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POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Should Christian Leaders Meet with Soulforce? In Some Cases, YES!
June 18th, 2008
Homosexual activist Mel White and his group Soulforce seek to combat “religious homophobia” (read: overturn the Christian Church’s historic understanding that homosexual acts are sinful). Michael Brown argues in the Point/Counterpoint essay below that church meetings with Soulforce and other homosexual activists can be productive, partly by showing that Christians can “talk civilly with those who differ with us.”
This is a Point/Counterpoint debate on the question of whether Willow Creek Community Church (in South Barrington, Illinois) and other mega-churches should have met with the pro-homosexual activist group Soulforce, which aims to “cut off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry.” Our friend Dr. Michael Brown argues that such meetings can be used — with proper discernment — for Christian outreach and to dispel false notions that the Church harbors a “phobia” toward homosexuals. Click here for Sonja Dalton’s commentary expressing the opposite point of view: “Willow Creek Church Should Not Have Met with Soulforce.”
We will allow each writer to respond to the other’s arguments, and we welcome input from our readers, too; write us at americansfortruth@comcast.net. (Sorry, but we’re not interested in publishing pro-homosexuality pieces — there are plenty of “gay” websites for that.) You may write Brown or Dalton through the AFTAH website or by e-mailing americansfortruth@comcast.net:
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By Michael L. Brown, Ph.D.
Point/Counterpoint [click HERE for an opposing viewpoint by Sonja Dalton]
There are a number of good reasons why Christian leaders have refused to meet with Soulforce delegations, including:
- Soulforce leaders use these meetings for their own purposes, putting their particular spin on the meeting for the media;
- Soulforce sets its own agenda, and Christian leaders are under no obligation to go along with that agenda;
- Since the Soulforce leaders claim to be Christians, welcoming them could be in violation of injunctions such as 1 Cor 5:9-13 and 2 John 10-11;
- Despite the ongoing requests for dialogue, it can be doubted whether Soulforce is truly interested in hearing what our side has to say;
- We are damned if we do meet and damned if we don’t, since if we do meet, we are accused of softening our stance against homosexual practice; if we don’t meet, we are painted as bigots. Why then even entertain Soulforce’s request to meet?
In light of such concerns, many Christian leaders have declined to meet with Soulforce delegations, and I certainly respect their decisions. Indeed, this is often the path of wisdom. It can be argued, however, that under certain circumstances, meetings with Soulforce leaders can be biblically based as well as used for positive gospel purposes.
Read the rest of this article »
POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Willow Creek Church Should Not Have Met with Soulforce
June 18th, 2008
This lesbian couple traveling with Soulforce — the “Rasmus-Ford family” — says, “God created us [as lesbians] exactly as we are with purpose and intention.” Should mega-churches like Willow Creek have agreed to meet with a homosexual activist group whose goal is to “cut off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry”? Sonja Dalton (below) says NO and Michael Brown says YES (under certain conditions).
This is a Point/Counterpoint on the question of whether Willow Creek Community Church (in South Barrington, Illinois) and other mega-churches should have met with the pro-homosexual activist group Soulforce, which aims to “cut off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry.” Below is a commentary by my good friend Sonja Dalton, who argues AGAINST such meetings. Click HERE to read an opposing column by Dr. Michael Brown, who says they can be used — with proper discernment — for Christian outreach.
We will allow each writer to respond to the other’s arguments, and welcome input from our readers, too; write us at americansfortruth@comcast.net. (Sorry, but we’re not interested in publishing pro-homosexuality pieces — there are plenty of “gay” websites for that.) Footnotes are at bottom:
_______________________________
Willow Creek Church Should Not Have Met with Soulforce
Point/Counterpoint [to read Michael Brown’s opposing column, click HERE]
By Sonja Dalton
A fundamental question has been lost amid the sensation over the recent meeting between Willow Creek leadership and pro-homosexuality activists affiliated with the group Soulforce:
Did Pastor Bill Hybels have Biblical authority to welcome, meet with, and dine with Jay Bakker and Soulforce?
First, let’s examine who these Willow Creek “guests” [1] were…
Jay Bakker (right) is the cigarette-puffing, tattooed, punk-rocker son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker; he’s the star of the Sundance Channel series “One Punk Under God” and “pastor” of the “gay”-affirming Revolution NYC [2]. He is quoted as having said:
“…I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin.’” [3]
(You might want to pencil that into your Bible, somewhere near Leviticus 18:22 or I Corinthians 6:9-11. Or not.)
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I Now Pronounce You Party A and Party B: ‘Gay Marriage’ Begins in California; Will Florida Be Next?
June 17th, 2008
The following was sent out by John Stemberger, chairman of Yes2Marriage.org, which is attempting to pass a constitutional amendment protecting the age-old definition of marriage in Florida:
Dear Friend,
Last night at 5:01 pm, so-called “gay marriages” started being performed in California for the first time. Unlike in Massachusetts where homosexual “marriages” are limited to the recognition of residents from just that state, now same-sex couples from all over the country will rush to California to try and get “married.” They will then return to states like New York to try to force recognition of these illegitimate unions. This kind of radical social change could easily happen in Florida over just the next 9 months.
By Early 2009, Florida’s Supreme Court Will Completely Change
With the recent resignation of Jeb Bush appointees Florida Supreme Court Justices Raul Cantero and Kenneth Bell, coupled with the mandatory retirement ages of Justices Charles Wells and Harry Lee Anstead in early 2009, the makeup and membership of the Florida Supreme Court will undergo a total change in well under 12 months. We hope and pray that Governor Charlie Crist will do what he promised to do in his campaign, namely appoint judges who will “strictly interpret the law, not expand upon it or legislate from the bench.” Time will tell. However Florida voters will not have to wait around to see which direction the court goes in order to protect marriage thanks to the Yes2Marriage.org campaign.
Read the rest of this article »
No Rash of Homosexual Firings, LaBarbera Says in Response to Kentucky Gov. Beshear’s Executive Order
June 17th, 2008From American Family Association’s OneNewsNow (full story and audio HERE):
Pro-family advocates are responding to the Kentucky governor’s promotion of homosexual behavior and gender confusion among state employees.
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear issued an executive order earlier this month adding the phrase “sexual orientation or gender identity” to the non-discrimination policy for state employees. Peter LaBarbera with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality says the governor is potentially creating, rather than solving, problems for the state.
Read the rest of this article »
The Illegal Attack on the Family
June 16th, 2008
By Dr. Ted Baehr
Don’t buy the lie! Time is running out! Intentionally or not, too many in the press, the mass media, the government, and the education establishment have confused the citizens of America about the institution of marriage. As a result, California is destroying the family, and the United States is on the verge of a self-inflicted spiritual holocaust.
First of all, as many of our readers already know, there are many forms of government. In our western democracy, there are at least four spheres of government: individual government, family government, ecclesiastical government, and civil government. In the United States of America, the civil government owes its existence to the consent of the governed, not the other way around, in the tradition of the Magna Carte. Furthermore, since the Rev. Samuel Rutherford wrote LEX, REX, which clarified the rule of law posited by the Magna Carte, all of these forms of government have been under God’s Law in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. When king or ruler is above the law, he often acts in imperious and dictatorial ways, for the very nature of power is to corrupt the powerful, unless it is restrained by God’s Law. In essence, God’s Law says to love your neighbor as yourself, and the civil government is subject to that divine law.
Thus, the Declaration of Independence made it clear that King George III acted illegally when he oppressed the American colonies, because he was under the Law of God. Countries that allowed men to rule above the law have produced tyrants such as Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. Current examples include Mugabwe, Chavez and the military junta in Burma, among many others.
It must be emphasized that marriage between one man and one woman is a God ordained, God defined, biblical act. For 1,800 years in western countries, marriage was a unique institution, initiated by God when he created the male and female, presided over by Jesus Christ when he blessed the act of marriage and stated that a man and a woman would leave their parents and join together to become one flesh, and sustained by the Holy Spirit who not only holds the marriage together but also produces the offspring that God creates.
Read the rest of this article »
Armistead Maupin: Those ‘Tiny-Minded’ Pro-Marriage Bigots
June 14th, 2008WARNING: OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE
What’s coming “out of the closet” these days is the seething hatred that many “queer” activists like novelist Armistead Maupin (left) have for religious people — or anyone who dares to oppose the absurdity that is “gay marriage.” As a Christian, I too find it shameful that the Bible was used to sustain laws against interracial marriage, but I am not ashamed today to defend the Biblical ethic of keeping sex in marriage between a man and a woman. Like most homosexual activists, Maupin erroneously attaches his aberrant-sex-based movement to the noble Black civil rights struggle, and he conveniently neglects to mention that — back in the day when sodomy was considered a “crime against nature” — it was Christians who led the fight to end slavery.
Pro-marriage citizens should eschew Maupin’s brand of rancor and bigotry (check out his churlish last line), but we must match his intensity. Go HERE to help defend marriage in California. — Peter LaBarbera
This is from the homosexual magazine The Advocate (emphasis added):
“The battle has largely been won, I think. The mean and tiny minds who’ve made it their mission to ‘defend marriage’ have existed in every era and have always lost. They lost when black people were given the right to vote. They lost when women were finally enfranchised. They lost when the ban on interracial marriage was lifted. And in each of these instances they claimed with a righteous certainty to have God on their side, only to be roundly defeated by the abiding decency and good sense of the American people. Now we’re in the midst of another seismic culture shift, thanks to several generations of lesbians and gay men who’ve refused to live their lives in hiding. People know who we are now, and we’re just not that scary anymore. The old bigots are dying off, and the young ones are learning, at the very least, to deny their homophobia. Our happy ending is finally in sight.
“Halle-[f–king]-lujah!”
–Armistead Maupin, “Calling a New Army of Lovers,” The Advocate magazine (the leading national magazine for homosexuals), July 1, 2008, p. 41. According to The Advocate, “Maupin is on tour for the paperback edition of his ninth novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, published by HarperCollins.”
Newsweek and New York Times Wrongly Report that Rick Warren Would Meet with Soulforce
June 13th, 2008Christian Anti-Defamation Commission asks for a retraction and an apology
Soulforce founder Mel White, pictured here with his homosexual lover Gary Nixon, accused Christians who adhere to historic Church teachings on the sinfulness of homosexuality of “spiritual violence” against homosexuals. Despite his and Soulforce’s manipulative tactics, God’s Word is not negotiable.
Folks, in reading this release by Gary Cass, I cannot help but wonder if the several churches that agreed to meet with the homosexual activist group Soulforce — including Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois — were naive about its radical agenda. Soulforce and its founder, Mel White, have always used manipulative and deceptive strategies (including the wordsmith White’s calculated accusation that faithful Christians are guilty of “spiritual violence” against homosexuals).
Soulforce is a nefarious organization that seeks to undermine Biblical truth about one particular sexual sin — homosexuality. Their pleadings for “dialogue” with Christians are merely a tactic — the camel’s nose in the tent, as it were — part of their larger goal of duping believers into compromising on God’s Word. We ask again: would Willow Creek Church or other mega-churches enter into (forced) “dialogue” with a “Christian porn” group? We hope not. Pray for White and the entire Soulforce crew — including “straight allies” like Jay Bakker, who claims to have received a special pro-homosexual revelation from God.
Christians must minister the Gospel in love to sinners in need of Christ’s forgiveness and healing power. But unless we are open to “dialoguing” with advocates of other sins, we shouldn’t do so with activists who twist the Bible to accommodate homosexuality. God’s Word is not negotiable.—Peter LaBarbera
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Christian Anti-Defamation Commission
News Release
June 13, 2008
In an outrageous example of sloppy journalism, Newsweek’s Lisa Miller defamed Pastor Rick Warren, the best-selling Christian author and mega-church pastor. Miller reported Warren compromised on the matter of homosexuality.
The bogus claims originated with a homosexual activist group, Soulforce. It issued a press release stating they were meeting with Rick Warren for a “conversation” and that Warren was inviting homosexual fathers to come to church on Father’s day.
Timothy Egan of The New York Times furthered the lie. Neither major news outlet fact checked the story.
Rick Warren responded: “Newsweek quoted a Soulforce press release headline that was 100% false. We did not invite this group and I will not be meeting with them. They invited themselves to draw attention to their cross country publicity stunt.”
Read the rest of this article »
Congressional LGBT Caucus Members
June 13th, 2008The following are the 52 members of the newly-formed U.S. House “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus (LGBT) Caucus.” All but the two Republicans (in red) are Democrats; the two openly homosexual Representatives are in blue:
Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Lois Capps (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Barney Frank (D-MA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Hilda Solis (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Peter Welch (D-VT), Howard Berman (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Robert Brady (D-PA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Phil Hare (D-IL), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Doris Matsui (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-Washington, D.C.), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Steven Rothman (D-NJ), José Serrano (D-NY), Chris Shays (R-CT), Pete Stark (D-CA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Niki Tsongas (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).
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