Our first “open forum”

Okay, we know we control content fairly tight here and we try our best to keep discussion flowing along theological/biblical parameters,  but for the first time ever  [[[drumroll]]] GCM Watch introduces the open forum free fall better known as “O3″.

But dont let the title fool you. You can talk about and post anything, but not anything. Read between the lines. Posts will still be moderated for ugly language and ugly links (dissension does not necessarily constitute ugliness, but, please,  no gratuitous self promotion without attempting to interact with others). In addition, all first time comments will remain moderated. All general commenting policies apply.

Now that you know…Enjoy!

 

A kum-bah-yah moment

That’s the feeling you might get when viewing this video of emergent practicioners Chris Seay and Shayne Wheeler talk about homosexuality and the church.

When we say God loves the sinner but hates the sin, homosexuals believe that God hates them because their sin is so wrapped up in their identity.”

That’s according to Wheeler, who after identifying with his ex-Catholic, lesbian neighbor who hates church (and Jerry Farwell, etc) said she understands that he’s not like that and they dont represent him. Although he admits there is no spiritual change in her, at least she, him and her lesbian partner (who probably hates church too) knows they can sit around the campfire, sing kum bah yah and hold hands while eating smoked weenies. That’s due to his hard work of changing perceptions.

The “dialogue” that is presented on the video is all about changing “perceptions”, not about changing souls. Its based on the assumption by homosexuals that y+x=z, to wit since the church believes homosexuality is a sin, it hates me. Therefore if the church hates me, then, God surely hates me.

No one talks about how satan blinds the minds of sinners and puts in their heads the most negative thoughts about God, the church and the Bible. No one talks about how those who are in darkeness hate the light. No one talks about how sin is so destructive a person could not possibly understand the danger they are in.

This type of soft cell garbage psychology reminds me of an adult trying to reason with a temper throwing child in the store who wants candy and cant understand why the parent won’t just give him everything he wants, when he wants it!!

You can’t reason with a sinner about his sins. Can you imagine Peter on the day of Pentecost preaching to the crowds about how Jesus was a really nice man despite what the Pharisees said about him? And the Pharisees really didnt represent Peter or his friends? Here’s what he told them:

“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. Acts 2:22-23 .

Later, when the people came running astonished at the power of God working through the uneducated Peter and John, he told them again:

Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. (Act 3:12-15).

Today, Peter would be ostracized for being “unloving” and “unchristian” (emergent buzzword). The Word of God convicts the hearts of sinners so that they acknowledge their need for the Savior, not a need to change perceptions. If every negative perception about the church and homosexuals was completely erased, it would still miss the purpose of the gospel (Romans 1:16). People must acknowledge their own sin before God, repent and seek his forgiveness.

Anything less is not the gospel, its false doctrine.

Cynthia Clawson: “Jesus said nothing about gay people”

After following the story about Reba Rambo and her husband washing the feet of homosexual pastors and saying they were wrong about homosexuality, it was but a short journey to the next rather shocking theological heresy coming out the southern gospel music industry.

Cynthia Clawson, a Dove and Grammy winner, is the latest  southern gospel music personality to buy into gay christian doctrine. Like some in the religious music industry who get theological amnesia when it comes to homosexuality and the Bible’s clear teaching, Clawson offers only the same illogical and unbiblical arguments we have heard before from the gay christian movement.

We contacted Ms Clawson to verify these statements and received the following from an individual named Will.  Whether this is her son Will or not is unknown as the respondent did not identify himself further.

Hello, Thank you for writing! I won’t even begin to answer for Cynthia (who, by the way, does NOT read these emails), but I can tell you that she has suffered a lot for her views. So many churches have canceled dates, anonymous letters and phone calls have threatened her life, her family’s life ,her career and she’s been pulled off of most radio stations. All of that because she sings at gay churches. You will never meet a kinder, warmer, more spiritual woman than Cynthia. Please support her and buy her music and spread the word. Below you will find her mission statement that was written a while back in response to a lady who sends anonymous hate letters to every single church she is scheduled to sing at. It says it all…God Bless, Will

A Personal Mission Statement from Cynthia Clawson

I am a Christian and have been for most of my life. I was a girl when I experienced what I believe was a call to share the good news of who Jesus is and what He did for me. I first sang about this good news when I was three years of age; and now at 56, I am still singing. Because I recognized that I had been given a talent, I felt that I should cultivate it so I went to a Baptist University and majored in vocal performance and minored in piano. I began getting invitations to sing everywhere, and I accepted every invitation I could.
I am humbled that I had a chance to sing the gospel in India, Viet Nam, Japan, Holland, England, Ireland, at a Billy Graham Crusade, on The PTL Club, on the 700 Club, for the Southern Baptist Convention, for Karla Fay Tucker before she was killed by the State of Texas, at a night club on the Strip in Los Angeles, on some of Bill Gaither’s Homecoming videos, on the Crystal Cathedral’s Hour of Power, a night club in Houston, and at Radio City Music Hall during the GRAMMY Awards. The list is long because I have been singing somewhere different every week for thirty years. The total number of concerts is in the thousands, and the number of people who have heard me is in the millions. That amazes me, and I can only explain it by pointing to God who has called me, guided me, and comforted me all along this journey.
Let me assure you that it has been a challenging mission to answer to God’s calling to tell the good news to all that will hear. Since I will sing wherever invited, I have found myself singing in places when my theology, my moral values, and my political inclinations sometimes differ from my listeners, but I simply sing about the Good News that God loves us. I point them as best I can to Christ. That is my calling. God convicts, woos, and transforms lives by His grace, I don’t. That statement alone is enough to make me want to sing.
I am amazed that there are those who would not want me to sing for all people, especially homosexual people. I sing for divorced people and we all know what Jesus said about divorce! No one ever emailed me about that! We also know that Jesus never said anything about gay people. Not one word! How important could it have been to Him if He did not mention it? I dare say that I sing in churches full of sinners every time I stand to sing, and I never make it my business to question any group about their values or morals before I enter their churches. When people protest about me singing to gay people, I have to wonder: Do they not know that Jesus hung out with, ate with, and drank wine with disenfranchised people? Those who object to where I sing are free to think what they please, but they did not call me. I have a higher calling. As a singer doing my best to follow Jesus, I have sung the gospel if at all possible wherever invited just as Jesus did in preaching to the Pharisees and those that the Pharisees judged. Some repented some did not, that is between God and them. And what I have been called to do is between God and me. And a person’s sexual orientation is between God and them. It is none of my business. I am just a gospel singing, homosexual loving, heterosexual wife of one, mother of two who is caught up in all this violence. And, yes, I do think we are treating one another violently! This fight is not homage to our Savior who is the Prince of Peace.
I would ask for prayers from those who will pray for me. I am willing to sing the good news of God’s love anywhere I am invited. I am sad to say that I feel that there are not many Christians who will go with me. I won’t sing to condemn anyone; I won’t preach hate and exclusivity. I will sing at the very gates of hell if I am called to do so, and I would think that all of you who call yourselves God’s children would gather together in support of this holy mission. However, if no one joins me in going in love to the outcasts, I will go walking hand in hand with Jesus who seems to prefer spending time with outcast than to spend time with all the religious hypocrites spewing out hate, fear and condemnation. My desire in being a disciple of Christ is to be obedient. I am obedient because I am deeply in love with Him! I want to be true to God’s calling on my life, and if I am wrong in including all people, should I err in this attempt, let me fail on the side of the grace and mercy. Let me stand beside the oppressed, broken, disenfranchised, and the outcast because that is where I think that Jesus stands. And when I die and stand before the Father with Jesus next to my side as my advocate, I am not afraid for God to tell me that I erred on the side of compassion and love. I am not afraid to hear Him tell me that I was not judgmental enough. I am not afraid to hear Him say to me that I loved too much and too many. I trust with all my heart that it is Jesus who shapes my life and not the writers of these angry, cruel, hateful emails. The hate stings, the threats frighten, the whispers humiliate, but I have taken up His cross and His burden is light! My recordings are already removed from many Christian bookstores, and not played on many Christian radio stations, but I have my church, where I serve as the co-pastor with my husband, praying for me. I have dear friends in the ministry who support and encourage me. I have thousands of people buying my CDs and supporting my ministry. And, dear reader, I have God’s assurance through Jesus Christ – the criterion through which I read scripture – leading me to share the good news with all who would listen to my attempts.
If you can, pray for me and for all the homosexual people who have been demonized, ostracized, and denied basic human rights by self-righteous Christians. I will in turn pray that God will touch the hearts of those who are so angry at me, so that they will see the homosexual person the same way Jesus did as He hung on the cross with such love, such grace. “

As Will pointed out, you need not bother trying to contact Ms Clawson. She does not respond because she has predetermined that any communication disagreeing with her is “angry, cruel and hateful”.

What do you think of Cynthia Clawson’s statement? I am wondering if Ms Clawson would sing (about God) in front of a burning cross to a group of Ku Klux Klan members if invited?

Dottie Rambo killed in tragic mishap

Country Music Television is reporting that Dottie Rambo, the prolithic southern gospel music singer/songwriter, was killed on Mother’s Day when the bus she was riding in crashed into a guard rail and went down an embankment. Rambo was the only one on the bus who was fatally injured. Six others are in various degrees of injury.

According to Wikipedia, Rambo wrote over 2500 songs including stellar church athemns “He looked beyond my faults and saw my needs” (recorded by Andrae Crouch) and “We Shall Behold Him” (recorded by Vickie Winans) and “I go to the rock” (recorded by Whitney Houston).

GCM Watch extends condolences to the family of Dottie Rambo.

You may be wondering what this has to do with gay christianity. As we have reported before, the lines between the gay church and the “mainstream” Christianity are being erased quietly by those in the religious music industry. Their websites never list their gay church engagements. While reading on the life of Dottie Rambo, we came across the following exchange on the Soulforce message board. Yes, that Soulforce.

I had to tell ya’ll about my experience this past weekend in Long Beach, CA. My partner and I have only been out a little over a year to our friends and family, and we have gotten involved in a GLBT [gay] church in Houston, TX. They make an annual trek to Long Beach every year for this conference, and I was amazed and astonished at the people they had for speakers One was Peggy Campolo, who unabashedly supports gay rights and has for years. Her husband, Tony, does not however. They had Don Milam, a Christian publisher, who over the past 10 years or so, has been brought to a deeper understanding of God’s grace and how the church has failed in showing it to gays and lesbians. His granddaughter came out about a year ago, and he was put into contact with the pastor( Sandy Turnbull) of Glory Tabernacle Christian Center in Long Beach, where the conference is held, and she helped him come to grips with his granddaughter’s lesbianism. Since then, he has written and spoken about his revelation of God’s anointing of gay Christians. Last but certainly not least, Dony McGuire and Reba Rambo-McGuire and their children, Destiny and Israel, provided the praise and worship. I remember Reba Rambo singing with her parents Buck and Dottie Rambo in my teens. For her and her husband to sing in a gay church, and conference was astounding. The most moving and beautiful things at this conference was Saturday night, when Dony McGuire and Reba Rambo invited all the pastors of gay churches that were there, to come up on the stage, remove their shoes and he and his wife, personally washed their feet apologizing for the years he and his wife, and the Christian church at large had thrown stones , maligned God’s work in Gay churches, and had excluded and thrown out these pastors and their congregations. He and Reba wept as they washed and kissed the feet of these pastors. He said that over the past year, his church has gone through some tough times because he has invited gay people to come in and welcomed them. Several members have left and he has caught a bunch of flack (sp?) because of his inclusion of GLBT people into his church. Needless to say it was a wonderful experience, and I left with hope that maybe the straight churches are slowly coming around and seeing that God is moving mightily in gay churches.

The poster continued:

Reba Rambo is the daughter of Buck and Dottie Rambo, who were Southern Gospel music giants. They were popular among that crowd of people who enjoyed that music. It is not surprising that a lot of people don’t know who they are. The only reason I know who she is, is because I grew up listening to her parents’ music, as well as a lot of other Southern Gospel singers. Reba married Dony McGuire, another singer in that genre, and they more or less left that genre, to pursue a more evangelistic ministry and now have a church in Nashville, called The River.

When I heard that she and her husband had begun a minsitry to GLBT people, it floored me because of her roots. Equally, I was floored to see that Cynthia Clawson and her husband, Ragan Courtney, ( Christian singers and songwriters) support GLBT rights. I told Reba at the conference that my parents had not spoken to me since coming out, and she cried. The foot washing she and her husband did was in no small way one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Apparently, Rambo’s daughter and son-in-law have been increasingly pushing the false gay christian doctrine. What’s interesting is that the Rambo’s church site (The River) claims that it is a place for people who have been “ousted” from other churches. That seems to be a coded for people who dont want other people to tell them the truth about their sin. The Rambos are under the “covering” of the International Communion of Covenant Churches once headed by Earl Paulk.p>

Why progay theology is a hermenuetical abomination

Strong words, we know. But given the seriousness of the consequences, the choice of words is intentional.

Repeatedly, GCM Watch has cited, refuted and exposed the almost silly allegations of gay affirming religionists who contend that because the Bible has been misinterpreted, homosexuality is not sinful. But in fact it is the false teachers who are misinterpreting foundational theology and misapplying hermenuetics which always produce a false conclusion. While the false teachers complain we “cherry-pick” scriptures to suit our alleged biases, they seem to have no problem cherry picking Jesus’s words (or the lack of words) to support their arguments. Just in case, there lingers any doubts regarding the clear scriptural witness against the homosexual condition, we invite you to read the exchange between a university professor and Jason Dulle, a young man who inadvertently got the email. Jason responded with an astonishing amount of grace and precise truth, not to mention documentation and sound logic. He wrote:

The following is an email exchange between a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz and me, Jason Dulle. I was not the intended recipient of the email. The professor sent it to the students in a class he was teaching on the Gospel of Mark. One of those students forwarded the email to his pastor, who in turn forwarded it to me. The email (sent on April 30, 2003) was in response to a student’s question concerning what Mark had to say about homosexuality. Having already clarified in a prior email that Mark speaks nothing concerning homosexuality the professor dedicated this email to the Bible’s treatment of homosexuality. I took the liberty of responding to the professor’s claims, but have received no reply to date.

Read the professor’s letter and Jason response.

Scholar warns against Christian pacifism on gay aggression

Dr. Robert Gagnon, a well known theological scholar, who has researched and written considerably on the subject of gay christianity and its theological dangers for the church, today warned that Christian pacificism in the wake of the Crystal Dixon incident will be damning for the church. In case you had not heard, Dixon (pictured), the Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Toledo was suspended from her job by the university president for a column she wrote to the Toledo Blade in response to a progay column written by the newspaper’s editor in chief.

In a letter Gagnon said:

“I have written an open letter to the President of the University of Toledo , Lloyd Jacobs. Jacobs suspended a black female administrator (Crystal Dixon) for lovingly questioning, in a newspaper editorial, a comparison between being homosexual and being black. In my open letter I cite six scientific studies that show the fallacy of comparing homosexuality to race and make a brief philosophical case against incentives for homosexual practice.

Think about the audacity of Jacobs’ actions. Although identifying herself in passing in the newspaper editorial as an employee of the university, Ms. Dixon did not claim to be representing the official university stance on homosexual practice. But apparently President Jacobs thinks that he can control the public expression of religious and moral values of his employees, not only in the workplace environment (that would be bad enough) but also outside the workplace. Of course, if I worked under Jacobs’ totalitarian regime I would be suspended or fired for daring to make the arguments that I make in my open letter and that President Jacobs does not have the ability to answer.

When will Christians wake up to the seriousness of the threat to our civil liberties posed by the homosexualist agenda and vote accordingly? Jacobs can attempt such outrages only because he lives in a political culture that on a state, local, and increasingly national level is becoming bold in affirming homosexual practice and abridging the liberties of those who disagree.

Unfortunately, as we have cited numerous times here at GCM Watch there is scant difference between the goals of the gay christian movement and the gay political movement. If fact, the gay christian movement seems to take its cues from its political counterparts.
With Dr. Gagnon, we join our voice and urge you to speak up and challenge any power, authority or entity whether religious or secular which supports the denial of our God given right to speak this unconvenient truth.

We ask: where is your boldness to stand with God’s truth? The apostles were beaten and threatened (Acts 4:29; 5:40-41), but they prayed not for God to deliver them, but to give them boldness to continue speaking the truth about Jesus Christ.

The Danny Velasco story

“Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? (Mark 8:34-37)

We hope you are blessed and inspired by the testimony of Danny Velasco, a former gay celebrity stylist who experienced the radical power of Jesus Christ through a Ford model. Velasco passed in October 2007.

Give your life to Christ now. His love will receive you, his power will save you and his blood will cleanse you from all sin.

Methodists adjourn with mixed bag

Is the flame of the Methodist Church about to sputter out? The news out of Fort Worth, Texas from the general conference of the United Methodist church is not good.

For almost a generation now the denomination has “debated” the inclusion of homosexuals in the ministry and unfortunately there was no definitive decision on the matter this year. That points to one thing: homosexual activists within the organization are gaining strength and inevitably will overtake —and overthrow— the denomination. Not only are the Methodists falling to gay christian error, now transgender (men/women who have had sex changes) have joined the fight against biblical truth and are now demanding their rights.

While the pressure was intense, Christianity Today reported that delegates voted down an attempt to remove language in the Book of Discipline which deems homosexuality “incompatible” with Christianity.

The United Methodist Church held to its traditional rules on homosexuality Wednesday (April 30), refusing to support or celebrate same-sex unions and maintaining language that calls homosexual activity “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
While many Methodists gathered here acknowledged sharp disagreement within their church on sexuality and biblical interpretation, delegates voted down efforts that would reflect that division in church rules or social policies.

A measure to remove the “incompatible” phrase and replace it with a mandate to “refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices as the Spirit leads us to new insight” was defeated 517 to 416.

Only a hundred votes separated the dissenting groups.

Another protest tactic seems to be developing as the gcm pressures weary denominations to give up and allow them control. Homosexuals are now “getting married” at meetings to protest attempts to keep them out of leadership. 200 people attended a lesbian wedding at a park across the street from where the Methodist conference was being held. Gay bishop Vickie Gene Robinson plans to marry his male partner at this year’s Lamberth Conference in London despite being asked not to attend.

A sad day indeed for the church in America. We are watching the wanton dismantling of once great institutions by foul spirits of every type.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Neil’s post about the conference and about his pastor who spoke out very eloquently in defense of the gospel truth. Neil is a member of the UMC in Texas.