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Deception in Our National Magazine Part II
September 25, 2007

Greetings in the Name of Our LORD Jesus Christ,

While I applaud the effort of the September 9th edition of “The Pentecostal Evangel” to convey some truth about God and science, once again I come away feeling that our national and international readers are being shortchanged.

I really enjoyed the testimonies starting on page 16 from a select group of A/G science professors. I would have preferred the title of the article and the magazine be, “What does God’s Creation tell us about science?” To many this would seem an inconsequential change in words. However, given the Assemblies of God’s historical collapses in the face of secular and media pressure, it is nothing of the sort. Even the current format of the magazine with lots of photos and snapshot trivia is reflective of today’s current marketing blitzes. Give the people what they want and they’ll buy more of our product.

God is not a product and as Christian leaders, we should NEVER give the people what they want but rather what God tells us to give them. Last time I checked, the latter would only be following Jesus’ model when He said in John 8:28, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.”

In contrast to the inspiring testimonies already mentioned, is the “They Said It” quote of Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute on page 7 of our national magazine. The quote seems nice enough. It’s awfully gracious of Dr. Collins to say that he sees no “discordance” between science and what he knows of God and Jesus Christ. [Author’s note: if God did create everything that exists, as He said He did in Genesis One and again in John One and all throughout the Bible, then all true science is actually just the human discovery of how things work that God made!] However, I read the entire interview of the good Dr. Collins that contains the quote. In the article, Dr. Collins gives God an awful lot of credit for being pretty involved and pretty smart about this creation thing. Until the very end. And there Dr. Collins undoes everything he just said by stating essentially that God really didn’t know which Hebrew words to use when He inspired the author of Genesis to say the He created EVERYTHING in six literal 24 hour days. Dr. Collins basically said that Creation probably took a long time, eons maybe. Not to long ago we Christians would have called this heresy. Now we call it “progressive creation.” Now we are either calling God a liar or illiterate. [Author’s note: See my July 6, 2006 article; the darling of progressive creation is a man named Hugh Ross, who has even been interviewed on Dr. James Dobson’s radio show. I find it ironic that Dr. Dobson’s latest fight for the family involves the definition of marriage listed in Genesis. And yet Dr. Dobson, whose works and marriage and parenting I have used as teaching resources for years, undoes his credibility by casting doubt on the definition of Creation in the same biblical book!].

So, I ask again, “What on Earth are our national magazine editors doing? Why would they quote a man who doesn’t believe that the entire Bible is inspired by God Himself and is therefore infallible? And so what if they have inspiring testimonies from A/G professors later on in the magazine? This only ADDS to the confusion. In other words, which set of quoted people in the magazine are correct? The ones that say God’s Word is true or the ones who don’t?

In conclusion, it is this very sloppiness about God’s Word that will bring his extremely stern judgment upon us as a church and as a nation. Our own Assembly of God universities and colleges teach using evolutionistic science (progressive creation at best) and using Richard Foster (a universalist—all roads lead to Heaven) books as texts in their Bible departments. Both of my sons, who each graduated summe cum laude from Evangel University confirmed this. One is an electrical engineer and the other is studying to be a medical doctor. They know what they saw and what they were taught. It was a regular discussion around our dinner table. “Be not deceived,” the Bible says in Galatians 6:7, “God is not mocked.”

I am calling on our headquarters leadership and the editors of our national magazine to repent of this biblical sloppiness. I am also calling on them to repent to God for their convenient brand of Christianity. Instead, they should be publishing godly works calling our fellowship to righteousness and warning them of deceptions that have already invaded deep into the American evangelical church—including our fellowship. Being a participant in the deception is hardly helpful, whether done in ignorance or not.

With Love for the God Who Has Spoken to Us Through His WORD,

Brother Mike

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