Tag: janet porter

Found: A National News Organization that Called David Barton America’s Historian

Yesterday, I posted an ad calling David Barton “the most recognized Christian historian in America.” In that post, I noted that Barton says in his bio that “a national news organization has described him as ‘America’s historian.’” That Barton has never named the organization made me skeptical. I also have searched for the source without success.

Until now.

A reader sleuthed out the source and it makes sense for Barton to keep it vague. While other sources may have referred to Barton that way, Janet Porter did so in a 2007 World Net Daily column, titled: “Why I Like Mike for GOP Bus Driver” about Mike Huckabee. Porter wrote:

America’s historian, David Barton, told me last week, “It would be easier to take over the Democratic Party than to start a third party.” He’s right. “But what about faith?” asked a proponent of this losing strategy.

She may not have been the first to use that designation but WND might be the “national news organization” Barton mentions in his bio. Given the goofiness that website is known for, I can see why Barton would not want to get specific. Also, the “news organization” didn’t refer to him that way, Janet Porter did.

America’s historian, really?
 

Sing a little louder

Somehow I missed this one.

Janet (I want CBS to be the Christian Broadcasting System) Porter was not happy that her media takeover was foiled temporarily due to the loss of her radio show. She used her June 8 column to blast, nay, to smite with a vengence an organization called Discernment Ministries who played a role in the decision of the VCY Network to drop her show.

Discernment Ministries has been all over the Seven Mountains Theology which Ms. Porter likes. VCY Network didn’t like the idea of promoting a theocracy so they decided to part ways. Porter is none too happy:

The “separation of church and state.” I could be reading from the constitution of the former Soviet Union, a decision by Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a fundraising letter from the ACLU. But instead, I’m repeating a philosophy of “Christian” groups like Discernment Ministries and their website, “Herescope.”

No kidding. There remains a very vocal group of self-proclaimed Christians who believe their “spiritual gift” is criticism and their role is to join the ranks of the ACLU and police the streets for Christians who dare step outside the four walls of the church into the light of day.

They insist Christians must stay within the church singing from the same page of the same hymnal, perfectly pious and free from those not legalistically aligned … all while our nation and our freedoms are burning to the ground. No, they’re not involved, just like the Christians who “sang a little louder” from their hymnals so not to hear the screams from the trains headed for the concentration camps.

Trivializing the Holocaust, Porter then tortures analogies between the ban on school prayer, abortion, and support for Barack Obama to the Nazi use of concentration camps.

Then she asks a question that I think she should address:

To those who still believe that we should stay out of the cultural war, I have a question: How is that working out for you?

We now have two generations who are lost in the lies of humanism, evolution and homosexuality, facilitated into fornication and abortion, trapped in pornography and devastated by divorce. Congratulations.

How is it working out? How is the effort toward Christianizing the government going? During those two generations the culture war has raged and where are we?

Herescope did not take Porter’s rant without a response. You can read the whole article here but here is the drift of it:

So now “apostle” Lou Engle is free to lay apostolic hands of blessing on 3-time divorcee Newt Gingrich. Now the NAR apostles and prophets, thanks to Janet Porter and WorldNetDaily, can take their equal places in politics. Now they have the blessing of James Dobson, who endorsed Janet Porter’s May Day event at the Lincoln Memorial. Now Cindy Jacobs, prophetess extraordinaire, who had a visit of the Seraphim in her room that caught it on fire, can share the stage with Newt Gingrich. Now Rick Joyner, who has his own political action organization which he calls the Oak Initiative — and who reportedly made a trip to heaven and heard Martin Luther repent of the Reformation — can rub shoulders with James Dobson.

So now these self-anointed, self-appointed apostles of the NAR, laden down with false signs and wonders, false apostolic decrees, and false prophets — who compete with each other in imaginary “can you top this” fraudulent oracles supposed to be from God — have been given the kiss of acceptance by Christian Right politicians, including James Dobson. The apostles and prophets see this as a match made in heaven, a giant step toward appointing apostles as governors of every state and province in the world, complete with in-house prophetic seers to make supernatural decisions.

The Herescope writer is a keen observer of the confluence of the far right and the New Apostolic Reformation. This movement of the religious right toward dominionism is having an interesting effect among evangelicals. The Herescope writer is just as good, if not better, at identifying these trends as anyone at Right Wing Watch.  As I have noted before, there are excellent religious reasons for supporting Jefferson’s “wall of separation” between  church and state. As the religious right tries to tear down this wall as a means of fighting leftist views via the coercive power of the state, many conservative evangelicals see the long term problems and react against the dominionist objectives.

As the dominionist choir sings Onward Christian Soldiers, the other group sings Just As I Am.

Janet Porter’s show removed from Christian network

There is a lot here that I will add to as I get time. First, the big news. You recall Janet Porter’s prayer to take over the media? Here it is again:

She may need to work a little harder on that because she is having some trouble with the Christian media. Last week, her show Faith2Action was removed from the VCY America network due to concerns over her growing dominionist theology. Early last week, Vic Eliason, head of the network did a program which exposed their concerns.* These are the same concerns I have been expressing regarding the theological underpinnings of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Here is the VCY Network message on the dismissal:

Faith2Action Discontinued

Because of the long standing of Faith2Action on VCY America, which has provided satellite services, air time, production, and line fees without charge, we know there will be many who will question its discontinuance.

VCY has been wrestling for months with the drift of the program toward “dominion theology” and ecumenism.

The following links bring up articles which describe the issues in detail

The Coalescing of the Religious Right with Apostolic Dominionism

May Day Prayers: What Repentance?

This has not been an easy decision, but a line has been crossed that VCY America cannot ignore. Faith2Action has chosen to go in a direction that is not consistent with the biblical position of VCY America.

Janet Porter replied on her website.

In my view, she doesn’t really address the dominionist approach she promoted at the May Day 2010 rally, nor public calls for God to take control of the media. For all accounts I have seen, the May Day 2010 rally was not well attended, with perhaps 300 present; far fewer than the projected 8000.

*Listening to the program, you will hear some things that are really of no concern (e.g., worship music, stadium rallies, small groups). There is a tendency in this program to identify most of what dominionist teachers are doing and call that dominionism. One can miss the main theological and practical concern which is that the church is responsible to save nations via takeovers of governments and that via this activity we “release” Jesus to rule and reign on earth now. An aspect of the program that I believe to be valuable was the warnings to evangelicals that alliances with just anyone against perceived threats will dilute the main purpose of the church. I believe that groups can elevate their opposition to social issues above the real work of the church.

Stay tuned…

Are you awake yet?

We’re here for a great awakening to understand that politics are simply the ideological vessel that God has allowed to be in society today that will determine what happens in the soul of the nation. So we cannot be idle and we cannot be silent.

       -Cindy Jacobs, Generals International, Liberty University, April 15

Cindy Jacobs, co-founder of Generals International, wants to wake you up. Her ministry sponsored a conference March 4-6 called Convergence: A Cry to Awaken a Nation which brought together charismatic leaders who have

a sharp and strong message of prayer and crying out to see the nation experience a Great Awakening that turns us back to God.

And then April 15-16, she was a prominent speaker at the Freedom Foundation’s confab titled, The Awakening 2010. While there, she said some remarkable things about the relationship between Christianity and government. You can hear some of her views here.

In addition to the citation at the beginning of this post, Jacobs said,

But the point is, we have to say this: does the Creator have a right to say how nations are governed? Of course he does. I think it’s John Wycliffe, I know it is, in 1382 that said “the Bible is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

The quote she attributes to Wycliffe was not delivered accurately.  According to the Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Wycliffe said

The Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

The preposition “for” could imply that the Bible is “for the purpose of” government or it could mean that the Bible is “in favor of” government of, by and for the people. However, the meaning is probably a moot point for two reasons. One, it doesn’t really matter much in the modern context what Wycliffe said and two, Wycliffe probably did not write the quote about the Bible being the government.

I don’t fault Ms. Jacobs for assuming the accuracy of the quote but several respected sources doubt it. For instance, Eugene Volokh is a widely followed law professor and blogger on legal issues who investigated this quote attributed to Wycliffe. His cursory review found no primary source evidence that the quote came from Wycliffe or the Wycliffe Bible, saying,

This provenance, though, smacked of myth to me, and it appears likely that it is indeed a myth. I haven’t checked the prologue myself, because it’s long, the only version I could find was in a very bad font and not searchable, and the matter is too tangential to my article to track down. (The article is about Thomas Cooper, and I decided just not to mention the possibility that his earlier version might have been the indirect source for Lincoln’s famous quote.) But here’s what our reference librarian Stephanie Plotin reports:

You will need to read Plotin’s lengthy review to get the fullness of why I think the quote is wrongly attributed to Wycliffe. In any event, the authorship is not as important as Jacobs’ misquote. She misquotes it, probably inadvertantly, to bolster her view that the Bible is a proper document for civil governance.

The next big gathering which is designed to operate like aftershave on the nation’s face is MayDay2010. Ms. Jacobs is all over that one as well, along with main mover and awakener, Janet Porter. Probably waking up a lot of liberals, GOP Congressmen (e.g., Randy Forbes, R-VA), tea partiers (Allen Unruh) and religious right luminaries (e.g., James Dobson, Tim Wildmon, Mat Staver) will share the stage with New Apostolic Reformation charismatic leaders (e.g., Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce). This political-religious coalition wants to wake all of us up to the need to reclaim the seven mountains of culture.

Speaking of the seven mountains, check out this prior post and this video:

In the program of the May Day 2010, the Seven Mountains teaching appears with a variety of reclamation objectives. 

Prayers of Repentance for the Seven Mountains of Culture

The Seven Mountains as listed decades ago by Bill Bright, Francis Schaeffer, and Loren Cunningham with sub-points for each mountain developed by the May Day 2010 Committee

Family

-Repent on behalf of our individual sins—ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit.

-Repent for divorce and how we have re-defined marriage — Invite God back into marriage.

-Repent for how we have treated family members, including the elderly and disabled.

-Invite God back into families, hospital decisions, hospices, etc.

Religion

-Repent for pastors — Invite God to direct the Church’s role in the culture.

-Repent for churches that are “asleep.”

-Repent for churches that have compromised the truth in an attempt to be more popular.

Education

-Repent for how we have kicked God out of school, prohibited prayer, and punished Christians.

-Repent for what has been taught with godless, evolutionary textbooks.

-Repent for how children have been taught about homosexuality and led astray from the truth.

-Invite God back into our classrooms, teaching, and policy.

Arts & Entertainment

-Repent for how we have desecrated God with our music — Invite God to reign supreme in music and the arts.

-Repent for how we’ve assaulted God in our movies and television programs and exported our sin to other nations.

Business

-Repent for greed and stealing from God what rightfully belongs to Him in tithes and offerings.

-Repent for the businesses that perform abortions, produce obscene material, or offend Him in other ways

-Invite God back into the managing of our finances.

Government

-Repent for how we have turned from God in Congress and our legislatures— Invite God to direct our lawmaking.

-Repent for how we have turned from God in our military — Invite God in every area from prayer in Jesus’ name to our military strategies and defense.

-Repent for our judicial system, for shedding innocent blood, desecration of marriage, and unrighteous verdicts — Invite God back into it and every decision we make.

-Repent for the executive branch (President & Governors) — Invite God back in to guide, direct and govern.

Media

-Repent for how the media has turned its backs on God and the truth.

-Repent for how they have become activists for evil.

-Invite God back into the media to guide and direct reporting in a truthful way.

There is a lot I could discuss but let’s start with the media.

Leading the MayDay2010 rally is Janet Porter. Ms. Porter also spoke at the Jacobs’s Convergence conference noted above. Before she spoke she prayed for the reclamation of the media mountain.  Give a listen…

I want the media to report truthfully but I think that prayer could be directed at several Christian media outlets as well who do not report accurately even when errors are pointed out. Christians in the media do not guarantee accurate and truthful reporting. What worries me about this, beyond the obvious totalitarian tone here, is how misguided this request is. If CBS was the Christian Broadcasting System, what would change? Would there be no bias in reporting or would there be a different kind of bias? The Christian view of human nature doesn’t inspire confidence that the situation would improve much.

Whether it be media or government, I am bothered about the prospects of a religiously based takeover. Even if one believes that Christian people would make the best rulers, judges or reporters, one must ask which Christians will rule and reign? Reformed, apostolic, orthodox, liberal, anabaptist, Catholic?  The state instituting one view of Christianity does not have a good history. There is much more I could say but for now, let me close with a quote from Baptist minister, John Leland (1754-1841), (see page 6):

It has often been observed by the friends of religion established by human laws, that no state can long continue without it; that religion will perish, and nothing but infidelity and atheism prevail. Are these things facts? Did not the Christian religion prevail during the first three centuries, in a more glorious manner than ever it has since, not only without the aid of law, but in opposition to all the laws of haughty monarchs? And did not religion receive a deadly wound by being fostered in the arms of civil power and regulated by law?

I would add that in Romans 13, Paul wrote that the new believers were to submit to those “haughty monarchs.” On the other hand, Paul did not argue that politics was the “ideological vessel that God has allowed to be in society today that will determine what happens in the soul of the nation.”  

Postscript: One of the other conferences which was to usher in the Third Great Awakening was canceled recently due to lack funds, which I take to mean, lack of participation.Perhaps, some people are waking up.