by Paul Sue

The hard-hitting (though certainly not shrill) preface by Viola sets the tone for the rest of the book: "Contemporary Christianity has fallen into the errors of both the Pharisees and the Saducees. ... We break the Scripture just as much by burying it under a mountain of human tradition as by ignoring its principles." Barna follows on this note in his Introduction with these questions: "Does it surprise you that most of what we do in religious circles has no precedent in Scripture? ... Does it really matter how we practice our faith, as long as the activities enable people to love God and obey Him?" Read more...

by Van Robison

Tithing as the church world teaches and demands from Christians, is among the greatest swindles in the Christian era. In fact, the subject of tithing is so misrepresented and so misunderstood, that once anyone really gets their eyes opened to the truth, you have to wonder how you were ever so deceived. Understanding the truth about tithing is elementary, and the primary reason that pastors don't know the truth about this outrageous false teaching is because their Bible study is superficial, and very likely they also love free money. I have no personal doubt that there are false teachers, whose motive in teaching tithing is simply $$$$. Money is a means of wealth, and when sheeple can be made to believe that this false doctrine impacts their relationship with Jesus Christ or their salvation, it is nothing short of pure heresy. Read more...

From our good friend Jon Zens at Searching Together:

by Van Robison

We all know that whistleblowers are people who expose light on government cover-ups, or on anything in life that they are knowledgeable about, because they feel it needs to be exposed. People who have a conscience and who want no part in concealing truth, have often come forward to expose lies, corruption and dastardly deeds. The obvious danger in exposing truth is that the powers of darkness often times will malign the whistleblower, or even assassinate the messenger. It is amazing the lengths that darkness will go, to spin a spider's web of deceit in order to have their way. In the end they always, always lose, because they exit this life with total loss of power, control and money. Unless there is eternal life for each individual, the only winners in life are those to whom Jesus Christ gives life--all others are self deceived in a world of their own self delusions. Read more...

Although she's a committed Christian, Barb Orlowski hasn't always felt comfortable inside a church.

Nearly two years ago, the mother of two young adults was shocked and hurt when a misunderstanding with the church leadership forced her out of the Charismatic congregation near Langley, B.C. she'd been attending for more than a dozen years.

Now the doctoral student is inviting other Christians with similar stories to contact her as part of her research into recovery from spiritual abuse.

"When you've gone through your own devastating church experience, you're looking for why? What went wrong?" explains Orlowski, a student at ACTS Seminaries located on the campus of Langley's Trinity Western University.

"It was a happy, healthy, apparently, church family. We didn't see what was happening underneath." Read more... | Take the survey

by Van Robison

Many folks in the house church movement sincerely believe that when Christians have meetings in private homes or in outdoor spaces, they are following the "correct" New Testament "pattern" of being the church. Even when people exit institutional churchianity, it seems very difficult to take churchianity out of the people. I would like to suggest that there is really only one true "Pattern" to life, and that is simply Jesus Christ and His teachings, and that is because Jesus Christ is the Living Waters of Life. Read more...

For much of my life I was taught that the English word “Church” which comes from the Greek word “ekklesia” means, “Called Out Ones”.
 
After this definition is given, the speaker will typically go on to tell his audience how the Church is “called out”, to be different. So, far there would seem to be little reason for a disagreement on this, since the Greek word does indeed have etymological roots of “called out” but it is not just word origin that determines what a word means, but context. The context of “ekklesia” comes from secular Greek, which defined the word as “called FORTH ones”, or “gathering” which would equate to our “town meeting” or perhaps even political bodies such as the Senate. Thus, the Church is more of a Body than we suppose. Read more...