Phil Donahue Ridicules Christian Salvation Doctrine

Concerned Women for America ^ | 1/9/2003 | Al Dobras

[Remedy]

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:

Well, Phil, sadly, Rev. Mohler is a spiritual racist. And it's not enough for him for Jews to be at the back of the heavenly bus, and not only can they not drink from the good old water fountain, he wants nothing less than a spiritual lynching. … [T]hink about how perverse this is. You take a Middle Eastern Jew named Jesus, one of the greatest teachers the world has ever known. You give him blond hair and blue eyes. You then put a Ku Klux Klan outfit on him with a hood and a white sheet, and you make him into the chief enforcer of anti-Semitism the world has ever known.

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:

Aren't you concerned about hurting the feelings of all those other people of other faiths? And isn't it a little arrogant to say, you know, I know and you don't. …[W]e're happy that you believe that. And I am very proud, as you are, to live in a country that you're allowed to believe that. But you're imposing something else there. You're not only saying Jesus is my way. You're saying he's for everybody, and if you don't accept him, you're not going to heaven. I have problems with that.

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:

The basic problem here, I think, is that God is too small. So for me, I'm passionately Christian. I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus as the One who showed me the way. But I would be the last person to be so arrogant as to assert that my God has so little imagination, that she or he could not reach out to other people in other cultures in other ways. I'm happy about that. [Emphasis added.]

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

Christians as 'Bigots'

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."

The rabbi responded:

Do you realize that I really don't give one darn if I'm going to heaven or hell? I didn't have children so they look after me when I'm a doddering old fool with drool coming out of my mouth! I had them because I love them! I serve God because I love him! Whatever he does with me. Why are you so fixated with heaven and hell. … [I]t's not a valid question because I'm means-oriented!

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.

'Twas the Season Without a Reason

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:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.]
• The ACLU filed suit in Covington, Georgia, asking that the public school district be required to cease using a calendar that identifies December 25 as Christmas.

PBS Shills for Islam

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."

Mr. Pipes was also critical of taxpayer support of the film:

The U.S. government should never fund a documentary whose obvious intent is to glorify a religion and proselytize for it. Doing so flies in the face of American tradition and law. On behalf of taxpayers, a public-interest law firm should bring suit against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, both to address this travesty and to win an injunction against any possible repetitions.

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.

[Gamecock]

Mom, check this out...

[Faith]

I imagine that God is smiling down upon us as plans for covering Phil in prayer are materializing. Let's pray that God would remove the blinders from his eyes and that the eyes of his heart will be enlightened. We may not know or see any results from our prayers for him in this lifetime, which is OK. We still will have done what God asks. On the other hand, think of how powerful a witness he could potentially become . . .

[RnMomof7]

Excellent Post ..Phil will not spend eternity alone..there will be lots of like minded people with him

[viaveritasvita]

Did y'all see this one? Phil's views have absolutely no importance to me whatsoever. However, I thought it was a good example of where we're headed in this country, i.e. Christians are bigots. Their tolerant, can't-we-all-just-get-along, diversity-is-good masks are coming off exponentially. Os Guinness thinks Christians in America have 15-20 years before the door closes for good on the great commission. The battle between good and evil rages on, my friends!

[Bennett46]

I, too was born to Catholic parents. I was sent to The Convent School for Girls, in Syracuse, NY at the age of five. I, too became a "strayed Catholic" during my freshman year of college. Later, when I began looking for my lost faith, I was repelled by the incredible changes in doctrine and practice that had occurred in Catholicism during my absence from the faith. I remained "faithless"...the shock was so great to me that what I had thought to be a timeless faith; had changed with the times.

Some years later I was saved by the timeless message and love of Jesus Christ.

I am praying for Mr. Donohue to be caught up in the same message of love.

[RnMomof7]

Some years later I was saved by the timeless message and love of Jesus Christ.



I hope the same for him...

[Bullish]

....and if you don't accept him, you're not going to heaven. I have problems with that.

Well Phil, I guess heaven isn't for everyone.

Your God is big govt. Phil.

And they aint' going to heaven either.

[the_doc]

Oh, you are so harsh. You must be one of those awful Christians whom lovey-dovey Phil HATES WITH EVERY FIBER OF HIS BEING.

I think of Phil, Bill, Bill, Bill, and Hill pretty much together (i.e., Donahue, Maher, Moyers, Clinton, and Clinton).

[Gamecock]

Psalm 74
21 Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;
may the poor and needy praise your name.

22 Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long.
23 Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.

[Eva]

O'Reilly made a similar statement to Falwell regarding salvation/heaven. Falwell didn't respond Biblicly. He just said that their was no way to heaven except through Christianity. I think that the problem has alot to do with the lack of exposure to the Bible among Catholics.

[freekitty]

PD is a legend in his mind.

[Auntie Dem]

On the other hand, think of how powerful a witness he could potentially become . . .

You mean people would then start watching him?

[HiTech RedNeck]

"Ye must be born again." Phil can't grok what this means. Nobody without regeneration can.

[gusopol3]

The rabbi responded:

Do you realize that I really don't give one darn if I'm going to heaven or hell? I didn't have children so they look after me when I'm a doddering old fool with drool coming out of my mouth!

Well, it looks like there's one other group, other than born-again Christians, upon whom the liberal elite can project their hatred without sullying their vaunted tolerance.

[Victoria Delsoul]

I don't like Donahue but I will make an effort and say a prayer for him.

[JusPasenThru]

Well said. Love as He first loved us.

[George W. Bush]

Actually, Mohler and a few of these guests were on Donahue a while back. Donahue is hitting on his all-dogs-go-to-heaven theology again with this program.

It reminds me of Larry King interviewing a Christian leader and being shocked and horrified when he was told that orthodox Christians wouldn't believe that all the victims of 9/11 automatically went to heaven simply because they were murdered by terrorists.

One has to wonder how supposedly educated people can possibly be so ignorant of the fundamental tenets of Christianity. I'm not talking about accepting it personally, merely an acquaintance with basic orthodox doctrine.

Given that Phil repeated this same anti-Christian bile on three programs in one year, one has to wonder whether the ratings were so good that he wanted a repeat or if he is pursuing the Christian=Nazi argument as a private agenda.

I haven't heard of any other talk shows focusing on the topic yet. So far, Phil is the only one. So I conclude it is his own anti-Christian agenda.

Donahue's ratings can't get much lower and he'll probably be cancelled very soon anyway. There are a number of Goneahue threads on his imminent much-desired demise. Personally, I liked Studs Terkel's suggestion that Donahue could raise his ratings by dying on the air. Actually, even I would watch that episode.

[mhking]

Is there any wonder why Phil can't get anyone to watch his show with inane, argumentative segments like this?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up! IMHO, if the door closes on Christianity in America, Jesus' second coming can't be far behind. Hugs!!!

[WomanofStandard]

"I wonder how many here would try praying for this guy for an extended period of time?"

He's got my prayers, along with prayers for his wife Marlo Thomas (Danny Thomas' daughter)and the Rabbi on that show who expressed the same hatred towards Christians as his early ancestor Saul turned Paul did when Christ walked the earth. If God could capture Saul's heart, Phil, Marlo and the Rabbi should be no sweat for a God listening to the prayers of those standing in the gap for their salvation!