Emergent Monday - Steven Furtick and the House of Orange

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)

Code Orange is a message over a hospital’s public address system warning the staff of a bomb threat, a radioactive spill or a violent person with mental issues in the hospital who needs to be subdued by force.

Code Orange is also a death metal punk rock band whose music is simply noise, akin to the sound you would get if you threw a bucket of water into an electric guitar amplifier. 

Speaking of undisciplined noise, Code Orange is the name that Superstar Steven Furtick gave to his recent Heresy-palooza. I searched the web for hours and I can't find a reason why Mr Furtick would name his supposedly God honoring event with a call that warns people of a radioactive spill or a dangerous deranged maniac.  

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3  He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away. (Psalm 1:1-4)

Rather than reviewing what Mr. Furtick said at his rock concert interspersed with monologues, maybe we should concentrate on who was there, after all, you are judged by the company you keep. Yes, I know that remark is from an Aesop fable, but that sentiment is merely an echo of teachings in the bible 

Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals." (1 Corinthians 15:33)

Our friends on the "Christian" left will protest by insisting "Jesus associated with the most despicable!" yes He did, but then He also associated with Satan, but His associations were brief, He shared fellowship with His apostles. The difference between you, me, Steven Furtick, and Jesus is that Jesus is God, Jesus created Satan and was not, and can not be tempted by Satan.

6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be partakers with them (Ephesians 5:6-7)

We on the other hand are mere humans, descendants of God's creation who was easily tempted by Satan, which is most likely why when the bible talks about fellowship, God is talking about fellowship with other believers, and when it comes to unbelievers the advice from the Holy Spirit is much different:

14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)

The admonishments are clear - stay away from bad company;

Leave the presence of a fool, Or you will not discern words of knowledge (Proverbs 14:7)

So let's look at the list of speakers that Steven Furtick trusted to feed his flock at Agent Code Orange 2016

Craig Groeschel is a return performer from Code Orange 2012, a man whom Steven Furtick calls "my pastor", here's a bit of their bromance. Craig Groeschel, like Steven Furtick, practices the bible reading method of Narcigesis, and may be the source of Steven Furtick's superpower of injecting himself into any convenient story in the bible. He is the founder and senior pastor of Life Church, the largest church in the United States with twenty five locations in seven states, a post-modern emergent church with ties to the Willow Creek Association. He is a "Word of Faith" prosperity peddler whose teaching revolves around the bible verses that appear to promise wealth, health, and fuller shiney hair. Honestly, why would a "man of God" perform the secular swill "Gangsa Paradise" in a worship service for any reason except to say "Look at me being relevant!"

Craig Groeschel is the inventor of the term Christian Atheist, and has written a book that claims it's ok to ignore scripture, doubt the existance God, and still call yourself a Christian. His line in his book describes the emergent church to a tee: “God created me in my image. I returned the favor and created Him in mine”

Louis Giglio is the founder and pastor of Passion City Church, located in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a public speaker, author, and the founder of the Passion Movement. Prior to that Giglio was a pastor at Andy Stanley's North Point Church for 13 years, itself an emergent-leaning church with a mystical bent. One of the oddest things I've hear attributed to Louis Giglio is that he once preached that the Laminin Molecule (one of the basic biological building blocks in the cell, a key component in life) is cross shaped which proves God's existance. Louis claims that God has revealed His hand of design by making the molecule appear in the form of a cross. However the Laminin Molecule doesn't look like a cross, it looks like a squiggle, a diagram of it's makeup drawn nice and neat for clairity sake looks like a cross

Besides twisting scripture and twisting science Mr. Giglio's teaching is a mish-mash of all things New Age including revelation directly from God, Not only has Louis preached at Osteen's Lakewood Church (as has Steven Furtick) he also preaches at Hillsong. In addition to his false word faith teaching Giglio holds to the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) theology which is the unbiblical that we must take back dominion over the planet and make the earth acceptable for Christ’s return.

Carl Lentz is known as the Hillsong Hipster, the "Apostle of Cool" and has been touted by (the now defunct) Details Magazine as being "this generation’s Billy Graham" He's the pastor of Hillsong NYC and a denier of Christ's promised return. A good example of Mr. Lentz worship of popular culture. In New York City a fellow named Robert John Burck wanders Times Square wearing a cowboy hat, a guitar, and a set of cotton brief and calls himself The Naked Cowboy. Carl Lentz recently held a woman's conference at his "church" and one of the performers in their song and dance act was "dressed" as the naked cowboy. It was the Hillsong NYC youth pastor Diego Similaand Carl Lentz defended his actions by attacking the watchblogger who reported the situation.

Carl is steeped more in the celebrity culture more than the Christian culture, he spends a lot of money on his worldly image; his wardrobe, his hair, his clubbing lifestyle. He's a walking talking advertisement for the Word of Faith prosperity gospel of Brian Houston and there's many who say he's not qualified to be a pastor. He has been banned from preaching in Prison Institutions because he looks more like a criminal than a member of the cloth. That surely is not a good sign

Dharius Daniels is the founder and Senior Pastor of Kingdom Church in Ewing and Burlington, New Jersey. He describes himself as a "cultural architect and trendsetter for his generation." He has been associated with Creflo Dollar who has bilked his followers out of a multi million dollar jet

John Gray is an associate pastor at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church, a church which has been equated with atheism. He says that "every now and then God has to show up in a crazy way to thrill you" of course he was singing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" a song more associated with zombies than worship. He just inked a deal with that great theologian Oprah Winfrey to star in a new reality show titled the Book of John.

Levi Lusko - pseudo-celebrity cult leader of Skull Church, This pretty much says it all about Levi Lusko and his cult. Of course his callous tweet about the Christians that were beheaded in Libya by Daesh. I was turned off by Levi's pandering for adulation years ago. Here's Levi promoting false teachers

Christine Caine - Like all speakers at this forum, the prosperity gospel that Mrs. Caine purports is a "prosperity movement for millennials that minimizes the Gospel content and diffuses a presentation of 'spirituality' instead. Mrs. Caine is a Word of Faith pastrix out of Hillsong, Australia. She started a movement called "Propel" whose mission is "Celebrating every woman's passion, purpose, and potential." now for the secular world that's a great tag line but Christians are told to glorify God not people:

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

She also comes up with interesting comments like “Prayer gives you a heart for people, gets the content into your spirit, gives you insight.” (source) In this article Bud Alheim correctly points out that Mrs. Caine  is a proponent of heretical, new age, mystical contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer AKA centering prayer is the practice of silence and stillness (emptying the mind) so that the person committing contemplative prayer "may enter more deeply into God’s presence" so they can hear God's voice. Unless you are a prophet like Elijah or Moses you're not going to hear God's voice, we speak to God through prayer (real, active prayer) and God uses the bible to speak with us.

Mrs Caine engages in unbiblical new age practices and brags about it on social media. “Oh yes I did lay my own hands on Joyce Meyer’s Bible and teaching notes and prayed for an impartation of that teaching anointing and revelation.” Impartation means to be declared righteous before God through Christ’s perfect righteousness; His righteousness is “imparted” to us when He adopts us as His children through faith in Christ (John 1:12). So what was Mrs. Caine talking about? She believed that placing her hand on an inanimate object that was used by another person she would be imparted with the spiritual gifts she believes that owner possesses. Help me with this readers, but where in the bible does an inanimate object contain spiritual powers?

Biblically should Mrs. Caine have even have been on that stage? I wrote about that recently

Joyce Meyer opened up her stage act on Code Orange with a sex joke. how can that be appropriate for a God worshiping man or woman? Like the rest of the speakers here much of what Joyce Meyers teaches is a positive biblical message that many people find valuable, however some of the stuff she says is so far outside of biblical orthodoxy as to be theologically dangerous. CARM has a good review of Joyce Meyers.  She has claimed that at one point during the crucifixion Jesus stopped being the son of God, Jesus never stopped being the divine son of God, the second person of the trinity. This is an attack on the very nature of Christ. She claims that Jesus was born again. This is just plain wrong.  Being born again means to be saved from the wrath of God for a person's sins (Eph. 2:1-3), to have a new birth (John 3:3), and to be regenerated (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Mrs. Meyer is simply wrong biblically.

Mrs. Meyer has an entire liturgy about Jesus descending into hell. She claims that  "He became our sacrifice and died on the cross. He did not stay dead. He was in the grave three days. During that time he entered hell, where you and I deserve to go (legally) because of our sin. He paid the price there.” (right here, page 35) She claims that when Jesus was in hell "God rose up from his throne and said to demon powers tormenting the sinless son of God, 'let him go.' (same book, page 36) Then she claims If you don't believe Jesus went to hell, you cannot be saved: "His spirit went to hell because that is where we deserve to go... There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth." (guess where, page 37) This is all false teaching straight out of the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church

She claims that we are gods, which is from taking Psalm 82:6 out of context, it's a Psalm of condemnation for the unrighteous judges, and that would have been cleared up had she read Psalm 82:7. She claims that she is not a sinner "I am not poor. I am not miserable and I am not a sinner." To which God says

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8) 

Biblically should Mrs. Meyer have even have been on that stage? I wrote about that recently

From gotquestions.org:

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote of the false teachers who had come into the church at Corinth teaching that the resurrection of Jesus Christ wasn’t true. These people considered only their physical existence and denied life after death or the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:32). As a result, their moral outlook on life influenced the rest of the Corinthian believers.

Paul is telling us that in associating with false teachers, we will be adversely influenced by them. The truth is that false teachings do not lead to holiness. As such, it is critical that we are careful whom we form relationships with, especially those outside the church because unbelievers can cause even the strongest Christians to waver in their faith and adversely affect their walk with Christ and their witness to the world. This is why Paul tells us, “Do not be misled.”