“I’m sick of these white male NRA Republicans and their mass shootings beca … um, Sayed Farook? Hey, let’s not vilify an entire group.” ~Jon Gabriel, editor-in-chief, Ricochet.com

Workplace violence strikes again. “Allahu Akbar!” evidently means, “I quit,” and pipe bombs are the new resignation letter. Southern Baptist redneck Syed Rizwan Farook and his Irish Catholic wife, Tashfeen Malik, are reported to have been inexplicably in touch with ambiguously international, not-at-all-Islam-related terrorists under investigation by the FBI prior to mowing down 35 white-privileged American citizens at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California.

Investigators feverishly search for a motive.

Multiculturalism was unavailable for comment.

It’s said that not all Muslims are terrorists, but that most terrorists are Muslims. Bleeding heart “religion of peace” Jihad-deniers may explain away the global scourge of Islamic terrorism as “workplace violence,” the “result of climate change” or a “gun control issue” (California has the strictest gun laws in all 50 states, and Paris France has banned guns altogether), but the facts, common sense and our own observations reveal the truth. It’s world-class stupid to insist that, when demon-possessed Muslim terrorists mow down a room full of law-abiding citizens, the “progressive” panacea is to disarm the law-abiding citizens. “Enough is enough,” all right. Sit down, liberals. The adults are talking. We don’t need more gun control, we need more Islam control.

Brigitte Gabriel is a world-renown national security expert. Her concentration is on the – ahem – explosive rise in Islamic terrorism. She notes that there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Of them, intelligence agencies estimate that 15-25 percent are orthodox Muslims, meaning they actually follow the teachings of the Quran.

“That leaves 75 percent of [Muslims being] peaceful people,” observes Gabriel. “But when you look at 15-25 percent of the world’s Muslim population, you’re looking at 180 million to 300 million people dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. That is as big as the United States,” she concludes.

Indeed, with these harrowing numbers in mind it’s no surprise that there have been nearly 27,500 terrorist attacks worldwide committed by faithful Muslims since 9/11.

There have been zero committed by faithful Christians.

Here’s why.

Muslims, true Muslims, follow the teachings of their dead “prophet” Muhammad, a warring tyrant who, as even the Islamic Quran concedes, was a murderous misogynist and pedophile. Christians, true Christians, follow the very-much-alive Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, whose teachings are found in the God-breathed Holy Bible.

Muhammad taught, and the Quran stresses, that a central tenet of Islam is to convert, enslave or kill the infidel. An infidel is anyone who is not Muslim or, depending on who’s doing the killing, belongs to a different sect of Islam. Those who fall into that elusive, perpetually mute category tagged “moderate Muslim” are also infidels or “idolaters.” They’re bad Muslims, and, so, according to the Quran, not Muslims at all. “When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them,” commands Surah 9:5. “Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” Faithful Muslims, true followers of Muhammad, “slay the idolaters wherever [they] find them” (see ISIS, Hamas, Syed Farook, et al.).

It’s what Muslims do.

On the other hand, Jesus taught His followers, who are called Christians, to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (see Luke 6:31); that, “You shall not murder” (see Matthew 19:18); and that we are to “love [our] enemies and pray for those who persecute [us]” (see Matthew 5:44). It goes without saying that those who do not follow these teachings are not following Christ.

Indeed, while many may claim to be “Christian,” the word only applies to those who are justified in Christ, spiritually reborn and regenerated through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. The true Christian walks in Christ’s steps through faith and obedience.

Terrorism is in direct disobedience to Christ.

It’s in direct obedience to Muhammad.

Whereas “Muslim extremists,” that is, faithful Muslims, kill people extremely, “Christian extremists,” that is, faithful Christians, love people, including their enemies, extremely.

Islam is Christianity’s photo-negative. While Christianity brings eternal life to those choosing to surrender to Jesus, who alone is “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” Islam brings eternal death to those who surrender to Allah, who is “the best of deceivers” (“[A]nd Allah was deceptive, for Allah is the best of deceivers.” [see Surah 3:54]).

Which brings us to last week’s mass shooting near an abortion slaughterhouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Even as the secular left was gleefully screaming, “Christian terrorism!” Garrett Swasey, a pro-life, Christian pastor and police officer, was laying down his life for those inside the very Planned Parenthood he abhorred.

It’s what Christians do.

(For the record, this marks the first time in history that any liberal has been concerned for human life at a Planned Parenthood.)

Still, again, and so our liberal, anti-Christian friends fully understand, Officer Garrett Swasey was a pro-life Christian. Robert Dear, the evil, reclusive, deranged pothead who killed him, is not. Dear murdered three innocent people. He is, by definition, not “pro-life.” Neither is he Christian. He is, much like Planned Parenthood, “pro-death.”

Peas in a pod.

To be sure, pro-life Christians like Officer Swasey agree: Murdering babies is wrong. And murdering the murderers who murder babies is also wrong. Shooting innocent people is evil. Just like dismembering baby girls alive and selling their body parts is evil.

No, Robert Dear is no “Christian terrorist.” He may be a terrorist, but he’s not a Christian terrorist. He can’t be. He doesn’t follow Christ. If anything, Robert Dear’s actions are more like those of Planned Parenthood, orthodox Islam and Syed Farook.

Bloody bosom buddies.

Yes, there have been terrorists who call themselves Christian.

But there has never been a Christian terrorist.

There is room for the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph at the center of Illinois government. Thanks to a group of private citizens who believe in the true meaning of the season, a Nativity scene is on display in the state capitol rotunda in Springfield. See video below:

Palatine resident and pastor of the Village Church of Barrington, David W. Jones, attended the District 211 Board of Education meeting on Wednesday night and sent the following letter to the District 211 School Board immediately following the meeting. If only every pastor, priest, elder, and lay person would follow Pastor Jones’ example, perhaps further harm to children and truth can be prevented.

Make no mistake, the kind of assault on truth and reality that is taking place in District 211 is coming to all public schools—including elementary schools. The issue of how biological sex is treated in public schools should not concern just families with children in schools. It should concern every follower of Christ. First, the children in school today will be our culture-makers tomorrow. Second, if we love our neighbors as ourselves, we should care deeply about the dissemination of body- and soul-destroying lies. And third, what our taxpayer-funded schools teach through curricula, policy, and praxis is a stewardship issue.

Please read, be inspired by, and emulate Pastor Jones:

I am writing to express my disagreement with the outcome of last night’s school board meeting vis-à-vis the OCR agreement. I was present at the meeting. It was clear that a significant majority were opposed to settling with the OCR. Although I did not keep score, I would estimate that at least 80 percent of those who spoke—some eloquently—were opposed to any compromise with the federal government on this issue. It grieves me that the board caved in to the OCR’s unlawful demands. The OCR cannot redefine our society’s legal definition of gender. What will the federal government demand next? (I acknowledge the previous sentence to be a type of “slippery slope” argument. But that form of argument is not always invalid, if one can demonstrate the mechanism by which further changes will likely happen.)

It was also surprising to find the D211 website updated shortly after the meeting with several statements that appear to have been worded carefully and approved by legal counsel. This suggests that the decision was a fait accompli before the hearing began. If this is true, then it was not a hearing at all but rather only the appearance of one. It is hard not to feel betrayed as a resident and taxpayer. This feeling only increased when I read the board’s statement: “We have implemented practices surrounding transgender student access to restrooms for two-and-a-half years, without incident.” Is this the first time that policy has been made public? If so, why were not parents informed about this earlier?

We are kidding ourselves if we think that this issue is limited to one student. Now that the precedent has been set, and the OCR knows that it can intimidate local school districts in general and D211 in particular, it will just be a matter of time before it comes knocking again. There will be more gender-dysphoric students, and they will demand special rights like “Student A.” How can they be denied? Also, how will a school board be able ultimately to deny access to any student who claims to be the opposite gender? How could that person’s claim be invalidated? If male students begin to populate female sports teams, that will give them an unfair advantage. If female students begin to populate male sports teams (e.g., football), they could actually be hurt. Title IX was originally about leveling the playing field. The OCR’s current interpretation will actually have the opposite effect, putting female students at a distinct disadvantage. That is not a little ironic.

With all due respect, last night’s decision by the board was a bad one. It fails to protect adequately the privacy of actual females, while granting special rights to a young man who is confused about his gender. The requirement to retain an adolescent gender expert—at taxpayer expense—also concerns me. What ideology will drive this individual? What else will they force upon our schools and, therefore, our students? I am afraid that the board’s decision could have significant consequences down the road, many of them unintended. I do not know if the board can reverse its decision; I would urge you to do so.

Sincerely,

David W. Jones

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One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes points out, as only Lewis could, that Jesus was either the Messiah (and the Son of God) as prophesied in the ancient Jewish scriptures, or He was a liar, a lunatic, or, worse, the “Devil of Hell.”

Wrote Lewis:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Indeed, to my Jewish friends, I say this: We Christ followers love your Messiah. And make no mistake about it, Jesus is your Messiah. He is our Messiah. He is the Messiah. Messiah means savior, and Jesus is the Savior of all mankind.

To be sure, if both Christ’s words and the Holy Spirit-inspired teachings throughout both the Old and New Testaments are to be believed, and they are, then Christianity and Judaism are not competing religions at odds with one another. Rather, Christianity merely represents the final culmination of Judaism, and Christ’s promised incarnation, death and resurrection, the fulfillment of the long awaited Jewish Messiah prophesied throughout the Old Testament.

In his latest book, “The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament,” author and attorney David Limbaugh thoroughly unpacks this reality and “unlocks the mysteries of the Old Testament and reveals hints of Jesus Christ’s arrival through all thirty-nine Old Testament books.”

“The key to the secrets of the Old Testament, Limbaugh argues, is the crucial New Testament encounter between the risen Jesus and two travelers on the road to Emmaus,” notes the book’s description. “With that key, and with Limbaugh as a deft guide, readers of ‘The Emmaus Code’ will come to a startling new understanding of the Old Testament as a clear and powerful heralding of Jesus Christ’s arrival. Limbaugh takes readers on a revealing journey from Genesis through Malachi, demonstrating that a consistent message courses through every one of the Old Testament’s thirty-nine books: the power, wonder, and everlasting love of Jesus Christ.”

The “Emmaus Code” is a project that God long-ago placed on Limbaugh’s heart. “Jesus is prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfills those prophecies in the New Testament,” he writes. “For years, I have wanted to write a book to share my enthusiasm for the Old Testament and explain how it is foundational to the New Testament as the first act of a two-act play. I have wanted to show the many ways Christ is foreshadowed in the Old Testament.

“My new book, ‘The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament,’ is the culmination of a project I began some 20 years ago. In the book, I try to demonstrate that the Christ-centeredness of the Old Testament is the key to understanding all of Scripture. The book is a primer on the Old Testament. I take you through each period of Old Testament history, introduce and discuss all the threads and themes pointing to Jesus in the Old Testament, and finally give you an overview of each book of the Old Testament and detail how each one prefigures Jesus Christ.

“My goal is to increase the reader’s appreciation for the Old Testament and for its Christ-centeredness, for once we have a better handle on the Old Testament and understand that Jesus is its focus, the Bible will come alive for us in ways we never anticipated and our faith will be strengthened and energized. That is certainly my experience, and I pray the same thing happens for you.”

Having just finished the book, I can say with enthusiastic certainty that Limbaugh accomplishes his goal. He demonstrates, like the trial lawyer proving his case beyond any reasonable doubt, that Jesus is not just hinted at in the Old Testament, but that His presence permeates the ancient Jewish texts. As John 1:1 reminds us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Christ is the Word and the Word is God.

The “Emmaus Code” will change your whole perspective on the Bible. The Old Testament will come to life for you and you will see clearly, perhaps for the first time, that its primary purpose was, and is, the foretelling of the coming of Christ Jesus.

When Jesus asked the apostle Peter, “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God” (see Matthew 16:15-16).

“Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven’” (Matthew 16:17).

Christ points to Himself as the Old Testament Messiah.

David Limbaugh establishes, masterfully, the veracity of Christ’s claim.

It is as though someone dropped our culture, what remains of it, into a fifty gallon drum of solvent, and then complained loudly when the whole thing wound up as a solution. That’s not the kind of solution I meant, complained the president.

For the time being, the trappings still look fine. We look around and see cities, and concerts, and monuments, and mammon, and armies, and news reports, all done with the very latest developments in CGI. With these images flashing on the tall backdrop of a very deep stage, our president walks out to the center, faces us, and proves himself to be a very able platitudinarian.

But nothing coheres any more, and the impressiveness is all surface. It is like discovering a shining body of water the size of the Pacific and then finding out it was ankle deep all the way across. To change the image somewhat abruptly, it is like that free couch left outside the fraternity at the beginning of summer — you can take it or leave it.

Scripture tells us that Christ is the one in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17). Our secular society laughed. We scoffed. That is simply ridiculous, we said. We can hold it together without Him. And so, just a few generations after rejecting Him, where are we? As one fellow said in a similar context, everything is at sea except for the fleet.

We don’t need Jesus Christ to hold everything together. That’s what we said. We turned away from Him, and how has it gone with our bold new experiment? Without Jesus Christ, we no longer know the difference between boys and girls. Without Him, our college students need safe spaces for protection against tacky Halloween costumes. We no longer know that mothers should bear and suckle their children. We have turned age-old variations in the weather into an argument for massive increases of statist power. We can’t tell the difference between white people and black people anymore. Those appearances might just be a trick of self-identification, designed to get us to reveal our latent bigotries. If I say something awkward to that guy on the subway I might find myself remanded into counseling. We don’t even know what marriage is anymore, and if it had been within our reach we would already have been messing around with optional gravitation. Gravity is oppressive, not democratic at all.

Our sexual mores are turning into one vast pig rut. The art world is a gigantic taxpayer-supported guano collection. Our college faculties, training up the next generation in the way they should go, is a clamjamfry rabble, certified at least two grad degrees past their intelligence. As for the students, our elite college campuses are populated by lily boys of both sexes.
Our culture is a 62 Galaxie 500, one which has crested the Continental Divide, lost its brakes on the other side, is careening toward western Colorado, with the axles growing hot. Kind of like that.

And the progressives, the driving force behind all of this nonsense, hate being questioned about any of it for several reasons. First, it is easier to shout your opponents down than to answer the arguments. Shoot, it would be far easier if they could just have them arrested. You are not a climate denier by any chance, are you? Second, the lack of answers forthcoming is not to say that their deep down space is occupied by a blissful and serene ignorance. No, down below the sternum of every man and every woman is the knowledge that nonsense remains nonsense, no matter how many people are yelling it. And so that means, at the bottom of everything, is massive, unrelenting, ever-present, always-restless, never-asleep guilt. Men without answers get angry in debates, and guilty men get even angrier in debates. That is why debates will soon be illegal.

In the meantime, establishment Christian leaders, who should be leading the resistance, are tuft-hunters, aching for the kind of respectability that only a disintegrating and leprous culture can bestow. And the Christian leaders who are part of a faithful remnant and who therefore show some fight are chastised by the others as troublemakers. Those Christian leaders soon get the treatment. Fight? Far better to labor quietly off grid on something that the progressives will have no trouble seizing whenever they decide to. Gives us something to do while we wait.

So what is the central problem? The difficulty is that we don’t want a fixed standard. Everything is coming unstuck because we cannot have the kind of certainty that we need in order to keep it from becoming unstuck. But in order to have that kind of certainty, we have discovered that we would simultaneously have to bring in the possibility of being wrong. And because we are a proud, haughty, and conceited people, we will not accept the very old-fashioned possibility of simply being wrong.

That would hurt our feelings, which we all know is now illegal.

This article was originally posted at Blog & Mablog.

By Wallace Henley

“If I could choose one more course for ministry training and preparation, it would be ‘Courageous Leadership’,” says Thom Rainer in a recent Christian Post article.

Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, says that many challenges pastors and churches face now “can only be understood in the context of spiritual warfare” for which many church leaders are “ill-prepared.”

On the other hand, “many younger leaders within the church have grown tired of culture wars and a politicized Christianity,” writes Ray Nothstine in a Christian Post review of Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel, by another Southern Baptist leader, Russell Moore.

Nevertheless, Thom Rainer says “Courageous Leadership” should be taught because of the “dramatic shifts in culture, most of them adversarial to biblical Christianity.”

Some churches under the pressures of social upheaval do indeed “grow tired” and withdraw from cultural and political engagement. They claim their relationship to society is to be almost exclusively pastoral, nurturing those who come “in”. To go “out” in confronting cultural tides “adversarial to biblical Christianity” through the prophetic ministry is not part of the self-assumed identity of such churches. They often seclude themselves in pietistic fortresses.

John Milton’s words, in Areopagitica, come to mind: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heap.”

Prophetic ministry is the “dusty heap” of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal, the institutional guardians of Jezebel’s palace. The prophetic church is an Amos or Jeremiah in its culture, overcoming its timidity, addressing governing powers and people alike with tear-soaked truth.

Contemporary society’s craziness calls for much pastoral ministry, but not to the exclusion of the prophetic voice. If Rainer is right — and he is — what modern society needs from the Church is the hard facts about values, and the biblically revealed Judeo-Christian worldview that establishes orderly, peaceful, free and prosperous societies.

Why, then, do many churches shrink from confronting cultural and social institutions and their powers, including the political sphere?

A look at six types of relatively non-engaging churches, gives some clues:

The Marginalized Church — This is the church that accepts marginalization by the culture and its institutions. In fact, such a church desires to be marginalized because it is then off the hook and can avoid threats to it’s cloistered pietism.

The Muzzled Church — Such churches muzzle themselves in the face of an adversarial culture to protect their own institutional survival and societal benefits. They tailor-make a non-confrontational theology.

The Myopic Church — This is the church that simply does not understand the expanse of Christ’s Kingdom. It focuses mainly on the eschatological hope and engages little with existential need. Such a church would not understand Abraham Kuyper’s observation that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!”

The Mouthpiece Church — These are churches that buy into the values of popular culture, viewing it as more authoritative than the Bible itself. One thinks of the official German Church under Hitler, resisted by Bonhoeffer and his allies, as well as much of the American southern church during slavery who wrenched the Bible into grotesque shapes to justify its culture, as well as churches today that hop on every cultural bandwagon that passes it by.

The Me-Church — The me-centered consumerist church relishes prophecy as long as it forecasts health, wealth, happiness and well-being. It rarely confronts people and institutions with the prophetic call to biblical values and repentance because this disrupts its comfort.

The Me-Too Church — This is the “stylistic” church that looks at the culture, and says, “me-too!” It is the church whose pastors shock with gutter-words from contemporary lingo, whose “worship” is primarily performance characterized by unsingable, theologically starved, but very professional music. This church’s identity is more in the culture than in Christ, and so it finds very little in the world to confront.

The contemporary battle for the world’s soul and survival is spiritual and theological. The struggle for the West and Judeo-Christian Civilization is a battle for values. To sever America’s founding principles from the biblical stream from which they emerged separates the contemporary nation from its very history.

I admit this is personal for me. Had it not been for church leaders who dared to work both pastorally and prophetically in the political sphere where I labored forty years ago I might not be writing these lines or working in a church today.

I am glad Christian leaders in Washington challenged the values both of the 1970s culture and the delusions of Washington and its institutions of power. They had a transforming impact on a starry-eyed junior aide trying to hold on to his critical capacities midst the pressures of the Nixon White House.

None of those leaders had given up on the culture wars. They refused to stop reminding society of the need for recovering values that created a nation that gave freedom to the church and prosperity for its global mission. They pastored me but they also blasted me with prophetic truth.

The church now must do the full work of “shepherding” — both feeding and nurturing the flock pastorally, and warning and guiding prophetically.

This is no time to give in to our weariness with engagement with the culture — including the political sphere.

This article was originally posted on ChristianPost.com 

For some time now I’ve been saying that gay activists will overplay their hand and that the bullying will backfire. I’ve also said that we can outlast the gay revolution and ultimately, by God’s grace, turn the moral tide in America.

Of course, to speak like that is to invite all kinds of scorn and ridicule, not to mention the ugliest death wishes you could imagine. How dare we not roll over and die!

But events from the last 10 days remind us that, even though the cultural battles promise to be long and difficult, many Americans are ready to push back.

To begin with, the significance of the election results from last Tuesday can hardly be overstated.

In Kentucky, while the liberal media mocked Kim Davis the people of her state stood with her, electing Matt Bevin as governor in a crushing and unexpected victory over Attorney General Jack Conway.

And make no mistake about it: This was a direct statement about religious freedoms and redefining marriage.

After all, it was Conway who rose to national fame last year when he refused to defend the state’s ban on same-sex ‘marriage,’ despite his oath of office, explaining to Time magazine that, “Once I reached the conclusion that the law was discriminatory, I could no longer defend it.”

I guess the people of Kentucky didn’t get the memo that the ship has sailed and the culture wars are over.

Then, in Houston, lesbian activist mayor Annise Parker suffered a stinging defeat when her “anti-discrimination” bill, which focused on LGBT “rights,” was crushed by the voters.

In the aftermath of the massive defeat – 62 to 38 percent – Parker was reduced to insulting those who voted against the bill, calling them “transphobes” and more.

So, the people of Houston, America’s fourth largest city, are a bunch of transphobes.

Or, perhaps the triumph of LGBT activism is not so inevitable and there are real issues that having nothing to do with “homophobia” and “transphobia”? And perhaps there’s something to the fact that some strongly conservative Republican presidential candidates are polling better than Hillary Clinton?

Perhaps this really is time for pushback?

And what should we make of the fact that the NFL has decided to bring the Super Bowl to Houston in 2017 despite the defeat of Parker’s bill, even though proponents of the bill had warned that Houston would lose the Super Bowl if the bill was defeated? Perhaps even the NFL, well-known for preaching LGBT “inclusion,” sees the bigger picture?

In the aftermath of the Houston defeat, there were also small signs of a breach between gay activism and transgender activism, as indicated by a petition launched on Change.org by “a group of gay/bisexual men and women who have come to the conclusion that the transgender community needs to be disassociated from the larger LGB community; in essence, we ask that organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, Lambda Legal and media outlets such as The Advocate, Out, Huff Post Gay Voices, etc., stop representing the transgender community as we feel their ideology is not only completely different from that promoted by the LGB community (LGB is about sexual orientation, trans is about gender identity), but is ultimately regressive and actually hostile to the goals of women and gay men.”

The petition was named “Drop the T,” and it’s a reminder of the fact that transgender activists have often felt left out by mainstream gay activism, as reflected in headlines like “Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC” (2007) and “Even After All These Years, HRC Still Doesn’t Get It” (2013).

This too is noteworthy, reminding us that there are cracks in the foundations of LGBT unity that could become wider in the coming years.

There’s one more story from Houston which is of interest, providing yet another example of LGBT overreach, this time in a case involving two Christians who were fired from the daycare center at which they worked when they refused to call a little girl a boy.

The girl in question, just 6-years-old, is being raised by two gay male parents, and we can only wonder if that has something to do with the child’s gender confusion.

As explained to Breitbart Texas by one of the fired workers, Madeline Kirksey, “the problem was not so much with the transgender issue as it was with telling young children that the little girl was a boy when she was not, and with calling her ‘John’ (not the name given) when that was not her name.”

Kirskey also noted that, “sometimes the little girl refers to herself as a little boy, and sometimes she tells the other children to not call her a boy or to refer to her by her masculine name.”

This child is clearly confused and needs professional help.

Instead, rather than getting help for the child, two Christians have lost their jobs, and I cite this example to say again that Americans will only put up with madness like this for so long, just as the selection of Bruce Jenner as Glamour’s woman of the year drew sharp criticism from a wide spectrum of women, including one well-known feminist.

The pushback continues, and the more that LGBT activists overplay their hand, the quicker the tide will turn against them. It’s only a matter of time.

And so, while as followers of Jesus we should seek to be peacemakers in our communities, loving our neighbors (including our LGBT neighbors) as ourselves, we should also stand tall against aggressive LGBT activism.

This too is part of our calling to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

This article was originally posted at TownHall.com

Faith Driven Consumer, representing 41 million Christian consumers who spend two trillion dollars annually, has earned wide recognition for rating the faith compatibility of consumer and entertainment brands, as well as serving as a voice for its community. Yesterday, the group announced the first annual Faith Equality Index (FEI)-the only industry benchmark to measure compatibility with Faith Driven Consumers-as well as a rating of the top 7 brands.

Today, the group reveals the 10 brands with the lowest ratings.

“The brands listed today fall far short of earning the business of Faith Driven Consumers, but also have a significant opportunity to get into the game and improve their positions relative to marketplace competitors,” said Chris Stone, Certified Brand Strategist and founder of Faith Driven Consumer. “With two trillion dollars to spend, the newest color of the diversity rainbow is a huge untapped and underserved market-70% of whom are actively looking for a brand home.”

FaithEqualityIndex.com offers a transparent tool to discover the degree to which each brand values Faith Driven Consumers, contrasted against scores the same brands have received from the groups they value most. Each brand rating contains the FEI score alongside:

• The Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), rating LGBT equality
• The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility’s Corporate Inclusion Index (CII), rating Hispanic inclusion
• Black Enterprise’s Best 40 list for African-American diversity
• Diversity Inc.’s Top 50 ranking for diversity

The Faith Equality Index annually rates, on a 100-point scale, how well brands acknowledge Faith Driven Consumers (FDCs) by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating them. The FEI is the benchmark tool FDCs use to make consumer choices-through the lens of their biblical worldview.

According to American Insights, 93% of Faith Driven Consumers see value in a resource that allows them to easily identify the faith compatibility of brands, 86% are more likely to do business with a brand that welcomes them and acknowledges their values, 77% would switch to a more compatible brand, and 70% are actively seeking brands. The FEI establishes the standard by which Corporate America demonstrates its commitment to equality, specifically inclusion of the Faith Driven Consumer market segment.

The 10 Lowest-Rated Companies

• Bank of America 11
• Unilever 11
• DirecTV 14
• Expedia 15
• Nationwide 16
• Pfizer 16
• Microsoft 17
• AT&T 17
• Apple 19
• T-Mobile 19

View the Faith Equality Index here: www.faithequalityindex.com.

Article originally posted on WND.com

In 2012, the fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A came under intense criticism from homosexual groups and their supporters after CEO Dan Cathy said he was “guilty as charged” for supporting traditional marriage.

Christians overwhelmingly gave their support, filling restaurants with new customers who turned out, not only for the food, but to make a statement.

That may all be about to change.

Chick-fil-A is now listed as a sponsor for Level Ground, a “faith-based LGBT film festival,” reports Christian News Network — a discovery that has sparked an online petition demanding the company clarify its “corporate stance regarding previously stated Christian values on marriage and stewardship.”

According to Level Ground’s website, the group “creates safe space for dialogue about faith, gender, and sexuality through the arts.” The group’s film festival started as a student-run event in 2013. It has since expanded and hosted programming in six cities across the U.S., billing itself as “the world’s first film festival connecting lesbian, gay and transgender sexuality with faith and evangelical Christianity.”

Baptist Press reported participants in Level Ground’s most recent film festival, held Oct. 8-10 in Nashville, Tennessee, included former contemporary Christian artist Jennifer Knapp, who came out as a lesbian in 2005, and Karen Swallow Prior, a Liberty University English professor and research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Gracepointe Church, an evangelical church in Franklin, Tennessee, that came out in January in support of same-sex marriage was also a sponsor.

Prior tweeted her appreciation to Chick-fil-A for its support in Nashville.

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/10/pryor_tweet.jpg

“Outlasting the Gay Revolution” spells out eight principles to help Americans with conservative moral values counter attacks on our freedoms of religion, speech and conscience by homosexual activists

This is not the first indication of a possible Chick-fil-A about-face. In June, a local restaurant donated 200 sandwiches and side dishes to the Iowa City Pride Fest’s picnic. The restaurant’s owner, Adam Donius, agreed to this arrangement, according to local reports, after being approached by event organizers.

“We offered him different ways he could contribute and be a part of our bridge, help us build community,” Iowa City Pride chairwoman Jewell Amos said. “He said he totally believes in building community. So he was like, ‘sure.’”

Likewise, Chick-fil-A franchisees in Southern California are participating in fundraisers for Level Ground.

Chick-fil-A has been under pressure since 2012 when CEO Dan Cathy gave an interview to Baptist Press, saying, “We are very much supporting of the family — the Biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Later in a radio broadcast, Cathy expressed his concern about the growing call to legalize same-sex marriage.

“As it relates to society in general, I think we’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’” he said. “And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about.”

Christian News Network reached out to Chick-fil-A for comment and explanation from the corporation regarding the reported sponsorship of Level Ground, but received no response. Following the controversies of 2012, the company had announced its “intent … to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

“For many months now, Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving has been mischaracterized,” the fast-food chain wrote in a separate news release. “Our intent is not to support political or social agendas.”

But now, some Christians see the Chick-fil-A brand re-entering the debate supporting an agenda to distort and infiltrate their faith.

How did America get from “Mayberry” to “gay marriage?” Here’s the explanation, in “A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.”

Geoffrey Grider, Christian blogger at NowTheEndBegins, criticized the Chick-fil-A association with Level Ground, saying the group has “one agenda, the promotion of the ‘Love Gospel,’ … a perverted brand of “christianity” that only focuses on the love of God, and leaves out everything having to do with sin and judgment. The Love Gospel states that because the Bible says that ‘God is love,’ then everything and everyone must be accepted. You have to accept same-sex marriage, transgender, cross-dressing, whatever …”

Grider continued: “Shame on you, Dan Cathy. Christian Americans stood by you and Chick-Fil-A every step of the way back in 2012 when you were persecuted for taking a stand for Jesus Christ. But we will not stand with you on this. No sir. One of my favorite places to get lunch is at one of your restaurants, but that can and will change. Your move.”

Article was originally posted here

By 2nd Vote

Again, the City of Houston is at the center of the liberal assault on religious liberty and traditional values.

Today, Houstonians head to the ballot box to vote on Proposition 1, also known as the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).

The latest article from The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness highlighted the high stakes of today’s decision using 2nd Vote’s research:

[R]esidents aren’t the only ones having a say in the debate. According to groups supporting the measure, a number of big businesses have gotten behind the ballot initiative, urging voters to say “yes.” Seven of the biggest include:

1.     Apple
2.     BASF
3.     Dell
4.     Dow Co.
5.     General Electric
6.     Hewlett Packard
7.     United Airlines

HERO has been controversial since it was first implemented in 2014 and Houston area pastors leading the effort to recall the measure had their sermons subpoenaed by city attorneys. 2nd Vote stood with the Family Research Council and the Houston pastors just one year ago this week in support of religious liberty.

More on the HERO measure from The Heritage Foundation

Ryan T. Anderson, Senior Research Fellow:

Once again big business wants its freedom to operate according to its values, but wants to deny that freedom to others… In Houston they are advocating for the kind of policy that has elsewhere penalized family businesses of bakers, florists and photographers, as well as faith-based adoption agencies. This is cultural cronyism at its worst.

United Airlines Funds Advocacy for HERO

2nd Vote’s research team found political advertising paid for by the Business Coalition for Prop 1 in the weeks leading up to today’s vote. A newspaper ad signed by executives from JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealthCare, Citi, HSBC Bank and others in support of the HERO measure ran in the Houston Chronicle.

The latest election finance reports shows a direct contribution of $10,000 made by United Airlines to this organization.

Does United Airlines align with your values? Tell their leadership why companies shouldn’t undermine religious liberties here or through the United Airlines Twitter page.

Thousands of parents in District 211, the largest high school district in Illinois, should be outraged. And anyone who rightly fears the ravenous appetite of the slavering dumb beast we call the federal government should be equally outraged. The beast’s minions in the laughingly called Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is a gangrenous section of the cancerous federal Department of Education, has concluded its 2-year investigation of District 211’s actions with regard to a male student who wishes he were a girl. Through its minion the OCR, the Fed-Beast (FEAST), lusting after the bodies and brains of children, has concluded that District 211 has violated federal law.

The very troubled boy—and he is a boy—at the center of this phantasmagorical tale wishes to remain anonymous, so hereafter he will be referred to as “Lola.” Lola has been seeking unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room—yes, you heard that right. Lola—an actual, factual boy, complete, one presumes, with the requisite anatomical parts—wants unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room, which would, of course, include the shower.

Plot summary

What District 211 has already agreed to:

In acts of contortionist-worthy back-bending and misguided charity, the district has agreed to have all school records identify gender-dysphoric students by their new names, identify them as the sex they are not, and refer to them by opposite-sex pronouns (which is to say that the district is lying on school records). In addition, gender-rejecting students are allowed to use opposite-sex bathrooms and are allowed to play on opposite-sex sports teams.

But that’s not all, folks, oh no, that’s not all. According to the Chicago Tribune, the district has also “installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower.” This means a boy may, if he wishes, walk through the locker room to the shower area, where presumably girls are showering, to use these private changing areas.

But, even that leaves the beast, its minions, and its allies slavering for more.

What beast-ally John Knight demands:

John Knight, Lola’s ACLU-attorney and FEAST’s ally, vehemently opposes the district’s excessive accommodation of Lola, bleating that requiring Lola to use private dressing areas is unacceptable:

It’s not voluntary, it’s mandatory for her [sic]….It’s one thing to say to all the girls, ‘You can choose if you want some extra privacy,’ but it’s another thing to say, ‘You, and you alone, must use them.’ That sends a pretty strong signal to her [sic] that she’s [sic] not accepted and the district does not see her [sic] as girl.

Word to Knight, neither the “the district” nor any student has a moral obligation to “see her [sic] as a girl,” because he isn’t a girl.

What the beast-minion OCR has decided:

Student A has not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District’s educational program, but has also experienced an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school….All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities—this is a basic civil right….Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room.

So, now it’s a civil right for boys to use girls’ restrooms, changing areas, and showers.

By “law” the OCR is referring to Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on “sex,” which the unelected minions in the OCR have unilaterally decided includes “gender identity” and “gender expression.” When the law was written, “sex” meant objective biological sex, and the law has not changed. The school policy changes that the beast-minion OCR is demanding would require that if gender-rejecting humans with male DNA and penises want to change clothes and shower with girls, they must be allowed to do so—and girls must comply or change in private areas. Not wanting to shower with boys is now seen as an act of bigotry and hatred.

What bothers Lola:

According to the Chicago Tribune, “the student, who plays for the school on a girls’ sports team, said she [sic] broke down in tears after her [sic] coaches reprimanded her [sic] for using the locker room to change. The coach told her [sic] some students felt uncomfortable dressing in front of her [sic].”

Think about what that means. It means Lola—a boy—is offended that girls don’t want to change clothes in front of him. Lola is essentially demanding that everyone accept his delusion that he is in reality a girl.

What Superintendent Daniel Cates rightly and courageously said about this arrogant and preposterous decision:

“The policy that OCR seeks to impose on District 211  is a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications….The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one’s gender is not the same as one’s anatomy….Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms—where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities—for a reason.”

Conclusion

It’s not tax rates or immigration policy or ISIS that most gravely injures and weakens America. It’s the bloodthirsty devouring of the hearts, minds, and bodies of our children; the dismantling of marriage and family; and the erosion of the First Amendment. Deception and depravity are consuming our children, often by nibbles that barely register and at other times by huge chunks. The father of lies conceals his deceit under a cloak of compassion. Christians should not be so easily deceived or so easily cowed.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
“it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
~Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll~

Boldly standing for the truth.  Is truth a priority for you?

By Bill Bumpas

A pro-family organization says it was surprised to learn that “American Girl Magazine” has decided to step into the culture war in favor of homosexuality.

“American Girl,” owned by toy manufacturer Mattel, featured a picture of a family with two dads in an article about adoption.

One Million Moms, a ministry of the American Family Association, says it supports adoption but “glorifying sin” is not how to bring attention to it.

By praising the homosexuals’ adoption, says OMM director Monica Cole, Mattel has decided it will force a conversation between parents and children, even though that’s a topic that “parents may not feel that their child is ready to have yet.”

The website for “American Girl” states that the bi-monthly magazine reaches more than 400,000 girls. The magazine is targeted at girls ages eight and up.

On its website, OMM features a photo of the magazine story on its website, describing how “Daddy” and “Dada” adopted children from foster care.

The picture was published in the magazine’s November/December issue, which could end up affecting Mattel’s bottom line.

“I believe the retailer is shooting themselves in the foot,” says Cole, “because conservative and traditional families will not be able to purchase their products in good conscience this Christmas season.”

One Million Moms is asking its members and others who are concerned to contact “American Girl” and Mattel, and urge the company to remain neutral in the culture war. Contact information is on the OMM website.

This article was originally posted here

Jonah Goldberg

It’s been a good month for champions of the traditional family, but don’t expect the family wars to be ending any time soon.

In recent weeks, a barrage of new evidence has come to light demonstrating what was once common sense. “Family structure matters” (in the words of my American Enterprise Institute colleague Brad Wilcox, who is also the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia).

And Princeton University and the left-of-center Brookings Institution released a study that reported “most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes.” Why this is so is still hotly contested.

Another study, coauthored by Wilcox, found that states with more married parents do better on a broad range of economic indicators, including upward mobility for poor children and lower rates of child poverty. On most economic indicators, the Washington Post summarized, “the share of parents who are married in a state is a better predictor of that state’s economic health than the racial composition and educational attainment of the state’s residents.”

Boys in particular do much better when raised in a more traditional family environment, according to a new report from MIT. This is further corroboration of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous 1965 warning: “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos.”

Perhaps most intriguing — and dismaying — a new study by Nicholas Zill of the Institute of Family Studies found that adopted children have a harder time at school than kids raised by their biological parents. What makes this so dismaying is that adoptive parents tend to be better off financially and are just as willing as traditional parents, if not more so, to put in the time and effort of raising kids.

Zill’s finding highlights the problem with traditional family triumphalism. Adoption is a wonderful thing, and just because there are challenges that come with adoption, no one would ever argue that the problems adopted kids face make the alternatives to adoption better. Kids left in orphanages or trapped in abusive homes do even worse.

In other words, every sweeping statement that the traditional family is best must come with a slew of caveats, chief among them: “Compared to what?” A little girl in a Chinese or Russian orphanage is undoubtedly better off with two loving gay or lesbian parents in America. A kid raised by two biological parents who are in a nasty and loveless marriage will likely benefit from her parents getting divorced.

“In general,” writes St. Lawrence University professor Steven Horwitz, “comparisons of different types of family structures must avoid the ‘Nirvana Fallacy’ by not comparing an idealized vision of married parenthood with a more realistic perspective on single parenthood. The choices facing couples in the real world are always about comparing imperfect alternatives.”

Of course, that point can be made about almost every human endeavor, because we live in a flawed world. And just because we don’t — and can’t — live in perfect consistency with our ideals, that is not an argument against the ideals themselves.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that family structure is so controversial. The family, far more than government or schools, is the institution we draw the most meaning from. From the day we are born, it gives us our identity, our language and our expectations about how the world should work. Before we become individuals or citizens or voters, we are first and foremost part of a family. That is why social engineers throughout the ages see it as a competitor to, or problem for, the state.

And the family wars will never end, because family matters — a lot.

This article was originally posted at the Los Angles Times.

By Rachel Sheffield

Is there a connection between strong families and a thriving economy? A new study, “Strong Families, Prosperous States,” takes a step toward answering the question.

“Despite the clear economic gains associated with strong families at the individual level, economists across the ideological spectrum have failed to investigate whether strong families increase economic growth,” co-authors Brad Wilcox, Joseph Price, and Robert Lerman write in the report from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies.

Some of the main findings:

• States with the highest share of married-parent families are better off than states with the lowest share of such families. They have $1,451 more in per capita GDP, 10.5 percent more upward mobility for low-income children, a 13.2-percent decrease in child poverty, and $3,654 more in median family income. (The researchers controlled for factors such as education, a state’s racial composition, tax policies, and education spending.)

• The proportion of married parents in a state is a top indicator for economic outcomes. The share of married parents, the researchers note, “is generally a stronger predictor of economic mobility, child poverty, and median family income … than are the educational, racial, and age compositions of the states.”

• Violent crime is far lower in states with a greater share of married-parent families. On average, the rate of violent crime is 343 crimes per 100,000 population in states with the highest quintile of married-parent families, compared to an average rate of 563 crimes per 100,000 in states with the lowest quintile of married-parent families.

But why do strong families contribute to a thriving economy?

“Studies reveal that married men work about 400 hours more and make about $16,000 more per year than their otherwise similar single peers, and they are less likely to quit a job without lining up a new one,” the authors write.

The report includes this chart on marital status and income:

***

Although motherhood is linked with a decrease in work and income for women, the gains for married men in these areas tend to offset those decreases.

Marriage provides many other economic benefits, the report says, including income pooling and economies of scale. Married couples also accumulate more wealth than those in other household types, have more assets, and enjoy higher levels of income—and are thus less likely to be poor.

Also, the study says, children from married-parent households are more likely to receive human capital to help them thrive in the world. They have access to greater levels of income and parental attention and are less likely to be abused or neglected.

Finally, strong families reduce the likelihood that youth will participate in delinquent behavior, thus contributing to a lower crime rate.

Wilcox and his colleagues explain that children raised in intact families, particularly boys, are less likely to act out aggressively and that young men from single-mother families are roughly two times as likely to spend time in jail. They note that youth from single-parent homes also are more likely to be victims of crime.

Communities with higher numbers of single-parent homes have greater levels of crime than those with larger numbers of two-parent families. Crime hurts economic prosperity, the authors note, and so stronger families contribute to protecting communities from that economic drag.

A related chart:

***

Tragically, family breakdown is common in the United States. The rate of unwed childbearing is high, at over 40 percent nationwide.

Divorce rates are at historically high levels, although divorces have leveled off somewhat since the 1980s. Fewer than half of America’s children will be raised by married biological parents for their entire childhood.

These trends will be difficult to change overnight, and there is plenty of work to be done. The authors provide a few recommendations:

• Reduce marriage penalties in means-tested welfare programs.
• Reform divorce laws to help couples avoid breakup when it isn’t necessary.
• Strengthen marriage and encourage a reduction in unwed childbearing with a public service ad campaign focused on “the success sequence”: education, work, marriage, and parenthood, in that order.
• Identify ways to expand career opportunities for lower-income men and women with apprenticeship programs and other innovations.

The well-being of the family and the economy go hand in hand. America can thrive only if its most vital institution, the family, is strong.

***

Read more about the link between family and the economy in The Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity.

This article was originally posted here

By Tim Wildmon

Indexes, ratings, and even awards pepper the culture when it comes to those who are open and welcoming to certain groups, populations, or facets of society. But now, American Family Association wants to make sure that the nation is informed about companies that honor religious liberty — and those that don’t. 

In a culture where religious freedoms are swept under the rug, not protected, and ignored, American Family Association is taking a necessary step to find and identify those companies that know the importance of protecting religious liberties. We also think it’s important for Americans to know which companies don’t care about protecting such freedoms. 

The new campaign, called the Corporate Religious Liberty Index (CRLI), is a short, simple questionnaire that seeks to gauge the importance of religious liberty for the nation’s major companies. The index is in direct response to the growing threats against religious liberty in the U.S.

The survey includes seven questions that deal with corporate policies and practices. As companies take the survey, the answers will be scored, compiled, and assigned an “index number” that will indicate whether or not companies are favorable, indifferent, or antagonistic to religious liberty. The index number will fall on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 indicating full support for religious freedom.

We know that this unique survey and research will inform faithful Americans of which companies support their values and which choose to ignore them. And Americans can decide what actions they will take once they learn these facts.

Several companies have already answered the questionnaire, and AFA will release the results in the coming weeks and months. A yearly report will also be generated and released each September.

AFA expects the report to garner widespread media attention, as well as consumer interest, especially as it highlights those companies that are champions of religious freedom and those that are hostile to it.

For more on the Corporate Religious Liberty Index, visit the AFA Journal.

 Tim Wildmon

President American Family Association

Originally posted here