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BY MICHAEL BROWN/ASKDRBROWN.ORG JULY 20, 2022

I was recently asked to debate whether "progressive Christianity" (henceforth PC) was "another religion" (meaning, a religion other than Christianity) based on critical statements I had previously made about this so-called "progressive" version of the faith.

The problem was that the professor who invited me to debate him defined PC differently than I did. In fact, he denied that my definition of PC was valid.

In short, I claimed that the "progressive Christians" (henceforth, PCs) I had interacted with affirmed the validity of same-sex "marriage," supported a woman's "right" to abortion, and denied that salvation was found exclusively through Jesus.

As for the professor, while not clarifying his views on same-sex "marriage" and abortion, he made clear that PCs did not deny that salvation came exclusively through Jesus.

Which one of us is right?

It depends on which PCs you talk to and how you define PC. Some are more orthodox than others. But those with whom I have interacted have been less orthodox in their beliefs, leading to my strong critiques.

In the end, I declined the debate -- as much as I love to debate -- because it was simply a matter of definitions. It would be like debating whether I am tall (I'm almost 6' 3"). Compared to most people, yes; compared to your average NBA player, no. The question, then, comes down to how one defines "tall."

How Do We Define "Progressive Christianity"? The View of Those Antagonistic to PC

In the same way here, the question came down to how we define PC. For clarity, then, allow me to reference some definitions of PC that support my understanding of the term.

It's easy, of course, to find negative, heterodox descriptions of PC on websites critical of PC.

Some examples would be the White Horse Inn, which notes that, "Progressive Christianity is a movement that is infiltrating and influencing the Evangelical church. Some of the most high-profile Christian leaders are a part of it. This movement seeks to re-interpret the Bible, re-assess historic doctrines, and re-define core tenets of the faith. While claiming the title 'Christian,' and boasting a high view of the Bible, it is sweeping up many unsuspecting Christians into a false view of who God is and how he saves people."

Similarly, the Got Questions website, while cautioning against painting with too broad a brush, states that "the views of many progressive Christians do not fit with biblical principles."

There are also some writers who speak of PC in very broad terms, like the Contemplative Life website, which lists some of the leading PCs as Marcus Borg and John Hick, liberal scholars who clearly fall outside the lines of the historic Christian faith.

How Do Progressive Christians Define Themselves? But what about from the mouths of PCs themselves?

What do they have to say?

According to the United Church of Christ in Beaverton, Oregon, PC began as a movement in 2006 "an alternative to the Christian faith portrayed in the public realm."

The statement continues:

The leaders of Progressive Christianity had grown weary of defining their Christian faith in negative terms: 'We aren't fundamentalists. We don't believe the Bible is the inerrant or infallible word of God. We don't agree that Creationism should replace the science of evolution in public schools. We don't believe that God hates gays. We don't believe that people of other faiths are going to hell unless they convert to Christianity. We don't deny the right of women to choose what happens to their bodies.'"

That being said, this same webpage makes clear that they do, in fact, affirm these negative statements. See, for example, their second statement of faith: "THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS OUR WAY OF BEING FAITHFUL TO GOD. BUT IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY."

In the same way, the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church webpage devoted to defining "The Eight Points of Progressive Christianity" offers this for number 2 on the list: "Affirm that the teachings of Jesus provide but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey."

Number 3 is: "Seek community that is inclusive of ALL people, including but not limited to: Conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, Believers and agnostics, Women and men, Those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, Those of all classes and abilities."

Similarly, when it comes to abortion, a 2019 article in The Atlantic explains why some progressive pastors support abortion rights.

And what does the Progressive Christianity website tell us? Listed on the PC board are leaders like Rev. Mark Sandlin, "an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA)." He is a vocal proponent of supporting LGBTQ rights, calling it "the Christian thing to do."

This website also links to the identical listing of "The Eight Points of Progressive Christianity" cited above.

It is based on lists like this and leaders like this that I have based my critiques.

Progressing Beyond the Word of God

In short, PC, as defined by some of its leaders, denies the absolute authority of Scripture (stating that it is not the infallible Word of God). It denies that salvation and redemption come only through the cross of Jesus. It affirms the validity of same-sex "marriage." And it affirms a women's "right" to choose abortion.

And so, it may call itself "Christian," it may espouse many excellent causes based on the ethical teachings of Jesus, and it may even reveal blind spots and failings among conservative Christians. But it is not, itself, "Christian." It has "progressed" beyond (and outside of) the Word of God.

For those who define PC differently, I respectfully request that you make your definitions plain, as in a formal doctrinal statement. That way, we can know where we differ and where we agree.

Originally published at AskDrBrown.org - reposted with permission.

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BY JONATHON VAN MAREN/BRIDGEHEAD.CA JULY 12, 2022

A couple of years back when the LGBT movement was gaining steam, conservatives on Twitter would often jokingly respond to stories of the latest cultural capitulation with the response: "See you in the gulag!" It was a reference to the sinister passion of our cultural elites to re-educate everyone into the new values of the sexual revolution while suppressing expressions of the old, Christian values that once animated the West.

The joke seemed less funny in 2018 when trans activists at the U.K.'s Goldsmiths University made the case that gulags were, actually, "benign places where inmates received education, training, and enjoyed the opportunity to take part in clubs, sports, and theatre groups." The more than one million people who died in these camps were not mentioned by the trans activists, because you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet, as another gulag fan once said.

We would do well to take this sort of enthusiasm seriously. Re-education camps--usually referred to as "training seminars" with soothing corporate-speak that cannot mask the compulsion behind it--are a tool that the LGBT movement is only too happy to use.

Just ask Phil Vagos, a Jefferson County Public School teacher in Colorado who, during a May 2021 email exchange with a student who identified as "transgender," noted that the huge spike in students identifying with different genders was a "trend" and observed that some young people come to regret their transition. Both of these facts are obviously true (and recently articulated by none other than the liberal TV host Bill Maher). The student, a biological girl identifying as male, took umbrage with these facts.

Further, the student asked to be addressed as "he/him" when "in absence of parental figures," according to The Daily Caller. The teacher used both the name and pronouns requested by the student, sent her some information on de-transitioners, and signed off amicably, writing:

And as much as I don't want to interfere in anything that isn't my business, given the P.S. of the email I thought it might be helpful for me to provide a link regarding the transitioning process that has become a recent trend among young people in the United States. I typically wouldn't do this, although you did mention that you are using an alternate name and gender outside of your parents' presence, which tells me that this might not be the result of a consensus of agreement between you and them. In any event, please forgive my presumptuousness on my part regarding this issue. But I am a firm believer in making fully informed decisions ... especially when they may completely and permanently alter one's life.

In December of 2021, Vagos was the subject of complaints by a parent who objected to his lack of mask-wearing and a student who complained about his alleged conservatism. He was investigated by the district and, The Daily Caller noted, "represented by the local teachers' union, whose representatives use preferred pronouns in email signatures."

They found that the email, which had triggered no prior complaints, constituted "harassment of students based on sexual orientation." Vagos received a reprimand letter informing him that his "response to this student and the provision of this link [on de-transitioners] imparts a lack of support and reduces a student's self-identification as being transgendered as a 'trend' rather than something real the student is experiencing."

District officials did not explain why a student could not be both a) experiencing something real and b) experiencing a trend. Instead, Vagos was shipped off to mandatory re-education training called "Gender Inclusion 101" hosted by the Jefferson County Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team.

The training included videos such as "Mom, I'm Not A Girl: Raising a Transgender Child," "What is a Gender Inclusive School?" and "Avery's Story." Vagos, who has taught at the school for 15 years, was replaced by a substitute teacher during his re-education. The Jefferson County District, it bears mentioning, advises teachers to work with trans-identifying students before telling parents, and that telling parents may sometimes be "dangerous."

This re-education in the tenets of an ideology that took over the public education system less than a decade ago was, of course, compulsory. Ideas that would have been utterly foreign to the vast majority of schools when Vagos started teaching are now required beliefs that must be followed if he wants to keep his job. As I've written so many times in this space, the public education system is simply a tool utilized by activists to promulgate their ideology. For those who disagree--there's re-education camps to purge any residual truth, morals, or common sense.

Originally published at The Bridgehead - reposted with permission.
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BY EVALYN HOMOELLE/DAILY SIGNAL JULY 26, 2022

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary is facing renewed criticism for slipping woke gender ideology into its definitions of "male" and "female."

"Female," primarily defined in the online dictionary as "of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs," now includes the secondary definition of "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male."

Similarly, the secondary definition of "male" reads "having a gender identity that is the opposite of female."

The definition entries were originally changed in 2020, but widespread criticism resurfaced after the new definitions recently circulated on social media. Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh and the conservative account Libs of TikTok on Tuesday tweeted images of the expanded definitions as compared to past editions of the dictionary, resulting in a resurgence of overwhelmingly negative responses to Merriam-Webster's addition.

In addition to including gender identity as a legitimate definition for "male" and "female," Merriam-Webster added the words "typically has the capacity" to both the original definition of "female" as "the sex that bears young and produces eggs" and the original definition of "male" as "the sex that produces relatively small, usually motile gametes, which fertilize the eggs of a female."

Those changes suggest agreement with the transgender community's contention that a person's gender identity is legitimate, even if that person does not have the same physical characteristics or capabilities as the gender they claim to embody. Many who criticize Merriam-Webster's subtle redefinition of "male" and "female" see it ultimately as an attack on the concepts of objective truth and reality, and think it reflects the culture's dismissal of the biological reality of "male" and "female" as "transphobic" and even "dangerous."

This redefinition continues Merriam-Webster's trend of wokeness. In 2019, it chose the pronoun "they," with one of its definitions as "a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary," as its Word of the Year in a nod to the nonbinary community, and similarly added gender identity to its secondary definitions of "boy" and "girl" to read "a child whose gender identity is male" and "a person whose gender identity is female."

Originally published at Daily Signal - reposted with permission.
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BY GIULIO MEOTTI/GATESTONE INSTITUTE JULY 12, 2022

While Lieven Verstraete, an acclaimed Belgian journalist who hosts the program, "De Zevende Dag" ("The Seventh Day"), was recently interviewing two members of the Green Party, he raised the issue of immigration and called Brussels "the perfect example of a city whose neighborhoods are conquered one by one by newcomers". Newcomers? Conquered? "How?" replied Nadia Naji, a politician of Molenbeek's Green party.

"Well," Verstraete, visibly uncomfortable, tried to explain, "more and more people with immigrant origins come to live there and claim their place. Do you feel Belgian in Molenbeek?" A few hours after the broadcast, he apologized. "In twenty years", the French newspaper Le Figaro predicted about Brussels, "the European capital will be Muslim".

"Almost a third of the population of Brussels already is Muslim", stated Olivier Servais, a sociologist at the University of Louvain. "Practitioners of Islam, due to their high birth rate, should be the majority 'in fifteen-twenty years'. Since 2001, Mohamed has been the most popular name among babies in Brussels". Verstraete had told the truth -- but, as is said, in the time of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

"Molenbeek would love to be forgotten, because it is the very example of the failure of the multicultural society, which remains an untouchable dogma in Belgium", wrote Alain Destexhe, an honorary Senator in Belgium and former Secretary General of Doctors Without Borders. He was talking about the case of Conner Rousseau, president of Vooruit, the Flemish socialist party, who recently told Humo magazine, "When I drive around Molenbeek, I do not feel as if I am in Belgium". "I no longer dare to walk hand in hand with a man in Molenbeek", Gilles Verstraeten, a gay parliamentarian, confessed.

"In the Brussels region as a whole", Destexhe noted, "only a quarter of Belgians are of Belgian origin, 39 per cent of Belgians are of foreign origin and 35 per cent are foreigners."

"Molenbeek is in fact only the tip of the iceberg of the progressive Islamization in all the major Belgian cities. Islam is increasingly visible in the public space of Molenbeek, and in the month of Ramadan almost all the shops and restaurants in the city are closed during the day. In many neighborhoods, women are no longer able to dress however they want or go out at night, and homosexuals have no right of citizenship. There are, however, hardly any voices to worry about this development, as if French-speaking Belgium, anesthetized in unison by the multicultural media, had resigned itself".

It is true not just Brussels. Antwerp, the country's second-largest city, is now 25% Muslim. Another parliamentarian, Herman de Croo , revealed that 78% of Antwerp's children aged 1-6 are foreigners. The former Brussels Secretary of State Bianca Debaets recently said, "there are too many areas where it is difficult for women and homosexuals to walk".

The Chief Rabbi of Brussels, Albert Guigui, was attacked by a group of Arabs. They insulted him, spat on him and kicked him. Since then, Guigui has not worn his skullcap in public.

No Jew lives in the Gare du Nord district anymore. "There are hardly any Jews left in this neighborhood," remarked Michel Laub, founder of the Museum of Deportation in Malines. "Yet this part of Schaerbeek near the Gare du Nord was once an important Jewish quarter."

For women, too, Brussels has become dangerous. "The Belgian political-media elites have surrendered in the face of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism", Fadila Maaroufi, a Belgian-Moroccan social worker and founder of the Observatory of Fundamentalisms in Brussels, told the French magazine Marianne. "I grew up in a Moroccan family in a neighborhood near Molenbeek. In the 1980s, it was still quite cosmopolitan. Then, little by little, we saw the native Belgians leaving. I witnessed the rise of Islam, my sisters veiled while my parents wore flared pants. I myself have come under pressure, including from my family. It had become inconceivable that I did not veil myself .... When I tried to alert public authorities and associations, I found myself facing a wall. There have been attacks in Paris and attacks in Brussels, yet I had the feeling that we still did not grasp the extent of the problem". In such an environment, freedom of expression also finds itself in dramatic retreat.

Belgian student associations protested the arrival in the capital of the publisher of satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, "Riss", who survived a 2015 Islamist massacre in the paper's office. The Filigranes bookshop in Brussels, the largest in the country, canceled a meeting with the journalist Éric Zemmour for "security reasons".

Demonstrations against Zemmour had been planned and a group, "Collective Against Islamophobia", had filed a complaint. The Hergé Museum took back its tribute to Charlie Hebdo by censoring itself. An exhibition that had been planned was canceled "for security reasons".

"Today the Muslim Brotherhood, spearhead of political Islam and of the insidious soft Islamisation of Western societies, continues its lobbying and blame games with its imaginary Trojan horse: Islamophobia", wrote a Belgian MEP, Assita Kanko, who fled Burkina Faso to look for freedom in Europe.

"The aim is clear: normalise radical Islamic codes and ways of life in order gradually to transform our Western societies instead of adapting to our European way of life. As a black woman and a secular Muslim, I know what it is to live under Islamic pressure and I know what it takes to emancipate oneself in order to finally live in dignity.

The fight to preserve European civilisation is a fight to preserve humanism .... Two stones support the European temple: the Judeo-Christian heritage with the idea of human dignity and the Enlightenment, with the intellectual effervescence that accompanied it. It is from this subtle alchemy that European culture was born. European Judeo-Christian civilisation has created for itself over the centuries the conditions for its intellectual emancipation, and it can be proud of this .... Europe must urgently pull itself together and reaffirm its commitment to its own values...."

Destexhe, in his book "Immigration et Intégration: avant qu'il ne soit trop tard" ("Immigration and Integration: Before it will be too late") , recalled that from 2000 to 2010, Belgium welcomed more than a million migrants into a population of eleven million. It was a demographic tsunami that would forever change the face of Belgian society.

"Belgium was the first to recognize and subsidize Islam; it also elected the first veiled parliamentarian". Canadian journalist Djemal Benhabi told L'Echo,

"Of all the European capitals, Brussels is the one through which the Islamist project intends to spread to Europe. Their lobbies are powerful there, so it is much easier for Islamists to break into the system and gradually transform it".

Journalist Marie-Cécile Royen also described the same collaboration in an article, "How the Muslim Brotherhood took Belgium hostage".

We recently saw what the "left's" alliance with Islam means in Brussels. Socialists and Greens just voted in the Brussels Parliament not to ban the ritual slaughter of animals. Le Monde called it the "community phenomenon": Brussels elects representatives who benefit from the support of one community or another in this highly multicultural region and are sometimes forced to abandon some of their convictions, or a facet of their identity, in order not to alienate voters.

Djemila Benhabib, in Le Point, noted that "in Brussels half of the Socialist electorate is Muslim." "[I]n Brussels now", she reported, "politics is in the hands of conservative Muslims".

As they say: It's the demography, stupid.

According to French demographer Michéle Tribalat, in the Brussels region (1.2 million inhabitants), 57% of those under 18 are of non-European origin; in the city of Brussels 68.4% of those under 18 are of non-European origin and in Antwerp (529,000 inhabitants), 51.3% of those under 18 are of non-European origin.

De-Christianization accompanies Islamization. 36 out of 110 churches in Brussels are destined to change their use in the face of the dramatic decline of the faithful. According to an Rtbf dossier, this is the plan of the archbishop of Brussels: "Homes, museums, hotels, climbing walls... What to do with our deconsecrated churches?"

Jean-Pierre Martin and Christophe Lamfalussy in their book "Molenbeek-Sur-Djihad" disclosed that "in Molenbeek, in an area of just six square kilometers, there are 25 mosques". What is that, if not Islamization?

Professor Felice Dassetto , in his book, "L'iris et le croissant", wrote that with more than 200 organizations that explicitly refer to Islam, it, after football, is the most mobilizing organized reality in Brussels -- more than more than political parties, more than trade unions, more than the Catholic Church. "41 percent of public school students," noted Le Figaro, "take the Muslim religion course".

Welcome to the "European capital .. of the Muslim Brotherhood" -- and the Muslim Brotherhood know it. "Where will we be in 50 years?" the president of the Islamic Cultural Center of Belgium felt free to declare. "All of Europe - inshallah - will be Muslim. So, have children!"

The greatest form of cultural racism in Europe today is that of EU elites who censor or support this spectacular change of civilization.

Meanwhile, discussion of Islam has become a "taboo" in the European capital, Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, CNRS researcher and anthropologist, told L'Express. Certain districts of Brussels have become "a kind of sanctuary of Islam in Europe".

The answer is in Professor Felice Dassetto's book: in the mid-1970s there were only 6 mosques and Koranic schools in Brussels, in the early 1980s there were 38, now they are 80. And so, headlines Le Vif, "mosque projects are flourishing in Brussels".

How did we get here?

In the midst of the 1973 oil crisis, Belgium turned to Saudi Arabia for supplies. Muslims in Belgium were of the first generation: they worked in the mines and wanted spaces to pray. Belgium's King Baudouin, in exchange for oil supplies, offered the Saudis the Pavillon du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, along with a 99-year lease. The building stands two hundred meters from the Schuman Palace and the headquarters of the European Union. Saudi Arabia soon transformed it into the

Grand Mosque of Brussels, which has since been the de facto Islamic authority of Belgium.

As Alain Chouet, the former "number two" of the DGSE, the French counterintelligence service, recounted in his newly published book "Sept pas vers l'enfer" ("Seven Steps to Hell"), "in exchange, the Saudi king asked the Belgian king Baudouin to grant Arabia a monopoly on representing Islam and appointing imams in Belgium". The Belgian government officially recognized the Islamic religion. It was the first European country to do so. There followed the inclusion of the Islamic religion in the school curriculum.

"Eurabia" was born in those years, the years of an energy crisis, European weakness and the great rise of Islam. Sound familiar?

Originally published at Gatestone Institute - reposted with permission.
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CP VOICES | TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022
By Ron Hale, Op-ed contributor

Splits and splintering have occurred throughout Christian history. From antiquity until present-day, religious groups have polarized and popped, leaving splinter groups behind to fizzle or flourish.

American history recounts regionally-based church divisions over slavery as Methodists split in 1844, Baptists in 1845, and Presbyterians splintered in multiple ways between 1857 and 1861.

A polarizing tug-of-war

It continues today. Tom Gilson, author, speaker, and Stream senior editor, has written a very helpful piece identifying two groups within the polarizing tug-of-war within contemporary American evangelicalism. He tags them the Anchored and the Accommodationist. These terms help explain what is going on in the Southern Baptist Convention today.

The Anchored, Gilson says, are Christians who anchor their truths in the Word of God. It’s not their single source of truth, but they are convinced that where the Bible speaks, “it speaks truly and with authority.” Their goal is to understand the Bible “properly and follow it faithfully.

They know they fall short, but the goal remains for them regardless.”

The Accommodationist will offer honor to the Word of God “but they want their message to fit in better with the world somehow” … “they don’t mind altering their message to make it more accommodating to the world.” This group comes in several flavors, but Progressive Christianity is the most obvious. Progressives become jittery when God’s Word makes people or certain groups uncomfortable. “They can come up with creative new interpretations,” according to Gilson.

What do Southern Baptists say about the scriptures?

Southern Baptists’ official statement on the Bible is clear and it is well anchored.

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

That being said, the question remains, how does an alarmed mom at a school board meeting or a pastor in the pulpit apply the Bible to real-life issues as the progressive Left seeks to shred our moral values?

Dr. Lee Brand, the former first vice president of the SBC, in an open letter to Southern Baptists makes a relevant point:

There is a great storm brewing within the SBC, and we cannot afford to get this weather report wrong. Our battle is not between our various shades of brown, but between those who will say the Bible is sufficient in their proclamation and show its sufficiency in their practice, and those who will try to merge some measure of biblical principle with a palatable amount of worldly philosophy.

Notice the word “sufficiency.” It means that God has communicated to us all that we need to know for salvation and to live in a manner that pleases Him. The Bible is sufficient in helping us evaluate every claim (secular or spiritual) of authority because, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, NKJV).

The scriptures are sufficient

I wish to contend that the Anchored in the SBC have a better handle on “sufficiency.”

One very current example: Progressives are enjoying Baptists’ current theological tussle over the question: Did King David rape Bathsheba? Conservative cultural reporter Megan Basham tweeted recently,

Claiming David raped Bathsheba is a perfect example of twisting Scripture to make a story about sin into one about power dynamics. It is creating interpretations God did not in order to fit modern political narratives & agendas.

The Scriptures help us frame a Christian worldview, allowing our beliefs and behavior to function under the Lordship of Christ, with the Scriptures as sufficient guide — not personal feelings, social pressures, falsehoods, experience, completely divorced from godly wisdom, natural law, common sense, and facts.

The Anchored know the power of shining the searchlight of Scripture on society, thereby rescuing a culture from suffocating in its own sin. When evil shows up as insanity — like a drag queen preaching to 1st graders, only then do “normal” people start smelling the stench of our sick society. The Anchored wake up each morning with certain core convictional beliefs based on Scripture and they shall not be moved.
Accommodationists awaken to all the clamoring voices in our pluralistic society and are easily swayed by social media top-talkers.

Standing up to attacks from the cultural elites

When cultural elites attack the Anchored for speaking out, the Accommodationists get weak-kneed and worry that the “watching world” may not like them. They fear being socially shamed and being marked with labels like: “Christian Nationalist,” “homophobe,” “Fundamentalist,” “transphobe,” “misogynist,” “racist,” or “Uncle Tom.” Thus triggered, Accommodationists are more prone to renounce conservative believers than stand in the way of today’s social justice warriors and their collectivist zeal to tear down America and their church.

Dr. Voddie T. Baucham, Jr. is an evangelical pastor and conference speaker whose popularity dipped when he began expressing Anchored, un-woke views. He delivers a razor-sharp critique of America’s social justice movement in his book Fault Lines. With a high view of Scripture, Baucham states, “… there is not a book in the world that is better suited to address men on the issue of race than the Bible.” He believes the Bible is “sufficient” and “offers answers not only on race, but on every ethical issue man has faced, or will ever face.”

Baucham specifically tackles the issue of critical race theory as it came up at the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention, where a California pastor brought forth the now famous Resolution #9. Baucham unveils what he describes as the “clearest evidence” of certain SBC leaders’ willingness to compromise on that resolution, changing the language of the pastor’s text from a biblically-based statement to more accommodating wording. Baucham called it “a deliberate act of duplicity.”

For example, in its original form the resolution had said,

Whereas, critical race theory and intersectionality are founded upon unbiblical presuppositions descended from Marxist theories and categories, and therefore are inherently opposed to the Scriptures as the true center of Christian union…

Before the messengers (i.e., delegates) to that convention had a chance to see that version, though, the Baptist committee presenting the resolution had changed it to read,

Whereas, critical race theory and intersectionality alone are insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills that they identify, which result from sin, yet these analytical tools can aid in evaluating a variety of human experiences …

Don’t attach identity politics to the sufficient scriptures

It’s just one instance, but it’s telling, and there are many others like it. Baucham rightly sees it as showing serious problems with some Southern Baptists’ understanding of the Scriptures’ sufficiency. Agreeing with Dr. Baucham, Pastor Josh Buice later wrote:

You cannot attach identity politics to the sufficient Scriptures and still claim to be champions of sufficiency. God’s Word must stand alone. Like a confident lion walking in the afternoon sun on the African plains — it doesn’t need assistance to diagnose and address the social ills of a depraved society. What the SBC did, in passing this resolution, is make a clear statement to the watching world that we believe the Bible is not quite capable of addressing the lived experiences of broken people and may need the assistance of CRT and intersectionality.

The Anchored and Accommodationist have grappled for leadership in each of the “three worlds” that I analyzed in my last piece. In 1991, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) split-away in opposition to the more conservative theology and practice of the SBC’s Conservative Resurgence.

The CBF Governing Board voted on (Feb. 9, 2018) to open some positions with CBF to “Christians who identify as LGBT.” They also voted to continue to restrict “leadership positions in ministry” and missionary roles to believers “who practice a traditional Christian sexual ethic.” Nevertheless, they serve as canaries in the coal mine, showing the dangerous places Accommodationism may take the Baptists.

We live in the midst of a cosmic war over worldviews. Accommodationists will crumble under pressure. The Baptist statement on the Scriptures still rightly recognizes the Bible as our “perfect treasure of divine instruction.” The Anchored must hold the line.

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/will-southern-baptists-survive-the-secular-storm.html

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Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
July 9, 2022·3 min read

Members of evangelical organizations have discussed conservative issues with Supreme Court justices in elaborate dinners, according to reports by Politico and Rolling Stone, pushing right-wing ideas on issues including abortion, LGBTQ rights and gun legislation.

Peggy Nienaber, the vice president of Liberty Counsel — which describes itself as a "nonprofit ministry that operates a pro bono litigation program" — was heard in a video posted to YouTube bragging that her organization prays with sitting justices inside the high court.

"We're the only people who do that," Rolling Stone reported Nienaber told a YouTuber at an event celebrating the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Though an amicus brief written by Liberty Counsel was cited by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court in its ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, the organization denies close ties to the justices.

"The Rolling Stone article is false. The writers know it is false, but they chose to print the sensational story anyway. Since Liberty Counsel assumed the prayer ministry in 2018, now called Faith & Liberty, there has been no prayer with the Justices," read a Liberty Counsel statement in response to the reporting. "Faith & Liberty prays for the Justices, not with them."

In the YouTube video, Nienaber can be heard saying she prays with the Justices "right here on Capitol Hill."

Representatives for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Similarly, Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and leader of a group called Faith and Action, told Politico that, between the years 1995 to 2018, he arranged for nearly two dozen couples to fly to Washington to share expensive dinners and evenings of entertainment with Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Antonin Scalia.

The dinner program was called "Operation Higher Court" and Schenck told Politico he would coach the couples on discussing conservative issues with the justices while taking care not to specifically mention current cases.

"We would rehearse lines like, 'We believe you are here for a time like this,'" Schenck told Politico.

Schenck's ties to the Supreme Court — as well as "Operation Higher Court" and his attempts to discuss religious and conservative issues with the justices — are well documented. One couple he coached to discuss their conservative views with the justices, Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio, went on to form long-term relationships with some of the justices — which were referenced in Don's obituary.

In a 2001 article with the Christian magazine, Charisma, titled 'Storming the Capital (sic) with Prayer,' he detailed a meeting and prayer with the late Justice Scalia just hours after the Supreme Court handed down its decision involving the contested 2000 presidential election.

"The Supreme Court is the most insulated and isolated branch of the US government," Schenck said in the 2001 article. "They do not interface with the public, so we've literally had to pray our way in there each step of the way."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wing-evangelicals-bragging-praying-supreme-042532622.html

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CP U.S. | MONDAY, JULY 25, 2022
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

One of the largest school districts in the United States has urged teachers to embrace LGBT ideology denouncing the gender "binary," according to a new report.

Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute, shared documents he obtained from the Los Angeles Unified School District's Human Relations, Diversity, and Equity Department on Twitter Wednesday.

LAUSD is the largest school district in California, serving more than 500,000 students.

"Los Angeles Unified School District encourages kindergartners to experiment with non-binary pronouns, trains teachers to subvert 'mainstream white cis-heteropatriarchy society,' and promotes sexual identities such as 'trans,' 'pansexual,' 'two-spirit,' and 'genderqueer,'" Rufo tweeted.

The outspoken critic of critical race theory and LGBT ideology being incorporated into public schools provided screenshots of a "treasure trove of documents from the district's Human Relations, Diversity, and Equity department, which has created an entire infrastructure to translate the basic tenets of academic Queer Theory into K-12 pedagogy."

"The programming includes a wide range of conferences, presentations, curricula, teacher-training programs, adult-driven 'gender and sexuality' clubs, and school-sponsored protests," Rufo wrote in an article for City Journal.

The Christian Post reached out to LAUSD for comment. A response is pending.

Among the documents Rufo shared online are LAUSD's "Queer and Trans-Affirming School Calendar" titled "Queer All School Year."

One PowerPoint presentation focused on "Queering Culture & Race." The PowerPoint has been removed from the LAUSD's Human Relations, Diversity, and Equity Department's website.

A slide from an October 2021 professional development workshop discussing "breaking the binary in education" asserted that "our language is binary due to the society around us." The stated purpose of the workshop was to provide a "start for educators to look at how they can shift their thinking, language, and approach to LGBTQ+ topics in the classroom." The workshop was presented by a fifth grade magnet school teacher whose pronouns are "they/them."

Other workshops at the same conference featured a panel discussion with queer seventh-grade students to "produce counter narratives against the master narrative of mainstream white cis-heteropatriarchy society that seeks to erase and oppress our lived experiences." They included a list of resources for trans-identified students, including "trans-affirming clothing."

Another workshop advised teachers to use "non-gendered expressions" and abandon the use of the phrases "boys and girls," "ladies and gentlemen" and "guys."

A school district policy issued in 2019 proclaimed, "Students shall be addressed by the name and pronoun that corresponds to their gender identity asserted at school without obtaining a court order, changing their pupil records or obtaining parent/legal guardian permission."

The document clarified that "if school personnel are unsure how a student wants to be addressed in communications to home or in conferences with parents/legal guardians/educational rights holders, they may privately ask the student how they want to be referred to when communicating with parents/legal guardians."

A chart obtained by Rufo listed the "privileged social groups" within individual "social identity categories," along with the "border social groups" and the "disadvantaged social groups."

The chart identified "white people," Anglo-Saxons, citizens, males, gender-conforming men and women, heterosexuals, rich people, the able-bodied and mainstream Christians as privileged social groups. The document classified "People of Color," females, trans-identified people,
Rufo cited the chart as an example of the narrative that "white, cisgender, heterosexual men have built a repressive social structure, divided the world into the false binary of man and woman, and used this myth to oppress racial and sexual minorities."

As of Sunday, all but one of the links on the Office of Human Relations, Diversity & Equity's "Advisory Lessons" webpage redirect to a page informing visitors that "this page has moved." The only document remaining is a PowerPoint presentation outlining "10 Ways to Talk About Sensitive Issues in the News." Two of the PowerPoint documents removed from the website include "Critical Race Theory, Racism and K-12 Education" and "Say Gay: Protect LGBTQ+ Futures."

The department has a separate webpage devoted to lessons on "Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression."

While most of the documents have been removed, a presentation on the meaning of the term "2 Spirit" remains. A lengthy glossary of LGBT terminology defined the phrase as an "umbrella term traditionally within Native American communities to recognize individuals who possess qualities or fulfill roles of both feminine and masculine genders."

The PowerPoint contended that "European colonizers" imposed a "binary, European understanding of gender" on Western civilization. Additionally, it stated that "colonizers imposed homophobia, gender binaries and misogyny among other abuses towards the Indigenous nations" when they first arrived in what is now the U.S.

Another presentation available on the website discussed "names and pronouns" and included advisories to "ask [people] for their pronouns when meeting someone new, correct people when they use the wrong pronouns, use the name and pronouns they ask you to use and apologize and correct yourself if you get it wrong."

An LAUSD spokesperson told The Washington Examiner that the district "supports and respects the diversity of our students and families, which includes providing safe and affirming learning environments."

Rufo's reporting comes three years after 43.9% of students in the district met or exceeded standards in the 2019 Smarter Balanced assessments' state English testing, which constitutes part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.

That same year, 33.47% of students in the district met or exceeded the standards in the state math testing.

When compared to all the school districts in the state, LAUSD scored in the bottom 50% in both categories. SchoolDigger ranked the district 1,029th out of 1,496 school districts in California.

LAUSD is not the only major U.S. school district to embrace LGBT ideology amid mediocre student performance on state assessments.

Rufo previously shared footage of professional development training teachers in the School District of Philadelphia were encouraged to attend. The training consisted of sexually explicit workshops, including one where the speaker informed attendees that "I have tried and touched many d---s" and showcased prosthetic penises.

The most recent data from the school district reveals that 22% of Philadelphia public school students received a proficient or advanced score on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment math test. Additionally, 33% of third-graders scored proficient or advanced on the PSSA ELA test, and 36% of students in grades four through eight received scores of proficient or higher on the same test.

SchoolDigger ranked the School District of Philadelphia 473rd out of 579 school districts in Pennsylvania.

A poll commissioned by the American Federation of Teachers showed most Americans are "dissatisfied" with how schools teach students about issues related to sexual orientation, gender identity and race.

The survey indicated that 58% of respondents living in battleground states were "dissatisfied" with "the way students are taught about issues related to sexual preference and gender identity," while just 23% were "satisfied."

At the same time, 60% of those surveyed described themselves as "dissatisfied" with "the way students are taught about racial issues and the role of race in America," while 27% were "satisfied."

https://www.christianpost.com/news/los-angeles-school-district-encourages-teachers-to-reject-gender-binary.html

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Peter S. Canellos and Josh Gerstein
July 8, 2022·7 min read

The former leader of a religious right organization said he recruited and coached wealthy volunteers including a prominent Dayton, Ohio, evangelical couple to wine, dine and entertain conservative Supreme Court justices while pushing conservative positions on abortion, homosexuality, gun restrictions and other issues.

Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister who headed the Faith and Action group headquartered near the Supreme Court from 1995 to 2018, said he arranged over the years for about 20 couples to fly to Washington to visit with and entertain Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia.

Schenck, who was once an anti-abortion activist but broke with the religious right in the last decade over its aggressive tactics and support for gun rights, said the couples were instructed before the dinners to use certain phrases to influence the justices while steering clear of the specifics of cases pending before the court — for example, to “talk about the importance of a child having a father and a mother,” rather than engage in the particulars of a gay-rights case.

“We would rehearse lines like, ‘We believe you are here for a time like this,’” which is a reference to the Old Testament Book of Esther in which the Hebrew woman born with the name Hadassah becomes queen of Persia and succeeds in preventing a genocide of her people.

Schenck said the goal was to create an ecosystem of support for conservative justices, as a way of making them more forthright in their views.

The previously undisclosed initiative by Faith and Action illustrates the extent to which some Supreme Court justices interacted with advocates for the religious right during a period when the court grappled with social issues such as abortion and gay rights. The calculated nature of Faith and Action’s efforts shows how outside actors can use social activities and expensive dinners to penetrate the court’s highly sealed environment.

Thomas and Alito did not respond to requests for comment through the Supreme Court. Efforts to reach the family of Scalia, who died in 2016, were unsuccessful.

Schenck’s organization, Faith and Action, became a part of Liberty Counsel in 2018 and is now known as Faith and Liberty. Its vice president, Peggy Nienaber, was quoted earlier this week as praying with Supreme Court justices in a recording posted on YouTube and reported by Rolling Stone magazine. Schenck told the magazine that he began the prayer sessions as a way of building rapport with conservative justices.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “I don’t know a lot about what Rob Schenck has done in the past . . . When he says he invited couples to wine and dine justices, I know of nothing like that that happened.”

Schenck pointed to one prominent evangelical couple — Don and Gayle Wright of Dayton, Ohio — as major funders of his group, which established an office directly behind the Supreme Court building. Don Wright became wealthy through his furniture business and real estate firm, owning homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Siesta Key, Florida.

Schenck said that, in addition to making regular donations to Faith and Action, the Wrights financed numerous expensive dinners with Thomas, Alito, Scalia and their wives at Washington, D.C., hotspots including the Capital Grille. Don Wright died in 2020.

Gayle Wright did not return a phone message left at her Ohio home, seeking comment for this story. A request for comment made Friday to the family business Don Wright Realty, now headed by their son Scott, produced no immediate response.

Don Wright’s obituaries on Dignity Memorial and Legacy.com cited his charitable work with Faith and Liberty and his closeness to Supreme Court justices through his support for the Supreme Court Historical Society. Among the pictures featured on the Dignity Memorial site were images of the Wrights and their extended family with Scalia and Alito, and Don Wright with Chief Justice John Roberts.

“The late Antonin Scalia enjoyed hunting and fishing trips with the [Wright] family. But whether he was sitting in a hunting cabin with the guys or at a Supreme Court dinner he was always the same,” read the obituary on both sites.

In reporting Wright’s passing, The Dayton Business Journal wrote on August 3, 2020: “As trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Wright became friends with several prominent justices, including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. An avid hunter/outdoorsman, Wright said Scalia would often accompany the family on hunting trips.”

Supreme Court Historical Society newsletters indicate Wright was a major donor to the group and was elected as a trustee for a three-year term in 2003 and again in 2006. Schenck said he met the Wrights at Faith Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida, where he was a guest pastor and they attended while staying at their vacation home in nearby Siesta Key.

He said the Wrights had strongly conservative views on abortion, homosexuality and gun rights, and dedicated themselves to reinforcing the Supreme Court justices’ own conservative views on the issues. They were the most active of the roughly 20 couples involved in the program Faith and Action called “Operation Higher Court,” Schenck said.

All the couples “knew they were being coached” and adhered to a “casual reporting procedure” in which they offered feedback on their dinners with the justices and their wives, Schenck said.

The Wrights were the most heavily involved of all the couples. “They set the standards,” Schenck said. “They were the most active, the most engaged.”

Staver, of Liberty Counsel, said he is familiar with one instance of Schenck coaching couples on how to behave around Supreme Court justices — but it was in connection with the historical society banquet, not private dinners.

“What he did was he would talk to them [the couples attending the banquet] about protocol. I saw him do that once. He would talk to them about how these are Supreme Court justices and he actually would say ‘don’t talk about issues or cases, this is just a dinner.’ He used it himself to try to get people to contribute to Faith and Action. Afterwards he would ask them how they liked it (the society dinner). That’s the coaching he’s talking about. He wasn’t saying set them up to ‘say this to them or that to them.’”

For his part, Schenck said that in addition to the dinners, Scalia was a guest at the Wrights’ home in Jackson Hole. A financial disclosure report Scalia filed shows his transportation, food and lodging for a June 2006 visit to Jackson Hole were paid for by the Wyoming State Bar in connection with a continuing education program for lawyers. Similar reports show he spoke to the Wyoming State Bar in Cheyenne in September 2008 and to the Federalist Society in Laramie in October 2012, with expenses paid by those groups.

Property records indicate the Wrights sold their Jackson Hole home in 2013.

As the leaders of a separate branch of the government, the justices have long set their own ethical standards. They are not bound by rules applied to other federal judges, and make their own decisions on whether to recuse themselves from cases on conflict-of-interest grounds. The justices file annual disclosure forms under the Ethics in Government Act requiring them to report gifts now worth more than $415 in aggregate, but meals are rarely reported as gifts and “personal hospitality” received at a host’s private home or business need not be reported. The justices also report annually on travel, lodging and meals received in connection with speaking engagements and legal conferences.

A review of more than a decade of financial disclosures from Thomas, Alito and Scalia found no reporting of restaurant or other meals as gifts, aside from food being included along with transportation and lodging expenses reimbursed by groups and entities sponsoring speaking events featuring the justices.

There are few public references to Faith and Action’s work with the judiciary, but a 2001 article in a Christian magazine, Charisma, described the group’s “Operation Higher Court” as offering “prayer and ministry to the Supreme Court justices.”

“The Supreme Court is the most insulated and isolated branch of the U.S. government,” Schenck told the magazine. “They do not interface with the public, so we’ve literally had to pray our way in there each step of the way.”

In the story, Schenck describes meeting and praying with Scalia just 24 hours after the court handed down its controversial decision resolving the 2000 presidential election, Bush v. Gore.

Schenck’s own decision to break with the religious right is detailed in the 2015 documentary “The Armor of Light,” and his 2018 book, “Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love.”

He is currently the director of the Washington-based Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, named for the German theologian who opposed Nazism.

Heidi Przybyla contributed to this report.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/operation-higher-court-inside-religious-191559434.html

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Ben Adler ·
Senior Editor
July 12, 2022·4 min read

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection against the United States government, told a congressional committee on Tuesday that the violence of that day could have been far worse.

“We’ve gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen, because the potential has been there from the start,” Van Tatenhove told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection during a public hearing on Tuesday afternoon. “And we got very lucky that the loss of life — as tragic as it is — that we saw on January 6, that the potential was so much more.”

In total, five people, including Officer Brian Sicknick of the Capitol Police, who was attacked by the pro-Trump mob, died during or shortly after the attack, at least partly because of it. In addition, two Capitol Police officers and two officers with the D.C. Metropolitan Police who served at the Capitol that day died from suicide in the months following. Approximately 150 officers from various law enforcement agencies were injured that day.

Van Tatenhove went on to say that he thinks former President Donald Trump may incite even more extreme violence if he runs again in 2024.

“I do fear for this next election cycle, because who knows what that might bring?” Van Tatenhove said. “If a president who is trying to instill, and encourage, to whip up a civil war among his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again?”

The Oath Keepers have been engaged in previous confrontations with the federal government. Van Tatenhove said he was first introduced to them when he went to cover the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada as an independent journalist. Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes is currently awaiting trial for seditious conspiracy for his actions related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“They may not like to call themselves a militia, but they are, they’re a violent militia,” Van Tatenhove testified. “The best illustration for what the Oath Keepers are happened January 6, when we saw that stacked military formation going up the stairs of our Capitol. I saw radicalization ... as the member base and who it was that Stewart Rhodes was courting drifted further and further right, into the alt-right, into white nationalists and even straight-up racists.”

“In my opinion, the Oath Keepers are a very dangerous organization,” he concluded

Previous testimony earlier in the day and throughout the House select committee hearings has established that the Oath Keepers and other far-right militias such as the Proud Boys were instrumental in organizing and executing the attack on the Capitol.

“I think we saw a glimpse of the vision of what the Oath Keepers is on January 6,” Van Tatenhove said in a response to a question from the committee's chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., about the group’s vision for America. “It doesn’t necessarily include the rule of law. It includes violence. It includes trying to get their way through lies, through deceit, through intimidation and through the perpetration of violence.”

Van Tatenhove said his breaking point with the group came when he discovered that several members of the Oath Keepers are Holocaust deniers.

When Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., asked why Rhodes publicly called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, Van Tatenhove said it was to legitimize an authoritarian effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

“This could have been the spark that started a new civil war,” Van Tatenhove said.

“We need to stop mincing words and just call things what they are,” he added. “It was going to be an armed revolution.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/january-6-hearing-oath-keepers-fear-next-election-203851656.html