{"id":11081,"date":"2015-03-18T10:16:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T15:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/formerlyfundie\/?p=11081"},"modified":"2019-02-17T10:14:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T15:14:21","slug":"5-reasons-why-reading-charisma-news-might-be-toxic-for-your-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/formerlyfundie\/5-reasons-why-reading-charisma-news-might-be-toxic-for-your-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons Why Reading Charisma News Might Be Toxic For Your Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"226147_138974662855409_6672099_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve probably seen a Charisma News article flow through your Facebook or Twitter feed. Perhaps you\u2019ve clicked the link a few times, or even worse, maybe you\u2019ve occasionally strolled into the comment section. If you have, you probably already know what I\u2019m about to tell you, but I think it bears repeating out loud: reading Charisma News articles is toxic to our faith and probably should be avoided. Here\u2019s 5 reasons why I think this is the case:<\/p>\n

1. Charisma News Breeds a Gospel of Fear.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The moment Jesus arrives on the scene of human history we see the angels make one of the most important declarations in all of scripture: \u201cBe not afraid!\u201d In fact, we see some variation of this phrase a few dozen times in scripture depending on the translation. However, the Gospel message of \u201cbe not afraid\u201d is\u00a0not<\/em> what you\u2019ll find at Charisma- instead, you\u2019ll find an entire platform that is based on fear.<\/p>\n

Where scripture tells us \u201cbe not afraid,\u201d the message of Charisma News is:<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly crap folks! The gays and Muslims are coming- this is a sure sign of the end times! Yikes\u2026\u00a0what if some of those Muslims are gay on top of being Muslim? We\u2019re doomed if we don\u2019t do something fast. If the Liberal Evangelicals take over, we\u2019re going to have a country flooded with gay Muslims who will not only force you to bake wedding cakes for gay marriages, they\u2019re going to start MAKING you attend the wedding itself. Oh, and about Millennials- what if they decide to elect an Evangelical Pope? And what if they vote in Rachel Held Evans and she makes an ex cathedra declaration that only women can be pastors from now on???? It\u2019s time to do battle!!\u201d<\/p>\n

See? Sounds ridiculous but that\u2019s not all that satyrical. Charisma News preaches a Gospel of fear, and that\u2019s not the Gospel at all.<\/p>\n

2. Charisma News Promotes\u00a0Anti-Christ Values.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my experience, it seems that the central question Charisma News is trying to answer is: who is our enemy and how do we defeat them? Whether it\u2019s Muslims, gay people, Palestinians, or Liberal Evangelicals, Charisma is enemy focused. Strangely, Christ taught us to love our enemies, but that\u2019s\u00a0not<\/em> the direction or position of Charisma News- which makes these teachings \u201canti-Christ\u201d by definition. Just try commenting \u201clove your enemies\u201d on one of their articles about Islam and see how quickly you are devoured- it\u2019s happened to me one too many times until I learned my lesson.<\/p>\n

Because of this enemy focus that is more concerned with enemy defeat instead of enemy love, their platform has spiraled into a cesspool of anti-Christ negativity\u00a0that does not produce\u00a0beautiful results but instead fuels fighting among people who should be busy loving (something Prov 6:16-19 calls an abomination).<\/p>\n

Remember: \u201cHave nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord\u2019s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.\u201d 2 Tim 2:23<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Charisma News Slanders People.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The inaccuracies one can find in Charisma articles are astounding, but they cross the line into slander when they do it not out of ignorance but out of a desire do discredit opponents. A sad example was an article the other day written by Chelsen Vicari (the same person who wrote a book about how Rachel Held Evans, Sarah Bessey, Shane Claiborne and myself are going to destroy the world or something- and who was caught distorting the truth previously<\/a>). The article\u00a0seemed to hint that Rachel was somehow pro-abortion, which is untrue. This article simply followed a pattern of twisting facts in order to smear people, which is slander pure and simple. The irony? The same passage many of them quote about homosexuality actually includes slanderers as people who won\u2019t enter God\u2019s Kingdom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

4. Charisma News Does Not Help One Attain The Fruits of the Spirit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bible tells us that the evidence we\u2019re on the right path will be that our lives exemplify \u201clove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,\u00a0<\/span>gentleness and self-control.\u201d Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t seem to be what Charisma is selling, nor is it what I (and I assume many of you) experience when reading a Charisma article. It certainly isn\u2019t<\/em> what I experience when interacting with readers at Charisma.\u00a0The ultimate evidence of the toxicity of Charisma News is the fruit it produces- it\u2019s not fruit of God\u2019s spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Charisma News Might Cause You To Doubt Jesus and the Future of the Church.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Jesus told Peter that not even the gates of hell would prevail against the mission of the Church he established. Yet, if you stroll into the comment section on just about any article, you\u2019ll severely doubt that.\u00a0I honestly don\u2019t know how to describe the comment section at Charisma as anything other than \u201cthe most depressing place I have ever visited.\u201d I just don\u2019t see God there- I don\u2019t see his beauty, I don\u2019t see love, I don\u2019t see his goodness manifesting itself among a community of believers, and I certainly don\u2019t see Jesus. Spending too much time in there, or even any time at all, could cause one to severely doubt the future of the church and the promise Jesus made to Peter.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a time to be provocative, and there\u2019s a time to forcefully address issues in the church head on (as I\u2019m doing now). But there\u2019s also a thing we call balance- and when that is off, everything is off. The balance at Charisma News is one that I find so over the top in the wrong direction, that I truly believe spending too much time there would result in one walking away as either a fearful, angry, or bitter person- I just don\u2019t see one walking away full of the love of Christ and a love for others.\u00a0So please, guard your faith- consider permanently fasting from Charisma News articles.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve probably seen a Charisma News article flow through your Facebook or Twitter feed. Perhaps you\u2019ve clicked the link a few times, or even worse, maybe you\u2019ve occasionally strolled into the comment section. If you have, you probably already know what I\u2019m about to tell you, but I think it bears repeating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1638,"featured_media":11082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[468],"class_list":["post-11081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-culture","tag-charisma-news"],"yoast_head":"\n5 Reasons Why Reading Charisma News Might Be Toxic For Your Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  I'm sure you've probably seen a Charisma News article flow through your Facebook or Twitter feed. 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