Wolves Among the Sheep > Is Rick Warren losing it? Is it time to retire?

 

Last year I called for the retirement of Archbishop Justin Welby three times before he finally stepped down after being out of touch with reality. Today, I'm calling for Rick Warren to step down after a dreadfully poor analogy of Christ on the Cross is liable to lead his flock astray.

Rick Warren's political interpretation of Crucifixion draws Christians' ire: 'Embarrassing'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Rick Warren, founder and former pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., appeals the removal of the church from the Southern Baptist Convention during an afternoon session of the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 13, 2023. | Flickr/Baptist Press/Sonya Singh

Saddleback Church founder and former senior pastor Rick Warren drew scorn on social media for implying that Jesus Christ would be a political centrist today because He was crucified between two thieves.

"'They crucified Jesus with two others — one on each side & Jesus in the middle," Warren tweeted Tuesday, quoting John 19:18. "The guys on both sides were thieves. If you’re looking for the #realJesus, not a caricature disfigured by partisan motivations, you’ll find him in the middle, not on either side."

John 19:18 “They crucified Jesus with two others-one on each side & Jesus in the middle.”

The guys on both sides were thieves.

If you’re looking for the #realJesus, not a caricature disfigured by partisan motivations, you’ll find him in the middle, not on either side. pic.twitter.com/wYmLyayqsZ

— Rick Warren (@RickWarren) February 11, 2025

Several prominent Christian voices on X took the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life to task for what they deemed a questionable application of the biblical text.

"If you’re going to misuse the story this bad, you should also point out that the thief on the Right is the one that went to heaven lol," tweeted Babylon Bee managing editor Joel Berry.

Justin Peters, who heads a worldwide expository preaching and teaching ministry, rebuked Warren for what he characterized as sloppy biblical interpretation.

"This is, sadly, typical of Rick Warren's approach to scripture," wrote Peters. "This would have been laughed out of biblical hermeneutics on day 1. Basic hermeneutics dictates that you strive for authorial intent, and this is definitively NOT the point the author was making. This is not only embarrassing, it is inexcusable."

Others accused Warren of exhibiting the lukewarmness that Jesus warned against.

"Your Jesus sounds more like a lukewarm moderate in your own image," tweeted Aaron Edwards, a theology lecturer at Cliff College in Derbyshire, England, who was terminated in 2023 after he tweeted in opposition to homosexuality.

Ryan Visconti, pastor of the Arizona-based Generation Church, suggested Warren's call for political moderation among American Christians has become antiquated and effectively impossible given what much of the Left supports today.

"How would one be 'in the middle' on abortion, mutilating kid’s genitals, homosexuality, open borders, DEI, CRT, etc? There’s no middle ground between evil and righteousness. You’re wrong, Pastor Rick. Your approach made sense in 1990, but not today," he wrote.

Author and podcast host Eric Metaxas echoed Visconti's sentiment, calling Warren's tweet "misleading posturing."

"What does it even mean? Shall we be 'in the middle' when it comes to standing against killing babies or mutilating kids or corruption in our own govt? There is a time to be bold as lions against evil! That's not 'partisan.' It's the Lord's will," he wrote.

Attorney Jenna Ellis tweeted that Warren should "be embarrassed to call yourself a pastor."

"Jesus is not a moderate or 'in the middle' when it comes to truth. To characterize him as such simply because of the placement of his cross is perverting an historical fact into a symbolic meaning to serve your own ideological agenda," she added.

"It's so bad my jaw is on floor," author and Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham wrote in response to Ellis' tweet.

Basham, who has written extensively about the infiltration of left-wing financial interests in the American church, also suggested that Warren's widespread influence in the Evangelical world might have contributed to its present theological weakness.

"The fact that this is the pastor from whom millions of Americans found spiritual guidance for years explains a lot about the state of our theology," she wrote.

"With every post, Rick Warren proves the wisdom of Southern Baptists in kicking him out," wrote William Wolfe, who serves as executive director at the Center for Baptist Leadership.

In 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention upheld the removal of Saddleback Church from the denomination for permitting a woman to serve in the office of teaching pastor, despite an impassioned plea from Warren.

A website devoted to Warren's bestselling book touts him as "America's most influential spiritual leader," and notes how he "is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy," and has delivered addresses to international bodies such as the World Economic Forum.

Perhaps he should convert to Catholicism, he should get along well with the Pope.

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Wolves Among the Sheep > Justin Welby prayed against Israel - now he's gone!

 

Welby prayed God would turn the world

against Israel and was judged for it

Nov 15, 2024 | Christians Against Anti-Semitism, News

Justin Welby has resigned as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Recently, Welby came out strongly against Israel, denying the Biblical rights of Jews to the land, and many are now asking whether this has brought God’s judgement upon him. It is a lesson that all Christian leaders should learn from.

Jesus told us that the world would hate us just as He was first hated by the world (John 15:18-19). And Paul teaches us that we are not to be conformed to this world (Romans 12:2) but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

As leader of the Church of England his role should have been to challenge the world. To hold the government and authorities in Britain to account according to the teachings of the Bible. Welby was supposed to defend the faith, not transform Christianity to fit the politics of the day.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” – Matthew 5:13

The Church cannot be salt and light if it is indistinguishable from the world. It has no value to God. Sadly, Justin Welby was conforming to the ways of the world and rejecting Biblical truth.

At CUFI, we are fully committed to the Godly cause of Israel. We speak of little else. Our supporters have raised several issues they had with other teachings of Justin Welby, but we are not going to cover those topics today. We are only looking at it from his stand on Israel. Ultimately, it seems it was his anti-Israel stance that brought him down.

In August, Archbishop Welby released a statement on the ‘Two-State Solution’ and called for Israel and Jewish removal from all of Judea and Samaria, including East Jerusalem.

These areas rightfully belong to Israel, including the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives (where Jesus will return) and the Tomb of the Patriarchs to name a few. Welby wanted to remove the Jewish rights to these places and give them to Islamists.

CUFI wrote an article about it which went into seven reasons why the Archbishop’s stance was unbiblical and out of order. You can read that https://www.cufi.org.uk/news/seven-reasons-why-archbishop-welbys-statement-on-israel-is-unbiblical-and-out-of-order”>here.

Ultimately, God warns that Jerusalem will be a heavy stone for all who try to lift it. And that includes Christian leaders.

“And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.” – Zechariah 12:3-4

Welby’s statement in August made clear the Archbishop’s stance. He said, “Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful and needs to end as rapidly as possible.” And he wrote this based on biased statements from ungodly global bodies.

Welby forgot that the Bible is the final authority on Israel’s legality. God’s law is infallible. International law is not. The legal text for Israel’s status is written down in the pages of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all their descendants, are the rightful heirs of the land as decreed by God.

Not only did Welby replace God’s word with man’s, but he also encouraged the world to go against God.

“It is imperative that governments around the world reaffirm their unwavering commitment to all decisions by the International Court of Justice, irrespective of the situation,” wrote Welby.

Then Welby wrote his most egregious comment: “I pray that all UN member states respond positively to this Advisory Opinion.”

Not only was Welby urging the world to turn against Israel, Welby said he was praying, talking to God, that He might turn all the nations of the world against Israel.

Think about it for a moment. He was asking the God of Israel who made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to turn the world against Israel and the Jews.

How foolish!

God is clear that anyone who tries to remove Jerusalem will be cut into pieces. Likewise, anyone who touches Israel touches the apple of God’s eye (Zecheriah 2:8).

What could possibly lead an Archbishop to have the audacity to demand from God that He rescind His eternal promise, reject the people whom He foreknew, rewrite Scripture, and ask God to turn all nations against the thing God loves? It was far worse than just poking God in the eye, and it wasn’t God leading Welby to make such unbiblical statements.

Three times this year, before this story broke, I have called for Welby's resignation. Each time it appeared that Welby's decisions were not those of a godly man, but those of one who has departed from God. 

Is this possible? Martin Luthor once spoke against the Jews, although this may have come shortly after the death of his youngest and favourite daughter.

I know by experience that it is possible to depart from the Lord for a season. I believe Welby will find his way back into fellowship with the Lord, but he definitely needs to step down from his lofty position.

At CUFI, we seek to follow the Lord and obey His commands. We fully believe and accept that God knows what He is doing and compared to Him we know nothing. We do not have the audacity to think we know better than God. We fear the Lord.

Welby learned the hard way that compromising the truths of the Bible is a bad move. He had already lost a lot of respect from the Church for various ways in which he pandered to the world. Now, he’s lost the respect of the world too. And it was all because he tried to please the world rather than God. He lost his flavour, turned against Israel, conformed to the world, and it seems he was judged for it; losing his position and having his legacy cut to pieces.

We will of course be praying for Justin Welby and for his successor. The Church of England needs Godly leaders who will stand up for Biblical truth and be salt and light in this dark and evil world.

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Wolves Among the Sheep > Senior Pastor - a liar and a thief, sent to prison in Maryland

 

Pastor who obtained $3.5M in COVID relief funds, bought Tesla sentenced to prison

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, September 01, 2024

Rudolph Brooks, a 48-year-old pastor from Cheltenham, Maryland, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining over $3.5 million in COVID-19 Paycheck Protection Program loans and using part of these funds to purchase a Tesla.

The sentencing also includes two years of supervised release and mandates the forfeiture of significant assets, including properties in Maryland.

And the Tesla?

Investigations revealed that from April 2020 to September 2021, Brooks, founder and senior pastor of the Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration Ministries in Washington, D.C., exploited the PPP by submitting falsified documents to obtain loans for businesses under his control, including a car dealership and a ministry, Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, said in a statement.

Brooks’ fraudulent activities centered around his businesses, Cars Direct by Gavawn HWD Bob’s Motors, Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration Ministries, and Madaro, LLC. He inflated employee numbers and payroll expenses on PPP loan applications, securing millions, which he then misused for personal expenses.

Satan is the father of lies, and liars, IMHO.

Notable purchases included a 2018 Tesla Model 3, a property in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and lavish spending on groceries, retail items and restaurant meals.

The CARES Act, under which Brooks committed the fraud, was enacted in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans impacted by the economic downturn caused by COVID-19.

Brooks pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering, as per court records from the sentencing Tuesday. As a result, he was ordered by Judge Deborah L. Boardman to forfeit over $2 million, the Tesla vehicle and the real estate purchased with the fraudulently obtained funds.

The case against Brooks involved several federal agencies, including the FBI and the IRS.

Brooks was prosecuted by the District of Maryland Strike Force, one of three nationwide initiatives aimed at combatting pandemic-related fraud.

In an interview with The Impact’s Robin Dorsey on WBGR in 2018, Brooks said he knew he was called by God when he was about 4 or 5 years old. He further noted that he was raised in the church and his father was a minister.

His church’s website describes him as “a man after God’s own heart and has a passion for God’s people.”

“Pastor Brooks desires to see believers grow spiritually and desires to see the church function according to the word of the Lord. His intense love for the Lord, relentless spirit and ability to tap into the very heart of God make him a memorable speaker. With his love for God and lively preaching style, which can hold even the skeptics’ attention, Pastor Brooks speaks and shares the heart of God with compassion and conviction,” the church notes.

Did Brooks write this himself? Liars and thieves have no place in the pulpit of a real Christian church. Where was the gift of discernment in this church? Was no-one listening to God?

Wolves Among the Sheep > Hundreds of Christians murdered or suicided in Kenyan cult

 

Kenyan cult leader faces terrorism charges

for mass starvation deaths

Kenyan doomsday cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie appeared in court in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa on Monday at the start of a high-profile trial over the starvation deaths of more than 400 of his followers. Mackenzie faces terrorism charges and is also accused of murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, and torturing children, along with 94 other defendants.

Issued on: 08/07/2024 - 12:38

2 min

By:NEWS WIRES

The leader of a Kenyan doomsday cult went on trial on Monday on charges of terrorism over the deaths of more than 400 of his followers in a macabre case that shocked the world.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie appeared in court in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa along with 94 co-defendants, an AFP journalist said.

Journalists were removed from the courtroom shortly after the start of the hearing to enable a protected witness to take the stand.

Mackenzie, who was arrested in April last year, is alleged to have incited his acolytes to starve to death in order to "meet Jesus".

He and his co-accused all pleaded not guilty to the charges of terrorism at a hearing in January.

They also face charges of murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, and child torture and cruelty in separate cases.

The remains of more than 440 people have been unearthed so far in a remote wilderness inland from the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi, in a case that has been dubbed the "Shakahola forest massacre".

Autopsies have found that while starvation appeared to be the main cause of death, some of the victims -- including children -- were strangled, beaten, or suffocated.

Previous court documents also said that some of the bodies had had their organs removed.

Police accused of laxity

Mackenzie, a former taxi driver, turned himself in on April 14 after police acting on a tip-off first entered Shakahola forest, where mass graves have been found.

In March, the authorities began releasing some victims' bodies to distraught relatives after months of painstaking work to identify them using DNA.

Questions have been raised about how Mackenzie, a self-styled pastor with a history of extremism, managed to evade law enforcement despite his prominent profile and previous legal cases.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki last year accused Kenyan police of laxity in investigating the initial reports of starvation.

"The Shakahola massacre is the worst breach of security in the history of our country," he told a senate committee hearing, vowing to "relentlessly push for legal reforms to tame rogue preachers".

The state-backed Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) in March criticised security officers in Malindi for "gross abdication of duty and negligence".

The horrific saga has seen President William Ruto vow to intervene in Kenya's homegrown religious movements.

In largely Christian Kenya, it has also thrown a spotlight on failed efforts to regulate unscrupulous churches and cults that have dabbled in criminality.

(AFP)

The Decline of America as seen in the absurd failure of Oakland - Left Wing Logic

Thieves steal the wires from traffic lights in Oakland, so the city decided to remove the traffic lights rather than the thieves.

Oakland Removes Traffic Lights as It

Continues Its Slide Into the Third World

MAY 21, 2024 7:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

New in PJ Media:

In the once-fine city of Oakland, California, these days, we can all watch how a nation can move from the first world to the third world, right under the noses of its elected officials and most of its people, while hardly anyone dares to talk about what’s going on.

Great civilizations can be destroyed in a day. The conquest of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, marking the end of the Roman Empire after over two thousand years as a continuous polity, is a case in point. More often, however, once-powerful empires expire gradually, becoming a shadow of their former selves little by little, without attracting much notice, until it is undeniable that the former glory is gone, never to return. A case in point for that is the demise of the Western Roman Empire, which according to the historians fell in 476, yet without anyone much noticing until decades later. And in our own age, the decline of the United States of America in these dark days of the Biden regime can be seen vividly in Oakland.

For several years I lived a short drive from Oakland, and went there often. Although it had its bad areas, it was for the most part a delightful place. There was the zoo, and Jack London Square, where the greatest jazz artists in the land could be seen at Yoshi’s. There were the Oakland Athletics and Raiders, as well as the Golden State Warriors. Oakland had beautiful weather, lovely scenery, and world-class attractions. Now the Raiders and Warriors are gone, and the A’s are woeful and despised and on their way out as well. Yoshi’s is still there and still first-rate, but every day it gets harder to justify wanting to spend an evening in downtown Oakland.

The reasons for this are the usual effects of far-left rule. They can be seen all over America, but in Oakland they’re as bad or worse as they are anywhere. Fox News reported Sunday that “violent crime in Oakland increased 22% this year, according to the most recently available police data, which also show a nearly 10% increase in commercial burglary.” Even in the far-left Mecca that is Oakland, many business owners are fed up: “In September, over 200 business owners shut down their stores to strike against the government’s handling of public safety amid rising crime. The protest was held days after city officials admitted to missing a deadline to apply for state funding to fight retail theft.”

And now the city is taking down traffic lights. Oakland, Fox News explains, “has been experiencing high crime and theft, including people stealing copper wires and the city’s infrastructure.” The city tried to stop this by putting up cement barriers around electrical boxes, but the brigands proved resourceful enough to overcome that. And so now the wise Communists who rule the city have “taken to removing the traffic lights at a busy intersection and replacing them with stop signs.”

A nearby business owner spells out what this signifies. Tam Le of Le's Auto Body & Engine Repair said: "It's just telling us that the city is giving up on us.” That’s right, Tam Le. That’s exactly what it’s telling you. Tam Le continued: "If you really want to fix the stop sign, I think you really have to clean up this homeless encampment." Yes, but there is no chance that Oakland officials will do that. It would go against so many leftist dogmas that they would be impeached and removed from office within minutes. And so the traffic lights have to go. 

They won’t really be much missed. They haven’t been working, anyway: “The lights had been working on and off for months due to criminals tampering with the electricity and stealing the wires, the report said. One local, Mason Young, said it was becoming extremely dangerous to drive through the intersection, and noted an accident that recently occurred there.” Now, of course, there will just be more accidents, but at least the thieves won’t be able to steal copper wire anymore. They’ll have to content themselves with strolling into the remaining local stores and carrying out $949 worth of merchandise.

Rampant theft. Declining city services. Rising violent crime. This is not the sunny Oakland that I once knew, that was so inviting and delightful to visit. This is a crime-ridden hellhole dominated by potentially violent homeless people and criminals who know they can act with virtual impunity and go unpunished. Decent people are following the city’s old sports teams on the way out the door. Soon enough, no one will be left in Oakland except those who are willing to live by the law of the streets. The rule of law will be a dimming memory. Oakland is a case study for what has gone wrong with America. This is an American city under decades of far-left rule. And it’s only going to get worse.