[Update: Yesterday morning CBS ran this program and provides support for the argument that liberal atheists and liberal protestants do couple up]
A couple of weeks ago I put up a post regarding Cory Heidelberger's liberal political agenda and how well that actualy fits with his wife's liberal religious views that were not based on Biblical Christianity, but instead pagan monism. Excerpt:
And you can expect Cory to be using his fully paganized wife as ammunition to bring South Dakota into the ancient pagan anti-Christian New Age, all deceptively in the name of "Christianity". Such propaganda should be expected from a totalitarian teacher and a ELCA feminist activist. And once a majority of the population has accepted the pagan propaganda of the false public school teacher and the false preachers of the apostate churches, then those who disagree will be silenced. Just as Cory as silenced me at Madville Times. The One World religion will assist the making of the One World political system, all in the name of unity and the hope of world peace.
Representative/Pastor Steve Hickey actually defended the liberal ECLA female pastor in training:
So we give Sibby another chance even though he has yet to reciprocate such graces to anyone else. My last interaction with him was zero policy and all personal. Forgive me if I am not quick to embrace the suddenly softer Sibby. How he went after Erin Heidelberger was unjustified and unacceptable, and it was only last week. I’ll wait to see more fruit of genuine change. Maybe he should take a class there at Dakota Wesleyan on how to be more winsome.
So I asked, "What parts of Dr. Jones’ analysis do you find incorrect?" His answer:
Sibby, who appointed you arbiter of all that is true? I didn’t read Dr Jones analysis because I could care less what he thinks. You dumping extended citations from your University of Google studies effectively ends dialog. If you want to win me, talk to me — don’t label me or others. You have formed and then broadcast sweeping false conclusions about many things and many people and it’s a real turnoff . Here’s a tip: review your interactions with people online and make a list of a dozen conversation stoppers you regularly employ. Presently you are oblivious to the fact that certain references effectually stop your ability to communicate with others. One is the New World Order. You can believe in that and never reference it directly and keep a conversation going.
Not exactly an in depth analysis of Dr.Jones' Biblical based arguments. How did he determine that my post that was largely based on Jones' work was "unjustified and unacceptable" when he refused to even look at it? Instead Hickey mocked me and recommended that I use deception to better communicate my ideas. No thank you, I prefer to hit issues honestly with a straight forward approach. So I asked Hickey:
So have you decided to accept the feminist and homosexual movement into the Body of Christ in order to be winsome? Those are the components of the ELCA that I was exposing as false teachings that have infiltrated the Body of Christ in America. Why are you painting me as the bad guy?
They have things to take for your paranoia. My positions on the issues you mention haven’t shifted and that’s what I’m talking about– you insinuate and insinuate, never using the measure you use on others on yourself. And your insinuations are ludicrous— there probably isn’t another elected official in SD more vocal on the marriage issue than me and you insinuate I’m in kahoots with the socially liberal wing of the ELCA? Hard to have a dialog with you. Why can’t you see that? There are other venues where I talk openly about church stuff. You too should learn there is a time and place to say all you think.
Yes, Mr, Hickey is very vocal about the marriage issue, yet he condemns me for showing how homosexuality, as not a sin, is a false teaching within the ELCA. I asked a legitimate question. Instead of clearing up the issue he again attacks me for being paranoid and then seems to not much care about the Great Commission as he says such "church stuff" should not be discussed in the world of blogs. Sounds a bit "seeker friendly".
Hickey also did not address the issue of female pastors:
Earlier in Christianity 21 And Alleged Innovative Voices In The Faith: Nadia Bolz-Weber we introduced you to the Sarcastic Lutheran aka Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, “pastor” of the emerging House for All Sinners and Saints (HFASS, their abbreviation) Lutheran church, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and consists of:a group of folks figuring out how to be a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient – future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination. (Online source)
From the above we can see that, in order to embrace women pastors, this new Christianity has set aside what the God the Holy Spirit says in 1 Timothy 2:12 — But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. This version of a postliberalism with its postmodern theology also follows in the same polluted vein as the long dead mainline denominations which would embrace the original version of liberal (aka modern) theology and ordain women to the office of pastor-teacher (i.e. senior teaching elder) in violation of Holy Scripture.
My first attempt to confront Hickey on theological issues was ment with him telling me not to be reading what the "doctrine police" are saying on the internet. Which would include this:
I realize we should all know this by now, but within spiritually spineless evanjellyfish the Devil’s minions have been so successful with their constant refrain of, “Did God really say?”, that many are afraid to answer, “Yes; He did.” Jesus tells us — “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). In commenting on this important verse Dr. Walter Martin (1928-1989) once said, “If you don’t know the difference between fleece and fur, then you’re going to lose your spiritual arm right up to your elbow.”
With this as our backdrop, we remind you that leading Emergence Christianity spokesman Tony Jones has written a book called The New Christians and his Emergent Church pastor Doug Pagitt, of Solomon’s Porch (below) where Jones is “theologian in residence,” has one called A Christianity Worth Believing. Apprising Ministries has also pointed out that “new Christians” Jones and Pagitt are also the ones behind an upcoming Emerging Church gathering, which we discuss a bit further in Tony Jones And His Pastor Doug Pagitt With Jopa Productions And Christianity 21.
And can Mr. Hickey show us that the ELCA agenda is not apostasy? The internet doctrine police say otherwise:
Apprising Ministries has been maintaining that Mainstream Evangelicalism Is Now On The Rapid Slide To Apostasy because of its ongoing embrace of the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity—(EC).
As I said in Know Your Bible this EC was a Trojan Horse containing a semi-pelagian (at best) rebellion against Sola Scriptura designed to unload its highly subjective Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard.
You can follow some of the corrupting results of this spurious CSM in Contemplative Spirituality Growing Within Mainstream Evangelicalism. One is EC heroes like Rob Bell opened the door to the mainstream of the visible church for unbelievers like Living Spiritual Teacher and “Progessive Christian” scholar Marcus Borg.
What’s important to note here is that this so-called “Progressive Christianity” Is Neither Progressive Or Christian. No, it’s really just old liberal aka modern theology in hipper clothes; and this EC cult is itself simply a re-interpreted version of liberal theology, a postmodern theology i.e. a post-liberalism.
This is critical to understand as we approach the subject of a pet EC issue, affirming that a lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex i.e homosexuality is also a viable one for the Christian. In other words, those in so-called monagamous and supposedly life-long relationships with their same-sex partner are not in sin.
And no doubt wolves in sheep’s clothing will surely try and get you to focus upon how nice and thick their wool coats appear, but if you can’t recognize the difference between fleece and fur, then you’re in grave danger of losing your spiritual life to these fools arrogant enough to defy the Word of God with their Humpty Dumpty language.
Being an SBC minister I remember the battles fought in the convention to oust what the late cult-expert Dr. Walter Martin, an SBC minister himself, called the Cult of Liberal Theology. Have we so quickly forgotten that this modern theology sought to make the Christian faith relevant to its own culture circa 1950s?
Here’s your wake-up call: The postmodern EC is attempting to do the exact same thing right now and homosexuality is one of its tentacles. Now maybe you’ll have a better perspective upon vipers like “queer inclusive” ELCA “pastor” Nadia Bolz-Weber and the ELCA And Homosexuality.
Simply put, the point is this: The mainline denominations sold out to liberalism; they embraced ecumenicism, CSM, bowed to the feminist movement ordaining women, out went the doctrine of Hell because, “I’d never send one of my children to a place like that,” and next comes ordination of homosexual clergy ripping them apart right now.
And in case Hickey believes the goddess worship concern is not a real one with the ELCA:
Imagine driving down the road and passing by a beautiful old Christian church. Now imagine that church has a huge painting of a bare breasted women/goddess on it for all to see. Not only that, the mural also includes an eight armed goddess named Kali. Kali is a Hindu goddess. Hard to conceive of, but that is what you will find beginning this November if you drive passed the ELCA's Ebenezer Lutheran Church (also know as herchurch) in San Francisco, CA. The church plans on placing this mural on their church tower for everyone to see. The ELCA church's website tells us about the mural saying,
“The Goddess mural will rise 64 feet high with four basic symbolic representations of the divine feminine: The Earth Mother, the Black Madonna, the Christ-Sophia, and an androgynous Kali-Kundalini figure whose chakras merge with the phases of the moon and the universe. They will be surrounded by colorful and playful animals, birds, plants and earth’s elements.” (see here)
Here is a link that shows what the mural will look like (on the left hand side of the page).
A fundraising page for herchurch's project has this to say about the mural, “Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran (herchurch) refers to the Divine Presence through many names and metaphors. More than 50,000 years ago the sacred one was called mother. Breaking recent tradtion from male diety, this mural aims to herald the return of the feminine divine in modern Christian, interfaith and feminist spirituality.” (see here)
Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran has been worshiping pagan gods for quite a while now, with the full knowledge and approval of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I say this because it is a fact that ELCA leadership know what is being taught and what goes on at this church, and they allow it to continue. (see here, here and here) They have the power, authority and responsibility to stop it and they do not. A church leader from the ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop even spoke at a herchurch feminism conference showing the audience pictures of a female Jesus. (see here)
I will not only use the internet as support for this post. There is the well researched 1991 book by Donna Steichen called, Ungodly Rage, The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism Page 193:
On the landscape, within the province of the modernist theological scholarship that defines religion as a psychological phenomenon, implicity gnostic religious feminism overlaps an explicitly gnostic New Age movement. That broadly fashionable form of spiritualism displays, in textbook purity, the gnostic characteristics of despair with present society, the search for enlightenment within and the vision of a transformed global order, including a new world religion of naturally altered consciousness. Flourishing at a cultural point where superstition, pop-psychology and scientific speculation intersect, the New Age movement is a manifestation of the same revolutionary rejection of monotheism and Christianity found in goddess feminism. Indeed, its ingredients, including spiritualism, fanatic environmentalism, zeal for abortion, sexual permissiveness and leftist politics, are almost entirely interchangable with that phenomenon.
So we now got Erin's husband Cory and his political agenda nicedy tied in with the fanatic environmentalism, zeal for abortion, and leftist politics that are interchangable with the global New Age religious movement. Dr. Peter Jones in his 1997 book, Spirit Wars, Pagan Revival in Christian America says this on page 239:
Rudolf rightly notes: "the Gnostic must prove that he is a Gnostic by the rejection of the body before he can know final redemption," Some Gnostics were vegetarians for that reason. Many were ascetics, as the Nag Hammadi texts show. Some engage in sexual license, as the Church Fathers document, as a way of shaking their fist at the Creator of normative sexuality. This, of course, is where sexuality and spirituality overlap. The Gnostics say this very clearly.
Not so in our day. Major changes in sexual norms and practices, pushed by a massive agenda of religious/pagan monism, are surreptitiously justified, not as issues of religion(which would be prohibited by the logic of church/state separation), but as non-religious issues of "civil rights." Many unconsciously slip into a religious redefinition of existence by their "political" acceptance of an egalitarian, anti-patriarchal and pan-sexual vision. The unseen religious agenda of undifferentiated sexuality is actually monistic union of the opposites within the impersonal divine.
In other words Cory Heidelberger the atheist politically left totalitarian teacher and his ELCA pastor in training wife are advoacates of a New Age Theocracy whose mission is a one-world education system and a one-world religion, all to set up the one-world government. And that anti-Bibilical Christian religion is being promoted politically in secular vocabulary. My pointing out that truth was what got me kicked out of Cory's wannabe sustainable community of Madville. Expect the same to happen to all true Biblical Christians who stick to their doctrine as the New Age Theocrats have their way. And expect the persecution to come from the religious arena, or what is known as the apostate harlot church in the Book of Revelation. You heard the cue, we all have to get along and be winsome ala the emergent church ecumenism. The doctrine police, those who follow Biblical Christianity, are not with the program. So why did God confuse the languages at the Tower of Babel? Response to those who were uniting against God.
Yes, this is a long post with a lot of content, so I do understand if Steve Hickey and Troy Jones don't understand it all. I just hope they don't take it out on me and go on the attack instead of having a conversation. And Cory and Erin are also welcome to clarify their positions. This is a serious issue as it is about ones eternal spirituality. It should be deemed important by all. I did not write this to attack anyone personally. I wrote this because these are important theological and political issues for us to consider, and also a warning that there are movements infiltrating Christianity in America. I hope those who decide to comment think about what they are saying before hitting the publish button. And I will correct any mistakes I have made, but they have to be proven. Typos and bad English don't count. And if you have not read the Bible, then please start today.
Cory's atheism and his loud anti-Christian bigotry must be demeaning and to all men and women in the ELCA. And, as a leader and a pastor in the ELCA, this HAS to be embarassing to females pastors who are wives of atheists.
Now, I do not want to get into specifics of why particular men and women pair up, but I cannot imagine any scenario under which an atheist could claim to "respect" his wife's faith, ESPECIALLY if she were a pastor. The two are wholly incompatible--to say what he has said about Christianity demeans ALL Christians, liberal or otherwise.
Imagine if a man said publicly, "I do not believe that a woman should have a career outside of the home, but I respect you honey so go ahead and work if you want."
Or, if he said very publicly:
"Women should stay at home and have babies, but I cannot force you to believe as I do, so go ahead, get a job if you want, and use contraception if you want. How about some cuddlin' this evening?"
Ypu cannot have it both ways, at least if you want or expect some cuddlin'.
Posted by: Julie Gross (NE) | April 15, 2013 at 10:29 AM
Sibs:
I sent you an email a few days ago--did you get it?
Posted by: Julie Gross (NE) | April 17, 2013 at 08:08 AM