Kim Burrell is a Grammy-nominated gospel singer and ‘pastor’ of Spirit of Faith Christian Center in Maryland, who previously garnered a bit of controversy after, in 2022, she mocked congregants for being “broke” and “ugly,” suggesting they were beneath her, and again in early 2024 after she acted like a diva over another member of the worship team singing along with her.
Now, she’s apologizing for her 2017 ‘anti-LGBTQ’ comments. She told the audience at the 39th annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, for which the 51-year-old was accepting the Aretha Franklin Icon Award, that she was sorry for her “hurtful” comments in the past. What were those hurtful comments?
“I came to tell you about sin… That sin nature, that perverted homosexual spirit is the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women and it has cast a stain on the body of Christ. You as a man, you open your mouth and take a man’s penis in your face, you are perverted. You are a woman and will shake your face in another woman’s breast, you are perverted. It has come to our church and it has embarrassed the Kingdom of God.”
Sounds good to us. Now, however, she’s seemingly backtracked and singing a different tune, telling the audience while accepting the award:
“Over the course of time and with much soul-searching, I come to fully understand the reach and impact of my voice beyond Gospel music. There is such a care to take when you realize you’re not just preaching to the choir anymore. You’re preaching to the ones who wanted to be in the choir and were too scared to come because they didn’t understand our language.
… [I] understand that some of my past words, comments, preaching has been received by the LGBTQ+ community as negative and hurtful. There’s nothing more hurtful than to think — to imagine — that you’ve said something in the name of God, and it hurt somebody.
You know we have a church lingo, we have a church jargon that everybody doesn’t get. And sometimes you have to say it for the people in the back. And for that, I want to apologize to the LGBTQ community. Let’s give them a great big round of applause. We want them to have strength and to sincerely know that we must all do the work to embrace all of God’s people and show forth his love to everyone, amen?
Tonight, I hope this award and this moment can be the beginning of bridge-building and listening to each other as we follow peace with all men and develop the character of God, which requires seeing God.”
Kim Burrell “apologized” to the LGBT+ community during her Stellar Awards acceptance speech. pic.twitter.com/tF1wzoa0wX
— Smiles in Homosexual Spirit 🫶🏾 (@research_jpg) July 22, 2024
With Pride Month well underway, now is a fitting time to talk to our fellow Christians about their association with the YMCA. Some of you may have nothing more than a gym membership, while some may even have the misfortune of attending church in a Y (yes there are churches), but no matter your yoking comfort level, make no mistake: you’re supporting an organization that professes Christianity but is operating contrary to your core Christian beliefs.
Is the above a hyperbolic overstatement bordering on slander?
The last one may be the hardest to believe for some, and to many reading this article, anathematizing the YMCA years ago seemed just as obvious a decision as not partnering with the First Universalist Unitarian Church of San Francisco.
Yet there are still many Bible believing Christians under the impression that the Young Men’s Christian Athletes, or “Y” for short, is a solid, local, benevolent Christian Ministry. After all, the ministry is 180 years old and just like most ministries of that age, it tends to get more solid with time (just ask the United Methodists).
To start this rainbow journey, all one has to do is visit the Facebook page of your neighborhood Y and look at their focus in the month of June. The pride graphics you see emblazoned all over their timeline are passed to the local Y by the national Y, but this is just the beginning. You’ll not only see a stand of solidarity to all things LGBTQ+, but you’ll see a call to action to march. Pick any city and the Y is probably marching as we speak.
The Y also offers a wide range of pride merch to wear when you march alongside them at your local pride event.
One shirt offered since 2019 titled “Where there’s a Y, There’s a Way” might cause you to ask, “What way?” The back of the shirt provides the answer– all ways and all religions.
Now, where the Christian would say there is only “One Way–Christ Jesus”– the Y.M.[insert all religions here]A., would beg to differ.
Another expression of Christian virtue from the YMCA comes in the form of full throated support of Illinois codified gender affirming bathroom laws.
In 2023, you may have heard of a 16 year old swimmer Abbigail Wheeler, who participated in the YMCA Springfield youth female swim team. One day after practice she became the unfortunate witness to an unsettling visual: a discernibly male figure changing in the same bathroom as her.
When she and her family pressed the YMCA to take a stand for young women by petitioning the leadership and even organizing a protest over the bathroom policy, the YMCA offered no support to her. Instead, they went so far as to poke holes in her story and side with the state of Illinois to such a degree that she and her family felt they had no choice but to end their association to the YMCA.
This has happened on more than one occasion at various YMCAs; males changing around female minors in their facilities and the Y responding in the same way. Instead of aligning with Christian values and at the very least expressing a solidarity with the plight of these young women, the YMCA chooses not only to remain neutral by claiming their hands are tied, but in reality deciding to position themselves as the antagonist by their very own mission statement.
These types of horror stories go on and on. The American Life League has a great expose here.
The YMCA not only leans heavily into LGBTQ+ affirming causes, they’re also on mission to amalgamate Christian Churches into their organization.
In many cities across the nation, the YMCA hosts a yearly event called “The Annual Good Friday Breakfast”. These events sometimes can host up to six hundred guests, many of them pastors, where the YMCA praises itself to establish credibility with its patrons and shares its current vision for the city, all in effect to unify itself to the listening Christians in the room.
Another way the YMCA is working to yoke itself to Christianity is through church planting within its many facilities. For instance, there are twelve YMCA branches in the greater Indianapolis area. Of those twelve locations, eight have quasi-independent churches paying rent within their facilities.
Now you may assume that those churches affirm LGBTQ by the very nature of yoking themselves to YMCA ministry, but you would be wrong.
Of the eight churches researched, three were found to have a section in their statement of faith affirming the sanctity of marriage being between one man and one woman.
How can this be? Is it ignorance or just complacency? Who can know, but a church yoking itself proudly to a ministry that violates Christian doctrine so openly is definitely a product of our time. A virtue signal to the world to let them know you are enthusiastically welcoming but not quite fully affirming…yet.
In truth, the YMCA has long been a bizarre organization, even having a disco song written about the “goings on” within its many facilities, a hint as to Y the Y is the Y that it is today.
(Boy George was even commissioned by the YMCA to sing a remake of the song a few years ago.)
It’s clear the YMCA plays both sides of the fence by presenting itself as a Christian ministry to those who would consider it Christian and as an ally to those geared toward progressive ideologies.
You cannot have both bitter water and sweet come from the same fountain, and what fellowship does light have with darkness?
With all that being said Christian, this June, the choice is clear:
A few months ago, we broke the story that ‘Christian’ band Relient K came out as pro-LGBTQ after inviting open and unrepentantly gay musician Semler to join them on their upcoming tour and selling LGBTQ merch. This came on the heels of Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman Releasing a pro-LGBTQ TikTok video. We followed this up with an investigation into music group Five-Iron Frenzy, showing the band had come out as pro-LBGTQ and that frontman Reece Roper was pro-choice and lost. More standouts include:
We also covered the fall of Jars of Clay, documenting how frontman Dan Haseltine was pro-LGBTQ, pro-trans and pro-choice. Notably, at the time, despite showing a long history of problematic and damning statements, some accused of us extrapolating his words or reading more into it than was said.
Hopefully, this Instagram post from June 1st, 2024 from Haseltine puts that to rest once and for all.
Matt Le is the owner and founder of Luxium Creative, a creative agency in Springfield, Mo. A full-service studio, they offer a host of services but specialize in photography, event coverage, video production, show content, and social media marketing.
Notably, they have worked with many Christian groups, including Chad Veach, Arizona Christian University, and a ton of other churches, including Phoenix Living Streams Church and The Venues Church. They have done work for Christine Caine’s Propel Women and cut their teeth doing photography, videography, and show content for prominent Christian bands.
These include Zoe Worship, We The Kingdom, Casting Crowns, and Judah and the Lion. They’ve joined Elevation Worship, Hillsong Worship, and Kari Jobe on their Outcry tour, and recently took on the role of content manager, photographer, and videographer for Needtobreathe following them on the road for their ‘Caves’ world tour.
Needtobreathe regularly tags them in their social media posts (or perhaps they are managing their socials and tagging themselves,) giving their company publicity and advertising for more work.
It’s a curious niche for Luxium Creative to gravitate towards, given Matt Le is also openly gay, has been in a relationship with another man for nearly a decade, and “married” him a year and a half ago. This is impossible not to know by even a cursory examination of his linked page, as well as his mannerisms and affectations.
His social media sites are replete with pictures of the Pride insignia and drag shows attended, as well as words of love and affection for his fake ‘husband’. This is all being done under the auspices of being a professing Christian who publicly took a shot at his old church for trying to keep him from being his authentic LGBTQ self.
While Needtobreathe has rejected the label and would strenuously object to the notion that they are a “Christian band” (but rather would say that [most of them] are “Christians in a band”), this should not abdicate their responsibility from a personal perspective. Rather than being marked and avoided, as the scripture commands, Le was given a job and the opportunity to be around them all the time.
But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. 1 Corinthians 5:11
Given the saturation of concert photographers, we have yet to see why this partnership and mutual promotion should exist. In the same way that Relient K recently promoted that which God hates by going on a tour with blasphemer and the pro-choice queer band ‘Semler,’ (and in fact, Needtobreathe’s keyboardist Josh Lovelace has publicly expressed his approval of her ‘queer Christian album’, in a since deleted Instagram post) they are functionally promoting Luxium Creative and the man behind it, which is not something that Christians they should be doing, regardless of how uncomfortable they are with the label.
As far as the other other groups that explicitly carry the label, including all the worship bands and churches, we would suggest they are all in the same boat, and that there is no excuse not to do a bit of research and have a bit of biblical obedience. It’s one thing not to know, but it’s another when it’s really, really easy to know.
In 1996, Richard B. Hays, then the professor of the New Testament at Duke Divinity School, released “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.” It received critical acclaim from conservative scholars, many which consider it to contain the best summary of the scripture’s views on homosexuality. Theologians of all stripes have praised it, from TGC to Christianity Today, which selected it as one of their top 100 Religious Books of the Century.
In short, if your pastor pulls out a scholarly quote about the scripture’s position on homosexuality during his sermon, there’s a good chance it came from Hayes.
Nearly 30 years later, Hays has capitulated, releasing a new book in September 2024 called The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story.
According to the book’s description, Hayes’s new venture offers a “Fresh, deeply biblical account of God’s expanding grace and mercy, developing a theological framework for the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in Christian communities.”
The book is written with his son Christopher Hays, who is ordained within the Presbyterian Church of America (PSUSA), one of the most devilish denominations in all of damnation.
The book continues:
The authors—a father and son—point out ongoing conversations within the Bible in which traditional rules, customs, and theologies are rethought. They argue that God has already gone ahead of our debates and expanded his grace to people of different sexualities. If the Bible shows us a God who changes his mind, they say, perhaps today’s Christians should do the same.
Specifically, the book’s release page reveals that “The book begins with the authors’ personal experiences of controversies over sexuality and closes with Richard Hays’s epilogue reflecting on his own change of heart and mind.”
Put another way, it is almost a certainty that a family member has come out as LGBTQ, a revelation that served as the catalyst for a change in conviction. This is the pattern we see over and over, from Andy Stanley to Jen Hatmaker to David Gushee to Danny Cortez. It wasn’t because these two men learned to read the Bible better or discovered superior scholarship.
Instead, we would almost guarantee someone near to them came out as gay or trans and they’ve made this theological shift because they love that person more than Christ, which is ironic because, in doing so, they actually hate them both.
Calvin University President Wiebe Boer has resigned following allegations that he “engaged in unwelcome and inappropriate communication and attention toward a non-student member of the campus community,” according to a press release from the school.
Calvin University is a Michigan-based University belonging to the conservative CRCNA (Christian Reformed Church in North America) that has been embroiled in controversy over the years, which we have documented here:
We have long argued Calvin should no longer be considered a Christian University after it compromised on issues of biblical sexual morality by allowing professors to affirm sodomy, thereby continuing its dark descent into theological deviltry.
Wiebe became President of Calvin in 2022 and is well-liked by Kristin Kobes Du Mez; definitely a strike against him, and he has been a driving force in lubricating the LGBTQ takeover of the school.
Upon receiving the report, the University “immediately engaged outside experts to ensure that Calvin University responded to the report in compliance with our policy and legal requirements, including Title IX. After being notified of the report, Dr. Boer denied some of the allegations but did admit to sending communications that were inappropriate and inconsistent with the high standard of conduct and character expected of the President of Calvin University. Dr. Boer subsequently offered his resignation, which the Board accepted.”
Good riddance! It’s time to bring someone on as President who will right the flailing ship and purge the scourge of wokeism and wicked sexual ethics from the school once and for all.
Grace Community Church Pastor John MacArthur has weighed in after longtime friend and prominent pastor Alistair Begg was dropped from his Shepherds Conference, after Begg famously urged a woman to attend an LGBTQ wedding, and then doubled and tripled down with some bible twisting so bad it made children cry and crows scatter.
Begg has been a frequent speaker at Grace Community Church events, including speaking at the Shepherds Conference in 2015 and 2023, and a regular guest lecturer for the Doctor of Ministry program at The Master’s Seminary.
Speaking to his church this past Sunday, MacArthur shared why Begg was so “epically” wrong.
John, I have a question that’s been heavy on my heart about one of our Scottish brothers? Will you comment and guide us as to why Alister Begg is mistaken in advising a member of his flock to attend and solemnize a marriage of her granddaughter to a transgender partner? Can you guide us as to why we should not bend to do this?
Yeah, that question came up and has gotten all over the internet. Let me say first of all, Alastair and I have been friends for well, 45 years. When I was in Scotland 45 years ago, I was pushing his 45 year old son in a pram… So we’ve had a lot of history together, and I have a great affection for him.
I also want to say that you shouldn’t judge a man by his weakest moment. All of us will have a moment of weakness. Having said that, I have to disagree with the answer that he gave to the question.
A believer should not go to a homosexual or transgender wedding, for a lot of reasons. But he was making the argument that you go out of compassion, rather than condemnation, you go to show love to them, as a means to reach them.
My response to that is the most loving thing you could possibly do, would be not to go, and to condemn the relationship. That is loving.
It’s not loving to help somebody celebrate stepping into the fury of God’s judgment. No transgender person, effeminate, homosexual will enter the kingdom of heaven. This is not a time for you to celebrate. Thinking that your affection for somebody is the means of their salvation, that they will come to salvation when the Lord exposes their sin. That’s why the Holy Spirit, John 16 convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment.
And what should be said to somebody is “this is wrong. This is against God’s order. This is not marriage.” It is not a marriage, because you can’t have a marriage between two people of the same sex. It’s not a marriage at all. It is defying God who ordained marriage, ordained male and female and designed procreation. It is a blasphemy against God, as is transgender life and homosexuality as well.
That is the message to give in love. Beyond the theological reasons and the biblical reasons, I couldn’t affirm that. If I went, I would affirm that.
Not only could I not affirm it, I don’t think I could tolerate it. I don’t think I could survive sitting in something like that, and feeling like I was supportive of it. And then to give them a gift. That is to aid and abet the celebration of something that is defying God’s design and the very, very, I would say point of the spear currently of the corruption of this entire culture. So you can’t be a part of that.
He continues:
I don’t understand why you would answer the question that way. I thought if somebody was in that situation and had that view, and you’re on the radio and… you’re recording this, right? So whoever the host is, is going to ask you a question. And the host says “What would you tell this grandma about going to a transgender wedding?”
I would immediately say, “ask me another question,”particularly if I was at all prone to suggest that that might be okay. I would never say that. Because you’d have to calculate the cost of that. And how do you calculate that? I mean the price for that is, is really epic. It’s really epic.
And there’s so much more about him that is wonderful and faithful and his ministry just past 40 years of pastoral ministry in that church, and it was a great celebration. And now he’s going to be defined by that.
I don’t know how you calculate doing that, for that reason, unless there is some very personal relationship with someone you’re trying to win over or protect. But that’s really speculation on my mind.
John MacArthur’s first public comment regarding Alistair Begg’s counsel to a grandmother to attend her grandchild’s transgender wedding.
In some disheartening news, Pastor Alistair Begg has doubled down on his insistence that Christians can attend LGBTQ weddings and even buy the couple a gift, according to the leadership of American Family Radio, resulting in Begg’ show being terminated from the lineup.
Begg, who pastors Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and whose program Truth for Life has aired on AFR for the last 12 years, sent representatives to speak on his behalf to AFR Vice President Ed Vitagliano and AFA Vice President Walker Wildmon. The results, they shared, were discouraging:
Taking over the timeslot previously occupied by Truth for Life to speak directly to Begg’s audience, AFR leadership said they contacted the pastor to give him “an opportunity to say ‘I messed up right there'” and to provide him with the opportunity to say ‘I said the wrong thing, and I’d like to recant,'” but that no apology or clarification was forthcoming:
The two individuals that we talked with, Walker and I with two individuals from Alistair Begg’s ministry, they made it clear that Alistair Begg believes that homosexuality is wrong, he hasn’t changed that his views on that. He does not believe that homosexual marriage is valid and that the practice of homosexual activity is, as the Bible says, an abomination.
So all four of us were in agreement with that. But what we could not get them to change, and they said that Alistair Begg is not going to change his mind, was on the issue of whether Christians should attend.
…And the goal of the call, and the goal of all Christians when approaching these issues, should be reconciliation, but reconciliation in truth. And so that was our goal with the call with Alistair Begg’s team and unfortunately we didn’t get there. But we did press the issue multiple times and we even asked point-blank ‘So are you guys stating that pastor Alistair Begg is standing by his original comment? He has no regrets? He didn’t misspeak? He doesn’t want to further clarify nothing?
And they said ‘yes, he’s standing by his original comment.'”
The hosts lamented Begg’s response.
So very disappointing. And you know I even told… the gentleman and lady that we were on the call with with Truth for Life, that pastor Alistair Begg has such a long, decades long track record of biblical fidelity and truthfully teaching the Word of God, that this is extremely disappointing. This isn’t something that we saw coming. This isn’t like- some of the others Evangelical leaders that have drifted, this is not one that was on the list that we could have seen this coming.
Update! Alistair Begg Doubles Down On Attending LGBTQ Wedding, Says He’s Not Budging.
While Begg sent staffers to speak in his stead, he has yet to personally address the matters publicly or justify holding such a dangerous and theologically decrepit view. Begg’s show still airs on 1800 radio stations, and he’s slated to be a speaker at the upcoming Shepherds Conference.
Earlier this week, North Point Community Church hosted the Embracing the Journey conference, a two-day event for parents who have LGBTQ children or loved ones in their lives. Notably, nearly all the speakers were gay-affirming, including two men who are in homosexual marriages.
We’ve been writing about it for a long time, documenting the theological drift of one of the largest megachurches in America, frequently with exclusive reporting. Some of the stories include:
Initially intended to be a quiet event, it blossomed into a significant news story that the church was unprepared for when the conference was conceived 18 months ago. The chatter eventually got so loud that Stanley addressed this controversy from the pulpit yesterday in a sermon that was not live-streamed but that we have a recording of here. In his message, Stanley explained how the conference came to be and insisted that the church’s view of homosexuality hadn’t changed in 28 years.
We disagreed, and that’s why we drove across the country to attend.
When we pointed out to a volunteer we met on the sidewalk that there was more security than we were used to seeing at a conference, he told us, “Yeah, some Christian blogger has been attacking us and blowing the whole thing up.”
The atmosphere inside reflected that. There was a strong police presence during the event, with a cop car parked outside the church the entire time. Inside, volunteers asked attendees to remove their IDs from their wallets and purses to verify it against the name on the ticket, with one volunteer explaining, “We don’t want the wrong crowd trying to sneak in.”
LeAnne Legans and Gregory Cook greeted us upon entering the conference. Legans is the gay-affirming North Point leader who was last seen getting a lapdance at a drag show, and Gregory Cook is the co-founder of Renovus, an LGBTQ-affirming activist group founded and run by Pastors and leaders within North Point Church, whose mission is to advocate for full inclusion of LGBTQ folks within the church. We smiled, said “hi,” received our lanyard, and came inside.
Posters on the church walls and displayed prominently on projector screens warned against recording any of this conference, citing Georgia law which mandates fines and jail time. In conversation with conference organizers and volunteers, they stressed that security officers were in plain clothes, patrolling the halls and watching the events. In one session a man was taking notes on his laptop and within minutes a volunteer told him he needed to put it away because it could record video or pick up audio. During our check-in, we heard security talking, sharing their concerns about infiltrators and protestors.
Later in the conference, we would approach many people we’ve been writing about over the last year and strike up a conversation. We talked with Sandi Harman-Waldrop, a gay-affirming North Point leader and self-professing ‘Pride Mom’ who hosted the gay wedding of Brian Nietzel, one of the speakers. We chatted up Brian Nietzel, one of the gay-married speakers and also co-founders of Renovus. We spoke to Matthew Vines, the author of God and the Gay Christian and the founder and executive director of The Reformation Project, and many others, including most workshop leaders (more on that later.)
Conference organizers Greg and Lynn Mcdonald would reveal that around 500 people were attending the event and that more wanted to register, but they had to cut off registration for space and logistical purposes. They did a show of hands to see who came from out of state, and the majority were, with some folks even coming from other countries to attend. We observed more than a handful of transgender attendees, along with a smattering of pride flags on key chains, clothing, shoes, water bottles, and journals from the regular folk.
There was a display selling conference merch, t-shirts, and books. One of the speakers, noted that he brought 80 copies of his book which calls for the full inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ theology within the church, and he sold them out in the first 4 hours.
What struck us more than anything, however, is that throughout the conference, homosexuality as a standard, moral, and necessary theological good was assumed—the entire time. Every talk, every breakout session, every conversation we struck up with our tablemates, there was no hint or suggestion that homosexuality was a sin that must be repented of, but rather a good that must be accepted.
The overwhelming message was that children and family members who come out as gay or trans must be loved and supported, and that support includes affirming them for who they are, in order to retain “influence” and a relationship with them. There was no question of “how do we love and support our LGBTQ children well, while still holding to our convictions?” Instead, we were hammered with the claim that if we want to be in relationship with them, we need to lay aside those convictions and pick up more loving ones; ones that better “reflected the heart of Jesus.”
All the speakers referred to their trans children by their trans names and personal pronouns. One session saw a panelist with a tear-stained face insisting that children need gender-affirming care, and another said that she knew/suspected her child was transgender by the age of three. One session saw a speaker explicitly arguing that homosexuality was not a sin, condemning the “clobber verses” by saying that “none of them are taught in a serious exegetical way.” One speaker was asked in a Q&A if he thought Jesus was “gay,” and his answer left much to be desired.
Andy Stanley himself noted that the expression “homosexuality is a sin” makes “no sense” in light of children threatening to kill themselves, which is a concept permeated throughout the event and presented as a binary choice: if we don’t affirm our LGBTQ kids they will end their lives and we will lose them forever.
We attended all the main sessions, as well as four breakout sessions. Over the next week we’ll report on them, starting Tuesday with the conference opener.
First Baptist Church Orlando is a 14,000-member Southern Baptist megachurch led by David Uth that continues its quest to brazenly and flagrantly violate scripture. Years ago they infamously offered a full-blown ecumenical statement devoid of any Gospel truth and antithetical to the teachings of scripture by highlighting how many illegal immigrants, pro-choice democrats, and LGBTQ folk were ‘serving’ in his church.
Last year they knowingly baptized Joe Mills, an out-and-out gay, unrepentant gay man, who is ‘married’ to his ‘husband’ and has been leading a small group of FBCO congregants in a bible study for the past few years, with the knowledge of Pastor Danny De Armas, who himself has conducted the study.
Now, wearing official swag and a badge from First Baptist Church Orlando, Joe Mills announced on social media that his bible study group ‘The Gospel Gathering’ (which mainly comprises openly unrepentant LGBTQ men and women from FBCO) is sponsoring a kid to church camp.
The SBC credentials committee has a lot say regarding expelling churches that endorse and promote female pastors, but when it comes to gay-affirming denominational megachurches, they’ve been silent for years and have shown no inclination to speak up any time soon.
