Bridge of Reason

  By What Authority? Ask a cult member about their faith and they will come up with a rote answer, often couched in the language of testimony. This is meant to redirect your attention away from the question, to the claims of the cult thrown in a positive light. Usually someone 'went back to the Bible,' 'had a vision,' 'felt led by God to do something,' and 'when I did the same thing I came to the same conclusions.' Charles Russell and his Bible study group studied the Bible for themselves and found 'The Truth'. I did the same thing and discovered 'The Truth' too. Joseph Smith went into the woods and prayed and got an answer, I prayed and got my own answer. This becomes the authority for every subsequent claim and robust apologetic study is bypassed by personal knowledge/revelation. Challenge them and they will quote their own leaders as the final authority on – everything. This leads to unquestioning loyalty and blind belief in a worl...

 A great blog post from Latayne Scott: I imagine that many Christians have wriggled uncomfortably as they read Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol . Scattered through the book are disparaging references to Christianity (and not a few barefaced prostitutions of Bible verses taken out of context). But imagine the reaction of some Mormons who have been through the secret LDS temple ceremonies when they read, in the first pages of the book, of Masonic oaths whose penalties are "Throat cut from ear to ear. . .tongue torn out by its roots. . .bowels taken out and burned . . .scattered to the four winds of heaven.." Koinonia: Latayne C. Scott: The Lost and Found of Masonry and Mormonism

"I belong to the top" (Matt. 5:14). This is the Bible quotation that greets you under the section 'Prophetic Focus for September 2009' on Bishop David Oyedepo's website. You may be thinking - I don't remember that part of the Sermon on the Mount? You may be thinking - I do remember the bit where Jesus in fact says, "Blessed are the meek." The reason why you don't remember that quotation is because it isn't there. Matthew 5:14 actually reads: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden." So Bishop David and his Winners' Fellowship may want to gloss the Lord's words as "I belong to the top", but is it really fair to post it as a direct quotation? In fact, is it in any way a fair interpretation of the text? What is the Lord Jesus actually saying here? Jesus says, "You," but Bishop David says, "I." The Lord is giving a statement to a collective 'you' which will soon be...