Word of Faith

If you do not know the Kendrick brothers by name, you almost certainly know them by their films: Flywheel (2003),Facing the Giants (2006), Fireproof (2008), and Courageous (2011). Stephen, Alex, and Shannon Kendrick have just released their fifth faith-based film, War Room. War Room, starring popular Bible teachers Priscilla Shirer and Beth Moore, looks like it may well be the most successful of their films to date bringing in $11 million just on its opening weekend; more than triple it’s $3 million production budget. Given the popularity of Christian themed films and the considerable buzz about this one in particular, my wife, Kathy, and I went to see War Room on the evening of September 3rd so that I could write a review. For those of you who read my review of Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s movie, Son of God, you know that I am a bit skeptical of the Christian movie genre as a whole. Nonetheless, I do want to offer what I hope to be a fair review. This review will not touch on every single facet of the movie or even on every theme it presents, but I do hope to address what I believe to be the most important of them.

The Pen

August 5, 2015

Reformed and other Facebook Memes

Here are a few Facebook memes by Psalm 12 Outreach...

The Pen

July 6, 2015

Rick Warren Teaching Contemplative Prayer at Hillsong 2015

***Note – I originally wrote this over at the Pulpit...

The Pen

June 8, 2015

Steven Furtick – Teaching heresy about the walls of Jericho

Then he goes on to preach that coming to church lifts our perspective to be able to see beyond those walls, and that there's something about "making and effort to get into God's presence" that will "elevate your perspective" to be able to see past your problems and you will see that the enemy that you were intimated by, was actually intimidated of you all along.

The Pen

May 19, 2015

Rick Warren: People might not go to Heaven if you don’t tithe.

On May 17, 2015, Pastor of Saddleback Church took the opportunity during Sunday Morning worship service to make a plea for more money. He twists several Scriptures in order to guilt members of his church into believing that if they aren't giving 10 percent of their income on a weekly basis, they will not receive the blessings of God. He then ends his message with having his members sign an oath, "pledging" to give 10 percent of their income from this point forward, and that it "saddens him" to "know that some members would be missing out on God's blessings," and that "people might not go to heaven" because they didn't give their money to his church.

The Pen

April 29, 2015

Ronnie Floyd's Continuing Slide into New Age Dominionism.

As anyone who's been following my blog knows, I've been highly critical of Ronnie Floyd and the SBC's 2015 Annual Meeting theme, Great Awakening. I believe the Southern Baptist Convention has spun out of control under current president Floyd, and is heading downhill faster than ever. Ronnie Floyd is no stranger to questionable practices and teachings, and has been exposed for his mishandling of Scripture to teach Robert Morris' first fruits tithing heresy, as well as ties to a New Age ministry that practices a borderline form of witchcraft, known as prayer circles. He also endorses New Ager Mark Batterson's book, the Circle Maker, which also promotes an unbiblical form mystical prayer.

The Pen

April 21, 2015

Ronnie Floyd: One more year as pope of SBC thanks to J.D. Greear

The Baptist Press revealed yesterday that Pastor J.D. Greear of Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, NC, has nominated current pope president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Ronnie Floyd, to a second term. This comes as no surprise, as Floyd is adored by the neo-evangelical leadership who have now mainstreamed the denomination. One of the problems with this neo-evangelicalism is that many of them are solid bible teachers, and are solid in their doctrinal beliefs, but outside of the pulpit is where they break down. They see no problem associating with, and promoting emergent leaders such as Rick Warren, and they tend to blindly support each other, as I reported before, without any accountability, in order to re-elect and maintain leadership positions within the SBC. This appears to be the same thing here.

The Pen

February 27, 2015