Betrayed: An Open Letter to the Church
THE CHURCH IN AMERICA IS BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT AND WE HAVE LITTLE TIME TO RESPOND IF IT IS TO RECOVER.
GETTING PERSONAL
I am a Southern baptist and a “street” evangelist for the last 42 years. This simply means that most of my time in ministry has been focused outward and not on the day to day happenings inside the church structures like the denominations and seminaries. However 2009-2010 brought a disturbing awareness of compromises deep within those structures and among popular leaders as a drastic shift was taking place. This shift became a painful and personal reality to me.
The church in America is in DEEP trouble. Many no longer hear the true Gospel from our pulpits. Social change has replaced transformed lives. Equity and Justice echo from our pulpits like false prophets at Jezebels alters of BAAL. The house of God is scheduled to become nothing more than a hub of community development, dispensing social equity and social services. This is not a joke.
It does not matter if you are reformed Presbyterian or a traditional Southern Baptist or are a member of an independent community or bible church. We have all been invaded and infiltrated on a level not seen before in American history. If you are simply a Biblical Christian by conviction and your conviction holds fast in the way you raise your family, engage the world around you and how you vote, then YOU ARE UNDER ASSAULT! I want to explain what I know of this infiltration and how it is happening and what, if anything can be done about it? At least knowledge is power in protecting your faith and your family.
A PROMISE KEPT
I have promised many people a condensed overview of what is happening in and to the church. If I had 20 minutes to warn the entire Body of Christ thesare the things I would show them. Here it is for those who want to know.
First, I will answer a VERY COMMON question I am often asked.
“How did you get involved in researching and exposing all of this compromise by our leaders?“
This will make clear both my motive and the shared concern we have as we consider what is at stake as deceivers lead the church down the pathway of a false gospel, social justice and endless processes of social change within society and the church.
Second, I want to expose the origins and funding and explain why THESE are not Gospel movements but are high level manipulations of the church into participation in progressive global ideologies – and out of its redemptive role as salt and light in our culture.
FIRST QUESTION
PARADISE BETRAYED: A PERSONAL LOSS TO THE LGBTQ AGENDA INSPIRED THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHURCH.
(If you not care to know the history of why I am personally involved in this stand, feel free to scroll down to the main section. Thank you.)
I do not pretend to know all the ins and outs of the activist culture that predominates the church at this point, but I do know that no other area of compromise makes the issue of infiltration move evident and the depths of it more glaring than the pro ”LGBTQ Christianity“ movement which is now “flourishing” in our conservative institutions and churches. After ministering in evangelism in New York City over a decade at the height of the AIDS epidemic as spread rabidly and unchecked through the “gay bath houses” around the city our ministry group had an intense view of those realities on the streets with the prostitutes, “transvestites“ and in the so called “Welfare” or “AIDS Hotels” where the city of NY warehoused AIDS victims until they died. These pits of despair were like discovering Nazi death camps filled with mostly young men wasting away and clinging to life. The sounds, the smells, the horrible realities we saw were unthinkable. This “lifestyle“ and the sexual activity that lends it’s name to it cannot be Christianized and should never be “normalized” and encouraged to our children as we see taking place.
HONESTY IS NOT HATE SPEECH
Being against the global LGBTQ agenda is not being hateful, homophobic or “against gay people“ in the least. It is being honest and holding on to the one thing we as the church has to offer to all people bound by sin… freedom from sin by saving faith in Jesus. Many in our pulpits today are preaching a false narrative that the Gospel cannot change people, especially those who struggle with some range of LGBTQ feelings or “identity”. Any man who preaches this is faithless and deceived or has bowed his knee to the politics and likely the funding behind one of the deadlies agendas of our time. The popular SSA but celibate narrative is fake and the product of social theory and change in the church. STOP using it and tell you pastor if he does that he is being deceived.
The LGBTQ agenda is a tool of the most extreme enemies of human rights. It is carefully crafted to redefine family, sexuality, reproduction, parental rights and even Gender. Transgenderism even redefines what it means to be human and robs EVERYONE of all individual human rights.
LGBTQ is also targeting and designed to redefine the Gospel and push tolerance and inclusion of a sin that utterly destroys lives and families. Church Leaders like Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, Ed Stetzer of the SBC and Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan, Randy Pope, Kevin DeYoung and the entire leadership of organizations like The Gospel Coalition have thrown in their lot to provide “social change” in the church. Victim and sexual minority narratives wrapped in scripture and a stable of SSA and so called “gay Christians” unchanged by the Gospel are hired to CHANGE the attitudes of the church toward LGBTQ and other politcal left ideologies. These victim narratives are straight out of the Frankfurt School playbook. If this sounds impossible to believe simply please take the time to read the main section of this letter and you will see how and why this is taking place.
PARADISE GARDENS A FIGHT FOR MY LIFE AND THE TESTIMONY OF A FRIEND
I was heading a project in Georgia which utilized the legacy of a Christian artist to access students and art community with the Gospel. I did art festivals, museum lectures, served as a chaplain to the arts community and undertook a massive historic preservation project of an artist prayer garden to proclaim a faithful Gospel witness. The popularity of that legacy gave us global access far and wide to a unique and challenging opportunity of witness. But funding was a nearly impossible uphill battle in the secular, spiritually dark and pro gay world of art and liberal funding foundations. Over 10 years of effort and my own “retirement” funds were invested in an attempt to launch the projects preservation success.
After over a decade of heart felt passion and hard work was poured into the project and it advanced inch by painful inch. The National Park Service took note of our efforts (or so we thought). BUT in fact the Obama administration had flooded EVERY Federal Agency including NPS & Department of the Interior with pro LGBTQ activists and funding. Simply because several noted gay artist had visited the gardens in its history, our project had captured not only the interest of NPS but also the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the US Congressional Offices of then Representative Phil Gingrey, The Appalachian Regional Commission, and the local County Commissioner in Georgia. Unknown to us, these organizations were following and rushing into the Obama era funding for projects that advanced the LGBTQ agenda and even its history. The central goal was obtaining the funding and the prayer garden of a country Baptist minister turned folk artist was destined to feature the work of gay artist like Keith Haring, who ironically died of AIDS in his early 30s as a result of his sexual addiction and the “days on end” he spent in the gay bath houses of NYC.
Thinking we had found allies and advocates in high places we entered (under my leadership and encouragement) into a partnership with the above entities and their leaders. But only two weeks after funding was obtained, our project was high-jacked and total control was seized by a staffer of the Congressional offices. Our remaining entrance to the property was literally walled out of the historic site we had worked for over a decade to preserve. I was am am to this day barred from the site under threat of arrest. A bisexual Director was given charge of our project site.
YES EVEN THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE WAS IN THE LGBTQ MOVEMENT
After learning of the NPS and the LGBTQ agenda we stood firm. I fought against the Congressional office, the local county and even the Federal agencies involved as we gained proof of fraud with the federal grants involved. At one point the struggle was one Christian Street Preacher against a U S Congressman and nearly a dozen law firms, two of which were among Atlanta and the nation’s largest. Control was now in the hands the Congressional offices of Phil Gingrey, a GOP “conservative” who were discovered to be using the FBI, the Capitol Hill Police, the local County Sheriff and my own hometown police to try and dig up some kind of dirt on and or intimidate me out of resistance.
THE CHURCH LEADERS WERE/ARE… MIA in the battle for Paradise!
I reached out to local pastors, especially the Baptist pastors being a Baptist myself as was the artist whose legacy we sought to preserve. I also reached out to leaders of three different state Baptist associations and to the national offices of the Southern Baptist Convention. NO HELP came. No one would even condemn what had taken place with the legacy of a Baptist minister who pastored SBC churches for over 40 years in the community.
A local meeting of pastors was set but canceled because of the corrupt influence of the First Baptist Church pastor who was friends with County attorney who helped in the hijacking. Also I reached out to the SBC's ERLC and Russell Moore in early 2013 when he represented new young blood coming into the SBC who might “understand” our efforts and the struggle we were in. We received NO moral support or standing with our effort from ANY Christian, let alone any Baptist organization. NONE.
By 2014 we had totally lost our project. The Christian legacy of a deceased Southern Baptist minister and personal friend Howard Finster was turned a platform for featuring the NPS LGBTQ history intitiative. Paradise Gardens a Baptist pastor’s prayer garden became a platform to feature the history of other gay artist who had visited the site while the Christian history of Rev Finster was erased.
THE STRUGGLE IS NEVER ENDING
TODAY the fence surrounding Paradise Garden and the classes offered to the elementary school classes who come there proudly feature gay artist Keith Haring’s art over Rev Finster’s Funding over over a million dollars flooded into the hijackers coffers for “Creative Placemaking” a pro LGBTQ development ideology embraced by both Federal and local governments and private grant makers.
Once again Paradise was Lost. But we continue to stand, I continue to pray God will redeem this wonderful door of ministry. Yet the most disturbing things we discovered were how ignorant the church is of the real agenda AND how faithless the pastors had become to stand against it. SOMETHING HAD CHANGED and SOMEONE INSIDE THE LEADERSHIP HAD GIVEN THE CHURCH orders to STAND DOWN on the LGBTQ agenda.
I began to dig to know who and what and when and why.
Meanwhile we are making lemons into lemonade and exposing all we learned to the church. Men meant this for evil but God allowed it for greater KINGDOM good. THIS is how I got involved in exposing the deadly compromise in the church.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/is-the-national-park-service-queering-history
SECOND WHAT IS GOING ON AND HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
MAIN SECTION OF OPEN LETTER TO THE CHURCH
THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH
Influences in the current crisis among PCA and SBC Churches
A QUICK HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES DECLINE INTO PRAGMATISM AND OUTSIDE INFLUENCE.
There is no simple outline that encompass all of the influences that have made for the problems we face but this is a quick look at the high points.From the mid 1980’s groups like Leadership Network, soon followed by Willow Creek Association and then Purpose Driven have solidified the church growth movement which furthered pragmatic thinking among young pastors to grow large seeker friendly churches, These same influences and actual organizations behind them also birthed the “emergent church” and "emerging movement“. Doctrine /Theology became secondary if focused on at all.These issues are still with us.
There was a hunger among young people for a theological movement to fill the gaps in the pragmatic faith of the church growth generation. But keep in mind these are also post modern thinkers so some of the fault lines of the coming theological movement were already visible. The present movement to bring a more theologically rooted, youth driven, movement to Christian universities, campus ministries and seminaries was dubbed “the Young Restless and Reformed” (YR&R) movement or “Neo Calvinism“. This movement began in earnest at a 2006 conference in Louisville KY called “Together For The Gospel." YR&R has grown stronger as a perceived revival of historic reformed theology. It was not.
FOUNDING OF THE GOSPEL COALITION
In 2005 The Gospel Coalition was formed at Trinity (TEDS) by D A Carson and Tim Keller in part as a gathering place for “thought leaders” of the YRR movement. John Piper, John MacArthur, Albert Mohler, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, Albert Mohler and Russell Moore (Mohler’s # one protege’) were among it’s leadership and were joined by next generation leaders like Mark Driscoll and Tullian Tchividjian who were in fact a mixture of Reformed, Charismatic and Emergent. Driscoll and and Tchividjian’s appeal was massive and mainstream in YR&R circles as Driscoll was aided by Leadership Network to launch ACTS 29 Church planting organization and Tchividjian merged his own plant with D James Kennedy’s church and became a celebrity pastor appearing on FOX News and other outlets frequently.
YOUNGER FACES OF TGC
These two younger leaders Driscoll and Tchividjian both enjoyed massive promotion as next generation leaders of TGC but soon were exposed as morally corrupted and unstable as well as theologically unsound. Meanwhile TGC leadership simply folded them out of the limelight and brought in others to lead the way.A fatal flaw of TGC is evident here. TGC and YR&R movement was pragmatic – a promotional machine and the historic Reformed Theology they espoused was far less important than the growing conferences, media footprint and influence they were gaining in the seminaries and on Christian campuses.
TGC early rhetoric was that “Christians have been too political” and “have fought a culture war” and “hurt the Gospel“. The church “needs to be known for what we are for not what we are against”. In the name of “Cultural Engagement” and more effective outreach via “civility” in a “post church culture” and “Principled Pluralism” the TGC brand of Christianity offered a more meaningful depth of historic Theology coupled with a more relevant image. At least this was the marketing strategy engaged by TGC.
TGC ACTUAL POLITICS HIDDEN IN HISTORIC THEOLOGY
Soon the actual politics of TGC began to show through. Leaders like Tim Keller who Christianity Today had puffed into the national spot light and Russell Moore who ascended the ERLC (SBC) presidency in 2013 from his position as Provost at Albert Mohler’s SBTS, were found to be extremely pro Obama, even having meetings with him in the White House. Moore even invited candidate Hillary Clinton to speak at the 2015 SBC annual meetings but the invitation did not pan out. Keller and Moore both shocked conservative believers with their increasingly left of center ideals and associations. Yet their obligatory theological “statements” remained within the bounds of biblical orthodoxy while the political rhetoric is also presented in a twisted biblical narrative.
FAITH BASED REVISIONS
The first term of Obama produced a revision of the Faith based Neighborhood Partnerships (FBP) which allowed churches and ministries to obtain government grants for providing social services. Obama revisions made LGBTQ activist and Muslim activist organizations key players in the mix with liberal Christians like Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter. This has been one of the KEY issues to corrupt the church. Instead of resisting the compromise and its many dangers to Religious Freedoms and the Churches autonomy, Russell Moore’s boss in the SBC Executive Committee, SBC CEO Frank Page JOINED the Obama advisory council for the Faith Based Partnerships and sat down with homosexual activist groups and Muslims and liberals to “find common ground for the common good” i.e. – “everybody gets the checks”.
INSPIRED TO COMPROMISE BY ACCESS TO TAX DOLLARS
This explains a great deal of the compromise we see. Add to it the opportunity for massive amounts private corporations and foundations grants to supplement the FBP ideology and you have an apostate church.
See Frank Page SBC Executive Committee CEO in Obama tax payer money pit here:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/eop/ofbnp/about/2009-2010
By the 2015 primaries and 2016 election the full political face of TGC, Keller, Moore and the TGC became evident as the TGC media machine went into full swing to shame Christians out of voting for Trump. Articles to this end poured out of TGC and its related publications and from sister organizations like 9MARKS and the next generation leaders of TGC.
TGC’s FAKE POLITICAL POSITION – NEITHER NEUTRAL NOR BI-PARTISAN ALL LEFT ALL THE TIME!
By 2018, the next generation of TGC leaders & urban church plant pastors were fully in bed Democratic Strategist and Obama’s “FBP coordinator” Michael Wear who now writes for TGC since 2017. Wear is now called “Obama’s Ambassador to America’s Believers” in his work with the & Campaign and the Obama Foundation. TGC marketed itself as politically neutral. It is not. Currently it is marketing itself as offering Third Way; middle of the road political engagement but NO Christian conservative voices are involved. The effort is along classic progressive social issues and is decidedly anti Trump.
& CAMPAIGN, PURE OBAMA FOUNDATION POLITICS COMBINED WITH TGC LEADERSHIP.
The & Campaign is an example of the full manifestation of the politics of TGC as many young TGC church planters, even some leadership council members are on & Campaigns leadership. It openly is wedding “Biblical Values with Social Justice”. & Campaigns political platform.
THE REAL TGC
TGC is in fact a theologically emergent -politically progressive movement marketed heavily as a historic Reformed theological movement by the evangelical machine like Christianity Today and its own conferences and media outlets. The internet has actually made its unique DECEPTION , proliferation and saturation possible.
In this March 6th 2018 video of YR&R leader Collin Hansen on ABC speaks directly to the purpose of the founding of TGC in an unguarded moment. It is worth watching and also worth questioning WHY ABC would give airtime to such an interview
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BULLET POINTS AND SPECIFIC “JUSTICE" COMPROMISES
From here let me just hit some bullet points on how things all developed.