False Teacher Of the Year 2015

As the snow falls and the days grow shorter, it's time to recognize those special false teachers that help make the days grow darker spiritually. This year's award is coming out much later than usual, but that's because there's been so much competition for the prestigious Golden Goat award. Our first winner was back in 2013 was John Shore, leader of the Not All There Like That "Christians" who worship Rob Bell and Dan Savage over the God of Israel. Last years winner was Steven McSwain is a self-professed "Christian Atheist", a title that he oddly bears with pride. These two fellows have worked tirelessly to justify their unbelief in such a manner that the undiscerning thinks that they're being fed the Word of God, but instead are being lead through the wide gate to destruction. And that's what being a Golden Goat recipient is all about.

If the nominating committee were to hand out the prized Golden Goat award based solely on atheism in the pulpit we probably couldn't stamp out the gold foil embossed false idols fast enough to keep up with demand. For example Gretta Vosper would be presented with one every time she addresses the congregation in Canada's own West Hill United Church of Self. Or closer to home John Schuck, a man who earns the title of Psalm 14 Fool, instructs the lost to make up their own bible. He would have to add a whole new wing to the Southminster Presbyterian Goat Pen to store his Golden Goats if mere atheism were the sole qualifier.

This year's winner has been hard at work for many years at his craft and has achieved the "Second Peter Principal" to earn this award

¹⁸ For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, ¹⁹ promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. (2 Peter 2:18-21)

Attention To Orders (Romans 16:17-18)

For making up his own gospel with creativity above and beyond the call of duty, for causing divisiveness among the Bride of Christ for purely political reason, for using God's name to belittle and berate Christians whose secular vision of a better form of governance of their home differs from his, for raising anti-trinitarianism from an ancient heresy to a modern convenience, for basing his theology from an astrophysicist atheist who is completely ignorant of actual history we are Hereby announce that the False Teacher of the Year is Mark Sandlin, minister at Vandalia Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, NC. and a self-described progressive.

To start with, Mark Sandlin preaches from The Message which is a great start on your road to the Golden Goat award. The Message, as I've mentioned and mentioned and mentioned and mentioned and will probably mention in the future, is sugar coated arsenic waiting to devour your soul. It's a hand grenade painted bright colors left in a child's toy box. The Message is the Christian Left's satire of the bible. However what truly propels a false teacher to Golden Goat contention is when you re-write a re-written verse from The Message to shove your own political agenda down the throats of a less than discerning audience. For example, in Mark's "The God Article" he writes about the Syrian Refugee Crisis by quoting Matthew 25:34-45, an apt quote for how to treat helpless and homeless, but then he goes and ruins it. Particularly verse 41. In the NASB it reads:

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; (emphasis mine)

In the Message it reads

Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. (emphasis mine)

But in the hands of Mark Sandlin it reads like this

Then he will turn to the the ones on the right, and say, “Get out, self-centered souls! You’re good for nothing but making God’s creation a living Hell. (emphasis mine)

Not only did he change God's words putting the blame on those on the right, (by the way - the right hand side is always the place of honor in the bible) he did this because he is on the left and in a fit of adolescent pique he refuses to believe that the God he invented could see sin in anything on the left. In case you missed it: in one maliciously crafted sentence Mark Sandlin just re-wrote the bible, insulted the favored of God, called conservatives self centered, and accused them of destroying all of God's creation, which as a true man of God would know is the result of sin of which we ALL have a share in committing.

The opening episode of Cosmos was the high point of a low show. In the first episode Neil deGrasse Tyson portrayed Giordano Bruno as a martyr of science, when in reality the truth is far from that atheist fantasy. In Mark's "Open Letter to a Too Small God" he admits to falling for the lie hook line and sinker. But when you look at Bruno you see a man who rejected basic doctrines of Christianity such as the trinity, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, the deity of Jesus, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus - and Sandlin found a historical soul mate.

In his writings Mark professes a love for abortion, His main reasoning for his love of infantcide is the fact only 30 to 40 percent of fertilized eggs successfully implant to the wall of the womb. Because of this natural occurrence Mark uses this as justification for believing that babies can be slaughtered prenataly. In his biblical arguments Mark ignores Jeremiah 1:5 and Isaiah 46:3-4 and goes to this obfuscation:

In Exodus we learn that if a man causes a woman to miscarriage he is fined, but is he causes the woman to die, he will be put to death. Clearly, in biblical times, they didn’t just fine a person if they had taken a life.

However this is a blatant lie, Exodus never says miscarriage, it's quite clear:

"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. (Exodus 21:22)

How anyone could confuse "gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury" with "murder an unborn child by chopping it up in the womb" is beyond me. (And yes, I did check the original Hebrew, the word used for birth is yalad which never means abort or miscarry, it only means live birth) but Mark has convinced himself they are the same. And while in his fantasy land Mark conveniently ignores the facts that less than 10% of all abortions are due to rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, that 60% of all women who have had an abortion suffer from suicidal idealization and half of those actually attempt suicide, that multiple studies have confirmed very substantial increases in breast cancer after abortion (source) (source) (source). One could assume from his enthusiastic support of abortion and it's effect on women (and babies) that Mark hates women (and babies). I personally don't think so, I believe he ignores these issues because they don't match his personal beliefs.

Speaking of personal beliefs Mark postulates that Jesus is not God because it's only mentioned in most books of the New Testament, and not all books. And then he appears to be shocked that Christianity doesn't include non-Christian thought. He whines that "Christianity should be big enough for a variety of thought." Yet he is sadly proud to say

For me, Jesus not being God is a good thing – a very good thing

Maybe Mark is believing in a poached egg, what he needs is a little bit of the real Jesus in his life. And to add to the static and noise about his fluffy god of Love Only, Mark admits he's not a Trinitarian, something his church PC(USA) still believes. Clearly it's not Christianity or God that's not big enough, it's Mark Sandlin that is not big enough for a concept of this nature. He rejects the resurrection of Christ because the bible accounts in the four gospels differ slightly, and because he's convinced himself there is no hell, then there is nothing to save us from so Jesus' suffering for our sins and dying on the cross is a lie.

And according to Mark, substitutionary atonement is a lie. He claims that it only became part of Christian teaching 1600 years after Jesus was crucified. What about:

4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)

and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed (1 Peter 2:24)

He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification. (Romans 4:25)

whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed (Romans 3:25)

and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:2)

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10) 

Ooops, must have missed those, eh Mark?

It's quite clear that God is too big for Mark Sandlin. God is a God of aseity, goodness, graciousness, holiness, immanence, immutability, incomprehensibility, jealousy, love, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, righteousness, trinity, veracity, and wrath and many more attributes both wonderful and awesome.

But Mark's writing declares all of these attributes null and void and concentrates solely on love, and love only. I forego the theory that Mark concentrates on love because it's the smallest word, and instead advance the theory that he only concentrates on the attribute of love because that's all that fits his narrative. Mark has quite often stated that the god he worships is incapable of justice and righteousness and is incapable of sending an unrepentant sinner to a hell that Mark does not believe in. Mark's god is clearly a god of liberal politics because in his blog his god only cares for the poor and downtrodden that liberal politicians approve of.

As Christian author, Anne Lamott wrote: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” and for Mark Sandlin those hated people are conservative Christians and unborn babies.

Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. (Romans 16:17)

So for your false teaching, rewording the word of God, and denial of His very son's sacrifice Mark Sandlin, we present to you the Golden Goat award. We will pray for those that fall under your spell and pray for their deliverance as you continue to lead your clueless goats on the wide path to a destruction that you do not believe in. We pray that some day you realize that the book you twist to your own political aims so casually truly is the word of God and come to truly know Him and repent from your heretical ways.

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)