A candidate running for a seat in Washington’s House of Representatives is facing possible malicious mischief and harassment charges after he stole a rainbow flag from a ‘church’ and allegedly warned the congregants that he’d come back and do it again if they ever put it back up.
Police were called to Seabold United Methodist Church after Daniel Charles Svoboda, 41, removed the ‘Pride’ Flag from outside the church, allegedly telling two congregants “if it gets put back up, I will take it down.” Two witnesses recorded Svoboda’s license plate and he was later apprehended.
In a letter to The Leader, Svoboda, who has a history of anti-LGBT activism and behavior which has resulted in termination from several jobs, admits to removing the flag, saying:
“The reason I took the flag down is because it sends the wrong message to the very world that the church is supposed to be saving. The mission of the church/body of Christ is to be a beacon of light unto a lost, dark and hurting world and to be a place of salvation from one’s own sins. The church has lost her way and fails to communicate this message when it flies a sodomite flag.”
While some are pushing for him to be charged with a hate crime, police say that that he’ll likely only face misdemeanor charges.
According to the voters guide for his run for the 24th District, he is not running as a ‘Republican’ but as a ‘Trump Republican Party’ candidate. He describes his platform as:
No more special rights for women, people of color, homosexuals and those that wish to misrepresent their gender, tribes, and illegal aliens and anyone else that believes they deserve special rights. I am pro-life and do not believe in a women’s right to vote or kill their child.
The long-shot candidate is not expected to do particularly well.
The Thomas More Society announced in a press release that “nationally renowned attorneys Jenna Ellis and Charles LiMandri will represent Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, California, as Special Counsel.”
Grace has been the target of unconstitutional religious discrimination by the City of Los Angeles and the State of California, amid the state’s order to cease in-person church assembly indefinitely after they launched an in-person service to a packed crowd two weeks ago, drastically exceeding restrictions placed on houses of worship having indoor services.
We wrote about John MacArthur’s decision to shut down HERE and released a barn-burner of a podcast offering support and criticism of the timing of Graces’ eventual decision to open HERE.
The Thomas More Society has taken on the case in response to the city of Los Angeles issuing a cease and desist letter that threatened Grace Community Church and Pastor MacArthur specifically with a daily fine of $1000 or arrest.
The Thomas More Society is a “not-for-profit, national public interest law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty” and has argued all the way up to the Supreme Court.
They have assisted “thousands of clients including some of the nation’s most renowned pro-life and religious leaders: David Daleiden, David Bereit, 40 Days for Life, Lila Rose and Live Action, and many more.”
According to the press release, of the two lawyers:
Jenna Ellis is a constitutional law attorney, Senior Fellow at the Falkirk Center for Faith & Liberty, and an allied attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom. She is the senior legal adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, private counsel to President Donald Trump, and served on his legal team for the 2020 impeachment trial. She regularly contributes to national media on television and print as a legal analyst.
Charles LiMandri is a constitutional law attorney, religious freedom expert, and Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society. He began the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund in 2012 and has litigated high-profile cases in California for decades, including the ACLU’s effort to remove the Mount Soledad Cross and San Diego’s effort to force firefighters to participate in a gay pride parade against their sincerely held religious beliefs.
(Lifesite News) A Northern Ireland government body has backtracked and apologized after writing to churches and asking them to state whether or not they will celebrate same-sex “weddings” while threatening that they would lose their status as marriage officiants for all weddings if they did not reply in less within a month.
The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act 2019, the same piece of legislation that introduced new abortion laws into the region, has also legalized same-sex “marriage,” effective from January 13 of this year.
Same-sex “marriage” has been legal in the rest of the UK since 2013, but until this year had not been imposed on Northern Ireland.
And a number of Nothern Ireland churches recently received a letter from General Register Office for Northern Ireland (GRO) asking them to complete a form detailing whether would officiate only weddings between people of the opposite sex or whether they would also officiate at so-called same-sex “weddings.”
“Although your church has officiants currently registered with the General Register Office to carry out opposite-sex marriages, I am writing to you so that we may update the officiant database with your church’s preferences for performing all types of marriages,” the July 17 letter stated.
The form also asked churches who agree to offer same-sex “weddings” to list the names and details of any of their officiants who would not carry out same-sex “marriage” ceremonies, but would continue to carry out opposite-sex marriage ceremonies.
“If we do not receive any response by this date, it will be assumed that you and other members of the church no longer wish to be registered as officiants for any type of marriage,” the letter continued.
“We will cancel the registrations on the officiant database accordingly, and you will not be able to carry out any marriage ceremonies in Northern Ireland.”
A number of churches, reportedly concerned by the intimidating tone and contents of the letter, contacted The Christian Institute for their help in responding to the letter…
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Dr. Albert Mohler kicked off a new season of the Briefing by accusing his friend, Dr. John MacArthur of Grace Community Church of “malpractice” by choosing to open up five months into the pandemic and not staying shut down for an indeterminable time.
Mohler opened the program discussing issues surrounding churches being constrained during the pandemic, and in particular, a bad supreme court ruling in Calvary Chapel vs. Sisolak, with Steve Sisolak, being the governor of Nevada.
The governor of Nevada had handed down an edict in the midst of COVID-19 that limits the total attendance in any church service to 50. Now, that’s to be contrasted with the fact that major businesses, including businesses that draw thousands of people such as the casino industry, the larger gambling enterprise in Nevada, are allowed to go up to 50% of capacity.
By any definition, you are looking at a targeted, non-neutral abrogation of this church’s religious liberty. They’re being singled out. This is not a generally applicable law. The whole point is you can go to the casino but you can’t go to church, at least under the same circumstances.
Mohler discusses why the liberal supreme court judges voting 5-4 to uphold it is such a bad ruling, and in particular lauds the dissent from the conservative judges, commenting favorably on Justice Kavaunaghs’ pithy observation “There is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesar’s Palace over Calvary Chapel.” The decision, he says, is pretty much straight trash.
Now, as I began, I said that I’m turning to this story, first of all, precisely because it is a case—a tragic case—of malpractice by the United States Supreme Court. “Malpractice” is a word that I chose very carefully. It means it is a violation of the practice that is to be expected as the responsibility of an entity.
Following the same vein, Mohler sets his sights on MacArthur, describing Grace Church as calling for and practicing civil disobedience after Governor Gavin Newsom made it largely impossible for congregations of any size to meet indoors, a decision neither he nor those knuckleheads at IX Marks agree with.
I believe that in the main, Christian churches and Christian leaders should respect all temporary, neutral, and generally applicable guidelines that are handed down by appropriate government and health officials in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Commenting that Grace Church is not following this sound practice, Mohler says they ought to, as it is not loving their neighbor to do otherwise. He points out that while churches ought to gather and worship, there is no specific and particular reference to how the church must worship (use of choirs) or how frequently they must gather (as long as first day of week, not necessarily every week) or where they must gather (indoors or outdoors.)
As a result, Mohler says:
We need to demonstrate courage and commitment, and we need to pray for discernment. We need, at this point, to call out the malpractice of the United States Supreme Court and do our very utmost to avoid any malpractice of our own.
While Mohler may consider what Grace and other churches are doing as malpractice, he diagnoses all problems while offering no solutions. He says that we ought to respect temporary guidelines, but we are entering our 6th month of lockdown. How long must a church sit on their hands? Half a year is a long type of temporary. When precisely does the temporarily turn into the intolerable? One year in? Two?
Secondly, Mohler gives us no indication of what the line would be where the church may then defy the state. Instead they would have us stop meeting on account of “love” when love is precisely the reason we must meet. There can be no more loving thing we can do for any society than to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ within the congregation, particularly to the unsaved who may darken our doorstep.
The church meeting together is not an act of malpractice, but rather it is an act of mercy.
Pastor MacArthur released a quick update on Grace Community Church’s decision to finally reopen after several months closed, joining the other 70% of churches already open and affirming their decision to “obey God rather than men” while lamenting other churches shutting down for the rest of the year, such as SBC President J.D. Greear’s Summit Church and Andy Stanley NorthPoint.
Commenting that their board is united and unanimous in their decision to reopen, and stay open, MacArthur spoke on the choice to be ” faithful to the Lord and leave the results to him.”
We will render to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, but we will not render to Ceasar what belongs to God. We will be faithful to him, And that means we will continue to as a church every Sunday. Every Sunday. That is not going to stop.
Macarthur detailed some extra precautions they’ve taken at Grace, including water, masks, sanitizer, and putting a screen outside of the seminary building with seating for 1000 people, emphasizing that they love and support all the congregants in whatever way they attend.
We’ll do what we can to be as gracious to as wide an audience of people as possible so that people feel comfortable, and so they have some options where they can find that comfort.
At the 10:20 minute, MacArthur launched a few grenades at leaders who have shuttered their services, lamenting that these pastors have done a great disservice to their flocks by not understanding what a church is and failing to shepherd them.
I’ll tell you what is disappointing to me, how few churches are standing up. How few large churches or even Christian leaders are willing to say “look, were’ not going to bow to Ceasar. We’re going to serve our Lord.” Churches are shutting down. Large churches are shutting down until they say January. I don’t have any way to understand that, other than they don’t know what a church is and they don’t shepherd their people. But that’s sad. And you have a lot of people in Christianity who seem to be significant leaders who arent giving any strength and courage to the church, they’re not standing up and rising up and calling on Christians to be the church in the world.”
Evangelist Todd White is pushing back on claims that he repented for not preaching the full gospel and is now newly saved, declaring that he’s been taken out of context and that his critics are sinning in doing so.
White made headlines last week when he preached a sermon and declared that he repented of not preaching the full gospel, with comments like “I feel like I just met Jesus” leading his critics to hope that the known heretic had changed his ways, become saved, and would bear fruit in keeping with repentance. We wrote about this extensively here, here and here, and made the case that if White was repentant and, then like Zacheus there are a few things he would have to do to demonstrate it before we would consider him a brother in the Lord.
He must get out of the ministry, stop preaching (as babes in Christ should not preach), repent of intentionally fooling the masses by knowingly false magic tricks carefully learned and practiced over many years, clarify that not only did he not teach the “full gospel” but that the one previously taught was a false gospel, and if monetary restitution is not possible or practically feasible, then theological restitutions are in order, with Todd doing everything possible to lead those people out of the charismaticism he brought them into.
This has not happened. Rather, Todd clarified his remarks and he is quite discouraging. Here are a few comments he made during yesterday’s service, starting off with assuring people that he didn’t get just saved, but rather has been saved for over 16 years, pointing to his life of holiness after his salvation of evidence of his salvation all those years ago.
Last week I shared in my heart ‘I repent for not preaching the full gospel.’ If any of you think that you know it all about the Gospel, you’re deceived. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what theologian you are. I don’t care if you’re a doctor of theology, if you’ve got your masters of divinity if you think you know it all, I’m sorry you’re wrong. I have stepped into a new awareness of why I’m really here. I feel like I just got saved. I feel like I’ve just met Jesus. The truth is, if I didn’t meet Jesus when I got saved, I would have continued in sin.
Many thought that the change to Todd was due to newly being exposed to Whitfield, Spurgeon, and Comfort, but it turns out that he’s been reading them for years, and yet has still engaged in his shenanigans. He also mentions Dr. Michael Brown, a decidedly poor resource, and yet Brown will be speaking at White’s Chuch on August 16th. Birds of a feather.
I used an example last week of Ray Comfort’s book . I have read Ray Comfort since I’ve gotten born again. I love his stuff. I’ve read Spurgeon since I got saved. I mention it one time and people are like ‘now he’s reading the right stuff.’ I got news for you. I love them. Andrew Murray is one of my favorite authors in the whole world. I love those. You know who else is a great author? Dr. Michael Brown.
Todd then rips into the movie American Gospel, criticizing the makers for not coming to him directly to asking what he believes, despite there being more than a decade of public content and videos out in the world detailing what he believes. It is clear, at this point, that he doesn’t get it.
There are a lot of people out there that have believe that I’m deceived. Thank you for praying for me. I need it. I need prayer. To say that someone’s wrong and to not get on your face and cry out for their soul. Because if I’m deceived, and you’re not crying out for me, and you say that you love God you’re a liar, because you actually hate me.
If I’m going to tell you that somebody’s deceived, but I’m not going to be one to go on my knees and be (unintelligible) Christ like Jesus did, and cry out for them like to see the truth, then I’m not a Christian. I don’t love them, I love my opinion.
I am overtaken with gratitude for people that have prayed for me, and have said “man, he’s going off.” They made a movie, called the American Gospel, about me. None of them called me to talk to me, not one of them asked me to share my heart, not one of them asked me what I believe. They assumed and put me into a place of guilt because of association and friends like Bill Johnson or Kenneth Copeland. Now all of a sudden Todd’s the biggest heretic on the planet. Or Benny Hinn.
Shame on you for not praying for me and talking to me, but making a movie thinking that you’re God’s police. You’re going to stand before a holy God and answer for your life of judgment and hate and it’s called murder. It’s no different than racism. It’s the same thing It’s called no love. You have no love. If you think that being God’s police officer is love, you’re wrong, because you haven’t prayed with the human tears.
White further clarifies what he meant by repenting of the full gospel.
Jesus is the way. The gospel is the way. When I say I haven’t preached the full gospel, it just means that God has taken me to a depth of his heart that I have not yet seen and I want to see more people come to Christ. I mean in our school at LCU, ‘Todd white repents’ is all over the internet. Well here’s the crazy thing. Like this isn’t justification, I’m telling you what’s out there. Like we should all want to be repentant. Repentance isn’t the days you get saved only. If something’s wrong you repent.
And then fires back at his critics, claiming to be misunderstood and having his viewpoints unfairly characterized, which is sin on the part of the accuser.
There has to be this behemoth desire inside of me to bless those who persecute me and pray for those, who despitefully use me, like despitefully use my name, and say ‘he’s this and he’s that’, without even listening, that’s dangerous. That’s called presumption, an presumption is one of the greatest sins on the planet.
Todd spends the rest of the sermon giving a pentecostal apologetic on the validity of miracles and healing ministry.
So there you have it. From the looks of things, Todd White has repented of presenting the gospel in the wrong way, but has not repented for his plethora of false teaching and false miracles, or shown that he understands the crux of the theological grievances people have.
We have heard that the makers of the American Gospel are still in contact with him and trying to reach out to him further, but it appears that he’s dug in deep. It’s only been a week since his message and we’ll see how this goes, but at this point it seems that from his perspective, the ones who should be doing the most repenting are his critics.
