David H.

You are right, I forgot all about the Pentecostals. Charismatics are growing. However, by and large they are growing at the expense of other evangelical churches, not so much actually converting non-believers in the U.S. For example, evangelicals have been about 7% of the population since such studies have been conducted. Obviously, if Pentecostals were adding significant numbers of non-evangelicals or non-believers, this number would be growing as a percentage of the population. The number of protestants in general is in decline and will soon for the first time in our nation's history drop below 50% of the population. From 1990 to 2001, the number of Americans who identified themselves as Christian declined from 86% to 77%. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm Other than that, good posts, Forrest. Hold their feet to the fire. The roasting corns are good for them. The leaders of non-profit charities that are Christian have just as much need to be held accountable as the leaders of any other charity. Money is not ever given to charities to make their leaders rich, and percentages have nothing to do with it. Obviously, the smaller the organization, the greater the impact of the leader's salary. If you're too small you cannot even afford a leader with 100% of your donations and must operate only with volunteers. That doesn't have anything to do with the right of the public to hold non-profit organizations to high standards, ESPECIALLY IN THEIR LEADERSHIP, be they Christian organizations or not.

This is the excuse Christians commonly use when they engender hatred because of their own bad behavior, rather than because of Christ. Billy shows wisdom and humility; his son Franklin shows arrogance. Jesus never judged other religions. He never once criticized Rome for its idols. Neither did Paul, though the idols bothered him. In the end, all idols and false beliefs will be torn down; but you didn't see Paul tearing any other religions down. He tears down false ideas that are growing WITHIN the Church, but never outside of the Church. When God asks his OWN people to tear down idols, that is entirely different. The Father disciplines the son he delights in. He is working with his own. If Franklin had the guts you say he has, he would be tearing down the idols of greed among television evangelists, rather than raling against other religions. That would cost him something because many of his own people would turn against him. It's easy to stand inside the camp and yell "dirty dogs" at the people on the other side of the wall. Let's see him stand in the middle of Saudi Arabia and proclaim the same message. Hats off to Billy for keeping himself from overindulging in the wanton corruption of televangelists with their extravogant wealth, their frequently false prophecies IN GOD'S NAME, and their self-righteous grandstanding against the morals of people who are not even inside the fold. (You don't see Jesus or Paul doing that either, and there was plenty of wanton immorality in Rome, enough to make your ear hairs curl, worse than in the U.S.) They kept their message on curbing the immorality OF THEIR OWN FOLLOWERS. As hr. jr. has said, We are not to judge people outside of the fold. Paul, on the other hand, had no problem holding people accountable for the blatant evils inside the fold. The members of the church do have a responsibility to make sure that things like the sexual sins of the Catholic priests don't happen -- the the extent that they are aware of them. Had those who knew what was happening been stronger in standing against it, it may never have gotten to the extremely damaging level it did. There is nothing wrong with holding very public people accountable to practising what they preach. We cannot judge the heart or guess at someone's deeper motives, but there are some evils that are blatant -- that require no judgment of the heart, for they are overtly wrong and done in people's faces in the name of God. We're not asked to tolerate that. Those same leaders in the Church have no problem standing inside the fold and preaching against the immorality of the masses outside of the fold, so they should have no problem with their own immorality being attacked. If they're throwing stones at other people's glass houses, I'm not going to feel too sorry for them if someone throws a stone at theirs. That, of course, is exactly the thinking that got the Catholic Church into its jam in America. The only ones with power to correct the wrongs were those inside the power circle that needed correction. External criticism is perfectly appropriate and beneficial. There you go. So long as you're leading souls to God, your sins should be ignored by anyone who is aware of them. A stupid response. Burning in hell is exactly what might happen to them if no one holds them accountable and they keep spinning further and further into their own corruption. The idea of accountability can be abused and ferquently is by those who want to control others, but that doesn't mean it has no right place. The people who give to a charity (INCLUDING A MINISTRY) have every right to hold that charity accountable and its leadership accountable for their behavior. The ministry gets no special indulgences that would not be allowed to the Red Cross. When charities misbehave badly enough, they get publicly THUMPED. Those who give money are the stockholders, and they should hold their boards and presidents of those organizations accountable. The people you are talking about are the leaders of charitable non-profit organizations and they have no special dispensation for their behavior over the leaders of for-profit corporations. The stockholdhers must hold them to a standard of respectable behavior. If the board president of General Motors started doing a lot of public horing around and engaging in behavior that was bringing ridicule to GM, he'd be canned by his own board, and if that didn't happen, he'd get canned at the next shareholder's meeting. (With a non-profit the donors are the shareholders who have a right to safeguard their investment in the cause.) --David

It is people like that in Ghandi's life that kept him from becoming a Christian. He liked the truth he heard in Jesus, hated the way he saw it play out in supposedly Christian cultures. I think that would be hard to prove or justify as a statement, since their own churches are anything but stagnant, but I know what you are getting at, even if overreaching. They cause a backlash by their absurd behavior that definitely and needlessly stiffens the spine of many against Christianity. So, while they are bringing many into the faith by their strong evangelistic efforts, they are also turning many away from the faith by their needless and senseless bad behavior. The bad side of their behavior is very damaging to the faith. So, the church isn't stagnant in its growth, especially around them because of their very strong evangelistic effort, yet countless others come to DESPISE Christianity precisely because of these evangelist's greed for money, phoniness of predictions, etc. You don't help your cause by making statements that are untrue. The fastest growing churches in America are the Pentecostal churches, particulary Assemblies of God. They far outstrip the growth of Catholics. That doesn't make them right. Many things grow in America that are not right. Popularity is not a reliable gauge of truth. After all, Mormonism has probably grown faster than the AG church. The point is that the notoriously bad behavior of these T.V. evangelists puts many people off, and the bad behavior will continue so long as it is rewarded, justified or excused. And it's not a little-bit bad. It's glaringly bad, turning off as many thousands as they bring in. The bringing in is good. The turning off is completely unnecessary. "Men of corrupt FLESH who preach godliness as a means to financial gain." For some that means preaching it for their own financial gain. For others it means preaching that, if you are godly, God will bless you financially. Both are equally "CORRUPT." The worldly smart ones combine both messages, flashing their Rolex watches so you can see how God has blessed them and will want to be blessed like that, too, by giving some of your money to their glorious work. Very, very, very sick. We are warned against it, not asked to MAKE EXCUSES for it or to JUSTIFY it on the grounds that they are bringing lots of people to God. Nor are we EVER asked to make excuses for their false prophecies. --David

If you don't know as an absolute fact that it is from the Lord, then you shouldn't puff yourself up and say that it is. You should merely say this thought or flash came to you and do what you feel is best regarding it. Let others decide if it was from the Lord. As for the story about Abraham pleading with God to change the destruction of Soddom, my point was that it didn't change the destruction of Soddom at all. The only thing in the Bible that has ever changed the outcome of God's predicted destruction or calamity is when the people who were going to be affected repented. Soddom didn't repent, so God saved the one righteous man (and his family) out of it and then destroyed it. He probably did it more as an act of Grace to Abraham than because of Lot's righteousness, but the point stands that there is not a single incident in the Bible where the destruction God predicted was turned away by someone praying against it -- only by those who were going to be affected repenting. --David

And God didn't buy it.

And what Bible did you read that in? God decided, did he, tthat the gold standard was just too tough and was keeping a lot of mediocre prophets from their opportunity to confuse? So, someplace in the fourth Book of Hesitation, he said that he was going to lower the bar so more people could practise until they get good at it? And this is a break-through from what the Old Testament prophets did? Actually, I think strongholds are forged because a lot of pure baloney had entered the church through this basement door. Ah, the ol' familiar safety valve of modern false prophets. It's a very handy one because it guarantees they are ALWAYS correct. Because any time something doesn't happen it was because people were forewarned and prayed about it. The only problem with that is there is no biblical example of that EVER happening. Whoa! You scream, what about Jonah and Ninevah. Oh, Ninevah. Let's see, Ninevah and city whose ungodly ways made the Unites States look like a candidate for canonization as a saint, ALL repented. It would be like the 300,000,000 people of the United States all hearing one prophet and ALL repenting. Or let's just keep it to city size: It would be like New Orleans ALL repenting. They didn't merely "pray the event away." Rubbish. They repented. That's what prophecy is for. God states that ANY time a people repents of the evil he said he would destroy them for, he will relent. Repentance is one thing. Praying things away has no biblical precedence at all. The only way a prophet can predict something will happen to the U.S. and be wrong and still be a true prophet is if he predicts the coming thing is God's judgment for U.S. sin and the whole U.S. (or controlling majority, at least) repents, and the nation stops that sin. You cannot ever "pray it away." Find me a single bible example, New Testament or Old, where people prayed something away, other than by repentance? And it has to be the people who are doing the sins who repent, because "repentance" doesn't mean "saying your sorry," it means turning away from your sins. So, you cannot repent for someone else's sins and save the U.S. --Knave Dave

Who did he appoint? I thought he appointed everyone to be vigilant to that task. That's what I recall. You, see, there you go doing exactly what I said. Yeah, that was what I said??? Your argument runs like this: Joe leads a lot of souls to heaven, so why are you being so critical just because he commits adultery three times a week with three different women? What was the punishment for adultery? What was the punishment for false prophecy in God's name? Only because the public held them accountable, and by then they had brought disgrace to the church. Now, I was saying they should have been held accountable for other glaring problems long before that but the church by and in large did not do that. So, things built up to a catastrophic disgrace that fronted the newspapers for months. And he used people who care about accountability to do it. But because no one acted sooner, the damage was much greater. And just think of how many more he would have led to the Lord if he had been held seriously accountable for his rather blatant flaws many years sooner. --Knave Dave

The only problem with your argument there Butero, is that you are assuming everyone else is operating off the same knowledge you are. Is it not possible that they have heard him say things in the past years, just as you have today, and done the same thing you are about to do, and they are simply a few years ahead of you? I'm glad you're doing it, though. I will, too. I've listened to his broadcast now and written down what he said. --DH

Indeed, I think some of you guys should stop making such a fuss over a little thing like false prophets? Who did they ever hurt? Especially if they're nice.

So, in other words, he said, "It's going to rain" and didn't happen to mention when or where. Mind if I make a prediction? I say that coasts are going to get hit this year, too. Then's let's all promise to hold him accountable for that. I would like to make another prediction, myself. I say there will be a great move of God among his people in the first six months. I feel pretty comfortable with that position. I will match it with the statement that there is going to be a great rain in the first six months, too. Somewhere among the 6 billion people and billions of square miles on this globe, those two things will happen. O.K. I'm ready to make my third prediction, but I will be more specific, speaking only by my own power: Al Qaeda will do evil things to us in the second half of this year. Now I haven't said where or to how many of us; so, I feel pretty confident that in the second half of this year Al Qaeda will do evil things to us. Oh.oh. You see, that's where he went to far. He was batting a 1,000 until he got carried away and said something where there is fair chance it won't happen. O.K., Guys, it's time to pick up the rocks and wait. You see, there he really overstepped. He not only went out on a limb on a prediction that probably only has about 20% chance (base on the last five years) of coming true, but he said God revealed it to him. Fortunately, he left a little caveat. He said God told him things on a prayer retreat and that he could have been wrong in thinking this was one of those things God said. Good job, Butero. (Seriously. I'm mocking Robertson, not you.) We'll know what to keep an eye on this year; but what do you want to bet that it makes no more difference to Robertsons followers if he happens to miss a few of the wilder ones than it ever did to Edgar Cayce's or Jean Dixon's followers. I think it won't even chip their paint. As for "Roberson and his ministry," didn't you leave out a "b"? --Knave Dave

Ah, but you see, AK, it makes no difference how many times they are wrong. What matters is that he has a nice smile, he's smart, he's politically savy, he makes a LOT of money (so we know he's blessed by God) and he does good things for the Lord's kingdom. With all of that to his credit, merely claiming to talk for God about global matters and being wrong hardly matters. Well, I would take it that he needs to clean out his ears. I mean the Creator of the entire Universe is speaking to him about massive world issues in which thousands will die, and Pat can't be sure he heard it right. Now, if God wanted to talk to me, I think he could get the message through loud and clear, especially if he wanted me to convey it to the entire planet at the start of the new year. I know this for sure, I wouldn't go scaring the entire world with what I heard if I wasn't quite sure I had heard it correctly. I would say, "What was that, Lord? Your servant has bad ears." --Knave Dave

Indeed. How nebulous of you.

Well, he could. He just wouln't like to because Pat steps in lot of ... well, you know ... his own mouth. Sad commentary on many Christians, indeed. I think Christ would love the guy. They could talk for hours, and I think that if they ever met in person, the Dalai Lama just might come around because he would have a lot less distance to come in terms of his LIFE than many Christians. He also said -- I am told -- when asked why he didn't become a Christian, "Because I never met one." We can recoil and lash back against those statement; but, in doing so, we only prove how very like the statements we are. --Knave Dave

A good man, eh? There is no one good--no not one. Psalm 53:3 Every one of them has turned aside;They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one. I wasn't speaking in such an absolute sense. In that sense, Pet Robertson is a no-good man either.

Well, with just the one little caviat that I've heard him say on his show that the Lord tells him these errant predictions. Not all of them, must some of the ones that are wrong. The rest of the time, he lets people believe by implication that the Lord is telling him, such as when he says here that the "Lord did not say it would be nuclear," the obvious implication is that God gave him the prediction, but didn't say this bit about it being nuclear. Pat is not so stupid as to be unaware of how his statements lead people to believe God is telling him these things. Unfortunately, I do not keep transcripts of his show on those rare occasions when I have watched him.