It’s time for American Christians and church leaders to start publicly calling out those among their ranks that preach a gospel other than that of Christ, per Galatians 1:6-8.

As the Apostle Paul (so rightly) wrote to the churches in Galatia:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” – Galatians 1:6-7 NIV

It is churches that preach another gospel, that act outside of God’s direction, all for the purpose of getting butts in the pews and dollars in the offering plate, or who are under the leadership of flesh-driven frauds that are distorting the Word and keeping the American church from being a true force cutting through the darkness of this present age.

Too many otherwise decent, Bible-believing church bodies remain silent, feeling that we can peacefully coexist, praying in those who crave the sustenance of Jesus Christ’s message delivered rightly. Meanwhile, these charlatans and workers of iniquity continue to pervert the Word, leading many astray.

We are not here to tickle ears and make the world comfortable in its sin. We are to bring a sword and do battle, knowing some will fall, the world will hate us for it, but for those who receive the truth, they will accept Christ and be saved.

There. Has my Pentecostal fire shaken a few of you awake, this morning?

I hope so, because the time for ignoring fraudulent churches is done.

A recent article with LifeNews described a conversation pro-life author, Dave Sterrett, had with a Presbyterian minister, regarding the topic of abortion.

Said Sterrett:

He explained, “A Presbyterian minister in my city once said that he would support his teenage daughter to get an abortion. When another pastor asked him, ‘When do you believe a human person begins to exist?’ The Presbyterian minister replied, ‘I think someone becomes a person when they are loved.’” This is a fascinating view on personhood, especially coming from a Christian religious leader who is supposed to give the most weight to what God says about the matter. However, the minister’s comments are not all that surprising considering the official stance of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on abortion, which is that “the considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy [by abortion] can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision.”

My first reaction is to be flabbergasted.

My next is to burn with righteous anger.

I have no doubts that this conversation took place, and did so exactly as Mr. Sterrett said.

In my own community there is a Presbyterian day care center. When one of the workers with the center overheard one child describing to another child what amounted to an endorsement of homosexual relationships, she pulled the children aside and gently explained to them God’s purpose for man and woman, as well as why what the child was describing was wrong in God’s eyes.

One of the kids went home and told a parent what had been taught to them in day care that day. The parent reported it to the minister, who went to the worker and told her that the church no longer advocated traditional marriage, or preached the sin of homosexuality.

To be clear, there are two branches of the Presbyterian church, so don’t confuse one with the other.

The rogue church is the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is the church that needs to be called out – often, and loudly – and publicly rejected for its corruption of the Word.

To address what the minister in Mr. Sterrett’s account said, regarding personhood and love, I can’t imagine a more egregious denial of God’s teaching.

The psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:13-15 CEB – “You are the one who created my innermost parts;

you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.

14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.

Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.

15 My bones weren’t hidden from you

when I was being put together in a secret place,

when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.”

Or better still, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” – Romans 5:8 NLT

Jesus died for sinners who were yet born, and sins that were yet committed, because God loved, and Jesus was obedient to that love.

If a person is only a person when they are loved, by this Presbyterian minister’s determination, then truly, we know personhood from the very spark of conception, because it is our God Who crafts us, and our God Who loves us, with a limitless, perfect agape love.

Each of us is touched with world-shaking purpose, formed by the Master Potter in the womb. And though we be weak in flesh, the potential for the amazing exists in every one of us, all because of Who loves us.

I reject the message of the Presbyterian minister from Mr. Sterrett’s story, as well as the message of the PCUSA church.

I reject the very existence of churches that teach that life has no sanctity from conception forward.

I reject these churches that teach replacement theology, liberation theology, or any that seek to draw dividing lines within the Body.

And I’m not talking about denominations. Everybody has their comfort level of worship, but whether you’re Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, or old fashioned, fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal Holiness, we still preach the same Christ, the same gospel of faith and love.

Let what you know and what you’ve learned by study of the Word give you discernment about these false teachers and any counterfeit gospel.

And all the church says, “Amen.”