Despite the clever marketing and the dishonest media propaganda surrounding the group, Black Lives Matter is not actually about black lives or racism. Instead, it is a dangerous organization founded by self-proclaimed Marxists that seeks to dismantle the nuclear family and the market system. If BLM gets its way, black Americans and everyone else will suffer enormously.

One does not need to dig deep to learn the truth about Black Lives Matter. In fact, BLM leaders brag about it. “We are trained Marxists,” boasted BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors speaking about the group’s “ideological frame” in an interview with The Real News Network. “We are super, uh, versed, um, on, sort of, ideological theories.”

Another BLM co-founder, self-proclaimed “queer” feminist Alicia Garza, cited convicted cop-killing terrorist Assata Shakur as the inspiration for the group. “When I use Assata’s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement,” Garza explained in a piece about the origins of BLM.

The organization itself also openly promotes Marxism in its public statements. For instance, while BLM routinely paints Trump as a racist dictator, it has a bizarre affinity for the late mass-murdering Communist dictator who enslaved Cuba, Fidel Castro. When he died, BLM expressed an “overwhelming sense of loss,” praising “El Commandante” for protecting Shakur, “who continues to inspire us.”

On its website, under the headline “What We Believe,” BLM hits all the Marxist talking points — especially the modern gender-bending LGBT extremism that seeks to smash the family. “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” the statement of beliefs explains, calling for “villages” to take charge of child rearing. The group also boasts of fostering a “queer-affirming network” that will “dismantle cisgender privilege.”

Despite the unhinged extremism, or perhaps because of it, Black Lives Matter now has an incredible array of corporate sponsors that includes some of America’s biggest businesses. Even before BLM came together as a formal organization, powerful financiers including billionaire atheist George Soros, who has a bizarre affinity for the murderous regime ruling Communist China, were pouring money into the movement.

In a 2015 report from Open Society Foundation U.S. Programs Board, the Soros machine boasts of spending $650,000 to “invest in technical assistance and support for the groups at the core of the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement.” The goals included the “dismantling of structural inequality” supposedly caused by “local law enforcement,” and also to “create a national movement.”

According to an investigation by the Washington Times that relied on Soros foundations’ tax filings and interviews with key players, the far-left billionaire poured some $33 million in one year into organizations fomenting the unrest surrounding the killing of Michael Brown. The Marxist co-founders of BLM were also working closely with Soros-funded groups before founding BLM.

In addition to Big Business and major foundations such as the Ford Foundation and Borealis, even the Russian regime appears to have had a hand in backing BLM. According to CNN, which admittedly is not a reliable source, a Kremlin-controlled “troll farm” bought BLM ads aimed at Baltimore and Ferguson. The goal was to sow discord and chaos in the United States, CNN “intelligence” sources said.

In short, despite being funded by America’s premier “capitalist” corporations and money men, the BLM is a Marxist organization hostile to all that is good about America, and it does not even bother to hide that fact. Incredibly, due primarily to ignorance among leaders, even many churches and pastors have jumped on the bandwagon, discrediting their witness and supporting an organization that is anti-Christian to the core.

Indeed, Marxism is not just incompatible with Christianity — it is basically its antithesis. Where God commands respect for private property rights with “thou shalt not steal,” Marxism claims private property should be abolished. Where God established the nuclear family with a father, mother, and children, Marxism calls for women to be held in common. Marxism turns biblical principles upside-down.

In the book Marx and Satan, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who was tortured for almost a decade by Marxist barbarians in a Romanian prison, uses Marx’s own poetry and writings to make a powerful case that the ideologue was not an atheist, as is commonly believed. Rather, according to Wurmbrand, Marx hated God and was on a demonic mission to destroy mankind and all that God has ordained.

If Black Lives Matter were truly interested in dismantling anything with a “legacy” of racism and white supremacy, it might start by targeting the Democratic Party. As documented at Illinois Family Action last month, the party has a long and grotesque history of supporting slavery and racial terrorism in the face of America’s constant efforts to better itself — efforts that were unprecedented in human history to advance the biblical ideal that “all men are created equal.”

Another natural target, if BLM was really hoping to stop racism, would be Planned Parenthood, the tax-funded abortion behemoth founded by Margaret Sanger, a vile racist and eugenicist who sought to remove “undesirables” from the gene pool. Still today, Planned Parenthood sets up shop in minority neighborhoods and slaughters unborn black babies by the millions, far out of proportion to the number of black Americans in the population.

Instead of focusing on those legitimate targets, or on the destroyers of the black family, the BLM focuses on undermining the family, the free-market, and the United States itself. That should tell everyone everything they need to know about what is happening. Worse, the establishment media knows everything contained in this article. And yet they choose to conceal these facts from Americans.

This is a war on America and Christianity, and most Americans and Christians still don’t have a clue.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Our season of sheltering-in-place provides the ideal opportunity to prepare for the next season when we will re-engage in the public square. One of our responsibilities as Christians is to help foster an environment in which truth prevails and families flourish. Just before our home-sheltering began, Illinois Family Institute hosted our annual Worldview Conference, this year titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture,” with speakers Dr. Michael Brown, theologian, author, and radio host; and Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, theologian, author, and professor at Houston Baptist University.

In his first presentation, Dr. Gagnon exposed the myriad ways that the “LGBTQ” heresy is making inroads into the church, including in evangelical churches that many assume are impenetrable by heretics. He begins by briefly outlining how mainline denominations were infected by sexuality heresy and then provides evidence that the beginnings of a similar trajectory are present in evangelical churches.

He examines the troubling rhetoric of Preston Sprinkle, president of the theologically conservative Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, of J. D. Greear, president of the culturally influential Southern Baptist Convention, and of Revoice and the “spiritual friendship” movements, both of which are movements led by and appealing to Christians who experience homoerotic attraction but affirm biblical sexual ethics.

Dr. Gagnon concludes by urging Christians to prioritize political issues rightly when voting and clarifies the monumental stakes for Christians should “progressives” take control of the U.S. Senate and White House and pass their chief legislative project: the culture-transforming, rights-nullifying, pernicious Equality Act.

Please make time to watch Dr. Gagnon’s important presentation.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI,
please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.

Do we need to engage in “worldview training” with our children and grandchildren? What difference does it make? Isn’t all of that “worldview” stuff just for philosophers who use big words that my kids and I can’t understand anyway? Isn’t it enough to just follow Jesus and leave worldview to others?

It might be tempting to think that way, but let’s pause for a moment to consider what a “worldview” really is. Our worldview, simply put, is our view of the world. It’s the philosophy or viewpoint we use to interpret everything around us. It’s our road-map to how we live our lives.

That means every single one of us has a worldview. It might be an organized, coherent philosophy, or it may be a hodge-podge of ideas we’ve picked up here and there with no organizing principles. But each one of us, whether we realize or not, has some kind of worldview.

Of course, there are many worldviews in our culture today. There’s humanism, pantheism, socialism, postmodernism, etc. And, of course, there’s Biblical Christianity.

But again, what difference does it make what our worldview is as long as we follow Jesus? And why do we need to go to the work of teaching our kids about worldviews?

To begin, let’s dig a little deeper on what a worldview is.

Defining a Worldview

At the foundation of any worldview are certain “big ideas” that undergird everything else. Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, in their book How Now Shall We Live?, contend that every worldview must answer three questions:

1. Creation: Where did we come from, and who are we?
2. Fall: What has gone wrong with the world?
3. Redemption: What can we do to fix it?

The Bible answers all of these questions, of course, and those answers form the starting point of a Biblical worldview. And if we choose to live consistently with those answers, every facet of our lives will be impacted.

But what happens if we change the answers to those three foundational questions? Simply put, we’ll end up with a very different worldview.

Marxism, for instance, gives answers that are radically different compared to Christianity. In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey explains it this way:

1. What is Marxism’s counterpart to Creation, the ultimate origin of everything? Self-creating, self-generating matter.
2. What is Marxism’s version of the Fall, the origin of suffering and oppression? The rise of private property.
3. How does Marxism propose to set the world right again? Revolution! Overthrow the oppressors and recreate the original paradise of primitive communism.

And once again, from that high-level, big-question perspective, Marxists can figure out what it means to live a life consistent with Marxism.

If the Bible is true—and it is—then its answers to these big questions reveal and describe the world as it really is. It gives us an accurate picture of true reality. All other worldviews, to one extent or another, distort reality and lead their adherents to live contrary to the truth.

Where We Are

Our children are going to believe something. They’re going to have some view of the world around them. And if we don’t give them a Biblical worldview, the world will be glad to give them a substitute to take its place.

The truth is, most of the children in our country today are enrolled in secular government schools that don’t share our worldview. They’re also spending vast amounts of time plugged into media that doesn’t share our worldview.

What ideas are they learning? What worldview are they absorbing through all of this educational and entertainment content?

Young people have been walking away from the church in massive numbers, and the number of “nones”—essentially, those who hold to no religion—has been on the rise. According to Pew Research Center in 2015, 35 percent of Millennials were “nones.”

Moving from the religious to the political sphere, consider these headlines from the past couple of years:

• CNBC: “Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds”

• Axios: “Gen Z prefers ‘socialism’ to ‘capitalism’

• Fox News: “Americans warming to socialism over capitalism, polls show”

• Gallup: “Four in 10 Americans Embrace Some Form of Socialism”

Are these young people hardcore socialists? As Gallup notes, “Whether the appeal of socialism to young adults is a standard function of idealism at that age that dissipates as one grows older, or will turn out to be a more permanent part of the political beliefs held by the cohort of millennials who have come of age over the past decade, remains to be seen.”

Of course, once we find out the answer to that question, it may be too late.

As we look around our culture, we see the decline of Christian thought and ideals. If ever there was a time to teach our children a Biblical worldview, the time is now. And I’ll say it again: if we don’t give our children a Biblical worldview, someone is going to take our place and teach our children a different one. But it probably won’t be the one you would have chosen.

Why it Matters

There are at least three negative outcomes our children may succumb to if we fail to teach our them a Biblical worldview:

• Without a solid understanding of a Biblical worldview, they may fall prey to one of the false worldviews prevalent in our culture—perhaps under the impression that it better explains the “big questions” of life—and walk away from the Christian faith entirely.

• They could remain faithful to Christ at one level, but be led astray by wrong ideas (such as socialism) because they don’t understand the Bible’s teaching on anything other than personal faith and values (in other words, they think Christianity is only about a personal relationship with Jesus, not truth about all of life).

• They may absorb elements of many false worldviews without having any Biblical framework to filter them through, leading to a life lived without any real core.

Worldview training, then, is about equipping our children to understand the world as it really is (because only the Bible has the real answers to the biggest questions), refute the wrong ideas our culture tries to hand them, and live confidently according to what they know to be true.

Of course, having a Biblical worldview isn’t a substitute for saving faith in Christ. It’s possible, after all, to know all the right answers yet remain spiritually lost. Yet if our children trust Christ but don’t understand how the Bible offers the best answers across life’s many questions, they won’t be equipped to stand strong in a culture that has lost its way and point others toward the Truth.

Let’s make sure we’re passing on a Biblical worldview to the next generation.

IFI Worldview Conference

To help equip Christians to think and live out our faith in the public square, the Illinois Family Institute is hosting their annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon.

What:  IFI Worldview Conference

When:  Saturday, March 7th, 10 AM to 3:30 PM

Where:  Village Church of Barrington, 1600 E. Main Street, Barrington, IL 60010 (map)

How much:  $20 per person/$50 per family

Click HERE for a flyer for this event.

You don’t want to miss this!

Macy’s was once a symbol of wholesome American fun with its Thanksgiving Parades and visits with Santa Claus, immortalized years ago in the classic movie Miracle on 34^th Street. But this month the department store chain is busy promoting the debauchery associated with “LGBT pride” and pushing the new all-American tradition of encouraging children to interact with perverted drag queens.

Macy’s has been promoting “LGBT” activism for a while, undeterred by periodic protests from pro-family groups. This is the 10^th year for the chain’s annual “Pride + Joy” campaign and its June festivities for “Pride Month” are now on a scale similar to that of patriotic and holiday celebrations. With flags of its own, the “LGBT” movement has rapidly gained ground in the mainstream, thanks in no small part to the growing number of corporate and civic allies eager to outdo each other in the race to see who can be the most ingratiating toward the queer lobby. Apparently not wanting to be left behind by Target or any other store, Macy’s created a full calendar of special events for this month.

On Saturday, June 22, the flagship store in New York City in Herald Square will host a Drag Queen Story Hour. “Bring the whole family for a reading circle and sing along with the queens at this feel-good event!” reads the calendar posting. Macy’s on State Street in downtown Chicago will hold a “Pride” celebration this coming Saturday, June 15, to “celebrate family, friends and community” and offer “treats, performances by drag queens and more!”

Macy’s stores in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Minnesota, and Columbus, Ohio, are also holding “Pride” events this month. The chain is participating in “Pride” parades and festivals across the county and selling “Pride”-themed merchandise at more than 150 stores and online at macys.com. The New York City location earlier this month had a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new “Pride” shop within the department store. Macy’s boasts that the Manhattan store is “beaming with Pride as it lights up the night in rainbow colors every evening in June.”

This past November, “LGBT” activists celebrated when the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured a same-sex kiss between two actresses participating in the parade. Not everyone saw it as a sign of progress. “Macy’s has sexualized and lesbianized Thanksgiving in its iconic kids’ parade,” wrote conservative writer Rod Dreher.

Other once family-friendly companies are also stepping up efforts to push the “LGBT” agenda, including Disney, which held its first “Pride” parade at its theme park in Paris on June 1. In writing about the parade, the “LGBT” publication Out Magazine called Mickey and Minnie Mouse allies and described them sporting “brand new Pride looks, riding by in a car covered in rainbows.” For years, Disney has held unofficial gay events at its theme parks.

As “Pride” events have grown in size and begun touting themselves as family-friendly—making them even more vile—Christians have become more befuddled about how to react. It should be obvious to Christians that they shouldn’t join in the festivities, but some need reminders like that found in Dr. Michael Brown‘s recent piece, “Why I Do Not Celebrate Gay Pride.”

Even worse, some supposedly conservative Christians publicly endorse attending “Pride” events. In evangelical Protestant and Catholic circles, there’s a growing “gay but celibate” movement that encourages Christians with homosexual attractions to openly and unashamedly identify as gay and which allows for keeping one foot in the gay world so long as one does not act on same-sex desires. Last year, lesbian Catholic writer and Revoice conference speaker Eve Tushnet wrote in Patheos:

I was at the Pride parade this weekend. I have all kinds of issues with contemporary Pride celebrations but here is the thing: I know Christians, believers seeking to live obediently, who feel freed at Pride in a way they never feel in church. In so many of our churches, gay people’s shame is treated as a proof of their orthodoxy or personal holiness… I don’t feel especially liberated by Pride, but that is because I was never imprisoned in the ways that my friends have been. I’m always aware of the ways in which my faith makes me an outsider there. But my friends, who share my faith in spite of much greater suffering at the hands of Christians, feel liberated at Pride because it is a place where being gay does not separate you from others, but connects you to them. Being in a space where everyone is gay and just rejoicing in our community, flinging beads (I do love the beads), being gay in a million different ways, makes you see that being gay can mean community instead of silence, solidarity instead of judgment, beauty instead of barrenness, welcome instead of suspicion, and joy instead of despair.

Department stores bedecking “LGBT” depravity with rainbows and glitter and selling it to kids as well as adults deserve to feel the heat of righteous anger. But when Christians get this confused and compromised, they’re a lot less likely to send the right message.

IFI Banquet Speaker Announced!
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.

You may have thought I was overstating things in my recent article, “Will California Go from Banning Religious Books to Burning Them?” You may have thought I was exaggerating when I referenced LGBT activists who compared Christian conservatives to ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Be assured that there was not a word of hyperbole in what I wrote. The truth is unsettling enough.

To put things in perspective, when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he stated clearly that marriage was the union of one man and one woman. And he knew he needed to do this to win the conservative, black vote.

Today, you are branded a radical and a dangerous fanatic if you espouse that same view. You will be grilled by the tolerance inquisition!

Ten years ago, you would have laughed me to scorn if I told you Bruce Jenner would become Caitlyn Jenner and be named woman of the year. You would have ridiculed me if I told you the federal government would punish schools that refused to open the girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms to boys who identified as girls.

Today, “transphobic” is a household word, a gender-confused teen has his (her?) own reality TV show, and drag queens are reading stories to toddlers in libraries.

Ten years ago, you would have said “Impossible!” to the idea that a minor with unwanted same-sex attraction would be forbidden by law to receive professional counseling, even if that child expressly requested it and even if that child had been sexually abused. And you would have dismissed completely the notion that some states would seek to bar such counseling from adults as well.

Today, a number of states have outlawed this much-needed counseling for struggling minors, while California is poised to make it illegal for anyone of any age to receive professional help for unwanted same-sex attraction or gender-confusion. That is the unvarnished, unembellished truth.

And what happens when we draw attention to this outrageous California bill? We are attacked as maniacs.

As one gay activist put it (specifically, in the context of my opposition to the California bill), “Brown is a religious zealot — a Christian convert — who is barely distinguishable from the folks who flew airplanes into buildings for their god. Unlike them, Brown is nonviolent. However, like those 9/11 maniacs, Brown substitutes literalist religious belief for logic, science and common sense. Brown, I think, relishes the negative attention and while I say that he is nonviolent he does equivalent violence to LGBT people every day through misinformation.”

To parse these words in any serious way is to give them a dignity they do not deserve. I simply post them to say, “You see! I was not exaggerating.”

This is what comes your way when you oppose radical LGBT activism. This is what you can expect when you take a stand for liberty and freedom. This is what happens when you tell the truth.

This same gay activist wrote, “In the final analysis, Michael Brown is an advocate of pseudoscience in order to conform the world to his religious beliefs. It should be noted that Brown sports a PhD in Near Eastern Languages. Obviously, he has no training or work experience relative to human sexuality.”

And after claiming that there is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed through counseling or that gender-confused children can, with help, become at home in their own bodies, he writes, “If Michael Brown knows of more compelling research, he has not cited it. He has failed to make any meaningful argument in support of conversion therapy. Promoting the existence of this mythical approach only creates prejudice and discrimination. It serves no useful purpose. Come to think of it, Michael Brown serves no useful purpose. It is a cheap shot but the guy rails against LGBT people all day, every day. Maybe he needs a new hobby.”

Actually, I and others have been citing scientific literature for years, along with an endless number of personal anecdotes from friends and colleagues. (I’m talking about former-homosexuals and former-transgenders.) But whoever we cite gets discredited immediately, since the psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists and scholars do not adhere to the standard LGBT talking points.

Ryan Anderson provides ample scientific literature about transgender issues in his new book, while a major review of scientific literature by two prominent psychologists addresses broader issues of sexual orientation change as well. Be assured that the science is there.

This, however, is not to deny that there are many gays and transgenders who have tried to change, without success. They have suffered depression and fear and self-loathing, spiraling even deeper into hopeless after unsuccessful therapy efforts. I do not minimize their struggles, I do not pretend to be able to relate to what they have endured, and I constantly call on the Church to show great compassion to such strugglers.

But to each of them – and to the critics who attack us with such venom – I make a simple appeal. Allow others to find their own path.

When you try to pass laws that will take away essential freedoms of those you differ with, and when you demonize those who oppose your values, you only discredit yourselves. In the long run, this will work against you. We will overcome your venom and anger and bills and laws with grace and truth and love – and God’s help.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

By Adam McManus

Four years ago, Pure Passion Media released a life-changing, 2-hour-long film which featured the compelling story of 26 former homosexuals who were transformed by the power of God.

Winner of five professional and festival awards, including “Best Documentary”, the film features Drs Michael Brown, Robert Gagnon, Neil T. Anderson, Julie Hamilton as well as Kay Arthur.

The documentary title – “Such Were Some of You” – comes straight from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: 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.”

The World View spoke with David Kyle Foster, the producer, who says this:

“When I started with the ministry in 1987, my goal was, number 1, to create equipping resources for the church in areas where there were none. Back in 1987, there was absolutely nothing on homosexuality. And, even to this day, there isn’t very much training for prospective pastors in the area of sexual brokenness in seminaries or Bible colleges.

“And, number two, we’re trying to reach those who are sexually broken themselves and show them that Jesus Christ actually loves them and He has the power to transform their life if they will turn their life over to Him.”

Foster described what he means by “sexual brokenness.”

“Sexual brokenness is a term used to cover pornography/sex addiction, childhood sexual abuse, homosexuality, transgender disorders, sex trafficking — any number of issues that are sex-related that result from the person being broken. Sometimes people who have this kind of background end up trying to cover up their pain by acting out sexually.”

Foster explained who the film will help.

“Such Were Some of You”, the film, was made for those who struggle with homosexual confusion, people who, through no fault of their own, are attracted to the same sex sexually and don’t really know what to do about it. So our film shows them the roots of such same sex attraction and what Jesus Christ can do to heal those wounds and bring them back into normalcy.”

One of the testimonies featured in “Such Were Some of You” is from 25-year-old Kegan Wesley.

“Kegan is a young man who was sexually abused as a child, and for a boy that often can result in homosexual confusion. He got radically born again through The Eddie James Ministry. He started giving his testimony at various Eddie James conferences around the country. He would consider himself to be a heterosexual who was broken and has now found healing through Jesus Christ.”

Indeed, Wesley is now on fire for Christ and pastors The Refuge Church in Louisville, Kentucky. (Watch Wesley’s extended interview for the film as well as a CBN 700 Club interview.)

David Kyle Foster, the producer of “Such Were Some of You”, explained that Wesley is a good example of someone who was once homosexually confused, but now has enthusiastically embraced his heterosexuality with God’s help and is committed to chastity until marriage.

“Anyone who comes out of homosexuality and is truly born again and radically transformed by the power of God, they tend not to go back into any kind of sexual sin area because they’ve seen the fruit of it and it’s nothing but ugly.”

Foster explained that those who have struggled with homosexual confusion have been tremendously grateful for the film “Such Were Some of You.”

“We’ve had countless emails and phone calls and various postings on Facebook and YouTube thanking us profusely for coming up with the resource that the Body of Christ has needed for a long, long time.

“Because in the film, not only do we lay out the Biblical case for heterosexual one woman/one man in marriage for life — with no sexual behavior outside of that — and we use experts from the world of Biblical scholarship to lay that case, but then we also go into what has caused the homosexuality in the 26 people that we interviewed, what the gay lifestyle was like for them, and then what Jesus did to bring them to salvation, and finally how He has been healing them.”

Since 2014, the DVD has been for sale online for $9.99, and it still is. However, Foster decided to make the film “Such Were Some of You” available for free on YouTube.

“We put it out on YouTube live this past week and we’ve already got 3,000 or more views just in the last few days. I don’t know if YouTube’s going to take us off.

“We were taken off of Vimeo because of our stance that homosexuals can find healing through Jesus Christ. They didn’t like that so they took all 850 of our videos down off the internet and cancelled our presence on their platform.

“The gay activists have made it known to our ministry that they are going to go after Facebook and Google and YouTube and Twitter and all the other organizations to take us down as well. So we are facing a great deal of activism from gay activists who don’t like the truth to be known that homosexuality is a disorder and that you can find healing from it through Jesus Christ.”

Amazingly, the film is also being released in 11 additional languages, including Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Estonian, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. “Such Were Some of You” can be viewed in those languages on YouTube.  Watch it below:

I’d love to know what reaction you receive after those in your circle have watched it. Email me at adam@TheWorldView.com.

This film, in God’s hands, will literally transform their lives.

And as you spread the film far and wide, pray for each one you send it to – that God will open their eyes and draw them into a saving relationship with Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.

This article was originally posted by TheWorldview.com

The above title was used as a subheading in this article by Elizabeth Kantor at The Federalist: “Donald Trump Isn’t Fighting a Culture War but A Cultural Revolution.”

Underneath that subheading, Kantor writes:

[T]he genius and the miracle of America was that our identity as Americans was once inextricably tied to abstract principles about the rights of all human beings. To identify as an American was to believe in the Bill of Rights. To be an American patriot was to defend the God-given equality of all men as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

The rights the American revolutionaries fought for were an inherent part of themselves, always referred to as “the rights of Englishmen.” It was identity politics, but fought for an identity bound up in natural rights, one that could eventually be adopted by every American of every national origin, ethnicity, and race.

That American identity is what the cultural revolutionaries are determined to replace with their very different identity politics.

Kantor asks two questions without answering them:

“Is there a way out of the newly gelling mutually hostile tribal identities that are replacing it? Can we ever climb back into an e pluribus unum identification with all Americans as members of one tribe?”

She closes with this: “[R]eforging that American identity seems to be what Trump is trying for: “We are all Americans first.”

Let’s look at two other articles where the writers partially answer Kantor’s question, expressing doubt that the Leftists’ use of identity politics can succeed. First, is Dr. Michael Brown, focusing on the identity of the hour, “transgenderism.”

In his article, “Why Transgender Activism Will Not Succeed in Changing America,” Brown writes:

Transgender activism will never succeed in reshaping our society for one simple reason: It is not natural. Biological differences are too deeply instilled in the human race. Male-female distinctives are too obvious and real. It is futile to declare war on gender.

It is one thing to be asked to empathize with those who struggle with gender identity confusion. It is another thing to declare that biological categories do not determine reality.

It is one thing to recognize that some people do not fall within the normal, male-female spectrum due to genetic abnormalities. It is another thing to claim that gender is whatever you perceive it to be.

After listing examples where people and organizations are sticking to common sense over this new identity of the day fad, Brown writes, “Will the whole world be turned upside down because of the confusion and sensitivities of less than 1 percent of the population?” “Watch and see,” he says, “The pushback against transgender activism will continue.”

Our last article is from Linda Harvey. In her post, “Is Gender Confusion Insanity Finally Beginning to Wane?,” she asks, “Do we dare hope that a new era of sanity is dawning?” Regarding the growing trend towards the reversal of sex “reassignment” surgery, Linda Harvey writes:

Such an option still offends many on the left, who dig in their heels and continue to push unisex bathroom laws and bans on therapy to overcome “transgender” delusions and same-sex attraction.

An increase in people seeking a return to their birth gender is reported in Europe. A renowned “sex change” surgeon in Serbia noted more requests for complicated and expensive reversal surgery.

A young boy in Australia recently received international publicity for wanting to be a boy. After several years of estrogen, he no longer wants to pretend to be a girl.

Why is this controversial? The default response of every human should be a longing to be that woman or man as nature intended.

Harvey asks another question: “Aren’t liberals supposed to be flexible?” “But a rigid adherence to identity politics,” Harvey notes, “ties the typical leftist in notes”:

Secretly, a social liberal is often a mess, exhausted from the convoluted mental and spiritual energy needed to reconcile the nonsense of pretense.

Ouch. Linda Harvey gives examples where Leftists are unwilling to give up on their goal of doing away with the reality of biological sex, but then writes:

And yet promising glimmers of truth keep emerging. In Miami-Dade County, a measure to prohibit counseling of minors to overcome same-sex attractions was just defeated after hard work by the Christian Family Coalition and other pro-family advocates.

. . .

This victory comes as good news after a long series of defeats for common sense on this issue. Numerous cities and states have passed laws limiting counseling for minors who want to embrace the natural design of their heterosexual bodies as male or female.

Since “Attorney General Sessions ended the Eric Holder/Obama imaginary application of Title VII sex discrimination law to those with gender confusion, Harvey writes, “Activist groups are expressing fury that their fascist fantasy is ending.” Ouch again.

Read more:  Series: Identity Politics & Paraphilias

PLEASE consider a financial gift to IFI to sustain our work.
We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
“boldly bring a biblical perspective to public policy” in Illinois.

Written by Rev. Dr. Eric M. Wallace, PhD.

In my lifetime I have seen a number of organizations and movements pull at the heartstrings of the African American community. In 1995 it was the Million Man March calling on black men to atone for their failings. Today, it is the Black Lives Matter movement that draws our attention and concern. Who of African descent can disagree with the idea that black lives matter? My mother is black. My father is black. My brother and cousins are black. My wife and children are black. How could I not be interested in this movement? How could we not be concerned about the young black men dying at an alarming rate at the hands of police officers and gang violence?

A few months ago, I reluctantly accepted an invitation to speak on the topic of whether Christians should be involved with the Black Lives Matter movement. The topic was especially timely because of growing racial unrest over the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago (October 2014), the shooting death of Michael Brown (August 2014) and the gang assassination of Tyshawn Lee. It was also timely because in July 2015, our organization, Freedom’s Journal Institute, held a conference titled “In Defense of Life: Why All Lives Matter.”

The video of Laquan McDonald’s murder had just come to light, and demonstrations were happening in Chicago. These demonstrations were led by people I didn’t necessarily agree with and whose tactics I did not view as glorifying to God. Once I visited the Black Lives Matter (BLM) website, however, I was glad I had accepted the speaking engagement. The BLM website specifically identifies itself with the black liberation movement:

#BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society….It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.

Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.  It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.  It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

The history, leadership, and troubling emphases of the BLM movement–including how it addresses homosexuality and gender confusion–must be exposed.

The differences between the Civil Rights Movement and the black liberation movement are significant. While the Civil Rights Movement was led by ministers, many of whom held a biblical worldview and infused their protests with prayer, the black liberation movement was associated with the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, and Marxist ideology.  Unfortunately, today’s civil right leaders have largely abandoned a biblical worldview.

The identity of the founders of BLM helps explain the radical underpinnings of the BLM movement. Three community organizer/activist women founded this organization after the death of Trayvon Martin. Two of the three, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, identify as “queer” black women. The third founder, Opal Tometi, executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, explained in an interview with The Nation that “we are diligently uplifting black trans women and so the work on the ground in many places does reflect that.”

According to Truthout, Tometi, who is the child of parents who immigrated to the United States illegally, explains that BLM was “[n]ever simply a reaction to police violence against African Americans in the United States, Black Lives Matter was always conceived of as a strategic response to white supremacy.”

In an interview with Cosmopolitan Magazine, Ms. Cullors shared that she is inspired by Assata Shakur who was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of a New Jersey state trooper and who escaped from federal prison and has been living freely in Cuba since 1984. Shakur was also a member of the former Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army.

Christians who take the Bible seriously must not affirm either homosexuality or gender-confusion. In Romans 1:18-32, Paul teaches  that God unequivocally condemns homosexual practice. Paul also made clear in 1 Corinthians that God can bring deliverance from sins—including homosexual practice:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  11 And such were some of you. 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.

By affirming what God condemns, BLM stands in opposition to the transformative power of Jesus.

While BLM claims to seek justice for oppressed and victimized persons around the world, they fail to address the genocide of black babies through abortion or the deaths of young African American males from gang violence in their list of social injustices. Apparently, what matters most to BLM is ideology.

Reading the “Herstory” page on the BLM website illuminates the organization’s central concerns:

1. Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.
2. Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention.
3. Black people are deprived of basic human rights and dignity.
4. Black poverty and genocide is state violence.
5. When black people get free, everybody gets free.
6. Black liberation has played an important role in inspiring and anchoring, through practice and theory, social movements for the liberation of all people.

I was surprised to find that with the exception of the last one, I agree with these beliefs. I disagree, however, with the causes of the problems as well as the solutions. What is omitted from the concerns of BLM is the place that both liberal public policy and Planned Parenthood have had in “systematically and intentionally” targeting and destroying the black community. And because BLM gets the causes wrong, it gets the solutions wrong as well.

Whereas BLM sees white supremacy and institutional racism as the causes of the poverty and violence that afflict the black community, conservatives view the causes as bad governmental practices and policies. Most conservatives have long argued that liberal public policies have “systemically targeted” the black family. Blacks have been “deprived of their human rights and dignity” through government largess, which has perpetuated poverty and destroyed the black family. In other words, the “state” has committed violence against black people.

The very liberal social agenda embraced by “progressives” who pursue bigger, more intrusive government continues to harm the lives of blacks. For example, here in Illinois, the economy and public school system, shaped for decades by liberals and liberal policy, are among the worst in the nation. Whose lives are harmed most directly and significantly by our terrible economy and government schools? Black lives.

Worse still, Planned Parenthood (and the abortion lobby in general) has targeted the black community “for demise” since the days when its racist founder Margaret Sanger led the organization. Planned Parenthood continues to commit genocide against black babies.

According to BLM, “black liberation” can be achieved only by reversing the roles of master and slave. The tragic truth is that the policies sought by BLM only serve to keep the black community enslaved. The freedom BLM proposes is not freedom at all. It is slavery under a different master. It calls on black Christians who are already free in Christ to abandon their freedom for black solidarity, which for the Christian is a form of idolatry. The politics of BLM is the politics of racial grievance, a tool used to manipulate both blacks and whites alike.

Read part two HERE.

Dr. Eric Wallace is the co-founder and president of Freedom’s Journal Institute, and has organized the Black Conservative Summit and a one day conference “In Defense of Life: Why All Lives Matter.”  Dr. Wallace and his wife Jennifer live in the south suburbs of Chicago.

Support IFI

Please consider helping to support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

Anyone browsing social media or watching network news is likely to be familiar with #BlackLivesMatter, #ICantBreathe or #HandsupWalkOut. They are terms that express the angst fueling a continuing clash between minority protesters and law enforcement after the tragic deaths of Florida’s Trayvon Martin, Ferguson’s Michael Brown and New York City’s Eric Garner.

For the past several weeks, those hashtag terms have been splashed on protest signs as part of a nationwide outcry against racial profiling, social injustice and raw bigotry.

But while attention has focused on slain Black males, there has been little attention to the deaths of Chicago’s Tonya Reaves, Cleveland’s Lakisha Wilson or Miami Gardens’ Qualecia James. Reaves and Wilson died after surgical abortions. James and the baby she was carrying both died as a result of gang-related gunfire.

The demise of those young women was also tragic, but for the most part has been ignored, says Ryan Bomberger, founder of TooManyAborted.com.

“No riots. No die-ins. No protests. Absolutely no mainstream media converge,” Bomberger writes on social media with the BlackLivesMatter hashtag included. “The lives of black women, snuffed out by real injustice and violence, are completely ignored and treated with nothing but silence.”

Instead, Planned Parenthood purposely avoids acknowledging the number of Black females – both born and unborn – that have been lost to abortion. Instead, Planned Parenthood ironically tweeted their support for the #BlackLivesMatter.

“We are joining #Ferguson organizers and protesters in DC today – standing in solidarity with you! #HandsUpWalkOut #BlackLivesMatter,” Planned Parenthood tweeted in the heat of the Ferguson unrest.

But do Black lives really matter to Planned Parenthood?

Not only does Planned Parenthood ignore the tragic abortion-related deaths in the Black Community, they cover up the effect abortion has had on diminishing the Black population.

Nearly a thousand Black babies die in America every day at the hands of abortionists like Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. Since 1973, 16 million tiny Black lives have perished in abortion clinics.

The latest U.S. Census figures show that among Illinois residents, 62 percent is white, 16.5 percent Hispanic and 14.7 percent Black.

The CDC reports that nationwide, 36 percent of women obtaining abortions are White, 25 percent are Hispanic and 30 percent are Black. That means Blacks have 60 percent more as many abortions than Whites and Hispanics – exposing them to abortion after-effects and abruptly cutting off the next generation.

Recent Illinois statistics show a steady decline in abortions over the past decade, but Illinois still remains one of the most aborting states in the nation, despite the fact 92 percent of Illinois counties do not have abortion clinics. Chicago is in Cook County, the state’s most populated county, and one that does host abortion clinics.

A comprehensive study by ProtectingBlackLife.org showed that 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

“Planned Parenthood has dominated the urban landscape since its own birth in eugenic racism, but rates of unintended pregnancies, STDs, fatherlessness, and abortion have only increased exponentially since Roe v. Wade,” Bomberger writes.

Still, the #BlackLivesMatter movement says it is focused on stopping unfair treatment by law enforcement. Members of a group calling themselves “We Charge Genocide” released a report that held the Chicago Police Department responsible for a rise in the community’s violence.

They filed that report with the United Nations Committee for Torture, saying although Blacks make up 32.3 percent of Chicago’s population, they account for roughly 75 percent of police shooting victims from 2009 to 2013. The group claims that Black Chicagoans are 10 times more likely than Whites to be shot by the police.

While claiming law enforcement is involved in Black Genocide, these groups also defend abortion rights as “reproductive rights” or “reprojustice.”

“For one’s children to be random, unwitting blood sacrifices to the prejudice of faceless others is not freedom,” wrote Katherine Cross at RH Reality Check. “To have reproductive freedom means, among many other things, that your choice to raise a family will not be revenged upon by collectivized prejudice wielding batons and handguns.”

The media’s cooperation with the Left’s agenda has a lot to do with how the situation is being perceived by the public, a key Black conservative says.

“The liberal media looks the other way on this,” Priests for Life Pastoral Associate and African American Outreach Director Dr. Alveda C. King told MRC Culture.

The niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. called for prayer.

“Pray that people will see right through their propaganda,” she said, “The media has another agenda; if they really thought that Black lives matter they would be protesting abortion on demand.”

With the statistics clearly showing that the real threat to America’s Black community are abortionists much more than law enforcement officers, perhaps it is time for Black leaders to hashtag #DoTheyReally? to be added to “#Black Lives Matter.”

Please support the work of Illinois Family Institute.

Is homosexuality compatible with Christianity? Can you be proudly “gay” and Christian? How do I reach out to my ‘gay’ friends without compromising the Gospel?

“Gay Christianity”—or a new apostasy? Dr. Michael Brown will address the hot topic of “Can you be ‘gay’ and Christian?” as the keynote speaker at Americans For Truth’s dinner-banquet Saturday, Oct. 25, at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights IL. Doors open at 5:30. To sign up online for just $20/person, go to AFTAH.org/donate/; or mail you check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Tickets are $25 dollars at the door. Click HERE for a PDF Flier about the banquet.

[PRINTABLE BANQUET FLIER: for a printable PDF Flier announcing the Oct. 25 banquet with Dr. Brown, click HERE.]

AFTAH Banquet Web page: [Click HERE AFTAH website: AmericansForTruth.org

________________________

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is excited to host Dr. Michael Brown to keynote our Oct. 25 “Teaching Banquet” built around the theme of Dr. Brown’s new book, “Can You Be Gay and Christian?: Responding With Love and Truth to Questions About Homosexuality.” Please bring your friends and family to this information-packed event at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL.

WHO: Dr. Michael Brown, author, “Can You Be Gay and Christian?: Responding with LOVE & TRUTH to Questions About Homosexuality” ; also, ex-“gay” leader Stephen Black and Mission America president Linda Harvey will be speaking.  And AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera will discuss his upcoming “Free Speech” trial in Canada, which almost BANNED him from entering that country on the basis that he would “incite hate.”

This is an excellent opportunity to bring your friends, family and young adults who are confused about homosexuality. They will hear Dr. Brown and the speakers answer such tough questions as:

• Are people ‘born gay’?
• How should I answer when an LGBT advocate says “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality”?
• What do I say when I’m accused of “judging” my friends living a homosexual lifestyle?
• What is the best response when pro-homosexual “marriage” activists say: “How does a loving and committed ‘gay’ couple’s same-sex marriage affect YOUR marriage?”
• What is the best way to reach out in love to my homosexual friends and family members—without compromising the Gospel?

[To read Dr. Brown’s column, ‘No One is Born Gay,” go HERE. To read Brown’s column on Houston lesbian Mayor Annise Parker’s effort to subpoena the sermon notes of five local pastors, see his column: “Mayor Parker, City Attorney Feldman: You Will Not Put Us in the Closet”

ESSENTIALS:

WHEN: Saturday, October 25; doors open at 5:30 PM; dinner served at 6:30.

WHERE: Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., Arlington Heights, IL

COST: Tickets are only $20/person in advance (payment received by Oct. 24) or $25 at the door. Dinner is included. Table Sponsorship: just $200 for a table of 10. Sign up online at www.aftah.com/donate/, or mail your check to:

AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

THEME: “Can You Be ‘Gay’ and Christian? A Teaching Banquet on Homosexuality and the Church”

AFTAH Banquet Page: [Click HERE]; PDF Banquet  Flier: [Click HERE]

Phone: 312-324-3787; E-mail to RSVP: americansfortruth@gmail.com; or email Brad Wallace at connops@yahoo.com.

Michael L. Brown holds a PhD from New York University in Near Eastern languages and literatures, and is recognized as one of the leading Messianic Jewish scholars in the world today. In addition to his latest book debunking “gay Christianity,” Dr. Brown is author of “A Queer Thing Happened to America,” a 691-page book on the LGBT agenda. He is the founder and president of FIRE School of Ministry and host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire. The author of more than 20 books, Dr. Brown is a contributor to The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion and other scholarly publications.

_________________________________

PDF of Banquet Flier: click this link: AFTAH-Banquet-Flier-Dr-Michael-Brown_2014

** UPDATE**: Former homosexual (ex-”gay”) leader Stephen Black (right) of First Stone Ministries, based in Oklahoma City, will be attending our banquet. Stephen will offer his observations on the downfall of the ex-”gay” umbrella group Exodus International under false teaching–and the rise of Restored Hope Network to take its place as offering the hope of change for men and women struggling with homosexuality.

Also, Linda Harvey of Columbus-based Mission America–a leading Christian expert on the homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda in schools–will be on hand at the banquet! Harvey will be signing her book, “Maybe He’s Not Gay: Another View on Homosexuality.”

Said AFTAH’s Peter LaBarbera:

“We are thrilled to have these two national pro-family leaders joining Dr. Brown at our banquet to answer your questions about the homosexual activist agenda and the “gay” campaign to subvert Christianity. If you are perplexed about how to respond to ubiquitous media propaganda surrounding homosexual ‘marriage’– and the new ‘gay Christian’ campaign to accommodate homosexuality–come and bring a friend or two to CLA on Saturday, October 25. You will leave better equipped to speak God’s truth in love in the culture!”