One Early Sign of Limited Church Awakening
Recently Pastor Rick Henderson of South Mountain Community Church in Utah broke a unwritten taboo by naming two religious celebrities for teaching what he called un-christlike religion. Henderson’s story The False Promise of the Prosperity Gospel: Why I Called Out Joel Olsteen and Joyce Meyer, received well deserved, generous space in the Huffington Post in which he wrote:
“I have been preaching for 20 years. Yesterday I did something that I have never done before in a sermon. I publicly called out false teachers and named them by name…I used to think that their error was so blatantly obvious that they could just be ignored. I was wrong. They are massively growing in popularity in the evangelical world and are seen as credible and helpful. Before I’m inundated with questioning emails I want to share why I distrust these two and think you should as well. So, don’t shoot me — at least not yet. They both teach a twisted form of Christianity that teaches obedience, giving and faith as a way to get things from God. They are both products of what is known as the Prosperity Gospel and The Word of Faith Movement, or the Seed Faith Movement.”
On his blog Henderson correctly states: “What all false teachers share in common is that they undermine, reject, or redefine the promise of the Gospel. They undermine the person and work of Jesus Christ…Develop noble-mindedness and biblical discernment by studying the Bible well. Then you can tell the difference between teachers who say something false from those who are false teachers. Finally, no one is anointed.”
Prosperity preachers and faith healers are not the worse abusers of Jesus’ words, for they only seek self gain, and in matters of politics ate carefully neutral, never rocking the political boat for fear of driving off a possible contributor or seeker of divine healing for a small contribution. But both Olsteen and Meyer, frauds that they are, only take money from those who believe them. Other pastors are taking lives.
I wrote Pastor Henderson: “Thanks for your courageous speaking out on Prosperity-ism. You have indeed done a piece of God’s work, but there is no time for rest in Jesus Kingdom. Now I ask, what Jesus would say about America’s continued decent into a new age of national executions called ‘wars’? Have you spoken out against the greater threat that is called Christian Zionism, of which there are literally thousands of pastors supporting and prospering on the political war machine? They are silent today, as missiles and drones are prepared to destroy Syria by created civil war, making destitute the ordinary people of one Muslim state after another. And it’s always in the name of correcting their leaders to make them more peaceful, is it not? Do you agree that race hatred against Islam is the politicians tranquilizer for every new destroy mission, and that Jesus would and did denounce violence? Crusade-ism might be a good name for Christian approved warmaking. Who would Jesus bomb?
This current issue upon us is Syria. The aggressor consists of USA (The Lone Ranger in a white hat), our ancient foe, Great Briton (our “Tonto”), the banker for the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and the strangely silent, but always at war, Israel. The United Nations acts as the straight man who reports that poison substances (weapons of mass destruction) caused death, but the UN can’t tell who is to blame. The Obama administration is already convicted the Assad regime did it, even the he has no hard evidence to offer, though the President assures us it exists. Russia, Saudi’s oil rival, Iran, China and a few reluctant European states, including Germany, insist there is no need to be involved. They say only the opposition rebels have a motive to use gas in order to blame is on Assad in order to motive the Lone Ranger USA to go it alone. What would well informed Syrians say?
I spoke today to my long time friend, author, film maker and Muslim, Karriem Shabazz, an American by birth, who has just left Damascus, Aleppo to come home after 15 years there. He taught English in Syria at the American Language Center under the auspices of the United States Embassy. He was also the founder and manager of the English Department of the New Horizons franchise, which goes to show how important English is in Syria.
While at New Horizons he developed a Business English program for businessmen and government officials who wanted to do business in English. Karriem told me he once taught Bashar al-Assad’s Protocol staff as well as Vice President Farouk Al-Sharaa’s nephew. He speaks plainly about the situation there; he considers the Assad family dictators who are all about power. They believe that Syria is their own private family business with private, secret police forces, known as Shabbiha that can take life with no questions asked. In Damascus alone, they have over 80,000 FBI like, data gathering agencies called Mukhabaraat that spy on everyone. Family members cannot trust each other. They have been turned against one another. However, Mr. Shabazz also says those trying to unseat the Assad dynasty are also power hungry, and he has no doubts they would set up their own dictatorship if they win with the US help. So, to quote Mr. Shabazz, “ why doesn’t America know this and mind their own business? Don’t we have enough expensive problems? Are we going over there with drones and mistakenly increase the collateral damage maybe killing as many or more women and children than Bashaar al-Assad has done.”
Karriem also says there is a small Jewish community there and there is also an Israeli presence, which is constantly there. When asked, he has no doubts that Israel would not think twice about using poison gas on the Syrians, as they have done throughout the Middle East. In that part of the world it is well known that since 1948, the Israelis bombed synagogues throughout the region in order to entice Jews who have lived in those countries under the protection of the Muslims for thousands of years, to re-locate to Philistine, now known as Israel and Palestine.
Karriem tells me his native Syrian wife would welcome the American intervention, as would many natives, tired of the Assad dynasty. But he also believes she does not understand what civil war would do to Syria, and what it has done elsewhere, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Egypt.
He predicts that, “there will continue to be unrest and the killing of innocents for many years to come no matter if the government or the freedom army wins.”
In popular fiction, the Lone Ranger I grew up listening to never killed an enemy; he shot the guns right out of their hands and turned them over to the law of the day. The US “surgical strikes” and drone warfare do not work so cleanly. We kill, and we leave others in charge who kill many more, and where we do not settle the matter of who the new boss is, chaos results, as it has in Iraq.
Most depressing is that all too many Americans are too busy or confused to care. They simply accept what our leaders tell them, and they ignore the death count that follows. Some who have been trained to be Christian Zionists say, aren’t most of them Muslims, and don’t they have it coming to them?
Churches should be different. They have the responsibility to care, and a third of all Americans go to church once a week. That is power! They are the institutions that remind us of, “Thou shall not kill”…”Love your brother as you love yourself,” even “Love your enemy.” Churches are supposed to be our reminder of good and evil in the world, and the eternal promise of justice for both. But where are churches now on the issue of undeclared political acts of national assassination that have turned one after another ancient civilization into grave yards with playgrounds of depleted uranium?
Christianity began when Jesus exposed the corruption in the failed and amoral Israelite system, were Jesus spoke of the Temple Priests and Pharisees as “sons of Satan” and “Generation of Vipers.” There are many examples of Jesus exposing evil teachings within the accepted order, and not one example of him keeping silent in the face of religious evil.
This writer takes hope from a small sound of righteousness from the pulpit of Pastor Rick Henderson, who I never met but began talking about. He has shown willingness to challenge false teachers who, as he said, “undermine, reject or redefine the promise of Jesus.” We need more from him and a few thousand like him to speak out against war, and against those who are for war, even if this requires us to trample on the phony white hat of the Lone Ranger of war. Where is your pastor on Syria and Iran? When did you ask him…when did he publicly proclaim what Jesus would want you to believe about Syria?
The most vile of the antichrist pastors are those who have learned to build churches on a foundation of War, racial hatred, and fear that is the foundation of the War Based Economy. Simply stated, too many businessmen, bankers, and militarists including Washington Generals, are hooked on war, it is their meal ticket. We got that way because governments always direct resources into war, an easy path for reelection and wealth for themselves and their friends. War is the bankers cocaine, and the politicians aphrodisiac. We are a War Based Economy. Where are the voices who speak out against it based on the immorality of it? The War On Islam replaced the Cold War against Communism 24 years ago with the first bombing of Baghdad. Churches who openly promote the war on Islam have deserved a name given to them by Israel, “Christian Zionists, Israel’s chummy buddies.
Rick Henderson is a pastor who blogs at churchismessy.com
