Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 5/26/18

• Televangelist Jesse Duplantis asks followers for money to buy new Falcon 7X jet

Is Jesse Duplantis (photo left next to a Dassault Falcon 7X jet) the only big-name prosperity gospeler on TBN who still doesn’t have a private jet? Of course, such flamboyant ostentatiousness doesn’t bother the credulous folks who send in money via their maxed credit cards. Those mansions and jets are proof that they can also live their “best life now” if they only send in their seed money and pray with enough faith.

• Canadian archbishop: German intercommunion plan is ‘against Catholic teaching’

Pope Francis is guilefully opening the door to intercommunion with Protestants just like he guilefully lifted the ban on communion for remarried divorcees. Conservatives are upset, but Francis knows that slavish devotion to sectarian doctrine limits Catholicism’s ability to retain members and captain the ecumenical and interfaith movements.

• Cardinal Burke: Catholics must let Christ reign as King in face of ‘apostasy’ within Church

Despite Francis’ heterodoxy, conservative prelates like Burke are still reluctant to openly call for schism or rebellion, so they couch their words in carefully coded euphemisms.

• Left-wing site mocks Mike Gendron’s outreach ministry to Roman Catholics

Mike Gendron’s warnings about Catholicism and Islam are spiritually sound, but this left-wing virtual rag interprets them as far-right religious wackiness. What a surprise.

• C.S. Lewis on Purgatory and George MacDonald: What Does This Mean for Protestants?

I would hazard a guess that C.S. Lewis is quoted more often from American evangelical pulpits than any other modern figure because pastors think that quoting Oxford academicians imparts an air of intellectual superiority. The author of this article rightly points out that Lewis deviated from Biblical orthodoxy on several counts, but is still too tolerant in my opinion. See my “the emperor has no clothes” post on Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” here.

• Francis cardinals make up almost half of electors of next pope

Pope Francis seems to be in good health for an eighty-one-year-old, but for how much longer? In the mean time he’s “stacking the deck” for the next papal election so that a like-minded progressive will carry on his reforms.

• Pope Francis Takes His Influence to the Big Screen by Starring in 2 Christian Films

I was aware of the “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word” documentary, which was released in theaters on May 18th, but not “Beyond the Sun” starring Francis as himself, which was released on May 15th. My, Francis continues to enhance his celebrity throughout the world (except among Catholic conservatives).

• Pope laments ‘hemorrhaging’ of priests and nuns in Europe

Francis is publicly acknowledging the Catholic church’s plummeting vocations to the priesthood because he’s greasing the skids for future reforms: married priests and female deacons.

• Pray for families, receive an indulgence, Vatican says

Relatively few Catholics could explain their church’s complicated and un-Biblical indulgence system, which allegedly shortens the time a soul has to suffer in un-Biblical Purgatory. Stay tuned for a post on Purgatory next week.

• Church Shoppers Find Congregation That Doesn’t Have Greeting Time, Immediately Sign Up As Members (satire)

Some people absolutely abhor the “turn around and shake some hands” moment at Sunday service. A few people defiantly take a seat so they don’t have to participate. I rather like the greeting time myself. How about you?