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Pastor Who Said Southern Baptists ‘Bent Over’ and Became ‘Political Whores’ By Voting For Trump Elected to ERLC Chair

In a move that should surprise no one, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission board of trustees unanimously elected Pastor Kevin Smith as their Chairperson- a bold move given the disdain and contempt Smith has for so many Southern Baptists within his denomination. According to a press release from the ERLC “this is the first time a Black man has held the position in the history of the entity.”

You’ll recall during 9Mark’s 2022 ‘The State of the SBC‘ assessment on the first day of the SBC General Convention, Kevin Smith, former Executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and current teaching pastor at Family Church in Palm Beach spoke to Southern Baptists and accused some of them of “losing their minds” after a black man was elected president in 2012, on account of their racism, and further accused many Southern Baptists of bending over and presenting their proverbial behinds to “whore” themselves out over supporting and voting for Trump. 

Smith, responding to a question about how he feels about the state of the SBC from 10 years ago to now:

I’d love to know what some white brothers think about this. White (unintelligible). You mentioned ten years as a window and I’m less hopeful ten years later. I think some Southern Baptists lost their minds when a black man was elected president. Not all, but some.

I think some Southern Baptists were unloving to black people beginning in 2012 with the killing of Trayvon Martin. I don’t mean agree about politics or policy…I just mean giving a darn that somebody else is hurting who is supposed to be your brother or sister in Christ.

And I think some Southern Baptists just bent over and became political whores with this whole Trump stuff. And if black innerrantists like Ralph West (Pastor of Houston’s The Church Without Walls who announced he left the SBC) feels alienated and black innerrantists like John Onwuchekwa (Pastor of Cornerstone Church in Atlanta who left the SBC) feels alienated and black innerrantists like Charlie Dates (Left the SBC) feels alienated, I just wonder if white brothers think this has been kind of crazy- black/white stuff going on, Asian, Hispanic. Just people who aren’t white feeling like they’re tolerated but not really embraced.

I’m not talking about me. I’ve been here thirty years so I got true friendships, but people in their twenties haven’t been here thirty years. So I just wanted to (unintelligible) what white brothers think the race thing is in the SBC?”

At the time, not one panelist (Mark Dever, Danny Akin, Aron Menikoff, Jonathan Leeman, Matt Chandler) rebuked him for his insults and incendiary statements. No one corrected him for suggesting that the “some” weren’t regulated to a handful of isolated yokel hillfolk, but rather make up a large and significant minority. He had no proof that the SBC is filled with this rampant, overt racism that rears its ugly head because of a black man getting in power, and not because Obama is a Democrat with awful policies. In a mark of true leadership, all stayed quiet and let that linger for the rest of the panel.

As far as becoming political whores and bending over so the bad orange man could impregnate us with racial ideologies, this is not the winsomeness that he was insisting we emulate during his later conference talk that he gave in front of the whole convention, making him quite the hypocrite.

But this is all par for the ERLC, so congrats, we guess?

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Deliverance Minister Under Fire for Claiming Kids With Autism Are Demon-Possessed

Pastor Rick Morrow of Beulah Church in Richland, MO, is under fire for claiming that that children with autism are demon-possessed, as God does not and would not make them that way, leaving only Satan the culprit for their condition.

Morrow told his congregation during a Q & A session about ‘deliverance’:

This is very crucial. If someone has a physical infirmity and you cast that demon out, you might have to pray for some things to be fixed. Let’s talk about one. Let’s talk about autism.

I know a minister who has seen lots of kids that are autistic that he cast that demon out and they were healed, and then he had to pray. And their brain was rewired and they were fixed.

Yeah I just went there. I mean you can get online and see lots of examples of it. If it’s not demonic, then we have to say God made them that way.

Like, that’s the only other explanation.

“Why (does) my kid have autism?” Well, either the Devil’s attacked them, he’s brought this infirmity upon them, he’s got them where he wants them, and/or God just doesn’t like them very much and he made them that way.

Well, my God doesn’t make junk. God doesn’t make mess-ups. God doesn’t make people that way.

So let’s quit being nice and putting a band-aid on stuff and giving it medicine…quit putting a band-aid on it and saying “oh, it’ll be ok, we just need to treat this or treat that”

How about you just cast the demon out and then treat all the problems?

The idea that autism is caused by demon possession is a common claim by deliverance ministers. Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church has made similar claims, and Isaiah Saldivar has suggested that people should cast demons out of themselves and family members every few months to keep their hearts and minds clean and oppression-free.

Of course, carried to its logical conclusion, Morrow would have to say all congenital disabilities are caused by demonic possession. Not only mental disorders like Down Syndrome, but also physical ailments like missing limbs, cleft palates, congenital heart defects, hypothyroidism, and clubfoot since “God doesn’t make junk. God doesn’t make mess-ups. God doesn’t make people that way.” 

Yet when Moses objected that he could not lead Israel because he was “slow of speech and tongue” the Lord retorted “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Furthermore, when Jesus encountered the Blind man in John 9, he told his disciples “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Morrow’s view on the matter is incoherent and unbiblical, which is sadly not uncommon for folks who dabble in deliverance without discernment.

Bonus: Also, for the record. Because demon possession is the “only other explanation,” we’d be curious about how these fetuses and babies came to be possessed by the demons that did this to them. First trimester? Second? How did the demons come to muck about with the minds of these autistic kids? Pre-womb or post womb? There are so many questions and and so few satisfactory answers.

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Woke Church’s Storytime About Noah and the Flood Is About As Bad As You’d Expect

Pilgrim Congregational Church in Duluth, MN, is about as compromised as they come. Led by the excretable ‘Impastor’ Rev. Dr. Carla Jean Bailey, this ‘church’ exemplifies what it means to be a United Church of Christ congregation. Consisting entirely of senior citizens subdivided into weak-willed women and effete men, this extravagantly pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ goat pen will be gone in a decade or two, as they are wholly irrelevant and their only impact on the Kingdom of God is to draw people away from it.

During a recent service Interfaith Pride Celebration, which included congregants and ‘pastors’ from other nearby UCC churches and they still couldn’t fill the room, the Rev Bailey led the church through a read-and-response call to worship, which had the bastardized phrase “We praise God, for we are queer-fully and wonderfully made.”

She also laments that the church condemns trans and ‘2-spirited’ identities and then recounts the story of Noah and the flood to some children who hadn’t heard it before, and her version is about as bad as one could expect. 



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Sound of Freedom Filmmaker Announces 2024 Mexico Presidency Bid, As Film Hits $210M

As Sound of Freedom continues to expand in markets worldwide, hitting $210M in gross sales since its July 4 domestic release, film producer Eduardo Verástegui has announced the filed paperwork to run in Mexico’s 2024 Presidential race. According to the Guardian:

Verástegui, 49, is a familiar face in Mexico, where he was a pop star and soap opera actor for many years. More recently, he has become an ultra-conservative activist, campaigning against abortion and conducting prayers on social media, where he has millions of followers.

He hinted at a presidential run for months, posting a video where he called on his followers to build “the Mexican dream” and riding on the surprise success of the independent feature film Sound of Freedom.

Despite his name recognition, aided by the film topping the box office in Latin America, Verástegui is considered a long-shot candidate and needs to acquire signatures from 1% of voters spread across 17 states by January to get on the ballot- around 1 million signatures.

The Sound of Freedom was originally filmed in 2018 for $14.5M, it sat unreleased for years until Angel Studios picked it up and distributed it, using a blend of faith-based marketing and encouraging fans to ‘pay it forward’ by buying multiple tickets to give away to others to watch. The film has a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 99% audience score based on over 10,000 verified reviews.

Starring Jim Caviezel, the film is “based upon the true story of former government agent Tim Ballard who quit his job to rescue a little girl from sex traffickers in the Colombian jungle. In the process, Tim saved 123 people, 55 children, from one mission alone.”

Notably, it has outperformed many other tentpole studio films, grossing more domestically than Fast X, whose $340 budget film is nearly 25 times larger, as well as Disney’s Elemental and The Flash. It is expected to pass Creed 3, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny this weekend or early next week, putting it in the Top 10 grossing films of the year.

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Protestia Interviewed About The Methods, Mission, and What Makes a Good Discernment Ministry

Recently David Morrill of Protestia sat down with Keith Foskey of Conversations with Calvinists to discuss the the value of discernment ministries and the potential issues that they can sometimes cause. Foskey is a pastor, podcaster and humorist, and his Twitter page is a must-follow. The two men run the gamut of discussions related to how we operate, our discerning ideology, and makes a good discernment ministry verses a bad one. Check it out!

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Veggie Tales Creator Releases Series Ft. Woke Xtians Complaining About Being Judged

VeggieTales creator and Holy Post podcast host Phil Vischer has gotten beat up on social media over the last few days, and with good reason. The shots have been coming after he criticized a conservative TV network for not featuring LBGTQ characters in films,  compared Christians who oppose legal same-sex marriage to ‘confederate theologians’, and refuses to publicly condemn same-sex marriage, all the while doing so in a smarmy voice that would make even Andy Stanley jealous.

This is on top of knocking creationists as a bunch of dummies, crediting his white privilege for the success of his show, claiming he didn’t know there were such things black Christians until he was an adult, getting upset at Christians for opposing LGBTQ, and most recently coming out as pro-choice.

Now, the Holy Post has released a trailer for a series featuring folks like Lecrae, Kristen Kobes Du Mez, Jemar Tisby, and Russell Moore explaining why they’re still Christians despite being mistreated and ‘unfairly’ criticized for their actions and beliefs by mean and judgy Christians.

They can complain all they want, but each of them holds significantly compromised beliefs on all sorts of matters. For example, Jemar Tisby’s Black Christian Collective organization is run by an openly pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ racist, and Tisby himself platformed and praised an openly pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, queer universalist pastrix who denies the literal second coming of Christ because “the second coming of Christ is you and me.” 

Jesus and John Wayne author Kristin Kobes Du Mez is gay-affirming and has made some statements suggesting she’s pro-choice and thinks abortion should have remained legal, arguing that appointing Supreme Court justices with the intent to overturn Roe V. Wade was a “ruthless display of power” and that she wishes that Christians didn’t take such an immovable unshakable hard line against abortion.

Of course, Vischer would never ask them those questions.

He’d never ask Du Mez “Do you think some of the heat coming your way is because you support same-sex marriage and lamented that overturning Roe will radicalize evangelicals further? Can you see maybe see how some of them might not like that?”

He’d never asked Tisby “Are people justified ragging on you when your organizational head is advising black women not to enter interracial relationships with white people or when she says she’s concerned about the number of black ‘coons’ running for political office because white people are ‘weaponizing’ them?”

If these are the sort of people that Vischer wants us to sympathize with or feel bad for warning against, tugging at the heartstrings for creating lines in the sand, then he’s going to be very, very disappointed.

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Lutheran Seminary Hosts ‘Beyoncé Mass.’ Yes, It’s Exactly What It Sounds Like

In May 2022, Luther Seminary helped to bring Beyoncé Mass at the Plymouth Congregational Church in South Minneapolis. Luther Seminary is the largest seminary of the heretical Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), with 412 students, and is about as progressive an institution as they come. 

Beyoncé Mass is “a womanist worship service that uses the music and personal life of Beyoncé as a tool to foster an empowering conversation about Black women—their lives, their bodies, and their voices.”

It was created and organized by theologian and ‘reverend’ Yolanda Norton, who, as the Chair of Black Church Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, teaches a class on Beyoncé and the Hebrew Bible where she “uses the pop idol’s songs to interpret biblical scripture through a black feminist lens.” Norton told the Star Tribune the decision to come to Minneapolis was an easy one:

We’re having critical conversations about how Black women transform spaces and how we do God work and how we do justice work. Of course you have to be in Minneapolis. The city has been decimated over and over again by injustice.

We want to honor that work as holy and want to name, in particular, that George Floyd Square is sacred ground. The way that folks have continued to create and thrive and honor the legacy of a man who was killed, it’s God’s work. So that’s how we got here.”

The event includes a social justice sermon explicitly promoting liberation theology and radical feminist ideology, scripture reading, worshipping to Beyoncé songs, and a recital of bizarre womanist reinterpretations of the Lord’s prayer.

Rev. DeWayne Davis, whose church hosted the event, lamented that people were suggesting the event was profane, arguing:

Beyoncé is very honest in what she’s feeling. And sometimes I don’t think church allows for that without the fear of being judged. But here’s someone whose voice is lifted up because she’s really wrestling with what it means to be a woman, to be in love, to be heard. To be imperfect. And she’s bringing it out front. I’m sure church should be a place where people should feel comfortable doing that. The idea of grace means something.

While Lutheran Seminary’s service was not recorded, here is an earlier one from the Kennedy Center, so you can get the drift.

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‘A Vehicle for Profit’: Jill Duggar Details her Family’s Reality TV Finances in ‘Counting the Cost’

(LA Times) For more than a decade, Jill Duggar was the wholesome star of “19 Kids and Counting” and “Counting On,” the sweetly obedient daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar who became the first woman in the family to marry and seemed destined to follow in her parents’ footsteps. Instead, she’s now calling out her family for exploiting her on reality TV.

In “Counting the Cost,” a memoir released on Tuesday, Duggar sheds unprecedented light on the inner workings of her sprawling Christian fundamentalist family, who rose to fame on the cable network TLC and later saw their empire crumble when first-born son Josh Duggar was convicted on child pornography charges in 2021.

The book details Duggar’s decision to walk away from “Counting On” in 2017 — after spending roughly half her life on camera — and her transformation from the cheerful daughter nicknamed “Sweet Jilly Muffin” into a grown woman who wears pants, uses birth control and drinks the occasional piña colada. However, Duggar is not here to expose every family secret; she does not elaborate on the sexual abuse she allegedly experienced as a child — she remains adamant that the information should never have become public — and her brother Josh is a marginal figure in the story. But she has plenty to say about her family’s finances, the toxic dynamic created by their TV stardom and the role that faith played in it all.

“Counting the Cost” paints a critical — if also loving — portrait of family patriarch Jim Bob Duggar, whose obsession with capitalizing on the family’s “window of opportunity” and belief in his God-given authority over his offspring led to their financial exploitation, creating painful rifts that remain unresolved. (The book, published under her maiden name, was written with her husband, Derick Dillard, and author Craig Borlase.) The book details how reality TV made Jim Bob into a wealthy man with an expansive…to continue reading click here.

This article was written by Merideth Blake and published at the LA Times

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Paula White Praises Deranged Moonies Cult Leader: ‘She Loves the Lord’

White-Caine is the false teacher scandal-riddled head pastrix of City of Dreams church. She’s been rubbing shoulders with NAR ne’er do wells for decades now, absorbing and parroting back tall tales, vision from God, prophetic utterance, and every wacky theology to come down the pike and from the mumbled mind of charismatic misfits.

We last wrote about her after she repeatedly partnered with the demonic Moonies cult, was accused of serial adultery by one of her former husbands, being accused of iinappropriately accepting money from the legendary band ‘Journey’ and insisting that Christians must not convert Jews.

During a recent Universal Peace Federation’s Peace Summit, White repeatedly praises ‘Mother Moon,’ otherwise known as Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, the widow of the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, co-founder of the Universal Peace Federation and the World Unification Church. She is a billionaire and regarded by many as the “Messiah” and the “True Parent to all mankind,” whose goal is to unite all faiths in world peace and harmony.

I want to take just a moment before I share my heart with you and really honor Mother Moon,  especially as her 80th birthday is here,  and we get to celebrate it being with her this time and congratulate her on launching the …the Holy Temple…which welcomes all faiths, all nations and peoples in the presence of God to unite for family and for peace.  

She is such a unique individual that carries such a tremendous calling of God in this earth.  I was blessed to tour the great sanctuary in December of 2021 and saw that Mother Moon is answering God’s call for her life to build a world of peace.

I want to honor and encourage you,  Mother Moon.  I say this over and over.  She is a woman of great courage for her work as a spiritual leader who loves the Lord and seeks to bring comfort to God’s heart in all conflict areas of the world.  Mother Moon,  your faith and your courage is very moving and inspiring to so many of us.  We know that faith,  or that peace,  can only fully be achieved by faith.

 All of us here have worked in some realm of the political,  and I’ll talk about that in just a moment.  You and your late husband,  Reverend Moon,  have led a life of unwavering faith and never vacillated in your commitment to achieving peace through Jesus’ fundamental teachings to love your enemies.  This is, in my opinion,  the greatest secret to achieving reconciliation and forgiveness.

The term “Moonies” is a colloquial term used to refer to members of the Unification Church. Some of their beliefs include:

  1. Unique Messianic Belief: The Unification Church believes that Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who has since passed away, was the Messiah sent by God to complete the mission that Jesus Christ could not fulfill during his earthly ministry. Moon is seen as the “True Parent” who has come to restore humanity to its original sinless state and to bring about the ideal world.
  2. Reinterpretation of the Bible: Moonies reinterpret the Bible in a way that aligns with their beliefs. They view Jesus’ crucifixion as a failure to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth and argue that Jesus was meant to marry and have a family but was unable to do so. Moon, on the other hand, is believed to have fulfilled this mission through his marriage to Hak Ja Han Moon, whom they consider the “True Mother.”
  3. Ecumenical Approach: While Moonies have their own distinct religious beliefs, they also emphasize an ecumenical approach to religion. They seek to unite people from various religious backgrounds under the banner of their movement and promote religious harmony. They believe that all religions will ultimately be absorbed into their movement as part of God’s plan.
  4. Savior and Restoration: They believe that Moon’s teachings and the Blessing ceremonies performed by him and his wife can cleanse individuals and bring them closer to God

Discernment site CARM explains further:

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon (now deceased) claims to be the messiah of the Second Coming and his wife (Mother Moon) is the Holy Spirit. He and his wife, called The True Parents where he is the True Father and his wife the True Mother, are the first couple to be able to bring forth children with no original sin. “The cross is the symbol of the defeat of Christianity.”

The Bible is considered scripture along with Moon’s work “Divine Principles.” Sin is genetically based. It is not a moral issue. The thieves on the cross represent political movements. The thief on the right side of Jesus represents democracy. The thief on the left of Jesus is communism. Adam and Eve fell because of sexual sin. Eve had sexual relations with Satan. Jesus is a ‘true person’ though not God in flesh. The Holy Spirit is ‘the True Mother,’ or ‘the Second Eve.” The church denies the doctrine of the Trinity.

Nature is dualistic: male and female, positive and negative, external and internal. God has an external and internal aspect called the Universal Prime Energy.  It creates, develops, and sustains the cosmos. God’s internal aspect of has to do with personhood – motivation, purpose, and identity.

Paula White has been praising her and speaking at her events for years now, demonstrating she is as lost as she is.

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Charismatic Prophetess Claims Loch Ness Monster Will Soon Be Discovered, Signaling Global Economic Collapse

Prophetess Katie Souza’s bio says she was a “career criminal most of her life,” being “convicted of a number of felonies and sent to federal prison to serve almost twelve years” before God saved her nearly twenty years ago.

In reality, it should read that she’s still a career criminal, with her crimes no longer being drug possession and gun running, but rather a criminal mishandling of God’s word- certainly a theological felony- demonstrating that the grift never ended.

After leaving prison, she wrote a bunch of books and founded Katie Souza Ministries. She now hosts the TV show ‘Healing Your Soul,” where she practices and doles out healing miracles, prophecies, and teaches weird and wonky things like Christians can engage in ‘Time travel in the spirit.’

She may no longer be cooking crystal meth, but she’s definitely on something.

She is a liar and a fraud and does so in the weirdest way possible. Case in point, five months ago she prophesied that the Loch Ness monster would soon be discovered and that when it did, it would be a “Sea sign” of impending global economic collapse.