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As our readers know, I have written quite a bit about a certain Pastor/Evangelist named Rodney Howard Browne. I have articles < a HREF="https://billrandles.wordpress.com/2020/03/31/corona-rodney-howard-browne-and-jeremiah/">Here, and here and as well I wrote a Book called “Weighed And Found Wanting;putting the Toronto Blessing in Context” which discusses Howard Browne’s Theology. I regard him as a mystic, a gnostic and a dangerous heretic. Howard Browne induces thousands of people into states of “Spiritual Drunkenness”, trances, and other mystical states to varying degree. He calls himself “God’s Bartender”, and boasts of hosting Revivals at “Joel’s Place”, which is a pun off of the Book...

It's been 500 years since Martin Luther pointed out the errors being made by the Papacy, claiming to be the One True Church. Now, despite the protests to the errant teaching of the Catholic Church, the "movers and shakers" in the charismatic movement are guiding their flocks toward a reunification with Rome, who continues to mislead many. God warns us to ready to rebuke false teachings...yet so many are now embracing it in the spirit of "unity." Likes lambs to the slaughter, the spiritually unaware are potentially fulfilling the predicted one-world religion that will manifest in the end time. John...

A new WikiLeaks release of stolen emails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta reveal an invitation by his brother to a “Spirit Cooking dinner” at the home of artist Marina Abramovic. “Spirit Cooking with Essential Aphrodisiac Recipes” was released by Ms. Abramovic in 1996, but the “ingredients” call for “fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk” to be consumed “on earthquake nights.” New York’s Museum of Modern Art called it a “cookbook” for “evocative instructions for actions or thoughts.” Another recipe calls for “fresh morning urine.” “Are you in NYC Thursday July 9 Marina wants you to come...

".......It is here where the modern Left made its transition away from communism into a postmodern existentialism. Dr. Hicks strongly argues that postmodernism is rooted in the Counter Enlightenment movement featuring German superstars such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. According to Hicks, postmodernism favors subjectivity over objectivity, the inadequacy of language to communicate over reason and truth, various collective multicultural groupings over individual identity and autonomy, willpower over realistic experience rooted in rational analysis, communalism and solidarity over individualism in values, markets and politics, and finally, suspicion, if not hostility, toward science and technology. As such, the postmodern critique...

Secular historians may snicker at early Christians who insisted Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue was a vision of the Messiah, but the case for interpreting Black Elk’s vision that way is not so easy to dismiss. Raymond DeMallie, founder and director of the American Indian Studies Research Institute, has delved into the transcripts of what Black Elk originally divulged to Neihardt. DeMallie’s definitive study shows the association with Jesus in this culminating passage to be unavoidable. Black Elk also said that the transfiguring figure he saw had “holes in the palms of his hands.” In addition, Black Elk flatly asserted to Neihardt,...

Excerpted: What Catholic mysticism does is reject the Bible as the sole and sufficient and perfect revelation of God and tries to delve beyond the Bible, even beyond thought of any kind, and find God through mystical “intuition.” In other words, it is a rejection of the God of the Bible. It says that God cannot be known by doctrine and cannot be described in words. He can only be experienced through mysticism. This is a blatant denial of the Bible’s claim to be the very Word of God. This opens the practitioner to demonic delusion. He is left with...

On the Mysticism of the Simple Word “Consider” By: Msgr. Charles PopeEvery now and then a word just catches your ear. Several times in a day it jumps out at you and you’re tempted to say, “There it is again!”A few days ago it was the word “consider,” a very ordinary word. Or is it? Why did it suddenly strike me so? With my knowledge of Latin,  it occurred to me that “consider” has something to do with the stars, for the Latin word sidera means “stars” or “heavenly bodies.” How interesting! I have used the word for about fifty years...

Following recent comments from Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony in which he denied committing atrocities, Ugandan Ochola John, 25, responds by telling his story. He was abducted by rebels from his village, Namkora in northern Uganda, which was attacked in February 2002. During the attack 50 people were axed to death and he was one of 35 abductees. Ochola John was deformed by rebels from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army I wish I could be born again. It hurts me to see my reflection because of the way I now look. The memories of it all are so...

Matt Tarka speaks with the confidence of the faithful. Discussing a trip he will soon be taking to Northern Uganda to spread the word of Christianity, the details roll off his tongue like he’s describing an upcoming camping trip, with enthusiasm and confidence. He and four other missionaries—representing three Fort Collins churches—have flights booked, itineraries mostly finalized and contacts in Uganda awaiting their arrival. They’re working out their ground transportation, gathering aid supplies like clothing and toys, and hosting fund raisers to pay for the mission’s considerable expense. But most importantly, they have their goals firmly in mind. “We want...

The most unfortunate thing about the concept of mysticism is that the word itself has become mystified—and relegated to a “misty” and distant realm that implies it is only available to a very few. For me, the word simply means experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge. Most of organized religion, without meaning to, has actually discouraged us from taking the mystical path by telling us almost exclusively to trust outer authority, Scripture, tradition, or various kinds of experts (what I call the “containers”)—instead of telling us the value and importance...

Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater can get you into trouble. So can saying “yoga” in a group of Catholics.I just do it for the stretches, I don’t do anything religious.It’s evil…the work of the devil.Oh please! The next thing you’ll be telling me is the number 13 brings bad luck. Practicing yoga breaks the First Commandment; it’s pagan worship.And so it goes. And goes. And goes.Three years ago, I did an article titled “To Yoga or Not to Yoga.” Initially, I wrote it then put it aside for around a year. I was not sure I was up...

A century ago next year, one of the most extraordinary events in the modern history of Christianity took place there. In the summer of 1913 the Aegean was penetrated not by pleasure-craft, but by the navy of the Russian tsar. A gunboat and later two transporters, complete with a party of marines, sailed up to a giant monastic house. A Russian archbishop tried negotiating with a bitterly divided community. When that failed, the troops opened up with a water-cannon, directed at the cells of monks on the losing side in a theological argument. For six years the Russian monks of...

My earlier prediction from September:Imam Rauf decided to pick a spot near Ground Zero so that there would be an outcry… and he’ll keep stringing this along until one day when he’ll do the “honorable” and “right thing”: announce that instead of an Islamic Community Center which promotes Interfaith Understanding, he’ll build an Interfaith Center devoted equally to all religions… and the crowds will cheer and people will actually be happy about an Interfaith Center… maybe for the first time ever...recent article from March 30:Two co-founders of the controversial plan to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks...

Mysticism is dying, and taking true religion with it. Monasteries have dwindled. Contemplative orders have declined. Our religious leaders no longer preach the renunciation of the world; our culture scoffs at the idea. The closest most Americans come to real asceticism is giving up chocolate, cappuccinos, or (in my own not-quite-Francis-of-Assisi case) meat for lunch for Lent.

See Part I of my NewsReal Sunday discussion of Friday night's interview between Bill Maher and Sam Harris on Real Time. Leftist comedian Bill Maher just can't help being a jackass even toward people he respects. You'd think that if anyone could get him to at least attempt to grasp the value in the religious experience it would be believers who share his "progressive" political faith: Maher: I have unending respect for Bill Moyers. He's a brilliant man. He's also a Baptist minister. Jimmy Carter, y'know, a pretty bright guy. How do we reconcile someone who is so intelligent but...

This is from the Afterword of "The Case Against Evolution" by George O'Toole. He was a professor of theology and philosophy and also professor of animal biology at Seton Hill College. Against Evolution From The Case Against Evolution (1926), afterword. (Abridged) George Barry O'Toole With the close of the nineteenth century the hour hand of biological science had completed another revolution. One after another, the classic systems of evolution had passed into the discard, as its remorseless progress registered their doom. The last of these systems, De-Vriesianism, enjoyed a meteoric vogue in the first years of the present century,...

Hindu religious leaders have strongly criticized a Catholic spiritual teacher for encouraging her pupils to find God through yoga. Tue, Apr. 01, 2008 Posted: 09:32:22 AM EST Hindu religious leaders have strongly criticized a Catholic spiritual teacher for encouraging her pupils to find God through yoga. Winnie Young, 96, meanwhile, questions why people misunderstand yoga to be a religion. Young who studied yoga under one of the world's leading yoga practitioners, Yogacharya BKS Iyengar, claims to have spent most of her life teaching yoga. She says the national yoga institute that she founded in 1975 practices Hatha yoga, which advocates...

Several Central Jersey churches are ushering in Holy Week — the week preceding Easter Sunday — with a variety of new and unusual programs, some of which will tap into entertainment value to plug parishioners into enlightenment.Concerts, plays and dinners are just a few of the programs on the Christian worship menu this week, along with inventive ways of pursuing prayer.Celebrate Recovery, the biblical-based 12-step program at Community Christian Chapel, 211 Route 206, Hillsborough, will follow its 7 p.m. meeting on Good Friday with a concert by Nashville-based Christian rock act Kathleen Carnali……The combined United Church of Christ/Presbyterian Church USA...

The Future Lies in the Past -- Why evangelicals are connecting with the early church as they move into the 21st century.Many 20- and 30-something evangelicals are uneasy and alienated in mall-like church environments; high-energy, entertainment-oriented worship; and boomer-era ministry strategies and structures modeled on the business world. Increasingly, they are asking just how these culturally camouflaged churches can help them rise above the values of the consumerist world around them. For younger evangelicals, traditional churches are too centered on words and propositions. And pragmatic churches are compromising authentic Christianity by tailoring their ministries to the marketplace and pop culture....

HE INCREASES AND SHE DECREASES By MARK P. SHEA  Some friends are always good for a cheery disagreement--like my pal Bill. Here he is, a guy who modestly describes himself as "The Last Bastion of the Reformation," a guy who sings "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" in the shower, a guy who keeps ribbing me about being Catholic when he knows that I can scarcely resist the challenge to respond. Consider the letter I got the other day, written with Bill's usual joie de vivre, in which he urged me to get a recent book devoted to "critiquing" Marian...