Author: Staff Writer

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Church Critical Race Theory Evangelical Stuff Featured

Veggie Tales Creator Fact-Checked by Co-host for Saying Dumb Stuff About the Bible

Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer, the man who swears he’s not progressive despite knocking creationists as a bunch of dummies, crediting his white privilege for the success of his show, arguing that liberals and Democrats are the real pro-lifers who have been reducing abortion, and recently claiming he didn’t know there was such things black Christians until he was an adult, was given a brief dose of clarity after mugging for his audience in order to dunk on the largest Christian University and conservatives in general.

During the February 24 edition of the Holy Post Podcast, Vischer was engaging in all sorts of scornful quippery when co-host Skye Jethani swiftly shot down his suggestion that “Liberty University” is an idolatrous name, and evidence of “Christian Nationalism.”


–TRANSCRIPT– KAITLYN SCHIESS: When I was at Liberty [University], I worked in social media, and so I kept up with all of our social media channels, including Pinterest. And one day I noticed that Liberty’s account had pinned this picture of a Bible, it looked like a Bible verse, but then someone with crayons or colored pencils had colored an American flag on top of the verse. And I was like rolling my eyes and I was gonna unpin it because I didn’t, like, before I knew what Christian nationalism was, wasn’t real thrilled with it. But then I read the verse and I thought, like, “It does sound like it’s about America. It doesn’t sound like it’s Israel.” And then I realized it’s because this was not a Bible verse. It was from the Book of Mormon. But we didn’t really care, because it sounded really pro-America. And we liked that, so we pinned it.

PHIL VISCHER: Wow. Here, I have another one. I have another one to add to our own list [of “you might be a Christian nationalist if…” jokes]. If you name your Christian college a word that appears in the Declaration of Independence but not in the Bible, you might be a Christian nationalist.

SKYE JETHANI: I’m pretty sure “liberty” occurs in the Bible.

[Editor’s Note. It does. “ἐλευθερία” is seen in Romans 8:21-“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:29, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Galatians 2:4, Galatians 5:1, Galatians 5:13, 1 Peter 2:16, and more]

SCHIESS: It’s based on a verse. That’s where they got the name.

VISCHER: It is? How do you know I was talking about Liberty? How do you know? I didn’t say I was talking about Liberty.

SCHIESS: Good point. Excellent point.

JETHANI: Well, is there a Christian college called, uh, uh, what else is in the Declaration of Independence?

VISCHER: Yeah, I was trying to think of some [laughs]. I could have been talking about Thomas Jefferson, who signed it. His name is on there. Thomas Jefferson College of the Bible. Everyone gets a pen knife on the first day of school.

h/t to @wokepreachertv for the clip, transcript, and verses. Click on his YouTube channel and like and subscribe for the edification of your soul.

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Charismatic Nonsense Evangelical Stuff Featured Heresies

Brian Houston Apologizes ‘Unreservedly’ For Hillsong NYC Debacle + Announces New Policies to Address Institutional Hedonism

Hillsong head honcho Brian Houston issued a letter of apology for the cornucopia of moral failings at Hillsong NYC, including not dealing with adulterating, prideful, pastor Carl Lentz sooner, various sex scandals, various money scandals, and various spiritual abuse scandals.

The letter of apology was sent to Hillsong members and comes four months after the church was shaken to the core after Lentz’s first affair went public. It said in part:

We know that Hillsong East Coast has failed to be the kind of church it should be. On behalf of the Global Board and as Global Senior Pastor, I accept responsibility for these failings and apologize unreservedly.

Hillsong HQ launched an internal investigation into the New York branch but never made the findings public. At the time, Houston said that the Church failed in “significant ways” to reflect the culture they wished to impart. Houston also said previously in a leaked phone recording that there was a “culture of dysfunction” at Hillsong and other officials confirmed that the misadventures of staffers using the church like a seedy dating service, “sleeping around” with volunteers and asking them to send nude pictures was “mostly true.”

Accompanying Houston’s email came a letter from the law firm behind the investigation- Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman. They explained that while the investigation was complete, it would “not be released to the public” in order to “protect the privacy and confidentiality of those involved.”

Along with the letter came an announcement on the Church website. Not only are Hillsong Perth pastor Chrishan and Danielle Jeyaratnam replacing the Lentz family with the hopes of setting the house in order, but they they announced “significant changes” at the church in order to “address the issues and misalignment of the culture and practices at Hillsong Church East Coast.” They hope these changes will “address the lapses that have affected the culture of our East Coast campuses, and prevent the strong policies, that we do have in place globally from being ignored.”

These include:

  • Additional training for staff and volunteers intended to increase awareness of the specific types of power dynamics that often arise in a church setting 
  • Revised and reinforced Code of Conduct for all Staff
  • Uniform HR policies, procedures and training
  • A clear and consistent system for reporting grievances and issues related to inappropriate behavior.
  • A stringent sexual misconduct and harassment policy and mandatory training. (“It is clear that our existing policies and procedures, which intend to promote a healthy environment, were actively ignored, failed to be maintained, and were not enforced effectively at a local level.”)
  • Improved financial accountability policies
  • Improved supervision and accountability of all pastors and staff 
  • Increased safeguards for staff and volunteers.
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Church Featured LGBTQQIP2SAA News

Podcast: The Pointless United Methodist Breakup+ Doug Wilson Son’s Persecution

On this episode of Polemics Report for March 2nd, 2021, JD discusses a gay “pastor” equating calling homosexuality a sin with wanting gays dead, the split in the United Methodist church, Gab getting hacked, and forced diversity on Nasdaq company boards. Later in the Patrons-only portion, he discusses Doug Wilson’s son facing government overreach and persecution in Moscow, Idaho. 

To listen to the free, truncated version, click below.

To listen to the full program, support us on Patreon for only $5.95 a month for this and every other full-length, subscriber-only podcast from the #1 Polemics Organization in the world. Not a bad deal, right? Click here to join.

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Charismatic Nonsense Evangelical Stuff Featured Heresies News

Prominent SBC Pastor Speaks at Gongshow Conference with Rockstar Prophetess Christine Caine

David Platt’s theology continues to shift from the good kind of radical to the bad, with the Mclean Bible Church pastor appearing at the IF:Gathering 2021 conference alongside charismatic, word of faith prophetess/rockstar demi-goddess Christine Caine. Caine was joined by a host of other speakers of varying repute, from the reasonably sound to the soul-shriekingly terrible. In no particular order, Francis Chan, Jackie Hill Perry, Anne Voskamp, Mike Todd, Eugene Cho, Ellie Holcomb, Latasha Morrison, Anita Phillips, Joni Eareckson Tada, Lysa Terkeusk, Lauren Chandler, and others.

Lest you think Platt is the odd man out, sandwiched between Francis Chan, a man a whisker’s breath away from becoming Roman Catholic and who believes he miraculously healed a whole village without the power of the Holy Spirit, and Anne Voskamp, the murmuring mystic who routinely blurs the line between the worship of God and achieving sexual ecstasy with him, famously describing how she “made love to God,” you’d be wrong.

While Platt is not so flamboyant as those two, the Past President of the International Missions Board has drifted in other ways, from saying that he is part of the problem in promulgating racial injustice on account of his white skin, or telling congregants who “can’t live” with the fact that their church family may be members of the Democratic party, who may vote for them, campaign for them, fundraise for them, and even run for office under their banner, that they should leave the church .

Naturally, the conference is sponsored in part by Lifeway Women, of whom Christine Caine is one of their most prominent authors, right up there with the Big Boss-man herself, Beth Moore.

This is no surprise. As we have thoroughly documented on this news site, Lifeway, the publishing arm of the SBC, routinely sells books by Anti-Trinitarians, Word-Faith and Prosperity teachers, New Age gurus, gay activists, mystics, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics.

Why should Caine be any different?

Just because she cut her teeth on Hillsong, the Brian Houston-led boondoggle that has the reputation for being among the most immature, Scripturally ignorant, and carnal people in the history of the world to ever call themselves Christians?

Just because she considers Joyce Meyer one of her best friends, chief mentor, and “spiritual mother,” who together hold to the “little god theology” and Word-Faith heresies that – like God – you can create destinies and demand temporal blessings simply by decreeing and declaring them into existence?

Just because she holds to the notion that Jesus died on the cross to give you possessions, wealth, and health, and that it is there for the taking if you have enough faith and confess it positively?

Just because she claims for herself the title of “activist” and fully promotes egalitarianism and Social Justice warrioring, along with founding a network designed to encourage women to become pastors and church eladers?

Just because Caine regularly recalls precise words that she says God has spoken to her, putting herself into the Biblical class of prophet, having supposedly heard direct, divine revelation from God?

We don’t think so. For Lifeway, those characteristics aren’t actually bugs, but features, and the other SBC affiliates who are speaking alongside Platt are just as guilty of enabling and contributing to the platforming of these speakers and spreading their words and theology far and wide.

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News

Breaking! Pastor James Coates Loses Hearing: To Spend 2 Months in Prison

Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church lost his bid to have the bail conditions of his release altered during a hearing today, ensuring that unless he agrees to not step foot on Church property and not fulfill his pastoral duties at the church, or the crown prosecutor drops the conditions, he will remain incarcerated until his May 3 trial.

Despite the setback, there will be an appeal, though that could take up to two weeks to be heard.

Justice Michalyshyn told both parties that he prepared a written decision, which will be publicly available on the court’s website later this afternoon.

According to a statement by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, Justice Centre President, lawyer John Carpay slammed the continued incarceration of Coates, describing it as a “miscarriage of justice.”

Charter freedoms do not disappear because the government declares regular Church services to be outlawed while allowing hundreds of people to fill their local Walmart. Pastor Coates is not a criminal. He held church services and should not spend the next eight or more weeks in jail when he has not committed any crime.

Ironically…it was Jason Kenney, then federal Immigration Minister, who stood at the side of Stephen Harper in February 2013, as the Government announced the creation of the Office of Religious Freedom, to promote freedom of religion around the world. But apparently not in Alberta.

A trial set eight weeks down the road is too long for an innocent Pastor to be in jail. Pastor Coates is a peaceful Christian minister. The Justice of the Peace should not have required him to violate his conscience and effectively stop pastoring his church as a condition to be released. This is a miscarriage of justice.

This is a developing story.

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Church In-person Church Righteous Defiance

What Exactly Happened at James Coates’ Hearing?

Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church had a hearing today to determine whether or not he’s spending the next two months in prison for the crime of being a faithful shepherd, with the judge hearing both submissions and then ruling Friday morning in the case that has garnered international attention and has highlighted Alberta’s tyrannical and schizophrenic coronavirus shutdown restrictions.

The hearing was to determine whether or not the conditions of James’ release might be modified or removed, as presently he will only be allowed to leave prison unless he promises to not step back on Church property again. The hearing was live-streamed on WebEx and was attended by nearly 450 people, many that failed to mute their microphone upon entry into the channel, causing frequent interruptions and chatter throughout, at one point causing both lawyers some difficulty hearing and needing to pause until the disruptions were muted.

Along with the online viewers, there were dozens of supporters gathered outside the Edmonton courthouse, protesting and praying for a favorable result.

The judge in the case, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Peter Michalyshyn, noted that Coates did not want a publication ban on the affair, an unusual move as they are normally imposed on bail hearings.

In contrast, the prosecutor requested that she not be mentioned by name and rather simply by her title, on account of her personal safety and “some security [issues] that have arisen on this matter,” an unusual request, which was granted.

Though each lawyer was given 10 minutes to speak and argue their case, the entire hearing lasted not much more than minutes. With all their arguments already submitted, Coates’s lawyer, James Kitchen with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, spoke the bulk of the time and the prosecutor chimed in for less than a minute.

Responding to the Crown’s contention that there is a substantial likelihood of danger to the public if Coates were released, Kitchen retorted that since the church has been opened at near capacity since July and there have been no outbreaks or superspreader events linked to his congregation, that this is substantial proof that Coates is no danger to Albertans. “He’s not going to hurt anybody, the only thing that will happen is he holds church again.”

Kitchen said it should be determined whether Coates’s charter rights are being violated before he is jailed, remarking: “We are putting the cart before the horse, doing things backwards.” Further, even if he was convicted of what he’s accused of, it wouldn’t even be a jailable offense, so why would it be a jailable offense now?

While the Crown was saying that it would undermine the justice system if they were to release Coates without what amounts to a restraining order from his church, prohibiting him from pastoring his flock, Kitchen described that as completely inverted.

He said that for normal people, it is the incarceration of a Christian minister that undermines the justice system, not the other way around, explaining, “Imposing upon a pastor the condition of his release that he not pastor…that is an embarrassment to the courts,” as well as “a stain on the administration of justice.”

Kitchen told the judge that the undertaking Coates was asked to sign was a violation of his religious beliefs. He said his client didn’t sign the undertaking because of a basic “inability to agree to the condition of release that was imposed upon him,” and that Coates ought to be released without condition.

This is a matter of deep-seeded personal conscience and religious beliefs for Pastor Coates. He is unable to disobey the God he believes in. He is compelled to obey…as [are] his congregants.

As for the Crown, since most of what Kitchen was speaking against were previous submissions, she was generally inactive throughout the affair. She made a short submission saying the original justice of the peace made no errors, and again that releasing him would be a danger to the public, saying, “The one condition that was imposed is directly related to the behaviors that come under the prohibition of the Public Health Act orders.”

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News

Rush Limbaugh Friend ‘He Gave His Life Completely to the Lord Jesus Christ in 2019’

Following the famed radio hosts death, Christian Author Joel C. Rosenberg, a friend of Limbaugh’s, wrote an article declaring that “Rather late in his life, in his final few years, Rush gave his life fully and completely to Jesus Christ. Though he had been raised in a Christian family, this was different. Something specific had happened in his life. He had made a very personal and profound decision. And it changed everything.”

Explaining that he had spoken to Limbaugh about his faith over the years, sharing stories and beliefs, and that he was concerned that he was a false convert and that his faith wasn’t genuine. This was compounded by some of the bad fruit from Rush he observed over the years. “I believed he was struggling spiritually…I worried that Rush was resisting a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…Or perhaps too busy and too successful to focus on such a relationship.”

Rosenberg recounts:

That’s why I worried about him – and a specific Bible verse kept echoing in my heart.

Jesus once said, “What profits a man to gain the whole world, but to lose his soul?” That’s what I feared for Rush.  Maybe that seems presumptuous. Maybe it was. But it came out of my love for him. No other reason.

So, I would talk with him about the Lord when I could. We would email about lots of things, and occasionally I’d share a Bible verse with him. But mostly I prayed for him – for the past 28 years, I asked the Lord to bless him and draw Rush into the kingdom of heaven.

Though the two hadn’t seen each other in a long time, Rush invited him to visit him in February 2020, right after the initial cancer diagnosis. But the week he went down to visit, he stayed in a hotel because Rush was physically broken and too weak to host him. Rosenberg never was able to see him again in person and eventually had to abort the visit.

I worried that he was going to pass away without knowing for absolute certain that he was going to heaven. That grieved me. But something happened on that trip that changed everything.

I learned the greatest possible news – that just the year before, in 2019, Rush had given his life wholly and completely to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Maybe he had made a decision to receive Christ by faith when he was much younger and had, like many of us, struggled to walk closely with Christ after that decision. That, I cannot say.

But I now knew that he was studying the Bible like he had never done before.  He was praying like he’d never done before. He was growing spiritually and it was transforming him. And it wasn’t out of desperation. It wasn’t simply because he was contemplating his own death. 

It was because he had truly wrestled through the claims of Jesus for himself, and come to the conclusion that Jesus really did die on the cross, rise again, and was the Messiah, the Savior and the King of the universe.

And having placed his faith in Christ’s love and forgiveness, he now had a certain, definitive hope that he was going to heaven when he died, and peace for every day before that.

I was overjoyed! 

Joel joyfully references some comments Rush made after diagnosis of cancer, where things shifted and Rush began speaking of his faith in more personal, more specific terms, specifically:

I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is of immense value, strength, confidence, and that’s why I’m able to remain fully committed to the idea of what is supposed to happen will happen when it’s meant to. There’s some comfort in knowing that some things are not in our hands.  There’s a lot of fear associated with that too, but there is some comfort.  It’s helpful to be able to trust and to believe in a higher plan.

Rosenberg closes with this:

I didn’t feel at liberty to say any of this publicly, so I didn’t.

I told my wife, Lynn, and my sons and we rejoiced, because we had been praying for him and his family for decades. 

But then another wonderful thing happened.

I began to hear him share about his faith in Christ and newfound hope with the radio audience he loved so dearly, and who so loved him.

For such a public person, Rush was also intensely private.

But he began talking about his faith in Christ, and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt it was real. 

We pray that it was so.

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News

Francis Chan Joins Priests and Nuns to Speak at Roman Catholic Conference

Author and evangelist Francis Chan has joined forces with the Roman Catholic contingent, appearing as a guest speaker at a major Catholic conference and continuing to give evidence that he’s putting on his floaties and taking one step closer towards the bank of the Tiber river, dipping in his toe and ready to swim across to Rome.

Chan, once a Master’s Seminary grad and now a spiritually squirrely scoundrel, was last seen healing an entire village without the Holy Spirit, as well as butchering church history by declaring that for the first 1500 years of Church history, “Christians all believed the same thing” – a position that he has begun to publicly ruminate is very attractive to him.

The latter lament was particularly telling, showing the draw Chan has towards the Roman Catholic Church. In the conversation with Greek Orthodox convert Hank Hanegraaff linked above, Chan visually struggled and wrestled with where to land with his faith, with every word showing he’s about 2 years away from embracing the Pope.

The trajectory is clearly there. Last year he gave a childlike, disoriented sermon that was laden with Roman Catholic propaganda talking points, where he told the congregants:

I didn’t know that for the first 1,500 years of Church history, everyone saw it as the literal body and blood of Christ. And it wasn’t until 500 years ago that someone popularized the thought that it’s just a symbol and nothing more. I didn’t know that. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s something to consider.’ … For 1,500 years, it was never one guy and his pulpit being the center of the church, it was the body and blood of Christ.

It was that sermon that caused Curtis Martin to reach out to Chan and invite him to speak at the Seek21 Conference. Martin is the founder and CEO of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) – a Roman Catholic apostolate whose mission is to “share the hope and joy of the Gospel” and the ones who put on the event.

In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Chan explains that lately he’s been really fellowshipping with Roman Catholics who “love the gospel” and as a result was eager to share with them all his message at Seek21.

We would encourage Chan to go back and read Canons 9 and 12 of the Council of Trent with an open bible turned to Romans 3 and Galatians 3. Heck, throw in Canons 14, 24, and 30 for good measure, with another hit of Romans 5. The fact that he believes Roman Catholics believe the true Gospel of Christ would be stunning if he hadn’t devolved into a mass of tearfully earnest, quivering compromise these last few years.

Naturally, Francis was heavily promoted in the conference’s marketing material and was joined by a litany of top Roman Catholic speakers in the country, such as Bishop Robert Barron, Chika Anyanwu, Sister Miriam James Heidland, Lila Rose, Father Mike Schmitz, Monsignor James Shea, and Sister Bethany Madonna.

We don’t have Chan’s audio yet, but here is an example of preaching that was featured in the promo video, as if it wasn’t the most blasphemously wretched thing in the world.

Tonight, give the Father permission to celebrate you. Give the Father permission to rejoice over you. Give the Father permission to love you.

All of Christianity, what it is to be a follower of Jesus comes down to one question, does God have your permission to truly see you as you are?

Does God have your permission to truly know you as you are? And the one question that every one of us has asked this night and every night of our lives – does the Father have permission to love you tonight as you are?

Like we said.

Two years and he’s gone.

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Breaking Evangelical Stuff Featured News Scandal

Apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate Leaves Public Ministry After Admitting to ‘Moral Failing’

Sye Ten Bruggencate, the Christian apologist best known for advancing presuppositional apologetics for the layman via his film “How to Answer a Fool” as well as numerous debates with atheists, announced on his Facebook that he has been disqualified from ministry due to a ‘moral failing’, and would be deleting several of his social media pages as a result.

Explaining that he is “sorry for the shame my sin has brought upon the name of Christ and for the hurt I have caused,” Sye will spend the next season of his life under the care of his church elders, and likely will never be involved in public ministry again.

He writes:

It is with great sadness that I must inform you that I have been guilty of moral failure and will no longer be involved in public ministry. I have spoken with the elders of my church, and they have determined that my sin disqualifies me from the ministry.

This means that I will no longer be involved in teaching, preaching, or apologetics. I am sorry for the shame my sin has brought upon the name of Christ and for the hurt I have caused. Please pray for me.I have submitted myself to the care of the elders of Faith Presbyterian Church, Tillsonburg.

If you have any questions please email my elders at faitharpelders@gmail.com

This post will remain on my private page until I delete my page this evening, but will remain on my public page which my Session will now be controlling.

Categories
Evangelical Stuff Featured Heresies LGBTQQIP2SAA Super Gay

Largest Christian Adoption Agency Caves, Will Start Giving Babies to Sodomites

Another so-called Christian organization has revealed itself to be a treacherous two-fold son of hell after Bethany Christian Services, the largest Christian adoption and foster agency in the United States announced they would be offering their adoption services to homosexual, lesbian, and transgendered couples, with President and Chief executive Chris Palusky telling 1500 staff members in an email message, “We will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today…We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome.”

In a statement to the Christian Post, the cowardly and disqualified Senior Vice President, Nathan Bult, whose organization’s motto is to “show the love and compassion of Jesus Christ by protecting children, empowering youth, and strengthening families through quality social services” explained that while faith in Jesus was still very important to them and was at the “core” of their mission, that there was room for disagreement.

The change in policy was officially approved by the board on Jan. 21, without any fanfare, now stating that “Christians of mutual good faith can reasonably disagree on various doctrinal issues, about which Bethany does not maintain an organizational position.” Bult also emphasized that the board members had “diverse personal views on sexuality.”

We acknowledge that discussions about doctrine are important, but our sole job is to determine if a family can provide a safe, stable environment for children. Unlike many other child and family welfare organizations, Bethany is committed to partnering with churches to find as many families for vulnerable children as possible, and we seek to place children with families that share our mission.

For us to carry out our mission, we are building a broad coalition of Christians – finding families and resources for children in the greatest need. The people we serve deserve to know they are worthy of being safe, loved, and connected. The need is great, so we are taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach.

We believe that Christians with diverse beliefs can unify around our mission of demonstrating the love and compassion of Jesus. It’s an ambitious mission, and we can only accomplish it together.

What is lost on Bult and others is that the home of a gay couple is not a safe and stable environment. Rather, it is child abuse to intentionally raise a child without a mother or father and to put them in an environment where gross, sexual perversion is normalized on a daily basis, causing the children to view their parent’s relationship as a good thing, rather than the unnatural monstrosity that it is. Despite what their mission may say, giving a child to a gay couple is not “showing them the love of Jesus” but rather is showing them the hatred of Satan.

In 2017, Bethany was sued by two homosexual couples for refusing to accept their application and instead referred them to another agency. Believing this to be discrimination, despite a ton of other agencies that would have taken them on, the gay folk took the agency to court and won in 2019, with the final ruling determining that if Bethany wanted access to government contracts and state support, they would have to let the sodomites have access to the children.

Though Bethany could have survived with their Christian witness intact, albeit at a lesser scale (they facilitated over 4500 adoptions and foster placements that year) they chose to keep their organizational structure intact instead, along with their 32 offices, and announced that they would start accepting LGBTQ applicants. This is the offspring of that decision.

Shame on them. May they cry out to God in repentance.