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  • Performance preaching and singing is PROSTITUTION.
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      Posted Sep 18, 2006 2:06 PM

      Why do you suppose that modern religious SEEKERS are more ignorant than a Jewish school boy and Christians who lived with little or no education? Do you think that maybe they were more educated than the doctors of the Law because "church" was the place to go and learn some new passage of Scripture?

      You cannot blame the scam artists professional entertainers (speakers, singers, musicians) for making YOUR church a den of thieves and a house of merchandise. You, dear URBAN sophisticate are historically known to be the EASIEST to flece by "spinning a top and playing the flute."

      Letter CXXXII From Augustine 415

      Jerome here accepts the Roman stereotype of the performer as prostitute: hired musicians were not only potential sexual objects, but were already prostituting their musical skills to gain profit

      While this conception of the musician might lead a pagan observer
        to warn the rich providers of banquets against employing hired entertainers,
        as lowering the dining-room to become another marketplace,
        Jerome looks at the situation from the viewpoint of a Christian virgin,
        and sees the performer as threatening, a corrupted and corrupting influence
      To many Christians, actors in the theatres were worse characters still:
        actors made clear the deception of the performer,
        for their very purpose was to appear to be other than what they actually were [meaning of HYPOCRITES]
        Where the regular audience of the theatres would see the bad deeds performed by actors on the stage as mitigated by the hidden difference of the actor from the acted,
        to a Christian the apparent bad deeds contaminated actor and audience who colluded in them
      Even the ordinary musician, by reenacting an existing piece of music,
        pretended to face a situation that was no longer present;
        musical works aimed to EXUDE emotions
        that their performers might not actually be feeling
      While it might seem strange to us for Christians to be afraid of the dangers of something as everyday as music, we are reminded by the contemporary French economic and cultural theorist Jacques Attali
        that it is in reality our own modern, Western attitudes to music that are unusual --

        Among sounds, music as an autonomous production is a recent invention
        Even as late as the eighteenth century, it was effectively submerged within a larger totality';

        still in the twelfth century Muslims were forbidden from eating with musicians It was not only Christians who mistrusted the theatre

        Some intellectuals looked back to the Classical golden age of drama in an idealised Greece, where the theatre was finally CORRUPTED by going after POPULARITY with the MASSES, while philosophers who rated music highly rejected its vulgar use: Those who CORRUPTED the Word according to Peter SOLD LEARNING at Retail.

        No theatre at all had as yet even been set up among the men of those days; rather music still had its abode in temples, where it was used in worship and in the praise of good MEN
      Even this higher usage in the temples was of course as unacceptable to a Christian as the music of the banquet, circus and theatre:
        to many Christians, music, along with the other popular forms of entertainment, must have seemed so misused as now to be itself irredeemably pagan It must have been a feeling of this sort that led Niceta's opponents to wish to banish all music from Christian ears:
      Their idea is that it is unrestrained to utter with the tongue what it is enough to say with the heart it is enough, they insist, if our song be silent and in the heart In response,

      Niceta argues that his opponents
        have an erroneous understanding of Scripture,
        that they are rejecting authoritative precedents,
        and that the music of the church can be seen to have positive results --
        all these arguments can be found in other Christian defences of music

      It is clear that to some Christians the new fascination with music in worship seemed a dangerous novelty Some use of music had long been made, and Basil (329-379) refers to A hymn already old by his time; but it had been relatively unimportant and had gone unnoticed by those who now fought against church music

      Now some monks aimed to spend their whole lives singing psalms, and many ordinary Christians seem to have been attracted to Christian music at the expense of other aspects of Christian devotion

      Of all forms of art, music belongs most obviously to the moment, to those who make and hear the music

      There is nothing to hear before it starts or after it is finished; it does not persist in the same form, but must be experienced anew in a different recreation
        Whereas the people listened to a reading from the other Scriptures, the whole congregation could join in singing a psalm, and share publicly with one another their commitment to its message Niceta had to ask for more attention to the readings --

        Of course, you may pray privately whenever and as often as you choose But do not, under the pretext of prayer, miss the lesson You can always pray whenever you will, but you cannot always have a lesson at hand' -- whereas the Psalms drew people's attention and entered their memories:

        Through David his servant, the Lord prepared a medicine, powerful enough to cure the wounds of sin, yet sweet to the taste by reason of the melody For, when a psalm is sung, it is sweet to the ear It enters the soul because it is pleasant It is easily retained if it is often enough repeated'
      Augustine condemns professional musicians, and denounces much singing and dancing, even as he himself writes a treatise on music, and reveals through it an ascent towards God
        Audible music is blamed for manipulating people's emotions and persuading them to sin And you are in no way to think this was said about those numbers shameful theatres resound with,' we are reminded, but about those, I believe, the soul does not receive from the body, but receiving from God on high it rather impresses on the body'
      John Chrysostom warns against cymbals, auloi, and songs full of fornication and adultery' at weddings,
      while according to Theodoret it was the Egyptians who taught the Israelites to sacrifice to idols and demons, to play, to dance, and to take pleasure in musical instruments'

      That agrees with all of the Bible which says that the FALL at Mount Sinai (as it was in the garden of Eden) was based on Musical Idolatry of the Egyptian Triad. This also says that those who sing as a profession are HYPOCRITES. That is exactly what Jesus told the Scribes, Pharisees and HYPOCRITES and identified them as "speakers, singers and musicians."
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    ...........................THE BOOK

    What Happened at the Madison Church of Christ?


    There are thousands of churches being taken over across America.

    This book is only about one of those churches. It's about the Madison Church Of Christ. By studying the methods used here along with the resource references you might be able to inoculate your church. At the very least you will recognize the signs early on.

    Many of the current members of the Madison Church of Christ still don't know what happened.
    Some never will know! This book is for them as well.

    Madison Church of Christ was a 60 year old church. At one time it was one of the largest churches in the US, and the largest Church of Christ.

    It thrived for many years on the vision of it's elders and those of it's ministers. Those visions undoubtably came from the the inspired word of Jesus Christ.

    At sometime in the last 10 years there was a deliberate plan by a majority of the elders to take the Madison Church of Christ into a more worldly realm.

    They used secrecy, covert planning, and outside sources to scheme and to change the format and direction of the Madison Church of Christ.

    The Elders knew that the membership would never approve such a plan. Using the tools of the "Community Church Movement"(consultants, books, seminars, meetings,planters,seeders) they slowly started initiating change so it was never noticed by the members until it was too late.....

    At the heart of the plan was the fact that old members were going to be driven off so new techniques could be used to go out and reach the unchurched through new "Contemporary Holy Entertainment" methods developed by the "Community Church Movement"

    Old members had to be kept on board long enough to get their plans ready, or the funds would not be there to pay for the new building. So by the plans very nature, it had to be secret.

    The church had no plan in effect to renew or approve elders. There was never any need. The elders had always been "as approved by God". 10 of the last 15 elders would begin to shed some doubt on that.

    The Elders did not even need a majority at first, because some of the elders went along unwittingly.

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    Here is the list of players;

    5 Godly Elders
    10 Not so Godly Elders
    120 "Deacons" (allegiance unknown)
    2,800 - 4,000 church "members"
    2 "teners" (people who have publicly confessed to have broken all ten commandments)
    Unknown number of "sinners" (This is what the 10 elders call us.)
    Unknown number of "demons" (Flying everywhere, to many to count)
     

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