The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society — the media arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses — recently released a video on their Becoming Jehovah’s Friend channel that is meant to educate children about Jehovah’s view of same-sex marriage. No surprise here. The God of the Jehovah’s Witnesses disproves of same-sex marriage. Enjoy!
Recently, Dr. Peter Scaer, an associate professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist Lutheran Church-Missouri-Synod institution in Fort Wayne, Indiana, took to the opinion page of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette to demonstrate his Bible-driven view of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Scaer wrote:
The First Amendment guarantees our rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. Yet, college campuses have implemented speech codes and created “safe spaces” to protect people from opinions they find disagreeable. Corporations have followed suit, as have governmental agencies. Increasingly, differences of opinion are labeled “hate speech,” thus ending reasonable debate.
Now the Indiana legislature, through Senate Bill 100, is on the verge of weaponizing this politically correct movement by giving protected-class status to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. People with differing worldviews can coexist as neighbors who care for one another. This, sadly, is not where the politicized LGBT movement is leading. Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla Firefox, was stripped of his position simply for supporting a traditional marriage amendment. Kelvin Cochran, an African-American fire chief, lost his job for writing a book on marriage. ESPN commentator Craig James was fired for expressing his views on traditional morality. Government agencies and corporate America have grown inhospitable to people of faith.
I believe in marriage equality, but I hold to the definition of marriage that has itself defined civilization. Every child has a reasonable right to a father and a mother.
Parents are equal but not interchangeable. Not every couple has a child, but every child has a biological mom and dad, and for that there is marriage. While some disagree, this position is based on reason and love.
Meanwhile, as our society moves from same-sex marriage to legalized polygamy, polyamory, temporary, open and even incestual marriage, we do well to encourage public discourse. Together, we need to ask, “What is marriage?”
Our opponents seem to think that marriage is a societal construct, something we can change as we please. But any type of marriage that purposefully deprives a child of a mom or dad is unjust.
SB 100 is called a compromise by offering certain protections for churches and religious institutions. There are two basic problems to this approach.
First, SB 100 turns our inalienable rights into privileges and exemptions. Second, rights belong not simply to groups, but to individuals. The free exercise of religion is more than the freedom of worship; it is the right of every single person to live according to his conscience.…..
While Scaer doesn’t directly mention the Bible (he is much too smart for that), make no mistake about it, it is, for Scaer and his fellow Missouri-Synod Lutherans, God’s infallible word that has the final say on human sexuality. The Lutheran Church-Missouri-Synod (LCMS) denomination officially espouses Evangelical beliefs such as creationism and Bible inerrancy. Missouri-Synod Lutherans vehemently reject homosexuality and same-sex marriage, considering both to be sinful rejections of God’s version of Masters’ and Johnson’s book on human sexuality (see LCMS position papers on human sexuality).
This post is designed to briefly show that Fundamentalism is not only the domain of Baptists and Evangelicals. Every Christian sect has a wing-nut division.
Note
For further information on Indiana Senate Bill 100, please read Who’s protected — and who’s not — in Indiana’s LGBT, religious rights bill, a November 18, 2015 Indy Star article.
Millennials, those born between 1981-2000, (there is some debate over the exact time frame) now ages 15 to 34, are less religious than their parents and grandparents. Why they are remains a subject of intense debate. Regardless of the reasons why, millennials are less likely to be a part of an organized religion than earlier generations. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, nones, those who are not affiliated with any religion, continue to increase numerically. 55 million Americans are now a none. Granted, this is still a small percentage of the total U.S. population, but 34-36% of millennials are a none, compared to just 17% of their parents and 11% of their grandparents.
While the media tends to focus on millennials leaving Evangelical sects and churches, the Catholic church also has a millennial problem. Kaya Oakes, a writer for Religion Dispatches and a one time atheist who returned to the Catholic church of her youth, had this to say about the Catholic church and millennials:
A new survey from Catholics for Choice on the opinions of Catholic millennials as regards doctrinal issues might make the church’s traditionalists want to brace themselves. But its findings are also somewhat unsurprising to anyone who spends time around younger Catholics, whose political and social leanings mirror the open-minded stances of their increasingly non-religious peers.
Birth control and abortion, arguably the Catholic church’s most contentious issues, are not always perceived in a negative light by young Catholics. Among those polled, more than half say abortion should be legal in “almost all” or “most” cases, and 31 percent say it should be legal in “just a few” cases. Only 17 percent say it should be illegal. 78 percent say birth control should be included in insurance coverage, no matter where a woman works.
In spite of the widely mocked Catholic Vote video of young people “coming out” as believing that marriage is between a man and a woman, marriage equality is embraced by Catholic millennials. 69% “strongly” or “somewhat” support legal same-sex marriage.
In the wake of the firing of multiple Catholic school teachers who are openly gay or lesbian or married to a same-sex partner, and the ensuing grappling over Catholic teacher contracts that explicitly prevent teachers from being open about their sexuality, younger Catholics have chosen the side of the teachers. 71% say Catholic schools should not be able to fire teachers for being LGBTQ. On gender in the church, Catholic millennials follow similar thinking, with 75% supporting women having an equal role in the church.
Pope Francis is popular among young Catholics, with only two percent having a negative view of him. But the American church hierarchy is not looked on so kindly, and there is an increasing emphasis on a separation between politics and religion. A full 80 percent of respondents said they felt no need to follow the bishops’ advice when it comes time to vote, and 77 percent said Catholic politicians were under no obligation to follow the bishops either.
They are also opposed by a wide margin to bishops withholding communion to the divorced and remarried, those who support legal abortion, and those who support marriage equality.
What’s missing from this survey, however, is the question of church attendance. How much are these Catholics who disagree with and question church teaching are actually showing up? Christian Smith, the head of the National Study of Youth and Religion at Notre Dame, says the situation with Catholic millennials participating in church culture is “in fact, grim.” Only 16% of millennials self-identify as Catholic according to Pew. That 16% is the group the church is struggling to hold on to.
So if they are increasingly choosing the liberal side in the culture wars, are they really still Catholic?…
…What is clear, however, is that the more young Catholics start to embrace marriage equality, safe and legal abortion, access to contraception, and the liberal side on many other issues in the culture wars, the more of those same Catholics will also drift away from a church they perceive as incapable of change.
Perhaps they’ll attend mass on occasion, and perhaps they’ll still call themselves Catholic, but in many ways, their faith will be a loose garment rather than a straightjacket.
Letter submitted to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News on July 13, 2015
Dear Editor,
Evangelical Christians are infuriated over the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Granting U.S. citizens equal protection under the law and affording them the same civil rights heterosexuals have is seen as an affront to God, the Bible, and true Christians everywhere. As a result, a handful of Christian government officials are refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, claiming doing so would violate their religious beliefs.
Should government officials be required to violate their religious beliefs in the execution of their duties? They serve the public, and when they walk in the door of their respective place of duty, what God, the Bible, or their pastor has to say has no authority or relevance. The United States is a secular state, and the highest court in the land has determined that marriage laws discriminating against same-sex couples are unconstitutional. Every government official is duty bound to obey the law, and if they can’t they should either quit, be fired, or removed from office.
Evangelicals and their counterparts in the Catholic and Mormon church have at their disposal all the means necessary to undo same-sex marriage. If they feel the Court acted unjustly, the proper recourse is to work towards a constitutional amendment that establishes marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Empty threats of second amendment remedies, secession from the union, and Sodom and Gomorrah-like judgment from God change nothing. If Christians want real change, a return to Ozzie and Harriet’s 1950’s, then they should work to amend the Constitution. They won’t do this, of course, because they know they don’t have sufficient numbers to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision.
Why is it Christian government officials issue marriage licenses to adulterers and fornicators, but draw the line at same-sex couples? The Bible sure has a lot to say about adultery and fornication, yet these “sins” are routinely ignored. Only homosexuals and same-sex couples are singled out for discrimination and abuse. Why is this?
This question is not hard to answer. Having spent the first 50 years of my life in the Evangelical church, 25 years as a pastor, I know firsthand the rampant hysterical bigotry and homophobia within Evangelicalism. Evangelicals are now known as the religion of hate, and every time people like Franklin Graham, Tim Wildmon, Al Mohler, Ken Ham, or James Dobson open their mouth, the public is reminded of this fact.
Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio
Linda Italiano is the latest person to publicly profess that Jesus has delivered her from a life of carnal relations with the same sex. Italiano, age 52, was a practicing lesbian for 34 years. In 2014, she started attending Life Church in Williamstown, New Jersey, a garden-variety Evangelical church with a charismatic flavor. Italiano writes:
It wasn’t until I started attending church in early 2014, that I saw a different way of living and thinking. This was where my plan and God’s plan collided. As I began attending week after week, I started to understand the Word of God, but I had it in my mind that lesbianism was going to be the deal breaker. I thought that if the church wasn’t going to condone it that I would leave. I also thought that once everyone found out about me I would be asked to leave or I would feel unwelcome.
Thankfully, I was wrong about all of this. I requested a meeting with the pastor where I told her everything and I was met with love and respect. I was also shown exactly what the Bible says about homosexuality and it was made clear to me that it was unacceptable and wrong. I came away from that meeting still feeling welcome and accepted in the church, but understanding that homosexuality is a sin like any other sin. I understood that the Word of God is more important than anything else, and He is the answer to all of my problems. It did not take very long before I was completely delivered from the homosexual lifestyle and I totally renounced it. God did for me what I had been unwilling or unable to do for myself.
Normally, I would leave sexually confused people like Italiano alone. It’s her life, each to their own. However, she has published her story and it was recently featured on the CHARISMA website, so I thought I would give her story the attention it deserves. Italiano recently posted a link to her coming-out story on Facebook. (link no longer active) Here’s how some of her friends responded to her born-again heterosexual experience:
According to Italiano, her slide into decades of scissoring began at age 18 when her older brother was killed in a car accident:
In 1980, a month before I turned eighteen, my older brother was killed in a car accident. This was the event that changed everything for me. I went from a stable person with goals and dreams to an angry, hopeless, directionless person. My family started growing apart immediately after the accident as we each dealt with the loss separately. This began many years of victim mentality thinking, which hindered me in a big way as it colored all of my decisions going forward.
In 1980, the drinking age was eighteen, much to my detriment. It had become increasingly difficult for me to spend time at home because my mother was taking out all of her unhappiness and hurt on me. I had become her target for all that was lost in our family. I began to spend much of my time in bars. I drank to excess from the start and I quickly became an alcoholic. I also met a woman who introduced me to lesbianism. I chose this lifestyle for thirty years or so until I became a Christian in 2014.
Drinking for me was like a job. I lived in fear of withdrawal and tried unsuccessfully to walk that line between maintenance drinking and blackout drinking. Blackout always won. This lasted until the age of thirty-three when I finally stopped drinking.
Even though I was sober, I was aware that there was still a huge void in my life. I started living a more solitary existence and was full of fear. I had very little self worth and was settling for crumbs from people in my life when I should have been expecting more.
I developed a plan. I was going to find a woman who would treat me well and I would spend the rest of my life with her. I had convinced myself over the years that I was born a homosexual, even though there was evidence to the contrary, and I thought this was the only path I could take. Being around homosexuals for so long, the idea was reinforced in me that I was only attracted to women and that same-sex attraction was a positive thing.
Was Italiano a homosexual? Is she still a homosexual? I don’t know. Only she can answer that question. What I do know is that homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality and bisexuality, and all the Bible quoting in the world won’t change this fact.
I find it interesting that Italiano sought out a church where most of the staff, including the lead pastor, is female. The pastor of Life church, Jamie Morgan, also has a deliverance story to tell. According to Morgan, at age 26, she was “miraculously delivered from alcohol, agoraphobia, fear, anxiety attacks, depression and nicotine.” In a blog post titled, Fear is a Liar, Morgan writes:
I was saved at twenty-six years old. I was an alcoholic, filled with fear, anxiety, worry, and depression. One night, I fell to me knees and said, “God, I can’t do this anymore. The way I’m living my life isn’t working. I’ve even tried living like others thought I should. That’s not working either. I want your plan for my life. I don’t know you, but your plan for my life has got to be better than anything that I can come up with. I give you my life. I give you my heart. I ask you, Lord, to take this messed up girl, and if you can do anything with her life, to do it.” And He did it. He delivered me from all my fears. He delivered me from alcoholism. He delivered me from panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. I was so scared of panic attacks that I couldn’t go anywhere. I was a prisoner in my own home. But I sought the Lord, just as Psalm 34:4 says. I cried out to Him and He delivered me. After I prayed that prayer of salvation, it felt like shackles fell from me. From that point on, I had to renew my mind according to the Word of God. As I did, I was able to maintain my deliverance.
Here’s Morgan’s Facebook response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage:
Dear Christian who has embraced the apostasy of same-sex marriage:
I ask you to prayerfully read, and somberly consider, this plea…
“Did God really say…?” was the strategy the enemy used in the Garden and the same cunning he uses today. Getting us to doubt any part of God’s Word remains his deadliest weapon. A true follower of Christ makes the quality decision, from which there is no turning back, that God’s Word is the Truth – no matter the cost, public opinion, philosophies of this world or political correctness – even if we have close friends or family members that are in the homosexual lifestyle. It is a non-negotiable for which the true Christian will die (and many have). If you are a Christian, and have caved to societal views on this or any issue, you have been deceived by Satan. Deception, when given root and not repented of, will spread to your entire life – and could eventually effect where you will spend eternity. I implore you to repent for doubting God’s Word as the Truth and for practicing “Cafeteria-style Christianity” which is no Christianity at all. And I implore you to recommit yourself to believe and stand on God’s Word as the only authoritative, inerrant and infallible Truth that exists on the face of the earth.
In Christ’s infinite love,
Pastor Jamie Morgan
The assistant pastor, Marie Campbell, also has a similar deliverance story, having been delivered by a divine encounter with Jesus from “IV drug addiction and alcohol.”
Cults like Life Church are the worst of their kind. They deliberately seek people who are substance abusers or are struggling emotionally and mentally. They offer them them a hot shot of Jesus, neglecting to share with those they prey on that once they are hooked on Jesus they will be expected to conform to Morgan’s fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. (Morgan is a graduate of Oral Roberts University)
Sadly, Italiano has surrendered her will and reason to Morgan, Life Church, Jesus, and the Bible. Whatever her problems might have been or still are, they have been swallowed up by Evangelical moralizing and puritanism. Time will tell if Jesus is enough to keep her from returning to the arms of another woman.
In recent years, it has become fashionable to blame Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, for every perceived American social and moral ill. According to Larry Tomczak, the blame for the legalization of same-sex marriage belongs to the ‘Summer of Love’ generation. In a post titled 6 Lies from the Pit of Hell, Tomczak traces the moral decline of the United States from the drug using, free sex days of the 1960’s to the recent U.S. Supreme decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Tomczak, a one time associate of C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries, writes:
…Beginning with the shocking assassination of President Kennedy in the ’60s, a flickering of Camelot–inspired hope was extinguished. Prayer and Bible reading were banned from our public schools and the “God is dead” pronouncement of 1966 fostered an era of skepticism and cynicism bleeding through our land.
It’s not like there was one defining event that triggered our current confusion, but when the turbulent 24 months of ’67 and ’68 erupted on the scene, clues emerge. Cultural analysts call this a “tipping point.”
The year 1967 was dubbed, “Summer of Love.” Scores of us naïve youth fell in line behind pied piper Scott McKenzie as we grabbed our knucklehead buddies and love beads and swayed with the wind all the way to San Francisco. Do you remember the song? “Are you going to San Francisco? You’re going to meet some gentle people there. … ” It almost moves you to put some flowers in your hair!
Millions of us idealistic young people and our counterpart “hippies” believed we were ushering in the long–awaited “Age of Aquarius” with all our peace symbols, free love and free speech. American psychologist Timothy Leary, took LSD and told us, “Turn on, tune in and drop out.” Seduced by our foolishness we declared, “Never trust anyone over 30!” while Pete Townshend and the Who exclaimed, “Hope I die before I get old!” (He’s now 70 and still cashing in on his musical career!). Soon thereafter, hundreds of thousands were sloshing in the mud at the Woodstock Festival—can you believe it’s been almost 50 years?
Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, was my idol as I was a drummer in The Lost Souls. His moronic philosophy: “I’m interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activities that appear to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road to freedom! ”
Slowly but surely, years of “freedom” took its toll. Time magazine called 1968, “A knife blade that severed past from the future.”
Casting off restraints to protest and launch the Gay, Women’s and Black Power Movements, the Sexual Revolution and the Drug Counterculture, we soon morphed into meltdown. The Civil Rights Movement was one positive initiative.
Pop idols Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all were dead at age 27—overdosing on drugs, sex and unrestrained freedom. AIDS (GRID – Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, as it was called) followed. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated. Student riots paralyzed Chicago. The Altamont Rock Festival degenerated into murderous mayhem right before Mick Jagger’s bloodshot eyes. Kent State University erupted in campus shootings over the still-simmering Vietnam War. Hippie communities and gay bathhouses started folding like houses of cards as Barry McGuire sang “Eve of Destruction.”
Abortion demands intensified as all the “Make love—not war” mantras spawned unwanted babies. Soon abortion was legalized.
Divorce laws were liberalized (today 80% of divorces are “no fault,” translating into 45 million divorces since the end of the ’60s!) Sexual standards evaporated and resulted in rampant pornography, skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births, one in every four teens strapped with a sexually transmitted disease, drug abuse, school violence, teen suicide, spousal and child abuse, violent crime, prison overpopulation, sexual anarchy, gender confusion, glamorizing and promotion of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism with gender reassignment surgeries. All of this proliferating since the now infamous “Summer of Love” soured to a stench…
Multitudes of people need a reality check to bring them out of a sentimental yet distorted remembrance of this period. We must remove the romantic recollections of this turbulent ’60s era. In contrast to PBS nostalgic specials highlighting the supposed peaceful and musical ’60s time period, we need to come down to earth and recognize the devastation that resulted. This was not a time that was all groovy, lovey, peaceful with flowing-hair, girls in granny dresses twirling in the park amid syrupy-faced guys with tambourines and doves flying around their heads as they harmonized in childlike unity, singing “Kum ba ya” and playing flutes while innocently getting high. This is a fantasy that needs to be shattered immediately…
Like many of his ilk, Tomszak pines for a return to the 1950’s; a time when Negroes knew their place, abortion and birth control was illegal, sodomites were still in the back of the closet, women stayed at home, divorce was rare, and Christianity ruled the land, In Tomczak’s mind, everything began to go downhill when God was thrown out of the public schools and hippies spent all their time smoking dope and screwing.
Tomczak mentions six lies, lies he says are from the pit of hell, that are now accepted by many Americans:
In typical Evangelical fashion, Tomczak shows he has no understanding of what those outside of his cult believe. He also assumes that the only legitimate standard of morality is his fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian Bible. Using Tomczak’s infallible moral standard, premarital, extramarital, and homosexual sex become abnormal, immoral, and unhealthy. An unwillingness to believe life begins at conception means that you believe human life has no value and should not be legally protected.
I don’t know many people who think that drug use is a “great recreational sport” or that divorce “offers an easy escape from marriage.” Do some people treat drug use as a recreational sport? Sure, but I have yet to see anyone suggesting we start the ADUL, the American Drug Use League. Long before the ‘summer of love’, humans were using drugs, legal and illegal, to alter their mood or emotional state. 2,000 years ago, Jesus turned water into wine. Unless Tomczak thinks Jesus turned the water into Welch’s grape juice, the wine provided by Jesus at the Wedding at Cana, was a mood altering drug.
And when it comes to divorce, what is really behind Tomczak’s objection to an “easy escape from marriage?” Is it because divorce is forbidden by the Bible or is the real reason women are now able to free themselves from abusive men? Perhaps the real issue is uppity women who dare to think they should be treated equally. Kick them shoes off, clean the house, cook supper, and have lots of little Christians, ladies! That’s your calling. Leave the hard work to men like Larry Tomczak.
The real reason men like Tomczak rage against liberalism and secularism is because they no longer have a preferred seat at the cultural table. They are upset that progress has moved the United States beyond the zenith of Evangelicalism, the 1950’s, when In (Christian) God we Trust was added to our paper money and allegiance to the Christian God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. More and more Americans are indifferent or hostile towards Christianity and this has Evangelicals looking for someone to blame. For Tomczak, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of long-haired tie-dyed wearing hippies.
Like every Evangelical guru, Tomczak has a plan:
Three things are essential for us to see societal transformation.
1. We must recognize the gravity of the situation.
2. We must cry out to God for wisdom and a sense of urgency.
3. We must pray and proclaim the gospel and truth at every opportunity as we engage outsiders in a winsome way.
This presupposes that we know the issues, the truth, and have the courage and confidence to speak out. “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, wisely using the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you should answer everyone” (Col. 4:5-6).
Seeing the gathering storm clouds on the horizon, I recently pulled apart with my wife to a secluded cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. My assignment from God was to write a book that would be a tool to help shape informed influencers to make a difference in today’s confused culture. I pinpointed the 30 “hot button” issues of today.
God gave me a practical plan: Challenge people to take 30 days and invest 15 minutes a day in a 3 step process to develop a biblical worldview and confidence in addressing our country’s controversial issues: 1. Review a video—3 min. 2. Read an article—10 min. 3. Reflect and pray—2 min. The title of the book is Bullseye and it’ll help us “hit the mark” in sharing the gospel and biblical truth to dispel deception and foster spiritual awakening.
I invite your prayer support as we finalize this project. May this be one of many divine strategies given by God at this tipping point in America’s history.
“God” gave Tomczak a practical plan that is sure to “dispel deception and foster spiritual awakening.” For 30 days, 15 minutes a day, Tomczak wants like-minded Evangelicals to:
Oh, and he is writing a book he wants everyone to buy. There’s a-lw-a-y-s a money angle.
On his blog, Tomczak calls his plan the Bullseye Challenge (link no longer active). According to Dr. Michael Brown, a former “heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer” and the “world’s foremost Messianic Jewish apologist”, Tomczak’s plan will turn Game of Thrones watching, NASCAR loving Republicans into a “confident communicator and change agent in today’s confusing culture.” So far, Tomczak’s blog post has ONE Facebook like and ZERO retweets on Twitter.
Want to know more about the Bullseye Challenge? Check out Tomczak’s video:
Now that same-sex marriage is legal in all fifty states, Evangelicals are trying to figure out how to explain marriage to their children. They dare not say that marriage is based on love, commitment, and sacrifice because that would be admitting that same-sex couples are legitimately married. Greg Gibson, the executive editor and communications director for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and family ministries pastor at Foothills Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, recently wrote an article titled Parenting in a Gay Marriage World: What Should Christian Parents Do? Gibson gives ten suggestions for talking to little Christian Johnny or Suzie about marriage, especially same-sex marriage:
In others words, cram the fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible down their throats, pray for them, take them to church, train them to be good little complementarians, and don’t let them anywhere near a computer where they can access porn sites. And if teenage Johnny or Suzie turn out gay anyway? Well, “Don’t panic, trust in God, he is still in control and his plan will still win.” Except it won’t. God is no match for genetics and sexual desire. Just ask Ted Haggard.
Note
Foothills Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
snark and ridicule ahead!
I am at a loss to understand why government officials in North Carolina haven’t called me so I could tell them WHY sharks are attacking people along the North Carolina coast. Based on everything I’ve read on Evangelical and Catholic blogs and news sites, the reason for the shark attacks is because
This will be the reason given for every calamity from this point forward. And don’t think for a moment there’s not some Schlitz-drinking, AK-47 carrying, mud wrasslin loving, King James Bible toting, fundamentalist Christian who thinks this way. In their mind, once same-sex marriage was legalized, the foundation of Western civilization came tumbling to the ground.
Here’s what you’ll hear in the future after Sunday go-to-meeting at Thirteenth Baptist Church in Rednecknakedville, North Carolina:
Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority ramped up the culture war in the late 1970’s. Since then, groups like the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Traditional Values Coalition, and Focus on the Family, have presented a long list of societal ills that upset God and his chosen ones on earth: abortion, taking prayer out of school, taking the Ten Commandments out of school, teaching evolution, taking Bible reading out of school, etc. Like the petulant, violent child stomping their feet and throwing toys when other children won’t play the game by their rules, God is pouring out his wrath and judgment on the United States. Or so we are told.
Have you ever noticed that these prophets of doom, gloom, and anal sex, keep getting richer? Perhaps the culture war is really about money, about keeping this or that church and ministry afloat on prosperity sea. In other words, cultural change is good for business. According to Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association:
…This brings us to what the Supreme Court did to Muslims last Friday. The entire world knows exactly how the “religion of peace” deals with homosexuals: they tie them to chairs and throw them off eight story buildings, and then, if they survive the fall, stone them to death.
In fact, on Friday, the very day the Supreme Court handed down its abominable gay marriage ruling, ISIS threw four homosexuals off the roof of an apartment building, perhaps to stick a thumb in the eye of the United States.
The Muslim world justifies its attacks on the United States because they believe, not inaccurately, that we are the chief exporter of wickedness and decadence in the world. That’s why they call us the Great Satan. When we insult their god, their religion, their prophet, or their values they claim a divine sanction to punish us for our transgressions…
…But wait. The Supreme Court insulted and offended the entire Muslim world last Friday by celebrating and gushing over a sin that Muslims regard as so offensive to Allah that practitioners must be hurled to their death. (By the way, the great difference between Christians and Muslims with regard to homosexuals is that we want them healed while Muslims want them dead.)
The Supreme Court, perhaps unwittingly and carelessly, just gave the Muslim world another reason to attack us. And a terrorist attack appears imminent, perhaps even planned for this weekend. The FBI has set up command posts all over the country and is taking the threat so seriously that 4th of July leave has been canceled for every single agent.
If Muslims attack us, and refer in any way to our celebration of homosexuality as part of the reason, then according to liberals culpability must be laid at the feet of the Supreme Court.
So, the next time there is a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and there will be a next time, it’s all because of the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. No matter what ills befalls us, it will be blamed on, by Pastor Nutter, Sister Ignor and Brother Amus, the legalization of same-sex marriage.
This kind of thinking is the direct result of too much exposure to Fox News, Worldnet Daily, and the Sunday morning preaching of conspiracy nuts. Once entropy starts there is little that can be done to stop it. Brain cell after brain cell dies until all that is left is a mind unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. They become the Walking Dead.
Art Kohl is the pastor of Faith Bible Baptist Church in Eden, New York. Faith Bible is a church that believes in “soul winning, worldwide missions, old fashioned music & preaching, modest appearance, and loving God” and only preaches from the “King James Holy Bible.” Recently, independentbaptist.com posted an article by Kohl titled Just Because I’m Against Homosexuality Doesn’t Mean I Hate You; Here’s What The Bible Says! (link no longer active) This is a reprint of an article written by Kohl in 2002.
In the article, Kohl trots out the usual Evangelical objections to homosexuality:
Nothing new, right? Change the faces, the same codswallop comes out of the mouth.
What I want to focus on is Kohl’s subtle equating of incest, bestiality, rape, pedophilia, torture, and beating his wife and children with a baseball bat with homosexuality. Since the state legislates against the former, why not the latter? Kohl writes:
“Stay out of our bedrooms, stay out of our private lives,” is a defensive posture we hear from pro-homosexuals. There are many different laws that affect each of our private lives. Laws against adultery, fornication, pedophilia, beastiality, incest, torture, rape, even seat belt laws. Most laws in some way legislate morality. Do not kill, do not steal, etc.
For the average Evangelical church member who lets their pastor think and speak for them, this argument might seem incontrovertible. However, let me show how easy it is to dismantle this argument.
When it comes to incest, rape, pedophilia, torture, and beating your wife and children with a baseball bat, are there two consenting parties? No. Even with bestiality, the animal cannot consent, so there is only one consenting party. However, homosexual sex, like heterosexual sex, is between two consenting parties. While we have laws that govern the age of consent, once that age is reached there is no prohibition against who a person has sex with. Consenting parties have every right to expect the government to stay out of their bedroom or any other private place they engage in sexual activity.
Kohl is using an apples and oranges argument. Many of the actions mentioned by Kohl are violent acts against others, especially women and children. We rightly, though our laws, punish those who behave violently against others. To quote the opening line from Law and Order SVU, “sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.” There is no victim when two men or two women have sex. We’re human and sex is what humans do, along with eating and drinking. And we are not alone. According to Wikipedia, homosexual and bisexual behavior has been observed in 1,500 species.
None of this really matters to Kohl because the ONLY issue is what the Bible says about homosexuality. If homosexuals would only agree with the Bible when it says that homosexual behavior is “abusers of themselves with mankind”, all would be well. All homosexuals need to do is deny WHO they are and behave contrary to their nature. How hard can that be, right? Well, based on the various sexual scandals over the years involving Evangelical preachers, it must be pretty hard.
In almost every IFB church there are repressed homosexuals who, out of fear of God and man, hide who they really are. It is a sad existence, one that is exacerbated by continually being pounded by the sin verses found in the Bible. As a former Evangelical preacher, I have a lot of guilt over how I used the Bible to hammer parishioners into what I perceived was God’s rigid mold for sexuality. At the time, I did not know that there were homosexuals sitting in the pew. I now know differently because I have talked to them and asked for their forgiveness. I still shudder when I think about my preaching against homosexuality. I can only imagine how hurtful my words were to those trapped in a religious system that forced them to play heterosexual.
There’s no hope for preachers like Art Kohl until they see how harmful their preaching is. Until they are willing to chuck the Bible into the dustbin of history, they will continue to demand everyone live by the antiquated morality found in the Bible. Well, at least some of the moral teachings found in the Bible. I was curious about Kohl’s preaching on divorce. The Bible has a good bit to say about divorce, yet many IFB preachers seems to ignore what the Bible says, either because they are divorced or they have divorced parishioners. It’s one thing to preach against homosexuality, knowing that no one in the church is going to cop to being a sodomite. But, when there are tithing church members who are divorced, well that’s a whole other matter. Listen to how kind and compassionate Kohl is to those who are divorced:
…Divorce is devastating to those involved. Whether it becomes ugly or is “amiable,” few entered marriage expecting this result. Sayings like, “It is better to have tried at love and failed, than to never have loved at all,” do not help. It comes into your mind everyday. It never goes away. Some feel like they are labeled, “Unclean, Divorcee!” They feel like outcasts to family, friends, neighbors, fellow employees and especially churches.
Your relationship may have ended but your life has not!…
…I ha’ve never been able to answer all the questions and complexities that come with some divorces: lawyers, alimony, child support, custody battles, garnished wages, in-law problems, financial pressures, hurting children who blame themselves, anger, emotional agony, visitation rights, and so on. But one thing I can tell every divorced person for sure: God in heaven is very personal and he loves you very much. You can have a real relationship with him that can never be broken. He has said in his word, the Bible, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
God knows the hurt of divorce.
He was divorced, too! God had married the nation of Israel but she departed from him (Jeremiah 3:14, 20). God had to give her a divorce. Jeremiah 3:8 says “…Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;…”
This was a spiritual relationship, but God still knows how it feels to have someone so close to you leave. He knows your hurt and feels your pain.
Why don’t you get to know this God?…
Imagine how different things might be if Evangelicals like Kohl treated homosexuals in the same manner? In 2011 Kohl stated:
“It seems we hate and we get angry at certain sins and love and coddle and pet other sins and befriend them if we’re not careful. We ought not to hate the sinner but we ought to hate the sin.”
Most observers of the last thirty years of the culture war would agree that homosexuality has been elevated to the status of THE sin above all sins. Look at how Evangelical pastors, parachurch leaders, and Republican candidates for President responded to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Conspiratorial hysteria, the end of Western civilization. No “sin” has had a greater effect on Western civilization and the American family than divorce, yet these same pastors, leaders, and candidates for President are strangely silent. Why is this? (and they are silent on many behaviors their Bible calls a sin)
Here’s what I think. There are a lot of closeted Jesus-loving homosexuals in the Evangelical church, many of which stand behind the pulpit preaching against the very desires that secretly rage in the dark recesses of their life. Many of them will spend a lifetime denying who they really are. Others will act on their desires thinking no one can see them, only to be exposed through some sort of scandal. And a few others will realize that the BIBLE is the problem, and they will seek happiness and fulfillment through embracing their sexuality. Among those who are exiting the Evangelical church for political and social reasons are those who can no play the heterosexual game. They leave because they want the freedom to be who they are and not who the church, pastor, and Bible says they are.
Snark, sarcasm ahead!
Over at the fundamentalist Christian Defending Contending blog, Mark Anthony Escalera had this to say: (link no longer active)
…After the flood, God created a rainbow to be His seal in the heavens. It was a declaration to show the mercy and longsuffering of God. The rainbow was His picture to a depraved world that while He would never again destroy the world with a flood, He would be coming again. The next time He comes, there will be no rainbows. There will only be fire and total destruction of ALL that stand opposed to Him.
The true rainbow is made up of 7 different primary colors of a spectrum. It is a beautiful reminder of the wonder that God long holds up His wrath and judgment against the wickedness of this world. Seven in the Bible indicates perfection and completion.
However, Satan perverted that sign and it is now used around the world as a symbol of “gay pride.” It has only 6 colors. Six in the Bible is the number of man. This “rainbow” is not a true rainbow, but is a symbol of perversion, debauchery, sodomy, lust, pedophilia, and bestiality – just to name a few. The one below is a perversion, and for the record, the White House KNEW what was coming and this was done deliberately. Read Psalm 2 for the conclusion….
According to the ignorant Escalera, a TRUE rainbow has SEVEN colors, seven being a number that many fundamentalists think signifies perfection and completion. The gay pride flag only has SIX colors, six being a number that many fundamentalists think is the number of man; you know like 666. In Escalera’s addled mind, the difference between seven and six colors is proof that the gay pride flag is a “symbol of perversion, debauchery, sodomy, lust, pedophilia, and bestiality – just to name a few. ” For a minute, when he started listing all the sins gays practice, I thought he was talking about Evangelical pastors. Just saying…
Evidently Escalera doesn’t have access to Wikipedia:
A spectrum obtained using a glass prism and a point source is a continuum of wavelengths without bands. The number of colours that the human eye is able to distinguish in a spectrum is in the order of 100. Accordingly, the Munsell colour system (a 20th-century system for numerically describing colours, based on equal steps for human visual perception) distinguishes 100 hues. The apparent discreteness of main colours is an artefact of human perception and the exact number of main colours is a somewhat arbitrary choice.
Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours,[8] originally (1672) divided the spectrum into five main colours: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale. Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week.
According to Isaac Asimov, “It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.”
The colour pattern of a rainbow is different from a spectrum, and the colours are less saturated. There is spectral smearing in a rainbow owing to the fact that for any particular wavelength, there is a distribution of exit angles, rather than a single unvarying angle. In addition, a rainbow is a blurred version of the bow obtained from a point source, because the disk diameter of the sun (0.5°) cannot be neglected compared to the width of a rainbow (2°). The number of colour bands of a rainbow may therefore be different from the number of bands in a spectrum, especially if the droplets are particularly large or small. Therefore, the number of colours of a rainbow is variable. If, however, the word rainbow is used inaccurately to mean spectrum, it is the number of main colours in the spectrum.
The question of whether everyone sees seven colours in a rainbow is related to the idea of Linguistic relativity. Suggestions have been made that there is universality in the way that a rainbow is perceived. However, more recent research suggests that the number of distinct colours observed and what these are called depend on the language that one uses with people whose language has fewer colour words seeing fewer discrete colour bands.
And just like that, Escalera’s Bullingerian (see notes) numerical nonsense goes up in smoke.
Think this is Escalera’s worst with Dorothy over the rainbow moment? Oh no. Here’s how he ends his post:
…If you are reading this and think that this is the final conclusion of the LGBT community, then you have been duped. The LGBT community will NOT stop until the next step of Satan’s agenda has been accomplished and accepted. Polygamy will soon be accepted. The age of consent will be dropped just as is happening in other parts of the world. Adherents of LGBT, PFLAG, and NAMBLA cannot have their own children and will only grow as they prey on more and more young people trying to entice them to a life of lust-filled debauchery that will never offer anything but disease and heartache for it is not what God ordained.
Soon, this blog may be taken down because it will be considered hate speech. I know that day is coming. Many companies openly rejoice in the ruling by SCOTUS. One day soon, true believers will be given a choice to conform to the world’s standards or lose their jobs…
Someone unschooled in hyperbolic, delusional Evangelical rhetoric might conclude that Escalera is exaggerating (literary lying) to make a point. But, he’s not. He really believes that ONE DAY SOON, (as in ONE DAY SOON Jesus is coming back’?) his blog will be considered hate speech and taken down by the U.S. government. ONE DAY SOON, (as in ONE DAY SOON Evangelicals are going to start caring about the poor and disenfranchised’?) Christians such as he are going to lose their jobs over their homophobic, bigoted stand for Jesus.
Here’s the truth. Yes, Escalera’s post is offensive, ignorant, hateful, bigoted, and homophobic. But, all of these behaviors are completely legal. Escalera seems to forget he lives in the United States. Hate speech is protected speech, so Escalera is free to hate away. The same goes for losing his job. No employer is going to fire employees over what they believe as long as they don’t promote their beliefs while at work. In some instances, employers have a personal conduct code and this might result in someone being fired over hate speech, but most of the time employees, on their own time, are free to swill Schlitz, wave around an AK47, listen to Toby Keith, drape themselves in the confederate flag, and remind anyone who will listen that God hates fags!
Note
E.W. Bullinger was a nineteenth century Fundamentalist dispensationalist who believed the numbers in the Bible have spiritual meanings.(You can read Bullinger’s book, Number in Scripture: Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance, here.
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