Porky: << I'm surprise you didn't come up with the "But look at what the Church put in Jesus mouth so they could use this to force compliance and mindless obedience"....that's usually a good standby.

But of course..for those who have read the Gospels and grasped their content, and as a result met the risen Lord.. and experienced His grace.... well.. they view things differently. >>

Of course, any rational person knows that you've only "met the risen Lord" in your fertile imagination. However, with respect to the claptrap about being unworthy unless you love Jesus before your family, this is of course precisely the kind of nonsense by which your Brethren cousins separate their apostates from their families, isn't it?

While Hillsong is a reprehensible and quite scary organisation, at least they don't appear to be in the practice of splitting up families like your mob does.

runner: << ...those who do love the Resurrected life are far more likely to be faithful to their wives, children and enemies >>

Fascinating. I don't have any "enemies", but I'm quite intrigued as to how I would be "faithful" to them if I did. Also, are you suggesting that fundy Christians are never unfaithful to their wives? Tell that to the TV evangelists who are regularly being exposed for their sexual indiscretions, and upon whom the Hillsong business is clearly modelled.

CJ Morgan

Fascinating. I don't have any "enemies", but I'm quite intrigued as to how I would be "faithful" to them if I did.'

Christ is faithful to the unfaithful in that He shed His blood for the ungrateful and god haters. Your tolerance level of those with a different viewpoint to your own makes it hard to believe you have no 'enemies'. I suppose it depends on your definition of enemy. I would define being faithful to your enemy as wanting what is best for them and doing what you can to see that taking place (albeit a poor definition). Christians don't see people as their enemies. It is the spiritual forces of darkness that deceive people with false philosophies that are our enemy. The people are just the vessels that carry out the evil ones plans.

'Also, are you suggesting that fundy Christians are never unfaithful to their wives? Tell that to the TV evangelists who are regularly being exposed for their sexual indiscretions, and upon whom the Hillsong business is clearly modelled'.

There are plenty of believers that have been unfaithful to their wives. Having been in church life and secular life I assure you it is at a lot lower rate within biblical believing churches than in the community. I can't say the same for the liberal churches where almost anything goes. Hopefully those falling in this sin are truely repentant and find God's forgiveness.

Andrew Prior, joining the ranks of Hillsong critics.

No church or any human institution is going to be perfect, and neither Hillsong nor the pentecostal churches in Australia consider themselves above criticism. Yet, Andrew, if you’re going to criticise, could you at least point to something substantial.

The pentecostal churches in Australia have always had their finger pointers and antagonists. They are duly ignored. The church has a mandate to do a job and wants to get on with it. It’s easy to snipe from afar.

As for Levin’s book, I haven’t read it so I can’t say too much, but I’ve heard that her only real beef with Hillsong is that it is too focussed on selling a product. Yet I see Levin is selling her book at the ABC Shop (or are they giving them away for free?)

That Levin gets the ABC to sell and promote her book gives a pretty good clue as to whose side she’s on.

Our education system is so flawed that the usefulness of Christianity to everyday living is concealed and hidden. Hillsong and the Pentecostal Churches, are filling the gap left in the education of people by the State Church which today controls the education agenda, and pushes its secular barrow.

Those who talk of a “guy who died two thousand years ago”, are exposing their ignorance. Jesus Christ was crucified, but rose from the dead, and despite his ascencion into Heaven forty days after he was resurrected, promised as was foretold in the Old Testament, to remain with us and live and work among us until the second coming. As an institution of continuing and further education Hillsong Church and its similarly classified Pentecostal Churches, some of whom are even Anglican, are all singularly successful. Christianity is for everyday use.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, only works on request, and prayer is necessary. In response to prayer, gifted and blessed individuals do the things Almighty God wants them to do. Jesus Christ fulfilled the promise he made in the Gospel of Matthew 18 Verses 15-20 by having the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1297, pass the statute, called the Magna Carta. Only Barons and Churchmen could read in 1297, but the principles of the Holy Bible were extended to all and sundry by Statute. It was ordained to be read in every Church in England, four times a year, so that everyone, educated or not, understood its meaning. To this very day, an application to the Supreme ( God’s) Court is called a prayer. Until the pagans abolished the Supreme Court in 1970, in New South Wales and established a System as used in every dictatorship, the Holy Trinity, Father / Justice, Son/Jury, and Holy Spirit, weighed all prayers in the balance, and if the prayer was just, the promise in the Lord’s Prayer, was fulfilled by the verdict of a jury. His will was done on Earth, as it is in heaven, by a Christian Sheriff. By bringing the Word, or Light, Hillsong is changing the world

I humbly confess that runner, Peter the Believer and the rest of the credulous crew are right about the Risen Lord, and I've been wrong all along. Now that I've finally found Him, I realise He's been here all along - albeit hiding on top of the bookcase:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YLH6-GEUQuU/SW0qQaltT_I/AAAAAAAAA5s/Rx_0bZyJLoE/s1600-h/funny-pictures-your-cat-has-found-jesus.jpg

[Courtesy of Pavlov's Cat]

I once had a Judge mock the Lord, in quite unequivocal terms. On a trip to Paris he died in his bed. He was not very old, and missed out on his three score years and ten. If the Workplace Health and Safety mob ever did a survey of the most dangerous jobs in Australia it would ban Judges and Magistrates. So many die in office, or get invalided out.

Since Judges and Magistrates have replaced Father O'Reilly as Priest Confessor, and instead of confidentially taking confessions take them out in the Open Court, without ever offering the basic right to forgiveness for the first offence, provided the offender repented genuinely, their job has become dangerous. They are rightly fearful, and in response, have installed human security. The best security they could get would be to regularly attend Hillsong, and rely on the Lord.

Pierre Schlag, lecturer at Denver Colorado University, http://stripe.colorado.edu/~schlag/publications.html
describes Judges as the most violent people in any community. Since Newtons First Law of Physics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, then as they inflict violence, so shall they receive it. As any thinking man or woman will realize, as Christianity has declined violence has increased. Judges and Magistrates split families, inflict enormous pain on families and scar them all for life. They could all avoid this sinful behavior if only they stopped worshipping their political masters, and obeyed the Christian Statutes designed to save their souls. A start would be to regularly attend Hillsong Church, but a weekly session in any Anglican Church, and a healthy respect for the Word of the Lord, read regularly would help them enormously.

The violence inflicted upon Judges and Magistrates is not inflicted by men. It is inflicted by their own internal conscience, and the feeling that like Judas Iscariot, they have sold their soul to the State for thirty pieces of silver. Look at Justice Kirby: at seventy he looks ninety. Look at the Late Great Lionel Murphy. He was one of the best High Court Justices ever, but died at 60