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Christian Student Union Banned From University Fair

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An Oxford University student union reportedly barred the Christian Union from setting up a stall at a college freshers’ fair, with a representative calling Christianity “an excuse for homophobia and neo-colonialism.”

Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell reported on Sunday of a leaked email chain, which reveals that the incident involving Christian Union took place at Balliol College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England.

Student union Vice President Freddy Potts reportedly said:

“We recognize the wonderful advantages in having CU representatives at the Fresher’s Fair, but are concerned that there is potential for harm to freshers who are already struggling to feel welcome in Oxford. (Read more from “Christian Student Union Banned From University Fair” HERE)

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Christian Transhumanism? Yes, Says Pastor

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A Christian pastor from Florida is promoting acceptance of some forms of transhumanism, saying believers should be open to finding an “ethical alternative” to the complete rejection of the scientific, technical and philosophical transhumanist movement that has already begun.

Rev. Christopher Benek, associate pastor of family ministries and mission at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, writes in the Christian Post that it’s time for the development of “Christian transhumanism.”

“If you have read the The American Conservative’s recent postings about the evolving transhumanist movement, you have likely developed reasonable concerns,” Benek wrote. “People should be dismayed at Zoltan Istvan’s misguided article in TAC from two weeks ago entitled: ‘The Growing World of Libertarian Transhumanism.’ And, if one believes that Istvan’s transhumanism represents all transhumanists, then Kai Weiss’ follow-up piece “Transhumanism is Not Libertarian, It’s an Abomination,” is correct and appropriately titled. But these two depictions do not represent the majority of transhumanist thought. As such I would request: Please folks do not throw the transhumanist-baby out with Zoltan Istvan’s bathwater. There is an ethical transhumanist alternative: Christian Transhumanism.”

Benek says “Christians can make a positive moral impact” on the debate over transhumanism rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“To be clear, transhumanism at its core is not some sci-fi or superhero that will happen in 100 years, concept,” he wrote. “Transhumanism is happening right now. As a pastor serving a local congregation, I see proof of transhumanism in my congregation every day.” (Read more from “Christian Transhumanism? Yes, Says Pastor” HERE)

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Great-Grandfather Leads Woman to Christ — 100 Years After His Death

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When Joanna Reed Shelton, career diplomat, opened her email one day several years ago, she never could’ve guessed what was inside: an invitation to celebrate the anniversary of her missionary great-grandfather’s church in Japan, which he had started 120 years before. She wasn’t a Christian — so why was she invited? She speculated that her speeches had made it on the web and across the world, connecting her with her great-grandfather’s legacy. She couldn’t have known how his life work wasn’t done — not quite.

Perhaps without even knowing why, she decided to take a trip to Japan.

As Joanna sat in the church her great-grandfather started, family stories came to life. Like the story of her great-grandfather struggling to keep from crying after his 14-year-old daughter who was the organist, Ella, died. When she visited Ella’s grave, Joanna held back tears.

Over time, Joanna took more trips to Japan, visited another church her grandfather founded, and began digging into his work as a writer and theologian at Meiji Gakuin University. Still, something was missing. She realized that her life traveling the world did not fulfill her. She decided to learn more about her great-grandfather and what made him become a missionary to Japan. But to do that, she had to know more about his faith — Christianity.

Joanna said that she traded in her “chauffeured cars and dinners with ambassadors for cowboy boots and life on a 240-acre farm” and moved to Montana. She began studying the Bible in earnest under two devout relatives. The longing she felt, the inner desire for something she couldn’t describe, was filled by her study of scripture. She couldn’t get enough.

Joanna trusted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and she said her life gained a new focus. She thought about her great-grandfather and the Japanese people he ministered to as a missionary. But he wasn’t finished when his life was over. “You might say I’m the latest convert of a man whose work clearly was not done when he died more than a century ago.” (For more from the author of “Great-Grandfather Leads Woman to Christ — 100 Years After His Death” please click HERE)

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Why Don’t Secularists Just Be Honest and Outlaw Christianity?

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As Michael Brown wrote here last week, Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and court costs that could wipe out not just her livelihood but her retirement fund and leave her homeless — all for the “crime” of not taking part in a same-sex wedding that violated her religious beliefs. And my reaction is: “Get on with it, already! Show the courage of your convictions and just ban Christianity outright.”

I’m getting really sick of this death by a thousand cuts. The elites who dominate our society and run the U.S. government via the courts clearly do not want to tolerate Christianity. Since they don’t have the votes to amend the Constitution and outlaw the practice of that faith entirely, instead they pack the bench with leftist sophists who twist our Constitution like saltwater taffy — amending it via judicial diktat dozens of times a year (if you count lower courts as well as SCOTUS), enshrining leftist secularism beyond the reach of shuffling, deplorable voters.

Oh, they’ll make room for progressive Christians that mutate the Faith, discard whatever secularists tell them is out of fashion, and “discover” that Jesus really meant to say precisely what the world wants to hear at this very moment. (Funny coincidence, that.)

Worship Caesar

What the Ivy League, the federal bureaucracy, the media, and the courts who do their bidding will not endure is genuine Christianity, the historic faith in any form that would have been recognizable, say, in 1963, on the day C.S. Lewis died. It’s precisely that “mere Christianity” Lewis explained which Baronelle Stutzman faces ruination for practicing. It’s the same creed which the Obama administration tried to snuff out among the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Here are two Christian principles that simply will not be tolerated:

Marriage is between one man and one woman.

Killing the innocent is wrong and must be punished.

I know, I know: What’s with all the esoteric theology, John? Do you really have to try to impose things that only Roman Catholics believe, because the Blessed Virgin Mary told them to peasant kids in some apparition? Can’t you stick to something … basic, which people could know is true just by thinking about it clearly? How about something that most people in most societies, even without the Gospel, knew was true?

Okay, kidding. These aren’t Catholic-specific. The two claims above are not exclusively Christian, or Jewish. You don’t even need to be a monotheist to see these things, since the Zeus-worshipping Greeks saw them too. But they are truths which the Christian faith accepted and built on, and which it can’t live without — any more than advanced physics could survive if you outlawed simple arithmetic.

If Baronelle Stutzmann or the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot assert these truths, and act on them — by refusing to take part in fake marriages or chemical abortions — then Christianity is in effect illegal. You know, the way it was in the Roman Empire, when Christians were ordered on pain of death to worship the emperor. The parallel is exact. No one claims that Ms. Stutzmann or the Little Sisters were running around disrupting same sex marriages, or stealing people’s abortion pills. No, they faced government persecution for not taking positive action to do what they know to be evil. They wouldn’t burn incense in front of Diocletian. They wouldn’t recite the Shehada when ISIS told them to.

Enough Half-Measures Already

So I wish that our masters would just admit what they’re really up to and try to enact a Christian ban. All they would need to do is create a case that makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which gives the judges the pretext to exempt Christianity from the First Amendment’s protections. I am sure that the legal brains at the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center could find the right test case, and aim it at the creative jurists of the Ninth Circuit Court — confident that the same five-vote majority that issued Obergefell v. Hodges would vote their way. In fact, they really ought to, if they want to honor that precedent, as well as that shining lodestar of American moral thinking, Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Perhaps the case could center on Christian parents who wish to home-school a child, or a Christian college that doesn’t want to hire openly homosexual faculty, or a doctor who won’t perform abortions. I leave the specifics to our betters. I know that they’re up to the task.

I have faith that Ruth Bader Ginbsurg and Anthony Kennedy can come up with some narrative that proves that the Founding Fathers really meant to ban orthodox Christianity, while protecting other creeds. Those justices could “prove” to their own satisfaction that the whole Bill of Rights is really a recipe for chicken mole. And the rest of our elites (including too many Republicans) would back them up, and call that decision “settled law.”

Decades of training and practice of modern legal theory have trained these experts to see through the tangle of messy words with specific denotations and plausible connotations, and ignore the grubby historical context and plain intentions of the Founders — and hear the clear, pure voice of our “living Constitution.” That god, whom Caesar demands that we worship, will never fail. It can be trusted. It will always tell the world just what the flesh and the devil would like us to hear. (For more from the author of “Why Don’t Secularists Just Be Honest and Outlaw Christianity?” please click HERE)

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It Is Outrageous for the Government to Force Christians to Violate Their Faith

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The more you see something shocking, the less shocking it appears, and the more something outrageous happens, the less outrageous it seems to be. That is how a culture becomes desensitized, and that is how the abnormal becomes normalized. But when it comes to the government’s attack on our religious freedoms, it is our sacred duty to remain shocked and outraged. Such things cannot continue to happen in America if we are to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

According to the Washington Supreme Court, when Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman declined to do the floral arrangements for a same-sex “wedding,” she violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws, since she allegedly discriminated based on her customer’s sexual orientation by refusing to participate in his “wedding ceremony.”

Attorney David French is correct in emphasizing how this ruling should affect us (he penned these words shortly after the verdict was announced): “If you care about the Bill of Rights, the rights of conscience, or even the English language, there’s a chance that this morning you felt a disturbance in the Force — as if the Founders cried out in rage and were suddenly silenced.”

As French clearly explains,

She was not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. She was making a decision not to help celebrate an action, a form of expression. She would no more celebrate a gay wedding than she would any form of immorality, gay or straight. To dispense with her argument, the court did what numerous progressive courts have done: It rewrote the law. It rejected what it called the “status/conduct” distinction, and essentially interpreted the word “orientation” to also mean “action.”

In a million lifetimes, the Founders could never have countenanced such an outrage. In fact, I doubt that the leading pioneer gay activists could have countenanced something this extreme when they launched their movement less than 50 years ago.

It is imperative, then, that we not lose our sense of shock and outrage just because things like this are becoming increasingly common. For the sake of our kids and our grandkids — not to mention for the sake of our contemporaries — we cannot become desensitized.

What the court has said in Washington echoes what other courts have said around the country: Regardless of your religious or moral convictions, you must participate in gay “weddings” if your business provides any service related to such events. Otherwise, you are guilty of discrimination. (This, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other examples of the government or corporations or schools punishing Christians for their faith.)

What this means is that a gay couple could go into a bakery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who primarily live and do business among themselves, that couple could ask the devout Jewish baker to bake a cake for their “wedding,” and that baker could be put of business if he refused to comply. (Stop for a moment and try to imagine this scenario in your mind. It really is unthinkable.)

Or that same gay couple could go into a bakery in the most religious part of Dearborn, Michigan, home to tens of thousands of Muslims, some of them very religious, and a Muslim baker could be put of business for declining to participate in their “wedding.” How could this be?

Are religious Jewish photographers required to shoot Christian weddings under penalty of law? Of course not.

Are devout Muslim photographers required to shoot Hindu weddings under penalty of law? Obviously not.

Why then are Christian bakers and florists and photographers required to provide their services for gay weddings under penalty of law?

To say it again: This is an absolute outrage, and to shrug our shoulders with indifference is to insult Jesus, to insult our Founders and to insult our brothers and sisters in the faith.

What if a Christian woman went into the store of an Orthodox Jewish woodworker, asking that craftsman to make a crucifix for her to wear around her neck, then taking him to court when he explained that, as a religious Jew, he could not take her order, since that would be sacrilegious for him. Would the courts really rule for the Christian woman and claim that the Orthodox Jewish craftsman was guilty of discrimination based on religion? To do so would send shockwaves through the Jewish community nationwide, and rightly so.

What if this same Christian woman went into the store of a religious Muslim printer, asking him to print flyers declaring, “The Koran is wrong. Jesus really is the Son of God”?

When she took him to court for declining her business, would the courts really rule on her behalf and claim that the religious Muslim printer was guilty of discrimination based on religion? To do so would send shockwaves through the Muslim community nationwide, and rightly so.

The Washington ruling is no less outrageous and should send shockwaves through the Christian community nationwide.

What the courts have effectively done is to elevate sexual orientation to the most privileged status — trumping freedoms of speech and religion and conscience — and to rule that, businesses must not only serve gays and lesbians but also must participate in their lifestyle celebrations, with severe penalties for failure to comply.

Remarkably, when a gay baker declined to make a cake with a biblical verse against homosexuality and the case was taken to court, the court ruled in favor of the baker and against the Christian. How can this possibly be?

I wrote on Thursday that Christian leaders must not be silent about the Washington ruling, calling for specific points of action.

Today, I’m saying something even more basic: If you are a person of faith and conscience, you must not lose your outrage. (For more from the author of “It Is Outrageous for the Government to Force Christians to Violate Their Faith” please click HERE)

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Majority of Democrats Consider Christianity as Violent as Islam

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Nearly 66 percent of Democrats believe that while Islam is dangerous, Christianity is just as bad.

This trusting attitude towards Islam is revealed in a new CBS poll. According to the poll of more than 1,000 adults, about seven in 10 Democrats believe that Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, et al, encourage just as much violence as Islam . . .

Republicans, meanwhile, have a much chillier view of Islam–63 percent saying Islam is more violent than other religions and only two percent calling Islam less violent than other faiths.

This survey comes following 17 years of attacks on Americans inspired by Islamic ideology, including: the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the San Bernardino, California, shooting that left 14 dead, the Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando that killed 50, as well as attacks in Paris and Nice, France in the last two years. (Read more from “Majority of Democrats Consider Christianity as Violent as Islam” HERE)

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United States Included in Annual Christian Persecution Report

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For the first time ever, the United States was included in the International Christian Concern’s annual “Hall of Shame Report.” In the 2016 edition, released last week, the U.S. appeared in the “New and Noteworthy” category.

“The persecution in these countries is not anywhere near the same level of persecution as those in the rest of the list,” the report explains, “but events in these countries indicate declining religious freedom and are cause for alarm.”

International Christian Concern (ICC) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that advocates for, raises awareness of and assists persecuted Christians around the world.

The report’s introduction explains that previous editions simply listed the top ten worst countries for Christians’ religious freedom. The 2016 edition splits featured nations into three categories: “Worst of the Worst,” “Core Countries,” and “New and Noteworthy.”

The “Worst of the Worst” category includes North Korea, Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria. “Core Countries” include Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt, Pakistan and India.

Russia and Mexico were also “New and Noteworthy.”

‘Alarming’ Decline in American Religious Freedom

On page 11 of the 16-page report, ICC details why the U.S. earned a spot in the “New and Noteworthy” category.

“Christians in the US are facing constant attacks in the media, where they are portrayed as bigoted, racist, sexist and close-minded,” the report states. It referenced as an example the fact that “numerous high profile media outlets” blamed last year’s nightclub shooting in Orlando on Christian attitudes toward the LGBT community, even though the shooter, Omar Mateen, declared his allegiance to ISIS.

The report also mentioned people like Eric Walsh, Joe Kennedy and Aaron and Melissa Klein, Christians who have been fired or faced penalties in the workplace because of their religious beliefs.

“Christians and all religious people are being marginalized through the law,” the report says, citing an annual study by First Liberty Institute. That report showed that attacks on religious people in the U.S. doubled between 2012 and 2015.

According to the ICC’s report, “the rise of these cases stems partly from a broad cultural shift towards secularism.” 23 percent of Americans now identify themselves as non-religious — compared with just 7 percent in 2007. “Anti-Christian entities have been able to leverage the growing secularization of society and culture to their advantage, utilizing the courts as a preferred venue to gradually marginalize and silence Christians.”

“Decades of accumulated poor judicial decisions and precedents have twisted the First Amendment,” the report notes,

so that the courts, in defiance of the Founders, are pushing religion out of the public square, and into the small space of private expression. In essence, the courts are deciding that you only have full religious freedom and expression in the church and your home. In the public domain, your religious views and thoughts must be restrained and controlled.

“While there is no comparison between the life of a Christian in the US with persecuted believers overseas,” the report concludes, “ICC sees these worrying trends as an alarming indication of a decline in religious liberty in the United States.”

‘Windows of Opportunity’

Kelly Shackelford, President and CEO of First Liberty Institute, previously told The Stream that 2016 saw “an increase in attacks on religious liberty.”

In an interview at the end of December, Shackelford expressed hope in the incoming presidential administration, saying that the future holds “huge windows of opportunity.” “There should be a big change in the hundreds of judges appointed being more favorable to religious freedom and the Constitution,” he said. (For more from the author of “United States Included in Annual Christian Persecution Report” please click HERE)

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Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?

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Is it a sin for a Christian to be seriously overweight? When responding to this question, we should answer it for ourselves and not for others, since there are many potential reasons for people to be overweight and we don’t want to pass judgment on them based on outward appearance alone (see John 7:24).

We know that a small percentage of people have a medical condition that contributes to their obesity, such as a thyroid disorder, while others struggle with emotional traumas, like depression or abuse, and they eat out of pain and despair. And there are women who have had several children in a short period of time and find it very challenging to juggle the challenges of life — often on limited sleep — and lose weight at the same time.

It would be very wrong to pass judgment on any of these people, as if they were sinning by being heavy, and that’s why I said upfront that, however we answer the question about Christians and obesity, we need to do it for ourselves, looking in our own mirrors.

We also need to remember that most Christians (not to mention people in general) who are overweight — especially seriously overweight — hate being fat, and some even feel self-condemned. The last thing we want to do is heap more condemnation on them and make them feel worse. They need some hope and encouragement. My goal in addressing this sensitive issue is to lift you up, not beat you up.

And we live in a culture that prizes youthful, air-brushed, perfect-looking bodies, putting young people in particular (and even women in general) under tremendous pressure to look a certain way. That too is a destructive mentality that we must resist.

That being said, if our body is destroyed by unhealthy eating, that is a serious matter, and if my obesity is due to gluttony or lack of self-control or choosing fleshly indulgences to the detriment of my health, then yes, it is sinful for me to be obese.

It is true, of course, that the Bible never says that the glutton will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but it is also true that the Bible speaks about gluttony in very negative terms: “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” (Prov. 23:20–21). And, “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father” (Prov. 28:7).

Dictionary.com defines glutton as “a person who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously.” Does that describe me or you?

Jesus was falsely accused of being both a drunkard and a glutton. If He was guilty of either, He would not have been the sinless Son of God.

Consider what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Notice carefully what Paul is saying, since we often miss an important point in this passage. Paul is urging us to run with success the race of fulfilling God’s purposes for our lives, and he contrasts our reward, which is imperishable, with the reward of an athlete, which is perishable. But don’t miss what Paul said in the midst of his exhortation: Athletes who compete in the games (similar to the Olympics today) exercise self-control in all things. So do we! As translated in the NIV, “They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:25, my emphasis).

Can we say the same thing about ourselves? Are we disciplined in all things? Have we subdued our bodies (cf. 1 Cor. 9:27a in the NET) when it comes to food?

Proverbs gives us a strong warning about being out of control with our appetites when in the presence of rulers: “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what [or, who] is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite” (Prov. 23:1-2). As the Pulpit Commentary explains, “‘Stab thy gluttony,’ Wordsworth. Restrain thyself by the strongest measures, convince thyself that thou art in the utmost peril, if thou art a glutton or wine-bibber (Ecclus. 31:12, Ecclus. 34:12).” In the words of Matthew Henry, “The sin we are here warned against is luxury and sensuality, and the indulgence of the appetite in eating and drinking, a sin that most easily besets us.”

I wonder what Matthew Henry would have said if he lived today and saw the portions we are served in our restaurants!

We must ask ourselves if the way we are eating is in harmony with our biblical calling, a calling which includes discipline and self-control. In fact, according to Paul, one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:23), with the Greek word meaning, “restraint of one’s emotions, impulses, or desires, self-control” (Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon). As one commentator explains, “‘self-control’ … denotes control of more sensual passions than anger” (F. F. Bruce).

When it comes to your eating habits, do you have self-control? When it comes to the passions of the flesh for unhealthy food, are you disciplined? Are you controlling your appetite or is your appetite controlling you?

Some of us say that we’re willing to die for Jesus but we’re not willing to control our appetites for Him (or, at the least, we’re not willing to make a serious effort to control those appetites). This simply doesn’t line up. We sing, “I surrender all,” but we practice, “I surrender some.” Or maybe you want to surrender but find yourself helpless and bound?

Notice what Paul has to say about dangerous false teachers: “For many are walking in such a way that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. I have told you of them often and tell you again, even weeping. Their destination is destruction, their god is their appetite, their glory is in their shame, their minds are set on earthly things” (Phil 3:18-19, MEV). Or, as the relevant phrase is rendered in different versions “their god is their stomach” (HCSB); they “make their bellies their gods” (The Message); “whose God is the stomach” (LEB). How interesting that these heretics were also slaves to food!

Does that describe you? Is your stomach your god? Are you a slave to your appetite?

If so, I have good news for you: God is not condemning you! Instead, He is offering you a better way, a way of discipline, self-control, healthy eating and vibrant life. But, if He has convicted you through this article, I encourage you to confess your bad eating habits as sin, asking the Father for mercy and forgiveness, believing that Jesus paid for this sin as well, and trusting God for grace to overcome. With His help and with a good plan, you can do it! (For more from the author of “Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?” please click HERE)

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Media Shocked That Chip, Joanna Gaines Attend Church Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage

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Never fear, America — Buzzfeed and Cosmopolitan are working hard to make sure millions of innocent viewers don’t accidentally enjoy watching TV shows where the stars are Christians with traditional Christian beliefs.

After embarking on what Cosmopolitan described as a “deep-dive” (that involved watching easily-accessible internet videos and reading a church’s online statement of faith), one Buzzfeed reporter Kate Aurthur “uncovered” the fact that HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines’s pastor, Jimmy Seibert of the mega Antioch Community Church, “takes a hard line against same-sex marriage.”

Aurthur’s Buzzfeed article details what Seibert preached the Sunday after the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage in 2015. (What she doesn’t mention or perhaps doesn’t realize is that thousands of churches across the nation likely preached a similar message.)

After talking about Genesis, and saying that marriage is between “one man and one wife,” Seibert emphasizes the fixedness of this idea. “This is a clear biblical admonition. So if someone were to say, ‘Marriage is defined in a different way,’ let me just say: They are wrong,” he says from the pulpit to applause from the congregation. “God defined marriage, not you and I. God defined masculine and feminine, male and female, not you and I.”

Aurthur also takes issue with Pastor Seibert’s opinion that many people who identify as homosexual were abused as children and his statement that God can change their lives:

We can change, contrary to what you hear. I’ve worked with people for over 30 years — I have seen hundreds of people personally change their direction of same-sex attraction from a homosexual lifestyle to a heterosexual lifestyle. It doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with feelings, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t hurting, it doesn’t mean it’s not challenging. But they have chosen to change. And there has always been grace there for those who choose that.

According to Aurthur, it is still “unclear” whether the HGTV Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna actually agree with their pastor’s “severe” views — a point Cosmopolitan writer Gina Mei desperately hopes they clarify soon.

Twitchy compiled a long list of people who found Aurthur’s “deep-dive” ludicrous, with tweets like:

The ‘Deep-Dive’ That Reveals Nothing New

Aurthur may think she has uncovered something new and shocking by pointing out an evangelical pastor’s commitment to biblical teaching, but she hasn’t. Curbed, an outlet of Vox Media, casually referenced Antioch Community Church’s beliefs regarding homosexuality in an October article entitled “Is Fixer Upper a stealth feminist fantasy?” (Aurthur actually links to this article in her own — perhaps she didn’t realize that the Curbed reporter also had the ability to Google search Antioch’s statement of faith and did so first.)

Chip and Joanna have been discussing their Christianity for a long time. They write about their “devout” faith in their newly-released book, The Magnolia Story. They have been interviewed about their faith numerous times (just Google “Chip and Joanna Gaines Christians”) and have shared their religious testimony in videos for Baylor University — the Baptist college they both attended — the Christian ministry I Am Second, and others.

So why the sudden uproar? Because certain people on the political Left are attempting to ab-normalize basic Christian beliefs, coloring them as extreme, oppressive, and hateful. The hype surrounding Buzzfeed’s groundbreaking exposé is simply the latest example in this growing trend.

What the Left Fails to Understand

Apparently a common tenet of leftist ideology is that to disagree is to hate, particularly when it comes to Christians who value a biblical understanding of sexuality and marriage. But this tenet is wrong.

One great example of congeniality and respect shared between two very different people is Dr. Michael Brown’s recent column, “The Gay Rabbi and My Mother’s Funeral.” As Dr. Brown, a Messianic Jew and outspoken critic of the LGBT movement writes,

It really is possible to love your gay neighbor as yourself while at the same time opposing the goals of gay activism, and it really is possible to recognize that every human being is created in the image of God (yet fallen) while at the same time having massive differences on religious, cultural and moral issues.

Many seem to forget that even as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy decided in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015, he reaffirmed the very beliefs currently causing the reporters at Buzzfeed and Cosmopolitan to freak out. In Obergefell v. Hodges, Kennedy writes:

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.

Could this mean that while same-sex couples can now legally decide to get married, people of certain religious faith may legally disagree with the morality of that decision (and perhaps even live their lives accordingly)? Shut the front door!

PSA: It’s Okay to Like Celebrities You Disagree With

As Dr. Brown writes in his piece, it’s perfectly possible to develop relationships with those you disagree with.

So if you are a liberal Fixer Upper addict who could care less where Chip and Joanna attend church but are being made to feel guilty for your lack of care by Buzzfeed or Cosmopolitan, breathe easy. It’s just a TV show, and watching it doesn’t mean you condone the views of its stars.

Christians routinely find ourselves in such situations. I’ll wager that there are plenty of Christians who, like me, love Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings despite the fact that he is outspokenly gay, repeatedly watch Saving Private Ryan despite the fact that Tom Hanks is a recipient of the LGBT Outfest’s Trailblazer Award, and loved Downtown Abbey even though it follows the complex and sometimes heart-wrenching story of a gay supporting character.

But what if you are actually surprised and upset to discover that the Gaineses probably support their pastor’s “unmoving position … on same-sex marriage?” Jumping on the bandwagon, Us Weekly also reported Buzzfeed’s apparent discovery and included tweets from concerned fans.

If this is you, then by all means, ignore the show. Cancel your subscription. Send your money to the Human Rights Campaign and not Antioch Community Church. It’s a free country.

But the millions of Americans who identify with the Texas couple’s faith and agree with Antioch’s pastor shouldn’t be made to feel “hateful” simply because they hold a belief that has been around for millennia. (For more from the author of “Media Shocked That Chip, Joanna Gaines Attend Church Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage” please click HERE)

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Christian Missionaries in Aleppo Crucified and Beheaded

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“At several steps on their path to death by beheading and crucifixion last month, 11 indigenous Christian workers near Aleppo, Syria had the option to leave the area and live. The 12-year-old son of a ministry team leader also could have spared his life by denying Christ…” . . .

We’re not hearing much about Aleppo’s Christians: the mainstream media don’t care very much what happens to them:

..The Syrian ministry workers in those villages chose to stay in order to provide aid in the name of Christ to survivors.

“I asked them to leave, but I gave them the freedom to choose,” said the ministry director, his voice tremulous as he recalled their horrific deaths. “As their leader, I should have insisted that they leave.”

They stayed because they believed they were called to share Christ with those caught in the crossfire, he said.

(Read more from “Christian Missionaries in Aleppo Crucified and Beheaded” HERE)

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