(CBS News) A pastor was killed and two other people were hurt in a shooting at an East Texas church on Sunday, CBS Dallas/Fort Worth reports. Police identified the deceased victim as 62-year-old Mark McWilliams.
A suspect identified by law enforcement as Mytrez Deunte Woolen, 21, was taken into custody Sunday. Woolen is charged with one count of murder and two counts of aggravates assault.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office said they responded to a shooting at Starrville Methodist Church, about 15 miles northeast of Tyler, at around 9:20 a.m. local time. Arriving deputies found two people shot and a third injured in a fall.
According to the department, there were no services at the time of the shooting.
Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said the suspected shooter had been involved in a pursuit on Saturday night that lasted about two hours with speeds in excess of 100 mph. According to police, Woolen abandoned the car on the property of Starrville Methodist after a crash and fled into the woods, where he was able to elude capture. Police recovered a shotgun from the vehicle.
According to Smith, the next morning, Woolen confronted McWilliams at the church.
The sheriff said the pastor was armed, but the Woolen was allegedly able to disarm him. McWilliams and another person were then shot before Woolen…
(NY Post) Proposed changes to the rules of the House of Representatives would “honor all gender identities” by eliminating such specific terms as mother and father, son and daughter, and aunt and uncle.
Instead, only gender-neutral terms such as “parent,” “child,” “sibling” and “parent’s sibling” would be allowed in the text of the House rules, according to the proposed changes.
The proposed changes — which also include the establishment of a House “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” — will be voted on after the House convenes Sunday for the new 117th Congress.
Instead, such proposed changes would send the bill back to committee, effectively killing it, the Examiner noted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that’s needed so that last minute bill changes — known as Motions to Recommit — are “no longer used to hijack the legislative process for political gamesmanship.”
(The Liberty Loft) Charlotte, NC — Two New Mexico megachurches are each facing $10,000 in fines for having held large, unmasked Christmas Eve services in violation of the COVID-19 lockdown orders. This prompted Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to imply that their pastors are “provirus.”
Pictures and videos of Legacy Church and Calvary Church’s services were posted on social media sites. They went viral according to local ABC affiliate KOAT. The images depicted hundreds of congregants gathered, mostly without masks.
On December 15, the governor instituted statewide restrictions that limited church gatherings in “red counties” to 25% capacity and required masks.
The New Mexico Public Health Department responded by levying a $10,000 fine against both churches — $5,000 for violating the capacity limit and $5,000 for violating the mask mandate. The churches are permitted to request a hearing to contest the fines.
Grisham condemned both churches and their pastors in an interview with NBC News. She said, “In violating both the state public health order and common sense, these two churches and their leaders endangered the lives, livelihoods, and health of not only their parishioners but their entire communities — and, [sic] given how quickly this virus can spread, potentially our state as a whole.”
“We all wish this pandemic were over, but it’s not, and no provirus pastor may deem it so. So many New Mexicans have sacrificed — and lost — so much in this pandemic,” Grisham continued. “These illegal and selfish gatherings will directly contribute to more suffering and illness in our state. These church leaders should reflect on the danger they’ve unleashed in their communities.”
(Christian Post) A group of students and alumni at Liberty University are calling for a think tank at the evangelical Christian college focused on political activism to be shut down.
More than 400 students have signed a petition calling on the Lynchburg, Virginia-based university to shut down the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, a think tank founded last year by then-Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. The petition, titled “Liberty United Against Falkirk,” contends that the think tank has “waged war against decency, respect, and Christian charity, all while misrepresenting Liberty students and the Christian church.”
The stated purposes of the Falkirk Center are to “uphold the Christian faith and defend America’s Constitution” and to “inform all Americans in matters of faith and liberty, and then deploy these faithful men and women across every medium and platform to protect and defend our strongest-held beliefs in every facet of society.” The think tank also stresses the importance of “bold, unapologetic encouragement and initiative on the part of every conservative American.”
The petition took issue with the Falkirk Center’s assertion that “although we do, as Jesus taught, turn the other cheek in our personal relationships…
Frank Shope alleges emotional, physical pain caused by Kevin Ezell & NAMB. Story fits with state executives’ recent bombshell allegations against Ezell as an abusive tyrant.
(Capstone Report) Dr. Frank Shope alleged that Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention and NAMB trustees caused him emotional and physical pain because of abusive and inappropriate action by Ezell. Dr. Shope alleged that Ezell used “bigoted statements” against women and minorities and used financial powers to “defund” these individuals. Dr. Shope alleges:
“In several meetings Ezell defamed missionaries, Convention Staff and NAMB staff. He was especially cruel to women and minorities. Often, referring to them with unacceptable titles and bigoted statements. Additionally, he found ways to fire or defund individuals of color.”
Note here that these allegations against Ezell are not made by Woke Social Justice Warriors. These are statements of conservative Christians. So, when one characterizes Ezell’s statements at “bigoted” and “cruel,” you can rest assured these are serious allegations and not hypersensitivity.
(Lifenews) The horrors of abortion take place both in and outside of the abortion industry. And thanks to pro-life investigative journalism, Americans are beginning to learn more about the barbaric ways unborn babies are treated both before and after they are killed in abortions.
A shocking new report from the National Catholic Register describes how scientists at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania recently used scalps from aborted babies to create “humanized mice” to study the human immune system.
(Editor’s note. The following paragraph was inserted by us and not found in the original article. It is a description from the research itself)
“Male and female rodents were myoablated via gamma radiation using cesium-137 irradiator, with mice receiving a dose of 150 rads and rats receiving a dose of 500 rads. Myoablated male and female mice were transplanted with human fetal-thymus, liver, and spleen in the kidney capsule, autologous CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells (via retroorbital injection of 0.2 × 106 cells)17, and full-thickness human fetal skin on the panniculus carnosus of the mouse skin-excised dorsum61,62,63. Myoablated male and female rats were transplanted with human fetal-thymus and liver in the renal capsule, autologous CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells (via retroorbital injection of 0.5 × 106 cells), and autologous full-thickness human fetal skin (less than four days old) on the panniculus carnosus of the rat-skin excised dorsum61,62,63. In some instances, rodents were only transplanted with full-thickness human fetal skin.”
Stacy Trasancos, a chemist and the executive director of the St. Philip Institute in Tyler, Texas, wrote the report. She pointed out that the research report is available publicly online for all to see.
“You don’t need to go undercover and follow around employees from Planned Parenthood like David Daleiden at the Center for Medical Progress to find out how the remains of aborted children are used in research,” she wrote. “All it takes is a look at scientific…”
Editor’s note. This article was written by Micaiah Bilger and published at Lifenews. Title changed by Protestia. Posted only after we were able to vet information to ensure it wasn’t some kind of sick joke. It wasn’t.
One state is shocked and dismayed that the state’s Executive Director for America’s largest Protestant denomination is supporting an extreme left-wing ideology.
(Montana Daily Gazette) One might have thought that support for the most outrageously leftist leviathan devouring Western Civilization would be supported primarily by liberal mainstream denominations like the ELCA, Episcopalian, or United Church of Christ. But a Twitter thread demonstrates that the head of the Southern Baptist Convention in Montana, Barrett Duke, affirms at least some of the tenets of Cultural Marxism, Identity Politics, and Intersectionality – commonly known as Critical Theory.
BACKGROUND
Currently, unbeknownst to some, there is a civil war waging in America’s largest Protestant denomination. Although the denomination thought that it had exiled leftists during the so-called Conservative Resurgence beginning in 1979, recent years have demonstrated that many of those leftists burrowed underground in the denomination’s institutions and have risen to prominence in what amounts to being a 30-year coup d’etat over 14-million membership.
At the heart of the Conservative Resurgence were two issues, abortion and female clergy. At the beginning of the Resurgence, the SBC and its institutions were largely for both and passed resolutions affirming both. But beginning with the presidency of Adrian Rogers, these liberal elements were quieted and thought to be properly dispatched through more than a decade of infighting. The Southern Baptist Convention soon stood tall and true as not only the largest Protestant denomination, but the most conservative (although the Presbyterian Church of America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and other outliers certainly exist).
If you fast-forward to today, however, you will find prominent Southern Baptists like its president, JD Greear, and its influencers (Mark Dever, Thabiti Anyabwile aka Ron Burns, Jonathan Leeman, Beth Moore, etc) claiming that voting Democrat is an acceptable moral choice). In fact, Mark Dever is a registered Democrat, something simply unimaginable twenty years ago in the SBC. The denomination’s seminary presidents, Albert Mohler, Daniel Akin, Jason Allen, and three others seem to all be sufficiently “woke,” and have forbidden their employees from signing The Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, which explicitly rejects the Social Gospel which – as of late – has been renamed “Social Justice” by the liberals promoting it. Daniel Akin at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary hired a notorious and gay-affirming leftist who says abortion is not murder, Karen Swallow Prior, and has hosted “Malcolm X Read-Ins” in celebration of Critical Theory. They also took time to celebrate James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology, which teaches that Jesus is black and the Bible is about identifying with the oppressed.
A race-baiter and Democrat activist who has little in common with the Southern Baptist Convention – Dwight McKissic (he is also for female clergy and is a practicing charismatic) – promoted “Resolution 9” at the denomination’s 2019 gathering, which calls Critical Theory a “helpful analytical tool” to help Christians understand race. The vote, which was likely invalid and was pushed upon “messengers” (delegates) to the SBC by leadership, afraid a stall or rejection on the proposal would lead to accusations of racism by the press, which was hovering over the process.
After more than a year of explaining to Southern Baptists what Critical Theory is, grassroots activists within the denomination have finally got the attention of SBC leaders that what they endorsed is in fact Marxism and a specific strain called Cultural Marxism. In an about-face, the six SBC seminary presidents signed a statement denouncing Critical Theory – which they all promoted heavily at the 2019 SBC annual meeting (note: they are still promoting, endorsing, and hiring Critical Theorists in their institutions and actively firing those who oppose Critical Theory).
WHAT IS CRITICAL THEORY? Buzz-words are in bold.
Critical Theory was derived in the 1930s from the Western-Marxist philosophy of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, commonly called “The Frankfurt School.” This school of thought came from ex-pats from Hitler’s Germany just prior to World War II and interestingly, merged the Nazi’s fixation on racial categories with the Soviet Empire’s economic Marxism. Relocating in New York City and in particular, Columbia University, in 1935 to avoid Hitler’s wrath (most of the philosophers were of Jewish descent) the group moved back to West Germany in 1953.
Because of the influence of Adolph Hitler, whose Final Solution was greatly influenced by Darwinism, Critical Theorists developed their philosophy with a similar fixation on race (albeit, far less anti-semitic). Combined with Collectivism popularized among the Soviets (as opposed to Individualism in the West), the Marxists claimed that regular (economic) Marxism could not thrive in a capitalist nation like the United States because of class mobility. In short, in a nation where everyone wants to be – and can become – rich, you can’t get the poor to hate the rich and therefore no robust struggle between the proletariat and bourgouise exists.
Their solution was simple; instead of dividing people by economic class, Marxism can accomplish its goals by dividing people by racial class. Cultural Marxism was born, and soon Marxists in the West began to emphasize cultural distinctions based not upon wealth, but skin color or ethnicity. This would provide the racial agitation, civil disruption, and societal disunity necessary to “overthrow the current power-structure.”
Critical Race Theory, on the other hand, was a spin placed upon “regular” Critical Theory in American law schools in the 1980s. Essentially, this philosophical tweak was invented out of an attempt to explain why African Americans are incarcerated at higher rates than white Americans. Looking at every possibility for this disparity except that black people commit a disproportionate amount of crime (if Critical Race Theory were a religion, then that notion would be a heresy), the Critical Race Theorists hypothesized a secret and conspiratorial “systemic racism” run rampant in American society.
Because the 1960s Civil Rights Movement had already overturned Jim Crow laws and every American – regardless of ethnicity – was equal already under the law, Critical Race Theorists had to claim that racism was secret, hidden, or invisible. Concepts like “micro-aggressions” developed (the belief that subtle cues and subliminal judgments oppress minorities) to explain why racism was supposedly the cause of every societal ill.
But how do you prove “micro-aggressions” (these include singing, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” asking for extra cream in your Starbucks, and appropriating Halloween costumes from other cultures)? Because the “systemic racism” asserted by Critical Race Theorists is largely hidden, it’s necessary to believe that every white person is racist and every black person is oppressed (oddly enough, Critical Race Theorists consider Asians and Jews to be “white” because their ethnic demographics generally thrive in America).
Barrett Duke
Every white person is a “racist” according to Critical Race Theorists because of “White Guilt,” the notion that by the virtue of being white, they are guilty of whatever injustice their ancestor perpetrated upon darker-skinned peoples decades or centuries ago. And by the virtue of being white, every white person has privileges, wealth, and opportunities that black people do not have, which is called “White Privilege.”
Caucasians that don’t agree that they are secretly or closetedly racist are accused of having “White Fragility,” meaning that they are too emotionally fragile to consider the possibility that they are secretly racist.
Because micro-aggressions cannot be proven and “systemic racism” cannot be empirically demonstrated, Critical Race Theorists demonstrate it anecdotally. Borrowing from a tenet of Third Wave feminism, Critical Race Theorists engage in “story-telling,” which is when hard evidence for systemic prejudice is replaced by anecdotal stories or outlier incidents of racism. This is why events like the killing of Trayvon Martin or George Floyd are used so powerfully by Critical Race Theorists; anecdotal accounts and statistical outliers are necessary to prove their point. However, even here it gets strange. Trayvon Martin was killed by a Hispanic man, George Zimmerman, who according to Critical Race Theory is considered “black” and an oppressed minority. However, because Zimmerman was a homeowner in a nice neighborhood and successful in his career, he was characterized as “white” by Critical Race Theorists who see race not as a biological reality, but as a social construct. Similarly, George Floyd was killed by four officers – and two were ethnic minorities. But because they were police officers, the Asian and Hispanic officers were deemed to be a part of the oppressive “power structure” and therefore considered “white” by Critical Race Theorists.
It’s important to realize that Critical Race Theory is a misnomer in that ethnicity is not all that is considered. Intersectionality is an add-on to Critical Race Theory and basically assigns victimhood points to people who are members of multiple oppressed identity groups. For example, women are considered a minority (statistically, they are not in the minority) as well as homosexuals and ‘transgender’ people (who they call aptly, “sexual minorities”), the disabled, and students. But some people – like a disabled black lesbian – is more oppressed than, for example, a disabled but heterosexual Hispanic man. This novelty is why you see fraudulent claims to membership in oppressed identity groups; Elizabeth Warren claimed to be a Cherokee Indian, Racheal Dolezal claimed to be black, and millennial women who profess to be lesbians have a higher pregnancy rate than do their counterparts who profess to be heterosexual. Simply put, it is advantageous to identify as oppressed.
Other buzzwords include diversity (which only applies to things like skin color or sexual behavior, not ideology or religion), inclusion, and equity (a codeword for the redistribution of wealth), forming the acronym D.I.E. Generally speaking, solutions to class disparity is wealth-redistribution, larger government, and a transfer of privilege from one class of people to another – often under the guise of environmental concerns caused by industrialization and capitalism (the greatest inequity, according to Critical Race Theorists, is that between the First World and Third World).
Do not confuse Critical Race Theory with an appeal against racism. Critical Race Theory, by its very nature, is racialist at best and racist at worst. Dr. King and the civil rights leaders of the 20th Century taught the notion of “color-blindness,” that we should not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. But for Critical Race Theorists, color-blindness is supposedly racist and ethnicity (or victimhood identity) is all that matters.
The term “anti-racism,” for example, was invented by Critical Race Theorist, Ibram Kendi, who explained, “To be anti-racist is to be anti-capitalist. To be anti-capitalist to be anti-racist.” These aren’t good-hearted attempts at racial harmony; these are well-orchestrated attempts at racial disharmony meant to accomplish a Marxist end-game.
BARRETT DUKE, LEADER OF MONTANA’S SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, SUPPORTS THESE RADICAL CONCEPTS.
Responding to Dwight McKissic, the radical Democrat agitator in the SBC, Duke took to Twitter to find a compromise with with the Marxists and salvage Critical Race Theory as a helpful analytical tool. See below.
One has to wonder what exactly Duke thinks are aspects of Critical Theory that are compatible with the Southern Baptist doctrinal statement (or the Bible). Which part of Nazi-infused, race-based Marxism is compatible with a Christian worldview? What about Critical Race Theory – or the concepts therein – can “we agree on”?
With more than 100 Southern Baptist Churches across the State of Montana, it should be of grave concern that its head is on the wrong side of the issue on Marxism, racialism, and Critical Theory. Will Montana’s Southern Baptist Church “go woke” with the rest of the mainstream denominations that liberalized in the mid-20th Century?
If you would like to call Barrett Duke to speak some sense to him, you can do so at the Montana Southern Baptist Convention headquarters at 406-252-7537. Should he tell you that he does not support Social Justice or Critical Theory, please ask why he has yet to sign the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel.
A call for comment to Barrett Duke was not returned by the time of publication.
Editor’s Note. This article was written by JD Hall and published at Montana Daily Gazette. Reposted in its entirety with permission. Title changed by Protestia.
(Reformation Charlotte) Jenn Johnson, who, along with her husband, Brian, is one of the senior worship pastors at the infamously blasphemous charismatic Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bethel, which is known for its parlor tricks, false manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and cultish practice of raising the dead and “grave sucking,” is no stranger to controversy.
This time, Jenn Johnson, a female “pastor” who is on stage mocking the throne of God, says that angels sit around the throne of God having “farting contests.”
It really doesn’t get much more blasphemous than that.
An application for the Paycheck Protection Program with a reminder note stuck to it.
(Evangelical Dark Web) Joel Osteen landed in hot water when the Houston Chronicle broke the story that Lakewood Church had indeed accepted Payroll Payment Protection loans under the Small Business Administration’s allocation for non-profit organizations to benefit from this lockdown relief program, which he previously denied. But Joel Osteen was far from the only pastor and Lakewood Church was far from the only church to have received these forgivable loans. In fact, Lakewood Church’s $4.4 million haul was not even the largest.
Methodology
The Evangelical Dark Web analyzed the data released by the Small Business Administration of all organizations that were approved of loan amounts greater than $150,000. We searched and selected several prominent Evangelical organizations found to have been granted a loan. Catholic Dioceses and mainline denominations are excluded from these findings. It is possible that some of the churches under non-denominational are affiliated organizationally or ideologically with established denominations. The exact loans amounts were not disclosed in the SBA metadata. The selected examples are not exhaustive, but they are meant to contain the largest churches and America’s most influential pastors, particularly those who are in and represent Big Eva, and teachers and churches that readers have requested more research on. These results contain churches, seminaries, faith-based media outlets, and ministries. Blatant heretical movements are labeled but this categorization is not universally applied to organizations theologically aligned to these movements for the brevity of research.
Results
The organizations synonymous with Big Eva such as The Gospel Coalition, 9Marks, and programs under the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention all have forgivable loans. Tim Keller’s The Gospel Coalition received up to $1 million while his church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York City, received up to $5 million. Mark Dever’s 9Marks and his church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, received up to $350,000. The SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, helmed by Russell Moore, received up to $1 million. Five of the six Southern Baptist Seminaries (SBTS being the outlier) received loans ranging from $1 million to $5 million…
(Lifenews) An Argentinian pro-abortion activist has created a modification for the famous 1990s video game, Doom, in which the player completes the game by shooting an unborn baby with a shotgun. Once the player has killed the unborn baby the game displays the message “You defeated fetito [English translation – little foetus]! Give this misoprostol [the drug used for medical abortion] to those in need so they might defeat it too!”
As part of the ongoing effort by pro-abortion activists to introduce abortion to Argentina, one activist Florencia Rumpel, has created a version of the controversial game, Doom, entitled: “Doom Fetito”, in English – “Little Foetus Doom.”
Doom is a violent ‘first-person-shooter released in 1993 in which the person playing the game adopts the perspective of the shooter. In the original version of the game, the player encounters and kills monsters of various kinds as he or she progresses through the game.
In Doom Fetito however, rather than killing monsters, the player first kills pro-life women, Catholic priests and police, before ultimately killing an unborn child – the “boss” of the game. Following the…
