by Chris Banescu –
In an attempt to become more hip, modern, worldly, and relevant various Christian denominations have abandoned, over the years, many of the Christian sacraments, traditional forms of worship, and even universal moral precepts and teachings of the faith. Endless streams of “enlightened” pastors and priests or priestesses have interpreted and re-interpreted the Scriptures in ways that significantly diluted or distorted the actual teachings of Jesus Christ and the fullness of the Christian faith as taught and practiced by the ancient Orthodox Christian Church since the time of the original Apostles. Few, however, while still claiming to be Christian and remaining sane, had ever fully crossed the line into outright and complete apostasy. That is no longer the case. Several Protestant “churches” in the Netherlands now proclaim that God doesn’t exist, Christ was just a man, and there is no life after death.
A prominent figure of the mainstream Protestant Church of the Netherlands (PKN) is ‘reverend’ Klaas Hendrikse, author of the infamous book Believing in a God that does not exist: the manifesto of an atheist pastor. In his sermons Mr. Hendrikse paints a dark and hopeless picture of human existence and the meaning of life:
“Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get.”
“Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death,” … “No, for me our life, our task, is before death.”
Hendrikse: “God is not a being at all”
In an interview with the BBC (video provided at the bottom of this article) Mr. Hendrikse further outlines his beliefs and teachings regarding God, the meaning of life and death, and Christ’s existence and resurrection. Here are some of the more disturbing excerpts.
Regarding the nature and presence of God:
“The Christian code for me is too narrow. … My understanding of the word God is that is one word of saying things or expressing experiences for which you also can use other words. Like, for instance, Allah.”
“For me the word God is important. The only thing is that it is not a being, not an existent being. … God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, for human experience.”
Concerning Jesus Christ’s existence:
“His existence for me is not relevant. … Because the message or what the story about Jesus has to tell me has nothing to do with his physical existence.”
Regarding Christ’s resurrection:
“You don’t have to believe that Jesus was physically resurrected. There is another way of looking at it. The words life and death can also have different meanings than what we say that it means in 2011.”
Finally, when the incredulous BBC interviewer reminds Hendrikse that a key tenet and “central feature of Christianity is that Jesus Christ did exist, that He was the Son of God and that He was resurrected from the dead because he was the Son of God, and that process, His death on the cross, was designed specifically by God to liberate everyone from their sinfulness,” and asks him whether he believes that is not true, Hendrikse absurdly asserts: “That’s correct, that’s a misunderstanding of what [St.] Paul said.”
Another leader of these pseudo-Christian Dutch congregations, one ironically named “Exodus Church”, is priestess Kirsten Slettenaar. She also rejects the idea that Jesus Christ was divine or the actual Son of God.
“I think ‘Son of God’ is a kind of title,” she says. “I don’t think he was a god or a half god. I think he was a man, but he was a special man because he was very good in living from out of love, from out of the spirit of God he found inside himself.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Hendrikse and Mrs. Slettenaar are not alone in their atheistic beliefs. A study by the Free University of Amsterdam discovered that one in six clergy in the mainstream Protestant Churches of the Netherlands was either agnostic or atheist. That means that approximately 17% of these ‘pastors’ have actually apostatized, they are no longer Christian in belief or practice.
While claiming to help their congregations, they have lead them astray.
Whatever these clergy teach is not Christianity in the traditional or even the most enlightened or modern sense of the word. They are really impostors and traitors; Benedict Arnolds through and through. While retaining the name of their Savior and professing allegiance to Christ, they have become His enemies. While enjoying the privileges and authority of their pastoral offices, they have betrayed their calling and corrupted their vocation. While seeming to protect and comfort their flocks, they have confused, scattered, and endangered them. While claiming to help their congregations, they have lead them astray. Promising truth and life, they spread lies and spiritual death. They have thrown their lot with Judas, yet still feast at the Lord’s table without any shame or remorse for their treachery.
Christianity is the one religion whose entire existence is founded on two grand miracles of the Incarnation of God as man in the person of Jesus Christ (fully divine and full man) and the Resurrection of that same Son of God, after He was killed on a cross and buried in a sepulcher for three days. Any religious system that claims the title Christian and fails to embrace these central and extraordinary realities of our faith is a complete fraud, an abomination.
The duty of true and faithful shepherds is to preserve and defend the Christian faith.
The duty of true and faithful shepherds is to preserve and defend the Christian faith. “We are to defend Christianity itself–the faith preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, embodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers,” wrote C.S. Lewis. We cannot add or subtract from the teachings of Christianity based on individual opinions regarding God or man or other timeless tenets of the faith that we may consider difficult or objectionable.
There are certain lines that Christians, especially priests and Christian leaders, cannot cross and still remain a Christian. In his book, God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis cautioned that clear boundaries of Christian doctrines must be established and maintained by all who preach Christianity. If such limits are forsaken by pastors, the only honorable solution is for them to change their professions.
“But I insist that wherever you draw the lines, bounding lines must exist, beyond which your doctrine will cease to be Anglican or to be Christian: and I suggest also that the lines come a great deal sooner than many modern priests think. I think it is your duty to fix the lines clearly in your own minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession.”
Clearly, many Dutch priests have not only crossed this line, but completely obliterated it. Their preaching not only distorts and perverts the core principles of Christianity, but wholly contradicts the words of Christ and the witness of the entire Christian Church across two thousand years of her existence. Their teaching goes against the true Christian faith as “preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, embodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers.” These ‘Christians’ are no longer Christian.
That’s why the whole protestant system is flawed and is an abomination in itself. It is a heresy of true Christianity, as broadly defined as Catholic or Eastern or Oriental Orthodox, or the few Protestant denominations that are high church or liturgical, and retain its connections to Apostolic Succession.
Christianity has been destroyed by the Protestant Reformation, the worst heresy of them all. The Catholic and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches can trace their lineage back to the time of Christ. Now I will not debate matters of Conciliarism, whether authority lies ultimately in council decisions or by the Pope, but I think it is clear from a study of history that the Pope did yield a level of authority in the early Christian church, the question of debate is how much authority and how it should be dealt with. First among equals or infallibility. Christianity is supposed to be unified and under an ecclesial heirarchy, not any pastor determining the truth according to how he sees fit.
Protestant Personal Interpretation leads to Atheism and all kinds of deviant versions of Christianity all claiming to be the truth. After all, what authority do you have to say that your version of Christianity is biblically correct and mine is not, I have the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as same as you have. If Christ did not establish a Church, he is foolish and this is what would have happened (as it did happen, they were called heresies) in the beginning of the Church if it were not accepted that the Catholic Church (orthodox and catholic at the time) has Christ given authority and the protection of the Holy Spirit to lead people into the way Christ wanted us to believe and worship him.
Better protestant then atheist any day, but the Division of Christianity has made it difficult for those who seek truth.
The impossibility of there not being a God is underscored by the absolutely massive, incomprehensible information found from coded DNA molecules in all life forms on this earth. There absolutely has to be a God. There is absolutely no other explanation. Consider this: there is enough coded DNA molecules in the human genome to fill 10,000 sets of Encyclopedia Britanica. These sets of DNA have to be precisely placed in exact sequence for human life to exist without birth defects or a miscarriage. But then consider this: There are 2,000,000 known species in this world, and there are possibly 8 to 50 estimated total species of different life forms on this earth. Each of these DNA sequences, from every living creature, must also be precisely placed and coded for any of these species to exist.
Then consider this: In the living human cell, there is DNA in the nucleus of each cell, but also, independently of this, there are other places in the human cell, the mitochondria for example, that have their own independent DNA with their own independent sequences that have to be exact for the human cell to function at all. In all the research science had done so far on human cells, they still do not know fully all aspects of life in this one cell alone. By the laws of solubility in water, the ocean contains all elements found in a finely made Swiss watch. It would be easier to see Swiss watches washing up on the ocean beaches around the world, that these elements would some how be formed and become a watch, merely by chance. The code we look for in outer space for sequenced radio waves from a high intelligence out there is looking in the wrong direction to find living intelligence.
What science is doing is redefining the magnificent power, beauty, intelligence, creative artistry, holiness, indescribable, incomprehensible wonder of the God that absolutely exists out there, and we have the chance to commune with Him, starting with a humble plea, because God is indeed interested in us finding Him or he would not have given us the brain to find Him.
My advice to any one doubting the existence of God is to humbly speak out loud to the One who knows, and ask for Him to reveal Himself to you personally, and then this verse comes in to play: John 6:37, Jesus Christ speaks, “All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and any one that comes to me, I will in no wise cast away”. There is your challenge, cry out for mercy and ask God to show himself to you. Like me, you will not be disappointed, even if you must die to find out. A safer way to avoid death first is to find this out by assuming as in mathematics, two points can define a line. With God, it is: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and through Him, I can find the wonderful God that made me smart enough to seek Him. Fish have gills and fins to swim, birds have wings to fly, we have a mind to seek Him. This is the ultimate task for those of us that are wise enough to ponder: use the mind God made for us to seek him. It is the human thing do do. Pastor Russ
I think before we blame I don’t know who we have to ask, “Who is this man and why is he trying to destroy the faith of many in the living God, whom many know personally? ”
Satan will use anyone to make people believe that there is no God. Lord help us all!!!!!!