THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
“Approximately 66 BSO (Broward Sheriff’s Office) deputies and other
employees, including supervisory personnel were arrested for, charged
with, and/or convicted of crimes that run the gamut from Armed
Kidnapping, to Battery, Assault, Falsifying records, Official
Misconduct, Narcotics trafficking, and other crimes involving dishonesty
and violence in the years immediately proceeding 2013 when Jermaine was
killed."
"There are more than 66 investigations by the Broward County State
Attorney’s office into Broward County Sheriff’s deputies and employees,
ranging from drug trafficking to kidnapping since 2012, according to a
2014 Brady list produced by the Broward State Attorney’s office. Forty
of the investigations occurred under embattled Sheriff Scott Israel’s
watch."
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Florida Governor Rick Scott’s investigation
into the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s handling of the February 14
Parkland school shooting is just the latest in a long line of probes
into the department’s conduct, according to court filings in a civil
suit against Sheriff Scott Israel (shown) and his deputies.
Scott, a Republican, initiated his investigation February 25 after it
was alleged that as many as four Broward County deputies remained
outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while the shooting spree,
allegedly conducted by Nikolas Cruz, 19, took place inside. At that time
it was also known that the Broward Sheriff’s Office had received dozens
of calls concerning Cruz over the months and years leading up to the
shooting. Since then, there have also been allegations that Broward
deputies prevented emergency medical teams from entering the school to treat the injured.
Israel, a Democrat, tried to deflect blame for his deputies’ alleged inaction, telling
CNN’s Jake Tapper that “it's not the responsibility of the general or
the president if you have a deserter.” He also downplayed the number of
calls his office had received about Cruz and claimed his deputies had
handled most of those calls appropriately. Israel told Tapper he had
provided his agency with “amazing leadership.”
Israel’s “amazing leadership” apparently includes presiding over a
department that has been investigated by the Broward County State
Attorney’s office at least 66 times since 2012 — 40 of them since Israel
took office — and is currently being sued by the family of an innocent
man shot and killed by deputies whom Israel later presented with awards,
reports journalist Sara Carter.
In 2013, Jermaine McBean, an African-American information-technology
engineer, was walking home from a store where he had just bought an air
rifle, listening to music with earbuds. Unbeknownst to him, the bag
covering the rifle had blown off, and a passing motorist called 911 to
report seeing a man carrying a weapon; the caller stated that it could
have been an air rifle. Three Broward deputies — Peter Paraza, Lt. Brad
Ostroff, and Sgt. Richard LaCerra — arrived and confronted McBean.
Carter writes:
According to David Schoen, the attorney
representing McBean’s family in the civil case against the defendants
and Israel, witnesses at the scene said McBean’s air rifle was resting
on his shoulders, with his arms slung over. McBean couldn’t hear the
officers through the earbuds. According to witnesses and court records
he eventually turned around and when he did, Peraza fired the shots that
led to McBean’s death. Peraza, who had only been working as a deputy
for a year, stated to the courts that he feared for his life.
Three months later, Israel gave
Peraza and LaCerra the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s “Gold Cross Award”
for their “selfless, honorable and brave” actions in the McBean case.
After another two years, Peraza was indicted for homicide and
suspended from the police force. A local judge dismissed the indictment,
but the Florida Supreme Court “has taken the case on review and has
vacated the lower court’s ruling,” notes Carter.
Schoen’s court filing in the civil case states: “Approximately 66
[Broward Sheriff’s Office] deputies and other employees, including
supervisory personnel were arrested for, charged with, and/or convicted
of crimes that run the gamut from Armed Kidnapping, to Battery, Assault,
Falsifying records, Official Misconduct, Narcotics trafficking, and
other crimes involving dishonesty and violence in the years immediately
proceeding [sic] 2013 when Jermaine was killed. Most of the offenses on
the list occurred in the years 2012-2013.”
The list on which Schoen’s assertions were based is the Broward
County State Attorney’s 2014 “Brady Cop List,” which identifies police
officers who have been investigated for or convicted of crimes. A more
recent list would likely identify even more officers, Schoen told
Carter. “Often the cases against [Broward Sheriff’s Office] employees are
resolved by guilty pleas resulting in short or no period of
incarceration and a chance for the criminal record to be cleared after a
period of time,” he claimed in his filing. According to Carter, “Israel
is always shifting blame and ‘the buck never stops with him,’ Schoen
said.” Between the Scott investigation and the McBean suit, the buck may finally be landing — with a thud — in Israel’s lap.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
The far-left organization known as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), often described as an “anti-Christian hate group,”
is working with YouTube to purge conservatives, Christians,
libertarians, and others from the video streaming platform, according to
news reports. A number of prominent media figures have already been
banned, with others facing demonetization and warnings. Some accounts
were restored amid a national outcry. But the new revelations about
YouTube partnering with radical leftists and anti-Christian bigots come
as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other Internet giants come under
increasing fire for blatantly trying to silence right-of-center voices
on their platforms. Lawsuits against the tech behemoths are underway,
and calls for government regulation are growing louder.
The SPLC role as a “trusted flagger” in policing YouTube for “extremist” content first came to light in an article by The Daily Caller.
The news outlet, citing a source with knowledge of the arrangement,
said it was not clear when the far-left organization partnered with
YouTube, which is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. The Daily Caller
noted that the identities of most of the over 100 outfits that are
considered “trusted flaggers” remain hidden. But it is known that the
list includes government agencies, as well as radical left-wing
organizations funded by European taxpayers. As usual, YouTube and its
parent company have been tight-lipped about their censorship operations,
which have been criticized for years for unfairly targeting
conservatives.
“We work with over 100 organizations as part of our Trusted Flagger
program and we value the expertise these organizations bring to flagging
content for review,” a YouTube spokesperson was quoted as saying in
response to questions about the SPLC. “All trusted flaggers attend a
YouTube training to learn about our policies and enforcement processes.
Videos flagged by trusted flaggers are reviewed by YouTube content
moderators according to YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Content flagged
by trusted flaggers is not automatically removed or subject to any
differential policies than content flagged from other users.” The
spokesperson refused to comment specifically on the SPLC's involvement
in the program. The SPLC also did not respond to requests for comments. The revelations about the SPLC's role sparked immediate condemnation
and ridicule from a wide range of commentators. Among the prominent
voices speaking out was the Family Research Council, a pro-family group
falsely declared a “hate group” by SPLC that was targeted for a terrorist attack by homosexual activist and SPLC devotee Floyd Corkins.
“Now, I don't know about you, but an organization that's inspired at
least two gunman to shoot conservatives, isn't exactly who I'd trust to
define violent speech,” noted
FRC chief Tony Perkins in commentary about the revelations on the
SPLC's ties to YouTube. “Although no one knows when SPLC joined the
program, they do know what it means for conservatives: discrimination.” Perkins expressed concern that numerous mainstream Christians,
conservatives, churches, and organizations have been “recklessly and
fraudulently” labeled as “hate groups” alongside the KKK and Nazis. As
he sees it, the SPLC's definition of hate is basically “any belief
that's contrary to theirs.” Indeed, even disagreeing with homosexual
“marriage,” as Obama did when he first ran for president, has been
labeled radical and extreme by the SPLC. Especially worrying is that the
SPLC, as a “trusted flagger,” is understood to be involved in the
creation of algorithms that help censor views it disagrees with.
According to Perkins, the SPLC has been trying to have “conventional
beliefs” turned into “ground for government punishment.”
“As for Google, YouTube may be a private entity – but it's virtually
monopolizing the public square,” Perkins concluded, blasting the SPLC's
“ties to domestic terrorism” and its “dangerous extremism” that have led
more than a few organizations to sever ties with it. “And with that
responsibility comes a higher expectation that civil conversations will
be allowed. Just because Google — or its flaggers — disagree with
someone doesn't mean they should shut them down. This growing
understanding that Big Tech is picking and choosing who can speak in the
virtual public square may help explain why there's been a jump in the
number of Americans who want to see more government regulation.” And
indeed, numerous voices have called for regulation in recent days, even
among those who normally eschew unconstitutional government actions. Multiple heavy-hitting commentators have also sounded the alarm about
the new revelations. Speaking of the partnership between Google/YouTube
and the SPLC, Fox News star Tucker Carlson slammed the Internet giant
for relying on a “wholly discredited hate group” to police its
platform. “One of those trusted flaggers is not trusted at all — it's
the Southern Poverty Law Center,” said Carlson, sounding flabbergasted.
“It's not an expert on the South, or poverty, or the law.” In short, the
SPLC is itself a hate group, according to Carlson and a broad range of
experts across the political spectrum, including many on the Left. His
guest, tech entrepreneur Eric Schiffer, called the SPLC's involvement
“an outrage” and said YouTube owes patriotic Americans an apology for
this “gross oversight.”
Carlson also switched over to a segment on the SPLC by popular
libertarian Fox News personality John Stossel, who skewered the fringe
left-wing group for hyping phony hate and smearing people who do not
deserve to be smeared. The SPLC, Stossel noted, has listed U.S. Housing
and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, popular media personality
Laura Ingraham, and Judge Jeannie Pierro as “extremists.” On the other
hand, the SPLC does not list, for example, the violent hate group Antifa
on its list, despite that extremist organization's long track-record of
violence, brutality, hate, and extremism. “The Center has become a hate
group itself,” Stossel warned. “It's now a left-wing, money-grabbing
slander machine.” Indeed, the outfit has hundreds of millions of dollars
in the bank.
For those unfamiliar with the SPLC, The New American has been exposing the group for many years. It considers The John Birch Society, an affiliate of this magazine, to be a “patriot group,” with patriot meant as a derogatory remark. In the Law Enforcement Charitable Foundation's Intelligence Brief,
which goes to all police chiefs and sheriffs in America, the SPLC was
exposed for, among other things, celebrating as a “highly respected
figure” Bill Ayers. In reality, Ayers is one of America's most notorious
domestic terrorists — a man whose Castro-backed terrorist organization
bombed police, the Pentagon, the State Department, Capitol Hill, and
more. The FBI's asset within Ayers' terror group, Larry Grathwohl, said
the communist organization was plotting to exterminate millions of
Americans who could not be “re-educated” once foreign communist regimes
invaded.
The intelligence brief for law enforcement also points out how
misleading and dishonest much of the SPLC's propaganda has become. For
instance, the SPLC's Ryan Lenz claimed to be exposing a vast
“anti-Indian movement,” without ever mentioning that the “matriarch of
the movement,” as the SPLC put it, is actually a Cherokee Indian. The
SPLC has also been caught trying to demonize Christians, Orthodox Jews,
and other God-fearing Americans in the eyes of government agencies.
Following a number of high-profile scandals, though, even Obama's
bureaucracies were forced to sever ties with the SPLC. A number of
prominent left-wing activists and civil-rights leaders have slammed the
SPLC as scam artists or worse. And SPLC founder Morris Dees has been the
subject of intense criticism, especially after he was accused in court
documents of beating his wife and sexually molesting his underage
step-daughter.
The extensiveness of SPLC's role in YouTube's ongoing campaign to
silence conservatives remains unclear. But in recent days, the
video-hosting platform has become increasingly aggressive in silencing
right-of-center voices — including even prominent, mainstream
conservative commentators, as well as videos exposing violence and hate
among leftist groups such as Antifa. Among those whose channels have
been suspended are classical liberal Carl Benjamin, investigative
journalist Jerome Corsi, and more. Alex Jones' enormously influential
Infowars has also received “strikes” from YouTube. And a video of Antifa
thugs shouting violent threats posted by Mike Cernovich was taken down,
leading the commentator to conclude that YouTube endorses far-left
violence against conservatives. Even PragerU was censored, sparking a
lawsuit against the video site. Some of the actions by YouTube were
reversed following a massive outcry, but the censorship has only been
getting more extreme.
As The New American has documented extensively, the new-age
“robber barons” of social media all have intimate links to government —
and in some cases they are or were funded by government. Jeff Bezos of
Amazon, who now owns the Washington Post, has massive contracts
with the Central Intelligence Agency. And the CIA's investment arm
In-Q-Tel helped finance many of the Internet giants that are today
censoring conservative viewpoints. The Big Tech bosses also have
extensive links to the Deep State Behind the Deep State,
with many of them, including former Google boss Eric Schmidt, attending
Bilderberg meetings, the occultist Bohemian Grove, and more. More than a
few are also members of the globalist-minded swamp known as the Council
on Foreign Relations. And the Internet giants' affinity for censoring conservatives is no secret. In Europe, the big-tech companies boldly
announced their intentions to censor “hate” and “extremism,” which for
many EU governments includes the Bible, opposition to mass immigration,
the scientific fact that there are only two sexes, and more. The United Nations, known to critics as the “dictators club,” has also been on the warpath, demanding that Internet companies censor ideas that the globalist establishment disagrees with. Unsurprisingly, totalitarian governments — especially the mass-murdering Communist Chinese regime
— have been leading the charge for global Internet censorship. But
U.S.-based Internet companies have only been too happy to join the jihad
against free speech, and especially against conservative,
anti-globalist speech.
In the days ahead, more lawsuits and efforts to regulate the
companies will emerge. And while calls for federal regulation of the
Internet giants may sound appealing, it is important to recognize that
the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to
intervene. Instead of seeking further usurpations of power by the feds,
Americans would be best served by using the free market to bypass
obstacles to free speech set up by left-wing globalist companies in the
establishment's pocket. If YouTube will not allow free speech, Americans
can migrate over to services that do. If such services do not yet
exist, smart entrepreneurs will surely create them. If Google continues
to manipulate its search results to bury conservative content, consumers
will naturally begin to use other services. And as Facebook becomes infamous for spying on and manipulating its users, it will no doubt face consequences, too.
It is lamentable that a major company such as YouTube would partner
with fringe left-wing hate groups to silence patriots and conservatives.
But it is not surprising. Ultimately, the free market will be the key
to ensuring that free speech survives — whether YouTube, Google,
Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft and their allies like it or not. The truth
is far too powerful to be shut down. Related articles:Big Tech and Big Government Censoring the Internet. Who's Next? YouTube’s Soft Censorship U.S. Tech Giants Join EU to Censor the Internet How Google Censors The New American (and Other Conservatives) “Anti-Christian Hate Group” SPLC Becoming Increasingly Discredited UN Plots War on Free Speech to Stop “Extremism” Online Game of Trolls: The Sinister Face of Facebook After Charlottesville, UN Demands U.S. Quash First Amendment Facebook Fraud: Ex-workers Admit They Censored Conservative News EU “Police” Will Censor Internet to Fight “Extremism” Chinese Communist to Lead UN Agency Seeking to Control Internet Why Is the SPLC Trying to Crush a Small Jewish Organization? Leftist SPLC Bemoans Growing Influence of The John Birch Society After D.C. Shooting, SPLC, Planned Parenthood, and the Feds Under Fire Protecting Rights: Loyal Americans Targeted by the SPLC
________________________________________________________
Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit Confirm Systematic Censorship Purge
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit joins Mike Adams live via Skype to expose the
systematic censorship purge against conservatives that has been pushed
by the left since the 2016 election.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Now these Jews were more noble than those in
Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the
Scriptures daily to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11)
This short passage about Paul’s interactions with the Bereans has
been used for thousands of years as emblematic of commendable
discernment. Having come from Thessalonica after their rejection of the
Gospel, Paul spent a short time in the mountain hamlet of Berea, where
he found them to be noble on account of their careful discernment in
considering his words and comparing it to the Holy Scripture. Soon, the
Jewish mob from Paul’s past came to Berea and stirred them up as well,
but this hasn’t stopped millennia of Christians from admiring the
Bereans for their careful study of Scripture. The Lincoln “Berean” Church is in Lincoln, Nebraska. The ‘about’ section of the Berean Church website says…
Salvation cannot be earned through moral or religious works or rituals.
Although the church’s doctrinal statement is Protestant and
evangelical, it’s pastor, Bryan Clark, has invited a Roman Catholic who
holds to opposite convictions on Justification to lead the church in
worship on March 23 of this year. Entitled, “The Echoes of Worship,” Maher’s website thus advertises his visit to this Protestant church. In our post, Matt Maher is Not Saved, Stop Singing His Music in Church! we explained the problem.
It doesn’t matter if Matt Maher says he’s a Christian or
makes a “Christian-sounding” profession of faith. He is still a Roman
Catholic, who practices idolatry, and is not repentant of it. It doesn’t
matter if some of his music sounds okay. It doesn’t matter if he says
he believes in Jesus. If he is unrepentant of his sin, he has not been
regenerated.
But let’s go out on a limb here, and say that perhaps he is saved, and just hasn’t come to realize yet through
sanctification that he’s caught up in a false religion. Sanctification
is both immediate and progressive, therefore, it is possible for a Roman
Catholic to be saved, and still (temporarily) be in the Roman Catholic
Church. It still doesn’t matter. He’s still practicing sin, should be
called to repentance, and by no means should he, or his worship music be
played in a Bible-believing church. We wouldn’t do that for other
unrepentant sinners. Why do we make exceptions for Roman Catholics?
We wouldn’t do that for other unrepentant sinners. Why do we make exceptions for Roman Catholics?
Oddly enough, there’s not a section on Lincoln Berean Church’s
website that explains what a Berean is. The church members attending on
March 23 need to stop and think about what a Berean is and why the
church was given the name to begin with. The truth is, Bereans would not
be asking a sola denying lost person to come lead them in worship. ___________________________________________________
Matt Maher: Building the One-World Church Through Music
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
September 14, 2010
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
See end of report to Print or Share
First
published August 20, 2013 - David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist
Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061,
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The following
study of popular worship singer Matt Maher further illustrates the fact
that contemporary praise music is a key element in building the
end-time, one-world “church.” It describes the very dangerous spiritual
world to which many fundamental Baptist churches are building bridges. Many
are deceived by the fact that contemporary praise musicians sing about
the Lord in such a seemingly sincere manner. They ask, “Can it be wrong
to sing Maher’s ‘Lord, I Need You’?”
I would answer by asking
this: Is Matt Maher, who prays to Mary and believes that she aids men in
salvation, singing about the same “Lord” as the Bible-believing
Christian? When the pope and thousands of Roman Catholics, who hold to a
false gospel and worship a piece of bread as Jesus, join their voices
to sing this song, who are they singing to in reality, according to
God’s Word?
Too many professing Bible-believing Baptists are
following their emotions and their vanity and the crowd and their
bellies (e.g., build bigger churches, sell more books, don’t offend the
popular leaders, etc.) rather than God’s Word and the Spirit of Truth. ___________
The
Canadian born Matt Maher (b. 1974), who lives in Tempe, Arizona, is an
eight-time GMA Dove Award Nominee. He has a degree in Jazz Piano from
Arizona State University.
Like John Michael Talbot, Matt Maher is a Roman Catholic ecumenical bridge builder.
He
grew up Catholic but had a “profound awakening” through a charismatic
Catholic group. This consisted of an emotional experience that he had
while watching a skit “The Broken Heart” about a girl who gets a new
heart from God after giving hers away to a young boy. “‘I
was standing in the back of the room and I burst into tears,’ Maher
remembered. Not long after, he started writing worship songs for the
group’s prayer sessions and devoted himself to performing Christian
music” (“Catholic Rocker Matt Maher,” Religion News Service, May 17,
2013). The skit
did not present the biblical gospel, and Maher’s conversion was not a
biblical conversion. It was a religious conversion that did not include
repentance from error and rejection of Rome’s false christ and false
gospel.
Maher’s wife is Methodist, but they are raising their
son “in the Catholic Church,” while also taking him to Methodist
services “so he can experience both traditions” (Religion News Service,
May 17, 2013).
This is the perfect recipe for the building of the end-time, one-world “church.”
Maher
ministers at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Tempe, which is devoted
to Mary as the Queen of Heaven. The sign at the front of the church
says, “Mary, Mother of Life, pray for us.”
Maher is on the board of directors for the Catholic youth organization Life Teen.
He calls himself a “musical missionary,” a missionary for Rome, that is. Christianity Today
says “Maher is bringing his music--and a dream of unity into the
Protestant church” (“Common Bonds,” CT, Oct. 27, 2009). He says, “I’ve
had co-writing sessions with Protestants where we had that common
denominator, and I’ve seen in a very radical way the real possibility of
unity.” He says, “I look at it like the Catholic church is my immediate
family, and all my friends from different denominations are extended
family.”
David Wang says Maher is “one of the most successful
Catholic artists to cross over into mainstream Christian rock and find
an audience among evangelicals” (“Catholic Rocker Matt Maher,” Religion
News Service, May 17, 2013).
In the following video clip, Maher
performs at the 2013 Catholic World Youth Day in front of the pope, a
great venerator of Mary as the Queen of Heaven, and a massive crowd of
Roman Catholics, singing his popular praise song “Lord I Need You.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky0g_9dyhbU-
Maher led worship for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Rally for Youth in April 2008.
Maher says, “The arms of St. Peter’s are really big” (Religion News Service, May 17, 2013).
Maher, who tours with non-Catholics, comments: “What’s
fantastic about it is we’re all Christians from different denominations
and we’re learning to understand each other. It just means that we’re
writing about mysteries that we don’t fully understand.” Maher
is happy that other Catholic musicians are coming into the forefront of
the contemporary praise movement, such as Audrey Assad, who signed with
Sparrow Records, and producer Robbie Seay.
Leaving the Catholic
Church is not an option for Maher, because he says, “I love my faith and
the expression of it.” He intends, rather, for his music to be “a
bridge.” He says that contemporary worship music is a way to “build
relationships with people and link arms with them for the Kingdom.”
He
says that touring with people like Michael W. Smith is producing
ecumenical unity because people come to the concerts and find themselves
standing beside a priest or nun, and they learn that “we’re all in this
family together.”
What kingdom, though? There is the kingdom
truth and light and the kingdom of heresy and darkness. The New
Testament frequently warns of a great apostasy before the return of
Christ. These warnings began to be delivered through with the ministry
of Christ Himself (Mat. 7:15-23; 24:4-5, 11, 24) and were completed through the ministries of the apostles and prophets (e.g., 1 Timothy 4:1-6; 2 Timothy 3:13; 4:3-4;
2 Peter 2; Jude). The apostles warned that there will be false christs,
false gospels, and false spirits, and taught the churches to be
perpetually on guard, testing everything by the absolute standard of
God’s Word (Acts 17:11; 20:28-31; 2 Corinthians 11:4; 1 Thess. 5:21; Heb. 5:12-14).
They warned that false teachers would be deceptive, appearing as wolves
in sheep’s clothing and as ministers of righteousness (Mat. 7:15; 2 Cor. 11:13-15). They warned about the cunning craftiness of false teachers (Eph. 4:14) and their ability to deceive through “good words and fair speeches” (Rom. 16:17-18).
These
warnings are typically ignored throughout the world of Contemporary
Christian Music, and those who take the warnings seriously are dismissed
as unloving, judgmental Pharisees or worse.
Maher hosts the ecumenical WorshipTogether’s New Song Cafe.
He
performs with a wide variety of “evangelical” Contemporary Christian
musicians. He is in the Provident Label Group with Michael W. Smith,
Third Day, Jars of Clay, and others.
He has written songs with
and for “evangelical artists” such as Chris Tomlin (“Your Grace Is
Enough”), Bethany Dillon, Matt Redman, Jars of Clay, Passion (“Here For
You”), and Phillips, Craig and Dean.
Maher sings of Christ and
the resurrection and grace, but these terms must be interpreted in light
of Rome’s heresies. Salvation by grace, according to Rome, is salvation
through the sacraments. Christ is idolatrously worshipped in the
consecrated wafer of the mass. Christ’s resurrection did not complete
the believer’s salvation; it provided the storehouse of grace to the
Catholic Church to distribute through its sacraments, particularly
baptism and the mass and confession to a priest.
Maher told Christianity Today
that those who criticize his relationship with the Catholic Church are
misinformed and “mis-taught” and they “have a bad understanding of
Catholic teaching,” but that is not true for me. I have studied the
writings and history of the Catholic Church extensively. If Maher thinks
that the Roman Church teaches salvation by grace alone through the
blood of Christ alone without works, he is deceived by the ecumenical
program which was launched at Vatican II and which has been effective in
creating the end-time one-world church.
At the Council of Trent
(1545-1563), the declarations of which are still in force, the Roman
Catholic Church formally condemned the biblical gospel of salvation
through by grace alone through faith alone. Consider the following
declarations of Trent: “If
anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in
divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this
confidence alone that justifies us, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Sixth Session,
Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 12). “If
anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not
increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely
the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of
its increase, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Sixth Session, Canons Concerning
Justification, Canon 24). In
its most formal and authoritative statements since Trent, Rome has
continued to deny that salvation is by grace alone through Christ's
atonement alone through faith alone without works or sacraments.
Consider the following statements of the authoritative Vatican II
Council of the mid-1960s, called by Pope John Paul XXIII and attended by
more than 2,400 Catholic bishops-– “For
it is the liturgy through which, especially in the divine sacrifice of
the Eucharist, 'the work of our redemption is accomplished,' and it is
through the liturgy, especially, that the faithful are enabled to
express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and
the real nature of the true Church” (Vatican II, Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy, Introduction, para. 2).
“As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which 'Christ our Pasch is sacrificed' (1 Cor. 5:7)
is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out”
(Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 1, 3, p. 324).
“...
[Christ] also willed that the work of salvation which they preached
should be set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around
which the entire liturgical [ritualistic] life revolves. Thus by Baptism
men are grafted into the paschal mystery of Christ. ... They receive
the spirit of adoption as sons” (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy, Chap. 1, I, 5,6, pp. 23-24).
“From the most ancient
times in the Church good works were also offered to God for the
salvation of sinners, particularly the works which human weakness finds
hard. Because the sufferings of the martyrs for the faith and for God's
law were thought to be very valuable, penitents used to turn to the
martyrs to be helped by their merits to obtain a more speedy
reconciliation from the bishops. Indeed, the prayers and good works of
holy people were regarded as of such great value that it could be
asserted that the penitent was washed, cleansed and redeemed with the
help of the entire Christian people” (Vatican II, Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences,
chap. 3, 6, pp. 78,79). Rome’s
gospel is a heretical combination of faith plus works, grace plus
sacraments, Christ plus the church. It redefines grace to include works.
It confuses justification with sanctification. It confuses imputation
with impartation. It views justification not as a once-for-all legal
declaration whereby the sinner is declared righteous before God and is
granted eternal life as the unmerited gift of God, but rather as a
PROCESS whereby the sinner is gradually saved through participation in
the sacraments. There is no eternal security in the Roman gospel because
salvation allegedly depends partially upon man's works. According to
Roman Catholic theology, Christ purchased salvation and gave it to the
Catholic Church to be distributed to men through its sacraments. This is
not only a false gospel, it is a blasphemous usurpation of Christ's
position as only Lord and Saviour and Mediator. Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia, published in 1991, defines justification as “THE PROCESS by which a sinner is made righteous, pure and holy before God.” “Justification
in the Catholic Tradition comes about by means of faith in Christ, AND
in a life of good works lived in response to God's invitation to
believe. ... That works are clearly required in the New Testament for
union with Christ is seen in the many parables such as the Good
Samaritan, Lazarus and Dives, and others” (emphasis added). Therefore,
when committed Roman Catholics like Matt Maher and John Michael Talbot
sing of Christ’s grace, they don’t mean what the Bible means. They are
using a Roman Catholic theological dictionary, but because of the
widespread ignorance that exists in “evangelical” and even
“fundamentalist” churches people are deceived by the language.
If
a Roman Catholic does not accept what the Catholic Church teaches, he
or she should leave and stop pretending to be both a Catholic and a
believer that salvation is by Chris’s grace alone without works.
(See “How Rome Denies Salvation by Grace Alone” at the Way of Life Literature web site -- www.wayoflife.org.)
In the fall of 2009, Maher traveled with Michael W. Smith on the New Hallelujah Tour.
In the fall of 2010, he was a guest singer at the David Crowder Band’s Fantastical Church Music Conference at Baylor University.
In early 2011, Maher toured on the Rock and Worship Roadshow headlined by MercyMe.
In
July 2012, Maher sang “Hold Us Together,” the ecumenical theme song for
Mormon Glenn Beck’s Restoring Love conference in Dallas, Texas.
In
July 2012, Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend joined Roman
Catholic Matt Maher on NewsongCafe on WorshipTogether.com. They played
and discussed “The Power of the Cross,” which was co-written by
Getty-Townend. The 10-minute program promoted ecumenical unity, with
Maher/Townend/Getty entirely one in the spirit through the music. Major
doctrinal differences are so meaningless that they are not even
mentioned. Spiritual abominations such as papal supremacy, the mass,
infant baptism, baptismal regeneration, and Mariolatry were entirely
ignored. Jude 3 was despised and Romans 16:17 completely disobeyed for the sake of building the one-world church through contemporary Christian music.
For
more about Roman Catholic contemporary Christian artists see Audrey
Assad, Dion Dimucci, Ray Repp, Peter Scholtes, John Michael Talbot, and
Kathy Troccoli in this Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians.
"HEAVENLY BODIES: FASHION & THE CATHOLIC IMAGINATION"
QUEER PRIESTHOOD GOES FROM
PEDOPHILIA TO GARMENT FETISH
"The Vatican is loaning some of their most extravagant clothing items to
the fashion icons to display the church’s wealth and their influence on
fashion."
Vatican, the Met assemble show
on Catholic effect on fashion
(26 Feb 2018) VATICAN, THE MET ASSEMBLE SHOW ON CATHOLIC EFFECT ON
FASHION:
The Vatican's culture minister joined Donatella Versace and Vogue's Anna
Wintour on Monday (26. FEB. 2018) to show off a sampling of sumptuous
Vatican liturgical vestments, jeweled miters and historic papal tiaras
that are starring in an upcoming exhibit of Catholic influences in
fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" opens May 10 at
the Met in New York and represents the most extensive exhibit of the
museum's Costume Institute, officials said. It also represents the first
time some of the Vatican's most precious treasures from the Sistine
Chapel sacristy are being exhibited outside the Vatican.
Along with the papal treasures, the Met show includes garments for more
ordinary mortals by designers spanning Azzedine Alia to Vivienne
Westwood, all set against the backdrop of the Met's collection of
Medieval and religious artwork.
The exhibit will be spread out among various Met galleries as well as
the Cloisters branch in upper Manhattan in what organizers said was a
planned "pilgrimage" blending fashion, faith and art.
With Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to "The Mission" playing in the
background, visitors on Monday were able to glimpse at a small sampling
of the soon-to-be-shipped Vatican treasures: The white silk cape
embroidered with gold threat that once belonged to Pope Benedict XV, and
the emerald, sapphire and diamond-studded mitre, or pointed bishops'
hat, of Pope Leo XIII.
They were put on display at the Palazzo Colonna, a former papal
residence in downtown Rome that is a jewel of the Roman Baroque period.
Wearing a cardinal-appropriate red and black velvet tunic dress, Wintour
said the exhibit shows the influence of the papacy over millennia.
"Part of the power of the church has been how they look, and how they
dress," Wintour told The Associated Press. "They have this extraordinary
pressence."
Wearing his red-trimmed clerical garb and red zucchetto, or beanie,
Ravasi told the crowd at Palazzo Colonna that clothing oneself is both a
material necessity and a deeply symbolic act that was even recorded in
the biblical story of Adam and Eve.
SANCTIFYING ITS LOVE OF FASHION:
Highest Fashion! Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi Joins Andrew Bolton,
Donatella Versace, and Anna Wintour for the Rome Launch of the Met’s
Show “Heavenly Bodies Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”. Are you a true fashion
disciple? Then prepare for a pilgrimage. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and
TheCatholic Imagination opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York on on May 10—but today in Rome we glimpsed the most significant
hint so far of the wonders to come. Held in the gilded splendor of the
historic Galleria Colonna, today’s launch was graced by the presence of
Cardinal Ravasi.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
ABOVE: Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and designer Donatella Versace
"The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with
gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of
abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality." – Revelation 17:4
John the Revelator received prophecies from Jesus about what has
traditionally been interpreted as the Roman Catholic Church. The excerpt
above is just a part of that prophecy, which speaks of the opulent,
prosperity-dripping extravagance of a church that made its wealth by
taking advantage of the poor and selling purported salvation for the
trappings of modern fashion.
John Gill, the early Baptist commentator and predecessor to Charles Spurgeon said of the passage:
[This] may denote her hypocrisy, she being gilded with
these things, as the word signifies, when she was inwardly rotten,
corrupt, and filthy; and may point out the things by which persons have
been enticed into the communion of the church of Rome, and to comply
with her idolatrous worship and practices; and may also respect the
prodigious riches, which have, by various methods, been brought into the
pope’s coffers; these, with other things, are reckoned among the
merchandise of Babylon
How ironic, then, that the Vatican is teaming up with Vogue Magazine
and the Versace fashion line to showcase the influence of the papacy on
gaudy, riches-doused clothing lines for immodest men and women.
An exhibition on Vatican wealth and style will begin on May 10 and is called Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The website says:
The Costume Institute’s spring 2018 exhibition—at The Met
Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters—will feature a dialogue between
fashion and medieval art from The Met collection to examine fashion’s
ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of
Catholicism.
Serving as the cornerstone of the exhibition, papal robes and
accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never
been seen outside The Vatican, will be on view in the Anna Wintour
Costume Center. Fashions from the early 20th century to the present will
be shown in the Byzantine and medieval galleries, part of the Robert
Lehman Wing, and at The Met Cloisters.
The event is sponsored by Versace, Vogue, and Conde’ Nost (a
syndicate that sells Glamour Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, Allure, and
Epicurious Magazines). You can find a video of some of the displays
below.
The Vatican is loaning some of their most extravagant clothing items to
the fashion icons to display the church’s wealth and their influence on
fashion.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
OLYMPIA, Wash. —Lawmakers in Washington State have passed a bill that
requires insurance companies to cover abortion and contraception.
The Senate passed S.B. 6219, also known as the Reproductive Parity
Act, on Saturday 27-22 after approving changes made by the House. It now
moves to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who is expected to sign the
legislation into law. “[I]f a health plan issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2019,
provides coverage for maternity care or services, the health plan must
also provide a covered person with substantially equivalent coverage
to permit the abortion of a pregnancy,” the bill reads in part. It refers to abortion as “reproductive health care,” and asserts that
“[a]ccess to contraception has been directly connected to the economic
success of women and the ability of women to participate in society
equally.” “Unintended pregnancy is associated with negative outcomes, such as
delayed prenatal care, maternal depression, increased risk of physical
violence during pregnancy, low birth weight, decreased mental and
physical health during childhood, and lower education attainment for the
child,” the legislation, put forward by Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake
Stevens, also claims in arguing why contraception access should be
expanded. Read the bill in full here.
“The Reproductive Parity Act is a dramatic example, in my mind, of
how we put people first and how we can improve women’s access to
services that are critical to their health,” Sen. Annette Cleveland,
D-Vancouver, asserted in January as the bill was being considered in the
Senate.
However, others lamented the culture of death that the bill perpetuates.
“What are we coming to that we can’t value human life?” asked Sen. Jan Angel, R-Kitsap, according to the Daily Sun News.
“People who oppose abortion at any stage do so because it violates
their conscience,” Sarah Davenport-Smith of the group Human Life told
local television station KIRO. “Every citizen is guaranteed absolute
freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief and
worship. S.B. 6219 forces Washingtonians to go against their conscience
and pay for abortions.”
2018 is not the first time that the bill has been presented to lawmakers. In 2013, the Reproductive Parity Act cleared the House but was not successful in the Senate. The measure has long been backed by NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.
As previously reported, from its early years, Christians have decried
abortion in America as being the savage murder of innocent children.
Even in 1872, preacher Thomas De Witt Talmage wrote in his book “The
Abominations of Modern Society”:
“Herod’s massacre of the innocents was as nothing compared to that of
millions and millions by what I shall call ante-natal murders. You may
escape the grip of the law, because the existence of such life was not
known by society, but I tell you that at last God will shove down on you
the avalanche of His indignation, and though you may not have wielded
knife or pistol in your deeds of darkness, yet, in the day when John
Wilkes Booth and Antony Probst come to judgment, you will have on your
brow the brand of murderer.” Ecclesiastes 11:5 also reads, “As thou knowest not what is the way of
the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with
child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.” _________________________________________________
Sen. Hobbs discusses health insurance, reproductive parity act
