Willow Creek and their infatuation with Bono

Last September I was invited by our former church here in Scotland to help out the worship team for the Willow Creek International Leadership Summit that was held here in Stirling, Scotland. I had played the previous year and to be honest struggled a bit with much of the teaching but decided it would be good to go and see what it's all about this year. I had also heard rumblings that Bono would be there as well (actually it was a taped interview) which I thought was interesting since Bono has become the darling of the evangelical Christian scene over the past few years. I was curious as to what he would actually have to say so I thought hey, I've got a free (they charge 65 pounds for two days) ticket and opportunity to hear him myself. Well the main thing he was doing was communicating his aids initiative for Africa which by itself is a good thing as there are many suffering of this horrible disease. I do however have a couple of problems with his strategy and Bill Hybel's and Rick Warren for not calling him on the carpet on these issues.

First, I heard nothing from Bono about getting to the primary problem and cause of aids which is sin. If you ever hope to really eradicate a disease like aids, you've got to deal with the source and not just the surface problem. Bill Hybels never brought up this point which disappointed me greatly. It seems he has fallen prey to the politically correct movement and is compromising his church, many church leaders around the world and his own faith. Don't get me wrong, I know there are people that have aids who have not gotten it through sinful actions and they need help as well as those who did sin and as a result contracted aids. The problem is that the philosophy in helping them is to ignore the sin by throwing condoms at them and then helping them without ever pointing them to their real sickness we all have (we all have sinned and are in desperate need of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world). That's what Jesus always did. He didn't just heal people, He used it to point to their real sickness and need for eternal healing which can only be found through Jesus Christ (John 14:6, Acts 4:12).

This leads me to the next issue with Bono and especially with the leadership at Willow Creek. From looking at the evidence, Bono is not a Christian, he's a Universalist that believes all roads lead to God. . In this day and age when there are so many philosophies crossing the globe at the speed of light, the church need not add to the confusion by catering to big celebrities because they have a voice they think will be heard. The church doesn't need Bono to help the aids crisis, it needs the power of the Holy Spirit.

Another curious thing is that I am hearing nothing coming out of these mega-church superstar preachers about the abortion issue which is an even bigger crisis. I guess that's just not a popular issue to get into these days as it might scare people from showing up at church on Sunday. Sorry, but you couldn't have a bigger issue for the church today than defending the most innocent and defenseless humans on the planet. There are no other humans on the face of the earth that deserve life more than the unborn. I guess all I'm am saying is for Bill Hybels, Bono and the Rick Warrens of the world to be consistent and put some serious energy and resources into defending the unborn as well as those suffering with aids.

Unfortunately, not only do I hear silence from these camps on the abortion issue, Rick Warren actually invited Barak Obama to speak at his church last month at the their aids summit. Barak Obama is not only a supporter of abortion but of partial birth abortion where they actually partially deliver a full term baby except for the head and then puncture the skull and suck out it's brains. Click on the link above for more information on this barbaric procedure. I'm sorry but how can this be happening in the so-called greatest nation in the history of the earth and how can Rick Warren invite this supporter of Partial Birth Abortion speak from his pulpit. What is this?

Christians need to wake up and stop being so insecure in their faith to the point of cozying up to false teachers and prophets and phony Christians because they somehow think it makes them cool and somehow validates their faith.

I heard of some Chinese Christians who were saying that the best thing for the American church might be for real persecution to enter it's shores. They might just be right and as one one living in Europe, that's the case here as well.

Pray for a true revival because that is our only hope.

God bless,

Marc

You Aint Seen Nothing Yet

Excellent article here about Brian McLaren and the Emerging Church. All I can say is it is really sad that there is such a lack of discernment in the church today that some people not only consider McLaren a Christian, but a hero of the faith.

The Labyrinth Journey

I just returned from a day in Edinburgh meeting up with a good friend who will be coming to speak at our church in March about apologetics and aberrent spiritual movements. It's quite interesting that in checking my e-mail I received an e-mail from our former church (which we still have ties to) announcing a Labyrinth they are having tomorrow.

I have been paying attention to many of the trends happening in different spiritual circles around the world and the Labyrinth is one of the hottest trends in the New Age movement and amazingly in the church as well.

I came accross this article about Labyrinths and passed it on to those that may be considering attending tomorrow. Give it a read it's pretty eye opening and disturbing to say the least to think that so much of the church has so little discernment that they would embrace something like this.

Give it a read. http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/new-age/NA1005W4.htm

Marc