Hillsong Phoenix is hosting an Alpha Conference in January 2022, featuring Catholic priest John Riccardo and a Catholic mass (alphausa.org). The theme is “Cultivating Kingdom Culture,” the “core value” of which is “to listen, to understand, to actively engage in the world of another,” because “great healing happens when we Listen to each other.” This is psychobabble heresy. The Lord Jesus Christ sent His disciples to preach the gospel (Mark 16:15). The truth is revealed in Scripture; it is not found by dialogue. The truth is to be believed and obeyed and proclaimed. Paul didn’t listen to the philosophers at Athens to empathize with them. He understood that they were in ignorance and superstition and spiritual darkness and he proclaimed to them the glorious light of the gospel of Christ (Acts. 17). The New Testament faith revealed in Scripture is not to be debated; it is to be proclaimed and defended. “… it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). This is the third time that Hillsong Phoenix has hosted an Alpha Conference with a Catholic priest and a Catholic mass. On July 3-4, 2015, Darlene Zschech and Hillsong joined hands with Pope Francis at the Convocation of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit at the Vatican and participated in a mass. Pope Francis praised the charismatic movement’s zeal for unity and said that Christian unity is “rooted in a common baptism” (“Pope Greets Members of the Renewal,” July 4, 2015, FullyCatholic.com). According to Roman Catholic dogma, baptism is the new birth and the entrance into the Christian life which is then nurtured by the sacraments. It is a cursed “grace plus works” gospel (Galatians 1:8-9) which the Catholic Church in recent times has cleverly rebranded as “grace only.” The Hillsong philosophy is pure ecumenism, and it is the recipe for building an apostate one-world “church.” Bible-believing churches that use charismatic contemporary praise music are playing with fire. This music brings with it a philosophy that will change the character of any “fundamentalist” church. It builds bridges to the “broader church” and its heresies. (For a full report on Hillsong, see “Darlene Zschech and Hillsong,” www.wayoflife.org.)
(Friday Church News Notes, November 19, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)