A couple of days ago Brett McCracken, the pastor of Southlands Brea Church and Senior Editor and Director of Communications at The Gospel Coalition released his best and favorite films of 2021 list. While there were some benign films that were relatively clean, his top 20 featured a whole bunch that were rated ‘R”, for language, violence, and frequently for scenes of sex and nudity.
Now, McCracken has blessed us with his list of favorite TV shows, and one caught our eye. Right after mentioning ‘The Chosen,’ the miniseries about the life of Jesus, he listed The White Lotus, which is a program on HBO that is Rated TV-M. The show is the functional equivalent to-rated ‘R’ and is deemed unsuitable for those under the age of 17.
The rating makes sense, as the 6-episode show contains tons of filthy language, sex jokes, sex scenes, copious amounts of male nudity, and some female nudity as well. Here is an overview from Commonsense Media:
In fact, and this is what is especially revolting, (warning, graphic description ahead) at one point there is a graphic sex scene featuring two fully nude men, and one has his face in the back-end of the other, doing very homosexual things to his anus with his mouth.)
We’ve been able to pinpoint this scene to near the middle, which means even after he watched it, he kept on watching more episodes, understanding that he very well may see more of this content in the rest of the season.
We wonder if he watched this tv show before or after he watched The Chosen. Are they on the same night? Did he watch them back to back with a clear conscience?
In a strange twist that continues to demonstrate that the Gospel Coalition has little discernment and little vetting when it comes to the sort of content and people they will promote, a woke rendition of ‘Away in the Manger‘ they featured on their main channel last year just so happened to have some pro-transexual art on the wall of one of the musician’s homes, calling into question the standards they employ when finding artists to platform.
Vice was joined by Madison Cunningham, also a Porter’s Gate collaborator, on guitar and backing vocals, and at this point, it is unsure whose house they are singing in, and which of the musicians the art belongs to.
The song “Refugee King” alone has some questionable lyrics, considering Joseph had a place in Egypt, and Jesus was not a refugee or illegal immigrant, no matter how badly the wokefolk want to co-opt the narrative to say that he was.
Away from the manger they ran for their lives The crying boy Jesus, a son they must hide A dream came to Joseph, they fled in the night And they ran and they ran and they ran
No stars in the sky but the Spirit of God Led down into egypt from Herod to hide No place for his parents no country or tribe And they ran and they ran and they ran
Stay near me LORD Jesus when danger is nigh And keep us from herods and all of their lies I love the LORD Jesus, the Refugee King And we sing and we sing and we sing
Alleluja
The art is an image taken by Zach Oren, a gay photographer featuring transgendered men and women as part of his Ides of Gender project, designed to give them more visibility and to celebrate them.
The fact that one of these two feels comfortable with such a gross image on their wall is highly disturbing, but should not surprise us. The fact that the Gospel Coalition didn’t see it coming as a possibility, given their pedigree, should not surprise us either.
Editor’s Note. h/t To @WokepreacherTV for catching the initial woke rendition of the song and the for Jon Harris for pointing out the trans pic featured front and center.
Gather round all ye children of the light and let us tell you a story. Yesterday, Kristen Kobes Du Mez, Author of ‘Jesus and John Wayne’ got into a bit of a verbal scrap with Denny Burk over her views on homosexuality, gender, and LGBTQ.
Du Mez is a rising star in certain more progressive circles and usually is mentioned in the one-two punch alongside Jemar Tisby and his Color of Compromise (never forget, that Tisby literally went to work for Ibram X Kendi) as books shaping the modern-day evangelical discourse. She appeared on the podcast Birds of a Feather where Aimee Byrd (Formerly of Carl Trueman’s The Mortification of Spin) and Michael Bird engaged Du Mez, Beth Allison Barr, and Devi Abraham about evangelicals and gender. Burk was mentioned in the podcast and was tagged on Twitter, and responded to another claim that CRT is a threat to the gospel.
When pressed, he gave this spicy quote from the book as being highly problematic and then notes
“Despite evangelicals’ frequent claims that the Bible is the source of their social and political commitments, evangelicalism must be seen as a cultural and political movement rather than a community chiefly defined by its theology. Evangelical views on any given issue are facets of this larger cultural identity, and no number of Bible verses will dislodge the greater truths at the heart of it” (pp. 297-98).
Rather than respond “yes” or “no” and despite ragging on him earlier for taking too long to respond to, she tweeted that she was out shopping at IKEA, and that she “Will get back to this when I can.” 12 hours later she has emerged with an article where she very much comes out in support of LGBTQisms, writing:
“Do I personally affirm “the church’s teaching that homosexuality is sinful?” Which church? My own church (local & denomination) is actively reexamining this issue in light of tradition, interpretation, history, & science. I’m participating, but as a historian, not a theologian.
I grew up holding the “traditional” view, that same-sex sexual relationships were sinful. As far back as I can remember, though, I never believed that a theological view on this matter should dictate government policy in a way that abridges fundamental civil rights.
This wasn’t because I was currying favor with progressives. I didn’t know many back then. My own strand of Reformed thinking comes w/ a deep respect for pluralism & rejection of Christian nationalism. (Esp among my Dutch profs who’d endured Nazi occupation.)
Since that time, I’ve encountered compelling theological & historical arguments that challenge or complicate traditional approaches to this issue. I’ve read several but have several more to read, and am doing so in conversation w/ “traditional” perspectives.
I’m doing this all in community, w/ scholars, pastors, theologians, & LGBTQ+ Chrs, as part of my local church, as part of an officially sanctioned denominational process, and in an official capacity as a representative of my university.”
And:
“So, how do I treat “homosexuality” in J&JW? The fact that there’s a strong historical/theological tradition of Chrs denouncing same-sex relationships (there are also intriguing counterexamples) does not in & of itself explain Anita Bryant, anti-ERA, or seeing the “homosexual menace” as a threat to America.
It’s possible to hold “traditional” views on sexuality but hold them very differently. It’s possible to believe in male headship but refuse to link masculine “protection” to American militarism. It’s possible hold evangelical theological views but denounce Christian nationalism.”
Lastly
So back to theology. Burk points to I Cor 15:1-5 as the heart of the gospel. Agreed! So much so that I refuse to use views on gender, sexuality, atonement theory, baptism, spiritual gifts and the like as a way to preemptively exclude believers from fellowship in the Body of Christ.
We can spend our lives asking what right belief & obedient discipleship looks like in all these areas, & we should. But I’m going to do so in conversation & communion with my LGBTQ sisters & brothers in Christ. Because of the gospel.
Now, a lesser discernment ministry would hold back. They would look at what she wrote and say that we have to take a cautious and *nuanced approach* to this. That nowhere did she say that she is affirming LGBTQ, only that her church and denomination is reexamining the issues, that she has encountered new theologies that ‘complicate traditional approaches to this issue’ but is in conversation about them, because unconventional views can be held traditionally in some way.
Sure she did not answer the question directly, and instead only wrote 1200 words on how she is considering what she believes. Still, given what we know and what she has said, we need to take a wait-and-see approach before we label her anything or assign any position to her, and not be so uncharitable in our rush to judgment.
Us?
She is pro-LGBTQ affirming as the day is long! She crossed that bridge a long time ago. It is so patently obvious that we could have told you this years ago were she on our radar and we were writing about her. Every second sentence in that article is a red flag and tacit admittance, and no one with half a brain could read that and not surmise that she is utterly and completely theologically broken and compromised when it comes to affirming sodomy as acceptable for the Christian. She’s been suckered in by it and has been given over to it. It’s a done deal. She is a wolfette – no doubt about it. While we’re at it- her church is awful and is heading towards a split or apostasy. The minute you start ‘examining the issues’ you are lost.
In a couple of years she’ll come out and say it explicitly, and then it will make news and other discernment ministries will write about it with shock and dismay, like this is something new that hasn’t been known forever. For us, it’ll be another feather in our hat, joining Ravi Zacharias, TGC, Russell Moore, and a host of others as people we called out years before, got beat up about, but were ultimately proven right.
The 11th Commandment of the SBC – “Thou shall not speak ill of any SBC entity or publicly criticize other Southern Baptist leaders” is taking a bit of beating today, with a cacophony of voices repudiating recent tweets from Pastor James Merrit, the former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, after he released a message encouraging his thousands of followers to listen to a sermon from his son, praising it as both “brilliant” and “faithful to the gospel.”
As we previously wrote about here, the sermon is pretty bad, with Jonathan Merritt bringing some bad exegesis and frequently casting shade at Jesus and taking several snipes and swipes at the King of Glory in his effete affectation. Given that his son is an open, unrepentant homosexual who delivered the sermon at his open and affirming pro-LGBTQ church, his commendation of it is more than troubling.
After catching some heat, Merritt sermon doubled down on his statements, writing:
Naturally, James left out the first part of the verse he quoted- 1 Corinthians 13:6- which explains that Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
With the brouhaha building, this has led one pastor, in particular, to send an excellent open letter to SEBTS, who mere weeks about brought the elder Merritt on staff to join the faculty there, asking for clarity regarding their new employee.
.@DannyAkin & @SEBTS: seriously & gravely concerned a/b your hire of @drjamesmerritt who endorses the preaching of homosexuals.
I know my tweet breaks the SBC commandment of “thou shalt not be negative”. But how is it ok that our CP money supports this?https://t.co/XRSSuLERJ9
I write to you as a concerned Southern Baptist pastor regarding the theological position of one of SEBTS’s visiting faculty members, Dr. James Merritt. He is, according to your website, Professor of Preaching and Christian Leadership. He also has been deeply influential in Southern Baptist life,” having served as the 51″ President of the SBC, former SBC Executive Committee Chairman, and former President of the SBC Pastor’s conference, as well as the 2021 chairman of the SBC Resolution’s Committee at the Nashville meeting.
I am sure that there are reasonable rules in place that keep you from being able to discuss personnel matters with me too openly. However, considering Dr. Merritt’s recent endorsement of the preaching of his openly gay son, I have some serious questions for you as the President of SEBTS, an institution owned by and under the authority of the 47,000+ SBC Churches.
Is it your position that a person can be openly gay and a Christian? Is this the position of the seminary? Further, is it the position of SEBTS that openly gay men can be faithful preachers of the gospel? Do you believe that Southern Baptist Churches ought to listen to the preaching of gay men? If the preaching of openly gay men can be listened to, what other acts of rebellion ought to be tolerated in the pulpit? Should, for example, Southern Baptists listen to “faithful sermons” of those guilty of sexual abuse or covering up sexual abuse?
On November 17 of this year, you retweeted Pastor Steve Gaines on Twitter who said that all SBC Seminary Presidents affirm the BFM 2000. I am sure you are aware that the Baptist Faith and Message, Article XV, states: “In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose…homosexuality”. Do you believe, then, that endorsing the preaching of openly homosexual men would be in compliance with the Baptist Faith and Message?
In the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN, Dr. Merritt said the following: “So, fellow messengers, let’s just put it on the table. It’s time to find out who we are. And where we’re headed.” I actually agree with the sentiment of your faculty member, and it is in light of his words that I ask these above questions. I want to better understand who SEBTS thinks we are as Southern Baptists on this position and where it is you and this institution believe we are headed.
Since Dr. Merritt endorses the sermon of his gay son and is such an influential Southern Baptist and a member of your own faculty, I believe Southern Baptists are deserving of an answer to the questions I have posed to you above. These are tumultuous days in our beloved convention. It is my sincere prayer that you will respond. Should you wish to call, my cell phone number is listed in the email.
I understand that open letters” are not necessarily always the best approach, but I do think certain situations warrant the writing of them. I believe you believe that too since you retweeted Dr. Adam Greenway’s open letter to Dr. Michael Spradlin of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary a few days ago. I understand that Dr. Greenway did this without calling Dr. Spradlin first. I strongly believe that this situation with Dr. Merritt warrants the actions I have taken.
You may be upset with me, and while that is not my desire, it is something I am resolved to be okay with. Because my ultimate goal in this is not to be liked. Rather, I long for our beloved convention to submit wholly to the authority of the Bible and rest full in its sufficiency – no matter the cost.
Will you link arms with me and our little church in Perryville, AR, and the vast majority of Southern Baptist Churches in our convention who are in compliance with the BFM 2000 standing in opposition to homosexuality? Who believe the most loving thing we can do before God and man is not to encourage homosexual preaching, but instead to call homosexuals to repentance and faith in Christ? Christ is worthy of our full allegiance. I ask that you carefully consider the questions I have posed above and answer them in a timely fashion. Of course, I understand this week is busy. But, the 47,000+ churches of the Southern Baptist Convention deserve to know if it is the position of SEBTS to support the preaching of homosexuals or not.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. It is my prayer you will stand on the side of Christ our most gracious and worthy King. For the Glory of the Lord, Allen S. Nelson, IV Pastor, Perryville Second Baptist Church
The rumors are true: superman has gone gay and has become a social justice warrior, according to Tom Taylor, who proudly writes the series. It will not be Clark Kent who begins to ‘explore’ his sexuality, given that his commitment to Lois Lane has long been canon, but rather will be their superhero offspring, Jon Kent, who will become the token gay hero.
It is not surprising, as since his new series began, Superman: Son of Kal-El, Jon Kent’s storylines have been ripped from the headlines, including stopping a school shooting, protesting FOR illegal immigrants and against the deportation of refugees, and battling against wildfires caused by global warming and disrespecting the environment.
Taylor explains that with this new superhero to mold, things will not be business as usual.
“The idea of replacing Clark Kent with another straight white savior felt like a missed opportunity,new Superman had to have new fights — real world problems — that he could stand up to as one of the most powerful people in the world
In 2015 Batman’s on/off-again love interest Catwoman was written into being bisexual. Batwoman was shown to be a lesbian in 2006. Characters like Bluebird, Barbara Kean, and Tabitha Galavan have been written as bisexual, and several Batman villains like the Riddler, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Joker, and Harley Quinn have also been in LGBTQ storylines and depicted as bisexual.
Basically, everyone is a flaming sodomite because that’s the way the world is now.
(Reformation Charlotte) Brandan Robertson has been in the headlines quite a bit in the last year or so as he is an openly gay, self-described “pastor” who opposed traditional, biblical theology while installing himself as a biblical scholar and theologian. Robertson is an advocate for sexual immorality and teaches that premarital sex is “good” and “healthy.” Of course, conservative Bible-believing Christians would never consider Robertson’s claims to Christianity valid, but the world sees things like this and brings reproach upon Christ.
Robertson made the news earlier this year when he claimed that Jesus used a “racial slur” in Mark chapter 7 during the account of the Syrophoenician woman. Robertson said that the woman essentially bucked up to Jesus causing Jesus to “repent” of his racism and then “do the work” he was supposed to do. Obviously absurd.
He’s also claimed that Jesus doesn’t desire our worship because “only the Gospel of John” says he does.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, the acclaimed scientist, geneticist, and professing Christian, released a statement several months ago for PRIDE month, where he publically revealed himself to be thoroughly compromised on the Christian’s view of LGBTQ issues and the scriptures, offering them his personal support as an “ally” and regurgitating all the progressive talking points while using progressive language that those interested in tearing down the biblical view of family have.
The (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government and is responsible for biomedical and public health research, compromised of nearly 20,000 employees and having an annual budget of 42 billion dollars. For this reason, it is no surprise that the organization might issue a woke statement, using “we” language to represent everyone as a matter of policy. They certainly have a media relations team that would put out such a statement.
Yet Collins’s letter is personal. We don’t know why he felt he had to release a statement in the first place, but even if he as the Director was being pressured to and he was forced to under penalty of losing his job, he personalizes it using “I” rather than “we,” saying among other things:
I applaud the courage and resilience it takes for individuals to live openly and authentically
As a White cisgender and heterosexual man, I have not had the same experiences, but I am committed to listening, respecting, and supporting those individuals as an ally and advocate.
I know that developing allyship is critical as we continue to make NIH, and the world, a more inclusive place for all.
For that reason, I am excited to share this year’s Pride theme, Allyship in Action
To address this need, I am proud to announce that NIH recently funded a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study to review current measures and methodological issues related to measuring sex as a non-binary construct.
I hope that you join me this Pride Month in exemplifying allyship and celebrating the broad diversity of SGM communities.
There is one thing about working for an organization that puts out statements in support of so-called “sexual minorities” that celebrates sexual perversions of God’s design for men and women. It’s another thing to personally go out of your way to ensure that your public statements are as far as a view from Romans 1 as possible, all the while crowing about how proud you are of them.
They aren’t going to retcon him as they did to comic book character Robin just two weeks ago, with a bisexual storyline involving a male love interest, but rather in the same vein as when Marvel announced that Captain America was going to be gay, they are killing off Clark Kent so his homosexual son can don the suit and take over the gig of saving the world.
I just found out, I got a little bit of a scoop about what DC’s plans are. Nobody knows this yet. It hasn’t been really announced, except by me…The plan is that…Superman’s book…I guess Clark Kent is going bye-bye….Clark Kent I guess is going bye-bye and they are going to replace him with Jonathan Kent, and then they are going to announce that Jonathan Kent is gay. So Superman is effectively gay, everyone. He is gay.
In 2015 Batman’s on/off-again love interest Catwoman was written into being bisexual. Batwoman was shown to be a lesbian in 2006. Characters like Bluebird, Barbara Kean, and Tabitha Galavan have been written as bisexual, and several Batmanman villains like the Riddler, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Joker, and Harley Quinn have also been in LGBTQ storylines and depicted as bisexual.
Basically, everyone is a flaming sodomite because that’s the way the world is now.
Jen Hatmaker, the popular I’m-pretending-to-be-a-Christian-but-I’m-actually-a-pagan mommy-blogger and podcaster that is quickly climbing the ranks from “Gadfly False Teacher” to “Arch-Heretic,” has continued to out herself as a vessel of inhabitation for shifty-eyed swine who’d rather not go off a cliff, this time as she reflects on her spiritual transition from jewel to Jezebel.
On her August 3 For the Love podcast she endeavours to explain all the ways that she has changed in the last little while. While most of the commentary and self-reflective self-actualization she gives sounds like the sort of status updates you’d find posted on the Facebook wall of single moms whose grandparents have custody of their children but still caption every picture “my kids are my life,” she does offer us a few morsels, explaining that “from a wide-lens perspective, I would first want to talk about the process of flipping the script in my life spiritually, that is really the backdrop to my entire life, all of it.”
In this case, she discusses “what it meant to be a Christian in this world, what it means to be a woman, both inside a faith structure and out of it, and my understanding of God” and notes that “everything I really learned about God was from that angle, everything was on a foundation of fear. So I was definitely afraid of God.”
She was a pastor’s wife for years, and it is so evident that her theology and way of thinking were fundamentally flawed and false to the core.
I was directly told and instructed my entire life, that the salvation of the world was our responsibility, essentially. That if we were not aggressive and assertive evangelists constantly, basically that people’s blood was on our hands, you know?
That we had some secret that for some reason I couldn’t figure out, we had been granted. It was ours to tell everybody, and if we didn’t, we would answer for it one day. So there’s even this thing like all along, which was ‘Oh someday you’ll stand in front of God, and even then, even there, he’ll be disappointed in you.’
Like if somehow you make it through the gates, God is gonna sit there and recite to you all the things you missed, all the things you got wrong, all the chances you squandered. And all your failures, and then reluctantly, God, he would let us in, because he had to, because Jesus. Right? Because Jesus somehow made it okay, and so God had to finally let in these wayward kids that he can barely stand. That’s how it felt.
Turning to the role of women, she recounts how she started “having a cognitive dissonance” because “the God that I understood seemed to very keen on keeping white men in charge, in keeping women and girls down and shamed and blamed in protecting hierarchy.”
This happened in her early thirties, she guesses between the age of 30-33 when “new ideas came in’ and she had a “cognitive dissonance that didn’t fit into her template.” (She is 46 years old now.)
I was definitely scared of authority, which of course, in my environment were men, only. White men. They were in charge because ‘God.’ They were in charge because ‘God.’ They were in charge because ‘Bible.’ They were the head. And the rest of us were just, like, secondary supporting cast, all the women and kids. I never saw a woman in leadership, I’m getting ahead of myself. This is what it means to be a woman. Okay,
She continues:
They could be an aerospace engineer. They can be CEOs of their companies, but they could not preach. That is where their limits hit the wall, which I just accepted, by the way, I just accepted that is, I don’t know if this is how they understand it, they must be right, they’d never get this something this important wrong. I mean, they would never keep half of us, subjugated erroneously, right? They would never get—this wouldn’t be a power play. Wouldn’t be for position. I guess they just got it right. And that’s our lot in life.
Having broken free of that subjugation, she concludes by noting that her newfound belief system allows for her to have a “mysterious faith” where she doesn’t need to have all the answers or believe the narratives she was taught. She remarks that “questions or even dissent were couched as a lack of faith or a lack of obedience or ultimately heresy. That’s the favorite word people like to call me; a heretic.” And then celebrates her own invented notions of God and the scriptures by bashing anyone believing otherwise. [What? We are the heretics? -Ed.]
How could we have formulated God down to all these lists and templates? It’s just silly. So knowing that God was allowed to remain mysterious to me, in some ways, was a big relief, that I could not have to use my mind to find some sort of script to make God fit the narrative I was handed.
Does that make sense? I don’t have to do that anymore. I didn’t have to figure out how to get from A to B to C in a way that created less dissonance for me. I could just say, ‘I don’t know how that works. I don’t know why that happened. I don’t know what God thinks about that. I don’t know how this works out in the end. I don’t know what eternity really looks like. I don’t know—Well, a huge relief.
And then to deeply discover that God has always been unambiguously on the side of the oppressed. And that injustice matters to him and that his beautiful world that he imagined, that He sent Jesus to teach us about is like a paradise, honestly, where everyone is safe. Everyone is cherished. Everyone is deeply Beloved, they are well cared for, they’re connected, no one is alone.
No one is going hungry or going without because we share. There are no manmade hierarchies that keep certain people on top, and others on bottom, simply by virtue of gender, or skin colour, or sexual orientation, or nationality. That’s just not real, that’s invented. That’s invented. What a relief!
(Answers in Genesis) The LGBT activists are out to capture your kids! A recent study found that, between 2017 and 2019 alone, LGBTQ+ characters in children’s programming saw a 222% increase for a total of 259 such characters aimed at influencing children. And as more studios appoint openly LGBT showrunners and give them the green light to include such characters in their shows, this is only going to grow exponentially. Take, for example, a new development from Disney+.
In a recent episode of a popular show on their streaming platform, Disney debuted their first homosexual love song. Two young men in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (HSMTMTS) affirm their love for one another in this new song titled “The Transformation.” Teen Vogue shares:
The normalization of Seb and Carlos’ romance sets it apart from other queer relationships on screen in which sexuality is a burden or hurdle to overcome, rather than just another trait of one’s personality. “We’re not trying to achieve something crazy,” Frankie adds. “We just want love and romance just like everybody else. The song is about acceptance between the two, but then also, how they’re being presented to the world.”
Disney wants to show teens and children that homosexual romances are totally normal to help ensure the..
