I understand being indifferent, but I really do not understand why someone would want to prevent public celebrations of Christmas. What is so offensive about the holiday? How ridiculous is it to try to clear the air of Christmas songs and pretend that no one is celebrating? How bitter do you have to be to want to eliminate tradition?

I’ve lived in Japan for almost eight years now, and what do I hear in the background at stores and banks after around the third week of November? What do I see plastered about everywhere from train stations to department stores? Yes, Christmas music and signs wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. You know what percentage of Japanese people are Christians? Less than one percent. What are they thinking, right? Don’t they know they’re supposed to be offended by the words to “Silent Night” and signs that say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Season’s Greetings”?

I said it last year, and I’ll say it again:

The point is, if you don’t like Christmas, then don’t celebrate it. Why do you want to ruin it for everyone else? As a Christian in Japan, I’m a part of a minority. It has never occurred to me nor to any of my friends, however, that we should protest the Buddhist and Shintoist festivals that the municipalities here hold. I don’t participate in them, but I’m not going to go out and tell everyone else that they can’t because I don’t. Why would I? Because the message at these events “offends” me? Boo hoo. Suck it up, people.

Hope you’ll bear with me for another review.

I recently got a copy of The [Expanded] Bible, a hardback study Bible, through the Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program. The tagline for the product is “Study the Bible While You Read, ” but I don’t think you can really do that with this Bible. The notes are inline, which makes it incredibly difficult to read–at least for me. Perhaps some people will find that helpful and not distracting, but I think it would be much better to have the notes placed in footnotes at the bottom of the page instead. I mean, I think the notes are actually helpful, especially if you can’t read Greek, but as an example, I find it difficult to concentrate while reading the following:

In the beginning [Gen. 1:1] there was the Word [the Word already existed; the Word refers to Christ, God's revelation of himself]. The word was with [in the presence of; in intimate relationship with] God [the Father], and the word was [fully] God. (John 1:1)

The text (New Century Version) is in bold, which I think is their attempt to make it more readable, but the notes make it so choppy you can’t really read through it. I think it’s great as a reference, but not for daily reading. It would probably be a great tool online. The words could be underlined instead of using brackets, and then the notes could pop up when you place the mouse over the word. I give it three stars out of five.

Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, ranking Republican member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, recently announced he was holding up the confirmation of law professor Cass Sunstein–a close friend of the president rumored to be on the fast track for the Supreme Court–as the White House’s “regulations czar.” The reason: Sunstein explicitly advocates animals’ being granted legal standing.

…Of all the ubiquitous advocacy thrusts by animal rights advocates, obtaining legal standing for animals would be the most damaging–which makes Sunstein’s appointment to the overseer of federal regulations so worrisome and Senator Chambliss’s hold on the nomination so laudable. Chambliss plans to meet with the nominee personally “to provide him the opportunity to fully explain his views.” Chambliss said:

Professor Sunstein’s recommendation that animals should be permitted to bring suit against their owners with human beings as their representatives, is astounding in its display of a total lack of common sense. American farmers and ranchers would face a tremendous threat from frivolous lawsuits. Even if claims against them were found to be baseless in court, they would still bear the financial costs of reckless litigation. That’s a cost that would put most family farming and ranching operations out of business.

But animal standing would do more than just plunge the entire animal industry sector into chaos. In one fell swoop, it would both undermine the status of animals as property and elevate them with the force of law toward legal personhood. On an existential level, the perceived exceptional importance of human life would suffer a staggering body blow by erasing one of the clear legal boundaries that distinguishes people from animals. This is precisely the future for which animal rights/liberationists devoutly yearn.

Steve Chapman points out why this research should horrify even those who are not part of the pro-life movement:

What this mandate means is simple: It may be permissible for scientists to create cloned embryos and kill them. It’s not permissible to create cloned embryos and let them live. Their cells may be used for our benefit, but not for their own.

There lies the reality of embryonic stem cell research: It turns incipient human beings into commodities to be exploited for the sake of people who are safely past that defenseless stage of their lives.

It’s a change that poses risks not just to days-old human embryos. The rest of us may one day reap important medical benefits from this research. But we may lose something even more vital.

It’s time to recognize that all political issues are social issues.

When we use the phrase “social issues,” most people think about abortion, homosexuality, marriage, divorce and other moral concerns.

Many in our society today believe these “social issues” are matters of private concern only – and, thus, have no place in politics.

It’s ridiculous.

The truth is – all political issues are social and moral.

If you care about people not starving, then good economics becomes a social issue.

If you care about young men not dying in needless foreign wars, then national security and defense are social issues.

If you care about saving the lives of millions of fellow Americans, then civil defense should be a social issue.

Please tell me if you can think of any issue – local, state or national – that is not a social issue.

Traffic laws are the result of someone’s idea of morality being imposed on others. Some people believe it is safer to drive at 50 mph than 75. Thus, we have speed limits.

Some people believe second-hand smoke is harmful or, at least, annoying, so we have laws against smoking in public places.

We have mandatory seat-belt laws to protect the lives of people – whether they care about their own life or not.

So, this notion that some laws are based on a sense of morality and others are not is just plain silly.

In fact, it’s even more ironic that many of the very people who claim legislation against abortion is wrong because it imposes someone else’s morality on people who may not agree, use their own sense of right and wrong to impose their morality on others.

Have you ever noticed that?

Barack Obama, for instance, is doing his best to force those of us who believe it is wrong to kill unborn babies to subsidize the practice. He is even attempting to make it lawful to conduct so-called “scientific experimentation” on the cells of unborn human embryos to ensure there is an absolute, unequivocal, unhampered “right” to kill unborn babies at any time and for any reason. In fact, while he was a member of the Illinois state legislature, he fought against providing life-saving, emergency treatment for babies who miraculously, and against all odds, survived abortions. He suggested they should be denied medical treatment, nourishment and, perhaps, even air to breathe.

That’s Barack Obama’s sense of morality. And he is all-too-eager to impose it on helpless babies and those of us who stand in the way of the executioners.

Meanwhile, though, Barack Obama believes very strongly that the tax code should be used as a mechanism of imposing his own ideas about “social justice.” Thus, Barack Obama agrees with me that every issue is a “social issue.” He just has a different worldview – a different sense of morality.

Barack Obama will soon give Al Gore his wish – making so-called “global warming” one of the central operating paradigms of our time. The government will be empowered to control how high you keep your thermostat and how much gasoline you consume because it’s a matter of “saving the planet.”

Now who is it that is imposing their own warped ideas of morality on the rest of us?

Remember, Al Gore has said so-called “global warming” is a “moral issue that affects the survival of human civilization.” As such, there is no aspect of life that will not come under the control of government as part of the fight against this phantom and fraudulent problem.

So, don’t feel ashamed or guilty when someone accuses you of attempting to “legislate morality.” That’s what we do when we pass laws – all laws.

It’s simply a case of whose morality is going to rule the day – God’s or Barack Obama’s.

The President also says, “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.” Obviously, he has left the door open for “therapeutic cloning” where the cloned embryo is simply destroyed before he or she has a chance to mature. Why ban cloning for human reproduction, though? Isn’t this a moral pronouncement? Isn’t the President forcing his moral values on us? Couldn’t proponents of reproductive cloning say exactly what Obama said about embryonic stem cell research, i.e. that “our government has forced…a false choice between sound science and moral values”?

The dirty little secret? There was no ban on embryonic stem cell research, only on federal funding of it. The reason researchers could not get funding for their research was because no private investors were willing to invest in ethically questionable research that has proven to be unfruitful despite all the hype about its potential.

The book starts out with a brief introduction to the movement along with those who are leading it, including Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyers and T.D. Jakes. The rest of the book is dedicated to addressing the errors of the movement–errors that should be self-evident to any student of the Bible. I was astonished when I read some of the things they teach that are so obviously blasphemous, not to mention physically dangerous.

Before reading this book I knew there were doctrinal problems with the prosperity gospel (including the teaching that being poor is a sin). I also knew that the leaders of the movement say some crazy things every now and then. Some of the funniest quotes in the book were from Benny Hinn, who said women originally gave birth out of their sides and that Adam “had dominion over the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea–which means he used to fly.” What I did not know was that these problems run deep and affect even the essentials of the Christian faith. The prosperity gospel is not simply a misinterpretation of a few verses here and there. It is a full-fledged heresy.

Hanegraaff begins by noting that many have simply been deceived and that it is important to “judge the theology of the Faith movement rather than those being seduced by it [page 8].” He also notes that there are “those who use the perversions of the Faith movement to drive a wedge between charismatic and noncharismatic Christians” and says that “this is both counterproductive and divisive, for the Faith movement is not charismatic; it is cultic [page 12].” He points out that the problem with the Faith movement is not about the nonessentials but about the essentials of the faith. The book is well-documented, with a 16-page bibliography and 54 pages of notes.

One of the fathers of the Faith movement was E.W. Kenyon who said, “The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth [quoted on page 17].” This is scary stuff. Hanegraaff explains the problems of the Faith movement using the acronym FLAWS, which stands for “Faith in faith,” “Little gods,” “Atonement atrocities,” “Wealth & want” and “Sickness & suffering [page 88].” The movement deifies man and satan while demoting God and Christ.

As an example, Kenneth Copeland, another leader of the movement, stated that “God cannot do anything for you apart or separate from faith” because “faith is God’s source of power [quoted on page 96].” Myles Munroe said, “I’m going to say it again! Prayer is man giving God authority, or God license, to interfere in the affairs of man. In fact, God–I’m giong to take a deep breath because some of you religious people aren’t going to understand me–Are you ready?–God cannot do anything in the earth without a human’s permission! [quoted on page 131]” However, contrary to the Faith movement’s teaching that faith is a substance or force, Hanegraff explains that “true biblical faith is faith in God as opposed to faith in substance (or ‘faith in faith,’ as Hagin put it). It is the object and the origin of faith that renders it effective [page 100].”

Copeland and Jerry Savelle teach that God is just like us…only a little bigger. Savelle said, “God is not 437 feet tall, weighing four thousand pounds, and got a fist big around as this room. He’s big, but He’s not a monster. He measured out heaven with a nine-inch span…The distance between my thumb and my finger is not quite nine inches. So, I know He’s bigger than me, thank God [quoted on page 144].”

In discussing the Faith movement’s misguided teachings on worldly riches, Hanegraaff quotes John Piper’s book Desiring God, which says, “God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many Christians have been decieved by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own…God has made us conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn’t. Copper will do [quoted on page 243].” Indeed, even non-Christians can identify the hypocrisy of these Christians.

One part of the book that is useful outside the discussion of the Faith movement is Hanegraaff’s explanation of how the Scriptures should be read. He notes the principle of scriptural synergy and states, “…the whole of Scripture is greater than the sum of its individual passages. You cannot comprehend the Bible as a whole without comprehending its individual parts, and you cannot comprehend its individual parts without comprehending the Bible as a whole. As such, individual passages of Scripture are synergistic rather than deflective with respect to the whole of Scripture. Scriptural synergy demands that individual Bible passages may never be interpreted in such a way as to conflict with the whole of Scripture [page 239].”

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the heresies of the Faith movement, especially those with family members that have been deceived. It exposes the teachers using their own words. It is definitely a good reference and would be a valuable addition to a church library.

For more information, visit the PAZ Japan website.