The Galatians 4 blog is a site dedicated to:
Gal 4:16 asks “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”. This discernment blog is to warn fellow Christians and others, about what is happening in the churches, stand against the one world religion, and promote the truth of the Bible in standing up before a myriad of last days delusions.
Sites like Galatians 4 love my writing when I expose the “sin” and “heresy” that is going on in Evangelicalism and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Galatians 4 has even linked to a few of my posts, a rare act by a discernment blog because they usually don’t like sending traffic to sites like mine
I try to stay up to date with what is going on in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist world, so I subscribe to the RSS feed of sites like Galatians 4. A year or so ago, I decided to go to the Galatians 4 site and see if there had been any more comments on an article that mentioned a post I had written about Jack Hyles. There were no new comments, so I decided to poke around the site a bit. I found a post written by Bible Believer on November 13, 2013 about Fairies, Gnomes and Elves.
Bible Believer, there’s a catchy pseudonym, is worried about people building doors at the base of their trees for fairies. Bible Believer had this to say:
The other day, a non-Christian acquaintance from my old community told me they were making a fairy door for their tree outside, and I said “What is that?” It seems that this is a new trend where people will make little miniature doors, and windows and rooms for would be “fairies”. They will use bottom crevices in trees often to put these doors. I found myself very disturbed by this.
Why do these fairy doors DISTURB Bible Believer? In classic Fundamentalist, Joseph McCarthy paranoia, Bible Believer thinks:
Ever hear of wood, water sprites? of elementals? of “lights” out in nature? Some claim they see little lights or orbs. Faeries are known to be connected to magic. Faerie magic is a known subject in Wicca. There are magic spells to call up faeries [aka demons]. There are herbs and magical properties that go along with the faeries or “little folk”……
….One thing I noticed is some dictionaries listed fairies as “imaginary creatures full of mischief”, in other words “not real”. I am sure some would read this post and think it crazy that someone would protest the building of fairy doors and little doorways spread around a town for fairies to move into. But how many places in our society are we told that spirits aren’t real and that dabbling with the spirit realm is just child’s play and FOR FUN? How many times do lost people invite the occult in under the guise of fantasy and fiction or just playing a game? Why are human beings so fascinated by the idea of little creatures who have powers superior to human beings moving into cracks in their trees or little doll-houses they have set up for them?Talk about an invitation to false spirits. Talk about leading children into vain imaginations. That’s what that Santa Claus and Easter Bunny stuff does too.
And it is just not fairy doors he is worried about. Bible Believer writes:
I believe that demons shape-shift, in various forms, and that fairies definitely would be one of those forms during human history. Today one form are aliens. There is a reason they never have found a UFO with little green men to take to the lab. Those are sometimes spiritual manifestations in my opinion. [Of course with Project Blue Beam and other deceptive forces among human beings there is a lot of planned trickery as well]
Many mystical creatures are demons shape-shifting throughout history. If the creature is “metaphysical”, has special powers, etc, then watch out! Leprechauns, Gnomes, Elves, Fairies, Goblins, Aliens, etc. Perhaps even Big Foot and some of the other creatures seen out there beyond what the tricksters are up to. While yes, they can be just imaginative and not a physical manifestation of a spirit, I believe there is a reason the theme of their existence crops up in all human societies. Demons have shown up to deceive and mislead. These creatures are demonic and as they have appeared in history to people they are just shape-shifted variations on demons….
…One thing about Gnomes, they were praised even in the Gnomes book for having magic powers. You may want to rethink the next time you buy a garden gnome to decorate your yard with…
…In fairy tales, elves, fairies, leprechauns, brownies are called upon to aid humans and they all require a spell or a price in every fairy tale I ever have read. So why are these creatures celebrated by Christians in too many instances? Why do they buy their child a fairy-princess bedroom set, or buy a set of Gnomes for the garden? Trust me I know these are some things that may not even occur to some folks until pointed out. I know some are going to be outraged by this article, telling me I am legalistic and in disbelief that I am even addressing this issue, but if you know God’s mandates regarding spirits and witchcraft, why celebrate characters that are associated with BOTH?
Here is a comment Bible Believer made to a commenter on his post:
I’m not surprised either anon, that it has helped the world get more overtaken with witchcraft. The perverted bible versions WATER everything down.
I don’t think the news casters are shape-shifters but some be mind-control types with tons of alters? I could go with that.
I agree Don, the fairy doors are a way to invite in the demons. That’s not a Christian dominant place sprinkling the fairy doors all over the place.
Well I went into the cryptozoology realm including Big Foot above. A lot of the ‘animals” like that could be shape-shifted demons too. Why haven’t they been able to haul a Yeti in or a Big Foot after all this time?
Some of the cases may be mistaken identities with the Chupacabras, a dog with manage, another type of animal where the hair fell out.
For those of us who spent a lot of years in Fundamentalism, Bible Believer is just another bought by the blood, sold out for Jesus Christian who sees Satan, demons, principalities, and powers everywhere he looks. This is no different from Jerry Falwell’s Teletubbies are gay, Smurfs are demons or any of the numerous demonic toys listed in the classic book of Fundamentalist paranoia, Turmoil in the Toybox. Let me illustrate this with a 1980′s video clip of Pastor Gary Greenwald interviewing Phil Phillips, the author of Turmoil in the Toybox. The video is quite long, but it gives great insight into how many 1980’s fundamentalists viewed the world:
Here’s a short 7 minute version
After writing Turmoil in the Toybox, a book I once owned, Phil Phillips went on to write several more books, books like:
Dinosaurs: The Bible, Barney, and Beyond
Phillips’s books played an crucial part in the Satan/demon hysteria that was prominent in Fundamentalist churches in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Mike Warnke and Johanna Michaelsen also helped fuel the hysteria with their false claims about demonism, Satanism, and human sacrifices. BTW, Phil Phillips, Gary Greenwald, Mike Warnke, and Johanna Michaelsen are still involved in Christian ministry, a testimony to the fact that there are always new sheep to fleece.
Now I want to get quite personal for a moment. I think there is a lot of truth in what Bible Believer and Phil Phillips are saying. It is hard for me to admit this, but I must. You see I have a Gnome in my front yard. He is a Cincinnati Reds Gnome. I bought him thinking he would use his magical power to help the Reds get to the World Series. Little did I know, he is an ANTI-REDS Gnome, secretly manufactured and supernaturally possessed in a Saint Louis Cardinal Gnome factory. Proof? The Reds are dead last in the Central Division, well on their way to losing 100 games.
Silly, you say? How dare you insult my intelligence. I know what I know!! Gnomes are possessed by demons and they control everything the Fairies, Elves, and Smurfs don’t control. Either that, or I am full of shit like Bible Believer and company. This is what Bible literalism and newspaper theology, the art of reading the newspaper and finding Bible verse to fit the news, does to the Fundamentalist mind. They begin to live in an alternate reality where Frank Peretti novels are true and demons and Satan are everywhere. It is a reality dominated by fear and delusion and the only way out of it is to admit that EVERYTHING you once believed is a lie. Few “Bible Believers” are willing to do this, so they continue to live a life detached from the reality of the world they live in.
Notes
Here is a link to an interesting article about Turmoil in the Toybox on Cartoon Brew.
gary greenwald is also famous for saying that Aleister Crowley lived in the 16th century… only 400 years off…
This is an excellent post, Bruce. Thank you especially for the link to the info about Mike Warnke. In the early ’80s, when I was a high school kid who was heavily involved in the church, Warnke’s “Higher Education” was a big influence on me. Of course, no one mentioned the expose’ or the scandals when those came out, so I had no idea about the truth until you provided that link. This just confirms to me (once again) that I was brainwashed and indoctrinated by the business… er, church.
I remember reading Warnke’s book and referenced it a few times in my sermons. I bought into the conspiracies. I listened to Bob Larson every day…talking live on the radio to witches, satanists. Crazy days. ?
Also used to listen to Larson. You’d be amazed at the number of atheist er “fans” of Larson there were. Even saw him twice in person. He was quite the performer. Never considered anything but con artist in it for the cash.
Scott
Ah yes listened to Larson on my way home from work sometimes. I always figured the teens he was helping were secretly acting possessed and otherwise demonically stricken for their own amusement at his expense.
While amusing, I found him particularly contemptable how he seemed to relish in the death of Sam Kinison. His act was rather adult in nature but not anti-Christian really, and Larson seemed to get off on his untimely death.
Another amusement was Fletcher Brother’s (“Freedom Village USA”) “Rock Report”. I guess it hadn’t been updated since 1987, but it is hilarious. Especially with all the errors. For example: Jethro Tull is considered the name of a person rather than the band. You can get a copy on Amazon for 1 cent (and about $4.00 shipping)
Did you also believe in Johanna Michaelsen and her shenanigans? I remember that her book about Mexican psychic surgeons always disturbed me.
It begins with a loving feeling where you want to the best for your child and yourself. You talk about a being, a big guy who is the boss and made everything, and how we have to be good for the boss, that the boss loves us. It begins with a parent saying to an innocent child, believe is the the invisible Man, from some four centuries after the events it speaks of, and is interpreted basically any old way you like for your flavor needs. So there is nobody there and the book that is touted as proof is a kind of historical view that is centuries after the events it speaks of…. and the events it speaks of are horrible and hateful acts that we as loving parents expose our children too, the almighty judgements of the big boss on entire groups of people, of women and children too. The boss is a jealous boss and dangerous. You will nefver hear of a more dangerous boss in your life.
The child who hears this is an abused child who will live in fear of the boss, of authority, and of the very caregivers who exposed that child to this hateful fearmongering. So, the path is set…. to get from this place to the place where demons are running around and Teletubbies are Satan’s bait is not a long trip. We are born Christian to be detached from the normal reality. We walk in pride that we are Jesus’ own. We harm our children and teach our children to harm their children is a similar fashion. When we speak our truth about this, the whole shebang, Christians then choose to accuse us of hating God and our hate clouding our ability to speak simple and honest truth. We are hated, you see, hated as we always were. Praise God! Thank-you Jesus.
Fairies, check, Gnomes, check, Power Rangers, check. I could go on.. 🙂 The smurfs definitely bad! I’ve just remembered two other ones as well: My little pony and the rainbow care bears. Very wrong: both New Age and taking God’s/Noah’s rainbow and changing the meaning! That’s why they’re so angry that the rainbow is an LGBT symbol nowadays. I wanted a my little pony-pony but that wasn’t happening… So I just played with them at my friend’s instead. Kids find solutions, don’t they 😉 ?
The shapeshift argument is very familiar and is quite convenient too. It saves you from explaining too much: shapeshifting demons can become everything… thus everthing is explained 🙂 Aliens, Big Foot, you name it.
My father would get these leaflets with warnings on them from a guy at our church; the craziest conspiracy theories and also stuff like this about toys. We believed it all, because Christians don’t lie… There was also some crazy stuff about intelligence services being infiltrated by anti-christ followers/iluminati/whatever and projecting holograms of UFO’s in the sky to create a panic so people would accept the anti-christ as their savior. We went and looked it up and there was even a website and everything! So gullible, as we didn’t even consider that perhaps not all websites were equally trustworthy…
At some point, I realized I had been lied to at least twice in this way: J.K. Rowling was not a secret Satanist, but even called herself a Christian, and condoms do prevent HIV, even though the Christian leaflets said they didn’t… So we had been lied to: I slowly became aware that there was an agenda here and that Christians lied to further it….
“Oh, gnomes is it!?”
-“Chicken Run”
Bruce, so you’re the reason the Reds are doing so badly! Don’t you know, you have to feed the gnome, or it will cause mischief? Leave it an offering at night before you go to bed; some of Polly’s excellent comestibles will do. Make sure it isn’t anything spicy, that would upset the stomach of a wild animal or a neighbor cat. If nothing else, a bowl of milk will do.
Oh, and never point out that it isn’t doing its job; that will make it cranky. If it likes your propitiations, I’m sure the Reds will blow everyone away next season. 🙂
I’d like to see million moms have a tirade against the advertising for the Keebler elves. They are already a parody of themselves, that would just be the icing on the cookie.
Ok I went out of my way and I think I found alot of stuff that would debunk Johanna Michaelsen ‘s crazy story with the psychic surgeon and everything
I thank you for your article about the fairies, and gnomes, I have been trying to find info about the gnomes, because it is such a popular item and people are displaying them in their houses as cute little table sitters, I had even wanted some for decorations because they are really cute, I even made one just to see if I could. You see them at craft shows all the time. I wanted to know if it was wrong for me ( myself ) only, to have one or make them for other people because I am a christian and I don’t want anything to do with them if it is wrong. I know we have to search our own hearts and be led by the holy spirit to do what is Right for our own selves. Sometimes we just don’t think rationally about things and what it means, That’s when we search for information to help guide us, I thank you for your information, I’ve decided that gnomes isn’t something I want in my house. Thank you.
You missed the point of this post. The woman referenced in this post, by the way, have since repudiated her claims.
If you want fairies and gnomes in your home, please do so. Inanimate objects (generally speaking) cannot harm you. They have no power to do so.
Deborah sounds like she’d be very, -very- uncomfortable at my place. There are dragons in virtually every room, and one on the lawn too. 😀
So I suppose evil is just a figment of the imagination also. Honestly, you are correct inanimate objects have no power to harm in and of themselves; unless they become an idol. Whether or not the object becomes an idol; that’s on the human not on the object. There are many idols humans have in this world, including there own intellect; this can be true for believers (in God) as well as non-believers. Thinking themselves wise they became fools. Everyone serves something or someone.
What else should I trust besides my own intellect?
I feel sorry for you, that you have bought into the Evangelical idea that humans are broken or defective, unable to make their way through life without the Christian deity and the Bible. I have no need for your God or your unholy book.
I gladly serve other people — no good needed. It’s sad that you need a God to do this.
I do worship someone — my wife. She’s a smoking hot deity. Besides, she is an awesome cook. I worship her for her tacos and scalloped potatoes. 🙂
As far as idols are concerned, idolatry is a religious construct. As far as I know, I have no idols of any kind in my life. I suspect most of the readers of this blog will save the same. Christians, on the other hand, worship many idols: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the church, etc.