Immacule'e Ilibagiza -- survivor of Rwandan Holocaust of the 1990s. She became a motivational speaker about forgiveness after she forgave her family's killers and also a renowned author. She truly must have a heart wrenching and compelling story to tell but it is apart from our faith. She is an avowed Catholic who wrote a book about how the Rosary prayer saved her life. Not God or Christ, but the Rosary prayer. Included in this prayer is the veneration and deification of Mary. One of the "mysteries" one must pray about while praying the Rosary is called the Coronation, which according to Catholic myth is when Mary was crowned Queen of heaven and earth. Ilibagiza openly states that to this day she prays the Rosary daily and credits it with helping her in every aspect of her life, from literally saving her life to strengthening her faith, easing sorrows, changing heartache into happiness, healing illnesses in herself and others, solving family problems, landing a dream job, finding long-lost friends, and even locating lost keys! She claims to have received so many blessings from the rosary, in fact, that she decided to study its history and origins. In doing so she now believes that it was not just meant for Catholics, but that the Virgin Mary promised a life filled with blessings to everyone from any religion who faithfully recites the rosary daily. So, powerful story of forgiveness and hope? Sure, but what is she doing speaking to church leaders about how to lead their churches?
Angela Duckworth -- academic, psychologist and author. Focuses on grit and perseverance.
Fredrik Haren -- business creativity expert from Sweden.
These are the final two secular speakers and they could have been lumped in with what we have already discussed. I am sure their worldly accomplishments make them nearly peerless but they still think the things of God are utter foolishness. The church does not need to be more academic. It does not need pop psychology. It certainly does not need to be more creative. It needs to go back to the cross and leave everything to the Gospel. Its leaders need to follow Christ so others might follow them to do the same. Here is the really bad news beloved. These nine speakers are more positive than the three remaining speakers who claim to share our faith.
Bill Hybels -- Pastor Hybels is the founding pastor of Willow Creek Church in Illinois. Hybels' brand of seeker friendly church actually pre-dates the purpose driven model by a couple of decades. Hybels canvassed the neighborhood asking what the unbelievers wanted or disliked about church. The overwhelming response was that they did not like all the crosses. So Hybels removed all crosses from his new church and the compromise has continued ever since. He is one of the forerunners and architects of the demonic doctrines tearing apart the bride of Christ in these end times. All one has to do is look at this lineup for his crowning accomplishment, the Summit, and realize how deep he is in the world.
Sam Adeyemi -- Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre in Nigeria. Despite news not being prevalent here in the US for African preachers, he is widely known as a financial prosperity preacher in Nigeria, where 60% of the population lives in abject poverty.
Andy Stanley -- poster-child for purpose driven heretics. The son of beloved pastor Charles Stanley, Andy has carved out a sizable piece of the purpose driven pie. As the years have gone on he has fallen farther and farther away from established doctrines. He once said that the church should not use the term "shepherd" anymore since it is not culturally relevant. The reality is he simply is not a shepherd. He is a hireling who has drunk the purpose driven Kool Aid. He sees himself as a vision casting CEO instead. Last year he raised quite a controversy by essentially denying the sufficiency of Scripture. Upset that so many of his youth would walk away from the faith after going away to college, Stanley proposed that the church needed to move away from the infallibility of Scripture and instead deal with the factual stories within the Bible. These are actual quotes from his sermon last year:
"If the Bible is the foundation of our faith, then as the Bible goes so goes our faith. This is why you sent your kids off to college and they came back with no faith. If the Bible is the foundation of our faith then it is all or nothing. Christianity becomes a fragile house of cards religion. It comes tumbling down when we discover that perhaps the walls of Jericho did not. In archeology class they're told "we excavated the city of Jericho. By the way there is no evidence that a Hebrew people made some sort of trek from Egypt to Canaan. Do you know there are all sorts of contradictions in the OT? There's all these facts and figure that do not add up. By the way, the Bible seems to teach that the earth is only six thousand years old and everybody knows the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe is 14.5 million years old." If the entire Bible isn't true then the Bible isn't true and all of Christianity comes tumbling down." -- Andy Stanley
