Saturday, July 21, 2018

No Gay Chastity Lessons from These Church Ladies

All our young lives we were taught about chastity in church. Oh my gosh. Necking, petting, fornication were no-nos of the highest degree. But that sort of preaching was and is apparently only for heterosexuals. Amazingly, nowhere will you find any warnings or instruction or preaching in churches about chastity for the homosexual. All we hear about is "celibacy" in the very loosest of terms. Of course there is a huge spectrum of acting out homosexually that falls short of sodomy and the like. Even publicly and proudly declaring one's proclivity to homosexuality is a form of acting out and advocating all things homosexual. There are all sorts of activities such as lusting, pornography, chat rooms, phone sex, masturbation, flirting, propaganda, media, entertainment, activism, and on and on, oh, and the old necking and petting too. (And we think most probably do many of the above plus more if they are bold enough and past feeling enough to publicly advertise their homosexuality.) But strangely, we hear absolutely nothing about any boundaries when it comes to the much-talked-about, highly sexually-charged, greatly celebrated, nongenerative, sodomitic homosexual identity. That's within the church. If heterosexuals are taught chastity, why not homosexuals?

What is encouraged will increase. In the past only heterosexuality was encouraged. Now, quite suddenly, the homosexual identity is being officially encouraged, and this means that more and more people will adopt and act out and spread homosexuality, and inevitably practice it in all its degrees. Is the omission we are talking about---the absence of truth and chastity and warnings and the gospel as it all applies to homosexuality---wise or kind or in any way right? After all, if  churches are all of a sudden going about sympathizing, accepting, supporting, agreeing with, and embracing homosexuality as a God-given immutable identity, ought it not also to warn of the inordinately high-risk physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological dangers that come with it, and the necessity and possibility of hope and change?

It is not there. None of it. Why?

Here's why. In the church, just as in the naive/false world, there is some sort of disconnect between the now sacrosanct, protected homosexual identity and the dangerous and disgusting impure thoughts and acts that comprise it. That's right. Comprise it. Gay is nothing special without the gay sexual component. All of it, the L, the G, the B, the T, the Q, are all about some perverse and preposterous and extreme form of human sexuality in thought and deed. Wrote C. S. Lewis way back in the 1950s, "[Y]ou and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex." Bingo. It's past time that squeamish, unthinking people face the facts. The sexual revolution is about sex, sex, and more sex.

One of our daughters had a disturbing conversation with two older women the other day at a church activity, one of whom is quite involved with church hierarchy. Our daughter did her best to shed some light on their shallow, complacent, flawed, anti-Christ thinking, but apparently to no avail. Even while they presumed to retain their own stance as conservative, family-values-based, Christ-centered congregants, in a long and convoluted discussion these are some of the goofy false ideas they tried to foist on her:
___________________________

"The gays in our church are different than other gays." (How? As in better or righteous? How prideful and blind is that? Homosexuality is homosexuality.)

"Our gays are special and above the principles of sin and repentance." (Why? These are universal true principles. This view is anti-Christ and damning.)

"Of course our gays are and will always be celibate." (Again, what does that mean?  And how does anybody really know? And how can anyone predict that? What is encouraged will increase. People experiment. These things are done in secret. Doesn't anybody care anymore about the welfare of the soul and how no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God?)

"Anyway, the homosexuals in our church are not sexual." (Come again? There is no homo without the sexuality. Why are gays special if the attractions are not romantic/sexual? There are plenty of single people in the world who for one reason or another don't participate in romantic relationships or marriage, who are not gay. So if gayness is not sexual it could follow that all these single people must be gay, and they are not. Too bad they are now being told they are! It's all crazy if you think about it at all.)

"Our gays were never abused sexually, nor have they ever used pornography or had pro-gay associations. Their sexual aversion to those of the opposite sex and sexual attraction to those of their same sex is just who they are." (So they got these ideas and feelings just out of the blue?  It doesn't have anything to do with the perverse, oversexed world and pro-LGBT juggernaut forcing itself on the world at this particular moment in time? Of course it does. And bear in mind we know of their "pristine" past and present only on their own say so. There is such a thing as lying, and such a thing as repression. Attitudes toward one's sexual feelings are learned one way or another. These people learned homosexuality. Not surprising in today's world, is it?)


"Our gays are the most spiritual humans on the planet." (How do you know? Maybe they just talk so as to give that impression, which would be to their advantage. Lots of people do that sort of thing. It's called deception or hypocrisy, it is used to get gain, and people can be very skilled at it.)

"Our gays were made that way by God and are hoping to remain that way forever." (What? Why? Heaven? Sorry, no. We take the same spirit with us which we have developed here. There is no lust in heaven.)

"It's wrong to talk about success stories, like Dean Byrd did, of people who overcame homosexual tendencies because that 's really rare and makes the ones who don't overcome it feel bad." (Dean Byrd? He was our mentor. And wait, there are no standards or ideals anymore? Just because everyone isn't successful we're not supposed to offer success? People need to know this is a vice. It's lust. Gays  haven't overcome it because they are getting something out of it. Sexual sin is thrilling, escapist, pleasurable. Say what they will, they don't want to give it up bad enough. They are keeping it alive through those ways we mentioned above. Like  St. Augustine wrote, "Lord make me chaste. Just not yet." And wait wait wait! We're not supposed to have broken hearts or contrite spirits? We're not ever supposed to talk about the mighty change of heart? We're supposed to label people by their weaknesses permanently and offer absolutely zero hope? For gays there is no sin and no Christ and no redemption and no posterity? All experiences of getting help and overcoming homosexuality are to be silenced? We are not to encourage repentance and healing? These people are to be offered  no help for getting out of this sordid, dangerous, dead-end mindset/lifestyle? How can anybody get out of it if they don't know there is a way out? What if someone is miserable, which many are, and want out? What happens when they hit bottom? Is there to be no light at the end of the tunnel? Is your head exploding yet?)

And finally, these ladies have it on the best authority that "there will soon be a really really really spiritual lesbian female leader in the church." (Because she is a lesbian? How did she learn it? Will everyone know she is a lesbian? Apparently several already do. Why does she make this known? Why does anyone need to know it? Only so people will further accept homosexualism, that's why. Why not a gay man too? Why not some transgendered leaders? Why not have all gay leaders in our churches since they are said to be so much more special and talented and spiritual than everybody else? Why not have the best of the best?)

See where this goes? Do we exaggerate? Why all the slobbering over homosexuality? To show how loving and tolerant and worldly we proud pseudo-Christians are? This is what we care about? How about truth and righteousness? 

C. S. Lewis wrote, "Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either." (Good people we take to mean those who are striving toward God and truth and righteousness, who know their only hope is in Christ.) We submit those women who were trying to persuade our daughter to embrace wickedness are bad people in the above sense. They have lost, sold off, forfeited their ability to discern good from evil. They can't even distinguish between the two. Perhaps they already have them almost completely flipped, good becoming evil, and evil good, as the scriptures say. 

The way these church ladies talk and think----that is why there are are no chastity lessons for homosexuals. And less and less for everybody else too. Think about it. There are hardly any such things as sins or laws anymore. Only victims and problems and special identities. Pornography addiction is no longer a sin; rather it is an emotionally-charged challenge its poor victims and the rest of us have to live with. Homosexuality is who people are, people we're all supposed to especially respect and admire. These fatal false principles are spreading into all facets of our lives.. About a leading local member of our church who also raped young girls, one bishop merely said, "Well, we all have our problems."

News flash for these church ladies. There are laws and sins, including sexual laws and sexual sins, and sexual sins are exciting and pleasurable, whether in thoughts, feelings, or deeds, but only for a time. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. But now people like these church ladies are not only doing nothing against evil, they are downplaying it, recharacterizing it,  and encouraging it---in the name of religion!

Being gay is popular nowadays. The false ideas promoted by the church ladies above are arguments to promote what are extremely popular, exciting, pleasurable, lustful, rebellious, Godless sexual sins. This reminds us of the scripture in Romans that says even the women were doing that which was against nature or finding pleasure in those that did (as in talking it up, excusing it, arguing for it, admiring it, promoting it). This can only end in all sorts of tragedy, sooner or later.

*Lewis quotes are from Mere Christianity.

Response to Distressed Mormon

Hi -------------, Steve handed me a printout of what you sent. It's all true and all happening. In fact, that one thing that happened in Utah County at the stake conference where the mother of the trans child spoke about "ministering" apparently happened in a stake center up our street where two of our grown children and their families go (unless the same sort of thing is going on all over, which it probably is).  They both got up and left the meeting with their kids and told us all about it at the time. I am a firm believer that we are free agents and shouldn't sit there listening to dangerous false ideas because not only is it spiritual abuse but our very presence encourages it. If a whole bunch of people had left the meeting that would have sent a message. At least some people saw it for what it was.

I appreciated the scriptures you pointed out. It is hard to read the Book of Mormon now because it's all so painfully obvious, but we must. It is for us. We are the ones who have it. But like you say, people aren't using the scriptures or understanding them. So sad. They are caught up in the world and going right along, albeit a few years behind.

Sunday is the hardest day of the week for me too. Not only do I not get to hear the gospel, which I really love and need to hear, also when I say anything in church it feels like I am from another planet. I have been mocked several times for my testimony of Christ as the only way to get back to God because we are all humans and weak and lacking in one way or another, as it says over and over in the scriptures. This derision usually happens in Relief Society. When I was RS pres. I did feel as if I was wasting my breath a lot. I got a lot of eye-rolling. That was a while ago. I had pulled back recently, it was just so stressful (unhealthy!)to sit in meetings where Christ is overlooked,  which is essentially anti-Christ, and then to be ridiculed for my deepest beliefs. But after a break I am feeling braver and am speaking out again when it feels right to, come what may. It takes a lot of faith and patience and thinking of people as the Lord thinks of them and not caring if they think you are crazy or annoying or unkind or any of those things. Everyone is precious and needs to know the truth. So many are being deceived. You can just see it happening in slow motion. Those invisible flaxen cords. Of course we cannot help anyone very much--just throw out a few ideas which they can think about and hold to if they wish. That's how important agency is. 

I think when a people decide a sin is not a sin anymore, as in sexual impurity/homosexuality, they equivocate on other sins as well, perhaps even decide there are no sins they have to worry about at all; those who surrender on one issue tend to surrender on others as well. We find people hard-heartedly resisting the idea of sin. Just once in a blue moon will I hear something true properly emphasized. (There was a good talk in Sac. mtg. Sunday, which I am sure some people hated if they were listening.)  I have heard from others that RS has become all about making the sisters feel good about themselves, and there is no religion really. No Christ, no repentance, no humility, no meekness, just self-indulgence. Dostoevsky wrote, "Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth, and nothing easier than flattery." I have especially studied the Book of Mormon anti-Christs (there are lots!) and the one thing they preached in common was that there was no need to repent. That sums up what is happening in the trenches of our church, and in all churches. This is the secular spirit of the times in which we live.

When one starts paying attention and thinking for oneself there are lots of opportunities for long-suffering and trust in the Lord alone. And isn't that a good thing? I memorize scriptures to repeat and think about in my head to help keep my sanity and spiritual-centeredness.  As in Jacob, "Lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God (it is pleasing to me!) and feast upon his love, for ye may if your minds are firm, forever." Yes, you are right about all this happening within the church; some years ago we were told by a (now) apostle we know personally that the Church (capital C) is evolving and the Brethren do not agree on some fundamentals,  such as homosexuality. Who knew this would be The Thing that would deceive so many? A house divided . . .

We don't think it is helpful to blame anyone. But we do feel as if we must take on the world and share God's truth and righteousness wherever we happen to be whenever we can, as the scriptures say. The Lord gave us hearts and minds. We are supposed to use them.  It is a blessing to find firm like-minded people, now difficult to do even within our beloved church. Still, we can't put our reliance on each other either. We have seen so many people turn.

Hang in there. The trajectory is bad and it's only going to get worse. It's a test! A hard one.  I try to remember opposition in all things works both ways. We can rejoice in Christ and all Creation, in the good and true and beautiful, in God's loving merciful plan, even in the midst of all this insidious creeping falseness and evil and persecution. We can be made into different sorts of people fit for God's presence right now.

Lord bless!

Janice

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Singing Along With Sin:LGBTMOTAB

There is this crazy idea going around that embracing, celebrating, calling attention to, and, let's say, singing along with SIN will somehow make the hard-hearted, stiff-necked people doing that SIN not want to do it anymore or feel some sort of love or get some sort of spiritual message or want to turn to God someday. There is absolutely nothing in the scriptures that says that is what works;in fact God says the very opposite: give them consequences, tell them the truth, preach the gospel to them, don't let them be numbered among you, blot out their names, hope they repent. And yet an embrace of  homosexuality and other godlessness, sans any warning or religion or Christ whatsoever, is exactly what the Mormon Tabernacle Choir  representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has done, continues to do, and did this past month in no uncertain terms in San Francisco during the infamous gay pride month, parade, and festivities.

Yes, this past month the MoTab reached out, planned, participated in, and pretty much yucked it up with all things LGBT during the most famous public display of human depravity in the world today. Yes, their hotel was on the gay pride parade route about which some choir members were positively giddy and camera-happy. Yes, they invited a gay men's chorus solely because they are homosexual in their gay t-shirts to sing with them for a sound check. Yes, they had the out, proud, homosexual leader conduct them in "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land" for the encore number of the concert they put on. Yes, to thunderous applause and cheering. Tears and rejoicing. Thrills and chills.

One choir member admitted to feeling confused and disappointed at first when faced with this untenable situation. But she trusted in her leaders and bought the misapplied line that we mustn't judge anyone or anything. She ate up the flattery about their glorious music working miracles. Hmmm. The only thing we saw happen was a mob-mentality group being brought around to embracing and celebrating and encouraging a sin they previously thought unspeakable and their sacred scriptures condemn and their consciences recoil at.

We have news. If there are still some people who do believe there are such things as right and wrong, God and the devil, righteousness and sin, sexual purity and sexual impurity, this land is not our land. It belongs to the godless and the lawless. As we have seen increasingly play out, the righteous (those who still believe in God and His laws, and are repenting continually through Christ) will not be allowed to live, work, speak their consciences, raise their families, and who know what else, in this land.


Case in point:Two years ago a Canadian man, a Christian activist named Bill Whatcott, had the temerity to offer fliers containing medical information and uncomplimentary photos, some graphic, about the lifestyle and health risks of LGBT behaviors and a Bible scripture about the gift of repentance. He lost his job, is being sued, was arrested and held in jail, abused, etc.. This is all about one man offering fliers (which no one has to pay any attention to) purportedly being seen as a threat to the psychological well-being of all manner of proud  evil-doers who are loudly parading their self-destructive licentiousness in the streets in front of children! What about the children's psychological well-being? What about Bill Whatcott's?

This intolerance to Christianity is coming to an American city near you. And no, good and evil singing in harmony is a fantasy. There is no getting along. There is no unity.  One side is going to be in charge and take over and punish any resistance. That's how it has always been. The difference now is that when in our lifetimes good has prevailed, evil is now in control. Yes, the godless are making and enforcing a whole bunch of  arbitrary sentiments and rules. And no goodness equals no justice. We are forfeiting our freedom! Who knows what the standard for "hate crimes" will be next? What if the powers that be just decide you're feeling or thinking something they don't like? This is not unheard of. Read your history.

It's worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. People are either deceived and caught up in the wickedness, reduced to singing along with sin, as the MoTab (which for all intents and purposes has turned into a big pillar of salt), or they are ignoring the whole situation and will be spewed out of the Lord's mouth. Or a few, just a few, are paying attention and actually care and are taking a stand and may be charged and persecuted, lose their freedom and perhaps lose everything---wait---everything except their immortal souls.

Happy 4th.

Postscript 8/6/18

We got some more info on this. From our source most of the choir did not know about this event, as in any interaction with a gay choir in San Francisco. The choir actually resisted the event when it found out. It sounds like they were sort of tricked into it. Public relations departments are running the church apparently, and what public relations have to do with religion, we don't know. Are these people called or hired? Anyway, while it sounded like choir leadership was thrilled with the festivities, such as inviting the gay men's choir director to lead the Tabernacle Choir in an encore number at the concert, at least some of the choir members were confused and embarrassed about the whole thing and had a hard time enduring it. And yet, we are also informed that some members of the choir itself are gay; some enjoyed the whole thing very much; in addition, returned LDS missionaries belong to the gay choir. We were told that "good will" is the overarching reason the choir exists. Come again? Call yourself  a civic club or encounter group then, not a religion. Any Christian church's foremost purpose is to preach the Word of God, awaken consciences, and shape the proper ethics of the people. What happened in this event was the very opposite. What people came away with was that the LDS church is softening on sexual sin.