Christian Heritage News

 By Ryan Denison - Posted at Denison Forum: As Andy Stanley’s church and public profile have grown, the pastor has become an increasingly controversial figure in Christian life. His attempts to make the gospel attractive to the lost appear to come from a genuine desire to help people know the Lord, but too often he crosses boundaries that end up drawing people to a god that stands in contrast to the God of Scripture. As such, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that he and his church are in the news once again in the buildup to the Unconditional Conference that they will host next week. The Unconditional Conference is an event “for parents of LGBTQ+ children and for ministry leaders looking to discover ways to support parents and LGBTQ+ children in their churches.” They promise that those who attend “will be equipped, refreshed, and inspired as you hear from leading communicators on topics that speak to your heart, soul, and mind,” adding that “no matter what theological stance

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: Published August 2, 2023 The Religion News Service (RNS) reports , “Whitworth University, a Christian school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has revised its policies to allow for the hiring of faculty who identify as LGBTQ and to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination statement.” The report adds that Whitworth is among a “sliver” of Christian colleges who have made the decision to hire “faculty in same-sex marriages.” Included in this list are Eastern University (American Baptist Churches USA) and, according to Vincent Funaro, writing for the Christian Post , “Goshen College in Indiana and Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia announced on Monday that they will now hire faculty who are in same-sex marriages.” Both schools are tied to the Mennonite Church USA. These moves have caused tensions with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. In 2017, all seven members of the faculty senate at Gord

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at Culture Watch: Published August 2, 2023 "We need to persevere. The other side never gives up as they seek to overturn Western and Christian civilisation and remake it into to their own image. So we too need to get involved and stay involved and keep on fighting. And the arenas of engagement are many, be they in politics or the media or in education or the arts or in law or in writing articles and books or doing podcasts." ‘There’s some good in this world and it is worth fighting for’ While much of the West is caving in and going down the tubes in terms of the three big ticket items that I mention in my title, not everyone is so easily capitulating and selling out to the activists – including the rainbow radicals. Africa is a clear case in point. In numerous African nations the advancing homosexual juggernaut has been resisted and in some cases fully thwarted. In my eyes that is real good news, and it should encourage us in the West to keep sta

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “. . . God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” -Romans 1:28 A recent survey of students at Brown University found that 38% of them identify as LGBTQ+. That is more than double the number of students who identified in like manner in 2010.[1] I preached with my friends Geoff Kirkland and Tom Raborn at my first Gay Pride event in St. Louis in 2018. What immediately struck me was how many of the vast hordes attending the event were in their twenties or younger. And the phenomenon of “transgenderism” is now “hip and cool” with teens and twenty somethings. You no doubt know kids who grew up in your church, who gave strong evidence of true saving faith, but who now announce on FaceBook and Instagram that they are proudly homosexual. Some of them may say they still believe in Jesus and that they are very happy to still follow Him. I was recently listening to a lecture by the great Welsh preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones on “The Permissive Socie

Image Source: Baptist Press By Scott Barkley - Posted at Baptist Press: TUCKER, Ga. (BP) – The passage of a nondiscrimination ordinance (NDO) in this city outside of Atlanta should be a warning for churches and all concerned about religious liberty, says a Southern Baptist pastor active in opposing the measure. The new city ordinance takes effect July 12 and received support from many pro-LGBTQ+ groups such as Georgia Equality. It prohibits “unlawful discrimination” based on several factors including “actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation [and] gender identity,” among others. Mayor Frank Auman, who has questioned the need for the ordinance since it began to form a year ago out of an ad hoc group, was the lone dissenter in the 6-1 vote to pass. In discussions over recent months, ordinance authors assured Rehoboth Baptist Church Senior Pastor Troy Bush that religious liberty exemptions were adequate. He remains far from convinced. “This ordinance does not represent a just and fair

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits: “Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him.” -Isaiah 1:4. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, ten New York City policemen raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a place frequented by homosexuals. Most states at the time, including New York, had sodomy laws outlawing homosexual behavior. Since homosexuality was unlawful, the police were there to disperse the people from the bar. Things got out of hand and people resisted arrest. More and more homosexuals and others from Greenwich Village and surrounding parts of the city gathered the next several nights to protest so called discrimination against homosexuals. Thus was born the current homosexual rights movement. On June 28, 1970, one year after the Stonewall riots, gay pride marches were held in Los Ange

 By Jesse Johnson - Posted at The Cripplegate: I recently came across TIME Magazine from the week I was born—January 7, 1976. The issue was devoted to the “Women of the Year,” and on the cover was the Rev. Alison Cheek. She broke the so-called glass ceiling by becoming the first female Episcopal priest to lead/perform the Eucharist. Cheek was part of the “The Philadelphia 11,” a group of female priests all ordained in Pennsylvania, long before that was acceptable in the Anglican church. It was immediately met with howls of protests. This was coming after the fall of Saigon, and after the zenith of the hippie movement. The “mainline denominations” were at a tipping point, one that is much more recognizable in the hindsight than I’m sure it was at the time. Many people protested such a brazen show of rebellion by the Philadelphia Episcopal church—compounded all the more because the Anglican Church had rejected calls to ordain women. While some Anglicans may have protested the Philadelph

 By Robb Brunansky - Posted at The Cripplegate: I love the month of June. It features the longest day of the year. It is hot but not the deathly hot of July and August, which means you can still enjoy some mornings and evenings outside and swimming is still refreshing. Baseball season is in full swing. Father’s Day lands on the third Sunday of the month. And my beautiful bride was born in the month of June. Yet for all the highlights of the sixth month of the year, in the United States it brings a more sinister side. Our nation celebrates June as “Pride month.” Desecrated rainbows fill store displays and social media feeds. Sexual deviancy and perversion is celebrated as a virtue. Baseball teams host “Pride nights” at their stadiums. Government buildings are lit up with the colors of the rainbow. The US Navy joins in, changing their entire Twitter avatar and bio to boast in wickedness. As Christians we might easily look at June as a month where the darkness has overtaken the light, whe

Image Source:  Why Target Can’t See Straight | The Cripplegate  By Clint Archer - Posted at The Cripplegate: I am usually not surprised when sinners sin. Nor am I caught off guard when mud is muddy or when dogs bark. When you have not been “delivered from the domain of darkness and been transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son” ( Col 1:13 ) then you will continue to “walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” ( Eph 2:2 ). I mean, why wouldn’t you? The Bible says that you will choose according to your nature until you are given a new nature. So, when US retail giant, Target, ramped up its support of the LGBTQ+ community by adding to its longstanding Gay Pride clothing line “tuck friendly” children’s bathing suits for boys who want help hiding their boy parts to become trans girls, and books marked as appropriate for children ages 2-8 titled “Bye Bye Binary” and “I’m not a G

By Linda Harvey - Posted at Mission America: Your child attending public school in the U.S. now has a 1 in 4 chance of declaring an “LGBTQ” identity before the end of high school. Do you see a problem with this? Perhaps you, like many Americans, accept the notion that some people are born homosexual. Or born in the wrong sex body. And that these identities/behaviors carry no inherent risks. How about bisexual...is that inborn also? And gender queer or non-binary... are those also genetically determined? If even a small part of you resists this notion, and doubts the conclusion that 25% of our population is not heterosexual or biologically male or female, then I ask you to read on and help me consider what we can do to change this deception. First, let’s look at the background and research. The latest report from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control presents a disastrous picture. It’s a survey of over 17,000 9th to 12th graders conducted every two

Molly Kearney - Image Source: Today.com By Grant Van Leuven - Posted at Reformation 21: Published April 28, 2023 On the April 15 airing of SNL’s “Weekend Update,” the show’s first openly nonbinary cast member, Ms. Molly Kearney, though still using her singular female name yet celebrated being referred to by obliging backstage staff with the neuter pronouns “they” and “them” (reflecting “their” references to her elsewhere). [1] In so doing she not only defies her God-given and biologically determined female identity but also denies the obvious reality that she is not plural—exposing the arbitrarily ludicrous LGBTQ+ agenda being pushed to new schizophrenic heights. While there is no mistaking Kearney’s unoriginal attempts at being the female version of Chris Farley in the segment, there also is no missing her intention to exit with the air of angelic authority being lifted up with ropes as she declared, If you don’t care about trans-kids’ lives, it means you don’t care about … kids’ li

 Posted at The Christian Institute: Universities with a religious ethos cannot be forced to act against their beliefs by affirming LGBT ideology, a US district court has ruled. In 2021, 40 LGBT activist students sued the United States Department of Education for allowing universities to be exempt from anti-discrimination law on “sexual orientation or gender identity” where it would force them to act against their religious beliefs. The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon has now dismissed the case, highlighting a previous Supreme Court ruling upholding the right of institutions to only employ staff who adhere to their religious beliefs. Continue here...

 By Kevin DeYoung - Posted at WORLD : I don’t often agree with David Gushee, the liberal Christian ethicist whose “battles,” by his own description , have included “issues like climate change, torture, LGBTQ inclusion, and white supremacism.” But he spoke the uncomfortable truth when he observed years ago that when it comes to LGBTQ issues, there is no middle ground: “Neutrality is not an option. Neither is polite half-acceptance. Nor is avoiding the subject. Hide as you might, the issue will come and find you.” I thought of those words, written way back in 2016, in recent weeks as I read of Michael Gerson’s tacit approval of gay marriage and of Dr. Bradley Nassif’s claims that he was expunged from North Park University because he upholds traditional views of sex, sexuality, and marriage. These aren’t the first cases of a self-described evangelical or evangelical institution moving into the revisionist camp, nor will it be the last. I hope I’m wrong, but I have my mental list of wri

 Posted at Truth Over Tribe: My name is Rosaria Butterfield, and I choose the truth of Biblical Christianity over the tribalism of Side B/Revoice theology. What Is Truth? The Bible is Truth, both in word and in substance. When one passage of scripture may seem unclear to us, we interpret it in light of the clarity of God’s unified Biblical witness.[1] There are no problem passages in scripture. In His image, God created human beings ontologically as men or women. Our sexual difference is part of our origin and eternity. We bear the image of God in purposeful pattern. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them’. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” Genesis 1:26-28 This magisterial passage, known as the Creation Ordinance, reveals that God established men and women for the normative and

 By Dr. Jim Denison - Posted at Denison Forum/ The Daily Article : The Emmy Awards were held last night. Among the honorees: Zendaya won best lead actress in a drama series for HBO’s Euphoria , which is so sexualized and graphic that even Common Sense Media’s review is forced to use descriptions I will not repeat here. The same goes for their review of HBO’s The White Lotus , which won for outstanding limited series. I could go on. When a political leader claims that drag queens are “what America is all about,” transgender characters are increasingly featured in video games and on television, and a Texas teacher tells students to refer to pedophiles as “minor-attracted persons,” it is clear that our moral compass is not just broken but nonexistent. Australia’s Margaret Court, winner of twenty-four Grand Slam singles titles, made news during the recent US Open when she disclosed that she has become a persona non grata in the tennis world because of her Christian beliefs. She oppo

 By Rev. Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio: Our topic: transgendered. Transgendered, what does the Bible say and we have multiple texts and I'll get to those in a minute. Very popular movement in our day. Currently in the United States, the United Stated federal government, many large corporations, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, as well as the mainstream media has been advocating a new philosophy regarding sexuality called the transgendered movement or the transgendered rights movement. The basic idea is that what one really is regarding one's gender or sex is not determined by one's physical gender or sex at birth. For example, one is born either a male or a female, male chromosomes, hormones, biology, sex organs, etc., or female, female genetics, hormones, physiology, sex organs, etc. But rather one's true sex or gender is something that one thinks or determines autonomously in his or her own mind. You could be some masculine man but if you think you&#

 By Dan Hart - Posted at The Washington Stand: On August 10, the Center Square reported that 96% of school districts (534 out of 554) in Illinois have opted out of the state’s proposed standards for sex education in public schools included in a bill authored, passed, and signed into law by Democrats, despite the fact that Illinois is considered one of the “big three” most liberal states in the nation . In May 2021, Illinois Democratic lawmakers passed a bill that aligned the state standards with the “ National Sex Education Standards ” (NSES). The NSES were authored in part by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), which brands itself as “Sed Ed for Social Change” and “commits to working to dismantle the systems of power and oppression which perpetuate disparate sexual and reproductive health outcomes…” The NSES’s contributors and reviewers include individuals from far-left special interest groups like Planned Parenthood (the nation’s number one abortio

 By Samuel Sey - Posted at Slow to Write: Some of your supposedly Christian friends have recently said they are members of the LGBTQ community. That’s becoming increasingly common. However, an even bigger number of your supposedly Christian friends have become LGBTQ allies. You already know that. But do you know why? There are, of course, several reasons why many professing Christians are embracing LGBTQ ideology. Satan has devised many schemes to lead us into apostasy. With that in mind, although all people who support LGBTQ ideology do so for the same reason: sin—people can commit the same sin from different temptations. As I’ve alluded to, one of the reasons why many professing Christians have become allies with LGBTQ people is because many of their friends and family have become members of the LGBTQ community. Studies show that this is statistically the biggest reason why people become LGBTQ affirming. For instance, a 2013 study from Pew Research Center shows that 32% of Americans

 By John Horvat - Posted at The Imaginative Conservative : The innocent child instinctively and implicitly knows what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Like the innocent child denouncing the emperor’s “new clothes,” he recognizes the drag queen as ugly and sinister as a wicked witch in a fairy tale. The child does not bend to the politically- correct opinions and says what he thinks. Suddenly, a new figure has appeared on the scene, invading public places, libraries and schools. His appearance is shocking and lewd. He is the drag queen who demands the right to read stories and have access to toddlers and children. There is no explanation why he must read his stories about sexual fluidity to little children. Nothing like this has ever been done. He does it because he can do it—a decadent society lets him do it. The media actively promotes these indoctrination sessions as manifestations of “tolerance” and diversity. Read more... HT: The Aquila Report

 By Kevin DeYoung - Posted at World : In case you haven’t heard, June 1 no longer marks the end of the school year or the unofficial beginning of summer. It’s the start of Pride Month. Initially conceived in 1970 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots , Pride Month has become a government-promoted, corporate-sponsored, 30-day celebration of LGBTQ acceptance and achievements. When rioters threw bricks and tried to burn down the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village with police officers barricaded inside, even the most optimistic gay liberation proponent could not have dreamed that an illegally operated, Mafia-owned gay bar would eventually join the Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon on the select list of protected national monuments. Pride Month is at once a brilliant marketing strategy and a striking reminder that the conscience is a terrible thing to waste. By linking gay liberation to “pride,” LGBTQ advocates—and it’s worth mentioning, that the f