The following below are my comments out from a discussion on a group. For some context… It has to do with Mike Winger and the whole “exposing of the cover up culture” thing he’s got going on. Jeff Durbin started Apologia Church and he built his brand on this type of thing (“exposing cults”). The whole idea is that the outward appearance of these guys like Mike and Jeff can be really really great, but there can be hypocrisies and corruption inside. And these very guys like Mike and Jeff in “the system” who are “exposing things” need a lot of exposing themselves for BEING IN THE EXACT SAME SYSTEM as the ones they’re “exposing”! So the comment that led up to my comments here is… //Richard, So you don’t trust Jeff Durbin because he is ok with MMA? I don’t know much about it. What doctrine are Jeff or Mike teaching that classifies them as pseudo-Christian? Have you listen to much of them? They both have done a ton of really great work. Theologically, they both agree on the foundational doctrine of historical Christianity. They differ in several tertiary issues, but those are not of anything alarming. Are you saying they are heretical or you just don’t like their style/approach?//

Here’s my comments…
You’re looking at the outward appearance. It APPEARS that they’ve done really great work. They’re in a system that is corrupt, and they’re pointing at others IN THE SAME SYSTEM and saying, “They’re wrong for this reason and that reason!” So those like Mike Winger and Jeff Durbin who are exposing a cover up culture are doing their own massive covering up. It’s hypocrisy at its finest.

Martial Arts is deeply spiritual. It involves tests, ranking, submission, mastery, politics, philosophy, sizing up, climbing rank as in ascension, and more. Like Yoga, it is NOT innocent and merely fun and athletic. It’s from the East and it’s out from self-defense and war. The aggression involved is intense. But it’s supposed to be all about self control. The word sensei is used for somebody who is a “master” who has climbed the ranks and who has put in a lot of work in the system. Sensei literally means “one who was born before”. There is a “path” one must “walk”, and a sensei (teacher, master) has “traveled further down the path”. If this sounds like Eastern Mysticism, that’s because it is – which is radically demonic! The sensei is responsible for a lot more than teaching physical things. The sensei is responsible for teaching the “philosophy of the Art”. In a dogo (a training hall), the sensei is bowed down to out of “reverence” and “respect”. The main philosophy that is truly a spirituality is “mastery of the self and not mastery over others”. The outward appearance is physical combat, but the “internal journey” is “pursuit of harmony”. The whole spiritual journey in Martial Arts is “the pursuit of inner peace through outer discipline”. All the physical combative conflict is considering “moving meditation and contemplation”, where the ultimate opponent you’re conquering is your own fear, ego, weakness, etc. All of this opens the doors to the demonic, and the “higher” one “ranks” is all the more they’re getting involved with the demonic.

Again, if this sounds a lot like Eastern Transcendentalism, Ascension, Mysticism, and Meditation, THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS! It intensely promotes SELF MASTERY – which is totally against God’s word in a massive way! It’s straight up Occult New Age Religion – which is the Dark Arts! Many times, it’s just dressed up in an alleged fun and healthy thing to do at a karate or jujitsu studio with some friends. IT IS DEEPLY SATANIC AND DEEPLY DEMONIC TO THE CORE! Yes! Literal demon possessions are involved in such Eastern Arts and Practices!

But hey now! Isn’t Jeff Durbin’s whole schtick about pointing out cults?!?!?! You know! All the videos of him on the streets doing his thing that everybody loved so much in his early churching days!

This is the way demons as messengers who possess people work! They slip in! They infiltrate! They dress up in light and present something close but not the real thing! Demons can even take a Hollywood and MMA “star” and give him success in Cultural Pseudo-Christianity!

Mike Winger chomped down on the bait too! He’s in a video saying something like, “I spent all these hours preparing a sermon that got delivered to a few people, but when I did a video and put it out there, my quick teaching got all these views with little to no effort!” Well what if Jesus wanted Mike to be small in a local congregation with nobody getting to know his name?!?!?! Mike said, “No way! Let’s scale up and make this thing be big!” He recently boasted in having over 1 million “followers” on YouTube! That kinda sounds cultish. Hey! Isn’t “Cultish” a really cool, hip, and relevant show Jeff Durbin put together in his second business “Apologia Studio”?!?!?!

See? These young guys love to create and build something up. They’re performers. They’re marketing specialists. They’re STARS! They’re pop-influencers in Cultural Pseudo-Christianity! The online social media world has made them famous! They’ve taken their drive to be somebody special in the world as a pop-teacher, and they executed a plan to make it happen. But of course, you’ve got to make sure your outward appearance is humble, gentle, clean-looking, etc. while you market and grow your brand! SUCCESS!!!

In every fraternal organization like the Freemasons (which is radically satanic and demonic) and in every cult in general, there’s “climbing the ranks”. This even happens in cultures (“cult”ures) in small and large businesses all across America – even family cultures! At the top are the adepts – the learned elders. They “put in the work” to get to where they are. Everybody else in that particular culture (“cult”) finds their place in “the ranks”. The adepts know when a “prospect” for leadership is starting to “shine”. They’ll work with these individuals to bring them along into a higher “rank”. Of course, there’s many who “want to shine” so bad, but they don’t have what it takes to actually “climb the ranks” within a particular organization, business, religion, culture, etc.

Literal fallen angels as literal demons are all about this! Literal evil spirits are the ones who are kinda “running the show” in many cases mentioned above. This is why Paul said that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Sure, literal demons absolutely USE men and women to accomplish things, but if you can’t see THE SYSTEM for what it is, you’ll get stuck pointing at this person or that person or the other one over there! This is what guys like Mike Winger and Jeff Durbin do. They don’t want to acknowledge that they’re A PART OF THE SYSTEM. They desire to EXPOSE certain parts and certain people in the system, but they’re blinded to being able to see that they’re in the same system doing the same things (but they look good doing them). It’s all performative. It’s all people performing in a system pointing fingers at others in the same system.

A good example would be the denominations and churches in NAPARC (Reformed Presbyterian). They’re super hierarchal, super legalistic, super political, hyper-shepherding, mysogynistic, and more. They run a tight ship. The outward appearance is impeccable and spotless. If there’s and issue, they get the session of ruling elders and teaching elders together and they address the issue and everybody moves on. But because things are so political and legalistic, many things get covered up in order to keep the show running. The Holy Spirit is null and void in political decision making. It’s all human reasoning that they will insist is the Holy Spirit and God’s will for the church. The same men in leadership who address a church member who said an “unwholesome thing” can be domestic violence abusers at home. And their wives have no recourse, because they know the whole system is rigged against them. Leadership will SAY the problem is fixed, but it just got covered up. As long as the outward appearance looks great, the hypocrisy, filth, and corruption inside can be overlooked in order to keep the church, organization, ministry, religious business, etc. alive. It’s exactly what Judaism of the first century was all about when Jesus brutally addressed and condemned them.