elizabethprata

Thinking of attending an If:Gathering? Please read this, it’s eye-opening

Posted on September 21, 2021January 5, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Seven years ago I wrote a series on the IF Gathering. (2014). Four years ago I did an update. (2017)

The organization reports that in 2021, there were 6,648 IF:Local events in 66 countries. Because this para-church organization is still growing so much, it’s time for another reminder in discerning love and care for women everywhere, to avoid IF:Gathering.

The IF:Gathering and its women have only embedded themselves deeper into the faith and are tainting even more women with their brand of liberal theology, shaky hermeneutics, usurping lifestyles, and their idol of social justice. After 8 years of watching this organization (since its inception in 2013) we can see by now that it is essentially a female takeover of the church as a feminist, para-church/social justice/liberal organization, where women are drawn out from under their pastoral authority of the local church, fed false notions about Jesus and about our own identity, and reinserted as thorns and weeds to infect the local church with these modernly false ideas, only to turn around and recruit more women to do the same. It’s a multiplying movement that fulfills several scriptures about how false doctrine gets into the church.

PROBLEM #1: Their premise is based on doubt.

The title “IF:Gathering” comes from their motto, “If God is real, then what?” The purpose statement on their IRS forms is to equip women by having them share their feelings about Bible passages posted online, and the by-product is to instill or institutionalize doubt. Their IRS tax form statement of purpose states:

If:Lead: equipping women to share and learn through Christ-centered discussions

IF:Austin: a two-day gathering that brought thousands of women together in Austin and at local gatherings across the globe. The gathering is a fresh, deep, honest space for a new generation of women to wrestle with the essential question: if God is real… then what?

If:Equip: a holistic, strategic, deep way to connect online with a like-hearted community and relevant resources. We hope to prepare women around the world to know God more deeply and to live out their purposes by sharing comments and feelings about daily passages posted online.

PROBLEM #2: It’s based on feelings we have, not on biblical truths revealing who Jesus is

Did you notice the ‘like-hearted‘ community? The Christian faith is not about feelings, but about what we know about Jesus. It’s supposed to be like-minded. This is an organization that calls their homes ‘spaces’, their local communities ‘contexts’, and their goal is to ‘change the world’. Its mission is to wrestle with the notion IF God is real. Using this amorphous, non-specific language helps cultivate the doubt, which is the opposite of the certainty we are supposed to preserve and promote as believers. We’re believers, not doubters. It’s Good News, not Maybe News.

The ‘gathering’ part is actually brilliant. They aim to disciple women in gatherings at homes, dorms, and other locales, sometimes churches. It’s not public, nor it is under the authority of local churches or of men. Participants know where to gather through social media, which is employed in a major way. It’s why this is a stealth approach to infect the church. Galatians 2:4 and 2 Peter 2:1 said this would happen. Yet discipleship is supposed to take place within and around the local church.

PROBLEM #3: Secretiveness (I haven’t looked lately to see if they are still secretive, Jan, 2025). But for years, they were.)

There aren’t any posters, advertisements, billboards, pamphlets that one can see. They don’t normally make known who will be speaking at the annual large Gathering ahead of time. That’s allegedly so that people don’t come for the personalities but for the fellowship and learning. But would you want to spend time and money to go to a conference without being able to vet the speakers? Or your own pastor helping you vet the speakers?

Instead, there’s texts, social media whispers, person-to-person promotion, all of it done in a way that is more subterranean than any other generation’s Christian activity (apart from the actual persecuted church.)

IF:Gatherings are ongoing in living rooms and lawns by the thousands. There are A LOT OF GATHERINGS. Look. This map is four years old and their gatherings are only increasing in number:

The idea to disciple women is a good one. However, that is an activity that the church is responsible for. These gatherings take place outside of the auspices of the local church and its pastoral authority and is based on curricula that has shaky scripture interpretations at best.

PROBLEM #4: Founded on direct revelation

The gatherings were born from the mind of a young woman named Jennie Allen. At the first Gathering, she revealed that she had heard God whisper to her, and after a few years decided to step out from her church to enact this so-called God-whispered “vision to gather, equip, and unleash women to live out God’s calling on their lives.”

“together with a team of friends, formally established IF:Gathering. … Some of the first friends to believe in her vision put aside their own individual ministries to leverage their collective influence for the glory of God and the good of His Church.” (Source, source).

So they abandoned their local ministries to go online for the good of the global church? Exactly wrong. Here is Jennie Allen claiming direct revelation from God as the catalyst for IF.

Video is here, 2 min. Scroll halfway down.

PROBLEM #5: Draws women away from local churches, the place where we’re supposed to disciple

They abandoned their ongoing locally accountable ministries, to follow a young woman who’d heard a whisper, in order to establish Bible studies about a God they doubted existed, in order to equip women to discuss feelings about the Bible, enact social justice, reconcile the world, heal the nations, and disciple a generation. Hmmm. I’m not being satirical. All that verbiage is from their own statements.

PROBLEM #6: Feminist oriented

The constant refrain in the IF material is that these women will “change the world” (source, 2022 promotion). This is why I call it a stealth feminist takeover. I’m not being hyperbolic, it’s actual, from their own vision statement

women out from local authority, changing the world based on misinterpreted Bible verses and their feelings. Not promoting Jesus of the Bible to call people to repentance and salvation.

I wonder how it works to be submitted to a local church, yet to draw away women from other churches to come to your house to discus your feelings about direct revelation, extra biblical Jesus while then returning to church to ‘take initiative.’

IF’s founders are paying lip service to the concept of local church, while the entire movement’s thrust is about taking initiative to change the world, start global movements, heal the world, etc. (**SOURCE**) Not to return to one’s church, submit to local leadership, and operate in our spheres, nor to find contentment in our roles as wives and moms. There is nothing local about IF:Gathering.

Problem #7: If:Gathering and subsidiary output platforms false teachers such as Ann Voskamp, Christine Caine, some of which preach. This provides a poor example to younger women, who absorb the idea that women can preach despite what the Bible says about it.

Conclusion- Concerns with IF:Gathering are:

Founded on Direct Revelation: Founder Jennie Allen said she heard a whisper from God telling her to start a discipleship group. (source, also see above). Direct revelation is hazardous to one’s soul. If you test a direct, audible command from God against the Bible and it’s there, you do not need the audible command. If it is not there, it’s a lie and you don’t need it anyway. That’s a paraphrase from John Owen.

Doubting God: The premise itself is based on study of a God that those who gather doubt exist. IF God is real? Doubt is not noble. The Bible says doubt is a destroyer of life. (James 1:5-8).

Lack of male oversight and involvement and severe emphasis on women-led initiatives: Jennie’s husband Zac says he provides theological oversight, but he is listed as working only 10 hours per week at the 501(c) 3 non-profit, and the only other male on the Governing Board is David Willis for 2 hours per week. The 40-hour/weeks are put in by Jennie and Lisa Huntsberry. It’s Jennie’s baby, she is listed as Principal Officer on the tax forms. It’s led by Lisa Huntsberry who’s listed as CEO. The fact is, it operates as a woman-led, para-church organization with little male accountability or pastoral oversight.

The IF:Gathering’s premise is flawed and so are its goals. Again, from their IRS form, it states that their goals are to foment a ‘global movement’ that ‘promotes healing around the world’. Is that what the Bible says women are to do? Unleash movements? These women are mothers. With children at home. The Bible tells us what we are to do: raise the kids, support the husband. Did even Jesus come to promote healing around the world? And just what IS “healing”, anyway?

Goals are postmodern and extra-biblical: As Tim Challies said, the words reconciliation and healing have a different meaning to the postmodernist liberal than they do to the Christian fundamentalist:

“…perverts the Biblical meaning of “reconciliation.” The Bible does not use this word arbitrarily, but speaks of the reconciliation of man to God and how this can be accomplished. It speaks of redemption! Salvation! Our ministry of reconciliation is not relational healing of myself to my neighbor (right and good as that may be), but the far more important relational healing of a sinful man to a holy God.

The ‘reconciliation’ the IF-ladies intend is the latter, promoting relational healing. Hence their emphasis on feelings and their activity of social justice.

Very good critique from Lighthouse Trails on IF:Gathering. Please read. Emergent IF: Gathering Conference Coming to a Town Near You (Coming For Your Daughters and Granddaughters)!

Liberal-to-false teachers as partners and speakers. For example- Ann Voskamp. Does she even know how to use the English language anymore? Below is her tweet. I thought teachers were supposed to be ‘able to teach’. (2 Timothy 2:24). Being able to teach presumes a facility with the language so as to communicate truths in a way that will edify the hearer. Voskamp’s gone beyond #babble all the way to to #Babel.

Ann Voskamp (**concern**, **concern**, **concern**)

The list of IF speakers for the recent gathering that concluded in March 2021 is posted but their talks are behind a paywall. Nevertheless, this list is only a quarter of the amount of listed speakers, and demonstrates immediately that the speakers are part of the problem with IF:Gathering leaders’ discernment. Francis Chan, Christine Caine are false teachers, Lauren Chandler and Lysa TerKeurst are heavily suspect, as well as severe concerns with Jackie Hill Perry and Jefferson Bethke (of the ‘Why I hate religion‘ author)

Lysa Terkeurst (concern, concern, concern, concern)

Jennie Allen (concern, concern, concern, concern)

Jo Saxton (Female Pastor. A director of yet another ‘movement’ whose goal is “to CHANGE the world by putting DISCIPLESHIP and MISSION back into the hands of everyday people.” Emphasis theirs.

Rebekah Lyons (concern)

I hope any of this information helps you. IF gatherings are occurring every day in living rooms, dorms, (they are coming for your daughters-)

No town is too small, too rural, too citified or too sophisticated to host an IF:Table. The brand of Christianity the women promote is far from the Bible’s call to obedience for women, due to their emphasis on social causes, feminist living and usurping thrust of the IF:Movement, doubting God, and discussing their feelings. I pray you protect your daughters and granddaughters from any and all IF activities.

IF:Gathering says, IF God is real, then what?
Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…” (Luke 4:3, Luke 4:9)

FURTHER RESOURCES

Sincere Doubt vs. Dishonest Skepticism

She Reads Truth, IF:Gathering, and women Bible teachers. Part 1 (What They Say)

She Reads Truth, IF:Gathering, and women Bible teachers. Part 2 (What They Do)

She Reads Truth, IF:Gathering, and women Bible teachers. Part 3, the IF:Gathering

She Reads Truth, IF:Gathering, and women Bible teachers. Part 4 (Women Teachers)

theology

Religion News: Blurbs and roundups of what’s happening

Posted on September 20, 2021May 20, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST LINK HERE

A short roundup of some religion news for you.

Some good news, the Truth Matters Conference, usually held at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church, moved its venue to the middle of the United StatesS so more people could attend. It will now be held at “The Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky, for three days of unforgettable Bible teaching, glorious music, and rich fellowship with the extended Grace to You family.” This conference also sold out within minutes of opening ticket sales, which is great news. People still clamor for truth and fellowship with the saints. If you missed getting a ticket, the event will be open for free May 18–20, 2022 on livestream at the link above.

Beth Moore/Living Proof Ministries is now partnering with The Voice of the Martyrs-America. Video announcement here. H/T Amy Spreeman

Pastor Gabe Hughes, known to us as Pastor Gabe on Twitter, the voice of WWUTT.com and Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church of Lindale TX, has been banned from tweeting from his Twitter Account for one week for posting this:

David Platt, formerly President of the International Mission Board and pastor at McLean Bible Church, has been scheduled as one of the speakers at IF:Gathering, a feminist, social justice, parachurch organization, and will be speaking alongside such false teachers as Francis Chan, Christine Caine, Ann Voskamp, Lysa TerKeurst, and so on.

G3 stands for gospel, grace, and glory.

The G3 Conference is going to take place September 30-October 2. It has drawn 6400 participants, from all 50 states and several countries. G3 Ministries’ new Editor-In-Chief, Scott Aniol said,

It's remarkable that the good folks of one regular local church have built a huge conference, and now an expanded ministry, not by compromising truth, not by inviting speakers from a diluted pool of widely divergent views, but by an unapologetic emphasis upon the sufficiency of Scripture, expository preaching, confessional orthodoxy, and the primacy of the local church. Gives me hope. Evangelical leaders take note. Honored to be joining with them. @G3Conference #G32021

Officials in other English speaking countries such as Australia and Canada are moving faster and faster toward tyranny. In British Columbia, Canada, proof of vaccination is now required to enter many settings. The good news is that – so far – you don’t need to show your ~~papers~~ vaccination card for worship services. In Australia, Victorian church leaders anxious about COVID vaccine mandate, fearing the creation of modern-day ‘lepers’. The leper allusion is something I wrote about in July.

Paul Washer of HeartCry Missionary Society issued an urgent prayer request in early September for one certain mission family in Afghanistan, and asks for general prayer for that situation. HeartCry is a credible organization and though news from that region of the world may be misty due to fog of war, my opinion is that HeartCry will offer the most solid information we can get in this sad and fluid situation. HeartCry link here

In June, it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is out after 12 years of leading Israel. Since then, he has been struggling to form a coalition government with his opposition.

The Kendrick Brothers have a new film out, Show Me The Father. This is the duo who produced Courageous, Fireproof, and Facing the Giants. This film is not a narrative like previous filsms, it’s a documentary. As World Magazine describes, “The film highlights the importance of fathers by telling the stories of several men whose father figures affected them for good—and evil.” This might be a good thing, as increasingly the Kendrick Brothers’ films have demonstrated a more prosperity gospelish bent than one would like. I wrote about them here. I’m hopeful the documentary approach will yield edifying content. The Brothers can put together a movie quite well, so perhaps this one will be the one for which discerning Christians will give a thumbs up.

theology

Anchor: A Sailing Story

Posted on September 18, 2021September 18, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST LINK HERE

The deep blue sea. Davy Jones locker. The gloomy deep. The primordial sea. Vast and unplumbed. The dusky mystic ocean. All these and other phrases describing the sea are evocative and remind us that as we peer into the boundless murk, we cannot fathom its depths.

As a child of the ocean living in the Ocean State, I grew up on the sea. We loved the ocean, the bay, the inlets, creeks, and marshes. We scanned for pirates. We rode the waves like foamy horses. We took on spray and laughed. But we never could see to the bottom.

What was down there? What did it look like? Snorkeling the shallows was fun, but what was out there, deeper? There be dragons?

When you’re a boater you get used to setting an anchor. This is the item that attaches the boat to the ground underneath the waters, with a rope (called a rode) and the iron or metal anchor at the end of the rode. It takes a bit of skill to maneuver the boat in such a way that the anchor catches, and then remains dug in. If it doesn’t your boat will drift. It can drift far out to sea, or onto the rocks on shore. You do not want any nasty surprises as you relax with your lunch or sleep on your boat overnight. The anchor is important.

Reeling in the anchor at dawn, ready to cruise another day. This was an anchorage in Georgia and we and two other boats made a little flotilla

I lived on a sailboat for two years. We rarely docked at a marina, but usually found a secure bay or cove and set our anchor there. Sometimes we were alone, sometimes other sailboats would glide into the anchorage and set their anchor a distance away from us. You had to let out enough rode so that your boat could swing with any changes in the wind direction and not hit the other anchored boats, or could rise with the tide.

We had charts to let us know what kind of bottom it was. Is the area rocky? Full of sea grass? Sandy? Silty? Hard packed? We had to trust the information given on the charts. All these made a difference as to how we set the anchor or how secure we would allow ourselves to feel. Grassy areas were the hardest to use the anchor in. Grass is slippery and thick, it’s hard to get the anchor down to the actual ground underneath. It might feel securely driven in, but then a slight change in tide or wind and the anchor pops out and off you go. In 12,000 nautical miles of anchoring in all sorts of weather and ground conditions, the only time we drifted was in a grassy area. We really wished we could have viewed the bottom with our own eyes at that place!

The charts might let the mariner know about the anchorage this way: “North Cove is a special anchorage area designated by the Coast Guard with good holding in mud.”

Will the anchor hold? It was the ever-present question. We really wished we could see the anchor. But…we just had to rely on what we’d read on the charts and trust that the unseen anchor would hold.

When we got to The Bahamas, we were startled by the clear water! You could see all the way down! Fascinated, we watched starfish scud along the sand, fish darted here and there, lobster tentacles drifting out from the rocks. Coral! How pretty! Oh no, suddenly we noticed we had a kind of vertigo. Seeing the coral heads on the bottom, even though they were 20 feet or more down, looked like they were just at the surface. It was disconcerting. It seemed as if when we glided over them they’d rip our keel from stem to stern. Coral can do that. Coral heads are hard enough to rip the bottom off your boat like the top off a can of sardines.

One thing we enjoyed was seeing the anchor set. At last, we saw what we had not been able to see all the way from the North Atlantic down to the Gulf Waters! We could see the anchor when we snorkeled. We could see it when we viewed it from the bowsprit. We could even see it at night 20 feet down!

It was a special sense of relief when we set the anchor and sat down from our vigilance from watching for hazards and watches to ensure we were on the right course.

for we walk by faith, not by sight— (2 Corinthians 5:7)

My time on the seas was so unique that I used to wonder quite frequently why I did it or what the purpose of it all was. I wasn’t saved, but I knew there had to be a purpose for things. Contemplating that there wasn’t any design to our lives or purpose in them was too monstrous of a thought.

Now from a 30-years-ago vantage point I know the purpose. There is a God. He has a purpose for each individual on earth that He creates, ultimately some for eternal wrath and some for eternal blessing. He “has many people in this city”, (Acts 18:10, i.e. people He plans to save but aren’t in the faith yet). He reserved me through many decades of sinful living until the time He brought me into his sheepfold. My memories of sailing all had a dual purpose. I understand the marine references in the Bible to a degree that perhaps landlubbers do not, just as farmers understand the agricultural metaphors more deeply than I do.

I live by trust, no longer trusting nautical charts to tell me what is down there that I cannot see, but the Bible to tell me what there is that I cannot see. Jesus is my anchor, not a piece of metal and a rope. O, what a day when my faith becomes sight. I will see my Anchor! My security holds fast to Him while navigating these turbulent waters on earth, but when I actually see Him, what a sense of relief! I can stand down from my night watches, my vigilance, my ever-present scouring the horizon for dangers, my internal checks in my spirit against sin. Friends, someday, perhaps soon, our faith will become sight!

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But the one who loves God is known by God. (1 Corinthians 8:3).

Hold fast to the anchor of Jesus Christ, immovable, unshakeable, impervious to man’s ditherings and nonsense. He is the Rock, standing firm for the Father, who is King of all.

theology

Prata Potpourri: Ridiculous books, head coverings, Psallos, Reality Check on unrestrained wrath, Singleness, more

Posted on September 17, 2021September 18, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

It’s turned a bit cool here in the Deep South and I am loving it. In mid-September, if the weather cooperates in its usual pattern, the heat and humidity breaks. It tends to still be hot during the high point of the day, but the temps in the morning are in the low 60s and that is sooo refreshing.

Fall means the county fair is coming. EPrata photo

September reminds me of autumn and the County Fair. The kids at school might not remember where their bookbag is…where their homework is…where their chrome book is…but they all remember exactly when the fair is. It’s a traditional county fair, with some small rides, food trucks with the southern delicacy funnel cakes and other goodies, and the agricultural part with show pigs, cows, and the like.

I love the season’s turning. Granted, the seasons are more starkly divided up in my former region of Yankee New England, but north Georgia where I live now still has seasons. I love that. Fall is in the air!

Also in the air, is discernment. Tim Challies discusses the 5 most ridiculous books to ever become best-sellers on the Christian best selling book lists. I’d add The Shack to his list. Ladies, when you buy a Christian book (I almost wrote ‘go to a Christian bookstore’, but brick and mortar stores are as rare as hens’ teeth!) beware that most of them are written by false teachers and/or contain twisted Bible verses. Some trusted online booksellers I use are:

Grace to You store
Ligonier (watch for the $5 Friday sales!)
Reformation Heritage Books
Westminster Books
Free Grace Press

I have to say also, that I use Christianbook.com. This seller isn’t trusted because they present a plethora of false teachers, MANY false teachers, but their sales are great. If you sift and look, you can find some great deals. I just ordered a bunch of books in their 60% off fall sale. I snagged a John MacArthur “The Gospel according to Paul”, a book of Piper’s poems, a DeYoung, Nate Busenitz’s book about Luther, a Martyn Lloyd Jones bio, a John Bunyan book about how Christ Intercedes, and more. I compared with Amazon’s prices and since I’m an Amazon Prime member (thus, free shipping) and the average price for all, even including shipping, was so far below what Amazon could do, I decided to jump on the sale. Christianbook.com also has some merchandise if you’re looking for Christian gifts for Christmas.

Here’s Challies’ list of the 5 most ridiculous books to become best sellers-

Consider staying single. I’m serious. The author of this essay is too.

I learned last week of Psallos, a musical group whose music is based on and in scripture. About:

Psallos is a collective of musicians based in Jackson, Tennessee. Started by Cody and Melody Curtis in 2012, Psallos (pronounced like “psalms,” with a silent p) exists to create artistically excellent and theologically rich music (also like Psalms): melodies and lyrics that remind you of the truths of Scripture; harmonies, rhythms, and timbres that express the emotional weight of these truths.

Their mission found its shape most clearly in their albums based on New Testament epistles, the first of which was Romans in 2015. Since then, Psallos has released two other major records (Hebrews in 2017 and Jude in 2019), with Church Songs, Vol. 1, a short EP of new congregational worship songs, appearing in 2016.

I appreciated G3Ministry’s balanced presentation of the issue of whether women should be wearing head coverings.

Why Don’t You Wear a Head Covering?

Steve Kerper offers some sobering thoughts about the coming wrath of the Tribulation, and does something unique, compares to Job’s trials.

I thought this man’s tweet about the issues we’re feeling these days and his phrasing was perfectly apt –

Nate Schlomann, @NateSchlomann
I don't know what to say right now, but I think it's important for pastors to feel the burden of people in their churches who feel backed into a corner and violated by mandates. This is a big deal. This is a vile injustice, and pastors who are glib about it betray their people.

I agree. Mandates from our government or other authorities are important for many reasons. However, when government runs amuck with mandate after mandate, it does feel like a violation, a rape of our liberty. We as Christians need to adjust and remember that liberty is in Christ and in heaven, it’s not guaranteed here on earth. However, I plead with pastors to be sensitive to the temperature in the room, so to speak, and be kind to their sheep, and for the sheep in turn to have patience with each other and be kind to your pastor and leaders.

Have a good weekend everyone, and keep praying, reading, and serving.

theology

The Great Resignation, or, The Great Laziness

Posted on September 16, 2021September 16, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST LINK HERE

Business Insider (BI) came out with an article that reported that millennials are quitting their jobs in huge numbers. Many of them do not have another job lined up. And, according to people who track these things, they haven’t gotten another job yet months after quitting. BI called it “The Great Resignation.“

BI reported that the retirement age of 62 has become more and more popular, as fewer and fewer people expect to work beyond that age. The minimum age one can draw Social Security is 62. I know, because I called the Social Security Administration on Friday and asked about my own account. I’ll be 61 in a couple of months. If I even want to think about retiring I’ll have to wait a year. But I won’t be able to do it even at age 62, not enough in the kitty, but I do think about it. I think about it and I have a job I love, never mind a stressful job or a physical job or a job with terrible bosses etc. I’m sure lots of other people are thinking about it as well. Charles Johnson on Twitter summed up reasons he personally is hearing why people are thinking along these lines:

Continue reading →

theology

Do we think like this?

Posted on September 15, 2021September 15, 2021 by elizabethprata

by Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST LINK HERE

I’m reading about missionary William Borden. The book is by Mrs. Howard Taylor called Borden of Yale ’09. William Borden was an extraordinary man, dedicating his life to Christ from an early age. I’m to the part now in the book where young Borden is entering his second year of college at Yale, and he has a decision to make.

At that time, (1906-07), sophomores needed to decide whether they would enter a fraternity or not by the beginning of their sophomore year. If they did not decide to go into a feeder frats in sophomore and junior year, then the senior frats automatically wouldn’t accept you. It was sophomore year or nothing.

Adding pressure to Borden’s decision whether or not to join, was the fact that his own uncle founded Wolf’s Head, considered one of the reputed “Big Three” societies at Yale, along with Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. His own brother was a member of Wolf’s Head, too.

What’s the big deal? you may ask. It’s a standard activity for young men to join a fraternity. Why Borden’s hesitation?

Borden’s conscience bothered him. He had some thorny issues to work out. His best friend Charles Campbell recounted the questions Borden wrestled with as the deadline for joining a frat approached. Questions such as:

‘Could a Christian go into a secret society?’
‘Would such action harm or help our work for Christ?’
‘As a Christian, can we go into a society of which we know nothing of its activities and therefore understand nothing about it?’
‘Would this society be forming a clique that would exclude fellowship with others who may need the Gospel?’
‘Would this society come between him and God?’
‘Can I swear allegiance to a secret, man-made organization?’

Campbell was amazed at Borden's thought process. He wrote, "We had taken the the society system very much for granted, we had never questioned whether it was right or wrong for one of us to join a fraternity. But Bill took nothing for granted. He was a servant of Jesus Christ and everything must be tested and bear the stamp of Christ's approval before he would enter upon it."

Borden’s thought process affected his friends, as Campbell revealed he himself was astonished at such a humble approach to biblical decision-making. Laying everything down at Christ’s feet with careful thought beforehand, taking nothing for granted as a servant of Christ, was a transformative thought for Campbell and those in Borden’s sphere.

The notion of Christians swearing allegiance is not new but something that isn’t spoken of much these days. As I read the chapter about Borden’s decision whether or not to join a frat at Yale, I was remembering a similar scene that John MacArthur recounted from his own youth. MacArthur was about the same age as Borden at the time this incident happened. He related his experience as a member of a local labor union. Labor unions are also societies of people who are united with one purpose, committed to one another, and swear allegiance to the union. MacArthur said,

By the way, that’s not unlike some unions today. I remember when I was in a union for a brief time when I was working in school as a kid. I went down to the union hall because they said I had to be sworn in to the union. And so a man got up in front of about 600 people who were all there for this union meeting and he said, “I want all of the new people to stand up,” and I stood up and he said, “Now I want you to raise your right hand and swear.” Well, I don’t swear to anybody but the Lord. So I didn’t raise my hand and I didn’t say anything, I just stood there. And they said, “Do you swear to have allegiance to local 770, it was, the retail clerk’s union? Do you” – and it went on and on throughout all of this stuff and I didn’t put my hand up because in my simple understanding of my Christianity, I don’t swear by anything. My word is good. My yea is yea and my nay is nay. And I just felt that my conscience wouldn’t let me put my hand up, and I didn’t want to swear allegiance to anybody but Jesus Christ, and I had no idea what I was getting into and what I’d have to be held to if I did swear.

So while I was standing there without my hand in the air, a man grabbed me by the neck and threw me out of the building and asked me why I didn’t put my hand up. And I explained to him that I was a Christian and my allegiance was to Jesus Christ and that I would be a faithful and dutiful employee and do everything that I was told, but I wouldn’t swear my allegiance to anyone other than Christ.

So, they picked me up bodily; the guy threw me on the street on Hollywood Boulevard. And then, of course, they came back next week to get my dues and get me back in again. And at that point I submitted, [without swearing] I was willing to be a part; I just didn't feel I could pledge my allegiance to any other than Jesus Christ. (Source 1; Source 2).

The takeaways this morning are two-fold. First, do we think like Borden, laying everything down at the altar of Jesus in consideration of how our decisions may hinder or help the cause of Christ, even something as seemingly insignificant or normal as joining a fraternity or a union? And secondly, how careful are we in swearing oaths and vows?

The scripture mentioned in MacArthur’s story is from Matthew 5:37, But make sure your statement is, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil origin.

MacArthur’s codicil about joining and swearing and making oaths: Now, that was my own conscience at that point; I’m not trying to set down a law for you. But I think that’s the rule by which you have to function in the economic political world in which we live. You’ve got to be responsible as a Christian. God doesn’t give you these kind of pat answers, “Don’t strike,” “Do this,” and so forth. You’ve got to work your own situation under the energy and the power and direction of the Holy Spirit

Do we test everything and lay it down at Christ’s feet for approval? 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says,

but test everything; hold fast what is good.

PS: Borden eventually decided not to join, as he feared it might set him apart from his fellows at school.

photo by Aaron Burden from Unsplash. I added the text

theology

FOMO in the Forum

Posted on September 14, 2021September 14, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

FOMO is an acronym for Fear Of Missing Out. It’s spurred by social media, and constant checking of our phones and other technology to see if anything new happened in the past few seconds since the last time we checked. It’s based on an internal insecurity that someone, somewhere, is having more fun, doing something better, knowing newer news, having hotter gossip, learning something more important, eating something more delicious, than we are. It plays on our envy and our sense of self-importance. We want to be the holders of the freshest, newest thing.

PODCAST LINK HERE

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theology

“The walls are coming down” says Dallas Jenkins of The Chosen. But should they?

Posted on September 13, 2021September 13, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST LINK HERE

The television program The Chosen has swept the religious channels and entered the hearts of many. It did so for a lot of reasons. It’s well written. It’s emotional. It’s extremely well made. It [seemingly] presents Jesus in a biblical light and fills in blanks plausibly without being heretical. I enjoyed the first season and said so, offering a few caveats.

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poetry, Uncategorized

Kay Cude poetry: Keep Christ central in the midst of trials

Posted on September 12, 2021 by elizabethprata

Kay Cude poetry. Used with permission. Right click to open larger in new tab

Artist’s statement:

The beginnings of a trial can be tumultuous and heart-wrenching, as well as physically and emotionally exhausting. But as we seek Scriptural guidance and encouragement from fellow believers, we quickly see that all of our communication and advice must center upon Christ and our personal relationship with Him. It is when one relies upon “other” solutions (or self), that one quickly experiences the futility of our “natural” reasoning and responses. When our trials exclude Christ as the resource of resolution, fleshly reactions will lead us into deeper distress with greater turmoil; an impasse can arise and anger, hurt feelings, confusion and chaos usually pursue.

I don’t like painful trials; I don’t know anyone who does. Yet I am so very grateful that Christ captures my attention during those times and makes it abundantly clear that He is the only source who can truly sustain, teach, discipline and encourage me while He refines and strengthens me, in and for Him. It is Christ who must always be the primary topic during our trials, because without the working of His indwelling spirit, our words and actions become futile.

theology

9/11 is about sin

Posted on September 11, 2021September 11, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

PODCAST AUDIO HERE

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the terror attack on America perpetrated by Muslims seeking to honor their false god Allah. They commandeered planes and used the planes themselves as bombs to plow into skyscrapers and important American buildings, killing the hijacking pilots and all passengers and crew on board, as well as people in the buildings and on the ground.

I remember the event like it was yesterday, an opening phrase no doubt many authors and bloggers are writing today in remembrance. I was working in my newspaper office when my graphic designer called me to another part of the building where the television was. She slowly raised her hand and pointed to it wide eyed and silent. We mutely viewed the gaping hole in the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, hearts beating and minds rushing, as we listened to the reporters try to make sense of it. How could a small plane not see the building? It was a clear day, sparkling and bright. As we watched, 18 minutes later a second plane hit the South Tower. Our heads swung from looking straight ahead at the horror unfolding to each other. Eyes locked, we instinctively knew this was not an accident. It was an attack. The word had not been used yet, but it was obvious. We were under attack.

September 11 Attacks: Bullet Points and Timeline

What does one do when the nation is attacked? How do we respond as citizens? As women? As a mother? As a journalist?

Terrorists had declared war on America and had changed the battlefield and its munitions in a way that took our minds long minutes to catch up. Using a jet airliner AS a bomb? Not combatants, but helpless innocents on board are of no consequence? Impassively looking at the people in the Tower as you purposely drive a jet into them? Their lives gone, their families grieving forever?

We responded initially by being practical. We first crossed the street to buy the biggest flag we could get at the local hardware store and ran it on the pole in front of the office. Then we went to the bank to get money. We didn’t know if we would need to be evacuated. We didn’t know if banks would be shut down, or if there would be a run on the bank. We didn’t know if the economy would collapse.

The bank had the TV on and the second plane had hit the Pentagon and the fourth plan had just hit the ground in Shanksville, PA (a jet which was allegedly intended for the Capitol Building). We glanced at the smoking hole in the ground, drew in a shaky breath, and got on with withdrawing cash. The tellers said nothing, It was eerily silent. This event was too big to allow any speech to come out our mouth, our hearts plugged them and our minds were too frozen in confusion to form words.

Then we got gasoline. Again, evacuation tremors were floating through our mind. We might need to escape to somewhere. We kept glancing up at the sky.

We returned tot he newspaper office and we got to work. We were journalists, and we took free speech very seriously. Free Speech isn’t an abstract blanket overlaid on the nation, it’s a living tapestry knit from individual, red-blooded American journalists who each do their part to ensure a free-flowing pipeline of ideas to crisscross a thriving electorate.

The day after. Photo taken by a friend from the American Legion who was present in NYC that day.

We got the newspaper out that day and we went on with our lives. Vigils were held, candles were lit, discussions were had. All planes were stopped that day, as well as trains and other modes of transport. America closed in as one patriotic heartbeat and cleared the messes at the Pentagon, Shanksville, and especially NYC. Many groups and first responders streamed toward those places in the moments, days, weeks, and months afterward to clean up and rebuild. It was a while before things got back to normal. But that’s what we do. We’re America.

I wasn’t saved then. I noted that in the few Sundays after the event many churches were filled with seekers asking the big questions. I had big questions, too. Where did people go when they died? Why would someone do this? We in our town felt especially aggrieved because we lost a town son in the Pentagon. We were also aggrieved because hijackers Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari terrorists had used “our” nearby airport at Portland to get to Boston, where they boarded the fateful plane.

Many headlines then and even today state something like “America changed that day”. We look back on how different we were then and how old we feel now. Old, weary, changed. I am changed massively. I am now saved by grace of Jesus Christ. I have eternal life and a bright future ahead. I have the big questions answered- why are we here? (to glorify God and enjoy Him forever). Where do we go when we die? (heaven if in Christ, hell if not).

John MacArthur on Why did 9/11 happen? (3-min clip)

There are two kinds of deaths: death for the glory of God and death for the maniacal glee of satan. Reader, consider our sin nature and consider the powerful influence of satan. We are all born sinners and sin from the start. (Psalm 51:5). We cannot please God and indeed, we don’t want to. We want to satisfy our lusts and our flesh and indulge our sin. The flesh only has corrupt passions, not holy ones. That’s fine by us- until God intervenes and replaces our corrupt heart with the Holy Spirit and changes our affections.

Satan comes along and whispers to the sinner. Do this. Do that. Adultery is just following your heart. Your heart made a mistake, adultery is just a little correction. Go ahead, steal that. You deserve it. Hate your neighbor? He isn’t worth your love.

How monstrous though, that satan and our flesh can convince ourselves that there is a distant mercurial god named Allah. How grotesque that in wanting to serve this god you rationalize destroying hundreds of millions of dollars of materiel, kill thousands of people, and destroy yourself in the process. We’re not talking about stealing a box of paper clips from work or glancing at a women lustfully. We are talking a mass holocaust of a national emergency and thousands of lives gone in the blink of an eye. Four people caused this. Only 4. Satan was satisfied that day.

Satan is powerful enough to convince a sinner of all these things. Flesh is all too willing to believe that such murder is a service to God.

Jesus said that the zealous Jews would kill them and while doing it think they were offering a service unto God.

They will ban you from the synagogue, yet an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering a service to God. (John 16:2).

For this is not to be understood of their being delivered up into the hands of civil magistrates, and of their being tried, judged, condemned, and put to death by their orders, but of their being murdered by a set of men called "zealots"; who, in imitation of Phinehas, as they pretended, took upon them, whenever they found any person guilty of a capital crime, as idolatry, blasphemy, &c. or what they judged so, to fall upon him at once, and without any more ado kill him; nor were they accountable to any court of judicature for such an action, and which was reckoned laudable and praiseworthy: in this way, and by the hands of such miscreants, Stephen the protomartyr lost his life (Gill's Commentary)

We are all sinners. We are all terrorists in God’s economy, rebelling and usurping and hating Him. Now, we are not all as bad as we all can be, this is obviously true because we are not all flying planes into buildings and thinking that as a mass murderer we are rendering service to our god. However all unsaved people have that potential. Satan knows this. I don’t know what was going through Mohammed Atta’s mind that day as he passed through Portland security, just a few miles where we were busy brewing coffee and setting up the paper for that week’s edition. I was unsaved, he was unsaved. I was diligently offering service to my community with the paper, he was diligently offering service to his false god through murder.

Larry King the TV interview host asked pastor-teacher John MacArthur onto his show days after 9/11. Larry asked JMac, “What does it mean?” That is the basic question of life. It’s never more brought to the fore when something like war, or a holocaust, or a terror attack happens and a lot of people die. What does it mean? JMac replied,

“It means you’re going to die and you’re not in control of when.”

We all live forever. We either dwell in glorified body with Christ in joy, or we dwell in gloomy hellish darkness in body fitted for fiery punishment. The difference in our destination is Christ, through repentance for our sins.

The moment the plane hit the tower and Mohammed Atta and his cohort died, they were catapulted into hellish darkness to eternally burn in fiery punishment for their service to satan. Some who were Christians, like Jim Cleere, were catapulted instantly in to the presence of Jesus. His widow Jean has the hope of reuniting with her lost husband, who they never found, in heaven at the feet of Jesus.

If the difference in our deaths is repentance because of Jesus’ work on the cross, then the result of that difference is eternal hope rather than eternal despair. Christians who have dealt with their sin have the hope of eternal life. Atta hoped he had eternal life, but wasn’t assured of it because no one outside of Jesus can be sure. He discovered his mistake only seconds later, but has an eternity to pay for it. All other sinners, ‘good’ people but unsaved; like waiters in the restaurant at the top of the tower, workers for the government at the Pentagon, brave souls on the PA plane who thwarted the Capitol attack, also joined Atta in hell to pay for their own crimes and treason against the one true God.

It has been twenty years since that day. Atta and anyone else who died on the day outside of Jesus is in hell. Twenty years is nothing. It is but a flash of a moment.

It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: for “who knows the power of God’s anger?” (Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God).

You are going to die. You are not in control of when. The lesson of 9/11 is sin, repentance, hope, and ultimately, Jesus. Jesus saves.