“Evil prevails when good churches do nothing.”

Godless ‘Morality’ Advocates…like “gay Christian” activist Matthew Vines are filling the void left by biblical pastors who refuse to get involved in the Culture War over morality in America. In what might be termed a form of “Satanic evangelism,” Vines’ Reformation Project trains people to go into evangelical churches with appealing, homosexuality-affirming and “gay theology” messages–“to create an environment in which Christian leaders will have the freedom to take the next steps toward affirming and including LGBT people in all aspects of church life.” In other words, to infiltrate churches to get them to accommodate a sexual sin that the Word of God calls an abomination. For some actual truth on the subject, see Prof. Rob Gagnon’s paper, “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to Scripture?”

Dear Readers,

This piece by my friend Micah Clark, who ably runs the Indiana Family Association, confirms what many of us already knew: pastors are copping out of the Culture War over moral values. As it turns out, liberal (apostate) churches–usually pro-abortion “rights,” pro-LGBTQ and socialist-leaning–are filling the Public Square void. In other words, an organized onslaught of secular and religious liberals is working to radically change transform this nation. And remember: leftist “change agents”–the same fellows who used to scream: “Don’t impose your morality on us!”–do all their destructive modernist work in the name of “morality.”

The Left marches lockstep to aggressively push its humanist, anti-God “morality.” What has happened to the real people of faith who should be today’s moral leaders? — @PeterLaBarbera, AFTAH

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How to Lose Freedom in One Easy Step

By Micah Clark

Millions of Americans may be watching the Republican national convention this week.  Some data is finding that this in an election year in which record numbers of voters seem to be interested in deciding who will be our next president.   For example, the Republican primary has seen a 62% increase in voter turnout this year over 2012, from 19.2 million votes four years ago to 31 million this year.

This may be why a new study of church engagement has caught pollsters by surprise. The new study from the American Culture and Faith Institute is being described as “nothing less than astounding.”
At a time when religious hostility is on the rise and recognized as a problem among a majority of all Americans, the very institutions targeted by such bigotry are in full retreating from the battle.

The study of 600 theologically conservative evangelical pastors finds that they are “unlikely to call their congregations to participate in any meaningful way” in the 2016 election.

Sin Advocate: Young and winsome Matthew Vines is working hard to win Christians to the idea that committed homosexual relationships should be blessed before a holy God. Despite his apostasy, Vines was recently welcomed as a “brother in Christ” by Rev. Caleb Kaltenbach, lead pastor of Discovery Church in Simi Valley, CA. See Vines’ curiously named “Reformation Project.“

“We are to have no fellowship with darkness. We can’t ‘dialogue’ with any professing Christian who’s in open rebellion against the Word of God. We can’t ‘dialogue’ with anybody who is deceiving and misleading the Body of Christ on any sin while claiming to be a Christian!”–Janet Mefferd

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I welcome my friend Janet Mefferd to the pages of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. Janet is a former longtime radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network–and, I must say, as someone who cumulatively chatted a few hours in on-air interviews with Mefferd over the years–she was one of the best in the business (Christian and secular). We look forward to seeing what’s next in Janet’s career, but until then we are delighted to publish her work.

Regarding this issue of “dialogue” or “bridging” with homosexuality advocates, I recall an article by the late Alan Medinger–a man who walked away from homosexuality with the help of the Savior he loved, Jesus Christ. Medinger, who founded Regeneration Ministries in Baltimore, wisely cautioned against an internal Church debate over homosexuality because there is nothing compelling it except outside, anti-biblical agitation. The sinfulness of same-sex behavior is a settled matter in both the Bible and thousands of years of Church/Old Testament tradition, argued Medinger, and we need not debate it now within Christendom any more than we should debate, say, adultery.

Read this beautiful tribute to Medinger by Regeneration’s Josh Glaser–then decide if the same Spirit of Christ that impelled Alan lies with Matthew Vines, who–by trying to redefine Christianity to accommodate homosexual relationships and “gay marriage”–propels the very same debate that Medinger rejected on principle. Below Mefferd ably applies what I call the “Sexual Sin Substitution Test.” — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera

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Enough with the “Dialogue,” Already

“Evangelicals Open Door to Debate on Gay Rights.” Just the kind of headline I never enjoy, but it ran June 8 in The New York Times over a story about “influential evangelicals” meeting with homosexual activist Matthew Vines at Biola University last month, complete with a Times reporter and photographer on hand.

Vines, you may recall, is author of 2014’s controversial “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships,” which manipulates biblical terminology in an unconvincing attempt to argue against the sinfulness of homosexuality.

Worse, the book was published by Crown Publishing Group’s Convergent imprint, which shared staff and operations with and was a sister imprint of evangelical Christian publisher WaterBrook Multnomah. Among other repercussions for printing such unbiblical garbage, WaterBrook Multnomah resigned its membership from the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). (Crown later separated the two imprints.)

Vines also runs an apostate group called The Reformation Project, which claims to exist “to train Christians to support and affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Through building a deep grassroots movement, we strive to create an environment in which Christian leaders will have the freedom to take the next steps toward affirming and including LGBT people in all aspects of church life.”