A Simple Test for Any Denomination or Abusive Sect

 

This simple test is so basic that very few denominational big-wigs, professors, and felons will be able to pass it.

The test - What does the material focus on?

Here are some common alternatives:

1. Look at how great our latest worship hymnal is! You will want to fill your congregation and Christmas present lists with copies.
2. See our latest building projects and possibly drool over having your name on its cornerstone.
3. Join us in our latest restructuring and planning process. We do not know what the end product will be, but we need you to trust the process.
4. Give the backhand and stink-eye to those who would impede us - and tell us who they are.

That covers the agenda of most denominations and the Church of Rome.

The alternative is found here - from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation - faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, risen from the dead, ascended into Heaven.

If the church body, synod, denomination, or cult does not emphasize this simple alternative, they should disband or at least be as honest as the Unitarians are. Unitarians do not even believe in God and they insist on their unfaith for all who might join.

Jesus - you remember Him from the last fundraiser? - taught about the good tree of faith in Him and the evil tree of non-faith. The good tree can only produce good fruit, and the evil tree can only bear sterile fruit. That is why spectacular failures like Kent Hunter, Robert Schuller, and David Valleskey should be mired in their own publications rather than admired by the miracles that never arrived.

Confidential to misled pastors who actually believed what their Damascus professors taught them - your members and potential members do not need pop psychology, lord-liar-lunatic sales pitches, self-esteem programs, or time management. They can get that from secular hucksters. They need what the Bible teaches - and many already know it well - but they have to keep on in the midst of Matt the Fatts, Mirthless Marks, and Liz Eatonuffs to remain believers. 

 A storm followed the ELCA vote, and more than a million ELCA members left their abusive sect.

 She went to Harvard? Of course, she went to Harvard. And the lupine pups follow her obediently.

After the 2009 ELCA debacle, one million ELCA members departed for good. They did not join the LCMS or WELS or the ELS or SHARONA. The dunderheads running those "conservative" synods - pardon me while I stop laughing, wheezing, and slapping my leg - had nothing more to offer than did ELCA. In fact, they are all in bed with ELCA and lovin' it, thanks to the united, wholesome, effects of DEI Thrivent. 

 Jesus and Thrivent go hand-in-hand, but not exactly as described in the New Testament.