The Epidemic of a Seared Conscience – Dr. Mike Spaulding

Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn’t exist in any declaration I have ever read.[1]

Many Americans have been propagandized to the extent that they now form an entire subclass – the perpetually offended. What are the signs? One of the most glaring signs of this new genre of the walking infantile is the belief, often expressed by aggressive and even violent behavior, that anyone or thing that offends them ought not to be allowed to exist.

People that think this way apparently believe that the universe operates according to their ideology. They have no real justification for believing this way. They can’t point to any standard of moral reasoning, logical analysis, or time-tested system of thought that supports their viewpoint. They further demonstrate their ignorance by believing everyone would be better off believing like they do. Remarkable, they think they are the modern equivalent of the knights of old, riding in to rescue the damsels in distress, in this case culture, civility, and the American way. The truth that these individuals cannot grasp is something much different.

Here is a case in point: Two University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students were recently arrested and charged with assault. What led to their arrests? They were arrested after they physically and violently attacked a pro-life activist who was on the campus with Created Equal, a group that uses dialogue to attempt to persuade people that abortion is the murder of unborn human beings. One of the strategies that Created Equal uses is the prominent display of actual pictures of the dismembered bodies of babies, the result of “choice” as abortion is euphemistically called by those attempting to disguise the barbaric truth of what abortion is and does to the preborn human.

Pictures of babies who have suffered the cruelest fate imaginable are a powerful reminder of the truth of what abortion really is. Pictures leave no room for debate about abortion being “women’s reproductive healthcare” as the brainwashed like to call it. Abortion ends the life of the baby and therefore trying to obfuscate this truth by calling it “reproductive healthcare” is idiocy.

The university students mentioned above were shocked when law enforcement officers arrested them. They could not believe that their noble cause of violently opposing and assaulting pro-life individuals resulted in arrest. One of the students said, “I cannot believe this is happening,” referring to her arrest.

Another example of the same mindset demonstrated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill child murder supporters is the now infamous behavior of Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims. Sims, the self-proclaimed champion of a woman’s right to murder her unborn child, thought he was valiant and courageous for demeaning, belittling, and verbally intimidating an elderly woman outside a baby murder facility.

What was the crime that set Sims over the edge? This grandmother was walking in front of the murder mill while praying silently. For this gross offense Sims took it upon himself to video the woman, demanding her name and address, offering a money reward to anyone who would identify her and where she lived so that he and others that think like he does could go harass her at her home.

In the least Sims demonstrated that he has no business making decisions that affect citizens of the state of Pennsylvania in his capacity as a State Representative. More troubling than that however, is the fact that Sims thought it perfectly normal to call for a mass turnout of like-minded baby murderers to intimidate an individual for having the temerity to be at a place where women murder their children and pray that they would change their minds.

Then there is the recent case of the morally bankrupt young women celebrating the act of murdering babies by dancing through a graveyard of crosses representing aborted babies. This publicity stunt was noteworthy for the callousness with which these young women were exulting child murder. Here is one report of this incident:

Planned Parenthood supporters at the University of Texas at San Antonio protested at a Students for Life symbolic cemetery for the unborn.

The incident occurred on April 9 as Students for Life commemorated aborted babies through a cemetery display, the pro-life nonprofit group revealed in a press release Wednesday. Students for Life set up pink crosses and talked to students about pro-life options as part of a spring Planned Parenthood Truth Tour throughout college campuses.

Young women from the university’s Students United for Planned Parenthood group interrupted the memorial activity. The protesters strode through the assembled crosses, shouted and waved signs, according to video footage.

“Look, there’s mine right there,” one Planned Parenthood supporter shouted in the video, pointing at a cross and pretending an aborted baby lay beneath it. A student shouted across the cemetery that she loves having sex and aborting babies. “My number one kink,” she can be heard saying in the video, as noted by Students For Life.

“I love advocating for abortion! My uterus loves advocating for abortion,” another girl shouted, waving her sign. “When I say Planned, you say Parenthood. When I say aborted, you say fetuses!”

“It’s a fetus graveyard!” another protester said.[2]

What has happened to a great number of men and women in America is that their conscience has become seared. Their mind is in a state of depreciating ability to grasp morality personally and interpersonally. They have become incapable of moral reasoning and logical analysis that lead to guilt or shame related to their thinking and behavior. They are being turned over to the darkness they crave and prostitute themselves to and on behalf of.

Depending on the severity of the behavior, psychologists call this psychopathic or sociopathic behavior. The difference between the two is that a psychopath has no conscience remaining. The psychopath’s conscience is completely seared and devoid of any emotion of shame or guilt associated with their behavior. Ironically, Hollywood glamorizes this behavior, giving tacit approval to the violent and murderous results of psychopathic people.

The sociopath has a small amount of conscience remaining. This person might still feel a twinge of guilt but not enough to stop their evil behavior. Both the psychopath and sociopath are dangerous to others with which they interact and especially those with whom they disagree.  Courtrooms across this nation are filled with cases involving the egregious behavior of people with little to no functioning conscience.

All of the examples above demonstrate varying states of the inability to reason morally. America is well down the path of being wrested from its moral foundations by psychopaths and sociopaths whose faculties have been impaired by evil. What can be done to correct this development? We must first understand what we are dealing with.

J.I. Packer* said concerning conscience that:

An educated, sensitive conscience is God’s monitor.  It alerts us to the moral quality of what we do or plan to do, forbids lawlessness and irresponsibility, and makes us feel guilt, shame, and fear of the future retribution that it tells us we deserve, when we have allowed ourselves to deny its restraints…Satan’s strategy is to corrupt, desensitize, and if possible kill our consciences.  The relativism, materialism, narcissism, secularism, and hedonism of today’s Western world help him mightily toward his goal.  His task is made yet simpler by the way in which the world’s moral weaknesses have been taken into the contemporary church.[3]

Packer identified the real crux of the issue. Conscience is a God-given warning system that has been deliberately turned off today in a large number of Americans. An alarm cannot warn of danger if it is not connected to a power source.

Slowly and over time the innate ability of Americans to determine right from wrong has been strategically and with malice corrupted. The constant drive to remove and even erase Christianity from the public mind and memory has borne the rottenest of fruit culturally speaking.

How can a culture sustain moral uprightness from generation to generation when even the Church, that instrument of God meant to inform and when necessary, correct culture, begins to emulate the culture? When a society becomes seared in conscience, when a critical mass of people begin to think and advocate for evil under the guise of good, and exchange light for darkness, their minds become seared as with a branding iron and the resultant scar tissue renders them incapable of returning to correct thinking and behavior absent a radical surgery.

The Church is meant to be God’s scalpel, guided by His hand to make perfect incisions to remove the cancer of evil, the scar tissue of a seared conscience, and in so doing, restore right thinking and behavior to all individuals. When the Church refuses to do that mass deception is allowed to congeal and that environment creates hostility toward the truth of man’s precarious condition and toward the only solution to his dilemma.

The answer to this predicament is not for the Church to go with the flow, to seek the path of least resistance, to affirm inclusiveness as that term is meant today and throw open the doors to culture. The only answer that will turn America around is a full-on biblical revival that must start in the pulpits of America and sweep through the local bodies of Christ spread out over this nation. That kind of revival cannot be contained and it will spill over into local school boards, city councils, college campuses, businesses, state representatives, and finally our national leadership. When God’s people once again bow their knee to Him alone, then revival will come, minds will be freed from the bondage of the demonic slavery imposed upon them from God-hating miscreants who have secretly snuck into our churches, communities, and governments at every level.

True biblical revival will transform hearts, heal minds, and lead to tangible action by those delivered from their bondage. True biblical revival will come on the heels of true repentance, a faith that demonstrates a changed heart, mind, and life trajectory.

The Scriptures[4] tell us that: There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. John 1:9

This means that only through faith in Christ will people become free from a seared conscience and the inevitable consequence of that state. Christian, rise up and take your place in the army of God, and march forward in victory, for our God has given us this land. Occupy until He returns!


[1] Quote attributed to author Salman Rushdie found here – https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/offense

[2] See https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/02/planned-parenthood-texas-unborn-cemetery/

[3] J.I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness.

[4] All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

*My original post listed Mr. Packer as “The late.” Mr. Packer is very much alive. My apologies to him and readers.

Itching Ears that Hate the Truth – Rob Pue

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In one of the apostle Paul’s last letters — the one he wrote to Timothy — he gave some vitally important words of caution and warning.  2nd Timothy 4, starting at verse 2:  “Preach the Word;  be instant in season, out of season;  reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;  but after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.”

   Then, he added, “But watch thou, in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”

   I have been working in full time ministry for nearly 20 years now.  I remember when I began, I was astonished at the many churches that were no longer enduring sound doctrine.  The “seeker friendly” movement, which morphed into the “Emergent Church” movement was on a “fast track.”  Mega churches were springing up with massive buildings.  So large, in fact, they call them “campuses.”  And many of these mega-churches have MULTIPLE campuses in various areas of their cities, because one building will not hold all those who want the feel-good, false “love gospel” message that is preached there.

   I was saddened in those early days of this work, to see so many formerly rock solid, Bible-based, Scripturally sound churches DEvolve into nothing more than “happy fun time.”  A “feel-good experience,” where one could go and see a show, lift their hands in mock reverence to God, dance and sway, while being promised all manner of prosperity, health, wealth, and a life of abundance.  “Your BEST life NOW.”  This is just SO contradictory to everything God’s Word says about the Christian life.  Sin is no longer a word allowed to be spoken of in many churches, and if it IS spoken of, it’s only to say that once we simply say a prayer or walk an aisle (or worse yet, just raise our hand “with all eyes closed and all heads bowed”); we are “good” with God.

   We can then go about our normal lives as usual.  Except now, we are told, we are assured of heaven… just because we repeated a few words and sheepishly raised our hand while no one was looking.  COME ON folks!  Talk about biblical illiteracy.  Talk about wolves in sheep’s clothing…. HIRELINGS lulling fat and happy fools into a false sense of eternal security.  This is so sad.

   But you know, we cannot put all the blame on the pastors.  They’re just giving the people what they want.  Look again at the Scripture from 2nd Timothy:  it says THE PEOPLE will not put up with sound doctrine any longer, and so THE PEOPLE heap up for themselves teachers to tell them what they want to hear, to soothe their itching ears.

   It is the great apostasy, the great “falling away.”  And I have watched it begin as a tiny sprout many years ago, and I’ve watched it grow, blossom, flower and then re-seed itself many times over the years…  Today it is so prevalent in Christendom that one is hard-pressed to find a faithful congregation of true believers anywhere.  I guess that’s why God’s Word says there will only be a small “remnant” that stand firm to the end.

   During my time in ministry, I have seen the old timers, the pastors who were faithful in teaching the WHOLE counsel of God’s Word grow older and retire from the ministry… or in many cases, be FORCED OUT of their ministry by church boards and elders — only to be replaced by somebody younger, more “hip,” more “in step” with the culture and times we are living in.  In other words, a more CARNAL “pastor.”  These “cool” new pastors often use Hollywood films on their big projection TV screens to illustrate their sermons… they make off-color jokes from the pulpits.  They wear t shirts and ripped blue jeans as they speak, to appeal to the average “Joe six-pack” in the audience.  They have a “hot” worship team, complete with electric guitars, drums, smoke and mirrors and in some cases even laser light shows.  “It’s all about the EXPERIENCE,” they say.

   Friends, I’m not some old fashioned stick in the mud.  I’ve been around.  And I can tell you, this ain’t “church.”  At least not a biblical church.  It MAY be a “synagogue of Satan.”  But it’s not church, and it most certainly is not God-honoring.  There is NO reverence for Him; no fear of God there at all.   I have seen youth leaders take their group of kids to R-rated movies as their Youth Group “activity” for the week;  I have seen pastors hold community events called a “car smash,” which apparently the kids love… they get an old car, put it in the middle of their parking lot, and let the kids destroy it with baseball bats, spray paint, and tire irons.  This is their “entertainment” for the evening — a way to get kids to “come to church.” 

   I’ve seen pastors dress up like Hollywood movie characters, or the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.  I’ve seen the bounce houses and carnival games and rock concerts… nowadays, they will do ANYTHING to get kids — AND ADULTS — to come to church, and KEEP coming to church… KEEP RIGHT ON filling those collection plates.  Just don’t DARE tell them what the Bible REALLY says…. are you KIDDING?  That’s MUCH too harsh.  That’s no fun.  Who would want to hear THAT?!

   So when it comes to doing things of any real significance; when it comes to being SALT AND LIGHT and IMPACTING our society and culture with what our society and culture is in DESPERATE NEED OF — the TRUTH, for heaven’s sake — they are all AWOL…  oh NO!  They CAN’T “go there!”  People don’t want to hear about sin and evil, or the consequences of sin and evil in their lives.   They don’t want to be CONVICTED in their hearts.  They want to be COMFORTED and entertained.  And they call this “going to church.”  Preach the WORD?  Are you kidding?  Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all LONGSUFFERING and DOCTRINE?  WHO in the world wants THAT?!  Endure afflictions for the sake of the Gospel?  “NO, thank you.  I’ll take a large coffee, please, and if it’s not too much trouble, please make sure the service is over with by noon, because we need to get home to watch the game.”

   If you want to know why our world is the way it is, it’s because professing Christians have given up.  It began at least a generation or two ago — and maybe longer.  But at some point, we stopped taking God and His Word seriously.  And the Great falling away began.  Instead of serving CHRIST and HIS KINGDOM, we began seeking after things we perceived to be “good, fun, enjoyable, entertaining.”  Instead of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, we BECAME the comfortable, …and we like it that way.  So as for those old time preachers who just want to preach the “hard stuff,” “hit the road, Jack, we’ve decided to go a different direction.”  Yes, indeed, they have.

   Over the years I have known countless faithful men of God who have been run out of town by these congregations that no longer wish to hear the truth.  I, myself, have been “disinvited” from more churches than I can count.  But let me tell you about a friend of mine who has recently experienced this at his church in California.  His name is Pastor Justin Hoke, and he is a faithful truth-teller, a watchman on the wall.  He doesn’t allow political correctness to dictate his message.  He speaks the WHOLE counsel of God’s Word — out of love for the lost, and to inform those who profess Christ of the spiritual culture war we are SUPPOSED to be fighting — as we stand our ground against the enemy and his demons.

   He recently put a message on his church sign stating common sense, simply TRUTH.   The sign read: “Bruce Jenner is still a man.  Homosexuality is still sin.  The culture may change.  The Bible does not.”  According to a news story by PulpitAndPen.org, LGBT activists swarmed the church recently, claiming the sign was “hateful.”  They later vandalized the sign.  And less than a week later, Pastor Hoke made the following announcement on his Facebook page:

   “As of today, I am no longer the pastor of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church.  After much prayer and counsel, I have decided that it is best to briefly communicate what has taken place.   1)  I was informed by our other elder that he felt he could no longer follow my lead as pastor.  2)  I was informed that essentially all but one couple in membership would leave the church if I continued as pastor.  3)  Our other elder and the couple felt that those who left would likely return if I would leave.”

   Pulpit And Pen commented, “Apparently, the public outrage was enough to cause discontent within the local congregation, which appears to value the opinion of men more than the Word of God.  May it not be said of us.”  I should note that this came after the pastor gave one of the most powerful sermons I’ve heard in a long time, entitled “Love Warns.”  In his sermon, Pastor Hoke noted that to “accept and affirm” what the culture embraces, but which God’s Word calls abomination is NOT to love those trapped in sin; but rather WARNING the wicked of their need for repentance and forgiveness by the shed blood of Christ is the definition of truly LOVING your neighbor.  It was an incredibly powerful message he gave.   And then he was immediately tossed out of his role as pastor.  For simply telling the TRUTH, straight from God’s Word.

   I’m reminded of the prophet Jeremiah, known as the “weeping prophet,” because he wept for the nation of Israel.  God sent him to declare His Word and Truth to the people, and sound the warning regarding all their iniquities.  But the people did NOT want to hear.  Instead they demanded, “Jeremiah, tell us something GOOD for once… tell us what we want to hear!”

   Let’s read just a little bit from chapter 7 as God explains things to Jeremiah:  “But this command I gave them: ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people.  And walk in all the ways that I command you, that it may be well with you.’  But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.   From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all My servants the prophets to them, day after day.  Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their necks. They did worse than their fathers.”

   And so God continued, “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.  And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.”

   Does that not sound like America today?  Truth has perished.  It’s DEAD!  Evil is called “good” and good is called “evil” and we LIKE it that way.  And anyone who DARES defy the celebration of sodomy or speak TRUTH on this matter is virtually crucified by all — even those you would THINK would be on your side — the “church” people.  Indeed, we are at a place and time now where even those who profess to be people of God will no longer endure sound doctrine.  Instead, they heap up for themselves teachers who tell them what they prefer to hear.

   I can tell you, from PERSONAL experience, being a watchman on the wall puts a target on your back — for Satan to aim at, AND, sadly today, for many church-goers to aim at as well.  You WILL be persecuted for speaking truth.  It is SO SAD realizing just how many — I dare say, the VAST MAJORITY of regular church-goers today — have NO IDEA what the Scriptures actually say; nor do they have any intention of finding out, of “studying to show themselves approved.”  They would rather just attend the weekly meetings at their local “Religious Service Provider” … as long as it’s a message that makes them feel good about THEMSELVES.

   In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “IF YOU HOLD TO MY TEACHING, you are really My disciples.  THEN you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  You see,  every church-goer claims to want to follow Jesus — until they find out where He’s taking them.  If the truth be told, they don’t really want Jesus, nor do they want His TRUTH.   They just want the benefits.  They just want to feel good.  But apart from Jesus you can’t even know the truth…  and unless you HOLD to His teaching, you are not His disciples at all.  So if you’re not serious about being His disciple, then by calling yourself a “Christian” — you are actually taking the Lord’s name in vain.  So stop it.  America is in the midst of serious judgment.  We are a nation of depraved minds.  God has sent strong delusion upon our people because we refused to hear and heed His Word. 

   If you want to know WHY the world is in such a mess, I can tell you.  We have deserted our Heavenly Father, and shunned His Son.  America will never be great again, unless we turn back to God, — who promises if we do, THEN He will heal our hearts and our minds, and our land.   America needs Jesus.  And men and women of true faith and courage, willing to preach the Word — in season and out.  Reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and SOUND doctrine.  Unfortunately, in our world today, TRUTH sounds like HATE, because our people hate the truth… 

Posted with permission of the author.

© 2019 Rob Pue, Publisher

WISCONSIN CHRISTIAN NEWS

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Colleges Queering The Bible and God! – Rev. Austin Miles

This is a column I never expected to write. But how could it really NOT be expected as the stage was being carefully set to sodomize the world. Little by little this LGBTQ band of perverts began to become more and more visible. And the public just sat and watched. The churches were silent. Not a peep from the pulpits.

Then the Pride Parades emerged, where, with police protection, they sashayed down the main streets of the various towns and cities with elaborate floats with the participants in bizarre costumes and makeup, with some of the participants chanting….“We are queer and we are here.”

Then they started with LGBT clubs in the educational system. I remember seeing a sign at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California stating; “523 gays, lesbians and transgenders welcome you to Los Medanos College.”  

Who are they to welcome incoming students?  They had no official position there. But they are driven by assumption that was never stopped or even challenged.

Next they began bringing in “queer writers” to speak to the student body. Open homosexuals were hired as teachers and professors. I remember one young woman who had written a book that came there to speak to the student body. She was crude and used the “F” word frequently in her talk. Then she said, “I hope I didn’t offend anyone.” I had to say, “Yes you did.”  

She made several references to her sexual orientation, saying things like, “I don’t want you to see me as just another queer writer.”

I asked the psychology professor, whom I was sitting with, if she kept referring to herself as a “queer writer,” attempting to convince the audience, or…herself that it was OK to be what she was proclaiming.

The Psyche professor agreed with me that this was exactly what was going on. This showed she was not that secure in her lifestyle choice.

Next, transgenders in full regalia were allowed to read stories to children in libraries. I guarantee you that nobody would be allowed to have a spot in a public library to read Bible stories. I know because I petitioned to do so but was refused.

That same week, the NAMBLA, (North American Man Boy Love Association) that is working to make pedophilia – sex with children LEGAL- was given a ‘community room’ to have their demented meeting.  Yes that was perfectly OK for our government but never to talk about the Bible.

The sodomites had the audacity to go to Zondervan book publishers and demand there be changes in the Bible that would delete all references to homosexuality. I kid you not.

They began to interrupt church services. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City they crashed a mass taking place, throwing condoms to the congregation. And who can forget the scene in San Francisco when these deviants, dressed in their gaudy clothing and make-up came in and demanded to be served Communion. This is blasphemy.

And by the way, it is a felony to interrupt a religious service. Preachers, remember this and file charges if this happens in your church.

It has reached a point that if anyone does not agree to participate in sin, such as churches allowing same sex ‘marriages’ to take place in their sanctuaries or providing services like baking a cake with an LGBT message, those who refuse to follow their orders and join in the “celebration,” can be ruined by the government.

Here is one of the ‘rewards’ of homosexuality. AIDS! A horrific disease due to “anal intercourse.”  AIDS patients die slowly. But for the totally obsessed, it is worth it.  When the AIDS disease was first discovered I remember seeing a sodomite on TV stating, “Well, now every time I make love I don’t know if it will be my last time.”

Even knowing the fatal risk of sodomy they are still so consumed by perverted lust that they simply can no longer control themselves. They are enslaved.

It should be noted that many confused married men demand to have anal sex with their wives.  WHAT? How can they improve what God gave us for satisfying sex?  HOWEVER, when a man enters a woman’s rectum, then goes back into her vagina, it is a totally unnatural use of the human body and THIS is what causes the disease known as AIDS since it mixes up bacteria.  So, many so-called straights are also subject to this disease.

Governor Moonbeam of California recently announced that he would require regular LGBT classes of study in the public school system, even though he, nor anyone else, will allow parents to see what is actually being taught. Hiding something like this proves malfeasance.

One of his first things is to incorporate, now get this, GAY PORN, to show school CHILDREN!  This is sick! Porn of any kind is totally unacceptable for  children to view…but GAY PORN???

Now the closets are empty as all the perverts have come out. The latest is: Colleges offering courses on….now sit down…Queering the children, The Bible, and, the most shocking of all….the queering of…God! They are all guilty of blasphemy and will all go to hell for it.

Sixteen colleges have now signed on with these lug-headed bastards. Don’t get your knickers in a twist over this word which is in The Bible meaning questionable birth details. It is accurate as these people are in Satan’s family, not God’s family.

Journalist Tyler Durden of Campus Reform, writes: “Students at Pomona College in Claremont, California have the opportunity to enroll in a brand new course titled; “Queering Childhood.”  

According to the college,, the course “explores secular philosophies of queer and post-colonial theory as well as their critical and constructive application to religion,” focusing on topics like “the sexual ethics and ritualization found in the S&M community, transgender Christs, and the mestiza (or mixed) cultures of Latin America.”

Harvard University–yes HARVARD–Divinity School offers a course on “Queer theologies, Queer Religions” this fall, and how it relates to “larger aspirations of queer religion or spirituality in America.”

The course information of Harvard states: “Students will begin by sampling the efforts to revise traditional Christian theologies in order to accept or affirm same-sex loves.”  There it is in their own words.

And there are many more outrageous statements coming from this bastion of higher education.

The most outrageous of all comes from Swarthmore College with courses named; “Queering the bible, and Queering God.’ What???

Gwynn Kessler, the Swarthmore religion professor teaching the course had this to say:

“By reading the Bible with the methods of queer and trans theoretical approaches, this class destabilizes long held assumptions about what the Bible-and religion says about gender and sexuality.”

The University of Pennsylvania’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Religion” course will read religion through a variety of feminist and queer theory lenses.

University of San Francisco has the course,”Christian Feminist

Theology that aims to develope and understanding of how feminist scholarship provides one fruitful means towards reapproprration of central Christian insights about God.

The City by the Bay adds, “We will also look at the central significance of gender to the field of religious studies generally, with particular attention to non-binary genders.”

The real kicker is the statement that God is neither male or female. This is the basis for Queering God as they proudly proclaim.

And this is the new, modernized church coming your way? Or is it already here?

Pastors, this cannot be allowed to happen. Too many have simply stood aside and watched as this blasphemy and war against God has multiplied, increasing so much that it is now at a point of no return unless stern measures are taken.

This article has been written to fulfill a commission given to all ministers when they are ordained. The commission to be a defender of the faith.

See this story I wrote a couple of years ago about a boy named Trevor, a wonderful kid who after going to a public high school and college denounced God, turned on me the best friend he ever had, and became part of the LGBT crowd. This can happen to any and all of your children you surrender to government schools.

Pastors, man your pulpits and tell it like it is. We must preach against sin. Homosexuality is an abomination to God. It is not a natural state. It has introduced AIDS since biologically you cannot practice anal sex as is exclusive with sodomites, or combined with vaginal sex.

Pride Parades must be stopped, introducing sick sexual practices in public schools must be stopped, that is NOT why children are sent to school. This has been Satan’s greatest victory. It is now up to the pastors to preach the Word and MAN YOUR PULPITS.

WHAT WE CAN DO:  First of all, saturate your lives with God. There are plenty of good Bible-believing churches everywhere. Without God in your active lives, you can be yanked in any direction evil people pull.

Meet with your pastors to encourage them to start a Christian School. It is not difficult to do. And help support that effort by volunteer work. It is the life of your children at stake.

Be alert and ready to defend your family.

******

ANALYZING TODAY’S NEWS FOR TOMORROW’S HISTORY

© Copyright by Rev. Austin Miles, 2018. All rights reserved.

‘Now They’re Coming For Our Kids’ – Rob Pue

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16, which USED to be the most well-known verse of the Bible, until the Leftists started quoting “Judge not.”  Now, that seems to be the only “Bible” anyone knows anymore.

For those who are unaware, in addition to these radio broadcasts, my main ministry work is Wisconsin Christian News,which is now a NATIONAL Christian newspaper, based in Wisconsin.  We have subscribers in nearly all fifty states, and some larger distribution in other states as well.  In addition, we maintain an active and well-visited website AND, since we are a monthly newspaper, we utilize our Wisconsin Christian NewsFacebook page to post late-breaking news stories and items of interest on a daily basis as well — and THERE we have an opportunity to interact with our readers.

Last night, I posted an article about “Drag Queen Story Time” — now expanding from public libraries to the public SCHOOLS.  I am always amazed that SO MANY Christians are completely UNAWARE that these things are happening.  Because this is not “new” news — it’s actually OLD news.  It’s been going on for some time.  For those who don’t know, “Drag Queen Story Time” is a program which is now taking place nationwide, in which men dress up in full female regalia, loaded with makeup and then they read stories to little pre-school and kindergarten-age children about how being a homosexual is “fun,” a way to “express your individuality,” and that there is “no such thing as “boy” things and “girl” things.  “Children,” they say, “should feel free and open to choose whichever gender they would like…” Even if they would like to be a boy one day and a girl the next. And they’re doing this to four and five-year-olds.

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BEYOND FRIENDSHIP: LGBT ISSUES AND THE NEXT STAGE OF DISCERNMENT

(ED. NOTEI have devoted a lot of time on my radio shows recently to the subject of Revoice, the pro-“LGBT Christianity” conference set to take place July 26-28 at a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) church in St. Louis. Readers may find links to my “Janet Mefferd Today” coverage of Revoice hereherehere and here. The following is an important guest post, written by my good friends Tom Littleton — a Southern Baptist pastor and writer — and Dr. Robert Oscar Lopez, professor of humanities at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I am enormously grateful for both these men, for their clear biblical voices on the issue of homosexuality and Revoice and for their refusal to compromise the Word of God. Tom broke the story about Revoice and has been a hero in exposing how the unbiblical premises and language of Revoice are undermining the Word of God and the truth about gospel transformation through the tactics of incremental gay activism. He’s also noted how this narrative has been fueled not by biblical language or concepts, but by the psychological stylings advanced within evangelicalism by Dr. Mark Yarhouse. Further, Tom has connected the dots and shown Christians the troubling-but-undeniable ties between Revoice and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and The Gospel Coalition — not a popular truth, but one that nonetheless must be exposed. You can read Tom’s work at Thirty Pieces of Silver here. Dr. Lopez not only submitted an important-but-denied resolution to the recent SBC annual meeting on leading people from homosexuality to heterosexuality, but his own testimony of deliverance from homosexuality stands as a beautiful testimony to the grace of God. Here, both men argue that while many evangelical leaders have rightly stood for biblical marriage, that doesn’t guarantee they will stand firm on biblical truth during the next stage of discernment: whether or not you can be “born gay.” It is my privilege to reprint this article, with permission, from Dr. Lopez’s blog, English Manif.)

“RESOLVED, the Southern Baptist Convention rejects as heresy any claims that God makes people homosexual…”

These words were included in the resolution that we submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting in Dallas. We entitled the resolution, “On Ministry and Counseling to Lead People from Homosexuality to Heterosexuality.” Arguably the quote above was the most important ingredient in it.

On June 12, 2018, the SBC announced that the resolutions committee declined this resolution. Thus it never came to the floor. No other resolution has affirmed the Southern Baptists’ commitment to ministry and counseling for people who want help moving away from homosexual identity or behavior to heterosexuality.

Two recent articles published by Public Discourse—Robert George’s “Fr. James Martin, Friendship and Dialogue,” and Ron Belgau’s “In Defense of Spiritual Friendship and Revoice”—feel particularly ominous given what became of the resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention. George and Belgau address debates that have interested Roman Catholics. The same doctrinal crisis afflicts the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

The 2017 effort called “Faith in America,” which seems to have vanished in 2018, revealed that well-funded LGBT groups targeted the Southern Baptists as part of a willful drive to suppress Biblical resistance to homosexuality. In our current context, a siege mentality corresponds to basic realism and survival.

Many esteemed intellectual figures in both churches, such as Robert George and Russell Moore, have earned a reputation as being “beyond reproach on LGBT issues.” Russell Moore is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). We owe George’s and Moore’s high reputations to the stances they took when the United States was debating same-sex marriage. While they may deserve some credit for standing up for marriage in the past, their positions on sexual orientation change and “born this way” look increasingly weak.

Prof. George’s praise for radically pro-gay Jesuit James Martin has alarmed many, particularly ex-gays who have felt the brunt of James Martin’s abusive behavior and feel betrayed. Dr. Moore has refused to confront or admonish his own research fellow, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior, about her support for the controversial Revoice conference. “Revoice” is the name of a pro-LGBTQ+ organization and is also the name of a conference by the same, to take place in St. Louis July 26-28, 2018.

Dr. Moore’s evasive response to critics of Revoice contributes to our disappointment with many evangelical critiques of Revoice. We have seen lukewarm criticisms from figures such as Al MohlerAndrew Walker, and Kevin DeYoung. Mohler, Walker, and DeYoung have framed the problems with Revoice in esoteric or semantic terms. Yet Revoice poses an existential threat to evangelical religion. Revoice enshrines an assumption — the idea that non-heterosexual orientation can be an innate identity and impossible to change. That assumption negates core messages of the Bible.

Mohler, Walker and De Young’s lukewarm criticisms of Revoice sidestep the central question — can we say that people are born gay and God made them that way? The fact that Revoice uses some unclear terminology or might confuse some who hear Revoice rhetoric is significant, so we thank these evangelical commentators for picking up on such problems. Nonetheless, no critique of this conference/organization is truly adequate unless it confronts the horrendous apostasy at the core of Revoice’s rhetoric.

Backlash against Revoice has been so enormous in the evangelical world. It will obviously benefit the LGBT lobby if someone sympathetic to them can publish “critiques” that superficially placate worried Christians while distracting them from the sinister and ongoing assault on their belief system.

We wonder if a better course for thought leaders might consist of simply letting new voices oppose such heresy with the full attention of evangelical audiences. Early voices that came out against Revoice, such as ourselves and people like Janet Mefferd and Stephen Black, are noticeably ignored in the “critiques” that have been published by people who have much closer ties to established editors like the people at the helm of Public Discourse.

Many of the late-breaking writings that dispute parts of Revoice feel like controlled-opposition pieces, irrespective of their good intentions. When dealing with so much propaganda and psychological manipulation, as in LGBT debates, perception plays a major role. We need bold and clear discernment, rather than carefully calibrated stances that appear designed to insulate writers from accusations of complicity with heresy without actually confronting the heresy itself. While it’s true that the Revoice conference has not yet happened, given the long-lasting impact of an ERLC conference that took place on homosexuality in 2014 (to be discussed more momentarily), evangelical Christians are justified in wanting to prevent an ill-conceived conference from causing irreversible fallout.

The New Battleground: Different than Defining Marriage

Consider for a moment the case of Philippe Pétain. He received accolades for his heroism in World War I, but we remember him for the humiliating mistakes he made during World War II. He will forever be associated with the shame of the Vichy government. “Marshal Pétain” went from glory at the battle of Verdun in World War I to being sentenced to death for treason once the Allies liberated France from the Nazis. Pétain was the figurehead placed in charge of the Nazis’ puppet government in France.

Our churches are embroiled in less violent but nonetheless high-stakes theological conflicts that we can understand by applying Pétain’s example. The fight over homosexual marriage was one conflict, but the fight over “born this way” is a different war, with the potential to go nuclear. It is entirely possible to have been a stellar hero in the last war and yet to become a catastrophic disappointment in the current war.

The Nashville Statement of 2017, for instance, should not function as an indicator of who is trustworthy on the “born this way” controversy since it dealt primarily with issues from the last war — namely the fight over the definition of marriage and whether homosexuality was a sin. One could easily be in the Pétain role of signing the Nashville Statement and then, one year later, assisting the LGBT movement in destroying the churches’ ministries designed to save people from homosexuality.

Many Christian readers may not see the clear differences between the debate on marriage and the debate on whether homosexuals can change. The latter debate is fundamental and more critical at the pastoral and ecclesiological level. Defending Christian marriage meant denying recognition to unrepentant homosexuals and entangling churches in debates about civil law. But the debate about sexual orientation change is different. If we in the church accept the notion that people are born gay and cannot change, we deny the existence of people who have changed. We also withhold our help and hope to repentant individuals who have homosexual experiences but want help to conform to God’s design for love and sexuality — a heterosexual design.

As Southern Baptists we have not received adequate guidance or stewardship from people who needed to lead us against the “born this way” heresy. In October 2014, Russell Moore’s ERLC organized a conference on homosexuality whose lasting effects on the denomination have proved profoundly negative. Dr. Moore rejected “reparative therapy” in broad terms that parallel the phrases used by LGBT in subsequent years as they sought to ban any kind of sexual-orientation change counseling. At the same events Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stated that the church had been wrong about “sexual orientation” and that the LGBT community was right about homosexuality’s being to some degree innate and real.

Also, at this event, J.D. Greear — now the president of the Southern Baptist Convention — declared that Christians should be advocates against discrimination aimed at LGBTs. If he had specified that he did not define “discrimination” the way LGBT activists do (to include efforts to change homosexuals), he may have been on solid ground. But the silence about whether he meant discrimination in the broad sense to encompass any challenges to the pro-gay “born this way” doctrine leaves the Southern Baptist Convention now in a doctrinal disaster.

All signs point to the Southern Baptist Convention’s growing acceptance of the idea that people are born gay or that homosexuality originates in some way that does not exclude the will of God for it to exist. One sign is the SBC’s rejection of a resolution declaring that people are born according to God’s design (heterosexuality) and not according to the false design of homosexuality. Another major sign is the SBC’s troubled ties to the “Revoice conference,” which features a panoply of presenters who affirm gay identity even if they claim they will not engage in homosexual sex. The underlying ethos of Revoice is “born this way” ideology, since the alternatives suggested by the conference speakers all exclude the simple (and most logical) solution for Christians who struggle with homosexual tendencies: change, follow God’s design, and turn yourself into a heterosexual. In an interview, Austin Ruse of Crisis magazine revealed that the Revoice conference appears a repeat-performance of the “New Homophiles” who tried to force the Catholic church into many of the same theological compromises, and only fell from prominence with the rise of the more radical James Martin.

“Heresy” might be too strong a word for some. For us it’s just right.

As Southern Baptists, we pay no undue respect to human authorities. For we consider ourselves a priesthood of the believer. As evangelical Christians our prevailing reference point is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The story of His ministry and death provides important cues for us to understand the spiritual battles to which God calls us. A mob insulted Jesus, Roman soldiers nailed Him to a cross, and corrupt authorities in both the church and civil government mistreated Him in a sham trial.

But Judas Iscariot, one of those closest to Him, betrayed Him with a kiss. And He found Himself abandoned even by disciples who had mastered all His teachings. We take important lessons to heart from these details. Even the humans best known for their wisdom and virtue, the Apostle Paul reminds us, “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Much of the New Testament indicates that we are in greatest danger when we place so much trust in reputable people that we deem them beyond reproach. Jesus speaks not only of Pharisees and Sadducees but also of “messiahs and false prophets” who “will rise up and will perform signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, the elect” (Mark 13:22).

Scriptures abound in warnings about people who gain authority and convince us to trust them. Jesus warns us to leave alone “every plant that My heavenly Father didn’t plant,” noting, “if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14).

And He tells us: “Beware of the scribes who want to go around in long robes, and who want greetings in the marketplaces, the front seats of the synagogues, and the places of honor at banquets” for “these will receive harsher punishment” (Mark 12:39-40). Jesus minced no words about the existence of a devil who outsmarts those who fear confronting the powerful or allow psychological tricks to persuade them. Paul tells us, “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13), elaborating on what Jesus Christ said to Peter himself: “Get behind Me, Satan, because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s!” (Mark 8:33).

Jesus’s stark warnings target not only those with esteemed reputations among men, but also people whom we may personally like. Personal affection does not trump obedience to God’s instruction. Jesus tells us, “My brothers are those who hear and do the word of God” (Luke 8:21). Those who have a smaller following and hold authority over few, or no, other people, may actually be the ones who are right: “whoever is least among you—this one is great” (Luke 9:48).

These scriptures mean a great deal to us because we know that we will anger many people by calling out the heresy: “God makes people gay.” If you allow the argument that people are born gay and cannot change, you are stuck on a one-way track to the heresy that God makes people gay. If God is sovereign and creates each of us in His image, and if God sent Jesus Christ as a sacrifice to atone for human sin, then “people are born gay and cannot change” must mean that homosexuality is in God’s image and Jesus Christ accepts homosexuality as something to remain in a person even after grace and redemption.

Christians should have never entertained the slightest discussion of separating homosexual identity, thoughts, and desires from physical enactment of homosexuality. This is why the frustration and angst toward Russell Moore’s vagary and Robert George’s friendliness with James Martin come from legitimate concern about the encroachment of heresy into the church.

The highest law cited by Jesus Christ was the Deuteronomistic phrase, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind” (Luke 10:27). This phrase appears in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical conformity to God’s will inseparably form obedience to Him.

There is no threshold that separates mental commitment to God’s design from behavioral enactment of God’s design. Jesus Christ’s liberating of people from ceremonial laws does not include, in any way, liberating them from the central demand that all mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical behavior points toward love of God and the following of God’s design. In the original Deuteronomy passage, these key lines follow: “These words I give you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (6:6-8) God’s design — which is a heterosexual design of male and female in exclusive intimate partnership — encompasses everything about our living experience, including our identity, mental discipline, and focus of our thoughts.

The High Stakes of This Heresy

To accept any version of the “born this way” heresy, we would have to disregard the passage from James 1:13: “God does not tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires.” We would have to say either that James is wrong here, or that homosexuality is not evil but rather conforms to God’s design.

If we accept that homosexuality is part of God’s design, we will have to grant that Jesus did not really mean, in Matthew 19, for us to understand Genesis as mandating heterosexuality as His design for us. Absent this, we can no longer cite Genesis as the basis for defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. We cannot sustain a position against homosexual marriage and cannot, therefore, defend Christian vendors who cite their Christianity as the reason to refuse service for a same-sex wedding.

Ultimately, to accept that people are born gay, we will have to accept that God makes people gay, and much of the scripture we have is simply incorrect. At that point defining marriage is the least of our worries. We will contend with the conclusion that Adam’s maleness and Eve’s femaleness are accidents of history with no lasting implications as to our proper behavior. We will face the next inference, which is that everything we feel, no matter how much it conflicts with Christian tradition, comes from God. God becomes the author of everything, good and evil, a Father who gave us no clues as to how we are supposed to live, and a Son who came among us to promote love and anarchy, but not to redeem us from anything, since we are fine in the state in which we find ourselves as long as our inner emotions tell us that this is “who we are” right now. Repentance will become a side option for those who think it might be enjoyable.

Before a heresy of this magnitude, committed Christians should not refrain from disagreeing with or publicly challenging people like Robert George, Russell Moore, or Albert Mohler. Even Ryan Anderson. Thomas Littleton and Robert Oscar Lopez should not be trusted, either, if they come with strange doctrines at odds with the Bible. Do as one of John’s epistles advises and tell us “you are not welcome” if we come with wrong ideas. The Word of God never told us to treat them as perfect sages. Human history shows us that even people we are friends with, even people to whom we owe past favors, can be dangerously wrong.

This article appeared on Janet Mefferd’s blog on July 3, 2018 here.