Saturday, January 31, 2015

Passions That Destroy Morality!

 Clint Eastwood's latest movie, “American Sniper”, lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hyper-masculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans trapped in a stagnant economy and a dysfunctional political system, yearn for the supposed moral renewal and rigid, militarized control the movie venerates. These passions, if realized, will extinguish what is left of our now-anemic open society. Click the LINK below for the entire review.


Killing Ragheads for Jesus:  Information Clearing House - ICH

Saturday, January 10, 2015

John MacArthur & His Pretrib Rapture House of Cards By Dave MacPherson


              by Dave MacPherson

      Southern California pastor John MacArthur, head of the "Grace to You" Ministry, lives to jump into theological controversies and prove to his opponents that his "grace" is more biblical than their "grace"!
       For many years he's been involved with the "Lordship Salvation controversy" (see Wikipedia).
      In recent years he's sparred over Revelation's mark of the beast. To see how he's raised many temperatures, look up "John MacArthur OUTRAGE - take Mark of Beast, still be saved..." on YouTube!
      Since last fall MacArthur has inspired articles like "John MacArthur Sends 500,000,000 Charismatics to Hell" which is still all over the web. An excellent article explaining this incendiary headline is titled "John MacArthurs Strange Fire (Calvinists hating on Arminians, again?)" which can be found on Google and which is a response to the "Strange Fire Conference" MacArthur had held earlier at his church which is still causing aftershocks around the world!
      MacArthur's controversies began after he was exposed early in life to 19th century dispensationalism which he constantly (and arrogantly) reflects by sneaking in the "any-moment rapture" into whatever his topic happens to be. At the same time he tries to somehow combine Reformed theology with Deformed Dispensationalism. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the temptation to add the word "Deformed"!)    
      Who knows, maybe John (Reformedispy) MacArthur is right and the greatest Greek scholars (Google "Famous Rapture Watchers"), who uniformly said that Rev. 3:10 means "preservation through" and not "raptured away from" were wrong. But John has a conflict. On the one hand, since he knows that all Christian theology and organized churches before 1830 believed the church would be on earth during the tribulation, he would like to be seen as one who stands with the great Reformers. 
     On the other hand, if John has a warehouse of unsold pretrib rapture material, and if he wants to have "security" for his retirement years and hopes that the "big California quake" won't louse up his plans, he has a decided conflict of interest. Maybe the Lord will have to help strip off the layers of his seared conscience which have grown for years in order to please his parents and his supporters - who knows? 
     One thing is for sure: pretrib is truly a house of cards and is so fragile that if a person removes just one card from the TOP of the pile, the whole thing can collapse. Which is why pretrib teachers don't dare to even suggest they could be wrong on even one little subpoint! Don't you feel sorry for the straitjacket they are in? While you're mulling all this over, Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the same 185-year-old fantasy. 
     And if you want the real skinny on what the Bible really teaches (that is, the real meaning of words and phrases in the original language) I can happily recommend "The End Times Passover" by distinguished writer and scholar Joe Ortiz. His book "Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation" is also a must read. 
     What's more, Joe's "grace" in explaining deep Bible truths is much more gracious than the "grace" exhibited by another California prophecy writer we've just heard about!

     
 Dave MacPherson. What People are saying


What They Are Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT!

Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College): "As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher. Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon): "Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of 'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to discredit his work have failed...."

About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as a newsman reporting and filming many notable events, persons, presidents and dignitaries.