Author: Paul Brown

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Russell Moore “Shaking With Rage” Over Underwear Meme As He Spreads Leftist Conspiracy Theories.

In a November 3rd Christianity Today editorial, Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore claimed that “Some Evangelicals are endorsing violence.” Moore’s only piece of inspiration for the editorial was a popular conservative meme that mocked the establishment media’s bungling of the recent Paul Pelosi assault. 

Initial reports from left-wing media sources, which have since been retracted, alleged that Paul Pelosi answered the door in his underwear, telling police officers that responded to a 911 call, “everything’s good”, before he was assaulted with a hammer by alleged assailant David DePape, who was alleged by the same left-wing media sources to be a Trump supporter. Russell Moore jumped on the leftwing conspiracy train, pedalling the conspiracy that David DePape was a crazed conservative driven by right-wing conspiracy theories.

“Keep in mind what we have witnessed this week: A man with a history of following conspiracy theories—including 2020 election denial—broke into the San Francisco home of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, took a hammer, and beat the Speaker’s husband until he needed critical surgery. Police report that the man went through the house, yelling “Where’s Nancy?” The language is a direct echo of screams from insurrectionists on January 6, who swarmed outside the Speaker’s office after attacking and ransacking the Capitol.”

In reality, DePape is a “42-year-old nudist living in a Berkeley hippie commune that flies gay flags and banners supporting Black Lives Matter”, and Russell Moore is the one pedalling January 6th insurrectionist conspiracy theories. Moore claims that conservative evangelicals have an issue with the truth, but Moore himself clearly is no friend of the concept. He continues this line of accusation, making an effort to cast conservatives who oppose the unbiblical teaching of Critical Race Theory in churches as equivalent to conspiracy theorists.

“Where does much of this violence or the threat of it come from? Lies. The idea that the election was stolen by a vast conspiracy of liberals is a lie. That elected officials are part of a secret cabal to drink the blood of babies is a lie. That Jews are pulling the strings of the “globalist” order is a lie. That the federal government designed COVID-19 as a hoax is a lie. That your pastor is a “cultural Marxist” for preaching what the Bible teaches on race and justice is a lie.”

Russell Moore wants conservatives to believe that critical theory is Biblical teaching. Moore is admired by the leftist Liberation theologians who pedal CRT. While he is seething about January 6th and calling conservatives “conspiracy theorists” for opposing cultural Marxists, Moore is partnering with the cultural Marxists who want to deconstruct evangelicalism.

He can keep his rage and his shakes.

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Jesus Quotes ‘Book of Mormon’ In The Chosen Season 3

A recently released trailer from season 3 of The Chosen reveals that the show has gone full Mormon. In the clip published on the show’s Facebook page, Jonathan Roumie, the actor who portrays Jesus in the series, makes the statement, “I am the law of Moses.” Contrary to this misquotation, Jesus never claimed to be the law of Moses, but rather claimed to “fulfill the law” in Matthew 5:17. 

The quotation “I am the Law of Moses” is actually derived from Nephi 15:9 in the book of Mormon:

I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live

Though disappointing to Christian fans of The Chosen, this development in the series should not surprise viewers, as director Dallas Jenkins previously defended his Mormon friends, saying, “LDS are Christians” in a series of videos that defended Mormonism. The first video in the series began with the claim that God answered the prayers of director Dallas Jenkins, through the LDS church, allowing Jenkins to film season two of The Chosen in its Jerusalem set in Goshen, Utah. Apparently, Jenkins’ use of LDS resources and his friendship with Mormons have opened the door to heresy and compromise in the production of the series. As the series has gained popularity, its producers and actors have embraced ecumenism, with Jonathan Roumie and Dallas Jenkins visiting the Vatican to promote the series by meeting Pope Francis. The Pontiff asked Jenkins if he played Judas, which isn’t a stretch, considering his recent betrayal of the words of Christ.

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Is Rob Schneider and ‘Movie Night Ministry’ Helping the Church Grow?

Comedian Rob Schneider is known for his antics as a foul-mouthed actor, playing such characters as a male prostitute in his raunchy comedy Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. Schneider has recently been in the news for his libertarian political positions and comments about cancel culture, which allegedly landed Schneider on Hollywood’s conservative actor blacklist. In an effort to continue producing movies, Schneider has teamed up with Movie Night Ministries to produce Daddy Daughter Trip, a family-friendly movie.

Normally the production of a family-friendly “Christian” movie would be considered a non-story, and normally it would be considered encouraging to see a movie star who specializes in raunchy humor decide to change his tune and produce something wholesome and kid-friendly. The seeker-friendly strategy of Movie Night Ministries, however, is to take the attractional power of a movie star with a reputation for producing a certain form of entertainment, add it to an otherwise average family-friendly movie, and then top the whole thing off with just enough Christianese or “Christ-centered undertones” to reel people into the seeker-sensitive church permanently. 

Details on Movie Night Ministry’s actual evangelism strategy are virtually non-existent in their promotional material, but the program claims to have the ability to attract, convert, and retain unchurched visitors who venture through the doors of the church. 

Movie Night Ministry touts its conversion formula for moving a visitor from a movie-goer to a permanent movie-goer. Establish trust with a free movie. Offer a new film that is only available at church as an exclusive opportunity frequently (this step takes the place of the urgency created by knowing that you will spend eternity in hell if you don’t have saving faith in Jesus). Create credibility by using “credible talent” in films (because the ministry doesn’t believe in the credible witness of the scriptures). Finally, win the lost soul over with “value.” The poor lost soul “is not offended by any cost” and “feels safe to attend.” It’s almost as if Movie Night Ministry believes that Jesus never said anything about counting the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:25-33).

Of course, the Movie Night Ministries’ model doesn’t need scripture, Gospel preaching, or Jesus to win the lost because it utilizes the key secret seeker-sensitive ingredient, an unregenerate foul-mouthed Pagan celebrity who needs the Gospel just as much as every unchurched attendee of a Movie Night Ministry event. At the same time that the Daddy Daughter Trip movie trailer was making the rounds, Schneider was taking the Lord’s name in vain and dropping F-bombs on Bill Maher’s Club Random Podcast, which should come as no surprise because Pagan’s gonna Pag. According to Movie Night Ministries, this method is now the “#1 method in attracting non-churchgoers to local congregations” and the “first to deploy ‘A-list’ talent to grow local congregations.” 

Unsurprisingly, Movie Night Ministries touts the endorsement of Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, which pretty much sums up the ministry’s lack of true Gospel presentation in a nutshell.

To be fair, while Movie Night Ministries is the first ministry to produce its own seeker-sensitive films, LifeChurch has been pushing this attractional model for several years with their At the Movies-themed worship services that present a seeker-sensitive message through the lens of a Blockbuster film. 

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Meet the Coalition of Leftist Theological Misfits Trying to Kill ‘Christian Nationalism’

As arguments over the much-maligned and inadequately defined concept of “Christian Nationalism” rage in the bowels of social media, a wonky inclusive coalition of leftist theological misfits from several organizations has taken upon themselves the task of defeating Christian nationalism and foisting religious pluralism upon all those Christians in America who believe that their convictions should influence life beyond their church or personal prayer closet. This coalition includes the Baptist Joint Committee, Faith Voices, Know Your Neighbor, National Coalition For Public Education, Christians Against Christian Nationalism, and Shoulder to Shoulder.

Notable endorsers of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism statement include Sister Simone Campbell of the network lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Red Letter Christian Founders Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo, and Sojourner’s founder Jim Wallis. Members of Christians Against Christian Nationalism and its affiliated sister organizations are unapologetically dedicated to promoting religious pluralism. They believe that attempts by Christians to exercise power in the public square are fundamentally unchristian. For example, the Baptist Joint Committee filed a legal brief against Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cake Shop Owner who refused to make a Gay Wedding Cake.

The National Coalition for Public Education, a coalition member, uses its political influence and clout to push an agenda of opposing private school vouchers and promoting increased funding for the woke public school indoctrination system. Supporting members of the NCPE include secular leftist organizations, such as Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, and the National PTA. The accusation against private Christian schools is that they are discriminatory and support the teaching of religion. Never mind that these secular leftist organizations promote an overt LGBTQ-promoting agenda that sexualizes children at a young age through graphic sex ed programs and diversity initiatives that normalize sexual deviancy.

The Baptist Joint Committee of the coalition isn’t afraid to join hands with anyone who advocates pluralism. The group openly accepts non-Christians who promote the cause of religious pluralism. Faith doesn’t matter to the BJC as long as you agree with their stance on religious pluralism and the first amendment and “find common ground that allows all of us to make a greater impact,” whatever that means.

Members of these coalition groups appear to be more concerned with creating a religiously diverse nation than preaching the Gospel to a lost and dying world. According to Christians Against Christian Nationalism signer Paula Dempsey, “all are beloved as God’s children,” and Christians should “promote a pluralistic society grounded in the First Amendment’s free establishment clauses.” 

Interestingly, the leftist coalition of theological misfits who oppose the ever-nebulous boogeyman of Christian nationalism seems to be the same misfits who have advocated for “separation of church and state” for the past 50 years. Their argumentation isn’t rooted in scripture but rather in a pluralistic interpretation of the constitution and a religiously secular conceptualization of the founding documents. The secular state isn’t neutral, and its practices will never be neutral. If the coalition of leftists against Christian Nationalism were honest, they would say that they prefer drag queen story hour over public Christmas nativities, abortion on demand over public funding for faith-based crisis pregnancy centers, graphic sex tutorials for elementary-school students over teaching a Biblically-based sexual ethic, and most notably an emphasis on religious pluralism over the exclusivity of Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

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$19,997? T.D. Jakes Joins Scientologist Grant Cardone in ‘Path To Prosperity Mega Conference’ That Costs Mega Bucks

Trinity-Denying TD Jakes frequently joins heretics of all stripes in a quest to build his own empire. Last year Jakes teamed up with Your Best Life Now author Joel Osteen for a conference that cost $1,000 to attend. Jakes is all about personal kingdom-building and wealth-building, which is why he fits in so well with Osteen. Jakes recently bequeathed his long-running Woman, Thou Art Loose Oneness Pentecostal conference to his daughter, Sarah Jakes Roberts, who he “slayed in the spirit” at the final conference.

While one might hope that a Trinity-denying, prosperity Gospel-preaching money-grubber would hang up his old collection plate, TD Jakes has chosen to join forces with Scientologist entrepreneur Grant Cardone in the Path to Prosperity Mega Conference. The conference seeks to bring together secular business leaders and faith leaders who have bought into the heretical “law of attraction”, that is, the idea that positive thoughts create positive energy, which leads to positive results. This heresy unites prosperity preachers like Jakes with fellow keynote speaker Grant Cardone, a professing Scientologist. The conference’s tagline is “We believe abundance is your birthright.”

Cardone, a well-known motivational speaker and entrepreneur, believes that Scientology is true because it helped him find his “purpose” and “energy”. Contrary to clear Biblical teaching, Cardone also believes that Scientology is just a worldview lens that helps people. According to Cardone, Christians can join Scientology and remain Christians.

The difference in this religion and other religions is it doesn’t impose how you think about God. This is not a Muslim god. This is not a Christian god. This is not…, they leave that alone. okay and like you could be a Catholic, and Scientology would just make you a better Catholic, but what’s that’s really gonna do for you is this is gonna make you a better husband, better father, better leader better mother, better son.

The retail price of the general conference admission is $994, with a current sale price of $497, while the “Diamond Package”, which includes meet and greets with Path to Prosperity Founders and access to the Prosperity Ball and Private Yacht party, has a retail price of $19,997, but a current discounted price of $4,997. 

With a bankrupt spiritual philosophy and prices like these, the Path to Prosperity Mega-Conference is sure to attract some of the poorest rich people in the world. Those at this conference who believe that prosperity is a means to godliness would do well to receive the counsel given to the church of Laodicea by Jesus in Revelation 3:17-18.

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 

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Russell Moore Joins Hands With Marxist Liberation Theologians in Deconstructionist Conference

The roster for the upcoming Reconstructing Evangelicalism Conference, which would be more aptly named if it were called the Deconstructing Evangelicalism Conference, looks like a Who’s Who in the leftist Evangelical world. The conference, hosted by the Center for Pastor Theologians will feature several false teachers who twist scripture in their own special ways, including radical Liberation Theologians, environmentalists, Marxists, and supporters of the LGBTQ agenda.

One notable theologian in the lineup is Russell Moore, who is currently obsessed with what he describes as the evils of Christian Nationalism. In a recent article, Moore claimed that those conservatives who oppose leftist ideology are seeking to build an ethnostate through “Christian Nationalism”, Moore’s favorite right-wing boogeyman, while leftist Christians are simply seeking to advance society through progressive means.

Despite their self-perceived opposition to the social gospel of old, Christian nationalists embrace the exact same view of the gospel. For the social-gospel-oriented left wing, Christianity exists to build a social order in step with the upward progress of humanity. For the Christian nationalist right-wing, Christianity exists to build a social order in step with national or ethnic identity. The gospel is a means for a forward-looking utopianism in the one case and a backward-looking nostalgia in the other. Christian nationalism is a liberation theology for white people.

A number of Liberation theologians are slated to speak at the conference and participate in panel discussion, including Malcolm Foley, Equity Advisor to the President of Theological Dumpster-Fire Baylor, who resents the suggestion by Moore that Christian nationalism is merely “liberation theology for white people.”

In a recent response to Moore’s statement, Foley claimed that liberation theology is for white people, and rank heretic Marxist liberation theologians James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez are actually orthodox.

Finally and perhaps offensively, there is the overall false equivalency of the claim that Christian nationalism is “liberation theology for white people”, an absurdity that Moore surely understands: it assumes that white people are oppressed, particularly because of their whiteness, Americanness, and “Christianity”. Cone teaches us much because the Black experience in this country has largely been one of facing terroristic violence and political and economic oppression. Gutierrez, Jon Sobrino, Oscar Romero and others teach us much because of and through their embeddedness with the poor and exploited of Latin America. In white Christian nationalists, we hear nothing but the whining of those who interpret the loss of cultural and political hegemony as persecution. There is no equivalence here. Nothing in the Scriptures suggests the Lord’s sympathy with the greedy and the prideful. Much, however, aligns the Lord with the poor. 

Despite pushback against Moore’s recent statements, Foley, who preaches the Marxist myth of “Racial Capitalism”, considers Moore to be a true comrade in the fight against capitalism and orthodox Christianity because they both despise conservative white evangelicals.

Other notable speakers include LGBTQ-affirming author Kristen Du Mez, LGBTQ-affirming Love Sechrest, a black feminist who uses she/her pronouns and is the author of Can “White” People Be Saved?, LGBTQ sympathizer and climate-science pusher Gavin Ortlund, animal rights advocate Karen Swallow Prior, and feminist deistic evolutionist Pastrix Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, who once argued that just like Corrie Ten Boom ignored German laws and hid Jews from the Nazis, Christians should ignore US immigration laws and help illegal immigrants

Gospel Coalition authors who will join in this leftist celebration of the decline of the faith include Kevin Vanhoozer, Benjamin Espinosa, Winfred Neely, Michael Niebauer, Matt O’Reilly, and Douglas Sweeney.

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Self-Proclaimed “Black Darwin” of Biologos Declares Social Justice Our Only Hope

Biologos, the theistic evolution organization founded by Francis Collins and heavily supported by Tim Keller, is swimming in the primordial goo of false teaching and leftist ideology. Many theistic evolutionists begin their deconstruction by denying the historicity of the first three chapters of Genesis; a perspective quickly devolves into a denial of any other inconvenient Biblical truths.

Biologos refuses to take a position on Biblical inerrancy and openly admits that its members have a broad range of views on whether the Bible is inerrant. The result is inevitably a theology that denies the trustworthiness of Biblical narrative. In a vacuum of truth, Biologos and its founder Francis Collins, have embraced numerous worldly ideologies that directly contradict the truth of scripture.

As head of the NIH, Collins oversaw an increase in the ghoulish use of murdered baby parts for scientific research, made overtures towards the acceptance of antibiblical and anti-science LGBTQ affirming policies, and directed the COVID masking and vaccine public policy charade that convinced millions of Christians that they should live fearfully and forsake the assembly of the local church. 

Keeping in step with the deconstruction trends at Biologos, Joseph L Graves, an up-and-coming Biologos conference speaker, recently announced, in an article released on the Biologos website, that humanity faces extinction, and its only hope is social justice. 

Graves, who claims that his friends and colleagues call him “Black Darwin” for his prowess in the field of evolutionary studies, might also have earned the title “Black Greta Thunberg” for his recent baseless doomsday predictions about the future extinction of humanity. Graves doesn’t offer any explanations for his belief that the human race is doomed to “extinction,” but he claims to have a divine calling, which he compares to the “Voice in the Wilderness” of John the Baptist, only to proclaim the “truth” of social justice.

Still, I feel I was placed here for a reason. Like John the Baptist, I was called on to give voice to the truth.  (A Voice in the Wilderness, excerpt from Conclusion)

Graves believes that the justice provided by God at the end of days is not sufficient. He clearly denies the sovereignty of God in such matters.

Unfortunately, there are too many within the broad tent of our faith who are entirely comfortable with the status quo, or who simply think that we are in the “end times” and Jesus will soon sort everything out. 

Graves’ social justice resolution unmasks the gospel according to Biologos. That gospel is the false Social Gospel of social justice. Graves is just a secular humanist, cosplaying as a Christian. 

In the final chapter of my book, I outline a path towards social justice that all people of goodwill can get behind, so that like Amos 5:4 we might “…let justice roll down like waters. And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” I also emphasize what is at stake if we don’t do anything. Social justice is our only hope, not just because it is morally right and long overdue but because without it our species will die. We are now in a race between justice and extinction. I conclude that we now have a choice to decide to save ourselves, but this is only possible by learning to love our neighbors the way Christ taught us.

Contrary to Graves’ lunacy, Jesus and his atoning work on the cross are the only hope for humanity. There is only one path to salvation, and it doesn’t involve human effort or “saving ourselves.”

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:11-12

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SBC Prez. Bart Barber Slanders Conservatives and The Abolitionist Movement

Following criticism from conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention for the permanent appointment of Brent Leatherwood as the head of the ERLC by the SBC institutionalist establishment, SBC President Bart Barber, hell-bent on spreading disunity and misrepresenting the pastors he’s supposed to be leading, took to Twitter with some spicy criticism for conservatives and abolitionists in the SBC. Barber focused his vitriol on SBC pastor Dusty Deevers, the abolitionist producer of the documentary A Storm Comes Rolling Down The Plain.

Institutionalists in the SBC who continue to support the incrementalist position, despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade, pretend that Deevers and the abolitionist movement attacked the incrementalists first. In reality, the real battle between the two positions began when incrementalist pro-life organizations, including the ERLC, threatened primary pro-life legislators who promoted any incrementalist legislation and funded campaigns to defeat any abolitionist legislation.

The scenario of ERLC-supported incrementalists fighting against abolitionist bills played out in Louisiana just prior to this year’s SBC national convention. ERLC leaders, including Brent Leatherwood, rejected abolitionist overtures at the SBC annual meeting and refused to honestly answer for their actions that led to the defeat of Louisiana’s abolitionist bill.

Ironically, Barber accuses Deevers of “selling out to the crass tone of secular politics instead of following the way of Christ”, an act that most accurately describes what the ERLC did in Louisiana and other states. Deevers is merely calling out the SBC for celebrating the promotion of a man who, as interim head of the ERLC, led the opposition to abolition in the state of Louisiana.

Barber claims that the SBC’s position on abortion has been solidly conservative for the past 40 years, a pretty sketchy claim. Consider that the slogan for the pro-life movement and Southern Baptists was “Abortion is Murder” during the 1992 pro-life Summer of Mercy Campaign. The recently announced “Make Abortion Unnecessary” slogan of the 2022 ERLC illustrates how the incrementalist pro-life movement and the ERLC have moved away from the proclamation of the Gospel as the ultimate goal of their anti-abortion efforts.

The incrementalist position teaches that women who choose to murder their children are victims. In reality, women who choose abortion overwhelmingly do so for personal convenience, knowing that they are snuffing out the life of a person in their womb. Many are unashamed of celebrating or “shouting their abortion.”

Barber claims that incrementalism is the only strategy that has ever saved any babies. Of course, the Louisiana abolitionist bill, if enacted in May, would have abolished all abortion in that state upon the overturning of Roe V. Wade, saving thousands more babies than existing laws in the state. In reality, the only thing that keeps abolitionist efforts from being effective is the constant sabotage of abolitionist bills by organizations like the ERLC.

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Tim Keller Peddles ‘Biblical Critical Theory’

Evangelical leftists are well known for flip-flopping from one position to another. During the summer of 2020, many evangelical leaders dove headlong into the social justice movement, embracing critical theory in open defiance of Biblical teaching on justice. This embrace was followed by backpedaling in some cases, as many pastors received pushback from their congregants.

Flip-floppers went from pedaling social justice-aligned books like Jamar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise to denying that Critical Race Theory was actually being used in churches and seminaries to indoctrinate Christians into Marxist ideologies that contradict the gospel. Now it appears that many of the leftist flip-floppers in evangelicalism may once again be poised to accept critical theory as a “useful analytical tool” and even attempt to syncretize the theory with the gospel.

Tim Keller, Gospel Coalition founder and promoter of some of the most subversive “Christian” ideologies in the last twenty years, is known for taking foul secular ideologies and baptizing them in the waters of Christianese. Keller regularly partners with Biologos and its founder Francis Collins in promoting theistic evolution, the baptism of the false secular humanistic teaching of evolution in the waters of Christian language.

Through the Gospel Coalition, Keller has been a leading promoter of leftist political ideology under the false premise that political parties are morally neutral. Keller has even gone so far as to register as a Democrat, aligning himself with a political party that has advanced the cause of normalizing sodomy, establishing child-abusing transgender policies, legalizing preborn baby murder, and advocating numerous other anti-biblical policy.

With a track record of disguising false ideology with a thin veneer of Christianese, one should not be surprised that Keller, who originally claimed to be against the false ideologies of “Secular Justice and Critical Theory”, recently joined forces with philosopher Christopher Watkins in the promotion of a new Christianized version of Critical Theory. 

Keller wrote the foreword in Watkins’ upcoming book “Biblical Critical Theory,” which is set to be released in November. According to Watkin, he wanted to write a book that took the Bible seriously while also taking Critical Theory seriously.

I am scrambling around as an undergraduate, trying to find books that take both the universe of these critical theorists seriously, that really understand them, and that take the Bible seriously, and seek to remain faithful to it, and I just couldn’t find anything, and I was sure that there was a book out there to be written.

The real question that Watkin and Keller should be asking is, “Why should Christians be engaged in the practice of syncretizing a Biblical worldview with the many godless ideologies of the world.” Believers have a duty to answer the world’s questions through the sufficient words of scripture, but Christians should never expect that scripture will satisfy the carnal desires of a fallen world that is bent against God. 

A closer examination of Watkins’ beliefs reveals that, while he claims to hold to a “Biblical critical theory,” the lens he views the world through looks much like the lens of other leftist Critical theorists who have made their mark on evangelicalism in the last five years. Watkins is currently in the middle of a four-year Australian-government funded research project to investigate the role that the church and Christian institutions can play in the “new social contract” (aka new world order).

When Watkins explained his theories on social contract in the past, they resembled Keller’s views on how social gospel-infused into society by Christian institutions can benefit society. As with all presentations of social gospel, the presentation of the gospel is made subservient to a desire to find common ground with the false ideologies of the world. Watkins has fallen prey to the Critical Race Theory narrative pervasive in the United States, as he has paid homage to false race-based narratives and left-wing organizations in his writings on social contract.

I would like to finish by quoting an account from a meeting of faith-based leaders gathered in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, who was killed by a 28-year-old white police officer. The account is written by Michael Ray Matthews from the PICO Network (People Involved in Community Organizing).

As I continued to lead songs and chants in the pouring rain, one of the seminarians grabbed the bullhorn and asked if we could change our chant from ‘show me what democracy looks like’ to ‘show me what theology looks like.’ She was calling her sisters and brothers in the faith to go all in—to be totally immersed in mind, body and spirit, to bring the richness of our faith into the public space. 

The book has received endorsements from a number of critical theory proponents on the left, including egalitarian feminist theologian Michael Bird.

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Kansas Abolitionists Rejoice After Trojan-Horse Abortion Amendment Goes Down in Flames

Kansas, a state with a Republican supermajority in the legislature, rejected “Value Them Both,” a ballot referendum on an incrementalist constitutional amendment that would have granted legislators the constitutional right to regulate abortion. Protestia reported on the amendment back in June. The language of the amendment differed significantly from the amendment proposed by abolitionists and then tabled by legislators, under threat from incrementalist political activists who promised to run primary opponents against any legislator that supported the complete abolition of abortion. 

If passed, the Value Them Both Amendment would have enshrined the incrementalist position into the state’s constitution, making abortion law subject to the whims of each new legislative session. While Value them Both proponents envisioned that this would lead to a steady ratcheting up of the law until abortion only happened on occasions that are rare and heavily regulated (notice how similar this sounds to the old Democrat Party position on abortion), the results of the referendum show that such an amendment would likely have unintended consequences in the form of abortion policy that constantly wavers rather than offering the unchanging protections that are found in the proposed abolitionist personhood amendment that would have defined a pre-born child in Biblical fashion, as a “human being” from the beginning of conception.

The adoption of Value Them Both would have made adoption of the personhood amendment impossible without the repeal of Value Them Both, as the incrementalist amendment guaranteed the right of legislators to regulate abortion, a concept antithetical to the idea of pre-born personhood. The Value Them Both Amendment also contained moderating language that liberal judges would have likely interpreted as a license to legislate rape, incest, and life of the mother exceptions from the bench, as well as contrive the right to the existence of the abortion industry.

Many mainstream media outlets have declared that the defeat of the Value Them Both Amendment is a defeat for pro-life policy in a traditionally conservative state and a bellwether for how the rest of the nation will respond to the fall of Roe Vs. Wade. Contrary to media claims, the amendment itself was not an actual abortion ban but rather an amendment that would allow for the regulation of abortion, specifically in an incremental manner. Absent from the mainstream media coverage of the referendum is the role that abolitionists played in the defeat of Value Them Both.

The abolitionist position of opposing Value Them Both as an unbiblical compromise was presented in public debates by AIM (Abortion Is Murder) Kansas. During the campaign leading up to the referendum, the abolitionist position was publicized by abolitionist ministries, including Apologia’s expose on the Southern Baptist Convention ERLC to defeat a Louisiana bill that would have outlawed abortion in Louisiana. Prominent SBC Pastors Bill Ascol and Tom Ascol both addressed the unbiblical nature of regulating the murder of pre-born babies at the SBC’s annual convention in Anaheim. 

Pew research conducted before the referendum shows that the proportion of Kansans who believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases (49%) is nearly identical to the balance of Kansans who say that abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances (49%). Given that the referendum was scheduled during the primary election, a time when Republicans who tend to be more conservative turn out in higher numbers, initial polling on the referendum indicated that the referendum would likely pass by only a few percentage points. With only a few absentee votes left to count, Value Them Both was declared a failed initiative, with 59% of voters casting a “no” vote and 41% of voters casting a “yes” vote, a much wider margin than polls predicted. 

While the exact number of abolitionist voters who rejected the referendum cannot be readily ascertained from the total number of “no” votes received, abolitionists remain hopeful that the failure of Value Them Both will function as a springboard to revive the Personhood Constitutional amendment that would effectively abolish abortion as a legal practice in the state of Kansas and facilitate the growth of abolition as a much more prominent national movement in coming years.