Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[SF Chronicle & USA Today]

Religious rocker Prince is often chased through the streets by his fans, as he tries to convert them to the Bible. The singer, who became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001, goes house-to-house to preach about the faith. And fans are sometimes so stunned to find the rock legend on their doorstep that they don’t want to let him go.

He tells USA Today newspaper, “Sometimes fans freak out. It might be a shock to see me, but that’s no reason for people to act crazy, and it doesn’t give them license to chase me down the street.”

Prince is so devoted to his faith that he even takes the Bible to business meetings, to show executives he is serious about doing a deal.

Read more here and here.

[From me]

It is good that Prince (or the artist formerly known as Prince) has cleaned up his act.  But being good doesn’t get you to heaven because none of us ever is good enough.  The problem with the “Bible” that Prince carries is the translation.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in the Trinity.  Their translation is a horrible translation that distorts the truth.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult and I’m sorry to hear that Prince hasn’t found the real Jesus.  I pray he does soon.

What do you think?

[BBC]

The Church of Scientology in France will be tried in court for “organised fraud”, according to legal sources. The lawyer for one of the plaintiffs behind the case told the BBC that if convicted the controversial Church could be banned. The Church has faced stiff opposition in France as well as Germany, where it has been declared unconstitutional.

The French branch of the Church of Scientology did not respond when the BBC asked for a comment on the case. The charges stem from a case brought by a woman who said she was approached by Scientologists in a Paris street in 1998 and offered a free personality test. She says she ended up handing over more than 20,000 euros for courses, books, illegally prescribed drugs and an “electrometer” supposed to measure fluctuations in her mental state. Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the woman and for one other plaintiff in the case, says the case could be brought before the court by the end of the year or in early 2009.

France refuses to recognise Scientology as a religion, categorising it as a purely commercial operation and keeping it under surveillance.

Read more here.

[From me]

I never thought I would agree with France!  But COS is no church.  They just want people’s money. Churches meet to worship. This group is just a bunch of scamming Hollywood people ruining people’s lives.

What do you think?

[Toronto Sun]

A man who claims he is an ordained minister was busted with almost half a kilo of pot yesterday during a traffic stop on Hwy. 11 near Bracebridge.

“Rev.” Michel Nathier, 53, of the Church of the Universe, admitted he was smoking a joint when the OPP officer pulled him over but said he was committing a holy act.

“It’s a sacrament,” Nathier said in an interview after he was released from custody with a Sept. 2 court date.

PLANT BLESSED

Nathier said he has about 300 followers in the Sturgeon Falls area, near North Bay, who believe that marijuana is the blessed plant mentioned in the Bible as the “tree of life.” 

The church, which he said has chapters throughout Canada and the U.S., has two rules: Don’t hurt yourself and don’t hurt others — and its followers routinely toke “the sacrament.” It does not make one stoned, “just enlightened,” he insists.

Read more here.

[From me]

Talk about being filled with something…  Where are Cheech and Chong when you need them?

What do you think?

Today I was studying for Sunday and the Small Church Conference when a young man from Mobile, AL walked in the doors of our church office.  He must not have looked at sign to see what we are.  Lynn, our children’s director asked me to come out and talk to him. He was a clean cut Asian American from Bayou La Batre near Mobile, AL. He wanted to sell me some trinkets to support “One Family.”  I politely listened to him talk and then asked what he believed it took for a person to go to heaven.  He gave me a great Sunday School answer about accepting Jesus.  But as I pressed him he admitted that they believe you must “do” works to enter heaven.

I knew immediately what he believed when he gave me his card and it had the Unification Church written on it.  Their beliefs are not Christian as they say.  They say they trust Jesus but they believe Jesus failed in His mission because He died on a cross.  Click here for more on their religion.

My heart broke as he left our office.  Because as soon as I began sharing with him the “Good News” that you don’t have to work for heaven, he tried his best to get out as soon as possible.  The only thing that would make this day any better is if a Mormon Elder came by for a visit.

What do you think?

[Christian Post]

The two fastest-growing church bodies in the United States and Canada, according to a newly published report, are ones whose beliefs are known to conflict with traditional Christian teaching.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, regarded by many Christians as cults, reported the largest membership increases in a year, according to the National Council of Churches’ 2008 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

Although Jehovah’s Witnesses currently rank 25th in size with over 1.06 million members, they reported a 2.25 percent increase in membership since the publication of the 2007 Yearbook. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – also known as the Mormon church – grew 1.56 percent and is listed by the NCC as the fourth largest “church.”

Notably, however, both Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormon church are not accepted within many Christian circles as part of the larger Body of Christ over a number of controversial beliefs that the two religions hold. Identification of the former religion as Christian, among other controversies, is debated largely due to their rejection of the Trinity, which most Christians regard as a fundamental doctrine. Latter-day Saints, meanwhile, are often criticized for their belief in “divine” books of scripture, aside from the Bible, including the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

Mormonism was formally listed under “cults and sects” by the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest Protestant denomination in the nation – but was more recently categorized among “newly developed religions” on the North American Mission Board apologetics page.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I wonder why NAMB no longer calls the LDS a cult.  Both LDS and JW are cults. There is no evidence that any of their claims are true.  The LDS change their theology when it is challenged by the culture.  They use plagiarized versions of the KJV of the Bible in their “holy books.”  The Jehovah’s Witnesses butcher the Bible with their translation.  The realtity is having a relationship with Jesus is the only way to experience abundant life here on earth and in the afterlife.

The truth is that both the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are more serious about evangelism that the Christian churches.  The Christian churches have become more involved in politics and arguments with each other then to look around at our communities and neighbors who are dying and going to spend eternity away from God.

What do you think?