Phil Donahue Ridicules Christian Salvation Doctrine

Meanwhile, ACLU worked overtime to take Christ out of Christmas and PBS celebrated Islam

A week before Christmas, MSNBC talk-show host Phil Donahue used his program as a vehicle to show his contempt for foundational Christian beliefs - particularly that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.

The December 17 program - titled "Do You Have to Be a Christian to Get into Heaven?" - was a follow-up to Donahue's December 3 show during which he asked Christian evangelist and Liberty University founder the Rev. Jerry Falwell if he (Donahue) had to accept Christ in order to go to heaven. The Rev. Falwell replied that the only way to heaven was "what Jesus said in [the New Testament Book of] John 14:6. He said, 'I am the way, the truth, the life, no man cometh unto the Father - no man - but by me.'"

When many in the audience applauded the Rev. Falwell's statement, Donahue expressed disdain for their reaction and evidently decided to hone in on the topic with theological guests from both sides.

For the December 17 program, Donahue assembled the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky; Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, national talk-radio host and author of "Judaism Is for Everybody"; Michael Brown, a Messianic (Christian) Jew; Dr. Joe Hough, president of the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan; and evangelist Flip Benham. Mohler, Brown, and Benham support the Biblical viewpoint while Rabbi Boteach and Dr. Hough hold opposing views.

Donahue first posed the question of "who goes to heaven" to the Rev. Mohler, who answered that a person goes to heaven only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Donahue showed his scorn for Mohler's statement by replying, "I just think that [view] has the potential, and already has caused an awful lot of havoc here among the Lord's people. If you tell me that I'm not going to heaven, then why should you respect me? If the Lord doesn't respect me, why should you?"

The Rev. Mohler replied: "Well, the Lord respects you enough to have sent Jesus Christ, his son, to assume human flesh, to die on Calvary's cross for your sins." Unimpressed, Donahue asked Rabbi Boteach to respond:

Phil Donahue then tacitly agreed with the rabbi's vitriolic assessment of Christianity, noting, "And he [the Christian Klansman] goes to heaven. The guy in the sheet goes to heaven, I think is what he's saying."

Although the Rev. Mohler vehemently disagreed with the association of Christianity with the Ku Klux Klan and anti-Semitism, Rabbi Boteach continued his comments, asserting that Mohler's views transcend the issue of "just people making decisions about faith. We are talking about Jews being persecuted, slaughtered ... massacred, turned to bars of soap because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism. The Holocaust didn't take place in Buddhist Europe or in Hindu Europe. It took place in Christian Europe."

To the assertion equating Nazi and Christian worldviews, Donahue responded, "I agree with you."

As the program continued, Donahue chastised a female audience participant who expressed her view that the Bible says Jesus is the only way to heaven. Donahue:

Donahue then introduced Dr. Michael Brown, who identified himself as a Messianic Jew - a member of the Jewish faith that accepts Jesus Christ as the Messiah and fulfiller of Old Testament prophesies. Upon hearing Dr. Brown's statement, Donahue said sarcastically, "Boy, oh, boy, you're breaking the hearts of a lot of very, very devout faithful Jewish folk with that. I mean, really. You don't think it's an oxymoron?"

Dr. Brown replied, "He [Jesus] came to fulfill what's written in Moses and the prophets. So either…the whole world should believe in him or reject it." Rabbi Boteach then called Brown "a spiritual bigot" and mocked the notion that Jesus is the only way to heaven.

Donahue ridiculed Dr. Mohler for suggesting in his writings that Islam is a faith that "lies about God" and presents a false gospel. "I mean, please. You're going to be sending how many people to war if you keep up commentary like this? You don't see the un-Christian nature of that comment?"

The Mohler replied: "It's not an un-Christian comment, because it is the gospel. And also, well, let's put it this way. If you have a true Muslim who understands what we believe about Jesus, he believes that we are wrong. And you [as a Christian] have to have a basic respect for truth."

Donahue then said, "But I don't know if he [a Muslim] is out there really throwing mud and calling names to people who believe otherwise. I think we can lose just a little less devotion and [have] more love and understanding and reaching out." He called on Dr. Hough to respond:

Donahue agreed and said, "You speak for me. When I see a holy person, I'm happy about that."

Throughout the program, the views of the Rev. Mohler, Dr. Brown, and the Rev. Benham were characterized as bigoted, ignorant, hateful and unenlightened, about which Donahue typically agreed. Perhaps the most telling moment in the broadcast came when one audience member asked Boteach, "Rabbi, I was wondering what you believe. … Who is going to hell? Because it seems everybody believes everybody's going to heaven, and that cannot be the case."

Later in the conversation, Rabbi Boteach showed his complete misunderstanding of sin, God's grace, and forgiveness: "If heaven is a place riddled with murderers who believed in Jesus, and hell is a place riddled with victims who had died with the wrong faith, I would choose hell every, any single day. I prefer to be with the innocent victim than to be in a heaven riddled with murderers."

In other words, the rabbi doesn't even believe in heaven, hell, judgment, grace, or forgiveness, but nevertheless is hypercritical of Christians who do. Furthermore, essentially all religious faiths practice exclusionary principles regarding salvation and the eternal destiny of the human soul. The rabbi readily confessed his unbelief; Hindus and Buddhists believe in repeated reincarnations until the soul is relieved of its bad "karma" through good works, at which time the soul simply sheds its existence; Muslims believe in a works-based judgment and that only those who accept Allah as the one true God may achieve a Paradise of abundant sensual pleasures, while nonbelievers will suffer the torments of hell.

It is a uniquely Christian belief that works cannot earn a person salvation, as St. Paul notes in Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." For Christians, acceptance into the heavenly kingdom comes only by God's grace and entering into a personal trust relationship with the Living God, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice on the cross served as an atonement for sin. Thus believers are justified in the eyes of God.

By focusing exclusively on Christianity and ignoring the beliefs of other faiths, Phil Donahue's primary motivation was to ridicule the beliefs of Bible-believing Christians, whom he regards as intolerant to his own ultra-liberal views. Unfortunately, he missed an opportunity to present a reasoned discussion of Christian doctrine concerning salvation, which could have served to enlighten his viewers and sweep away the misconceptions raised by the audience's questions and shared by some panel members.

Perhaps Donahue's open contempt for Biblical truths and the Christian faith helps explain his dismal ratings. His MSNBC program is reportedly losing the ratings war to more conservative talk shows on the FOX network.

In retrospect, the 2002 Christmas holiday season can perhaps be best remembered as "the season without a Reason." Holiday greetings, which were once universally expressed as Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, have long since been replaced by the generically acceptable, Happy Holidays, while millions of schoolchildren who used to look forward to 'Christmas vacation' now simply enjoy their 'winter break.'

Even though Christmas is a federal holiday that celebrates and reflects the nation's Christian heritage, anti-Christian organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have been remarkably successful in eliminating Christmas symbolism from the public arena - most often by threats and intimidation without legal merit. This past Christmas season showed a continuation of this relentless assault. Among the more outrageous examples were:

The media, which once offered a multitude of Christmas-oriented programs, are now almost devoid of serious Christian themes. The Public Broadcasting Service did present a serious religious program shortly before Christmas - a two-hour discourse on the life of Muhammad produced by Muslim convert and apologist for the Islamic faith, Alex Kronemer. "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" aired on most of the 349 PBS affiliates nationwide beginning December 18, while the Washington, D.C., PBS station broadcast the program on December 26.

Kronemer, who has a master of divinity degree in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, recently wrote an article for the religion Web site Beliefnet.com called, "Was Muhammad a Terrorist." In the article, Kronemer credits Muhammad for ending the "Biblical period" of violence: "By today's standards, Muhammad engaged in an appalling amount of violence - but he brought peace to the Holy Land." [Emphasis added.] Muhammad also brought a repressive code of 7th century religious laws that continues to enslave a large portion of the world to this day.

If, indeed, Muhammad brought "peace to the Holy Land" by the violent conquest of its inhabitants, it was quite obviously short-lived, which Kronemer later admits in his article: "Christianity and Islam have challenged and competed with one another ever since. The relationship has spurred both civilizations to greater creativity, but has also been the source of conflict over the centuries, which is now re-ignited on both sides of the divide."

Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, called the PBS documentary "an outrage … an airbrushed and uncritical documentary of a topic that has both world historical and contemporary significance. Its patronizing film might be fine for an Islamic Sunday school class, but not for a national audience."

PBS has supplemented its documentary by offering educational materials on its Web site about Islam and its relationship to women, jihad, and other religions, as well as offering a "virtual Hajj" (the Muslim's sacred pilgrimage to Mecca), information about the Koran, and a discussion forum.

being persecuted, slaughtered ... massacred, turned to bars of soap because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism

In The Church's Confession under Hitler, author Arthur Cochrane presents the not sufficiently well-known statement of exiled Albert Einstein, the great physicist, cited by Wilhelm Niemoller in Kampi und Zeugnis der bekennenden Kirche - Struggle and Testimony of the Confessing Church, p.526.

Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

Extremists on Campus

Islam is gaining most of its U.S. converts in prisons and on university campuses.

Harvard Loves Jihad - article by Daniel Pipes

Administration Cites Recent Surveys Showing Lack Of Basic Knowledge Of U.S. History

Book Review: Why the Left Hates America "their influence is great." "They are museum curators, journalists, college professors, librarians, and movie stars." & DONAHUE

being persecuted, slaughtered ... massacred, turned to bars of soap because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism

Sept. 2, 2000 ,Volume 15, Number 34 WORLD ON THE WEB, Marvin Olasky

...the word homophobia smogged up the air over the Democratic convention in Los Angeles last week, as we learned once again that a man who criticizes homosexuality on biblical grounds is trying to repress his true desire to plant a big sloppy kiss on the dude next door.

Perhaps the most observant current viewer of Christophobia is not a Christian but an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. Daniel Lapin wrote in his book, America's Real War, "The educational bureaucracy expects the state to accommodate every possible bizarre cultural mutation and lifestyle, but finds prayer at graduation an intolerable and fatal compromise of state neutrality toward religion." Why else would such illogic reign if fear were not involved?

Some Jewish leaders would point to the Holocaust to say that their fear has an objective basis, yet the faith that animated Hitler was not Christianity but a racist version of Social Darwinism's emphasis on survival of the fittest. And the reason Hitler could put his faith into practice is because of a powerful government apparatus; although the left hates to admit it, National Socialism was one type of socialism.

That's why Rabbi Lapin's fearless statement makes sense: "Those of us who venerate freedom, be we Jewish or Christian, be we religious or secularized, have no option but to pray for the health of Christianity in America. No other group possesses both the faith and the numbers sufficient to hold back the ever-encroaching, sometimes sinister, power of the state."

In South Orange, New Jersey, local middle school officials canceled a field trip to see a performance of Charles Dickens' play, A Christmas Carol for fear of offending some students.

"In passing, we should note that [Hitler] banned prayer in schools, changed Christian holidays into pagan festivals, and eventually forced the church leadership to accept his outrageous demands. His political machine swallowed the church whole because the church had lost its biblical mission. Thus the state not only interfered with religious practices but controlled them." Lutzer, Erwin W., Hitler's Cross , p. 19 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995)

In Sacramento, California, elementary school teachers have been banned from using the word "Christmas" in class.

Schools in several states have prohibited teachers from having students sing familiar Christmas carols, favoring instead secular songs such as Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bell Rock. Wendy Wagenheim, communications director of the ACLU in Michigan, said "What they need to do is develop a balance in the kind of songs they are teaching to children … select songs that will not make anyone feel uncomfortable." [Emphasis added.]

In 1935 prayers ceased to be obligatory in schools; religious instruction was not yet exactly prohibited, but it was limited to those who had been licensed by the state. Thus the dogmas of Nazism were substituted for the doctrines of the Bible.... Carols and Nativity displays were banned from the schools in 1938, and even the name Christmas was changed to "Yuletide." Crucifixes were eliminated from classrooms, and Easter was turned into a holiday that heralded the arrival of spring. Lutzer, Erwin W., Hitler's Cross , p. 115 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995)

The city of Pittsburgh was required to remove signs permitting 10-minute parking near a church's display of a Christmas nativity scene. The ACLU claimed the parking waiver violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

Hitler cynically blended the racism of composer Richard Wagner and the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin with the blood myths of Eastern occultism." Lutzer, Erwin W., Hitler's Cross , p. 79-80(Chicago: Moody Press, 1995)

"One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both." -Adolf Hitler (Lutzer, 113-114)

Federalism And Religious Liberty: Were Church And State Meant To Be Separate?

Donahue agreed and said, "You speak for me. When I see a holy person, I'm happy about that."

By the time Hitler was elected to power in 1933, the vast majority of the State Church was apostate. Thousands of pastors and priests swore blind allegiance to him. But a few did not. Lutzer

The Public Broadcasting Service did present a serious religious program shortly before Christmas - a two-hour discourse on the life of Muhammad produced by Muslim convert and apologist for the Islamic faith, Alex Kronemer. "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" aired on most of the 349 PBS affiliates nationwide beginning December 18, while the Washington, D.C., PBS station broadcast the program on December 26.

Comments on the PBS special - "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" significant details were omitted or glossed over. This includes many of Muhammad's violent acts. Additionally, many of the comments were inaccurate according to the Islamic source materials. When the film is put to the test, against the real Islamic source materials, it is obvious that this film was nothing more than Islamic evangelism of an ignorant and naïve American public.

PBS, Recruiting for Islam - article by Daniel Pipes

It is a uniquely Christian belief that works cannot earn a person salvation, as St. Paul notes in Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." For Christians, acceptance into the heavenly kingdom comes only by God's grace and entering into a personal trust relationship with the Living God, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice on the cross served as an atonement for sin. Thus believers are justified in the eyes of God.

That You Might Believe: A Study of the Gospel of John

Jews for Jesus

The Question of God

To the assertion equating Nazi and Christian worldviews, Donahue responded, "I agree with you."

Here is one of the (to my mind) greatest philosophers produced by England in the last century, telling people-especially other philosophers-that sometimes it is better to walk away than to argue. Why? Because a person's conscience can become so corrupt, and lead to such equally corrupt rationalizations, that to engage them in serious argument about those rationalizations is both pointless-being unlikely to have the slightest impact on their thinking-and... Why Abortion Isn’t Important

"The August 6, 1938 Chicago Tribune carried the headline "Bible Twisted to Nazi Creed." The article tells how the Sermon on the Mount and the gospel of John had been rewritten by former Reich Bishop Ludwig Muller. The words sin and grace were deleted from the texts, and the Golden Rule was rewritten to apply only to relationships between Nazi comrades. All references to Old Testament [Jewish] prophets, from Moses to Abraham, were also deleted." (Lutzer, p. 146)

Nietzsche's Truth In the months before his final descent into madness, Friedrich Nietzsche made the following declaration and prediction: "I know my destiny. Someday my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous, a crisis like no other on earth [The Holocaust and evolution] , the profoundest collision of conscience, a decision conjured up against everything that had been believed, required, and held sacred up to that time.[ The New State Religion: Atheism] I am not a man; I am dynamite." [The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?]

Nietzsche extolled the "superman" as "the magnificent blonde brute, avidly rampant for spoil and victory." [73] Shirer sees Nietzsche as an important source for helping Hitler justify "the most ruthless and cold-blooded deeds, the suppression of personal freedom, the brutal practice of slave labor, the depravities of the concentration camp, the massacre of his own followers in June 1934, the killing of war prisoners and the mass slaughter of the Jews." [74] The idea of the supreme leader as not being subject to the moral restraints binding ordinary men came from Nietzsche. Shirer concludes: "That in the end Hitler considered himself the superman of Nietzsche's prophecy can not be doubted." [75]

73. Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted by Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 146-147.
74. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 162.
75. Ibid., p. 147.

The Donovan Nuremberg Trials collection

"The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches"

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