2013 Apologetics Conference, September 14, at Calvary Chapel of Lima, Ohio.
Featured speakers: Dr. Norm Geisler, Dr. Ron Rhodes, Dr. Mike Spaulding.
For more info email: events@cclohio.org or go to www.cclohio.org to download a conference flyer. Sponsored by Veritas Evangelical Seminary, Calvary Chapel of Lima, and Calvary Christian Fellowship St. Marys
2 Peter 2:1
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
What do you think it means to deny the Lord? Many would say that any person or group that doesn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God would be denying the Lord and that would be true enough. False religions like Islam and Hinduism would fall into this category. Most orthodox Christians would include the pseudo Christian cults like Jehovah’s Witness’, Mormons, and others of that ilk. And they would be correct but are these the false teachers Peter is referring to here?
If you look closely you will see that Peter says these false teachers will be “among you”. Since he was writing to a group of born again, Spirit filled believers we must conclude that he is not talking about the obvious false religions or even pseudo Christian cults. The false teachers he is speaking of will be found within the Body of Christ.
Now how do you suppose that false teachers will get away with denying the Lord among a group of believers?
The word denying as it is used here is the Greek word arneomai {ar-neh©-om-ahee}. It is the same word used in Titus 1:16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him…. Used in these contexts, the word means to contradict.
So a teacher that contradicts the Lord is in fact denying Him. He may say that Jesus is Lord. He may speak right sounding words claiming to be born again and he may have the biggest Bible you’ve ever seen but if his works or teaching contradicts the words of Jesus he is denying Him.
For example, when Benny Hinn claimed in 1999 that Jesus would physically appear at one of his upcoming crusades he was contradicting the specific words of the Lord Jesus.
Matthew 24:23 -26
“Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.”
By making the claim that Jesus would physically appear at one of his crusades Hinn contradicted (denied) the words of the Lord and proved himself to be a false prophet and false teacher
according to 2 Peter 2:1
The so called principle of seed faith giving was first popularized by Oral Roberts almost 50 years ago. It proved to be so profitable to him that he essentially based his entire ministry on it.
As with any other profitable venture others soon followed. Today it is used by virtually every “Faith” preacher, the majority of Christian television networks, and almost all TV preachers in general. It has even found its way into many mainstream and denominational churches.
How does seed faith giving work. It is loosely based (very loosely as we will see) on the parable of the sower found in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. Using the illustration of sowing seed, people are instructed that if they will give money to the church, the ministry, the TV network, the man of God, etc, God will multiply it back to them 30, 60, or 100 times more than they gave. In fact now days about all you ever hear about is the 100 fold return. The 30 and 60 fold returns
have pretty much been dropped altogether.
That’s a pretty good deal wouldn’t you say? Give God $1 and get back $100. Give God $100 and get back $10,000. Give God $10,000 and get back a cool million. And not only that, but you can also sow money and get back other things. Things like salvation for relatives, healing for incurable diseases, and deliverance from various demonic influences! That’s right, all you have to do is send your seed (meaning money) to the man of God!
Is this really what the parable of the sower is all about. What do you think? Let’s examine this important parable.
Luke 8:4-8 NASB
“When a large crowd was coming together, and those from the various cities were journeying to Him, He spoke by way of a parable: The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” As He said these things, He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Jesus explains the parable:
Luke 8:11 NASB
“Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.”
Now right here anybody with even a minimal level of reading comprehension should be able to see that this parable has nothing to do with money. The seed is the word of God. Even a brand new baby Christian should be able to look at this and say “I don’t think these fellows are teaching this correctly”
Let’s continue with Jesus’ explanation
Luke 8:12-15 NASB
“Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”
This parable is about what happens when the word of God is sown or revealed in the heart of a person. It may be the most important parable Jesus taught. Why do I say that? Because Jesus said this:
Mark 4:13
“And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?”
Jesus is saying that if you don’t understand this parable you won’t understand any of the parables he taught. This is a foundational teaching!
By misapplying the parable of the sower these false teachers do great damage to Gods people. First, by falsely claiming that God works like some kind of cosmic slot machine. But the real damage is in the fact that believers are robbed of the true meaning of this teaching.
The parable of the sower is at work every time Gods word is revealed to you. In fact it is at work right now in many of you who are reading this.
I know that many of you will read this and say “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that my favorite preacher would preach a false message” You’ll reject what I’m saying. You’ll actually be rejecting the words of Jesus.
The devil has come already to steal this word from you.
Some of you will hear what I say and receive it gladly. “ Glory to God” you’ll say, “preach it brother…. Hallelujah ” But you won’t take the time to really meditate on this word. You won’t really apply it.
And then a testing will come. Testing because of the word sown in your heart. A test to see if you really believe, trust in, rely on, adhere to what you claim to believe. You’ll be challenged. God Himself will allow that challenge, that test.
Will you pass the test? Or will you revert back to your traditional thinking?
And of course some of you will hear and believe but you won’t give this word the proper place in your life. You’ll think about it for a while. You’ll decide that it’s right but then you’ll get on with your life. You’ll get busy with your job, your family, your daily responsibilities and it will recede further and further into the recesses of your heart until it has no real value to you.
And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches will have choked the truth out of your heart.
But I know too that some of you will hear this word and receive it. You’ll meditate on it. You’ll give it the proper priority in your life. When challenged you’ll stand and agree with it rather tha contradict!
And you will have proven yourself to be good soil. You’ll produce fruit, becoming more and more Christ like in your life. You’ll become a disciple indeed.
John 8:31-32
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
A little leaven leavens the whole lump
Paul said that evil men will wax worse and worse and so it is with false teaching. The false ideology behind the seed faith message has infected the church to such a degree that many never even question the idea that if you “have a need” you must “plant a seed.”
But is that assumption theologically sound? Should we really plant a seed when we have a need?
During a recent telethon (beg-a-thon) Paul Crouch, founder of Trinity Broadcast Network explained that even God sowed a seed when He had a need.
That’s right God had a need. He’d lost His first family in Adam, Crouch explained, so God sowed His best seed, Jesus. Not only that, but God sowed in expectation. Just like we are taught to sow expecting a miracle, God sowed expecting a 100 fold return. He gave His son Jesus and got back many more sons and daughters. Proof positive that seed faith giving works!
Hogwash!
Does the Bible really teach that God had a need? Did God ever lose anything or anyone. Would you like God’s response to Mr. Crouch’s exhortation. Well look right here.
Psalm 50:9-12 NKJV
“I will not take a bull from your house, Nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.”
Or how about this verse Mr. Crouch.
Matthew 3:9
“And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”
God is God. He is not a man having needs. He didn’t lose anything. All is His. If He were hungry He wouldn’t tell us. Isn’t that incredible!
It is the height of arrogance (or perhaps apostasy) to claim that God is anything like us. He is in no way dependent on us. We are dependent on Him. And herein lies the real heresy of the seed faith message.
It turns the doctrine of grace into a doctrine of works and thereby denies the finished work of the cross.
The seed faith message is a message of works, not grace. It says God cannot or will not act until we do something.
Would you like to know how to have God meet all your needs, even financial needs every time? Go to the words of Jesus.
Matthew 6:31-33
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
What does Jesus say to do when you have a need? Does He say to sow a seed?
No, He says take no thought. He says don’t worry about material possessions. He says that the Father knows you have need of these things.
So, when a preacher says sow a seed after Jesus has said take no thought isn’t that preacher guilty of contradicting the Lord? Isn’t he in fact denying the Lord?
Of course Jesus doesn’t stop there. He tells us how to have our needs met. It’s simply, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
How do we seek His kingdom and His righteousness? Well, Gods kingdom and His righteousness are revealed in the Gospel
Romans 1:16-17
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”
The Gospel is defined in 1Cor 15:1-4.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
The Gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this Gospel that is the power of God. It is in this Gospel that God’s righteousness is revealed. It is in this Gospel that your needs are met.
Ephesians 2:8-9
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Like many Christians you’ve probably read this scripture so many times you don’t even think about it any more. You’re probably saying “yes, praise God I know that I’m saved by grace, I know that I’m heaven bound but what’s that got to do with me paying my bills?”
The word saved in the Greek is the word sozo. It means literally to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction, from injury or peril, to save a suffering one from perishing, to make well, heal, restore to health, to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue.
You see, to be saved means much more than just “go to heaven”. It means to be set at safety in the here and now. It means to be made safe in spirit, soul, and body. That would certainly include material things as well as eternal things wouldn’t it?
The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the free gift of God. It is salvation (all needs met) to everyone who believes. It requires no work on our part. It requires no vows, no pledges, no seeds of faith. What it requires is simply belief.
To believe means more than mere mental assent. It means that we trust in, rely on, adhere to the fact that God has provided for all our needs when He raised Jesus from the dead. In other words we must refuse to contradict (deny) the words of the Lord!
2 Peter 1:3
“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”
Gods divine power, that same power that raised Christ from the dead has (past tense) given to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness. All things means all things! All things that pertain to life would include finances to pay your bills!
God doesn’t want your money He wants your life.
The faith teachers like to suggest that you must make an exchange or a trade with God in order for Him to move on your behalf. You know what? They are right in principle but wrong in practice. The exchange is not material for material. It’s not give something to get something.
The exchange is your life for His. It’s your will for His will. It’s your desires for His desires. That’s the exchange. And that’s the only exchange God desires. It’s the only exchange He will honor.
A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to have eternal life. Jesus told him to obey Gods commandments. When the man answered that he had been doing that all his life, Jesus told him there was one thing he lacked.
Mark 10:21
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”
This passage is about seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It’s about what has priority in our lives.
Mark 10:22
“And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.”
The man chose material (temporal) wealth over eternal (true) life. He chose his will over Gods will.
What does it mean to “take up the cross”? It means to believe the gospel. To trust in, rely on, adhere to, the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our death, burial, and resurrection with Him!
That’s the exchange God is looking for!
Galatians 2:20
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Paul understood the exchange. He understood that to trust in, rely on, and adhere to the Gospel (the cross) he had to enter into it himself.
Romans 6:4
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Colossians 2:12
“Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”
When we reckon ourselves dead to the world we are made alive in Christ Jesus. When we lose our lives, we gain real life!
Mark 8:35
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”
Notice the next to last word in that scripture. That’s right, it’s the Greek word sozo again. To lose your life is to save it, to make it complete, to rescue it from destruction, injury, or peril. To be set at safety.
1 Corinthians 15:1
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;”
The seed you sow is yourself.
John 12:24
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
When you enter into the death burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ you sow your life. And you sow it 100%. Not a tenth, not a seed, all of your life must be sown.
New Testament Giving
The New Testament model for giving is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul here is exhorting the church in Corinth to fulfill an obligation to which they had earlier committed. The offering was being taken for the believers in Macedonia who were suffering great privation and affliction.
Notice if you will that the offering was to go to needy people, not to Pauls ministry . Paul was not taking up an offering for himself, or so that he could “reach the world for Christ” or build an orphanage, or stay on the air, or for any of the other reasons modern preachers give to extort
money from Gods people.
2 Corinthians 9:6-8
“But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
This passage of scripture clearly equates financial giving with sowing seed but it does not validate the “principle” of seed faith giving.
First of all our giving should be directed primarily toward the poor and needy. Here’s an interesting scripture you’ll never hear from these seed faith preachers
Proverbs 22:16
“He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.”
Aren’t you giving to the rich when you send “seed” to these money preachers? They all live in million dollar homes, drive high dollar cars, wear expensive suits. That sounds pretty rich to me. This scripture says that by the very thing you are doing, you’re perpetuating your own lack!
Secondly we should give as we purpose in our hearts. Third we should give cheerfully, not out of need (or just because there is a need), and not because we feel we must give (out of necessity).
Here is the place where the doctrine of seed faith giving contradicts the word of God. Every preacher practicing seed faith giving first of all makes you feel that you must give (of necessity) before God can move on your behalf. But look again at what Paul said:
“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity.”
Now think about it. Think about how these preachers put pressure on you to give. They make emotional appeals. They make extravagant claims. They tell you that you must give in order to receive from God. If you don’t give (and I mean right now!) you’ll miss God, etc, etc, on and on, ad infinitum.
Aren’t they contradicting the clear word of God? Aren’t they in fact denying the Lord who bought them?
The result of this model of giving is that we are promised that we will always have enough (always having all sufficiency in all things) for all the things that God asks us to do (to every good work).
This is in no way a promise or guarantee of worldly wealth. It is a promise that God will provide regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Philippians 4:11-12
“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 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.”
Now let’s look again at the proper object of our giving. This is important because wherever Jesus spoke of giving finances He spoke of giving alms. The word alms always means a gift of charity. This is giving specifically for the benefit of the poor.
When Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler what did he tell him to do?
Mark 10:21
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”
Jesus told him to give to the poor. He didn’t say give to my ministry. He didn’t say give at the temple. He said give to the poor. Jesus spoke may times of giving alms.
Matthew 6:1
“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.”
Luke 11:41
“But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.”
Luke 12:33
“Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.”
In the book of Acts we see the spiritual and physical benefits of giving alms.
Acts 10:1-2
“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.”
Acts 10:4
“And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.”
God rewarded Cornelius (a gentile Roman soldier) with salvation for himself and his household because of his prayers and his alms (gifts to the poor).
How often are we taught today to give alms to the poor?
Now I know that these seed faith preachers make a pretense of giving to the poor. But how much of what they receive really go to the poorest among us? I can tell you that it is precious little. Many of the largest ministries take in millions of dollars each year and send a few thousand dollars per month to missionaries in third world countries.
Do you realize how few dollars it takes to feed and cloth the poor in the poorest nations, Many missionaries are thrilled to have a $2,000 or $3,000 per month donation from a major ministry. These missionaries are to be commended. For the most part they are doing a great work and doing it unto the “least of these” (Matthew 25:45).
But the seed faith preachers who make a show out of giving a relative pittance, that’s another matter. In fact the reason most of them give to missions at all is so that they can go to the mission once a year with their cameras to show their “partners” how they are feeding starving kids. This is a pure business decision. By showing pictures of them hugging poor third world kids they are able to deceive even more people into sending them money. It’s all a scam, a charade.
Jesus tells us we shall know them by their fruit. Or by the results of their lives
Matthew 7:16
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Here are some of the fruits of these seed faith preachers
Oral Roberts
“Here is a portrait of the real Oral Roberts, the man not too many of his admirers know. He dresses in Brioni suits that cost $500 to $1000; walks in $100 shoes; lives in a $250,000 house in Tulsa and has a million dollar home in Palm Springs; wears diamond rings and solid gold bracelets employees `airbrush©out of his publicity photos; drives $25,000 automobiles which are replaced every 6 months; flies around the country in a $2 million fanjet falcon; has membership, as does his son Richard, in `the most prestigious and elite country club in Tulsa, the Southern Hills (the membership fee alone was $18,000 for each, with $130 monthly dues) and in `the ultra-posh Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California (both father and son joined when memberships were $20,000 each – they are now $25,000); and plays games of financial hanky-panky that have made him and his family members independently wealthy (millionaires) for life. (When his daughter and son-in-law were killed, they left a $10 million estate; Evangelist E.L. Sumner review of “Give Me That Old Time Religion,” by Jerry Sholes; editor’s note – numbers quoted here are from the mid to late 70’s).
Paul and Jan Crouch
TBN Televangelists Buy $5,000,000 Home
LOS ANGELES TIMES, Nov.4,2001, page K15
Televangelists JAN and PAUL CROUCH of the Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network have purchased a Newport Beach house for close to $5 million, Orange County Realtors say.
The home was described as “a palatial estate with ocean and city views.” The Crouches had been living in a smaller house in the same neighborhood.
The house they bought has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a billiard room, a climate-controlled wine cellar, a sweeping staircase and a crystal chandelier.
The three-story, nearly 9,500-square-foot house, which has an elevator, also has a six-car garage, a tennis court and a pool with a fountain.
The house is on slightly more than an acre. Jan Crouch had been wanting a bigger yard for her dogs, sources said. Trinity Broadcasting, established in 1973, has more than 768 TV stations on the air worldwide. The Crouches oversee a $100-million-plus-a-year enterprise. Even so, faithful viewers are said to consider the couple, who are in their 60′s and have been married since the 50’s, as everyday folk.
Creflo Dollar
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 9, 2000
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/newsatlanta/dollar/main.html
The Rev. Creflo Dollar Jr. has unabashedly embraced his name by building a
religious empire on the message that his brand of piety leads to prosperity.
He drives a black Rolls-Royce, flies to speaking engagements across the nation and Europe in a $5 million private jet and lives in a $1 million home behind iron gates in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood.
Joel Osteen
The younger Osteen lives the life of prosperity that he preaches. A 2001 Real Estate Guide (http://north-valley.com/realestate_board/messages/157.html ) valued his home at $1,265,500.
Benny Hinn
What happened to Hinn’s promised healing center?
06/23/2002
By STEVE McGONIGLE / The Dallas Morning News
Evangelist Benny Hinn dazzled an overflowing Reunion Arena three years ago with plans to bring a touch of Lourdes to Las Colinas.
The flamboyant Pentecostal preacher offered the crowd a multimedia tour of his proposed $30 million shrine to faith healing and solicited donations to pay for it. The start of construction was imminent, he told followers. Mr. Hinn’s “World Healing Center” never materialized. After a few months, he stopped talking about the project. His tax-exempt ministry did not have to give a public accounting of how much money he raised or how it was spent, and it didn’t.
Last year, a subsidiary led by Mr. Hinn began work on a $3 million “parsonage” overlooking the Pacific Ocean south of Los Angeles.
Paula White
http://www.cephasministry.com/news_pulse_9.2003.html#anchor760
Supporters of Randy and Paula White say they have no problem with their displays of wealth. Tampa – When preachers Randy and Paula White bought the $2.2 million red-brick house on Bayshore Boulevard last month, they were already thinking ahead to November. “We always do a Table in the Wilderness Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless,” says Randy White, senior pastor at Without Walls International Church. “Now that we have the space to do it on our own we’d like to find a way to bus them here for the party.” A spacious yard is attached to the 8,000-spare-foot, five-bedroom English manor home. And the White’s church has its own buses. IN HIS SERMON “PROSPERITY OR POVERTY,” White announced he and his wife had bought this house. Their taste in cars reflects their substantial income. She drives a Mercedes sedan, he a Cadillac Escalade. The side of Randy White’s car is emblazoned with “Big Daddy” – a nickname bestowed by inner-city kids served by the church’s many missions. Randy and Paula White married in 1988 and in 14 years they claim 15,000 members and offer 250 ministries from job training for welfare recipients to a teen rock club. Randy is a fifth generation preacher. Much of their money comes from tax dollars through the faith-based initiative.
Joyce Meyer
From Fenton to fortune in the name of God
Carolyn Tuft and Bill Smith
©2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
11/15/2003
Joyce Meyer says God has made her rich.
Everything she has has come from him: the $10 million corporate jet, her husband’s $107,000 silver-gray Mercedes sedan, her $2 million home and houses worth another $2 million for her four children — all blessings, she says, straight from the hand of God……
A penchant for nice things
Meyer is fond of nice things and is willing to spend for them. From an $11,000 French clock in the ministry’s Fenton Headquarters to a $105,000 Crownline boat docked behind her vacation home at Lake of the Ozarks, its clear her tastes run more to Perrier than to tap water. ….
The ministry’s headquarters is a three story jewel of red brick and emerald colored glass that, from the outside, has the look and feel of a luxury resort hotel.
Built two years ago for $20 million, the building and grounds are postcard perfect, from manicured flower beds and walkways to a five-story lighted cross.
The building is decorated with religious paintings and sculptures, and quality furniture. Much of it, Meyer says, she selected herself.
A Jefferson County assessor’s list offers a glimpse into the value of many of the items: a $19,000 pair of Dresden vases, six French crystal vases bought for $18,500, an $8,000 Dresden porcelain depicting the Nativity, two $5,800 curio cabinets, a $5,700 porcelain of the Crucifixion, a pair of German porcelain vases bought for $5,200.
The decor includes a $30,000 malachite round table, a $23,000 marble-topped antique commode, a $14,000 custom office bookcase, a $7,000 Stations of the Cross in Dresden porcelain, a $6,300 eagle sculpture on a pedestal, another eagle made of silver bought for $5,000, and numerous paintings purchased for $1,000 to $4,000 each.
Inside Meyer’s private office suite sit a conference table and 18 chairs bought for $49,000. The woodwork in the offices of Meyer and her husband cost the ministry $44,000.
In all, assessor’s records of the ministry’s personal property show that nearly $5.7 million worth of furniture, artwork, glassware, and the latest equipment and machinery fill the 158,000-square-foot building.
As of this summer, the ministry also owned a fleet of vehicles with an estimated value of $440,000. The Jefferson County assessor has been trying to get the complex and its contents added to the tax rolls but has failed.
Stylish sports cars and a plane
Meyer drives the ministry’s 2002 Lexus SC sports car with a retractable top, valued at $53,000. Her son Dan, 25, drives the ministry’s 2001 Lexus sedan, with a value of $46,000. Meyer’s husband drives his Mercedes-Benz S55 AMG sedan.
“My husband just likes cars,” Meyer said.
The Meyer’s keep the ministry’s Canadair CL-600 Challenger jet, which Joyce Meyer says is worth $10 million, at Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield. The ministry employs two full-time pilots to fly the Meyers to conferences around the world.
These are just a few of the most prominent seed faith preachers. Now I ask you do you honestly believe these people are living the crucified life. Have they forsaken all to follow Jesus. Have they forsaken the world or do they love the things of this world?
Joyce Meyer says her husband drives a $100,000 Mercedes because he “just likes cars”. But the Apostle John says:
1 John 2:15-16
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
Do you think that a $100,000 Mercedes qualifies as a thing that is “of the world”? How about that $30,000 malachite table Joyce bought for the office, or the $11,000 French clock, or the $105,000 boat at the $500,000 lake house, or the …. well, you get the idea.
Look again at the words of John. He says that if any man (person) love the world (and by extension the things of the world ) the love of the Father is not in him.
Do you believe the Bible? Do you believe the Bible is contradictory? Do you believe that what God says applies to some people but not to others? Do you believe that Joyce Meyer and her husband have the love of God in their hearts?
Paula and Randy White need an 8,000 square foot, $2 million home so that they can bus poor people in once a year and feed them. Feeding the poor is a commendable thing to do. But Jesus says:
Matthew 6:1-2
“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
When the Whites announce that they will be feeding the homeless at Thanksgiving are they not “sounding a trumpet” Are they not doing their alms “to be seen of men”. According to Jesus doesn’t this make them hypocrites?
We could continue with this exercise but I think you get the point. Are these peoples lives and words in agreement with the words of Jesus and the apostles or are they contradicting (denying) Him?
You’ll know them by their fruit
Now I know that many of you will now accuse me of judging. Well, you’re correct, I am judging these hypocrites and false teachers. I am judging them the way we as Christians are instructed to judge.
Matthew 7:15-16
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Matthew 7:20
“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Jesus says we will know them “by their fruits” In other words we will know them by what their lives produce. Not by what they say but by what they do . Talk is cheap. Don’t tell me, show me!
Tell me this. Who do you think Jesus was talking about when he said these words “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He certainly wasn’t talking about the unsaved. He wasn’t talking about the cults and false religions. Hindus don’t prophesy in Jesus name and Muslims don’t cast out devils.
If you are honest with yourself (and if you haven’t let the devil steal the word that this teaching has been sowing in your heart) you must acknowledge that the people He is talking about are the very teachers and preachers we see on TBN and Daystar every day. These wolves in sheeps clothing that tell us that if we have a need we must sow a seed. These false prophets who deny (contradict) the Lord who bought them. These so called great men and women of God (and their followers) who “through covetousness.. with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2Peter 2:3).
These are the ones Jesus says shall not enter in. Why? Because only those who do the will of the Father shall enter.
Obey God not man
Have you been a follower of any of these false prophets? Have you been “sowing your seed” faithfully. Have you been giving sacrificially to the man or woman of God? |
Have you received your hundred fold return?
I don’t mean have you had some occasional victories here and there. I want to know have you received your hundred fold return. Has it worked for you like it seems to work for them? Are you living in a $2 million dollar home? Do you have a $100,000 Mercedes. Do you fly around the country in a private jet?
Well, why not? I hear these people all the time say that God is no respecter of persons (Rom 2:11) They say that what He did for one He will do for another. So again I ask, where is your Mercedes, and your $5 million estate?
Are you honest enough to ask yourself and your heavenly Father why you’re still following these people when it’s obviously not working in your life?
Do you really want the answer? Now before you go any further you should know that once you receive the truth you are responsible for it.
2 Peter 2:1-3
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
And so we are back to the scripture with which we started. False teachers are among us. They are bringing in damnable heresies like seed faith giving. In doing so they deny or contradict the Lord who bought them. They are destined for swift destruction.
And many of you are following their pernicious (destroying) ways. And because of this the true Gospel is ridiculed throughout our society.
It is by using the sin of covetousness that they make merchandise (exploit or use) of you.
This covetousness is in your heart. You follow them because you desire the things they promise. Even when you see the scriptures that condemn them you ignore them , you evade them, you rationalize in your mind that the scripture doesn’t really mean what it say. You have itching ears and are heaping up to yourself teachers after your own lusts.
You are guilty before God and you will share in the swift destruction reserved for these false prophets if you don’t repent.
Matthew 10:41
“He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.”
Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. If you receive (take hold of, take up with) a false prophet you will share in that false prophets reward.
If you are convicted by this word you need to repent. Repent means to change your mind. It means to change direction. It is an act of will.
Ask your heavenly Father to deliver you from the covetousness in your heart. Ask Him to deliver you from the love of worldly things. Ask Him to show you the truth as it is written in the word without adding to it the traditions of men.
Take up your cross today. Deny yourself. Deny your fleshly desires and humble yourself before the Most High God. Enter into the death burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Reckon yourself dead. Lay your life on the altar. Present yourself as a living sacrifice.
Don’t wait. Now is the acceptable time. Repent and believe the Gospel before it is too late.
Revelation 18:4
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Steve Lumbley 2003
www.apostasywatch.com
This article may be reproduced and distributed free of charge as long as it remains in its original form.
In my previous article I showed that Classical Liberalism and Objectivism can’t defend private property on ethical grounds. They defend it on historical, pragmatic, linguistic grounds, etc., but they don’t give a defense of private property as ethical in itself. In all their views private property appeared long after man appeared, and is a later development. Therefore, it is not “natural” to man, that is, it is not part of his “natural state.” It is not sacred, Ludwig von Mises said, and thus he declared the impossibility of defending it on ethical grounds.
Unfortunately, there were others who started from the same philosophical presuppositions: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[1] And unlike Dietze, Mises, or Rand, Marx and Engels were logical and consistent with their presuppositions: If private property was external to human nature, then it was alien to human nature. If mankind is to return to its “natural state,” it must abolish the source of all alienation and suffering: private property. Marx and Engels took the philosophical separation of property from human nature that the defenders of natural law upheld and developed practical ideology consistent with it. That ideology looked monstrous, unnatural, ugly, and it was monstrous, unnatural, and ugly. But it was logically and intellectually consistent, and it won the day, and it is still winning the day. What Dietze, Mises, and Rand lamented—the decline of property rights—was nothing but the predictable result of the superior logical consistency of Marxism.
There is only one ideology that defends private property on ethical grounds: Christianity, with its Biblical worldview, its doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God, and its doctrine of the moral superiority of the Law of God to any man-made laws.
Dietze got it right at the start: Property is an ethical institution, and first and foremost an ethical institution. It can’t be anything else, it can’t be defended on any other ground, any other ground is sand, and it will eventually collapse under the assault of the opponents of private property.
Then Dietze went in a completely wrong direction, philosophically. So did Mises. So did Rand. In order to defend property, we must declare its sacredness. We must declare its intrinsic goodness. And we must declare its naturalness. If it is not sacred, if it is not intrinsically good, and if it is not part of human nature—as opposed to external to human nature—property is only an expedient tool to be disposed of at will. If it is so, we have no recourse against those that want to confiscate our property in the name of expediency or of “return to nature.”
And the only way to declare its sacredness, goodness, and naturalness is to accept the Bible’s claim that man was created an owner, and that he owned private property from the very beginning of his created existence. Humans did not develop the concept of property, nor did it evolve in result of man’s praxis or interaction. Property was inextricably part of man’s existence in the Garden, and there is no way to define man as a being without property.
That view of property as being inextricably part of the very nature of man is reflected in the Ten Commandments. The same law code that protects man’s life protects his property too—in the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments. We can’t define man without his life; in the same way, we cannot define man without his property. His life is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred, in the same way, his property is an “ethical institution,” it is sacred.
This definition of man as a being that naturally has life and property is not a mere philosophical assumption; it flows from the very nature of objective reality because God Himself is a Proprietor. In the Third Commandment—which corresponds to the Eighth in the first five Commandments—God declares limits to man’s use of His name. God is not a remote being. He owns everything, including the breath from our mouth, and we are not allowed to use that breath in a way that violates God’s name. Using God’s name in an inappropriate way was as heavy a crime as worshipping other gods, and violating His property was a crime against the Person of God. In the same way, Biblically, violating a man’s property was a crime against the person of man.
It is no wonder, then, that the idea of sacred property rights originated with Christianity, and it developed as Christianity developed doctrinally and worked out its doctrines in practice. Even as early as the 4th century Bishop Ambrose declared to Emperor Theodosius the theological connection between God’s property and a private man’s property. When he was commanded by the Emperor, “Surrender the Basilica,” Ambrose replied:
It is not lawful for me to surrender it nor good for you, Emperor, to receive it. By no right can you violate the house of a private person. Do you think that a house of God can be taken away from Him? . . . If you hope for a long reign, submit yourself to God.
Notice the argument: The house of a private person is just as inviolable as is the House of God. In a remarkable early defense of property rights, Ambrose didn’t hesitate to declare: “By no right!,” and he made a connection that the Bible made from the very beginning. Had Ambrose wanted to defend property rights on the basis of natural law, he would have been as helpless as Dietze, Mises, or Rand. But his firm stand on the theological foundation of property made Theodosius yield and repent.
The “evolution” of property rights was only observable in the Christian West in the last 1500 years. Moreover, it was not an independent event: It followed the “evolution” of the doctrines of Christianity, as Christian thinkers studied the Bible and applied it to their theory and practice. The “Renaissance” in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Scholastic revolution, contributed to the development of private property rights more than anything before.
And of course, the Protestant Reformation, in its return to the pure teachings of the Bible, exalted property rights to the level of a “divine right” for the individual. Contrary to what Mises and Rand believed, capitalism did not create property rights. It was the perfection of the legal concept of property rights by Protestant theologians that created capitalism, and therefore created the modern world. Capitalism did not create property; property created capitalism; and the Bible established property and built a defense perimeter around it, and sanctioned its ethical and economic advance.
Much is said by Classical Libertarians and by Ayn Rand herself about the American Revolution and its great principle of the rights to Life, Liberty, and Property. And yet, one will be pressed hard to find a justification of that belief on any other basis but Christianity. Why would Property be equal in value as a right to Life, if we accept natural law as our foundation? After all, man was man long before he had any property, if one accepts the evolutionist ideas of the believers in natural law. It is only when we lay the Creation account as our foundation that we can add Property to Life as an unalienable right. And therefore, the greatest victory for property rights in the history of mankind—the American Revolution—cannot be understood without its Christian foundations.
Christianity as the only philosophical foundation to property is also the explanation for the decline of property rights in the 20th century. The more Christ is banned from the public discourse, the less His Law—the only foundation for property—has influence over the public actions of men and their political representatives. Modern society still has some notion of property because of its Christian past; in fact, Classical Liberals themselves wouldn’t be able to produce their great works if it wasn’t for the Christian roots of our civilization. They intuitively accept the logical conclusions of the Law of God – the importance of the private property rights—while intellectually rejecting its premises. But the removal of Christianity from society has taken its toll; and the decline of all rights, including property rights, is part of that toll. There is only one possible defense of property—ethical defense—and there is only one ideology that supplies both the epistemological foundations and the legal corpus for that defense. That ideology is based on the Biblical worldview. Remove that foundation, and property rights will follow.
Therefore the restoration of property rights can and will start only with the restoration of Christianity to its place of a dominant religion in the West. Only when our law codes, our cultural practices, our economic, political, scientific, scholarly and other fields of society submit to the revelation and the requirements of the Law of God, we will see the property rights truly upheld and defended. Like all other rights, property rights come from God, and they stand or fall with our obedience to God, as a nation under Him.
Endnote:
[1] See Communist Manifesto, Anti-Düring, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Das Kapital, The Principles of Communism, and others.
http://www.americanvision.org/article/the-only-possible-defense-of-private-property/
The Only Possible Defense of Private Property by Bojidar Marinov, Feb 11, 2010
Patriots, Christians and concerned citizens are increasingly in the cross hairs of the U.S. intelligence community, and battle lines are being quietly drawn that could soon pit our own law enforcement and military forces against us.
A February 20 report entitled “The Modern Militia Movement [2]” was issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) that paints mainstream patriotic Americans as dangerous threats to law enforcement and to the country. Operating under the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the MIAC is listed as a Fusion Center [3] that was established in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Because authenticity of the report was questioned by some, this writer contacted Missouri state Representative Jim Guest (R-KingCity) who had personally verified that the report had indeed been issued. Rep. Guest is chairman of the Personal Privacy Committee and is a prominent leader in the national blowback against the Real ID Act of 2005 that requires states to issue uniform driver’s licenses containing personal biometric data. (See Guest warns against Big Brother, Real ID [4])
Rep. Guest stated that he was “shocked and outraged” at the report, which clearly paints him and many other elected state leaders, as a potential threats to law enforcement.
Instead of focusing on actual criminal incidents of “home-grown” terrorism, the MAIC report instead lists issues that it believes are common to the threats it perceives. Thus, Americans involved with the following issues are highly suspect:
– “Ammunition Accountability Act” – requiring each bullet to to be serialized and registered to the purchaser.
– “Anticipation of the economic collapse of the US Government” – Prominent scholars and economists are openly debating the bankruptcy and insolvency of the United States government.
– “Possible Constitutional Convention (Con Con)” – 32 states have called for a Constitutional Convention to force Congress and the Executive Branch into a balanced budget, but many are concerned that if called, Con Con would be taken over by hostile interests who would introduce Amendments that are harmful to national sovereignty.
– “North American Union” – MIAC states that “Conspiracy theorists claim that this union would link Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The NAU would unify its monetary system and trade the dollar for the AMERO. Associated with this theory is concern over a NAFTA Superhighway, which would fast track trade between the three nations. There is additional concern that the NAU would open up the border causing security risks and free movement for immigrants.”
– “Universal Service Program” – “Statements made by President Elect Obama and his chief of staff have led extremists to fear the creation of a Civilian Defense Force. This theory requires all citizens between the age of 18 and 25 to be forced to attend three months of mandatory training.” (This is exactly what Obama and Rahm Emmanuel have repeatedly stated on national TV, and thus is hardly a theory.)
– “Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)” – This includes human implantation, but the larger concern is universal id cards and personal property identification that can be read electronically without the bearer’s knowledge.
Citizens who are concerned about the above issues are then lumped into radical ideologies such as Christian Identity, White Nationalists (e.g., neo-Nazi, Skinheads, etc.) and anti-Semites. Tax Resisters and Anti-Immigration advocates are thrown into the same category.
The MIAC report then sternly warns law enforcement personnel,
“You are the Enemy: The militia subscribes to an antigovernment and NWO mind set, which creates a threat to law enforcement officers. They view the military, National Guard, and law enforcement as a force that will confiscate their firearms and place them in FEMA concentration camps.” [Bold emphasis appears in original]
On the last page of the MIAC report, a section listing Political Paraphernalia (flags and symbols) states,
“Militia members most commonly associate with 3rd party political groups. It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr.
Militia members commonly display picture, cartoons, bumper stickers that contain anti-government rhetoric. Most of this material will depict the FRS, IRS, FBI, ATF, CIA, UN, Law Enforcement, and the ‘New World Order’ in a derogatory manor (sic). Additionally, Racial, anti-immigration, and anti-abortion, material may be displayed by militia members.”
What was the ostensible genesis of all these “threats” to law enforcement? The report explains it this way…
“Academics contend that female and minority empowerment in the 1970s and 1960s caused a blow to white male’s sense of empowerment. This, combined with a sense of defeat from the Vietnam War, increased levels of immigration, and unemployment, spawned a paramilitary culture. This caught on in the 1980′s with injects such as Tom Clancy novels, Solder of Fortune Magazine, and movies such as Rambo that glorified combat. This culture glorified white males and portrayed them as morally upright heroes who were mentally and physically tough.
“It was during this timeframe that many individuals and organizations began to concoct conspiracy theories to explain their misfortunes. These theories varied but almost always involved a globalist dictatorship the”New World Order (NWO), which conspired to exploit the working class citizens.”
In other words, these “ridiculous NWO theories” were created by psychological deviants who were trying to justify their own self-induced misfortunes.
For unsuspecting law enforcement personnel, this MIAC training document polarizes unsuspecting officers to fear peaceful, law-abiding citizens and greatly increases the risk of armed confrontation. For instance, a routine traffic stop would be escalated if the officer observes a Ron Paul or Chuck Baldwin bumper sticker on the rear bumper of the car. The mere possession of printed material such as the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights would be viewed as subversive, even though most officers are required to take an oath to “defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States” as a condition of their employment.
Additionally, troopers are indoctrinated that all such topics are pure fantasy and without any factual basis. Even if they had their own concerns, they would be ridiculed into accepting the position that all criticism of the New World Order is dangerous to their well being.
The Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, Missouri) reports this concern from local resident Tim Neal, who apparently fits the MIAC’s “Modern Militia” profile:
If a police officer is pulling me over with my family in the car and he sees a bumper sticker on my vehicle that has been specifically identified as one that an extremist would have in their vehicle, the guy is probably going to be pretty apprehensive and not thinking in a rational manner, and this guy’s walking up to my vehicle with a gun.
As mentioned above, the MissouriInformationAnalysisCenter is one of a network of over 50 Fusion Centers around the country.
According to the National Criminal Intelligence Resource Center [5] (NCIRC), a Fusion Center is “a collaborative effort of two or more agencies that provide resources, expertise, and/or information to the center with the goal of maximizing the ability to detect, prevent, apprehend, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity.”
As of 2006, the NCIRC listed 50 Fusion Centers [3]in various states.
Most importantly, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are the driving forces behind Fusion Centers, having published “Fusion Center Guidelines: Developing and Sharing Information and Intelligence in a New World. [6]” This report headlines “Fusion” as “Turning Information and Intelligence Into Actionable Knowledge.”
Fusion Centers are one of five areas of information sharing under the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) [7] that was established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 [8].
ISE membership includes the Department of Commerce, CIA, Department of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, Department of Energy, FBI, Health and Human Services, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Homeland Security, National Counter-Terrorism Center, Department of Interior, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Justice, Department of State, Department of Transportation and the Department of Treasury.
According to one white paper (on the ISE web site) entitled The Intelligence Fusion Process for State, Local and Tribal Law Enforcement [9], “The most important output of the intelligence Fusion Center is actionable intelligence. This means that the intelligence produced by the center will drive operational responses and strategic awareness of threats.” Accordingly,
“The heart of good intelligence analysis is to have a diverse array of valid and reliable raw information for analysis. The more robust the raw information, the more accurate the analytic output (i.e., intelligence) will be.”
The above mentioned MIAC report, issued by an official Fusion Center, is apparently part of this “diverse array of valid and reliable raw information.”
However, ISE’s understanding of intelligence is foolish. Any intelligence analyst knows that so-called raw information is treated as garbage until verified from multiple sources to validate accuracy, completeness and freedom from bias. Secondly, analytic output depends upon trained and experienced human reasoning and judgment, not on the “robustness” of the raw information itself.
According to their own documents, Fusion Centers are “seeded” with ideas for analysis by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Although this is problematic in itself, attention is better directed to the left-wing nonprofit organization, Southern Poverty Law Center [10] (SPLC).
Upon careful word and theme comparison between the MIAC report and SPLC literature, it is apparent that there is a significant link between the two. Either MIAC received training or training material from SPLC or some of its personnel had some previous exposure to it.
The SPLC aggressively offers training [11] to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. According to the SPLC web site, “We focus on the history, background, leaders and activities of far-right extremists in the U.S.” and states that it “is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.”
Hate crimes are essentially acts of vilification of a victim because of his or her membership in a certain social group, such as racial, religious, sexual orientation, nationality, gender, etc. While hate crimes are wrong under any circumstance, the SPLC sees no conflict in profiling conservative whites, Christians, Constitutionalists, and patriots as being associated with, if not responsible for, hate crimes in America. This is the pot calling the kettle black.
For instance, consider the SPLC statement, “…a basic fact about all three movements: Patriots, white supremacists and anti-abortion militants are all fueled by interpretations of religion.”
Aside from the fact that this sweeping generalization is plainly not true, it is mud-slinging at its best: Patriots are lumped in with white supremacists, anti-abortionists are militants, and all are driven by an obviously irrational and fanatical application of religion.
In another SPLC article about a tragic killing in South Carolina, entitled “The Abbeville Horror [12]“, the writer goes well beyond just the facts of the story and is careful to sprinkle in words and phrases such as:
Patriots, tax protestors, sovereign citizens, antigovernment extremists, New World Order paranoia, Disarming U.S. Citizens, hard-line Christian Right, constitutional rights, antigovernment “Patriot” literature, anti-Semitic conspiracy, “Live Free or Die,” Ruby Ridge and Waco, Second Amendment, extremist organizing, “closet extremists,” paranoid beliefs, “Give me liberty or give me death.” [quotes appear in original text]
These are the same kinds of words and themes that are seen in The Modern Militia Movement article, where distinctions between good and bad people are blurred and confused: All are guilty by association, if nothing else.
Should a private organization like SPLC be allowed to provide official training to public-entrusted law enforcement agencies? Most would say, “No.” Even if the training was free, the agency should reject influence from the public sector, and even more so if it presents biased and one-sided information that is claimed to be factual.
It is critical to understand that the legitimate law enforcement agencies of cities, counties and states are not adversaries of the people. They are greatly needed for protection against crime and for keeping order in our communities.
They are, however, being methodically seeded with very wrongheaded and dangerous information, the specific intent of which is to polarize law enforcement against peaceful citizens who simply care about the downfall of their country.
This writer interviewed Chuck Baldwin and asked about how he felt when he first saw his good name associated with those who would threaten bodily harm to law enforcement agencies. “Personally, I was stunned,” he said, “but my family has taken this very personally as well. This is more than disturbing.”
When asked about the possible affect of the report on the Constitution Party, of which he was the 2008 presidential candidate, he replied, “I think it will galvanize people and help them to understand the nature of the battle we are in. Freedom must be defended.”
In fact, the MIAC report has created a firestorm all over America. Tens of thousands of protests are being called, written, emailed and faxed to authorities and legislators in Missouri. It would not be surprising to see the report rescinded and an apology given.
Even so, behind-the-scene groups like the SPLC will continue unabated and undeterred in their effort to misinform and disrupt healthy community relations with worthy law enforcement agencies and personnel.
The message to every jurisdiction: Don’t let it happen!
Locate the Fusion Center in your state [3] and keep a close eye on the information they are releasing. Stay close to as many law enforcement personnel as you can, asking them to keep their eyes open for reports similar to the Missouri report. Petition your state legislators to ban law enforcement training by private organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Article printed from August Forecast & Review: http://www.augustforecast.com
URL to article: http://www.augustforecast.com/2009/03/18/the_radical_polarization_of_law_enforcement/
URLs in this post:
[1] Share: http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php
[2] The Modern Militia Movement: http://www.augustreview.com/images/stories/miacreport.pdf
[3] listed as a FusionCenter: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ise/state.pdf
[4] Guest warns against Big Brother, Real ID: http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2009/feb/11/guest-warns-against-big-brother-real-id/?local
[5] NationalCriminalIntelligenceResourceCenter: http://www.ncirc.gov/
[6] FusionCenter Guidelines: Developing and Sharing Information and Intelligence in a New World.: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ise/guidelines.pdf
[7] Information Sharing Environment (ISE): http://www.ise.gov/index.html
[8] Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004: http://www.ise.gov/docs/guidance/irtpa.pdf
[9] The Intelligence Fusion Process for State, Local and Tribal Law Enforcement: http://www.ise.gov/pages/partner-fc.html
[10] Southern PovertyLawCenter: http://www.splcenter.org/
[11] training: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/law.jsp
[12] The Abbeville Horror: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=671
[13] FBI nudges state ‘fusion centers’ into the shadows: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9916599-38.html
[14] FusionCenters and Privacy: http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/
[15] Backgrounder: Fusion Centers: http://www.cfr.org/publication/12689/
[16] Information Sharing Environment: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ise/index.html
by Patrick Wood, Editor, August Review
March 18, 2009
At a packed town meeting of over 1,000 people hosted by Democrat Sen. Mark Warner in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a woman prefaced her question by expressing a broader concern: “For the first time I don’t believe the President we have is a patriot. I think a lot of the concern and discontent is less about health care than trusting the agenda of this administration.” Sen. Warner harshly rebuked her, calling the remark offensive and declaring Obama “a great patriot.” Yet judging by the storm of applause that greeted her comment, she echoed the feelings of many others in the hall.
What did patriotism mean to the questioner and that wildly applauding audience? Presumably pride in America, its values and institutions, its freedoms, the opportunities it offers the individual, its efforts to act in accordance with those values both domestically and internationally. And what made many in that audience uneasy – including some who must have voted for him – was the growing sense that their President did not look upon the country the way they did, did not look upon his task to preserve what they believed best about America, but sought to transform these United States according to values deeply alien to theirs.
They were worried by manifold signs of this, small and large, some only assuming their significance in hindsight like that pre-inauguration statement: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” There was that surprising deep bow to the Saudi king who represents values as antithetical as imaginable to those of this country. There were the overseas trips with serial apologies for past American behavior to leaders devoid of moral credentials. There was the reaching out to Venezuela’s abhorrent President Chávez. There was the fulsome praise of Islam and its supposed achievements (much of it baseless) in Egypt, the harsh treatment of democratic allies like Israel and Honduras, the indifference to the vicious suppression of Iranians protesting the theft of their election by Ahmadinejad.
Domestically, there was the huge pile-up of debt via the stimulus and de facto nationalizations of much of the housing and automobile industry. Why was Congress pressed to pass literally overnight bills few if any had read? Even more puzzling, why, in a time of economic crisis, did Obama insist on taking over health care? Why the eagerness to ram through a 1,000 page bill prior to the August recess with the potential to turn one seventh of the economy over to the government – and, as the Congressional Budget Office has attested, add trillions in debt – without the normal process of hearings and debate? After all, as Thomas Sowell has noted, the provisions are not designed to go into effect until 2013! Why, with unemployment high and rising, seek to enact a gigantic new tax in the shape of a “cap and trade” bill that all serious studies showed would result in the loss of huge numbers of jobs?
And then there were the czars – Phyllis Schlafly counted 34 of them – paid for by the taxpayer but not subject to Senate confirmation, accountable to no one but the President. Where did they fit in? Were they a species of Commiczars setting policy that the established cabinet members and government bureaucracies would be expected to implement? Even veteran Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd called them a power grab by the executive that violates the constitutional separation of powers. And what a strange lot some of them were. So far out that he had to be thrown overboard was self-styled revolutionary communist “green” Commiczar Van Jones who initially recognized how insane it was for Obama to make him part of his administration. “I burst out laughing because at the time it seemed completely ludicrous that it would even be an option,” he told a reporter in March. (That did not prevent him from portraying himself in his resignation letter six months later as an innocent victim of “a vicious smear campaign” by opponents of health reform.)
To understand Obama and the administration he heads, we have to go back 33 years to the birth of the Carter administration. The ideas and attitudes that animate the current administration go back at least two additional decades, but the significant entry into government positions of acolytes of these notions began with Carter. In 1980, with my husband Erich Isaac, I wrote The Coercive Utopians (published by Regnery). We described the underlying ideas of these utopians, the varying groups from which they sprang (ranging from mainline churches to so-called Naderite public interest groups to environmental groups to select think tanks, notably the Institute for Policy Studies and its spinoffs) and the success they had in obtaining financial backing (initially from a variety of foundations) and, in the Carter years, from government. We said they were utopians because they believed they could create an ideal social order (present evils were the result of a corrupt social system) and coercive because in their zeal for attaining that ideal order they sought to impose their blueprints in ways that went beyond legitimate persuasion.
With their ideological taproot in the New Left of the 1960s, the utopians harbored a bleak view of American domestic institutions and America’s role in the world. They abhorred the American economic system – churchmen because the system fostered competition rather than cooperation; environmentalists because it fostered desire for material goods, polluting the environment; consumer advocates because it produced unsafe goods in the pursuit of profit. As for its actions abroad, many viewed the U.S. as uniquely evil, the chief agent of militarism, imperialism, racism and economic exploitation, the greatest threat to world peace. President of New York City’s Union Theological Seminary John C. Bennett argued that only revolutionary change could remove the U.S. “as a counterrevolutionary force from the backs of the third world countries.” The utopians sought to recast American foreign policy so as to support the societies they believed represented “social justice”- Cuba, Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), Vietnam, China (under Mao).
The goal, as long-time coercive utopian John Holdren (now Obama’s science Commiczar) put it in 1973, was to “de-develop the United States.” And since the utopians understood that energy was the lifeblood of modern industrial America, their efforts were bent toward putting a tourniquet around centralized energy development. According to utopian Amory Lovins (still going strong although not – yet – in the Obama administration) our energy system was an assault on human dignity. As he wrote in a New York Times op-ed, the ordinary person suffered from a “humiliating dependence on remote bureaucrats who can simply disconnect you.”
The villain, par excellence, was nuclear power, centralized, technologically complex, impossible for the average man to understand. Nuclear energy had been operating safely (with the warm approval of the major environmental organizations) for almost two decades before the utopians discovered that it endangered human survival. And they quickly discovered that they had hit on an issue capable of mobilizing masses to action. Indeed, so successful were they in instilling terror of nuclear power that at the beginning of the 1980s nuclear disarmament proponents were trying to convince the public that nuclear bombs were as dangerous as nuclear energy. Chemist George Kistiakowsky, chairman of The Council for a Livable World, observed in a February 1981 interview: “We have problems in trying to redirect the public fear of nuclear plants into fear of nuclear war.” The utopian campaign against nuclear power was a huge success. Well before Three Mile Island, utilities had thrown in the towel on building new plants.
The utopians were opposed to all traditional energy sources, for they represented what Lovins called “the hard path.” The Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, brought suit against nuclear, coal, oil and hydroelectric projects. And while the utopians advocated what Lovins called the “soft path,” renewable sources of energy like sun and wind, scientist-writer Peter Metzger (from whom we borrowed the term “coercive utopians”) presciently observed that environmentalists are enthusiastic for energy sources as long as they do not exist and predicted the same hostility to solar energy, should it become economically viable. (And indeed, environmentalists are now in the forefront in seeking to block solar energy projects on federal lands – including one in the Mojave Desert announced by Interior Department secretary Salazar on June 29th – on the grounds they threaten endangered species, use vast amounts of water, and require unsightly transmission lines.
The utopians made repeated efforts to take over the Democratic Party, beginning in the 1960s via the so-called “New Politics” that made George McGovern a Presidential candidate. They had their first actual taste of power in the Carter administration when leaders of the coercive utopians were given important posts, in some cases control of government bureaucracies. Writing in Fortune during Carter’s first year, journalist Juan Cameron identified 60 consumer, environmental and public interest activists who immediately moved into sub-cabinet posts and influential White House spots. Posts controlling financial spigots were especially valuable, enabling the utopians to siphon government funds to utopian organizations and programs. ACTION (which in 1993 would be merged into the Corporation for National and Community Service) was handed over to former anti-Vietnam war activist Sam Brown who in turn appointed fellow activist Margery Tabankin as head of VISTA (the largest grantmaker for service and volunteering, now part of Americorps). James Burnley, her successor under Reagan, noted wryly: “If you were a member in good stead of the New Left you were guaranteed help if you had an organization.” ACORN, with its People’s Platform for achieving power (“We will wait no longer for the crumbs at America’s door. We will not be meek, but mighty”) and its Alinsky-style confrontational tactics was the first recipient of a National VISTA grant. A number of training centers for volunteers were funded, all based on Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” (“Give them a taste of blood” said the training manual of the Midwest Academy, one of the grantees.)
But after this confidence-building start (in 1981 Ralph Nader organized a conference bringing together representatives from most utopian groups called hopefully “Taking Charge: the Next 10 Years”) the utopians ran into problems. From Reagan through the second President Bush, no President – including Bill Clinton, who wound up governing from the center – presented them with similar opportunities in their reach for executive power. On the other hand, they extended their grip on the consciousness industry: the universities, the churches and the mass media. And they made steady progress in radicalizing the Democrat Party through think tanks like the Center for American Progress (which replaced the Institute for Policy Studies as chief source of direction for the utopians) and the Institute for America’s Future (Institute for Policy Studies director Robert Borosage became President of this similar but trendier idea factory). For down-and-dirty mobilization in the internet age there was Moveon.org and the Daily Kos. And then, in 2008, the utopians triumphed – one of their own was elected President.
There is a major difference between today and the Carter years. Then, the coercive utopians obtained an important foothold in the bureaucracy. Now they are the government. Obama was marinated in coercive utopian perspectives his entire adult life. In the pews of Reverend Wright for 20 years, the preacher who was to him “like family,” he heard repeatedly that America was the embodiment of racist imperialist evil. Sitting with unrepentant Weather Undergrounder Bill Ayres on the boards of “progressive” foundations like Woods and Joyce, Obama doubtless saw nothing controversial in dispersing money to Rev. Wright’s church, ACORN and the educational enterprises of Ayres and his brother John. Obama himself was a community organizer, a characteristic coercive utopian line of work. He cooperated closely with Chicago ACORN, training its staff.
The Democrat Party now dominates both houses of Congress and the coercive utopians dominate the Democrat Party, despite a few hangdog Blue Dogs. There is no more telling evidence than Alan Colmes’ (formerly of Fox News’ “Hannity and Colmes”) defense of Van Jones, after his forced resignation, as a “mainstream liberal.” Sign a “truther” petition suggesting the U.S. perpetrated 9/11. Describe President Bush’s call for increasing the domestic energy supply as a “crackhead licking the crack pipe for another fix.” Denounce “white environmentalists” for “steering poison into the people-of-color community.” Call for nationwide “resistance” against police. Call for the destruction of Israel. A talk show host who considers himself a standard-bearer for liberalism gives you the kosher stamp as a mainstream liberal.
Controlling the executive and the legislature (and increasingly, the courts), the coercive utopians are able to act on a scale hitherto the stuff of dreams. ACORN’s first government grant in the Carter years was for $470,475. Now despite ongoing investigations of ACORN registration fraud in a dozen states, it is eligible for billions under Obama’s stimulus program. Under Carter, government bureaucracies funded solar energy projects, although typically of the utopians, much of the money intended for solar hardware wound up being used for solar propaganda. Under Obama “green energy” is to receive billions, siphoned off from economically viable energy producers via cap and trade legislation. Van Jones was supposed to be the Commiczar for those billions and he made no secret of what he saw as the real program. “So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.”
In global warming today’s coercive utopians have discovered the most potent apocalyptic nightmare thus far devised with which to mobilize masses. Act now to contain greenhouse gases or the earth is doomed. At least the pollution with which the utopians in the 1970s frightened the public (“the generations now on earth may be the last” read the cover of one environmentalist handbook) was real. Man-made global warming is science by “consensus” with the consensus manufactured by the media, which treats dissenters as “flat-earthers.” Anyone interested in going beyond the unscientific fear-mongering should read Climate Change Reconsidered (880 pages, not beach chair reading), describing the findings of hundreds of scientists who are not supposed to exist. It includes a statement signed by 31,478 supposedly non-existent scientists that there is no convincing scientific evidence that man-made global warming will cause a catastrophic disruption of the earth’s climate.
The utopians (as some of them have been honest enough to admit) don’t care if the global warming apocalypse is a scam. It provides grounds to take control of energy and with it the economy. As Van Jones put it shortly before his White House departure: “If all you do is have a clean energy revolution, you won’t have done anything…No, we gonna change the whole system.”
The stakes could not be higher as the Obama administration is poised to take over energy and health care. The coercive utopians can bring us to the point where, as the revered Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley put it, capitalism “will be unable to deliver on its basic promise of a progressively higher standard of living for the less fortunate…” At that point the coercive utopians will have won, for they will be the anointed ones who allocate, ration and dole out to the dependent masses what is deemed their “fair share” of an ever-shrinking state-controlled economy.
And yet, although they currently ride high, the utopians have an Achilles heel – the public is not with them. People do not like the plans the utopians have for them if fully apprised of what they are. At the 1981 Nader “Taking Charge” conference mentioned earlier, the head of the Midwest Academy, one of the training centers for activists, acknowledged that to obtain power “you may have to waffle and be less clear on certain positions.” Obama himself campaigned as a moderate, a centrist, a pragmatist, dedicated to bipartisanship and fiscal responsibility. On energy he was a master of deception. Obama convinced President of the United Mine Workers Cecil Roberts that he was “a tremendous supporter of coal and the future of coal.” At the same time, caught on YouTube, Obama declared: “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
Exposure is what the utopians have greatest reason to fear – as the outpouring of public protest over Obama’s health care power grab illustrated. And exposure is easier now than it was when we wrote The Coercive Utopians. Then we entitled one chapter “The Media: Shield of the Utopians.” This has not changed. To give just one example of the lengths to which the chief organs of opinion go, it took Van Jones’s resignation for the New York Times and major networks to so much as mention the story. There had been a firestorm of publicity leading to that resignation, but it was on Fox News (spearheaded by Glenn Beck), talk radio, the internet, the blogosphere.
What has changed is that establishment media no longer have the stranglehold on news they once did. Those who were dedicated to getting out information in the 1970s, whether it was on funding of terror support groups through church offerings or the false claims against nuclear energy or the activities of the radical institutes, were forced in many cases to create their own small-scale media outlets – circulating reports, starting newsletters. As long as there was only a paper trail, it was much easier for the utopians to claim quotes were “out of context.” With the rise of alternative media, evasions no longer work. A few minutes of watching Rev. Wright or Van Jones ranting on YouTube and it’s all over. It’s precisely because he is afraid of the power of alternative media that Obama appointed Mark Lloyd as “diversity” Commiczar. Lloyd, an avowed admirer of Chávez and his treatment of the media (which was to shut down stations that criticized him), is perhaps the most dangerous appointment of all, for he has a cornucopia of proposals to constrain alternative media. These range from a prohibitive tax on stations broadcasting the likes of Rush Limbaugh (the money used to fund “alternative viewpoints”) to setting up local committees of activists to control what is broadcast to revoking the license of a station that didn’t abide by the new rules.
So the task is to keep the channels of communication open and to clarify the nature of the broader agenda this administration pursues. The woman who stood up at Sen. Warner’s town meeting to say she was concerned about that agenda as much as about Obama’s specific health care proposals had it right. As long as the issue is this bill or that bill, opponents can be picked off, coalitions assembled. It is essential to understand – and bring to a halt – the entire coercive utopian program.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Rael Jean Isaac is a political sociologist and co-author of The Coercive Utopians published by Regnery in 1983.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4240/pub_detail.asp
Originally published September 11, 2009.