Mat 24:4-5 And Yeshua (Jesus) answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you. (5) For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
Mar 13:21-23 And then if anyone shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ! Or, lo, there! Do not believe him. (22) For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will give miraculous signs and wonders in order to seduce, if possible, even the elect. (23) But take heed; behold, I have told you all things beforehand.
Weltbild, one of Germany's largest publishing companies, happens to be owned and operated by the Catholic Church. But that has not stopped it from publishing books that many of the faithful find offensive.
"Weltbild," Germany's largest media company, sells books, DVDs, music and more -- and also happens to belong 100% to the Catholic Church. Few people knew about this connection until this month when Buchreport, a German industry newsletter, reported that the Catholic company also sells porn.
A Church spokesman responded: "Weltbild tries to prevent the distribution of possibly pornographic content."
Well, it's prevention efforts have apparently not been so successful. For more than 10 years, a group of committed Catholics has been trying to point out what is going on to Church authorities, and they are outraged at the hypocrisy of the spokesman's statement. In 2008, the group sent a 70-page document to all the bishops whose dioceses have shared ownership of Weltbild for 30 years, detailing evidence of the sale of questionable material.
Today, the Augsburg-based company employs 6,400 people, has an annual turnover of 1.7 billion euros, and an online business in Germany second only to Amazon. Weltbild is also Germany's leading book seller, controlling 20% of the domestic bookstore market. Profits are regularly reinvested in the company with an eye to rapidly increase the market share - an increase that is only possible if Weltbild continues to sell materials that are not compatible with the teachings of the Church.
The 2,500 erotic books in their online catalogue, including those from Blue Panther Books, an erotic book publisher owned by Weltbild, are only one example. Their titles include: Anwaltshure (Lawyer's Whore), Vögelbar (F - kable) and Schlampen-Internat (Sluts' Boarding School).
The Church also owns a 50% share in publishing company Droemer Knaur which produces pornographic books, and so indirectly is also a publisher of pornographic material, titles including Nimm mich hier und nimm mich jetzt! (Take Me Here, Take Me Now!), and Sag Luder zu mir! (Call Me Slut!).
Claremont Lincoln University, a graduate school in California, is the first in the United States to bring together Christians, Jews and Muslims in the same classrooms to educate the future leaders of churches, synagogues and mosques. Special correspondent Saul Gonzalez reports.
Famous denomination welcoming paganism with guided meditations
A Protestant church in California is coming under fire from some Christians over its upcoming conference featuring "guided meditations" by a high priestess of thepagan fertility goddess Isis.
Among the scheduled participants is Loreon Vigne, high priestess ofIsis Oasis– a temple, retreat and animal sanctuary Vigne founded in 1978 in Geyserville, Calif.
"I personally see Isis as Mother Nature," Vigne told WND, "and that she encompasses everything with her wings. She's a winged goddess. She encompasses any other goddess from any culture."
Vigne, who plans to bring several other priestesses to the conference, will conduct prayers,songsand meditation.
"Guided meditation is where the audience closes their eyes and you take them on a little journey," she explained. "I've taken people to their pastlivesin Egypt, as [that culture] had all the secrets. They're the ones that knew. Their main concept is to know thyself, know thy heart, know thy soul and know thy purpose."
A depiction of the Egyptian goddess Isis and her son Horus
She says the beliefsystemis based on the ancient Egyptian concept of balance, with 42 laws that are actually 42 ideals.
"It's kind of like aTen Commandments, but all done in a positive concept," she said. "'I shalt not kill,' [is rendered as] 'I honor all lives as sacred.'"
Besides honoring the goddess, the staff of Isis Oasis also provides massage therapy along with tarot and astrology readings,according to its website.
But the San Francisco event blending non-existent, heathen deities with the Christianfaithis leaving some outraged.
"God tells us inExodus 20:3'You shall have no other gods before me.' Yet this ELCA church brings followers of other gods in to speak and teach at their conference!"
Skogen said the ELCA leadership "accepts and promotes the thought that salvation is secured even for people who do not have faith in Christ."
"So bringing worshippers of Isis to this conference to teach is acceptable to them," said. "Ofcourse, this is a distinct departure from the orthodox teaching of the Christian church."
ThroughouttheBible, there are many warnings against worshiping false gods.
The Israelites were nearly exterminated by God when they made a golden calf to worship, but said it was a "festival to the LORD."(Exodus 32:5, New Living Translation)
And they were later warned: "But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed."(Deuteronomy 30:17-18, NLT)
Skogen said, "Over the years, the ELCA has been drifting farther and farther away from the truth and authority of Scripture. When a church does not trust, adhere to and believe what theBibleclearly states, heresies emerge, resulting in false teachings and blatant disobedience."
Rev. Megan Rohrer, an openly transgender Lutheran pastor
Defending the event is one of its organizers,Rev. Megan Rohrer, the first openly transgender Lutheran ministerordainedin the United States.
"I think the world is much more interested in interfaith connection than exclusivity," Rohrer told WND. "It's really not that unusual. Christianity was founded in the time of the beginnings of lots of things."
While acknowledging concern about mixingpaganismwith Christianity is a "hot-button issue," the pastor said, "Christians that say that probably don't know what paganism is."
"Anything that's not what anyone's church teaches is against God's ways," she added.
This particular Lutheran church in San Francisco is far from what many might consider mainstream.
For instance, it heavily promotes a female identity for God, with a giant banner hanging from its purple exterior declaring "God/dess loves all her children."
"We are a diverse community, standing firmly within the Christian tradition in order to re-image the divine by claiming her feminine persona," the church proclaims.
"Our Christian/Lutheran feminist prayers and liturgy reach back into the storehouse of tradition to bring forth names as Mother, Shaddai, Sophia, Womb, Midwife, Shekinah, She Who Is. They do so out of renewed insights into the nature of the Gospel empowered by the risen Christ-Sophia."
The Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco calls itself "herchurch."
Asked to explain the church's theology, Rev. Rohrer said, "Being Christian and being feminist are not two opposite ends of the spectrum."
She said her church is "creating caring economics and creating a world where every person's identity is held up with its integrity, creating equal playing fields for every human being."
"The U.N. continues to say if we're able to educate women globally, we will probably eliminate poverty," she added.
Other events at the conference include a chanting workshop with another Isis priestess, Katie Kethcum, "inclusive" hymns, sacred walks, sacred drums, sacred dance andKundalini Yoga mantras, which the church says "are composed of basic phonetic sounds common to all languages and have been used to invoke the presence of the Divine for centuries."
Interest in the Egyptian goddess is certainly not new in the U.S. In the mid-1970s, she became a flying superhero on the CBSSaturday-morning TV series "Isis."
The program featured actress JoAnna Cameron playing a science teacher who, after unearthing an ancient amulet on anarchaeologicaldig, transforms herself into a superpower-endowed do-gooder by uttering the incantation, "Oh mighty Isis."
Another catchphrase on the show was, "Oh zephyr winds that blow on high. Lift me now so I can fly."
Vigne says today there are "many thousands" of followers of Isis worldwide.
"The important thing is that it's growing enormously. There is this resurgence of interest," she said.
"I think that people are getting annoyed with the normal churches, the established kind of organized religion. I call mine adisorganizedreligion, humorously. I say I havecatma, not dogma."
For the past five months, Harold Camping's Family Radio website had posted on its main page an "explanation" of why the world did not end on May 21 and why it would truly end on Oct. 21. Four days after Camping's failed doomsday date, however, that explanation has been removed, suggesting that Family Radio may be out of the rapture prediction business.
The move comes soon after Brandon Tauszik, a documentarian who has been attending Camping's Oakland, Calif., church for eight months, confirmed with The Christian Post in an exclusive interview that the Bible preacher has informed those close to him that he will effectively retire.
Additionally, Tauszik told CP that Camping has changed his views about the possibility that one can know the exact date of the end of the world, a notion that Camping has maintained for at least 20 years; the doomsday prophet made his first public end of the world prediction in 1992, claiming the world would end in 1994.
There has been evidence of a "softer" apocalypse message from Family Radio, with more emphasis placed on perpetual readiness for judgment from God rather than a specific date on a calendar to prepare for.
Recently, a host on the station told listeners, "I know that many of us are deeply disappointed that Christ did not come. And I said something like this back in May, but please try to keep in mind that all of us who are believers, all of us who are Christians, are to live in such a way that we are to pray with the apostle John: 'Come quickly Lord Jesus.'"
The network also released an official statement that promotes a similar message:
"Thy command is still to occupy until he comes," Family Radio said. "We are still to go teach and tell. We are to share his word by reading it, teaching it, and singing it. We still have a unique tool and that tool is radio on which we can bring comfort and encouragement. Every day we, who are Christians, live in attention. We are to live so that we are ready for the return of Christ, and even pray for it. But we also rejoice in every new day, that we've been given another day to occupy and serve our Lord."
If it is true that Family Radio is looking to change its image as an end-times predictor, it would be in line with many of its employees.
"I don't believe in any of this stuff that's going on, and I plan on being here next week," a receptionist at Family Radio's Oakland headquarters told CNNMoney during the May doomsday prediction.
In fact, the receptionist said at the time that 80 percent of her co-workers do not believe in Camping's predictions.
As Oct. 22 dawned on the world, another Rapture date prophesied by California-based Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping turned out to be a dud, which did not surprise much of the public already familiar with the Bible teacher's false prophecies.
After his doomsday prediction of May 21 and a massive advertising campaign arranged by Camping and hisFamily Radio International, the broadcaster, who claimed he had discovered the key to a numerical dating code contained in the Bible, has become a target of mockery and general antipathy.
Most evangelical Christian leaders have renounced Camping and his false preachings. The Rev. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, even said in a Thursday interview with The Christian Post that the radio founder and host should be "muzzled" for his false prophecies.
Camping was also targeted by his former followers who spent all of their savings on the May 21 doomsday campaign; these people reportedly expected they would no longer need money. In his radio Q&A show, Open Forum, in which Camping used to reply to callers' questions, he was attacked by one such dismayed listener on May 23. Other callers were simply deeply disapointed.
"In my case, I don't know what it means to be faithful anymore because I am really disappointed," a listener said at the time. "I was one of those 200 million, Mr. Camping, that was praying for that day to come, not only to finally go be with the Father but also to finally see judgment like you said in the Good Book."
Many wonder what will now happen to Camping and if he will recalculate some more for a new doomsday prophecy. A religion scholar who studied doomsday prophets told CP on Oct. 7 that it is unlikely anyone will pay any more attention to Camping.
"It surprises me that he was able to continue this for this long," he said at the time.
The radio host himself has not made a statement as of yet and has been avoiding the media.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we at Family Radio have been directed to not talk to the media or the press," Camping's daughter responded to an email inquiry sent by The Christian Science Monitor Friday.
But as the Harold Campig doomsday craze may finally be over, it is unlikely that people will stop wondering about the end times date.
Theories claiming that the world will end in Decemeber 2012, for example, abound.
In 2008, ABC reported on a story of a man who had quit his job already in 2006, because he believed the world would end come 2012. That was why he formed a "survival group" and began collecting various gear that was to help him survive the apocalypse. His survival gear included water purifiers, dust masks and vegetable seeds. The man quoted the ancient Maya cyclical calendar as proof of his doomsday belief. The Mayan calendar has reportedly last renewed itself approximately 5,125 years ago and is set to end again, supposedly with catastrophic consequences, in 2012, wrote ABC.
But this man’s case is not a lone one. Google "2012," and the first results to come up, after the movie with the same title (which, of course, also depicts the alleged apocalypse of the following year), are websites debating whether or not 2012 is the doomsday year, with long lists of apparent evidence. The website Rapture Ready, for example, has a whole arsenal of apocalypse-related data, including "rapture ready news."
Probably the most popular such website is December2012.com. The webside features a doomsday countdown – which is at 425 days, 21 hours, as of Saturday afternoon – and an online store which lets visitors purchase "survival supplies." Those apparently include t-shirts with signs reading "Doomsday December 2012" and the 2012 survival guide book.
NASA dedicates a whole chapter of its website to the 2012 apocalypse theory. The cosmic developer and research body compared the 2012 craze to the uneasiness preceding the first day of year 2000. The doomsday predictions have been, according to NASA, analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied.
"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012," an article on the space agency's website reads. "Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."
On Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, the Rapture will be upon us. That's according to U.S. Christian broadcaster Harold Camping anyway.
Yes, that's the same Mr. Camping who "predicted" doom on May 21. But, as far as I'm aware, we're still here. So, Oct. 21 is the new Rapture. Right.
Postponing doomsday is not uncommon amongst doomsayers (religious or otherwise), especially when the original day of doom doesn't happen. And for Camping, "Doomsday Deferral" seems to be a fun trick he likes to play. He did, after all, also predict doomsday in 1994.
ANALYSIS: Doomsdays: Dubious and Deferred
So, how did the ailing 90-year old explain away May 21?
On May 22, an obviously shocked Camping emerged from his home to say he was "flabbergasted" that the Rapture stood him up. But then, a couple of days later, like all good doomsday prophets, he had an answer: May 21 was just the beginning; the Rapture would take a lot longer; the real Rapture will happen five months later on Oct. 21.
"What really happened this past May 21st?" Camping asks on his Family Radio website. "What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God's salvation program would be finished on that day."
Basically, "Applications for Salvation" closed on May 21. You see, even the Office of God has red tape. ANALYSIS: Doomsdays That Never Happened
After saying something about earthquakes shaking mankind... and that the Bible refers to "earth ... as people as well as ground," (roughly translated as people, as well as the ground, were shaken)... somehow there was a lot of shaken people on May 21...?
Regardless, it's unlikely we would have experienced anything because it was "an invisible judgment day." Clever. A subtle Judgment Day.
Unfortunately, though Camping's predictions are clearly based on an overhyped religious belief --that mainstream Christians think are bunk, by the way -- he has a hardcore group of supporters that have sold their houses to pay for touring the U.S. in RVs, "spreading the word" of one delusional religious leader.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is financing a new organization designed to bring all the world’s religions together.
“The organization hopes to prevent conflict through interfaith dialogue,” writes Spencer Kimball for the German news site Deutsche Welle. ”The foreign ministers of Austria, Saudi Arabia and Spain signed the founding treaty of a new international organization designed to foster dialogue between the world’s major religions on Thursday.”
“The thesis is valid that world peace cannot exist without peace between the world’s major religions,” Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said during the signing ceremony in Vienna, according to Deutsche Welle:
The King Abdullah Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, initiated and financed largely by Saudi money, is set to have its seat in Vienna. Plans envision an organization with a governing body composed of 12 representatives from the world’s five largest religions.
The governing body is set to be staffed by two Muslims (Sunni and Shiite), three Christians (Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox), a Buddhist, a Hindu and a Jew. The organization will also have a consulting body with 100 representatives from the five world religions plus other faiths as well as academics and members of civil society.
Austria’s Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said that the organization’s structures are designed to ensure that none of the represented religions dominates the organization. The three founding states are also open to the membership of other countries, according to Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez Garcia-Herrera.
Saudi King Abdullah initiated the idea for the center after visiting Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2007, the first Saudi monarch to do so. Shortly thereafter, King Abdullah stated that Christians and Muslims should offer a common message of peace to humanity.
Abdullah then initiated an interfaith dialogue in Mecca in 2008 followed by a second meeting in Madrid with Jewish representation. A third meeting took place in Vienna’s Hofburg in 2009, where the concept of the organization was agreed upon.
The Initiative of Liberal Muslims protested Thursday’s signing ceremony in Vienna, saying that the center was an attempt by Saudi Arabia to spread a conservative form of Islam.
The idea is not new. In 2003, the Christian Broadcasting Network reported on a UN-sponsored summit of the world’s religions.
“A one world government and a one world religion — it may just sound like fiction from the popular Left Behind novel series,” reported Wendy Griffith for CBN News. “But some Christians say this scenario may be closer than most people think. Earlier this fall in Geneva, hundreds of spiritual and religious leaders met for a peace summit. And although all the major faiths were there, including some who claim to represent Christianity, it was clear that Jesus was not invited.”
To say that many Christians do not welcome the notion of a one-world religion would be an incredible understatement. Just in recent weeks, longtime TV prophecy preacher Jack Van Impe ended decades of broadcasting on the Trinity Broadcasting Network — charging that popular author and pastor Rick Warren has been too cozy with Muslims. Van Impe charged that the intent is a merger of Islam and Christianity — Chrislam. Warren scoffs at the notion, saying that he supports a Christian-Muslim dialogue — and that Christians are required to love all Muslims and win them to Jesus.
In 1997 another conference raised alarms.
“Nearly 200 delegates wrapped up a week-long interfaith meeting at Stanford on Friday, predicting they had given birth to a movement as well as a spiritual institution: the United Religions,” reported the California newspaper San Jose Mercury’s religion and ethics writer Richard Scheinin. “The ‘spiritual United Nations,’ as some have referred to it, would be a world assembly for humanity’s myriad spiritual traditions. The international ‘summit conference’ brought together delegates from every continent to inaugurate formal efforts to figure out the organization’s structure and mission and launch a charter-writing process. After several years of talking, the initiative’s planners had finally gotten down to business.
“‘You are deputized!’ the Rev. William E. Swing, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, told delegates as they prepared to go home. ‘Tell the people that there is a United Religions, and that somewhere in the world, it is beginning to happen: that the religions are going to have an oasis where they can talk about peace.’”
