Sabbatical week 2 is coming to an end. We’re traveling back home tomorrow. Denise and I have had a wonderful time. Thanks to all who have prayed for us. I’ve gotten a groove going with my writing project, and I’m very pleased with where it’s going.

Glenn Lucke mailed me this link. Anyone else want to go?

Another one for the Joel files.

Piper on today’s Calvinists and Arminians. I immediately thought of James White, teampyro and Triablogue. Run through the fields with poetry. yesireebob.

One of the reasons that Calvinism is stirring today is that it takes both truth and mystery seriously. It’s a singing, poetry-writing, run-through-the-fields Calvinism.

It’s the Arminians that are the rationalists. Arminianism trumps biblical sentences with metaphysics: God can’t control all things and hold us responsible. God can’t choose some and love all.” Why? Metaphysics. Out with mystery! It just can’t be!

Fascinating to me how Piper gives passes to Lewis and Chesterton, but…....oh never mind. It’s not going to make sense, and that will prove just how wrong I am for actually thinking any one of these guys actually is consistent with the others. Take the names off of Lewis and Chesterton, hand the resumes to Macarthur or Driscoll, and what will you get? Ugh. It gives me a headache.

This should speak for itself.

Travis:

I think you’ve hit the jackpot for your new blog theme: The Urban Chihuahua High Priest

My friends, as eager as I am to share this miracle with you and your tiny departed friend, I believe in all fairness I should ask you to read the 101 Uses For a Dead Chihuahua and consider what is the right path for you at this time.

And as Travis said, $600 will get the job done.

To the 37 people who have dropped their dead chihuahuas at my door, and to the undoubtedly innumerable mass that is still planning to do so – please understand, there is absolutely no way TMH can resurrect your dog unless you give me $500.  I am, after all, the anointed priest through whom you will reach the power of TMH.  

That’s right.  Don’t touch me.  Just give me your dead dog and your money, and revival will be yours.

The biggest problem for premils: Evil in the millennium.

Top Ten Reasons the Reformed Theologian did not cross the road.

Anyone:

Why doesn’t Todd Bentley go to the children’s cancer hospitals of America? One at a time. He can take a TV crew. Why doesn’t he go?

He said he wanted national media coverage. Just fly up to St. Jude’s in Memphis, Todd. Go now.

Why not? Why not?

If this guy is the conduit of God’s power, does anyone want to believe in that God?

I know I said that I’d post about my experiences with the Florida Outpouring, but you guys have done a pretty good job today of saying what I feel.  Instead, I wrote a blog post about a similar revival I went through in my childhood.

Every time I think of Florida, I want to cry…really.  My best friends are pinning their hopes that Todd Bentley is a conduit of God’s divine power.  I hope that I’m just an arrogant, foolish, know-it-all, whose to blind to see God working in the midst of it all.  I want to be wrong.

This is SO WEIRD. Just last night I had a vision that Jesus came to minister to the lost tribe of the Afroswedes in MInnesota after the ascension. He was going up but took a detour out of range of the disciples’ eyesight. That’s why the NT is silent on this thing.

The documentation was buried in the middle of a muskie lake in the UP of MIchigan by the angel Moron-Eye.

And today, TMH is SAYING THE SAME THING! Wow. Just wow. Coincidence? No way.

Kurt, please grant to me the privilege of sitting at your right hand when you come into your kingdom.

Two questions for TMH: Do you do the reverse resurrection with chihuahuas? Where do I send little Yippy?

I would like to make some responses:

1) I have edited the phrase “little weasel” to something more appropriate.

2) I’d like to let the world know that I have raised 27 chihuahuas from the dead, and I have the documentation right here. If you have a dead chihuahua, send it to Travis Prinzi, and he’ll get it to me for resurrection.

3) I have also found out that the BHT is the one true church, and Kurt is the one true prophet. Join us, or be damned. Join now and get 10% of my new DVD series “Afroswedes: The lost tribe of Israel?”

A Pittsburgh sportscaster is sacked for rude comments regarding Sen. Kennedy.  Maybe the god-blogosphere could use such standards.

A good Charismatic brother, Dan Edelen, reflects on so-called revivals and the Lakeland travesty.

Every healing ministry I’ve ever encountered … has been based on theology that has its doctrine of the nature of God firmly wedged in the Old Testament, completely ignoring anything in the NT outside of the accounts of miracles it records.

And the “touch not the Lord’s anointed” crowd seem to have forgotten who “the Lord’s anointed” is in the NT.

Warning: This  post contains biblical language.

The thing that really burns me about all this is that the “touch not the Lord’s anointed” crap doesn’t even apply by any reasonable test. Every healing ministry I’ve ever encountered – and I’ve encountered plenty – has been based on theology that has its doctrine of the nature of God firmly wedged in the Old Testament, completely ignoring anything in the NT outside of the accounts of miracles it records.

Physical healing ministry is bullshit. Plain and simple. First, explain how illness and infirmity happen, then explain how you can somehow bend those rules with a prayer and a sweaty handkerchief, you godless assholes. You brood of vipers. You whitewashed shit-sucking tombs.

It. Doesn’t. Happen.

Which is not to say that things don’t happen that we can’t explain, or that God doesn’t answer prayer. But the God who answers prayer answers in his own time, his own manner, and for his own reasons. He doesn’t jerk around to the pull of some puppeteer with bad hair and a polyester fetish.

You see, I’ve watched this up close.

The family with the dying child, the dying parent, the dying loved one- they are desperate. They are susceptible to all this “God is playing games” bs. And this guy just needs to set up shop, get the hysteria going and the desperate people with dying loved ones will come by the thousands.

And what will they do to get Yahweh’s attention? Pay thousands and thousands of dollars when the bucket comes around. And they will do it over and over. They’ll cling to hope. They’ll believe any lie. They will fall over. They will say they see and hear anything.

All because they are desperate for God to show up and break the rules in their instance.

Read what the Misfit said in A Good Man is Hard to Find. Sometimes I understand completely what he had to say about Jesus.

Cops can’t arrest people like Bentley, but the pastors in the area whose flocks are being spiritually raped by this large tattooed weasel should do all they can to bring him down.

But they won’t. Because Christians can’t complain. They have to forgive. They have to touch not the possible anointed. Blah blah blah. He’s turning the cancer and pain and brain tumors of thousands into millions of dollars, and there is hardly a Christian who will say so.

And because I will say so, someone will write me and tell me I’m going to hell. Well see you there Brother Todd. I’ll punch you out then.

Todd B: Go to the cancer ward and clear out the children’s ward you lying son of a bitch.

I’m going to say what is NEVER said about “revival” in this country: If you want revival, put on some sackcloth, rub some ashes on your head and repent your sorry heart out. Don’t confess your sins, REPENT OF THEM!

What looks like Jesus? Drawing attention to claims of miracles? hello? Jesus raised the dead publically, and then said shut up about it.

A lurker pointed out that the note said the guy wasn’t embalmed. Chirp….chirp…chirp…

Todd B: Go to the cancer ward and clear out the children’s ward. Otherwise, you’re a liar.

I think the BHT should claim the miracle of cheap gas. “Praise God, we’re seeing gas at 70 cents a gallon for those who contribute to Brother Travis. It can happen to you.”

Someone post the Farting preacher video, please.

I really think that a big part of why Bentley types can thrive is the perversion of “touch not my annointed.”  I mention that because I read something about people “speaking against the annointing” ala Benny Hinn.  There are many Pentecostals and Charismatics (I was one) who are afraid to call out these preachers for fear that they are speaking against God’s annointed. 

“Although to be fair, it probably looks more like Jesus than a lot of things the church ends up falling for.”

Maybe, but I don’t think we need to feel bad about calling these people out for the manipulative slime they are, and disowning them from anything that could be called Christian. They’re using the name of Jesus to promote all kinds of heresy, nonsense, false teaching, money scamming, etc. There are many desperate, gullible people out there who fall for this crap, and they need (somehow, I don’t know how) to be protected from these snakes.

As for our TR friends, they’re too busy beating up actual Christians to care much about real false teachers.

TMH: You forget the TR blogosphere is busy dismantling The Shack.

Did you see the faces in the seats?

That’s the story that needs to be told. What those people want, and what those people are willing to do for those who give it to them.

This is the vile, diseased underside of evangelicalism as a religion that allows leaders to control and violate its gullible adherents.

And what’s truly disgusting is the fact that about 3/4 of the preachers in America would like to be right where Todd B is, and about 25% would do anything to get there.

Buddhism looks very good compared to this.

I’m disappointed there is no TR response squad taking this guy out. C’mon, Hays, Procter and Company, what would Calvin do?

That was a hoot Travis. And long those lines here are more things that you just won’t hear from someone in heaven:

You know, being here in heaven; with Jesus, getting to spend fantastic quality time with the Person who died for me AND designed the duckbill platypus and everything else in the universe to boot, asking Him all kinds of questions and getting the most amazing answers I could never have dreamed of, living in total and absolute peace in a place where nobody is better than anybody else and even if they are we just don’t care – is wonderful. But. I kind of wish I was still back on earth where evil is on the minds of men continually, violence is rampant, gas & food prices make it nearly impossible to take care of your family with many families actually starving to death globally while tyrants sleep on down comforters eating the sweetest nectars the earth has to offer…Ah! Now those were the good old days. Todd! My main man, get me out of this heaven-hole! (JN)

What does it take to get people to buy into this crap? How messed up, or absent, does your picture of Jesus have to be before this becomes believable?

Although to be fair, it probably looks more like Jesus than a lot of things the church ends up falling for.

Is there some kind of laminated card I could carry in my wallet – like an organ donor card – saying, “In the event of my death, I do not wish Todd Bentley to pull my spirit back out of heaven”?

Then there’s the part where he said, “This guy went to heaven, and when he got there, he thought he’d never be able to come back and see his family again.”

What?!  Right, I’m sure that’s what all the sleeping redeemed are thinking right now…I wish I could get out of this Paradise place and head back down to earth to see my family.  Oh, Todd Bentley, won’t you call me?  Pull my spirit out of this abysmal Paradise and bring me back down to glorious earth?  I’ll praise your name forever if you do.

Reminds me of this movie I saw once. What was the name of it? OH! The Rainmaker.

What a wing-nut, I bet he is laughing all the way to the bank though. Sheesh. The man was “praising God and Todd Bentley” eh? Todd Bentley “pulled the man’s spirit right down from heaven” eh? And Mr. Todd, you didn’t have a problem with this close association with the Maker of the universe? Shameful, just shameful. I don’t know about you guys, but when I finally get to die and be with Jesus the last thing I will want to see is Todd Bentley’s mug dragging me back down here. Fortunately, I don’t believe I’ll be having that problem though.

I do believe in miracles, and I believe I have even been on the receiving end of them; but this fellow is totally irresponsible and he needs to be called out on it. God performs miracles when they do happen, and He, not Todd Bentley deserves the credit alone, period.

As for his ‘back from the dead’ story, did he not say beforehand that it had not been verified yet? I won’t watch it again to find out, but no decent preacher would say something that outlandish unless it had been verified. I totally believe God can raise people from the dead, that is what being a Christian is all about. But I do doubt the veracity of a claim that God would let this fellow drag souls out of heaven only to have them come back and give 50% credit to God and 50% credit to a dude. Dude! I totally would not want to be next to him in a thunderstorm.

Hi folks.  I haven’t posted in a while.  There’s been a lot of crazy stuff going on in my life, and also I have been lately more cautious about posting on controversial matters on the interweb.  Lately I have been concerned about web weirdos or being googled and having some post read out of context.  I figured I should either drop out or start getting more involved, so I decided to get more involved and just use my last initial instead of last name.  Same guy, fewer letters.

Greetings, new people!

Slogans for Todd Bentley:

“Follow me: I’ve raised more people from the dead than Jesus.”

“Follow me: I can pull spirits right out of heaven.”

I really want to write a four page, scatheing, discern-o-blog style post on Lakeland, but out of respect for some of my best friends that are neck deep, in that movement I’ll restrain myself for now.  Later today I’ll share some of what I’ve seen while watching the revival and from speaking to my frineds who have all made the pilgramage down there.

Michael: wow. That video (or at least the 1m 41s I could bear to watch) was like having a ringside seat at the sermon on the mount. (jn)

Two Countries Divided By A Common Language (#3,923 in a series): When you said you were going to spend your sabbatical at Lakeland, I thought you meant you were going to stock up on ingenious cookware products and storage solutions at the home of creative kitchenware...

The church and sex….maybe they’ve made some progress.

Issues, etc is on the way back.