Sara Groves is an award-winning CCM artist. Gaining prominence in the early 2000s, she was nominated for three Dove Awards, including New Artist of the Year in 2002, and was named one of the best Christian music artists of 2005. Her album ‘Add to the Beauty’ with songs like “When it was Over” and “It’s going to be Alright” received critical acclaim and was named Album of the Year by CCM Magazine in 2005.
Editor’s Note.* Nietzel is a gay man ‘married’ to his husband, and he is set to be a speaker at an upcoming Christian family conference at Andy Stanley’s church. Curiously, almost all the speakers are gay-affirming.
But Vischer took exception to the criticism he received about same-sex marriage, pushing back on claims that he has an unbiblical or unscriptural view of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. You can see much of that interaction here. Vischer typically has a whole lot to say about everything, but when specifically pressed to share his view on the sin of same-sex ‘marriage’ by @WokePreacherTV, on what should be a very easy, no-brainer question to answer, Vischer went strangely silent.
Unsurprisingly, he did what progressives usually do when cornered theologically on matters they don’t want to publicly divulge, lest they get #farewellrobbelled by the evangelical machine; offered to talk about it in private, away from prying eyes because it was “too sensitive” of a subject to discuss publicly.
WPTV: “If 2 professing Christians of the same sex become romantically involved, abstain from sexual activity until they are legally married, and live together monogamously for their entire lives, has a sin occurred?”
Vischer: “Not the topic of the thread or the show.”
WPTV: “Too sensitive of a subject, I see.”
Vischer: “For Twitter, yes. Happy to have coffee and discuss.”
We called this trajectory years ago. What a coward.
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:
The multi-platinum, three-time Grammy-winning CCM staple was known for such albums as their 1995 self-titled Jars of Clay (with classic songs like Liquid, Flood, Love Song for a Savior, and World’s Apart) along with albums Much Afraid, If I Left the Zoo, and the Eleventh Hour. Active for over 20 years, the band still plays shows occasionally but has yet to put out a studio album since 2013’s Inland.
In 2014, the band drew widespread criticism after frontman Dan Haseltine, who deconstructed his faith as early as 2012, posited on Twitter that he couldn’t see any reason why gay marriage shouldn’t be legalized and supported, offering that nothing terrible could possibly come from it.
He would also write, “It is perhaps less important to know what is “right and wrong” morally speaking than to know how to act toward those we consider “wrong” and “I don’t particularly care about Scriptures stance on what is “wrong.” I care more about how it says we should treat people.”
The backlash was so intense that two days later, he wrote a follow-up clarification on his now-defunct and deleted website explaining: “In the heat of discussion, I communicated poorly and thus unintentionally wrote that I did not care about what scripture said… I should’ve chosen my words more wisely. I care about what scripture says. It matters.”
Not anymore.
Though Haseltine has kept a low profile since the public battering, he has resurfaced on occasion with a distinctly progressive worldview. He appeared in a video with queer artist Semler lamenting the negative response of Christian media to his 2014 tweets, explaining that after he said those words, he was viewed by the industry as “unsafe.” Haseltine reiterates that despite the bad publicity, he doesn’t regret “pushing the conversation forward.”
And he has, making his theological aberrations public and clear.
He has also taken up the cause for trans issues, supporting trans propaganda in library books, trans ‘men’ having access to the women’s washroom, and trans kids being able to compete in sports,
While insisting that neither he nor anyone else is “pro-abortion, Haseltine has a tendency to “ask questions” while obfuscating his beliefs and pushing back against the orthodox position. This lends the impression that he’s either pro-choice (a term he hates but which fits) or at the very least pro-life with exceptions, which is another way of saying he’s pro-choice. He seems to believe that Roe v. Wade shouldn’t have been overturned, as doing so would only have a negligible impact on abortion rates, and insists that if people want to lower abortion rates, they should vote for the Democrats.
Fallin’-Away Lecrae, the rapper who has devolved into a biblically unsound promoter of progressivism, has posted to his Facebook a page a series of statements that he subscribes to but which he has no wish to qualify, and in fact, never allows himself to be questioned over. Ever.
Letting his “Yes” be “Hunh?” and his “No” be “What?” Lecrae states that he’s “politically agnostic,” and yet every event he’s ever done has been one-sided. He only takes photo ops with Democrat politicians. He only praises Democrats on social media. A few months ago he put on a concert in order to Get Out The Early Vote on behalf of pro-choice Democratic Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. He promoted and fawned over abortion-loving Democrat Stacey Abrams. Recently, after Democratic Candidate Joe Biden won the election and was inaugurated, he said it “feels good to be on the right side of history” with the party that is “pro-life from womb to tomb.”
Lecrae says that he’s not ashamed of his faith, and yet he stumbled and sputtered, “You know…well…um…er….ah….I don’t know,” when asked about the sin of homosexuality in an interview. And in fact, that wasn’t the first time. That seems like something he’s ashamed of for sure. He also says he “believes in the bible” while leading us to wonder how much he actually “believes the bible.” [Editor’s note: or he has in fact, y’know, read it.]
And lastly, he says, “I don’t endorse abortion,” but that he “hates racism and classism,” which is an atrocious contrast and about as bad a juxtaposition one could make.
Wouldn’t a normal Christian say that they hate abortion and don’t endorse racism or classic? Or hates them both? It almost seems like he’s endorsing by faint damnation.
What are your thoughts on sex-trafficking little girls? I don’t endorse it. How about chattel slavery? I don’t endorse it. Gassing, burning, and cutting up 61 million babies in the last 40 years, about half of whom are black? I don’t endorse it. Racism and classism? That! That I hate!
This would normally shock us, except for the fact that Lecrae has been making bad abortion arguments for years, and as time goes on, they get less and less forceful.
We would imagine within about 5 years, he’ll be touting them as needing to be “safe, legal, and rare,” at the rate he’s going.
