Paul Vendredi : The God that Answereth by Fire, Let Him Be God

INTERVIEWS

JAY HOWARD EXPOSES HANK HANEGRAAFF

Podcaster Paul Vendredi interviews Jay Howard, founder of the Religious Research Project in Logan, OH. Paul and Jay discuss Hank Hanegraaff’s 1989 takeover of Walter Martin’s ministry, the Christian Research Institute (CRI). Jay reveals that upon taking over the ministry, Hanegraaff promptly gave himself a $20,000 raise and began firing anyone on staff who opposed his corrupt dealings. Jay shows that Hanegraaff’s rise to literary stardom is likewise suspect, his major works having either been ghost-written or plagiarized. The interview concludes with Jay asserting that Hanegraaff’s adopting preterist eschatology and removing The Local Church from “cult” status were both financially motivated.

Run Time: 1:00:02; Recorded: 5/6/17

PERRY ROBINSON EXPOSES HANK HANEGRAAFF (PART 1)

Hank Hanegraaff’s recent conversion from Protestantism to Eastern Orthodoxy has been welcomed with unrestrained enthusiasm by such Orthodox celebrities as Frederica Matthewes-Green. Incredibly, the Orthodox Christian Network (OCN) has already begun offering Hanegraaff’s books for sale and is providing him with FREE air time (unheard of in radio) to promote the Christian Research Institute (CRI), which is the private Protestant- themed business from which Hanegraaff extracted his substantial wealth.

Perry Robinson, a former CRI employee, warns that this incaution will bring discredit upon American Orthodoxy. In this interview with podcaster Paul Vendredi, Perry reveals that Hanegraaff’s veneer of erudition comes not by way of rigorous study, but rather by way of radio fakery. Hanegraaff has at his disposal in studio a call screener, a mute button, a 10-second delay, and a computer built into his desk. These things enable him to side- step thorny questions that he cannot answer. Moreover, if anything embarrassing befalls him on an episode, Hanegraaff’s editors can simply delete the offending minutes in post-production, or simply make the entire show unavailable for download. While this makes Hanegraaff sound educated and erudite, the consequence of this has been to debase the level of apologetic sophistication at CRI, an organization that was cutting edge under Hanegraaff’s predecessor Walter Martin. Perry, a convert to Orthodoxy himself, warns that rushing Hanegraaff into a teaching position within Eastern Orthodoxy will have the same dumbing-down effect, since Hanegraaff’s knowledge of Eastern Christianity seems to go no deeper than Conciliar Press pamphlets or Kallistos Ware’s introductory works.

Perry also exposes the shady means by which Hanegraaff turned CRI, a once reputable apologetics organization, into his own personal milch cow, which he milked for all it was worth financially, finally leaving Protestantism for Orthodoxy when the Evangelical milk ran dry. One of the means by which Hanegraaff enriched himself was the dispensing of “doctrinal indulgences”; that is to say, cultic organizations that greased his palm saw the dreaded cult label removed under CRI’s aegis. This appears to be the case with Set Free, the Local Church, and the Worldwide Church of God.

Run Time: 54:43; Recorded: 7/30/17

PERRY ROBINSON EXPOSES HANK HANEGRAAFF (PART 2)

Former CRI employee Perry Robinson continues his interview with Paul Vendredi concerning Hank Hanegraaff’s conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. In this interview, Perry shows that such Orthodox media platforms as OCN have acted with grave incaution by giving a teaching platform to Hanegraaff, a VERY recent convert. These organizations seem never to have read the pastoral epistles, in which the Apostle Paul warns against elevating new converts to positions of authority. What is equally shocking is that they seem not to have looked at CRI’s website, the statement of beliefs whereof still promotes such heterodox teachings as penal-substitutionary atonement, justification by faith alone, total depravity, the federal headship of Adam, and the rapture.

This also raises the disquieting specter of double standards within Eastern Orthodoxy. Both Perry Robinson and Paul Vendredi converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Perry in 2000; Paul, in 1998). This is the same archdiocese into which Hanegraaff converted. But whereas Perry and Paul had to renounce their former Protestant views in a formal ceremony before the whole congregation, Hanegraaff appears to have been exempted from this requirement. Does this mean that converts possessing wealth and celebrity status receive different treatment in the Greek Archdiocese?

What is more troubling is that Hanegraaff, who has left a trail of destroyed careers and alienated colleagues behind him, is receiving the Lord’s Supper, which his new church declares to be the literal body and blood of Christ. The New Testament warns against taking the Lord’s Supper while one’s personal conflicts remain unreconciled. But Hanegraaff has rebuffed all attempts by his former employees at reconciliation, going so far as to threaten them with arrest or law suit.

Run Time: 53:39; Recorded: 7/30/17

JILL MARTIN RISCHE EXPOSES HANK HANEGRAAFF

Jill Martin Rische is the eldest daughter of the legendary Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and the original host of the Bible Answer Man radio program. In this interview, Jill joins podcaster Paul Vendredi to discuss Martin’s life and legacy. She also discusses at length how her father’s ministry was hijacked and gravely tarnished by one of his employees, Hank Hanegraaff.

07:38 Jill reveals that Hanegraaff turned over the 1997 edition of Walter Martin’s masterpiece The Kingdom of the Cults to Bob and Gretchen Passantino, who radically altered the text from that of the last edition published before Martin’s death.

14:54 Jill discusses her father’s 1989 funeral, at which Hanegraaff infamously had Martin’s widow, Darlene, read a false statement about Martin’s desire to see Hanegraaff promoted to president of CRI. Jill also discusses John Ankerberg’s role in this flimflam.

21:14 It is well known that one of Martin’s six children, Jill’s sister Cindee Martin Morgan, supports Hanegraaff despite the disapproval of the other siblings. However, a publication called the Christian Post disseminated false information in this regard, which Jill here clears up.

22:47 Jill clarifies that Hanegraaff was NEVER a substitute host on the Bible Answer Man program during Martin’s life. Rather, the usual host in Martin’s absence was “Bible Answer Boy” Craig Hawkins.

23:39 Excerpting from Martin’s writings and audio recordings, Jill makes a case that Martin would have strongly opposed Hanegraaff’s role as Bible Answer Man given the latter’s new positions on vicarious atonement, the ministerial priesthood, veneration of saints, and the perpetual virginity of Mary.

43:37 Jill sternly cautions the clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church that they have admitted into their fold a ravening wolf--namely, Hanegraaff.

47:41 Jill speaks directly to Hank Hanegraaff, refuting his accusations of slander and warning him to repent.

Run Time: 49:47; Recorded: 3/31/18

AUDIO BLOGS

WHAT HOWARD DEAN AND THE DEMOCRATS THINK ABOUT CHRISTIANS

Ten years ago today in Iowa, Howard Dean delivered the cringe-inducing concession speech that has gone down in political lore as “the screech speech.” Because Dean’s screaming, ranting performance lent itself so naturally to ridicule, the rest of the speech has been completely ignored by political analysts. Yet it is by scrutinizing the forgotten portions of the “screech speech” that one can learn the most about the techniques of leftist propaganda.

One such technique that we expose is the political left’s love of sloganeering. Have you ever wondered why liberals festoon their cars with bumper stickers? You will discover how a bumper-sticker approach to political policy allows one to circumvent logical objections, exalting emotion over reason.

You will also learn how liberals demonize prominent social conservatives, turning the victims’ names into damning catch-all terms. Along the same lines, we look into the propagandistic technique of surreptitiously replacing a word’s lexical definition with a persuasive definition. In particular, we analyze the lexical meaning of the word “fundamentalist,” comparing its innocuous lexical definition to the loaded persuasive definition that liberals have given the word.

Run time: 15:21; Date Posted: 1/19/14

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SUPREME COURT SILLINESS

The Constitutional safeguards against judicial tyranny having failed, the popular referenda in more than thirty states having been deemed meaningless, and a Republican Congress having proven utterly supine, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on Friday 6/25/15. Same-sex marriage is now “the law of the land” (to use the shopworn phrase favored by every pundit on television).

That Americans both liberal and conservative now repose so much veneration in SCOTUS would astonish anyone who has examined SCOTUS’s wildly erratic jurisprudence. In this commentary, Paul Vendredi lists eighteen SCOTUS decisions that countermand one another--including decisions on the issue of homosexuality! Should Americans venerate a court that cannot even get its own legal theory straight?

Following this, we briefly examine the third article of the Constitution, the vague wording whereof proved the seedbed of the judicial tyranny that began growing in cases like Marbury v. Madison and Gregg v. Georgia--a tyranny that reached its zenith of power in Obergefell v. Hodges.

We then look at restraints on judicial power that Presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have proposed in light of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Run time: 13:52; Recorded: 6/29/15

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