Things Christians Say

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Jarrid Wilson is in Hell, Says Elizabeth Johnston

September 14, 2019 23 Comments

This week, I read that Jarrid Wilson, Christian megachurch associate pastor and mental health advocate, committed suicide the day before National Suicide Prevention Day.

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Can we just slow down for a minute and have a very important, life and death conversation about suicide and the conditions one must meet to enter heaven for all eternity? Are there conditions? Does everyone go to Heaven who wants to go there, regardless of their actions? Or are there conditions one must meet to inherit the greatest promise ever given to man, namely, eternity with our Savior in a place of unending righteousness, peace, provision, and joy?

Doesn’t scripture say that “no murderer will enter the kingdom of God”? Isn’t suicide murder of one’s self? Doesn’t the Bible say that “murderers will have their part in the lake of fire”? Isn’t the last act of a person committing suicide, self-murder?

Please know that it horrifies me to have to write this! I’m horrified that grieving people who know Jarrid . . .would be offended by this discussion. But what about God’s Word? What about those who are planning right now to ingest that bottle of pills and end it all?

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Is it possible that Jarrid Wilson found a place of repentance moments before he breathed his last breath? Absolutely! Is it possible that Jarrid, after having gone too far in the suicide process and unable to rescue himself, cried out to God in repentance for his sin? Yes, it is possible and I pray that happened.

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To tell a watching world, as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that killing yourself will get you a ticket to heaven (as long as you had faith), is not only unbiblical, but dangerous and reckless. If my children were sitting in a church or funeral service, where such a reckless proclamation was made about someone who killed themselves, I would have to escort my children out of the room and pray that no permanent harm be done to them with this toxic thinking. We have yet to see the tragic results of mishandling this crisis. What are we thinking? I pray to God that no one else loses a loved one because of the countless number of people who admire Pastor Jarrid.

— Elizabeth Johnston, Activist Mommy, An Open Letter To Pastors In The Wake Of Young Megachurch Minister’s Suicide, September 13, 2019

Evangelicalism, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: How to Hook a Man

September 12, 2019 17 Comments

lori and ken alexander

Brometheus tweeted this recently: “Steps for women looking to get engaged: 1) Wear a nice sundress; 2) Smile a lot; 3) Carry a plate of bacon; 4) When people mention the bacon, say, ‘Yes, I made it.’ Men will instantly rate you far above the vast majority of modern women. This ain’t rocket science. It’s that simple.”

Most men aren’t that complicated. Women are much more complicated because we tend to be led by our emotions and feelings which change frequently. I know there are many young women who would love to be married so this is great advice for you!

Many women don’t dress feminine anymore. Most wear leggings ALL the time which are NOT feminine. Everywhere I go, women are wearing leggings. On a few women, they are very sexy since they outline the body parts clearly. On other women, they are not attractive at all. Few women have perfect bodies. Women, leggings are not feminine nor modest in the least. A pretty sundress or skirt are much more feminine and attractive to men.

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Finding a godly man isn’t easy in this culture, I know, but there will always be a remnant (Romans 11:5). Always dress and act feminine. Learn to be cheerful and cook good food. Ask the Lord to bring a godly man into your life and then wait upon Him. Find the best Bible believing and teaching church around and get involved. Do what you can and leave the results up to Him. In the meantime, concentrate on being holy in body and spirit as God commands (1 Corinthians 7:34). Oh, and most men do prefer debt-free virgins without tattoos!

— Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife, Men are Attracted to Women Who are Feminine, Cheerful, and Good Cooks, September 10, 2019

Evangelicalism, Things Christians Say

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Quote of the Day: Morals Without Religion

September 12, 2019 9 Comments

It’s the most common question religious folks pose to atheists: “Where do you get your morals?”

Whether at a dinner party or class reunion, a PTA meeting or a pig pickin’, whenever God-fearing people find out that we don’t believe in the Lord, don’t believe in an afterlife, don’t attend church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, don’t follow a guru, don’t obsess over ancient scriptures, and don’t care much for preachers or pontiffs, they immediately inquire about the possible source of our morality — which they find hard to fathom.

And the question “Where do you get you morals?” is usually asked with an embedded implication that morality obviously comes from God and religion, so if you don’t have either, then you must have no source for morality. On top of this problematic implication, there is often an accompanying judgmental, sneering tone; it’s as if what they really want to say is “You must be an immoral lout if you aren’t religious and don’t believe in God.”

To be fair, not everyone who asks atheists where they get their morals is implying something unkind. Given that religion has so fervently, forcefully insisted that it is the only source of morality for so many centuries, many people just honestly and naively believe that to be the case. Thus, not having thought too much about it, they are genuinely curious about where a person gets his or her morals, if not from religion.

But even if the question is asked in total unprejudiced earnestness, it is still a rather odd query. After all, “Where do you get your morals?” suggests that morals are things that people go out and find in order to possess. Like shoes. Or a new set of jumper cables. It implies that people are living their lives, doing this and that, and then at some point, they decide to drive downtown or go online and get ahold of some morals — as if ethical tenets and moral principles were consciously adopted in some sort of deliberate process of acquisition.

Morality, however, doesn’t really work that way. While people may deliberately choose to get their donuts from a certain shop or decide to get their dog from a certain pound, when it comes to the core components of our morality — our deep-seated proclivities, predilections, sentiments, values, virtues, and gut feelings in relation to being kind and sympathetic — these things are essentially within us. They are an embedded, inherited part of us. We don’t go out and “choose” them, per se. Sure, we may change our minds about a certain social issue after learning more about it and critically reflecting upon it; we may develop a love or distaste for something after having had certain new experiences in relation to it; we may start to live our lives differently, with different ethical priorities, after we marry a certain person and cohabitate with them for an extended period of time; we may find our political positions shift when we move to a new state or country and live there for a while.

However, when it comes to our underlying morality, it is not generally something that we “get” in a conscious, deliberate, choosing way. Rather, our deep-seated sense of how to treat other people, our capacity for empathy and compassion, our desire for fairness and justice — these are things that we naturally manifest: our morals have been inherited from our evolutionary past, molded through our early childhood nurturance, enhanced and channeled through cultural socialization, and as such — to paraphrase sociologist Émile Durkheim — they “rule us from within.”

What exactly is it that rules us so — morally speaking? And what are the specific foundational sources of our moral proclivities and ethical tendencies? There are four: 1) our long history as social primates, evolving within a group context of necessary cooperation; 2) our earliest experiences as infants and toddlers being cared for by a mother, father, or other immediate caregivers; 3) unavoidable socialization as growing children and teenagers enmeshed within a culture; and 4) ongoing personal experience, increased knowledge, and reasoned, thoughtful reflection.

— Phil Zuckerman, What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life

Purchase What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life

Atheism, Evangelicalism, Humanism, Religion, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: LGBTQ People Out to Destroy Christianity

September 10, 2019 12 Comments

geri-ungurean

Did you think that the whole LGBTQ agenda was primarily to win acceptance and tolerance from the American society?  I think that most of us probably thought that.

Little did we know that gaining acceptance was merely a first step toward the ultimately goal which is evil to its core.  Should we be surprised? After all, we ARE battling principalities and powers of darkness (let us never forget this).

The end game of the LGBTQ movement, although possibly not realized by its marchers, but by its leaders is this: Detaching America from it’s original Judeo/Christian heritage and the moral framework which was the foundation upon which we were established.

How will they accomplish this?  Legislatively, and as their demands grow, the one piece of legislation that makes every Leftist liberal salivate is “The Equality Act.”

Brethren, of this becomes law in the U.S., initially there will be lawyers in boardrooms brainstorming about overturning this satanically inspired law. But if this is God’s will in his prophetic plan for us, then we will literally be between a rock and a hard place.

The language of the “Equality Act” is such that we will be strong-armed in doing things that our Lord would never have us do. So, we will have a choice: succumb to their demands or dig in our heels and refuse.  Of course, the latter will land us in jail – possibly in re-educations camps.

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The LGBT activists won’t stop until Christian and Jewish religious leaders can no longer read certain scriptural passages in places of worship because to do so is considered criminal hate speech.  Imagine the state forcing parents to embrace their young children’s chosen “gender preference” or risk losing them.

These activists also will not stop until Christian-owned business, such as Chick-Fil-A, are driven into oblivion.  This week, Chick-Fil-A opened its first restaurant in Canada and was met by hateful protest.  The angry, hate-filled, and irony-challenged protesters declared that they would not allow hateful rhetoric into their community.  Chick-Fil-A doesn’t bring rhetoric at all, other than perhaps asking if a customer would like a refill on his iced tea, offered with a smile.  That’s quite the expression of hatred.  They don’t refuse service to people based upon religious belief or sexual orientation.  But being owned and overseen by Christians is crime enough for liberals.

We’ve got to stand firm against the intolerance and hatred of the Left.  In the liberal hive mind, Americans who don’t celebrate and champion the worst of perversions are a declared enemies who must be destroyed.  Right now, their aim is fixed squarely on Christianity.  They are coming not just for Drew Brees, Focus on the Family, and Chick-Fil-A.

Brethren, to the LEFT, we are public enemy number one. Remember what the Word says in Isaiah:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

— Geri Ungurean, Absolute Truth From the Word of God, LGBTQ Goal is Destruction of Christianity in Society, September 10, 2019

Evangelicalism, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Astral Travel for Christians

September 9, 2019 11 Comments

beth eckert

Astral travel or astral projection is when a part of your soul leaves the body to travel through the astral plane. The astral plane is compromised of a series of electromagnetic ley lines that interconnect throughout the universe to create a magnetic field of travel. Because our bodies use electricity to run the body, it is easy for our souls to use these electromagnetic ley lines to travel on.

Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, including cell phones, microwave ovens, computers, power lines, and electrical wiring, making the places a person can astral travel almost limitless. This means a person can astral travel through cell phone text messages or internet usage or even phone calls. Human spirits can use any device that runs on electricity to travel into any type of building or vehicle, etc.

While God created the ability for a human soul to leave the body as a form of protection, Satan has twisted it in order to use it to further his Antichrist agenda. He starts at a young age using trauma to teach people how to leave the body to avoid harm, and then while they are out of the body, he funnels in other human spirits, demonic spirits, and other high ranking entities from the Kingdom of Darkness.

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I knew very little about astral travel until I became a Christian, even though I had been astral traveling all of my life.  I was taught from a very young age to leave my body as a defense mechanism to protect myself, but I had no idea what I was doing. It is very possible to astral project out of your body and not even know you are doing it, but because it is not openly talked about it, Satan continues to use astral travel to his advantage.

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It has taken me a while to be able to write this post because I wanted to get to a place where I felt that I was in a place where I was not constantly astral traveling. I feel that now I can say that astral travel is not my go-to solution anymore when problems arise. I am quite certain I do still have alters that choose to leave the body or possible live outside of the body, but I am also certain that astral travel happens less and less now.

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Once my alters realize that they can choose to be free from the occult and not be hurt for anymore then they almost always say ‘yes’ to Jesus. Finding out I was astral traveling could have made me believe I was a terrible human being, not saved by the grace of God, but destined to hell. Instead, I allowed Jesus to use it to shape me into a place of submission and humility. I could never be where I am without an extra helping of humility.

There is no shame in finding out you are astral traveling, or doing Satanic rituals, or doing witchcraft because the bottom line is: it’s not your fault. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. He came to save you from sin and hell, not condemn you to it. Satan is the one who wants you to keep these acts in the dark so you cannot be free from them. If you refuse to acknowledge you could be dissociative or participating in these secret works of darkness, then he can keep using you.

— Beth Eckert, The Other Side of Darkness, How I Learned To Astral Travel, September 9, 2019

Evangelicalism, Religion, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Doctrine is the Cure for Loss of Faith

September 9, 2019 7 Comments

The common denominator[with people who deconvert]concerns one’s knowledge and relationship to the doctrines of the church. Nearly all my friends who were naturally interested in doctrine remain faithful members in churches to this day, and those who were not have “moved on” from Christianity, as if it were an intermediary step on their greater “spiritual journey.” [Wait needs to get out more. I can introduce him to hundreds of one-time faithful Christians — including pastors, missionaries, and professors — who were “naturally interested in doctrine” and are now atheists/agnostics/unbelievers.]

The “spiritual journey” narrative so common among the de-converted is indicative of what was prioritized in their (and so many of our) church experiences. Formal doctrine was held in less esteem than authentic spiritual experience. Doctrine was impractical; community life was practical. Theology was for the intellectuals in the church, but the average member just needed to be loved. Doctrine was less essential for the youth than the need to attend a purity conference. In short, the church was largely a pragmatic, life-enhancing place to encourage individuals on their own “spiritual journeys.” [Wait seems to have a point to make, so he dispenses with facts. He takes a subcategory of former Christians and makes them representative of all ex-Christians.]

This low view of doctrine and high view of personal spirituality is often the first step for those at the precipice of de-converting. They begin to frame the church and its teachings merely as products of a distant time and culture, irrelevant to one’s personal spiritual experiences. At best, such teachings help some express their faith (mostly people in the past); at worst, they are man-made rules and tools of manipulation and oppression.

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If the church is to not only retain its members but also disciple them in everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:20), we must invite our members outside of their individual “spiritual journeys” and into the thrilling story of orthodoxy, where God is recreating and consecrating an entire people. We must show, in our teaching and worship and discipleship, how this bigger story is more beautiful and compelling than our individual subplots. Jake Meador says it well: “Any response to our moment that focuses more on the individual story of lost faith and less on a fairly dramatic shift in our approach to liturgy, catechesis, and repentance will be inadequate to the demands of the day.” 

To scrutinize and focus on an individual’s de-conversion story—only to ask “what happened to them?”—is to isolate their story from the community they are leaving. Our strategy must not be to dilute our doctrine or distill it to what’s culturally acceptable, nor should it be to downplay the importance of story. Rather, our strategy must be to recast the beauty of orthodoxy and catechesis—not just as concepts to be believed, but as truth to be lived, from one century to the next, by the storied people of God.

— Caleb Wait, The Gospel Coalition, A Common Denominator in De-Conversions, September 9, 2019

Evangelicalism, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Secularism and Evolution to Blame for Mass Shootings

September 2, 2019 5 Comments

I mean look, we’ve taught our kids that they come about by chance through primordial slime and we’re surprised that they treat their fellow Americans like dirt. It’s time we talk about the result of the Left’s systematic march through our institutions, driving religious expression from the public square.

It’s tragic and at some point we have to realize we have a problem as a nation, and the problem is not the absence of laws, it’s an absence of morality — really, the result of a decades-long march through the institutions of America, driving religion and God from the public square.

— Tony Perkins, Talking Points Memo, Fox News Guest Blames Mass Shootings On Fact That Evolution Is Taught In Schools, September 2, 2019

Evangelicalism, Politics, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: The Earth is 6,024 Years Old

September 2, 2019 5 Comments

Where Did a Young-earth Worldview Come From?

Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. But we wouldn’t expect an all-knowing God to make that kind of a mistake.

God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” For example, using a personal birth certificate, a person can calculate how old he is at any point. It is similar with the earth. Genesis 1 says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1–5). From there, we can begin to calculate the age of the earth.

Let’s do a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.

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When we start our thinking with God’s Word, we see that the world is about 6,000 years old. When we rely on man’s fallible (and often demonstrably false) dating methods, we can get a confusing range of ages from a few thousand to billions of years, though the vast majority of methods do not give dates even close to billions.

Cultures around the world give an age of the earth that confirms what the Bible teaches. Radiometric dates, on the other hand, have been shown to be wildly in error.

The age of the earth ultimately comes down to a matter of trust—it’s a worldview issue. Will you trust what an all-knowing God says on the subject, or will you trust imperfect man’s assumptions and imaginations about the past that regularly are changing?

— Bodie Hodge, Answers in Genesis, How Old is the Earth?, September 2, 2019

Evangelicalism, Science, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: The Spells in the Harry Potter Books are Real!

September 2, 2019 12 Comments

These books [Harry Potter] present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.

— Dan Reehil, pastor of St. Edward Catholic Church and School in Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville Tennesseean, August 31, 2019

Pastor Reehil removed all of the Harry Potter books from the St. Edward School library.

Religion, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Masturbation is a Soul-Threatening Sin

August 31, 2019 5 Comments

sin of masturbation

The reasoning in favor of masturbation is quite curious: if we tell people it is wrong and that God disapproves, what happens to those [implied multitudes] who aren’t able to stop? They grow up thinking God hates them or that they are some miserable, shameful, dirty creature that belongs under a rock. Therefore, let them do it . . .

It’s essentially a secular libertarian, or even utilitarian argument, not a Christian one. It’s contradicted whenever the same advocates decry pornography and contend that exposure to it might begin a terrible and perhaps lifelong addiction. As pornography is addicting, so is masturbation, and often they coincide. So do we also argue that pornography ought to be freely available, as a good thing, lest those who can’t break the habit feel condemned and worthless and turn against God as a result?

Do masturbation champions advocate free availability and moral sanction of cocaine and heroin, or approve of alcoholism (or oppose remarkably successful programs like AA)? Do they also take a position that homosexual acts are permissible and moral simply because the lifestyle is extremely hard to break (as we know it is)? Why make an exception for masturbation?

The Catholic Church disagrees, of course, It regards masturbation as a mortal, soul-threatening sin. And it will continue to do so, no matter what the prevailing zeitgeist may be. If something is wrong, it’s wrong. What period of history (or cultural decadence) we happen to be in has no bearing on that wrongness. Strong Church authority is precisely what prevents these “slippery slope” descents into sexual compromise.

Masturbation is a form of non-procreative sex. It perverts sexuality and has an adverse effect on proper, healthy sexual development. It turns sex into something entirely selfish, rather than giving and other-directed. This “if it feels good, do it” mentality is in perfect harmony with the sexual revolution and humanist ethics and hedonism, but in perfect disharmony with traditional Christian sexual morality.

— Dave Armstrong, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, Masturbation: Thoughts on Why it is as Wrong as it Ever Was, August 14, 2019

Evangelicalism, Religion, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Atheists are Hostile to Reason

August 22, 2019 6 Comments

When engaging your typical internet village atheist, the Christian apologist seldom encounters rational discussion. To use a common expression, I have found that these professing atheists are control freaks. Not only do they insist that their worldview is superior to ours because atheism, they are hostile to our presentations of reason.

Atheists and other anti-creationists attempt to justify their worldviews and morality by attacking God and simultaneously saying they “lack belief” in his existence and creation. Evidence for his existence is rejected based on their materialistic presuppositions, not because of flaws in our logic or the evidence. The use of presuppositional apologetics is something that really puts burrs under their saddles because we give critiques of their worldviews, expose flaws in their epistemology, point out logical fallacies, and especially because we stand on the authority of God’s Word. 

— Piltdown Superman, Biblical Creation and Evangelism, Confronting Atheistic Worldviews, August 21, 2019

Atheism, Evangelicalism, Things Christians Say

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Jesus is NOT a Religion

August 22, 2019 1 Comment

jesus hawkins texasJesus is not a religion, Jesus is in every religion across the globe. If you don’t believe that Jesus existed, then he would be fiction. If he’s fiction, and you want to remove his name from everything then you need to remove every fiction name that there is across the country. That means we couldn’t say Superman welcomes you to town.

— Mayor Will Rogers, Hawkins, Texas

Freedom From Religion Foundation News Release

Texas city has at long last removed a “Jesus Welcomes You to Hawkins” sign that the Freedom From Religion Foundation objected to years ago.

Back in 2015, the state/church watchdog twice wrote to the city of Hawkins about the blatantly Christian sign on city property after receiving local complaints.

“The Establishment Clause prohibits government sponsorship of religious messages,” FFRF Associate Counsel Sam Grover noted. “The Supreme Court has been clear that the ‘First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.’”

The city of Hawkins violated this neutrality with a prominent governmental sign that proclaimed “Jesus Welcomes You” and endorsed belief in the pre-eminent figure of Christianity, FFRF pointed out. It sent a clear message to those with Christian beliefs that they’re favored community insiders and an equally clear message to those who believe differently that they’re not.

Then Hawkins-Mayor Will Rogers, the creative mind behind the sign, which he commissioned public school students to build, defended it with media statements such as “Jesus is not a religion, Jesus is in every religion across the globe. He’s in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism” and “If you don’t believe that Jesus existed, then he would be fiction. If he’s fiction, and you want to remove his name from everything, then you need to remove every fiction name that there is across the country. That means we couldn’t say ‘Superman welcomes you to town.’”

Fortunately, better sense prevailed in the rest of the city administration, and it heeded FFRF’s advice, albeit after many twists and turns.

The City Council voted to remove the sign after FFRF’s second letter, but then events headed in a strange direction after the mayor got into a long tussle with the city. He sued eight city officials and a bunch of other residents for supposedly resisting his attempts to root out corruption. Rogers settled the lawsuit but narrowly lost his re-election bid, with the sign playing a major role in the campaign.

Meanwhile, a group of supporters of the sign claimed that it was on private property, while the city contended that it had an easement to build a road on the land and, therefore, it was city-owned. The land turned out to be on the property of a funeral home that wanted nothing to do with the controversy, but then an entity called “Jesus Christ Open Altar Church, LLC” brought a lawsuit against the city after claiming to have bought the land from the funeral home. FFRF waited and watched while the lawsuit was underway. Finally, the city won that lawsuit on appeal and recently removed the sign.

FFRF is breathing a sigh of relief at this overdue victory for the U.S. Constitution — and for the rights of minority believers and nonbelievers in the community.

“We believe in justice for the good people of this country — even justice that is long delayed,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Finally, the city of Hawkins is in compliance with the law of the land — and has stopped sending a divisive and exclusionary message.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit founded in 1978, has over 31,000 nonreligious members and several chapters around the country, including more than 1,300 members and a chapter in Texas.

 

Evangelicalism, Religion, Things Christians Say

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