brian Zahnd found in those authors cannot save souls and does not point to the Cross of redemption through Jesus Christ. Like so many mystics before him, Zahnd has discarded the idea that Christianity is dualistic in that it is separate from all other belief systems (and that there is a right and wrong, true and false, good and bad, etc), and the doctrines that the mystics so readily dismiss are the very framework of our Christian faith. Within those rejected doctrines is the doctrine of the Cross that says man is not divine and he desperately needs a Savior who is just one Person, Jesus Christ who died a violent death on behalf of mankind. He took our place. To reject dualism (two sides) is to reject the Cross. The contemplative emergent Episcopal bishope Alan Jones illustrated this in his book Reimagining Christianity. In Roger Oakland’s book, Faith Undone, Oakland states:
[Alan] Jones carries through with this idea that God never intended Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross to be considered a payment for our sins:Jones calls the doctrine of the Cross a “vile doctrine,” similar to Brian McLaren who said the doctrine of the Cross and Hell are “false advertising” for God.* Brennan Manning did the same thing when he said that the God who exacted the last drop of his blood to appease His anger for our sins does not exist. (Above All, Manning, p. 58) Brian Zahnd says it this way:
“The Church’s fixation on the death of Jesus as the universal saving act must end, and the place of the cross must be reimagined in Christian faith. Why? Because of the cult of suffering and the vindictive God behind it.”
“The other thread of just criticism addresses the suggestion implicit in the cross that Jesus’ sacrifice was to appease an angry God. Penal substitution [the Cross] was the name of this vile doctrine.” (Faith Undone, Lighthouse Trails, 2007, p. 193, quoting Alan Jones, Reimagining Christianity, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 200, pp. 132, 168)
Over time I began to see the cross in a much deeper way—not as a mere factor in an atonement theory equation, but as the moment in time and space where God reclaimed creation. I saw the cross as the place where Jesus refounded the world. Instead of being organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, at the cross the world was refounded around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. (Water To Wine, Kindle Locations 305-308, emphasis added)It’s a perfect ploy of Satan to get people to stop believing in that atonement. Remember, our adversary hates the atonement. And once a person begins down that road of mystical experiences, entering esoteric realms (really demonic realms), Satan will even allow that mystic to think he has become a fully evolved enlightened person who loves everyone and everything. All the while that person, who is being seduced by familiar spirits, is moving further and further away from the only path God has provided for salvation. And he will share this “mystical revolution” with as many people as he can. This is what happened with all the “great” mystics, and tragically, it appears to have happened to Brian Zahnd and who knows how many other evangelical pastors.
Extra Footnotes:
* Interview by Leif Hansen (The Bleeding Purple Podcast) with Brian McLaren, January 8th, 2006); Part 1: http://bleeding purple podcast .blog spot.com/2006/01/brian-mclaren-interview-part-i.html; Part II: http://bleeding purple pod cast. blog spot.com/2006/01/interview-with-brian-mclaren-part-ii.html).
______________________________________________________
ZAHND'S "APOLOGY" TO THE GAY COMMUNITY
FOR ITS "TREATMENT" BY THE CHURCH
ZAHND AND OTHER MYSTIC HERETICS
CONFESS THEIR
"SIN OF SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION"
TO THE LGBT COMMUNITY:
Published on Jan 22, 2017
Greg
Boyd, Brian McLaren, Bruxy Cavey and Brian Zahnd confess the sin of
sexual discrimination in the Church in North America's past and present.
MYSTIC HERETIC "SHACK" AUTHOR PAUL YOUNG STATES: "CHRIST IS 'IN' EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING", IN JUST RELEASED NEW BOOK
"SHACK" AUTHOR PAUL YOUNG STATES:
"CHRIST IS 'IN' EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING",
IN JUST RELEASED NEW BOOK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
By Warren B. SmithFor the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, Having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
YOUNG PUBLICLY ENDORSES UNIVERSAL SALVATION
In his just-released book (March 7th), Lies We Believe About God, best-selling author Paul Young openly describes himself as a universalist. In chapter 13, Young would have us believe it is a “lie” to tell someone, “You need to get saved.”1 Young asks himself the rhetorical questions, “Are you suggesting that everyone is saved? That you believe in universal salvation?”2 He answers, “That is exactly what I am saying!”3 Young then goes on to teach that “every single human being is in Christ” and that “Christ is in them.”4 With this unbiblical teaching, one recalls how Young put these same heretical words in the mouth of his “Jesus” character in The Shack. He wrote:
God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things.5THE TRINITARIAN LIE
Young would have us believe his trinitarian lie that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit inherently indwell everyone.6 This is exactly what the false “Christ” of the New Age teaches. In fact, it is the foundational teaching of the New Age/New Spirituality/New World Religion that has progressively moved into the world and into the church.
NEW AGE IN THE CHURCH
As I pointed out in my booklet, The Shack and Its New Age Leaven,7 the teaching that God is “in” everyone is a heretical New Age teaching that has been increasingly popularized over the last thirty years by New Age authors and teachers and heavily promoted by people like Oprah Winfrey. Sadly, it is also found in the books and teachings of well-known church figures like Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, Eugene Peterson, Leonard Sweet, and Sarah Young.8 And in a November 1, 2016 Catholic News Service article titled, “Pope Offers New Beatitudes for Saints of a New Age” Pope Francis, in a Catholic Mass in Malmo, Sweden, proposed a new “beatitude”—”Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him.”9
WHAT WILL THE CHURCH DO?
Paul Young wanted to have a conversation about the nature of God, and that conversation is now front and center before the church. Will pastors and leaders and day-to-day believers contend for the faith and fight the good fight, or will they let false teachers like Paul Young have their uncontested say and have their uncontested way?
Endnotes:
1. Chapter 13 title in Lies We Believe About God is “You need to get saved.”
2. William Paul Young, Lies We Believe About God (New York, NY: Atria Books; An imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2017), p. 118.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 119.
5. William P. Young, The Shack (Newbury Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007), p. 112.
6. In C. Baxter Kruger’s book, The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going On Here Than You Ever Dared to Dream, in the foreword, Shack author William Paul Young writes: I want to say, “Thank you, and please read The Shack Revisited.” He adds, “If you want to understand better the perspectives and theology that frame The Shack, this book is for you. Baxter has taken on the incredible task of exploring the nature and character of the God who met me in my own shack” (p. ix). On page 49 of The Shack Revisited , Kruger writes: “For inside of us all, because of Jesus, is nothing short of the very trinitarian life of God.” C. Baxter Kruger, The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going On Here than You Ever Dared to Dream (New York, NY: FaithWords), p. 49.
7. To read this booklet, click here: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=12290.
8. I have documented a short history of how this deceptive New Age teaching has entered the world and the church in my booklet Be Still and Know That You Are Not God. The booklet includes quotes by each of these figures. To read this booklet, click here: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=17572.
9. Cathy Wooden, “Pope Offers New Beatitudes for Saints of a New Age” (Catholic News Service, November 1, 2016,).
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Fourth Letter to Christian Leaders Goes Out -
A Warning About The Shack
Dear Christian Leader:The letters and booklets were mailed out from our office in Montana on March 13th. You can read the news brief we included by clicking here. And here is the link to the content of the booklet we sent.
Please find enclosed one of our booklets titled The Shack and Its New Age Leaven by Lighthouse Trails author Warren B. Smith along with a short news brief we released on March 9th. As you probably know, The Shack movie came out this month, which no doubt will bring renewed interest in the book, The Shack. When you read this booklet and the news brief, we hope you will understand our sense of urgency given that many Christian leaders and pastors are now endorsing The Shack. In William Paul Young’s newest book, Lies We Believe About God, he once again openly rejects biblical tenets of the Christian faith.
We hope you will read and prayerfully consider the content of both the booklet and the news brief.
Sincerely in Christ,
The Editors at
Lighthouse Trails Publishing, Inc.
Since we began sending out letters and booklets to Christian leaders in early 2016, we have received the following responses:
Short letters of thanks from the ministry offices of: Chuck Missler, Nancy DeMoss, Tony Evans, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Beth MooreIt is our hope and prayer that many of the leaders on our list will take a few moments to read the material we sent out on The Shack.
Notes of thanks personally signed by Tim Tebow, Kay Arthur, George Wood (Assemblies of God General Superintendent)
A letter of thanks via e-mail from Ben Kinchlow’s ministry manager (Kinchlow is the founder of Americans for Israel and former 700 Club host)
An e-email from the office of Chuck Swindoll telling us to stop sending booklets (we have since removed his name from our list).
If you would like us to add the name of a leader to our Christian leaders list, please send the name and mailing address to us at: editors@lighthousetrails.com. Because of time restraints, we will not be able to add a name without an address. Plus, because we cannot send out these letters and booklets to every pastor in the country, we ask that you only submit names of pastors and/or church leaders who have written at least one book (you can check Amazon) thus moving him or her into a place of influence throughout the church at large.
We wish we could send booklets to every Christian pastor in North America. However, here is an idea given to us from one of our readers for anyone who feels compelled to reach the pastors in his or her denomination and/or state: Last month, a woman contacted us from Mississippi who learned that we were sending out booklets to Christian leaders and pastors. She said she was burdened for Southern Baptist pastors in her state and asked us to put together a mailing of two booklets and a letter and mail it to every Southern Baptist pastor in Mississippi. Our reader paid for the list (which we purchased for her), the booklets, the postage, and our labor. At her request, we sent each pastor a copy of 10 Scriptural Reasons Jesus Calling is a Dangerous Book by Warren B. Smith and 5 Things You Should Know About Contemplative Prayer by Ray Yungen. If you have a group you would like us to reach in this manner, please contact our office.
If you would like to view and/or print a list of the Christian leaders we are currently sending booklets and short letters to 3-4 times a year, click here. Perhaps you would like to pray for these men and women who, in total, influence millions and millions of people throughout the world. Incidentally, just because a name is on this list does not necessarily mean that leader is in deception. We have included a wide assortment of names in this list. There are many pastors and Christian leaders who may not be part of the deception but, for various reasons, are not aware of what is happening in the church today.
_____________________________________________________
This is Not a Review of the "SHACK":
BY C.H. FISHER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
I’m not going to write a review or detailed critique of William P.
Young’s book or movie both entitled “The Shack.” The reason is because
there are already a number of good reviews available. You can access
plenty of information on Lighthouse Trails Research. What I will do is
present a warning.First, I want to point out that there are some heresies and deceptions that one should not need a review to recognize and reject. The televangelist selling God’s favor, which increases with the size of the donation, is one. Another one is a preacher smoking pot or getting drunk on video while claiming that it is the way to get closer to God. One more is the preacher that declares that God has entrusted only him with new revelation essential to understanding the Bible. Likewise, does anyone really need to inform a true Christian about what is wrong with “The Shack”?
Now for the warning. God’s word declares that the end times will be very dangerous for Christians. There will be many spiritually wicked individuals masquerading as servants of God. They will present heresies and other lies for the purpose of deceiving God’s people. However, some professing Christians declare that it is impossible for Christians to be deceived and apostatize. If that is true, then who is Satan deceiving and who is apostatizing? The lost are already deceived and cannot apostatize from faith that they do not have.
Obviously, the deception has to be very clever. If it were disguised as an orange, it would appear exactly as a genuine orange. Therefore, we can expect lies disguised exactly as truth. However, if people accept enough false oranges loaded with a mind-numbing drug, it stands to reason that false oranges will no longer be needed. Then whatever is being disguised by the falseness will be offered without pretense.
Leading Christians accepted and promoted movies such as the “Son of God” and “Noah”. Now professing Christians are accepting “Silence” and “The Shack”, movies, which are more obviously wicked. Does anyone want to know what is coming next that professing Christians might support?
William Paul Young, author of “The Shack”, wrote another book, “Eve.” Young explains about his book:
“As The Shack awakened readers to a personal, non-religious understanding of God, Eve will free us from faulty interpretations that have corrupted human relationships since the Garden of Eden.”
Any warning bells going off yet? If one is deceived by “The Shack” one is probably unaware of the diabolical boasts in Young’s explanation. Remember, this is not the author of a timeless Christian classic, but the author of a heretical book that blasphemes the Holy Spirit.
What is it that Young intended to set us free from with “Eve”? Here are a few links in the chain of our “bondage.”
- The story of Creation is replaced by the Big Bang.
- Adam was an infant nursed by the breasts of God.
- Adam was a sinner before Eve was created.
- Adam became pregnant and gave birth to Eve.
- Adam and Satan conspired to deceive Eve.
- “God wants to use me.”
- “God is in control.”
- “God is a prude.”
- “God does not submit.”
- “Hell is separation from God.”
- “Sin separates us from God.”
- “God is disappointed in me.”
The false orange is no longer needed. Professing Christians are significantly deceived by number and intensity to consume the raw lies.
However, the subsequent deception does not stop with convincing them to believe the lies. Additionally, they believe that the fact they can so easily line up for the feast is not proof of deception. Instead, they consider it to be evidence that they are superior in spirituality and knowledge to the ones who refrain. Tragically, those feasting masses can be warned, but they are unable to receive the warnings.
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When People Say, “But The Shack is Just a Novel!”
A woman standing in line outside the theater to see The Shack movie was eager to talk with me about Paul Young’s best-selling book. She said she “loved” The Shack
and couldn’t understand why it had so many critics on the Internet. She
was especially perplexed by the number of “negative” comments made by
pastors. Obviously confused by all the controversy, she suddenly
exclaimed—”But The Shack is just a novel!”What the woman and so many other Shack readers fail to take into account is that the book is much more than just a novel. It is a carefully crafted presentation of Paul Young’s alternative “Christian” universalist theology based on “real” conversations he claims to have had with God. In Young’s forward to The Shack Revisited, a book written by his friend C. Baxter Kruger, Young corrects any misunderstanding that The Shack is “just a novel.” He writes:
Please don’t misunderstand me; The Shack is theology. But it is theology wrapped in story.1According to Young, God came to him in the “Great Sadness” of his own “shack” and communicated directly with him. Much of The Shack’s theology is based on what Young learned in his conversations with God.
If you want to understand better the perspectives and theology that frame The Shack, this book [Kruger’s] is for you. Baxter has taken on the incredible task of exploring the nature and character of the God who met me in my own shack.2
Young’s Conversations with God
A Christian news source recently reprinted excerpts from several posts Young made on his personal blog back in August 2007. In these excerpts, Young explained that The Shack is a story, but it is a story based on real conversations he was having with God, his friends, and his family. He writes:
Remember, I am thinking about writing this for my kids, so I am searching for a good vehicle to communicate through. I figure a good story would be great . . . but I didn’t have one. So I started with what I did have . . . conversations. So, off and on, for about three months I wrote down conversations; conversations that I was having with God mostly, but which often included friends or family.3 [emphasis added by W. Smith]Young’s “Christian” Universalism
Is the story “real”? The story is fiction. I made it up. Now, having said that, I will add that the emotional pain with all its intensity and the process that tears into Mack’s heart and soul are very real. I have my “shack,” the place I had to go through to find healing. I have my Great Sadness . . . that is all real. And the conversations are very real and true. . . .
So is the story true? The pain, the loss, the grief, the process, the conversations, the questions, the anger, the longing, the secrets, the lies, the forgiveness . . . all real, all true.4 [emphasis added by W. Smith]
In a February 16, 2008 post on a blog called Christian Universalism: The Beautiful Heresy: The Shack, an avowed “friend” of Paul Young corroborates Young’s 2007 blog post about his conversations with God. The friend describes how the conversations Young’s main character Mack has with God in The Shack are “real conversations” that Paul Young actually had with God. She reveals how these conversations “revolutionized” Young, his family, and friends such as herself. She says that the “radically dangerous” teachings that Young put in his novel have become her new “systematic theology” and The Shack is her new “systematic theology handbook.” The following are her exact words and punctuation as they were originally posted on the “Christian Universalism” blog:
I know the author well—a personal friend. (Our whole house church devoured it last summer, and Paul came to our home to discuss it—WONDERFUL time!) The conversations that “Mack” has with God, are real conversations that Paul Young had with God . . . and they revolutionized him, his family, and friends (Paul had a very traumatic past, raised by missionary parents, who left him in the care of the stone-age Dani tribe, while they did “God’s work.” He was abused by them, in the process—and there were other tragedies in his life, later on. When he was a broken mess, God began to speak to him). He wrote the story (rather than a “sermon”) to give the real conversations context—and because Jesus also used simple stories to engage our hearts, even by-passing our objective brains, in order to have His message take root in our hearts, and grow. . . .Thus, by his own account and that of his friend, Paul Young would be the first to deny that The Shack is “just a novel.”
I had already come to believe all the “radically dangerous” teachings within this book—so it mostly confirmed what I already believed. But, it most definitely highlighted the reality that I don’t yet KNOW (KNOW!) how much God loves me. I want the relationship with God that I see in Paul Young’s life. . . .
This was the first book that I read straight through 4 times. First to absorb it. Secondly, to underline. Third to highlight. Fourth, to put “headers” on the top of each page, so that I could find certain passages again. It’s become my new “systematic theology” handbook!5 [emphasis added by W. Smith]
Young the Universalist
Back to my conversation with the woman in front of the movie theater. When she said that The Shack was “just a novel,” I described how his novel was actually a fictional device used as a “vehicle” for presenting some of his own misguided theological teachings—teachings that had more in common with New Age teachings than biblical Christianity. When she acknowledged knowing about the New Age movement, I told her that some of The Shack’s teachings were actually New Age teachings. But before I could explain what those specific teachings were and how I had once been involved in the New Age myself, the theater doors opened, the line started moving, and our conversation was suddenly over. She seemed relieved as she turned toward the theater and away from me. Praying that she would come to understand that Paul Young has more in common with New Age universalism than biblical Christianity. I had no idea at the time that Young was about to publicly declare in a new book what so many of us already knew. In Lies We Believe About God, which was released on March 7th, Young states that he believes in “universal salvation”6 and that “every single human being is in Christ” and “Christ is in them.”7 Thus, Young himself makes it very clear in his own words that The Shack is not “just a novel” but rather a “cunningly devised fable” (2 Peter 1:16) for presenting some of his own heretical universalistic New Age views.
Who is Paul Young Really Listening To and Conversing With?
Paul Young would have us believe that he has been having “real” conversations with God and that he was inspired by God to write The Shack. Yet he is now declaring himself to be a universalist who believes in the false New Age trinitarian doctrine that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are already “in” everyone. In other words, Young, as a professing universalist, would have us believe that all of humanity is already saved (universal salvation). The question that naturally arises and that is now before the church is—just who is Paul Young actually listening to and conversing with? The God of the Bible or the false “God” of the New Age?
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. (1 Timothy 4:1)Endnotes
1. C. Baxter Kruger, The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going on Here than You Ever Dared to Dream ( New York, NY: FaithWorks, Hatchette Book Group, 2012), p. xi.
2. Ibid., p. viiii.
3. Sunny Shell, “The Shack, a Biblical and Interactive Review” (http://blogs.christianpost.com/abandoned-to-christ/the-shack-a-biblical-and-interactive-review-28674/, posted 2/16/17, quoting Paul Young from his August 15, 2007 blog titled “The Shack – update – Background #2″ (http://web.archive.org/web/20070911092057/http://www.windrumors.com/29/the-shack-update-background-2/).
4. Sunny Shell, “The Shack, a Biblical and Interactive Review” (http://blogs.christianpost.com/abandoned-to-christ/the-shack-a-biblical-and-interactive-review-28674/, posted 2/16/17, quoting Paul Young from his August 15, 2007 blog titled “Is the story of THE SHACK true . . . is Mack a “real” person? (http://web.archive.org/web/20070911092319/http://www.windrumors.com/30/is-the-story-of-the-shack-trueis-mack-a-real-person/).
5. Christian Universalism-The Beautiful Heresy: The Shack (http://web.archive.org/web/20080307051159/http://christian-universalism.blogs.com/thebeautifulheresy/2008/02/the-shack.html, posted February 16, 2008 by Dena Brehm. (Thanks to Kent McElroy for bringing this blog to my attention).
6. Wm. Paul Young, Lies We Believe About God (New York, NY: Atria Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2017), p. 118.
7. Ibid., p. 119.
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William Paul Young (The Shack Author)
& His Connection with Panentheist Richard Rohr
By Lois PutnamCatholic priest and panentheist mystic Richard Rohr (along with co-author mystic emergent Mike Morrell) recently wrote the book The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. William Paul Young wrote its foreword. Inside, its dedication says: “From Richard Rohr: To all unsuspecting folks who do not know they are already within the ‘Divine Flow'” [i.e., panentheism]. In the foreword, Young says, “May we feel within us the eternal life of Jesus reaching through our hands–to heal, to hold, to hug–and celebrate the bread of our Humanity, the sanctity of the Ordinary, and Participation in the Trinity.”
Other endorsers include Rob Bell, Brian D. McLaren, and a host of others. As Lighthouse Trails Research points out in “In Case You Still Aren’t Sure About the Shack and Its Author,” perhaps Young’s “Twenty Books Everyone Should Read” will convince you otherwise. Click onto the article here: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=17684
And Young, continuing his close association with Rohr, will join him and Cynthia Bourgeault in April 6-8, 2017 to take part in a program titled: “Trinity: The Soul of Creation” in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its online descriptive ad reads, “Rohr, Bourgeault, and Young believe the Trinity . . . has the capacity to change everything. We already participate within this dance whether we realize it or not [that God is in everyone]. But when we consciously engage in loving communion, we open ourselves to being transformed at the deepest levels. Bring your heart, mind, and body to this . . . conversation. Join an ecumenical and inter-faith gathering, moving together through reflective experiences, including contemplative prayer, music, movement (Yoga, Tai Chi Chin, and walking meditation), group and individual processing. …” To read Lois Putnam’s entire article on The Shack, click here.
Note: Cynthia Bourgeault is a name we know well at Lighthouse Trails. Ray Yungen spoke of her to us often. She is an Episcopal priest who is a devoted advocate for everything contemplative. Here is a list of some of her books to prove our point.
Related Articles:
Something to Think About – Richard Rohr, the New Age, and Young Evangelical Christians
IF: Gathering Leader/Pastor Melissa Greene—A Female Version of McLaren, Bell, Rohr, and Merton
Richard Foster’s Renovare Turns to Panentheist Mystic Richard Rohr and Emerging Darling Phyllis Tickle For New Book Project
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SEE OUR POST ABOUT CATHOLIC MYSTIC RICHARD ROHR:
http://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2013/04/much-more-on-rohr-plus-enneagrams.html
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