“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3: 16-18)

“This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Romans 3:22)

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Nativity scene in Chicago’s Daley Plaza. An atheists’ display sits nearby — offering a contrast between God and secularism, and good and evil.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Blessed Holiday, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World!  Yesterday I had planned to bring you another AFTAH story that illustrates the depravity of man and the evil of organized homosexuality – but since it grotesquely blasphemed Jesus I could not bring myself to post it just days before Christmas.  (I will do so December 26.)

The other day I was reading a Christian book and the author named these as the most important words ever spoken:

“Jesus answered [Thomas], ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  Nobody comes to the Father except through Me.’” – John 14:6

As C.S. Lewis wrote, the man who uttered those words is either a lunatic, a liar, or the Son of God (Lord).  I believe He is the latter – and I want to know Him better and become more like Him through His grace in 2014.  I hope you do, too.

America is in dire straits, as we all know.  Good has become evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20), and apparently believers in Christ are the only group in society that it is OK to ridicule and malign.  (See our release on Phil Robertson, and read what the Duck Dynasty patriarch actually said about sexual sin.)  So many Americans are “wise in their own eyes,” and as a nation we have not just kicked God to the curb – but are in many quarters defiantly celebrating evils like abortion-on-demand, pornography, fornication and homosexual “marriage.”

And then there is the rise of the Religious Left (e.g., see the mischievously-named Faithful America), which promotes sin in the name of God.  Somehow we think that even while blatantly disobeying God’s moral law or relegating Him to the role of sentimental prop, America can remain “the greatest nation on earth.”  (We can’t.)

Perhaps like many of you, when I watch those some of the old Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life, I am struck by how America was more innocent as a nation and more good – despite our many shortcomings – than we are today in all our supposed sophistication.  I realize that each generation says this about the one before, but no American generation ever approached the rebellion against Nature and its Creator of calling homosexualism “marriage”!

 “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,” wrote the Psalmist (14:12).  This is as important a verse for homosexuals – and all of us dragged down by our sinful “orientation” – as Romans 1:24-27. For as the Apostle John wrote about Jesus: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

Politics cannot save us (yet we must resist calls to pull away from it).  More conservatives won’t do it (especially when so many are secularists, libertarians – or worse, atheists like S.E. Cupp who crusade for homosexual “marriage”).  Republicans, too, fall short — how instructive is it that it is precisely God’s moral dictates that many in the GOP want to jettison (to win elections, they claim)?!

So what will save America?  More of Jesus, who turns lives around – lives like Michael Glatze, who went from being an up-and-coming “gay” activist to a maturing Christian and pastor who just married his bride Rebekah in October.  The Christ of Christmas is our hope!  Join me in making the pledge to get into your Bible in 2014 to pursue a righteousness that can only come from heaven above.

Thank you for standing with AFTAH!  We are so blessed to fight for God’s Truth alongside countless Americans like you who value God’s revealed wisdom on sexual morality over the sin-stained ideas and formulations of men.  Please pray for AFTAH, and help us with a year-end donation as you are able.

—  Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org

PS. Your gifts to AFTAH are tax-deductible; to receive a tax deduction for 2013, your gift must be received [i.e., online donations] and/or postmarked before midnight on December 31.  Mail your donation to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.  Give online HERE.

Phil Robertson

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?” — Phil Robertson, GQ interview

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” — 1 Corinthians 9-11 [Bible verses paraphrased by Robertson in GQ interview (NIV version of Bible)]

[NIV footnote [a]: 1 Corinthians 6:9: The words ‘men who have sex with men’ translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.]

The following are the comments by Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson (founder of the Duck Commander company) in his interview with GQ magazine and reporter Drew Magary — which led to him being suspended indefinitely by by A&E. Following those we have reprinted Robertson’s initial statement in response to the controversy, and also the initial statement by the homosexual activist group GLAAD that stoked the controversy, reported by Huffington Post.

[Click HERE to read AFTAH’s Dec. 19 press release on the matter: “AFTAH Stands with Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson against GLAAD’s ‘Homo-Fascist’ Campaign to Demonize Him”] 

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Phil Robertson’s Comments in GQ Interview [his comments are bolded]:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.” …

“We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me [GQ’s Magary]. “You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.” …

“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”

[GQ reporter Magary:] “What, in your mind, is sinful?”

[Phil:] “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

[Magary writing:] During Phil’s darkest days, in the early 1970s, he had to flee the state of Arkansas after he badly beat up a bar owner and the guy’s wife. Kay Robertson persuaded the bar owner not to press charges in exchange for most of the Robertsons’ life savings. (“A hefty price,” he notes in his memoir.) I ask Phil if he ever repented for that, as he wants America to repent—if he ever tracked down the bar owner and his wife to apologize for the assault. He shakes his head.

“I didn’t dredge anything back up. I just put it behind me.”

As far as Phil is concerned, he was literally born again. Old Phil—the guy with the booze and the pills—died a long time ago, and New Phil sees no need to apologize for him: “We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

[Magary:] Okay, so perhaps it’s not exactly shocking that a deeply religious 67-year-old hunter from rural Louisiana would have, shall we say, enthusiastic ideas about what constitutes good Christian morality. That’s the unspoken red-state appeal of Duck Dynasty. They’re godly folk. “Real” folk….

Read the whole story at GQ: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson#ixzz2o2eujjxZ

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