Richard Wurmbrand, Teaches Belief in the “I” of Self?

Where did the “little god” teaching originate?

Where have we heard this lie before? From the very beginning, in the garden, from the master deceiver himself, the father of lies, Satan, that brought about the fall of man.  “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gn 3:5). However, turning to the source of truth, the Most High God, The I AM has this to say in response to that lie….., “that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he : before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me [emphasis added]” (Is 43:10).

We are Not “Little gods”!

 

Richard Wurmbrand, Teaches Belief in the “I” of Self?

 Can this be possible?! Richard Wurmbrand was an intellectual, and known as a rather “quirky” writer. But can this writing of his from his book, “Victorious Faith”, be interpreted any other way, since this is in his own words?

This may come as a shock to those who have been devoted followers of the Wurmbrands, and Voice of the Martyrs, but a deception is still a deception, no matter what kind of clerical robes it comes dressed in. That Wurmbrand quoted Luther in saying, “The Christian is Christ”, is to perpetuate the age old, yet New Age LIE that self is god, or that god and self are one, and united. No, no, no! We may be Christians, but we are not Christ. We may love God, but we are not God. God may occasionally use a mere mortal servant of His to be his mouthpiece, or even a donkey for that matter, but it does not mean that every word that comes out of a man’s mouth is God breathed. We must test the spirits. And what Richard Wurmbrand is saying here is NOT of God, nor God breathed. It might as well be Kenneth Copeland saying, “When God says I AM, I AM too”. And any fool should know that Kenneth Copeland is not God, or for that matter even a casual facimile, except to his slavish devotees,  who, for whatever crazed reason they may be operating under, have deluded themselves into becoming.

In any case, this issue about Richard Wurmbrand, the originator of Voice of the Martrys, servants of the Persecuted Church…….and the allegations of perpertrating the false mystical teachings apparent in the book,  “Victorious Faith”, under discussion on this page, the bombshell has been dropped, and is no doubt going to bring about a firestorm. I have no idea what the ramifications and outcome of all this is going to be, but it’s very unlikely that VOM is going to be very pleased that some are speaking against the icon of Voice of the Martyrs, whom many have regarded as a literal saint because of his sufferings. But folks, suffering does not equate sainthood. And it’s past time that we set aside our idols, which can become a snare to us if we are not very prudent to seek out the truth in these last days.

And….please pray for me,  as I am just a messenger who desires with all my heart that the Body of Christ will be freed from all forms of  spiritual deception and blasphemy in these last days. Even after all this time since Tom White’s death, I still get daily inquiries, and search terms wanting truth about Tom White’s suicide and wanting to know WHY there has not been a full fledged investigation into Tom White’s death and also into the Voice of the Martyrs organization. Why indeed!

http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/charhind.htm#RICHARD


RICHARD WURMBRAND TEACHES THAT SALVATION IS BELIEF IN THE “I” OF SELF– THE GOD IN YOU– THE ATMAN WHO IS THE FALSE CHRIST OF INDIA

Friends, this is absolutely a kick in the stomach. Pastor Wurmbrand, who has blessed thousands with his zeal and devotion to Christ in the past, is now teaching the Hindu teaching of salvation in the Atman, in YOU as a manifestation of the Brahman, Iswara, or, in his case, in the Christ. This is NOT the Christ of the Bible, but is a devil from India. I am sorry to have to put this here, but you MUST be aware that ALL men who teach and stand in a large place before the saints are today suspect until proven innocent. I realize I risk being put there, but never mind, I want YOU to learn self-defense in the Holy Ghost. I give this just as I got it by E-Mail, and thanks to brother Michael A. Drurey for getting it for us.

Subj: Richard Wurmbrand
Date: 97-06-14 20:14:24 EDT
From: drurey@snet.net (Michael A. Drurey)
To: SteveVanN@aol.com (SteveVanN@aol.com)

Steve this was taken from the first 6 or 7 pages from Victorious Faith

by Richard Wurmbrand. I had forgotten how bad this book really is. The

rest of the book is the same with numerous references to his sympathetic

view of Catholicism. This stuff is straight from the pit.

From Victorious Faith by Richard Wurmbrand

My book is not the expression of opinions and sentiments of a man. I hate stuffy- as well as inspired- sermons in which clergymen express their views and their standpoints. I also hate political rallies at which good or bad opinions are expressed. I would prefer that nobody open his mouth unless he knows a truth, an objective truth.

In times of old, there were men among the Jews called prophets, who, when they wrote or when they spoke, began with the words, “thus spake the Lord”.

I write the present book with the full assurance that I am only a voice. Through me, God Himself speaks.

Some will laugh at this assertion at the beginning of a book. [ Editor: Thus… ]

I always like it when people laugh, even at me. Laughter is healthy. Doctors recommend it. There is so little reason to laugh in this world. Why should people not laugh at me? Take it as foolishness if you like, but through this my book, God speaks to you.

How do I know that? Is not God Someone other than me, Someone totally different from me? My means of communication with Him can sometimes work well, but can also be troubled: I might misunderstand Him.

Jesus on the cross cried, “Eli, Eli” (the Hebrew words for “My God, My God”). Those beneath the cross believed they heard the name of the prophet Elijah. Such misunderstandings are daily occurrences.

How then can I have the assurance that what I, Richard Wurmbrand, write is exactly what God wishes me to convey? How did the prophets know?

A great confusion of spheres has taken place. The sphere of grammar and the sphere of religion are different from each other. Every pupil in school, who, when asked to conjugate a verb, replies that God is love and that whosoever believes in Him is born of God, will get a bad mark, even if the teacher is religions. Religion has no place in an examination on grammar.

But neither has grammar any say in religion. In the sphere of practical life we have to conjugate verbs, and for this we need personal pronouns. We have to distinguish between properties: between my house, my book, my wife, and that belonging to another. And so we have to use “I”, “you”, and “he”. But please leave pronouns in the realm of grammar, to which they belong: do not introduce them into religion!

When Jesus Christ met Saul of Tarsus, a great persecutor of the Christians, on the road to Damascus, He asked him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutes” thou Me?” Saul could have answered truthfully, “I never persecuted you. I persecuted your disciples”. But Jesus, though omniscient, does not know that He and His disciples are different persons. He feels Himself persecuted as often as His disciple is hurt; He weeps with every disciple who weeps, He rejoices with every disciple who rejoices.

Jesus says that at the last judgment the wicked will hear the reproach, “I have been hungry, sick, or in prison and you did not visit Me”. And He then explains that as often as one of

His little brethren suffered hardships, it was He Himself who passed through suffering.

The Lord Jesus is our leader in religion. But He might not pass an examination in grammar because He uses interchangeably the personal pronouns “he” and “I”.

The Christian religion consists in becoming inebriated with love. Inebriated men confuse things and persons. The distinction between “I”, “you”, and “he” disappears. Therefore, when I speak, if I am inebriated with love for God, God speaks through me.

Two thousand years ago Jesus said, “I am the Truth”. And for 2,000 years this assertion of His has been falsified and quoted as meaning that Jesus said, “He is the truth”. But He never said that He is the truth.

He said, “I am the truth”. If you make Him a “he”, even with a capital H. you have lost the truth.

What can Jesus, the “he”, the God embodied in a carpenter of 2,000 years ago in Palestine, tell you about modern techniques, about socialism, democracy, or military dictatorship, and which of these to prefer, about whether or not we should accept the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin or the philosophical implications of Einstein’s theory, about whether we should be fundamentalists or modernists?

What can Jesus, the man who lived 2,000 years ago in Palestine, tell you about the theory of evolution ? Can He tell you to marry George rather than Steve? Can He guide you in any practical matter?

Jesus never wished to be “he”. As a condition for His being the truth, He must always remain an “I”. I am the truth, not he is the truth. If I wish to have the truth and to be the truth, Jesus must be for me an “I”.

It is not true that He must become an I. He is an I. Luther says, “The Christian is Christ”. This is the fact, though you may not realize it yet. When my eyes are opened, I say with St. Paul, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. Then I become sure of my own thoughts. I write a book, which means that God speaks through my book.

Men of God have always thought like this.

Luther wrote: “I have to distinguish between myself and my calling. I consider myself as the smallest. But my calling is untouchable . . .

Nobody should have a high opinion of his own person, but everyone should mightily praise his calling to the glory of God. Even more. The man who holds the office has not even to prove what he says, he has to be listened to as God Himself”.

To become a Christian means to become Christlike. In what sense? Not everybody is a Jew as Jesus was, not everybody a carpenter, not every disciple of His a male. In what sense then can I become like Him ?

He lived a human life with the full assurance that He was right. In His time, like today, there existed hundreds of religions. In Galilee alone many nations and many religions met. He never chose any of these religions. He believed that man must choose His. Palestine was divided into many groups: the Zealots, the Herodians, the Essenes, etc. Jesus never chose among them. He spoke about earthly things, but others had to accept what He said. He never accepted what others said. He knew Himself to be the embodied truth. To be a Christian means to become Christlike, that is, a man without doubts about the message, a man who knows that Christ is not a “he”. When this man speaks, Christ speaks.

Putting the realities of spiritual life in human words, I will have to use the personal pronouns, but my words will be transparent. Through them, you must grasp the reality behind them: It is the Lord who tells you “Come unto me”. You have to come to him by seeing to it that he is no longer a “he” for you.

I have to make it very clear again. I do not call you to come to him. The sacred words are “Come to Me”. Do not come to him, which means, do not have in the future a “he” as an object of worship and do not be content with this.

The whole idea of subject and object is an illusion [ Editor: In Hindi, read, “Maya” ], which has been strengthened in us by linguistic structures. These will oblige me, too, to “misuse” pronouns. But I do so, conscious that what we call the “I” is only a temporary meeting point of different forces, which continually change their intensity and direction. Learn to think outside the categories of “I”, “you”, and “he” [ Editor: Read, “Empty your mind.” ]. The thinker, the thought of, and the act of thinking are one.

There is one all-powerful “I”. The ten commandments start with the words “I am God”. Within this only God, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17 :28). We form the inward life of God. We are not exterior to Him.

God continually contradicts the notion of an “I” of ours as opposed to His. Jeremiah does not wish to accept the call to become a prophet. He says to God, “I am a child”; but God answers, “Say not, I am a child . . for I am with thee” (Jer. 1:6-8). Significant are the words of God, “Say not I . . . for I . . .” Where His “I” intervenes, the state of our “I” does not count.

Zacharias, when told by the angel that he would have a son, the future John the Baptist, says to the heavenly being, “I am an old man”. This objection is cancelled with the words, “I am Gabriel” (Luke 1 :18-19). For a man to speak in terms of an “I” when he hears a voice from heaven is senseless. It again “not ‘I’, Zacharias, but ‘I’, the angel”.

God calls a man “a fool” (Luke 12 :16-20). This was the man who thought only about his earthly riches. It would have been easy to recognize him as a fool. In three verses of the Bible, he uses the words “I” and “my” nine times, not knowing that this “I” was meant to die on that very night and the “my” to pass into the possession of others.

We will come back to this idea later on. To come to God is just another way of saying to come to yourself, to your real being, to the One whose image and likeness you bear, to the only real “I”.

Jesus told St. Catherine of Siena: “I am He who is, you are she who is not”.

In my church in Bucharest, I had a Russian member who did not know one word of Romanian, the language in which all services were conducted. He was never absent from church. During the sermon, he would read his Russian New Testament.

I felt a responsibility to him. I called him one day and said, “Look, I am your pastor. I would like to know what you understand from this book. Choose a part of it at your convenience and explain it to me !”

He read to me Chapter 1 of the first epistle to the Corinthians and then interpreted, “The apostle writes that Paul had planted the gospel and a certain Apollo had watered, but God gave the increase. From this he draws the conclusion that neither Paul, nor Apollo are anything, but only God. Now, if St. Paul and Apollo are called just nothings, how much is your worth, Brother Wurmbrand ? God has called the things which are not. Be happy to be just a nothing”.

I embraced and congratulated him for understanding the Bible better than I.

Jesus says, “Come unto Me”. Accept the call ! Do not be one of the ice-cold hearts which very often are as hard and as unfeeling as the stones of the prison floor on which Jesus might have slept, after being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus says, “Come unto Me!” and not only to pompous Church services. The great inquisitor in Dostoievsky’s The Brothers Karamasov said to the Lord, “We have improved upon your work”. Jesus in His humility is thankful for improvements.

_______________________

I could not endure any more of this stuff. But if you wanted to read the rest of this book I am sure you could order it. If this is not sufficient let me know.

Best,

Michael A. Drurey

Search the Scriptures

http://www.riconnect.com/sts/

(Acts 17:11 KJV) <

Editor: Blessed Quietness Journal

I say this carefully– According to the fruit Richard Wurmbrand is giving us in the end of his life (It is not how a man beginsbut how he ends that tells us about him), I thus must tell you Richard Wurmbrand has gone from the North to the East (Amos 8:12), and he is a blasphemer and a false prophet. He must be considered a publican and sinner, and his home church and pastor ought to send him out to be physically worked over by Satan, his true god. Wurmbrand has gone to Rome and filled his cup in the recent past, and now he has finished the journey and is now in an Ashram in India as to theology.

We now see that the Hindu Yogic and Kundalini self-worship has reached well beyond the Brownsville and Toronto Blessing people– Hindu thinking is all around us and in our most Fundamental churches. Watch out for it, and blast it and its teachers every time you see it. Rub it raw, then fill the wound with salt, and rub it in again. What kind of salt are you anyway.

Richard Wurmbrand is a fool for he has said there is no HE who is God.

Psalms 53:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

Richard Wurmbrand clearly has a devil controlling his mind.

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Tom White Suicide-VOM Child Molestation Scandal Update

As someone who has followed and admired the ministry and work of  Richard Wurmbrand and Voice of the Martyrs since they set up headquarters here in Bartlesville, OK,  and as someone who has volunteered and contributed to VOM, I have more than just a casual or voyeuristic interest in the recent events. Of utmost importance concerning any Christian ministry is it’s spiritual integrity, including  it’s leadership and doctrinal issues. For that reason, in view of the recent tragic events, I felt the need to attempt to find whether Voice of the Martyrs, under Tom White’s leadership has held to the same spiritual standards that it’s founder Richard Wurmbrand did.

I submit the following for the discernment of the readers here:

Voice of the Martyrs Warning-Dr. Scott Johnson:

Voice of the Martyrs Warning-Dr. Scott Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI1nXEn1wuQ
From the July 18, 2010 Bible study and current events teaching by Dr. Scott Johnson
I found this to be interesting. It seems the Jesuits have infiltrated voice of the martyrs. Anything to convince people that catholicism is real, and that following Jesus is synonymous with catholicism. satan must be tickled. Get all the unsuspecting, undiscerning, uninformed american ‘christians’ to believe that catholicism is Christian. This is in reference to the story from Iraq.
These pictures reveal the good ‘christian’ that Catholic Archbishop Emil Nona is. http://www.khoranat-alqos…showthread.php?t=11876The dagon hat is a nice touch. The man is a pagan devil worshipper, the people in the photos are a bunch of pagans who need the words of God to break through the darkness that V.O.M. and american ‘christians’ labels as ‘christianity’. It’s got nothing to do with the real Jesus, nothing to do with spiritual truth in reality. Although they are much closer to where these catholic practices came from. Pagan idolatrous wickedness started in babel, trickled around the world, got mashed together in Rome, and finally all the filth is back in the hands of the Chaldeans. Like a satanic ‘return to sender’ 35 hundred years in the making lol. They worship the false gods that their ancestors worshipped. Nimrod and Semiramis would be proud. After looking at the photos on that website, come back to the VOM paragraph, but keep a barf bag handy. “Ask God to guard the hearts of Iraqi Christians against fear so they can continue serving him with boldness.” Anything to broaden “god’s” love and mercy. All catholicism is, is Satanic baggage in a trojan horse. If satan can get ppl to embrace the trojan horse into their hearts and minds as ‘christian’ then there’ll be all kinds of ungodly, unbiblical, strong delusion lies and filth to smuggle in also. And with great ease. My heart is grieved that so many people can be so deceived, both the Chaldean Mary worshippers, and ‘christians’ in america who thing catholicism is legit. I wouldn’t think it was so easy to trick human beings if i didn’t see it for myself. I guess you can convince people to believe just about anything. And with great ease. Romans 16:18 -Eric
P.S. – Please don’t ever buy one of those dagon hats”

 

Please remember that Tom White, the director of the US headquarters of VOM for many years was responsible for what was or wasn’t part of the monthly newsletters. In fact, he wrote the monthly editorials which were sent out to subscribers. 

Another website poster has taken issue with some of the questionable content in Tom White’s editorials;

http://www.worldofprophecy.com/smf/index.php/topic,10044.0/prev_next,prev.html#new

« on: May 15, 2011, 07:32:03 AM »


November 11th, 2010 |  Author: Lighthouse Trails Editors
FOLLOW UP NOTE 11/19/10: ON NOVEMBER 19TH, PERSONNEL FROM VOICE OF THE MARTYRS CONTACTED US BY E-MAIL AND ASKED US TO GIVE THE FOLLOWING LINK TO OUR READERS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO CONTACT THEM REGARDING THIS ISSUE. http://www.persecution.co…px?clickfrom=bWFpbl9tZW51 This person who contacted us told us that Tom White is the one responsible for the Guyon article.

In the November 2010 Voice of the Martyrs magazine, there is a feature “Christian Martyrs” article on 17th century mystic, Madame Jeanne Guyon. Lighthouse Trails contacted Voice of the Martyrs last week to discuss their article and to remind them that they had brought some attention to themselves in 2009 when they promoted emerging futurist Erwin McManus’ book, The Barbarian Way, and Eugene Peterson’s The Message  paraphrase.  Lighthouse Trails did not write an article over those incidents but contacted them and offered to send them free copies of A Time of Departing and Faith Undone. We sent the two books but never heard back as to whether VOM president Tom White or other VOM officials read the books.

Needless to say, when some of their supporters contacted Lighthouse Trails last week troubled over the Guyon article, we were concerned too. Voice of the Martyrs has done a long-standing important work of defending and helping persecuted Christians throughout the world. The ministry is the inspiration of founder, the late Richard Wurmbrand who suffered persecution and imprisonment under communist rule.

The article in the VOM November magazine, titled “Madame Jeanne Guyon – June 9, 1717,” states:

Throughout her years of ministry, she continued to seek a deeper union with God, to the point that she felt God spoke and acted through her. Madame Guyon practiced a philosophy called “Quietism,” which teaches that spiritual perfection can be attained when self is lost in the contemplation of God.”

It is taught by contemplatives that if one practices the contemplative [spiritual] “disciplines,” he or she can become more Christ-like. As Richard Foster and other contemplatives teach, anyone of any religion or belief can connect with God through contemplative prayer (it has nothing to do with a relationship with Jesus Christ).

Quietism is described by one source as  “a Christian philosophy that swept through France, Italy and Spain during the 17th century, but it had much earlier origins. The mystics known as Quietists insist, with more or less emphasis, on intellectual stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection. . . . Quietism has been compared to the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana.”1

The Voice of the Martyrs article on Guyon says that Guyon was challenged by church (Catholic) authorities for her prayer beliefs. She was eventually sent to prison for seven years (no doubt the VOM writer considers her a true martyr for this). VOM continues:

In one of her short works, “A Short and Easy Method of Prayer,” Madame Guyon distinguishes between three kinds of prayer: the prayer of meditation; the prayer of simplicity, which consists of keeping oneself in a state of recollection and silence in the presence of God [LT: this is contemplative prayer]; and active contemplation, in which the soul leaves God to act and renounces all its own interests [LT: this is the altered state that contemplative prayer induces] .

As with most long-term contemplatives, Madame Guyon became panentheistic in her beliefs. She stated that: “Here [in the contemplative state] everything is God. God is everywhere and in all things” (Guyon,Willigis Jager, The Search for the Meaning of Life, 1995, p.125). The God of the Bible would not have someone say that God is in everything. This very mindset is what prompted contemplative Brennan Manning to quote Thomas Merton in his book, The Signature of Jesus:

During a conference on contemplative prayer, the question was put to Thomas Merton: “How can we best help people to attain union with God?” His answer was very clear: “We must tell them that they are already united with God.” Contemplative prayer is nothing other than coming into consciousness of what is already there. (The Signature of Jesus, pp. 211, 218 , as cited in A Time of Departing)

As Merton and Guyon did, those practicing contemplative prayer ultimately come to believe that God is in all people and in all things. This is the “fruit” of contemplative prayer. The reason for this is that in that altered state of silence (the same as the Hinduistic Transcendental state) are demonic influences. It’s as simple as that.

Guyon embraced a prayer method in which one is to enter a state of non-thinking during prayer. Brennan Manning backs this up by saying, “[T]he first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer” (The Signature of Jesus, p. 212). Guyon explained it thus:

 May I hasten to say that the kind of prayer I am speaking of is not a prayer that comes from your mind. It is a prayer that begins in the heart…. Prayer that comes out of the heart is not interrupted by thinking!—(Guyon, Experiencing The Depths of Jesus Christ, p. 4)

All that is of your doing, all that comes from your life-even your most exalted prayer-must first be destroyed before union can come about. All the prayers that proceed from your mind are merely preparations for bringing you to a passive state; any and all active contemplation on your part is also just preparation for bringing you to a passive state. They are preparations. They are not the end. They are a way to the end. The end is union with God! —(Guyon – Experiencing Union with God Through Inner Prayer)

Ask any Hindu or Buddhist or New Ager, turning off the mind is the goal in meditation so that an altered state of consciousness can be reached.  As Ray Yungen puts it, it is like putting the mind in neutral, this stilling of the mind. This is not what the Bible means when it says “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 — the classic Scripture used by contemplative teachers). This instruction meant to stop worrying, settle down, and trust the Lord. There is absolutely no indication anywhere in that or any other Scripture that we are to go into a meditative state in order to hear God or to “really know Him,” as many contemplatives say.

It is a known fact that Madame Guyon is known also for her “automatic writing.” Mystic Evelyn Underhill  ”refers to Guyon as a ‘medium’ exhibiting clairvoyance, prophecy, telepathy, and automatic writing in bewildering profusion” (“The Mindless Mysticism,” Fisher). Underhill said:

 When she [Guyon] was composing her works, she would experience a sudden and irresistible inclination to take up her pen; though feeling wholly incapable of literary composition, and not even knowing the subject on which she would be impelled to write. If she resisted the impulse, it was at the cost of the most intense discomfort. She would then begin to write with extraordinary swiftness. “In writing I saw that I was writing of things which I had never seen: and during the time of this manifestation, I was given light to perceive that I had in me treasures of knowledge and understanding which I did not know that I possessed.” (Underhill, Mysticism)

One writer explains:

As she fasted to the extreme and often went without sleep, her mystical experiences increased. She experienced what she thought was union with the essence of God. She had mental delusions or demonic visitations such as envisioning “horrible faces in blueish light.” She went into trances, which would leave her unable to speak for days. During some trances, she wrote things that she believed were inspired (Guyon, An Autobiography, p. 321-324). This is automatic writing, and she was doubtless influenced by demons. (“The Delusion of Madame Guyon,” Cloud)

We hope that Voice of the Martyrs will reconsider their apparent promotion in contemplative/emerging authors. Otherwise, they may be leading people down that slippery slope of mystical deception, and that would be truly tragic. It is sadly ironic to realize that someone like Guyon, who was imprisoned largely because of her mystical activities and writings, would be put in the same category as true martyrs who have defended the biblical faith, and this being the cause of their affliction and martyrdom. Thus we have written this article with the past and present Christian martyrs in mind, hoping to help maintain the dignity and integrity which they so deserve.

Below are a couple letters we have received over the past year or so from Voice of the Martyrs supporters. We hope that VOM will read these and see that it isn’t just Lighthouse Trails saying this; others are concerned too.

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

I have been a supporter of Voice of the Martyrs but recently was distressed to open my monthly newsletter and find Tom White supporting the book “The Barbarian Way.” [by Erwin McManus]  The tone of his letter that month was disturbing, seeming to be mocking those who are looking forward to heaven, a common attitude today.

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

First of all I want to thank you for all the work you do. My reason for writing is my concern for Voice of  the Martyrs magazine. I have enjoyed getting it in the mail for several years but in the February 2009 issue on page 2 there is an article by Tom White where he quotes Erwin McManus from his book The Barbarian Way. ( page 108-109)  This greatly concerns me. I wondered if you would want to warn Mr. White about Mr. McManus. The email for the magazine is thevoice@vom-usa.org.  Thank you.   

The following is a letter written to VOM President Tom White, which was sent to us by the person who wrote it (who gave us permission to post it):

To Dr. Tom White :

As regular supporters of Voice of the Martyrs and Bibles Unbound, we were very shocked and disappointed to see in the front of the sample “Extreme Devotion” booklet we recently received in the mail from VOM, that on the copyright page, it states: “Scripture taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson…”.

It is our sincere prayer that Tom White and all of the staff at VOM will educate themselves immediately on the dangers of this so-called “translation” by Eugene Peterson.

“The Message” is a contemplative, mystical distortion of God’s Holy Word. On the surface it simply appears to be written in “lingo” that is easier to understand for today’s average American – however, dig deeper and you will realize that it “adds to and takes away” from God’s Holy Scriptures, which we are warned, specifically at the end of Revelation, not to do….

[W]e would like the assurance of VOM/persecution.com that the foreign language Bibles we are sending out [through Bibles Unbound] are NOT translations/interpretations of “The Message”/Eugene Peterson’s so-called “translation.”

http://www.lighthousetrai…research.com/blog/?p=5235

Also….

Voice of the Martyrs made a statement online to address the concerns many have had regarding whether or not the ministry has offered help to the little girl in question. It does tend to trouble me they continue to use the term, “alleged activity” and “allegations of abuse”, etc. In spite of the fact they “allegedly” felt compelled to both go to the girl and her family and compelled to make a public statement, all of which tends to make me think the molestation of this little 10 yr old girl actually happened and more than mere allegations. I’d like to see a full investigation done into what happened, including into the VOM ministry. There should be zero tolerance of anything that even hints at a cover up. 

http://www.persecution.com/

This is a snip from that statement:

“Many have asked about the young girl who reported the allegations of abuse, and her family.

Both her family and the White family have asked VOM to respect their privacy during this time and not comment on specifics of the investigation. After listening to both families, and because the alleged activity did not take place at VOM and was unrelated to Mr. White’s work with the ministry, VOM’s leadership believe it is appropriate to honor their request [prior to issuing this statement VOM asked members of both families to review it].”