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Jesus preached Woe on the pharisees and other religious hypocrites of the day in Matthew 23.

In our day there are many who have a form of Godliness but deny the reality of it. Some of this can bee seen in their actions. There are numerous websites and emails circulating that are attempts by people calling themselves christians, some well meaning, others I believe deliberately fraudulent.

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<!--break--> Many of these people purport to know the truth about the end times (in spite of the Bibles warnings against this), libelliously attack other Christian writers and authors with poorly written and badly documented arguments against their theological positons etc. Many of these are circulated as emails and to many people that is truth. Fortunately there are sites like www.snopes.com that debunk these emails. However that makes Christians look like fools. Sites like Creation Ministiries International even have lists of arguments that Christians should NOT use when defending creation against evolution.

In the last couple of days I received several emails that needed their veracity checked.

Each of these was able to be crossreferenced against a number of sources to be mostly accurate. One in particular was regarding the book Conversations with God by Donald Walsch. Gordon Moyes a member of the NSW Legislative Council wrote an article about this book being marketed to schools through Scholastic. While what he says appears accurate, it is clear that already there are false emails circulating stating Dr James Dobsons position on this. Yet a quick google search clearly shows this is not the truth about what Dobson has said. I couldn t find anything on Snopes - so expanded search - John Mark Ministries was next with this article. I checked Dobsons site and couldn't find anything immediately. Back to Google and Breaking the chain was next - heres what they had to say. From there I was able to link to the statement on Dobson's site about the book and what he did and didn't say.

See how careful we need to be. see how easy it is for "Christians" to distort the truth, and thereby call dishonour down on His name. the internet is a tool, we must use it wisely and carefully.

The next one was of a similar nature and involved physical cds my kids had received from Scholastic as prizes for the MS Readathon - a worthy cause! the email was about the upcoming movie "The Golden Compass" by Pullman, starring Nicole Kidman. Here is what Snopes has to say about the Golden Compass. As the movie was easy to locate on IMDB and did show Kidman as the star this was easily verfied as true. A little more research about the actual author and the material turned up this information. This is serious anti christian material being promoted to school children subtly through the books, films and in my case the kids cds. The movie is based on the first of three books in a trilogy called His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Looking up on Wikipedia we find this statement "The novels also draw heavily on gnostic ideas, and His Dark Materials has been a subject of controversy, especially with Christian groups".

See how careful we need to be when researching these sorts of thiongs. I recommedn always looking at snopes and some of the other urban legend debumnk sites, look up the websites fo the people who have been "quoted", look up the websites of the people producing the material or book or film or whatever, see if there are any reviews of the material, see what other major organisaions are saying about it. Only then if you beleive there is a serious need to inform others on your email lists, then pass the email on (with correct information) using bcc to add the email addresses.

Finally the last one I got is one thats been around a while now about the Chronicles of Narnia books and epscifically The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe film. One camp of people seem to be stating that this is a satanistic, evil book promoting witchcraft and idolatry, while others recognising CS Lewis as a serious Christian thinker, apologist and renowned academic and theological writer who wrote a fantasy story that is not desgined to be an allegory. Here is CS Lewis's explanation as quoted from letters he wrote. I found this with one Google search on the first page. I then checked a few more cross references to determine the veractity of that result. Here's a quote from Lewis

But it is not, as some people think, an allegory, That is, I don't say "Let us represent Christ as Aslan". I say, "Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there."

By the way, James Dobson's website recommends an article recommending you read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Some of the stuff I found while researching this also included materials by people who write emotive arguments for their points of view. These are not generally well substantitated with sources documented and cross referenced (though there are some exceptions.

Here is an example from Last Trumpet Ministries. David Meyer appears credible but when you start reading his stuff he writes a lot of tripe. Here are some examples:

• That is why radio talk show hosts, who are all paid stooges of the Illuminati,
• We are now living during a time when it is impossible to bring logic or common sense into anything major that is happening. The reason this is the case is because elitist illuminists, working within the Masonic Lodge, the Scottish Rite, and the Grand Orient Lodges, are now carrying out the final directives of an age-old plot for a one-world government under their god, Lucifer.

I am reluctant to post more from this site so as to not appear to give credence to this rubbish. This chap starts his newsletters with scripture quoted out of context, a positional statement about reality as he sees it. He then follows that with totally undocumented false statements like those above. Then he goes on to interpret apparently connected news stories into a global conspiracy practised by "the elite few". No wonder thinking people think Christians are crackpots when they read this rubbish.

Some of these people erroneosuly believe in a King James Only position. Similar to a flat eath position. While I'm not against the King James version of the Bible in anyway I am not stupid enough to believe that it is the only version that can be trusted or should be used. What happened before 1611? Did you realise there were several different King James Versions? Have you read the preface to the reader in the original translation? There are numerous resources we can use to help people who make these sorts of statements understand the error of their beliefs. Here is a website dedicated to helping people understand the error of the King James Only position.