As early as 2010 the “conversation” and the language on sexuality of the remaining biblically conservative churches began to show signs of impending derailment. The introduction of new phrases like “Same Sex Attracted (SSA)” and “Gay Celibate Christian” in reality betrayed a larger undercurrent intent on migrating the Christian churches toward affirmation of gay marriage and creation of a homosexual Christianity.  Few Christians, however, could imagine anything beyond procuring a more compassionate stance toward gays and lesbians or that the shift in language was motivated by a desire to present a more appealing public face to a more tolerant American culture. Another motive for accepting the carefully crafted terms and talking points has been the fear of lawsuits and the inevitable clash between the LGBTQ movement and religious liberty.

The Use of Queer Theory and  Gateway Rhetoric

We must now set these assumptions aside and face some hard facts, namely, that major institutions in the Southern Baptist Convention and Presbyterian Church of America are actually training LGBTQ activists and advocates for inclusion of sexual minorities in the churches – in ministry positions and even as “theologians” of LGBTQ and Queer Theory.

Introducing REVOICE 2018

Consider yourself invited to the next wave of LGBTQ advocacy which boldly proclaims it is “a new kind of conference promoting LGBT+ flourishing within historic Christian tradition.” The Revoice Conference will take place in St Louis, Missouri on July 26-28 and will be hosted by Memorial Presbyterian (PCA) Church. Among the scheduled speakers are Pastor Greg Johnson, an Old Testament Professor, and seven graduates or current students of Covenant Seminary (PCA) in St Louis.  Considering that Covenant Seminary is still regarded as the flagship institution of the trusted conservative PCA denomination, it is most disturbing that these young ministers, counselors and writers are self-identifying “LGBT+ Christians” and that they would invite us to “Come Belong in a New Conversation.”

Can we all join in a chorus of “What is happening in our seminaries?”???

In recent months I have written about the Social Gospel and Cultural Marxist/ Critical Theory infiltrating over a dozen Evangelical seminaries, including Covenant, by embedding a Social Justice Curriculum funded by the Kern Family Foundation and provided by the Acton Institute. The Revoice Conference hosted at Covenant Seminary will rapidly migrate to other Evangelical seminaries that use the Kern-Acton Curriculum and before long the churches will be embracing full blown heresy in the name of “LGBT+ flourishing.”

Queer Theory Workshop – Read it and Weep

 POSSIBILITY MODELS IN QUEER THEORY AND LITERATURE: AN ADVENTURE

Presenter: Grant Hartley

“For the sexual minority seeking to submit his or her life fully to Christ and to the historic Christian sexual ethic, queer culture presents a bit of a dilemma; rather than combing through and analyzing to find which parts are to be rejected, to be redeemed, or to be received with joy (Acts 17:16-34), Christians have often discarded the virtues of queer culture along with the vices, which leaves culturally connected Christian sexual minorities torn between two cultures, two histories, and two communities. So questions that have until now been largely unanswered remain: what does queer culture (and specifically, queer literature and theory) have to offer us who follow Christ? What queer treasure, honor, and glory will be brought into the New Jerusalem at the end of time (Revelation 21:24-26)?”

Other workshop topics include “Journey to Embrace: A Conversation on Empowering the Church to Embrace the LGBT+ Community in Fresh Ways” – “Building Justice Bridges: How Missiological Approach Shifts Our Posture and Reaches LGBT+ People” – “Sexual Minorites in Ministry” – “Making Church a Haven for Sexual Minorities: Thoughts for Church Leadership” – “So Why Can We Eat Shell Fish? A Look at Leviticus And How It Relates to Questions of Celibacy Today” – “Hurdles to Whole-Hearted Living: Emotional Health as Sexual Minorities” – “How To Become Churches Where LGBT+ People Can Find Family” and several more topics on the same victim narrative.

Social Justice and Liberation Theology must be driven by “victims” of the system it is engaged to change. Therefore, last month Evangelicals experienced a massive guilt-driven Racial /White Guilt frenzy at The Gospel Coalition MLK/50 Conference in Memphis. Then an activist-driven “MeToo” narrative, making an issue of false allegations against SBC Conservative icon, Paige Patterson, has continued for the last two weeks. Now, just in time for Gay Pride Month, we see the same Cultural Marxist talking points reaching a new high (or low depending on one’s perspective) with Revoice.

I first learned of the conference when a friend pointed it out to me in the event section of the UK “Gay Christian” group “Living Out” which has used a slightly less forceful narrative in years past but toward the same end – making safe spaces for LGBT persons in the Church. Tim Keller will be speaking on “Identity” at the Living Out Conference in London this summer and his “SSA Gay Christian” editor at The Gospel Coalition, Sam Allberry, is spreading the word about both conferences on social media.

ERLC and TGC Obsession With LGBT+ Christianity

In 2013, certain Southern Baptist and PCA organizations began to promote the acceptance of “Same-Sex Attracted” but “Celibate Christians.”  This category is based on the assertion that same sex desire is not sinful in itself, but that only acting upon the desire is sin. This mindset reveals a glaring ignorance of the nature of sin and defilement as explained by Jesus, in Matthew 15:1-20, when asked why his disciples did not observe ritual washing before eating. Jesus clarified that it is “what is in and comes out of the heart of man that defiles us.” Paul called homosexual lusts “vile affections” in Romans 1:26. James further warns us that “desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death.” (Jas 1:15)

So, desire is the seed in the heart that if harbored gives birth to sin. We are told, however, in this “new conversation” that SSA or homosexual desire is not temptation to lust as other heterosexual desires are but that the issue is one of “Orientation,” which implies that God made a gay person to be gay and for the church to expect them to be changed by the Gospel is to reject God’s creation.

Albert Mohler, whose Southern Seminary plays a major role in the “new conversation” of all things LGBT+, has openly apologized to homosexuals, asserting that Baptists have had it wrong on orientation and that neither “Conversion Therapy” nor saving faith in Jesus changes a homosexual into a heterosexual.  Imagine, this is coming from one of the leading voices in Biblical Conservative Evangelical circles today.  Mohler protégé’ Russell Moore of the ERLC has been echoing this same powerless understanding of the Gospel for years and accusing those who choose a Biblical response to LGBT+, over his watered-down appeasement, of waging a culture war.

So, according to the Revoice Conference and “conversation invitation,” Christians are being asked to, not only abandon the concept of Biblical repentance, faith and conversion for gays and lesbians, but we are now informed that the church must begin the long and winding road of inclusion on whatever terms the self-proclaimed sexual minorities demand.  Mohler and Moore and Tim Keller and their organizations are telling us we must change. The Church must change because homosexual and lesbian desires are not changed by faith in Jesus.

Last year the bolder talking points came online when D.A. Carson, co-founder of TGC with Tim Keller, endorsed a book called “Single Gay Christian’ by Gregory Coles, who is also a speaker and worship leader at the Revoice Conference. According to Coles, “SSA” was suddenly no longer needed as a kinder gentler way of saying one could be both Gay and Christian. “Gay Christian”? Try the “Sin Substitution Test” of Peter Labarbera on that for a moment and see how it sounds. Try the “Gambling Christian,” “Adulterous Christian,” “Liar Christian” in your church and see if these concepts float!  Still, Carson’s endorsement of Coles’ book broke new ground with its inclusive “Gay Christian” language for TGC and its followers.

“To say this book is important is a painful understatement. It is the candid, moving, intensely personal story of a gay young man who wants to live his life under the authority of King Jesus and who refuses to accept the comforting answers proffered by different parts of the culture. Superbly written, this book stands athwart the shibboleths of our day and reminds us what submission to King Jesus looks like, what it feels like. This book needs to be thoughtfully read by straight people and by gay people, by unbelievers and by Christians. It is not to be read with a condescending smirk, but with humility.”

Keller has been drifting on the LGBT+ issue for some time now.  Coles is just one of the many “SSA/Gay but Celibate” Christians that he and TGC/ ERLC have forced into the conversation of the Church. Cole’s current field of study along with some other young sexual minorities in the Revoice conference should give pause for even the most fair-minded believer to take a close look at what is really going on in this broader movement marketed as a “conversation.”

According to his extended biography in the English Department at the Penn State College of Liberal Arts, “Greg specializes in Rhetoric and Composition. He is (currently) intrigued by the intersections of Burkean Theory and the marginalized rhetorics, including but not limited to feminist rhetorics, racial minority rhetorics, sexual minority rhetorics and non-Western rhetorics.”

Greg is not the first LGBT+ person with a background in Sexual Minority Rhetoric and Queer Theory to be selected and promoted into the conversation by TGC/ ERLC. Popular among many who follow these leaders is Rosaria Butterfield who was a liberal academic converted to the Reformed faith and is now a pastor’s wife and homeschool mom as well as a very popular speaker at most of the conferences held by these leaders. Her primary field of study in academia was Critical Theory and her specialty was Queer Theory. Given that Cultural Marxism and LGBTQ studies were Butterfield’s major fields before her conversion, we wonder how much these academic credentials had to do with her selection as a very popular writer and speaker on all things LGBT+, now given the emergence of Coles and the other well-educated speakers of Revoice.

Meet Nate Collins

The game changing revelation for the Revoice conference 2018 is the president of the organization and keynote speaker, Nate Collins.  Nate is a graduate of Albert Mohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, with a Master of Divinity degree and completing his Ph.D. in 2017. His father is Chip Collins former assistant Dean at Boyce College which is now operated by Southern Seminary under Al Mohler’s directive.  Nate and his dad Chip had an organization featuring their testimonies as father and son during Nate’s coming “out” as a homosexual at 19.  This ministry effort appears to be no longer active but new horizons await Nate and his wife Sara, also a speaker at the conference.  Nate self identifies as a homosexual Christian and is in a “mixed-orientation marriage” with two children. This is part of the new language TGC has been bringing into play since last year. Don’t feel badly if you have never heard terms like “Sexual Minority Christian” or “Mixed Orientation Marriage.”  For our enrichment and education these young LGBT+ Christians are prepared to bring us all up to speed on the preferred labels and their fluid, non-binary gender rhetoric of the day.

Nate Collins’ work at Southern Seminary included teaching of the New Testament and a comprehensive approach to studies in LGBT+ and Gender. He is currently working as  a Garrett Fellow grading and counseling and teaches for SBTS online . If his résumé was coming from Yale or Princeton or some seminary on the campus at Berkley, we would not be surprised.  But this young man received his theological education at Southern Seminary – whose president is the Conservative champion, Dr. Albert Mohler of the SBC – but Nate Collins’ Curriculum Vitae reads like the pedigree of a well-trained sexual minority rights advocate and activist.

His studies, writings and on campus instruction include titles and topics like:

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Guest Lecturer – “Counseling and Sexuality” (2015)

Delivered 3 hours of guest lectures on the subject of LGBT and Christian Counseling

“Gender Identity and Multiplicity: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach In Christian Identity: Theological and Cultural Visions” (2018)

“All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of

Faith, Gender, and Sexuality” (published in book form 2017)

“Secondary Gender Identities in the Biblical World”

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature (2016)

“Theological Perspectives on Non-Straight Sexuality, Gender Identity, and Sanctification”

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (2015)

Dissertation: “Virgin as Secondary Gender Identity in 1 Corinthians 7 and its Jewish and Greco-Roman Background”

There are more but you likely get the idea by now. This young man and young “minister” – who was theologically prepared by Dr. Mohler’s Southern Seminary – sees life, the church, the faith, his calling, and the Word of God all through the lens of his own sexuality, which he identities as  homosexuality. This is the single biggest flaw in the approach to having those with unresolved sexual conflicts to be the spokespersons and counselors to and for the church in the political and activist driven culture existing today.  The Church needs clarity on God’s design and personal testimonies of deliverance from the bondage of perversion. We need to see human proof like the demoniac of Gadara who was clothed and in his right mind after encountering Jesus, and then sent forth to evangelize the cities of the Decapolis. There are many wonderful testimonies of both lay Christians and ministers who have been transformed and converted by the power of the Gospel and Repentance and Faith in Christ.

Instead, Dr. Albert Mohler and Tim Keller are giving us Sexual Minorites who want to help us appease and accommodate them, so they as “LGBT+ Christians can Flourish within historic Christian traditions.” Perhaps this is what Tim Keller means when he speaks repeatedly about “Human Flourishing.”  It is certainly the background for the international Human Rights conversation on Thriving and Flourishing. The Church simply MUST acclimate and accommodate and learn to celebrate the destructive LGBT+ lifestyle. We must be prepared to celebrate, even when the thin veneer of celibacy evaporates and when the right to love who you love and marry who you love INSIDE the church prevails over the migrating talking points of today to the sexually liberated Christian, which the + (plus), added by Revoice, represents.

Whatever is coming – whatever the fluid world of gender revolution and free love brings our way – the church must learn to love IT!

To this end, it is supposed we are to have a sense of deep gratitude to Albert Mohler and Timothy Keller, Russell Moore and Ed Stetzer, D A Carson and Jonathan Merritt for helping train, indoctrinate and degree a generation of young sexual minorities eager to make their mark, at the churches expense. The doors open wide to the next innovative, witty and cleaver packaging of the perversion which sank ancient Greece and Rome as civilizations and proved divisive and ruinous over and over again to Israel. The Bible is explicit with condemnation of it’s long history of flirtation and adultery with idols and the sexual license their deviant worship provided. These men who serve as mentors are helping fulfill prophetic warnings, from the prophets to the Gospels to Revelation, as they seek to follow the path of Balaam, dance with Jezebel, convene the Synagogue of Satan, they lead the body of Christ away from her First Love and on to allowing Flourishing Sexual Minorities as priest and priestesses in the Temple of God.

Those who are sober enough to wonder what has brought this floodtide upon the Church need only look to our seminaries and the men that run them! As to the reasoning they are following or the reward they are reaping for doing so, we can only speculate. From Revelation 2 and 3 and from the prophets, and the Old and New Testaments, we CAN read the command of God concerning Judah’s unfaithful brother the northern kingdom.

“Ephraim is Joined unto Idols, Let Him Alone.” Hosea 4:17.

Pray, Beloved, as if our lives depend upon it.

“O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.” Daniel 9:19