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.
Our President lies so often that his cabinet can’t even keep up. What follows is Obama’s rhetoric in motion and in his own words. He even lied to himself by stating that he was following the precedents of past Presidents by executing his monumental immigration order. Those past precedents pale in comparison to President Obama’s dictatorial onslaught of any remaining hope we may have had to restore jobs and futures to American workers in an increasingly crippled economy. http://www.infowars.com/homeland-secu... http://www.infowars.com/17-states-sue...
States Sue Obama Administration Over Executive Order on Immigration
Seventeen states have decided to pursue a lawsuit against the Obama administration over President Obama’s issuance of an executive order that would ease the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants. The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday and named the top immigration enforcement agencies as defendants.
Reuters reports, “The case being led by Texas and filed at the Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas said the executive order announced by Obama last month violated constitutional limits on presidential powers. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican and the Texas governor-elect said the lawsuit is not asking for monetary damages but is seeking to have the order declared illegal.”
The federal lawsuit involves the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
"As a patron of Affirming Catholicism, his appointment was a considerable departure from that of his predecessor and his views, such as those expressed in a widely published lecture on homosexuality were seized on by a number of Evangelicaland conservative Anglicans."
"Williams' contributions to Anglican views of homosexuality were perceived as quite liberal before he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. These views are evident in a paper written by Williams called "The Body’s Grace", which he originally delivered as the 10th Michael Harding Memorial Address in 1989 to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement"
"Williams has argued that the partial adoption of Islamicsharia law in the United Kingdom is "unavoidable" as a method of arbitration in such affairs as marriage, and should not be resisted."
"On 15 November 2008, Williams visited the Balaji Temple in Tividale, West Midlands, on a goodwill mission to represent the friendship between Christianity and Hinduism."
"The response of Williams to a controversy about the teaching of creationism in privately sponsored academies was that it should not be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution."
"He is currently patron of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius, an ecumenical forum for Orthodox and Western (primarily Anglican) Christians. He has expressed his continuing sympathies with Orthodoxy in lectures and writings since that time."
"Williams has written on Saint Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Catholic mystic."
If you wish to see where it will all end up you need only look at the now mortally wounded mainline denominations, which began dabbling with CSM circa 1966 as the charismatic renewal dawned. Beyond question CSM flowered in the anti-biblical monastic traditions of the long apostate Roman Catholic Church.
People like General of the Seeker Driven Army Rick Warren, wildly popular quasi-elder Beth Moore and undoubtedly Billy Graham Has Been Compromised For Years. From this vantage point of the battlefield I give you a peek at evangelicalism’s dark future in the above picture of Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dr Rowan Williams has told Pope Benedict XVI and the Synod of Bishops that evangelisation is not a project, but the natural “overflow” of an experience of Christ and his Church that transforms lives, giving them meaning and joy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said that “those who know little and care even less about the institutions and hierarchies of the Church these days” are nevertheless attracted and challenged by Christians whose lives show they have been transformed by their encounter with Christ. (source)
It’s clear that Williams, who retires in January, considers the Roman Catholic Church part of the Body of Christ, i.e. the invisible Church, despite its placing its anathema upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any doubt is immediately dispelled by what Williams says next:
The leader of the Anglican Communion had been invited by Pope Benedict to deliver a major address at the synod on the new evangelisation yesterday.
Dr Williams began his talk by remembering the Second Vatican Council, which, he said, was a sign that “the Church was strong enough to ask itself some demanding questions about whether its culture and structures were adequate to the task of sharing the Gospel with the complex, often rebellious, always restless mind of the modern world”.
In many ways, he said, the synod on the new evangelisation is a continuation of the work of Vatican II.
Presenting the Gospel means being confident that it has a distinctive, life-giving message, the archbishop said. Confidence in the message, and not in oneself, can be cultivated only through contemplation, he said. (source)
For those who know their Bibles and the history of the church, now we reach the heart of the matter with these ecumenical pow wows: Which Gospel are we going to be presenting? You see, this was the very heart of the Protestant Reformation and The Roman Catholic Church Hasn’t Changed Its Condemnation Of The Gospel.
Now let me unpack for you Williams’ musing that supposedly our confidence “in the message…can be cultivated only through contemplation.” If that reminds you of something gurus of the Emerging Churchlike Brian McLaren or former Emergent Church rock star pastor Rob Bell would say, this is for good reason.
It’s the classic mystic-speak of CSM, and particularly its crown jewel, which is meditation in an altered form of consciousness known as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). Those persisting in the transcendental meditation-lite of CCP long enough at some point eventually receive a highly subjective personal “experience.”
They come under a delusion, which mystics of all stripes are seeking. They may express it in slightly different ways, but that’s why I’ve been explaining to you that they speak of this experience using words like “enlightenment” and ”transformation”; Buddhists call it “satori,” but the result is always the same.
With remarkable similarity, practitioners of CSM in various religions, eventually describe their experience roughly along the following lines: All of a sudden as I meditated I was filled with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence/love, and I then realized I was one with Him/Her/It, as well as with the creation itself.
For many of these mystics the creation is also believed to be alive and dwelling in God i.e. panentheism. However, in the Bible the Lord tells us that all of this mystic mythology is really rooted in the love of the self. As in the last days — people will be lovers of self (2 Timothy 3:2); in other words, in love with mankind.
That’s why, as I previously pointed out e.g. in Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism Creeps Closer…To Your Church, as CSM slithers deeper into the church visible we’re seeing more and more spiritually obtuse evangelical leaders now also buying into an insipid Rodney King-like theology of: Can’t we all just get along?
And the time has arrived in the genuine Church of Jesus Christ for us to take off the gloves and begin to counterattack this attempted infiltration into mainstream Christendom by men who know not God; and who just do not believe His Word. Men like Rowan Williams who love man over God and opine:
“With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin to grow,” he said.
“The face we need to show to our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth toward love, a humanity so delighted and engaged by the glory of what we look toward that we are prepared to embark on a journey without end to find our way more deeply into it,” Archbishop Williams told the synod. (source)
Yes, that kind of man-centered musing plays well to the world. In fact, Scripture tells of dreamers like Rowan Williams — They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5). But in truth, what Williams has just said actually turns the Christian faith completely backward.
FORMER ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY PRACTICES BUDDHIST/CATHOLIC MEDITATION
(Friday Church News Notes, July 25, 2014,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a recent interview, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury [pictured left], said that he practices a combination of Buddhist/Catholic/Orthodox meditation practices. Each morning he repeats the same prayer while performing breathing exercises. Called the “Jesus Prayer,” it consists of the vain repetition of the words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” He said that “exposure to and engagement with the Buddhist world in particular has made me aware of practices not unlike the ‘Jesus Prayer’ and introduced me to disciplines that further enforce the stillness and physical focus that the prayer entails” (“Rowan Williams: How Buddhism Helps Me Pray,” The Telegraph, London, July 2, 2014). He says the practice helps him detach himself from “distracted, wandering images and thoughts.” Practicing mental imagining techniques, he pictures the human body as a cave through which his breath passes. He says that practitioners of these techniques can achieve “advanced states” and become aware of an “unbroken inner light.” Unscriptural contemplative practices such as the Jesus Prayer, visualizing prayer, breath prayer, and centering prayer are exceedingly dangerous. Many who practice these things end up believing in a pagan concept of God such as pantheism (God is everything) and panentheism (God is in everything). Through these practices people typically become increasingly ecumenical and interfaith in thinking. Contemplative prayer is a major building block of the end-time, one-world “church.” For more on this see the book Contemplative Mysticism, which is available in print and eBook editions from Way of Life Literature.
Updated May 22, 2014 (first published June 16, 2003) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)
The worldwide Anglican Communion is composed of some 80 million members * in 164 countries, including the “mother church,” the Church of England, and the Episcopal Church in America. (* A large percentage of Anglican members are “invisible” because they are church members due to the fact that they were baptized as infants and perhaps catechized, but they do not participate in the functional life of the churches.) The Anglican Church is permeated with theological liberalism at every level.
Consider some examples:
In 1953, Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple, in his book Nature and God, said, “... there is no such thing as revealed truth.”
In 1960, Episcopalian Bishop James Pike said the doctrine of the Trinity is “outdated, incomprehensible and nonessential” (The Christian Century, Dec. 21, 1960). (Billy Graham was a guest at Pike’s ordination on May 15, 1958 and praised the liberal bishop in glowing terms. Nine days later, Graham invited Pike to sit on the platform during his evangelistic crusade in San Francisco and had him lead in prayer. On Dec. 4, 1960, Graham spoke in Pike’s pulpit at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.)
In 1961, Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey said, “... heaven is not a place for Christians only. ... I expect to see many present day atheists there” (London Daily Mail, Oct. 2, 1961). That same year, Bishop James Pike called the virgin birth of Christ a “primitive myth” and said that Joseph was probably Jesus’ real father (Redbook magazine, August 1961). He also said that Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, heaven, and hell are myths. (Billy Graham invited Ramsey to the platform during his 1975 crusade in Brazil and allowed him to speak to the crowd (Fundamental Evangelistic Association News & Views, May-June 1975).
In 1963, Episcopal theologian Paul van Buren started the God-is-dead movement with the publication of his book The Secular Meaning of the Gospel. That same year, Anglican Bishop John Robinson said in his book Honest to God, “The whole scheme of a supernatural being coming down from heaven to ‘save’ mankind from sin ... is frankly incredible to man ‘come of age.’”
In 1967, after heresy charges were brought against Bishop James Pike, the Episcopal Church in America adopted a resolution declaring that all heresy was out of date. That year, Canon Hugh Montifiore of Cambridge University’s main church said, “Jesus might have been a homosexual” (Christianity Today, Aug. 18, 1967). (Montifiore was the advisor for the Cambridge Billy Graham Television Crusade.)
In 1968, the Church of England’s Lambeth Conference voted that Anglican clergy are no longer required to agree to the denomination’s 39 articles of faith.
In 1976, John Spong was ordained as the bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Newark, New Jersey, even though he denied practically every doctrine of the Christian faith.
In 1977, Bishop Paul Moore of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City ordained lesbian Ellen Barrett as a priest. Barrett told Time magazine that her lesbian love affairs gave her the “strength to serve God.”
In 1978, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said the Holy Spirit shined through Mahatma Gandhi, who is a Hindu (St. Alban’s Cathedral, Pretoria, South Africa, Nov. 23, 1978).
In 1980, Tutu said, “It may be that Jesus was an illegitimate son” (Cape Times, Oct. 24, 1980).
In 1982, Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie said he was an agnostic as to why Jesus suffered on the cross (Sunday Times Weekly Review, London, April 11, 1982). That same year, Episcopal Bishop John Spong, writing in the Christian Century (Jan. 6-13, 1982), condemned traditional evangelistic and missionary endeavors and said that biblical absolutism is “a vice.” (Billy Graham was one of the honored guests at Runcie’s ordination in March 1980, and Graham spoke highly of the liberal archbishop during his evangelistic crusades in England in 1984 and 1989.)
In 1984, David Jenkins, Anglican Bishop of Durham, described Christ’s resurrection as “a conjuring trick with bones” (“English Bishop Calls Christ’s Resurrection Conjuring Trick,” AP, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct. 28, 1984). Jenkins also said, “The Christian is not bound up with freak biology or corpses getting up and walking around” and “You don’t have to believe in the virgin birth.” (On July 9, 1984, three days after Jenkins was consecrated bishop, lightning struck his cathedral and caused extensive damage. A spokesman for the fire brigade said that though the roof was fully wired with lightning rods, none of them worked that morning; the smoke detectors in the ceiling did not go off, even though they were tested only a month before; and there was no thunder accompanying the lightning. EP News Service, Dec. 21, 1984).
In 1984, the Associated Press reported that only 20 of 31 Church of England bishops polled insisted that Christians must accept Jesus as both God and man.
In 1985, the Jesus Seminar was founded with the help of Episcopalians, including Marcus Borg of Oregon State University. The Seminar claims that Jesus spoke only about 20% of the things attributed to him in the New Testament and that the Jesus described in the Bible is largely a fiction. They claim he wasn’t born of a virgin, didn’t walk on the water, didn’t rise bodily from the dead, and had no intention of starting a new Christian religion. They also claim that there was no Jewish trial of Jesus before the crucifixion and the Jewish crowd did not participate in his condemnation.
In 1985 the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis ran an advertising campaign which included this slogan: “The Episcopal Church welcomes you. Regardless of race, creed, color or the number of times you’ve been born.” Twenty Episcopal churches in the Memphis, Tennessee, area ran an advertisement which stated, “In an atmosphere of absolute right and wrongs, here’s a little room to breathe. ... the Episcopal Church is totally committed to the preservation of open dialogue and undogmatic faith. We exist to tell the world about a God who loves us regardless of what we’ve done or what we believe. Even if we do not believe in Him, He believes in us. We do not suffocate with absolutes.” This, of course, is not biblical Christianity; it is gross apostasy.
When Edmond Lee Browning was elected “presiding bishop” of the Episcopal Church in September 1985, he “made it clear that he disagrees with the church’s official opposition to the ordination of practicing homosexuals” (Religious News Service, Sept. 11, 1985). He stated, “I would sincerely hope the Episcopal Church can say that there are no outcasts, but embrace all people and all cultures.” He was one of 20 bishops who signed a 1979 statement calling the church’s position on gays “a cruel denial of the sexual being of homosexual persons” and a “condemnatory judgment” that made them second-class citizens in the church.
In 1986, Anglican Bishop David Jenkins got a standing ovation from the general synod of the Church of England when he defended his doubts about the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Christ (Associated Press, July 7, 1986). Jenkins called the God of the Bible “a cultic idol” (Ecumenical Press Service, July 16-21, 1986).
In 1987, a panel of seven Episcopal bishops dismissed heresy charges against Bishop John Spong.
In 1988, Spong published his book Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality. He said, “The time has surely come not just to tolerate, or even to accept, but to celebrate and welcome the presence among us of our gay and lesbian fellow human beings” (p. 199). That year Spong visited a Buddhist temple and said, “As the smell of incense filled the air, I knelt before three images of the Buddha, feeling that the smoke could carry my prayers heavenward. It was for me a holy moment for I was certain that I was kneeling on holy ground” (“A Dialogue in a Buddhist Temple,” John Spong, The Voice, Jan. 1989).
In January 1989, a committee composed of five Episcopal bishops unanimously dismissed a second set of heresy charges that had been brought against Bishop John Spong. Toward the end of that year, Spong ordained the first openly practicing homosexual to the Episcopal priesthood. The man, Robert Williams, was diagnosed with AIDS less than two years later.
According to Integrity, a pro-homosexual Episcopal group, at least 50 practicing homosexuals had been ordained to the priesthood by 1991.
In November 1991, John Spong conducted a seminar in Bangor, Pennsylvania, entitled “Exorcising Fundamentalism, Sexual Phobias and Other Demons.”
In 1993, a survey of nearly 20,000 Episcopalians showed that seventy percent believed “faithful Christians can be sexually active gays and lesbians” (Christian News, Nov. 1, 1993). Seventy-five percent approved of living with someone of the opposite sex without marriage.
In 1994, it was reported by the Sunday Times (July 31) in London that at least 100 Anglican priests are atheists who do not believe in “an external, supernatural God.”
In 1996, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey lashed out at fundamentalists who place the Bible “above and beyond human inquiry” (Christian News, Dec. 9, 1996). That same year, the doctrinal commission of the Church of England said hell is not a place of fire and eternal torment. And Episcopal Bishop John Spong wrote in his paper that the image of God in the Bible is “no longer operative” (ENI, Dec. 6, 1996).
In 1997, a survey found that 31% of Anglican vicars in England do not believe in the virgin birth (Alliance Life, March 12, 1997). Actually that figure would probably have been much higher had the survey attempted to discover the number of vicars who believe in the virgin birth only in a figurative manner.
In his 1991 book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Episcopal Bishop John Spong said the apostle Paul was “a self hating, repressed homosexual.” That year, Spong ordained another homosexual priest, Barry Stopfel. Lesbian Episcopal priest Carter Heyward delivered the ordination sermon. When Stopfel’s male “lover” was introduced, the audience applauded.
In 1998 Episcopalian Bishop John Spong said, “I would choose to loathe rather than to worship a deity who required the sacrifice of his son” (Christianity Today, June 15, 1998). That same year, retiring Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning said, “It is time to move past using literalistic readings of the Bible to create prejudices against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters” (Calvary Contender, May 1, 1998).
In 2002, Richard Harries, Anglican Bishop of Oxford, said Christians should pray to “God the Mother” (The Times, Nov. 3, 2002). That same year, retired Bishop Spong proposed a “new Christianity,” which must be able to “incorporate all of our reality. It must be able to allow God and Satan to come together in each of us. ... It must unite Christ with Antichrist, Jesus with Judas, male with female, heterosexual with homosexual” (World, July 8, 2002).
In April 2003, Episcopalian bishop Charles Bennison said that Jesus Christ was a sinner (Worthy News, April 14, 2003).
On June 7, 2003, the Diocese of New Hampshire elected the first openly homosexual bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church USA. The election was confirmed on August 5 by the General Convention meeting in Minneapolis. Thirteen years ago the newly elected bishop, V. Gene Robinson, broke his marriage vows when he left his wife and two young daughters and moved in with his male partner, Mark Andrew. In a speech in April 29, 2000, the day before a homosexual march in Washington, D.C., Robinson said: “... we are worthy to hold our heads high as gay folk--NOT because we’ve merely decided we are worthy, but because God has proclaimed it so. That we are loved beyond our wildest imagining by a God who made us the way we are and proclaimed it good. We proclaim today that we too read our Bibles, and through the voices of its many witnesses, we hear God’s voice--NOT saying ‘You are an abomination,’ but rather, ‘You are my beloved.’ We lay an equal claim to a savior who loves us as we are and who died to save us from our ‘manifold sins and wickedness,’ which does NOT include our being gay. And we come here today, laying claim to our full membership--our FULL membership--in the Body of Christ.”
In June 2006, the national convention of the Episcopal Church in America voted overwhelmingly against a resolution stating “an unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved. More than seven tenths of the House of Deputies rejected the motion. One of those who voted against the resolution, a “Rev. McDowell” of North Carolina, told VirtueOnline that “how one lives his life is the more important issue than whether one affirms Jesus as Lord” and stated his conviction that all men are already children of God.
The 2006 Episcopal convention elected the ultra-liberal Katharine Jefferts Schori to be the presiding bishop for a nine-year term. In her first sermon in that capacity she referred to “our mother Jesus,” claiming that he gave birth to a new creation on the cross and implying that all are his children. Later she told the Washington Post that those who believe that the words of the Bible have only one possible interpretation are guilty of idolatry. She said, “I’m encouraging people to look beyond their favorite understandings” (Douglas LeBlanc, “Two Minds in One Episcopal Body,” Christian Research Journal, vol. 29, no. 5, 2006).
At the same convention, Louie Crew and some other voting representatives (called deputies) referred to the Holy Spirit as “she.” The homosexual bishop Gene Robinson said the Holy Spirit “is that part of God that refuses to be confined and contained in the little boxes we have for God” (“Two Minds in One Episcopal Body,” Christian Research Journal, vol. 29, no. 5, 2006). He said, further, “We don’t worship a God who is all locked up in the Scripture of 2,000 years ago.” He quoted John Fortunato, a homosexual author who claims that God visited him and confirmed that homosexuality is fine if it is “loving.” He said, “God smiled and said quietly, ‘How can loving be wrong? All love comes from me.”
On September 14, 2008, the Church of England officially apologized to Charles Darwin for rejecting his theory of evolution. It said: “Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still” (“Church Makes ‘Ludicrous’ Apology,” The Daily Mail, Sept. 13, 2008). The statement was written by Malcolm Brown, who sits on the Archbishops’ Council, the Church of England’s managing body, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams). Its argument that the theory of evolution is not incompatible with Christian teaching is patently ridiculous. The Bible plainly says that the world was created by God in six days, that the plant and animal life was made to reproduce after its own kind, that man was made in God’s image, that he sinned against God, and that the world was cast into fallen chaos. This fits perfectly with the condition that we see in the world today as well as the archaeological and geological records. If there was no divine creation, if man is a product of evolution, then Genesis is a myth, the fall is a fable, there is no purpose to life, no afterlife, and no salvation. If the account of Adam is a legend, then Jesus Christ’s apostles were deceived and the gospel they preached a delusion, because they mentioned Adam seven times in their writings, describing him always as a historical figure.
On May 16, 2009, the bells of the Anglican Cathedral of Liverpool pealed out John Lennon’s atheistic song “Imagine” three times. A spokesperson for the cathedral said, “We feel this performance has inspired many people to think about their relationship with God in their lives” (“Imagine That,” The Daily Mail, May 17, 2009). Indeed, as we have seen, many members of the Anglican Church have no problem imagining with Lennon that there is no heaven or hell. John Lennon was anti-christ. His book A Spaniard in the Works portrayed Jesus as El Pifico, a “garlic eating, stinking little yellow, greasy fascist ****** Catholic Spaniard.” In this wicked book, Lennon further blasphemed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the song “I Found Out,” Lennon sang, “There ain’t no Jesus gonna come from the sky,” and in his song “God,” he said, “I don’t believe in Bible. I don’t believe in Jesus. I just believe in me.” In an interview with a British newspaper Lennon defined God in these words: “All the energy is God. Your own energy and their energy, whether doing god-like things or ungodly things” (The Daily Sketch, Oct. 9, 1967). Lennon and Yoko Ono were heavily involved in occultism. The books Hellhounds on Their Trail by Gary Patterson, Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon by Robert Rosen, and Lennon in America by Geoffrey Giuliano describe how the Lennons purchased entire sections of occult literature in bookstores, consulted tarot cards, astrologers, and psychics, learned how to cast spells, sought magical power from Egyptian artifacts, and believed in reincarnation.
Following a vote in May 2009 by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to approve the appointment of a homosexual pastor, Desmond Tutu, Anglican Bishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, voiced his approval saying that churches should not be discussing “who goes to bed with whom” (“Desmond Tutu Endorses Homosexual Ministers,” LifeSiteNews.com, May 29, 2009). The homosexual pastor, Scott Rennie, was ordained the pastor of Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen in 2008, but his appointment was protested and brought before the denomination’s ruling body. Like Vickie Gene Robinson, who was ordained a bishop in the Episcopal Church of America in 2003, Rennie divorced his wife to live carnally with a man. This is a double sin. First, there is the sin of breaking one’s solemn marriage vows before Almighty God. Second, there is the sin of sodomy. Yet these men are so spiritually blind that they claim to hold the moral high ground! (The Church of Scotland is not part of the Anglican communion, but Tutu is.)
At its annual convention in 2012, the Episcopal Church in America endorsed the blessing of “same-sex unions” and voted in favor of “transgender clergy” (Rob Kerby, “Why Is the Episcopal Church Near Collapse?” Beliefnet.com, July 13, 2012). Presiding Bishop Katharine Jeffferts Schori called God the “Big Man.”
In 2013, the Church of England “dropped its ban on gay clergy in civil partnerships becoming bishops” and a study group proposed that the Church “be able to recognize and celebrate same-sex marriages and partnerships in church services” (“Church of England Proposes Celebrating Gay Marriage,” Newsmax.com, Nov. 28, 2013).
In 2014, V. Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican church, announced that he is divorcing his “partner,” Mark Andrew. The two “married” in 2010 when same-sex marriage was legalized in New Hampshire (“First Openly Homosexual Episcopal Bishop Divorces,” OneNewsNow, May 4, 2014). In 1990, Robinson broke his marriage vows when he left his wife and two young daughters and moved in with Andrew.__ David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
Editor’s Note: Police misconduct is real, but the clearest examples are typically not the ones that become mainstream news. Instead, any and all incidents are used to promote the narrative that “white racism” and “white privilege” are the underlying problems. This overlooks the fact that blue privilege, (i.e. police officers not being held accountable for criminal behavior), is often the real culprit.
“It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns. There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any. I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he’d been placed into a medically induced coma.”—Alecia Phonesavanh, the mother of Baby Bou Bou
After a year dominated with news of police shootings of unarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry, photo ops of militarized police shouldering assault rifles while perched on top of armored vehicles, and reports on how the police are using asset forfeiture laws to pad their pockets with luxury cars, cash and other expensive toys, I find myself wrestling with the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American police state, especially when it comes to interactions with police?
Do you parrot the government line, as the schools do, that police officers are community helpers who are to be trusted and obeyed at all times? Do you caution them to steer clear of a police officer, warning them that any interactions could have disastrous consequences? Or is there some happy medium between the two that, while being neither fairy tale nor horror story, can serve as a cautionary tale for young people who will encounter police at virtually every turn?
Children are taught from an early age that there are consequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and you will get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer can shoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop can lie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?
Kids understand accidents: sometimes drinks get spilled, dishes get broken, people slip and fall and hurt themselves, or you bump into someone without meaning to, and they get hurt. As long as it wasn’t intentional and done with malice, you forgive them and you move on. Police shootings of unarmed people—of children and old people and disabled people—can’t just be shrugged off as accidents, however.
Aiyana Jones was no accident. The 7-year-old was killed after a Detroit SWAT team launched a flash-bang grenade into her family’s apartment, broke through the door and opened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch. The cops weren’t even in the right apartment.
Ironically, on the same day that President Obama refused to stop equipping police with the very same kinds of military weapons and gear used to raid Aiyana’s home, it was reported that the police officer who shot and killed the little girl would not face involuntary manslaughter charges.
Obama insists that $263 million to purchase body cameras for police will prevent any further erosions of trust, but a body camera would not have prevented Aiyana from being shot in the head. Indeed, the entire sorry affair was captured on camera: a TV crew was filming the raid for an episode of The First 48, a true-crime reality show in which homicide detectives have 48 hours to crack a case.
While that $263 million will make Taser International, the manufacturer of the body cameras, a whole lot richer, it’s doubtful it would have prevented a SWAT team from shooting 14-month-old Sincere in the shoulder and hand and killing his mother.
No body camera could have stopped a Georgia SWAT team from launching a flash-bang grenade into the house in which Baby Bou Bou, his three sisters and his parents were staying. The grenade landed in the 2-year-old’s crib, burning a hole in his chest and leaving him with scarring that a lifetime of surgeries will not be able to easily undo.
No body camera could have prevented 10-year-old Dakota Corbitt from being shot by a Georgia police officer who tried to shoot an inquisitive dog, missed, and hit the young boy, instead. Alberto Sepulveda, 11, died from one “accidental” shotgun round to the back, after a SWAT team raided his parents’ home.
Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was seen playing on a playground with a toy gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy after getting out of a moving patrol car. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy’s toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe’s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest.
These children are more than grim statistics on a police blotter. They are the heartbreaking casualties of the government’s endless, deadly wars on terror, on drugs, and on the American people themselves. Not even the children who survive their encounters with police escape unscathed. Increasingly, their lives are daily lessons in compliance and terror, meted out with every SWAT team raid, roadside strip search, and school drill.
Who is calculating the damage being done to the young people forced to watch as their homes are trashed and their dogs are shot during SWAT team raids? A Minnesota SWAT team actually burst into one family’s house, shot the family’s dog, handcuffed the children and forced them to “sit next to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour.” They later claimed it was the wrong house.
More than 80% of American communities have their own SWAT teams, with more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually some small amount of drugs.
Then there are the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills to incidents in which children are suspended, handcuffed, arrested and even tasered for what used to be considered childlike behavior.
Case in point: in Pennsylvania, a ten-year-old boy was suspended for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination. In Colorado, a six-year-old boy was suspended and accused of sexual harassment for kissing the hand of a girl in his class whom he had a crush on. In Alabama, a diabetic teenager was slammed into a filing cabinet and arrested after falling asleep during an in-school suspension. Seven North Carolina students were arrested for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank.
What is particularly chilling is how effective these lessons in compliance are in indoctrinating young people to accept their role in the police state, either as criminals or prison guards. For example, police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.
If these exercises are intended to instill fear and compliance into young people, they’re working.
Sociologist Alice Goffman understands how far-reaching the impact of such “exercises” can be on young people. For six years, Goffman lived in a low-income urban neighborhood, documenting the impact such an environment—a microcosm of the police state—on its residents. Her account of neighborhood children playing cops and robbers speaks volumes about how constant exposure to pat downs, strip searches, surveillance and arrests can result in a populace that meekly allows itself to be prodded, poked and stripped. As journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing for the New Yorker notes:
Goffman sometimes saw young children playing the age-old game of cops and robbers in the street, only the child acting the part of the robber wouldn’t even bother to run away: I saw children give up running and simply stick their hands behind their back, as if in handcuffs; push their body up against a car without being asked; or lie flat on the ground and put their hands over their head. The children yelled, “I’m going to lock you up! I’m going to lock you up, and you ain’t never coming home!” I once saw a six-year-old pull another child’s pants down to do a “cavity search.”
Clearly, our children are getting the message, but it’s not the message that was intended by those who fomented a revolution and wrote our founding documents. Their philosophy was that the police work for us, and “we the people” are the masters, and they are to be our servants. Now that has been turned on its head. Our so-called “servants” with badges are no longer held accountable to the same laws that we are. In their military gear and assault vehicles, they are allowed to operate above the law. In fact, their word is the law.
It’s getting harder by the day to tell young people that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law without feeling like a teller of tall tales. Yet as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, unless something changes and soon for the young people growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known it but a fairy tale without a happy ending.
Glidden and Sheriff Darren White, working together, forced entry through the closed front door and attacked Jason and Laura, who were still reeling from the previous attack by Glidden. Wrote HSLDA’s Jim Mason:
Together they forced open the door and found Laura and Jason lying on the floor. Glidden sprayed Laura in the face a second time while White sprayed Jason and tried to turn him over onto his stomach.
When the Hagan’s dog started barking, the officers also sprayed it and threatened to shoot it if it didn’t shut up. Having overpowered the Hagans, the officers handcuffed them both, arrested them, charged them with resisting arrest and child endangerment, and booked them into the county jail. The kids were remanded to the tender mercies of social services for the duration. ______________________________________________________________
The Washington, D.C. newspaper The Hill noted that Obama's new local police program would cost taxpayers some $263 million over three years ($75 million of which would purchase the cameras), all spent without so much as a “by your leave” from Congress. Sure, Obama talked about working with Congress in the speech excerpted above. But he also made abundantly clear that the new program would spend the specified money whether Congress sent him more funds or not. Obama essentially announced that he had found $263 million under the seat cushions of the White House couch that he could spend at whim.
