"Religious Consumer Fraud and False Advertising"<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Dr. Ron Carlson  www.Jude3.com and Worldview Weekend, Code Blue Rally Speaker
 
 
This political season is exposing a major crisis in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America and the church.  It is not over a political or moral issue, but over the lack of knowledge in the basic definition of what the word "Christian" means.  For 2,000 years the label "Christian" has meant one who believes the basic tenets of Biblical Christianity.  Sadly, though, in today's postmodern 21st century thinking the majority of Americans seem to think that anyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian, even if they reject every major tenet of God's revelation in the Bible.
 
Recently our nation has witnessed a leading political candidate running for President who claims, "I'm a Christian and believe in God and Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world."  Would you say that this individual is a Christian?  What if that same person had, as a high priest in a temple, sworn blood oaths of allegiance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whose definition of God is that God is a finite man with a body of flesh and bone and is God only over planet Earth.  What if that man also believes, along with his church, that God evolved from mortal man and that he, too, can become a god.  What if he believed that God was a polygamist married in heaven to multiple wives.  What if that man believed there were millions of gods, including mother gods, and we were all sexual offspring of mother and father God.  Would you now say he is a Christian?
 
What if that man's definition of Jesus Christ is that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer (Satan) and that Jesus evolved to become one of millions of gods.  What if that man believed that the Gospel had been lost for 1800 years and was restored by a teenager named Joseph Smith in New York in 1830 by a revelation from a "messenger of light" who said that all the Christian Churches were wrong and all the creeds and teachings of Christianity were an abomination.  What if that man believed that if it had not been for Joseph Smith there would be no salvation and that there is no salvation outside the Mormon Church.  Would you still believe he is a Christian?
 
In the commercial world of selling products, what would happen if someone took a well known product like Mayonnaise, emptied the jar of its contents, and refilled the jar with wall paper paste and claimed it was "real mayonnaise".  The person selling the counterfeit product could claim, "Yes, it's real mayonnaise, it looks like mayonnaise and says mayonnaise right on the label".  The problem is, though, as people tasted the content and began to choke, the FDA would have them arrested for massive consumer fraud and false advertising!  Sadly in America today, because of the widespread lack of Biblical knowledge and discernment, almost anything can be passed off as being "Christian".  The content no longer seems to matter as long as it looks good on the outside to the public.  And we wonder why the Church and America are in a Code Blue crisis!