I found Pastor David Felten’s response last week to be quite interesting. He quoted scripture (a small portion that he still may believe is true). He skillfully deflected attention from the real issue.

He is not being persecuted nor having all kinds of evil spoken against him because of his stand for Jesus and the gospel. The criticism is not personal but comes because of his departure from the truth of God’s word.

He is not being persecuted for Christ’s sake. He is not being persecuted like believers in the Middle East today who are having their heads chopped off. He is being confronted for his denial of the truth of scripture.

He is calling basic core beliefs of Christians myth and outdated dogma. Paul was not persecuting people when he warned them in Galatians 1:7-9 about false teachers: “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Paul’s words not mine).

Pastor Felten teaches an altered and false gospel he calls “Progressive Christianity.” It is neither progressive nor Christian.

We are warned in Scripture to be wary of wolves in sheep clothing, but we also need to be wary of wolves in shepherd’s clothing. Rev. Felten is not being spoken against “falsely.”

If he really believes the Bible and still holds to the basic teachings of the faith then let him say so, and I will be the first to apologize to him.

If not, then I doubt very seriously that he can expect a blessing from God for teaching something contrary to what God has clearly revealed in His word.