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Hollywood's War On God

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March 27, 2024, 12:55:24 pm Mark says: Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked  When Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida began a speech marking the 100th day of the war in Gaza, one confounding yet eye-opening proclamation escaped the headlines. Listing the motives for the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, he accused Jews of "bringing red cows" to the Holy Land.
December 31, 2022, 10:08:58 am NilsFor1611 says: blessings
August 08, 2018, 02:38:10 am suzytr says: Hello, any good churches in the Sacto, CA area, also looking in Reno NV, thanks in advance and God Bless you Smiley
January 29, 2018, 01:21:57 am Christian40 says: It will be interesting to see what happens this year Israel being 70 years as a modern nation may 14 2018
October 17, 2017, 01:25:20 am Christian40 says: It is good to type Mark is here again!  Smiley
October 16, 2017, 03:28:18 am Christian40 says: anyone else thinking that time is accelerating now? it seems im doing days in shorter time now is time being affected in some way?
September 24, 2017, 10:45:16 pm Psalm 51:17 says: The specific rule pertaining to the national anthem is found on pages A62-63 of the league rulebook. It states: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. “During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”
September 20, 2017, 04:32:32 am Christian40 says: "The most popular Hepatitis B vaccine is nothing short of a witch’s brew including aluminum, formaldehyde, yeast, amino acids, and soy. Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that destroys cellular metabolism and function. Hundreds of studies link to the ravaging effects of aluminum. The other proteins and formaldehyde serve to activate the immune system and open up the blood-brain barrier. This is NOT a good thing."
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-11-new-fda-approved-hepatitis-b-vaccine-found-to-increase-heart-attack-risk-by-700.html
September 19, 2017, 03:59:21 am Christian40 says: bbc international did a video about there street preaching they are good witnesses
September 14, 2017, 08:06:04 am Psalm 51:17 says: bro Mark Hunter on YT has some good, edifying stuff too.
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« Reply #30 on: April 06, 2014, 10:21:19 pm »

Book tells how CIA turned 'Doctor Zhivago' into propaganda tool
4/6/14
http://news.yahoo.com/book-tells-cia-turned-doctor-zhivago-propaganda-tool-164514386--sector.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA officials had rave reviews for Boris Pasternak's classic Russian novel "Doctor Zhivago" - not for its literary merit but as a propaganda weapon in the Cold War, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The U.S. intelligence agency saw the book as a challenge to Communism and a way to make Soviet citizens question why their government was suppressing one of their greatest writers, according to newly declassified CIA documents that detail the agency's involvement in the book's printing, the Post said.

The Soviet government had banned the novel and British intelligence first recognized its propaganda value in 1958, sending the CIA two rolls of film of its pages and suggesting it be spread through the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Moscow was both angered and embarrassed by the eventual success of the novel and of David Lean's lavish 1965 movie version, which won five Academy Awards and was nominated for best picture.

Pasternak's romantic epic chronicles the life of Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet, and his love for two women through decades of revolutions, wars, civil war and Communist oppression. "Doctor Zhivago" had a religious, mystical tone and its main character did not hew to official Marxist ideology.

Russian critics denounced Pasternak as a traitor and the Soviet publishing industry would not touch it, but an Italian literary scout took a copy of the manuscript out of the Soviet Union and an Italian company published it in 1957.

Shortly afterwards, the CIA became involved, according to recently declassified memos obtained by authors Peter Finn and Petra Couvee in their research for the book "The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book," which will be released in June.

The Post's story was an adaptation of the Finn-Couvee book.

"CHALLENGE TO SOVIET ETHIC"

One of the CIA memos said "Dr. Zhivago" had high propaganda value "not only for its intrinsic message and thought-provoking nature, but also for the circumstances of its publication.

"We have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country in his own language for his own people to read," the memo said.

The CIA decided to have it published in foreign languages for free distribution as a way to undermine the Soviet Union.

"Pasternak's humanistic message - that every person is entitled to a private life and deserves respect as a human being, irrespective of the extent of his political loyalty or contribution to the state - poses a fundamental challenge to the Soviet ethic of sacrifice of the individual to the Communist system," John Maury, chief of the agency's Soviet Russia Division, said in a memo, according to the Post.

The CIA wanted to conceal the U.S. role in disseminating "Doctor Zhivago" so it brought in a Dutch publishing house to print Russian-language versions - even though the Italian publisher still held the rights to the book.

The books were distributed across Europe with the primary target being the 1958 Brussels Universal and International Exposition because Moscow had issued visas for 16,000 Soviet citizens to attend.

The CIA did not want the U.S. pavilion at the exposition to distribute the 365 copies of the book so they were discreetly handed to Soviet citizens visiting the Vatican's pavilion.

The books circulated widely among Soviet visitors to the exposition and a CIA memo proclaimed the move a success.

Later the CIA engineered the publication of a miniature edition of the novel - small enough to fit into a pocket and sometimes split into two volumes to make it easier to conceal. Many of those mini-books were distributed to young Soviets and Eastern Europeans at a youth conference in Vienna in 1959.

With the CIA's help, "Doctor Zhivago" eventually reached Moscow and Soviet satellite countries, passed from hand to hand.

Pasternak, who was also a leading poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 and the English-language version of "Doctor Zhivago" spent six months atop the New York Times best-seller list in 1958 and 1959.

Pasternak stayed in Russia up to his death in 1960 at the age of 70 after suffering from heart problems and lung cancer.

(Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Jim Loney and Gareth Jones)
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« Reply #31 on: April 20, 2014, 06:55:50 pm »

https://movies.yahoo.com/news/captain-america-crushes-johnny-depp-holds-off-heaven-152800117.html
4/20/14

Excerpt:

Starring Greg Kinnear as a small-town pastor whose son claims to have seen heaven after a near-death experience, Sony's “Heaven Is for Real” was third for the weekend with $21.5 million and has taken in $28.5 million since opening Wednesday. It was the fourth faith-based film to score with moviegoers this year, coming on the heels of “Noah,” “God's Not Dead” and “Son of God.”
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« Reply #32 on: April 20, 2014, 09:19:50 pm »

http://ca.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idCABREA3J0L320140420
Hollywood plays to the faithful, finds hits with God
4/20/14

By Ronald Grover and Chris Michaud
 
(Reuters) - Hollywood has embraced God in a big - and lucrative - way.
 
The movie "Heaven is for Real," which depicts the story of a young boy who claims to have visited heaven during a near death experience, is the fourth faith-based film this year to stir movie-going audiences with impressive box office numbers.
 
Made for $12 million, the film, which stars Greg Kinnear, collected $21.5 million over the Easter weekend in U.S. and Canadian theaters, finishing third at the box office behind bigger budget films "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" from Walt Disney and "Rio 2" from Fox.
 
Two other Christian-based films also cracked the top 10. "Noah," from Viacom's Paramount Pictures, stars Russell Crowe as the biblical figure and was ninth. It has generated more than $93 million at domestic theaters since opening in March, according to the site Box Office Mojo.
 
"God's Not Dead," about a religious freshman college student who debates his professor over the existence of God, was tenth and has totaled $48 million over five weeks, despite playing in only about half the numbers of theaters of Hollywood's larger films.
 
Fox's "Son of God," an adaptation of producer Mark Burnett's 10-hour TV mini series "The Bible," generated more than $59 million in domestic ticket sales after opening earlier this year.
 
"This audience has long felt left out by Hollywood and it certainly looks like this isn't the case anymore," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior market analyst of box office tracking firm Rentrak, in an email. "The numbers will encourage studios to make more of these types of films."

Studios have been searching for more faith-based films since Mel Gibson's 2004 "The Passion of the Christ," which tallied $611.9 million in worldwide ticket sales and was made on a modest $30 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.
 
In the last five years alone, Hollywood has made 26 movies that the site classifies as "Christian" films, including three based on "The Chronicles of Narnia" fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis that literary academics say adopted several Christian themes.
 
"There's a core audience and they're very interested in seeing films with a faith-based center," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribute for Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose TriStar Pictures unit distributed "Heaven is for Real."
 
"The one main ingredient most have is that they are somewhat inspirational in nature," said Bruer. "People feel like they get something out of it."
 
Not all get great reviews. "Heaven is for Real" got a positive "fresh" rating from only 31 of 59 reviewers, according to the site Rotten Tomatoes.
 
But some of the films can have a built-in marketing vehicle, according to David A. R. White, whose company Pure Flix produced the film "God's Not Dead."
 
White told Entertainment Weekly that Pure Flix waged an aggressive grass-roots campaign that included screening the film for 8,000 pastors prior to its opening.
 
"We have a lot of relationships to the gatekeepers who can rally their people to go to the movie theater," White told the magazine. He added of the American audience, "160 million plus people call themselves Christians. They go to church once a month, at least. That's a lot of people."
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« Reply #33 on: April 20, 2014, 09:33:08 pm »

Quote
But some of the films can have a built-in marketing vehicle, according to David A. R. White, whose company Pure Flix produced the film "God's Not Dead."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.

Marketing can be looked at as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, delivering and communicating value to customers, and managing customer relationships in ways that also benefit the organization. Marketing is the science of choosing target markets through market analysis and market segmentation, as well as understanding consumer behavior and providing superior customer value. From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society’s material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long term relationships.

Organizations may choose to operate a business under five competing concepts: the production concept, the product concept, the selling concept, the marketing concept, and the holistic marketing concept.[1] The four components of holistic marketing are relationship marketing, internal marketing, integrated marketing, and socially responsive marketing. The set of engagements necessary for successful marketing management includes capturing marketing insights, connecting with customers, building strong brands, shaping the market offerings, delivering and communicating value, creating long-term growth, and developing marketing strategies and plans.[2]

Marketing may be defined in several ways, depending on the role of the advertised enterprise in relation to the strategic role in positioning the firm within its competitive market. The main definition is often credited to Philip Kotler, recognized as the originator of the most recent developments in the field, for the works that appeared from 1967 to 2009, with the latest work born from the last economic crisis: Chaotics.
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« Reply #34 on: April 25, 2014, 10:35:32 am »

FYI, the guy who wrote this article is a Roman Catholic(he's one of the so-called "liberal media" critics) - ultimately, this is another of their Hegelian Dialectic games - they want to make you think Christians are "winning" the war against liberalism, Hollywood, etc via THIS. But all this is doing is polarizing both ends of the spectrum even further(ie-the lost world will view Christianity to be even more foolish - seriously, it amazes me how the lost world sees the lies and deceptions in these "faith-based" movies).

God Movies Make Money
Brent Bozell | Apr 25, 2014
http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2014/04/25/god-movies-make-money-n1829079

The accountants in Hollywood don't have to believe in heaven to notice the box office numbers on recent movies with religious themes. "Heaven Is for Real" opened in the days before Easter and grossed more than $22 million, coming in second for the weekend, just $3 million behind the latest "Captain America" blockbuster (in its third week). The movie's per-screen average -- $8,895 -- was far above the rest of the top five.

"Heaven Is for Real," like many movies, is based on a best-selling book. It's a real-life story about 4-year-old Colton Burpo and his visions of heaven after an emergency surgery in 2003. Within three weeks of its November 2010 release, the book debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list. Eventually, it made its way to No. 1.

Box Office Mojo reported, "Sony targeted their marketing towards Christian audiences, and placed an emphasis on calling ahead for group ticket sales." Stop the presses. Breaking news. There is a Christian audience, and it has wallets that open.

This has happened repeatedly this year.

It happened in mid-March, when "God's Not Dead" opened at No. 4 with a $9 million gross, and then surprised the ticket-watchers by persistently drawing an audience, as it now approaches $50 million at the box office. This comes despite film critics trashing it, and one insisting, "Even by the rather lax standards of the Christian film industry, 'God's Not Dead' is a disaster."

This was not a studio movie, but a production of the Arizona-based Christian company Pure Flix. At the center of the plot is a debate between a college philosophy professor and a freshman student over the existence of God. No, it's not your usual popcorn fare, but there is an audience that surely enjoys the rare occasion of a script strongly striking back at Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin, offering rebuttal to the usual atheist arrogance of most pop culture products. Interestingly, there is also this: In the corners of the plot are several Christian product placements -- appearances testifying to Jesus by "Duck Dynasty" stars Willie and Korie Robertson, and the Christian-rock band, the Newsboys. Jesus sells.

**Uhm...Duck Dynasty preaches a "baptism regeneration", works-based gospel(which is right out of the RCC). And Newsboys has a lot of major doctrinal issues themselves, being from the CCM.

One can easily see how the word of mouth spreads on a movie like this, when all the people attending the Newsboys' concert at the movie's end are asked to text message "God's not dead" to their friends and acquaintances.

"Son of God" was produced by adding some new footage and re-editing the Jesus sections of Mark Burnett's History Channel miniseries "The Bible." It was released in mid-February and also showed surprising strength, grossing $25 million in its first weekend and a total of $60 million so far. And why not? "The Bible" has become the top-selling miniseries on DVD of all time.

Some have compared these numbers to "Noah," which hasn't lived up to expectations -- especially after the endless hype. But there's a reason it disappointed. Despite the movie's putative inspiration in the Bible, "Noah" isn't a religious movie. The leftist critics were kind, but critics at the conservative Intercollegiate Review panned it as "The Rocky Horror Bible Show," comparing its Noah to a man-hating, eco-maniacal unabomber, and its story as Genesis "rewritten by Cher." It should tell us something that another big-money Russell Crowe movie, "Gladiator," had a nobler view of God and man.

Just as there's always an audience for a horror movie, and there's always an audience for a romantic comedy, there is always an audience for faith-friendly films. Theater owners have been learning that lesson all year. Will the Hollywood studios ever catch on?

**As you can see, they're finding more ways to get people away from the KJB. First throwing corrupted versions into the market. Then throwing all of this CCM/"Christian" Rock bread and circus. And now these deceptive movies and tv shows.
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« Reply #35 on: May 02, 2014, 12:55:42 pm »

http://www.gcmwatch.com/7409/the-real-gay-agenda-is-on-your-tv-and-movie-screens
The real gay agenda is on your tv and movie screens
6/30/2011

Part 2 of an exclusive interview with Pastor Joe Schimmel of Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, CA

Shofarsound: There’s hardly a TV show now that doesnt have a “well adjusted” homosexual character. Is this intentional?

Pastor Joe: That’s a great question. Tragically, almost anything that is treated favorably by Hollywood and mass media becomes infectious and catches on, even if it is deadly.  Humans are very impressionable and easily led by the liberal media. Television shows and movies have been a powerful weapon in Satan’s arsenal to erode godly morals among the American populace.

Oprah Winfrey, who influences millions, promoted homosexuality when she made a cameo appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ “Coming Out” Episode.  Since Oprah claims to be a Christian when in fact she is a new ager, she has duped God only knows how many biblically uninformed Christians on the issue.

Television shows that promote homosexuality are too numerous to list, but in the last couple of years shows like “Degrassi,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Pretty Little Liars,” and “Glee” are at the top of the list, when it comes to glamorizing the sin of homosexuality. Many of these TV shows receive awards from the homosexual organization GLAAD for their promotion of homosexual lifestyles. Wise parents will protect their children from being enticed by programming that is intended to program their little ones with gay propaganda.

In “The Overhauling of Straight America,” authors Kirk and Erastes Pill, advocate this strategy to propagate the gay agenda:

“Where we talk is important. The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image-makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed … So far, gay Hollywood has provided our best covert weapon in the battle to desensitize the mainstream” (Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America.” Guide Magazine, October and November 1987 [emphasis added].

Consider the following revealing stratagem from a popular manual, advocating homosexual propaganda, by Harvard trained gay activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen:

“… Famous historical figures are especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gainsaid or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible cement. By casting its violet spotlight on such revered heroes, in no time a skillful media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization” (Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball).

We can look at just two of the top movies that came out in the month of June 2011 to see how this propaganda works. The latest X-Men movie (X-Men: First Class) was number one at the box office and very few of the millions who viewed it, knew that they were being indoctrinated by a subversive gay propaganda film.

X-men films develop the theme of various X-men discovering their superpowers, as they struggle with their various mutations and societies reluctance to accept their “coming out,” with their superpowers.  Unbelievably, some behind the X-Men movies want their audience to see X-Men as superheroes “coming out,” as analogous to gays coming out of the closet, and their superpowers, as analogous to homosexual lifestyles.

Gay X-Men screenwriter Dan Harris, who wrote the screenplay for X2 with gay screenwriter Michael Dougherty, admitted that he sees X-Men mutancy, and the X-Men’s struggle for acceptance in society, as corresponding to homosexuality:

“…. it’s become more a metaphor for sexual identity and orientation because it’s more appropriate to look at a person and have to say, ‘Are you a mutant?’…. you can’t always look at a person and know that they’re a mutant just like you can’t look at a person and know that they’re gay” (Filmfreakcentral.net critic Walter Chaw, X2).

Openly gay X-Men Director, Bryan Singer, has not only directed most of the X-Men movies but recruited openly gay activist actor Ian McKellen, to star as Magneto, by convincing him that mutants were comparable to struggling gays. McKellen stated “I think he expected that I was going to consider it a not posh-enough job,” but revealed that he was told that X-Men is really about Lesbain, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. “I thought he was right,” says McKellen. “It’s not just a fantasy story. It’s a parable.” McKellen is a co-founder of the LGBT gay activist group Stonewall.

McKellen further stated “[The producers] will tell you one of the demographics that X-Men appeals to is young gays…. There are enough people in this world who think that the answer to the ‘problem’ of being gay is to be ‘cured’ of your abnormality.” Thus in McKellen’s mind, rather than view sex between two men as immoral behavior, why not portray it as positive genetic mutation, on the level of the fantastic powers of a superhero?

Homosexual William Earnest in his article “Making Gay Sense of X-Men,” admitted “Singer and his screenwriters equipped X-Men and X2 with the rhetorical stealth needed to fly below the gaydar of many critics and audience members.” [source]

In the latest X-Men installment, when an X-Men who works for the US military is asked how he got away with being discovered through the years, he replies “Well, they didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.” An obvious reference to the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality in the U.S. military.  Thus the line is drawn from this X-men’s superpower to homosexuality, and Hollywood has gone a step further than simply legitimizing what billions of people deem to be sinful and destructive behavior, to glorifying it as something to be coveted like a cool superpower.

When we turn to Pirates of the Caribbean, which like X-Men, has been one of the most successful series of movies ever released, we see similar brainwashing. Johnny Depp admits that he read the book “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition,” to prepare for his staring role as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Famous Film Reviewer, Robert Ebert wrote: “Depp seems to be channeling a drunken drag queen with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly.” When Rolling Stone asked Depp about the “certain gay undercurrent” so obvious in his Jack Sparrow’s character, Depp responded:

“Well, there was a great book I read…. ‘Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition.’ A very interesting book. I wasn’t exactly going for that with the character. And Keith [Richards] is not flamboyant in his actions. Keith is pretty stealth. But with Jack, it was more that I liked the idea of being ambiguous, of taking this character and making everything a little bit…. questionable. Because women were thought to be bad luck on ships. And these pirates would go out for years at a time. So, you know, there is the possibility that one thing might lead to another. You’re lonely. You have an extra ration of rum. ‘Cabin boy!’” (Rolling Stone, July 2006, p. 50).


Sadly, millions of parents had no idea that Depp had inculcated aspects of a homosexual pirate into his character. Children who are enticed by this character, are led to believe that since Captain Jack is portrayed as a hero, that wearing eye shadow and acting effeminate is the stuff heroes are made of today, unable to always discern the difference between fact and fiction. Gay activist Darrell Risk, in his article “Are Homosexual’s Born That Way?” acknowledges the infectious nature of homosexuality, when young people are exposed to it:

“I have found that even many of my most unbiased straight friends grow skittish with my homosexual candor—say, kissing my mate—when their children are around. Underneath it all, they too understand that sexually free ideas are infectious and that, once introduced to the suggestion of same sex love, their kids might just try it and like it” (Darrell Risk, ‘Born?’ p. 424).

In light of Darrell Risk’s admission that his own public sexual expression has the power to “infect” children who witness it, how much more are the purposely-seductive characters of Jack Sparrow, the X-Men and other Hollywood caricatures and story lines, enticing and infecting millions of our children?  Harry Hay, the founder of the gay liberation movement stated, Everyone, even heterosexual people, all have the potential to have that fairy spirit.”

Perhaps no movie has been quite as successful in propagating homosexuality as natural and normative as Brokeback Mountain. To get an understanding of how this movie manipulated the public we can look at a piece of propaganda created out of thin air by the father of the sexual revolution here in America, Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey was exposed for fabricating bogus numbers, when he claimed that 10 percent of Americans are homosexual.  Subsequent studies revealed that the truth ended up being between two and three percent. Kinsey was found to have inflated his statistics by interviewing large numbers of prison inmates and prostitutes.

Kinsey also made bogus claim that a disproportionate number of cowboys, who ride their horses in the open range, are in fact gay and hook up with each other to have homosexual encounters. Kinsey never showed any study that would suggest such was the case.  I mention this because Kinsey was trying to get America away from the effeminate stereotype of homosexuals that repulsed so many people.  Kinsey sought to cast homosexuals as real men.  What Kinsey may have done though, was take a page from a Marlboro cigarettes advertising campaign that popularized Marlboro among men just a few years earlier than Kinsey’s wild assertion.

Since 1924, Marlboro was marketed to women, as they were originally designed with a red band around the filter to hide lipstick and advertised as “Mild As May.” In the 1950’s, after cigarettes were proven to cause cancer, Phillip Morris wanted to attract men to his filtered cigarettes, men who would never use filters in the past.  How could he get men to smoke what was previously billed a women’s cigarette? Simple: reposition Marlboro as a man’s cigarette by placing it in the mouth of a rugged cowboy.  This cowboy, depicted on thousands of billboards nation wide, came to be known as the Marlboro Man. In a matter of months Marlboro went from a market share of less than less one percent to one of the best selling brands in the United States!

Ironically, even though homosexuality is often more deadly than smoking, Hollywood, like Kinsey, sought to make homosexuality acceptable by using a page out of Phillip Morris’ playbook.  The licentious movie Brokeback Mountain, recast homosexuality as a lifestyle akin to a healthy masculine cowboy. Kinsey would have been proud!

Shofarsound: Can you give a little more detail on Michael Swift’s comments in the Gay Community News that you mention in your CD expose’ Satanism and Homosexual Agenda?

Pastor Joe: Homosexual activist Michael Swift flaunted gay aspirations in the Gay Community News piece entitled “Gay Revolutionary” as he envisioned a gay utopia:

“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools…. in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms…wherever men are men together. Your sons will become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us” [Michael Swift, Gay Community News, 15 February 1987].

What I find chilling, is that while some of Swift’s statements in the piece are somewhat satirical and inflammatory, is that many of the things he articulates as gay aspirations, with regard to our children, are already happening in our “youth groups…. movie theater’s [and] bathrooms” every day.


GCMW Note: Homosexual activists claim the Swift peice was only intended to be taken as “satire”.

Shofarsound: So can we assume that Swift’s revisioning of America under a homosexual rule is coming true?

Pastor Joe: My comments on the question you asked earlier about the media and Hollywood, reveal that they are indeed seeking to “recast” our children in their “image,” as Swift states. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen detail a three-stage plan to homosexualize America in their book, After the Ball.  They describe the plan to further the gay agenda and homosexualize America as a threefold plan, “desensitize, jam, and convert.”

The first stage is to desensitize by inundating the public with a “continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible.” They go on to say, “The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome . . . If you can get [straights] to think [homosexuality] is just another thing—meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders—then your battle for legal and societal rights is virtually won.” The second stage, “Jamming,” is described as “psychological terrorism meant to silence expression or even support for dissenting opinion.” The third stage is “Conversion” and they define it as the “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media” (Selling Homosexuality to America,” Regent Law Review, Volume 14, Number 2, Spring, 2002, available at www.regent.edu)

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« Reply #36 on: May 24, 2014, 01:22:17 pm »

No Toni - this is NOT how God punishes.

2Thes 1:7  And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
2Th 1:8  In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
2Th 1:9  Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
2Th 1:10  When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.


IOW, punishment comes in the last day - JUDGMENT(the saved to eternal life with Jesus, and the lost to the lake of fire eternally). As for your son getting autism - definitely research vaccinations, GMOs, processed foods, how a woman's lack of gut flora while the baby is in the womb causes this, HFCS, etc - all of which has played big roles in children getting autism.

Not that I'm turning a blind eye on abortion - but if it were the case that God punishes women for getting abortions by giving them autistic children, then why aren't other children whose mothers had previous abortions become autistic?

Romans 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?



http://news.yahoo.com/toni-braxton-thinks-god-punished-her-getting-abortion-160900646.html
Toni Braxton Thinks God Punished Her for Getting an Abortion by Giving Her Son Autism
5/23/14

Toni Braxton reveals in her new memoir, Unbreak My Heart, that she got an abortion in her early 30s after discovering she was pregnant with then-boyfriend Keri Lewis. She says she was on the prescription acne medication Accutane at the time, which can cause birth defects including brain, heart, and face deformities. Braxton, whose parents were both Christian pastors, writes, "I knew I’d taken a life … I believed God's payback was to give my son autism."

She continues:

I was suddenly faced with a choice I'd never thought I'd have to make. Amid my major misgivings about abortion, I eventually made the gut-wrenching decision … In my heart, I believed I had taken a life — an action that I thought God might one day punish me for. … My initial rage was quickly followed by another strong emotion: guilt.

Her son Diezel, now 11 years old, was diagnosed with autism in 2006.

Later in the memoir Braxton suggests that vaccines may have factored in to Diezel's autism diagnosis, writing, "Maybe it's just a coincidence that after my son's first MMR vaccine, I began to notice changes in him."

There's a lot going on here: it seems Braxton's guilt over her abortion has compounded with her struggles to find reasons why her son was diagnosed. Because there is no single known cause for autism, and because its incidence among young children is rising, parents often have trouble making sense of a diagnosis. Jenny McCarthy has famously blamed vaccines for her son's autism, leading to a rise of misguided anti-vax parents (former Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari is one of them). To be clear: the medical community has reached a consensus that vaccines do not cause autism.

Whether God punished Braxton for her abortion depends on how strictly you adhere to the Old Testament, I guess. If anything, Braxton's story serves as a reminder of how serious a drug Accutane is — women prescribed it agree to have monthly "pregnancy avoidance counseling" sessions with their doctors and use two forms of birth control or abstain from sex during the entire course of the medication.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or how about reading the NEW TESTAMENT?

Ephesians 2:1  And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Eph 2:3  Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph 2:4  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

 
 
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« Reply #37 on: October 20, 2014, 03:43:30 pm »

Then what are YOU doing in this Sodom business, Mr. Sorbo? :oops:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/hercules-actor-being-christian-hollywood-you-get-attacked
Hercules Actor: ‘Being a Christian in Hollywood, You Get Attacked’
10/14/14

(CNSNews.com) – Kevin Sorbo, star of the 1990s TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, as well as the 2011 movie Soul Surfer and this year’s highly successful God’s Not Dead, said there is a huge audience for Christian-themed movies and Hollywood would profit if it understood that audience, but he added that if you are a Christian and a conservative in Hollywood, “you will get attacked.”

Sorbo, who sometimes comments on current events, also said he believes there is a hostility towards Christians by some media and they spend an inordinate amount of coverage on topics such as “global warming” instead of focusing on more immediate issues such as the persecution and beheading of Christians by radical Muslims.

**Yes, that includes these reprobate "ministers" like RICK WARREN, who also ignores more immediate issues like persecution and beheading of Christians like radical Muslims. So why aren't you exposing him?

In an interview with CNSNews.com about the new movie Let the Lion Roar, in which he plays the 16th century Protestant John Calvin, Sorbo talked about the appeal of Christian movies in the marketplace and how the media are hostile toward people of faith.

**Uhm...Calvinism is a doctrine of devils(and Calvin persecuted Christians to boot!

CNSNews.com asked Sorbo if the criticism he has faced stemmed in part from the fact that he is an outspoken Christian.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I think being a conservative in Hollywood and being a Christian in Hollywood, you get attacked. It’s so strange to me that the media sits there and protects the things that they protect, or they ignore the things that they ignore, and they go after stories like global warming -- like that’s more important than what’s going on in the world right now with these terrorists.”

**Yes, the same "terrorists" that's funded by the Vatican's CIA!

“Am I saying that all Muslims are bad? Of course not all Muslims are bad,” said Sorbo.  “That’d be a silly thing for me to say. There’s what, 1.2 billion of them out there? But they’ve estimated 300 million of them are radical and ready to behead every single person who doesn’t believe the way they believe, including fellow Muslims.”

**NOT ALL Muslims are bad? You SHOULD know that violence towards Christians and Jews by them are commanded in their Koran!

And also...
Romans 3:12  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

“That’s a far bigger problem for me with terrorists in the world than the things that they [media] want to pick on, attack, and I’m tired of racism being used as a card or bigotry or anything,” he said. “It’s like, give me a break.”

CNSNews.com then asked, “In the interviews I read some of the things you talked about was some of the resistance in Hollywood or New York to making Christian movies or pro-Christian movies, even though a lot of these, if they’re done well, they tend to be popular and profitable. You seem to be saying that there’s an animus against Christian movies in Hollywood -- why do you think that is?

Sorbo said, “You know, it’s interesting, I went to see Noah. I got invited to Paramount and one of the producers came up there. Well, number one they hired an atheist director, which to me is a weird choice. I mean, look, the movie was very interesting, it was beautifully shot. But as my wife says, it was Waterworld Meets Transformers. But I think it only made $100 million in America; I say only but they had $200 million into it. Worldwide they did very well. I think they still ended up making a $100 million profit. Not a bad profit, you know?”

“But ultimately it did very well opening week and in every one country that opened it,” he said.  “But if you look at it, that movie dropped off 50, 60, 70% in every country the following week. Word of mouth was like, ugh, it doesn’t really speak to us. And I say us, I’m saying Christians who went to, who flocked to the movie to see it.”

In analyzing why the appeal of Noah diminished quickly with audiences, Sorbo referenced, for contrast, Mel Gibson’s hugely popular 2004 movie, The Passion of the Christ.

“I go back to Mel Gibson, only saying that if you look back at stories -- I’ve been saying this stuff, you can see the stories that were printed up -- Hollywood not being very happy with Mel’s portrayal [of Christ’s Passion],” said Sorbo. “Well, he shot it for $30 million and the darn thing made –what? -- $500, $600 million worldwide?”

“So, with the believers in God it obviously struck a positive chord, much like my movie God’s Not Dead did this year,” he said.  “I mean, we had a $2 million budget, the thing made $64 million and we did very well overseas.”

He continued, “So you know there’s an audience out there, is all I’m saying. I think Hollywood, I don’t think they on purpose don’t do it, I mean it’s called show business and they want to make money too and I know they’ve got more things coming down the pipe.  … But I just think, I don’t think they have people around that understand it, that get it because maybe they’re not believers in God, maybe they’re not Christian, maybe they’re not whatever -- and I think you’ve got to hire people like that to put movies out there that will appeal to the audience.”

Sorbo then noted the phenomenal success of Christian-themed or God-based television series.

“I mean, you look at 7th Heaven, Highway to Heaven, Roma Downey’s show Touched by an Angel, those shows all went 8, 9,10 years and there’s been nothing like that on TV for a long time.,” said Sorbo. “Why?  There’s an audience out there that would love that stuff, that has a moral compass that they want their children to see and follow, as well. To me, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

**Huh? Did you even SEE these shows? I did - they were NOT Christian nor preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, but pushed a New Age "god".

“I don’t know why Christians get bashed,” he said. “Christians aren’t the ones beheading children and blowing up churches and buses with women and children on board. So, I don’t understand why Christians get attacked and we sit here and protect Muslims, say, ‘oh well, can’t judge them all.’”

“Wow, it’s so strange to me,” he said, “what we protect and what we go after right now in this country through the media.”

Kevin Sorbo’s latest film project, Let the Lion Roar, examines how the Bible was changed by some anti-Jewish writers throughout history and presents its message that the Jewish people and Israel are vital in God’s plan for man’s salvation. The movie was released on Blu-ray/DVD with an accompanying book in September. In addition to Sorbo, other actors in the film include Oscar-nominated Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), John Schneider (October Baby), and Stephen Baldwin.

Music for Let the Lion Roar was composed by Grammy-nominated Jaci Velasquez and Grammy-nominated Tim Rushlow.

Sorbo, 56, is married to actress Sam Jenkins and they have three children.
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« Reply #38 on: October 20, 2014, 03:45:31 pm »

Sounds like Mr. Sorbo doesn't know his bible!

2Corinthians 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
2Co 4:8  We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
2Co 4:9  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
2Co 4:10  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
2Co 4:11  For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
2Co 4:12  So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
2Co 4:13  We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
2Co 4:14  Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

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« Reply #39 on: January 16, 2015, 12:26:03 pm »

Best-seller about journey to heaven is pulled
https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/best-seller-journey-heaven-pulled-162523839.html
1/16/15

NEW YORK (AP) — A best-selling account of a 6-year-old boy's journey to heaven and back has been pulled after the boy retracted his story.

Spokesman Todd Starowitz of Tyndale House, a leading Christian publisher, confirmed Friday that Alex Malarkey's "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World" was being withdrawn. Earlier this week, Malarkey acknowledged in an open letter that he was lying, saying that he had been seeking attention. He also regretted that "people had profited from lies."

"I did not die. I did not go to Heaven," he wrote. "When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough."

"The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" was first published in 2010 and told of a 2004 auto accident which left Malarkey in a coma. According to the book, co-written by Alex's father, Kevin Malarkey, he had visions of angels and of meeting Jesus. In 2014, Tyndale reissued "The Boy," which on the cover includes the billing "A True Story."

The facts of "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" have long been disputed in the Christian community, which has challenged reports of divine visions in Malarkey's book and other best-sellers such as Todd Burpo's "Heaven is for Real." Last June, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution declaring "the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one's understanding of the truth about heaven and hell." One of the leading critics has been Malarkey's mother, Beth. In April 2014, she wrote a blog posting saying that the book's success had been "both puzzling and painful to watch" and that she believed Alex had been exploited.

"I could talk about how much it has hurt my son tremendously and even make financial statements public that would prove that he has not received moneys from the book nor have a majority of his needs been funded by it," she wrote.

"What I have walked through with Alex over the past nine years has nearly broken me personally and spiritually. I have wept so deeply for what I have watched my children go through, been made aware of how ignorant I was of some things, how selfish I was, and how Biblically illiterate I was which allowed me to be deceived!"
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« Reply #40 on: February 17, 2015, 02:20:57 pm »

For those of you that listened to bro Bryan Denlinger's The Amish deception videos he put out last week...

Around Lancaster County, PA(where Bryan used to live) - they made a movie there in the mid-80's, starring Harrison Ford, called "Witness" - whose plot surrounded a young Amish boy witnessing 2 high level police officers murdering someone in the bathroom(in the city somewhere). Bryan said both his dad and his brother were extras in this movie, and he himself auditioned for this young boy's stunt double. The farm where this Amish community centered in was shot only a few miles where he used to live(No, he didn't mention this in the video, but in the comments section under one of these videos).

I bring this up b/c this was the first movie, I think, that I saw where the Amish community was portrayed in it. Not only did Hellywood put a positive light on them, but at the same time you could see their own self-righteousness they practice(in their religion, that is). And this isn't the only time Hellywood has painted the Amish in a positive light. And to boot - the villains in this movie(as mentioned above) were high level police officers(including the chief of police) - which is contrary to real life(where the local authorities all but are on their side completely).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_(1985_film)

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« Reply #41 on: March 26, 2015, 05:10:08 pm »

Here is how to REPLACE church with paganism.  Listen to George Lucas, creator of STAR WARS, explain to you how you are letting him replace the church:

Lucas, who defines his religion as 'Buddhist Methodist', explains that he mixed Buddhism, Shamanism, Hinduism and Christianity into Star Wars with the intent to teach religion.

""I wanted it to be a traditional moral study, to have some sort of palpable precepts in it that children could understand," said Lucas, in a recent New Yorker interview. "There is always a lesson to be learned. ... Traditionally, we get them from church, the family, art and in the modern world we get them from the media -- from movies."

Lucas acknowledges that, by setting his goals so high, he is asking to be judged by very high standards. The creator of "Star Wars" explains that one of his least favorite fantasies is about what will happen when he dies. Perhaps, he said, he will come face to face with God and hear these words: "You've had your chance and you blew it. Get out.""

This is the story of Star Wars and the movies in general.  One of their greatest defects is not that bad things are in them, but that they attempt to teach their own religion opposed to Christianity.  Lucas wants to replace the church and teach you and your children his Buddhist religion.  To replace the the church is anti-christian and anti-Christ.  He expects God to be very upset with his production, while Christians eat it up.  He knows he is assaulting God, why can't Christians see it?  It is because you follow your flesh to the theater, not the Spirit.  Consider what God will say about your great interest in the movies and your response to an honest warning.  You say, "They're not that bad.  Besides, God allows us some fun."  If you think replacing church and teaching your children Buddhism is not so bad and permissible by God, then you have already been infected by the movies and that is proof you should reconsider your attachment to sinful indulgences.

Pastor Dukes
Grace Baptist Church
www.GraceBaptistWPB.com
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« Reply #42 on: March 27, 2015, 07:12:33 am »

Best-seller about journey to heaven is pulled
https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/best-seller-journey-heaven-pulled-162523839.html
1/16/15

NEW YORK (AP) — A best-selling account of a 6-year-old boy's journey to heaven and back has been pulled after the boy retracted his story.

Spokesman Todd Starowitz of Tyndale House, a leading Christian publisher, confirmed Friday that Alex Malarkey's "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World" was being withdrawn. Earlier this week, Malarkey acknowledged in an open letter that he was lying, saying that he had been seeking attention. He also regretted that "people had profited from lies."

"I did not die. I did not go to Heaven," he wrote. "When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough."

"The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" was first published in 2010 and told of a 2004 auto accident which left Malarkey in a coma. According to the book, co-written by Alex's father, Kevin Malarkey, he had visions of angels and of meeting Jesus. In 2014, Tyndale reissued "The Boy," which on the cover includes the billing "A True Story."

The facts of "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" have long been disputed in the Christian community, which has challenged reports of divine visions in Malarkey's book and other best-sellers such as Todd Burpo's "Heaven is for Real." Last June, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution declaring "the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one's understanding of the truth about heaven and hell." One of the leading critics has been Malarkey's mother, Beth. In April 2014, she wrote a blog posting saying that the book's success had been "both puzzling and painful to watch" and that she believed Alex had been exploited.

"I could talk about how much it has hurt my son tremendously and even make financial statements public that would prove that he has not received moneys from the book nor have a majority of his needs been funded by it," she wrote.

"What I have walked through with Alex over the past nine years has nearly broken me personally and spiritually. I have wept so deeply for what I have watched my children go through, been made aware of how ignorant I was of some things, how selfish I was, and how Biblically illiterate I was which allowed me to be deceived!"


Christian Book Chain Pulls ‘Heaven Visitation Resources’ Over Sufficiency of Scripture Resolution

One of the nation’s largest Christian bookstore chains has announced that it has pulled all of its “Heaven visitation resources” following the passage of a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) resolution surrounding the “sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife.”

LifeWay Christian Resources told the Baptist Press this week that it will no longer sell items pertaining to those who have claimed to have visited Heaven. It states that its decision was partly due to consideration of the resolution, which was agreed upon last June and warned Christians not to let “the numerous books and movies purporting to explain or describe the afterlife experience … become their source and basis for an understanding of the afterlife.”

“Last summer, as we began developing LifeWay’s new structure and direction—what we’ve now identified as One LifeWay—the role of heaven visitation resources was included in our considerations,” spokesman Marty King told the outlet. “We decided these experiential testimonies about Heaven would not be a part of our new direction, so we stopped re-ordering them for our stores last summer.”

“Now that we’ve begun implementing the new direction, the remaining heaven visitation items have been removed from our stores and website and will not be replenished,” he continued. “We have more work to do aligning the LifeWay Retail Division with LifeWay’s vision and core values so we covet your prayers as we continue to provide trustworthy Biblical Solutions for Life.”

The announcement means that books such as “90 Minutes in Heaven” by Don Piper, “Heaven is for Real” by Todd Burpo and “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” by Kevin and Alex Malarkey will no longer be available for purchase at LifeWay.

As previously reported, in January, Alex Malarkey, who was in a coma for two months following a car accident nearly a decade ago, wrote an open letter in January admitting that his book about dying and going to Heaven was fabricated.

“I did not die. I did not go to Heaven,” he confessed. “I said I went to Heaven because I thought it would get me attention.”

    Connect with Christian News

“When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible,” Malarkey continued. “People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.”

“I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient,” he reiterated. “Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.”

Tyndale House Publishers announced days later that it would no longer publish the book, and LifeWay likewise advised that it would pull the book from its shelves and send its copies back to Tyndale.

“LifeWay was informed this week that Alex Malarkey has retracted his testimony about visiting heaven as told in the book ‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.’ Therefore, we are returning to the publisher the few copies we have in our stores,” it wrote in a statement.

Pulpit & Pen, the blog that first broke the story about Malarkey’s admission, also reported that Lifeway had been told about Malarkey’s book being fictional last year. It posted text from email correspondence between Justin Peters, a former trustee of Lifeway who also leads a discernment ministry, and Thom Rainer, the president of Lifeway.

f you are not already aware, the book ‘The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven’ detailing story of Alex Malarkey is fiction. It did not happen,” Peters wrote to Rainer in May 2014. “I know this because I have exchanged numerous emails and have personally spoken with Beth Malarkey, Alex’s mom. Alex does not support the book. … You might want to pull this, too, if you haven’t already.”

In addition to deciding to remove all “Heaven visitation resources” from its stores and online after considering June’s SBC resolution, LifeWay states that it was also influenced to pull the items following an inquiry about Don Piper’s book “90 Minutes in Heaven,” which is set to be released as a movie this fall.

http://christiannews.net/2015/03/26/christian-book-chain-pulls-heaven-visitation-resources-over-sufficiency-of-scripture-resolution/
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« Reply #43 on: April 17, 2015, 07:18:00 pm »

Rather than catch a movie tonight, take a moment to read this.
The Unlawfulness of the Theater
Demonstrated in Simple Arguments
Set Forth for Reasonable Christians*


There was a time when doctors knew nothing of washing their hands or instruments before surgery, before the unseen germ became common knowledge.  Likewise, there are judgments we now make before we have all the necessary information.  Take a few minutes to read this treatment of this subject and examine the facts of the case.  If there is an unseen germ of pollution hiding in the theater, then it should be easily seen under the microscope of reason and Scripture.  The Scriptures teach us that it is our duty to prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God  (Rom. 12:2), so we must remain mindful that we will not be able to offer excuses to God at the judgment.  I hope that by your examination of these arguments you will know the difference between opinion and the will of God and thereby avoid great sorrow when you answer to God on that Day.

                In the past, men have been greatly mistaken about their duty to God.  They have worshipped before idols in the churches when God clearly commanded us to bow before no image.  If it is possible to be greatly mistaken in worship, then how senseless are we to imagine we cannot be mistaken in diversions.  People who bowed before these idols to pray to saints sinned against the clear teaching of God, yet they bowed out of a sense of devotion.  What is the purpose of the theater, movies and television comedies?  It is only for entertainment and pleasure.  It is not done out of a sense of devotion.  We must, then be all the more careful to examine its morality.  For all things in life we do out of necessity.  Only our diversions are chosen out of the desires of the heart.  Diversions alone are what we do for pleasure because we truly like what we are exposed to.  So, though we have much to condemn against the blindness of falling down in prayer before an idol, yet they have much to excuse their behavior.  They are taught to do so by their church, they are shown to do so by the example of their fathers, and they do it out of a sense of devotion.  Can the same blindness be charged upon us?  Without commandment or duty, we frequent the movies, comedies, and dramas which are filled with every type of filth that is condemned by the words of Scripture.  If we hold that it is lawful to enjoy that which the Scripture condemns and forbids, are we not just as blind in our diversions as those others in their devotions?

                How wrong is it to defend the use of idols in worship?  It is certainly as wrong as defending any sinful diversion such as drunkenness.  To support one sinful diversion is the same as to support any other.  It is as important to know if our entertainments are lawful as it is to know that our religion is truthful.  It is as important to know that our diversions are approved of God as to know our faith is approved of God.

                The entertainment of the movies and stage are not here set before you as things that can lead to sin.  They are not potential pitfalls that can entice to sin.  They are gravely sinful in themselves.  Like drunkenness, lying and stealing are sinful behaviors in themselves, so are the diversion of the movies and stage.    What do you see and hear at the movies or the plays?  You hear and see immoral speeches, immodest behavior, immodest dress, rude women and men, corrupt thoughts, blasphemies against God, godless solutions to problems, revenge, promotion of ungodly reasoning, drunkenness, fighting, hatred, lying, disrespect of parents, approval of magic, heathen religious philosophies, and a host of other sins.  Is there a need to ask where this contradicts a particular Scripture?  It contradicts the whole current of the religion of Christ.  It is the embodiment of everything that is not holy in this world.  It contradicts all Christian holiness and every prescribed path at arriving there.  How can we say that we are following Christ while we divert ourselves with every base thing which contradicts Christ to His face?  How can we say we are keeping our hearts with all diligence, or that we are putting off the old man, or fleeing temptation, or resisting the Devil, while we divert our minds with such content?  Every virtue produced by Christian holiness is contrary to all that is in this entertainment.

                The theater contradicts everything that true religion teaches us.  What is the whole design of true religion?  It is to make us pure in heart.  True religion conforms our hearts to that holy state which God approves, conforms us to the image of His Son, and prepares us for the company of those holy saints, the spirits of just men made perfect.  In short, we are being prepared for a place where no evil dwells and for the company of Him whose eyes are too pure to behold evil.  Yet what do we find the theater does for us?  It awakens every foul passion in us.  It caters to the lust of the flesh and encourages the desires of the mind.

                Consider how effective this form of entertainment is at affecting our state of mind.  It consists of discourses, pictures and stories.  Now what did God ordain as the most effectual way to promote the gospel?  It is preaching.  Why?  God knows our constitution and how effective this is in changing the state of our mind toward holiness.  Did not Christ teach in parables?  These were stories with heavenly meaning.  It was God who gave us the Bible and filled it mostly with stories of history and people.  Why was this His course?  It is because this is the most effectual way to get His message into our hearts, by example attached to precepts.  Observe how deceitful the Devil is by his method of using such similar means, but for a contrary purpose.  He teaches his foul behaviors, his ill desires, his perverted lusts to unsuspecting students.  The Scriptures teach us that the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19-21).  Now these lusts are stirred in us by all the cleverness that man can invent to tell these stories.  No vice is left out.  There is not a work of the flesh missing in the Devil’s collection of stories.  Who has frequented the theater without being exposed to fornication, adultery, magic, and uncleanness, or strife and murder?  Often all these are rolled into one story.  As if it is not enough to offend God with one vice, many vices are heaped up one upon another.  For when the eye gate is left unguarded vices rush in upon us, flooding our poorly protected hearts.  If discourses and stories are ordained of God, and used by Christ, as the most effective tool for teaching His precepts and securing a change of heart from the love of sin to the love of holiness, then it is most reasonable to conclude that the discourse, stories and parables told to us by the world and infused with filthy jests and communication will corrupt us in the exact opposite direction.    Christ commands us to turn to God from sin.  He uses the best means to achieve it.  To turn a man in the opposite direction back to the love of vice, the devil uses clever stories and pictures, mixes in the right amount of vice so as to not offend us too much, and through the best means available contradicts holiness to the highest extent.

                What then is the purpose of true religion?  It is to alter our hearts to that inward love of God and that inward holiness that He requires.  Anything, therefore, that destroys that change of heart attacks true religion.  Anything that would change a heart back from the love of holiness to the love of the flesh and unholy desires, sets about to undo all that true religion does for us.  So where some sins are unlawful because of a particular command, the entertainment of the theater is unlawful because it goes much farther.  It contradicts all of the principles of true religion established by God.  So this question must be posed to you: Are you for the spirit of true religion or only for the outward form of it?  If you are for the form only, then the stage is a fine entertainment.  If you are for the spirit of true religion and desire to seek God with a pure heart, you must abhor the theater and its ill effects upon Christ’s kingdom.

Frank objects that he only watches Christian films such as have recently been brought to market.  He only watches those billed for the consumption of a moral crowd.  We are told in God’s Word, be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.  Let us take a moment to see if Frank was deceived and exposed to evil communication.  Here are some of those films Frank was able to watch.  Amazing Grace (2007): a movie about the great Christians William Wilberforce and John Newton and their battle to end slavery.  The star of this movie also stars in every other filthy type of movie, so paying for this is simply promoting his profane lifestyle like any other movie.  Yet, this movie is not without gross immorality.  Consider this review from About.com.  “Wilberforce's wife displays ample cleavage during scenes of their courtship.”  Whereas Job asks, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” Frank states that looking upon this maid proves his morals come from the Scripture.   It proves only that the morality of the Bible is the opposite of Frank’s morality.  This excerpt is also from a non-Christian review, “Profanity is limited in this film. Viewers will hear a few instances of the words…”  Now since this kind of communication is not fit to repeat, I shall forbear listing the profanity.  However, Frank was exposed to all these words.  Evil communication still corrupts good manners, proving that Frank has been corrupted by what he calls Christian.

He also viewed Courageous, a movie about police officers produced by a church.  According to the Christian Broadcasting Network, it was, “Rated PG-13 for some violence and drug content, Courageous is not a little kid’s movie. Teens and adults will be fine seeing this new movie. It's clean of foul language, but does include some violent gang scenes, including a shooting.”  Also, this is from ChristianAnswers.net, “The tenseness and emotion of most of the film really doesn’t make it suitable for younger children.”  Christian children are urged to stay away from this film, but do the producers really believe that children will not watch this film?  The world says it is not fit for children under 13, yet children are actors in this movie.  Jesus says, “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”  Apparently the producers of this film can involve children in what the world says is inappropriate for children.  The Apostle Paul warns us that “it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.”   If it is a shame to speak of it, what kind of sin is it for men, women, and children to rehearse and rehearse, to most perfectly reenact these scenes of violence, arguments, and foul children who sass their parents?  How ingrained must those passions be that they have diligently studied to portray!  By watching this movie Frank helps to corrupt the passions of those men, women, and children who depicted these kinds of scenes and he violates the Scripture by not just speaking of these things done in secret, but supporting the public reenactment of them in a graphic and mentally disturbing way.

There is one absolutely unlawful activity that Frank may not have considered, an offence which is in all the Christian movies that he has chosen including Courageous and Fireproof.  This absolutely unlawful activity seems on the surface to be the best part of the film.  The husbands and the wives have good relationships.  They talk lovingly to each other.  They hug, and touch each other lovingly.  They speak with intimate affection. An example of this can be seen in the outtakes of the movie Courageous where one wife says to her husband, “I love you, I just want to kiss you.”  At this time she breaks character and does not say her line.  It is at this point that Frank should observe what he has just seen.  When the reality of this scene is noted, Frank will discern that these are only pretend characters of a theatrical show. He will realize that they are not really married to each other, but are really married to other people.  They are giving this intimate language to someone else’s spouse.  Men, would you let your wife go to work to stare lovingly into someone’s eyes and speak so immodestly to another man?  Women, do you want your husband hugging and touching another woman over and over until he can do it just the way he does at home with you?  Can you not see the danger here?  We are specifically commanded in Scripture, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman [who is not his wife]. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.  Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband [and no one else].”  So, God has specifically commanded us to not do what Frank saw these people do.  These professing Christians have pretended that someone else is their husband and gave them touches and intimate talk due only to a spouse.  This is a direct contradiction of Scripture, and so it is a contradiction to Christian modesty.

We know from regular reports that this very act has long been the cause of so many Hollywood players to leave their spouses and take up adulterous relationships with their on-stage lovers.  Now how could God approve of a medium that destroys the messenger?  Does God destroy some of his children to save others?  Does God allow us to be the ministers of sin in order to deliver others from sin?  This cannot be.  What seems to Frank to be a nice family is, in fact, no real relation at all.  He is watching the motion of the due benevolence a wife is bound to give privately to her husband alone, but here it is immodestly given to another man, and then publicly rebroadcast for all to see.  This is a trampling of the commandment of God.  Even if these two were married, no such conversations, looks and motions should be publicly displayed.  The Bible contains some particularly sensitive topics and covers similar events, yet read the Bible from cover to cover and you will never see a woman rub her hands down a man’s chest while looking into his eyes.  These images will never come to your eyes.  You can read your Bible and you will set no wicked thing before your eyes.  The same cannot be said for Frank’s selection of movies.  Frank’s “Christian” movies involve men and women in the exhibition of forbidden acts that no man or woman would want for their spouse under any circumstance.

The second argument against the use of the theater is its direct contradiction to this Scripture passage, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” (Eph. 4:29-30).  Here we are taught that all corrupt communication is forbidden us.  The reason given is because it grieves the Holy Spirit.  In other words, it offends Him.  Evil, corrupt communication is offensive to God.  It is evident that television comedies, dramas and movies contain such corrupt communication on purpose.  Therefore, the design of them is to offend the Holy Spirit.  How then can we, who are forbidden to use such language ourselves, happily give our time and money to be entertained by such offensive material?  If Christians do not care whether they grieve the Holy Spirit, then surely no one does!

                It is evident the third commandment forbids swearing.  What if you were to meet a man who confesses that God forbids swearing, and then he tells you that he regularly attends meetings at the saloon where he pays men to concoct all the ugliest curses and swearing that the human mind can invent?  Often he will spend the better part of an evening enjoying the swearing of others.  Would you not think he is either no true believer in the evils of swearing or he is so beside himself that he has lost his reasoning?  Must we not be consistent in the application of this text?  Do you believe it is wrong to let filthy communication out of your mouth?  Why pay for others to do it for you?  Would you think it reasonable if a woman claimed to do no immodest thing herself, yet she would pay others to be immodest in her presence, and to invent immodest songs and dances for her to watch?  If the only people who went to the movies and watched the television dramas and comedies were wicked people who did not even pretend to have anything but an immoral life we would not be at all surprised.  But to think that those who frequent such an activity are people who profess godliness, who claim to deny themselves to follow Christ, who live for that heavenly city whose builder and maker is God, confessing that this world is not their home, serves only to make us wonder of the reason.  So those who indulge in the entertainment of the stage do heartily endorse the contradiction of Scripture by being entertained with corrupt communication.  According to God’s Word, this kind of communication grieves the Holy Spirit away from the players as well as the hearers.

                Now I proceed to the third argument.  No one suspects the players of the Hollywood theater and the Broadway shows and the television stars to be God-fearing Christians.  They live their lives in open contradiction to the principles of Christianity.  Now how can we remain guiltless if we delight in their sins and pay their way to perform them?  If you stand by, and without rebuke, do nothing, you can make yourself a partaker of another man’s sins, how much more if you assist them in committing sin and make their vices your sport?  Would you pay a man to get drunk?  Would you pay a man to steal?  Would you pay a man to lie?  Would you pay a man to worship a false God?  Why not?   You know it is forbidden of God and you would therefore take no pleasure in it?  However, we find that so many Christians take pleasure in the theater and through their television are paying people to do what is unlawful.  This is no more than paying people to deny Christian principles.  If you would not pay a man to renounce the Christian faith, then why pay an actor to deny Christian principles?

                Ask yourself this question.  Would you live your life like you see the actors behaving on the stage?  Would you be as obscene, follow the guidance of magic, trust in godless council, or make sport of the Bible and its teachings and followers?  It is just as wicked to do these things as to pay someone to do it for your pleasure.  To enjoy the movies for pleasure is as sinful as to commit the acts yourself.  Every act of adultery, covetousness, profanity, rebellion, crude humor, disobedience to parents is credited to the account of all those who act the part and the audience for whom they perform.  This is not a far reach to argue in such a way.  Consider, when you give to a charity, do you credit yourself with having done good?  Do you not credit yourself with the good done by the charity to which you have given?  If you give to relieve the poor or the injured or the sick, do you see yourself as having helped in the performance of the charity?  You may have given a small amount, but you contribute to the whole and feel as though you are a part.  Now do you not see that the same reason that compels you to give to charity is what attaches all the guilt of the movies to you?  You give some with many others to support their immoral lifestyle and to bring these plays and shows to your eyes.  Your small part is as much your participation in their sin as if you were encouraging a man to steal or providing the means for a man to commit adultery.    Therefore, everyone who attends the theater or watches these base shows is a participant in the blatant, public display of impurity and ungodliness.  Think of all the sins that come across the screen and the stage.  Can this not frighten you away from it?  If you were to collect all the evils from one year that came across the theater screen and the television screen and the stage, how great would that evil be!  How much lewd talk, blasphemy, immodest conduct and movement, inappropriate innuendos, double entendre, dirty jokes and much more are produced by the evil imagination of men!  All of this is packaged in a product with enough interesting content for us to consume it.  Rats are poisoned in the same way.  Most of rat poison is good food.  Only a small percentage is poison, but that poison is enough to kill.  Likewise, you may argue that there is only a small amount of smut in each good film.  As goes the rat, so goes the man who indulges in the theater.  As he ingests the performance, he eats the good with the bad; and the bad is sufficient to undo the good impressions that come from sober religion.  He loses the seriousness of religion, and frivolousness and callousness set in.  How else can it be explained that he would argue for the very deeds that God has censured in light of the clear command to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them (Eph. 2:11).  Is God’s condemnation not clear enough against those who approve of these sins when he said, “that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them (Rom. 1:32).

                How do you know that the church is the place where God is worshipped?  Is it not because this is where hymns are sung to Him, prayers are made to Him, His Word is read and good men encourage you to read and follow His divine pattern?   Are not all these things convincing proofs that the church is the house in which God is worshipped?  Now as sure as these are signs that the Lord is worshipped in the house of God, so the Devil is just as much worshipped in the house of the stage.  Now in the theater his name is not often mentioned and songs are not sung directly to him.  He is none the less worshipped with all the same service.  His vile songs are sung about immoral love, every source is sought for answers except real prayer to God, and immoral persons plead expressly with us to follow their bad example, while the end of the story demonstrates that man can succeed in his endeavors without God, without consequences, and without thoughts of the judgment in the next life.  Would you be pleased to go to a meeting for fun where the devil was honored by worship directed to him and sacrifices were offered to him and prayers were made to him?  Would this not be repulsive to the God-fearing Christian?  Yet how can we go where the spirit of the devil is so prevalent?  All the songs are to his liking, the dialogue is what he likes, the lives of the players are to his liking and the effects on men further his cause.  Though the devil is not worshipped in name, he is most clearly worshipped in spirit.  Since we are told that God’s people are to differentiate between the holy and profane, and to discern between the unclean and the clean, then we cannot lawfully entertain ourselves where the profane is offered to us as clean.   All of this leads us to conclude that the stage is just as much the house of the devil as the church is the house of God.  If we cannot conclude that all these things show that theater is the house of the devil, then by what proofs can we know the church is the house of God?  That which proves the one, also proves the other.

                Sometimes the devils are worshipped by name.  One was worshipped with sexual promiscuity, another with violence of bloodshed, and yet another with drunkenness.  All these demons were called on by the name of an idol and worshipped according to their own debauchery.  But would not the devil be happier if he could still get all the promiscuity, the violence, the drunkenness and only leave off the names of the gods and goddesses?  His prize for doing so would be to get Christians to participate with the heathen.  Would not Satan be more pleased to give up the name of the gods in order to catch a Christian?  With the correct bait, he convinces Christians to enjoy his age old demon worship with the same practices and the same lusts indulged and the same results enjoyed by him, namely: less love for God and holiness, and more fueling of the flesh and sensuality.  This is a greater conquest for him.  He would much prefer to ruin Christians because he has already captured the heathens.

                Now I ask you to consider this.  You are not alone at the theater.  Every joke is laughed at by the demons along with you.  All the violence is enjoyed by those infernal beings, too.  The graphics are just bait to secure your attention.  The story line is simply more bait with which evil is delivered.  The music is cleverly written to assist in the reception of the profane.  It is the sugar that makes the medicine go down.  It is easier for the mind to receive the filth of the devil if it is couched in music and colors and rhymes and stories.  Strip away all these deceptive devices and you are left with all the corruption this world can invent by the most refined wit.  This is no accidental abuse of the Law of God; it is the sporting arena of devils.

Some sins come on by temptation or accidental frames of our minds.  The sins of the stage are the preplanned and prepared outcomes.  Everyone knows they will be exposed to some immorality at the theater; and the playwrights plan to put it in their production.  Even the children’s movies are not without their crude humor, prolific magic spells, wizards and “good” witches, double entendre, and inappropriate romantic relationships, but most of all they are filled with disobedient children.  The Apostle Paul strictly warns us about these days we are in and what we are to avoid.  He says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents.”  God has given us signs to recognize the reprobates who do not like to retain God in their knowledge: they are known for being inventors of evil things, and disobedient to parents.  So the two most notorious offenses of the movies for children are the promotion of magic, which evil sorceries God hates, and the disrespect of parents which is listed as a notorious and gross sin of the worst type of reprobates and end time deceivers.  You object and say that all children express disobedience to parents.  This is true, but we are told to avoid the authors of this disobedience, to avoid adults who are hired to portray rebellion in order to corrupt your children.  How can you say you avoid these ungodly men if your children are being trained by their deceptive devices?  It is no accident that these devices are in your children’s movies.  The apostle warned us that these men would attempt to deceive us, but we are to keep to the purity of the Bible.  They do all this on purpose.

                Joe objects that he rarely watches movies and watching them does not interfere with his spiritual life, he attends church and has private devotions so there is no harm in it.  To reply, it should be observed that the lawfulness of an activity should not be determined by how often it is used, or how it affects the devotions.  Whether a Christian can use a certain entertainment should be judged by whether that thing conforms to Scripture.  If the thing is innocent then the use may be seldom or often, but if the thing is not innocent, then to use it even seldom is to knowingly commit sin.  Joe, how often would God want you to indulge in carnal delights?  That it has had no effect on your devotion is no way to judge if something is right.  In fact, this objection proves that Joe has already been hurt and blinded by it.  Joe is now promoting his own experience and understanding over the Scripture.  If you use your experience rather than Scripture to judge something this important than you have already been hurt by it. It has removed the Scriptural foundation to your reason which is supposed to keep you safe in life.  If a worshipper of idols told Joe he was never hurt by this form of worship, Joe would certainly tell this person that although he thinks he is not hurt by it, he is going against the Law of God and cannot but be hurt by it.  Because Joe has a blind defense and leans on his own understanding, he will shoot down any objection no matter how reasonable and how Scriptural it is, but he never requires a word of Scripture to do it.  In effect, it is an objection that shuns all real reflection and thought.  If Joe’s use of the theater is lawful, then he should demonstrate from Scripture that it is good.  If something conforms to God’s law it will tend to promote humility, purity of heart, wisdom of mind, hatred of sin and the world, sobriety, watchfulness and every other Christian grace.  Is this the effect of the movies and the stage?  Whenever there is something valuable in the movies and television to affect a more serious state of mind that would lead to thoughts of sin, salvation and judgment, the writers are sure to quickly add in some crude humor, immodest clothing, immoral movements, or slighting of eternal things to turn your minds from any sober reflection.  After all, you are there for entertainment, not to reflect on your need of a crucified Savior who calls you to a life of self-denial, cross-bearing, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

                Again, think how Joe has been injured by the theater.  His taste and delight for the stage shows that his heart is not in a right state of religion.  Now Joe thinks this is very forward to accuse him when he is a faithful church member and regularly attends to private devotions.  Joe’s objection is that the delight he takes in his religious duties show the state of his heart to be good.  Am I to believe that he attends church services because he likes what happens there and is pleased with what he sees?  I accept that all this is to be believed about Joe.  He likes church and the services to God there performed, which is why he frequents it.  Does this not also prove that Joe’s frequenting the movies, the television dramas and comedies or plays is the demonstration that he is pleased with what is there and what he hears and sees and that his heart is not in a right state?  If he likes what is there, then his heart is not right.  If he does not like what is there, then why is Joe forcing such punishment upon himself by going where he gains no pleasure only to be exposed to what both he and God hate?

                We can be fooled by many outward signs in others and ourselves.  There are many duties performed that can lead others to believe good things about the state of our hearts.  However, the things we take delight in are sure tests of the state of our heart.  Nothing can tell more about the state of a man’s heart than what he delights in.  We are told to delight ourselves in the Lord, yet the movie goer there delights himself with the culture of the stage.  What is there that harmonizes with the Christian spirit?  What concord is there between the humor of the movies and the pure things of God?  What fellowship has the wisdom of the stage with the wisdom God?  If our hearts were full of the things of God, if they were full of the graces and tempers that He requires, if our hearts were full of a spirit contrary to the world, we should find ourselves so much offended and pained by the theater that we would want no part of it.  For, to test the state of our hearts by the things that delight us is the surest test that can be applied.  If we cannot know the state of our hearts by our delights and pleasures, then the state of our hearts cannot be known.   
      
                It is no objection to say that you know of so many good people who use the theater for diversion.  For how do you know them to be good?  Is it by their behavior?  They delight in the good of morality.  Yet, they also delight in the evils of the stage at the same time.  If you judge them to be good by their delight in morality, must you also judge them to be defective in goodness by their delight in immorality?  The Scriptures tell us to follow men only so far as they follow Christ.  Just because we follow a man in his service to God does not mean we must follow him in his inconsistency, too.

Now imagine that you know nothing of plays, movies and television dramas and comedies.  Imagine further that you only know the practice of Christianity where it was pursued with zealous desire for purity.  You are come to this country and exposed to something called the theater and you desire to know if you, as a serious Christian, can attend.  How would you go about deciding if you should go?  First, you would ask what a theater showing was.  You are told that it was a place where many people frequent and gather to see a great show of talks and scenes, of colors and motion, of dress and splendor.  All this is set to the finest music and performed to perfection.  You are told that the most ingenious men and women are sought because they have the best wit and humor to write the finest scripts.  The highest paid and most flamboyant and beautiful people are found to portray the roles of exquisite people.  Each player is highly trained to exactly portray the height of drama.  They portray love interest in all its wild passion, they portray violence with perfection, they portray revenge and madness, lust and envy, adulteries and fornications.  You are told that this partly contains the discourses of immodest women, lewd conversations, profane language, curses, swearing of all descriptions, the elevation of magic and wizards, dirty jokes, and all the immodesty of thought that the finest poets can invent.  All this they say is done in the liveliest production for the audience of good Christians.

Do you have to ask if there is a Scripture that forbids this?  Do you need a specific text to know that everything about this form of entertainment runs contrary to the path of life set before us by the Savior?  There is no need for anyone to tell you that this is backwards to every motion of real virtue.  You would easily find that such forms of entertainment are a gross contradiction to Christian holiness and serve no purpose but to turn the heart to the love of vice.

The Apostle Paul has commanded us in 1 Cor. 5:11, “not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”  Now in the theater, we not only keep company with such, but we make them our entertainment and delight.  Are there fornications in the shows?  They are filled with all the immodest behavior inappropriate for women in public.  The women and men immodestly speak and handle each other, disgracing good manners. They often yearn covetously for love and possessions.  Railings are a regular part of the dialogue.  Drunkenness is a major theme.  We are not to even eat with them, much less spend a half hour to three hours under their instruction sitting dumbly by while they pour fourth their profane babbling and grieve the Holy Spirit.

What if you were to meet a gathering of ministers of the gospel?  Suppose you were to enter their assembly to find that they were there to ridicule every sacred thing in true religion.  They studied and prepared to make the best and crudest jokes about preaching, praying, the Lord’s Supper, baptism, church members, Christ and holiness.  Who could but think that this gathering runs perfectly contrary to the calling these men have received.  To jest of all these things seems so much more sinful because they are ministers.  Is it not just so with the women of the stage?  They have been called to a peculiar station in life.  As women, God calls them to a modesty becoming their fairer sex.  Yet what do we find in these shows?  Women shun their modest calling to publicly ridicule all things modest.  By immodest dress and movements and looks, lewd talk and filthy jokes, women of the stage profane the modesty required by their sex.  Yet, here we also find a multitude of women who have gathered in front of the screens and stages to see their sisters crudely pervert the reputation of women.  They approvingly watch as their sisters debase their sex and pull society with them.  Now as it is contrary to the calling of the clergy to see them profaning things holy, so it is contrary to the modesty of women to see them debasing their sex.  It is just as important for women to promote the modesty required by God as it is for ministers to promote the holy life required by God.
Now how are you to know if your religion has had any effect upon you?  Is it not because you conform to the inward spirit of the commands and not just the outward form of them?  Is it not because you have made purity of heart your first desire and seek a higher happiness which can only be found in a Holy God?  How can you prove that this is the case with you?  If you cannot condemn the most prolific outpouring of filth regularly available to the average family, if you cannot renounce the source of worldliness which has the greatest effect to conform our children to the ways of Satan, if you cannot detest the very spring from which every kind of evil flows, how can you show that Christ has called you unto holiness and you have accepted the call?

That sin which accompanies the theater is no small and accidental sin.  Some people are guilty of sins brought on by personal defects and reflexive temptations.  However, they are afraid to ever encourage a man to follow in their path and therefore, do their best to conceal them.  They try to suppress the temptation and fight the desires of the flesh.  This is not so with the stage.  The sins committed on the television, movies and stage can offer none of these excuses.  The wickedness there committed is preplanned, it is fully willful.  It is a public declaration and endorsement of sin.  It shows no concern for the danger they place others in by tempting them to sin likewise.  This bold faced guilt is piled high by the purveyors of this industry.  Imagine a collection of all the blasphemies, profanities, immodesties, adulteries, rebellions, spells, curses, swearings, and like sins from just one year’s productions.  Any civilized society should refuse to be debased by such lewdness.  How much more should those professing godliness refuse ever to use these shows to entertain themselves.

Nor should we suppose that this age is the first to censure the performances from this crowd of ungodly men.  The Primitive Fathers from the earliest days of the church spoke against the immorality of the stage.  The church would excommunicate any actor or anyone who married an actor who had not repented.  The Early Church Fathers wrote prolifically upon this subject as the holiness of our early brothers was being assaulted by the same immorality we see today.  For citation of this nature you can view A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage: Together with The Sense of Antiquity upon the Argument by Jeremy Collier (1698) and The Great Abuse of Music by Arthur Bedford (1711) both available free on Google Books.  This is no new argument; it is old light lost to our generation that must be regained for the sake of a holy church.

This last thing I would ask of the reader.  I do not ask that he would agree with all the arguments here asserted, but that he would not allow himself to condemn them until he can put his own arguments into a reasonable answer, and can present the doctrines of Scripture to contradict what was here asserted.  As far as he can show how I have reasoned wrong and mishandled Scripture, thus far has he a right to reject what has been said.  People must not condemn the arguments here given because they are contrary to their desires or habits.  The arguments are either true to the Scripture or not.

Lucy objects that although the arguments are true, they do not apply to the movies she watches because she only watches clean movies.  Let Lucy observe that what she calls a clean movie is not without the same vices as the others just in a lesser degree.  Her movies do not teach watchfulness or sobriety or holiness any more than the others.  It is our duty to completely avoid the theater for all its immorality as much as it is our duty to avoid the bar for its immorality.  Just like a Christian should not go into the saloon for a good sandwich, so a Christian should avoid the theater even when it offers a seemingly better product.

As the Scriptures tell us that the heart of man is deceitful, so we should suspect our own hearts to be deceptive on any subject.  Some who do not use the theater could agree to all that has been said.  Others struggle against what is here written.  It is no wonder.  What blame has been leveled against the stage carries the additional blame to all those who delight in it.  Therefore, it may be painful to consent to the reasoning.  It may cause some to be angry with every argument for proving as much as it does.  Yet, knowing the ease with which our hearts can deceive us, we must ask, is there an answer for every argument?  All the arguments here given are calling for real righteousness and true holiness created in the heart in the image of Jesus, that is, they are to defend only what are the essential parts of real religion.  I hope you are in favor of a pure heart, and that which will be to the good of your neighbor.  For no man can tell how far his example can affect the destruction of his brother.  The number of souls that have been ruined by a poor example cannot be counted.  What you do with these arguments can determine whether you and those influenced by you are delivered from a life of entertaining your way to destruction.


 
THE END
 
By Rev. Troy A. Dukes - troydukes@hotmail.com
* ©2013 Many parts adapted from the Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage Entertainment Fully Demonstrated by William Law
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« Reply #44 on: April 18, 2015, 12:40:20 pm »

The Menace of the Religious Movie
By A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

When God gave to Moses the blueprint of the Tabernacle He was careful to include every detail; then, lest Moses should get the notion that he could improve on the original plan, God warned him solemnly, "And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shown thee in the mount." God, not Moses, was the architect. To decide the plan was the prerogative of the Deity. No one dare alter it so much as a hairbreadth.

The New Testament Church also is built after a pattern. Not the doctrines only but the methods are divinely given. The doctrines are expressly stated in so many words. Some of the methods followed by the early New Testament Church had been given by direct command; others were used by God's specific approval, having obviously been commanded the apostles by the Spirit. The point is that when the New Testament canon was closed the blueprint for the age was complete. God has added nothing since that time.

From God's revealed plan we depart at our peril. Every departure has two consequences, the immediate and the remote. The immediate touches the individual and those close to him; the remote extends into the future to unknown times, and may expand so far as to influence for evil the whole Church of God on earth.

The temptation to introduce "new" things into the work of God has always been too strong for some people to resist. The Church has suffered untold injury at the hands of well-intentioned but misguided persons who have felt that they know more about running God's work than Christ and His apostles did. A solid train of box cars would not suffice to haul away the religious truck which has been brought into the service of the Church with the hope of improving on the original pattern. These things have been, one and all, positive hindrances to the progress of the Truth, and have so altered the divinely-planned structure that the apostles, were they to return to earth today, would scarcely recognize the misshapen thing which has resulted.

Our Lord while on earth cleansed the Temple, and periodic cleansings have been necessary in the Church of God throughout the centuries. Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the priests before the altar. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence does not seem to bother him at all. It is brought in anyway and presented in the very name of Orthodoxy. Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself. This is an old familiar technique so often and so long practiced by the devotees of error that I marvel how the children of God can be taken in by it.

We of the evangelical faith are in the rather awkward position of criticizing Roman Catholicism for its weight of unscriptural impedimenta and at the same time tolerating in our own churches a world of religious fribble as bad as holy water or the elevated host. Heresy of method may be as deadly as heresy of message. Old-line Protestantism has long ago been smothered to death by extra-scriptural rubbish. Unless we of the gospel churches wake up soon we shall most surely die by the same means.

Within the last few years a new method has been invented for imparting spiritual knowledge; or, to be more accurate, it is not new at all, but is an adaptation of a gadget of some years standing, one which by its origin and background belongs not to the Church but to the world. Some within the fold of the Church have thrown their mantle over it, have "blessed it with a text" and are now trying to show that it is the very gift of God for our day. But, however eloquent the sales talk, it is an unauthorized addition nevertheless, and was never a part of the pattern shown us on the mount.

I refer, of course, to the religious movie.

For the motion picture as such I have no irrational allergy. It is a mechanical invention merely and is in its essence amoral; that is, it is neither good nor bad, but neutral. With any physical object or any creature lacking the power of choice it could not be otherwise. Whether such an object is useful or harmful depends altogether upon who uses it and what he uses it for. No moral quality attaches where there is no free choice. Sin and righteousness lie in the will. The motion picture is in the same class as the automobile, the typewriter, or the radio: a powerful instrument for good or evil, depending upon how it is applied.

For teaching the facts of physical science the motion picture has been useful. The public schools have used it successfully to teach health habits to children. The army employed it to speed up instruction during the war. That it has been of real service within its limited field is freely acknowledged here.

Over against this is the fact that the motion picture in evil hands has been a source of moral corruption to millions. No one who values his reputation as a responsible adult will deny that the sex movie and the crime movie have done untold injury to the lives of countless young people in our generation. The harm lies not in the instrument itself, but in the evil will of those who use it for their own selfish ends.

I am convinced that the modern religious movie is an example of the harmful misuse of a neutral instrument. There are sound reasons for my belief. I am prepared to state them.

That I may be as clear as possible, let me explain what I do and do not mean by the religious movie. I do not mean the missionary picture nor the travel picture which aims to focus attention upon one or another section of the world's great harvest field. These do not come under consideration here.

By the religious movie I mean that type of motion picture which attempts to treat spiritual themes by dramatic representation. These are (as their advocates dare not deny) frank imitations of the authentic Hollywood variety, but the truth requires me to say that they are infinitely below their models, being mostly awkward, amateurish and, from an artistic standpoint, hopelessly and piteously bad.

These pictures are produced by acting a religious story before the camera. Take for example the famous and beautiful story of the Prodigal Son. This would be made into a movie by treating the narrative as a scenario. Stage scenery would be set up, actors would take the roles of Father, Prodigal Son, Elder Brother, etc. There would be plot, sequence and dramatic denouement as in the ordinary tear jerker shown at the Bijou movie house on Main Street in any one of a thousand American towns. The story would be acted out, photographed, run onto reels and shipped around the country to be shown for a few wherever desired.

The "service" where such a movie would be shown might seem much like any other service until time for the message from the Word of God. Then the lights would be put out and the picture turned on. The "message" would consist of this movie. What followed the picture would, of course, vary with the circumstances, but often an invitation song is sung and a tender appeal is made for erring sinners to return to God.

Now, what is wrong with all this? Why should any man object to this or go out of his way to oppose its use in the house of God? Here is my answer:

1.  It violates the scriptural law of hearing.

The power of speech is a noble gift of God. In his ability to open his mouth and by means of words make his fellows know what is going on inside his mind, a man shares one of the prerogatives of the Creator. In its ability to understand the spoken word the human mind rises unique above all the lower creation. The gift which enables a man to translate abstract ideas into sounds is a badge of his honor as made in the image of God.

Written or printed words are sound symbols and are translated by the mind into hearing. Hieroglyphics and ideograms were, in effect, not pictures but letters, and the letters were agreed-upon marks which stood for agreed-upon ideas. Thus words, whether spoken or written, are a medium for the communication of ideas. This is basic in human nature and stems from our divine origin.

It is significant that when God gave to mankind His great redemptive revelation He couched it in words. "And God spake all these words" very well sums up the Bible's own account of how it got here. "Thus saith the Lord" is the constant refrain of the prophets. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," said our Lord to His hearers. Again He said, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life." Paul made words and faith to be inseparable: "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." And he also said, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14)

Surely it requires no genius to see that the Bible rules out pictures and dramatics as media for bringing faith and life to the human soul.

The plain fact is that no vital spiritual truth can be expressed by a picture. Actually all any picture can do is to recall to mind some truth already learned through the familiar medium of the spoken or written word. Religious instruction and words are bound together by a living cord and cannot be separated without fatal loss. The Spirit Himself, teaching soundlessly within the heart, makes use of ideas previously received into the mind by means of words.

If I am reminded that modern religious movies are "sound" pictures, making use of the human voice to augment the dramatic action, the answer is easy. Just as far as the movie depends upon spoken words it makes pictures unnecessary; the picture is the very thing that differentiates between the movie and the sermon. The movie addresses its message primarily to the eye, and the ear only incidentally. Were the message addressed to the ear as in the Scriptures, the picture would have no meaning and could be omitted without loss to the intended effect. Words can say all that God intends them to say, and this they can do without the aid of pictures.

According to one popular theory the mind receives through the eye five times as much information as the ear. As far as the external shell of physical facts is concerned this may hold good, but when we come to spiritual truth we are in another world entirely. In that world the outer eye is not too important. God addresses His message to the hearing ear. "We look," says Paul, "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). This agrees with the whole burden of the Bible, which teaches us that we should withdraw our eyes from beholding visible things, and fasten the eyes of our hearts upon God while we reverently listen to His uttered words.

"The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach" (Romans 10:Cool. Here, and not somewhere else, is the New Testament pattern, and no human being, and no angel from heaven has any right to alter that pattern.

2.  The religious movie embodies the mischievous notion that religion is, or can be made, a form of entertainment.

This notion has come upon us lately like a tidal wave and is either openly taught or tacitly assumed by increasing numbers of people. Since it is inextricably bound up with the subject under discussion I had better say more about it.

The idea that religion should be entertaining has made some radical changes in the evangelical picture within this generation. It has given us not only the "gospel" movie but a new type of religious journalism as well. It has created a new kind of magazine for church people, which can be read from cover to cover without effort, without thought--and without profit. It has also brought a veritable flood of religious fiction with plastic heroines and bloodless heroes like no one who has ever lived upon this well-known terrestrial ball.

That religion and amusement are forever opposed to each other by their very essential natures is apparently not known to this new school of religious entertainers. Their effort to slip up on the reader and administer a quick shot of saving truth while his mind is on something else is not only futile, it is, in fact, not too far short of being plain dishonest. The hope that they can convert a man while he is occupied with the doings of some imaginary hero reminds one of the story of the Catholic missionary who used to sneak up on sick people and children and splash a little holy water on them to guarantee their passage to the city of gold.

I believe that most responsible religious teachers will agree that any effort to teach spiritual truth through entertainment is at best futile and at worst positively injurious to the soul. But entertainment pays off, and the economic consideration is always a powerful one in deciding what shall and what shall not be offered to the public--even in the churches.

Deep spiritual experiences come only from much study, earnest prayer and long meditation. It is true that men by thinking cannot find God; it is also true that men cannot know God very well without a lot of reverent thinking. Religious movies, by appealing directly to the shallowest stratum of our minds, cannot but create bad mental habits which unfit the soul for the reception of genuine spiritual impressions.

Religious movies are mistakenly thought by some people to be blessed of the Lord because many come away from them with moist eyes. If this is a proof of God's blessing, then we might as well go the whole way and assert that every show that brings tears is of God. Those who attend the theater know how often the audiences are moved to tears by the joys and sorrows of the highly paid entertainers who kiss and emote and murder and die for the purpose of exciting the spectators to a high pitch of emotional excitement. Men and women who are dedicated to sin and appointed to death may nevertheless weep in sympathy for the painted actors and be not one bit the better for it. The emotions have had a beautiful time, but the will is left untouched. The religious movie is sure to draw together a goodly number of persons who cannot distinguish the twinges of vicarious sympathy from the true operations of the Holy Ghost.

3.  The religious movie is a menace to true religion because it embodies acting, a violation of sincerity.

Without doubt the most precious thing any man possesses is his individuated being; that by which he is himself and not someone else; that which cannot be finally voided by the man himself nor shared with another. Each one of us, however humble our place in the social scheme, is unique in creation. Each is a new whole man possessing his own separate "I-ness" which makes him forever something apart, an individual human being. It is this quality of uniqueness which permits a man to enjoy every reward of virtue and makes him responsible for every sin. It is his selfness, which will persist forever, and which distinguishes him from every creature which has been or ever will be created.

Because man is such a being as this all moral teachers, and especially Christ and His apostles, make sincerity to be basic in the good life. The word, as the New Testament uses it, refers to the practice of holding fine pottery up to the sun to test it for purity. In the white light of the sun all foreign substances were instantly exposed. So the test of sincerity is basic in human character. The sincere man is one in whom is found nothing foreign; he is all of one piece; he has preserved his individuality unviolated.

Sincerity for each man means staying in character with himself. Christ's controversy with the Pharisees centered around their incurable habit of moral play acting. The Pharisee constantly pretended to be what he was not. He attempted to vacate his own "I-ness" and appear in that of another and better man. He assumed a false character and played it for effect. Christ said he was a hypocrite.

It is more than an etymological accident that the word "hypocrite" comes from the stage. It means actor. With that instinct for fitness which usually marks word origins, it has been used to signify one who has violated his sincerity and is playing a false part. An actor is one who assumes a character other than his own and plays it for effect. The more fully he can become possessed by another personality the better he is as an actor.

Bacon has said something to the effect that there are some professions of such nature that the more skillfully a man can work at them the worse man he is. That perfectly describes the profession of acting. Stepping out of our own character for any reason is always dangerous, and may be fatal to the soul. However innocent his intentions, a man who assumes a false character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something sacred within him.

No one who has been in the presence of the Most Holy One, who has felt how high is the solemn privilege of bearing His image, will ever again consent to play a part or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own deep sincere heart. He will thereafter be constrained to be no one but himself, to preserve reverently the sincerity of his own soul.

In order to produce a religious movie someone must, for the time, disguise his individuality and simulate that of another. His actions must be judged fraudulent, and those who watch them with approval share in the fraud. To pretend to pray, to simulate godly sorrow, to play at worship before the camera for effect--how utterly shocking to the reverent heart! How can Christians who approve this gross pretense ever understand the value of sincerity as taught by our Lord? What will be the end of a generation of Christians fed on such a diet of deception disguised as the faith of our fathers?

The plea that all this must be good because it is done for the glory of God is a gossamer-thin bit of rationalizing which should not fool anyone above the mental age of six. Such an argument parallels the evil rule of expediency which holds the end is everything, and sanctifies the means, however evil, if only the end be commendable. The wise student of history will recognize this immoral doctrine. The Spirit-led Church will have no part of it.

It is not uncommon to find around the theater human flotsam and jetsam washed up by the years, men and women who have played false parts so long that the power to be sincere has forever gone from them. They are doomed to everlasting duplicity. Every act of their lives is faked, every smile is false, every tone of their voice artificial. The curse does not come causeless. It is not by chance that the actor's profession has been notoriously dissolute. Hollywood and Broadway are two sources of corruption which may yet turn America into a Sodom and lay her glory in the dust.

The profession of acting did not originate with the Hebrews. It is not a part of the divine pattern. The Bible mentions it, but never approves it. Drama, as it has come down to us, had its rise in Greece. It was originally a part of the worship of the god Dionysus and was carried on with drunken revelry.

The Miracle Plays of medieval times have been brought forward to justify the modern religious movie. That is an unfortunate weapon to choose for the defense of the movie, for it will surely harm the man who uses it more than any argument I could think of just offhand.

The Miracle Plays had their big run in the Middle Ages. They were dramatic performances with religious themes staged for the entertainment of the populace. At their best they were misguided efforts to teach spiritual truths by dramatic representation; at their worst they were shockingly irreverent and thoroughly reprehensible. In some of them the Eternal God was portrayed as an old man dressed in white with a gilt wig! To furnish low comedy, the devil himself was introduced on the stage and allowed to cavort for the amusement of the spectators. Bible themes were used, as in the modern movie, but this did not save the whole thing from becoming so corrupt that the Roman Church had finally to prohibit its priests from having any further part in it.

Those who would appeal for precedent to the Miracle Plays have certainly overlooked some important facts. For instance, the vogue of the Miracle Play coincided exactly with the most dismally corrupt period the Church has ever known. When the Church emerged at last from its long moral night these plays lost popularity and finally passed away. And be it remembered, the instrument God used to bring the Church out of the darkness was not drama; it was the biblical one of Spirit-baptized preaching. Serious-minded men thundered the truth and the people turned to God.

Indeed, history will show that no spiritual advance, no revival, no upsurge of spiritual life has ever been associated with acting in any form. The Holy Spirit never honors pretense.

Can it be that the historic pattern is being repeated? That the appearance of the religious movie is symptomatic of the low state of spiritual health we are in today? I fear so. Only the absence of the Holy Spirit from the pulpit and lack of true discernment on the part of professing Christians can account for the spread of religious drama among so-called evangelical churches. A Spirit-filled church could not tolerate it.

4.  They who present the gospel movie owe it to the public to give biblical authority for their act: and this they have not done.

The Church, as long as it is following the Lord, goes along in Bible ways and can give a scriptural reason for its conduct. Its members meet at stated times to pray together: This has biblical authority back of it. They gather to hear the Word of God expounded: this goes back in almost unbroken continuity to Moses. They sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs: so they are commanded by the apostle. They visit the sick and relieve the sufferings of the poor: for this they have both precept and example in Holy Writ. They lay up their gifts and bring them at stated times to the church or chapel to be used in the Lord's work: this also follows the scriptural pattern. They teach and train and instruct; they appoint teachers and pastors and missionaries and send them out to do the work for which the Spirit has gifted them: all this has plain scriptural authority behind it. They baptize, then break bread and witness to the lost; they cling together through thick and thin; they bear each other's burdens and share each other's sorrows: this is as it should be, and for all this there is full authority.

Now, for the religious movie where is the authority? For such a serious departure from the ancient pattern, where is the authority? For introducing into the Church the pagan art of acting, where is the authority? Let the movie advocates quote just one verse, from any book of the Bible, in any translation, to justify its use. This they cannot do. The best they can do is to appeal to the world's psychology or repeat brightly that "modern times call for modern methods." But the Scriptures--quote from them one verse to authorize movie acting as an instrument of the Holy Ghost. This they cannot do.

Every sincere Christian must find scriptural authority for the religious movie or reject it, and every producer of such movies, if he would square himself before the faces of honest and reverent men, must either show scriptural credentials or go out of business.

But, says someone, there is nothing unscriptural about the religious movie; it is merely a new medium for the utterance of the old message, as printing is a newer and better method of writing and the radio an amplification of familiar human speech.

To this I reply: The movie is not the modernization or improvement of any scriptural method; rather it is a medium in itself wholly foreign to the Bible and altogether unauthorized therein. It is play acting---just that, and nothing more. It is the introduction into the work of God of that which is not neutral, but entirely bad. The printing press is neutral; so is the radio; so is the camera. They may be used for good or bad purposes at the will of the user. But play acting is bad in its essence in that it involves the simulation of emotions not actually felt. It embodies a gross moral contradiction in that it calls a lie to the service of truth.

Arguments for the religious movie are sometimes clever and always shallow, but there is never any real attempt to cite scriptural authority. Anything that can be said for the movie can be said also for aesthetic dancing, which is a highly touted medium for teaching religious truth by appeal to the eye. Its advocates grow eloquent in its praise--but where is it indicated in the blueprint?

5.  God has ordained four methods only by which Truth shall prevail---and the religious movie is not one of them.

Without attempting to arrange these methods in order of importance, they are (1) prayer, (2) song,  (3) proclamation of the message by means of words, and (4) good works. These are the four main methods which God has blessed. All other biblical methods are subdivisions of these and stay within their framework.

Notice these in order:

(1) Spirit-burdened prayer. This has been through the centuries a powerful agent for the spread of saving truth among men. A praying Church carried the message of the cross to the whole known world within two centuries after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Read the book of Acts and see what prayer has done and can do when it is made in true faith.

(2) Spirit-inspired song has been another mighty instrument in the spread of the Word among mankind. When the Church sings in the Spirit she draws men unto Christ. Where her song has been ecstatic expression of resurrection joy, it has acted wonderfully to prepare hearts for the saving message. This has no reference to professional religious singers, expensive choirs nor the popular "gospel" chorus. These for the time we leave out of consideration. But I think no one will deny that the sound of a Christian hymn sung by sincere and humble persons can have a tremendous and permanent effect for good. The Welsh revival is a fair modern example of this.

(3) In the Old Testament, as well as in the New, when God would impart His mind to men He embodied it in a message and sent men out to proclaim it. This was done by means of speaking and writing on the part of the messenger. It was received by hearing and reading on the part of those to whom it was sent. We are all familiar with the verse, "Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her" (Isaiah 40:2). John the Baptist was called "The voice of one crying in the wilderness" (Matthew 3:3). Again we have, "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write" (Revelation 14:13). And the Apostle John opens his great work called the Revelation by pronouncing a blessing upon him that readeth and them that bear and keep the words of the prophecy and the things which are written therein. The two words "proclaim" and "publish" sum up God's will as it touches His Word. In the Bible, men for the most part wrote what had been spoken; in our time men are commissioned to speak what has been written. In both cases the agent is a word, never a picture, a dance or a pageant.

(4) By His healing deeds our Lord opened the way for His saving Words. He went about doing good, and His Church is commanded to do the same. Faber understood this when he wrote:

"And preach thee too, as love knows how
By kindly deeds and virtuous life."

Church history is replete with instances of missionaries and teachers who prepared the way for their message with deeds of mercy shown to men and women who were at first hostile but who melted under the warm rays of practical kindnesses shown to them in time of need. If anyone should object to calling good works a method, I would not argue the point. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are an overflow into everyday life of the reality of what is being proclaimed.

These are God's appointed methods, set forth in the Bible and confirmed in centuries of practical application. The intrusion of other methods is unscriptural, unwarranted and in violation of spiritual laws as old as the world.

The whole preach-the gospel-with-movies idea is founded upon the same basic assumptions as modernism--namely, that the Word of God is not final, and that we of this day have a perfect right to add to it or alter it wherever we think we can improve it.

A brazen example of this attitude came to my attention recently. Preliminary printed matter has been sent out announcing that a new organization is in process of being formed. It is to be called the "International Radio and Screen Artists Guild," and one of its two major objectives is to promote the movie as a medium for the spread of the gospel. Its sponsors, apparently, are not Modernists, but confessed Fundamentalists. Some of its declared purposes are: to produce movies "with or without a Christian slant"; to raise and maintain higher standards in the movie field (this would be done, it says here, by having "much prayer" with leaders of the movie industry); to "challenge people, especially young people, to those fields as they are challenged to go to foreign fields."

This last point should not be allowed to pass without some of us doing a little challenging on our own account. Does this new organization actually propose in seriousness to add another gift to the gifts of the Spirit listed in the New Testament? To the number of the Spirit's gifts, such as pastor, teacher, evangelist, is there now to be added another, the gift of the movie actor? To the appeal for consecrated Christian young people to serve as missionaries on the foreign field is there to be added an appeal for young people to serve as movie actors? That is exactly what this new organization does propose in cold type over the signature of its temporary chairman. Instead of the Holy Spirit saying, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts 13:2), these people will make use of what they call a "Christian talent listing," to consist of the names of "Christian" actors who have received the Spirit's gift to be used in making religious movies.

Thus the order set up in the New Testament is openly violated, and by professed lovers of the gospel who say unto Jesus, "Lord, Lord," but openly set aside His Lordship whenever they desire. No amount of smooth talk can explain away this serious act of insubordination.

Saul lost a kingdom when he "forced" himself and took profane liberties with the priesthood. Let these movie preachers look to their crown. They may find themselves on the road to En-dor some dark night soon.

6.  The religious movie is out of harmony with the whole spirit of the Scriptures and contrary to the mood of true godliness.

To harmonize the spirit of the religious movie with the spirit of the Sacred Scriptures is impossible. Any comparison is grotesque and, if it were not so serious, would be downright funny. To imagine Elijah appearing before Ahab with a roll of film! Imagine Peter standing up at Pentecost and saying, "Let's have the lights out, please." When Jeremiah hesitated to prophesy, on the plea that he was not a fluent speaker, God touched his mouth and said, "I have put my words in thy mouth." Perhaps Jeremiah could have gotten on well enough without the divine touch if he had had a good 16mm projector and a reel of home-talent film.

Let a man dare to compare his religious movie show with the spirit of the Book of Acts. Let him try to find a place for it in the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians. Let him set it beside Savonarola's passionate preaching or Luther's thundering or Wesley's heavenly sermons or Edwards' awful appeals. If he cannot see the difference in kind, then he is too blind to be trusted with leadership in the Church of the Living God. The only thing that he can do appropriate to the circumstances is to drop to his knees and cry with poor Bartimaeus, "Lord, that I might receive my sight."

But some say, "We do not propose to displace the regular method of preaching the gospel. We only want to supplement it." To this I answer: If the movie is needed to supplement anointed preaching it can only be because God's appointed method is inadequate and the movie can do something which God's appointed method cannot do. What is that thing? We freely grant that the movie can produce effects which preaching cannot produce (and which it should never try to produce), but dare we strive for such effects in the light of God's revealed will and in the face of the judgment and a long eternity?

7.  I am against the religious movie because of the harmful effect upon everyone associated with it.

First, the evil effect upon the "actors" who play the part of the various characters in the show; this is not the less because it is unsuspected. Who can, while in a state of fellowship with God, dare to play at being a prophet? Who has the gall to pretend to be an apostle, even in a show? Where is his reverence? Where is his fear? Where is his humility? Any one who can bring himself to act a part for any purpose, must first have grieved the Spirit and silenced His voice within the heart. Then the whole business will appear good to him. "He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside" (Isaiah 44:20). But he cannot escape the secret working of the ancient laws of the soul. Something high and fine and grand will die within him; and worst of all he will never suspect it. That is the curse that follows self-injury always. The Pharisees were examples of this. They were walking dead men, and they never dreamed how dead they were.

Secondly, it identifies religion with the theatrical world. I have seen recently in a fundamentalist magazine an advertisement of a religious film which would be altogether at home on the theatrical page on any city newspaper. Illustrated with the usual sex-bate picture of a young man and young woman in tender embrace, and spangled with such words as "feature-length, drama, pathos, romance," it reeked of Hollywood and the cheap movie house. By such business we are selling out our Christian separation, and nothing but grief can come of it late or soon.

Thirdly, the taste for drama which these pictures develop in the minds of the young will not long remain satisfied with the inferior stuff the religious movie can offer. Our young people will demand the real thing; and what can we reply when they ask why they should not patronize the regular movie house?

Fourthly, the rising generation will naturally come to look upon religion as another, and inferior, form of amusement. In fact, the present generation has done this to an alarming extent already, and the gospel movie feeds the notion by fusing religion and fun in the name of orthodoxy. It takes no great insight to see that the religious movie must become increasingly more thrilling as the tastes of the spectators become more and more stimulated.

Fifthly, the religious movie is the lazy preacher's friend. If the present vogue continues to spread, it will not be long before any man with enough ability to make an audible prayer, and mentality enough to focus a projector, will be able to pass for a prophet of the Most High God. The man of God can play around all week long and come up to the Lord's Day without a care. Everything has been done for him at the studio. He has only to set up the screen and lower the lights, and the rest follows painlessly.

Wherever the movie is used the prophet is displaced by the projector. The least that such displaced prophets can do is to admit that they are technicians and not preachers. Let them admit that they are not God-sent men, ordained of God for a sacred work. Let them put away their pretense.

Allowing that there may be some who have been truly called and gifted of God but who have allowed themselves to be taken in by this new plaything, the danger to such is still great. As long as they can fall back upon the movie, the pressure that makes preachers will be wanting. The habit and rhythm which belong to great preaching will be missing from their ministry. However great their natural gifts, however real their enduement of power, still they will never rise. They cannot while this broken reed lies close at hand to aid them in the crisis. The movie will doom them to be ordinary.

In conclusion

One thing may bother some earnest souls: why so many good people approve the religious movie. The list of those who are enthusiastic about it includes many who cannot be written off as borderline Christians. If it is an evil, why have not these denounced it?

The answer is, lack of spiritual discernment. Many who are turning to the movie are the same who have, by direct teaching or by neglect, discredited the work of the Holy Spirit. They have apologized for the Spirit and so hedged Him in by their unbelief that it has amounted to an out-and-out repudiation. Now we are paying the price for our folly. The light has gone out and good men are forced to stumble around in the darkness of the human intellect.

The religious movie is at present undergoing a period of gestation and seems about to swarm over the churches like a cloud of locusts out of the earth. The figure is accurate; they are coming from below, not from above. The whole modern psychology has been prepared for this invasion of insects. The fundamentalists have become weary of manna and are longing for red flesh. What they are getting is a sorry substitute for the lusty and uninhibited pleasures of the world, but I suppose it is better than nothing, and it saves face by pretending to be spiritual.

Let us not for the sake of peace keep still while men without spiritual insight dictate the diet upon which God's children shall feed. I heard the president of a Christian college say some time ago that the Church is suffering from an "epidemic of amateurism." That remark is sadly true, and the religious movie represents amateurism gone wild. Unity among professing Christians is to be desired, but not at the expense of righteousness. It is good to go with the flock, but I for one refuse mutely to follow a misled flock over a precipice.

If God has given wisdom to see the error of religious shows we owe it to the Church to oppose them openly. We dare not take refuge in "guilty silence." Error is not silent; it is highly vocal and amazingly aggressive. We dare not be less so. But let us take heart: there are still many thousands of Christian people who grieve to see the world take over. If we draw the line and call attention to it we may be surprised how many people will come over on our side and help us drive from the Church this latest invader, the spirit of Hollywood.
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« Reply #45 on: April 24, 2015, 08:58:02 pm »

brethren and sisters, please hang tight - I was reading 2 Timothy 3 and 2 Timothy 4:1-4 in the mall bookstore yesterday. We are in those perilous times, those denying the Lord's power, and itching ears now.

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/when-your-5-year-old-daughter-insists-shes-a-boy-117272104342.html

Transgender awareness has skyrocketed in recent years. That’s due, in large part, to examples in pop culture ranging from “Orange Is the New Black” actress Laverne Cox and model Carmen Carrera to the Amazon hit series “Transparent” and the chatter surrounding Bruce Jenner’s shifting appearance — set to reach a crescendo on Friday night as Diane Sawyer’s exclusive interview with the sports icon airs.
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« Reply #46 on: June 13, 2015, 10:39:29 am »

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« Reply #47 on: July 04, 2015, 10:04:55 am »

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« Reply #48 on: July 28, 2015, 11:48:39 am »

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« Reply #49 on: August 13, 2015, 03:11:45 pm »

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« Reply #50 on: October 20, 2015, 07:42:45 pm »

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/star-wars-force-awakens-breaks-ticket-presale-records-210042813--finance.html
'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' breaks presale records
10/20/15

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Early ticket sales for December's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" broke IMAX records with more than $6.5 million for U.S. screenings, the theater chain said on Tuesday, while the trailer delivered a boost for ESPN's Monday Night Football.

IMAX Corp said Monday's presales for "The Force Awakens" far outpaced first day sales for 2012's "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Avengers" and 2013's "Hunger Games: Catching Fire," all in the $1 million presale range.

The third trailer for "The Force Awakens" debuted during ESPN's Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, and garnered 15.9 million viewers during the halftime slot in which it aired in, the sports network said.

ESPN said it has been averaging 13.5 million total viewers this season for Monday Night Football.

As tickets for the Dec. 18 film release went on sale, online ticketers Fandango and theater chain Alamo Drafthouse suffered temporary outages as fans flocked to their sites. Alamo Drafthouse apologized for the "frustration and disappointment" on Twitter after customers were unable to purchase tickets.

Fandango said on Tuesday it "experienced unprecedented ticketing demand." The company declined to give ticket sales figures for "The Force Awakens," but said it was eight times more than previous record holder, 2011's "The Hunger Games."

Online ticketing site MovieTickets.com also declined to give sales figures but said "The Force Awakens" was the biggest first-day sales in its history and accounted for 95 percent of tickets sold on the site in the past 24 hours.

While it is rare for tickets to go on sale two months ahead of a film's release, studios will do it for big fan-anticipated films.

Twitter said there were more than 17,000 tweets per minute when the trailer aired, and more than 1.1 million tweets about the trailer in the 12-hour period after it aired.

Facebook said 1.3 million people engaged in 2.1 million interactions within the first hour of the trailer release. The trailer has so far garnered more than 13 million views on YouTube and 8.8 million views on Facebook.

The two-and-a-half minute trailer was the longest look yet at Walt Disney Co's rebooting of George Lucas' beloved intergalactic franchise.

It gave a glimpse of the vast scope and characters the new film will explore, including the return of veterans Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, as well as newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver.
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« Reply #51 on: October 22, 2015, 12:09:31 am »



Although the cartoon depicts truth - Mark Dice is a shill
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« Reply #52 on: November 10, 2015, 09:15:45 am »

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/star-wars-fan-dies-days-142900430.html
'Star Wars' fan dies days after seeing new movie
11/10/15

Daniel Fleetwood, the "Star Wars" fan whose dying wish to see "The Force Awakens" was the subject of a viral social media campaign, died just days after seeing the new film.

Fleetwood's wife, Ashley, announced his passing on her Facebook page.

"Daniel put up an amazing fight to the very end," she wrote. "He is now one with God and with the force."

The 32-year-old Texas native was a massive "Star Wars" fan for most of his life, and camped out to buy tickets to the prequel movies. But after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, he given just months to live in September. As his condition deteriorated, he worried that he wouldn't make it to the December opening of "Force," and a local news station covered his plea to see the movie early. Social media took up for Daniel's cause, with the #ForceforDaniel hashtag getting support from "Star Wars" actors Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, and John Boyega.

Last Thursday, his wish was granted. Daniel got to speak with director J. J. Abrams on the phone, and a screening was arranged at his home.

Daniel was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma two years ago, according to the GoFundMe page his wife set up to cover his medical costs. Before he got sick, he counseled mentally impaired people.

"He will always be my idol and my hero," Ashley wrote.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eccl 6:3  If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
Ecc 6:4  For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.

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« Reply #53 on: December 22, 2015, 08:28:12 pm »

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« Reply #54 on: December 29, 2015, 11:34:09 pm »

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« Reply #55 on: January 12, 2016, 10:02:06 am »

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« Reply #56 on: January 16, 2016, 02:08:24 pm »

Audio Inside Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=11616047132
Star Wars: One World Religion of Antichrist - The Fool's Journey
Series:  STBC Radio  · 46 of 46
1/16/2016 (SAT)
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« Reply #57 on: February 05, 2016, 11:56:02 am »

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« Reply #58 on: February 10, 2016, 07:36:23 pm »

New NBC Sitcom Suggests Jesus was Pro-gay and a Homosexual

A new sitcom on NBC has suggested in one of its episodes that Jesus was pro-gay marriage and may have been a homosexual himself.
 
Charisma News’ Jennifer LeClaire reports that the new NBC sitcom Superstore is advertised as follows:
 
"America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) and Ben Feldman (Mad Men, A to Z) star in a hilarious workplace comedy (from the producer of The Office) about a unique family of employees at a supersized megastore.”
 
"From the bright-eyed newbies and the seen-it-all veterans to the clueless summer hires and the in-it-for-life managers, together they hilariously tackle the day-to-day grind of rabid bargain hunters, riot-causing sales and nap-worthy training sessions," the show description continues.
 
In the episode of the show entitled “Wedding Day Sale” a Christian store manager asks help from a gay employee to build a special gay wedding section in the store.
 
“I just want everyone who comes into this store to feel accepted,” says the store manager.
 
This comment then leads the manager and the employee to discuss Jesus’ views on homosexuality and to suggest that he would support gay marriage and gay adoption, and that he himself may have been homosexual.
 
LeClarie points out that “Various agendas have tried to morph Jesus into their own image over the centuries,” but that “the church needs to rise up and get equipped to preach an unadulterated gospel to a people group that is finding new ways to justify sin—even portraying Jesus in their own gay image.”
 
LeClaire encourages readers to extend love and kindness to homesexuals, but not to neglect standing for the truth of the Gospel.
 
“We need to pray. We need to write NBC and Universal Television and The District, who are parties to this show, and make our voice heard. We need to support Christian TV and film producers who have a good message. And, again, we need to understand how to share the Good News to a gay community who desperately needs a radical encounter with the love of God,” says LeClaire.
 

http://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/new-nbc-sitcom-suggests-jesus-was-pro-gay-and-a-homosexual.html
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« Reply #59 on: February 10, 2016, 08:35:40 pm »

CW’s ‘The Messengers’ – End Times Deception

The CW network series The Messengers is the latest Hollywood production that distorts and misuses the Bible for entertainment dollars. The show, about 7 strangers who all die and resurrect at the same time to battle against Satan in the end times – is a wildly inaccurate take on the Book of Revelation that not only mocks the Christian faith but also promotes the rise of the Antichrist.

The Trailer

The trailer for the show is below:



HUGE in depth article, worth the look
http://beginningandend.com/cws-the-messengers-end-times-deception/
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