UM Seminary Hosts 9-11 Conspiracy Theorist

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Did you know that United Methodist Claremont Seminary in California hosts a leading advocate of the bizarre theory that the Bush Administration, and not al-Qaeda, actually blew up the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9-11?

David Ray Griffin is a professor emeritus at Claremont, which also hosts Griffin’s Center for Process Studies. “Process Theology” denies God’s sovereignty and asserts that good and evil just go on forever in unresolved combat. This theology facilitates endless conspiracy theories because it claims God is not in ultimate control. Anyway, Griffin believes that thousands of Americans (including Vice President Cheney and New York Mayor Giuliani), possibly tens of thousands, conspired to generate a false terrorist attack to justify U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s my article.  Note that the official Presbyterian Church (USA) publishing house published one of Griffin’s 9-11 conspiracy books.

We did a news release about Griffin’s latest book and road tour. Griffin actually responded to our news release with a 4,600 word treatise! Here it is, if you have time for it. Obviously, few will take these wild theories seriously. But how sad that many will hear about a United Methodist seminary only thanks to Dr. Griffin’s dark conspiracy claims.

Drew Seminary in New Jersey, another United Methodist school, recently hosted a different kind of controversialist:  Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong. Now retired, Spong has for years denied that Jesus was born of a virgin or bodily rose from the dead or that a personal God exists at all. Yet he was introduced by Drew’s Dean as a “wise man.” Here’s our Anglican staffer Jeff Walton’s coverage of Spong’s speech at Drew.

Jeff, meaning no disrespect, noted that he was able to find Spong’s speech at Drew by following the “old people.” Spong claims to be making Christianity more relevant for a new generation,  yet even on a college campus his audience had very few people under age 60. Spong speaks for a mostly dying form of liberal Protestantism. Good riddance to it! Despite Spong’s condemnation of so-called “fundamentalism,” hundreds of millions around the world are turning to biblical Christianity. We should praise God that His Holy Spirit is still mightily at work in our world.

The Church especially is growing in China, where there is still persecution. Please read Religious Liberty Director Faith McDonnell’s prayer alert here.

Please also pray for Christians in Zimbabwe, which struggles under the brutal and impoverishing Mugabe dictatorship.  Thirty years ago, a United Methodist bishop became Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister, taking over from the old white minority government.  Outrageously, liberal church groups, including even United Methodists, opposed U.S. recognition of the bishop and urged support for Mugabe, at that time a Marxist revolutionary. The World Council of Churches was even funding Mugabe! Here’s my article. What if churches had urged the U.S. to support the bishop rather than forcing him from power in favor of Mugabe? Tragic.

The National Association of Evangelicals is following groups like the National Council of Churches and advocating controversial political causes that lack full support from their constituents. Now, it is liberalized immigration. Read my assistant Connor Ewing’s article here.

Finally, read Alan Wisdom’s account of a minority report in the Presbyterian Church (USA) favoring the church’s current biblical stance on homosexuality. This Summer, that denomination will debate once again whether or not to affirm scriptural Christianity or steer in a different direction. IRD plans to send Alan’s excellent case for traditional marriage to the Presbyterian decision makers. Mailing this paper will be costly but is vitally important!

Can you help Alan and the Presbyterians defend traditional marriage by making a donation of $25, $50, $100, or more to IRD? If so, please contribute here. Your support and prayers will help to ensure that one more denomination does not follow the disastrous path of the Episcopal Church and others that are collapsing into schism.

Thank you, and please remember, in all things, God is the ruler yet!