We are extremely disappointed but perhaps we had little hope to expect much more.
Through his public relations firm, Bishop Charles Blake has released what appears to be a response to our articles here and here sharply criticizing his endorsement of the Universal Declaration of International Human Rights and the Faith in Human Rights Statement.
The 22 page document is posted on the denomination’s main website. Read it.
GCM Watch intends to issue a full examination of the response later on this site.
Gay Christian Movement Watch 
Ha! Ha! I’m pretty shocked that he actually responded. Apparently, your last two articles were the shots heard around the world! Congratulations, pastor Foster on getting Blake to (sort of) articulate what his position is concerning gay rights.
How interesting that he could mobilize all of this effort and energy through some PR firm to respond to some of your comments; but had no ability to exert similar efforts around at least doing some research about the United Nations and their historical stance in regards to religion (which is strongly New Age and universalist) and homosexuality before deciding to go into cahoots with them regarding some human rights agreement… aside from the homosexuality issue, when is it ever okay for Christian leaders to participate in agreements, gatherings, covenant, treaties with non-Christian and even anti-Christian groups?? (I cringed when I saw scriptures from the Koran and the bible side by side in the introduction of this “human rights” document) —there is no biblical example for this (except for a few cases in the Old Testament regarding groups who would serve the Israelites for eternity and other war treaties). Jesus urged us to be careful about making oaths; let your yea be yea and no be no; anything more than this is only of evil…the scripture to which Blake and his camp refer to, in their document, about their rationale for consenting to participating as part of some obligation to “be in the world but not of the world” is phooey! Does he really know what that means?…
And on the homosexuality issue, they keep reiterating that it was not explicitly stated in the document that they were supporting homosexuality. Are they serious? Every lawyer knows that the power of most agreements and contracts is not in what’s stated but in what’s not stated. It’s in reading in between the lines. To think that there aren’t people in the world who wouldn’t possibly misuse and exploit such “human rights” agreements, to meet their self-serving needs, despite it running counter to the intended purposes and language of the document, is incredibly irresponsible and naïve on the part of Blake and COGIC….
I just don’t buy it. Their response, although intelligently written, does not negate anything you’ve said on your posts. I was discussing this last night with someone who disagreed with you. We started researching what the Bible says about his and I found something interesting written by Alex Maxey:
“The other passage from the Old Testament writings that Paul most likely had in mind as he penned these admonitions to the saints in the city of Corinth was Deut. 22:10 (which was alluded to above) — “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together” (NASB). Actually, the word for “yoke” is employed in this verse. The NIV, for example, reads, “Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.” Such would be an “unequal yoking” of two animals. They would not be of equal strength, disposition and ability, thus the plowing of the field would be made far more difficult than was necessary. It’s possible one would fall under the unequal burden. To offer an even more dramatic illustration, if a large horse and a small goat are yoked together, it is highly unlikely that the farmer will be able to plow a straight furrow in his field. His team is clearly “unequally yoked,” thus one member will easily and inevitably overpower the other, with negative results!
“The reference is to Deut. 22:10 which forbade harnessing an ox and an ass, a clean and an unclean beast, together to a plow. Paul uses this passage in a figurative way: the believer has been cleansed, the unbeliever has refused to be cleansed. What business have they under the same yoke? … What a picture: a believer with his neck under the unbeliever’s yoke! What business has he in such an unnatural, self-contradictory association?” (R.C.H. Lenski, Interpretation of First & Second Corinthians, p. 1078). “This is a prohibition against forming close attachments with non-Christians. Paul’s agricultural metaphor is based on the command of Deut. 22:10 that prohibited the yoking of an ox and an ass for ploughing, and also on Lev. 19:19 where the crossbreeding of animals of different species is prohibited. … The principle might be expressed thus: ‘Do not form any relationship, whether temporary or permanent, with unbelievers that would lead to a compromise of Christian standards or jeopardize consistency of Christian witness'” (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 10, p. 359).
The focus on human rights argument seems so silly to me; not silly that we should feed the hungry, give to the poor etc. but the need to affirm and respect the other religions contrary to the teaching of Jesus Christ. Fishy…
Elder Foster,
Your information was not skewed in any way. I find when any sort of serious study and research is done one will always be led back to this universalist agenda of a worldly organization called the UN…
Like Rogers said, why lower ourselves to make agreements with devils? every good virtue that the church could and should hold can be made in simple agreement with other CHRISTIANS who are doing the same and who are willing to hold God’s word as a standard…
What was appealing about this initiative? What did yoking with the ungodly and a host of unsettled issues do for the church? Did it advance? Did it gain anything?
I think not.
Like Dr. Katz said in the Humanist Manifesto 2000…”replace the City of God with the City of Humanity”… That’s ashamed!!!
That was a good word by the way!
Please show me where this document supports homosexuality in any context.
I’m not sure why Pastor DL posted such an inflamatory title to the blog post. I suspect it was to draw attention to the blog. (Bloggers have been known to do this). Not a criticism just an acknowledgement of effective marketing techniques. Given Pastor DL’s techical proficiency. This blog is heavily replicated in the search engines so an inflamatory title like the original one would certainly have caught the attention of the millions of members of the COGIC and other Christian organizations.
I have much respect for Pastor Foster but it seems the COGIC thoroughly refuted his innitial assertion that the COGIC and Blake are advocating for homosexuality. That’s not to say they are perfect. Let me clear they are not. There inability to deal with predatory clergy is repugnant. As always, I’m open to correction if i’m wrong.
Anthony
GCMW: Hi Anthony, welcome back. Just a technical note. We take no special actions in terms of promoting writing here. None. This blog is on par with every other blog out there. Subject matter (and perhaps its frequency and source) determines its ranking in search engines. Thus, the headline wasnt an overt attempt at gaining “attention”.
Thanks the respect is mutual.
How many Christians work with non-Christians and people of other religions everyday on jobs? Christians enter into working relationships with non-Christians and people of other religions everyday in their business relationships with their co-workers and supervisors. Christians in America agree with non-Christians and people of other religions on job sites to achieve company, business, corporate and government employment objectives. Christians fulfill business employment contractual agreements with non-Christian business owners everyday. Christians receive paychecks from non-Christians and people who believe in other religions and philosophies who are business owners everyday.
What is the biblical foundation for these relationships? Christian employees have business lunches with non-Christians and people of other religions all of the time. Christians obey the directives of sinning, demon possessed/ influenced non-Christians bosses everyday on the job site. The support of the Human Rights document with other religious leaders was not even an agreement to work with other religious leaders to do anything together, in the same space and time. The document was about religious leaders independently, from within their own religious perspectives, saying that as religious people we will uphold the common religious value of helping the down trodden, the helpless, the terrorized, the violently abused, the disadvantaged of the world. Not by collaborating together as religious leaders, but in their own spheres of influences, religions, communities and cultures.
There was no unholy alliance to do anything together. This was a brief meeting, not a worship service of all the religions mixing together. It was a gathering to make a statement to say we will do something for helpless people when we get back home to our own constituencies. This was only a statement to bring world attention to the hopeless people who continue to be forgotten. What about them? Why can’t we talk about them and put our attention on why women are abused, children are living under sewers and on trash heaps, girls around the world are caught in sex slavery, and millions go hungry everday because of bad policies? On this site you have a concern for the abused, that is what this document in calling attention to: the hurting people this sinful world’s system continues to hurt. Who is bringing attention to them and helping them? Is it unholy for Christians to agree with non-Christians to say, “we are concerned from the stand point of our own religious positions”, not from a business, class, or economic status; but because as religious people around the world we care for the least of these among us?
Is it unholy for Christians and non-Christians to agree we will feed hungry children in our own communities? Is it unholy for Christians to agree with non-Christians to persuade the powerful to do something good for the powerless? No, it is not unholy. Jesus is the greatest example of the most powerful and holy One, condescending to help the powerless, unholy, lost sinners of the world. How does the Gospel of Jesus Christ prevent Christians from making a statement together with non-Christians to agree to advocate for those shut out of good education, health care or opportunities for a better life on this earth? Jesus said, that what we do for the least of His brethren we do to Him (Matt. 25:40). Does Jesus mean we are only to help the Christian disinherited? Does Jesus prevent us from asking our non-Christian neighbors to also help feed the hungry in his or her own community and around the world? If you were hungry would you take food from a Muslim hand? If a Buddhist child were hungry would you feed her? What would Jesus have you to do?
In this global, internet connected society how is it ungodly for Christians to work with people they don’t agree with spiritually, yet agree to advocate together for a better physical life for those in our independent communities worldwide? We agree to do good things, and to accomplish good, practical ends in the world, everyday in collaboration with non-Christians and people of other religions on our jobs and through our government. Be truthful. The Bible, the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, does not prevent this. We are not the nation of Israel under the Old Covenant who defiled themselves if they ate with unbelieving Gentiles. Yet even Daniel worked with and under a pagan King to accomplish goals within his court, but remained holy. The Holy Spirit is in us and the powerful blood of Jesus covers us. Jesus makes us holy and it doesn’t rub off because we meet a non-Christian and decide together we will agree to accomplish a practical good in the world. We do it everyday as Christians living in America. This is not a covenant relationship, this is just a decision to work for a common cause, and such was this document.
Pastor foster thank you for bringing this information to light.
I don’t clam by any means to be a biblical scholar by any means. I am just a man that was saved from gangs, drugs, sexual perversion and called to preach the gospel. However I do have something to say about this issue. First as a pastor in the cogic I would have liked to have been informed that all 12,000 churches was going to be signing up for this false organization for the sake of human rights. Secondly I wonder why Jesus never joined up with the religious leaders of his time like, the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, and the many religious beliefs of the Roman Empire in order to meet the social needs of his time. If ever there was a time to address the needs for human rights it would have been the best time with Jesus being in the world himself. Surely there was poverty, injustice, disease, hunger, child abuse, substance abuse, moral depravity, and lets not forget to mention political and religious corruption. What if Jesus did form a faith base organization to meet the humanitarian needs of His time would he still have gone to the Cross? Yes of course he would because no effort by man apart from the Cross can address the needs of humanity. Dose this mean that Christian our not to love their neighbor? No not at all. Our love for our fellow man must always be seen in two ways. Through our relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and through our good works, so men may give God some glory. The efforts of humnisiam (self preservation) will never meet the needs of humanity, because it doesn’t have the power to change the lust of men, for power, wealth, position, fame, control. This form of godliness is nothing more than just another means for man to create a new form of socialism, called a (one world government) oh! Did I say new, I meant to say the same Humanistic Philosophy created by satan and headed up by Nimrod. Paul told Timothy 4:1 “that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils”. The word of God gives us a clear warning about false religious systems in the last days, it also warns us about those who will walk away from the faith by being deceived by seducing spirits. These seducing spirit use deception to lead men away from the truth of God’s word by promising to give men new enlightenment, more power, and wealth. They teach lies from the demonic realm such as secular humanism in order to rob men of the truth. I will say that, this is a demonic spirit trying to take hold of this church like it has other churches by using sexual perversion and humnisiam to cause us to join with false religions. We must not allow this alliance to take place. For the record I do not agree with Bishop Blake signing our church with these people.
Thank you for your time.
Rogers I concur with you. It amazes me that the very obvious and agregious abuses of our own brothers, sisters, and children are happening in plain sight and yet Bishop Blake ignores it. To add insult to injury he goes to these untoward organizations and enthusiastically bloviates to them about the need to help the victims of human rights abuses. I mean does anyone see that irony? Its stunning to me.
Pastor Moore that is sound teaching my brother and much appreciated here. I love and try to participate in intellectual discourses whenever I can and to the best of my ability. But when God says “dont touch that tree”, it just doesnt require multiple seminary degrees to comprehend and obey.
Blessing to you!
believer in jesus,
I understand where you are coming from. There are some isolated cases in scripture where associations with the unsaved were required to accomplish Godly plans. But I think we need to take caution when we make exceptions the rule.
I agree with Pastor Moore here. We cannot co-opt or remix the gospel to be a social gospel–although such purposes may appear morally to be the right thing to do for the world. It is the spirit of the man that needs to be saved; this is what Jesus came for–not his wallet, house, belly, or etc…I think, such community work is fine–but it is always problematic when it obscures your primary purpose which is to be a light in the world and to be set apart from darkness.
I would like to echo K.P. Kohanann who is one of the leaders in world missions in Asia. in his book, he talked about how he spent his first years in India which is largely Hinduistic, trying to win people to Christ by providing all these social services. They had all the food drives. They taught English to the children and tended to the sick. But he noticed that no one was getting saved; all the work and money was doing nothing. But the Lord came to him and told him this was the wrong way; just get in the streets and preach the gospel. He felt it was crazy at first. But it worked. Hundreds were coming to Christ because of God’s method which is “foolishness to the unbeliever, but power to the saving of the soul for those who believe.”
If you are saying that the human rights agreement that COGIC with other world leaders does not mean they will actually work or co-labor together; then , why would they even muster the effort to pull together such a document or meeting?
My fear is not for what action or efforts may result in the future with possibly COGIC lending a hand to interfaith projects. My fear is around what inaction or silence may result on the behalf of COGIC in the future–such documents often do well in muffling potential dissent. And when we need to “cry aloud and spare not” as a church against what’s going on in the world, we do not need to be restricted by agreements or alliances we have made casually in the past.
abj, correct me if I am wrong, but you are saying that David Hall was flown all the way from Memphis to the Netherlands to attend a “brief meeting” where there is no real committement to do anything? I wonder what the cost of that trip totaled? Wouldnt that be a rather foolish financial decision given the bleak ecomonics affecting so many people? If he paid his own way, of course that’s acceptable.
You also have a valid point, but unfortunately its little more than a strawman. I’d like to believe you are being sincere in your assertions but given what we know, its more like some very duplictious doublespeak is going on.
You asked what appears to be sincere questions about why we cant help do something for helpless people? I have asked you to survey this site and look at the cries of people in COGIC whom Bishop Blake has repeatedly ignored. In return for their pain and suffering they have received “official statements” or either cold silence. Why is he trying to save the world but ignoring those in his own sheepfold? You asked for truthfulness, so dont dodge questions and act as if it doesnt exist.
You are now seeming to downplay this whole affair as nothing but a few minutes of handshakes and loose chatter. But in the video, Bishop Blake heralded this as an “international epock” and a opportunity to kill the foes of tolerance and bigotry. Clearly, he did not view this as some backyard bbq in Lubbock TX.
What people are looking for is honesty. And so far they are getting is spin and damage control.
I’m glad your article evoked a response from Bishop Blake. Gone are the days when any religious organization can skirt being accountable. This is what the COGIC is having to deal with. Not only the COGIC, but African-Americans, in general, are going to have to fine-tune their support of so many issues, because often the issues that a majority of us support are veiled, and even blatant, attempts to erode the moral fiber of what this nation was built on. No longer should our leaders support a position that simply sounds good and worldly, but has the underpinnings of death.
I certainly agree this is not your average walk in the park, But this type of stronghold cannot be tolerated with, it is a ungodly image, monument, that is exalting itself above the Word of God, We are instructed to Pull It Down (not have dinner with it). The COGIC MUST DEMAND HE REMOVE US FROM THIS REGISTRY, AND REMOVE HIM IF HIS DARKENED VIEWS ARE NOT REPENTED OF ,,,,,,,,I AM BIBLICALLY MANDATED NOT TO FOLLOW THIS TYPE OF HIRELING LEADERSHIP WHETHER LOCAL OR NATIONAL,….. PLEASE EXCUSE ME FOR RAISING MY VOICE. { SMILE}.
Outstanding comments my brothers!! I think Bishop Blakes thinks he is slicker than most!