Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Dr. Candy Lopitz: End Times Church ‘Departure From The Faith’

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Dr. Candy Lopitz: End Times Church ‘Departure From The Faith’ · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Friends, family in Christ, thank you so much for your prayers and thank you for tuning
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in, whether you're watching or listening to World View Matters, we really appreciate
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you so very much.
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So today, brand new guest, first time guest, we're going to get into her background a
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little bit.
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She's a former Jehovah's Witness, but also she's an author, speaker, cult exit counselor
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and ministry founder, Dr. Candy Lopez.
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And we also have her Amazon page where there's a brand new book we want to tell you about.
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It's called departure from the faith, seducing spirits and the end times church.
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There's the book cover right there, looks very provocative.
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So Candy, Lopez, thank you so much for your time today.
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Good to see you.
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Good to see you.
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Thanks for having me on.
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You're welcome.
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Now you're in South Carolina.
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I am.
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It's a hundred degrees here this week.
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Oh my goodness.
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Well, fortunately, there's a breeze.
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We see the palm trees moving in the background.
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Yeah, it's warm up here too, more humid here in the Midwest.
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But before we get into the book, you have a fascinating story.
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You are one that was able to get out of a cult.
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And that's as we spoke before the podcast, it's very difficult to do whether that's Mormonism
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or the new age or Jehovah's Witnesses, but tell us about your background and just your
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family, but you grew up at Jehovah's Witness.
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Joanne, share whatever you'd like, get people to understand your story.
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Okay, so when I was four years old, my mother joined the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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She had an aunt that was a Jehovah Witness who was always trying to talk to her about
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what they believe.
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And she joined it when I was four and then she brought my stepfather into it as well.
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And that was 1972, like I said.
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In 1975, the Jehovah's Witnesses organization called the watchtower kept pushing for 1975
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being the year that Armageddon was going to arrive.
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And so to this day, I'm still amazed that three years into it, they were so indoctrinated
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that when 1975 came and went that they didn't apparently see anything wrong with that.
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And evidently, still don't see the watchtower as a false prophet.
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But according to Deuteronomy 18, it definitely is a word that you claim to come from God.
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It does not come to the past, your false prophet.
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That's pretty plain in the scripture.
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So they're still in it.
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They've been in it for, they're in their 80s now.
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They've been in it for almost my entire life.
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They don't have anything to do with me.
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I've been shunned since 18 when I left.
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I graduated high school.
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I got out on my own.
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I always knew that I would ever since about seven years old.
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I felt like I just was not really gravitating toward that.
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I felt like something was not right there.
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And to this day, I just think it probably was the Holy Spirit.
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Even though I wasn't saved yet, just trying to separate me out of that
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and letting me know that something wasn't right there.
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So from the age of about seven, I can always remember thinking that
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as soon as I'm old enough to get out of my parents' house, I'm out of here too.
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And I knew, well, what was going to happen that I would be disowned,
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but it was definitely worth the price that I was going to have to pay for the head.
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Well, you know, go back to you left and when you were 18, what led up to that?
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How did you come to understand that what you were in was not the truth?
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Well, I didn't have anything else to compare it to as far as religion wise,
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but there were just some things that smacked of hypocrisy to me even as a child.
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For example, they constantly talk about how love is the defining mark of Christianity
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and how they're the truth and they're the only right religion
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because they're the only one they have loved, loved among themselves.
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And yet, two things that bothered me so much when I was growing up was number one,
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the way that I saw them treat people that maybe were backsliding
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or maybe were showing some like they were doubting what they were being taught
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or maybe were just not up to speed like they thought they needed to be,
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not putting in the hours, don't feel the service, whatever.
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And they would shun them like a soft shunning, not hard shunning like what I go through,
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but like a soft shunning where they would be made to sit in the back row
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and people couldn't even greet them when they came in.
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And I used to think this organizational I hear about is how much love
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among yourselves and you're treating people like this.
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And even as a child, this just hit me is so wrong.
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The other thing was the blood transfusion issue.
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I always grew up feeling like I didn't really belong in my family
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and that my parents would absolutely let me die if it ever came down to me
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having to need a blood transfusion.
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I was a tomboy.
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I was always fallen out of trees, smashing something, you know,
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plan rough, wrestling with my male cousins, whatever, you know,
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so I do sooner or later, I'm probably gonna care her
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and I may even need a blood transfusion, you know,
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and I thought these people are gonna let me die and based on nonsense
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out of tyranny talking about not eating blood.
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And I'm like, how is this eating blood if you're getting a blood transfusion?
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And they're saying that it has to do with sanctity of life and a respect for life.
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I'm like, how is it a respect for life
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if you're gonna literally that someone die
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rather than get a life-saving treatment?
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It just didn't add up to me.
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And there was so many.
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I always was an overthinker even as a child.
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And so I just saw so much disparity between what they said and what they did.
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And it was just smacked at hypocrisy and, you know, eventually,
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as I got older and I started reading the Bible for myself
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and I was like, just more stuff just didn't add up.
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Yeah.
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Well, obviously there's just such a contrast
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between Jehovah's Witnesses and Biblical Christianity,
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God's Word, the Bible, there's so many things.
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So, for example, Candy, just for those viewers that may be interested,
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what are some of the differences?
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What did they believe Jehovah's Witnesses about Jesus, for example?
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Oh, Mama Mia, where do I start?
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First of all, they don't believe in the Trinity.
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They don't believe that Jesus is who He says He is or was,
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which is God incarnate.
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They separate out the Trinity.
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They don't believe the Holy Spirit is a person.
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They believe that He is an it, which is Jehovah's active force.
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And soon found out when I started studying the Bible on my own
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that every other version of the Bible said He for the pronoun,
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not it, the way that they had.
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And that really was one thing that really stunned me, right?
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In the beginning when I determined that I was going to learn
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what the Bible really said for myself, apart from their teaching,
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Jesus is basically just a man to them who was a good teacher.
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He was sinless, but they don't see, it doesn't seem to resonate with them,
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that by making him just a man and not God incarnate,
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that they're really detracting from the atonement
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because why couldn't we all just die for own sins then?
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You know, if he's nothing special, he's just another man
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than any person could die for their own sins.
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You know, it's just it's really convoluted and it gets into
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it's one of those situations where it's what it tangled
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what we weave when first we purpose to deceive.
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It just keeps going and snowballing and getting worse as you keep coming.
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And it's only it's even so bad that like in Colossians chapter one,
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15 to 20, where it speaks of Jesus creating the earth
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and everything being above him, they haven't squirted into that passage
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five times the word other.
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So that it makes it look like he created all things
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after he was created and all other things other than himself
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and other than God or under his feet, it's just really it's it's
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it's demonic. It is doctrines of demons.
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It is absolutely an anacrace spirit.
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It's it's really fortunate.
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Made me think of the creed begotten not made one in essence one in being
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homousius I think was the word that was used there the same
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substance same as the father just to clarify.
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But let's go back really briefly I wasn't going to do this because we do
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want to talk about your book departure from the faith.
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But weren't there other times where there were profits
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or prophecies made about the return of Christ or the end of the world
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and it didn't happen? Didn't Jehovah's Witnesses have several of those episodes?
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They did absolutely going all the way back to the 1800s with their founder Charles Tase Russell
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who today they try to separate themselves and distance themselves from.
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He started the International Bible Students Association which is what they
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formerly recalled and then he went on from there and just for all of his
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false teachings in it. But the fun thing is that he was actually on
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point with some things more than what they are today.
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He actually believed in the rapture and then when the next
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next president came around which was Brother Ferd he changed a lot of teachings
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and the Jehovah Witnesses now look more to him as they're not really a
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founder they really don't talk about their founder Russell at all.
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They just kind of look to him as like oh he was the first president and
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you know he's really where we got our start the other before that was
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International Bible Students. They just kind of try to phase Russell right out of it
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and with good reason because a lot of evidence that Russell was probably
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Freemason of a high ranking in the Scottish right
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and he was actually buried in Pennsylvania underneath a pyramid
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structure and the the Watchtower Society has since had that structure removed
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and I think relocated to a private cemetery if I'm not mistaken now
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but they've had there they've taken a lot of his books out of circulation that
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showed like Egyptian symbols and things like that that go back to the
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hermeticism back then you know and it the thing of it is is that
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is atrocious as all his sounds we're dealing with the same stuff in the
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new palestolic reformation today and that's what I'm really on about now.
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Interesting interesting well now with the founder so there you bring in a
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Freemasonry now you've got to talk about new age in the occult right and
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that this is the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses so anyway
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we've got to jump over if we can segue now
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to your book so we're glad you made it out of there and as one of your
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the descriptors I gave when I introduced you you also
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counsel people coming out of cults do I understand that correctly?
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Yes and as not limited to Jehovah Witnesses when I started this
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ministry back in 2006 we soon had Mormons and
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ex-Newagers and and even people that were victims of satanic ritual abuse
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coming in so I've got well experience all in that and and also
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way back when when I first did my undergraduate stuff I had
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sense of graduated from seminary with a doctor but way back when I did my
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undergraduate stuff it was in behavioral science and I had
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interned with people who were substance abusers and
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had been in abusive relationships and child sex abuse survivors and adulthood
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and all of that really came in handy later on when it came to
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people coming out of cults because a lot of times when they come out of cults
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it's like falling out of the frying pan and into the fire your whole
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identity's been stripped from you and you're not a
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custom especially if you're a razor born in to even
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knowing what's going on in outer society and how to function
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and so a lot of times people do get into abusive relationships
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or they get into another cult it's the same dynamic of abuse and power and
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control and sometimes they'll get into
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promiscuous behaviors and substance abuse trying to unmedicate their
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feelings so not only his far is trying to unravel the bad
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indoctrination that they've gotten theologically but
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also I have an understanding into these kind of dynamics because I had gone
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through all of that myself and eventually had come to a place where
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I realized that no matter what I had achieved academically
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or what I had you know any relationship that I was in or
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whatever I was doing for work or to find purpose it was all
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it felt for nothing because there was still a god's
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sized hole in my soul that needed to be filled with a relationship
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with Jesus Christ and so it you know I went in that direction
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thank god and down the slippery slope that a lot of people
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go down although I did start down the bad path
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you know before they got it yanked me out of that and
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and and pulled me out so well friends if you're just
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tuning in happen to check out the podcast we're speaking with doctor
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a candy lopus and I'm a friend of mine doctor
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JB Hickson had you on his podcast and and so I'm very thankful that we
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connected but before we take a brief pause in the second half of the
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podcast we'll dive into your brand new book departure from the
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faith you also wrote another book it's called spiritual battery
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can you briefly mention what that's about okay so spiritual battery was
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the one that was really personal for me because it was about
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coming out of cults and basically I was trying to show a person coming out of
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cult that these issues that you're experiencing you're not alone these are
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typical of people coming out of cults and also to try to give
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pastors mental health professionals and even family members and other loved
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ones some kind of insight into the issues that they're dealing with not to
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just think that they're just nuts because they've been in a
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call these are things that are real that they're
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dealing with and and you know if you understand them a little bit
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better then you can be better able to help them
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all right excellent so you can get that at the amazon page
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and you're going to want to go to amazon.com of course
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Dr. Candy Gwen Lopitz and you can look her up there or the website
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freedom give the website is it freedom beacon.wixsight.com
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yes okay sounds good so when we come back friends we're going to dive into her
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brand new book departure from the faith on world view matters.
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at freedom project academy all right Dr. Candy Lopitz our guest today departure
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from the faith so give us an overview of this one
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okay so this book is about the false teachings that i've encountered in churches
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even locally but they're not just local issues are all over the united states
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and even being afforded globally in a lot of cases through the new apostolic
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reformation primarily so the first chapter is about
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that there isn't going to be some great revival prior to the tribulation the
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bible says that there's going to be a great apostasy and i talk about that and i
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get in a little bit about the deconstruction movement
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because that is part and parcel of that move away from true faith and into
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apostasy i also talk about the pre-tribulation rapture and
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dispensationalism defending them because so many times now i see especially on
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social media that people are attacked constantly because of belief in
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pre-tribulation rapture belief and dispensationalism
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there's a big misconception out there that this came from darby and that it was
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something that was new that was promoted in the schoolfield reference bible
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and none of that could be is anywhere near the truth i also go through like
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seven different anecdotal type of accusations that people make against
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people who believe in the trinity like oh it's an escapist point of view
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or i get into the darby issue things like that or if you all of them they're
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really just strawman arguments and so i show them for what they are is
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strawman arguments that cannot be backed up biblically and if anything
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dispensationalism can be backed up biblically to make everything
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so that it's symbolic or you know like the bible is just all the eschatology is
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just metaphorical and stuff like that and it just it just detracts from
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all of those prophecies in the Old Testament especially concerned with real
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if the church has become Israel which is i go into in chapter four or replacement theology
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then it doesn't jive with all of these prophecies throughout
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all of the prophets whether they were major or minor prophets just about
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everybody at sub-krjona constantly was looking forward to the time when the
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kingdom would come to earth and jesus would literally reign on the throne of
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david and you know and it's clear and revelation that this is where we're
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still headed and it hasn't happened yet everything is still futuristic so i
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get in there talk a lot about that and then about two-thirds of the book
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i really get in deep into the prosperity gospel in the in the word faith movement
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and particularly the no apostolic reforming about 250 pages on the two
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the apostolic no apostolic reformation and also their side hustles of
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the courtrooms of heaven and uh christ uh christ alignment which is uh
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segment out in uh australia where they actually have
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tarot cards that they claim were designed by their own prophets and well they're not
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the same as tarot cards but yeah they use them in the exact same way as tarot cards
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and even though Bethel church and bill johnson has tried to distance themselves from
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christ alignment the fact the matter is is that their former pastor
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Fitzgerald his mom hatched john hodge is the one that runs christ alignment out there
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so in australia and the nar has really tried to ex-benhardt trying to export its uh
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teachings globally not only are they while trading non-inominational churches or
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america and trying to bring the pastors in those churches under their so-called covering
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which really goes back to that shepherding movement of the 70s and 80s that was so
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cultic and abusive that it was forced underground but it's really been resurrected under
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this idea of covering and by the way um not too long ago when day star had its
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implosion and johnny lamb and uh jimmy uh uh yeah his name is i'm getting old now i can't
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remember things off the top of my head anymore jimmy avans uh we're both arguing with
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johnny's son and daughter-in-law and they kept saying you you're under your mother's covering
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and you know you have to answer her that's that's all in our language that is all in our language
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and jimmy avans is hooked up with um that other pastor there from uh let's name that church now
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it's escaping me though the one that just was brought up on all kinds of charges because he
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molested that 12-year-old girl who's now in her 50s who's finally just come forward and now
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women who come forward his name is escaping me at the moment but yeah so i mean he's he's
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connected with him yeah um you know their ministries have links and things and it's just wow
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when you start researching the nar you go from one link to another one thing is all linked to another
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and then we're linked to these global awakening uh conferences and things that are all over the
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world and things it's just it's a disaster the whole thing is a disaster and it's all doctrines of
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demons um the word faith had brought uh the new thought teachings through e.w. kenyan and then
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through hagan into that this is even another step further because these people are practicing
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full out new age and occultic practices when they're using tarot cards and they're doing grave
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soaking or grave sucking they call to where they lay on the graves and try to soak up the anointing
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from a dead saint you know and they claim they don't do that but there's plenty of pictures out
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there on the internet of bill johnson's wife when she was alive then he doing it you know on the
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on the graves of famous preachers throughout history and things and that's not see that's
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forbidden and tyrannony you know and wow it is it is so you divide your book into two parts part
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one hermeneutical and eschatological issues and then part two new age and occult infiltration
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i love that love and i love that the subheadings and the other things you get into but let's we now
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by the way at nard new apostolic reformation um friends you can go to worldviewmatters.tv
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and in the search put in a holly pivic we did several episodes with her on the n-a-r on the new
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apostolic reformation if you're new to this kind of discernment ministries or this kind of program
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but let's go back all the way back to what you touched on deconstruction let's camp there for
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for just a couple minutes what is that and what do people know that they are deconstructing
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when they're in that process candy what i find a lot with the deconstruction thing is that people
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it isn't so much that they have doctrinal issues was what they were taught growing up
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as it is that it a lot of church hurt a lot of times it's church hurt or it's um a lot of times people
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that are uh that say that well when i was a child i understood that i belonged to the lbgt community
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and i didn't find support at the church i only found you know uh people talking about how sinful
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it was and basically hurt their feelings so they decided to leave the church and then they started
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questioning everything including doctrines so now they start listening to some of these other
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people who are out here that are uh have deconstructed their faith which a lot of times
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now are calling themselves atheists or diagnostics because they've deconstructed it so far
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you know yeah but it's not biblical they're not basing they're not it's not a real true study of
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systematic theology that's leading them to to that point you know it's it's feelings and this is
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the problem that we are having in the church so much now is that there's just like the world around
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us and the culture around us there is less emphasis on absolute truth and more unsubjective truth
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what feels right to you and so many bible studies know that are geared around what does that passage
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mean to you it's not about what you you i go through in this book talk about herminutics
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and what herminutics is and why it's important and why only historical literal grammatical format
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of herminutics is the only thing that's biblical and part of that is and when it comes to herminutics
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making sure that you know what the author intended it's not what you get out of it you have to know
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what he intended and the audience that he was speaking to how they would have received it and understood
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it and so much of the uh just uh how do i want to say uh you know just the misconceptions about
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and false doctrines that are coming out is because people are in proper humanutics they're
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saying well what does it feel to you and then they go from there so now at this point you're no
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longer doing exegesis where you're deriving the meaning from the text but i suggest this because
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you're putting yourself into it and now we have a new term that a few people are using and i love
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and i've been using it's narcissistic which is basically narcissism instead of putting your own
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theological context on it like the juggle witnesses do with their fake bible or the book of
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Mormon you're actually reading yourself into the text and that's fine to a certain extent if
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you're going to derive the meaning from the text and apply it to your life then that's one thing
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but this is not what they're doing they're actually saying what does it mean to me and how does this
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make me feel and do i agree with this so let's just let's just clarify we've just got a minute left
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candy um sorry went by so fast but when you ask the question what does this mean to me wrong question
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wrong premise what does god say what does he mean what and then look into the context um and by
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the way deconstruction a lot of people that are so-called or have so-called deconstructed god knows
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their hearts and i would say that they may not have been saved authentically to begin with but
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we don't know for sure it's not a judgmental statement that's just a truth that some people
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they leave the fake they were never in the faith to begin with anyway to be continued but candy
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thanks for your time freedom beacon.wixite.com so guys just look her up and thanks for your time
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today and great subject important book and thank you for covering so much god bless thank you
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all right friends thanks for sharing the podcast until next time god bless you and as always keep
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speaking the truth about things that matter