The early church leaders lived close to the time of Christ and the apostles; plus, they staunchly defended the faith against the first major heretics. However, even they, with their commitment, courage, and character also harbored error and even strange, scandalous, and silly teachings.

The Gospel of Thomas, (unknown author) as early as A.D. 40, ran off the rails by commanding nudity during baptism! “Jesus said: ‘When you unclothe yourselves and are not ashamed, and take your garments and lay them beneath your feet like the little children (and) trample on them, then [you will see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid.’” Jesus didn’t say that!

It seems they removed their clothes out of fear that a demon might hide inside a fold and be baptized with them! Silly and scandalous teaching so early in church history.

The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (A.D. 95) stoops to pagan mythology when it declared, “Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the resurrection] which takes place in Eastern lands, that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years.” Even such notable non-Christians as Herodotus, Lucan, and Pliny the Elder, along with Isidore of Seville (a professing Christian) propagated that same error! Some even said that the bird is resurrected after each life and can live 1400 years!

It is amazing what sane, educated, and professedly orthodox people believed and please note that Clement was bishop at Rome and knew the Apostle Peter. Some say Peter consecrated him as bishop yet Clement thought the Greek phoenix was a fact! Unbelievable!

Justin Martyr (died 165) declared, “And then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan.” There is no fire in the Gospel account, just water.

Incredibly, Martyr also indicates that the “true religion” predated Christianity. He declared that the “seeds of Christianity” (manifestations of the Logos acting in history) actually predated Christ’s incarnation as unknowing Christians! Heresy from Martyr! This notion allowed him to claim many historical Greek philosophers including Plato and Socrates as unknowing Christians! Since personal salvation requires a choice, there cannot be any “unknowing” Christians. Furthermore, while dying, Socrates ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius–the Roman god of healing.

This same heresy was taught by Clement of Alexandria (who died 215) that Greeks were saved through philosophy! “Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was necessary for justification to the Greeks; now it is useful for piety . . . for it brought the Greeks to Christ as the law did the Hebrews” (Miscellanies 1:5 A.D. 208). He also taught that Christ’s promise of salvation is available to all, even those condemned to hell!

Clement declared, “By striving to imitate Christ, man can achieve salvation.” Say what! He suggested that Christ is neither male nor female, and that God the Father has both male and female aspects. Please note that Clement was an early pastor at the church in Rome!

Tertullian, who died in 240, taught that dedicated Christians would not have false hair, wear colored garments, have gold and silver vases, downy pillows, eat white bread, take warm baths, or shave the head or beard. In fact, he taught that to shave the face was to lie against our own face and was an attempt to improve on the works of the Creator.

He taught that there is no public entertainment which does not inflict spiritual damage.

He also taught, “Without baptism, salvation is attainable by none.” So, Tertullian taught baptismal regeneration!

Origen, considered one of the most alert, astute, and active minds of the early church, even castrated himself thinking he was obeying Matt. 19:12! Gibbon wittily commented, “As it was Origen’s general practice to allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that, in this instance only, he should have adopted the literal sense.”

Self-castration! I would not call Origen alert, astute, and active but dumb, dumber, and dumbest.

Origen declared, “It is not possible to receive forgiveness of sins without baptism” (Exhortation to the Martyrs 30 A.D. 235). Here was another famous early church leader who taught baptismal regeneration!

Origen rejected the literal teaching of Scripture asserting that the reader would find many passages in the Gospels that were untrue events! He believed God had created other worlds and would do so again in the future. Origen was another mixed up dude!

One of the most famous early church leaders was Augustine who declared, “In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance.”

He even went further to teach baptism of infants! “The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic” This famous theologian declared, “The sacrament of baptism is most assuredly the sacrament of regeneration.” Not according to Scripture.

In 420, he declared, “Baptism washes away all, absolutely all, our sins, whether of deed, word, or thought, whether sins original or added, whether knowingly or unknowingly contracted.” How do followers of Augustine handle his teaching of baptismal generation?

Augustine said, “It is better that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment or by pain. But because the former means are better, the latter must not therefore be neglected….Many must often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, by the rod of temporal sufferings, before they attain the highest grade of religious development.”

By that teaching, Augustine laid the foundation for the bloody Inquisition in Europe by the Roman Church in dealing with “heretics.”

Modern Christians must ask some questions: Is it possible to be a born again person and hold some of the teachings revealed here? And remember that some of these men gladly went to their deaths for their faith. If a local pastor or seminary professor taught what Origin, Justin, and Tertullian believed, would he be fired peremptorily? Have Christians down through the centuries been too quick to accept a preacher or teacher because of his impressive preaching, pedigree, and personality? Has there been massive failure on the part of pastors and seminary professors to rebuke, exhort, and contend for the faith? What responsibility do laymen have in challenging a pastor who preaches strange, scandalous, and silly beliefs? Isn’t it time to get back to what we have professed: we teach only what the Bible teaches?

Maybe historian Will Durant provided the answer why the early church ran off the rails so quickly when he wrote, “While Christianity converted the world, the world converted Christianity, and displayed the natural paganism of mankind.” Faithful Bible preaching would have kept early Christians on the right track and it will do so today.

Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published recently by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.

Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. It was named after the College’s first benefactor, a young minister John Harvard. John was from a wealthy British family, most who died of plague leaving him to control the family fortune. When he died in 1638, he left his library and half his estate to fund the college that was to train ministers of the Gospel. A statue of John Harvard stands today in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard, and is perhaps the University’s best known landmark. However, practically all the faculty and almost all the students would be embarrassed if they knew what he really believed.

Harvard College consisted of an acre of land and a house with one professor. The first graduation class consisted of nine graduates. For many years, at least half the graduates became ministers. Students had to prove their fitness for the bachelor’s degree by showing that they could read the original Hebrew and Greek of the Old and New Testaments and translate them into the Latin tongue, and “resolve them logically.”

The early motto of Harvard was “Truth for Christ and the Church;” however, when unbelieving radicals took over, every word was deleted except “truth.” I’m afraid truth was also deleted and it has long been denigrated and denied.

One point of the “Harvard College Laws” of 1642 was “to know God better.” For example: “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life.” Plus each student was to read the Bible twice a day!

In 1654, Harvard’s first president Henry Dunster and his wife were thrilled at the birth of their son but a problem arose when he refused to have his son “baptized” as per the Congregational Church where he was a member. Dunster had recently been convinced that baptism was not sprinkling of babies but immersion of believers thereby teaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The Puritans were apoplectic!

Dunster had witnessed the whipping of Obadiah Holmes for being a Baptist in New England! That incident forced the Harvard president to rethink his theology. He came out Baptist. He felt the heat from the Puritans and finally exiled himself in 1654 to nearby Plymouth Colony for his health–he wanted to stay alive!

By the early 1700s, the Christians lost control of Harvard to the unbelievers (liberals), then Unitarians and it has been downhill to this day with periods of light and darkness.

Louis Agassiz, biologist, geologist, and medical doctor, was considered one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century and taught at Harvard from 1848 to 1873. Agassiz, an active Christian, was a friend of Darwin but vigorously opposed him saying, that “the crowning act of the Creator, man, was placed on the earth at the head of creation.” Years later, Stephen Jay Gould filled the same position at Harvard as Agassiz, but he could never fill his shoes.

W.E.B. Du Bois was the first black to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard and was a founder of the NAACP who championed the word “colored” instead of “black.” He died after a lifetime of leftist causes (often as a community organizer) never meeting a Communist he didn’t like.
Harvard showed their loony, leftist leanings when they had Fidel Castro as guest of the Law School Forum and gave Nelson Mandela an honorary doctorate.

Because Harvard cut itself loose from any stabilizing influence, it has become rich and raucous. It is one of the main cheerleaders for left wing activities, and is a propaganda factory for the left, supporting totalitarians on the left and the vile “isms” such as Marxism, Darwinism, Freudianism, Higher Criticism, multiculturalism, relativism, naturalism, positivism, socialism, liberalism, radical environmentalism, and other studies such as feminist studies, gay studies, transgender studies, transvestite studies, outcome-based education, etc.

Harvard’s descent from true scholarship, sanity, and the Scripture is not surprising. It has happened to all such schools and was foretold in II Tim. 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

Universities were started in the Middle Ages and were modeled on guilds which trained and evaluated apprentices and journeymen. Universities majored on theology, philosophy, rhetoric, etc., instead of carpentry, cobbling, and other necessary occupations. Today, the schools of higher learning are propaganda palaces, indoctrination institutions, and sex symposiums.

This week was Harvard’ Sex Week and their website reveals the sessions”will dispel myths about anal sex and give you insight into why people do it and how to do it well.” No one will ask if it is healthy, normal, or right. Gasp! Right is whatever one believes to be right. There is no “wrong,” well, except it is wrong to disagree with abortion, perversion, same-sex-marriage, and gun control.

There were sessions on “Losing Your (Concept of) Virginity,” “Brown Girlz Do it Well: a Queer Diaspora Remix,” “What What in the Butt: Anal Sex 101,” “Fifty Shades of False: Kink, Fantasy, and Fetish” and more, much more. Ain’t education great! A lesbian porn producer was also scheduled to speak. Sure sorry I missed that.

The Sex Week pitch declares, “Learn the facts about this exciting yet often misunderstood form of pleasure, find out the common mistakes people make, and get all your questions answered!” No doubt there are millions of people who have some questions. In fact, I have some: Are there any sane people still working for or attending Harvard? Where are the few professors and students who will stand in Harvard Yard and denounce the debauchery? How can there be any educational value in such vileness? Is there even an iota of morality being taught? What have these “teachers” and students been taught in younger years? Where are the parents of the students; why are they not literally marching on the Harvard campus? Where are the university trustees? Obviously, they are not very trustworthy. Do these dummies really think they are chic?

All honest, sane people know the anus was not made for sex and is very vulnerable for all kinds of diseases and physical problems when its use is perverted.

What a tragedy that Harvard was stolen from Bible believers and is now the antithesis of what the school’s founders believed. If Harvard’s leaders had any character they would return the school to the original Calvinists who were responsible for the school.

Evidently the squirrels haven’t gathered all the nuts yet. The nuts are all over college campuses especially at Harvard this week.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY  Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”