Christian Heritage News

By Chris Rosebrough - Posted at The Lutheran Witness: Published August 1, 2023 Whether you realize it or not, you have been exposed to the prosperity gospel. Its core doctrines saturate most, if not all, of the charismatic churches of our day. Its teachings are broadcast across the globe via television and the internet, and it is the central teaching of a significant number of today’s most well-known American preachers. The purveyors of the prosperity gospel are known for their positive messages, optimism and opulent living. But there is a dark and sinister side to the prosperity gospel. Its roots are based in the Mind Science cults, and it promotes a false gospel that makes promises for God that He has not made and therefore is not bound to honor. This heresy has ruined the lives and shipwrecked the faith of countless numbers of people who have bought into the deceptions of the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is another name for a teaching called The Word of Faith. The late

 By Jesse Johnson - Posted at The Cripplegate: I recently came across TIME Magazine from the week I was born—January 7, 1976. The issue was devoted to the “Women of the Year,” and on the cover was the Rev. Alison Cheek. She broke the so-called glass ceiling by becoming the first female Episcopal priest to lead/perform the Eucharist. Cheek was part of the “The Philadelphia 11,” a group of female priests all ordained in Pennsylvania, long before that was acceptable in the Anglican church. It was immediately met with howls of protests. This was coming after the fall of Saigon, and after the zenith of the hippie movement. The “mainline denominations” were at a tipping point, one that is much more recognizable in the hindsight than I’m sure it was at the time. Many people protested such a brazen show of rebellion by the Philadelphia Episcopal church—compounded all the more because the Anglican Church had rejected calls to ordain women. While some Anglicans may have protested the Philadelph

 By Rosaria Butterfield - Posted at reformation21: Dear Mr. False Teacher, Permit me to write boldly to you. You have repeated your shallow shibboleths in sermons, blogs, and conferences, and you have tried very hard to pretend that secular society is a neutral playground, a marketplace of ideas where Christianity is welcome to flourish. You punt for nuance every time and have made every clear teaching of the law and gospel a grey area of ambiguity. You have sought the middle road on every issue: gay marriage, transgender normalization, Black Lives Matter, and abortion. You always seek the third way. But it’s getting harder for you to persuade your flock because some of them see that a raging spiritual war has washed out the middle road and the third way. I believe that you are at a crossroads. So let me put it straight: if you are a true Christian who has fallen into some bad theology, I’m throwing you a rope. Why not grab it? Your rhetorical strategy was to yield the moral language

 By Thaddeus Williams - Posted at Reformed Perspective: The subterranean origins of certain Equality and Justice doctrines If I were the devil – which some of you may believe after reading on – if my sworn mission was to devour the Christian faith from the inside out, then here is what I would not do. I would not slither into a Sunday service, breathing blasphemy and dragon fire, bragging about my triumphs at Auschwitz, commanding the congregation, “Deny that God is God!” I would not be an idiot. If I was the devil… I would dress up to look like justice, compassion, or equity, or some other ideal Christians would be quick to “Amen!” I would sink my teeth and suck the true, biblical content from those words – not that many of the Enemy’s people know the true, biblical content of those words to begin with – and then inject it with the venom of new meaning, a meaning that is antithetical to the Enemy’s definition of such silly words. Then I could get nearly every faithful Tom, Dick, and S

 By Ryan Biese - Posted at Mid the Pines : A trendy new "Jesus marketing" campaign seeks to rebrand a familiar figure. “They are wanting to know more about a Jesus who is a false Jesus,” said the Reverend Tom Buck in reference to the new HeGetsUs campaign which ChristianityToday describes as a campaign to “ make Jesus the ‘biggest brand in your city. ” The HeGetsUs campaign aims not to get people to “go to church,” but rather invite people to “ consider the story of a man who created a radical love movement that continues to impact the world thousands of years later .” As they explain on their website : He Gets Us is a movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible and his confounding love and forgiveness. We believe his words, example, and life have relevance in our lives today and offer hope for a better future. They seem to believe the public “image” of Jesus needs to be rehabilitated for the 21st Century. They realized a problem according to Jason Vandergrou

 By Keith Evans - Posted at Gentle Reformation: I finished The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill last week (I know, I’m behind on the times, please bear with me), and the reformed world is currently re-embroiled in staving off Federal Vision for a second time, as Doug Wilson is experiencing a resurgen…no, that’s too on the nose. A renaissance …that’s it, as Doug Wilson is experiencing a renaissance . So I have found myself wondering recently: why do we keep doing this—why does the church keep listening to wolves? What is it that we believe the wolf has to offer that faithful shepherding does not? Let us consider that very notion under the following 5 reasons why the church keeps turning to un-Christlike examples to lead us: Wolves fight back, hard. And they play offense. Like literal wolves, the proverbial ones in the church are ferocious. They come at the church’s cultural opponents with a vengeance. They fight fire with fire. The world may play dirty and unfair—“but so what?” the thought

I’m growing grapes for reals. It’s like a miracle. In fifty jillion degree weather. If Jesus is trying to get me to have a crush on him, it’s working. pic.twitter.com/SbVjYgpIpo — Beth Moore (@BethMooreLPM) July 30, 2022  By Elizabeth Prata - Posted at The End Time: TEN YEARS ago I wrote this blog about the danger of the then-emerging ‘Romanticizing Jesus’ movement. The sly eroticism when describing the Majestic God of the Universe, Creator of worlds, Destroyer of Souls, Enemies Under His Footstool…THAT God. Yes, He is compassionate, nurturing, loving, but He is God and He is thrice holy. We should look upon Him with love and awe and reverence, but never in childish, Junior High, flower covered diary terms. But Beth Moore did again, and again she sparked a controversy. Social media went ablaze, Christian news outlets reported on it, and the dial on blogs went spinning crazily. The reason there is always controversy around Moore is because she is living proof of one who preaches a dif

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at Culture Watch: Biden’s pro-trans war on children and Scripture: There are at least three major components to the Christian gospel – all MUST be affirmed, and if you leave any of them out, you do not have the biblical story but a humanistic heresy. Just what are these three core and fundamental components of the gospel? Here they are in a nutshell: One. Man was created by God in his likeness and image. Two. Sin and the Fall have separated us all from God and greatly tarnished (but not erased) that image. Three. Only through faith and repentance based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ can anyone get right with God, see the image properly restored, and inherit eternal life. It seems the American President has now become a theologian – but a very bad one. Indeed, he has made it clear that he is a diabolical one, because he wants to affirm only those components that he is happy with. In this case, he has run with Number One, while fully denyin

 Posted at Churches Without Chests : Africa receives some American errors that are quite beneficial. For example, before the NBA finals, the Super Bowl or the World Series, sports merchandisers produce memorabilia of both finalists winning, so as to be able to immediately sell when the final is over. Unfortunately, half of that merchandise represents an alternate universe: where the team that lost actually won. What happens to the champions-that-never-were T-shirts and caps? Much of it is donated to third-world countries, where needy folks wear shirts displaying an event that never happened. Hey, we’re not complaining. Another shirt on a poor man’s back is a good thing, even if it celebrates what never occurred. Error is sometimes beneficial. Some imported errors are profoundly destructive, though. The worst of them are theological errors, for what touches Scripture touches ultimate realities. Two such errors that originated in America are particularly devastating for a country like m

By W.J. Seaton - Posted at Herald of Grace: “There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent; and if we must give an account for every idle word spoken, take care lest you have to answer for idle silence.” So spoke an old father of the Church many years ago, and his words still have a ring of exhortation about them for any age of the Church – our own age included. As Mr Spurgeon had it, “Treatises in abundance have been produced upon the sins of speech; but are there not also sins of silence?” And in so many ways, the professing church of our day has become a silent church with regards to the faith once delivered to the saints. Perhaps we have now fully fallen victim to that brand of evangelicalism that places more emphasis on what a Christian doesn’t do, than on what a Christian does. You know the early catechising of many a new convert: “Now that you are a Christian, you must not – – – – .” And the negative begins to dominate the positive instead of being a hand-maid to it, a

By Thaddeus Williams - Posted at Reformed Perspective: If I were the devil – which some of you may believe after reading on – if my sworn mission was to devour the Christian faith from the inside out, then here is what I would not do. I would not slither into a Sunday service, breathing blasphemy and dragon fire, bragging about my triumphs at Auschwitz, commanding the congregation, “Deny that God is God!” I would not be an idiot. If I was the devil… I would dress up to look like justice, compassion, or equity, or some other ideal Christians would be quick to “Amen!” I would sink my teeth and suck the true, biblical content from those words – not that many of the Enemy’s people know the true, biblical content of those words to begin with – and then inject it with the venom of new meaning, a meaning that is antithetical to the Enemy’s definition of such silly words. Then I could get nearly every faithful Tom, Dick, and Sally to deny the Godhood of God while they think the