This past Monday morning, I was teaching hundreds of ministry school students at Christ for the Nations in Dallas on the topic of demons and deliverance.

During the class, I stated that in the days ahead, I believed that satanic manifestations would become much more open and overt in our society. Rather than hiding himself in the culture, the devil will reveal himself more clearly.

After teaching, I got back to my room and began to read headlines and receive emails that confirmed the very thing I was saying.
(More on that in a moment.)

Of course, we’ve been seeing this trend for years now.

• One prominent example would be the rise of Drag Queens in our culture, some of them in overtly satanic attire, reading to toddlers in libraries and performing at churches.

• Another prominent example would be the “Shout Your Abortion” movement and the celebration of radical, pro-abortion legislation. This is in stark contrast to the old Bill Clinton adage that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”

• Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a radical feminist group with the acronym WITCH, standing for the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell. (I kid you not.) They certainly got their message across!

But most groups are not that overt (even if tongue in cheek), and gay activists learned decades ago that the in your face, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” approach was not working. Instead, gay strategists adopted a policy of presenting themselves to be exactly the same as the couple next door, just like you in every way, except gay. (This was laid out in the watershed 1989 book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer It’s Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s.)

So, from a strategic viewpoint, most groups wanting to bring about radical change to society do so in more covert, incremental ways rather than announcing, “We’re a terrorist conspiracy from hell!”

In the same way, Satan doesn’t march around as a huge, horned dragon carrying a pitchfork.

As a senior demon counseled a younger demon in C. S. Lewis’s classic book The Screwtape Letters,

“The fact that ‘devils’ are predominately comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you.” 

These days, however, it’s as if Satan is coming out in full force, red tights and all – if not literally, then metaphorically. What else can be said of the performance of “Unholy” at the Grammy Awards this past Sunday night?

As the Breitbart headline announced, “Non-Binary Pop Star Sam Smith Performs BDSM, Devil-Themed ‘Unholy’ at the Grammys.” How lovely!

But even that only told part of the story.

As explained in more detail by the American Family Association,

“During the annual Grammy Awards ceremony on Feb.5, originally designed to recognize outstanding artists in the music industry, Pfizer pharmaceutical company felt it fitting to sponsor performers Sam Smith, who claims to be non-binary, and Kim Petras, who claims to be transgender. These two gave the nation a Satan-themed performance of their song ‘Unholy,’ in which Petras performed inside a cage with drag queens dressed in devil costumes, while Smith gyrated in a costume with devil horns sticking out from a top hat.

“The entire ‘performance’ depicted a hellish scene with lots of darkness, blood red colors and flames.”

So, you have:

1. the name of the song, “Unholy”;
2. both lead performers denying their biological realities, one of them wearing devil’s horns;
3. drag queens in devil costumes;
4. BDSM-related themes; and
5. the fires of hell

I would say that is pretty clear!

No wonder podcaster Liz Wheeler tweeted, “Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.”

Compared to some other past hits (whose lyrics are virtually unrepeatable in moral circles), the lyrics to “Unholy” are relatively tame. It is the overall message of the Grammy performance that shouts out its depravity loudly and clearly.

Similar to this is the announcement from The Satanic Temple that it is raising funds to provide “free religious [meaning Satanic] Telehealth medication abortion care in New Mexico.”

But this could be good news for us as followers of Jesus.

The greater the darkness, the clearer our light is seen.

May it shine brightly in front of the whole world! And may we shine as lights without shame, without compromise, and without hypocrisy.

And don’t be surprised if, in the days ahead, in front of your very eyes, you witness scenes as if taken straight out of the Bible where, in broad daylight, visibly demonized people get set free in Jesus’ name – dramatically, gloriously, and in full public view.

Things are heating up.

This article was originally published at AsdDrBrown.org.

Written by Ignatius Amadeus

No, you’re not crazy. They just want you to feel that way.

There is a special flavor of cognitive dissonance experienced by those confronted with the dawning of a collectivist utopia. It’s found in the twilight between luminescent NuThink and the benighted remainders of objective reality that we plebs cling to so bitterly.

Allow me to illustrate.

Recently, as I perused the social media headlines about the present plague year, I came across a news item whose image featured the governor of Pennsylvania and his secretary of health, Dr. Rachel Levine, who is, in fact, a man. It struck me because the news was not about Dr. Levine’s chimeric redefinition. Rather, it was a serious news piece about a serious issue, and the doctor was peripheral to the point of it. The presentation of such an incongruity–an appointed official whose gender LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) is only slightly more convincing than that of Corporal Maxwell Klinger–without the slightest batting of an eyelash, is the whole game in a nutshell.

You see friend, it requires no acknowledgement, since there is nothing of note here. Only the grotesquely gauche would stumble. We have serious business to do here. Please focus.

The deadpan delivery leaves you feeling gaslit by the reality being proffered. The implicit assertion is not truth, but the situation itself is reality, formed by consensus, and presented without comment.

But, it’s democratic gaslighting.

This collective lack of acknowledgement, cemented by the integration with serious business being done, makes anyone who is tripped up by the disjoint feel that they are on the outside. Anyone hampered by a pedestrian tethering to pre-postmodernism is made to feel the keen edge of their status as other.

It’s akin to walking into a business meeting and finding one of the participants is wearing a bear suit. “What’s with the bear suit?” you ask. You are simply met with cold stares.

This feat of quiet ostracism, this sudden sense that one is an ideological castaway, coalesces all of a sudden. A breeze blows through you, and you realize the season has changed.

You are being gaslit but not by a sociopathic manipulator. The growing psychic pressure is the constricting consensus of an increasingly popular fabricated reality. You are on the business end of a casual conspiracy of complicity. There is a new set of tracks that your train of thought just doesn’t run properly on. You are given two choices: reconfiguration or derailment.

You keep entering business meetings, to be silently greeted by a fellow in a bear suit.

You’re going to keep getting this lesson until you learn it. Capisce?

In After the Ball, a diabolically masterful turnaround strategy created to take American homosexualism from reviled to revered, authors Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen laid out a pathway to bring us to this present moment of bear suit ubiquity. It began with desensitization, progressed through leveraging perceived commonalities, and promised powerful acceptance.

When you’re very different, and people hate you for it, this is what you do: first you get your foot in the door, by being as similar as possible; then, and only then – when your one little difference is finally accepted–can you start you start dragging in your other peculiarities, one by one. You hammer in the wedge narrow end first. As the saying goes, Allow the camel’s nose beneath your tent, and the whole body will soon follow.

This was published in 1989.

Once the concept of tolerance was deformed to mean acceptance, and love was refashioned to include things for which it was not designed, it was clear that The Plan was getting far more cultural traction than anyone had dreamed possible. As the sea change continued, the launching of Same Sex Mirage was a fait accompli. Always, you will note, brought to market in the carefully constructed context of simulated normalcy.

The weight of normalcy packaging + the momentum of previous acceptance = the psychic force applied to dissenters who note the incongruities.

This simulacrum of normalcy, coupled with the raised stakes of whatever novel idea is being introduced, creates an uncanny valley of experience. It’s designed to camouflage the situation such that it sufficiently approximates reality for the initiated, but to the sober-minded, the differences create dissonance. That dissonance is designed to cleave off the bitter clingers–to refuse entry to the non-compliant, and convince them that they are the ones failing to grasp this democratically elected reality.

The pressure can feel immense at times–not the Lilliputian arguments for NuThink–but their collective power to layer up, entangle and enervate. Yes, you can see each point where things got ratcheted up, but the cumulative effect–that you feel.

The most recent gut punch happened when I (virtually) encountered “Dr. Glitterbear,” a Rutgers University professor, in his unicorn-jammie-and-white-pumps ensemble. He had apparently led the charge to have a fellow PhD’s published paper about gender anarchy retracted due to its NuThink compliance failure.

“What’s with the unicorn suit?” Cold stares.

Yea, though I walk through the uncanny valley, I will brook no evil.

As has been noted by those who have experienced totalitarian rule, this immense pressure to conform to a synthesized consensus exerts a real toll on the non-compliant. Presented with each new escalation, the mind struggles like an up-ended turtle wriggling to regain its feet.

It can be exhausting and disheartening to keep the turtle righted.

First, know what the truth is and why it is the truth. If you’re reading this, I will assume that you’re likely well-engaged in this process. Understand that we are in an ontological crisis where millions are being swept out to sea. Know how to anchor to the fixed bedrock of actual truth. While this battle is presented as a quibble over small changes, you must understand that it’s actually a conflict over whether reality is already defined or ad-libbed. For anyone adhering to a belief in Logos and Creation, the definitions are fixed and non-negotiable.

Second, don’t lose your equilibrium. When wading through strong opposing forces, it’s easy to overcompensate. Movements become exaggerated, and overreactions can abound. It’s oh-so-easy to become shrill, alienated, or paranoid. It’s simple to get knocked back into reflexive overreaction. Learn to find grace under pressure, and don’t allow yourself to be distorted by your exertion against the onslaught.

Third, encourage and invest in others to strengthen the bulwark against this flood of Dionysian dissolution. Maintaining relationships with other people who are also committed in their fidelity to truth is important. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend, and a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

Finally, do not think it strange, this fiery trial which is upon us. Be encouraged that the Truth Himself was similarly opposed, and so we now share in that same suffering. Having done all, stand. Simply bearing witness to truth in a raging sea of illusion, is a Kingdom act.

“Ignatius Amadeus has been a brand messaging professional for over two decades, and his writing focus is on society, culture, and communication. His desire is to examine, understand, and express what is happening in our nation in order to clarify and see things move in a restorative direction. A typical Gen-Xer, he is most at home in a mashed-up kaleidoscope of the banal and sublime. His interests range from theology to cinema to fine art and music. Oh, and obsolete technology. He thinks that’s fun, too.”

What if I told you that a community of American citizens who are defined by a set of subjective, self-disclosed, and self-defined characteristics and personal behaviors have designated at least 163 days of the calendar year to national and international observances honoring their choices? What if I also told you that the group made up only a fraction of the U.S. population? What would you think?

You would probably have two questions: who are these people and what gives?

“These people” are members of the LGBTQ+ syndicate and we’re right in the middle of their annual “LGBT Pride Month.” If you think 30 days of celebrating anal sex, leather bondage, gender confusion, self-mutilation, sadomasochism and other expressions of sexual anarchy might seem like more than enough, you’re wrong. They’re only halfway through the year and you’ve already missed:

Aromantic Awareness Week, Bisexual Health Awareness Month, Day of Silence, Harvey Milk Day, International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, International Non-Binary People’s Day, International Stand Up to Bullying Day, International Transgender Day of Visibility, Lesbian Visibility Day, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, National GLBT Health Awareness Week, No Name-Calling Week, Pan Visibility Day, Pulse Night of Remembrance and Zero Discrimination Day.

Although you probably weren’t aware of these observances, don’t worry. There’s plenty more for you to engage with. Beginning at the end of June with the Stonewall Riots Anniversary, the rest of the year offers:

Ally Week, Asexuality Awareness Week, Bisexual Awareness Week, Celebrate Bisexuality Day, International Drag Day, International Lesbian Day, International Non-Binary People’s Day, Intersex Awareness Day, Intersex Day of Remembrance (or Intersex Solidarity Day), LGBT History Month, National Coming Out Day, Pan Pride Day, Spirit Day (annual LGBTQ awareness day), Trans Parent Day, Transgender Awareness Week, Transgender Day of Remembrance and World AIDS Day.

The only month not represented by any of these annual observances is August, which is kind of like a seventh inning stretch (only longer). After all, you’ve got to take some time off from all that observing!

A couple of the observances are understandable. International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Pulse Night of Remembrance honor the homosexual victims of both events, none of whom deserved losing their lives to madmen.

But the rest? The most curious thing about all this is the inverse relationship of their minority status with their complete domination of the Gregorian calendar. Eleven million people have staked a claim to 45% of available days which seems, I don’t know, excessive. Imagine some version of the 10-member Glee Club appearing on every other page of the high school yearbook. For comparison, the nine largest world religions representing 5.5 billion people (or about 80 percent of the world’s population) observe 138 days combined. Christianity, the largest of the nine with 2.4 billion followers, only observes 12 days.

What gives?

A quick analysis reveals four main themes behind the designated LBGTQ+ observances: 1) to raise awareness, 2) to prevent bullying, 3) to honor select people or events and 4) to celebrate. If we break down the 35 observances I cite by theme, here’s what we find (some observances have multiple themes):

This tells us “what gives.” The majority of these observances (28 of 35) are to “raise awareness” and to “prevent bullying,” which account for 95 percent of designated days (156 of 163). The LGBTQ+ community is extremely concerned about educating the rest of us about their proclivities and suppressing any kind of bullying.

I will be the first to say that no one, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, should be bullied. Bullying is cruel and unloving, no matter the reason. “‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’” says Jesus. The only problem with the anti-bullying initiative is that none of those days make a clear and explicit distinction between bullying and moral disapproval. While bullying does happen and should be opposed, one wishes that the LGBTQ+ folks would heed their own advice and stop bullying people like Jack Phillips, Barronelle Stutzman, or Aaron and Melissa Klein.

As far as being “educated” or having my “awareness” raised, does anyone seriously think that we need more awareness of the LGBTQ+ crowd? They are represented in music, film, television, advertising, sports, science, federal government, state government, city government, the military, business, education, children’s programming, legal mandates, law enforcement, dedicated parades and, as of this writing, we have an openly gay (and “married”) man running for president of the United States.

It may be true that back in the 1960s, people who called the LGBTQ+ community home were an obscure minority. But that’s no longer true. What is true is that the over-indulgence of the queer-all-year calendar is no longer just about becoming visible, but about pushing an agenda. In fact, that’s what it’s been all along.

The LGBTQ+ movement isn’t just “educating” us; it is indoctrinating us. It isn’t just opposing bullying; it’s demanding no resistance at all. The 163 days are 163 days of impressions being made on you, your children and our society. It’s how advertising works.

“Because of this repeated ‘nudging’ effect, advertising achieves best results on market share when it maintains a continuous presence and a sufficient weight relative to competition. (We also know this to be largely true because brands, on average, gain or lose share of market when their ‘share of voice’ becomes larger or smaller.)”

As further evidence, in their 1989 book, “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s,” Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen wrote, “Thus propagandistic advertising can depict all opponents of the gay movement as homophobic bigots who are ‘not Christian’ and the propaganda can further show them homosexuals as being criticized, hated and shunned…” (p. 152-153). Madsen earned “a doctorate in politics from Harvard and was an expert on public persuasion tactics and social marketing.”

The more impressions you receive, the more inclined you are to choose the advertised product over a competitor’s. In this case, the “competitor” is the Church. For example, Chai Feldblum, a lesbian and leading gay rights activist, a former law professor at Georgetown University, and an Obama-era appointee who served almost nine years as the Commissioner of the EEOC, said during an interview in 2006 that she was “having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win,” when religious and sexual liberties competed.

Fifteen years ago Albert Mohler, Jr., wrote,

“There can be no doubt that Christianity represents the greatest obstacle to the normalization of homosexual behavior. It cannot be otherwise, because of the clear biblical teachings concerning the inherent sinfulness of homosexuality in all forms, and the normativity of heterosexual marriage.”

If you are a believer and you (or your children) participate in any of these so-called “Pride” observances, you have been seduced by a lie. Refuse to participate any longer and “be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

No group needs 163 days of recognition. It’s all propaganda, part of a master plan for the LGBTQ+ consortium to acquire more power, pressure society into approving sexual anarchy and, ultimately, to destroy the Church.

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.