CBN Faithwire: Christian Leader Urges Trump to Do These 5 ‘Critical’ Things

 As President-elect Donald Trump is swiftly piecing together his incoming administration, one top leader within the Southern Baptist Convention is urging the former and future president to set his sights on five “critical policy actions” within the first 100 days of his return to the White House.

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the SBC, sent a letter outlining the request to Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the managers of Trump’s transition team.

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The five policies Leatherwood urged the president-elect to enforce are: vowing to impose the Hyde Amendment, reestablishing the so-called “Mexico City Policy,” repealing outgoing President Joe Biden’s executive order on sexual orientation and gender identity, eliminating unnecessary “rule-making advanced by the Biden administration,” and repealing the Food and Drug Administration’s easing of abortion pill requirements.

We will briefly break down what each request means.

Reimpose the Hyde Amendment

Leatherwood is urging Trump to “reaffirm continued support for and fully enforce the Hyde Amendment across government agencies.”

The Hyde Amendment is a provision that first took effect in 1980 and blocks the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, except in rare cases to save the life of the mother or in situations in which a pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Calling for an executive order reinstating the amendment, the SBC leader said the provision “should explicitly direct federal agencies to stop the funding of abortion-related travel and counseling for abortions through immediately ceasing such policies and implementing rule-making as necessary.”

“By issuing an executive order committing to full enforcement of the Hyde Amendment,” Leatherwood wrote, “President Trump will usher in a renewed focus on protecting life and the deeply-held religious beliefs of taxpayers from government overreach.”

Reapply the “Mexico City Policy”

Leatherwood is asking the president-elect to bring back the “Mexico City Policy,” which was first implemented in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan.

Referred to by its critics as a “global gag rule,” the policy bars the federal government from funding non-governmental organizations providing pro-abortion counseling or referrals, advocating for the decriminalization of abortion around the world, and working toward the expansion of abortion services globally.

Trump reinstated the policy during his first term, but Biden rescinded it when he took office.

Repeal Executive Action on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Leatherwood is calling on the incoming commander-in-chief to undo Biden’s Executive Order 13988, which sought to expand the protections outlined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Fair Housing Act, and section 412 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 to the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“This executive order by the Biden administration redefines ‘sex-based discrimination’ to include sexual orientation and gender identity while directing all federal agencies to implement this new definition through rule-making,” explained Leatherwood, arguing the action was “specifically crafted to circumvent the religious beliefs and conscience protections of millions of Americans regarding gender and sexuality, misuse taxpayer funds for ‘gender transitions,’ and promote radical gender ideology, even amongst children.”

Undo “Harmful” Rules From Biden Era

Leatherwood is calling on Trump to “undo the anti-life, anti-religious liberty, and pro-gender ideology rule-making advanced by the Biden administration.

“In addition to rescinding the aforementioned executive order,” he wrote, “the Trump administration can easily begin fulfilling this goal by undoing many of the harmful rules promulgated by the Biden administration and ceasing in any related federal litigation.”

The SBC leader noted three rules in particular he hopes the White House will target.

Leatherwood’s list includes: the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities,” which the ERLC argued would force faith-based medical institutions to perform transgender-related procedures; the Department of Education’s “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance,” which, according to an ERLC analysis, would require any school receiving federal monies to allow transgender-identified males to compete on female sports teams; and the HHS’ “Designated Placement Requirements Under Titles IV-E and IV-B for LGBTQI+ Children,” which would mandate prospective foster parents to affirm transgender-identified kids’ claimed gender identities.

Upend the FDA’s Relaxation of Abortion Pill Requirements

At the end of the letter, Leatherwood encourages Trump to “reverse the Biden [Food and Drug Administration’s] changes to the risk evaluation management strategy (REMS) requirements for mifepristone that expanded the reach of the abortion pill and threaten the health and safety of women.”

He went on to say that, under Biden’s direction, the FDA took action to “allow prescription of the drug through telehealth without ever seeing a doctor in-person and to allow dispensing of the drug at local pharmacies.”

In June, as CBN News reported, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Democrats’ favor regarding wide availability of mifepristone, which is currently accessible via mail. Prior to the Biden-era changes, the FDA required an in-person meeting with medical providers in order to receive the abortion pill.

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Why Abused Children Hate Themselves, Not Their Parents

 From "The School of Life":

Why Abused Children End Up Hating Themselves

There is almost nothing sadder in the universe than the abuse of a child by its own parents. That a being should be put on earth in an entirely helpless state, then maltreated by those to whom it automatically turns for protection and education, constitutes a particular abomination.

What I am starting to learn more and more every day is that abuse in the household is more common than I realized. It's really sad, but it seems that family dynamics are more riddled with tragedy that joy. I don't want to accept this fallen aspect of our fallen world, but unfortunately, the stain of sin has ruined everything, including family relationships.

God wants all families to prosper and be in health, but these families need to receive the revealing favor of the Savior!

One of the people who can best help us to understand the way a child typically responds to abuse is a little known and too often underestimated Scottish 20th century psychoanalyst, Ronald Fairbairn. Fairbairn was touchingly honest about what had brought him to psychoanalysis: he was not well. He had a bad relationship with his mother; he had a cold marriage, he had a range of anxieties and phobias. But as he put it himself: ‘It is difficult to see what inducements to seek psycho-analytical treatment there could be for an adult with a relatively mature, strong and unmodified ego.’ In other words, only fairly disturbed people are ever likely to get interested in psychoanalysis, let alone submit themselves to a training. And that is fine - and no argument against anything.

Ronald Fairbairn

Fairbairn came to his views about how the victims of parental abuse interpret what has happened to them as a result of working as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh’s Psychological Clinic for Children in the late 1930s. In his post, he came into contact with many children who had been extremely badly treated in their homes of origins. What he found - and what profoundly struck him - was how little these children appeared to hold the abuse against their parents. Some had been appallingly mocked, others badly beaten, others sexually abused. One might have expected that the children would, in the safety of a doctor’s consulting room, voice grave misgivings and rage against those who had treated them so unfairly. But Fairbairn found no such thing. 

Contrary to all expectations, the children he spoke to had only positive things to report about those who had - to a substantial degree - ruined their lives. A violent father would be described as strong and decisive: a cold and contemptuous mother would be re-interpreted as kind and intelligent. And correspondingly, a child would pour all the negativity that one might have assumed belonged elsewhere onto their own shoulders: they were the bad one, they had clearly been naughty, there was something intolerably wrong with them - and that is why they had been punished.

Children have no one else to look up to besides their parents, when they are children. If they do not have their parents to look up to, whom do they look up to? The identity crisis, the emotional trauma is too great without that sense of core identity. People will tolerate abuse over anxiety every time, and for children that is all the more the case.

What Fairbairn beautifully and poignantly understood was that the abused child has no option to think of themselves in decent terms. The truth is quite literally unbearable and must be twisted. One could not continue to live, as a defenceless child, if one fully took on board the evil that has been visited upon one. And therefore the mind alters the facts in the name of psychic survival.

In perhaps his most brilliant, paper, The Repression and the Return of Bad Objects first published in 1941, Fairbairn tried to show the reader the perverse but highly understandable logic operating in the abused child’s mind.

‘If a mature individual loses an object,  however important, he still has some objects remaining. His eggs are not all in one basket… The infant, on the other hand, has no choice. He has no alternative but to accept or reject his object - an alternative which is liable to present itself to him as a choice between life and death.’

There are no other parents that the child in an abusive family are able to run to: he has no other mother or father, the neglectful and harmful people in the vicinity are the only figures he has to cling to. Lose faith in them and one is done for. No wonder if one opts to reinvent who they might be.

At this point, Fairbairn is wrong. Everyone of us can run to the perfect loving FATHER! We received sonship before Him through Christ Jesus. AMEN!

Fairbairn famously called this manoeuvre of the mind ‘the moral defence,’ an attempt to exonerate the abuser and chastise oneself for one’s own abuse. In the words of one of Fairbairn’s most sensitive later interpreters, the American therapist and writer David Celani: ‘The moral defence is a source of comfort, as it reassures the child that he is being appropriately corrected by loving objects… the illusion that the child is securely attached to good objects prolongs his hope that his unmet developmental needs have a chance of being satisfied and that the feeling of abandonment will be avoided.’

One of the more striking features of Fairbairn was that he remained throughout his life a religious person, as so few of the great figures of psychoanalysis have been. Far from a distraction, this theological background gave Fairbairn a way of conceptualising a child’s response to abuse in terms of a form of faith. In a memorable aphorism, he wrote: ‘It is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the Devil.’ By this Fairbairn meant that the child prefers to think of themselves as still inhabiting an essentially ethical responsible realm, one in which they have transgressed and must be punished - but where the authority figures remain pillars of decency. As he went on to explain: ‘A sinner in a world ruled by God may be bad; but there is always a certain sense of security to be derived from the fact that the world around is good… there is always a hope of redemption.’ One shudders at the pain that makes this kind of mental gymnastics necessary.

We have to receive a larger revelation. The world is bad, our parents may have been bad, but God is GOOD! The Lord is GOOD and His mercy endures forever! Every one of us needs to receive this revelation. We need to be transformed from glory to glory by seeing more of Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit changes us! Our minds are renewed to the truth that though we were harmed as children, it was not our fault, and our parents were wrong, believed wrong, did wrong, or they chose to do wrong -- but none of that makes us wrong.

Fairbairn’s view of what psychoanalysis can do for an abused child who has fallen for ‘the moral defence’ is contained in one especially gnomic sentence: ‘The psychotherapist is the true successor to the exorcist,’ he wrote, because ‘he is concerned, not only with ‘the forgiveness of sins’, but also with ‘the casting out of devils.’

What did Fairbairn mean? The answer takes us into the heart of Fairbairn’s innovations in what psychoanalysis calls object relations. For Fairbairn, the bad external object (the abused parent) is quite literally internalised by the child and thereby turns the child into a bad object in their own eyes. All the violence of which they, the child, have been subject ends up in them and then colours their internal world. How they feel about themselves becomes a mirror of how others felt about them. Their sense of self, made up as it is of the introjections of parental messages, becomes a panoply of darkness and masochism.

Fairbairn proposed - counter to a lot of psychoanalytic thinking at the time - that the primary instrument by which ‘the devils’ inside the ill patient’s mind were to be exorcised was through a clinically much-neglected quality: kindness. By registering the analyst’s unusual kindness and empathy, the patient might be induced to loosen their hold on the moral defence and cease to think of their parents as so good, and themselves as so bad. They might - through love - come to be a little more on their own side and a little less on the side of their abusers - and thereby save their lives.

I have another word for kindess: GRACE!

Fairbairn described a patient of his called Annabel who had developed a phobia about driving. Every time she was at the wheel, she became terrified that she might inadvertently hit someone and leave a trail of corpses behind; the terror forced her to pull up and walk home. In her sessions with Fairbairn, Annabel came to see that her phobia was the result of a suppressed rage against her father, an outwardly respectable and highly successful man, who had in early childhood behaved incestuously towards her. Consciously, Annabel had only positive feelings towards her father. Unconsciously, it was far more complicated. Annabel had come to be frightened of herself at the wheel (and in other areas too; her self-suspicion was vast) in lieu of properly appreciating how unfair and depraved her own father had been towards her. Fairbairn noted that many of his patients were suffering from symptoms essentially caused by incestuous wishes of their fathers which they had been unable to understand or address, and that had morphed into self-hatred and paranoia. Fairbairn gives us a penetrating analysis of paranoia: the entire world will grow filled with dangers when we cannot repatriate the violence and nastiness of which we have been unknowing victims.

People hate their parents for the wrong that they did to them, but at the same time, there is this incredible guilt about being angry with one's parents. We need to see the Grace of God filling in all that hurtful places in our lives, setting us free from the wrong believing. 

We need to receive more of the LOVE OF THE FATHER!

We hear a lot about entitled people; people who take more than their due, who are unfair to the world and deserve to be taken down a peg. What we hear less about are people whose sufferings stem from an opposite problem: they lack the courage to fight back against those who do them wrong and cannot imagine that someone else might be a perpetrator of injustice. Sometimes, to cast out the devils inside us, we may need some help in spotting the devils - or, more appropriately, the extremely ill figures - in our own families. For this, Fairbairn is a supreme guide and mentor.

The Fight is Not Over: STOP the DIS-Respect for Marriage Act

The fight to stop False Marriage is far from over at this point.

Yes, there was a procedural vote, but then there will be a floor vote.

A number of amendments have been added to this bill, as well, and we need to urge a larger floor fight for more amendments until this legislation can be bogged down entirely.

The US Senate will take a vote on the DIS-Respect for Marriage Act on November 28th, 2022--after the Thanksgiving Break.

What happened earlier?

There was a procedural vote to advance the bill in the US Senate a few days ago, but we need to marshall our reasons to target these US Senators after the Thanksgiving Break

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)

Susan Collins (R-ME): (202) 224-2523

Joni Ernst (R-IA): (202) 224-3254

Cynthia Lummis (R-WY): 202) 224-3424

Mitt Romney (R-UT): (202) 224-5251

Dan Sullivan (R-AK): (202) 224-3004

Thom Tillis (R-NC): (202) 224-6342

Todd Young (R-IN): 202-224-5623

These US Senators The legislation will fail if they do not muster 60 votes.

These US Senators are facing Re-election at some point, and we need to make their lives miserable for voting against their constituents once already.

You can find their contact information on the blogpost that I shared earlier this year.

http://aschaper1.blogspot.com/2022/07/call-us-senate-and-tell-them-to-reject.html

Communists Openly Lie, Discuss Alliances with Religious Groups

Communism is an atheistic movement. For the communist, there is no god by the state, and everyone must worship.

And yet the Communist Party of the United States is talking a big game about their connections and alliances with religious groups.

Really.

Here's one of their latest eblasts pushing religious connections in their grand scheme to fight for The Working Man:

Sept. 18: Communists and Religion

Join us today for a class on Communists and Religion Progressive religious communities, organizations, and individuals form an important segment of the all-people’s front against the extreme right and for progressive change. This class will briefly review the history of participation and leadership of people of various religious traditions in the CPUSA. Active Party members will then discuss the relationship between their Communist convictions and their religious faith or connection with a religious tradition, and how the Party can build its relationship with progressive religious people and organizations. Date: Sunday, September 18, 2022 Time: 7 PM Eastern, 6 PM Central, 4 PM Pacific Register to attend and receive a recording. https://www.cpusa.org/event/communists-and-religion/     In Solidarity, CPUSA Religion Commission   Donate Now Communist Party USA 235 W. 23rd Street, 7th floor New York, NY 10011 (Visits by appointment only) Tel : 212-989-4994 Fax :212-229-1713 Email : cpusa@cpusa.org www.cpusa.org Copyright © 2022 Communist Party USA. All rights are reserved.

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Has the Communist Party lost any sense of integrity?

Do they really think they can make their case for a worldwide workers' revolution, when they completely lie about their founding principles, i.e. that they don't believe in God and believe that only the State and the Worker matter.

Give me a break!

Why I Loathe Alcoholics Anonymous

 

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:11)

For years, I was stepped in this terrible cult called Alcoholics Anonymous.

My mother was a recovering alcoholic, according to her statements, testimony, blah. She worked "the steps" every day of her life, so she claimed. She got sober in 1978, having had a spiritual revelation after drinking a morning mimosa. Something in her spirit told her "You don't have to do this anymore."

And that was the last time she drank alcohol. For the record, I feel compelled to point out that she received a spiritual revelation from God, not help or support from working Twelve Steps. However, the evil genius of Alcoholics Anonymous is to teach people that "It works if you work it" and the Big Book offers this guarantee that people who follow the Twelve Steps rarely fail.

The truth is, my Mom got sober without AA, but she still believed that she had to work the Twelve Steps every day of her life just to get through the day.

On another note, my mother quit smoking when she prayed, when she asked the LORD for help and stopped relying on her own efforts to quit. "I have no faith in me, and I have very little faith in you."

But God can use our little faith to do great things, and my mother was set free from smoking.

Sadly, she was still addicted to AA, and she worked that awful program, until it worked her to death.

Why do I loathe AA? It's not just that that legalistic, self-loathing cult damaged my mother, it's not just that that awful cult turned my mother into an abusive therapy who put her own "recovery" ahead of the needs of her children, her family, and anyone else--even Christ Himself!

I loathe AA because it teaches people to identify with a lie.

At every meeting, every member of the club in the "rewms" will say: "Hi, my name is ... , and I am an alcoholic."

Now, tell me ... how can we really expect anyone to break free of a damaging perversion if we teach people to identify with it? If you are "born" an alcoholic, then you should just drink and drink until you pass out or die.

BUT ... people are NOT born alcoholic. Just as there is no evidence that people are born gay, there is no gene for alcoholic. Granted, patterns of alcoholism do ensue in families, but it has to do with the abuse and trauma which children suffer from their parents, and there is this uncanny tendency for children to replicate the bad behaviors of their parents based on the imprinting and the wrong believing that comes with identifying with one's parents--no matter how bad they may be,

To sum up: no, people are not born "alcoholic." What's more, many people get over alcoholism without taking those ridiculous Twelve Steps.

The AA cult teaches lies to its members. It purports to not be a religious program, and yet members are instructed to turn their will and their life over to a "Higher Power" as they understand Him. Going beyond that, however, this Higher Power is still subject to the Twelve Steps--which have no pattern or value in the Old or New Testaments. In effect, the higher power for everyone in AA is not the Lord God as revealed in the Scriptures.

It's the creepy God of Bill W.'s insidious creation. (For those who don't know, Bill Wilson--or Bill W.--founded Alcoholics Anonymous.) Bill W. is treated with almost divine reverence in the meeting rewms of AA. It's really sickening. Let's state this fact plaintly once more: this "Higher Power" is an invention of Bill W.

It is total idolatry. Christians, Muslims, Jews, anyone who belongs to any faith community should reject AA out of hand. 

But for those who believe in Jesus, who recognize the Bible as God's Word, AA is all the more fully incompatible.

This terrible cult teaches people to identify with a sin, with an addiction, a moral failing.

What does the Bible say about our new identity in Christ?

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

We receive a new standing before our Loving Father. God is no more some distant deity, but our Loving Father!

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)

and

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:17)

Yes, AA's Big Book makes one reference that "He is our Father. We are His children," but then goes back to leveling adherents with religious demands. The truth is, the AA program does not reveal anything about the Higher Power, aside from what is in the book. This notion of "God as I understand Him" is absolutely ludicrous. If I could understand God, He would not be God anymore, now, would He?

But I digress.

The biggest fraud about the AA cult is that it teaches people to identify with their sins, with their failures, with their faults.

At the top of this post, I quote Romans 6:11, in which Paul clearly declares to the Christian believers in Roman: "Reckon yourself dead indeed to sin, and alive to God through Jesus Christ."

When you are born again, you are no longer a sinner. You are a saint. You are a child of God. Yes, there is training, there is the process of sanctification, which the Holy Spirit works on and in us as we see more of Jesus in the Word (cf 2 Corinthians 3:18)

You don't need to take steps to be one with your Heavenly Father.

In fact, even in the Old Testament, taking steps to God's altar was expressly forbidden:

"Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon." (Exodus 20:26)

If we try in our own efforts to get right with God, we merely expose our nakedness, our sin, our shame:

"But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

But in Christ, we have the fullness of His work. He declared "It is Finished" (John 19:30)

But you are no longer a sinner, and you are called to no longer identify with sin or any sins in your life.

Alcoholics Anonymous urges people to keep identifying with their sins, to keep rehashing their failures, to keep going to the joyless AA meeting, to keep repeating the empty mantras, to fall in line with the mob mentality, the mob identity.

My mother worked the program all right ... until she ended up taking her own life in 2012. This is the first time I have made this revelation public, but it needs to be said. Anyone who learns that he has to keep looking at his own sins and failures, that he must keep "taking his inventory" to stay one step ahead of an alcohol relapse, is looking at an empty life full of shame, hurt, and loss.

The number of people who have committed suicide while going to the AA "rewms" is pretty staggering, as well. But is anyone really surprised? A relentless program of self-loathing and self-abnegation is not going to produce happiness, joy, or freedom. 

Did I forget to mention that AA members often tout that their program is a "selfish" program, as if that is something to be proud of ...?

At any rate, I hope I have explained fully why I loathe Alcoholics Anonymous. The blood of Jesus cleanses everyone of us from all sins (1 John 1:9), and Jesus rests as the propitiation (full payment) for our sins and the sins of the entire world. If He has paid for all the sins of all the world, then there is no reason for people to rehash their sins or rest in their failures. It's time to stop focusing on ourselves and start focusing on Christ Jesus! Forget the false god of Alcoholics Anonymous and believe in Christ and Him Crucified:

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8)

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8)

If you find that you are still struggling with certain behaviors or bad habits, you just need to receive more favor, a greater revelation of Christ Jesus, and who you are in Christ:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

and

"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. 

5Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:" (Colossians 3:1-5)

and

"Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord," (2 Peter 1:2)

We don't need AA. Let us have grace, which we receive through Christ Jesus!

"Aqua Man", Conversion, Therapy, and the Truth

In Singapore, there is a growing movement to discredit and ultimately ban reparative therapy, falsely referred to as "conversion therapy". Part of the reason LGBT activists insist on calling this life-saving therapy "conversion therapy" is that they want to discredit this life-saving practice as a figment of religious superstition, and nothing more.

Reparative therapy has a number of professional clinicians around the world, and the therapy involves cognitive, vocal, and emotional practices. There is no physical harm used, and there is no shaming or dishonor employed. The lies of the LGBT hate groups around the world have spread nonstop lies to dissuade countries and psychological associations to reject this therapy.

In the United States, more courts are striking down reparative therapy bans, but sadly in other parts of the world, the lies remain pervasive and persist that "conversion therapy" is inherently flawed, false, and harmful.

A number of reparative therapists are providing more consistent research to combat these falsehoods, as well.

Now, in Singapore, a new five-minute documentary has come out: "Aqua Man."

"Aqua" is a play on words, meaning "weak or broken" but also "homosexual" in Chinese.

It's a movie short, five minutes, focused on the intense conflict of a young man, Junjie, who is struggling with same-sex attraction.  As he walks into his HDB flat after a long day at school, he sees his mother and a local pastor. The mother beckons her son to come to the pastor, who then gently places his hands on the son's head, and so does the mother. The pastor then leads a prayer, asking God to help the young Junjie break free of the "demon of homosexuality."

Clearly torn and writhing in pain, the boy pushes away the hands of his mother and the pastor, then retreats to the side of the room. The mother aggressively grabs his shoulders, confronts him for pushing away the pastor. The boy starts crying, he admits that he has tried to stop the same-sex feelings that he struggles with, but he still is attracted to other males.

The mother tries to bring her son back to the pastor. In the struggle to resist her, the son inadvertently pushes his mother to the ground. He tries to apologize, but overcome with frustration as well as grief, he just walks out of the HDB flat.

This is a very poignant film short, and yet its very pointed message is wrong on so many levels. There is proper criticism of the so-called "conversion therapy" that takes place, but the larger problems lie in the ... lies about what Christianity, what the Gospel is really about.

There are elements in this film short which inadvertently provide better insight into what Junjie is really struggling with, too.

First, I want to deal with some accurate criticisms portrayed in the movie.

True reparative therapy is not "pray the gay away." It's understandable that people of faith that prayer works, and it does, but people have to pray with a proper understanding of who they are in Christ, and how He wants us to receive all things from Him (Romans 8:32). Despite all of htis, the LGBT lobby relies heavily on atired, fraudulent trope regarding "pray the gay away" precisely to discredit the truth that people are not "born that way" and that proper therapeutic treatment can help people break free from unwanted same-sex temptations. There is no evidence that people are born gay, that it is a genetic trait of some kind, or that people are born in the wrong body and require some kind of corrective surgeries.

Sadly, though, there are too many religious groups that rely on prayer or the power of suggestion to deal with the emotional and mental traumas which individuals are grappling with, which undergird those same-sex temptations. When they are in the midst of their struggles with same-sex temptations, they need truth, and prayer that amounts to nothing more than "begging God" is not helpful.

Also, people of faith are not dealing with the true origins of the conflict if they label homosexual feelings "demonic". True, there are demonic forces in the world, but they transmit lies, and make people believing the wrong things, which induce bad thoughts, negative emotions, and unwanted desires. 

Jesus said to the Israelites of His day: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." (John 8:32)

Just setting people down, praying over them with a droning pattern of psychological suggestion does not set people free. There is real pain, real torment for people who are struggling with these feelings, and they need someone to speak to those concerns, something else besides "be changed". The answer is the Love of God, yes indeed, and prayer can open their eyes to see the grace of God more fully working in their lives. But this arbitrary "pray the gay away" is not the way that the "gay" goes away.

Now, for the criticism regarding the presentation of Christianity, or more precisely, the Gospel.

At the outset of this film short, the mother says "I think God is punishing me." That is wrong. The Lord Jesus took all our sins, all the punishment that we deserve, on the Cross. Clearly, this woman does not have a clear understanding of all that Jesus is and all that He has done at the Cross. Whether that is a deliberate slight against faith in Christ by the film maker, or an objective dramatization by the director, is another story.

When Junjie comes into the HDB flat, she tells her son: "The pastor will wash your sins away."

That is the most blasphemous remark in the whole movie. It is not any man who takes away sins from another, but the perfect, incorruptible, eternal Blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed at the Cross, and His blood cleanses (present tense) and speaks "better things than the blood of Abel" (Hebrews 12:24).

And His blood pays for the sins of the entire world! (1 John 2:2)

As the pastor prays over the boy, he says: "You have to believe that the Lord is able to forgive your sins,"

Wow! This pastor hasn't heard the full message of the Gospel! Not at all! How can he minister to this troubled boy when he does not understand the fullness and goodness of the Good News!

Paul the Apostle could not have made it clearer:

"38Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man [Jesus Christ] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13:38-39)

Jesus did a perfect work! Our sins have all been paid for!

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;" (Colossians 2:13)

and

"3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:" (Ephesians 1:3)

Consider also this description of what Jesus did at the Cross:

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus became sin, that we could become sons of God, beloved of our loving FATHER in Heaven! That is Good News! Instead of hearing the fullness of all that Jesus has done for him, Junjie gets levelled with these demands to "stop feeling that way", and to live up to certain expectations laid out by his mother.

And the prayer that the Pastor prays! First, He calls God "Father". In fact, in the original Chinese, he clearly says "Abba", which is the more intimate way to call on God. It's like saying "Daddy!":

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)

Then the Pastor says "We, your humble servants call on you." 

This prayer makes no sense! God cannot be "Daddy", but then you approach Him as some kind of harsh taskmaster! That is not walking in the truth. Such prayers are double-minded, to put in mildly:

"5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:5-7)

I have pointed out the errors regarding what reparative therapy truly is, and what it is not. I have also pointed out what wrong believing that the pastor, the mother, and even the son are in bondage to.

Now, let's speak to elements in the film which help explain why Junjie, most likely, is struggling with same-sex temptations.

At the outset of the film, the mother mentions "Ah Huang". I presume that is the mother's husband, her son's father. 

Males who struggle with same-sex temptations did not have that emotional bond with their fathers. That loss can be devastating, an emotional need which turns into a sexual longing for other men.

Throughout the film, we see a very overbearing mother, as well. She orders her son around, tell him what to do, placing demands on him. This dynamic also foments same-sex temptations in males, since they are becoming so emotionally dependent on their mothers, without developing their own identities as males.

Dr. Thio Li-Ann, while serving as a nominated member of the Singapore parliament, discussed this phenomenon when she spoke in defense of Singapore Penal Code 377a in a 2007 parliamentary hearing:

An article by an ex-gay in the New Statesmen this July identified the roots of his emotional hurts, like a distant father, overbearing mother and sexual abuse by a family friend; after working through his pain, his unwanted same-sex attractions left. While difficult, change is possible and a compassionate society would help those wanting to fulfill their heterosexual potential. There is hope.

Clearly, Junjie is dealing with a "smothering mother", which has inhibited his development as a male. This lack of growth induces a yearning for intimacy with other males.

Then she levels a set of demands. She wants him to be "normal", to get married and have children. This boy is in need, and placing more demands on him only deepens the pain.

This boy deserves help, and it is indeed very sad to see such a painful conflict break out the way that it does in the movie.

The larger problem ensues, however, from the fact that such films want to push false narratives from sound-bites and brief emotional exchanges. The etiology of homosexuality is more complicated than most people realize, but by no means are people "born that way", and thus stuck in an identity. No one should doubt what the boy says, that he has tried to stop the feelings, but he cannot help himself. This is a struggle that cannot be resolved with will-power, with "trying hard." It takes a revelation of deep, unconditional love--the Love of The Father (1 John 2:15), which cannot be taken away or shaken away, no matter how trying to difficult one's circumstances may become.

When those emotional needs get met, the same-sex temptations subside and go away.

Sadly, films like this will continue to serve as propaganda by LGBT militants to promotes their lies:

1. People are born gay.

2. They cannot change.

3. It's cruel to help them change.

4. Organized religion plays a large part in promoting the cruel practice to help people break free of same-sex temptations.

For the record, I wanted to put my thoughts out there on this short film and the complex issues which it deals with. There is some truth to the portrayals of "conversion therapy" scene, true, but the notion that true faith in Christ only leads to such contentious outcomes is not true at all.

Also, the sad outcome of this film suggests that this just a fraught tragedy, when there are clear elements even within the film itself which outline why Junjie struggles with same-sex attraction. No father figure, overbearing mother, a sense of unremitting shame without any information or understanding for what he is going through, and there one has the perfect environment for a child who struggles with homosexuality.

I can only hope that my thoughts on this film (and others like it certain to come out) will shed light on the very contentious issue of homosexuality, conversion, therapy, and the truth that sets people free.

Pacific Justice Institute: Know Your Rights as a Church During COVID-19

NEW Legal resources for churches on COVID-19 restrictions April 11, 2020   Dear Pastors, Church Leaders, and Ministry Friends,     I need to quickly update you on all the new legal resources we now have available for churches on the COVID-19 crisis. We need your help to get these free resources into as many hands as possible!     Last month, as the crisis began to unfold, we were among the first to issue legal guidance for pastors and church leaders trying to make sense of the then-unthinkable orders effectively shutting down worship services in many states. As the pandemic has grown, our legal team has now created and updated more than 25 state-specific legal memos, listed below.   In addition, we’ve held two teleconferences for pastors and leaders; held a training on broadcasting church services over social media; are posting answers to questions we are receiving from pastors; and earlier this week we conducted our first three Zoom trainings for business leaders, Christian school administrators and church leaders on accessing critical funding through the CARES Act.    Our resources are offered completely free of charge.  Visit www.PJI.org and check out our homepage for the newest resources. And, while we greatly appreciate your support, you don’t have to become a member, give a “suggested” donation, or pay an insurance-type fee in order to be represented by PJI. Our commitment is to unconditionally serve the Body of Christ.     States and jurisdictions for which we have now posted specific guidance include:   Arkansas Arizona California Colorado District of Columbia Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Kansas Louisiana Maryland Michigan Mississippi Nevada New Mexico New York New Jersey North Carolina Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina Texas Utah Virginia Washington State          Please help us spread the word about all these terrific resources! In a time of great confusion and uncertainty, we want to bring as much clarity as is possible. (And if this e-mail was forwarded to you by a friend, be sure to sign up at PJI.org for our weekly e-mail updates!)   If you appreciate our work and are able to “pay it forward” to help us make sure everyone gets the help they need in these desperate times, we are always grateful. God knows our needs and is faithful to provide!  But we never condition our help on the size of a church or ability to donate to our ministry. And we never will.      Throughout this crisis, the PJI Legal Team is taking appropriate precautions but working harder than ever to serve you.   Running the Race,   Brad Dacus, Esq. Founder and President, Pacific Justice Institute

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