Greetings to over 100 new subscribers since our last email update and GREETINGS to all of our friends in over 40 countries worldwide!

Each week we are dialoging with people from around the world. I am personally handling the lion’s share of those correspondences. Its time consuming and tiresome but its bearing some terrific fruit.

Just a few days after our last newsletter was mailed a Pastor called to tell me how important he thought the article “Kids and the Occult” was and that he had already used much of it as illustration for his Sunday message. What a blessing to me that other called men and women of God are using our materials to both win and warn the lost and to alert the Church on issues facing us today.

Besides the ongoing dialog I've been having with Muslims, Wiccans, Mormons, etc. and many Harry Potter fans, the Lord has truly been blessing His word at our live seminars.

After I spoke on "Why The Da Vinci Code is Still a Problem" one evening in Missouri two weeks ago over 20 people stood to either receive Christ or to rededicate their lives to Him! All of this in a United Methodist church. Contrary to some reports, I praise God that the Gospel of salvation and repentance is still alive and well in at least some of the churches in the denomination I grew up in!

It continues to thrill me at how the Lord has used my teaching about The Da Vinci Code. You may remember that earlier this year we saw similar responses after I ministered on this issue in churches across the country.

At that same series of meetings in Missouri we saw several others surrender to Jesus and had some terrific times of fellowship dialoging on the issues too.

After I spoke on Spiritual Warfare and the authority of the Believer one lady remarked that she had been in church all of her life yet had never understood what the blood of the Cross had afforded her, especially the fact of the authority of the blood. Praise God for His everlasting truths!

One personal note. Many years ago on November 20th I married the beautiful woman shown with me in the picture at the top of this page. When we met and married we were both lost, drug using New Age seekers. What a change Jesus can make! (Read our testimony here.) I am grateful first to God that He saved and changed us for eternity and second I am grateful to my loving wife, partner and friend for the years of love and support. Thank you Melanie. I love you!

Let me remind you that your gifts of support - large and small alike - allow me to concentrate on ministry rather than on continual fund raising. Also your faithful prayers add spiritual fuel to the work we do. Thanks so much for standing with us!

Thanks so much and God bless you!

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It’s Not My Business
What They Watch!

I have always taken a lot of heat for speaking out about movies, music, books and other forms of entertainment. That’s OK. When God called me into this kind of apologetic-culture-expose’ ministry He instilled in me the ability to both dialog with and to endure harsh criticism from those who disagree with me. I praise the Lord for this as I simply could not have fulfilled this ministry thus far without His wonderful grace and compassion as well as a generous amount of spiritually thick skin that He has clothed me with directly from His throne.

Over the years I have been branded among other things as a “radical Bible-thumping fanatic” by many outside of the Church. Now, with the increased confusion concerning doctrines and righteous standards the same grumblings can be heard coming from inside the Church as well. I can assure you that growing numbers of people who claim to be Christians detest anyone pointing out that God indeed has absolutely unchangeable precepts about how we approach the identity and workings of evil.

Our standards and rejection of immorality (which includes the occult) is very important to God as is evidenced below through the study notes for Romans 1:32 which appear in The Full Life Study Bible. These words, written by its editor, the late Donald C. Stamps, powerfully remind us that for both our benefit and for that of those around us there can be no silence concerning evil and no agreement with it in our midst.

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
- Romans 1:32 (KJV)

“‘Have pleasure in them that do them.’ Paul’s last word on human sinfulness is God’s condemnation of a condition even more damning than the practice itself, i.e., supporting and encouraging evil by taking pleasure in the immoral actions of others. This disposition is the ultimate in depravity – vicarious enjoyment of lust and evil. Sin becomes entertainment.

Being entertained by watching other people sin and engage in ungodly actions, even while you yourself abstain, brings you under the same divine condemnation as those engaging in such evil practices. Sin is intensified in any society wherever it meets with no inhibition from the disapproval of others.

Those (and especially those who profess faith in Christ) who use the immoral actions of others for entertainment and enjoyment are directly contributing to public opinion favorable to immorality and therefore to the corruption and eternal damnation of an indefinite number of other people.” – The Full Life Study Bible

You may post comments about this article at Eric's new blog HERE

Wow Am I Tired of “Harry Potter” E-mails…

In a message dated 10/03/2006 10:11:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, slytherin_girl200@xxxxxxxx.com writes:

Okay, seriously dude...you need to really rethink this whole anti-harry potter thing you have going on. I was reading one of your essays about it and i noticed you exagerated alot of stuff. mainly excerpts from the book and facts you pulled from them. I am a christian and I see nothing wrong with the books and neither does my youth pastor. I have gotten alot of crap from ppl about how i'm an HP fan and it really annoys me when they don't have all the facts. I mean have you even read the books?

Okay yea maybe there could be a chance that a little kid would wonder what divination is and what potions are but come on...you would have to be really thick or just waiting for a reason to join the occult. And when they get caught they blame it on the books!

They are really good books and i am a big fan...but that doesn't mean that EVERY SINGLE YOUTH OR PERSON IS GOING TO FALL INTO THE OCCULT!! Gosh!

Thanks for listening and I hope to hear back from you and see if you can give me any good reasons.

Rachael

Eric Responds:

Rachael, if you’re going to criticize my analogy of Harry Potter you have got to do better than to just make general sweeping statements, so please tell me exactly what and where am I exaggerating? (NOTE: So far Rachael hasn’t come up with anything precise. By the way, her email address “slytherin” is named after the most notorious of the four “houses” of witches/warlocks in training in the Harry Potter series.)

Whether somebody actually gets involved in the occult or not because of H.P. is not the central focus of what I am saying in my book, website, live seminars and videos. You, and so many other Potter defenders who have written me, really haven't read what I am saying and, though I mean no disrespect, you probably have no conception of what the Bible says about this topic. All you know is that you are a Harry Potter fan and you haven't considered where this is leading our thinking in general or our culture as a whole and probably don't have a biblical basis with which to discern truth for error on this subject. Easily 8 of every 10 people writing me on this use the phrase "I'm a Christian" and proceed to tell me why there is absolutely nothing wrong with Harry Potter. One of the main problems with many "Christians" today is that they are to put it bluntly just biblically illiterate and instead of searching the Scriptures to find God’s precepts they have chosen to formulate their own religion their own way. If you don’t bother to check out what the Bible says to see if what you believe is actually what God says then you are doomed to make poor judgments and will sooner or later start defending stuff that is actually against God.

It doesn't surprise me a bit that some pastors and youth pastors "see nothing wrong with Harry Potter" because of the sick and sad number of those who are in "ministry" who do not know, respect or believe the entire Bible. This is called "biblically liberalism" and it’s like a cancer that's been eating away at the truth until there isn't much left in some once great denominations and churches. (By the way, what type church do you attend?)

Note: I was somewhat surprised to find out in a later very nasty and defensive email from Rachael that she attends an Assemblies of God church. I speak regularly in AG churches and many AG pastors but God help us if Assemblies of God ministers are endorsing Harry Potter!

If you care to really get a grip on why I am saying about Potter what I am saying, instead of just blindly trying to defend the books based on your feelings, then read the following pages:

http://www.ericbarger.com/9prac.htm

http://www.ericbarger.com/potter-christians.htm

http://www.ericbarger.com/christians.occult.htm

See the emails at: http://ericbarger.com/emailers/update1-20-05.htm

By the way, do you happen to think I get a kick out of personally answering sometimes a dozen or more emails a day about this? Give it a rest, OK? Somebody posted my email address on a Yahoo group a while back and literally gave up trying to give a personal response to anybody but here I am doing so with you. Go figure?

Listen up Rachael. For over two decades I have traveled 200+ days a year ministering and speaking, I am writing yet another book, as well as producing new video teachings (shot a new one just this afternoon), I do media interviews often, serve on 3 ministry's advisory boards, webmaster 3 websites, I’m currently recording a CD of Christian/worship songs I have written, am teaching myself how to play piano, have a family including 4 grandkids that I want to spend time with and need to play some golf, fish a little and have a life too. Besides all that I do the lion’s share of our research, write our ministry newsletters and answer sometimes the most vile emails one can imagine written by Harry Potter fans who think that it’s OK to curse and cuss at me while claiming to be "Christian." (Thanks for leaving out the foul language when you wrote.) Do I sound stressed? Yep, kinda.

What would I have to gain by just being "against Harry Potter" if I didn't have a valid reason? I have never received a dime of cash royalties from my book sales (honest). So, I'm either just nuts or I actually care that people (who usually think they know it all but have no clue about the Bible) are stepping into a spiritual minefield without any understanding of just how serious this issue is in God's mind.

For your own sake, get a Bible and read it and put down Potter until you can get a grip on life. Without God's Word to guide you, you'll go haywire at some point - sooner rather than later too. Why? We are all sinners in need of a Savior and His name ain't Harry.

Eric
www.ericbarger.com

News about Eric's book Entertaining Spirits Unaware and related DVDs HERE

An Ex-Wiccan Warns About Harry Potter

Hello Mr. Barger,

I met you recently at the FCBC. First off, thank you for coming and speaking at our church. I know of at least one woman in our church, who thought Harry Potter was great and was waiting in breathless anticipation for the next book, who will now never finish the rest of the series because of your time with us at the church. I thank you for her sake.

I was reading some of the pro-Potter emails and I felt that I had to write...please forgive me if I babble a bit and get a little excited, but this is something that strikes my heart and I felt that I needed to write to you and those readers with my thoughts.

First off...Until only a little over a year ago, I was a practicing pagan witch. As a witch, while I worshipped a goddess and a god, I did not believe in or acknowledge a "devil" of any kind. I could and would have told you that the devil is strictly a Christian idea and had no part in the craft. There is no such being. Christians made the devil up and dressed him in pagan clothes (the horns and such being taken from the horned god of my former beliefs so that the Christians might frighten pagan folk into believing that their god was actually evil and they needed to be saved from him--how ironic, it was true...the need to be saved from the evil one, I mean)...that is what I had been taught, that is what I knew to be truth. Your reader "Deeply Disturbed" is very ignorant of the occult. Of course, the Potter books don't proclaim Satan...witches don't either...unless they're satanic witches, but let's not go there today. As I was saying...Your reader seems to think that just because there is no "god" or "goddess" mentioned in Potter that that makes everything okey-fine! Not so good Christian-not so! If you are not doing God's work, just whose work are you doing? If you aren't worshipping God, you're worshipping Satan--no matter what name you give him; Hern, Osiris, or just plain 'magic' Where/who exactly do you think that power comes from? Not God. And no, just for the record, none of the witches I have ever known have turned a goblet into a rat while reciting such nifty words. But they do cast spells, real ones. Dangerous ones. And if you think for even a second that something doesn't answer their call--honey, ya got another thing coming.

Witches claim the threefold law. They also state in their reide, " If it harm none, do as ye will." But they have no idea who they're workin' for! The circles they cast, the watchtowers they call, the spirits they invoke--they think that these're friendly, beautiful spirits who will do what they ask of them when properly invoked, causing no harm or mischief unless provoked to wrath. Let me add here for "Disturbed's" sake, some witches don't invoke a goddess...they believe in the akasha, something more akin to "The Force," (for lack of a better description) --HELLO-O!! It's STILL Satan's gig.

I have to ask your reader: Do you believe in demons? Do you really believe in Satan? Do realize that there is a war going on out there? A war for souls? Do you realize that you're enabling Satan? Your inviting him into your home in the guise of a book?! Is Harry Potter so important to you? You should take a look at that...You're holding this book up in front of God's word and your are seeing this need to defend Potter with such vehemence. You've had to "defend your beliefs in Harry Potter?" Do you realize what you are saying?...have you stopped to wonder, what's happening here? You are placing this book before God's laws and finding His laws lacking because they don't uphold your "fiction." You are worshipping at Potter's alter.

Brethren, wake up! Harry Potter may not incite a call to witchcraft for you--but honestly, it's really not aimed at you, it's aimed at your CHILDREN!! How cool would it be to fly?! It's exciting and in their little imaginations they can become powerful witches who can destroy this guy or that guy with their powerful magic. They justify using magic to kill bad guys, because they're bad guys. And that, my friends, is just what Satan is looking for. He is waiting for these vulnerable little people to open themselves up to him inch by inch...page by page. Satan is very patient and doesn't mind waiting and feeding that desire for power, not one bit. It starts off as a seed, but that desire will grow in our little ones, don't you doubt it for a second.

And let's, just for a moment, address (the writer called) Godsangel's comments about what kid hasn't told a whopper, etc. May I ask your reader, is sin something that you wish to encourage in your children? How is that teaching your children to walk like Christ?

I'm sorry, I ended up in a bit of a rant. But I desperately wish these folks could see what I've seen. I wish that they could look through my eyes because then they would see the danger! The horrible danger stalking their homes; their children; themselves.

Thanks for your time. Thanks for your ministry.
God bless you.
TB

Eric Responds:

Hi Tracy !!

What a well spoken and powerful letter. Thanks! It will definitely appear in a future newsletter. Most of all, I am so grateful to the Savior that you have been set free from the bondage of the occult. Satan is using such seemingly harmless and subtle means to attract a following today. I know that your testimony is and will continue to be a powerful deterrent to his dirty work. Keep it up! Most of all, give the Lord all of the glory as you follow and serve Him with your whole heart!

God bless you and please keep in touch!

Eric

You Are Scum

I just read your bollocks about Harry Potter. It is my opinion that the only place in which Satan may lurk is in the nonsense peddled by wicked mannipulative bible bashers like you. You do not fool me for a second and I feel sure you rarely fool yourself. You are a sad EVIL manipulator of people , a career (Expletive deleted) that has no respect for God, and probably no genuine belief. If you do believe and heaven and hell are as you like to sell them then get ready for an eternal toasting. Its scum like you that make this world an ever more diffucult place to live in, peddling fear and lies for your own profit. You have an enemy now. There are people out there who will expose you for what you are. Scum.

Eric Responds:

Thanks for the uplifting letter David. However, I remain steadfast. Just wanted you to know I actually read all my email. An enemy...gee, can't we be friends instead?

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