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Featured Term (selected at random):PASCENDI Encyclical letter of Pope St. Pius X condemning Modernism. Its full title is Pascendi Dominici Gregis, published September 8, 1907. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Sleepy Eye, Minn. - In addition to Halloween, this Saturday is also a special date of historical significance for many Christians. October 31 is celebrated by Lutherans as Reformation Day, for it is the date Martin Luther is believed to have nailed his 95 Theses, or grievances against the Roman Catholic Church, on the door of All SaintsÂ’ Church in Germany. This act marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which ultimately led to Lutheranism itself. As many Lutherans look back to their Reformation heritage over the weekend, members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are doing some...

PROOF THAT WE ARE ENGAGED IN A SPIRITUAL WAR THE MUSLIM MIRACLE thelastcrusade.org Miracle or hoax? Russians puzzled as phrases from the Koran start appearing 'spontaneously' on baby's skin By Mail Foreign Service A baby is sparking a wave of speculation in Russia after phrases from the Koran allegedly began appearing on his skin.Sayings from the Muslim holy book are said to appear on nine-month-old Ali Yakubov's back, arms, legs and stomach - before apparently fading away and being replaced with new sayings.Russian medics claimed they are puzzled over the cause of the marks on a baby's skin, which...

At a conference for environmental journalists in Wisconsin, Al Gore dodged questions on the many identified errors in his global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "We're very close to that political tipping point," Gore said. "Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions." While the audience of environmental journalists were largely in agreement with Mr. Gore's presentation and his positions, one Irish journalist and filmmaker asked Gore about the many scientific errors that were found in Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. "A judge in the British High Court,...

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake. The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ. "We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy,...

Remember the artificial panic pervading the CBS "Early Show" just a little over a year ago that, for the first time in history, the North Pole may not be covered with ice sometime during the summer of 2008? Well, not only did it not happen but evidence now shows that Arctic ice has been thickening substantially this year. And who is making that "heretical" claim? Why Andrew Revkin, the New York Times environment writer. On the heels of his recent "heresy" of quoting noted climatologist Mojib Latif's finding that the world will probably be in for a cooling trend for...

Featured Term (selected at random):DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS Roman goddess of the moon, identified with Artemis among the Greeks who worshiped her as a virgin huntress. The Diana of the Ephesians was a combination of Artemis and the Semitic goddess Ashtoreth, patroness of the sexual instinct. An impressive statue of Diana stood inside the magnificent Temple of Ephesus, considered on of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was source of substantial income to the silversmiths of ephesus to duplicate Diana's memorial as statuettes for pilgrims. St. Paul antagonized Demetrius and his fellow-silversmiths, who accused him of disparaging their...

The 2009 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly made grievous decisions that will not help the denomination in the years ahead. Those decisions were the adoption of a social statement on sexuality and four resolutions that approve of sexual relationships outside of marriage and direct a change in the ELCA’s ministry standards to allow for practicing homosexuals to serve as ordained pastors and lay ministers. One biblical phrase kept coming to mind in the weeks leading up to the ELCA churchwide assembly and very often during the August assembly—“ears to hear.” The phrase occurs repeatedly in the Old and...

Years ago while listening to Hank Hanegraaff’s Bible Answer Man radio program, a caller called in about “Christ suffering in Hell.� Hank rightly explained that “Christ suffering in Hell� is not a biblical doctrine, but noted that the doctrine was held by John Calvin. Hank respectfully disagreed with Calvin.We can argue back and forth over Calvin’s doctrine of baptism or predestination, but Calvin is a manifest heretic regarding Christ’s descent into hell. He breaks with Scripture and all the Fathers in this regard, and his error deserves more attention, because it shows the cracks in his systematic theology. During my...

Featured Term (selected at random):DOCTRINAL PLURALISM The theory that a Catholic may legitimately hold a doctrinal position that is in contradiction to what the Church reaches, either as defined or by her ordinary universal magisterium. This would mean that contradictory doctrines in faith or morals could be professed by different persons, all equally in good standing in the Catholic Church. Doctrinal pluralism was condemned by the First Vatican Council, 1869-70 (Denzinger 3042, 3043). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random):CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE An absolute and unqualified command or prohibition of a law or of one's conscience in interpreting the law. Popularly associated with the Kantian theory of ethics, which centers on the principle "Act as if the maximum from which you act were to become through your will a universal law." It implies that, in the last analysis, each person's own will is the final legislator of what is morally right or wrong. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Methodists Celebrate Ramadan CHRISLAM COMES TO OMAHABythelastcrusade.org The First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska hosted an interfaith prayer vigil on Sunday, August 23. The vigil was neither held in preparation of feast days of St. Louis, the heretic fighting King of France, who died during the Second Crusade, nor of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, the first Christian missionary to India.The ceremony was rather conducted in celebration of the first day of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, when the Angel Gabriel revealed the first verses of the Qur’an to the prophet Muhammad.The vigil was held at...

I recently wrote an article entitled “Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Succumbs to Heresy” because it involved significant news. I also did so because I am a Catholic. As a Catholic, I believe I should be concerned about other Christians who are struggling within the communities which descended from the Protestant Reformation. Though the article was well received, there were some disapproving comments. They ranged from the reader who wondered why such an article was “even published on a Catholic Web Site”, to others which used the term “schismatic” in reference to all Protestant Christians. Some even objected to my...

What happened is that representatives of the ECLA succumbed to heresy. Oh, I can hear it now, “how dare he say such a thing?” Because… it is true, and there is nothing compassionate about failing to help fellow Christians to reject error. Christians abandoning the clear teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the unbroken Christian Tradition is not a new phenomenon in the 2000 year history of the Christian Church. What is new is the massive support that such a sad turn of events receives from this kind of media report. ... All one has to do is look to...

A recent survey was conducted among clergy of mostly non-evangelical churches. The survey found that a full 51% of those clergy support legalized abortion. Also according to the survey: "Two-thirds of mainline clergy disagree that "the Bible is the inerrant word of God, both in matters of faith and in historic, geographical, and other secular matters." Which serves to explain these other findings: * Sixty-five percent support either same-sex marriage or civil unions. * Fifty-four percent do not support the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school biology classes. * Forty-three percent disagree that evolution is the best explanation...

Trailer: ‘Creation’ — ‘You’ve Killed God, Sir’ Watching the trailer it looks as if they are trying to give a human face to Darwin that seems a bit hard to imagine. The characters are glorified to the point of sticky-sweet perfection which, of course is Hollywood. Judging strictly from the trailer, the message seems to be that Darwin's "science" was perfect knowledge and religion is finally unmasked as the true heresy... more of the same but with a pretty bow on top. The foregone conclusion follows mainstream education in America: that Evolution is science fact and not science theory. All...

Featured Term (selected at random):QUIETISM General name for any view of spiritual life that minimizes human activity and moral responsibility. But more properly it refers to the theories of Miguel de Molinos (c. 1640-97) and François Fénelon (1651-1715), Archbishop of Cambrai. Its basic position is that, to become perfect, one must be totally passive, annihilate one's will and so totally abandon oneself to God that one cares for neither heaven nor hell. In prayer, the perfect soul make no acts of love or petition, nor even of adoration. Such total passivity makes mortification or the sacaraments useless. Sin becomes impossible...

A lay Catholic organization founded in 2002 in the wake of the clerical abuse scandal is facing financial collapse. “I think a lot of people were energized by the crisis and wanted to do something, and Voice of the Faithful was there at the right time,” Philip Lawler, founder and editor of Catholic World News, told the Associated Press. “Now, with the crisis having passed, the organization's agenda is not so popular.” The organization “has used the current crisis in the Church as a springboard for presenting an agenda that is anti-Church and, ultimately, anti-Catholic,” Archbishop John Myers of Newark...

Episcopal presiding bishop terms individualistic salvation 'heresy' By Bob Allen Thursday, July 09, 2009 ANAHEIM, Calif. (ABP) -- The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a "great Western heresy" that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society. Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group's triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with "the great Western heresy -- that we can be saved as individuals,...

Featured Term (selected at random):DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM The philosophy founded by Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95), and condemned as such by the Catholic Church. It is materialism because it holds not only that matter is real but that matter is prior to mind both in time and in fact. Thus mind is said to appear only as an outgrowth of matter and must be explained accordingly. Space and time are viewed as forms of the existence of matter. It is dialectical in claiming that everything is in constant process of self-transformation. Everything is made up of opposing forces whose...

THE QUESTION that CHANGED MY LIFE -by David Ryser A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this:

When Pope Benedict XVI greets U.S. President Barack Obama at the Vatican on July 10, the symbolism and sheer star power of the encounter will keep the pundits chattering away. The photo op alone is worth a thousand words: The 82-year-old man in white, the world's most recognizable religious leader and head of its largest single denomination comes face-to-face with the charismatic first black President of the world's last superpower. And the scheduling efforts of both the Vatican and the White House suggest a shared appreciation of the symbolic weight the first encounter between Obama and Benedict could carry. It...

I begin by asking all of our readers to pray for Fr. Geoffrey Farrow. He was the pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center at California State University at Fresno until he was suspended by his Bishop and removed from his position. This strong action was required and intended to be remedial, as are all canonical sanctions. Fr. Farrow openly defies the teaching of the Catholic Church concerning marriage and human sexuality. He also openly condemns the Catholic Church in public for her defense of marriage. Let me be clear, Fr. Farrow needs our prayer. We ask the Lord to...

Remember Cary Grant wearing a dress and wig in “I Was a Male War Bride?”The movie seemed far-fetched to audiences in 1949.But now male war brides are expected to crop up in barracks throughout the country.President Barack Obama has stated his intent to do away with the “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy of the United States military.Mr. Obama’s announcement was made during a meeting with 150 members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Coalition (LGBT) of the United Church of Christ."As I said before -- I'll say it again -- I believe 'don't ask, don't tell' doesn't contribute to...

Wednesday June 24, 2009 God "Rejoices" over Abortions Says Episcopal Priestess By Peter J. Smith DENVER, Colorado, June 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Episcopal Church has to clarify God's official position on abortion - at least so says a priestess of the church, who claims that a proposed rite for post-abortive women conflicts with church theology and that the Deity "rejoices" when women elect to abort their children. Rev. Nina Churchman wrote a letter to Episcopal Life Online expressing her outrage upon learning that her church has developed a healing rite for post-abortion women sorrowful over their abortion that...

Latter-day Saints love the Bible and believe it as scripture. Indeed, Joseph Smith went so far as to say that we are the only people who truly believe it as it is written. Modern, sectarian Christians hang Bible verses like ornaments on an artificial tree constructed of man-made creeds, ignoring the passages which conflict with or contradict their doctrines. In the process, they have allowed a number of myths about the Bible to be promulgated because it serves their own ends. The following eight myths are summarized from "Here We Stand" by Joseph Fielding McConkie (1995, Deseret Book) McConkie is...

Featured Term (selected at random):POLYGENISM The theory that, since evolution is an established fact, all human beings now on earth do not descend from one human pair (Adam and Eve), but from different original human ancestors. This theory is contrary to the official teaching of the Church, e.g., Pope Pius XII, who declared: "It is unintelligible how such an opinion can be squared with what the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Magisterium of the Church teach on original sin, which proceeds from sin actually committed by an individual Adam, and which, passed on to all by...

Featured Term (selected at random):TEILHARDISM The evolutionary theory of the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). He held that the universe is subject to four stages of development: 1. cosmogenesis, or evolution from the elements to organized matter; 2. biogenesis, or evolution from organized matter to life; 3. noo-genesis, or evolution from living things to rational beings; and 4. Christogenesis, or evolution from individual rational humanity to a society in which Christ was the Lord of the world. Teilhardism was the object of two critical documents from the Holy See, in 1952 and 1967, which staed that his writings abound...

Whenever I grab a book to read and sit on the couch, I can always count on my dog to come over and jump up and settle next to me. Just about the time I kick back to relax she lays her head on my lap and gives me that look. Oh how good she is at letting me know what she wants. It is something that will inevitably lull her into a calm relaxed state of mind until I think she has fallen asleep, that is, until I stop pampering her and pick my book to start reading....

Jim Cramer just keeps paying the price for his heresy. Ever since his March 3 remarks calling Obama's policies "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president," the CNBC "Mad Money" host has been under attack. First it was the back-and-forth with the White House, then he was skewered by comedian Jon Stewart. Now CNN and a former high-ranking public official have targeted him. Cramer, who is set to appear on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" on March 12, was featured in a segment of that day's CNN "American Morning" reporting on a video he did for TheStreet.com in 2006, in...

LONDON, February 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com, with files from VirtueOnline) - As long as a homosexual partnership is "faithful and lifelong," it presents only the same ethical questions as a natural marriage, wrote the head of the Church of England in a series of letters, dating from 2000 and 2001, that have only just been made public. The London Times revealed this weekend that Dr. Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, made the statements in a series of letters to Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, while Williams was still the...

Ken Ham is an ardent young-earth creationist. As president of Answers in Genesis, he generates a steady stream of articles critiquing the old-earth view. Although I disagree with most of his assertions, I respect his right to express them. However, Ham’s article, “The god of an old earth,”1. crosses the line of amicable debate. By declaring “the god of an old earth cannot be the God of the Bible” and “the god of an old earth destroys the Gospel,” he is accusing old-earth creationists of heresy. Disagreements in the body of Christ are inevitable. And history has shown debate in...

The Book of Job is one of the treasures of the Bible. It reveals a truth about authentic spirituality to every age. The background of the Book is a dispute between Satan, whom the New Testament rightly refers to as the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10), and God. Satan contends that Job served God for what He got from Him not for who God is. How rampant is this kind of self interested service of God in some of the Christian circles in our own time? How many self styled teachers seek to reduce Christian living to formulas? At...

For several years, a saga of infidelity to the Church has been unfolding in Brisbane, Australia. The Archbishop of Brisbane, John Bathersby, has tried to exercise the heart of a shepherd while dealing with one priest’s flagrant disregard of the orthodox teaching of the Church and the clear requirements of Canon law concerning the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. He has demonstrated what could only be called the “patience of Job”. Father Peter Kennedy has been leading what amounts to a renegade movement within a parish, St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in South Brisbane, Australia. He has ignored repeated efforts...

However, all that changed on August 9th when Fr. Bourgeois chose to become a “concelebrant” and homilist at the attempted ordination to the priesthood of Janice Sevre-Duszynska. The attempted “ordination” occurred at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington, Ky. Now, Fr. Bourgeois has decided to engage in a new crusade, one which involves public and direct defiance of the Holy See and a repudiation of the unbroken teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church concerning sacred ordination. According to a letter which Fr. Bourgeois released to the Press, he has received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine...

Over the last few months I've been hearing more and more about a book titled The Shack by William Young, who goes by his middle name, Paul. Some, like my mother, are profoundly disturbed by the content of this book. Others are saying that it is the best book they have ever read. In fact Eugene Peterson says "This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good." Here is the link to his article Equip.orgHere is a link to another site at Crossroads that also takes "The Shack"...

The more modernistic the liberal clerical cohort in Australia tries to become, the older are the heresies that they promote. Lately, one Fr Peter Dresser is promoting his own brand of Arianism, a heresy that basically denied the divinity of Christ, and which was solemnly rejected by the Council of Nicaea (325). "No human being can ever be God," writes Fr. Dresser in a booklet distributed to the faithful, "and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that." Okay, here's my version of simple: "No Catholic priest may deny the divinity of Christ, and Dresser is a...

In a Blog entry entitled "The New Christology", Fr. John O'Keefe writes:Calling Jesus “Saviour” or “Redeemer”, to say that Jesus was sent by God to die for me, and that I should pray to Jesus is quite ludicrous. To take the literal meaning of most of the scripture texts as being absolute truth is to make the scriptures stories of complete fantasy...Was Jesus God? No, Jesus was a human being who had to learn about God in the same way that we learn... Jesus had no special privileges, no special knowledge, but the spark of divinity that is in all...

A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles ruled Friday that the school's review committees did not discriminate against Christians because of religious viewpoints when it denied credit to those taught with certain religious textbooks, but instead made a legitimate claim that the texts failed to teach critical thinking and omitted important science and history topics. Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal...

The liberal media are unhinged over John McCain's recent ad campaign against Barack Obama, which erased Obama's 9-point lead in the polls and tied the race. How dare McCain challenge their anointed one? Obama is not the only one convinced he is "the one we've been waiting for." The media are also annoyed they have to endure this irritating uprising from McCain, who is officiously intermeddling with the inexorable flow of history. Sunday show hosts, editorial pages, and both print and TV news stories this past weekend were pregnant with outrage over McCain's "negative" campaigning – "negative" being defined as...

Dr. James Innell Packer, a noted Canadian theologian, author and a Board of Governors Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, as well as an executive editor of Christianity Today, recently addressed the contentious problem of homosexuality and same-sex unions in the Anglican church. The Anglican Church has come to a cross-roads because of the issue of same-sex "marriage," with a massive split in the Global Communion looking increasingly inevitable. Dr. Packer opened his remarks with a statement explaining why this issue is of such great importance in the Anglican Church today. "In brief," he said, "because it involves...

It hasn’t taken that many days to realize that the once-every-ten-years Lambeth Conference is again abundant in elaborate rhetoric. Last night’s sermon by the Bishop of Colombo, the Rt. Rev. Duleep de Chickera is a good example. We heard from the bishop that the Anglican problem is very simple, "The church is called to be an inclusive communion,” de Chickera stated, “where there is space equally for everyone and anyone, regardless of color, gender, sexual orientation, ability. Unity in diversity is a cherished Anglican tradition, a spirituality which we must reinforce in all humility for the sake of Christ and...

James Tramel went from convicted murderer to priest while in prison, a transformation that the Episcopal Church used to successfully lobby for his parole and celebrate him before politicians and the press. But the church is now grappling with the sexual abuse of a parishioner under his care. Tramel has been suspended for sexual misconduct, temporarily stripped of his priestly authority and left searching for a new job. The San Francisco-based Episcopal Diocese of California now faces questions of whether, in its haste to proclaim Tramel's story, it redeemed and promoted him too quickly. Convicted of second-degree murder in a...

OF THE POWER AND PRIMACY OF THE POPE. Treatise Compiled by the Theologians Assembled at Smalcald, in the Year 1537. The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom]. Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.]. And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar...

Although the RPCNA produced a document on justification some time ago that rejected both Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul, their Synod just recently and formally accepted the recommendations of that document (HT: De Regno Christi):1. That Synod DECLARE that we stand in solidarity with our Reformed and Presbyterian brethren in rejecting as contrary to the Scriptures as summarized by our confessional standards the theological views that are generally associated with the movements identified as “the New Perspective(s) on Paul” and the “Federal Vision”. 2. That Synod REAFFIRM our commitment to the biblical, historical, and confessional, Reformed doctrine...

Plagued by questions about the divine truth of the Bible, today's young Christians are doubting their faith as never before, says Peter Enns, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside. But when Enns wrote a book urging wobbly believers to embrace man's role in shaping the Bible, he plunged the famously conservative seminary into crisis. Westminster's board of trustees suspended Enns, 47, from his teaching post in March, and has ordered a four-day hearing to determine if he should be dismissed "for the good of the seminary." Some of his supporters are condemning the hearing, due to...

She grew up wanting to be a priest - maybe from the time she was just 5 years old, she said. She served as an altar girl in her home parish, loving to be close to the sacramental action and mystery of the Mass. But Roman Catholic girls might as well dream of flying to the moon on arm power alone as finding their priestly way into the patriarchal church. So, Mary Elizabeth Conroy, growing up in western Massachusetts in a strong, devoted and somewhat traditional family, more or less learned to bury her ambition. She attended Marymount College, a...

June 26, 2008 STATEMENT REGARDING THE CANONICAL DISCIPLINE OF SISTER LOUISE LEARS, S.C. After a canonical process of several months, Archbishop Raymond Burke has, today, decided the case of Sister Louise Lears, S.C., a member of the “pastoral team” at Saint Cronan Parish, who was accused of four delicts, all connected with her encouragement of, promotion of and participation in the attempted ordination of two women to the Sacred Priesthood at a local synagogue in November of last year. Delicts, which must be published in the Church, are grave and external violations against the Catholic faith or moral teaching. A...

It was billed as the first-ever "Muslim Heretics Conference." Provocative? To be sure. But when Sudanese-American scholar Abdullahi An-Naim organized it in Atlanta this April, what he really wanted to do was ignite some innovative thinking – brainstorm the predicament of traditional Islam in the modern world. "I deliberately wanted to shock people into seeing `heresy' as a creative force," he laughs. Naim may describe himself as a Muslim heretic (his conservative critics certainly do), but his peers in academia prefer the rather more admiring designation of public intellectual. Either way, the Emory University law professor has become famous throughout...

Unless You Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink His Blood You Have No Life In You Are these words of Jesus from John 6:53 to be taken literally or figuratively? The Roman Catholic Church teaches the context of John chapter six and the above headlined verse 53 are literal. Thus Jesus is giving absolute and unconditional requirements for eternal life. In fact, this literal interpretation forms the foundation for Rome's doctrine of transubstantiation -- the miraculous changing of bread and wine into the living Christ, His body and blood, soul and divinity. Each Catholic priest is...