Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Holy Kool Aid, Spiritual Poison

Kevin McCullough
Friday, June 20, 2003

 For many years, a solid declaration of truth has been commonly understood in both the churchgoing and non-churchgoing populations of America. God is real. Evil exists. Absolutes are not only knowable but also expected to be followed.

 Moral clarity was the basic understanding that even our rule of law was built on some of these very principles. For all those years, the church stood as the voice of that declaration of truth, and in the process played an important role in helping keep America on track.

 The very need for the existence of a religious community is based upon the premise that there must be some entity within a society that helps direct moral issues in the public debate. In the biblical record, the men of faith ‘the prophets’ were those who told the people when they were getting off track from how God had instructed them to live.

 In the New Testament, after Christ's ascension, it was the church huddled in homes across the Roman Empire that grew to have the largest impact on the world, eventually taking the message of Christ to every corner of the globe.

 In the West, the understanding of basic moral absolutes has determined our systems of law and government. But moral absolutes are now a thing of the past, and it is the church not the government that is chief in leading society off the cliff. This last week was the perfect example.

 On a recent edition of ‘The O'Reilly Factor,’ the debate centered around the Episcopal Church's decision to submit the name of 56-year-old Gene Robinson for nomination of bishop for New Hampshire.

 Robinson's advocate on the program was the Rev. Mary June Nestler, dean of the Claremont School of Theology. Nestler's defense of Robinson went like this:

• I'm not going to get into the biblical arguments.
   
• Christians are an extraordinarily diverse body of diverse human beings, and we read the scriptures differently, we interpret them differently.
   
•  In the Episcopal Church, our interpretation of the scriptures is culturally informed, it's historically informed. Our traditions help us a great deal, and we are looking now at a very different understanding of what it means to be a human person embodied with sexual orientation, a very different understanding from anything Saint Paul could have imagined.
   
•  What it means to be sexual persons our understanding of sexual orientation is not even a concept people in the first century had, and I do strongly believe, as do many in the Episcopal Church, that one's sexual orientation is part of the created order, and God made us good.

 Those words are from a dean of a theological school. I will say this: Though she is ignorant, she is consistently ignorant.

 Her positions on those four points alone reflect a complete lack of knowledge of what the biblical text says. But since her starting point is to not get into the biblical arguments, she assumes she covers herself.

 But a question of logic here: Why would a Christian leader choose not to refer to the Bible? It would be like a rabbi saying the Torah was unimportant, or a Muslim saying the Koran was wrong.

 She says that Christians are diverse and read and interpret the scriptures differently. On some minor doctrinal things the answer would be true, but on the fundamental constructs of Christianity, interpretation that varies too much ceases to be Christian by nature. It is the very essence of the commonly shared beliefs of Christians that classifies them as such.

 Dean Nestler's true ignorance in her arguments stem lastly from her assertion that the biblical text does not deal with such modern-day sexuality.  Sexuality that is so modern that the Apostle Paul would have been purely befuddled at how to handle it. She is wrong yet again (stop the broken record).

 The biblical text deals with nearly every form of sexual expression that is championed today. It deals with marriage, premarital sex, adultery (extramarital sex), group sex, sex with children, sex with relatives, sex with animals, gender-specific sexuality (transsexuals), men with men, women with women there is even an episode that Paul refers to directly in addressing the behavior of a man who was being sexually active with his stepmother.

 Yet in the discussion of this wide array of sexual expression, only one sexual behavior is condoned and said to be good in scripture: one man, one woman, and a lifetime vow before God.

 In Illinois this week, the Methodists issued a statement incorrectly stating that God validates all forms of sexual expression. Loving, monogamous, intimate [sexual] relationships between persons, of the same or opposite gender, are an expression of God's love. So, to the Methodists premarital sex, adultery  even pedophilia are now acceptable as long as they’re consensual.

 Two weeks ago, the Chicago Sun-Times carried a story about a lunatic that is even now claiming that Jesus himself participated in homoerotic behavior. And not to be outdone in the we are wackier than you are category, a Canadian court has ordered that its marriage licenses be made available for homosexually active couples.

 Ms. Nestler and the Chicago-based Methodists believe that they cover themselves by saying "all men are good" and God created a person's orientation.

 Yet the Bible does not stand on the belief that men were created good. The Bible is clear in that man is born sinful,** and in that sinful state, every single man is in need of redemption.

 And, oh yes, by all means, let's bow at the alter of orientation. Because heaven forbid if a thought, or inclination, or desire ever pop into our head. I mean that automatically means we are obligated nay, even enslaved to act upon it.

 This is a new great excuse for the adulterer and porn users among us: Hey, I was only acting on my inclination to sleep with your best friend, honey, and I took pictures of her because I couldn't help it that's what I desired to do.

 How completely ridiculous.

 One of the major reasons the church exists today is to serve as a prophetic voice to the world around it. I don't mean Benny Hinn  I'm going to say I'm healing you, but all I want is the offering kind of prophetic. I don't even mean I'm going to predict what is going to happen next Tuesday at noon kind of prophetic.

 But one of the primary functions of the prophet was to call society to the moral order that God had established. Our prophets of today, be they the scandalous homosexual priests of the Catholic tradition or the feminist, lefty, uneducated types in the mainline denominations, have lost all moral ground to make that call to society.

 For atheists, who claim no faith or religious tradition, there is no religious standard to which they can be held. But for those who claim Christ's name, then reject the very substance that he taught, the New Testament book of James says watch out especially those who teach.

 For the New Hampshire Episcopal bishop-elect, he broke a vow he made before God to love and cherish his wife, for rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live. Yet for the sexual intimacy of another man, he abandoned his wife and his daughters (who were 4 and 7 at the time), and Dean Nestler sings his praises as a man of integrity.

 It is not the godless among us today who are leading the moral collapse in American culture. Rather it is the spiritual leaders who are applying spiritual poisons to the spiritually dead but believe the whole time they are at the Sunday church picnic drinking holy Kool-Aid.

 But then again, what do I know ... I've actually read my Bible and what's worse, I actually believe it!

 Connect with Kevin McCullough daily on his blog (listen live to his radio show from Chicago, read his daily musings, check out the links, and get the up-to-date news about KMC) at http://kmc.crosswalk.com.

Even though I might not totally agree with him, he says some very important things.

** Point of disagreement.

Two Kinds of Christianity

Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religion Editor
Friday, July 25, 2003

 WASHINGTON (UPI) _ There is much more at stake than homosexuality at the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church next week, more even than the unity of global Anglicanism. Should it approve the consecration of an actively homosexual cleric as bishop of New Hampshire, the existence of two radically different kinds of Christianity will be there for the whole world to see.

 There is on the one hand an anthropocentric Christianity, which is prevalent in North America and Western Europe. Its theology, rooted in 19th-century German liberalism and the social gospel of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, sets out from human problems and "asks for solutions on this basis," according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who condemned such thinking as unbiblical.

 On the other hand, there is the Christ-centered orthodox theology that is thriving in Africa, Asia and South America and radiating from there into the northern hemisphere. It remains faithful to what Bonhoeffer, a German theologian martyred by the Nazis, described as "the way of all Christian thinking, [leading] not from the world to God but from God to the world."

 As Bonhoeffer wrote in his prison cell, "The Church's word to the world can be no other than God's word to the world." This means: no fads, no "isms," no accommodation to worldly ideologies or desires. Bonhoeffer, who was hanged for opposing a vile ideology that had crept into the Church, made it clear that the "Word" to be preached is Jesus Christ and salvation in his name _  period.

 The dividing line between these two world views runs through all Protestant denominations and to some extent Roman Catholicism. There is no doubt which side is doing well and which side isn't. Christ-centered orthodoxy is growing robustly, including in the United States, while anthropocentric liberalism is shriveling.

 In another 10 or 15 years it will amount to no more than a sect, which by traditional arithmetic the Episcopal Church has already become. By an old rule of a thumb a religious body whose membership was smaller than one percent of the U.S. population used to be considered a sect. Of the nearly 280 million U.S. citizens, a mere 2.1 million belong to the ECUSA.

 What does all this have to do with the impending consecration of Canon V. Gene Robinson as bishop? Everything. According to the New York Times, 200 bishops and delegates at the Episcopal Convention in Minneapolis from July 30 until Aug. 8 have agreed to wear buttons saying "Ask Me About Gene," and to offer testimony about his worthiness.

 This alone reveals a tragic misunderstanding of the nature of the Church. Worthiness in the secular sense is not the issue here. This is not a criminal court featuring character witnesses. Neither is it a political convention with cheerleaders praising candidate Gene as a good guy.

 The Church is neither Human Rights Watch nor Amnesty International, unless you define it from Niebuhr's theological starting point, which was: human needs, powers and responsibilities. In this, Niebuhr followed his German master Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), a theologically tragic figure who had discarded Jesus as "cosmically irrelevant."

 While human rights must obviously be among the Church's concerns, they are nonetheless penultimate issues, like all ethics, which according to Catholic and Lutheran teachings are superseded by the ultimate question: the God question. Scripture alone addresses this question, as the Confession of the Anglican Church clearly states in its 39 articles.

 According to both the Old and the New Testaments, whose authority this Confession acknowledges, homosexuality is against the will of God, as are other things that are now legal under secular law, adultery, for example. To discriminate against a homosexual or an adulterer in the secular realm would be illegal and morally wrong.

 From the Christian point of view, they never cease to be brethren either, like all other sinners, whom to judge is not our province. Like those, they are promised forgiveness, if they repent. This has been Christian theology for nearly 2,000 years. However, what the Episcopal Church is about to do and what other denominations have already done is to edit the need for repentance out of one particular sin, which happens to be the flavor of the day.

 Since this is doubtless designed to keep these particular sinners on the membership rolls, it amounts to nothing less than the auction of indulgences, a repeat performance of the ghastly rummage sale of grace that triggered the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

 The Rev. Robinson has left his wife and two children, undergoing an appallingly unbiblical church ceremony including a reverse exchange of wedding rings, before setting up house with another man. That's legal enough. However, in so doing he violated the laws both of the Old Testament and of Jesus Christ and yet Robinson endeavors to be an overseer of the Church, whose mission is to proclaim God's word. And it appears other overseers see nothing wrong with that.

 By all traditional theological standards, this is no longer the Church of Christ; neither is the North Elbian Lutheran Church in Germany, whose presiding bishop, Maria Jepsen, has just accepted the patronage of the regional Christopher Street parade, a homosexual event; nor is the Anglican diocese of Vancouver, which blesses same-sex unions; nor will be the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America should it decide to permit the same in two years' time.

 We can take this argument further: What must radical Muslims, already disdainful of Western Christianity, think of the United Methodist Church whose Chicago bishop Joe Sprague rejects all traditional tenets of the faith, including the eternal divinity of Christ, yet was acquitted of the charge of heresy?

 What must they think of the Lutheran Church in Denmark, where a pastor has lost his faith in God but nonetheless remains in the ministry, much beloved by his parishioners?

 Small wonder that Osama bin Laden & Co. view Christianity as a rotten religion that can be blown away with a few good terrorist attacks. Of course bin Laden is wrong. What he sees are hollow and putrid remnants of the Church of Christ in the West remnants with fine ceremonies, lots of good taste but no power of faith.

 That's not the true Church anymore. The real Church Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and otherwise comes to us from the South. Happily, it does so with more force and in larger numbers than ever before in its 2,000-year history.

 Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

Even though I am not in total agreement with this article, it does point out some very important principles.

Date: Wednesday, September 10 @ 20:01:41 CDT
Topic: Homosexual Agenda

In their own words: Homosexual activists reveal their real agenda.

Homosexuals claim they want the "right" to get married and live normal lives just like heterosexual married couples.

The truth is, however, that the drive to gain legalization of so-called "gay" or "same-sex" marriage is part of a larger sexual agenda. Homosexual activists are now beginning to openly admit that they don't want to marry just to have a normal home life. They want same-sex marriage as a way of destroying the concept of marriage altogether-and of introducing polygamy and polyamory (group sex) as "families."

They are finally admitting what the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) has been saying for years: Their ultimate goal is to abolish all prohibitions against sex with multiple partners.

WHAT ARE THEY SAYING? ...

Chris Crain, the editor of the Washington Blade has stated that all homosexual activists should fight for the legalization of same-sex marriage as a way of gaining passage of federal anti-discrimination laws that will provide homosexuals with federal protection for their chosen lifestyle.

Crain writes: "...any leader of any gay rights organization who is not prepared to throw the bulk of their efforts right now into the fight for marriage is squandering resources and doesn't deserve the position." (Washington Blade, August, 2003).

Michelangelo Signorile, writing in Out! magazine, has stated that homosexuals should, "...fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely “To debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.” The most subversive action lesbians and gays can undertake-and one that would perhaps benefit all of society-is to transform the notion of 'family' altogether." (Out! magazine, Dec./Jan., 1994)

Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual activist writing in his book, Virtually Normal, says that once same-sex marriage is legalized, heterosexuals will have to develop a greater "understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman." He notes: "The truth is, homosexuals are not entirely normal; and to flatten their varied and complicated lives into a single, moralistic model is to miss what is essential and exhilarating about their otherness." (Sullivan, Virtually Normal, pp. 202-203)

Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor and homosexual activist has said: "Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family; and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society.” We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society's view of reality." (partially quoted in "Beyond Gay Marriage," Stanley Kurtz, The Weekly Standard, August 4, 2003)

Evan Wolfson has stated: "Isn't having the law pretend that there is only one family model that works (let alone exists) a lie? “marriage is not just about procreation-indeed is not necessarily about procreation at all. "(quoted in "What Marriage Is For," by Maggie Gallagher, The Weekly Standard, August 11, 2003)

Mitchel Raphael, editor of the Canadian homosexual magazine Fab, says: "Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage. I'd be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of 'till death do us part' and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play." (quoted in "Now Free To Marry, Canada's Gays Say, 'Do I?'" by Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, August 31, 2003)

1972 Gay Rights Platform Demands: "Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit" [Emphasis added.]  Traditional Values Coalition.

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