IO 78: Pachamama Wants Your Children

Two years ago, President Evo Morales, of Incan/Aymaran descent, claimed the rights to all three branches of government, and his goons were eliminating opponents in the dead of night. At the time, I was teaching pastors in Cochabamba, Bolivia and so witnessed the rise of indigenous paganism as a political force. In January 2011, Morales introduced legislation that grants legal rights to the Earth and provides an ombudsman to hear nature's complaints as voiced by the all-knowing high priests of deep ecology, who claim to be spiritually in touch with Nature! The worship of Pachamama, the fertility Goddess of Nature, is now a fundamental element in the law code of Bolivia, and Morales (in his commitment to Pachamama and to the ancient Incan religion of Bolivia) is supported by a shadow cabinet of shamans…

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IO 77: One-ism and Two-ism Goes To Oxford

In March, One-ism and Two-ism made its way to Oxford in my suitcase. After the chaos of London traffic, I breathed in the beauty of Oxford in the Spring: Medieval and Elizabethan colleges, surrounded by twenty-foot-high walls; soaring chapels; stunning wood-paneled dining halls; perfectly mown grass quadrangles that produce a sense of scholarly solidity and peace; and, on High Street, high-fashion boutiques designed with exquisite modern taste. Some may consider “One-ism and Two-ism” to be simplistic, but they are only terms that reflect the same stark choice the apostle Paul describes: worship of the Creator or of the creation.

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Confronting Neopaganism in the Culture and the Church

Contrary to the expectations of sociologists, secularism has been in decline for forty years. What created this unexpected situation? Philosopher David Harvey believes he knows: "The moral crisis of our time is a crisis of Enlightenment thought." And the "assumptions of secular humanism” have been undermined by Postmodernism as it deconstructs every reasonable, objective grounds on which reason used to stand. Such deconstruction raises a serious question: where does Postmodernism lead our culture? Many now believe that grounds for existence can only be found in the irrational, in the age-old metanarrative of pantheistic One-ism. Christians initially treated the NEw Age as the latest, more or less harmless religious sect, which would go the way of the hula hoop. Instead, these changin' times have, in one generation, radically transformed how popular culture thinks about sexuality, the family, gender roles, marriage, abortion, pornography, American history, the dating of history, the names of national holidays, the use of the Constitution, free speech, globalism, education, environmentalism, psychology and religious unity. How did we get to this moment of One-ist triumph?

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IO 75: Verbal Warming

We are not surprised to hear that political freedom in the world has declined for a fifth straight year, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa. But loss of freedom in the West does surprise us. Freedom has shrunk partly because of silencing "hate speech." Is the "climate of hate" warming or cooling here at home? No matter what the world says and no matter what consequences await us, we must speak the name and truth of Jesus for all to hear.

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IO 74: Don’t Ask (Awkward Questions), Don’t Tell (The Long-Term Consequences)

The recently disenfranchised lame duck Left pulled off its most extreme legislative coup thus far, by homosexualizing the United States military—using their own version of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. They did not ask, in a Pentagon poll, if repeal was morally appropriate. They asked whether, in practice, the implementation plan would work. By including those with “mixed feelings,” they manufactured a 70% majority By not really asking, the ideological politicians prevailed.

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