Sue Monk Kidd Part II and The Black Madonna Goddess Same as in The Shack

The Secret Life of Bees.  I believe this new age "black madonna goddess" is the same one that is portrayed as the so called feminized "God the Father"  called Papa in W. Paul Youngs book the Shack.   An excerpt from Sue Monk Kidds webpage on the  book made movie .....

The Black Madonna in the Novel

       "The South was fertile ground for my fiction, but the novel was also affected by my spiritual and psychological pursuits and study. I did'n’t set out to put a black Virgin Mary in my novel; it just happened."

      "For a lot of years, I explored archetypal feminine images and stories from different cultures and religions, and particularly what happens to women when connections with these images are missing or devalued. One thing that became clear to me is that images of a divine mother are surprisingly important in the psychological wholeness of women, especially in the process of women taking up residence in their own authority. It was through this study that I became intrigued with the ways that Mary has quietly, even subversively, functioned as the feminine dimension of God in much of western religion. I read an essay by author Kathleen Norris in which she made the amazing statement that Mary is particularly suited to post-modernism. She didn’t elaborate on the reason, but my guess is that Mary, fresh with feminist appropriations, has the potential to undergird women’s reformations."

     "As I began the novel, I wanted the driving impetus in Lily’s life to be the search for home and for her mother. But clearly in the back of mind, I knew there was a less tangible, more symbolic search for home and mother that needed to take place: a coming home to herself and the discovery of the mother within. I knew Lily would have to find an undreamed of strength, and that she would do it the same way the powerful black women around her did it – through the empowerment of a divine feminine presence, in this case a Black Mary."

      "I felt that any image of Mary in the novel would have to be black. Not only because the women who revered her were black, but because historically Black Madonnas have often been at the root of insurgence. I first became aware of the Black Madonna in my late thirties through the writings of Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman. It was a revelation to me that hundreds of very old Black Madonnas exist in Europe and elsewhere, and that their darkness is a legacy of ancient black goddesses. I think of the Black Madonna as the White Madonna before the church scrubbed the really interesting stuff out of her. I began to study the Black Madonna, and to travel to her pilgrimage sites, especially in France. I discovered that many of her stories and history reveal a Mary who is openly defiant in the face of oppression. In Poland, South and Central America, and other places, she has been a symbol of revolution. I decided I would create a Black Madonna for the novel, who had existed during slavery in the South, and that she would be a symbol of freedom and consolation."

    Keep in mind Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist who was deeply involved in the occult.  Much of his writings were inspired by his so called "spirit guide" (demon!) named Philemon. This is a picture of 'Philemon' that is found in Carl Jung's "The Red Book" (click to enlarge picture)  can't help but notice that serpent in the right hand corner--also google  egyptian 'winged sun disk'-- it looks an awful lot like the "wings and halo" behind this so called 'angel of light'

And now that brings me to Purpose Driven Pope, Rick Warren. In his Purpose Driven life, Rick Warren pushes the unbiblical belief of pantheism when he quotes as "the bible says" using an inferior version of the bible for Ephesian 4:6.  The New Century Version (NEC) Compare what Warren's  abominable version compared to the King James or other legitimate version say
        (NEC) "There is one God and Father of everything. He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything."
now read the CORRECT translation
        (NKJV) "one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all"

And if you read the entire chapter in context, you will see that the Apostle Paul is speaking to beleivers not unbeleivers and God trascends ABOVE his creation He in NOT "in" everything...that worldview is PANTHEISM/PANENTHIESM which is utter HERESY and should be rejected! Back to Rick  Warren who on his website promotes the book The Shack (and books by the same contemplatives like Henri Nouwen)   ..whose blasphemous portayal of the trinity...God the Father  "Papa" being portrayed as a black madonna- Aunt Jemima figure and ironically also the Holy Spirit portrayed as another female called "Sarayu"  which  ironically the Sarayu river plays an important role in Hindu mythology,  according to the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, is where "Rama", the seventh "Avatar" of "Vishnu" immersed himself to return to his eternal, real Mahavishnu form (trascending to Supreme Godhood). I find it highly suspicious that W. Paul Youngs portrayal of the holy spirit using in his book the very name would coincide with a Hindu river that a so called hindu deity got baptised in and trascended to godhood.    I also find  it quite fascinating also that Rick Warren not only promotes the Shack but his so called S.H.A.P.E. program parellels Jungian personality tests based on teachings from his Philemon spirit guide.....
More on this by Lighthouse Trails Research  ---
         "Sue Monk Kidd would agree with The Shack's definition of God: in her book, First Light, she says God is the graffiti on the building (p. 98).

      "It is possible that a key to understanding The Shack could actually lie with Monk Kidd who was once a conservative Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher. She began studying the teachings of mystic Thomas Merton, which eventually led her out of the Southern Baptist arena and into the New Age. Today, she follows goddess spirituality (Sophia) and has said in one of her books that God dwells in all things, even excrement (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter)."

         "There is perhaps a striking similarity between The Shack's "God" the Father and the Black Madonna used in Monk Kidd's best selling novel, The Secret Life of Bees (coming out soon as a movie). Monk Kidd says the Black Madonna she chose is "a powerful symbolic essence that could take up residence inside of [the novel's character, Lily] and become catalytic in her transformation."4 The fact that both Sue Monk Kidd and William Young have chosen a Black Madonna figure as representing "God" and that both talk about the ground of all being (God in all things) cannot be ignored. Episcopal priest (panentheist) Matthew Fox says: '

         "Today the Black Madonna is returning. She is coming, not going, and she is calling us to something new (and very ancient as well).... "

     "The Black Madonna archetype awakens in us and ... she is so important for the twenty-first century.... The Black Madonna invites us into the dark and therefore into our depths. This is what the mystics call the "inside" of things, the essence of things. This is where Divinity lies. It is where the true self lies.... Because she is a goddess, the Black Madonna resides in all beings. She is the divine presence inside of creation."

         "The gap between the New Age and Christianity is being narrowed, and The Shack is another disastrous and deceptive tool that will bring this about. When David Jeremiah favorably quoted and referenced Sue Monk Kidd in his book, Life Wide Open, we knew this would further close the gap that gave Christianity its distinctness. It is this distinctness that allows sinful man to see his need for a Savior. When that gap closes, the Gospel message will be hidden from view from even more people than it is today. The Shack has brought about some huge strides in causing this to take place."

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man” (Emphasis mine, Romans 1:21-23a, KJV).

Please Christians,  throw out these books,  reject these false teachers.  We are living in the most dangerouse deceptive times in all of world history....

From Southern Baptist to Goddess Worship: Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk Kidd is a very popular writer. Her first two novels, The Secret Life of Bees (2002) and The Mermaid Chair (2005), have sold more than 6 million copies and the first one is being produced as a movie. She has also written two popular books on contemplative spirituality: God’s Joyful Surprise (1988) and When the Heart Waits (1990).


She is quoted by evangelicals such as David Jeremiah (Life Wide Open), Beth Moore (When Godly People Do Ungodly Things), and Richard Foster (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home). Kidd’s endorsement is printed on the back of Dallas Willard’s book The Spirit of the Disciplines. She wrote the foreword to the 2006 edition of Henri Nouwen’s With Open Hands and the introduction to Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation.

It is “contemplative spirituality” that changed Kidd’s life, and her experience is a loud warning about flirting with Catholic mysticism.

She was raised in a Southern Baptist congregation in southwest Georgia. Her grandfather and father were Baptist deacons. Her grandmother gave devotionals at the Women’s Missionary Union, and her mother was a Sunday School teacher. Her husband was a minister who taught religion and a chaplain at a Baptist college. She was very involved in church, teaching Sunday School and attending services Sunday morning and evening and Wednesday. She describes herself as the person who would have won a contest for “Least Likely to Become a Feminist.” She was even inducted into a group of women called the Gracious Ladies, the criterion for which was that “one needed to portray certain ideals of womanhood, which included being gracious and giving of oneself unselfishly.”
But for years she had felt a spiritual emptiness and lack of contentment. Prayer was “a fairly boring mental activity” (Kidd’s foreword to Henri Nouwen’s With Open Hands, 2006, p. 10). She says,

“I had been struggling to come to terms with my life as a woman--in my culture, my marriage, my faith, my church, and deep inside myself” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 8).

She was thirty years old, had been married about 12 years, and had two children.

Instead of learning how to fill that emptiness and uncertainty with a know-so salvation and a sweet walk with Christ in the Spirit and a deeper knowledge of the Bible, she began dabbling in Catholic mysticism. A Sunday School co-worker gave her a book by the Roman Catholic monk Thomas Merton. She should have known better than to study such a book and should have been warned by the brethren, but the New Evangelical philosophy that controls the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches created an atmosphere in which the reading of a Catholic monk’s book by a Sunday School teacher was acceptable. Their thinking goes like this: Who are we to judge what other people read, and who is to say that a Roman Catholic priest might not love the Lord?

Kidd began to practice Catholic forms of contemplative spirituality and visit Catholic retreat centers and monasteries.
“... beginning in my early thirties I’d become immersed in a journey that was rooted in contemplative spirituality. It was the spirituality of the ‘church fathers,’ of the monks I’d come to know as I made regular retreats in their monasteries. ... I thrived on solitude, routinely practicing silent meditation as taught by the monks Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating. ... For years, I’d studied Thomas Merton, John of the Cross, Augustine, Bernard, Bonaventure, Ignatius, Eckhart, Luther, Teilhard de Chardin, The Cloud of Unknowing, and others” (pp. 14, 15).

Of Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which she read in 1978 for the first of many times, she says,
“My experience of reading it initiated me into my first real awareness of the interior life, igniting an impulse toward being ... it caused something hidden at the core of me to flare up and become known” (Kidd’s introduction to New Seeds of Contemplation, 2007, pp. xiii, xi).

Of Merton’s book New Seeds of Contemplation she says, “[It] initiated me into the secrets of my true identity and woke in me an urge toward realness” and “impacted my spirituality and my writing to this day.”

Merton communicated intimately with and was deeply affected by Mary veneration, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism, so it is not surprising that his writings would create an appetite that could lead to goddess worship.
In The New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton made the following frightening statement that shows the great danger of Catholic mysticism:
“In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that HE NO LONGER KNOWS WHAT GOD IS. He may or may not mercifully realize that, after all, this is a great gain, because ‘God is not a what,’ not a ‘thing.’ This is precisely one of the essential characteristics of contemplative experience. It sees that there is no ‘what’ that can be called God” (p. 13).

What Catholic mysticism does is reject the Bible as the sole and sufficient and perfect revelation of God and tries to delve beyond the Bible, even beyond thought of any kind, and find God through mystical “intuition.” In other words, it is a rejection of the God of the Bible. It says that God cannot be known by doctrine and cannot be described in words. He can only be experienced through mysticism. This is a blatant denial of the Bible’s claim to be the very Word of God.

This opens the practitioner to demonic delusion. He is left with no perfect objective revelation of God, no divinely-revealed authority by which he can test his mystical experiences and intuitions. He is left with an idol of his own vain imagination (Jeremiah 17:9) and a doctrine of devils.

Kidd’s own first two books were on contemplative spirituality.

The involvement in Catholic contemplative practices led her to the Mass and to other sacramental associations.
“I often went to Catholic mass or Eucharist at the Episcopal church, nourished by the symbol and power of this profound feeding ritual” (p. 15).

There is an occultic power in the mass that has influenced many who have approached it in a receptive, non-critical manner.
She learned dream analysis from a Jungian perspective and believed that her dreams were revelations. One recurring dream featured an old woman. Kidd concluded that this is “the Feminine Self or the voice of the feminine soul” and she was encouraged in her feminist studies by these visitations.
   She spent much time with a friend who had a feminist mindset and was “exploring” feminist writings, and she began to read ever more radical feminists, such as Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Elaine Pagels, and Rosemary Radford Ruether.


We are reminded of the Bible’s warning, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33).
She says, “I began to form what I called my feminist critique” (p. 59). She learned to see “patriarchy” as “a wounder of women and feminine life” (p. 60).

She determined to stop testing things and follow her heart, rejecting the Bible’s admonition to “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
“I would go through the gate with what Zen Buddhists call ‘beginner’s mind,’ the attitude of approaching something with a mind empty and free, ready for anything, open to everything. ... I would give myself permission to go wherever my quest took me” (p. 140).

She rejected the doctrine that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. In church one day the pastor proclaimed this truth, and she describes the frightful thing that happened in her heart at that moment:

“I remember a feeling rising up from a place about two inches below my navel. ... It was the purest inner knowing I had experienced, and it was shouting in me no, no, no! The ultimate authority of my life is not the Bible; it is not confined between the covers of a book. It is not something written by men and frozen in time. It is not from a source outside myself. My ultimate authority is the divine voice in my own soul. Period. ... That day sitting in church, I believed the voice in my belly. ... The voice in my belly was the voice of the wise old woman. It was my female soul talking. And it had challenged the assumption that the Baptist Church would get me where I needed to go” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, pp. 76, 77, 78).

She began to think that the Bible is wrong in its teaching about women and that women should not take the subordinate position described therein. She came to believe that Eve might have been a hero instead of a sinner, that eating the forbidden fruit had actually opened Eve’s eyes to her true self. Kidd came to the conclusion that the snake was not evil but “symbolized female wisdom, power, and regeneration” (p. 71). She was surprised and pleased to learn that the snake is depicted as the companion of ancient goddesses, concluding that this is evidence that the Bible is wrong.

She determined that she was willing to lose her marriage, if necessary.
“I would not, could not forfeit my journey for my marriage or for the sake of religious acceptance or success as a ‘Christian writer.’ I would keep moving in my own way to the strains of feminine music that sifted up inside me, not just moving but embracing the dance. ... I felt the crumbling of the old patriarchal foundation our marriage had rested upon in such hidden and subtle ways. Though both of us would always need to compromise, there was no more sacrificing myself, no more revolving around him, no more looking to him for validation, trying to be what I thought he needed me to be. My life, my time, my decisions became newly my own” (pp. 98, 125).

In her case, her husband stayed with her and came to accept her feminist vision, even leaving his job in the Christian college and becoming a psychotherapist, but in many other cases the feminist philosophy has destroyed the marriage. She says, “I’ve met women who in such circumstances have stayed and others who’ve left. Such choices are achingly difficult, but I’ve learned to respect whatever a woman feels she must do.” It is amazing how a person can come to the place where he or she is convinced that it is a righteous thing to renounce a solemn marriage vow that was made before God and man.

She rejected God as Father.
“I knew right then and there that the patriarchal church was no longer working for me. The exclusive image of God as heavenly Father wasn’t working, either. I needed a Power of Being that was also feminine” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 80).

She came to believe in the divinity of man.
“There’s a bulb of truth buried in the human soul that’s ‘only God’ ... the soul is more than something to win or save. It’s the seat and repository of the inner Divine, the God-image, the truest part of us” (When the Heart Waits, 1990, pp. 47, 48).


“When we encounter another person ... we should walk as if we were upon holy ground. We should respond as if God dwells there” (God’s Joyful Surprise, p. 233).

She began to delve into the worship of ancient goddesses. She traveled with a group of women to Crete where they met in a cave and sang prayers to “the Goddess Skoteini, Goddess of the Dark.” She says, “... something inside me was calling on the Goddess of the Dark, even though I didn’t know her name” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 93).

Soon she was praying to God as Mother.
“I ran my finger around the rim of the circle on the page and prayed my first prayer to a Divine Feminine presence. I said, ‘Mothergod, I have nothing to hold me. No place to be, inside or out. I need to find a container of support, a space where my journey can unfold’” (p. 94).


She came to the place where she believed that she is a goddess.
“Divine Feminine love came, wiping out all my puny ideas about love in one driving sweep. Today I remember that event for the radiant mystery it was, how I felt myself embraced by Goddess, how I felt myself in touch with the deepest thing I am. It was the moment when, as playwright and poet Ntozake Shange put it, ‘I found god in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely’” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 136).


“To embrace Goddess is simply to discover the Divine in yourself as powerfully and vividly feminine” (p. 141).
“I came to know myself as an embodiment of Goddess” (p. 163).


"When I woke, my thought was that I was finally being reunited with the snake in myself--that lost and defiled symbol of feminine instinct” (p. 107).

She came to believe in the New Age doctrine that God is in all things and is the sum total of all things, that God is the evolving universe and we are a part of God.
“I thought: Maybe the Divine One is like an old African woman, carving creation out of one vast, beautiful piece of Herself. She is making a universal totem spanning fifteen billion years, an extension of her life and being, an evolutionary carving of sacred art containing humans, animals, plants, indeed, everything that is. And all of it is joined, blended, and connected, its destiny intertwined. ... In other words, the Divine coinheres all that is. ... To coinhere means to exist together, to be included in the same thing or substance” (pp. 158, 159).

She built an altar in her study and populated it with statues of goddesses, Jesus, a Black Madonna -- and a mirror to reflect her own image.
“Over the altar in my study I hung a lovely mirror sculpted in the shape of a crescent moon. It reminded me to honor the Divine Feminine presence in myself, the wisdom in my own soul” (p. 181).

She even believes that the world can be saved by the divine mother.
“I know of nothing needed more in the world just now than an image of Divine present that affirms the importance of relationship--a Divine Mother, perhaps, who draws all humanity into her lap and makes us into a global family” (p. 155).

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter ends with the words, “She is in us.”
According to this book, Kidd’s daughter, too, has accepted goddess worship.



Republished July 1, 2010 (first published July 15, 2008) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org;

For more information about Sue Monk Kidd and contemplative spirituality, we recommend our book on Contemplative Mysticism and our book and DVD set on the Emerging Church. Both are available here:http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/topicalbooks.html

This Little Church Went to Market

In the late 70's a ground-breaking cultural movement was recognized, commonly called Postmodernism.  This movement is a challenge to rational thought, so much so that classical liberal theologians, asserting that most of the Bible is not factually true, have no more cultural support than Bible-believing Christians.  The "Jesus Seminar" is the final bloom of liberal theologians attempting a last hurrah.  In Postmodern thought there is no universal truth to be established; everyone has total freedom to create his or her own truth.  Postmoderns are driven by the heart rather than the head.  Current pop-spirituality reflects this in its focus on feeling, the inner life, and promotion of spiritual pluralism.  Consequently, evangelicals do not have the same need, as previously, to think through their apologetics.  In fact there is a truth "vacuum" which frees the church to present an audience-driven, user-friendly gospel in order to compete with the new smorgasbord of spiritualities.  There is no longer a compelling need for evangelicals to express their faith in clear and logical propositions.
This Little Church Went to Market



by Gary E. Gilley


... [Evangelicals] having watched a large segment of the church become content with short yardage and lousy scores, ... decided that there had to be a better way. The church was not penetrating society; she was not pulling in the masses; she was not making a significant impact for the gospel. It was not that the church leaders didn't care, it was, it seemed, that they lacked the "know how," the tools, to effect change. The gospel was still the "power of God for salvation" (Romans 1:16), but it was being rejected out-of-hand by too many. What was needed, apparently, were new methods to reach the lost, new techniques to promote the church, new packages for the gospel message. People, we were told, were not rejecting the gospel or Christ; they were rejecting our out-of-date, unappetizing form, philosophies, and methods...


... We will focus on the two flagship churches: Saddleback Valley Community Church in Orange County, California, and Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. These churches serve as the models that are reshaping the way we "do church" today. As a matter of fact, many refer to these churches and their clones as "new paradigm churches." Churches all over the world ... are imitating the many methods promoted by Saddleback and the "Creekers." Others have written about church growth, but these two churches have made it work, and for their success they are idolized and adored by the modem evangelical community...


An interesting article, just the type that shapes the new paradigm system, is found in American Demographics (American Demographics, April 1999, "Choosing My Religion," pp. 60-65, by Richard Cimino and Don Lattin) ... According to this article people today claim they are:


"...into spirituality, not religion... Behind this shift is the search for an experiential faith, a religion of the heart, not the head. It's a religious expression that downplays doctrine and dogma, and revels in direct experience of the divine - whether it's called die "Holy Spirit" or "cosmic consciousness" or the "true self." It is practical and personal, more about stress reduction dw salvation, more therapeutic than theological. It's about feeling, on being good. It's as much about the body as the soul... Some marketing gurus have begun calling it "the experience industry". (Ibid., p 62).



But is a market-driven church so bad? After all, a lot of people seem to be getting saved and they're really "packing 'em in." Rick Warren puts a positive spin on new paradigm philosophy in his very popular book The Purpose Driven Church ... Many of Warren's suggestions are excellent. Churches should pay attention to cleanliness and attractiveness, where people are going to park ... We should strive for excellence and do the best to communicate God's truth. And we should want to grow - in the right ways. Warren states, "Every church needs to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism." (The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, p. 48)


Who could argue with that? And who would debate the need for churches to know why they exist (their purpose), channeling their energies in that direction rather than wandering aimlessly as many do? And what about evangelism? Warren and the new paradigm churches are geared to reaching the lost. While many churches are wasting precious energy fussing over the color of the drapes in the foyer, the Saddlebacks and Willow Creeks are focusing their attention on bringing unchurched Harry and Saddleback Sam to Christ. You can't help admire that kind of emphasis ... Perhaps no single source carries as much weight in the "seeker sensitive" church as George Barna and his Barna Research Group. Barna, the church counterpart to George Gallup, has ignited a number of fires in Christian circles with his books such as The Frog in the Kettle and Marketing the Church. In his more recent book Church Marketing, Breaking Ground for the Harvest, Barna declares that he and his types have won the ideological battle over the issue of marketing the church (p. 13, 14). That is, only a few old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds still question the validity of the market-driven strategy ... Barna assures us that churches sell (or market) their product the same way Wal-Mart sells shoes and Sears sells tools. But what is the church's product? What are we trying to peddle to consumers? This has to be thought through carefully, for unlike shoes and tools that have great attraction for some consumers, the gospel is repulsive, foolishness to the unsaved (I Cor. 1: 18-23). How do we market such a product? By changing the package. Note the subtle bait and switch in Barna's philosophy. Ministry, in essence, has the same objective as marketing - to meet people's needs. Christian ministry, by definition, meets people's real needs by providing them with biblical solutions to their life circumstances (p 21).


By repackaging ministry ... Barna has made it attractive. If we can convince people that Christ died to meet their need, they will line up at our doors to buy our product. But is this the Gospel message? Has Barna merely repackaged ... the Gospel product, or has he gutted it of its purpose and value? An important question upon which so much hinges...


The standard rhetoric coming from new paradigm churches is that they teach the same message, the same gospel, as the more traditional evangelical churches; that they differ only in methodology and philosophy of ministry. Lee Strobel (former Teaching Pastor at Willow Creek Community Church) writes, "Objections [to the market-driven church] generally relate to the method that's used to communicate the Gospel, not the message itself and consequently we're free to use the God-given creativity to present Christ's message in new ways that our target audience will connect with" (Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary, by Lee Stroebel, p. 168). This is simply not the case. While some methods may disturb us it is their message that is of real concern. ... Barna defines marketing as "a broad term that encompasses all the activities that lead to an exchange of equally valued goods between consenting parties."...Is the gospel marketable by this definition? Is the gospel the "exchange of equally valued goods between consenting parties" Let's see. The Gospel is offered by grace (undeserved favor) and received by faith. In the exchange God gets us, we get Him (equally valued goods?). In the exchange we receive the righteousness of Christ, He takes our sins upon Himself (equally valued goods?). The market process breaks down in its very definition when the "product" is Christ... The Gospel is not bringing people to Christ in order to meet their felt-needs. According to Scripture the gospel is the good news that lost sinners can be forgiven of their sins and receive the righteousness of Christ in exchange. This is the real need of humanity, the need for which Christ died... The gospel message in a nutshell is this: Harry (to use Willow Creek's name for the unsaved) is a sinner, in full-blown rebellion against God (Rom. 3:23; 5:1-12). While some Harrys are outwardly religious and some even desire the gifts and benefits that God can supply, no Harrys truly seek after God or desire Him (Rom. 3:10-18). As a result of Harry's sinfulness he is under the wrath of God (Rom. 1: 18), faces future judgment (Heb. 9:27), will die both physically and spiritually (Rom. 6:23) and will spend eternity in hell (Rev. 20:11-15)...


The new paradigm church operates under the credo that Harry is "hostile to the church, friendly to Jesus Christ" (ibid. p. 47) ... Now we know that Harry is not motivated by the commands of God, nor is he all that interested in truth, [so] we can abandon the direct approach. And since he is looking for something that will help him reach his goals in life and feel good in the process, we are ready to package the gospel to draw his attention. The new paradigm church does this by focusing on the gospel of felt need. "The Church's problem today is simply that it does not believe that without tinkering, the Gospel will be all that interesting to modern people" (Losing Our Virtue, by David Wells, p. 207). And tinker it must... The new paradigm church is offering a purely Americanized, yuppie brand of Christianity found nowhere in the NT...


G.A. Pritchard, after spending a year (onsite) studying the ministry at Willow Creek, eventually came to the conclusion that "Hybels believes that Harry's most important concern is for his personal fulfillment"...Hybels teaches that Christianity will satisfy Harry's felt need and provide him fulfillment ... Hybels and the other speakers do not condemn the search for fulfillment. Rather they argue that Harry has not searched in the right place. (Willow Creek Seeker Services, p. 254-256). Pritchard's analysis is on the money:


"Is Willow Creek correct in their teaching that a relationship with Christ will provide a life of fulfillment? In a word, no. ... Personal fulfillment is the dominant goal of the vast majority of Americans. In this context it is a great temptation for American evangelicals to argue that Christianity is a means of a more fulfilling life. ... the Church becomes another place that promises to satisfy emotional desires.... To argue for Christianity primarily by pointing to its usefulness in satisfying felt needs is to ultimately undercut it. To teach Christianity as a means eventually teaches that it is superfluous. If someone is able to satisfy their felt needs without Christ, the message of Christianity can be discarded. ... The bottom line why individuals should repent and worship God is because God deserves it. Fulfillment theology does not reflect the teaching of the Bible. We find in Scripture vast evidence that Christianity is often not 'fulfilling, " Jesus promises his disciples that "in this world you will have trouble....... The Lord did not promise fulfillment, or even relief, in this world but only in the next... (Pritchart, p. 254-256),


In response to those who object to the new gospel, Stroebel counters that "these objections generally relate to the method that's used to communicate the Gospel, not the message itself, and consequently we're free to use our God-given creativity to present Christ's message in new ways that our target audience will connect with" (Stroebel, p. 168). This is simply not the case. While some of the methods way disturb us, it is their message that is of real concern. The new paradigm church would loudly proclaim that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But they have redefined salvation. Salvation is not simply, under the new gospel, the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness. It is not a deliverance from the wrath of God upon a deserving and rebellious people. The new gospel is liberation from low self-esteem, a freedom from emptiness and loneliness, a means of fulfillment and excitement, a way to receive your heart's desire, a means to meeting your needs. The old gospel was about God; the new gospel is about us. The old gospel was about sin; the new gospel is about needs. The old gospel was about our need for righteousness; the new gospel is about our need of fulfillment. The old gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing; the new gospel is attractive... We are forced to ask, with Peter Jennings in the thought-provoking video, In the Name of God, "As these churches try to attract sell-out crowds, are they in danger of selling out the gospel?"


The above article consists of excerpted sections from a four-part article at http://www.svchapel.org/site/ThinkOnTheseThingsMinistries/publications/html/market1.html

Leonard Ravenhill: A True Inspiration

The Ultimate Facebook Message

CLICK HERE For Canyon Ministries Link

Formation of the Grand Canyon: Stretching 277 miles through the Southwestern portion of the Colorado plateau, the Canyon is carved through sedimentary layers of limestone, sandstone, and shale, and into the basement of schist and granite. It descends over a mile into the Earth and is 18 miles wide at some points.


Explanation: How could the Colorado River carve through the 8,000 foot Colorado plateau when the river, in its upper reaches east of the plateau, is at less than 4,000 feet? As demonstrated at Mt. St. Helens, catastrophic processes provide a very plausible explanation for quickly carving canyons like the Grand Canyon. A global flood would provide just such a catastrophic mechanism.

Nautiloids: Fossils of these aquatic creatures, which averaged 18 inches in length, but reached as much as 6 feet, are related to today's squid and octopus. They are found in abundance in a 6-foot thick layer near the base of the 500-foot thick Redwall limestone.


Explanation: For fossilization to occur, the subject must be buried catastrophically, protecting it from decay. The Nautiloids, some reaching 4 feet in length and found buried standing upright, show that at least this layer within the Redwall had to be laid down very quickly, not at the bottom of a calm placid sea, the uniformitarian interpretation.

Contact point between sedimentary layers: Known as unconformities, many of these contact points form a distinct line that can be seen even from the rim of the canyon.

Explanation: If these unconformities represent from 10 to 125 million years of “missing time,” which is the uniformitarian interpretation, why is there no sign of either physical or chemical erosion between the layers? Why is there no sign of channeling, canyons or valleys, as we see with erosion of present-day topography? Could this be classic flood geology on a global scale?


The Great Unconformity: The contact point between the basement formations of schist and granite and the first sedimentary layer is called the Great Unconformity.

Explanation: Representing a billion years of missing time and material in a uniformitarian interpretation, the Great Unconformity shows the nearly flat erosion of the underlying surface. This hard surface appears to have been smoothed by an enormous regional-scale flow of water. This is just what would be expected in a global flood.

Folding: Folds, or bends in the rock, are found in some sedimentary layers.

Explanation: When there is movement along a fault today, it cracks the rock. The folding of the rock, sometimes across multiple layers, without cracking or the effects of heat from supposedly slow deep burial, indicates that the folding had to happen while the layers were still soft and immediately after rapid deep burial. Thus these folds show that the deposition and upheaval responsible for the folding were, in fact, one event.

Layering of Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon exhibits 4,000 – 5,000 feet of geological strata in more than 30 separate formations of limestone, sandstone, shale and conglomerates overlying granites, schists and gneisses.


Explanation: How the sedimentary layers of the Canyon were deposited is a key difference between the two models (creation vs. uniformitarian). The upper layers are divided into 9 formations (Paleozoic era), with the lower (Precambrian) also containing 9 layers. Creation geologists consider the upper layers to be Flood deposits with the lower being pre-Flood and the underlying granites and metamorphics resulting from geologic processes during the original creation event.

Understand The Times Radio -

From UNDERSTAND THE TIMES Radio Show - featuring Jan Markell of
 OLIVE TREE MINISTRIES (click here to view)

Listen here for the entire program:
http://worldviewweekend.com/worldview-radio/episode.php?episodeid=17966

Brannon Howse outlines how the harlot church described in the book of Revelation is coalescing to become the foundation of the New World Order. He shares how that in their attempt to dethrone God, the Communists have entered the churches and seminaries to teach unbiblical theology and doctrine, and these teachings are increasingly merging with cosmic humanism and New Age spirituality. Brannon shares warnings from the U.S. Air Force and the 1961 assistant director of the FBI communicating that Communists were even then infiltrating the churches of America

Keeping CHRIST in Christmas

OPENING SONG AT RICK WARREN'S Global P.E.A.C.E. PLAN INAUGURATION

Please  email me at gauleygirl2000@yahoo.com  if yo would like me to  email you a copy of the rest of this  47 page pfd file on exposing the occultic truth about Rick Warrens Global P.E.A.C.E Plan

"And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore [it is]

no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness;
whose end shall be according to their works.” – 2 Corinthians 11:14-15
Rick Warren launched his Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan April 17, 2005 during Saddleback Church's25th Anniversary celebration. During the unveiling he sang the Purple Haze song, written by
Jimi Hendrix about the psychedelic drug LSD and demonic visions. Here are the lyrics:

Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze Lyrics

Purple haze all in my brain

Lately things just don't seem the same
Actin' funny, but I don't know why

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple haze all around

Don't know if I'm comin' up or down

Am I happy or in misery?

Whatever it is that girl put a spell on me

Purple haze all in my eyes

Don't know if it's day or night

You got me blowin', blowin' my mind
Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

(c)1967 Jimi Hendrix, Smash Hits album

Is this the example Rick Warren wants to set in leading his sober and vigilant billion-man

Christian army? Even if Rick Warren sang Purple Haze in jest to inaugurate his Global
P.E.A.C.E. Plan, it still has the appearance of evil and is a bad witness for a Christian. Rick
Warren's justification for defending the singing of Purple Haze before his congregation, is like
saying “Well, I just did a séance with all of my friends just for the fun of it and to help set the
tone and stage for the New Reformation.” What a song to pick; one whose author regularly
took LSD and promoted a psychedelic culture! Is Purple Haze the type of song Jesus would ever
sing? Is this the kind of song Jesus will sing when he launches his Global Millennium Peace
Plan? It is astonishing that Rick Warren would choose a song which glorifies drugs used to
produce magical effects. This is not the way to attain either personal perfect peace or the Global
Peace that Jesus Christ himself will usher in with the Millennium. It was commonly known to all
of us who grew up in the '60s that this song was identified with LSD. This song should be a red
flag for any Christian that grew up then. But for the children of the children of the '60s who do
not know to what the song was originally referring, it is a clear stumbling block and brings to
mind the following Scriptural warning:


"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." - Mark 9:42

Thank You Lord for the Glorious Impossible!!

Christian Persecution

The Bible says that all who seek to live godly lives in Christ Jesus would suffer persecution

(2Timothy 3:12)
 The apostle Peter wrote an entire epistle to those  dispersed by persecution and how even in the midst of trials they could survive on the living hope provided through faith in Jesus (1 Peter; see 1 Peter 1:3).

Persecution of Christians does not only involve the physical

persecution but propaganda in the media and worldly influences and attacks to minimize and isolate Christians from the world scene.

Daniel 7:21 alludes to the rise of persecution in the EndTimes that will only be relived upon the return of Jesus. Jesus spoke of persecution in the EndTimes too (Matthew 10; 24:9-10).
      We can expect persecution of Christians to be on the rise as

the world moves further and further in their worldly philosophy of tolerance of anything and everything and Christians take a stand for God's truth.

Just remember no matter how bad it gets here, Jesus  is still on the Throne.

Can You Defend Your Faith? Excellent Apologetic

History Repeating Itself - Except Now There May Be No Stopping It

Judgement Day is Coming. Have You Gotten Into The Lifeboat??

Has Purpose Driven Taken Over Your Church?

If Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church has taken over your church then watch this video. This video is the best infomation out there to help you and your church.

Church should be Spirit Driven no Purpose Drivel

Why We MUST Name Names If We Love Jesus Christ and His Bride!

Is it negative and unbiblical to name false teachers? The Bible is filled with examples of Jesus and others naming false teachers by name.
 For example, the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy names numerous people by name.

2 Timothy 1:15: Phygellus and Hermogenes
2 Timothy 2:17: Mymenaeus and Philetus
2 Timothy 3:8: Jannes and Jambress
2 Timothy 4:10: Demas
2 Timothy 4:14: Alexander the coppersmith
In III John 9, John named Diotrephes.
Jesus called out the false teachers in Matthew 23 and Luke 11.
I truly believe that one reason why God allows false teachers is to provide believers with a test of whether they will be faithful in their Biblical mandate to expose false teachers and thus protect the sheep from the spiritual poison of wolves in sheep's clothing.


Ephesians 5:11 makes it clear we are to expose false teachers; "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."


If a shepherd/pastor will not point out the wolves that are among the sheep then this should be a clear warning to the flock that the shepherd/pastor does not have their best interest in mind. Such a hireling is not called of God but is simply involved in an occupation for personal gain as revealed in I Timothy 6:5.


In addition, such non-shepherds are revealing that they are more interested in their reputation and being seen by the larger community as tolerant and non-judgmental as defined by the unsaved world.


False teachers also give the sheep the opportunity to test the commitment of their shepherds/pastors. If the pastors/shepherds on your church staff fail this Biblical test then it is time for the leaders of the church to replace such hirelings with real shepherds. If this Biblical action is not taken, then it is time for you to find a new flock that has a shepherd that will alert the sheep to the spirituality immature and even wolves in sheep's clothing that are on his own church staff.


Show me a shepherd/pastor that will not name false teachers and I will show you a false teacher.

Pastor Jim Bublitz gives further insight into the positive results that come when we name false teachers by name:
From those words it is clear that God allows teachers of error for the same reason as He does persecutors of His people: to test their love, to try their fidelity, to show that their loyalty to him is such that they will not give ear unto His enemies. Error has always been more popular than the Truth, for it lets down the bars and fosters fleshly indulgence, but for that very reason it is obnoxious to the godly.

The one who by grace can say "I have chosen the way of Truth" will be able to add "I have stuck unto Thy testimonies" (Psalm 119:30, 31), none being able to move him therefrom.


"For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized." (1 Corinthians 11:19).


Committed Christians must publically name false teachers because it is impossible to privately correct public false teaching.


This fall  an e-mail  [was received] from a young lady that is a junior in high school near Atlanta, Georgia. In her e-mail she stated that because she had attended two Worldview Weekend Rallies in Atlanta and [heard about] the false teaching of emergent Pastor Rob Bell, she had been equipped to reject his false teaching when a Bible study group at her Christian school decided to read one of his books. She [wrote in her email] that she immediately recognized the name of Rob Bell.  This young lady had the courage and conviction to politely hand the book back to the group and to warn them of Bell's false teaching.


This young ladies testimony has come to my mind  and has been a real source of encouragement to me to continue to speak truth no matter how negative or offensive it may be to the non-discerning.


If  the name of Rob Bell [wasn't named], how would this student had known to reject his book and false doctrine? If the name of Rob Bell [wasn't named] would this student now be spiritually deceived? If  Rob Bell [wasn't named] by name would she have been able to warn her peers to this spiritual poison?


The late Pastor Vance Havner wrote, "We live what we believe; the rest is religious talk." Living what we believe includes our willingness to name the name of false teachers and to endure the criticism and persecution that will surely follow. To do any less would be treason to our calling, to our mandate, to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


When we expose false teaching and false teachers we are proclaiming and defending the authority, accuracy, and application of God's Word; the very thing that false teachers seek to undermine.


Living what we believe requires speaking Biblical truth and Biblical warnings no matter how negative or offensive it may be to the spiritually immature, non-discerning or wolves that crept in among the sheep.


Jude 3:1-4 commands all believers to contend for the faith that is under attack from false teachers.


Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Truth is never negative to those who seek to serve The Truth


(for the article in its entirety click here:)
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=6684

Another Example of Revisionist History: The History Channel Rewrites Middle East History

The History Channel posts a reminder, Nov 29, 1947 U.N. votes for partition of Palestine but their article is pure Arab propaganda and gives the lie to history.

"Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an ."independent Jewish state.
"The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory. The Jews were Zionists, recent emigrants from Europe and Russia who came to the ancient homeland of the Jews to establish a Jewish national state. The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state

This is wrong historically on so many levels. At that time, the Arabs in Palestine were referred to as Arabs and not Palestinian Arabs. A huge percentage of the Arabs that were there had emigrated to the province known as Palestine because of the commercial activity of the Jews. They had no intention of setting up a "secular Palestinian state." This was the invention of Arafat.


"Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs."


How the History Channel in writing the history of the conflict, can leave out the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Resolution of 1920 giving all the land, including Jordan, to the Jews and the Palestine Mandate passed by the League of Nations in 1922 reaffirming the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo Resolution, is beyond me. The Mandate obligated Great Britain to enable close settlement of the land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, by Jews and ultimately to allow independence of the Jews.


"As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. "


This sentence ignores virtually everything that led to Jewish emigration. The first blame goes to the Nazis who rounded up seven million European Jews and put them in Ghettos. The second blame goes to Britain and the US who wouldn't let the Jews emigrate to their countries or Palestine with or without visas. This policy lead to the destruction of six million Jews by the Nazis. The small remnant who survived had to wait until 1947 to be allowed into Israel. A small number of Jews came to Palestine during the war. Such entry was legal according to the Palestine Mandate. Great Britain in 1937 instituted a policy in contravention of the Mandate to limit the number of Jews entering. Only in this sense was their entry "illegal."


At the same time, also in contravention of the Mandate, Great Britain facilitated enormous Arab immigration from surrounding lands

"Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause."


It is not a matter of what they thought. It is a fact. Britain violated international law and their obligations under the Mandate. Thus the Jews fought to chase them out of Palestine.


"At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine. The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, though they made up less than half of Palestine's population."

Wrong again. The US did not take up the Zionist cause after or before 1945. The US was not in favor of creating a Jewish state at all and intended to vote against it. Fortunately, Pres Truman overruled the State Dept and ordered that the US vote in favor. Even so, the US maintained an arms embargo on Israel throughout the War of Independence and expected Israel to be destroyed. To everyone's surprise, Israel was victorious and gained more land as a result.

Had Britain not prevented Jewish immigration and favored Arab immigration, both contrary to her mandate, the Jews would have been in majority and would have been entitled to the entire country.


"The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but the Jews secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory. On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded."


The Mandate didn't expire. Just Britain's role did. Jewish rights pursuant to the Mandate continued.

"The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territories, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem. In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of those conquered areas. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority."

Another thing that the History Channel fails to mention is that during and after the war, 900,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries and their land holdings and wealth accumulated over many hundreds of years, was confiscated. Most of these Jews went to Israel and were absorbed.

New Apostolic Reformation C Peter Wagner's Connection To Rick Warren and Bill Hybels

In 1999 C. Peter Wagner, chief architect of and salesman for the New Apostolic Reformation, lists two significant members of this group. From Wagner's 1999 book Churchquake: how the new apostolic reformation is shaking up the church as we know it (Regal) comes these two statements:

"Bill Hybels, new apostolic pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, Barrington, Illinois, and a longtime friend of Robert Schuller, agrees that pastors have the responsibility of determining the purpose of each corporate gathering." (p. 179)

"New apostolic churches, like Rick Warren's, turn this [leadership and ministry] around 180 degrees, as he explains in his best-seller, The Purpose Driven Church (Zondervan)." (p. 213) [emphases added]

It is significant that C. Peter Wagner identifies Hybels and Warren as New Apostolic Reformation pastors. C. Peter Wagner oversaw Rick Warren's doctoral thesis at Fuller Theological Seminary, which later became his first book, The Purpose-Driven Church. A September 8, 1989 Christianity Today "had a picture of Hybels with Dr. Robert Schuller and C. Peter Wagner at Schuller's Crystal Cathedral, according to John Ashbrook in New Neutralism II, an excellent book critical of the neoevangelical movement. Dr. Schuller is the granddaddy of the Church Growth models utilized by Warren and Hybels.

For more information on the New Apostolic Reformation see

http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com, which includes further documentation on the interconnections between these men.

An Important Snippet from "Lukewarm No More" Worth Watching

How Much Witchcraft Is Okay? It's Time For Christians to Be HONEST!

The final installment of the Harry Potter series opened nationwide on Friday, 11/19/10, with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This has been one of the most highly anticipated movie openings in cinema history, with many theaters playing the movie on multiple screens and adding midnight showings.

Christians, too, have been caught up in reading the Harry Potter books and watching the movies:


courtesy: The Sola Sisters
http://solasisters.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-much-witchcraft-is-okay.html
"I have read and fallen in love with these books. There is no element of witchcraft to be found in them."



"This is an area of liberty for me."


"I've read the books and there is no witchcraft."


"It's all in good fun. This is all fantasy and the magic has no basis in reality. But the movies are exciting and fun to watch.
Now, speaking as someone who has done Wicca/witchcraft before, I can attest that the Harry Potter books DO contain actual spells and witchcraft. But don't just take it from me that the Harry Potter books contain actual witchcraft:

In her own words in an interview, author J.K.Rowling admitted that she studied witchcraft and mythology in order to write her books more accurately. She said, "I do a certain amount of research, so when I'm mentioning a creature, or a spell, I will find out exactly what the words were, and find out exactly what the characteristics of that creature or ghost were supposed to be." She went on to say that about one-third of what she had written is based on actual occultism. (J.K. Rowling interview on The Diane Rehm Show, WAMU, NPR, 10/20/99)

So according to the author of the Harry Potter books, one third of the Harry Potter books are actually occultic. Is this really okay for our Christian children? As Christians, just how much "occultism" should we allow into our spiritual diets? One half? One third? One teaspoon? Perhaps this short story will help illustrate my point:
Brownies With a Difference

Many parents are hard put to explain to their youth why some music, movies, books, games, and magazines are not acceptable material for them to bring into the home to see or hear. One parent came up with an original idea that was hard to refute.


He listened to all the reasons his children gave for wanting to see a particular PG-13 movie: it had their favorite actors, everyone else was seeing it, even church members said it was great, it was only rated PG-13 because of the suggestion of sex-they never really showed it, the language was pretty good-they only used the Lord's name in vain three times in the whole movie, the video effects were fabulous and the plot was action packed. Yes, there was the scene where a building and a bunch of people got blown up, but the violence was just the normal stuff, it wasn't very bad. Even with all these explanations for the rating, the father wouldn't give in. He didn't even give them a satisfying explanation for saying, "No." He just said "No."


Later that evening, this same father asked his teens if they would like some brownies he had prepared. He explained that he had taken the family's favorite recipe and added something new. They asked what it was. He calmly replied that he had added dog poop. He stated that it was only a tiny bit and that all the other ingredients were gourmet quality. He had taken great care to bake it at the precise temperature for the exact time. He was sure the brownies would be superb.


Even with all the explanations of the perfect attributes of the brownies, the teens would not take one. The father acted surprised. There was only one little element that would have caused them to act so stubbornly. He assured them that they would hardly notice it at all. But they all held firm and would not try the brownies.


He then explained that the movie they wanted to see was just like the brownies. Satan tries to enter our minds and our homes by deceiving us into believing that "just a little bit" of evil doesn't matter. With the brownies, just a little bit makes all the difference between a great brownie and a totally unacceptable product. He explained that even though the smallest amout of dog poop makes the brownie totally unacceptible, they seemed to having no problem consuming a movie movie of similar ingredients. The movie people would have us believe the movies which are coming out are acceptable for adults and youths to see, they are no more so than dog poop brownies are edible!


Now when this father's children want to do something or see something they should not, the father merely asks them if they would like some of his special dog poop brownies and they never ask about that item again.


Now, I can't say what it should look like in your family as you work through this issue. To make hard and fast rules in this area is to fall into legalism. But shouldn't we wrestle through these issues with much thoughtfulness and prayer, rather than just mindlessly allowing our children to consume what is cultural and popular?


I can say for myself that giving up my own attachment to these occultic types of books (including Harry Potter) was in some ways hard, because it's true, the characters are often magnetically compelling and the story-lines, of course, are designed to draw the reader in. I prayed and prayed about it, and truly God did a work for me that I could not have done myself (this was when I was a very new Christian). I began to be almost physically ill and was emotionally/spiritually very unsettled when I would try to read these books. My new "spiritual eyes" just refused to cooperate with me when I tried to read these books! I ended up going through the library in our home and filling 3 large garbage bags with stuff of this genre. Up to that point, I truly had no idea how much of this stuff I had consumed and "enjoyed".....it was rather sobering, to say the least. (Again, I'm not saying that's going to be everyone's experience, but I really encourage Christians who think of this as an area of liberty to pray through this issue, and if they come under conviction, I would suggest beseeching the LORD for help in being free from the bondage to these things.)


The passage that God really used to bring conviction for me was this:

"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God." Deut 18:10-13


Unfortunately for those who would claim this as an "area of liberty" for them, there is no caveat at the end of the above passage which says:

"However, if you are a mature Christian and relish stories of an occultic nature, you may indulge your mind in them at your discretion."

Didn't Jesus teach us that harboring sinfulness in our minds (lust, anger) was the same thing as actually committing the sins themselves (adultery, murder)? So the question must be asked: If Christians harbor the sinfulness of occultism in their minds through what they read, what would that mean, according to the standard that Jesus has given us? (Matthew 5:21-30)

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)