Perry Noble Announces His New Church in South Carolina - The Church of Universal Life at Timmonsville

Timmonsville, SC (WD) - Sources close to Perry Noble say he is only days away from announcing the location of his new church - the Church of Universal Life at Timmonsville (CULT) - a little more than one year after being dismissed as senior pastor at the church he founded, Newspring Church based in Anderson.

Noble's new start-up church will be located in Timmonsville, SC, in the eastern half of South Carolina just outside of Florence, about 200 miles away from Newspring Church.

Sources say that Noble plans to build the church rapidly into an international church, with satellite CULT's planned from Toronto, followed by Tallahassee, Florida.

An Hispanic satellite in Bradenton, Florida is planned, and will be called Church de Life Universal at Bradenton (CLUB).

Perry says his CULT locations will be built on the emphasis of the "universal love of God for all people", along with the love expressed for God through the tithing of his followers.

"My greatest regret in having left Newspring was not being able to continue to teach and warn Christians of the danger of not tithing," said Noble. "Our CULT will be built through the faithful tithing of our CULT members, and the Lord will certainly prosper."

Ark Encounter Announces "Eeyore the Talking Donkey" Exhibit

Williamstown, KY (WD) - The Ark Encounter evangelical Christian theme park has announced this week their plans for a new "Eeyore the Talking Donkey" exhibit - based after the historical Old Testament story of Balaam's talking donkey documented in Numbers 22:21-29.

"Eyore is one of the most beloved talking donkey characters in children folklore," said Alan Barnes of Ark Encounter, "So our exhibit design team determined that the truthfulness of Balaam's talking donkey in the Old Testament can best be shown to our younger visitors by tying it to the character of Eyore in A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh children's classic."

Barnes says the initial exhibit design will depict Balaam as Christopher Robin, who will be shown beating Eeyore. The angels that appeared in the road that caused Eeyore to stop and crush Christopher Robin's foot (as described in Numbers 22:25) will be shown as Piglet and little Roo, hanging by their tails from a tree branch.

"When smaller children see the Eeyore exhibit, they will be able to connect the idea of a talking donkey they have learned about in bedtime stories, to the historical, factual account of the Lord causing a donkey to talk to a man named Balaam thousands of years ago." said Barnes. "Additionally, the nail holding Eeyore's tail in place is a reminder to the boys and girls of the nails that held Jesus to the cross, and paid for the children's sins."

According to Barnes, other ideas for the exhibit include the Donkey character from the Shrek series, and Baba Looey, the fictional Mexican burro in the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon series from the 1970's.

Watchdog's Characteristics of a Religious "Fundamentalist"

On Facebook recently some of my friends were discussing the definition of "fundamentalism" and "legalism". I use the term "fundamentalist" quite frequently, mostly in terms of defining what I am no longer, but used to be some 10 years ago and earlier.

Rather than giving a definition of religious fundamentalism, I think I can better define it by listing what the characteristics are of a fundamentalist. Most of these characteristics I think are "all or none", but I suppose a religious fundamentalist may display a subset of these.

Keep in mind, most of these characteristics I could add a phrase at the end or beginning:  "Without any objective evidence whatsoever....", so I will refrain from repeating that.

So here I go:

1. A fundamentalist believes (claims) that the single most important aspect of their life IS their religion and the practice of their religion.

2. A fundamentalist believes (claims) that their relationship with an unknown and unseeable God is the single most important "relationship" - trumping relationships with their spouse, children, parents, etc. Thankfully, almost every fundamentalists only makes this claim, and their day-to-day activities and decisions prove that they truly do not believe this. But it is a duty of every good fundamentalist to at least state this claim in some form or fashion.

3. A fundamentalist believes - no, they KNOW -  their religion is the ONE religion that gives a pathway to heaven and hell, and those who are outside of their religious sect are headed to an eternity of damnation. And this they hold to with great fervor, without any doubt whatsoever, despite a lack of any objective evidence whatsoever.

4. A fundamentalist will believe their holy text, as written in English, is completely true, without any error whatsoever, and completely whole containing answers to all of life's issues  - AND, they believe that anyone who doesn't agree with this tenant is not a true member of their faith community, and is therefore lost and going on to eternal damnation. This was one of the key points of the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence - and many good men were destroyed over this tenant.

5. A corollary to #3: A fundamentalist will actually worry (i.e. spend time contemplating and losing some measure of their happiness) that their loved ones who don't believe the above are going to spend all of eternity burning in an unquenchable hell-fire, and never being consumed.

My fundamentalist friends will unashamedly say "Why, yes, numbers 1 through 5 ARE what I believe; you mean YOU don't???" And thus, there is no way I could be a "real" Christian and not agree with #1 through #5 above.

But, I am not an atheist. I am a Christian. And I maintain that my views on #1 through #5 are none of your business - maybe I do, maybe I don't believe some or all. But I am a Christian. Period. But sadly, to fundamentalists, that is not good enough. To not give assent to all five statements makes me not a true believer, and I'm headed to the lake of fire. Forever and ever, never to be consumed or extinguished. Crap.

The journey out of fundamentalism for me is one that would take many chapters to explain, so I won't do that here. I'll just say I thank God - yes, I thank God - that I am no longer a fundamentalist.

Oh, and what is legalism? I'm not sure, I would have to leave that up to the fundamentalists to determine.

Church Members: Watch Out for the Shakedown Artists Posing as "Men-of-God"

Hi Readers, here is another article from the archives. Church members, during this season of tithing sermons and capital campaigns, be on the lookout for shakedown artists in he pulpit. Maybe this article will help you spot the charlatans and their gimmicks.

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Leave it to Steve Gaines to once again preach a whopper of a tithing sermon in this season of tithing madness.

His sermon on November 3rd, 2013 really was a shake down. Merriam-Webseter defines "shake down" as:

"The act of taking something (such as money) from someone by using threats or deception."

Gaines uses both threats AND deception in this sermon to try to convince his members they must give more to the church, else bad things might happen to them for "robbing God".

Gaines uses Malachi 3 to tell Christians at his church that the thought of "robbing God" scares him - with the obvious implication that those who don't tithe should be scared not to give 10% to his church. Watch the video.

I sure wish more Christians would wake up and see how terrible this is for a supposed "Man of God" to try to deceive people who really do believe the Bible, who really do look at him as a man sent to help them understand the Bible. He infers something bad will happen if they don't tithe, that they can't be intimate with God, and they can't fully worship God - unless they begin giving 10%. These preachers want to tell us that God loves us, and God forgives and forgets our sins - but that he also will work with "the devourer" to hurt us if we don't give 10% to the preacher's church. Which is it? They want us to believe God is some sort of mafia boss that collects on what he is owed. They make the gospel into "bad news".

Gaines then goes into great detail to brag about how HE has tithed every bit of his income his entire life, since he was cutting yards in Dyersburg, Tennessee as a little boy. If only the people would be as holy as Steve, they too could be as blessed as he is. Show us the tax returns, Steve.

And so ironic really: that of ALL the people in the building that morning who might possibly be "robbing God", it would be Steve himself. I mean if the people are giving money to the church, because it is God's money to do God's will - who is the one in the building who is taking most of it for himself to spend as he wishes? It is Steve himself who is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to live a rather lavish lifestyle.

Lastly, Steve throws out this humdinger:

"If you can't trust God with 10% of your money, are you really going to tell me that you can you trust him with your soul?"

So you might not even be capable of being a Christian, of trusting God for salvation, unless you give 10%. That is spiritual abuse. It is a shake down.

People of Bellevue Baptist Church, I'm sorry that this preacher does this to you in your own church. I know that for several decades you had Adrian Rogers as your preacher, and now you have to put up with this nonsense.

But let me ask this question to you folks at Bellevue:

"If you can't trust Steve Gaines to be truthful regarding your finances, how can you trust him regarding matters of your soul?"