“Religion” — The pathetic and the comical.
National Review Online (NRO) interviewed writer Andrew Brietbart, author of “Hollywood Interrupted” and produced the following insight into the mind of “religious” Hollywood.
NRO: How long before Kaballah {unorthodox Jewish mysticism} is out of style in your parts? Will Scientology ever be?
Breitbart: I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious house, or neighborhood, so I understand skeptics of organized religion. But the same people who mock the story of Jesus, the ones that speak incredulously of the “Virgin birth” or bemoan the Gospels, are the first people to line up outside L. Ron Hubbard’s pulp-science-fiction temple or to buy Madonna-endorsed Kaballah-water and her voodoo bracelets. Twenty years ago it was Shirley MacLaine and her myriad lives, all of which were strangely historical leading roles. Astrology will always be a given here. Hollywood will always be a reliable place to study comically trendy belief systems. In a strange way, I find this a good thing.
Many folks exuberantly pay their fare to see and adore movies of these Hollywoodians not realizing fully that their “small” ticket price. multiplied by millions, enriches the coffers of these foes of our American Republic. Of course these examples are the extremes in the world of American “religion” but some of the “mainstream religions” are just as pathetic.
Witness this post from “The Berean Call” newsletter, 12/12/2005:
Dominion Theology (reconstruction, kingdom now, etc.) is a very real part of what is called “The New Spiritual Warfare.” One frequent teaching is that our prayer gives the Lord permission to operate in the earth.
[False] Religion Says: “As intercessors we have an enormous responsibility. God will actually use us to enforce his will in what I call the earth realm.” “The law of prayer is the highest law of the universe. It can overcome the other laws by sanctioning God’s intervention.” (“Possessing The Gates Of The Enemy,” Cindy Jacobs, p. 48).
God Says: “And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Daniel 4:35).
The idea that “religion” can “sanction” or give permission to God before He can act borders on the absurd. God, Who created the Universe, needs no permission from man to function.
Reformed Christianity (Calvinism) makes claims that God, despite man’s desires or choice, determines in advance that some folks go to Heaven while leaving those less fortunate to be condemned to Hell. If that were true, God would be choosing some to Heaven and choosing the rest to hell. This makes a mockery of God’s Love and Grace. Scripture says God loves the whole world and by His Grace, as His love gift, sent Jesus Christ to pay for the sins of the world.. the whole world, not just a chosen few — so that whoever trusts Christ as Savior WILL have eternal life!. Some time ago I spoke with a friend whose mother deliberately chose not to trust Christ as her Savior. As he and I discussed the failures of Calvinism he stated, “I could never worship a god who deliberately refused to allow my mother to make a decision to trust Christ as her Savior!”
Even the time honored father of Protestantism, Martin Luther managed to proclaim a message contrary to God’s Gospel.
Luther said, “Where there are no good works, there is no faith. If works and love do not blossom forth, it is not genuine faith, the Gospel has not yet gained a foothold, and Christ is not yet rightly known.” John Dillenberger, ed., Martin Luther (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 18.
Martin Luther obviously misread the Scripture in Ephesians 2:8-10, especially Verse 10:
Ephes. 2:8-10 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Now if the Bible, in Ephesians 2:10, said “we MUST walk in them. [good works],” then I could agree with Luther. However the Bible says, as believers in Christ, “we should walk in them..” I must believe the Bible before I believe Martin Luther in this matter. God graciously gives us the choice to trust Christ — and then we as believers have the choice to serve Him, which we should do.
TV is cluttered with unbiblical preachers proclaiming, “Put your money on my altar and God guarantees to bless you with material prosperity!” God’s Word never makes such promises.
Screaming TV preachers “preach” in a breathless, unintelligible gibberish and the audience becomes ecstatic.
The largest and best known religious TV channels spend hours weeping and telling how they are strapped for funds. They beg for your dollars while seated in and surrounded by gilded furnishings and silken finery.
Has organized mainstream “religion” become a pathetic comic routine? Kaballah, Scientology, Calvinism, New Age Emotionalism, MacLaine’s reincarnation religion of secret mysticism and The Prosperity Gospel, ad infinitum. These are all perversions of God’s simple, eternal plan of Salvation. Apparently the world’s religions have become a proud, prancing, pitiful and pathetic comedy with eternally pernicious consequences.
What IS the truth of God’s simple Gospel — the eternal plan for all mankind? Read it HERE.
Notes From A Retired Preacher 