Product Placement in the Pews? Microtargeting Meets Megachurches

Trafficing in sheep - Profiting off the the blood of the Lamb John 2:14-16 And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business." Have you heard of the "sermo-mercial"? Pastors had a chance to win a trip to London, England and $1000.00 cash just for mentioning the Disney's "The Chronicles of Narnia" in one of their sermons. Or maybe you have had the unfortuate experiece of walking into a Megachurch foyer only to find a the new Chrysler Aspen SUV displayed. And if that weren't enough, many were able to take test driives following the service. Or you could have attended the back to school event at Greater Grace Temple in northwest Detroit where children received free bookbags all sporting the logo of it's sponsor CHASE BANK. This is a frightening a sobering article since it's thesis is mainly that of a marketing college perspective within it's acedemic setting and as such, does not mince words as to what is transpiring at present and what the future goals of church marketing could and should be. BE/\LERT! Product Placement in the Pews? Microtargeting Meets Megachurches MARKETING RESEARCH > KNOWLEDGE at WHARTON - Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania - November 15, 2006 [FULL ARTICLE] Haven't been to church recently? You might have missed something. Church pastors last year had a chance to win a free trip to London and $1,000 cash -- if they mentioned Disney's film "The Chronicles of Narnia" in their sermons. Chrysler, hoping to target affluent African Americans with its new luxury SUV, is currently sponsoring a Patti LaBelle gospel music tour through African-American megachurches nationwide. Advertising has begun to seep into churches, and the phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, say academic, religious and marketing experts. Among the wave of early adopters: the Republican Party, which successfully sold its platform to church-goers in the 2000 and 2004 elections; Hollywood, which discovered the economic power of faith when Mel Gibson's church-marketed film "The Passion of the Christ" became a blockbuster; and publishing, with Rick Warren's best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, heavily marketed by a Christian publishing house. These products -- a conservative political agenda, a film about Jesus and an evangelical book -- all had at least some religious connection to Christian consumers. Now some advertisers are taking the next step: marketing products -- like an SUV -- with no intrinsic religious value through church networks. "If we are going to target the African-American consumer, we have to go where they go, rather than ask them to come to us, and the church is a major institution for that community," says James Kenyon, Chrysler Group brand marketing senior manager. LaBelle's tour, which features both her November-release gospel album and Chyrsler's 2007 "Aspen" SUV, is passing through 14 of the largest predominantly African-American megachurches in the country. Some participating churches are also organizing "ride and drive" events, where church members and others can test-drive Chrysler vehicles. The Chysler-Patti LaBelle tour has so far avoided the criticism that followed Chevrolet's 2002 sponsorship of "Chevrolet Presents: Come Together and Worship," a concert tour featuring leading Christian music acts and Max Lucado, a popular evangelical preacher and author. Rabbi James Rudin, then spokesman for the American Jewish Congress, called the tour a "divisive" way to reach the public, while other Jewish and Christian groups condemned Chevrolet for promoting a conservative brand of Christianity. But Kirbyjon Caldwell, pastor of a megachurch that co-hosted the LaBelle tour in Houston, welcomes this particular pairing of church and corporation. "I would like to see more companies pay attention to the African-American consumer," says Caldwell, whose Windsor Village United Methodist Church attracts up to 14,000 worshippers every Sunday. "The Chrysler-Patti tour is a shrewd strategy to galvanize the interest of a market that has seemingly been forgotten." For Greater Grace Temple in northwest Detroit, another concert host, the event represents a chance to extend its reach into the larger Detroit community. "Gospel music is big in Detroit, not just as a spiritual thing, but as a cultural thing," says Melvin Epps, communications director for the church, which hosted Rosa Parks' funeral in 2005. Reaching non-believers -- known as "seekers" or the "un-churched" in evangelical-speak -- is a primary mission of megachurches, and events that make it easy for newcomers to participate are popular. "We don't just want to stay within the walls of our church," adds Epps. Greater Grace maintains a number of corporate partnerships. Chase Bank, for example, sponsored a back-to-school festival where children received free backpacks bearing the Chase logo. When church members bought 13,500 cases of Pepsi products, Pepsi donated a 15-passenger van that the church uses to transport senior citizens. "It's a win-win situation," says Epps. Megachurches as Consumer Aggregators You might think of a church as a steeple-topped place of long and windy sermons, where a loyal band drinks coffee from Styrofoam cups and raises money to repair the roof. But megachurches have changed the face of Sunday mornings, combining the latest technology, a casual Starbucks-like atmosphere and upbeat preaching to draw in crowds of thousands. They offer a particularly tantalizing opportunity for those intent on network or "word-of-mouth" marketing, a strategy that capitalizes on social relationships to spread product information and influence purchasing, according to Wharton marketing professor Patti Williams. "Megachurch members are drawn together by a strong common bond. Networks that exist naturally facilitate word-of-mouth marketing, because people tend to share information with those they are close to," she says. Pastors make "great connectors," adds Wharton marketing professor Christophe Van den Bulte, "because they reach a large audience once a week, and their words carry extra weight." But the real potential for word-of-mouth marketing, he notes, lies in megachurches' micro social networks. In order to create the intimate feel of fellowship in the midst of massive congregations, megachurches channel members into small groups. The affiliation groups can be based on any commonality, such as church-going neighbors, widowers, teens with divorced parents, home-schooling mothers and everything in between. In a weekly prayer group, says Van den Bulte, "you have the reinforcement of a dense social network. It's one thing to have a pastor saying something on screen, but it's a real turbocharger if you have a small group discussing it as well." The opportunities for network marketing through churches carry their own risks, however. "If people share an ethical connection based on life values, then using those ties for blatantly commercial purposes could backfire," says Van den Bulte. "Sometimes people feel it's a sacrilege to use a human connection to further another type of goal." But there is no doubt that megachurches -- defined as churches with weekly attendances of over 2,000 people -- offer advertisers some huge enticements. They reach more than seven million people every Sunday morning, an aggregation of potential consumers that secular advertisers have ignored until recently, according to Scott Thumma, an expert on megachurches at the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. "Megachurches represent the concentration of larger numbers of Christians in fewer congregations," says Thumma, whose latest research will appear in a co-authored book next year. "If nearly 50% of people who attend church go to 10% of the churches, then marketers have not given that phenomenon nearly enough attention." Christian companies have long marketed through churches, but Thumma agrees that mainstream marketers are beginning to catch on. Every week now he fields calls from companies who want to buy access to his database of megachurches. (His list, though publicly available, is not for sale.) "For a long time, companies marketed to the ideal of American culture, which didn't have anything to do with Christianity or religion," he adds. But marketers paying more attention to cultural subgroups see that "conservative Christians represent a very large group, and if they want to appeal to them, they have to go directly to the source." Daycare and Sports Analogies According to Greg Stielstra, vice president of marketing for the Christian Trade Book Group at Thomas Nelson Publishers, a product must tap into the church experience in order for the marketing effort to succeed. "People who gather in church on Sunday are practicing a common faith, but that doesn't make them more susceptible to margarine or minivans. The Republican Party was successful because it connected with the fundamentals of Christian faith. But it won't work if you sell a product lacking relevance," says Stielstra, who also directed The Purpose-Driven Life marketing campaign. Megachurches do offer opportunities for secular marketers, Stielstra adds, but uncovering them may require creative thinking. He recalled a financial planner who came to him with this problem: Potential customers were likely to hire his services if they heard his presentation, but few people were willing to sit through it. The number-one reason for marital conflict is money, Stielstra told the planner, and church-going couples are likely to seek out their pastor -- rather than a financial planner -- for advice. The solution? Stielstra put the financial planner in touch with local pastors, who now provide him with a steady stream of potential clients interested enough to sit through his presentation. Thumma, of the Hartford Seminary, points to another characteristic of megachurches. Their congregations are usually quite homogeneous. With the vast majority located in the suburbs and exurbs of sprawl cities, megachurches tend to attract "relatively modern, high-tech, middle-class, well-educated, upwardly mobile, suburban family types," he says. The match-up between church preference and demographic profile may be more than coincidence, according to Applebees America: How Successful Political, Business and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community. Authors Doug Sosnik, Matthew Dowd and Ron Fournier demonstrate how megachurch leaders target potential members based on lifestyle, often using market research techniques in order to meet specific needs. For families with small children, the churches provide high-quality child care. Men turned off by theological sermons hear pastors draw analogies from sports and business. Casual dress puts those turned off by high-church formality at ease. But secular advertisers have been slow to see churches as demographically aligned communities. "Who works in the marketing communications industry?" asks Van den Bulte. "It tends to be young people, liberal people, who probably don't go to those churches. There is a cultural disconnect." Judy Smith and Candace McKeever, partners at Impact Media, the marketing company producing the Chrysler-Patti LaBelle tour are two people who have an inside track. "We're both church-going folks, and if you are in it and of it, then you know it," says Smith. In African-American churches in particular, adds McKeever, "business and church have traditionally gone hand in hand, working for the betterment of the community." Indeed, at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, the partnership with Pepsi came about because the father of someone in community relations at Pepsi's Detroit office knew the father of Greater Grace's bishop. "It was a personal connection," says Juanita Bass, executive assistant to Bishop Charles Ellis. The Logic of Growth Outreach Media Group, a Christian marketing firm founded in 1996 to help churches reach potential members, receives "repeated requests from organizations wishing to get their message to pastors and churches," according to its website. While the firm was helping churches market to the unchurched, outside companies realized the process could be reverse engineered to reach pastors and church members. Though the majority of Outreach clients are companies selling faith-related products -- like church insurance policies or donor management software -- the list also includes Disney, DaimlerChrysler and other secular corporations. Outreach's sermoncentral.com was the group that sponsored last year's sweepstakes offering $1,000 and a London trip to the lucky pastor who submitted proof of mentioning Disney's "Narnia" movie in a sermon. And as part of its promotion of New Line Cinema's 2006 church-targeted movie, "The Nativity Story," sermoncentral.com offers free sermons, PowerPoint presentations and outreach ideas based on the film. The website also allows pastors to sign up for free screenings of the film in 45 cities. The Narnia sermon sweepstakes, first reported last December by the Philadelphia Inquirer, gave rise to the new term "sermo-mercial" -- along with concerns expressed by blogging Christians that the pulpit was now open for product placement. While the Narnia example struck many as crass commercialism, however, the concept of harnessing sermons for sales was not new. The engine driving the runaway sales of The Purpose-Driven Life was the "40 Days of Purpose" campaign, in which author Rick Warren signed up 1,200 churches to devote six sermons to the content of the book, while church members read a chapter every day for 40 days, says Stielstra, who was senior marketing director at Christian publisher Zondervan when it published the book. "That simple process created an army of 400,000 customer evangelists whose word-of-mouth recommendations sold 18 million copies in 18 months without a national advertising campaign," Stielstra says. His 2005 book, Pyromarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life, describes how non-religious companies can use similar sales campaigns. That secular-minded marketers could borrow models from The Purpose-Drive Life's evangelical-driven success comes as no surprise to historians of religion, who say American churches and businesses have long fed off one another. Some of the first organizations to use modern marketing and production techniques were 19th century lay religious corporations like the American Bible Society, according to R. Laurence Moore, author of Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History. But the overlap between commerce and Christianity also leaves some churches vulnerable to purely commercial marketing, says Moore, director of the American Studies program at Cornell University. "When you have churches thinking along business lines, receptiveness to sales pitches is just the direction that things go." Megachurches are particularly vulnerable because they are so intent on growth. "Religious organizations actively seeking to grow and expand -- raise money, reach new members -- do things that are as much secular as religious," Moore notes. "When you have megachurches with huge auditoriums, and lots of stores and schools and gymnasiums inside, it begins to look less and less like a religious place." Underwriting the Mission Growth is key to megachurch success because large, enthusiastic congregations are what megachurches "sell" to potential members, according to James Twitchell, author of the forthcoming Shopping for God: How Christianity Went from In Your Heart to In Your Face. The first thing you hear at a megachurch these days "is how many new members they have. Churches used to be politely non-competitive," says Twitchell, professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida. But since so many megachurches are now independent or quasi-independent of centralized denominations, they aggressively compete with other churches for members. Maintaining rapid growth is tough, and when churches falter, that's when corporations spot an entryway, Twitchell adds. "Advertisers can go to the heart of your mission -- in the case of megachurches, that's evangelism -- and underwrite it." Even business guru Jim Collins, best-selling author of Good to Great and Built to Last, has an opinion on the topic. Growth for the sake of growth is potentially destructive, warns Collins, who spoke this summer to a megachurch leadership conference about his new publication applying Good to Great concepts to "social sector" organizations like churches. The key question for churches, he says, is, "Do they have the discipline to say 'no' to any resources that will drive them away from their fundamental mission?" For some churches, using corporate sponsorships might be a great opportunity; for others it might lead them astray, Collins suggests. "It would be too broad a brush to say it's all good or bad for churches, just as it's too broad to say debt is all good or bad for companies. Churches need clarity to decide what's right for their financing." But why is it many feel, instinctively, that the market and the church should inhabit distinct spheres? The Constitution mandates the separation of church and state, but the relationship between church and commerce is largely unregulated. One answer may lie in the gospels themselves, where Jesus spoke frequently about the dangers of wealth, warning that "you cannot serve both God and mammon." More dramatically, he overturned the tables of businessmen inside the Jewish temple and drove them out with a whip, saying "Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise." To some Christian critics, the analogy could not be more direct. Isn't having Chrysler or Chevrolet vehicles parked in the foyer of a church "a little too much like putting the tables back inside the temple?" asks Skye Jethani, associate editor of Leadership, a journal for church pastors published by Christianity Today. The dangers of commerce intruding -- or being invited -- into churches are "infinite" from a religious point of view, says Jethani, who is one of two pastors at an "accessibly-sized" congregation of 400 in Wheaton, Ill. "Christianity comes to be viewed, not as submission to Christ and love of your neighbor, but an identity like any other, defined by what you buy, who you vote for, what entertainment you consume. Becoming so cozy with the methodology of business completely warps the message of the New Testament." Ad experts like Twitchell, however, predict that advertising will increasingly appear "inside the frame" of church experience. Look next for corporate sponsorship advertisements in church bulletins or on walls and windows of church buildings, he says. Yet Caldwell, head of the massive Windsor Village church in Houston, cautions that churches should be thoughtful about when to partner with corporations. "At the end of the day, we don't want the church to become a prostitute of business." Main Page - View Article http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/category.cfm?CID=4&startRow=11&maxrows=10 Full Article (Requires Free Subscription) http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/signup.cfm?CFID=3859480&CFTOKEN=87550802 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

'Angels singing on tape' sparks heavenly debate

Showtime for the sheep Some readers claim similar experiences, while others cast doubt on phenomenon WORLDNETDAILY - By Joe Kovacs - February 19, 2007 -- A report by WND about claims of angelic songs caught on tape has sparked a flurry of interest in the subject of angels, with some readers reporting similar experiences, and others casting doubt on the phenomenon, even pointing to a 1970s gospel song that could be the source of one of the mysterious recordings. The report focused on Jim Bramlett, a Christian author from Lake Mary, Fla., who posted an online collection of recordings he believes captures voices and music of God's angels in heaven. "I have four specific recordings of angels singing in church settings," Bramlett told WND. "It happened supernaturally. There's no other explanation. It's either from God or from the devil, and I don't think the devil is in the business of worshipping Jesus." The 76-year-old retired Air Force officer collected the tapes from various sources in recent years, and put them on his ChoicesForLiving website, where readers can click on several links to listen to three recordings made in the U.S., and one from China. After reading the report, Sharon Smith, a retired oncology nurse in Fort Smith, Ark., told WND she has heard songs like the recorded ones while in bed with intense pain from tearing her ribcage muscles. "I had no pain medications nor any kind of alcoholic beverage to relieve the pain," Smith said. "Not only did I hear this 'angelic' singing, but I also 'heard' two voices state, 'We can't reach her lying in this position.' I am not psychotic, nor a drug abuser." A Charlottesville, Va., woman says she, too, experienced an "angelic choir" twice in her life. The first time was 14 years ago as she was taking care of her newborn baby. "It had what sounded like a professional full orchestra and a score that was written for a huge movie," said J.S., preferring her full name not be disclosed. "It was absolutely awesome to listen to. It was 'distant' (as if listening to music from outdoors through closed windows), but full, moving, touching, beautiful and totally awesome. I knew the longer I listened that I was not listening to a tape, but to an angelic choir worshipping the Lord." The woman noted her husband was working outside at the time, but did not hear the song. Then last year, she claims a similar phenomenon took place as she heard a Christian song from her youth, initially assuming it was playing on her car radio:

As traffic increased along the way, I reached over to turn up the volume only to find that my radio was not turned on. I opened my window to see who had the song playing on their radio/CD, and figured I must have been hearing it from another vehicle's radio and I considered myself blessed to have been riding alongside someone who also loved the Lord and was worshipping him. When I opened the window, the volume did not change, and it was clear that there were no other radios or CDs on or playing what I was hearing nearby. I closed the window, tried playing with my radio to see if I could turn it on, but could not. It was broken and rarely played unless a second person in the front seat repositioned it and fooled around with it. I continued to hear the same song sung perfectly the rest of the way to my destination, and I continued to alternate between singing along and just listening to the perfect blend of voices. I was totally blessed and refreshed by this.

One WND reader says he himself has heard angels singing in worship services, but thinks the Bramlett tapes could be nothing more than a publicity stunt. "People may say I am nuts. I really don't care, because I know how people in our congregation sing, and know when there's something more," said William Howard of Miami, Fla. "But these recordings on this website follow a pattern, of certain notes struck at a higher strength, which one some electronic keyboards can bet set to trigger sounds like string sections, organ sounds, or even as here, a patch that sounds like a chorus of people singing. You can even go so far as to have these voices annunciate 'oooh,' 'aaah' and 'da' sounds, too. And as I have spent many an evening goofing around with these effects with our keyboard player, it sounds too much the same to be posted on the Internet as angel voices." Don Jordan of Jamul, Calif., who is a fundamentalist Christian as well as software engineer and keyboard player, calls Bramlett's four recordings "extremely questionable at best." Regarding the tape from a Kansas City church, Jordan notes:

The poor quality of the tape severely garbles the upper notes but all I heard was a well-rehearsed earthly choir with a good soprano section. I was able to discern that the sopranos do not sing above the G that is one-and-one-half octaves above middle-C on the piano. According to my Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music, this is well within the range of a standard soprano part. In addition, the high notes were not held any longer than four beats at the performance's meter. There is nothing supernatural about that. Let's give whatever earthly choir sang this classic worship chorus credit where credit is due, please!

He concluded, "What we have here amounts to little more than wives tales for the modern technological age." The Kansas City recording features the voice of a "mystery" male soloist singing: Alleluia, ringing all across the land Everybody's singing at the Lord's command All the saints and the angels up in glory wait to hear the news of Jesus and his children as they're coming through. Those lyrics caught the attention of Michael Leamons of Knott, Texas, who told WND, "About 16 years ago, someone played a taped recording of a male soloist (accompanied by a chorus of alleluias) singing lyrics similar to those mentioned in your article. They claimed it was a recording of angelic singing. To me it sounded like Tennessee Ernie Ford singing 'Alleluia' with a chorus dubbed over his recording. ... I don't dispute that angels sing, and I don't have any knowledge of the other claims in your report, but I believe the one with the male soloist is a hoax." In fact, on April 15, 1974, Capitol Records released a Ford album titled,"Make a Joyful Noise," and the last song on the album was called, "Alleluia," containing the same lyrics as the ones purportedly recorded in the Kansas City church. Other readers point to the Bible to cast doubt on the veracity of the angelic choir claims. - "There are references to male and female angel voices in [the WND angels] story. Never in Scripture will you have an angel spoken of as female. Either a male or more as genderless." (Steve Ross) - "In the Bible, the angels don't sing. They speak. So maybe we should weigh these stories according to what we know is true about angels in Scripture." (Jodi Helm) In the King James Version of the Bible, there are several verses which some believe indicate angels do indeed sing in their worship of God. Regarding God's creation of the Earth, Job 38:7 states: "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Revelation 5:11-13 declares: And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And in the story of Jesus' birth, the Gospel of Luke records, "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2:13-14) Some angels are also shown in Scripture to be sounding trumpets. "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!" (Revelation 8:13) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54317 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Angels singing caught on tape?

Showtime for the sheep? WORLDNETDAILY - By Joe Kovacs - February 18, 2007 -- 'It happened supernaturally. There's no other explanation' A retired Air Force officer who now spends his days authoring books on Christianity has posted an online collection of recordings he believes captures voices and music of God's angels in heaven. "I have four specific recordings of angels singing in church settings," Jim Bramlett of Lake Mary, Fla., told WND. "It happened supernaturally. There's no other explanation. It's either from God or from the devil, and I don't think the devil is in the business of worshipping Jesus. That is not in his job description." Bramlett, 76, collected the tapes from various sources in recent years, and has now put them on his ChoicesForLiving website, where readers can click on several links to listen to three recordings made in the U.S., and one from China. The Feb. 6, 1996, recording at the Greater Grace World Outreach Church in Baltimore, Md., starts off with a woman playing a piano, and gradually, accompanying voices are heard in the background. Bramlett described them as "beautiful voices of beings who were not in the service." "I have the full tape with the pastor discussing the situation with the congregation, and about 25 people gave testimony to hearing the voices. They were all in awe at what had happened." Another recording took place at the Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland, Fla., and features a 10-minute, sustained sound after a call to praise by a minister. "They seem to lift the praise of the congregation to a totally new and awesome level, and it just goes on and on. The intensity and consistency are clearly supernatural and beyond the ability of the congregation," explains Bramlett, a former vice president at the Christian Broadcasting Network where he spent nine years. A woman who says she and her husband were at the Lakeland service wrote Bramlett to vouch for the authenticity of what took place: "The tape of the Florida meeting was exactly like the way it sounds. Glenn and I were there during those meetings, and if it wasn't this one then there is another tape of a meeting where [the phenomenon] happened again. The one we were in went on and on and stopped abruptly. Silence for about a minute then a male voice sang out 'Glooooory' and several women's voices from different directions echoed 'Gloooooory' in perfect harmony, and the praise and worship started up all over again." Perhaps the most stunning of all the recordings is thought to be from a church in Kansas City, where there is not only an audible chorus of "Hallelujah" – meaning "praise God" – but also the voice of a male soloist who purportedly was not present. The lyrics of the mysterious solo were transcribed as follows: Hallelujah, ringing all across the land Everybody's singing at the Lord's command All the saints and the angels up in glory wait to hear the news of Jesus and his children as they're coming through. Though he doesn't have it on tape, Wayne Warmack of Greater Works Ministries in Rogers, Ark., says he and his wife, Sandy, personally heard angelic voices during a Passover celebration last April at a lakeside retreat center near Marianna, Fla. "I began to distinctly hear wordless voices in perfect harmony with us, that were clearly not coming from me or Sandy, or the other 20 or so people present in the room. They sort of drifted in and out of my hearing while I struggled to maintain my composure and continue the song," Warmack said. "If you've ever heard that sound, it leaves you a different person than when you came in. I can't describe it. There's just no way to describe it. It is definitely heard with more than just the physical ears." But not everyone is joining the chorus of hallelujahs. Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine and president of the New England Skeptical Society, analyzed the electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP, at WND's request. "The fatal problem with this entire type of evidence is that there is no way to validate or invalidate the source of sound on a recording. Therefore it has no discriminating value," Novella said. "Personal testimony is not reliable as evidence and is not acceptable scientifically. Choosing to have faith in the persons making the angel-voice claims is no different than just having faith in angels in the first place, so the recordings don't get you anywhere." Novella discussed some of the specific claims made by Bramlett and others who suggest the source of the sound is supernatural: - "There seems to be no doubt they are angelic voices." They sound like human voices to me. This is just a bold assertion without supporting argument or evidence. - " ... about 25 people gave testimony to hearing the voices. They were all in awe at what had happened." Not uncommon for a congregation of believers sharing a common belief and being swept into an emotional fervor by an experienced preacher. Not exactly dispassionate testimony. - "I have had this tape for several years but I recently found a cleaner version of it on the Internet, preceded by an explanation. I do not know the identity of the narrator." This reminds of the "Jesus in the clouds" picture that keeps cropping up. When the same piece of evidence keeps coming up in different contexts and situations, that strongly suggests fraud. Also, the angels in this recording were playing bass guitar and horn, and at one point broke into a pretty funky beat. It's actually pretty laughable. Also, it was noted that the angel voices were not noticed until the recording was played back, so nothing was heard during the recording. This is a red flag for a recording artifact. The simplest explanation is that the recording was made over a prior recording of a choir singing with accompanying music, and they heard the two recordings superimposed when they played it back. So, bottom line, these are all worthless as evidence. They are being offered uncritically by people who already believe, are not questioning the angel claims, and who are committing some logical fallacies. "I think his explanations are nonsense," responded Bramlett. "Over the years, I have found there are negative skeptics and cynics out there on every subject. It is easy to find them. They are so predictable, and they typically reject anything supernatural. They have to, because to admit it would be tantamount to admitting to a God to whom they are accountable. They cannot permit that. It is as simple as that. Biblically speaking, you could say they are spiritually dead and they think everything must have a natural, material explanation." The concept of supernatural beings called angels has a strong basis in Scripture. In the King James Version of the Bible, the word "angel" is found 201 times in 192 verses, while "angels" occurs 94 times in 92 verses. At least two are named – Michael and Gabriel – and the New Testament describes a galactic conflict involving angels at war with each other. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels (Revelation 12:7) The Bible also records numerous instances of angels appearing to humans and even having discussions with them. The 19th chapter of Genesis indicates two angels helped rescue Lot and his family from the ancient city of Sodom; Luke 1:26 shows the angel Gabriel being dispatched by God to the town of Nazareth to inform Mary she would miraculously become pregnant with Jesus; and Hebrews 13:2 reminds people to "entertain strangers," since some strangers might actually be angels. Bramlett believes angels are still making appearances in our modern day, and he documents several purported instances on his website. "Some say that true reality is spiritual, not physical," he said. "The supernatural breaks through [into our dimension], and it's exciting when it does."

See Article for additional links and info http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54271 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

American armada prepares to take on Iran

The prince of the kingdom of Persia LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - By Damien McElroy aboard USS Eisenhower - February 25, 2007 -- It is four and a half acres of American power in the middle of the Arabian Sea but the influence of USS Dwight D Eisenhower stretches for hundreds of miles. The aircraft carrier, backed by its sister vessel, a handful of destroyers and a shoal of support ships, has placed a maritime ring of steel around an increasingly unstable region. While the Eisenhower is ostensibly assisting US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is the looming threat of Iran that increasingly occupies its attention. Recent tensions between America and Iran over Teheran's attempts to develop a nuclear weapon have raised the prospect of its third regional war in a decade. The addition of a second aircraft carrier to its strike groups has fuelled the belief that America is gearing up for a fight with Iran. Not since the Iraq war in 2003 has America amassed so much fire power around the Gulf. As flagship of the Fifth Fleet, the Eisenhower welcomed the arrival of a second Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, and its accompanying destroyers on Tuesday. Captain Dan Cloyd, the Eisenhower's commanding officer, compared the situation with the international tension of the Cold War.... Every hour and fifteen minutes a handful of jets scream north across the ocean. The range of missions an aircraft carrier as big as the Eisenhower - it has more than 5,000 people onboard - can carry out is virtually limitless. The Eisenhower is not only the flagship of the carrier group that protects The Gulf through which one-fifth of the world's oil is shipped. It has also helped overthrow a hard-line Islamic regime in Somalia during a stint off the Horn of Africa. Its fighter jets now offer close support to Nato and US forces in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Commander Matt Pothier returned yesterday from Afghanistan having delivered air support to British soldiers. He said: "Right now I have more opportunities than I've ever had to use weapons where we know there aren't any friendly people. In combat that's very rewarding." In the carrier's Combat Direction Centre, Warrant Officer Michael Myers can spot anything untoward in a 256 mile radius from his radar screen. He can identify objects as small as wooden boats on the open sea and small aircraft in a swathe of countries from the Arabian peninsula to the northern shore of the Sea of Arabia. Should Lieutenant Commander Craig Stapleton, the tactical operations officer, give the order, WO Myers can put up Hawkeye, an EP2 surveillance plane with massive radar capable of establishing American air traffic control across half a continent. "Those planes alone extend our radar horizon to a huge circle of the sky. I could see for 1,000 miles if I wanted to." ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=TL5IPNJPJFNIVQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wiran24.xml FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike

The prince of the kingdom of Persia LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH - By Con Coughlin in Tel Aviv - February 26, 2007 -- Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon. A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons. "We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named. "The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."... The pace of military planning in Israel has accelerated markedly since the start of this year after Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, provided a stark intelligence assessment that Iran, given the current rate of progress being made on its uranium enrichment programme, could have enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead by 2009. Last week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year. Mr Olmert has also given overall control of the military aspects of the Iran issue to Eliezer Shkedi, the head of the Israeli Air Force and a former F-16 fighter pilot. The international community will increase the pressure on Iran when senior officials from the five permanent of the United Nations Security Council and Germany meet at an emergency summit to be held in London on Monday. ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wiran124.xml FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

The prince of the kingdom of Persia BBC NEWS - February 20, 2007 -- US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned. It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres. The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment. The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions. But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran. That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say. Two triggers BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies. Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran. Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground. The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians. Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says. Deadline Earlier this month US officers in Iraq said they had evidence Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi Shia militias. However the most senior US military officer later cast doubt on this, saying that they only had proof that weapons "made in Iran" were being used in Iraq. Gen Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he did not know that the Iranian government "clearly knows or is complicit" in this. At the time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "excuses to prolong the stay" of US forces in Iraq. Middle East analysts have recently voiced their fears of catastrophic consequences for any such US attack on Iran. Britain's previous ambassador to Tehran, Sir Richard Dalton, told the BBC it would backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop a nuclear weapon in the long term. Last year Iran resumed uranium enrichment - a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists its programme is for civil use only, but Western countries suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. The UN Security Council has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium by 21 February. If it does not, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms this, the resolution says that further economic sanctions will be considered. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Korean Men Use Brokers to Find Brides in Vietnam

The kings of the east Revelation 16:12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. Note: I believe this is one of the (often) overlooked aspects of why an army from the east would eventually invade either the Middle East or any other location that could remedy their shortage of wives. History shows and logic suggests that a lack of women and a large male army that desires them has always been (and will always be) a dangerous combination and two highly combustible ingredients when put together. BE/\LERT! NEW YORK TIMES - By Norimitsu Onishi - February 22, 2007 -- HANOI, Vietnam -- ... More and more South Korean men are finding wives outside of South Korea, where a surplus of bachelors, a lack of marriageable Korean partners and the rising social status of women have combined to shrink the domestic market for the marriage-minded male. Bachelors in China, India and other Asian nations, where the traditional preference for sons has created a disproportionate number of men now fighting over a smaller pool of women, are facing the same problem. ... Read Full Article (NY Times Requires free registration) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/world/asia/22brides.html? FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Christians Arrested in Northern & Southern Laos

Matthew 24:9 "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS - From VOM Sources - February 22, 2007 LAOS -- In Southern Laos, two Christian men have been taken from their farms and put in prison. No charges have been filed and no news is forthcoming about their current situation. Pray God protects and encourages these men and their families in this difficult time. In North Central Laos, on January 18, five police officers showed up at a Christian brother's home and arrested him. VOM sources have known him and his family for 20 years. His wife and 12-year-old son did not get an opportunity to speak to him before he was taken away. All efforts to locate him or allow his wife to know where he is being detained have been unsuccessful. According to VOM contacts, in several similar incidents, the people taken by police were never found alive. Pray for this family, that has led more than 500 people to Christ in the past two years. Ask God to protect this brother and comfort his wife and child. Psalm 119: 49-56 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Recent WND articles on the Temple Mount

A Burdensome Stone Temple Mount becoming mosque for Muslims only Israel allows minaret over Temple Mount Al Aqsa official: Jewish temples existed Jews, Christians shut from Temple Mount Israeli dig to spark Temple Mount violence? Al Aqsa leader: Jews have no right to Mount Arabs, Israelis prepare Temple Mount showdown Arab mob lynches Israeli who killed 4 Terrorist sneaks past Temple Mount security Temple Mount march protest leaders arrested Temple Mount completely unprotected Jerusalem police abound at Temple Mount area Muslims protest Jewish Temple Mount visit Mass Temple Mount visit to spur violence? Muslims plan to disrupt Temple Mount visit Israel bans Temple Mount ascent of 10,000 Jews 10,000 Jews to ascend Temple Mount Temple Mount: No Prayer Zone

Edwards: "Perhaps the Greatest Short-Term Threat to World Peace Is the Possibility That Israel Would Bomb Iran's Nuclear Facilities"

A Burdensome Stone NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE BLOGS>THE HILLARY SPOT – Jim Geraghty Reporting – February 22, 2007 -- Hillary Spot reader Michael points out this little gem in Peter Bart's column on John Edwards' comments in Hollywood: There are other emerging fissures, as well. The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word — Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close. Really? Israel is the biggest threat? Not Ahmedinijad? Not al-Qaeda? Not a coup attempt in Pakistan? Not a complete breakdown in Iraq drawing in the Saudis, Turks, and Iranians? Or, you know, perhaps not. http://hillaryspot.nationalreview.com/ FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

We Are Family: King David’s Descendants Gather for ‘Reunion’

Romans 11:25-26 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery--so that you will not be wise in your own estimation--that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB." FORWARD - By David Twersky - November 10, 2006 -- I don’t know about you, but talk of bloodlines leaves me queasy. We Jews have had more than our share of grief from notions of blood purity. If you’re like me, you just don’t want to go there. Imagine my surprise, then, to find myself spending a Thursday evening in October at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (of all places), taking part in a reunion of King David’s dynastic line (of all things). I write these words with the full knowledge that my family name links me to a branch of Jewish life that reached great heights of rabbinic authority and passed it from father to son. A case can be made that bloodlines deserve critical respect — that is, modest respect for what those lines might tell us about heritage and past achievement, with due caution not to overplay their predictive impact. The openly stated goal of the Davidic Dynasty is hardly modest. The dynasty is aimed at “reuniting Jewish descendants of King David, reinforcing Jewish roots in Israel and evoking pride and unity.” This effort, the evening’s celebrants were told, comes “at this critical time when the world questions Jewish sovereignty in Israel.” Heritage, after all, implies inheritance. The New York dinner was just a warm-up for the main event, “an historic reunion in Jerusalem next spring” in which organizers expect more than “1,000 Jewish descendants of King David from around the world… to participate.” Future plans include the opening of a Davidic Dynasty Museum in Jerusalem. The evening’s co-chair and main organizer, Susan Roth, makes no personal claim of Davidic descent, although she does have her own pride of lineage: She once performed with her parents, Yiddish stage stars Lillian Lux and Pesach Burstein, and her twin brother, Mike Burstein, in a legendary act known as The Four Bursteins. Today, Roth is a self-published author and activist. Her Eshet Chayil (“Woman of Valor”) Foundation describes the coming Davidic reunion on its Web site as “an Historic and Majestic event to declare our Eternal Right to our Homeland and restore Jewish Pride in our Glorious Past and in the promise of our Future.” For all its big plans, the October 19 dinner attracted a rather smallish crowd, with invitees seemingly outnumbering the actual mishpokhe. In the latter category were the evening’s three main honorees: Robert Morgenthau, the 87-year-old district attorney of Manhattan; the popular Orthodox inspirational speaker Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis and a revered Hasidic sage, Grand Rabbi Yitzhak Twersky, who happens to be a distant relative of mine. Speaking of distant relatives, we were informed at the evening’s outset that Morgenthau, the rebbetzin and the grand rabbi were all related, because they all shared a common ancestor, King David. Also declaring his blue-and-white blood was event co-chair Mitch Dayan, whose family came to these shores from Aleppo, Syria. He claims direct father-to-son descent from King David, and he was kind enough to announce that all the King’s men (and women) were part of one big family. At about this point in the evening, I was wondering when I might hit up Dayan for some help with my children’s college tuition in lieu of missed bar mitzvah gifts. After all, I thought, this could be big. The organizers said that they have traced (or are in the process of tracing) all the descendants of King David and are in the process of reconstituting what is, in effect, a royal family. This is a royal line with considerable pretension, promising to produce no less than the fated messiah, son of David, reborn king of Israel and harbinger of the End of Days. There was no talk at the New York dinner of launching a full-blown Israeli monarchist party. But there have been some preliminary meetings among Israeli far-rightists, aimed at precisely that. Morgenthau, in his after-dinner remarks, spoke movingly of his struggle to affirm his Jewish identity and that of his family, including his famous grandfather and father, Henry Sr. and Jr. — one a diplomat, the other a Cabinet secretary — who played crucial roles in saving Jewish lives during the First and Second World Wars. If anyone on that dais deserved to wear a royal Jewish signet, my vote was for the DA. Still, for all the drama and significance in the claim of Davidic descent, the authenticity of the claim appears difficult to nail down. The Davidic Dynasty project relies for its fundamental assertion on the work of genealogist Chaim (Keith) Freedman. Organizers offer some history to back up the idea that, blood being blood, King David’s descendants are all witty, wise and successful. Among famous Jews tracing their ancestry back to David, Dynasty organizers say, are the talmudic sages Hillel the Elder (who thus outranked his arch-rival, Shammai), Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nassi and Yochanan Ha-Sandlar, along with the medieval scholar Yosef Karo (which would put his descendant, historian Robert Caro, into The Family). Family members over the past four centuries were said to include the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the Lubavitcher rebbe and the late president of Israel, Chaim Herzog. Of course, “We Are Family” is a great old song. Lately it’s even become a commercial slogan for a popular restaurant chain — “Olive Garden: When you’re here, you’re family!” (As if your Uncle Morris would ever charge you $19.95 when you come over for gefilte fish and pasta.) But can we really trace back family histories over 3,000 years? According to David Einsiedler, writing in the same scholarly journal, “Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy,” “Careful examination of all available sources leads to the inescapable conclusion that there is no complete, reliable and positive proof of claims of descent from King David, whether via Rashi, Judah Loew the Elder, or any of the other families claimed. There are at present no known sources that could fill the gaps or set the record straight. It is possible that there may be actual descendants somewhere, but at present, no one can produce sufficient and unquestionable proof of this claim.” The counter-argument is that recent genetic breakthroughs have led to real progress along these (blood) lines. There was, for example, a 1997 study finding common DNA markers among Jewish males, and even more so among the kohanim, the priestly caste traditionally believed to trace its lineage directly to Aaron, the brother of Moses. More recent studies have shown a close genetic kinship between Jews and the descendants of their presumed neighbors in the ancient Near East, including Kurds and Palestinians. Jews, it’s worth recalling, have tended, at least until the past century or so, to marry in, preserving common DNA traits. But I don’t think the organizers of the Davidic Dynasty Reunion were trying to gain bragging rights about familial ties to the Arabs. None of these details has to stop you from affiliating with the Davidic Dynasty. You can even pick your level of DNA confidence, opting either for the $70 per year “Royal membership” level, or, for sympathetic commoners, the $40 per year “Loyal membership” level. Be forewarned, however: While tradition does specify that the messiah will come from King David’s family, and while that understandably might reinforce the urge to identify the King’s descendants, there is a paradox at the heart of all this. David, after all, was not born into “royalty.” He was a shepherd boy, a hick from the sticks. If that isn’t enough to make the concept of a royal bloodline suspect, there is always the tradition of David’s own blood heritage, which takes him back to Ruth the Moabite, a convert to Judaism. Thus, the great king hails from a family with an unimportant rural pedigree compounded by a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish lineage. With deference less to Robert Penn Warren than to Humpty Dumpty, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that all King David’s children cannot put him back together again. http://www.forward.com/articles/we-are-family-king-david-s-descendants-gather-f/ FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Churches back plan to unite under Pope

All roads lead to Rome Galatians 1:6-10 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. THE TIMES of LONDON - By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent - February 19, 2007 --Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt. The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches. In a 42-page statement prepared by an international commission of both churches, Anglicans and Roman Catholics are urged to explore how they might reunite under the Pope. The statement, leaked to The Times, is being considered by the Vatican, where Catholic bishops are preparing a formal response. It comes as the archbishops who lead the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion meet in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in an attempt to avoid schism over gay ordination and other liberal doctrines that have taken hold in parts of the Western Church. The 36 primates at the gathering will be aware that the Pope, while still a cardinal, sent a message of support to the orthodox wing of the Episcopal Church of the US as it struggled to cope with the fallout after the ordination of the gay bishop Gene Robinson. Were this week’s discussions to lead to a split between liberals and conservatives, many of the former objections in Rome to a reunion with Anglican conservatives would disappear. Many of those Anglicans who object most strongly to gay ordination also oppose the ordination of women priests. Rome has already shown itself willing to be flexible on the subject of celibacywhen it received dozens of married priests from the Church of England into the Catholic priesthood after they left over the issue of women’s ordination. There are about 78 million Anglicans, compared with a billion Roman Catholics, worldwide. In England and Wales, the Catholic Church is set to overtake Anglicanism as the predominant Christian denomination for the first time since the Reformation, thanks to immigration from Catholic countries. As the Anglicans’ squabbles over the fundamentals of Christian doctrine continue — with seven of the conservative primates twice refusing to share Communion with the other Anglican leaders at their meeting in Tanzania — the Church’s credibility is being increasingly undermined in a world that is looking for strong witness from its international religious leaders. The Anglicans will attempt to resolve their differences today by publishing a new Anglican Covenant, an attempt to provide a doctrinal statement under which they can unite. But many fear that the divisions have gone too far to be bridged and that, if they cannot even share Communion with each other, there is little hope that they will agree on a statement of common doctrine. The latest Anglican-Catholic report could hardly come at a more sensitive time. It has been drawn up by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, which is chaired by the Right Rev David Beetge, an Anglican bishop from South Africa, and the Most Rev John Bathersby, the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia. The commission was set up in 2000 by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and Cardinal Edward Cassidy, then head of the Vatican’s Council for Christian Unity. Its aim was to find a way of moving towards unity through “common life and mission”. The document leaked to The Times is the commission’s first statement, Growing Together in Unity and Mission. The report acknowledges the “imperfect communion” between the two churches but says that there is enough common ground to make its “call for action” about the Pope and other issues. In one significant passage the report notes: “The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the ministry of the Bishop of Rome [the Pope] as universal primate is in accordance with Christ’s will for the Church and an essential element of maintaining it in unity and truth.” Anglicans rejected the Bishop of Rome as universal primate in the 16th century. Today, however, some Anglicans are beginning to see the potential value of a ministry of universal primacy, which would be exercised by the Bishop of Rome, as a sign and focus of unity within a reunited Church. In another paragraph the report goes even further: “We urge Anglicans and Roman Catholics to explore together how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome might be offered and received in order to assist our Communions to grow towards full, ecclesial communion.” Other recommendations include inviting lay and ordained members of both denominations to attend each other’s synodical and collegial gatherings and conferences. Anglican bishops could be invited to accompany Catholic ones on visits to Rome. The report adds that special “protocols” should also be drawn up to handle the movement of clergy from one Church to the other. Other proposals include common teaching resources for children in Sunday schools and attendance at each other’s services, pilgrimages and processions. Anglicans are also urged to begin praying for the Pope during the intercessionary prayers in church services, and Catholics are asked also to pray publicly for the Archbishop of Canterbury. In today’s Anglican Church, it is unlikely that a majority of parishioners would wish to heal the centuries-old rift and return to Rome. However, the stance of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the present dispute dividing his Church gives an indication of how priorities could be changing in light of the gospel imperative towards church unity. Dr Rowan Williams, who as Primate of the Church of England is its “focus for unity”, has in the past supported a liberal interpretation of Scripture on the gay issue. But he has made it clear that church unity must come before provincial autonomy. A logical extension of that, once this crisis is overcome either by agreement or schism, would be to seek reunion with the Church of England's own mother Church. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1403702.ece FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

CNN/DOBBS: W FULFILLS HIS DAD'S DREAM OFA NEW WORLD ORDER

See Lou Dobb spell it out in no uncertain terms on "Liberal" CNN - George W. Bush is installing a New World Order.

Be Alert Pic of the Day: The Deception of America

The above photo showing Newsweek Magazine covers from September 25, 2006 demonstrates how the media in America keeps it's citizens in the dark about what is really going on in the world and especially right here in our own country. US media coverage is generally fluff, fluff and some dirty laundry thrown in to spice it up.The majority of American citizens including evangelical Christians have no clue what is going on in the world beyond Hollywood, California.

BE/\LERT!

Did the President Declare a "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?

Alert Focus: The prince of the kingdom of Persia / Wars and rumors of wars / The Iron and the Clay / A Burdensome Stone Daniel 2:41-43 "In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. "As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. "And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery. Jeremiah 49:23 Concerning Damascus. "Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, For they have heard bad news; They are disheartened. There is anxiety by the sea, It cannot be calmed. Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization - by Steve Clemons - January 13, 2007 -- Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran. The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country. The bare outlines of that order may have appeared in President Bush's Address to the Nation last night outlining his new course on Iraq: Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq. We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region. Adding fuel to the speculation is that U.S. forces today raided an Iranian Consulate in Arbil, Iraq and detained five Iranian staff members. Given that Iran showed little deference to the political sanctity of the US Embassy in Tehran 29 years ago, it would be ironic for Iran to hyperventilate much about the raid. But what is disconcerting is that some are speculating that Bush has decided to heat up military engagement with Iran and Syria -- taking possible action within their borders, not just within Iraq. Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for further American action. If this is the case, the debate about adding four brigades to Iraq is pathetic. The situation will get even hotter than it now is, worsening the American position and exposing the fact that to fight Iran both within the borders of Iraq and into Iranian territory, there are not enough troops in the theatre. Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CLE20070113&articleId=4442 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Left Allows Europe to Fall to Muslims

Alert Focus: The Fruit of Islam / A Horde of Judgment / Deception Habakkuk 1:2-3 How long, O LORD, will I call for help, and You will not hear? I cry out to You, "violence! "Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; strife exists and contention arises. 1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. By Rabbi Aryeh Spero - February 8, 2007 - HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE In a recent interview, Prof. Bernard Lewis, famed historian and leading expert on Islam, warned that "Muslims seem to be about to take over Europe." The irony is that this takeover -- be it in 10 years or 30 -- is not because Islam has more tanks or better missiles than the Europeans. It is because the minority Islamic populations already living within Europe are making demands to Islamize Europe and no one seems to be willing to say no. No one has the political will to announce to the Islamic communities that daily life and laws in Europe must be in accord with the Western outlook that is Europe's heritage. Was the fall of Europe inevitable? No, according to Prof. Lewis, who says it is coming about because "Europeans have surrendered on every issue regarding Islamic demands, due to political correctness and multi-culturalism." Europe has become woefully secular and its tepid attachment to a forgotten and dismissed Christianity is no match for the zeal of Muslims who remain fervent believers in their faith. Having been force fed that all cultures are equally valid, Europeans consider it unenlightened to assert the primacy of their culture even in their own countries. What is even stranger is that secularized and politically correct European elites do insist on the primacy of indigenous cultures and religions when speaking of other faraway regions, yet find such insistence arrogant when it concerns the indigenous culture of its own lands. In other words, other countries are there to preserve their own way of life while the West is supposed to jello-ize and even deny its historic way of life. The bottom line: "Europeans have no respect for their own culture." Their worship of open-mindedness, no matter the cost, is leading to their demise. Perhaps for the first time in history, we are witnessing the death of a civilization not due to outside forces stronger militarily but because "instead of fighting the threat, Europeans have simply given up, and do not want to fight." Pacifism in Europe runs so deep that it goes beyond a reluctance to take up military arms and extends to not even battling verbally, be it with laws or assertive opinion, or by fighting for Western culture even in routine social conversations. As is well known, after World War II, Europe began denigrating the concept of nationalism, and the further left it became politically, the further it extolled transnationalism. Brainwashing citizens against the natural human inclination to be proud and loyal to one's own country over others has boomeranged to the point where Europeans can no longer even make the case for their own culture and history. The lesson for the United States is clear. So as not to fall and disintegrate as is Europe, we need strong national patriotism, a genuine belief in the West's Judeo-Christian heritage and religion, and a conviction that our inherited culture and civilization is best for us and has been the true source of our blessings, success and freedom. Bereft of these deep and abiding associations, what is there to fight for? Moreover, it is necessary to assert that our historic ethos is superior to that which Islam is demanding. Europe, as well as history, shows that those unable to assert the primacy of their own culture at home are unwilling to even assert its parity, and mire in "suicidal self-abasement." This self-abasement has gone so far that "sophisticated" Europeans extend respect and "understanding" to Islamic marital habits that they’d condemn if practiced by their own. They would never accept rampaging and burnings in response to cartoon publications and statements if done by fellow Englishmen. Nor would they countenance censorship of the press if a bishop was offended by some newspaper article. Yet out of a strange deference and submission to things Islamic, many are accepting that which they would condemn if perpetrated by a native Christian Brit. In other words, Islamic "honor" is more important than British honor, and Islamic habits are given more deference than Western customs and mores continually under self- assault and self-criticism. Criticism is reserved only for our culture, the "bad, discredited, and passé Western culture." What brought Europe to this pitiful surrender is the left/liberalism that has controlled it since the 1960s. This post-modern liberalism has used political correctness and multi-culturalism to strip Europe of that which had previously made it great, and worthwhile. If it has proven a disastrous recipe for Europe, it certainly is no prescription for us in America. It is a cultural poison, a death potion. We, therefore, must not allow the elitist left to do here what they've already done to Europe. We know, however, that is precisely what the American Left is trying to do, and we see how the elitists in this country always ape Europe, demanding that "we Americans act more European-like." To be sure, some in Europe accede to the demands of Islam over European life not out of a sense of cultural inferiority but fear, palpable fear. But the question remains: Given that the Islamists living inside Europe are not armed with tanks or other heavy military equipment, why can't the better equipped police forces subdue the Islamic gangs and imams that are intimidating the British and European public? Why can't law enforcement shut down the Islamic hot heads and centers that are creating such fear among Europeans that they’d rather forfeit actual civil liberties (freedom of speech), their culture, and way of life so as to appease the threatening Islamists? Because political correctness has tied the hands of those entrusted to protect the home-grown citizenry. The courts and the ruling elites in charge of European legal institutions have made it almost impossible to enforce the laws and protect the people. New operational terms, such as racial profiling, cultural understanding, mosque sanctuary, community deference, etc., have been sanctified so that Moslems are exempt from the very tough investigatory and law enforcement procedures normally used when trying to apprehend other criminals and violators of the law. Sociology is replacing strength and common sense. Worse, the blood-curdling threats by imams against the public go unpunished while candid and forthright apprehensions over what the Islamic community is doing to society is punishable as a hate crime. Out of fear, Europe is appeasing. It has become a supplicant. Out of guilt, Europe is acquiescing. Out of years of self-criticism, it no longer feels worthy. Cynicism has lead to defeatism. Pacifisim has replaced religion. They believed in the parity of everything, so they now believe in nothing -- not even themselves. They, not the enemy, are orchestrating their own national demise. To those elites in Europe, and America, who feel a greater kinship with the exotic peoples of other cultures than with the dull citizens of their own country, there is nothing to fear. For what will have been lost is something, a set of cultural beliefs, they discarded long ago; nationalisms that were objects of scorn and had, for them, become boring. An Islamized Europe is nothing to fret and worry over. Wrong! Prof. Lewis warns: "The growing sway in Europe is of particular concern given the ever-rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements." But these self-righteous, self-centered elitists born of the 60s Left still need not worry. They probably will not be the victims of the annihilation they have wrought. It will be their children and grandchildren. Rabbi Spero is a radio talk show host, a pulpit rabbi, and president of Caucus for America. He can be reached at www.caucusforamerica.com. [See More by this author] http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19328 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Major Online Christian Bookstores & Related Articles

Major Online Christian Bookstores: 1. American Family Association's Resource Center 2. Berean Christian Stores 3, Books For Christians 4, Books of the Bible Christian Bookstores 5, Christian Book 6, Christian Book Network 7, Christian Heritage Bookstore 8, Cokesbury-Resources for the Christian Journey 9, Dalton's Christian Bookstore 10, Family Christian Stores 11, Koorong Stores (Australia) 12, Kregel Christian Books & Resources 13, Lemstone 14, LifeWay Christian Stores 15, Mardel Christian & Educational Supply 16, Northwestern Book Stores 17, Parable Christian Stores 18, 3:16 Christian Bookstore 19, Word Bookstores (Australia) Related Articles: 1, 'Christian' bookstore features X-rated flicks 2, X-rated Christian store's troubles traced to Amazon 3, Beware of Christian Bookstores! 4, Dear Mr. Wildmon 5, Beware of Christian Bookstore Hypocrisy 6, Should Christian Bookstores Offer Anything From Bibles To Porn? 7, An Open Rebuttal to Tim Wildmon's Response to His Critics 8, Gay-Friendly Authors Populate SBC's LifeWay Site 9, Christian Research Service 10, The Master List

When a Megapastor Denies Christ

Alert Focus: The Falling Away / Deception / False Teachers 2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW NETWORK - By Ingrid Schlueter - November 25, 2006 -- As a writer for Christian Worldview Network, I am committed to speaking the truth in love. More than anything else, I love the truth of God's Word and the Church for which Christ died. Because of that love, I cannot remain silent when I see the subtle entry of error taking place within evangelicalism. I believe that if the martyrs in other parts of the world are having to die for their faith, the least I can do in America is risk scorn and condemnation for speaking out on behalf of the Gospel. Again and again today, we are seeing evangelical leaders deny Christ. According to the dictionary's definition of the term, to deny is not just an outright rejection of something or someone. To deny is also to withhold, to refuse access to or give out information, or to refuse to recognize or acknowledge. It is critical that we understand what the denial of Christ looks like. It is everywhere these days. If you want to see what the modern denial of Jesus Christ looks like, I encourage you to watch this video clip. This clip features megapastor Rick Warren as he addresses the attendees of the TED Conference in Monterey, California. TED describes itself as a conference that brings together more than 1,000 thought leaders, movers and shakers every year to share ideas. The website claims that, ''After four days, you gain an understanding of how your own work fits into the larger web of knowledge and you get to connect with extraordinary individuals who are helping in creating a better future for all of us.'' As a Christian pastor, what did Rick Warren have to say to this group of people? He spoke for a little over 20 minutes. He said everyone had a purpose and that God wanted everyone to use their gifts and talents. He talked about his crisis in purpose when he made "tons and tons of money" with his famous book. He told about how he and his wife use a reverse tithe and how they started foundations to help solve the world's problems. He quickly established that he was a "pluralist". He said that everybody is betting their life on "something". The implication was that you believe in this, I believe in that. It's all good. Despite his repeated references to "God", Rick Warren never told this group of unbelievers who God was. He told the crowd that meaning in life is found through service and giving of ourselves. He never told them that we don't find salvation through service, but rather through a right relationship with our Creator, through His Son Jesus Christ alone. He talked of God smiling when we use our gifts. He never talked of the perilous state of our souls unless we repent and believe the Gospel. He gave these conference attendees a message of works righteousness--salvation through serving. This man with the label of Christian pastor seems to have ignored a very basic Bible verse, Titus 3:5: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; If any man had the right to boast in his service of Christ, it would have been the Apostle Paul. Yet even he said this in I Timothy 1:15: Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. Rick Warren did not follow in the train of the Apostles who preached Christ fearlessly and without apology, as the great Apostle described in I Corinthians 1:22-24: For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (Emphasis added.) Could any true minister of the Gospel be handed such an opportunity to bear witness to Jesus Christ and instead talk about purpose and meaning and just leave it there? Rick Warren denied Christ because he was ashamed to tell these people what the Gospel really says. These haunting words of Jesus should shake all of us who are too embarrassed to speak forth what God has done for us through His Son. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33 Warren could talk about a generic “God” very comfortably in front of this audience. God, purpose, fulfillment, service, meaning--none of those terms will evoke a negative reaction from the world. It's Jesus Christ who is the stumbling block. It is the exclusivity of the Gospel message--that is what the world hates. So if I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition that God made us and has a plan for us, but avoid that single point that God made us holy but that we sinned and are in rebellion to God in our natural state, we are not confessing Christ, however boldly we may claim to profess Christ. I have heard repeated claims that some of evangelicalism's biggest superstars are propagating the "Gospel". It is clear that there is little understanding today as to what the Gospel actually is. It is not about "opening your life to God" or "accepting his purposes for your life." It is to acknowledge that we as individuals have sinned and that we deserve the wrath and curse of God. It is to turn from our sin and to look to Christ alone and believe that He took that wrath of God on Himself to satisfy the just demands of God the Father on our behalf. It is to believe that He rose again in triumph over sin, death and hell and sits at the right hand of God the Father interceding for us. There is no Gospel outside of an articulation of God's holy hatred for sin. There is no good news without the bad news first. The true amazing meaning of God's sovereign grace will never be understood until our desperately hopeless state without Him is grasped. If Rick Warren loved those souls to which he spoke, if he had a view of hell as described by Scripture, where these lost souls will forever suffer if they reject the Son of God, if he truly loved that Savior who hung bleeding and naked on an old rugged cross to pay for our sins, how could he fail to share that message? Do not elite movers and shakers also need Jesus Christ? Did not this crowd need to hear more than a works righteousness message? God save us from this kind of spiritual leadership. May we get our eyes off these evangelical celebrities who are denying Christ and put our eyes on the Lord alone. He is the one who gave that Great Commission. He is the one who has already declared our purpose here in His eternal Word. Let the compromise around us spur us on to lift ever higher the cross of Christ and without shame, proclaim His saving power. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. --Romans 1:15-17 KJV

[All emphasis in the original] http://www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/cwnetwork/article.php?ArticleID=1296

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.