Welcome to Americans for Truth, a newly reorganized national organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda.
The Resurrection of Christ
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me [the Apostle Paul] also, as to one abnormally born….
The Resurrection of the Dead
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15: 1-8, 12-28)
How will ‘cosmopolitan evangelicals’ handle the homosexual issue?
I stumbled upon this interesting seminar about American evangelicalism on the Ethics and Public Policy Center website. The event was put on last year by the Pew Forum. A brief excerpt is below and the full transcript is HERE. Note Michael Lindsay’s dichotomy — not “left vs. right” but “cosmopolitan vs. populist” evangelicals.
The question with regard to homosexuality is this: insofar as acceptance of homosexuality (or, in politically correct jargon, the “gay and lesbian community”) has become a defining feature of modern big-city culture, how will the “cosmopolitan evangelicals” react as they seek to retain their influence in “elite” circles? So far we have seen left-leaning evangelicals like Jim Wallis embrace a “rights” framework regarding the pro-homosexual agenda — while still claiming fealty to the Bible. (Wallis favors “civil unions” laws for homosexual couples.) Homosexual activists have applauded the leftward evangelical shift, but Christians who take the Bible’s proscription of homosexual acts seriously view the Evangelical Left’s posturing on this issue as a capitulation to worldly forces, and a violation of Scripture.
The following is a adapted from my response to “Kyle,” a self-proclaimed “gay Catholic” who wrote us through the AFTAH website. Kyle misinterprets Catholic teaching and theology on homosexuality, to be sure [see Catholic pro-family activist Gary Morella's piece HERE, which also explains how homosexual acts violate Natural Law]. But Kyle’s rationalizations beg the question: do any of us know where our sinful inclinations — whatever they are — come from? Each of us is born into sin in this world, and the Bible teaches that our hearts are naturally “oriented” toward deception (hence young children do not need to be taught to be envious and selfish). Every one of us has done evil things, or thought evil thoughts — yes, not just wrong thoughts but evil ones (such as questioning God’s existence, or His goodness). That’s why we need Jesus Christ. Please pray for Kyle, whose letter is printed below mine. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
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LaBarbera response to “Kyle”:
Kyle …
…I don’t know where my feelings of lust, etc., came from. So should I join the Lust Pride Movement and rationalize the embrace of that sin. (I’ll call myself a “Luster,” which is analogous to you calling yourself “gay.”) Grow up, Kyle. This is the cop out of the century –– and then you go on to support “gay marriage” –– an incredible blasphemy against God, who created man and woman for each other. You are responsible for your behavior –– period. Sodomy and all homosexual acts are deeply sinful, the Bible teaches (see Romans 1), so what does it mean to say your “orientation” is “gay”? Repent and believe Jesus Christ as so many FORMER “gays” – now born again of God — have done. (See Steve Bennett’s wonderful story at www.sbministries.org.) Are you born again? Do you deny Jesus Christ has the power to help you heal or at least help you remain out of homosexual sin? There is NO way a faithful Christian can embrace homosexuality. You are deeply deluded, but there is hope in the Lord, and He WILL forgive you if you humble yourself and seek him like a child, and repent and accept Jesus’ death on the cross as the penalty for your sin. I suggest you start by reading the Gospel of John.
From a heartbreaking childhood marked by anger, abuse, and abandonment, author Janet Boynes followed a destructive path that led her into homosexuality and drug addiction. Her search for the acceptance, love, and safety she craved took her into increasingly desperate situations—ultimately culminating in a series of destructive homosexual relationships, cocaine addiction, and crippling brokenness. But, as Boynes says, “When God calls, He calls in love,” and in Called Out: A Former Lesbian’s Discovery of Freedom, Boynes shares her powerful, personal story of the redemptive, reconciling power of God’s love, offering insight for those who struggle with same-sex attraction and those with loved ones who do.
With courage, candor, and compassion, Boynes shares her powerful story of a life transformed by God’s grace and delivered to a freedom framed and powered by God’s purpose. Her message is one of hope: No matter where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or what kind of situations you’ve encountered, God is calling you to a life of grace. Spoken with the passion and wisdom of one who’s been there, Boynes says, “God knows that you have been through tough places, that life hasn’t always been easy, and that things don’t always go the way they should. He knows—and He cares.”
Appropriately, Robinson says he will not use Bible at Sunday event
Homosexual Episcopal Bishop V. (Vicki) Gene Robinson addressing the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a radical pro-homosexual, -transsexual, -bisexual, -sadomasochism organization. To watch the five-part YouTube video of Robinson’s speech at the Task Force, click HERE. Click on photo to enlarge.
LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Alliance Action and Liberty Counsel, released the following statement today in response to news that Barack Obama has invited openly homosexual Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson to deliver the invocation at an inaugural event on Sunday:
“It’s a shame that President-elect Obama apparently has so little regard for his Christian constituents that he would give such a high place of honor to a self-styled man of God whose only claim to fame is that he abandoned his wife and children to enter, ‘loudly and proudly,’ a sexually deviant lifestyle expressly condemned by the very Bible he’s ironically called ‘holy and sacred.’
“Tolerance for me but not for thee!”
That’s the “queer” way, can’t you see?
All that yelling and screaming
Christian Right-haters teeming
Can “Gay” America preserve liberty?
Well, our entry into the world of poetry predictably was met with some “gay” responses — many of which were ad hominem. (The Left lives in Ad Hominem.) You can read a couple entries from New York City “queer” blogger Jeremy Hooper below or more on this left-wing pacifist site. Pray for young Jeremy: he’s sort of stuck in that liberal “Mean People Suck” rut, wondering if Prop voters were “cruel, mean or sick” — as if defending Judeo-Christian tradition and marriage is about being mean or demented. (All those mean-spirited, crazed African Americans in California who just don’t understand ‘civil rights’…How dare you stray from that liberal plantation!)
I suppose, by extension, those in Jeremy’s camp hold that: 1) traditionalists like the many supporters of Americans For Truth are either misreading the Bible (even though we follow the ancient teachings of churchmen through the centuries); or that: 2) God Himself is a big meanie. Of course, they can’t come right out and say that God Is a Mean Homophobic Bigot (although some do), so instead most pro-”gay” ideologues go for Option 1 and — if they’re not simply dismissing “organized religion” — attempt to radically redefine the Bible and Christianity itself to accommodate their homosexual/bisexual/transgender/“genderqueer”/[insert rebellious sexual/gender preference HERE] lifestyle.
Challenge to homosexual activists: prove ‘gay marriages’ are ‘equal’ to the real deal
ALL GAY, ALL THE TIME: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force leader Rea Carey urged fellow homosexuals to promote “gay marriage” to family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday. Carey is wrong: homosexual unions are NOT equal to real marriage — as proven by the fact that homosexual couples cannot produce children without help from heterosexuality.
Dear AFTAH Readers,
I suppose if you are a pro-homosexuality activist, there’s never a time that’s not appropriate to promote the acceptance of your lifestyle. In the e-message below, the new head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, Rea Carey, presses her group’s followers to turn Thanksgiving into a persuasive moment for homosexual “marriage” and same-sex “equality.” If only Christians were this “evangelistic”!
Carey’s letter is wrong and troubling on many levels. First, note how she chalks up as a Task Force “accomplishment” that the California Supreme Court is reviewing a ballot amendment voted in by the citizens of that state on November 4. The Task Force spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat Prop 8 and lost — even after the California Attorney General changed the ballot language to make it more favorable to the homosexual side. Now the Task Force and other “gay” organizations are fighting democracy itself and undermining the integrity of a statewide vote. If they prevail and a few judges overturn the people’s expressed will, there will be a constitutional crisis in California that reverberates across the country.
Second, let’s address the misleading “gay” mantra of “equality.” Carey and fellow LGBT activists — and straight fellow travelers like libertarian Margaret Hoover (who masquerades as a conservative commentator on FOX) — like to plead for “marriage equality” for homosexuals. But it is easy to demonstrate that whatever homosexual “marriages” are, they are NOT equal to natural, God-ordained marriages. For one thing, there is the simple, indisputable fact that same-sex unions cannot produce children on their own. They can acquire children only with the help of heterosexuality and procreative-enhancing science, but they can’t reproduce or “have children,” as homosexual activists like to say. In contrast, normal marriages produce children and families without any help from homosexuality.
The following is an edited version of the informational background accompanying a YouTube video showing the aftermath of a homosexual mob attack — including an alleged sexual assault — on a group of Christians that come to San Francisco’s Castro district every Friday to witness the Gospel. As the original note says, “This video was not posted by any member of the group in the video. However, below is an account [by] one of the team members who was there.”
This mob assault occurred following the passage of Proposition 8 restoring traditional marriage in California. Homosexual activists are deriding the successful ballot measure as “Prop H8″ (hate) — but look at the hatred on display below in what is supposedly America’s most “tolerant” city. This criminal assault is also significant in that “gay” activists routinely charge Christians and pro-family groups — and most recently Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family — with fomenting “hate violence.” Clearly, “hate violence” and threats committed by vengeful homosexual militants against religious people and churches is on the rise following California’s electoral repudiation of “gay marriage” on November 4th. — Peter LaBarbera. www.aftah.org
The Eye-witness account of the incident is posted beneath the YouTube video:
Posted November 14, 2008
Eye-witness account by posted with YouTube video by member of Christian group:
I went to the Castro (the homosexual district of San Francisco) like we usually do on Friday nights.
Normally, we sit on 18th and Castro, and someone plays the guitar, and we all worship God.
Sometimes a person will yell at us, or maybe a few. Sometimes people will ignore us. Sometimes people will let us pray with them.
This time was not a normal night. It was the first time we’d been back in the Castro to do our normal outreach since California Proposition 8, which defined marriage as “one man with one woman,” was passed. We played the guitar and sang together and worshiped the Lord. After just singing and worshiping God for a while, Roger decided that we should all hold hands in a circle and continue singing. So we did.
Someone (actually a person who came up and hugged and kissed some of us whom he knew from the past) convinced some people that we were there to protest against the “No on 8″ campaign.
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The Resurrection of Christ
