TEACHER FORCED OUT FOR USING CONFEDERATE FLAG IN CIVIL WAR HISTORY LESSON~DEEMED A "SYMBOL OF HATE" BY SCHOOL DISTRICT

 

TEACHER FORCED OUT FOR USING CONFEDERATE FLAG IN CIVIL WAR HISTORY LESSON

BY STEVE BYAS

SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/25265-teacher-forced-out-for-using-confederate-flag-in-civil-war-history-lesson;

 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

“He’s personally my favorite teacher in the whole school,” Ana Kneisely told CBS Sacramento, in reference to a middle school American History teacher, Woody Hart, in Rancho Cordova, California, who was forced to retire by the Board of Education.
Hart, a 70-year-old teacher at Suttle Middle School of the Folsom Cordova United School District, was ousted after using a Confederate battle flag, along with a period United States flag, as part of a lesson on the U.S. Civil War. The school’s superintendent, Deborah Bettencourt, released a statement late last week that the board of education had “accepted this Sutter Middle School teacher’s retirement ... and he will not be returning to school this year.”
In an interview with the local CBS affiliate, KCRA, Ana Kneisely, one of Hart’s students, explained what had happened. “We just came in and we saw the Union Flag on one side of the room and the Confederate Flag on the other side of the room.”
Apparently, this was typical of the way Hart taught. “I actually very much appreciated the way he taught history,” Kneisely said. “I felt that we were getting more involved than what our other classes did.”

For example, Hart used the two flags of the opposing sides in the Civil War to create interest. The two hanging flags were part of Hart’s lesson, as students were members of one of the two armies.
Kneisely added that she did not understand why Hart’s display of the flag of one of the two sides involved in the war was controversial, considering that the flags, including the Confederate flag, are also used in the textbook for the same purpose.
Back in November, a black family filed a complaint against Hart for his remarks, in which he explained the unfair way blacks were treated during segregation. Hart told his students that, at one time, some Southerners responded to calls for “black equality” with disdain, saying terrible things such as, “We treat all black people equally. We hang them all.”
The Sacramento chapter of a group calling itself Showing Up for Racial Justice also weighed in, demanding a public apology from Hart.
Apparently, Hart was only relating historical incidents in which people went to the South during those days to promote better treatment and equal rights for blacks, only to be told that they do treat blacks equally — they hang them if they are in-state African-Americans, and they hang them if they are visiting African-Americans. Hart was simply telling the students how terribly blacks were far-too-often treated during that time.
And, with the Confederate battle flag, Hart was teaching his class accurate history as to the use of the flag — in battles during the Civil War.
But the school district argued that it did not really matter how the flag was used during the Civil War; it should not be seen by students today. “We recognize that regardless of context, to many of our students, families, and staff, the Confederate flag is a racist symbol of hate. Although this matter is under investigation, it is important to reiterate: Any employee who is found to engage in behavior that creates an unsafe environment for students will face full consequences, including the possibility of initiating termination proceedings.”
Bettencourt, the superintendent, said that the district’s action did not mean that they were attempting to “limit the free speech of our teachers.” Then, in an Orwellian addition, she stated that she expects “teachers and staff will do this work using culturally appropriate strategies.”
The district statement added, “It is our schools’ responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for all children.”
It is not clear how the display of a flag, which was actually used in many battles during the American Civil War, creates an unsafe learning environment for children. And, exactly what is meant by “culturally appropriate strategies?”
The obvious meaning is that certain events and symbols in history are to be censored — or as George Orwell described it in his classic dystopian novel 1984, some things should be disposed of in the “memory hole.”
Among those things that should be relegated to the “memory hole,” and not even shown to students (because it apparently would make them “unsafe”), is a Confederate battle flag. Since the murders inside a church in South Carolina, in which the killer posted photographs of himself on Facebook along with the flag, there has been an intense offensive against any public display of the historical flag.
Critics contend that the flag is nothing but a racist symbol in a war allegedly fought over slavery, and in more recent times, as a symbol used by racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. But champions of the flag have countered that the flag is simply a symbol of Southern culture, and that slavery was not the issue over which the Civil War was fought.
Sometimes called the “Southern Cross,” the flag was a variation of the flag of Scotland. It was actually a Christian symbol, a St. Andrew’s cross, with white stars added to a red field. An extremely large number of southerners were descended from Scottish and Scots-Irish families, and the flag represented the warrior culture of Americans of that ethnic strain. It was never the official flag of the Confederate States of America (CSA), but rather a flag to be used on the battlefield. It was made famous by the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of General Robert E. Lee.
The original national flag of the CSA was dubbed the “Stars and Bars,” and was used until 1863. At the Battle of First Manassas, or Bull Run, this flag caused confusion, because with the smoke and dust of battle, the two opposing armies often confused each other's flag.
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, who was in command of Confederate forces at Manassas, the first great battle of the war, suggested adopting a different flag, to be used in battle, to avoid such confusion. While this was eventually done, the Confederate Congress never formally adopted it for use, but used other flags for the Confederate government.
But it was used — that is a historical fact. But some historical facts, apparently, should be erased from the history books and history classrooms of this country — at least according to this school district in California.
The action by this school district raises the question of whether we are to censor history and eliminate certain events and symbols from our collective memory. True historians convey history as it was — the good, the bad, and the ugly — because to do otherwise is simply telling a lie. The very reason we study history is to learn lessons from the collective memory of the human race, both the living and the dead. If certain things are to be excluded from that collective memory, we have crippled ourselves from using the study of history in its proper way.
Unfortunately, such censorship of historical facts is not unique to this one school district in California (although one suspects that in that state, it is probably more common than in most others). Today, it is the Confederate battle flag which is to be blotted out from the historical record, because its detractors argue it has been used by racists such as the KKK. Actually, if one examines photographs of Klan rallies, more United States flags are used than Confederate battle flags.
And what are we to do with the Klan practice of burning a cross on someone’s lawn? Should the Christian cross be consigned to oblivion, as well? One suspects there are many who would like to do so, using whatever excuse that they can.
While I teach history at a Christian liberal arts college (Randall University in Moore, Oklahoma, run by the Free Will Baptist denomination), I began my career many years ago in a small, rural school district in Oklahoma. The principal sat in on my World History class one day when I was covering the Medieval Church. (The church was a powerful and important institution in the Europe of the Middle Ages, and the textbook devoted a whole chapter to it).
Later, he cautioned me to “be careful.” He suggested it might be better to not mention the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, as that might offend someone. At first I laughed, thinking he was joking. But he was not. He was concerned that teaching what the Church taught and did in the Middle Ages might even constitute government establishment of religion.
It was a comment so odd that I was unsure what to say, but it would be comparable to teaching the American Revolution without mentioning George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, or teaching about Richard Nixon without mentioning the Watergate Scandal.
Can one imagine teaching about Adolf Hitler, and not mentioning the Holocaust?
Or, perhaps it would be like teaching a group of middle school students about the battles of the Civil War, and refusing to use a photograph of a Civil War battle because it happened to include a soldier holding a Confederate battle flag. Horrors!
After all, they might feel unsafe.

Steve Byas is an instructor of history and government at Randall University, in Moore, Oklahoma. His book History’s Greatest Libels is a challenge to some of the misrepresentations of history concerning such individuals as Christopher Colombus, Marie Antoinette, and Joseph McCarthy.

TEXAS REPRESENTATIVE PLACED UNDER STATE PROTECTION AFTER RECEIVING DEATH THREATS OVER PRO LIFE BILL

 

TEXAS REPRESENTATIVE PLACED UNDER STATE PROTECTION AFTER RECEIVING DEATH THREATS 

OVER PRO LIFE BILL 

BY HEATHER CLARK

SEE: http://christiannews.net/2017/01/30/texas-rep-placed-under-state-protection-after-receiving-death-threats-over-pro-life-bill/; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas lawmaker has been placed under state protection after receiving death threats over his recently-introduced bill to protect the lives of unborn children.
The Texas Department of Public Safety is providing security assistance to Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, who has reportedly received multiple death threats, as well as his wife.
His political consultant, Luke Macias, told the Dallas News that the Arlington Police Department and the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has been involved due to the number of threats and an investigation is underway.
“All involved have done an incredible job protecting his family during this stressful time,” Macias said.

He advised that Tinderholt’s “wife in particular” had been threatened.
Tinderholt’s chief of staff, Micah Cavanaugh, confirmed the situation.
“Representative Tinderholt and his family have received multiple death threats leading to his family being placed under DPS protection on multiple occasions,” he told the Texas Tribune. “Specifics to the threats cannot be discussed due to an ongoing investigation, and we do not intend to speak on behalf of law enforcement.”

The threats surround Tinderholdt’s submission of H.B. 948 earlier this month, also known as the Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act. As previously reported, the bill declares that unborn children are entitled to human rights from the moment of conception, and removes current exemptions under state criminal homicide law relating to abortion.
“A living human child, from the moment of fertilization upon the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum is entitled to the same rights, powers, and privileges as are secured or granted by the laws of this state to any other human child,” it reads in part.
Abortions committed in cases when the mother’s life is at risk would not be prosecuted as murder.
“When you read and see how abortions are performed, and how they end the life of an innocent child, it amazes me that we allow that,” Tinderholdt told the Star-Telegram. “When we look back over history and we see … the cultures that took the lives of children, people are appalled by that. People are going to do that with America, too, and look back one day and say they can’t believe we allowed this.”
He said that the bill is in response to language in the Texas Republican Party platform, which was passed in May, calling for the complete abolition of abortion in the state.
“We call upon the Texas legislature to enact legislation stopping the murder of unborn children; and to ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings, which would deprive an unborn child of the right to life,” the platform text reads.
Macais says that while Tinderholt and his wife, who identify as Roman Catholic, have received death threats over the matter, there has also been positive feedback from those supportive of defending life.
“Local law enforcement have been very protective of him and his family,” he stated. “The truth is that he has received a tremendous amount of feedback—both positive and negative—on the subject of his legislation.”

BOY SCOUTS WILL ALLOW TRANSGENDERS

 

Boy Scouts, Reversing Century-Old Stance, 

Will Allow Transgender Boys

BY  NIRAJ CHOKSHI

SEE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/boy-scouts-reversing-century-old-stance-will-allow-transgender-boys.html?_r=2; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Reversing its stance of more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America said on Monday that the group would begin accepting members based on the gender listed on their application, paving the way for transgender boys to join the organization.

“For more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America, along with schools, youth sports and other youth organizations, have ultimately deferred to the information on an individual’s birth certificate to determine eligibility for our single-gender programs,” the group said in a statement on its website. “However, that approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state.”

The announcement, reported on Monday night by The Associated Press, reverses a policy that drew controversy late last year when a transgender boy in New Jersey was kicked out of the organization about a month after joining.

“After weeks of significant conversations at all levels of our organization, we realized that referring to birth certificates as the reference point is no longer sufficient,” Michael Surbaugh, the Scouts’ chief executive, said in a recorded statement on Monday.

The announcement came amid a national debate over transgender rights, with cities and states across the nation struggling with whether and how to regulate gender identity in the workplace, in restrooms and at schools.

In recent years, the Boy Scouts of America has expanded rights for gay people. In 2013, the group ended its ban on openly gay youths participating in its activities. Two years later, the organization ended its ban on openly gay adult leaders.

Advocates for gay and transgender people who had pushed for changes in Boy Scouts’ policy praised Monday’s announcement.

“From our perspective, they clearly did the right thing,” said Zach Wahls, who co-founded Scouts for Equality, a nonprofit group that advocates for stronger protections in the organization for gays and transgender people. “My team and I knew that they were considering a policy change, but we are both heartened and surprised by how quickly they moved to change the situation.”

Last year, in response to parent complaints, the Boy Scouts of America removed an 8-year-old transgender boy from the Secaucus, N.J., Cub Scout pack he had joined just about a month earlier, according to The Record, a newspaper in northern New Jersey.

“It made me mad,” Joe Maldonado, the boy, told the newspaper. “I had a sad face, but I wasn’t crying. I’m way more angry than sad. My identity is a boy. If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in. It’s right to do.”

Joe’s case may have been the first in which a transgender boy was ejected from the program, Mr. Wahls, a former Eagle Scout, said.

When Mr. Wahls helped found Scouts for Equality in 2012, the Boy Scouts of America did not yet allow gay scouts or leaders, and “there was zero conversation about transgender issues.”

While he was encouraged by what appeared to be the group’s quick decision on accepting transgender scouts, Scouts for Equality plans to push for a more formal policy, Mr. Wahls said.

“We want to make sure that they work with experts who have experience with transgender youth and youth programs,” he said.

The Boy Scouts of America claim nearly 2.3 million members between the ages of 7 and 21, and the group counts many notable figures among its alumni and volunteers.

One of them, Rex W. Tillerson, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, was involved in getting the organization to accept gay scouts and leaders. He was the national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2010 to 2011 and served on its executive board in 2013 when it voted to lift the ban on gay scouts.

That decision came after years of reluctance from the organization and a wrenching internal debate that involved threats from some conservative parents and volunteers that they would quit. When the ban on gay leaders was reversed in 2015, the Mormon Church, the largest sponsor of scouting units, briefly threatened to leave the group as well.
______________________________________________________

 Boy Scouts’ Moral Collapse: 

Will Allow “Trans” Girls in Ranks

BY SELWYN DUKE

SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/25270-boy-scouts-moral-collapse-will-allow-trans-girls-in-ranks; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

It’s the Boy Scouts — or something like that, anyway.
There was a time when the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) spent money fighting a lawsuit brought by a girl who wanted to be a “boy” scout. The organization won that battle. Now it has lost its mind, deciding to let a girl join its ranks simply because she claims to be a boy.
The BSA will now judge applicants based on their “gender identity” and not, as had been the policy, based on the sex indicated on their birth certificate. Because birth certificates are, as Barack Obama proved, so yesterday.
As CNN reported, the birth-certificate “‘approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state,’ BSA spokeswoman Effie Delimarkos said in a statement Monday.”
The Girl Scouts had already capitulated some years ago, allowing a boy masquerading as a girl to join their organization.

CNN further explains that the BSA’s collapse “comes a few months after an 8-year-old Cub Scout in New Jersey accused the organization of expelling him for being transgender. The Boy Scouts did not specifically cite the New Jersey case in its statement. But Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh acknowledged the group recently had been ‘challenged by a very complex topic ... the issue of gender identity.’"
This brings to mind the apocryphal saying, “Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.” Of course, the psychology causing an individual to believe he’s a member of the opposite sex, a different species (“species dysphoria”), or Napoleon may be complex. The psychology causing CNN to, as is de rigueur among mainstream media now, refer to children such as the expelled N.J. Cub Scout as “him” may also be complex. But the simple fact of the matter is that the child is a girl. There’s nothing complex about that.
Meanwhile, girls who actually claim they’re girls again want to be Boy Scouts. One of them, 15-year-old Sydney Ireland, posted a petition at Change.org stating, in part, “I cannot change my gender to fit the Boy Scouts’ standards.” No? I guess poor Sydney didn’t get the memo.
I don’t know if such rejection of the Made-up Sexual Status (MUSS — “transgender”) agenda qualifies Ireland as a hater; she’s right in a way, however, since by “gender” she means “sex.” As former “transsexual” Alan Finch said in 2004, “You fundamentally can't change sex.... Transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists.”
Note that while most people identify the word “gender” with “sex,” psychologists define it as a person’s “perception” of what he is and say that this can be different from his “sex,” which is a biological classification.
And what do people perceive? The list of “genders” grows like the national debt, with the literally scores of them including designations such as Agender, Bigender, Cis, Gender Fluid, Genderqueer, Pangender, and Neutrois.
Maybe this is why it sounds so “complex” to Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh, but let’s cut through the noise. The thesis behind the MUSS (“transgender”) agenda states that, put simply, a person could be a woman trapped in a man’s body, or vice versa.
The idea is that at issue is not a psychological problem, but a biological one. But is there any proof of this? As I wrote last year:

What physiological markers will the physician look for to verify that I truly am, legitimately, “transgender,” suffering with a supposed brain/body incongruence? Don’t feel bad not knowing.

There isn’t a so-called expert alive who could answer the question.

There is no brain scan for gender dysphoria. There is no genetic test. There is no hormonal test. There are no physiological markers of any kind. Yet on the basis of “strong and persistent feelings of cross-gender identification” — and on that basis alone — psychiatrists can and do refer patients for the mutilation known as “gender-reassignment surgery” (GRS). And on that basis alone, doctors may recommend that a young child be allowed to live as a member of the opposite sex. It’s no different from telling a cardiologist you feel certain you have heart disease and, without performing tests to confirm the diagnosis, his saying, “Oh, have the feelings been strong, persistent and extant for longer than six months? Okay, well, then I’ll cut open your chest and do a bypass.”

But it’s a brave new world, where identity is reality. Thus, why draw lines based on biology at all? Why can’t a man such as 54-year-old “Stefonknee” Wolscht, who claims to be a six-year-old girl (video below), join the Girl Scouts? Inclusiveness, right?

Really, the BSA should just get ahead of the curve and rename itself the Gender Fluid Scouts. After all, the notion of a “boy” is so passé. Why bother following the spirit of the age when you can lead it? Aren’t the scouts about leadership?
The BSA development is instructive. First, it illustrates how political revolutions (which Donald Trump may be ushering in) can do little to restore the culture, whose moral decay continues apace.
Second, a beneficiary of the BSA’s collapse may be Trail Life USA, an alternative, Christian scouting group launched three years ago after the BSA decided to admit openly homosexual boys. This is, of course, the market at work, but it also underlines how fractured our civilization has become.
There was no need for such alternatives many decades ago because, by and large, people’s sense of virtue was explicitly the same. Today, however, with our emotion-guided decision-making causing millions of people to march to the beat of a million different drummers, there’s less and less we can unite around.
As for the BSA, along with its name, maybe its oath needs some tweaking as well. Scouts could be told that you should keep yourself “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight — or whatever works for you.”
______________________________________________________

 Boy Scouts’ Rulings Put Boys at Risk (and “Letter to the Molester” and “What Being Molested Cost Me”) 

SEE: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2017/newsletter20170213.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

LTRP Note: For 15 years, Lighthouse Trails has had the motto “Bringing light to areas of darkness.” One of those areas (which we call our Sensitive Issues) is bringing to light the reality of child sexual abuse. We believe that the sexual molestation of children is part of what we call “the Death Religion,” which includes evolution, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, mysticism, pedophilia, and antisemitism. All of these lead to one place – death, and the author of death is our adversary, Satan. We have published three books thus far on this topic: The Color of Pain (by Gregory Reid), Laughter Calls Me (by Catherine Brown), and Seducers Among Our Children (by Sergeant Patrick Crough) and carry a number of other resources like these.
Over the past couple years, the Boy Scouts of America have passed resolutions allowing practicing homosexuals (and now transgenders) to actively lead and/or participate in the clubs. What the organization has done is put countless young boys in harm’s way. We believe it is just a matter of time before our society says it is not a crime to engage in sexual activity with a child. With every world empire in history that came to that resolution, it was the last resolution they ever made. After that, their empire ended.
The following two excerpts by Greg Reid from his book The Color of Pain illustrates what happens to a young boy when he is molested. Greg writes from personal experience. While some may find it difficult to read such an account, it is wrong to bury our heads in the sand and pretend this is not really happening to boys and girls across this nation. And the Boy Scouts have now made it possible for that epidemic to grow bigger than ever.
As Patrick Crough says in his book, adults are supposed to be the shepherd’s of children. We have a responsibility to watch over and protect them.
“Letter to the Molester”
By Greg Reid

bigstockphoto.com

To Whoever You Are:
Your name doesn’t matter, for to me, you were just a stranger in a Volkswagen who gave me a ride. And to you, I was just a number, a cute fourteen-year-old anonymous kid, one of God knows how many.
I think about it a lot. Even though you weren’t the first to molest me, you probably did more damage than most. At fourteen, I was just beginning to explore my sexuality, and I was vulnerable. All my sexual antennas were active, but then you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you picked kids like me. We were easy prey; we were little enough to feel scared and overpowered by you, old enough to sexually respond to what you did.
I hated you, and I have forgiven you. Because to not forgive you meant I always lived for you, thought about you, lived in the darkness of what you did and longed for vengeance. Five years after you raped me, I saw you while I was driving, and pressed the accelerator to the floor to kill you. You were still driving the same Volkswagen. Only God’s grace pulled back my foot and let you live. And then I knew that you bound me still. And so I forgave not because it was rational but because it was killing me, not because you deserve it but because I needed to let it go. Forgive means “give forth” and so I gave back the chains you put me in. I don’t hate you anymore. I feel nothing at all, but sadness, for what you took from me—that I can never reclaim my adolescence.
I do pray for you for repentance, if possible. And if not, for imprisonment, not to punish you (for you must loath your every breath) but to stop you. Because if you raped me, I wasn’t the first, and certainly not the last.
I pray for all the kids you raped like me. You cannot know what you took, what you destroyed. The walking wounded see your face, feel your evil touch, and blame themselves.
I wish I could tell them it wasn’t them. You knew exactly how it’s done. They were powerless, and paralyzed, and afraid.
They probably still are.
“What Being Molested Cost Me”
By Greg Reid
The cost to a kid who gets molested is higher than most people know. It’s too easy to minimize the damage by saying, “It’s just one of those things,” or “Get over it.” Sexual violation is a violent thing even when it’s not violent.
It takes so much inside. After many years, I’ve taken notice of the losses (much of which has been healed and restored), and I want to tell you about it so you’ll know.
It cost me my childhood. Repeated molestation blocked my memories, and what I did remember was covered with a haze of physical illness, stalking fear, repeat nightmares, and deep loneliness.
It cost me my ability to trust. I resented authority and feared adults so much I wouldn’t go anyplace like a public rest room or swimming pool locker room because I’d get sick from the fear of what might happen.
It cost me my ability to be spontaneous. I kept such rigid control over my emotions, my body and my mind, that I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t play, and being around kids who could made me feel sullen, angry, depressed, alone, left out.
It cost me my sanity. Shortly after the initial abuses, I was in a complete emotional dead zone; and one night, as I sat alone in a chair, my mind filled with filth and blasphemy, and tears streamed down my face, because I loved God and I couldn’t stop this mental rape, and I just snapped after several days of this, and I started cursing, and smoking, and drinking, and I told God to give up on me because I was evil.
I was eleven.
It cost me my education potential. I was a brilliant child. Being molested cost me my ability to think without confusion, trance outs, and frustration. I couldn’t concentrate. I could have been a straight A Valedictorian. Instead, by the time I finished High School, I was taking four basic classes and barely passed.
It cost me my identity. Being molested created such sexual and emotional confusion that I was an old man before I was fifteen and still a boy at thirty. I felt numb and removed, like I was not there, just a piece of property for others to use and discard.
It cost me my adolescence. Being molested made me afraid of adults, men, women, crowds, public places, challenges, fights and almost everything else including being scared to death I was gay and scared of all my emotions including anger and joy. I couldn’t date, I didn’t go to the prom, and alcohol was my only “friend.” Being a kid is screwed up and scary enough, but I carried enough guilt and fear to take down ten normal adults.
It cost me time. Being molested started me running, and I ran and kept going until I crashed in my late twenties, and then it cost me time in recovering, facing hard truth, and healing.
It cost me family. Being molested crippled my heart enough to destroy any potential marriage or children.
God has restored most of what was taken, and more. But you need to know being molested is not a “get over it” thing. It’s an evil robber whose damage goes deep and keeps taking until we can face it and start to heal.

THE "REGENERATION OF THE CHURCHES"-AN OCCULT DREAM COME TRUE

THE "REGENERATION OF THE CHURCHES"-

AN OCCULT DREAM COME TRUE 

SEE: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2017/newsletter20170130.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

By Ray Yungen
The Bible says that in the last days, many will come in Christ’s name. If one examines the “prophecies” of occulist  Alice Bailey, one can gain insight into what the apostle Paul called in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 the falling away. Bailey eagerly foretold of what she termed “the regeneration of the churches.”1 Her rationale for this was obvious:

The Christian church in its many branches can serve as a St. John the Baptist, as a voice crying in the wilderness, and as a nucleus through which world illumination may be accomplished.2

In other words, instead of opposing Christianity, the occult would capture and blend itself with Christianity and then use it as its primary vehicle for spreading and instilling New Age consciousness! The various churches would still have their outer trappings of Christianity and still use much of the same lingo. If asked certain questions about traditional Christian doctrine, the same answers would be given. But it would all be on the outside; on the inside a contemplative spirituality would be drawing in those open to it.
In wide segments of Christianity, this has indeed already occurred. One Catholic priest alone taught 31,000 people mystical prayer in one year. People are responding to this in large numbers because it has the external appearance of Christianity but in truth is the diametric opposite­. This has all the indications of the falling away of which the apostle Paul speaks.
Note this departure is tied in with the revelation of the “man of sin.” If he is indeed Bailey’s “Coming One,” then both Paul’s prophecy and Bailey’s prophecy fit together perfectly—but indisputably from opposite camps and perspectives.
This is very logical when one sees, as Paul proclaimed, that they will fall away to “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thessalonians 2:7). The word mystery in Greek, when used in the context of evil (iniquity), means hidden or occult!

Photo: Thomas Merton with the Dalai Lama (photo: Thomas Merton Center)

This revitalization of Christianity would fit in with Bailey’s “new and vital world religion”3—a religion that would be the cornerstone of the New Age. Such a religion would be the spiritual platform for the “Coming One.” This unity of spiritual thought would not be a single one-world denomination but would have a unity-in-diversity, multicultural, interfaith, ecumenical agenda. Thomas Merton made a direct reference to this at a spiritual summit conference in Calcutta, India when he told Hindus and Buddhists, “We are already one, but we imagine, we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity.”4
One can easily find numerous such appeals like Merton’s in contemplative writings. Examine the following:

The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others.5 —Vivekananda
It is my sense, from having meditated with persons from many different [non-Christian] traditions, that in the silence we experience a deep unity. When we go beyond the portals of the rational mind into the experience, there is only one God to be experienced.6—Basil Pennington
The new ecumenism involved here is not between Christian and Christian, but between Christians and the grace of other intuitively deep religious traditions.7—Tilden Edwards

What is happening to mainstream Christianity is the same thing that is happening to business, health, education, counseling, and other areas of society. Christianity is being cultivated for a role in the New Age. A spirit guide named Raphael explains this in the Starseed Transmissions:

We work with all who are vibrationally sympathetic; simple and sincere people who feel our spirit moving, but for the most part, only within the context of their current belief system.18 (emphasis mine)

He is saying that they “work,” or interact, with people who open their minds to them in a way that fits in with the person’s current beliefs. In the context of Christianity, this means that those meditating will think they have contacted God, when in reality they have connected up with Raphael’s kind (who are more than willing to impersonate whomever they wish to reach so long as these seductive spirits can link with them).
This ultimately points to a deluded global religion based on meditation and mystical experience. New Age writer David Spangler explains it the following way:

There will be several religious and spiritual disciplines as there are today, each serving different sensibilities and affinities, each enriched by and enriching the particular cultural soil in which it is rooted. However, there will also be a planetary spirituality that will celebrate the sacredness of the whole humanity in appropriate festivals, rituals, and sacraments. . . . Mysticism has always overflowed the bounds of particular religious traditions, and in the new world this would be even more true.9

What we are warning about is not some unprovable conspiracy theory. In fact, far from it. In March of 2016, Newsweek magazine put out a special edition called “Spiritual Living.” This glossy publication presented page after page of pure Alice Bailey spirituality. The entire issue was devoted to the mystical perception that man is divine:

The key to positive change—both internal and external—is present in everyone, and it also exists all around us. Whether through meditation, energy healing or a full-on spiritual awakening, you can transcend the physical world to better your mind, body and soul.10

That may sound kind of benign, but numerous articles in the magazine promote the idea of spirits that can indwell people. If this had been put out by the National Enquirer, then this could be dismissed as nothing more than sensationalistic or exaggerated. But Newsweek is one of the oldest and most respected news magazines in the world. When they make this kind of an effort, then we need to sit up and take notice that Alice Bailey’s religion has now come to the forefront of mainstream society. What this means according to those who are sympathetic with this is that if we are to be “spiritual,” we need to partake of Alice Bailey’s “new vital world religion.”  Sadly, more and more churches are doing just that.
Related Information:
100 Top Contemplative Proponents Evangelical Christians Turn To Today
Endnotes:
1. Alice Bailey, Problems of Humanity (New York, NY: Lucis Publishing, 1993), p. 152.
2. Alice Bailey, The Externalization of the Hierarchy (New York, NY: Lucis Publishing, 1976), p. 510.
3. Alice Bailey, Problems of Humanity, op. cit., p. 152.
4. Joel Beversluis, Project Editor, A Source Book for Earth’s Community of Religions (Grand Rapids, MI: CoNexus Press, 1995, Revised Edition), p. 151.
5. Swami Vivekananda’s “Addresses at the Parliament of Religions” (Chicago, September 27, 1893, http://www.interfaithstudies.org/interfaith/vivekparladdresses.html, accessed 12/2005).
6. M. Basil Pennington, Centered Living (New York, NY: Image Books, 1988), p. 192.
7. Tilden Edwards, Spiritual Friend (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 172.
8. Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions (A Uni-Sun Book, 1985 4th printing), p. 33.
9. David Spangler, Emergence: The Rebirth of the Sacred (New York, NY: Dell Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1984), p. 112.
10. Newsweek magazine, Special Edition: Spiritual Living, March 2016, p. 7.

BEFORE WATCHING THE "SHACK" MOVIE, READ THIS-THE "INSPIRATION" BEHIND THE MOVIE & EUGENE PETERSON'S CONNECTION

BEFORE WATCHING THE "SHACK" MOVIE, READ THIS-THE "INSPIRATION" BEHIND THE MOVIE & EUGENE PETERSON'S CONNECTION

BY LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH

SEE: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2017/newsletter20170130.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

By Warren B. Smith

[The Shack Movie (Coming to Theaters in March 2017)]

I was drawn into the New Age Movement years ago by books and lectures containing parabolic stories that were not unlike The Shack. They felt spiritually uplifting as they tackled tough issues and talked about God’s love and forgiveness. They seemed to provide me with what I spiritually needed as they gave me much needed hope and promise. Building on the credibility they achieved through their inspirational and emotive writings, my New Age authors and teachers would then go on to tell me that “God” is “in” everyone and everything.
I discovered that author William P. Young does exactly the same thing in The Shack. He moves through his very engaging and emotional story to eventually present this same New Age teaching that God is “in” everything.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first provide some background material concerning this key New Age doctrine that “God is in everything.” A good place to start is with Eugene Peterson, the author of the controversial Bible paraphrase The Message. After all, Peterson’s enthusiastic endorsement of The Shack is featured right under the author’s name on the front cover.
Ironically, it was Peterson’s endorsement that caused me to be immediately suspicious of The Shack. Through his questionable paraphrasing of the Bible, Peterson had already aligned himself in a number of areas with New Age/New Spirituality teachings. One obvious example is where he translated a key verse in the Lord’s Prayer to read “as above, so below” rather than “in earth, as it is in heaven.” “As above, so below” is a term that I was very familiar with from my previous involvement in the New Age movement. This esoteric saying has been an occult centerpiece for nearly five thousand years. It is alleged by New Age metaphysicians to be the key to all magic and all mysteries. It means that God is not only transcendent—“out there”— but He is also immanent—“in” everyone and everything.
But, as I found out just before abandoning the deceptive teachings of the New Age for the Truth of biblical Christianity, God is not “in” everyone and everything. The Bible makes it clear that man is not divine and that man is not God (Ezekiel 28:2, Hosea 11:9, John 2:24-25, etc.) In my book Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose Driven Church, I quoted the editors of New Age Journal as they defined “as above, so below” in their book, As Above, So Below:
“As above, so below, as below, so above.” This maxim implies that the transcendent God beyond the physical universe and the immanent God within ourselves are one.2
My concern about Peterson’s undiscerning use of “as above, so below” in the Lord’s Prayer was underscored when the 2006 bestseller, The Secret, showcased this same occult/New Age phrase. In fact, it was the introductory quote at the very beginning of the book. By immediately featuring “as above, so below” the author Rhonda Byrne was telling her readers in definite New Age language that “God is in everyone and everything.” Towards the end of the book, The Secret puts into more practical words what the author initially meant by introducing the immanent concept of “as above, so below.” On page 164, The Secret tells its readers—“You are God in a physical body.”
Most significantly, in his book The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, New Age leader Benjamin Crème reveals that a New World Religion will be based on this foundational “as above, so below” teaching of immanence—this idea that God is “in” everyone and everything:

But eventually a new world religion will be inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approach of the East and the approach of the West. The Christ will bring together, not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God transcendent—outside of His creation—and also the concept of God immanent in all creation—in man and all creation.3

New Age matriarch Alice Bailey, in her book The Reappearance of the Christ, wrote:

. . . a fresh orientation to divinity and to the acceptance of the fact of God Transcendent and God Immanent within every form of life. “These are foundational truths upon which the world religion of the future will rest.4

In a November 9, 2003 Hour of Power sermon—just two months before he was a featured speaker at the annual meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals—Crystal Cathedral minister Robert Schuller unabashedly aligned himself with this same New Age/New World Religion teaching. The man who claims to have mentored thousands of pastors, including Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, stated:

You know in theology—pardon me for using a couple of big words—but in theology the God we believe in, this God of Abraham, is a transcendent God. But He is also an immanent God. Transcendent means up there, out there, above us all. But God is also an immanent God—immanence of God and the transcendence of God—but then you have a balanced perspective of God. The immanence of God means here, in me, around me, in society, in the world, this God here, in the humanities, in the science, in the arts, sociology, in politics—the immanence of God. . . . Yes, God is alive and He is in every single human being!5

But God is not in every single human being. God is not in everything. One of the many reasons I wrote Deceived on Purpose was because Rick Warren presented his readers with this same “God in everything” teaching. Quoting an obviously flawed New Century Bible translation of Ephesians 4:6, Rick Warren—whether he meant to or not—was teaching his millions of readers the foundational doctrine of the New World Religion. Describing God in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, he wrote:

He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.6

Compounding the matter further, “immanence” has been taught as part of the Foundations class at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. An ill-defined reference to immanence in the Saddleback Foundations Participants Guide plays right into the hands of the New Spirituality/New World Religion by stating:

The fact that God stands above and beyond his creation does not mean he stands outside his creation. He is both transcendent (above and beyond his creation) and immanent (within and throughout his creation).7

All of this discussion I am giving about “God in everything” immanence is to explain why The Shack is such a deceptive book. It teaches this same heresy. This book ostensibly attempts to deal with the deeply sensitive issues surrounding the murder of a young child. Because of the author’s intensely personal story line, most readers become engaged with the book on a deep emotional level. However, the author’s use of poetic license to convey his highly subjective, and often unbiblical, spiritual views becomes increasingly problematic as the story line develops. This is most apparent when he uses the person of “Jesus” to suddenly introduce the foundational teaching of the New Spirituality/New World Religion—God is “in” everything. Using the New Age term “ground of being” to describe “God,” the “Jesus” of The Shack states:

God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things.8

This false teaching about a “God” who “dwells in, around, and through all things” is the kind of New Age leaven that left unchallenged could leaven the church into the New Age/New Spirituality of the proposed New World Religion. And while many people have expressed a great deal of emotional attachment to The Shack and its characters—this leaven alone contaminates the whole book.
Clearly, the “Jesus” of The Shack is not Jesus Christ of the Bible. The apostle Paul chided the Corinthians and warned them that they were vulnerable and extremely susceptible to “another Jesus” and “another gospel” and “another spirit” that were not from God (2 Corinthians 11:4). In the Bible, the real Jesus Christ warned that spiritual deception would be a sign before His return. He further warned that there would be those who would even come in His name, pretending to be Him (Matthew 24:3-5, 24).
Without ascribing any ill motive to William Young and his book The Shack, the author’s use of spiritual creativity seems to give a “Christian” assent to the New Age/New Spirituality of the proposed New World Religion. His mixing of truth and error can become very confusing to readers, and God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Dr. Harry Ironside, pastor of Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church from 1930-1948, emphasizes the fact that truth mixed with error results in “all error”—a direct refutation of the Emergent Church teaching to find “truth” wherever it may be found—including books like The Shack. Ironside wrote:

Error is like leaven, of which we read, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Truth mixed with error is equivalent to all error, except that it is more innocent looking and, therefore, more dangerous. God hates such a mixture! Any error, or any truth-and-error mixture, calls for definite exposure and repudiation. To condone such is to be unfaithful to God and His Word and treacherous to imperiled souls for whom Christ died.9

The Shack has touched the hearts and emotions of many people. While there are many other examples of the author’s unbiblical liberality, introducing the heretical New Age teaching that “God dwells in, and around, and through all things” is in and by itself enough to completely undermine any value the book might otherwise have for faithful believers. To allow yourself to get carried away by this story, while disregarding the book’s New Age/New Spirituality leaven, is to fall prey to the “truth-and-error” mixture that pervades The Shack. And as Dr. Ironside warned—“God hates such a mixture!”
Before Christians buy one more copy of this book, they need to come to terms with what this author is ultimately teaching and what it is they are passing along to their friends and fellow believers.

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:4) For footnotes or to read this entire article about The Shack, click here.

DANGER: EMERGENT "'IF' GATHERING" CONFERENCE COMING FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS & GRANDDAUGHTERS IN A TOWN NEAR YOU!

ALL SMILES, BUT GREATLY DECEIVED

WARNING:

 Photo: Some of the IF women – photo used in accordance with the US Fair Use Act for critical review and reporting. (source: http://www.jennieallen.com/if-we-were-wild-and-full-of-faith-its-time/) (Jen Hatmaker and Melissa Greene in photo)

DANGER: EMERGENT "'IF' GATHERING" CONFERENCE COMING FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS & GRANDDAUGHTERS IN A TOWN NEAR YOU, FEBRUARY 2-3, 2017

BY LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH

SEE: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2017/newsletter20170130.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

[God] will take this hell on earth and someday show us how hell was building heaven.—Jennie Allen (founder of IF: Gathering)
Have you heard of the IF: Gathering? If you haven’t, you most likely will soon enough. The women’s movement started just a few years ago but is already making some big inroads into the evangelical scene. On the outer appearance, this looks like a legitimate Christian movement – the women who lead and speak at IF: Gathering are young and vibrant; they talk about Jesus, they go to church; some of them homeschool their kids—it all looks so Christian. But underneath this outer thin Christian layer lies an emergent atmosphere . . . and the target is your young evangelical daughters and granddaughters.

In a few days (February 2-3), IF: Gathering will be presenting their annual conference in Austin, Texas. The conference, called IF:2017 will also be live-streamed to many churches throughout America and Canada (and in some other countries as well). Lighthouse Trails has received a number of phone calls and e-mails by concerned parents and grandparents whose daughters and granddaughters are attending the conference, either in Austin or one of the sponsoring churches. Here is a link to the list of churches that will be holding the IF:2017 conference next week via live-stream. According to the IF website, there are over 2000 live-streamed events for this year’s event. If you multiply that by even just 150, that is nearly 300,000 women!  When you go to the list, type in your zip code, see if there is a conference being held in your city or town, and if there is, start alerting those you know. Your friends may have daughters who are attending.

This year’s event will apparently not include IF speaker Jen Hatmaker who, we have learned, dropped out of IF last year for undisclosed reasons (recently she came out promoting gay marriage, and this got her into trouble with LifeWay Resources who dropped her books at that point). Speakers for this year’s event include Jennie Allen (IF’s founder), Ann VosKamp (author of One Thousand Gifts – see section in Cedric Fisher’s article below), Lysa Terkeurst, Jennie Yang, Jeanne Stevens (Co-Pastor with Husband of Soul City Church – http://jeannestevens.com/about/– former staff member of Willow Creek and associated with Erwin McManus: ), and Jo Saxton. You may not be familiar with these names, but we encourage you to do your research and please read Cedric’s article so you might come to understand the underlying agenda of IF. As Cedric says, we don’t question the sincerity of these women, but we do question the direction they are heading spiritually. While her name doesn’t appear in this year’s line up, Melissa Greene is  involved with IF as well (please see article below to learn about Greene’s beliefs and this video of her). Greene, a pastor, resonates with emergent leader Brian McLaren, and her church made headlines when it came out promoting same-sex marriage.
In May of 2015, Lighthouse Trails author, Cedric Fisher, wrote a booklet titled “ IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering.” We are posting that booklet in its entirety below. If you scroll to the bottom of his article and hit the green Print button, it will format a nice PDF copy for you (you can buy it in booklet format too, but you’ll have to print it in order to have it in time before the conference). If you know a woman who is planning to attend the IF:Gathering conference next week, please print this article and give her a copy to read. Because the emergent “theology” is deceptive and spiritually dangerous, these young women need to be given a heads up.
Lest some say that Jennie Allen has cleaned up IF by not having Jen Hatmaker and Melissa Greene at this year’s event, keep in mind that Jennie Allen knew what these two friends believed when she invited them to be part of IF just a few years ago. How can we trust our daughters and granddaughters to someone who shows no discernment and who very likely will continue connecting with and inviting speakers who are of a similar emergent mindset.1 For example, Shauna Niequist (Bill and Lynn Hybels daughter) is involved with IF (they sell her book on their site, she contributes on the blog, and she is one of the speakers at IF:2017) and recently she gave her “blessing” to Jen Hatmaker’s acceptance of same-sex marriage and endorses Jesus Calling.
Once you read Cedric’s article below, we believe you will understand why we are so concerned about this movement. Writing this article reminds us of another article we wrote a number of years ago in 2008. It was titled “Brian McLaren’s Hope for the Future – The Minds of Your Grandchildren.”  Since then, the emergent church has continued growing and indeed grabbing the minds of countless young people, many of them from Christian homes. We hope and pray parents and grandparents will do all they can to keep their own young people from going down that same path, this time via IF.
Don’t forget to check the list of places IF:2017 will be livestreaming to see if your town or city is hosting an IF conference.
IF IT IS OF GOD—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering
By Cedric H. Fisher
IF:Gathering came in like a storm, one of those winter events that seem to appear out of nowhere. No one saw it coming. A team of highly popular women—authors, bloggers, and speakers coming together—what a great idea. But it wasn’t novel. Professing Christians have been making pilgrimages for decades to high-energy conferences with a star list of speakers and singers. As with so many of these other conferences, IF purported to do the work of God. However, IF was unique in that it was mostly a digital event. It was greatly effective.
The IF:Gathering held its second event in February of 2015 and involved 1200 women at the physical location, with a possible 100,000 or more watching by 40,000 live links in more than 120 countries. The ongoing influence of IF after the conference has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of women all while flying under the radar of pastors and church leaders who may be accepting IF:Gathering at face value, not knowing anything about this group of high energy talented women leaders.
After reading the list of IF speakers and researching information about them, I have become convinced that IF poses a significant risk to Christian women, who unwittingly are submitting themselves to IF’s speakers and teachers. The danger? It comes in the form of emergent ideology, spiritual formation, and contemplative spirituality (contemplative prayer is a mantra-like “prayer” practice that vitalizes the “progressive” “new” Christianity (i.e., the emerging church). Thus, I am compelled to report on my findings regarding IF.
How did IF:Gathering come about and is it ordained by God? These are questions every responsible Christian needs to ask concerning anything claiming to be a new move or revelation from God. Those questions are especially important during such a time as this, a time when the church is suffering from great deception and apostasy. Is IF influencing women to draw nearer to God or rather leading them onto a spiritually dangerous path to heresy?
IF’s Beginning—A Whisper from the Sky
The 2015 IF:Gathering did not end when the conference was over. It continues to function through the network established before the conference occurred. Its influence continues through local churches and individuals who hosted the event, through social media, available videos of the event, and the “IF:Table,”* all of which have the potential to reach countless more women and evolve into a major women’s movement. If that occurs, it will help set the agenda of how the future generation perceives and implements Christianity.
The first statement on their website under “Who We Are” is:

We exist to gather, equip and unleash the next generation of women to live out their purpose.1

The founder of IF:Gathering, Jennie Allen, is a bright and energetic, best-selling author, blogger, and popular speaker. She appears sincere and dedicated to ministering to people. She and her husband have been involved in ministry for a number of years. However, since she is the founder, we must consider her activity, her influences, and her statements about the birth of IF:Gathering.
Allen is a Bible teacher who had been teaching groups of girls and young women since high school. She studied at the University of Arkansas for three years, completed her B.S. in Communications at Carson Newman College in Tennessee, and graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Master’s in Biblical Studies in 2005. It would be two years after her graduation from DTS when she had an experience that birthed IF: Gathering.
Allen signed a multi-project contract in 2011 with Thomas Nelson, which included a series of seven DVD-based Bible studies and two trade books. Her first study released in 2011, followed by another one released in 2012. Her first trade book was also released in 2012. Allen’s book Restless: Because You Were Made for More and the Restless video-based Bible study were released simultaneously in January 2014, a month before the first IF:Gathering.
Allen was also one of the speakers in the neo-emergent Nines Conference in 2014, which hosted a speaker lineup that included some of the main influences in the New Christianity movement.
How did the IF:Gathering originate? There are different and conflicting explanations given by Allen. The first account was presented by Allen in the initial IF:Gathering in Austin, Texas, 2014:

About 7 years ago, a voice from the sky—that doesn’t often speak to me—but that day there was this whisper. It was the middle of the night, actually. And it was “Gather and equip your generation.” And this was ridiculous, because honestly, I was a stay at home Mom, I didn’t know anybody that could help me with that job. And it was a completely ridiculous statement. So ridiculous that I just, for two days my bones hurt, and I didn’t know what to do with it. My bones hurt, for two days.
I thought, Okay God, what do you want me to do? Wisely my friend said, “Jennie, if it’s God,” cause it may not be. All voices from the sky are not always God, FYI. But, “if it’s God, then He’s going to give you everything you need to accomplish His purposes. So just wait.” And so I waited, and that was seven years ago, guys.2

Allen eventually came to believe it was God who whispered. She would wait several years for Him to put IF: Gathering together. However, a year after the account of IF’s birth that she gave in the 2014 conference, she posted another account on her blog:

Truth is, IF:Gathering began as more of a hunch than a vision.3

A month later, and one year after her first account, Allen gave another account of how the IF came about during the IF: Gathering February, 2015:

I mean, 7 years ago, 8 years ago now, I heard a voice that . . . well, okay, I didn’t. This is like all different theologies right now. Okay, just give me grace. I don’t know, but I’m just telling you, in the night I woke up, and I was overcome with these words, “Disciple a generation.”
But I sat on it. I put it in my back pocket and said, “Okay God, if you want to do something crazy like that, you’re gonna have to make it happen.”4

I read Allen’s book, Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked my God and My Soul, written a couple of years after her experience with the sky whisperer. In her book, Allen describes deep intimacy with God and willingness to obey Him completely. However, she does not mention anything about Sky Whisperer or his commission to organize the IF: Gathering. I find that puzzling. What better place to introduce and expound on such a life-changing intimate experience and surrender than in a book describing full surrender?
I’m willing to concede that there could be a good reason for the inconsistencies of her accounts as to how IF came about. But an individual whom God supernaturally calls to accomplish a significant work should give a credible and unambiguous account of that call. One could say, “I saw a need and did my best to meet it.” However, when one says, “I heard a voice from God,” a different standard is involved. The reason is because something that has a supernatural event as an origin will have a much greater weight of influence. It presents the individual as a special agent of God, just as any of the figures in the Bible whom God used to accomplish unprecedented purposes. It almost immunizes the revelation and the individual from critical examination.
Therefore, I believe it is proper and reasonable to examine Jennie Allen’s statements concerning the origin of the IF: Gathering. The questions are: “Is Allen’s explanations of the origin of IF:Gathering convincing and does she provide viable and credible information that concludes IF: Gathering originated from God? One should prayerfully consider those questions and ultimately should ask: if it’s origin is in question and if it’s founder is involved in emergent conferences, can IF:Gathering produce good fruit? The next section concerning the speakers in IF:Gathering may help answer that last question.

For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. (Luke 6:43-44)

IF, The Speakers: Ambassadors of God or Emergent Collaborators
If Jeannie Allen did indeed hear supernaturally from God, and if God supernaturally equipped her to organize the IF:Gathering, we would expect good fruit from the conference and the speakers. We would not expect people who are influenced by emergent, New Age, and other aberrant authors and teachers. It is logical to expect that the speakers would be stellar Christian examples.
Space does not permit me to deal with all the conference speakers, so I have chosen several whom I believe need to be examined. They are listed in alphabetical order.
Sarah Bessey
After reading portions of her book, Jesus Feminist, I get the impression Sarah Bessey believes that Christianity is stuck with the Woman Suffrage movement somewhere in the 1920s. She references radical feminist, social activist, and journalist Dorothy Day in her book and seems to draw from secular feminism. From that concept, she tries to invent a need for radical feminism in Christianity, presenting bizarre commentary on the Scriptures to back up her position. The following quote illustrates her view:

Many of the seminal social issues of our time—poverty, lack of education, human trafficking, war and torture, domestic abuse—can track their way to our theology of, or beliefs about, women, which has its roots in what we believe about the nature, purposes, and character of God.5

In the back of Jesus Feminist under “Further Reading,” Bessey offers a book titled How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership, which includes essays from emerging church authors Tony Campolo, John Ortberg, and Bill and Lynne Hybels. Jesus Feminist also has endorsements in the book by Brian McLaren and Tony Jones. On her blog, she lists among her favorites A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren and Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.6 She also promotes The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen.7 There’s no question that Bessey resonates with the views of these men.
With such emergent and contemplative influences, how can good fruit be produced by this speaker?
Christine Caine
Christine Caine claims Joyce Meyer as her “spiritual mother” and lists Word of Faith preacher Sheryl Brady as a dear friend calling her “flat out the best chick preacher of the word.”8 Caine has “preached” in seeker/emergent Steven Furtick’s mega church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The following is transcribed from Caine’s opening statement in Furtick’s church:

This place is a little bit like God, take this in context, in that like you are omnipresent. You are here. You are across the room. You are down the street. You are all over the worldwide web. It is like wherever you look, here we are and it is my honor and privilege to be here, I couldn’t wait.9

Caine also declared that her heart was “knitted” to Furtick. One whose heart is surrendered to God could not possibly be knitted to an individual such as Furtick. Journalist and researcher Jim Fletcher says this about Furtick:

Steven Furtick . . . mentored as he is by evangelical bigwigs like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, felt bold enough to post a YouTube video in which he sneeringly challenged what I’d call traditional Christians to basically get out of the way, because their time is past. Presumably, to Furtick, it’s the “new generation’s” time now, so step aside with your stodgy hymns and expositional preaching style. . . . Masked a bit by a pious nod toward humanitarian causes, the leadership of this group is quite nasty, albeit in subtle ways.10

Further, according to the itinerary on Christine Caine’s website, she will be speaking at NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) leader Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church in Redding, California in August 2015 in the Bethel Women’s Conference. Why does this matter? It shows a pattern of being willing to associate with people and “minister” in churches that are teaching and promoting false and dangerous teachings.11
Melissa Greene
Melissa Greene is the pastor of worship and arts at GracePointe Church in Franklin, Tennessee. The church made national headlines in January of 2015 as senior pastor, Stan Mitchell, declared his church now accepts homosexual marriage.12
When I pull up Greene’s website, I immediately notice the picture of her sitting in a Yoga position. In a May 25th, 2014 message on her website titled “Worth,” Greene admits to reading emerging church pioneer Brian McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy (and McLaren spoke at GracePointe in the fall of 2014). Greene favorably quotes other prolific New Spirituality names: Phyllis Tickle, Richard Rohr, Frederick Buechner, Rob Bell, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Thomas Merton, Peter Gomes, Aldous Huxley—a list that reads like a veritable who’s who in emergent and contemplative heresy.

In “Worth,” Greene declares that, “Christianity is broad and diverse.”13 Considering that many of her influences accept all religions as being of God, there is no doubt to what she means when she states this. Greene also made the audacious statement: “The most devastating fear in people’s lives is the fear of God.”14 She attempts to validate her statement by taking verses out of context and misapplying them. What does God’s word declare?

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)

For thousands of young Christian-professing women to submit to someone like Melissa Greene could have a detrimental effect.
Jen Hatmaker
In Jen Hatmaker’s book, Interrupted: When Jesus Wreck Your Comfortable Christianity, she makes it clear that she is influenced by a number of New Age/New Spirituality individuals. She quotes Catholic priest and contemplative activist Richard Rohr and emergent leader Shane Claiborne. On her blog, she promotes the book, The Circle Maker, by Mark Batterson, a book that encourages readers to draw circles around specific things in order to have more answered prayers. Batterson was inspired with this idea by an ancient sage.
In Hatmaker’s book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, she reveals that her family takes part in a Roman Catholic ritual with mystical origins, the “Seven Sacred Pauses.”15 Hatmaker got her inspiration from Seven Sacred Pauses, a book by Macrina Wiederkehr who is a spiritual director in the contemplative prayer movement. In Wiederkehr’s retreats, seekers are guided through experiences of silence, contemplation and lectio divina (a contemplative practice where words and phrases from the Bible are repeated in mantra-like fashion). The “seven sacred pauses” are seven times a day to pause and pray, which Wiederkehr describes as “breathing spells for the soul.”
Consider Hatmaker’s statement concerning the preaching of God’s Word:

I have spent half my life listening to someone else talk about God. Because of this history, I’ve developed something of an immunity to sermons.16

This is eerily similar to the sentiment of Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees), who once, as a conservative Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, expressed her dissatisfaction (and eventual rejection) of the preaching of God’s Word. That led Monk Kidd down a path away from the Christian faith and straight into the New Age. Today, she worships the goddess Sophia.
This disgruntlement of God’s Word is so prevalent among leaders of the emerging New Spirituality church. If not preaching, then what? Is it emotionally charged conventions and books with flowering, poetic phrases that open up to spit out a toxic drop of heresy? If Hatmaker is immune to preaching, she has rejected God’s method in favor of her own.
Ann VosKamp
Ann VosKamp’s highly popular book, One Thousand Gifts, is peppered with favorable references to and quotes by various mystics, pantheists, and universalists. The following is a list of some of those influences:

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Evelyn Underhill, Brennan Manning, Annie Dillard, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Kreeft, Walter Brueggemann, Francis de Sales, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Nouwen, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade. She also quotes mystic Catholic nun Kathleen Norris on her blog.17

You may not have heard of all these names, but in my research, I have found that they all embrace a panentheistic mystical-based spirituality. For VosKamp to quote and reference so many authors in this category shows she is embracing and absorbing the spirituality of these figures.
In the last chapter of One Thousand Gifts, “The Joy of Intimacy,” Voskamp writes:

Mystical union. This, the highest degree of importance. God as Husband in sacred wedlock, bound together, body and soul, fed by His body, quenched by His blood . . . God, He has blessed—caressed. I could bless God—caress with thanks. It’s our making love. God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us . . . couldn’t I make love to God, making every moment love for Him? To know Him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit skin to spirit skin . . . The intercourse of soul with God is the very climax of joy . . . To enter into Christ and Christ enter into us—to cohabit.18

This is what contemplatives consider “intimacy” with God, as if God is more a lover or a boyfriend than the Creator of the Universe, the King of Kings, and our beloved Savior. This is what millions of young Christian women are being introduced to.
The question is, are Sarah Bessey, Christine Cane, Melissa Greene, Jen Hatmaker, and Ann VosKamp really called from God as they profess to be? While I won’t question their sincerity, I must ask the questions: How can the IF:Gathering be ordained by God? How can Jennie Allen have supernaturally heard from God concerning her conference? And how could righteous God Almighty have sanctioned a movement that is so influenced by diabolical sources?
The IF:Gatherings promise great solutions, but in practice, they covertly chip away at biblical concepts of God, the Holy Spirit, and biblical Christianity. They are based on flawed concepts masked by alluring phrases. Like all other emerging church “coaches” and mentors, the IF leaders intend to solve the problem of what they insist is failed Christianity. They believe a replacement—New Christianity—is the solution.
Considering the influences of the speakers, the IF:Gatherings will lead to dangerous, alternate spirituality. The Conference overwhelms susceptible women with music, visuals, and emotional camaraderie. When their hearts are prepped and open, provocative questions are presented, and  answers that conflict with God’s word are offered.
IF the Fruit is Good
When I was a worldling, I visited the notorious Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Fresh from the Oklahoma hills, I had never witnessed anything remotely like it. One thing that fascinated me most were the barkers. The barkers were men who stood outside of the many establishments attempting to coax passersby to enter them. They were so convincing. Their skills had been honed by trial and error. Bending to the persuasive and captivating power of their words, I entered one of those establishments. Once inside, I was shocked at the total absences of morals. Although it made my cheeks blush, and my moral upbringing urged me to leave, I was with a couple of friends and didn’t want to be considered a prude. So I stayed. The longer I stayed, the more I got used to the immorality. The more I got used to it, the more I wanted of it.
The speakers at the IF:Gathering are barkers. They are luring many professing Christian women with persuasive and captivating words. A repetitive error I noticed in the Conference was that a speaker would set up a straw man, and then mix the answer to it with Scripture. She would then insist that the conclusion was a valid point. An example was when Jen Hatmaker argued that we cannot possibly know all of God. She quoted a Scripture from Romans 11:33. Her conclusion was that because we cannot know God fully, it is not detrimental to faith to have doubt. However, faith does not depend on knowledge, but trust. Lack of knowledge should not make us doubt, but rather a lack of trust. This was a prevailing theme at IF.
Hatmaker also insisted that God set us free simply to set us free; that He set us free for us. Again, this does not agree with God’s Word:

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

We were created for God’s purpose, to worship and serve Him. He set us free so we could belong to Him to honor and serve Him with all our hearts, mind, bodies, and spirits.
One constant thing that made me cringe was the cavalier attitude that some of the speakers, especially Jennie Allen, exhibited toward God. At one point, Allen, says, “Darn it, darn it,” and goes off on a rant implying that God is stupid, mean, and that His plan is absurd. The rant came only minutes after she declared she was nearly overcome with reverential fear of God.19
In Melissa Greene’s “Worth” sermon, one comes away with the following conclusions:

Certainty is bad; Questions (and no answers) is good.
The old-fashioned faith of our parents and grandparents is outdated and irrelevant.
References to numerous mystics and emergents
The “text” (the Bible) is OK, but there is so much more to be grasped.
In the end, everyone is saved.20

As I mentioned earlier, Greene admits to reading Brian McLaren, and from the content of the “Worth” video, McLaren’s spirituality has become her own. The IF leaders hope to lead as many women as possible into the same direction as Jennie Allen declares:

While I wish I were a more confident, rebellious pioneer, God had to nearly force me to the wild, new path He had for IF. I am however compelled to call as many of you as possible to the roads less traveled because there are many wandering who may never make it up to the highway.21

IF Conclusion

[God] will take this hell on earth and someday show us how hell was building heaven.22—Jennie Allen

The IF conferences are full of emotional manipulation with videos of heartbreaking stories and impassioned pleas to do something; draw near to God, have more faith, win the lost, help the less fortunate, etc. At various points in the 2015 conference, a speaker would burst out in an impassioned plea to do something about the plight of humanity as if it were the fallback position when passion was otherwise lacking.
IF’s leaders insist that biblical Christianity has failed as a viable work of God and that God and they are bringing forth a cure—New Christianity.
I fear that IF’s excellent adventure is advertisement for a mass departure from God’s Word. Rather than having their faith built up, participants are encouraged to question “traditional” Christianity. And those who are giving the answers—the IF women—are unfortunately getting their information from emergents and mystics who present a different gospel and another Jesus.
It is addictive, this linguistic confection. The mind is overcome with giddiness. But is it of God? Or is it rather a “beautiful” seduction? I believe the latter is true.
To order copies of IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering, click here.
* IF:Table is a dinner hosted by one person on the second Sunday of each month. It is described as six women, four questions, two hours (https://ifgathering.com/new-to-the-table/)
Endnotes:
1. IF:Gathering website, “Who We Are”: https://ifgathering.com/who-we-are.
2. Jennie Allen, 2014 IF:Gathering: https://ifgathering.com/if-gathering-2014.
3. Jennie Allen’s blog, “How to Leave Normal”: https://ifgathering.com/2015/01/how-to-leave-normal, January 21, 2015.
4. Jennie Allen, IF: Gathering: https://ifgathering.com/2014/09/ifgathering-2015, February 2015.
5. Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women (New York, NY: Howard Books), p. 169.
6. Sarah Bessey’s blog: http://sarahbessey.com, December 30, 2008.
7. Ibid., July 17, 2008.
8. http://instagram.mislav.net/users/christinecaine?max_id=216035535549657297_2724891.
9. Christine Caine, Elevation Church, Code Orange Revival 2012, http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/codeorangerevival (some of her sermon can be watched at: http://www.god.tv/code-orange-revival/night-4-anything-is-possible-with-god).
10. Jim Fletcher, “‘Hip’ church gives biblical Christians new label: ‘Hater’” (WorldNetDaily, http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/12/hip-church-gives-biblical-christians-new-label-hater/#JEfipOHtSOZJfZeD.99).
11. Read John Lanagan’s article/booklet titled The New Age Implications of Bethel Church’s Bill Johnson where it discusses Johnson’s propensity toward “quantum spirituality” (the belief that God is in everyone).
12. Elizabeth Dias, “Nashville Evangelical Church Comes Out for Marriage Equality” (Time Magazine, January 29, 2015; http://time.com/3687368/gracepointe-church-nashville-marriage-equality).
13. Melissa Greene, “Worth” (http://melissagreenemusic.com/tag/worth, May 25, 2014, watch video at: https://vimeo.com/97252399, 22:40 minutes to 22:47 minutes).
14. Ibid, 24:18 minutes to 24:25 minutes.
15. Jen Hatmaker, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2012, Digital Edition), Kindle location 3266.
16. Ibid., Kindle location 435.
17. Ann VosKamp, (http://www.aholyexperience.com/2006/11/memorizing-word).
18. Ann VosKamp, One Thousand Gifts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), pp. 213, 216-217.
19. Jennie Allen, IF:Gathering; Session 1- 03.
20. Melissa Greene, “Worth,” op. cit.
21. Jennie Allen, “How to Leave Normal,” op. cit.
22. Jennie Allen, Restless: Because You Were Made for More (Nashville, TN: W Publishing, 2013), p. 74.
To order copies of IF it is of God—Answering the questions of IF:Gathering, click here.