Lap Dog, Born Again Christianity No Discernment, No Boldness, No Sound Theology by Al Cronkrite March 27, 2007 Category: Christian Living

RULY, TRULY, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God...Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, 'You must be born again'". John 3: 3,5,6,&7. It is way beyond time for wimpy, effete, unteachable Christian leaders extant in our nation to begin to address the blatant usurpation of God's authority by our government and our courts. Strong, theologically sound Christians would never have allowed the secular god of humanism to gain ascendancy and dictate terms to the Church of Jesus Christ. Every pulpit would have been on fire against it! Both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson have offered to pray for co-presidential aspirant John Edward's wife who is battling metastasized cancer. "God bless" is a frequent epilogue to secular appearances and speeches. Former Senator John Danforth, famous Episcopalian Priest, often ends his prayers with "Amen". Military Chaplains are being harassed to stop praying sectarian prayers and end their petitions with the same simple "Amen". Jews often enjoin Christians to omit the Name of Jesus because it is offensive to them and Christians with disastrous ignorance, regularly comply. What god are these people calling to? "Jesus said, Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber...I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." (John 10:1 and 14:6) Only the Blood of Jesus can save us and cover our sins. The only avenue to the Throne of the Father is through Jesus; for without His covering, sin will always render The Father deaf to our petitions. Approaching God improperly is a grievous offense. In the Sixth Chapter of Second Samuel God killed Uzzah because he steadied the Ark of the Covenant by taking hold of it. In the Thirteenth Chapter of I Samuel, King Saul sealed his ignominious fate by improperly offering sacrifices. Under the New Covenant "we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19). How foolish of Christians to presume on God's Holiness by entering His presence in prayer without the covering of Christ. This heretical practice is bringing God's Judgment on us and on our nation. Pietism has become so rampant in our time that many people pray to unknown gods. The Apostle John writes , "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (John 4:1) In the Third Verse, the Apostle says "every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world." There has never been a time when the covering of the definitive Name of Jesus was of more importance. Christians in the United States seem to assume that when someone mentions god they are referring to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and when they say they are born again they are referring to being filled with the Spirit of Christ. The Apostle John has warned us that any spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God but from the antichrist. Those who pray to god without using the name of Jesus are heretics, forms of the antichrist. Many of these individuals claim to be born again but according to John's admonition they may be enemies of the Gospel. Used in a religious sense Wikipedia defines "born again" as "a soteriological term used primarily in the Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and Pentecostal branches of Protestant Christianity, where it is associated with salvation, conversion, and spiritual rebirth. Outside of these circles, the term is often applied by extension to other phenomena, including a Transcending personal experience - or the experience of being spiritually reborn (as apposed to spiritual birth)." It is the "other phenomena" that Christians must discern and shun, for these are not of our God, His Son, or His Spirit. Jesus is today and was always a stumbling block for those not selected. In the Fourth Verse of the Third Chapter of the Book of John, Nicodemus was incredulous at the thought of being born again. Facetiously he questioned how one could return to the womb. Years ago, I had a very sincere friend who reacted to my Christian witness in a similar manner; he thought the idea that Jesus was the Son Of God, had died for my sins, and was responsible for my rebirth was preposterous. The Apostle Paul said, "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (I Corinthians 1:18) My friend offered confirmation to the words of the Apostle Paul, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing. It will continue to be so; Christians will continue to be looked upon as foolish by those who are perishing but in spite of this fallacious arrogance we must obediently lift up Christ, seat Him on the Throne, acknowledge Him as the exclusive entry to the Father, and determine to use His covering in every prayer. The outrageous failure of visible professing Christian leaders to obey their Savior by praying in His name should be condemned in every church. It is this spirit of the antichrist that is responsible for the creeping tyranny that is overcoming our nation. United States citizens are loosing their freedom over a war started by their elected government, a 9/11 incident that national policies promoted, and a nebulous enemy our armies cannot defeat. We are continuing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children that have never been as much of a threat to us as we have to them and much of it is supported by Christian heresies and hubristic belligerence. Paul Craig Roberts lists but a few of the outrages Christians and their leaders should be confronting, "The administration's offenses against US law, the US Constitution, civil liberties, human rights, and the Geneva Conventions, its lies to Congress and the American people, its vote-rigging scandals, its sweetheart no-bid contracts to favored firms, its political firing of Republican US Attorneys, its practice of kidnapping and torturing people in foreign hellholes, and its persecution of whistle blowers are altogether so vast that it is a major undertaking just to list them all." According to the definition given by the Apostle John, our President is assisting the antichrist by praying with Muslims and omitting the name of Jesus to please his NeoCon masters. Hundreds of thousands of Evangelical Christians are aiding the antichrist by supporting Israel and the Jewish agenda. If your preacher is bragging to you about his expository preaching he is out of the Will of God and through his monstrous error of omission is assisting the antichrist. Italian revolutionary Antonia Gramsci wrote "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." This Christ hating Italian intellectual whose blueprint for incremental totalitarianism is being unfolded in the United States wrote from one of Mussolini's prisons where he died in his early forties. Many Christian leaders have never heard of Antonio Gramsci nor of his disciples at the Frankfort School, Adorno, Fromm, Marcuse, and Reich. They are not familiar with "Critical Theory", an arch enemy of Christianity. They are satisfied to complain about the deterioration of society while maintaining vapid silence about the specific intentions of the enemies of Christ to destroy our culture by promoting "destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention, and conservatism." Is it not the spirit of antichrist when a preacher allows Jesus to be marginalized and vilified without comment and a Christian leader to conduct public prayer without mentioning His name? Is it not that same spirit of antichrist that fails to notice that the murder of babies continues in the nation's legally sanctioned abortion clinics and does not complain as pornography outlets are opened without public sanction by an immoral legal system? How about a government that kills several hundred thousand people by initiating aggressive warfare against a nation that was a former ally and was never a threat to us. Is that not the spirit of antichrist? The England Eric Metaxas describes in "Amazing Grace", his entertaining biography of Christian abolitionist William Wilberforce, is similar to the United States today. Describing the Christian faith of that time he writes, "If, before, the British faith had been like a great and noble lion, it would now become something more like a lapdog that never roared nor dared to bite, and that could be fed bits of cheese and petted when one was in the mood to do so." Lap dog Christianity. That is what we have in the United States today. Published originally at EtherZone.com More guest columns.