Bible Topics
United Methodist Church Leaders Meeting To Discuss Acceptance Of Openly Gay Pastors
An ordained minister of the United Methodist Church married his boyfriend of 28 years on Saturday in a potent protest against church doctrine that bans ministers from marrying same-sex partners.
Pastor David Meredith, an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church, “married” his boyfriend of 28 years on Saturday in a potent protest against church doctrine that bans ministers from marrying same-sex partners.
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:26,23 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Christian Church is under attack from within by unrepentant and unsaved LGBT pastors and church leaders who are intent on erasing the Bible’s clear teaching against homosexuality and lesbianism. Yes, saved Christians can struggle with the sin of homosexuality like any other sin. But to claim to be a Christian and believe that it’s not a sin at all is evidence you have likely not been saved. And to teach other people that God approves of homosexuality and ‘blesses it’ is a lie from the pit of Hell itself.
“I am completely aware that there are consequences, but I am not afraid,” Meredith told BuzzFeed News in a phone call before the ceremony, pointing out he could be defrocked, removed from his congregation in Cincinnati, and lose his income. The “wedding” was, of course, primarily about his union with Jim Schlachter, he said. But, he added, “if it leads to a change, it will be a big win.”
The timing was deliberate. With the church’s international voting body meeting Tuesday in Oregon, the high-profile marriage could persuade delegates at the General Conference to pass several proposals that would repeal the church’s anti-gay rules. Those rules ban clergy from being out homosexuals, prohibit clergy from marrying same-sex couples, and bar funding for LGBT-positive organizations.
Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, told BuzzFeed News, “This is a very important moment for the United Methodist Church. I think the wedding can inspire empathy among the delegates, because you have a Methodist pastor — this is one of the leaders of the church. This is someone they have ordained, and that is important to other church leaders.”
It was the latest example of a growing insurgency within the United Methodist Church, which has about 80 million followers. The church’s voting body shot down proposals in 2008 and 2012 to remove anti-gay policies. But now that the Supreme Court has scrapped marriage bans in the United States, many believe that high-profile acts of disobedience could have repercussions.
Divisions within the church could lead to a mass exodus of progressives fed up with anti-gay rules, for example. Or, so many gay Methodists could disobey church doctrine that the rules become unenforceable.
As BuzzFeed News reported last month, a Methodist minister married two gay men in North Carolina, and a formal complaint was filed within days. The local bishop launched an investigation into the minister, a straight pastor, who performed the wedding. In the past few years, another pastor was defrocked and a bishop faced an investigation for their roles in marrying gay couples.
“The church is at a boiling point over the wedding in North Carolina, and it’s going to boil even further,” Matt Berryman, the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, an LGBT advocacy coalition leading the charge for changing Methodist policy on sexual orientation, told BuzzFeed News. His group has assembled hundreds of congregations that are on the record supporting LGBT rights.
“This wedding is a big deal because it’s happening right before the General Conference,” he said. “It’s just a sign of what’s to come. ”
The wedding in Ohio wasn’t the first case of a United Methodist Church minister marrying a same-sex partner — there are at least three other examples in the last decade, including one in Seattle in 2013 — but the ceremony stands out for its calculated timing and geography. Held in a United Methodist Church in Columbus, it occurred in the church’s relatively conservative West Ohio Conference, where members are considered more likely to file a formal complaint.
With about 7 million members in the U.S., the United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant Christian denomination. Yet, unlike several other leading denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, it has not repealed its ban on same-sex weddings.
And realistically, like its conventions in 2008 and 2012, the church’s General Conference appears unlikely to repeal the anti-gay rules this year. A majority of delegates represent foreign countries — and the church’s large, growing African contingent is overwhelmingly opposed to LGBT inclusion.
Failing to pass the proposals again would only exacerbate tensions and protest, Berryman said.
“If they don’t change the rules, the reality is that this is just the beginning,” he said. “The floodgates will open and everyone should expect to see mass civil disobedience — or biblical obedience — after the General Conference. Weddings will be happening so frequently, the church will have to lay down its arms.”
Alternatively, Thistlethwaite said, the church risks losing its members. “If they don’t pass these proposals, I really think there will be a stampeding exodus from the United Methodist Church, because young people are just not having this anymore,” she said. “They are not willing to equate religion with discrimination.”
She added that the United Church of Christ could serve as an example: After it embraced marriage equality, some members left, but now, the policy on gay rights is an asset. “We’re growing, and the others are not,” said Thistlethwaite, who belongs to the United Church of Christ.
“I don’t feel guilty for being gay. I am a better pastor and a better disciple of Jesus because of it.”
For his part, Pastor Meredith acknowledged that the General Conference may not pass proposals striking down anti-gay church rules.
“But they can’t ignore it,” said Meredith, who added that while he is breaking parts of canon law, he is obeying teachings of the Bible. Meredith said has never hidden the fact that he is gay from the church’s hierarchy, but he has never made it impossible for them to ignore until now. “I want the policy to change, and I want the practice to change.”
“I run the risk of losing it all,” he continued. “If they want me to say I’m guilty, I won’t say ‘I am guilty.’ I will own that I am gay, but I will not own it with their language that says there’s something wrong with it. I don’t feel guilty for being gay. I am a better pastor and a better disciple of Jesus because of it.”
“It doesn’t feel like I am being brave or courageous,” he said. “Inside, it feels like I am being faithful.”
More than changing policy in the church, Meredith said he wants to change the Methodist church’s culture in Ohio
“I hope that every person who is gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, or queer in the United Methodist Church will feel a sense of strength from this wedding. Having 400 Methodists at my wedding affirm, recognize, and bless 28 years of love and life together, nobody can take that away,” he said. “No General Conference can really harm me. No bishop can hurt me when I have the womb of the church surrounding me.”
The service itself was, in parts, traditional. There were church songs and a reading of the liturgy, Meredith said. But there were also some signature pieces from the gay canon, too.
“Our closing song is from Rent.”
Bible Topics
One Reason Why The NIV Bible Is So Popular With The LGBTQ ‘Christian’ Community Is Due To The Work And Influence Of Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
Virginia Mollenkott played a minor role in the creation of the NIV ‘bible’, but her work had a major influence in leading astray the body of Christ
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott is the author or co-author of 13 books, including several on LGBTQ women and religion. She is a winner of the Lambda Literary Award and has published numerous essays on literary topics. But in the years covering 1970 to 1978, Mollenkott played a small but key role in the creation of the NIV ‘bible’, only to be ousted when her LGBTQ agenda became public knowledge.
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:” Romans 1:26 (KJB)
Now I know that some of the things we’re discussing here happened a while ago, but it’s important to see the incredible damage that people like Virginia Mollenkott have done to the body of Christ. When a person like Mollenkott publishes a book such as Omnigender, it sends shockwaves through the camp of Bible believers. Not because her teachings carry biblical weight, they don’t, but because they reveal the spiritual fault lines created when professing Christianity rejects the final authority of the King James Bible. This is not simply a social debate about gender. It is a full-scale spiritual battle over the authority of Scripture and the boundaries God Himself established from the beginning.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27 (KJB)
The Bible is not unclear, God made humanity in two genders, and He called His creation very good. But when the Bible is replaced with scholarship, human opinion, or cultural sensitivity, people begin to imagine there are “more than two genders,” and then demand that Scripture bow to their feelings.
Bible believers understand something the world has forgotten: You don’t correct the Bible, the Bible corrects you. Every movement that rejects God’s design always ends up rewriting God Himself. While Mollenkott did not translate the NIV, her peripheral role as a stylistic consultant exposes the worldly direction these modern translation committees were comfortable entertaining.
It raises the question:
Why was someone with her views welcomed anywhere near a Bible translation project?
Because the NIV — like all modern versions — is built on the premise that man can decide:
- which manuscripts are trustworthy,
- which words are “better,”
- and how Scripture should read in the modern world.
- That philosophy opens the door for cultural reinterpretation, feminist revisionism, and — eventually — gender fluidity. A tiny crack in the foundation becomes a doctrinal earthquake.
Virginia Mollenkott’s theology is not Christianity. and her gender ideology is not biblical truth. Her influence — however small — on modern versions only highlights why Bible believers refuse to abandon the preserved, perfect, inerrant King James Bible. The people on the NIV translation committee trusted credentials instead of doctrine, they prioritized “readability” over purity of Scripture. As a result, they opened the door to people like Virginia Mollenkott who did not hold the Bible as final authority.
The King James translators were:
- doctrinally conservative
- openly Christian
- unafraid of biblical authority
- accountable to the church
- committed to preserving Scripture, not reinventing it
But the NIV’s translation philosophy (“dynamic equivalence”) welcomed:
- scholars with questionable theology
- modernists
- feminists
- liberals
- and yes, eventually LGBTQ advocates
This is the fruit of mixing God’s Book with the world’s agenda, and it’s a deadly poison that continues to work to attack and degrade the authority of scripture today. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott may be all but forgotten, but her work of using the Bible to water down sin and sow confusion remains. If you want God’s preserved word, we got it, go get it.
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
Bible Topics
Some Random Thoughts On The Goodness And Mercy Of God After Battling COVID-19 For The Past 7 Days
Dr. Ruckman used to say that if the Lord tarries, the only thing coming in this life are graves and hospital beds, and that’s a very true statement.
My COVID test took less than 20 seconds to provide my positive result as I watched it light up like a pinball machine last week. Immediately my mind raced back to the height of the pandemic in 2021 where we prayed for so many people on the NTEB prayer list who were deathly ill with COVID, many of whom went to the hospital, and the names of the people who didn’t come back. My street preacher Mark Bennet, he didn’t come home, neither did John Roth the man who sat behind me in church for over three years, or Ken Shiner who attended my daughter Kelsey’s wedding. They all died excruciatingly torturous deaths in medical comas with a tube down their throats. Now it was my turn, “where to, Lord?”
“But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” Psalm 52:8 (KJB)
For the first couple of days, I was overwhelmingly exhausted, sleeping 16 hours a day, no appetite, and throwing up every few hours. The stench of COVID permeating all my senses, with this mildly sweet though musky smell seeming to come off of everything. As it turned out, that smell was inside my own nose, and it kept me in a persistent low-level state of nauseousness. I had chills, endless sweating, shakes and terrible sleep. What a fragile thing our health can be, and how it all can turn on a dime. Most of my prayers have consisted of asking God to simply help me make it through the night.
I took a second test earlier, and this one too lit up positive in mere seconds, showing me perhaps another week of housebound helplessness. The idea of sitting in front of a mic and talking for hours about the Bible, something that gives me great joy and pleasure, now seems at the moment like a physical and mental impossibility. Even just writing this short article has been a drawn-out and laborious process taking place over many hours this afternoon. Through all this, random thoughts about the goodness of God in the midst of a time of sickness, misery and death pop in and out of my feverish brain.
God owes us nothing, and every moment we have on this earth is borrowed from His time clock, breathed with His air, and experienced through a beating heart that He set in motion the day we were born. What does God owe us? Nothing. What do we owe Him? Everything. He is worthy of our utmost effort to reach the lost with the gospel of the kingdom of God. Dr. Ruckman used to say that if the Lord tarries, the only thing coming in this life are graves and hospital beds, and that’s a very true statement. The question is, how to live your life in the meantime. The answer, I believe, is to live a life wholly given over to the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, a life lived for the furtherance of the gospel. That Book! Of all the risky things that make up this life, living for Jesus Christ is not risky at all, it’s a sure bet because He is worthy.
I covet your prayers for a full recovery, and not just for myself but we have many sick with COVID now at NTEB, as this end times gain-of-function horror continues. In my body, I am wiped out and depleted, but in my born again spirit I am chomping at the bit to get back in the game. Called to be soldiers, there is no quit, there is no retreat, there is only the battle. TO THE FIGHT!!!
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
Bible Doctrine
One Of The Things You Might Very Well Expect To See As The Spirit Of Antichrist Rises Is The Discovery Of The ‘Bones Of Jesus’ In Jerusalem
Prepare yourself for the ‘greatest archaeological discovery of all time’, the bones of Jesus! But it’s actually a trick of Satan.
You can show the bones of Buddha, and they have them, and still be a good Buddhist. You can show the bones of Mohammed, and they have them, and still be a good Muslim, but you cannot show the bones of Jesus Christ and still be a Christian.
Today I want to write about something that is purely speculative, at this point just a feeling I have, but something that nonetheless the Holy Spirit seems to be pressing on me to talk about. Last year, I wrote an article about the rising spirit of Antichrist that palpably came on the scene last year, and that spirit has done nothing but increase over the past 21 months. If we are where it seems like we are on the end times timeline, and if the man of sin is about to step onto the world stage, then there should be something fairly big to take place that will take a shot at discrediting Jesus of Nazareth. So prepare yourself for the ‘greatest archaeological discovery of all time’, the bones of Jesus!
“And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:14-17 (KJB)
Think about it, in Isaiah 14 where Lucifer is shaking his dirty fist at God, telling Him that he will take His Throne and everything else that belongs to God, those aspirations come true for a very brief period of time when he puts the spirit of Judas in the body of an earthly human like Emmanuel Macron as Antichrist. Remember, Antichrist does not come as himself, as Satan, but he comes pretending that he is the Messiah. So Antichrist comes as a fake Jesus claiming to be the actual Jesus, and it stands to reason that one of the first ‘shots across the bow’ will be to discredit Jesus of Nazareth. What better way to do that than by producing the ‘bones of Jesus’ to ‘prove’ He was not the real Messiah.
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:” 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 (KJB)
The Bible says that the Devil’s time is short, only has 7 years from start to finish, but when he sits down in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem at the halfway point he exposes himself to be the Devil, so he really has to do something quite impressive at the outset. Want to prove that Jesus Christ is a fake? Easy, just produce his bones and that will show Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead as the Bible says He did. You can show the bones of Buddha, and they have them, and still be a good Buddhist. You can show the bones of Mohammed, and they have them, and still be a good Muslim, but you cannot show the bones of Jesus Christ and still be a Christian. This is why I feel, quite strongly actually, that a ‘discovery’ is about to be made in Jerusalem and that discovery will produce the ‘bones of Jesus’.
“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” John 10:18 (KJB)
So what happens if I’m right about this? First of all, I am writing this now to warn you so if it does happen, you are already prepared to view it as nothing but a trick of the Devil. How else could I have know it was going to happen unless the Holy Spirit gave it to me ahead of time? That one fact alone show prove to you that the ‘bones of Jesus’ are nothing but a fraud. Secondly, if we are still here and the ‘bones’ are produced, that should immediately and instantly remove any and all trace of doubt in your mind that we are on the cusp of Flight #777 taking off in the Rapture. Finally, Paul says we are not ‘ignorant of his devices’, we have the Holy Spirit of discernment to show us what the truth is. As I said earlier, this is purely speculative but at the same time it is something that I very much feel will happen. Now you know what to do if it does.
“Behold, I have told you before.” Matthew 24:25 (KJB)
Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. Even all the way to South Africa. We even restarted our weekly radio Bible study on Sunday nights again, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.
But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. If every one of the 15,860+ people on our daily mailing list gave $4.50, we would reach our goal immediately. If every one of our 150,000+ followers on Facebook gave $1.00 each, we would reach 300% of our goal. The same goes for our 15,900 followers on Twitter. But sadly, many will not give, so we need the ones who can and who will give to be generous. As generous as possible.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJV)
“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB
- HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page
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