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CHAPTER IV HOW WIDESPREAD IS THIS THREAT? How great a threat does all this pose to us? We can get an idea by measuring how large a portion of our population identifies itself with this segment of our society. The liberal Jewish organization B'nai Brith, no friend to conservative Christianity, and, as a result, not an organization that would be much given to over-estimating the strength of the conservative Christian community, believes that conservative Christians - i.e., that portion of the Christian community that embraces the idea of returning the nation to "Christ and the church" (and, ipso facto, to messianic concepts of leadership) - now encompass close to ONE-THIRD of the entire population of the United States. This figure includes those Catholics who have "gone over" to this kind of thinking. That would include 90 percent of church-going evangelical Protestants, and close to 60 percent of church-going Catholics. Now think about that! - that's ONE-THIRD of the entire U.S. population (again, according to B'nai Brith) - quite a feat for a movement that less than twenty-five years ago constituted nothing more than a small blip on the nation's political radar. Some would say, that's only one-third of the population. Yes, that's true. BUT WHEN THIS ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION IS REINFORCED BY THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY [WITH ALL ITS MONEY AND INFLUENCE (AND WHICH - LIKE THE COUNTRY'S RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY - IS PREDISPOSITIONED TO A BELIEF IN AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP)], THEN YOU MAY VERY WELL HAVE A "WINNING" COMBINATION! And this is especially true when one understands that it isn't as if the one-third of the population that constitutes the "New Christian Right" is opposed by the remaining two-thirds of the population. That isn't the case at all. The Religious Right, in fact, is vigorously opposed by only the so-called "hard Left" (i.e., hard core feminists, the gay and lesbian community, the minority community, the entertainment community, the liberal Jewish community, those still given to socialist ways of thinking, the so-called intellectual community, etc.) - which, like the Christian community, constitutes about one-third of the population. This leaves the remaining one-third of the populace "in play" and "up for grabs" - AND IF THAT'S THE CASE, THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS IN A VERY GOOD POSITION TO "CARRY THE DAY," ESPECIALLY IN LIGHT OF THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. THE GRIM CADENCE OF WAR This is pretty frightening when one considers the naked militancy that is being employed to move the Christian Right forward - the kind that denounces church / state separation as "religious cleansing," "a socialist myth," and "a lie of the left." Before the events of September 11th, this kind of talk would have been denounced by the press; that's no longer the case. Indeed, such former mouthpieces of liberalism as CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. are now actually helping to propel such thinking forward. And one should be clear here, this new Christian militancy is no "surface phenomenon." It's for real. Consider the belligerence Pat Robertson, leader of the Christian Coalition, is employing in describing the effort of the Christian Right to advance itself against the Left: Robertson writes that this - "... is really the most significant battle of the age-old conflict between good and evil, between the forces of God and the forces against God" The "most significant battle!" Think about that! That's quite a statement! This is not the kind of mindset that lends itself easily to compromise and moderation. Robertson goes on to assert, "Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's the same thing." Wow! What liberals have done to Christians in America is "... just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews!" Again, that's quite a statement - but these people really believe it! They don't think they are exaggerating. And if that's the case, think about what this kind of thinking could justify. The mind fairly boggles at the thought. After all, almost anything could be justified in stopping the Nazis - even extermination! HYPING UP YOUR ENEMIES TO The hysteria of this kind of language excites hatred and loathing of one's opponents, and opens up the eventual possibility of a "holy war" against them - and IT IS PRECISELY THIS KIND OF THINKING THAT HAS SPREAD IN ONE DEGREE OR ANOTHER TO THE HARD-CORE CHRISTIAN RIGHT - AGAIN, ALMOST ONE-THIRD OF THE U.S. POPULATION! Moreover, with the "War on Terrorism" now at full throttle, one can be sure that this kind of thinking is today rapidly diffusing itself throughout the general population as evinced by polls that indicate a TRIPLING of church attendance since September 11th. CHAPTER V It is EXACTLY this pathology that has now fixated itself on George Bush, a man who before the events of September 11th had all the appearance of a buffoon, but who now - under the impress of these events (and this pathology) - is being transformed into a "war leader" on a par with Winston Churchill, which is kind of like creating a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It gives a person some idea of just how much the Christian community in the United States has been prepared (adapted) by its own apostate condition into READY-MADE TERRAIN for messianic leadership. And one should ask himself in connection with this development, What's this terrain now producing? Is there a new messiah-king emerging? God help us all if there is, for we may be about to descend into a nightmlare so vast that the Bible says of it, "... except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." (Matt. 24:22) Under normal circumstances, the idea of George Walker Bush as a "courageous" "war leader" - especially a "courageous" "CHRISTIAN" war leader - would be preposterous; it would be enough to take one's breath away, especially in light of how he "whimped out" of Vietnam and hid from his duty during that conflict in an air national guard unit that his "daddy" pulled strings to get him into. Yet today countless numbers of Christians are slavishly buying into the myth of Bush as a "war leader" without even bothering to find out whether it is true or not, or whether or not they are being "sold a bill of goods" by the elites. THE FACT IS, THEY WANT TO BELIEVE IT - AND SO MUCH SO THAT THEY CALL ANYONE WHO OPPOSES THE NEW "MYTH MAKING" SURROUNDING THE PRESIDENT "UNPATRIOTIC." And there can be no question that something exceptional is happening to Bush, especially insofar as his image is concerned. Everyone has noticed what's going on. For instance, Alan Brinkley, Professor of History at Columbia University in New York (and someone who was openly hostile to Bush prior to September 11th), says that something truly remarkable has happened - something that has "remade" him in a really unprecedented way. Also many of his political opponents have noticed the change too; for example, Dick Gephardt, Democratic leader in the House, and Tom Dashele, Democratic leader in the Senate. This is extraordinary for a man who just a short while ago was being touted as a "pretender to the throne" [having lost the "popular vote" (as opposed to the "electoral vote") in the presidential election of 2000 by over 500,000 votes] and who was widely perceived as having "stolen the election" by brazen "voter manipulation" in Florida; and not only that, but who was seen as someone who was generally thought of as "intellectually challenged" - an "accidental president," and an-all-around flop who was destined to be a one-term president of little note and small achievement; an easy "knock-off" for the Democrats in 2004. NOT ANY MORE In this connection, one should remember that in dealing with the "mainline press," one is dealing with the "CORPORATELY-CONTROLLED" press; that there is an "intersection of interests" between General Electric, Westinghouse, Disney, Viacom, CNN / Time Warner, etc., and that this "intersection of interests" is located around the process of globalization. Thus, when the media suddenly closes ranks on any particular subject such as NAFTA, the WTO, "free trade," the FTAA, "Fast Track" authority, the Middle East, the so-called "War on Terrorism, the so-called "War on Drugs," the necessity of strengthening the military, the necessity of destroying the guerrillas (i.e., the FARC) in Columbia, etc., one can be reasonably certain that globalization is involved; that the vital interests of America's "New World Order System" are at stake; and, as a result, a very methodical ELITE-sponsored undertaking is afoot. What all this means is that the ELITES (the Christian Right's partners insofar as the pathology we have been discussing is concerned) HAVE ENTERED THE FRAY and are very much behind the effort to raise Bush's standing insofar as the voters are concerned - and that they are doing so for their own very selfish reasons. What everyone seems to forget in all the smoke and confusion that has followed the events of September 11th (and, of course, what the elites would like people to forget), is that prior to this date the elites had been having a very rough "go of it" insofar as their globalization efforts were concerned. The Left had managed to weave together a very powerful coalition of forces in opposition to the elite's GLOBALIST "NEW WORLD ORDER" DREAMS - as evidenced by how the Left had been able to mount in recent months very massive, well-coordinated, leftist (read "socialist"), anti-globalist demonstrations in Athens, Prague, Davos, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Genoa, Quebec, etc., to say nothing of the way the Left had managed to block the elite's effort to push "Fast Track" authority for the President through Congress which the elite's need to speed up globalization. THE "WAR ON TERRORISM" AS A But because they (i.e., the Left) lack access to the corporate media, they have been unable to get average people to make the obvious connection here - THAT THERE HAS BEEN A CALLOUS EFFORT BY THE ELITES TO USE THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001 (AND THE NEW "ANTHRAX SCARE") FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH ENDS; that what's been happening has all the hallmarks of a consciously contrived attempt by cynical, very manipulative "behind-the-scene" "players" to "manufacture" consensus in the country by making Bush a "POINT OF REFERENCE" around which "the masses" can be rallied in a patriotic (even jingoistic) crusade against "EVIL." It's a campaign which right now is being characterized as a crusade against "terrorism," but which is gradually being "morphed" (transformed) into a broader campaign against all those forces that oppose globalization. And this is EXACTLY what Bush was engaged in doing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Shanghai on Saturday, October 19, 2001 - i.e., helping to "morph" the war against terrorism into a crusade against those who oppose globalization - when he called the attack against the World Trade Center in New York an attack against "world trade." He said that he believed the World Trade Center was specifically chosen as a target because it was a symbol of "economic progress." He urged the leaders of APEC to "... show the world - enemies and friends alike - that economic progress (i.e., the integration of the nations of the world into the American "New World Order System") will continue despite efforts by terrorists to spread fear." The effort here to turn globalization into a crusade against terrorism has been callously designed to "STUPEFY" the American people with a surfeit of patriotic flag waving, and then to benumb them in a toxic swirl of jingoism - all calculated to wean them away from those populist forces that oppose globalization and to move them towards a "One-World," "counter revolutionary," "anti-socialist" (which means support for unrestricted, unbridled corporate capitalism), mass movement that favors the globalist goals of the American elites. CENTRAL TO THIS ENORMOUS EFFORT IS THE WILLINGNESS OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY (ESPECIALLY THE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY) TO JETTISON FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES THE INSTITUTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN FAVOR OF A KIND OF MESSIANIC LEADERSHIP THAT CLOAKS ITSELF IN THE FLAG. And in this connection, it goes without saying that the willingness of the Christian community to accept messianic leadership is conditional on their perceiving this leadership as CHRISTIAN leadership, AND THAT'S DEPENDENT ON THE ABILITY OF BUSH TO PASS HIMSELF OFF AS A CHRISTIAN - i.e., to get evangelical Christians to believe that he is one of them.
CHAPTER VI THE BUSH TESTIMONY "... the seeds of my decision (for Christ) were ... planted by the Reverend Billy Graham. (Several yeas ago) ... he visited my family for a summer weekend in Maine (i.e., in the late 1980s). I saw him preach at the small summer church, St. Ann's by the Sea. We all had lunch on the patio overlooking the ocean. One evening my dad asked Billy to answer questions from a big group of family gathered for the weekend.
"He sat by the fire and talked. And what he said sparked a change in my heart. I don't remember the exact words. It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor. The next day we walked and talked at Walker's Point, and I knew I was in the presence of a great man. He was like a magnet; I felt drawn to seek something different. He didn't lecture or admonish; he shared warmth and concern. Billy Graham didn't make you feel guilty; he made you feel loved. Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year. He led me to the path, and I began walking. It was the beginning of a change in my life. I had always been a "religious" person, had regularly attended church, even taught Sunday School and served as an altar boy. But that weekend my faith took on a new meaning. It was the beginning of a new walk where I would commit my heart to Jesus Christ." The problem with this "testimony" from a "conversion standpoint" is that there isn't the slightest hint in it of any kind of an actual "born-again" experience. True, there is a lot of talk about "warmth and concern," about "being made to feel that you're loved," and about a "commitment" to a kind of warm and fuzzy Jesus, a "teddy bear" kind of "Christ" that one would feel comfortable nuzzling up with - that's it! WHERE IS THE GOSPEL IN BUSH'S "TESTIMONY?" And more than just that, how is it possible to even get to that point - i.e., the acknowledgment that one is a sinner in need of a savior - if there is at first no admission of guilt? - which Bush obviously eschews in his testimony when he says, "Billy Graham didn't make you feel guilty; he made you feel loved." The fact is, the Bible says that without the acknowledgment of sin (i.e., guilt), we cannot be saved; that our salvation is predicated on that accession: "IF we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) That's a statement with an "IF" attached to it! There is a condition here! We MUST "CONFESS" (i.e., acknowledge) our sins. But there is nowhere in the so-called "public record" or in any of the personal ruminations of his friends and colleagues of any "acknowledgment of sin," or that he (Bush) was a sinner in need of a savior? Sheehy says: "His conversion certainly didn't come about as a result of contemplating past sins. He proudly rejects introspection and has no interest in looking back over the 'youthful indiscretions' that characterized his first 44 years. In interviews Bush repeatedly says: 'I'm not one of those people who say, Gosh, if I'd have done it differently, I'd have ...' He pauses for a few seconds to contemplate his life, then confidently concludes: 'I can't think of anything I'd do differently'." "I'm not one of those people who say, 'Gosh, if I'd have done it differently ... I can't think of anything I'd do differently" ? My heavens! - that's not something you would imagine a new Christian would say; at least not someone who felt genuine remorse for his sins - and in Bush's case, there certainly were a lot of them, from arranging an abortion for a girl friend in Alaska [as alleged by Larry Flynt on CNN's Crossfire (Flynt said he had statements to that effect from Bush's former girlfriend, the doctor who performed the abortion, and the many friends of Bush in Alaska at the time)], to alleged cocaine use, to alleged marijuana use, to alleged orgies of every sort, etc.] We must remember what Christ is to us. He is called THE SAVIOR! The savior from what? - our sins! It's for this reason that He came; that's what the angel of God told Joseph, the husband of Mary - the mother of Jesus - when he (i.e., the angel) said: "And she (i.e., Mary) shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS." (Matt. 1:21) In other words, He is called the "SAVIOR" because He saves us from our sins. And it is PRECISELY this fact that John the Baptist acknowledged when, in addressing Christ, he said: "... Behold the Lamb of God, WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD." (John 1:29) If we fail to see this, if we fail to acknowledge this fact - i.e., that we are sinners - then the Gospel is of no effect insofar as we are concerned. This is what the Bible says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and THE TRUTH IS NOT IN US. LIES AND MORE LIES "... father the devil ... FOR HE IS A LIAR, and the father of it." (John 8:44) What's that say, then, about those who embrace this kind of "non-judgmental" Gospel? It says that such people are "not of Christ" - that they are LYING when they say that they belong to Christ; that they are of their father the devil! Pretty harsh! But this is EXACTLY the kind of Gospel that is in vogue in today's Christianity. And one needs to be clear here: Without question, the "Christ" that Bush is acknowledging in his so-called "testimony" is the "non-judgmental," "non-doctrinal" kind of "Christ." It's a Gospel where there is "no conflict" and which suggests that "all roads eventually lead to God;" the kind of "Christ" that Catholic leaders like Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Mormon leaders like Chip Rawlings, the Mormon stake president in Southern California, can mutually accept. But this is the kind of "false Christ" the Bible warns about in Matthew 24: "For there shall arise FALSE CHRISTS, and FALSE PROPHETS, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." (Matt. 24:24) BUSH AS A CHRISTIAN: HIS MIDLAND DAYS In her incisive article on George Bush that appeared in Vanity Fair in October, 2000, she traces Bush's so-called "conversion" back to the mid-1980s when Bush finally gave up the bottle and his general all-around carousing. But Sheehy reports that Robert McCleskey says that when Bush abandoned the bottle, it had more to do with an ultimatum his wife, Laura, gave him than it had to do with any personal experience with Christ.
McCleskey, a friend of Laura's since childhood, says, "Laura explained it to him in a way he would understand it, and he quit drinking." Did that mean his wife threatened to leave him if he didn't stop drinking? he was asked. "That's right." In other words, he would lose his wife and his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, born in November 1981 - the only structure he had, reports McCleskey. He continues solemnly, "I mean that Laura and those two little girls had changed his life." McCleskey isn't the only one that claims that it was Laura that made Bush give up the bottle. It was widely reported in the press throughout Texas at the time that Laura had told her husband, "It's me or the bottle," or "It's me or Jack Daniels." However. Don Evans, perhaps Bush's closest friend and now the Secretary of Commerce, indignantly rejects all this. And why is that? - because, if this is true, it does little to establish Bush's bona fides as a Christian - AND THAT IS, AFTER ALL, WHAT IS IMPORTANT HERE - I.E., ESTABLISHING BUSH'S LEGITIMACY AS A CHRISTIAN. One needs to remind himself of what's happening here: If the elites are going to be successful in building a Christian "mass movement" to counter the Left's efforts to sidetrack globalization, the man they "choose" to lead this movement must, of course, be a Christian, or he must, at least, be perceived to be a Christian. The truth is, nonetheless, that there are many men and women - not all of them Christians - who have given up the bottle in order to maintain a marriage. This, of course, doesn't take away from what Bush did - it is an admirable thing when anyone gives up a destructive habit like that. But it doesn't mean that one has to accept Christianity to do so. Nonetheless, Don Evans is insistent that Bush quit the bottle because he embraced Christianity. DON EVANS & DON JONES The truth is, according to a rather sheepish Jones, Bush never "behaved himself." He claims that George would be constantly cracking jokes like, "What kind of pants did the Levites wear?" When the pastor asked, "What is a prophet?" Bush sang out in front of forty other couples, "That's when revenues exceed expenditures. No one's seen that out here in years." Another time the pastor asked the question, "What happened to the Jew on his way to Jericho?" and Bush quipped, "He got his butt whipped." And when his attention span was exceeded, he would set his watch to go off in the middle of the pastor's lesson. The other men would guffaw, and the following week they would all set their watches to go off at the same time in the middle of the lesson and the class would turn into a cacophony of alarm bells. There are a number of other things that seemed to trouble Jones insofar as Bush's claim to be a Christian was concerned. Jones, who can point to the exact date when he became a born-again Christian, never heard Bush describe an actual "conversion experience." Jones says that "He (i.e., Bush) never said he was spiritually empty" (i.e., that he "needed" Christ) - something that mystified Jones, and troubled him deeply. Mike Conaway, a six-foot-three former football player who was another one of Bush's close friends back in Midland when Bush is supposed to have become a Christian says, "I didn't see any change in his behavior. I thought that's what is supposed to happen when a person becomes a Christian. But I didn't see that in Bush." CHAPTER VII BUSH IS TRANSFORMED BY THE PROMISE KEEPERS Sheehy says that Tony Evans was one of the early "movers and shakers" in the PROMISE KEEPERS phenomenon that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the early to mid-1990s. What seemed to attract Bush to the PROMISE KEEPERS was its implicit political message, a message that he came increasingly to believe that - had his father embraced it - he would not have lost the White House to Bill Clinton. The loss by "Bush the Elder" to the Clintons in the 1992 presidential election had infuriated "Bush the Younger," and it had ignited in him a new, burning interest in politics. All of this coincided nicely with Bush's new friendship with Tony Evans. Essentially, what Bush learned from Tony Evans was a completely new approach to politics - a RELIGIOUS approach rather than an economic one, an approach that Bush thought could trump the economic message that Clinton had used to defeat his father with. Indeed, Dr. Martin Hawkins, Tony Evans's assistant pastor, says that what Bush did was to imbibe a "WHOLE NEW PHILOSOPHY" about "how the world should be seen from a divine viewpoint" - a view that Sheehy alleges was essentially LIFTED STRAIGHT OUT OF THE PAGES OF ONE OF TONY EVANS' PROMISE KEEPERS HANDBOOKS. While the PROMISE KEEPERS themselves embrace no political doctrine as such, Bush and many of his cohorts came to believe that they did embrace a religious rhetoric that - if properly stroked and rearranged - could be transformed into a powerful political message that would resonate forcefully with a people who were growing weary with what many considered to be the "out-or-control" liberalism of the last few decades. THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE PROMISE KEEPERS Al Dager, a recognized expert on the dominionist mindset, writes, "Some two decades before Pentecostalism found its way into the (mainstream) denominations (i.e., the Episcopalians, the Catholic Church, etc.) as the 'Charismatic Renewal', it experienced a new surge of experience-oriented theology within its own ranks. It was from this neo-Pentecostal experience - what came to be called the 'Latter Rain Movement' - that Charismatic Dominionism sprang. The more prominent leaders of that movement blended Pentecostal fervor with teachings that the church was on the brink of a worldwide revival. That revival would result in a victorious church without spot or wrinkle ... (which) would inherit the earth and rule over the nations with a rod of iron." Dominionism can run the gamut from the harsh, rather mean-spirited and very militant kind propagated by a R.J. Rushdoony or a Gary North, to the much more mild and palatable kind that dominionist aficionados and votaries like C. Peter Wagner, the late John Wimber, John White, Dr. Bill Hamon, Harold Caballeros, Sue Curran, Rick Joyner, John Paul Jackson, Barbara Wentroble, Chuck Pierce, etc. posit. It is this much more mild, "feel-good" form of dominionism that the PROMISE KEEPERS embrace and promote. Barbara Wentroble, in her book People of Destiny, explains the new cuddly and friendly form of dominionism that Bush ran into with the PROMISE KEEPERS. Essentially, what these "new dominionists" believe is that the human race was created to be God's "representative in the earth." They were to guard and care for all of God's creation under His direction - and although many generations have failed in this responsibility, God has never changed His mind. That's what the church is all about. The church is the means through which God is going to re-establish His authority on the earth. God put His power and Spirit into the church to change the world and bring it back under authority. [Wentroble is somewhat of an anomaly; like Sue Curran, Wentroble is one of the most popular "new dominionist" speakers in a very male-dominated world. She is considered to be an "apostle-prophet" by many. Her "sphere of operation" is bringing churches (i.e., "Latter Rain," "new dominionist-type" churches) to small communities throughout the country.] Sadly, according to the PROMISE KEEPERS, the church did not continue in the power and authority of the early church, and because of a spiritual principle at work in the world today - a principle that teaches us that what ever happens in the church affects the world - the world has been plunged back into darkness. In other words, when light goes out of the church, light goes out of the world. "WHEN LIGHT COMES INTO THE Wagner says that the church is now in a "season of transition." Old things in the church are passing away, and new things are taking their place. It is a season of change. During this season, the church will experience change in several areas. They will include evangelism, body ministry, church life, and GOVERNMENT. The "New Order Church" (again, Wagner and Wentroble's phrase) will be God's agent for the coming transformation of the world. It will reveal the wisdom and power of God to the forces of darkness and wickedness. Many features of wisdom and power will be evident in the people of the "New Order." They will have hearts to see lives and CITIES transformed. According to the "new dominionists," the Lord has given several keys to unlocking territories and peoples that have been locked in darkness by the enemy. One of these keys is prayer and worship. A characteristic of the "New Order" is that worship and prayer (intercession) are mingled together. Wentroble writes, '"New Order' churches flow back and forth from intercession and prayer. After praying the will of the Lord, they flow back into worship and praise to the Lord. Heaven and earth are joined together in one unbroken symphony." Wentroble continues: Worship is more than singing Christian songs. Worship involves THE INVITATION FOR THE LORD OF HOSTS TO OVERCOME THE POWERS OF EVIL ON THE EARTH. AT THE INVITATION OF THE CHURCH, THE LORD IS BINDING THE FORCES OF DARKNESS AND ALLOWING THE LOST TO BE RECEPTIVE TO THE GOSPEL. PEOPLE THEN RECEIVE THE LORD IN GREAT NUMBERS. AS A RESULT OF GOD'S PRESENCE IN THE LIVES OF MANY PEOPLE IN A CITY, LAWS IN THAT CITY CHANGE. OCCULT ACTIVITY, IMMORAL BUSINESSES, AND CRIME ARE DRASTICALLY REDUCED. THE CITY BEGINS TO TRANSFORM." NEW ORDER WORSHIP AS A "CONJURING" DEVICE You're surprised by our use of the word, "CONJURE?" Well, that's what we mean! To CONJURE means to use spiritual forces to accomplish YOUR will. That's what witches do. It is the sin of witchcraft - and it doesn't matter that the dynamic that is being used surrounds itself in beauty, rhapsodic music, and ecstatic worship, it still is witchcraft. Beauty is not always an indicator of God's presence. More than many of us realize, beauty leads to hell. Beauty is more often than not a harlot, and many a poor man has been made her prisoner: "... at the window of my house I looked through my casement, And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street ... and he went ... to (a certain) house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a (beautiful) woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart. So she caught him, and kissed him ... and said unto him ... I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with love. "With her much fair speech (and beauty) she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. "He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. "Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. "For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Again I say, don't be fooled by beauty! - "As I said, it is no indicator of God's presence. Indeed, the Bible says of our dear Lord that - "... he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, THERE IS NO BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM." (Is. 53:2) Moreover, just because people use the name of "Christ" or "Jesus" in their CONJURING does not mean anything. The adherents of Voodoo and Santiera use the name of "Jesus" and "Christ" in their ceremonies and rituals, but it is most certainly NOT the Christ or the Jesus of the Bible. Remember, there are many "false Christs" and "false prophets" gone out into the world. (Matt 24:24)
CHAPTER VIII THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS KIND OF THINKING; According to the statements by Wentroble above (statements that all "new dominionists" would easily subscribe to), the church - not God - is in control of the eschatological process now at work in the world; God can only act when the church INVITES Him to act. What that does is strip God of His sovereignty. It makes the Creator subject to the whims of the creature. It makes man equal to God. This, of course, is the great ORIGINAL sin: The desire to be like God; the sin that - in the obscurity of time long past - took hold of the archangel Lucifer, "Son of the Morning" (Isa. 14:12) and caused him to arrogantly assert - "... I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the
congregation, in the sides of the north: But instead of becoming like God, instead of becoming co-equal with the Creator, Lucifer was sent crashing - "... down to hell, to the sides of the pit." (Isa. 14:15) But it isn't just Lucifer that was bewitched by this temptation - i.e., the desire "to be like God." This is also the same sin that beguiled Eve in the garden. Isn't that what Genesis 3:1-5 says? Of course it is: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the
field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman,
Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? CHALLENGING THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD "God's plans do not exist for our convenience - they will come to pass whether we approve of them or not. In the long run, it only matters to us - AND TIME FOR RECOGNIZING THIS FACT IS RUNNING OUT!" Except insofar as the one single act of "inviting Christ into our hearts" when we are born again (which He grants on the basis of His grace alone), we cannot (indeed, we dare not) "allow," "permit" or "invite" God to do anything. HE ALLOWS, PERMITS AND INVITES US. He is SOVEREIGN in the most ABSOLUTE and COMPLETE way. Nothing can intrude on His sovereignty - and, as we just suggested, that extends even insofar as our "ability" or our "free will" (so-called, and - again - which we possess by grace alone) to invite Christ into our hearts. Indeed, concerning this very matter, the Bible says: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?
Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou
made me thus? Dear Christian, listen to me very carefully: we are the clay; He is the Potter. The clay is in no position to "allow," "permit," or "invite" the Potter to do anything. And if we believe otherwise, we merely prove our own conceit and arrogance. Now what we are talking about here is serious stuff. There is nothing whimsical about it at all. This has nothing to do with "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." There are very practical and "down-to-earth" outcomes that are involved here. And what do we mean by that? We mean there is an exceedingly dangerous thought behind this kind of thinking which springs from the darkest of sources and implies that man - when he invites Christ into his heart - becomes co-equal with God; that man becomes INTRINSICALLY one with God; that he becomes as much a son of God as Christ is; that he becomes as much God as Christ is. This is LUCIFERIC! And, naturally enough, because it is Luciferic, it leads people easily and quite naturally to the Antichrist, whether they are Christian or not. Brothers and sisters, we are sons and daughters of God by ADOPTION, and that is all. That does not make us co-equal with Christ. Yes, it's true that the Bible says: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Rom. 8:14) And again it says: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God ..." (Rom. 8:16) But how is it that we become children of God? The Bible very clearly tells us: by ADOPTION. Isn't this what verse fifteen says - the one that comes EXACTLY between the two above referenced verses: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of ADOPTION, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Rom. 8:15) And this is confirmed by Galatians 4:5 that says that we have been redeemed so - "... that we might receive the ADOPTION of sons." (Gal. 4:5) And by Ephesians 1:5: "Having predestinated us unto the ADOPTION of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will ..." (Eph. 1:5) We are sons and daughters of God by ADOPTION, not by nature. We do not share in the Godhood of Christ. We do not have CREATIVE power, as does the Godhead. To think otherwise is SATANIC in the most PROFOUND sense of that word. ONENESS WITH CHRIST "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one
flesh. The Bible says that they become "one flesh!" But they do not become "one flesh" intrinsically; they do not become a new being (really a monster) that is now half man and half woman. They become one in fellowship. That's what happens when we become one with Christ. Again, I say, when we accept Christ into our lives, we do not thereby become a "little Jesus" or a "little god." God does not confer upon us GODHOOD, and in saying this I am, of course, more than aware that that's precisely what apostates and "renegades from the faith" like Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copleand believe. For example, Kenneth Hagin says: "That's who we are; we're Christ." But that's a lie, and those who believe it have fallen into the same EXACT sin that bewitched both Lucifer and Eve! And in believing this lie, they prove who they are: That they are of their father the devil - "... FOR HE IS A LIAR, and the FATHER OF IT." (John 8:44) WHAT DOES ALL THIS SAY ABOUT Take the matter of how the "new dominionists" understand "prayer and intercession," and especially how "prayer and intercession" impact their view of dominionism. Wentroble "spills the beans" in this way: "One of the keys available to the apostolic church (i.e., the "New Order Christian" or the "New Order Church") is prayer and intercession. Apostolic people intercede. The prayers, however, are not only for personal needs. They have a burden for the lost. They cry out for the Lord to be glorified in their cities ... "During the '70s and '80s, the Church received much revelation about God's name as Jehovah Jireh. Teachers (like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, Oral Roberts, etc. - editor) expounded on Scriptures revealing God's will to bless His people. He is the God who 'shall supply all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus' (Phil. 4:19). That truth will never change. God is a covenant-keeping God. When we walk in covenant with Him, He provides for us." POVERTY RESULTS FROM LACK OF FAITH And if the poor pray night and day, and still nothing happens, then there must be something wrong in their hearts; maybe some "hidden sin" that they need to root out first before God will hear their prayer - perchance the sin of envy (maybe towards the rich)? of jealously? of covetousness? Meanwhile, as the poor are sent scurrying out to find the "hidden sin" in their lives, the rich can rest confident in their wealth, secure in the thought that the poor are now too busy finding sin in their own lives and in the lives of their neighbors to really think that much about how the rich actually got rich - mostly by deceit and treachery! Come on now! - isn't that how the Rockefellers got rich? Isn't that how the Mellons got rich? And the Morgans? And the DuPonts? Read your history books - after all, it isn't much of a secret. Oh well, the poor are too busy praying and rooting sin out of their lives and the lives of their neighbors to think too much about that now. Again, all we can say is, Wow! - that's the kind of program the George Bush's of this world can get behind, to say nothing of the super-rich like Sumner Redstone, Lawrence Ellison, John Chambers, C. Michael Armstrong, Tom Feston, etc. LETTING THE RICH OFF THE HOOK "... the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles ..." (Rom. 2:24) Nonetheless, the perversion continues, and so much so that the rich and their lackeys among the Congressional Republicans and in the Bush Administration have come to believe that a dollar spent on Christians saves twenty dollars spent on the poor - Republicans like Tom Delay, Dick Armey, Dan Burton, Helen Chenoweth, J.C. Watts, John Peterson, Ken Calvert, Bob Livingston, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Don Evans, Jim Nicholson, Bob Barr, Asa Hutchinson, ad nauseum. PERVERTING THE SCRIPTURES IN THE SERVICE Isn't that what Philippians 4:19 says - that He "...shall supply all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus;" that if we are walking in obedience to Christ, we shall have a life of abundance? [Hagin and Copeland go further. They say that because we are "sons and daughters of God" - and by that, they mean that we are INTRINSICALLY "sons and daughters of God;" that we are co-equal with Christ - we have CREATIVE power; that, as a result, we can actually "call riches into existence;" that we can be rich because we can - by our word (by our speaking) - create wealth like Harry Potter. Again, this is LUCIFERIC, and God help those who get involved in it.] The Scriptural problem with such an interpretation, however, is that just seven verses before verse 19 (i.e., Philippians 4:19 referenced above), Paul says: "I know both HOW TO BE ABASED, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full AND TO BE HUNGRY, both to abound AND TO SUFFER NEED." (Phil. 4:12) In other words, "being abased," "being hungry," and "suffering need" were common experiences for Paul - and not only that, but Christ had taught him (i.e., instructed him) how to endure these conditions. Indeed, Paul says: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Phil. 4:13) Finally, if riches were the sign of one's sonship with God, than what does that say about Christ? - after all, Christ said of Himself: "... Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." (Matt. 8:20) According to Wentroble's logic (and the logic that Hagin, Copeland, Hinn, etc. posit), Christ must have failed in His sonship. Come on now! - isn't that the logical extension of what she is saying here? Of course it is. |