Casting Crowns
Feb/21/12 07:36 Filed in: Music
The following is excerpted from The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, which is available as a free eBook from Way of Life -- www.wayoflife.org.
Casting Crowns is led by Mark Hall, a youth pastor at Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta. the band leads the contemporary worship services with their pop rock music.
The award-winning group has broad influence through songs such as “Come to the Well,” “Who Am I,” “Courageous,” “Glorious Day,” “If We Are the Body,” “Praise You with the Dance.”
Casting Crowns’ radical ecumenism and spiritual carelessness is evident in that they participated in the National Worship Leader Conference in 2011, joining hands with men such as Jack Hayford who says God spoke to him and told him not to judge the Roman Catholic Church.
Another prominent speaker at the conference was Leonard Sweet who promotes a wide variety of New Age heresies. He calls his universalist-tinged doctrine “New Light” and “quantum spirituality” and “the Christ consciousness” and describes it in terms of “the union of the human with the divine” which is the “center feature of all the world’s religions” (Quantum Spirituality, p. 235). Sweet defines the New Light as “a structure of human becoming, a channeling of Christ energies through mindbody experience” (Quantum Spirituality, p. 70). Sweet says that “New Light pastors” hold the doctrine of “embodiment of God in the very substance of creation” (p. 124). In Carpe Mañana, Sweet says that the earth is as much a part of the body of Christ as humans and that humanity and the earth constitutes “a cosmic body of Christ” (p. 124). Sweet says that some of the “New Light leaders” that have influenced his thinking are Matthew Fox, M. Scott Peck, Willis Harman, and Ken Wilber. These are prominent New Agers who believe in the divinity of man, as we have documented in the book The New Age Tower of Babel. Sweet has endorsed The Shack with its non-judgmental father-mother god, and he promotes Roman Catholic contemplative mysticism and dangerous mystics such as the Catholic-Buddhist Thomas Merton. (For documentation see the book Contemplative Mysticism, which is available in print and eBook editions from Way of Life Literature -- www.wayoflife.org.)
At the National Worship Leader Conference, Casting Crowns also joined hands with Tim Hughes who heads up Worship Central and is on staff at Holy Trinity Brompton, one of the birthplaces of the Laughing Revival in England and the Alpha program which has a close association with the Roman Catholic Church. Worship Central definitely follows “another spirit” (2 Cor. 11:4). (See “Tim Hughes” in this Directory.)
Casting Crowns performed with Sanctus Real in December 2011. Matt Hammitt of Sanctus Real participated in the 2003 tour of the !Hero rock opera, which depicts Jesus as a cool black man. In!Hero, the Last Supper is a barbecue party and ‘Jesus’ is crucified on a city street sign. Sanctus Real and Steven Curtis Chapman played a concert in 2003 at St. Mary Seminary sponsored by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. (See “Sanctus Real” in this Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians.)
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Casting Crowns is led by Mark Hall, a youth pastor at
Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta. the
band leads the contemporary worship services with their rock
music.
The group has broad influence through songs such as
“Come to the Well,” “Always Enough,” “Who Am I,”
“Courageous,” “Glorious Day,” “If We Are the Body,” “Praise
You with the Dance.”
Casting Crowns’ radical ecumenism and spiritual
carelessness is evident in that they participated in the
National Worship Leader Conference in 2011, joining hands
with men such as Jack Hayford who says God spoke to him
and told him not to judge the Roman Catholic Church.
Another prominent speaker at the conference was Leonard
Sweet who promotes a wide variety of New Age heresies. He
calls his universalist-tinged doctrine “New Light” and
“quantum spirituality” and “the Christ consciousness” and
describes it in terms of “the union of the human with the
divine” which is the “center feature of all the world’s
religions” (Quantum Spirituality, p. 235). Sweet defines the
New Light as “a structure of human becoming, a channeling
of Christ energies through mind body experience” (Quantum
Spirituality, p. 70). Sweet says that “New Light pastors” hold
the doctrine of “embodiment of God in the very substance of
creation” (p. 124). In Carpe Mañana, Sweet says that the earth
is as much a part of the body of Christ as humans and that
humanity and the earth constitutes “a cosmic body of
Christ” (p. 124). Sweet says that some of the “New Light
leaders” that have influenced his thinking are Matthew Fox,
M. Scott Peck, Willis Harman, and Ken Wilber. These are
prominent New Agers who believe in the divinity of man, as
we have documented in the book The New Age Tower of
Babel. Sweet has endorsed e Shack with its non-judgmental
father-mother god, and he promotes Roman Catholic
contemplative mysticism and dangerous mystics such as the
Catholic-Buddhist omas Merton. (For documentation see
the book Contemplative Mysticism, which is available in print
and eBook editions from Way of Life Literature --
www.wayoflife.org.)
At the National Worship Leader Conference, Casting
Crowns also joined hands with Tim Hughes who heads up
Worship Central and is on staff at Holy Trinity Brompton,
one of the birthplaces of the Laughing Revival in England
and the Alpha program which has a close association with the
Roman Catholic Church. Worship Central definitely follows
“another spirit” (2 Cor. 11:4). (See “Tim Hughes” in this
Directory.)
Casting Crowns performed with Sanctus Real in December
2011. Matt Hammitt of Sanctus Real participated in the 2003
tour of the !Hero rock opera, which depicts Jesus as a cool
black man. In !Hero, the Last Supper is a barbecue party and
‘Jesus’ is crucified on a city street sign. Sanctus Real and
Steven Curtis Chapman played a concert in 2003 at St. Mary
Seminary sponsored by the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Cleveland, Ohio. (See “Sanctus Real” in this Directory.)
In “What This World Needs” Casting Crowns attacks every
Bible-believing “fundamentalist” church. They sing that we
need to “stop hiding behind our walls,” which is a brash
denunciation of biblical separatism. On the video of “What
This World Needs” they say that “this world doesn’t need my
denomination or my translation of the Bible; they just need
Jesus.” This is foolish heresy. To say that the world doesn’t
need “my denomination” is to say that it doesn’t matter what
a church believes, that any denomination is &ne. And to say
that the world doesn’t need “my translation of the Bible” is to
say that it doesn’t matter what translation we use, when it
most assuredly does matter!
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"Denying a Sellout: World Vision took a major step away from historic Christianity by allowing employees in homosexual “marriages” to work for it. The organization’s president, Richard Stearns, then compounded the capitulation by tellingChristianity Today that WV’s new policy is not a “an endorsement of same-sex marriage,” nor a “rejection of traditional marriage.”"
Press Release, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
March 25, 2014
Read it on Christian Newswire HERE
TAKE ACTION: CONTACT World Vision at 888-511-6548 or online HERE
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By Peter LaBarbera
CHICAGO—In a stunning capitulation to a powerful Sin Movement, World Vision’sAmerican branch announced yesterday that it will now employ people who are in legal homosexual “marriages”—a distinctly anti-Biblical position for an organization that professes “Jesus is Lord” and “We desire him to be central in our individual and corporate life.”
The cultural cave-in by World Vision was made all the more remarkable by WV PresidentRichard Stearns’ awkward attempts to justify and explain it—even denying that World Vision has caved on its Christian principles. WV had previously fought government attempts to force it and other Christian organizations to follow pro-homosexual mandates. Stearns told Christianity Today that the new policy was “not an endorsement of same-sex marriage. We have decided we are not going to get into that debate. Nor is this a rejection of traditional marriage, which we affirm and support.”
Stearns said, “Changing the employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage who is a professed believer in Jesus Christ to work for us makes our policy more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues,” he said. “It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”
Historically, people embracing sin are not regarded as faithful Christians. Homosexual conduct is clearly proscribed in the Bible as a sin (Romans 1:24-27) but one that can be overcome through Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Many former “gays” and “lesbians” like Anne Paulk have overcome homosexuality through faith in Jesus.
Christ affirmed the Genesis account of marriage as the union of one man and one woman (Mark 10: 6-8). Only in liberal denominations widely regarded as having jettisoned biblical authority does one hear the bizarre concept of two people of the same sex honoring “fidelity within marriage.”
Yet Stearns said, “This is not us compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of churches and denominations on theological issues.” He denied that World Vision is headed down a “slippery slope.”
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) offers the following points about World Vision’s pro-homosexual-“marriage” sellout:
- Stearns’ rationale for the policy change is stunningly dishonest and illogical in its double-speak. Stearns would be more forthright in declaring that World Vision has abandoned the Bible as authoritative and is denying “Jesus as Lord.” The same principle applies to individuals and organizations: one cannot embrace and sanctify sin while professing to honor Jesus Christ, who died and rose again so that believers might have victory OVER sin.
- By recognizing homosexual “marriages” in its hiring practices and treating them like actual marriages, World Vision has not only entered the debate over this issue but greatly advanced the LGBT agenda by lending “Christian” credibility to “gay” activists’ misleading “marriage equality” propaganda. WV also undermines religious liberty by signaling that immoral laws that defy God’s law are more binding than Scripture—unilaterally throwing up the white flag of surrender on freedom of conscience.
- World Vision’s sellout is part of a disturbing trend in evangelicalism to capitulate in the Culture War over homosexuality–while the pro-LGBT lobby only ramps up its advocacy of sexually immoral laws and corporate policies. The WV decision comes just days after Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy chose to censor himself by declaring that his public defense of natural marriage was a business “mistake.” Cathy vowed to stay out of the marriage debate, reportedly after listening to the counsel of friends—including homosexual activist Shane Windmeyer, whose organization, Campus Pride, advocates for homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism on college campuses.
- World Vision now puts hundreds of thousands of biblically faithful and compassionate Christians in a bind: they want to keep supporting poor children through WV sponsorships, but they do not want to give their money to a charity that actively undermines God’s Word through its policies. Many Christians will abandon World Vision and children will suffer.
- Ironically, many of the people in poor countries served by World Vision remain faithful to Scripture and resent, if not despise, the watered-down “Christianity” of decadent Western nations like the United States that seeks to accommodate sexual sin.
- Lastly, World Vision does a great spiritual disservice to its “gay married” employees. By implying that unrepentant, practicing homosexuals can be faithful servants of Jesus Christ while living openly in grave sexual sin and mocking true marriage, WV becomes an impediment to their repentance before God. Salvation requires humblyacknowledging and turning away from sin, just as genuine marriage requires two people of the opposite sex joining to produce a natural family.
