March 19, 2012 2 Comments
Is the blog imploding?
After a nasty post to start off the day, followed by the leaven of the Pharisees, writes Fr Anthony Chadwick:
Until further notice, there will be no further postings from me on this blog. I may post from time to time on my neglected As the sun in its orb.
Anyone is welcome to contact me privately on:
anthony DOT chadwick AT wanadoo DOT fr
I post this information almost expecting a harsh comment to come through any minute now, but do so only to say that I will miss of his postings. If something happens in the TAC, he’s inevitably the first to know. And while we do not always see eye-to-eye, I must here say that I do gain from the reading of his blog.
So I suppose we then have to say goodbye… yet again.
March 19, 2012 1 Comment
++Jensen: Next ABC must appreciate role of Global South.
Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney Media Statement
Statement on the resignation of Dr Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is universally admired for his intellectual stature and his personal warmth. In his time as Archbishop, the Anglican Communion has been subjected to unprecedented stresses which have hastened an inevitable tendency to regional independence and decentralisation. With the majority of Anglicans now from theologically conservative churches of the Global South, the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the future will demand a deepening appreciation of their place in the Communion.
Dr Peter F Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney
March 19, 2012 1 Comment
UPDATE: French police arrest jihadist in pre-dawn raid here.
Three young children and a rabbi were shot dead as parents dropped their children off at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, on Monday morning. The gunman managed to flee the scene on his scooter before police arrived.
Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, was on his way to drop off his kids at the Gan Rachi kindergarten, adjacent to the Ozar Hatorah school where he teaches, when he was gunned down along with his two sons Gavriel and Aryeh, 6 and 3 years old. Miriam Monstango, 8, the daughter of the head of Otzer Hatorah, was shot as well and died of her wounds shortly after.
French authorities have reason to believe that the gunman who attacked the Jewish school on Monday is the same gunman who shot and killed French uniformed paratroopers on Thursday, as well as another paratrooper four days earlier. Each of these attacks was carried out by a gunman traveling on a motorbike, and forensic analysis has determined that the same weapon has been used in all the shootings.
March 19, 2012 2 Comments
Reading such headlines on a Monday morning makes me so mad upset:
Cape Town – A man died of renal failure at a Christian rally in the Cape Town Stadium at the weekend, the Cape Times reported on Monday.
Simon Williams, 56, a pastor, had been discharged from an intensive care unit on Friday before attending the “Higher Life World Conference”, where televangelist Chris Oyakhilome was said to perform miracles and cure the sick.
It was believed another person may have died in hospital after also attending the conference.
About six other seriously ill people were rushed from the stadium to hospital on Friday evening.
Hundreds of sick and disabled people queued outside the stadium on Sunday, the last day of the conference.
According to the report, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled last year that the Christ Embassy church could not prove its pastors could perform healing miracles, and had to withdraw all such television adverts.
Did leaving an ICU and going to attend a fraudulent excuse for a ‘Christian healing’ event cost him his life? Another person died and ‘six other seriously ill people were rushed from the stadium to hospital’. Where is the ‘healing’ and ‘miracle’ in that!?!
I remember a long time ago, reading a book by Dr John MacArthur called ‘Charismatic Chaos’. It came to mind, yes, chaos indeed. These televangelists come, preying on the needy and sick, just so as to make millions for their own greedy pockets. Liars and frauds are what they are. And I am yet to see a televagelist that doesn’t make me squirm.
And, almost as if to make my point:
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome offered me R10 000 to sit in a wheelchair, stand up and walk.
Nigerian preacher and healer Pastor Chris Oyakhilome has been accused by a member of his own church of staging miracle-healing sessions.
Some of his followers have said that he has been hiring people to pretend to be sick and disabled and then “be healed” during his television shows and public prayer meetings.
A man who did not want to be identified for security reasons said: “I was offered R10 000 to rehearse and pretend to be in a wheelchair three weeks before the all-night prayer called Night of Bliss at the Johannesburg Stadium.”
Last weekend Pastor Oyakhilome hosted an all-night prayer at the stadium. The source told Sowetan that he started attending Christ Embassy church in Randburg last year.
He was recruited by one of the pastors and told he would be paid if he helped to draw crowds. “The pastor told me that they were looking for people to work for the church.
He said that I was going to sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled around while pretending to be physically ill. I would then stand up and walk as soon as Pastor Chris stopped praying for me.”
The source also said that the people who are “healed” every time on stage are actually trained weeks before.
“Even children who are healthy are whisked around in wheelchairs. Some use crutches. “Everyone is allocated a person who tells the congregation about your background, your specific illness and suffering. “The pastor then raises his hands and places them maybe on your legs if you cannot walk, and a few seconds later you get up and walk around the room,”the source said. He said he called the church the day after their offer and turned them down.
“I just told myself that using the word of God to lie to desperate people is immoral, so I refused to take up their offer,” said the source. A woman who went to the all-night prayer service, said: “When he started healing people, I did not see him call anyone from the audience. The people that he ‘healed’ came from a certain section of the audience and it looked like he came with them especially for the event.
“I saw a lot of people in wheelchairs leaving the venue who had not been healed. It was very sad.
”Lerato Moeketsi told Sowetan she was a loyal follower of the church and was disappointed that she could not make it into the stadium. “I had to turn back because the stadium was full. “There was no way I could go through to receive his blessing,” she said.
Thousands of followers jostled for space at the stadium.The seriously ill, mostly disabled and in wheelchairs, went to the service in the hope of being healed by Pastor Chris’s powerful prayer. Another woman, Tshinanne Nemutudi, said she went to the all-night prayer service because she believed in Pastor Chris.
“I trust him the way I trust Jesus and God. ”She said she had problems with her ankle but Pastor Chris had healed her. “While he was praying, he said we should all touch our body parts that needed to be healed. He said that if we believed then we would be healed.”
Oyakhilome ’s website describes him as a pastor, teacher, healing minister, television host and best-selling author whose career spans 25 years.
He runs the church with his wife, Pastor Anita, who is the director of Christ Embassy’s international office and also preaches at the Christ Embassy churches in the United Kingdom.
Pastor Chris also hosts a religious programme on TV called Atmosphere for Miracles. At the Randburg branch, brother Onyeka Liozo said what the source and the followers said “was rubbish”. “We have a healing school in Randburg. People ask and get healed.
People must stop lying about this holy crusade,” said Liozo. He said that people come from outside South Africa for help.
Pastor Chris is both controversial and mysterious. The press is barred from taking pictures at his healing services.
People, put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone! Please.
March 19, 2012 3 Comments
UPDATE: Watch Florida Atheists wash away the holy oil.
Fr Dwight Longenecker writes:
This article says a group of atheists gathered to ‘un-bless’ a portion of highway with ‘un-holy water.’
If they were really atheists they wouldn’t believe any of that stuff, so why would it matter if the road were blessed or not? The fact that they take the trouble to conduct some sort of ceremony or ritual to ‘un-bless’ the road seems laughable, but is, in fact sinister.
If they really wanted to counter a Christian blessing they should have got some shaman or witch in to curse the place, and it is only a matter of time before they do so.What the atheists don’t understand, of course, is that atheism will eventually lead to the demonic. Nobody can believe in nothing for long. The atheists are not content to live as true atheists–minding their own business, imagining that they can live in a spiritual vacuum, and allowing those “religious kooks” to do their own thing.
No. They’re not content to let religious people do what they want. Beneath their louche tolerance, shallow sophistication and affected nonchalance, their atheism is driven by rage so they have to try to close religion down, and when their meager efforts fail they will become increasingly violent and hateful.
They will then drift into new ways to curse God and destroy religion, and many of them will (either explicitly or implicitly) summon up and yield their souls to the powers of darkness. This is because it is impossible for a human being, who has an immortal soul, to exist in a state of non-alliance. You must serve either God or the Devil.
Already locked in a vile hatred of religion, they will find it all too easy to ally themselves to even greater powers of hatred and violence. Their God-empty souls will be vulnerable to every spiritual entity out there in the great chaos and taken over by evil, they will initiate a demonic reign of terror. More terrifying still is that they will do the most vile things and praise themselves for being ‘free’ or ‘bringing about a new society.’
Do not imagine for a moment that atheism is ever benign. The atheists have always been out to destroy the church, and they will fight the faith with the tenacity and terror of the pit.
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