The Riddleblog

Growing Up In the Christian Bookstore Industry and Becoming Reformed

My family owned and operated a Christian bookstore at Knott’s Berry Farm—The Inspiration House. My folks opened the store in 1955, and I closed the store in January of 1995 to work at CURE (Christian United for Reformation). The White Horse Inn went on the air in 1990 and Christ Reformed Church held its first service on October 29, 1995.

In the picture above (taken about 1977) I was in my early twenties and had just graduated from college (Cal-State Fullerton) with a degree in Business Administration. At this point in my life, I had no idea where the Lord would take me. My embrace of Reformed theology would begin a few years later.

Some of you have asked if I could post all the links to the posts in the “Memories from Those Days When I Was Becoming Reformed and Working in the Christian Bookstore Industry” series in one place for convenience—so here you go.

Follow the link below to see the “links” to posts in the series

Don't Have the Gift of Interpretation? AI Can Interpret Tongues for You

Just when you think you’ve heard it all . . . From Protestia

I’m not one to be freaked out by AI, but it never occurred to me that someone would think to do this..

Shawn Bolz continues to discredit himself more and more as a spiritual leader and supposed prophet of God, recently claiming that ChatGPT is interpreting tongues.

Beloved by whom?

Once a prominent and beloved prophet, Bolz has been canceled by several major charismatics over multiple allegations that he has been using secretly gathered social media information to make accurate ‘prophetic words’ over people, including one that nearly led to the death of a young woman.

Sometimes you are known based on those who “cancel you.” Phony prophecy? “I’m shocked that fake prophecy is going on in here!”

He has been canceled by Sid Roth, TBN, and especially by Bethel Church, where, after leaked text messages from Bethel Church’s head prophet Kris Vallotton called Bolz a fake and a phony, the church released a formal statement suggesting that Bolz engaged in sexual harassment and false prophecies.

How do you get to be “head prophet”? The title means there must be more than one. Does it depend upon who makes the best “guesses” (“prophecies”)?

To read the rest, follow the link below

American Religion, History and CultureKim RiddlebargerJuly 11, 2025AI interpreting tonguesComment

Rapture Stuff, Again

It is time for the annual “Rapture Index” check-up. It currently stands at 181, which remains in the “fasten your seat belts” territory. The all-time high was 189 (on October 10, 2016, and again in 2023). With all the culture war unease, political tribalism, and “wars and rumors of wars” currently in the air, I suspect the proprietor must be sympathetic to Trump, which is why the index is as low as it is. If all the typical punditry signs are showing things getting worse, but you like the guy in charge, you probably cannot bring yourself to push the index higher. That is not supposed to happen on his watch.

And I keep asking, why would you want to “fasten your seat belts” if the rapture was near? Wouldn’t that leave a nasty mark when you get snatched away?

To read the rest, follow the link below

Books Which Shouldn't Change Anybody's Mind!

Roberts Liardon arrived in Orange County CA about the same time Benny Hinn did. “Roberts” Liardon (named for Oral Roberts) was in his early twenties at the time,and was the l'enfant terrible of the word-faith movement. One of our employee’s sisters attended his new and rapidly growing church in Irvine (Embassy Christian Center) and wanted us to sell his book, I Saw Heaven. She gave us a copy to read—thinking this would convince us. Instead it brought howls of laughter.

Between customers, my employees and I would take turns reading sections to each other. There are not words. Liardon recounts being taken to heaven, and then describes what he saw. He claims that Jesus led him into a warehouse which contained all of the organs, limbs, eyeballs, etc., which were waiting for those who were sick and which could be theirs if only they would name and claim them. Liardon was shocked and saddened to the point of tears by the unclaimed healings (and body parts), and announced this as the basis for his burgeoning healing ministry—to motivate God’s saints to claim what God had already provided for them. To buoy his spirits, he describes how Jesus took pity on him and they engaged in a playful splash fight in the River of Life. I’m not kidding.

I laughed at it then, but am now disgusted by the sight of the cover of the updated version of I Saw Heaven which celebrated its 25th anniversary awhile back, bragging of sales of over 1.5 million copies. Yes, this is thoroughly heretical, but my present concern is “how on earth do 1.5 million people find this kind of book worth buying?”

To read the rest, follow the link below

Christian Books Which Fudged the Truth

Christians are often taken in by those who are less than truthful. It is not a character flaw to expect others to tell the truth, or to assume that their testimonies to the grace of God in Christ are factual. So, it comes as a shock and a disappointment when dramatic conversions and the books which recount them are discovered to be more fictional than factual. Sadly there have been a number of these, but a couple stand out in my memory.

Crying Wind purported to be the account of a young native American girl (whose real name was Linda Davison Stafford) who claimed a dramatic conversion experience as recounted in her compelling and heart-warming autobiography. Crying Wind—both the book’s title and the author’s pseudonym at the time—was published by Moody Press in 1977. She became a popular church and conference speaker, and dressed as a native American as she recounted her dramatic conversion. It was followed by a sequel, My Searching Heart in 1980, published by Harvest House.

We sold cases of them and Crying Wind may have been our best-seller for a time shortly after its release.

But significant factual discrepancies arose regarding her story—enough so that Moody Press changed the original cover in 1978 to the one pictured above. Crying Wind was now a “biographical novel,” which I take to mean, “here’s a book about the stuff I made up about myself.”

To read the rest, follow the link below

American Religion, Book ReviewsKim RiddlebargerJune 26, 2025Crying Wind, Mike Warnke, Satan sellerComment

Popular Christian Books With Unintended Consequences

Billy Graham’s book on angels was a best seller—my guess is that we sold more of them than Graham’s popular How to Be Born Again. I knew it back in the day under the title, “Angels, Angels, Angels: God’s Secret Agents.” Graham’s book is light on biblical teaching, but is known for the anecdotal stories of angelic appearances and accounts of miraculous interventions. Nothing heretical here, but the unintended consequence is that when one focuses upon anecdotal stories about angels, that opens the door for folks to recount their own stories about angels. “Billy Graham may have some great stories about angels, but I’ve got a few of my own. If he can tell them, well, so can I.” And how many ministers felt the need or saw the opportunity to follow suit? Angels fascinate people.

The Reformed focus upon God’s providence in directing all things to their divinely appoint ends, and although willing to admit that angels may indeed be agents in accomplishing God’s purpose, Scripture does not say much about them nor reveal when and how they work. This is why we should be guarded when speaking about the angelic world. Ordinarily, angels do not appear to humans except in major turning points in redemptive history. Their work is mysterious. And when they do appear the reaction from human witnesses is fear and terror!

To read the rest, follow the link below

Books Which Helped Me Make Up My Mind

I was already well along in my journey to becoming Reformed back in 1981 when Sinclair Ferguson’s Know Your Christian Life appeared on the InterVarsity book rack in our store. Now out of print (and replaced by several more recent books from Ferguson on various aspects of the Christian life), this tome offered a succinct and devotional take on the major Reformed doctrines—including justification and sanctification. At the time, I was wrestling with a host of theological issues. I was working full-time, and commuting to Escondido, and I was feeling sort of wrung out from having so much of what I had always believed turned upside down during my studies at Westminster Seminary California. It was nice to read something about these same doctrines in a different context—one framed by John Owen and the Puritans now coming from the pen of someone new on the Christian publishing scene, Sinclair Ferguson. J. I. Packer described Ferguson’s book as, “Reformed theology of the older, riper, deeper sort.” That it was. It was also a great supplement to my initial seminary course work. Ferguson made it clear that in the Reformed tradition head and heart were not at war with each other. This breakthrough came to me at the very time when my anti-Calvinist evangelical friends were warning me that Calvinism was nothing but “head knowledge.”

I was so impressed with the book, I actually wrote to Dr. Ferguson at Westminster Theological Seminary, thanking him for it. I received a very nice reply, and have benefited from his work (especially his preaching) ever since.

To read the rest, follow the link below

Books Which Didn't Change My Mind

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels was the first honest to goodness piece of critical scholarship I ever read—for a student paper at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law. If I recall correctly, it was suggested by John Warwick Montgomery as a recommended book for a student review, which was required for his History of Christianity course. Of course, we did not carry it in our Christian bookstore, but I found it at Walden Books—remember them? I almost felt like I was sinning when buying and then reading it, but then I got my dander up and gave it, let me just say, a less than stellar review. Little did I know it would be the first of many works I would read by critical scholars over the years. D. F. Strauss’s Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, and Ernest Renan’s, Life of Jesus were far and away the worst. Burton Mack’s (of the Jesus Seminar) stuff was pretty bad too.

Pagels argued that the famous discovery at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, of “lost” and long buried ancient Christian writings revealed a much more diverse set of authentic Christian writings than those included in our Bibles. Her claim is that orthodox Christianity was not so orthodox after all. Those accepted and esteemed biblical texts in our Bibles were more or less the product of political and ecclesiastical power struggles among those who determined which books made it into the canon, and which groups among these diverse Christian communities were to be regarded as orthodox. In Pagels’s estimation, the various Gnostic communities and their teachings were unjustifiably excluded by those with power—bishops with political connections. If the term existed when Pagels’s book was published, these suppression efforts in opposition to the Gnostic texts and groups would be labeled the “deep church.”

To read the rest, follow the link below

I Was a Recent Guest on “Issues, Etc.” Talking About Recent Prophetic Punditry

I was interviewed by Todd Wilken and we discussed The Rebuilding of the Temple and Current Events in light of comments made by Pete Hegseth about the possibility of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem

American Religion, Current EventsKim RiddlebargerFebruary 19, 2025Prophetic PunditryComment

On John Wesley's “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection”

John Wesley’s vexing book, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (London: Epworth Press, 1952), is an altogether miserable read, and known by its critics for its glaring imperfections (pun intended). Written in 1766, you can find it in its entirety here: A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism, was for a time an evangelical luminary—people in such circles often spoke of him on a par with the Protestant Reformers. But Wesley has fallen out of favor of late—no doubt due to the rigorous obedience tied to his “Methodist” system. The Methodist church which he helped to found has for the most part gone the way of all flesh, making the news recently for a whole bunch of reasons completely beyond the foresight of the movement’s founder. Wesley is, no doubt, turning in his grave over the path the Methodists have taken to full apostasy.

In the evangelicalism in which I was raised, Wesley was held in high esteem largely because of the story of his dramatic conversion at Aldersgate St. in London in 1738. He was “strangely warmed”when hearing the “preface” to Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans read aloud. It is often quipped that it is too bad Wesley didn’t go on to read the entirety of Luther’s commentary. Anyone who reads Wesley’s A Plain Account discovers a mass of confusion and contradictions as he affirms one thing, and then quickly backtracks on much of his prior teaching so as to define and defend his doctrine of “Christian perfectionism,” also called “sinless perfection,” or “entire sanctification.”

On occasion, when I mention his perfectionism, people will often challenge me, saying something like, “it can’t be that bad.” No, in fact, it is worse. When I tell them what Wesley actually taught in A Plain Account they simply can’t believe it. So, I keep my Kindle close by to show the quotations replicated below. I recently addressed Wesley’s take on election and good works to make much the same point—Wesley was an Arminian in his soteriology and taught a very confusing, and conscience burdening doctrine of Christian perfectionism.

To read the rest (and excerpts from the book) follow the link below

What Will You Hear This Christmas? The Testimony of the Inn-Keeper? Words from Edith Bunker?

For the last few months I have been receiving emails advertising a sermon subscription series—the proprietor and the service shall go unnamed. Either the proprietor added me to his list (not knowing how I’d react to these emails), or someone who does know how I feel about these things (On Subscription Sermon Series) signed me up as a prank. Back in the day, the White Horse Inn crew, (including Mike Horton, our producer Shane Rosenthal, along with yours truly), would sign up our feisty Lutheran co-host, Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, for all kinds of stuff to get his goat—Wesleyan Woman comes to mind. It took him all of a few seconds to guess the culprits. So it may very well be the case that someone did that here. The point is, these email pitches came to me unsolicited.

The advertisements contain “highlights” from various sermons for which you can sign-up and then download in their entirety. Aside from the propriety of a minister not preparing his own sermon, there is the matter of attribution. Does the one preaching someone else’s sermon ever feel compelled to tell the congregation that they are doing so? You’d think with content so bad no preacher would want to pass this stuff off as their own work!

Then there is the matter of content. I have never subscribed to such a series—even on a free trial basis out of a sense of curiosity, wondering “how bad can they be?” So I don’t know how much biblical and theological content they may include. I only see what they choose to send me. If these are the “highlights,” I’m pretty sure the body of these “sermons” contain similar piffle—or worse.

To read the rest, follow the link below