WND EXCLUSIVE
Obama's ring: 'There is no god but Allah'

He's worn band on wedding-ring finger since before he met Michelle

Author: Jerome R. Corsi
Source: World Net Daily - 10/10/2012

NEW YORK – As a student at Harvard Law School, then-bachelor Barack Obama’s practice of wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger puzzled his colleagues.

Now, newly published photographs of Obama from the 1980s show that the ring Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger as an unmarried student is the same ring Michelle Robinson put on his finger at the couple’s wedding ceremony in 1992.

Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no god except Allah.”
[Related Article: The "Peace" of Islam]

The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.

Sincere recitation of the Shahada is the sole requirement for becoming a Muslim, as it expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods.
[Related Article: Is Freedom of Speech the Problem?]

Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., examined photographs of Obama’s ring at WND’s request and concluded that the first half of the Shahada is inscribed on it.

“There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs, the Islamic religion and Islamic society to which this statement is so strongly attached,” Gabriel told WND.

Jerome Corsi’s “Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?” carefully documents the story the establishment media still refuses to tell

“Dreams from My Real Father” producer Joel Gilbert, an Arabic speaker and an expert on the Middle East, was the first to conclude that Obama’s ring, reportedly from Indonesia, bore an Islamic inscription.
[Related Article: Persecution of Christians Increasing in Indonesia]

Photographs published last week by the New Yorker from Obama’s time at Occidental College, taken by fellows students, indicate that the ring Obama wore three decades ago is the one he is wearing in the White House.

As WND reported in July, previously published photos have shown Obama wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger continuously from 1981 at Occidental, through graduation at Columbia in 1983, in a visit to Africa in 1988 and during his time at Harvard from 1988 to 1991. But none, until now, have displayed the ring with enough detail to identify it as the one he currently is wearing.

WND reported a satirical edition of the Harvard Law Review published by students in 1990 contains a mock Dewers Scotch profile advertisement poking fun at Obama. Among a list of Obama’s “Latest Accomplishments” is: “Deflecting Persistent Questioning About Ring On Left Hand.”

The comment suggests the ring was a subject of student curiosity at the time and that Obama was not forthcoming with an explanation.
[Related Article: The Deadliest Video and Barack Obama!]

He still has not explained why he wore the band on his wedding-ring finger before he married Michelle.

Declaration

Gabriel, born to Muslim parents in Upper Egypt, grew up immersed in Islamic culture. He memorized the Quran at age of 12 and graduated in 1990 with a Masters degree from the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the pre-eminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning.

He explained that on Obama’s ring, the declaration “There is no god except Allah” (La Ilaha Illallah) is inscribed in two sections, one above the other.

On the upper section, “There is no god” is written in Arabic letters, from right to left: Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Ha.

On the lower section is “except god,” written in Arabic letters from right to left: Alif, Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Lam, Ha.

In the lower section, the word “Allah” is written partially on top of the word “except,” noted Gabriel, the author of “Islam and Terrorism” and “Journey Inside the Mind of an Islamic Terrorist.”

It is common in Islamic art and Arabic calligraphy, especially when expressing Quranic messages on jewelry, to artfully place letters on top of each other to fit them into the allotted space.

The exhibit below shows how the Arabic inscription fits over the two parts of the Obama ring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There is no God except Allah” overlaid on Obama ring

 

‘First-rate accent’

In an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof questioned Obama about his Islamic education in Indonesia, where he lived from 1967 to 1971.

After acknowledging that he once got in trouble for making faces during Quran study classes in his elementary school, Obama recited for Kristoff the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, the Adhan.

The prayer incorporates the Shahada, the expression of Islamic faith, with each line repeated twice:

Allah is supreme! Allah is supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet

Kristof noted Obama recited the prayer in Arabic “with a first-rate accent.”

“In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset,’” Kristoff wrote.

Gabriel told WND that a person wearing a ring with “There is no god except Allah” demonstrates the significance of Islam in his life.

“Christians never use the statement,” he pointed out. “By wearing the Shahada on jewelry, a person communicates that Allah is in control of all circumstances. Allah controls you; Allah is the one and only one.”

Obama, who attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for two decades, has repeatedly insisted he is a Christian.
[Related Article: According to the Scriptures]

‘Blessed statement in Islam’

Gabriel emphasized the importance of the Shahada in the profession of faith in Islam.

“Muslims recite the Shahada when they wake up in the morning and before they go to sleep at night,” he said. “It is repeated five times every day in the call to prayer in every mosque. A single honest recitation of the Shahada in Arabic is all that is required for a person to convert to Islam.”
[Related Article: What Is Islam?]

Gabriel believes it would be impossible for Obama not to be aware of what is written on the ring, calling it a “blessed statement in Islam.”

“By wearing this religious statement on one’s hand, it connects the person to Islam,” he said. “It is worn in hopes that Allah’s protections would be with the person, in hopes of gaining favor with Allah.”

He affirmed that Muslim men do wear gold rings, despite prohibitions in Islamic law.

“Though Islamic law prohibits the wearing of gold jewelry by men, it is a widely accepted custom, even in strictly Muslim countries,” he said. “The wearing of gold rings is even more acceptable when it contains a religious message, such as ‘There is no god except Allah.’”

He noted there is also widespread acceptance of men wearing gold jewelry in non-Arab Islamic societies such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Pakistan, where Muslims generally understand that Muslims are subject to strong influences of local non-Arab cultures.

“Therefore, even though technically prohibited, a Muslim man wearing a gold ring is not looked down upon, especially if the jewelry reflects a love of Islam and a connection to Islamic society,” he said. “An even greater level of acceptance is for businessmen who deal with infidels, because such a person would be regarded as a person of influence.”

‘I have known Islam on three continents’

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, an expert on Islamic history, noted Obama wore the ring during his high-profile speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, in the first months of his presidency.

“Now we have a new context for what Obama meant when he told the Islamic audience in Cairo that he has ‘known Islam on three continents,” Gilbert said. “He also told the Cairo audience that he considered it part of his responsibility as president of the United States ‘to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.’ All religious Muslims are by definition required to defend Islam.”
[Related Article: The Muslim Brotherhood and the White House]

Gilbert’s most recent documentary films on the Middle East are “Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and The Revolt of Islam” and “Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War and Obama’s Politics of Defeat”

The Occidental ring

The photographs published last week by New Yorker magazine indicate Obama was wearing the ring at Occidental College.

One photo shows Obama sitting alongside Occidental roommate Hasan Chandoo in 1981, apparently waiting for a meal to be served.

Obama’s extended left hand clearly shows the ring, as seen below.

The second of the recently released photos shows Obama reaching for a book from an Occidental College library shelf.

A close-up of the library photo can be seen below.

In the above photo, the ring’s design can be seen, including a series of parallel bars that distinguish its outer circumference.

The Obama wedding ring

The ring was mentioned in a New York Times article in 2009 recounting the Obamas’ wedding.

In the story, Jodi Kantor described its “intricate gold design,” noting it came from Barack Obama’s boyhood home of Indonesia and was not traditional, like Michelle’s.

Kantor wrote:

Just before the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. pronounced Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson man and wife on the evening of Oct. 3, 1992, he held their wedding rings – signifying their new, enduring bonds – before the guests at Trinity United Church of Christ. Michelle’s was traditional, but Barack’s was an intricate gold design from Indonesia, where he had lived as a boy.

There was no mention in the article that Obama already had been wearing the ring for more than a decade.

The photos of the ring from the 1980s can be compared with more recent photos, such as the ones published by the Huffington Post in 2010 in an article by Anya Strzemien, “Obama’s ‘Intricate’ Indonesian Wedding Band: A CLOSE-UP,” seen here.

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JEROME R. CORSI

Jerome R. Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D., is a WND senior staff reporter. He has authored many books, including No. 1 N.Y. Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command." Corsi's latest book is the forthcoming "What Went Wrong?: The Inside Story of the GOP Debacle of 2012 … And How It Can Be Avoided Next Time."

Author: Dave Hunt
Source: The Berean Call - Dec.1, 2007

The Bible makes uncompromisingly clear to all mankind its claim to be the infallible, inerrant Word of the only true and living God. It denounces all other gods and scriptures as false, as well as the religions they represent. Of Jesus, God's Word declares, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). Peter told Jewish religious leaders (and was beaten, imprisoned, and killed for testifying to Christ's resurrection): "There is none other name...given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts:4:12).

Such unequivocal statements cannot be misunderstood. Jews would not have been persecuted and killed had they presented Yahweh as just one more god to be added to the Roman Pantheon. Christians were considered an even greater threat because in obedience to Christ they preached the gospel everywhere and thereby "turned the world upside down" (Acts:17:6). Even they would not have been persecuted and killed had they presented Jesus Christ as merely one of many possible saviors. It was their firm proclamation of Christ's claim, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John 14:6), that threatened Caesar and aroused such vicious hatred. Today, however, to avoid the objectionable exclusivity of their faith, "Christians" often compromise and many ecumenically deny the biblical gospel.

Christianity is a biblical faith, and the Bible is not an "ecumenical" book. It makes no compromise with any of the world's religions. Those who support ecumenism to any extent, no matter how loudly they defend their orthodoxy, are not Bible-believing Christians. At worst they are deliberate frauds; at best they are confused into simultaneously professing two contradictory beliefs (syncretism). Which do they really believe? Speaking out of both sides of their mouths is a popular ploy today of both political and "Christian" leaders.

Anyone is free to invent any new religion-but not free to call it Christianity. That faith is founded upon facts: Scripture, history, and prophecy, all of which are a matter of clear record and none of which can be changed. These facts cannot honestly be denied.

What must we say of "Christian" leaders and even entire denominations that do not follow Christ and His Word? We have exposed many by name and have documented in these pages their inexcusable hypocrisy and deceit, which must be summarily rejected. Away with all duplicity!
[Related Article: Deception In the Church]

Whoever (Bush, Rice, et al.) insists that Islam is a "religion of peace" and that Allah is the God of the Bible is either deceived or lying. Islam has its founding prophet, Muhammad, who began his career with numerous murders, attacked peaceful villages and caravans, and beheaded hundreds who surrendered in exchange for his sworn promise of peace and safety. Islam has its scriptures (the Qur'an and Hadith) and 1,350 years of the bloodiest and most violent history of any religion ever known, including the merciless slaughter of millions (more millions in the take-over of India than Hitler killed in all of Eastern and Western Europe).

We fully document the truth about Islam in Judgment Day, which every Berean ought to donate to his or her local public library. One can only say that all those (from Bush and Rice on down) who turn a blind eye to the indisputable truth about Islam and call this violent religion "peaceful" are engaged in a cover-up.
[Related Article: The 'Peace' Of Islam]

It is indisputable that today's Islamic terrorism may not honestly be blamed upon "extremists." This is true Islam as it always has been from the beginning! Terrorists are sincere Muslims following both the teaching and example of Muhammad, the obedient example set by his loyal followers, and Islam's scriptures, which command the take-over of the entire world and death to all who will not convert. True, not every Muslim is a terrorist, but nearly every terrorist is a Muslim!

The scriptures and history of any religion are a matter of permanent public record that cannot be disputed, much less reinvented. Both those who attempt to do so (whether with Christianity or Islam) and those who accept and pass on their lies are guilty of the same deceit.

While terrorists are genuine Muslims who follow Muhammad and the Qur'an, the Crusaders were not biblical Christians. They followed Rome, not Christ and His Word. The popes had their own agenda of world conquest by force. Crusaders waved the Cross but denied Christ by killing His brethren, the Jews, wherever they went. Attempting "in the name of Christ" to retake the "Holy Land" from the atrocity-committing Islamic invaders violated Christ's declaration to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world [or else] would my servants fight" (John 18:36).

Yes, Israel was commanded to wipe out the Canaanites, a particular people in a very small part of the world with clearly defined borders-to execute God's judgment upon their unspeakable wickedness and perversion. Israel was not told to "convert" them or anyone else with the sword nor to take over the world by violence-as both the Qur'an and Muhammad (claiming an edict from Allah) declared from the beginning to be Islam's mission. This fundamental teaching of Islam cannot be changed without renouncing Islam.

Equally important to understand is the fact that the Bible, in contrast to the so-called scriptures of every religion, gives the proof of its claims. I don't say "every other religion" because biblical Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship as children to a loving Father, which every true Christian has with God through Jesus Christ.

The God who inspired the Bible through His prophets and is presented therein does not demand "blind" faith, as Richard Dawkins and other atheists blasphemously assert. He offers proof and is willing to reason with skeptics and unbelievers, if they will honestly do so: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD..." (Isaiah 1:18). Faith in God and in His Word is the only reasonable response to the questions with which the universe confronts us and to the answers God provides in Scripture. Peter reminds us that true followers of Christ do not threaten unbelievers but are "ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh...a reason of the hope..." we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

We have proved these facts so often in this newsletter that I will not repeat the proof now. The major proof, of course, that God offers of His own existence and that the Bible is His Word is prophecy. It foretells events centuries and even thousands of years in advance. Biblical prophecy is always fulfilled right on time in every detail.

Prophecy is absolutely unique to the Bible, being found in no other religious scriptures (though some contain false prophecies). Israel's prophets offered hundreds of prophecies concerning the promised Messiah so that He could be identified beyond question when He came as a humble, virgin-born child. After the resurrection, the apostles preached the gospel to everyone and everywhere, as Christ had commanded them. The two primary pieces of evidence were: 1) their own personal sworn testimony as eyewitnesses of what Christ taught and did (including His crucifixion and resurrection), though it cost them their lives as martyrs for refusing to ecumenically deny the truth they knew; and 2) the many prophecies in Scripture given centuries in advance, which were fulfilled to the letter in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

There was no excuse for all of Israel not to have been anticipating and not to have welcomed Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. How could they have closed their eyes to the fact that this healer of thousands, who did so many miracles witnessed by multitudes (even raising the dead), who was the talk of all Judea and Galilee, had arrived at the very time their prophets had foretold the Messiah's coming? The precise day (Daniel 9:25; Nehemiah 2:1-9) that He would present Himself to Israel, riding on "the colt...of an ass" (Zecariah 9:9), was the date Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (now celebrated as "Palm Sunday"), was hailed by mobs lining the road down from the Mount of Olives (Matthew 21:2-11), then, four days later, was crucified-a shocking twist but exactly as foretold (Psalm 22:14-18; Zecariah 12:10). Then the resurrection!

Unquestionably His body was gone, the tomb empty, in spite of the platoon of Roman soldiers guarding it. Frank Morison, (who, as a skeptic, examined the evidence, determined to disprove the resurrection), presented a fascinating story in his book Who Moved the Stone? He showed beyond doubt that the only possible explanation was the resurrection, exactly as the disciples testified, though it cost them their lives to do so.

America is no less guilty than Israel for her rejection of Christ. We have even more proof today than the Jews had then. A false Christianity's perversion and rejection of the gospel has stricken America with a blinding madness. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in the attempt of "Christians" to embrace Islam as a partner religion. The president sought to curry Muslim favor by boasting that he had welcomed into the White House library a copy of the Qur'an-an aggressively anti-Christian document. How could any sane person sincerely insist that Islam's Allah, who hates Israel, is the biblical God who 12 times calls himself "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...this is my memorial throughout all generations" (Exodus 3:15,16), and who 203 times is called "the God of Israel"?
[Related Article: Reinventing Christianity: Emergence and Relevance]

Surely, with so many advisors (many of them professing Christians), Bush must know that the Qur'an aggressively opposes every foundational Christian doctrine. Excusing themselves because of the President's example, church leaders persist in attempting to embrace Islam as a peaceful partner with Christianity. Yet the Qur'an contains more than a hundred exhortations to convert the world by violence. Sixteen times it declares that Allah is not a father and has no son, denies that Christ is God, declares that He did not die for our sins but someone died in His place, denies the resurrection, and declares that belief in the Trinity sends one to hell! All of this (and there is much more of the same genre) makes Allah the God of the Bible and Islam the friend of Christianity?!
[Related Article: What Is Islam?]

At a recent student panel of "Pluralism at Harvard" (moderated by William A. Graham, Dean of the Divinity School), Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies and director of the Pluralism Project, who speaks approvingly of Islam, reminded the audience:

By the mid-1990s there were governors...and mayors who were recognizing Ramadan....[In] 1996...President and Mrs. Clinton invited members of the Muslim community to the White House to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan....In subsequent years we are seeing an increasing presence of this religious phenomenon in the American religious landscape...the observance of Iftar in the Pentagon....Madeline Albright hosted an Iftar at the State Department for the first time in 1998....A week ago, we had President Bush holding an Iftar dinner at the White House [his seventh!]....[On] the White House home page there's a whole list of Ramadan events....

Persisting in the lie that Islam is peace is like the United States responding to Nikita Krushchev's "We will bury you," with "We know you'll do it peacefully."

Muslims continue to kill thousands of Christians in Algeria, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., and to burn down Christian churches wherever they can. More than 3,000 churches have been destroyed in the last three years in Indonesia, 2 million killed in Southern Sudan for refusing to convert, plus thousands elsewhere. Muslims further demonstrate the true meaning of "Islam is peace" by continuing to slaughter one another in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
[Related Article: Persecution Is A Reality]

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the "World Without Zionism" conference, October 26, 2005, that "Israel must be wiped off the map." He has repeated this threat of "Islamic peace" elsewhere. All of the high profile Islamic political and religious leaders of "peaceful Islam" have for at least 70 years boasted that they will soon achieve their long-standing ambition to annihilate Israel. Arafat declared, "Peace for us is the destruction of Israel"-and he was given the Nobel Peace Prize! Those holding this wicked passion seem unaware that three times the God of the Bible calls Israel "the apple of his eye" (Deuteronomy 32:10; Lamentations 2:18; Zecariah 2:8) and declares that He will protect her.
[Related Article: Why Are God's People Hated?]

Millions of evangelical Christians were tortured and murdered by the Roman Catholic Church throughout history, yet many forgave their tormentors with their dying breath. Their modern successors, however, stricken with the ecumenical truth-denying insanity we've been describing, insist that Roman Catholicism is the same as evangelical Christianity, though it preaches a gospel of salvation through rituals, works, prayers to the dead, suffering in purgatory to pay for one's sins, and submission to the pope.
[Related Article: Exposing Roman Catholic Heresy]

The few verses that we have quoted above make it clear that God does not "dialogue" with man, as though He might be willing to take some suggestions and modify the gospel to suit His deluded and wicked creatures. Christ agonized in the Garden because He was going to be "made...sin for us... [i.e., treated as though He were sin itself] that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The full penalty for sin had to be paid, and Christ would pay it for all mankind. All God's wrath against sin was going to be poured out upon Him as He took our place.

Jesus pleaded with His Father not to make Him suffer this agony if sinners could be rescued any other way: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me..." (Matthew 26:39). No other way was possible. The full penalty had to be paid, and He was the only one who could pay it. So Christ, in love for His Father and for us, submitted to His Father's will. This was the gospel [good news] that Paul preached: "how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures " (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

May we stand firm in our love for all, robbing no one of heaven by compromising the biblical gospel, which alone is "the power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16). TBC

Author: T.A. McMahon
Source: The Berean Call - June 2013

[Related Article: They Claim To Speak For God - Part One]

"Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart." — Jeremiah:14:14

In the first part of this series we addressed a movement within Christendom that is undermining the faith of multitudes of Christians, especially those who consider themselves to be Bible-believing Christians. Whether done intentionally or unintentionally by the leaders of the movement, their teaching and methods seriously deprive their followers of a true basis for biblical discernment. The primary means that they employ involves disparaging the objective nature of the Scriptures. When a believer buys into that teaching, he is being led into the arena of subjectivity, meaning that he cannot objectively determine what is truly from God versus what is nothing more than content from the imagination of man.
[Related Article: Run For Your Life!]

In his excellent book Wandering Stars: Contending for the Faith with the New Apostles and Prophets (see TBC 03/13 ), which has been a chief resource in this series, Keith Gibson summarizes the foundational errors of the movement regarding the Bible: “So what can we conclude after this brief survey of the attitudes and words of the modern apostles and prophets concerning the Scripture? One would have to conclude that the Bible alone is an insufficient guide for the end-time church. New doctrines, not found in the Bible, are needed to perfect the church. Scripture is generally inspiring but basically unreliable. It is insufficient to convince the world of God’s truth….It does not provide the parameters to faith and practice and does not give us the norms for the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Canon of Scripture is not closed, and, in fact, many of the words of today’s prophets carry a higher level of revelation, anointing, and authority than some of the words of Scripture. And lastly, the Bible cannot be understood by any normal means. Grammar, history, and context are completely irrelevant. The words of Scripture can be redefined and ripped out of context to discover the ‘deeper’ meaning for today’s church. There is no objective interpretation or understanding of Scripture. The Bible means whatever one wants it to mean” (pp. 105-6).
[Related Article: The Silent Church]

This flagrant assault on the Scriptures is clearly a reflection of Satan’s grand scheme to undermine the Word of God, which he demonstrated first in turning Eve away from obeying what God had commanded. God declared: “Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis:2:16-17). That was God’s word to Adam and Eve.

Satan’s first words to mankind were aimed at undercutting God’s instructions: “And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis:3:1). After leading her to reconsider what God had commanded, God’s adversary follows up with a flat denial of the consequences of her disobedience: “…ye shall not surely die” (Genesis:3:4). This undermining of God’s Word was successful with Eve, and it has been Satan’s main strategy throughout history. As previously noted, the obstruction of the Scriptures is at the heart of the teaching from those who claim to hear from God, and it opens the doors for the acceptance of their outrageous practices and manifestations, including their goal of taking dominion over the world for Christ.

For a true believer in Christ to accept manifestations such as falling and writhing on the floor, uncontrollable shaking, hysterical laughing, and making various animal sounds as though they were the work of the Holy Spirit would seem to indicate that the person has taken leave of his senses. It is more reasonable to conclude, however, that they have taken leave of the Scriptures. Although there may be power from the adversary involved in some of this (“We wrestle not against flesh and blood”), we can be sure that the victim of those manifestations is devoid of the full armor of God, which is available for every believer’s protection (Ephesians:6:10-18), especially the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” When that is missing in a believer’s life, he or she is terribly vulnerable to the “wiles of the devil” and his minions, who sometimes present themselves as angels of light (2 Corinthians:11:14). [Related Article: Spiritual Warfare]

Many Christians are aware of the bizarre manifestations and some of the outlandish personalities involved, such as Todd Bentley, the tattooed preacher given to head butting and kneeing followers in the groin (followers who number in the thousands and came to his meetings from all over the world) in order to supposedly impart the power of the Holy Spirit for their healing. Yet few are aware of the organization, agendas, and networking of those who claim to speak for God. There are countless numbers of ministries, websites, blog sites, and the like, that advance the false doctrines and manifestations of the movement. To name but a few, there is the Elijah List, The International House of Prayer (IHOP), Bethel Church (Redding, CA), Identity Network, Morning Star Ministries, Streams Ministries International, Glory of Zion, City Bible Church (Portland, OR), and the Christian International Apostolic Network. C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles has a membership of hundreds who profess to be apostles manifesting apostolic authority.

Although not all such ministries agree on every fine point, they all believe that God is restoring to the church things that have been lost over the centuries, which they believe have rendered it ineffective. Gibson sums up their goal: “The end-time body of Christ must go on to maturity and restore the apostles and prophets, and these restored ministries must lead the church to a new and final dimension of power and authority not only bringing in the final harvest but establishing the Kingdom of God upon the earth” (p. 28).

According to one of their “modern” prophets, “Ever since the dark ages, God has been restoring Truth to the Church in order to get us back to the place of fullness where we can actually rule and reign in the world rather than be dominated by the very things we are to have victory over” (p.29). Another adds, “Jesus, having won back authority on earth, could now mediate and rule in the affairs of earth. However, Jesus did not stay on the earth to rule it. He ascended to the Father and is seated at His right hand. So who now is responsible to rule and reign in the earth? Believe it or not, the church, which is the body of Christ” (p. 160).

More specifically, they mean that it is to be the new apostles and prophets who are to run the show, and since there is little concern for doctrine learned from the objective Word of God, their rule will major in shooting from the lip, i.e., speaking forth whatever these leaders believe they have heard from God. They see themselves leading an end-time army.

Nearly all of the leaders in this movement teach some form of “Joel’s Army” doctrine, which states that the hope of the church in transforming the world rests solely on today’s youth . These young people will be instrumental because they will receive a super-anointing for setting up a theocracy, which they will rule under God. According to John Crowder, author of The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, “Everyone born after abortion’s legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army.” Gibson gives an example of how this is being implemented: “One young man who spent a significant part of his upbringing in a church steeped in these messages told of a service in which the older members of the congregation gathered to wash the feet of the teens of the church—not to teach them about Christ-like humility and service [John:13:1-15] but to pay homage to them because they were the anointed generation. His heart was broken as he recounted seeing elderly saints who he knew had spent their lives serving Jesus bowing in servitude before young people who were being told that it was their birthright to be the greatest believers in the history of the church” (p. 274).

How seductive might this be for young Christians today? Consider the popularity of Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer (IHOP), which has drawn tens of thousands of young people to its 24-hour prayer hall and many as well to its university. Lou Engle, an “apostle” in residence at IHOP, draws similar numbers of youth to “The Call,” an annual prayer and fasting event held at major US cities and aimed at bringing about national repentance and revival. Sadly, the zeal exhibited by the young people is misdirected because they lack the discernment necessary to recognize that what they are being taught is either without biblical support or is contrary to Scripture. Much of it seems right to them but as we are told twice in Proverbs, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). Heartbreakingly, this is the experiential environment into which their leaders are directing them. [Related Article: Beware the Soaking Trend]

One emotionally seductive doctrine they are taught is called the Bridal Paradigm, which Gibson notes reflects most of IHOP’s programs: “All of the Scripture is seen as the relentless pursuit of the heavenly lovesick groom for the bride of His heart’s desire, or the search of the Father for a bride for His Son, who will be equally yoked to Him in love. This message truly stands the gospel on its ear. No longer is the emphasis on a God who is working for His own glory and displaying His majesty in redeeming a lost and unworthy humanity. Now the story of redemption is about God seeking a suitable mate for His Son. No longer is the cross seen primarily as the place where Jesus makes propitiation for our sin and satisfies the justice, holiness, and wrath of God, or the place of redemption, where the price is paid for our ransom, which are the pictures the Bible uses. Now the cross is the dowry that is paid for the bride, [p. 193] a statement that the Bible never makes. Dowries (or, more accurately, bride prices) are paid because of the worth of the bride. But according to the Scriptures we had no worth. We had nothing to commend us to God. It was all grace” (pp. 166-67). What young adult who has a heart for Jesus but lacks maturity in the Word can resist these erroneous romantic notions applied to Christ?
[Related Article: Biblical Doctrines]

The false doctrines that are coming forth from those who claim to hear from God range from the foolish to the fraudulent, from the bogus to the blasphemous. This two-part series could touch upon only a few such teachings, but thankfully Keith Gibson’s Wandering Stars is available to shine a light upon much of this darkness. Too often when an absurd teaching raises its seemingly silly head, it is dismissed as so much nonsense and not to be taken seriously. In most cases, the relationship to a major heresy is missed altogether. For example, the so-called prophecies by the new prophets are nearly always wrong when they can be checked out. Nevertheless, we’re told that a 65-percent accuracy rate is acceptable among the new prophets as determined by the new prophets themselves. The absurdity in this is that the new prophets claim to be working at a higher level of anointing than the prophets of old, yet according to the Old Testament those supposedly inferior old prophets were to be stoned to death if their accuracy dropped below 100 percent!

The even more critical issue is the new prophets’ rationale to cover their lack of accuracy: it is the heresy of open theism . This is a doctrine that declares that “God can’t foreknow the good or bad decisions of the people He creates until He creates these people and they, in turn, create their decisions.” So now, prophecy for the modern prophets is little more than a godly guess, and the omniscience of God has been trashed along with some of His other attributes. Gibson underscores the result of these erroneous beliefs: “God does not possess exhaustive foreknowledge of the actions of His creatures because these actions have not been performed; therefore, there is nothing for God to know. Thus God is not omniscient in the sense that the church has historically defined omniscience. God is not immutable because He grows in His knowledge of His creatures as they act out their free choice and as He adapts to these choices. God is more omnicompetent than omnipotent. God is not completely beyond time. He learns by watching the actions of His creation” (p. 134). That is not the God of the Bible.

The false teachings of those who claim to hear from God, the so-called new apostles and prophets, have attracted millions into unwittingly contributing to their anti-biblical and therefore antichrist agendas. All of it turns biblical spiritual warfare upside down. Their methods for achieving dominion and rule over the world include Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare (see The New Spiritual Warfare Strategies Parts 1&2 TBC 5/97 , 6/97 ) using techniques of “taking cities for Christ” through spirit mapping, binding territorial spirits, prayer-walking, prayer journeys, prayer expeditions, national repentance, deliverance from generational sins, mysticism, and contemplative prayer, to name but a few.

The number of those Christians who believe and practice such things is alarming. For the most part they are among the Pentecostals and Charismatics. But in their goals they are certainly not alone. The agenda of turning the world into the Kingdom of Christ before His return—or in order for Him to return and rule—is compatible in many ways with more conservative branches of Christianity that hold to amillennialism, or Christian reconstructionism, or post-millennialism, or national restorationism, or those who subscribe to a form of “good-works salvation” by solving the world’s problems of hunger, disease, poverty, injustice, and environmental problems using ecumenical cooperation (see “Is Your Eschatology Showing?” TBC 10/11). The numbers then become staggering. These variations of “kingdom building” prior to the return of Jesus will add to the development of the next kingdom to come, according to the timeline presented clearly in Scripture: the kingdom of the Antichrist.

The bad news in all of this is that many who have been seduced into this deception are our brothers and sisters in Christ; the good news is that their eyes can be opened to the temporal delusion that has taken them captive. Scripture declares that the apostasy will increase in the last days and gives no indication of worldwide revival. Nevertheless, God’s Word does give us our marching orders for a continuing rescue operation : “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Timothy:2:24-26). TBC
[Related Article: Trusting the Word Of God]

Rotten to the core?

Pervasive corruption could be harder to correct than wrongdoing at the top

Author: Joel Belz
Source: WORLD magazine - June 15, 2013

With at least three significant scandals now afflicting the Obama administration day in and day out (and the mainstream media regularly calling all three “scandals”), the altogether natural question in the minds of millions is: Just how high within the Obama team did these illegalities rise? What did the president and his top aides know, and when did they know it?

For most thoughtful people, that’s a perfectly legitimate question. Forty years ago, during the Watergate crisis, we learned not to take at their word the loyalist fall guys who swore, on oath, that their bosses were innocent. We learned to keep digging. We learned that, just maybe, the man at the top was himself involved and altogether guilty. The only way to clean up a terrible mess was to hold the top man, and his top people, responsible.

So it’s altogether natural for us to be asking those same questions now.

But could it be that in our fierce search we might discover something much worse than complicity at the top? Might there be a situation in which we find our plight to be more ominous than having a president who issues a few blatantly illegal and unconstitutional orders?

Here’s what is worse, and maybe a lot worse. What if the whole governmental structure is so bad, so rotten to its core, that no one at the top even needs to issue any perverse orders? What if the inclination to abuse the power of the Internal Revenue Service, and to invade thousands of taxpayers’ privacy, is so thorough that it’s just an expected modus operandi? What if no one has to tell a third-level operative in the Justice Department that the way to move ahead is to hack some journalist’s cell phone? What if everyone “up there” understands that cover-up always trumps telling the truth, and cover-up becomes a habit?

No one has summarized this frightening idea more pointedly than James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal: “[T]he scandal is actually much worse,” he writes, “if the IRS was acting without guidance from the White House. A corrupt administration can be ousted through resignation or impeachment, as in 1974. If the IRS and other permanent institutions of government are fundamentally corrupt, reforming them would be much more complicated and effortful.”

So now we’re no longer talking, as Richard Nixon’s attorney John Dean did, about “a cancer on the presidency.” Now we have to talk about “a cancer on the whole government.” And which do you suppose is easier to treat?

But hold on. There may be something more troublesome yet. There may be a scenario a thousand times more to be feared. That situation comes when the people being governed themselves no longer own the kind of moral compass that helps them judge between good and evil. That may be because they simply no longer care, and have become numb to such distinctions. Or it may be because they too have been taught that all morality is relative, and out of conviction they simply aren’t ready to pass judgment on anyone or anything.
[Related Article: Prayer Requests for Richmond, VA]

It was a shrewd observer who, sizing up the political realities of the world, said, “People pretty much always get the kind of leaders they deserve.”

It’s clear now, if it wasn’t before, that we have a president who doesn’t care much about constitutional freedom or truth telling in public life. And it’s clear he’s put into high office a worrisome number of folks who don’t care about freedom and truth telling any more than he does. And it’s left to the rest of us to discover anew that accurately assigning the ultimate blame for all this is a tedious task.

But what if, in the process, we learn that the millions of voters who put this prevaricating crew into office don’t care about truth telling any more than their government does? If the whole society proves rotten to the core, who’s going to be left to write up those articles of impeachment?

Related Articles:

- America's Spiritual Crisis (ONE WAY)

- The IRS Scandal (MinutemanAD)

- The New Barbarians (MinutemanAD)

- Liberals Unmasked (ONE WAY)

- The Nature of Mankind (ONE WAY)

Author: Don Twobears
Source: RaptureReady

I remember, as many others will relate, my young years. I was lean and fast, strong and durable (to a degree) and as others, I was full of myself. I thought I knew all that I needed to know and was always ready with some sort of answer for everything, whether it was correct or not. I believe, in those days, there was way too little “thinking” on my part at the same time, though, I felt so very alive! I did a lot of stuff out of youthful exuberance that could have cost me dearly, had anything gone wrong. My point is how youthful and how alive I felt when I was young. I know there are many who are able to relate to this and have felt the same things that I did. I must say, it was excruciatingly wonderful to feel that way.

I remember as a child when I would run, it was so fast that in my mind I could almost fly, IF I could get just a few more steps faster. Of course, we all know that could never have taken place but in my mind all things were possible. Such is the thinking of most children, and as parents we wish to preserve those ideas for the days when that feeling is faded and almost non-existent. For when we become adults, those feelings could uplift us and preserve us against the cynicism of a deluded world. So in thinking of these things, remembering how wonderful it felt, why are we not able to be that way again, regardless of age?

Somewhere in my mind, I feel we have missed the boat all together and I feel that it happened, when we lost our innocence. You know, when we began to understand how the “real” world works, what gravity and resistance is all about. As a child, I never once worried about how I would land, if I actually did fly! At that time, I did not know what “inertia” was and I know I never had any sort of wheels to accommodate it. Can you imagine the end result, when “wishful thinking” would collide with real world of knowledge? Road-rash! Grass-burn!! OUCH!

Evidently, this is more on the minds of many, than anyone of us could imagine. We have entered into the “Be Youthful Again” days, where people spend countless hours in the gym, lifting weights, running on treadmills, stair-steps, or it could be the morning and evening 5 mile run. Oddly enough, it is the desire to preserve our youth, to re-emerge as the child we once were. To once again, run so fast we can almost fly! Evidently, that still has not happened to anyone and the chances are slim...it ever will.

Along with all this, we now see more face-lifts, tummy-tucks and oddly enough, butt-lifts as well, among so many other things (steroids). Sadly though, although these things are good for your body but they have not reduced the incidence of heart attacks, the existence of diabetes and many other things that are possible as we age. One thing for sure, it has not stopped death.

“Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah” (Psalm 39:4-5).

Ooops! Sorry...that one just sort of slipped in there!

Think on this slowly and carefully…
We have this flabby bag of fluids and bones for MAYBE 70-80 years, according to the Bible. Are we supposed to spend our time in the gym, endeavoring to regain our youth, or not? Are we able to back-up the timetable God set out for us in the beginning? Evidently, the verse above is leading us to believe something different. Is it not obvious to all that our bodies and our time here on earth are according to the perfect will of God? What choices do we have? [Related Article: The Last Forty-Five Minutes]

In other words, are we able to extend our lives in any manner, whether in the gym or not? Can we live longer because of exercise and modern medicine, or is it all just baloney? We know that our bodies are the “temple of the Lord” and that we must care for them. We are NOT to use them in a manner that would offend the Lord God Almighty! We have these bodies as a gift from God, so the question is, why do we use them in manner that would destroy them?

Our bodies are so susceptible to viruses, bacteria, it is understandable, that these things are the center of our problems, almost on a daily basis. And this is to include broken bones as well, but the central problem is with the “fluid” part of our bodies. These include the common cold, to the flu, to almost every other disease known to mankind and this my friends, is a medical fact. Why would you think, there is such a massive use of medicines? We pass viruses back and forth with speed and ease or are you not aware of STD’s or even AIDS?

We leak fluids all the time, when we sneeze or cough, or evacuating waste material. We ingest fluids and we evacuate fluids continually, just talking one to another, we share fluids. Think about it. We even share the fluids of the things around us, in our homes, in the forests, the backyard. Endeavoring to maintain a healthy balance in our bodies would akin to balancing the earth on the edge of a razorblade. A daunting task at best!

“Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Philippians 3:21).

Hmm...an interesting passage, right? “Our vile bodies.” It couldn't be any better described than that. And yet it implies we will one day have a glorious body like HIS. Now that is something to look forward to. I don’t care who you are. Can you imagine for a moment, no more fluids to contaminate, no more failure, no more tiredness, no more fatigue, no more sickness and especially...no more death? [Related Article: A Fly...and A Man]

So then the question is this: Why do we have all these contaminates to begin with, why all the diseases that plague these fluid- filled bodies of ours? Which then goes farther down the road to: Why do we have starvation and death? The answer is always easier than the question in this manner...SIN.

“I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
(Romans 6:19-23, emphasis added).

Again, I am going to say, the answer is easier to understand than the question. There it is, in wonderful black and white, “the wages of SIN...is death!” Some people think, “Well, I can get around that, I just won’t SIN anymore,” so they enter into a convent or something similar but they miss the point. Just one SIN can be enough. Besides that, we are all born with “Original SIN” thanks to Adam and Eve.

“Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him”
(Acts 10:34-35, emphasis added).

And of course we all know that SIN is in every person and death comes for all people in their due time, according to the perfect will of Almighty God. How is it then that we have turned things around in such an awful manner as we see today? The Bible has been around for better than three thousand years and its truths still speak for themselves because they are God-breathed. How is it then, we have not learned a single thing? We are too busy with everything else in our lives, than to take time and learn from the Word of God. If we spent as much time in the Bible, as we do in front of the TV or at the gym, we might be far better off than we are!

Here’s a perfect example: If men and women spent more time in the Bible than absorbed in their own desires we would not be debating homosexual “marriages” of which we all know there is no such a thing, as a “marriage” with same sex people! God designed “marriage” as a “covenant” between a man and a woman. Thus, if they remain faithful to each other, disease will not enter our lives and destroy our “covenant” before God Almighty.
[Related Article: The Bible and Homosexuality]

Evidently, man has decided that God does not know better, therefore we continue to fall farther and farther into the pit of SIN and degradation. And we as people have CHOSEN to do so! In it’s most simple of words, we have chosen SIN over righteousness! And now people want to know why we have all this disease and there is no cure for it?

Medically speaking and this is truth, we already know how to CURE every single medical problem ever encountered by man: We must DIE! So now that we know this truth, then comes the next question by the majority: Is there life after death? A ludicrous question at best, because each and every one of us already knows there is life after death. We CHOOSE not to accept that fact, because then the Bible would be correct that a God is in existence, that HE is righteous and perfect and HE is the ultimate authority!
[Related Article: Hell Bound!]

Man wants to be GOD! So now we see the REAL problem in the world! Man will never be anything but a man and nothing more! Therein lies the only answer left:Whom do we wish to follow...a righteous and perfect God...or ourselves (satan actually)? That ONE choice makes all the difference!

These bodies that we have were made with an expiration date. It’s then a choice we must make. Do we want a glorified body...or the same old body we have always had...because this body dies! Since we already know (this is in each of us) that there is a SPIRIT inside each of us, where will we be after our body dies? Where will our SPIRIT go? We also know that our bodies function because of this SPIRIT...it is that part of us, that makes us who we are, experiences everything while in this body and then afterwards...after the body dies.

There is nothing forgotten by our SPIRIT, we like to say OUR MIND...when actually we are referring to our SPIRIT. Therefore, when the body dies, the SPIRIT move on. The question is then, to where? That my friends, is the point of the Bible, God's Holy Word to you and me and it says you MUST make a CHOICE...Jesus Christ...or that other stupid guy, Satan! That is the ONLY “free will” decision you get to make! Understand this. It follows you into eternity! [Related Article: Prayer Requests for Sedgefield]

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”
(John 3:16).

NSA secretly vacuumed up Verizon phone records

A top secret order reveals that the National Security Agency is gathering records of millions of phone calls made by Americans.

Author: Declan McCullagh
Source: cnet.com - June 5, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fort Meade, Md. headquarters of the National Security Agency, which is vacuuming up Verizon call records on an ongoing daily basis.

The National Security Agency is vacuuming up records of millions of phone calls made inside the United States, a top secret court order reveals.

A top secret order that was released this afternoon requires Verizon to hand over to the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis" information about all domestic and overseas calls -- "including local telephone calls."

The FBI obtained the secret order, which was disclosed by The Guardian newspaper, from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets behind closed doors and whose proceedings rarely become public. It was signed by FISC Judge Roger Vinson, who normally serves as a federal judge in Florida.

Vinson's order relies on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, 50 USC 1861, better known as the "business records" portion. It allows FBI agents to obtain any "tangible thing," including "books, records, papers, documents, and other items," a broad term that includes dumps from private-sector computer databases with limited judicial oversight.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the order as "beyond Orwellian," and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a petition to Congress.

"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It's a program in which millions of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement. "It's analogous to the FBI stationing an agent outside every home in the country to track who goes in and who comes out."

The Justice Department's secret interpretation of Section 215 was what alarmed Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) when the Patriot Act was up for renewal two years ago. Both senators served on the intelligence committee and were briefed on the NSA's activities.

"I believe that when more of my colleagues and the American public come to understand how the Patriot Act has actually been interpreted in secret, they will insist on significant reforms too," Wyden said at the time.

Udall told CNET this evening: "While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it's why I will keep fighting for transparency and appropriate checks on the surveillance of Americans."

There have been other hints that the NSA's massive databases were being fed Americans' confidential telephone records -- which can then be perused by the FBI for domestic criminal investigations.

Former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente told CNN last month that, in national security investigations, the bureau can access records of a previously-made telephone call. "All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not," he said. Clemente added in an appearance the next day that, thanks to the "intelligence community" -- a likely reference to the NSA -- "there's a way to look at digital communications in the past."

Vinson's top secret order dated April 25, which expires July 19, does not require Verizon to divulge the contents of communications or the names of its customers. It does force the company to hand over originating and terminating telephone number, the IMSI, and IMEI numbers for mobile phones, trunk identifiers, the time of the call, and other information. The New York Times this evening confirmed that the order was authentic.

The Justice Department previously confirmed that Section 215 "has been used to obtain driver's license records, hotel records, car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like." Todd Hinnen, acting assistant attorney general for national security, told a House of Representatives committee that such directives were constitutional because they are "not a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." (The Fourth Amendment, of course, prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.)

FBI Director Robert Mueller hinted during a 2011 congressional hearing that there was a secret legal memorandum prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that authorized a broader use of Section 215 than is publicly known.

Wyden, who was present at that hearing, told Mueller that he was "increasingly troubled" that intelligence agencies are "relying on a secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act. "I believe that the American people would be absolutely stunned," Wyden said, if they knew what was actually going on.

Section 215 says that an order must be approved by the secret FISA court if the FBI shows the data "sought are relevant to an authorized investigation" dealing with terrorism -- a requirement that provides little privacy protection in practice.

Another hint about overly broad use of Section 215 came from former Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat who has since lost his seat. He said in a February 2010 floor speech that:

Section 215 has been misused. I cannot elaborate, but I believe that the public deserves some information about this. I and others have also pressed the administration to declassify some basic information about the use of section 215, and it has declined... We must find a way to have an open and honest debate about the nature of these government powers, while still protecting national security secrets, and under current conditions that simply isn't possible... Lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel looked for every possible loophole in statutory language to justify what I believe were clearly illegal wiretapping and interrogation programs. That should also teach us that we must be extraordinarily careful in how we draft these laws: We must say exactly what we mean and leave no room for reinterpretation.

It's not clear if this is the extent of the Justice Department's secret use of Section 215, or if other confidential customer data such as the locations of cell phones is being vacuumed up by the NSA as well. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This disclosure calls into question comments made by NSA director Keith Alexander, who told Congress last year (video) that "we're not authorized" to obtain "information involving American citizens."

It also didn't come as a great surprise to government-surveillance watchers. In 2006, USA Today reported that the NSA "has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth."

One person interviewed for that article called the program, which began in late 2001, "the largest database ever assembled in the world." Only Qwest reportedly refused to participate. Its chief executive, Joe Nacchio, was subsequently convicted on unrelated charges involving illegal stock sales.

A followup article reported that Verizon provided a statement denying entering "into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers' domestic calls." But the carefully-worded denial left open the possibility that metadata was turned over.

What is the NSA's PRISM program? (FAQ)

We now know that the NSA uses a program code-named PRISM to monitor private Web data. Sounds like "1984." What does it really mean?

Authors: Ben Dreyfuss, Emily Dreyfuss
Source: cnet.com - June 7, 2013 11:44 AM PDT

You've heard about it, the top-secret surveillance program, code-named PRISM, that reportedly allows the National Security Agency to gain access to customer information held by Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies. Some people are freaking out; others don't see what the big deal is. It sounds a lot like "1984." But what does it really mean? To get a better understanding of PRISM and what it means to you as a consumer, we put together this FAQ.

What is PRISM?
It's a covert cybersecurity program started in 2007 by the NSA and the FBI to monitor the Internet data of "foreigners" using major U.S. Web sites. The secret program was first reported by The Washington Post, which received a leaked top-secret document detailing PRISM. It has now been acknowledged by the Obama administration.

It only monitors foreigners?
It apparently does not "intentionally" target American citizens or people living within America, but in reality it gives our government unparalleled access to our cybercommunications.

Is this the same as the data Verizon is giving to the NSA?
No. This is separate. The data Verizon gives to the NSA is merely metadata, so although the government can see who you call and how long you talk to them, they are not listening in on your voice mails and phone calls. But again, that's a separate NSA program. For more information on it, read this.

What type of data is monitored?
According to "slides and other supporting materials" obtained by The Washington Post: "e-mail, chat, videos, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications of target activity...log-ins, etc., online social networking details" -- so, everything.

For instance, Google data includes "Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms."

The original report suggests that "NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM" as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.

Can they read my iMessage?
Theoretically, yes. That is the kind of data the program has access to.

So someone has read my e-mail?
Aside from the fact that Google's algorithms crawl your e-mail all the time to target ads at you, "someone" within the NSA may have read your e-mails.

Which companies are involved?
Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Google, Apple, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype. Dropbox is allegedly "coming soon." However, 98 percent of PRISM production is based on just Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

Why are the companies agreeing to be a part of it?
Maybe they aren't. All nine of them have explicitly denied that the government has "direct access" to their servers. The Post offers one possible explanation for the inconsistency:

It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by the Post, the arrangement is described as allowing "collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations," rather than directly to company servers.

Why isn't Twitter a part of PRISM?
That's a very good question that no one seems to be able to answer right now.

Recently, Twitter earned higher marks for protecting your privacy than some of the PRISM-implicated companies did. At least some of Twitter's employees seemed genuinely shocked by the news.

Should I be outraged?
Probably! But maybe not. President Barack Obama addressed PRISM on Friday and essentially said, "Don't worry. You can trust us."

Who is to blame for this?
Well, let's let Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union sum it up. He is quoted by The New York Times as saying, "A pox on all the three houses of government. On Congress, for legislating such powers, on the FISA court for being such a paper tiger and rubber stamp, and on the Obama administration for not being true to its values."

Is it even legal?
Yes, under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 2008 and the Protect America Act of 2007. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement Thursday night saying that "Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States." FISA was renewed last year by Congress.

According to the Post, "Late last year, when critics in Congress sought changes in the FISA Amendments Act, the only lawmakers who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues." When the story broke, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) released a letter they cowrote to the Justice Department expressing their concerns relating to the program.

 

How does it work?
Essentially like this: The attorney general issues a secret order to a tech company to hand over access to its servers to the FBI. The FBI then hands it over to the NSA.

What's the fallout?
Well, so far respected human rights watchdog Freedom House has downgraded America's freedom ranking. Last time their survey was released, the United States was the second most free country on Earth in terms of Internet freedoms. That position is about to change.

How can I avoid this?
You can't.

What happens next?
A congressional hearing and an investigation into who leaked it. "The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans," Clapper said in his statement.

So the answer is, nothing much.

NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

Author: Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill
Source: The Guardian, Thursday 6 June 2013

• Top-secret Prism program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook
• Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

• Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.

In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."

Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of Prism or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. "If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge," one said.

An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of Prism.

[Related Article: techcrunch.com Corners Executives]

The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.

The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.

It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.

Disclosure of the Prism program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.

The participation of the internet companies in Prism will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.

Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies.

Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users' communications under US law, but the Prism program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies' servers. The NSA document notes the operations have "assistance of communications providers in the US".

The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the Fisa Amendments Act in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable, and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces.

When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA's inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the Prism program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies' servers.

A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more.

The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on maintaining a high level of secrecy.

The Prism program allows the NSA, the world's largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.

With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users.

The presentation claims Prism was introduced to overcome what the NSA regarded as shortcomings of Fisa warrants in tracking suspected foreign terrorists. It noted that the US has a "home-field advantage" due to housing much of the internet's architecture. But the presentation claimed "Fisa constraints restricted our home-field advantage" because Fisa required individual warrants and confirmations that both the sender and receiver of a communication were outside the US.

"Fisa was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them," the presentation claimed. "It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States. There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all."

The new measures introduced in the FAA redefines "electronic surveillance" to exclude anyone "reasonably believed" to be outside the USA – a technical change which reduces the bar to initiating surveillance.

The act also gives the director of national intelligence and the attorney general power to permit obtaining intelligence information, and indemnifies internet companies against any actions arising as a result of co-operating with authorities' requests.

In short, where previously the NSA needed individual authorisations, and confirmation that all parties were outside the USA, they now need only reasonable suspicion that one of the parties was outside the country at the time of the records were collected by the NSA.

The document also shows the FBI acts as an intermediary between other agencies and the tech companies, and stresses its reliance on the participation of US internet firms, claiming "access is 100% dependent on ISP provisioning".

In the document, the NSA hails the Prism program as "one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA".

It boasts of what it calls "strong growth" in its use of the Prism program to obtain communications. The document highlights the number of obtained communications increased in 2012 by 248% for Skype – leading the notes to remark there was "exponential growth in Skype reporting; looks like the word is getting out about our capability against Skype". There was also a 131% increase in requests for Facebook data, and 63% for Google.

The NSA document indicates that it is planning to add Dropbox as a PRISM provider. The agency also seeks, in its words, to "expand collection services from existing providers".

The revelations echo fears raised on the Senate floor last year during the expedited debate on the renewal of the FAA powers which underpin the PRISM program, which occurred just days before the act expired.

Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware specifically warned that the secrecy surrounding the various surveillance programs meant there was no way to know if safeguards within the act were working.

"The problem is: we here in the Senate and the citizens we represent don't know how well any of these safeguards actually work," he said.

"The law doesn't forbid purely domestic information from being collected. We know that at least one Fisa court has ruled that the surveillance program violated the law. Why? Those who know can't say and average Americans can't know."

Other senators also raised concerns. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon attempted, without success, to find out any information on how many phone calls or emails had been intercepted under the program.

When the law was enacted, defenders of the FAA argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA's inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the Prism program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies' servers.

When the NSA reviews a communication it believes merits further investigation, it issues what it calls a "report". According to the NSA, "over 2,000 Prism-based reports" are now issued every month. There were 24,005 in 2012, a 27% increase on the previous year.

In total, more than 77,000 intelligence reports have cited the PRISM program.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's Center for Democracy, that it was astonishing the NSA would even ask technology companies to grant direct access to user data.

"It's shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this," he said. "The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications.

"This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That's profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation."

[Related Information: The Police State]

A senior administration official said in a statement: "The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States.

"The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons.

"This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.

"Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.

"The Government may only use Section 702 to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target."

Additional reporting by James Ball and Dominic Rushe

Authors: Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon
Source: InPlainSite.org

[Related Articles: Arrogant Christians?, Pluralism, and Relativism]

Part I... What About Other Religions?

Part II... Why isn’t Christianity intolerant or narrow-minded for teaching there is only one way to God?



Part I What About Other Religions?

When we consider all the great religious teachers, leaders, and prophets who have ever lived, who is the equal of Jesus? Not Moses, Confucius, Buddha, or Lao Tze (Taoism), who never claimed to be anything other than sinful men. Not Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Zoroaster, or Guru Nanak (Sikhism), who never gave any proof they were true prophets of God. Not Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, or Krishna, who were only mythical deities. Not Mahavira (Jainism) or the founder/leader of any other religion the world has known has ever been like Jesus. Neither animism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Mormonism, Shinto, Sikhism, Sufism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism nor any other religious belief outside Christianity has anything that can even be slightly compared to Jesus. [See Section on Jesus]

Thus, if we examine the specific claims of the founders of the great religions, we find that none of them claims what Jesus does. In The Koran the Muslim prophet Muhammad states, "Muhammad is naught but a messenger" and "Surely I am no more than a human apostle." [62] In fact, several times in The Koran, Muhammad is acknowledged as sinful, asks forgiveness from God, or is even rebuked by God. [63] Muhammad confessed he was sinful, but Jesus claimed He was sinless. Muhammad only claimed to be a prophet of God; Jesus claimed to be God. Muhammad was rebuked by God; Jesus never was—in fact. He said, "I always do what pleases Him" (John 8:29). [Related Article: What Is Islam?]

Consider Buddha for a more in-depth illustration. The Buddha simply claimed to be an enlightened man, one who could show others how to escape the futility of this world and find eternal release from suffering in a state of individual nonexistence called "nirvana." After his alleged enlightenment, the Buddha said he realized the importance of maintaining an attitude of equanimity towards all things because this attitude helps one to end the cycle of rebirth, attain permanent release from the human condition and enter nirvana:

Monks, I’m a Brahmana [enlightened being], one to ask a favor of, ever clean-handed, wearing my last body. I am inexorable, bear no love nor hatred toward anyone. I have the same feelings for respectable people as for the low; or moral persons as for the immoral; for the depraved as for those who observe the rules of good conduct. You disciples, do not affirm that the Lord Buddha reflects thus within himself, "I bring salvation to every living being." Subhuti entertain no such delusive thought! Because in reality there are no living beings to whom the Lord Buddha can bring salvation. [64] (Emphasis Added)
[Related Article: Buddhism vs. Christianity]

Houston Smith in The Religions of Man comments about the Buddha,

Notwithstanding his own objectivity toward himself, there was constant pressure during his lifetime to turn him into a god. He rebuffed all these categorically, insisting that he was human in every respect. He made no attempt to conceal his temptations and weaknesses, how difficult it had been to attain enlightenment, how narrow the margin by which he had won through, how fallible he still remained. [65]

Clive Erricker, a lecturer and prolific writer in the field of religious studies with a special interest in Buddhism, writes accurately of the Buddha when he discussed what Buddha did not claim:

Indeed, he did not even claim that his teachings were a unique and original source of wisdom.... [Citing John Bowker in Worlds of Faith, 1983] Buddha always said, "Don’t take what I’m saying [i.e., on my own authority], just try to analyze as far as possible and see whether what I’m saying makes sense or not. If it doesn’t make sense, discard it. If it does make sense, then pick it up." [66]

Buddha claimed merely a personal enlightenment designed to escape human nature; Jesus claimed (in His own nature) to be the light of the world. Buddha claimed it was wrong to consider him one who brings salvation to men because men, having no permanent reality, do not finally exist; Jesus taught that He came to bring salvation to all men and to dignify their existence eternally. Buddha promised to give others enlightenment so that they might find nirvana, a state of personal dissolution in the afterlife; Jesus promised to give men abundant life and eternal personal immortality in heaven. Buddha had the same feelings for good and evil; Jesus exalted righteousness and hated evil.

Confucius said, "As to being a Divine Sage or even a Good Man, far be it for me to make any such claim." [67] While Confucius denied that he was divine or even a good man, Jesus claimed He was divine and morally perfect.

Zoroaster claimed to be only a prophet. "I was ordained by Thee at the first. All others I look upon with hatred of spirit." [68] Lao-Tze and Guru Nanak sum up the attitude of all the great religious founders when they confessed their humanity and even their ignorance. For example, Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism, said, "I alone appear empty. Ignorant am I, O so ignorant! I am dull! I alone am confused, so confused!" [69] Even in the latter part of his life, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, still struggled to achieve enlightenment and lamented over his own spiritual darkness: "I have become perplexed in my search. In the darkness I find no way. Devoted to pride, I weep in sorrow. How shall deliverance be obtained?" [70]

In The World’s Living Religions, Robert Hume, Professor of the History of Religions, comments that there are three features of Christian faith that "cannot be paralleled anywhere among the religions of the world." [71] These include:

- the character of God as a loving heavenly Father,

- the character of the founder of Christianity as the Son of God,

- and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Further,
All of the nine founders of religion, with the exception of Jesus Christ, are reported in their respective sacred scriptures as having passed through a preliminary period of uncertainty, or of searching for religious light. All the founders of the non-Christian religions evinced inconsistencies in their personal character; some of them altered their practical policies under change of circumstances. Jesus Christ alone is reported as having had a consistent God-consciousness, a consistent character himself, and a consistent program for his religion. [72]

Again, Jesus is unique in the claims He makes for Himself. He says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). How many other men have ever said that? Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). How many other men have ever said that? Jesus even claimed that 1500 years before His birth, Moses wrote about Him and further, that the entire Old Testament bore witness to Him (John 6:46, 47; Luke 24:27, 44).
[Related Article: The Deity of Jesus Christ. Was He Lord, Liar Or Lunatic?]

Jesus commanded men to love Him in the exact same way that they love God—with all their heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37, 38). Jesus said that God the Holy Spirit would bear witness of Him and glorify Him (John 16:14). Who ever made such a claim? Jesus said that to know Him was to know God (John 14:7); to receive Him was to receive God (Matthew 10:40); to honor Him was to honor God (John 5:23); to believe in Him was to believe in God (John 12:44,45; 14:1); to see Him was to see God (John 8:19; 14:7); to deny Him was to deny God (John 8:19, cf. 1 John 2:23); to hate Him was to hate God (John 15:23). Did any other religious founders in history ever make such statements?

In Mark 2, Jesus claimed He could forgive sins—something all religions concede is reserved for God alone. In John 10:28 and John 11:25, He said He could give all who believed on Him eternal life. How can a mere man—indeed, anyone less than God—give eternal life to creatures who die? Yet Jesus raised the dead even in front of His enemies—not in some dark alley, but before scores of eyewitnesses (Luke 7:11-15; 8:41-42, 49-56; John 11:43, 44). Who ever did that? He did other miracles that amazed those who saw them:

We have never seen anything like this! (Mark 2:12).

Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:32).

In Matthew 25, He said that He would return at the end of the world and that He would judge every person who ever lived; He would personally raise all the dead of history and all the nations would be gathered before Him! Who else ever said that? He would sit on His throne of glory and judge and separate men from one another as a shepherd does the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-46, cf. John 5:25-34). Just as clearly, Jesus taught that every person’s eternal destiny depended upon how they treated Him (John 8:24; Matthew 10:32). All these statements, and many more like them, leave us little choice. Either Jesus was who He said He was—God incarnate—or else He was absolutely crazy. But who can believe that?


Part II.. Why isn’t Christianity Intolerant or Narrow-minded for Teaching There is Only One Way to God?

We have seen that Jesus Christ stands alone when compared to the founders of other great religions. We have also mentioned that the creation parallels the nature of its Creator through its unity and diversity. So we could logically expect the same things for the Creator’s approach to salvation. In other words, that salvation itself would stand alone and that, in ways, it would parallel the nature of the Creator and the nature of the creation.

Thus, first, Jesus is unique; Christian salvation is unique. Jesus is exclusively God’s Son; salvation is exclusively through Jesus. Only Jesus died for sin; only Jesus can forgive sin. Only Jesus resurrected from the dead; only Jesus can resurrect others to eternal life.

Essentially, if there is only one true God, then there should be only one true way of salvation because the way of salvation must be consistent with the nature of the one true God—His grace, love, mercy, truth, etc. As Dr. Robert Morey comments, "Logically, since all religions contradict each other, there are only two options open to us. Either they are all false, or there is only one true religion. If there is only one God—there will be only one religion." [73] If so, then isn’t it possible that it is really the person who objects to this who is being narrow—too narrow to accept the truth? The truth may be difficult but that is no reason to reject it. [Related Article: Is Jesus the Only Way?]

Second, what we find to be true about God’s creation is also true about the nature of salvation. Like everything else in the world, salvation must be done correctly to be successful. For example, consider some examples of how life works, or doesn’t work:

What happens if you drive your car in reverse? Or stop in the middle of a busy freeway? What happens if you let your dog drive your car? Or if you drive on the wrong side of the road—or drive drunk?

The result of driving incorrectly is that you injure or kill yourself and others. Driving incorrectly sooner or later has consequences, even for the best driver in the world.

When you build a house, what happens if you place the glass where wood should be and wood where the glass should be? Or build in a flood zone? Or use highly flammable materials? The result is that your house is not functional, or you risk losing your home.

Consider playing tennis. What if you try to play tennis with a broken arm? Or use your hand as a racket? Or play with your side of the court under water? The result is you will lose the game.

Consider learning math or having surgery. What if you try to learn math by reading comic books? What if you’re scheduled for a routine appendectomy and the surgeon takes out your brain instead? In either case, you’re in trouble.

If everything in the world must be done correctly to be successful, and if our lives are literally filled with examples of the problems caused for us when we do things incorrectly, why should we conclude that salvation is any different? Why should we conclude there wouldn’t be consequences for doing salvation wrong?

Do we say it is being narrow-minded, intolerant or bigoted for us to drive sober or for surgeons to operate on us properly? Indeed, our very lives may be at stake. And if our lives are already at stake in worldly things, isn’t it also possible that our souls may be at stake in spiritual things? But a life is only for a short period of time; a soul is forever.

Then how much more vital is it that we be certain that salvation be done correctly if our very souls are at stake? The point is that the Christian claim to exclusivity is not something that is out of harmony with how people experience life and with how the world functions. God made the world this way because He had to, given His character. He also had to make the way of salvation through Christ and Christ alone. A fascinating, if detailed study of this can be found in the late Canadian scholar Arthur C. Custance’s The Seed of the Woman (1980).

Christianity is indeed exclusive—it claims that only those who believe in Christ will find salvation—but it is not narrow-minded, intolerant, or bigoted. People can be broadminded or narrow-minded but not ideas. Ideas are neither broad nor narrow—they are true or false. The claim that Christ is the only way of salvation is either true or false. This can be determined only on the basis of the evidence, which we briefly address below.

Those who think Christianity is intolerant should ask whether other religions and philosophies are really as tolerant as they claim. In fact, they usually aren’t. So why should only Christianity be singled out for criticism? Merely because Christianity is the most honest about its beliefs?

When people claim to be tolerant, open-minded, objective, and fair, one must question such claims based on biblical revelation. Biblically speaking, if people in their natural state, prior to regeneration, are said to be God’s enemies (Romans 5:10), who deliberately suppress the truth by unrighteousness (Romans 1:18), and who, actually, hate God (Romans 1:30), then where can we logically expect to find tolerance, neutrality, or objectivity regarding religion and philosophy?
[Related Article: Hell Bound!]

Ironically, it is frequently those people who claim to be accepting and tolerant of almost anything who are not tolerant of one thing—Christian faith.
[Related Articles: Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance, and Tolerance, Intolerance, and Truth]
Literally thousands of examples could be cited of bigotry, hypocrisy, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance expressed towards Christians for doing no more than living out the logical consequences of their own religious faith [74] —something that those who malign Christian faith often claim to defend in all religions. Indeed, we challenge our readers to find a single religion anywhere that accepts Christianity as being fully true. Obviously, there are none, because all religions claim they are fully true.
[Related Article: The Gospel A Hate Crime? Welcome to the 21st Century]

Christianity is exclusive, but it is not intolerant. While it seeks to convert others to faith in Christ, it respects the right of all men to choose their own destinies. But if men’s destinies are at stake in the issue of salvation, people everywhere should also rejoice that Christians are sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because if Christianity really is true, Christians have no other choice.

Is The Quality of Evidence for the Truth of Christianity Compelling?

Christianity is unique in both the evidence upon which it rests and the doctrines it teaches. Dr. Robert A. Morey writes, "There is more than enough evidence on every hand from every department of human experience and knowledge to demonstrate that Christianity is true.... [It is] the faith of the non-Christian [that] is externally and internally groundless. They are the ones who leap in the dark. Some, like Kierkegaard, have admitted this." Further, no one anywhere can deny that "Christianity stands unique and apart from all other religions by its doctrines."

.. “Obviously, if the God of the Bible has revealed Himself and if He is the only God—and if Christ is the only way of salvation—then we would expect convincing evidence in substantiation. Not just some evidence, or inferior evidence—so that a person has a dozen equally valid options in their choice of religion—but superior evidence”.

Also see articles in Reasons to Believe,
particularly A Remarkable Book Called The Bible,
and the section on Jesus (Especially Resurrection).

Notes

62 Sura 3:138, "The House of Inram," A. J. Arberry, Trans., The Koran Interpreted (NY: Macmillan, 1976), p. 91; Sura, "The Night Journey," in N. J. Dawood, trans., The Koran, (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1972), p. 235.

63 The Koran, J. M. Rodwell, Trans. (NY: Dutton), pp. 244, 384, 423, 460, 468, etc. (Sura 4:106; 40:57; 47:21; 48:2; 110:3).

64 Robert O. Ballou, The Portable World Bible: A Comprehensive Selection from the Eight Great Sacred Scriptures of the World (NY: The Viking Press, 1968), pp. 134, 147, 151.

65 Houston Smith, The Religions of Man (NY: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 99.

66 Clive Erricker, Buddhism (Chicago: NTC Publishing, 1995), pp. 2, 3.

67 Arthur Waley, trans. The Analects of Confucius (NY: Vintage, 1938), p. 130.

68 Yasna, 44:11; Moulton, Ez. 368; from Robert E. Hume, The World’s Living Religions (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), rev., p. 203.

69 Tao-The-King, 20:3, 20:5-7 cited in Hume, p. 136.

70 Hume, p. 95.

71 Ibid, p. 283.

72 Ibid., pp. 285-286.

73 Robert A. Morey, Introduction to Defending the Faith (Southbridge, MA: Crowne Publications, 1989), p. 38.

74 For illustrations in science see Jerry Bergman, The Criterion (Richfield, MN: Onesimus, 1984).