Wasn't Mr. Jenner 'born that way'?

Exclusive: Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder decry 'hateful LGBT psychobabble'

Published: 14 hours ago

image: http://www.wnd.com/wp-content/images/authors/tbaehr@worldnetdaily.com.jpg
 

Dr. Ted Baehr is the founder and publisher of MOVIEGUIDE, chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, and a well-known movie critic, educator, lecturer and media pundit. He also is the author of several books, including "The Culture-Wise Family" with legendary entertainer Pat Boone. For more information, the MOVIEGUIDE website.

Note: Dr. Tom Snyder contributed to this column.
We were watching one of the popular Fox News programs the day Vanity Fair magazine revealed Bruce Jenner’s new “look,” and all five hosts remarked how it was “great” that Bruce was finally able to be the person “she” wanted to be.
Not one of these people commented on how Bruce’s new “look” was obviously just an extreme case of phony plastic surgery and photo effects to make him look like a “real” woman.

The problem with all this politically correct hoopla is that Bruce Jenner can NEVER be a real woman. In fact, it’s a scientific fact that Bruce was born a boy, not a girl. To use another politically correct phrase from the LGBT liberals, leftists and libertarians, Bruce was “born that way” – he was born a man, not a woman.

This is perfectly clear in this photo from Bruce Jenner’s glory days as one of the best athletes ever created. Here is Bruce Jenner as God made him:
image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/02/Jenner1.png
Looks like a man to us!

During the Fox News program’s discussion about Bruce Jenner’s new look, it was repeatedly mentioned how happy Jenner supposedly seems now since his plastic surgery “makeover.”
Those comments are particularly sad and disturbing because studies of other people who have undergone a similar surgical transformation from man to woman, or woman to man, show that such superficial physical transformations did not really make these people any happier in the long term.
In fact, studies show that up to 20 percent of people who underwent sex change surgery commit suicide, and up to 41 percent attempt suicide.

Also, according to The Guardian in England, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2014, a review of “more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham’s aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.”
Thus, the idea that a sex-change operation automatically makes one happier is completely false. Bruce Jenner may be happy now with his new look or lifestyle, but what about five or 10 years from now?

Bruce is clearly suffering from the delusion that “changing” one’s sex will make one happier. This is akin to the alcoholic thinking that one more drink will help get him through the day, the drug addict thinking that one more drop of acid will make him feel better, or the adulterer thinking that leaving his wife for his mistress will make his life much better.

Another thing that struck us while watching the five Fox News hosts discuss “Caitlyn Jenner” was the sexual nature of the Vanity Fair cover photo. Apparently, Bruce Jenner and his supporters, including the Fox News hosts, think being a woman means being a sex object.
We thought that was a no-no in today’s feminist culture!

For years, the left has been teaching us – in the public schools, the media, the halls of justice and the psychiatric clinic – that truth is relative, that what is true or right for you is not true or right for me, that the meaning of a text (including the U.S. Constitution) depends on what each reader believes it means or, even worse, what “society” (or five judges) decides it means.

In reality, however, as radio pundit and renowned author Dennis Prager noted Tuesday morning on his program, feelings can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to determine what’s right and wrong; feelings can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to trump reason or logic; and feelings can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to trump biology or nature.

Sadly, however, the pro-homosexual, feminist left (plus many libertarians) is teaching our children the exact opposite. It also wants to force taxpayers to fund sex-change operations for the poor.
In fact, in some states, like California, the public schools must promote homosexuality and “gender neutrality,” no matter what the parents and the voters think. It’s also against the law in California to even ask for therapy to get rid of your child’s homosexual or “transgender” feelings.

To those of you who firmly support these California laws, we ask, “If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your sexual orientation?” Also, “If you can change your sex, why can’t you change your race?” Finally, “If you can change your sex, why can’t you change yourself to look like a dog or a cat?”

Of course, the best way to fight this pernicious gender psychobabble is to spread the Truth of the good news of Jesus Christ, that He came to give you and me a more abundant, more joyous, more fulfilled, redeemed, forgiven, restored life where you can be yourself, which is everything your were designed to be.
In addition to that, however, Christians (and Jews for that matter) must also refute the lies, half-truths, myths and slanderous propaganda behind such anti-biblical, irrational, unscientific, anti-intellectual, bigoted and ultimately hateful LGBT psychobabble.

Our fervent prayer is that this column will help do just that.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/wasnt-mr-jenner-born-that-way/#CEQpYbTemhoqRhyo.99

Did the devil make you do it?

Possession vs. Oppression

By Susan Lockhart

Have you heard someone in church (or maybe even you yourself) claim to have an evil spirit? We hear this often: "I have a spirit of addiction" or "He has a spirit of lust," for example, and perhaps there is a desire for deliverance from such spirits. I mean, if a person is possessed by an evil spirit, he would certainly want it removed, wouldn't he? But is the problem really possession in these cases?

I'm not speaking of people that are legitimately demonically possessed. There are such people — though not in the vast numbers that Hollywood might have you believe! Possessed people exhibit a variety of medical and psychological pathologies that adversely affect their lives in alarming and debilitating ways. Such individuals do require intervention and possibly deliverance. (See Luke 11:24-26 for a caveat.) What's more, possessed people are not Spirit-filled Christians. A Christian's body is a temple, and it contains the Presence of God. The Holy Spirit is not going to share God's temple with an unclean, demonic spirit. Biblical truths make this clear. But a Christian can be demon oppressed.

It's true that some Christians falsely blame demons for most, or all, of their sins. But the fact of the matter is, human sin nature is a very powerful force. Sinful behavior comes naturally to us because we are born that way (Psalm 58:3). Charles Spurgeon once said, "As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived." The doctrine of total depravity is Biblical.

Christians in particular are burdened by our sin nature. We don't want to sin, but we can't help it. We are slaves to sin (Romans 7:14 NLT). So we feel guilty when we do. We feel ashamed. We don't like confessing our sins to God every day, because we know how we look in His holy eyes, and we feel bad about that. We know that as humans, we would have a hard time forgiving people as often as God forgives us.

So to avoid this shame, we may be tempted to blame our sin on direct demonic influence or "evil spirits." It's true, devils do tempt us. The temptation may be very strong, yes, but God enables us to resist (1 Corinthians 10:13). Still, resistance is difficult, lots of times we fail, and in the end, it's so much easier to view ourselves as victims rather than as the culprits that we are, particularly in the case of habitual sin.

Our sin is more likely a result of our own weakness in temptation than direct demonic involvement.

The dictionary defines "culprit" as "a person or other agent guilty of or responsible for an offense or fault." That is what we are. Let's not mince words here. Satan may be guilty of tempting us, but we and we alone are guilty of committing the actual sin, and most times, enjoying it in the moment. We are criminals of a sort; we have committed sin crimes against God. That's hard for many people (even unbelievers) to deal with, and so they may come to believe that they need "deliverance" from a "spirit," when what they really need is repentance, confession and forgiveness.

We cannot properly fellowship with God with unconfessed sin in our lives. As the chief of sinners, I personally know how difficult it is to acknowledge sin before a sinless God. But what some people are surprised to learn is that God not only forgives, He forgets. That's right; in His eyes, it's as if you never committed that sin to begin with! I know it seems too good to be true, but Isaiah 43:25 tells us, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more."

So the next time you've committed a sin — and you will — look into your heart and ask yourself honestly whether you were really forced to do it against your will by a demon, or whether you were driven by your sin nature, as all of us are. We cannot learn from our mistakes unless we admit and recognize them for what they are. Remember the words of George Santayana, who wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Is The Catholic Church Drifting Into Eco-Spirituality?

A series of initiatives by the Catholic Church aim to draft parishioners into earth warriors.

By Maureen Mullarkey 

 

Is Catholicism on a slide into nature mysticism? It is a discomforting question for a Catholic to ask, but it bears scrutiny. Messianic environmentalism is about to assume the status of dogma in Pope Francis’ looming encyclical. Once discarding our incandescent light bulbs and biking to work become a religious obligation, it will be too late to ask the question.

The temptation to grand ideological transformations to reclaim an imagined pristine environment is not new. Francis is not the first pope to carry a green torch. John Paul II celebrated the 1990 World Day of Peace with this:

Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. . . . a new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge which . . . ought to be encouraged to develop into concrete programs and initiatives.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) took the cue. Six months later, they began drafting a 16-page pastoral letter proclaiming an environmental crisis and terming it a moral crisis. “Renewing the Earth” emerged from conference in 1991, demanding urgent action “to ensure the survival of a healthy planet.” A blend of bien pensant political opinion and moral fervor, its tenor calls to mind those heady leaflets issued by the October Revolution.

The New Faith requires “a new solidarity” against ecological crisis. The masses are called upon to renounce the mailed fist of development and join the heroic struggle for “the planetary common good.” (The masses to whom the bishops address themselves are those bourgeois ones, like themselves, who read Gerard Manley Hopkins. “God’s Grandeur” is quoted in full.)

When Global Warming Really Does Become Religion

In the words of atmospheric physicist John Reid, anthropogenic global warming is “the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. . . . My skepticism about AGW arises from the fact that, as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect, the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.”

If creation and Creator are one, nature itself is sacred. Any animist could say the same.

 

But our shepherds know better: AGW is incontrovertible. A decadent West has imperiled the planet. The bishops repudiate “voracious consumerism of the developed world.” They reject material growth as a model of development: “Unrestrained economic growth is the not the answer to improving the lives of the poor.”

If not economic growth, then what? Answer: “an exceptional call to conversion” that will lead Christians “to find God dwelling in created things.” Straddling the orphic and the theological, the bishops hasten to add that God also surpasses all things. But a canker has dropped on the rose. The addendum does nothing to blunt the mystical assertion that God dwells in nature. And if creation and Creator are one, nature itself is sacred. Any animist could say the same.

Does Loving Nature Fit Catholic Doctrine?

There are risks to this seep of eco-spirituality into the Church. No one denies man’s role as steward of the world he inhabits. Assertions that Western man is oblivious or hostile to that role is a straw man. And all suggestion that the developed world is indifferent to the poor is a slur on centuries of effort to raise men above subsistence and the cruelties of the natural world. Nature is to be respected. But loved? Nature kills. We can love nature only to the degree of our control of it, our protection from it.

Nature is to be respected. But loved?

Where do proclamations of nature love lead except into the eco-mysticism that installs a shrine to Gaia in Manhattan’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine? Contemporary nature piety, couched in religious phrases, is the springboard for re-sacralizing the natural world. It reverses Christianity’s historic—and life-enhancing—de-divinization of nature. It is neo-paganism by the back door.

Francis enjoins the world to protect “God’s plan as inscribed in nature.” Lovely as that sounds, what does it mean? What is the plan, including as it must mortality and all its dreaded agents? Episcopal rhapsodies about the “beauty and richness of nature [that] raises our minds and hearts to God” are reckless indulgences in the romantic myth of a once-upon-a-time harmony between pre-industrial man and his environment—one without natural disaster, disease, disfigurement, or rapacity.

From Parishioners to Activists

In 1993, the USCCB followed its pastoral letter with an Environmental Justice Program. Its stated intention was to “motivate Catholics to a deeper reverence and respect for God’s creation” and to encourage them to address environmental problems. In other words, to become activists.

Benedict plastered the Paul VI Audience Hall with 1,000 solar panels and agreed to a carbon off-set scheme that, had it materialized, would have crowned the Vatican the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

 

And they have. The Catholic Climate Movement is a network of more than 100 organizations scattered across the globe laboring to “respond to climate change from a Catholic perspective.” Its stated goal is to “keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius (relative to pre-industrial levels.)”

Among member groups based in the United States are: Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Climate Covenant, Pax Christi International, Franciscan Action Network, Franciscan International (NY/ Geneva), Sisters of Charity of New York, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, CatholicEcology.net, Ignatian Solidarity Network, Ignatian Volunteer Corps, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, and the National Catholic Education Association. The list goes on.

Benedict XVI furthered John Paul’s endorsement of a push for eco-programs. Daniel Stone, writing in National Geographic in 2013, stated that one lasting legacy of Benedict XVI, dubbed the “Green Pope,” was how he steered the global debate over climate change and “made environmental awareness a key tenant of his tenure.” Benedict plastered the Paul VI Audience Hall with 1,000 solar panels and agreed to a carbon off-set scheme that, had it materialized, would have crowned the Vatican the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

Following papal lead, “environmental stewardship” has become a staple on the list of advocacy topics of national dioceses around the world. The USCCB designed a toolkit for missionizing Catholic college and university students on sustainability. The subject is too urgent to be left to local efforts. In “Caritas in Veritate” (2009), Benedict signaled his hope for a “world political authority.” This global political body—a Brussels on steroids—would dictate procedures governing multiple global issues, with particular attention to environmental ones.

Beware the ‘Settled Science’

Now comes Francis, advised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: “On climate change, there is a clear, definitive, and ineluctable ethical imperative to act.”

The science is neither clear nor definitive, and the Vatican appears to have forgotten the Lysenko affair. That was the twentieth century’s most notorious instance of the scandal—and tragedy—of politically correct science. By stacking the deck in favor of a manufactured “consensus” over the still-contested issue of man-made global warming, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences risks comparison with the ideologically driven postures of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era.

Marxism thought itself to have progressed from Utopia to science. Environmentalism makes a corresponding claim for itself. Both are scaffolds for authoritarian controls and for subordinating science to the advocacy needs of politics.

Let me leave the last word with Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Prize-winning Stanford University physicist and former research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself. Climate is beyond our power to control. . . . Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.”

Maureen Mullarkey is an artist who writes on art and culture. Her weblog appears here on First Things' website.

John Haller´s Prophecy Update

Exposed: The Trappings And Snares of ‘ME Christianity’

Image credit: shutterstock.com

A.J. Castellitto May 28, 2015 at 6:23pm

They are all signs of self-absorbed immaturity (most prominently in the spiritual sense); and for the most part, I’ve been guilty of them all. When we take our eye off the ball, we are most assuredly setting ourselves up for a major fall.
For the Christian, Jesus is our light and our guide. He is revealed in the living word of God.

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The Bible contains blessed instruction and spiritual nourishment for the thirsting, passionate disciple of God. It is when we stray in our application and obedience that we grow complacent, proud, frustrated, irritable, overwhelmed, depressed, and ultimately unfaithful.

The Good News of the Bible is not about us; rather, it is for us. We must rightfully be inclined to share and serve others (starting with those in our very household). We cannot maintain ourselves as the center of our universe. The Lord must be magnified. He is our comfort, our refuge, and our focus.
We needn’t be annihilated, but we’d better find our strength and our wisdom in the living word. When we don’t, it’s bound to all go terribly wrong. Here are just a few examples of how so. (If you see yourself in any of these profiles, acknowledge it, and flee from the ‘Christian ME.’)

The Paralyzed Christian – Those who are so wrapped up in their sins and offenses that they cannot even bring themselves to the throne of grace and see the loving, merciful arms of the Savior who is ready and willing to fill hearts and carry burdens. They reside within the pale of spiritual law and carnal despair and cannot find the place of forgiveness. It lies outside themselves. It is where they must dwell.

The Legalistic Christian – These are the sin sniffers, the rule-makers and the finger-pointers. They are quick to cast the first stone. They are the Pharisees. They hide their own fragile insecurities behind an air of superiority. Jesus is their carnal shield and their license to wound, but He will never be their Savior.

The Mystical Christian – They are those who speak of lofty experience. They await the spirit to move them. They are waiting on a sign. They are on deck, but they never arrive; nor do they accept their own obligation and responsibility. They are so busy letting go, handing over the reigns, and waiting on the Lord for a directive that they’ve rendered themselves unfruitful. They have buried their talents and hidden their light under a bushel. They’re sitting in the sanctuary waiting for the call, but they’ve yet to take any faithful risks. They are not owning their faith, nor are they living it out. They are using God as a crutch because standing firm in living faith and obedience while confronting the tough circumstance would require too much devotion and accountability. It would require them to take what they know (and so undeservingly received) and take on the world. They are cowards for Christ. It’s easier to sit back and just let God do it. The inconvenient reality for them is that He already has, and now He expects them to go out and live it. They are to share the Good Word and glorify God for the redemption (and tragically, the condemnation) of sinners everywhere.

The Working Christian – They have a miraculous story to tell and live the rest of their lives living up to that one radical conversion experience. Their home is the workhouse. They are ultimately their own slave and their own master. Every sin is a bitter disappointment, while every act of faith is a greater confirmation. Life is a series of catastrophic missteps and fulfilled expectations; but in the end, they are merely going it alone. Their insecurities are woefully misplaced. Tragically, they dwell in a prison of their own design.

The Barely Christian – They are the Christian musician, the Christian publisher, the Christian builder, and the Christian plumber. Christ is their calling card and their marketing ploy. He is their key selling point. They are corporate and political Christians. They worship social justice, holy wars, and golden rules. They are pragmatic and peace-loving religious humanists. Their Christianity comes at no cost. It’s merely a no sacrifice required form of spirituality that they are living. Christianity is their cover. They are cultural Christians; but tragically instead of transforming the culture to Christ, they embrace all that the world has to offer them. They are globally conformed and compromised. They’re merely peddling a secular agenda. They market and sell Christianity – a cheap imitation thereof. They are Christian out of convenience; yet they are hardly so. They are shallow professors. They are mere pretenders tainting the faith. In the worst case, Christianity is the flag they wave to trigger, expand, and ignite a military industrial complex. Ultimately, their masks will come off; in fact, their true identity is already showing. In the end, they got nothing.

The Narcissistic Christian – They are the date setters. They’ve uncovered hidden revelation and have broken from the faithful denomination. They refuse to be taught; yet they hold the key to unlocked mysteries. They have the inside track. Those who’ve come before lack the illumination they bring. They are the Harold Campings, the Ellen G. Whites, and the Benny Hinns. They hold the faithful insight. They are anointed and self-appointed. The power of healing lies in their spiritually-gifted, supernaturally-charged hands. They are the religious charlatans. They have been designated by God to deliver a timely message. They have Jesus on speed dial. The current day reveals a hidden truth, and they’ve been sent by God to decode it. We are no longer wandering in the dark, but will they?

And so the traps and snares abound for those who forget where true life is found!
Again, we must flee such ME’s……..you know where to go!
Peace and loving service is to be had in the revealed word of God, the fellowship of believers, humble prayer, confession of sin, and participation in the holy sacraments of faith (i.e. the Lord’s Supper). May we be restored and sanctified by the living Word, and may the world be our mission field.
* My Thanks to Dr. Phillip Cary for the faithful insight and inspiration

Question: "Is Jesus God? Did Jesus ever claim to be God?"

Reblogged from https://www.facebook.com/gotquestions.org?fref=nf
Answer: The Bible never records Jesus saying the precise words, “I am God.” That does not mean, however, that He did not proclaim that He is God. Take for example Jesus’ words in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” We need only to look at the Jews’ reaction to His statement to know He was claiming to be God. They tried to stone Him for this very reason: “You, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33). The Jews understood exactly what Jesus was claiming—deity. When Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one,” He was saying that He and the Father are of one nature and essence. John 8:58 is another example. Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth … before Abraham was born, I am!” Jews who heard this statement responded by taking up stones to kill Him for blasphemy, as the Mosaic Law commanded (Leviticus 24:16).

John reiterates the concept of Jesus’ deity: “The Word [Jesus] was God” and “the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). These verses clearly indicate that Jesus is God in the flesh. Acts 20:28 tells us, “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Who bought the church with His own blood? Jesus Christ. And this same verse declares that God purchased His church with His own blood. Therefore, Jesus is God!

Thomas the disciple declared concerning Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Jesus does not correct him. Titus 2:13 encourages us to wait for the coming of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ (see also 2 Peter 1:1). In Hebrews 1:8, the Father declares of Jesus, “But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.’” The Father refers to Jesus as “O God,” indicating that Jesus is indeed God.

In Revelation, an angel instructed the apostle John to only worship God (Revelation 19:10). Several times in Scripture Jesus receives worship (Matthew 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38). He never rebukes people for worshiping Him. If Jesus were not God, He would have told people to not worship Him, just as the angel in Revelation did. There are many other passages of Scripture that argue for Jesus’ deity.

The most important reason that Jesus has to be God is that, if He is not God, His death would not have been sufficient to pay the penalty for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). A created being, which Jesus would be if He were not God, could not pay the infinite penalty required for sin against an infinite God. Only God could pay such an infinite penalty. Only God could take on the sins of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21), die, and be resurrected, proving His victory over sin and death.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/is-Jesus-God.html#ixzz3bXOAIF1N

Pastor spills secret on kids summoning 'demons'

Reblogged from www.wnd.com  

We are seeing more of this because it was predicted in the Word of God'

Published: 6 hours ago

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/05/Charlie_Challenge.jpg

The so-called “Charlie Charlie Challenge” is a cheaper version of a ouija board

Young people around the world are trying to summon a demon in the latest trend sweeping social media – but a well-known pastor and Christian author believes those who participated in the “Charlie Charlie challenge” are fooling themselves about the realities of the spiritual realm.

Pastor and bestselling Christian author Carl Gallups told WND: “The ‘Charlie Charlie’ trick is just that – a trick. In fact, it’s an old bar room parlor trick that originally involved putting two cigarettes on top of each other, only now it’s two pencils. It’s very easy to manipulate and make it look like something is happening by itself when actually it’s just someone breathing on the pencils, usually the person filming the ‘challenge.’ So these kids are not actually summoning demons or anything like that.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/pastor-spills-secret-on-kids-summoning-demons/#XcogrhV9mBi04LWp.99

Progressivism: Empire of lies

How the rapture connects to the Jewish wedding custom

Via servehiminwaiting.com

Eternal Father, strong to save - Navy band