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.
Alex Jones has blasted Apple CEO Tim Cook for spearheading Big Tech’s ban of Infowars, calling Cook a hypocrite who is trying to bring Communist Chinese-style Internet censorship to America.
Last week, it was reported that Tim Cook personally made the call to ban the Infowars podcast. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg then immediately followed suit after learning of Cook’s decision.
Infowars founder Jones slammed Cook in a series of tweets today, calling him, “the same guy who contracts with the oppressive regime in China and Foxconn factories at which mistreated workers commit mass suicide,” a reference to employees who build Apple products laboring under intolerable conditions.
“Cook also styles himself as a gay rights activist, yet moves Apple to China, a country that bans LGBT marches and discriminates against gays,” added Jones.
“In arbitrarily silencing Infowars, Cook is bringing Communist Chinese-style web control to America while Google simultaneously building a censored version of its search engine in China. Everything they do in China will eventually come to America. Mark my words. It already is,” warned Jones.
In arbitrarily silencing Infowars, Cook is bringing Communist Chinese-style web control to America while Google simultaneously building a censored version of its search engine in China.
Everything they do in China will eventually come to America. Mark my words. It already is.
He then turned his attention to Mark Zuckerberg, who reportedly said privately that he “doesn’t care” about publishers, before warning them, “I’ll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice.”
“These are the thugs we are allowing to control the public discourse and so-called “liberals” celebrate it. Bizarre,” said Jones.
Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, who also banned Infowars, reportedly warned publishers, "I'll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice."
These are the thugs we are allowing to control the public discourse and so-called "liberals" celebrate it. Bizarre.
We'll be launching a meme contest based on Tim Cook and his rampant hypocrisy. Satire is the best way to ridicule corrupt, authoritarian, corporate bullies who have amassed way too much power over free speech....Until they ban that too.
Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit (photo from RNS: https://religionnews.com/2018/08/09/willow-creek-leadership-summit-goes-on-despite-mass-resignations/; used in accordance with the US Fair Use Act)
An August 8, 2018 Christianity Today article titled Willow Creek Elders and Pastor Heather Larson Resign over Bill Hybels chronicles events that led to Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels’ resignation from the megachurch due to numerous women having come forth with accusations of years of sexual misconduct and abuse by Hybels. Because of the lackadaisical attitudes Willow Creek leadership has taken toward the victims of Hybels sexual abuse, the Christianity Today article states that the two current lead pastors have resigned followed by the entire board of Willow Creek stepping down. The Christianity Today article leaves the impression that once Willow Creek gets rid of these leaders, elects a new board, and apologizes to the women, there will be a fresh “new start” for Willow Creek. However, there is more to this Willow Creek story than meets the eye, more to repent of than the cover-up of sexual misconduct, and the Christianity Today article unknowingly alludes to it. The CT article states:
In the summer of 2008, Bill Hybels stood in front of thousands of pastors and other church leaders gathered at Willow Creek Community Church and admitted his megachurch had failed. “We made a mistake,” he told the crowd gathered for the 2008 Global Leadership Summit (GLS). A detailed Willow study had found that the church had helped many people find new faith in Jesus, but had failed to teach them how to practice the spiritual disciplines needed to grow their faith.
Lighthouse Trails remembers when Bill Hybels came forth with this declaration. He had actually announced it earlier in 2007. At that time, headlines across Christian media blasted the news that Willow Creek had repented. Lighthouse Trails readers began contacting our editorial office asking if we heard the news that Willow Creek had repented. This led to our researchers digging a little deeper to get the full story on Willow Creek’s “repentance.” In November of 2007, we issued an article titled “No Repentance from Willow Creek – Only a Mystical Paradigm Shift.” Our article began:
Recently, headlines about Willow Creek filled the front pages of several online news outlets. The caption stated: “A Shocking Confession from Willow Creek Community Church.” Some wondered if Willow Creek’s pastor Bill Hybels was repenting from past errors in ministry techniques.1 But a Lighthouse Trails commentary showed that this “shocking confession” was actually a re-enforcement of Willow Creek’s efforts to “transform this planet” through contemplative and emerging spiritualities.
That earlier LT commentary stated:
It is no new thing that Willow Creek wishes to “transform the planet.” They are part of the emerging spirituality that includes Rick Warren and many other major Christian leaders who believe the church will usher in the kingdom of God on earth before Christ returns. This dominionist, kingdom-now theology is literally permeating the lecture halls of many Christian seminaries and churches, and mysticism is the propeller that keeps its momentum. If Willow Creek hopes to transform the planet, they won’t be able to get rid of the focus on the mystical (i.e., contemplative). Their new Fall 2007 Catalog gives a clear picture of where their heart lies, with resources offered by New Age proponent Rob Bell, contemplative author Keri Wyatt Kent, and the Ancient Future Conference with emerging leaders Scot McKnight and Alan Hirsch as well as resources by Ruth Haley Barton and John Ortberg. Time will tell what Willow Creek intends to do about strengthening its focus on “spiritual practices” and “transform[ing] the planet.”
Back then, Willow Creek had conducted a study to find out how they had failed as a ministry. The results of their study led Willow Creek to make a new more passionate commitment to taking their congregation into the emergent church via contemplative prayer practices (i.e., spiritual disciplines) as was clearly illustrated in the Fall 2007 issue of their magazine,where editors stated: “The landscape of our ministries is shifting. Brace yourself for the aftershocks.” The issue included the articles and teachings by numerous contemplative/emergent figures such as Richard Foster, Richard Rohr, Ruth Haley Barton, and John Ortberg (see more detail). There was no doubt about it after reading that issue of their magazine, Willow Creek’s repentance was basically saying, “We are changing the way we do things around here – we need to incorporate more of the contemplative, mystical element into our people’s lives.” And, yet, Christianity Today and other Christian media outlets made it look like a true biblical repentance was taking place at Willow Creek. Since Willow Creek’s “repentance” in 2007, Lighthouse Trails has tracked much of what Willow Creek has been up to from Lynne Hybel’s anti-Israel efforts to the work by Hybel’s grown kids and kids-in-law to bring the contemplative prayer movement to full fruition at Willow Creek—and, of course, Bill Hybel’s own demise through his out-of-control sexual exploitations of women who worked for or with him. To give an example of where Willow Creek is at today, we’d like to draw your attention to The Practice, a program startedby Bill Hybel’s son-in-law, Aaron Niequist, in 2014 that takes place on Sunday nights at Willow Creek and specifically incorporates contemplative prayer practices. On The Practice website, it states:
The Practice is an experimental gathering where we immerse ourselves in God’s dream for humanity, practice the historic disciplines [i.e., contemplative meditation] that align us with His dream, and carry each other along the way.
While the headlines for a while will focus on the sexual-abuse accusations and the resignations and apologies that are following, there’s not much chance that you will see headlines discussing Willow Creek’s contemplative/emergent ways. Of course, you won’t. Virtually every major Christian media outlet (including Christianity Today) is either giving a pass to this mystical paradigm shift or is outright promoting it. If only the purpose-driven, Willow Creek, seeker-friendly, church-growth, dominionist “church of today” could see that it is on a mystical slippery slope to full apostasy, and while exposing sexual predators and helping victims is an important thing, the very nature of the “new spirituality” with a dependence on esoteric experiences instead of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, will not make people live more righteously and God pleasing but will, in fact, pull them deeper into darkness and sin because the source of those esoteric (contemplative) experiences are driven and led by the same source that deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and not by the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. Thus, any “fruit” of such a “repentance” will be sour and harmful. In spite of all that has been happening at Willow Creek, this year’s Global Leadership Summit still took place this week as is stated in a Religious News Service article. It was expected that over 400,000 around the world would participate. Christians today seem to need to have their ears tickled and their spiritual bellies filled, and the show must go on.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
For years I have called for a reconfiguration of our international alliances to reflect new alliances. Now it is happening of its own accord. Rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey has not been a reliable ally of the US for years. It is long overdue that this sham alliance be brought to an end, and our alliances with foes of jihad in the region be strengthened.
“Erdogan warns Trump that Turkey will ‘find new friends’ as US row deepens,” by Josie Ensor, Telegraph, August 11, 2018:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Turkey would “seek new friends” after the US “upset and annoyed” Ankara with sanctions which triggered a major currency crisis.
Turkey’s president told counterpart Donald Trump to respect its sovereignty “before it is too late”, plunging relations between the Nato allies to their lowest in decades.
Writing in the New York Times – the broadsheet paper much loathed by the US president – Mr Erdogan said: “Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives.
“Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies.”
The Turkish lira tumbled more than 16 per cent on Friday – a record low against the dollar – after Washington imposed sanctions as well as steel and aluminium tariffs to compel it to turn over a jailed American pastor.
Mr Trump announced the punitive doubling of tariffs, which were imposed in protest over the detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested on terrorism charges after the attempted coup against Mr Erdogan in 2016, saying: “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”
The US is the biggest destination for Turkish steel exports with 11 per cent of the Turkish export volume.
The country has weathered several tough economic crises over the decades, but has traditionally always had Washington’s staunch support.
Mr Erdogan framed Turkey’s crisis as a “national battle” against economic enemies, including the US. “If they have their dollar, we have the people, we have Allah,” he said, appealing to his religious Muslim base. His supporters in the crowd ripped up one dollar notes in protest.
The president, who has consolidated unprecedented power through a series of referendums, advised Turks to show solidarity by converting any stashed-away gold or foreign currency to Turkish lira in a bid to wage a “war of independence” against America.
“It is wrong to dare bring Turkey to its knees through threats over a pastor,” Mr Erdogan told a rally in the Black Sea town of Unye yesterday.
“I am calling on those in America again. Shame on you, shame on you. You are exchanging your strategic partner in Nato for a priest.”
Mr Erdogan vowed there would be no easing of the law in Mr Brunson’s case: “We have not made concessions on justice so far, and we will never make any,” he said….
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
You might know Jonathan Cahn from the failed predictions in his best-selling book, The Harbinger, which seeks to draw parallels between Israel’s past and America’s present. Or you might know Jonathan Cahn from the failed predictions of “The Mystery of the Shemitah,” another best-selling book that claimed a “shaking” was going to take place between 2015 and 2016 that would economically rock the world. Or, you might know Cahn from any number of his different prophecies in which he takes obscure Old Testament passages, extrapolates a distorted message, and claims that it’s an omen for the present day.
Now, the failed prophet – who is still popular on the charismatic speaking circuit, where they typically care more about the novelty of the prophecy than its accuracy – claims that the prophecy of Donald Trump was foretold in the Bible. Of course, it would have been nice had he told us this long before Trump became president. A little heads-up would have been nice.
The video is of Michael Brown hosting Sid Roth’s Program, It’s Supernatural! For clarity’s sake, this is not a new video and was filmed about 10 months ago. It was, however, just recently uploaded by Charisma Mag and promoted on their website just today. Michael Brown seemed to find the Donald Trump prophecy fascinating, without offering critique or rebuke.
You can watch the video below.
Michael Brown appeared on Iron Sharpens Ironwith Reformed Baptist apologist, James White, yesterday.
Social media companies are private corporations that reserve the right to deny service to anyone. There is no constitutional right to demand that Google, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or iTunes allow any person to speak freely. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution restricts the government from prohibiting speech, but privately owned companies – whether newspapers, opinion websites, or social media platforms – can censor whomever they want. That said, the coordinated censorship of Alex Jones by these companies should frighten anyone who is seriously concerned with a free flow of information in the Marketplace of Ideas. While we rightly resist most forms of tyranny in the civilized world, we should recognize that government by Corporatocracy is a very real threat to a Democratic Republic. And, to make matters worse, it’s not a threat that can (or should) be fixed governmentally. It can, and should, be fixed by the People, however.
JUST THE FACTS
Alex Jones is a conspiracy theorist whose conspiracies are often wrong. On occasion, however, Alex Jones is ahead of the curve on reporting information that is later picked up and validated by the Mainstream Media (who never credit Jones’ media organization with uncovering the information).
I’ll put his work into three categories what Jones’ Info Wars media company does. First, Jones aggregates media stories that are already public and in the realm of more “trusted” media. In other words, small but respected MSM (mainstream media) outlets (like local news affiliates) often cover or unveil certain news stories and the much larger Info Wars publishes the material and disseminates it to a much larger audience. In this case, Info Wars acts essentially like Drudge Report, passing along what others have written. This information is often trustworthy, and I say that as a media connoisseur who also reads far-left news sites as a part of my dailyFeedly digestion. Second, there is independent journalism done by Info Wars, like that written by Paul Joseph Watson. These are stories researched and exclusively produced for one of Alex Jones’ media outlets. It’s here the information provided to the news consumer gets sketchier but is often (but not always) affirmed as accurate by impartial fact-checkers (if there is such a thing). The fact is, Watson and other contributors have broken major news stories that the MSM then feeds upon, regurgitates, and publishes as though it’s their own. There is then a third aspect to what Jones does, which is to provide commentary based upon the daily news, like on his nightly program. It’s here that the crazy comes out. I often find the assumptions drawn from the facts presented by Jones to be off-base, sometimes hysterical, unsubstantiated, or just downright nutty. To reiterate, Alex Jones sources the news stories of others (which is usually good), provides independent research and journalism (which is a mixed bag, ranging from good to awful) and provides commentary (which usually ranges from bad to atrocious).
Jones, in the last few days, has been banned – along with all of his media platforms – from Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. What is disturbing is that these are independent companies that seem to have made this decision collectively. In other words, competitors are making decisions about content publication together. Regardless of how you feel about Jones, that should make anyone who is cautious of a Corporatocracy a tad concerned. And frankly, all of these companies blocking Jones and Info Wars within 24 hours of each other does not help keep millions of Americans from being convinced that there is a conspiracy to silence conservatives (by the way, there is a conspiracy to silence conservatives).
A SHIFT OF POWER
There is zero doubt – none, zilch, nada – that the American conservative movement was saved by the advent of alternative media. Leftists have had a monopoly on MSM for more than half a century, with the exception of a few (very vew) large newspapers. Most print media and virtually all televised media has and has had a strong left bias for more than two generations. Then, thirty years ago, along came Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, who has reigned at the top of news radio ratings for three decades and is still the undisputed king of talk radio, changed the balance of power. People with viewpoints not represented by the “five networks” dutifully tuned into their AM radios. Soon, an archaic medium and antiquated radio-band became the go-to place to hear opposing viewpoints. Not only did Rush Limbaugh create “news talk radio” (he pioneered the three-hour news talk format), it’s not an exaggeration to say that Rush Limbaugh saved AM radio. It very likely would not exist today without him.
A further change came when Fox launched their news channel in 1996. Although Fox did not invent the 24/7 cable news network (CNN was founded in 1980), it created the first televised “conservative” media source that would come to challenge – and conquer – the news options of the five powerful networks. And soon, Fox News came to conquer all of cable TV, and is now the highest-ranking cable channel in the nation.
Without AM radio and Fox News, the conservative movement would have died. There’s very little doubt about that from cultural commentators and pop-political anthropologists. Even something as “given” as George W. Bush presidency would not have happened without these two sources of “alternative media.”
However, the earth didn’t really begin to shake until the birth of Internet Alternative Media. The Drudge Report was founded in 1995 and helped to break the Clinton-Lewinski scandal and, as they say, the rest was history. With the popularization of the Internet, it became easier and easier to break the stranglehold of MSM upon the American people. While NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS are still solidly blue and relentlessly leftist, people have chosen to consume their news from sites like World Net Daily, Newsmax, and even smaller but still well-read websites like Barb Wire, Hot Air, The Daily Wire, and Pulpit & Pen. In the meantime, video sharing platforms have allowed dissemination of alternative voices through media produced by outfits like CRTV, Louder with Crowder, Jordan Peterson, Apologia Studios, or Joe Rogan. You no longer needed a media company monopoly to be behind you. All you needed were ideas that people wanted to hear.
Alex Jones has ideas – no matter how crazy – that people want to hear.
However, what would happen if all the forms of alternative media began to lose their platforms because the content-producers didn’t own the media outlet that hosted them? What would happen if YouTube decided to stop hosting Louder with Crowder? What would happen if they refused to let Joe Rogan monetize his videos, even though they were large traffic boons for the site? What if Facebook started throttling World Net Daily? What if AM stations, under threat of boycott, started taking Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Levin off the air? What if Fox News, again under threat of boycott, began to remove its conservative commentators? What if Twitter began to shadow-ban Paul Joseph Watson. What would happen if – and mark it down, it will – Internet Service Providers refused to give service to servers of conservative news sites? Effectively, what you would have, should these things take place, is a gigantic shift of power away from conservatism as the ideology’s lifeline of alternative media is silenced. None of the above would be illegal, because none of them involve government interference of speech. However, our Republic might just be doomed to suffer under the tyranny of Corporatocracy.
What is happening to Alex Jones is a test-run for what will eventually happen to everyone deemed subjectively by corporations as contrary to their own preferred ideology.
THE CENSORSHIP OF SUBJECTIVITY
Many might scoff at the Jones censorship and think, “Good. The nutjob done for.” What you need to understand is that Alex Jones was not blacklisted by virtually every social media platform in existence within a 24 hour time period because he’s “fake news.” His news is no faker than the Huffington Post, which is equally as conspiratorial and kooky. He was censored because he holds to an opposing ideology and this is seen as a test-run for things to come.
Consider the facts. Steven Crowder has been penalized by YouTube but not equally-as-offensive commentators on the left. Candace Owens – a conservative commentator – was banned from Twitter over the weekend for tweeting the exact same thing as leftists (only changing the ethnicities). There is zero doubt that these corporations are censoring conservatives to the point we’re afraid to speak, but almost never penalize leftists.
Jones was officially banned for “hate speech,” but what exactly is hate speech? What constitutes hate speech? It is ill-defined. Hate speech has come to be defined by whatever the judge perceives it to be. Christians should be terrified if hate speech is the criterion for censorship from social media platforms because half of the teachings of our religion (at least) qualifies as hate speech by today’s standards.
THE ANSWER IS LITIGATION
I’ll flesh this out on a podcast or something later, but chiefly the answer has to be litigation. The answer cannot be legislation, because even though we don’t like media platforms or service providers discriminating, we recognize their constitutional right to discriminate. The solution is this: If a social media company wants to act like a publisher – determining what content they’ll publish or promote – they should have all the already-existing legal liabilities of a publisher. For example, if a newspaper published a libelous article, then not only would the author be liable, but so would the newspaper corporation itself. That’s how the system has always worked. So then, if Facebook, Google, Youtube, Apple, or Spotify want to act as a publisher, allowing some content but censoring others, then they should be held liable for every libelous, untrue, or dangerous thing that the two-billion (or so) of their users say or write. Everytime someone faces monetary damages due to what one of their customers has said, these companies should be taken to court and made to pay damages. Very quickly, these companies would long for the day when what they were intentionally designed to be before they made billions and got into the market of social engineering; places of free-flowing ideas and opinions. If they are not publishers, but are only providers of places for people to speak without censorship, they would not be held civilly liable for all the insane things spoken on the platform.
