Author Archives: takeheed

‘Reflections’ on ‘emerging’ IKON

Last year Pastor Gary Gilley was our invited guest to speak around Northern Ireland on 2 subjects in particular – (1) The ‘Purpose Driven’ Movement and (2) The ‘Emerging Church’ Movement.

In the run-up to Gary’s visit he mentioned to me that there was a local [in Belfast] ‘Emerging Church’ group called IKON that was headed up by a man called Peter Rollins. Gary asked me if I knew of him and I said ‘no’. Subsequently I did a web search and came across a website for this group called IKON and as I browsed their site I saw a web page listed under a subheading of ‘The Last supper’ and that somehow ‘rang a bell’ for me. On further investigation I found out why.

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News From The Front – June 2007

Dear praying friends,

It seems that Northern Ireland is fast becoming a haven for every modern heresy that is currently circulating under the guise of being ‘evangelical’. In June/July Brian McLaren will speak to thousands of young professing Christians at the local ‘Summer Madness’ event. Also in July, Joel Osteen will ‘preach’ at the Belfast Odyssey arena. In November the main speaker at the ‘Mandate’ gathering for men will be Erwin McManus who, like Brian McLaren, is identified with what is called ‘The Emerging Church’ – I’ve just had a phone call to tell me that another ‘Emerging Church’ figure called Rob Bell [we have an ‘Alarm Bells’ warning article about him & his wife on our website] will be speaking in Belfast in June, with the Church of Ireland Youth Dept., closely associated with ‘Summer Madness’, advertising Bell’s visit. On our website and in this newsletter these issues will be addressed. Why do we do that? Let me quote from John MacArthur’s latest book ‘The Truth War’ [mentioned on page 13] ‘As always a war is being waged against the truth. We are on one side or the other. There is no middle ground…in every generation the battle for the truth has proved ultimately unavoidable because the enemies of truth are relentless. Truth is always under assault. And it is actually a sin not to fight when vital truths are under attack…whenever the enemies of gospel truth succeed in infiltrating the church [as represented by all those mentioned above] faithful believers are obliged to take the battle to them even there. That is certainly the case today’ [pages XXIII-XXIV]. We thank you for all your support and encouragement and covet your prayers as we continue to engage the enemies of God’s “truth”.

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Make ‘MANDATE’ a ‘NO-DATE’ on 17th November 2007

Keeping up the flow of scripture-destroying ‘preachers’ lined up to visit Northern Ireland during 2007, the following link

http://www.emins.com/template.aspx?parent=220&pid=243&area=18&aNAme=&textsize=A

gives details of a return visit to Belfast by Erwin McManus, this time at the Odyssey Arena [cost £30.00] and this time under the auspices of ‘Evangelical Ministries’.

Last year he was a guest speaker at the CFC [Christian Fellowship Church] in Belfast and in advance of that visit I posted a warning on our website and this link will take you to that warning article –

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Joel Osteen coming to Belfast

The Belfast Odyssey arena currently has this advert on its ‘What’s on’ page – An Evening with Joel Osteen is a chance for you to be encouraged by one of America’s leading pastors. You will be able to celebrate God’s goodness through worship and praise music…, you’ll learn more about Joel’s ministry and family, and Joel will have an inspirational message from God’s Word. At the end of the event, Joel will proclaim a special blessing over everyone in attendance… You don’t have to be a Christian or a member of any particular church. The only requirement is a ticket. [Cost £11.50].

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Faithful unto Death

Shortly after 18^th April I received an Internet link that posted a report under the heading – “A letter to the Global Church from the Protestant Church of Smyrna”. The link was

http://izmirprotestan.org/docs/Letter_to_the_Global_Church.pdf

This report gave the horrific details of how 3 Christian leaders in the area of Smyrna in Turkey had been savagely butchered to death by members of a Muslim ‘tarikat’ – a group of Islamic ‘faithful believers’. These 3 brothers in Christ, missionary and father of 3, Tilman Geske, pastor and father of 2, Necati Aydin, and former Muslim [like Pastor Aydin] Ugur Yuksel had all been involved in both printing and proclaiming God’s TRUTH and had arranged to meet with these Muslim men to give them a Bible study. Tragically this was merely a ruse to lure God’s servants to a meeting where they would be martyred for seeking to spread God’s TRUTH.

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‘Sunday Worship’ – BBC Radio 4: 29th April 2007

Jesuit-led ‘service’ for mostly ‘gay’ congregation

On page 41 of the Daily Mail of Friday 27th April 2007 their lead article by Simon Caldwell stated the following – ‘The BBC is to relay a “gay Mass” from San Francisco this Sunday, the first time such a service has been broadcast. The 50-minute Mass at the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the predominantly gay Castro district of the city will feature prayers and readings tailored for the gay community…Its parish priest, Father Stephen Meriweather blesses participants in the San Francisco’s annual gay pride march…Last night a media watchdog said Sunday’s radio broadcast was “bound to cause offence” to mainstream Christians…However Father Donal Godfrey, the U.S. Jesuit priest celebrating the Mass said he was delighted the BBC was “exploring how gay people fit into the perspective of the Christian narrative”. “Being gay is not special,” he said. “It’s simply another gift from God who created us as rainbow people”…The preacher will be James Allison, a homosexual British Catholic theologian and author of “Is it ethical to be Catholic? – Queer perspectives”.

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WIKIPEDIA ‘Encyclopedia’ on Cecil & Creationism

Braehill Baptist meetings available to watch

I was recently informed by a Christian friend that there was an entry concerning myself on the ‘WIKIPEDIA Encyclopedia’ website. This particular website was in the news just last week in an article in the Daily Mail of 11 April 2007 under the heading ‘Minister tells pupils to use the website that makes up facts’. This is part of what that article said –

‘Teachers criticised the Education Secretary yesterday after he encouraged pupils to use a controversial Internet encyclopedia to research school work. Alan Johnston hailed WIKIPEDIA as a more appealing version of the revered Encyclopedia Britannica. Yet the unregulated site has been dogged by rows over inaccurate entries because anyone can enter or alter the information themselves’…Founded in 2001 in America, WIKIPEDIA has more than 1.6 million articles in English alone. Anyone can edit entries although WIKIPEDIA insists the sheer numbers of users ensures errors are swiftly corrected’.

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‘The Bible’ – What Alf McCreary didn’t write

In his Belfast Telegraph article of 14^th April 2007 entitled ‘The ultimate guidebook to the meaning of life’, the ‘Religion Correspondent’, Alf McCreary reflected on a Channel 4 TV documentary called ‘The Bible Revolution’.

There was a particular passage in the article that impacted forcibly upon me. What ‘impacted’ upon me was not what Mr McCreary actually wrote but rather what he did not write. Let me first quote what the passage as he wrote it said –

‘The Bible was available in England during the Middle Ages, but only in a Latin translation which the vast majority of worshippers did not understand. Indeed, the Church was so worried that people might read the Bible for themselves that anyone who campaigned for an English version was regarded as a dangerous heretic.

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‘Appendix’ to – The ‘gospel truth’ according to ‘Father’ Paul Symonds

Following the posting of The ‘gospel truth’ according to ‘Father’ Paul Symonds to our website I received the following email on 5 April 2007 –

Dear Mr Andrews,

Just as a matter of accuracy, I should inform you that Fr Paul Symonds is no longer a Jesuit priest. He resigned some time ago from the Jesuits and is now a “diocesan” priest. In other words, he is a priest now under the authority of a bishop within a diocese, rather than a priest under the authority of an Order. This is a very significant difference in status which you may wish to reflect in a revised version of the currently inaccurate article you are running on your website.

I do hope you won’t mind this correction. The truth matters.

With love in Christ,
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‘Alarm Bells’ – Rob and Kristen

When Pastor Gary Gilley was here as the guest of ‘Take Heed’ Ministries [March/April 2006] I asked him to speak on 2 specific issues. One was the ‘seeker-sensitive’ or ‘user-friendly’ approach to preaching the Gospel as promoted in Rick Warren’s ‘Purpose Driven Movement’. The other was what has come to be known as ‘The Emerging Church’. This is a very loose ‘coalition’ of post-modern pastors and conference speakers. Many view Brian McLaren as being the main Emerging ‘guru’ and Gary Gilley devoted time in his talk to exposing some of the heresies of this man. I too have also addressed Brian McLaren in the article found on this link – https://www.takeheed.info/news-from-the-front-december-2006/

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