Apostate Church Now Hosting Drag Queen Gospel Festival Insisting God Is a Woman

By JENNIFER LECLAIRE

First Church Somerville on Easter. (Facebook)

Yes, this even shocked me.

First Church Somerville United Church of Christ has issued a public service announcement from its "drag-queen-in-residence." (Yes, I just wrote the words "drag queen" and "church" in the same sentence and it doesn't have to do with a powerful testimony of deliverance from darkness.)

James Adams, also known as Serenity Jones, begins his public service announcement declaring a bit of truth—God is good all the time—followed by a blasphemous lie that God is a "diva" and a "girl." In true Pentecostal preacher style, asks "Can I get a witness up in here!? Can I get an amen my sistahs and my brothahs!?"

Friday, Oct. 16 marked the beginning of the fifth annual Drag Gospel Festival, a weekend sponsored by First Church Somerville, Old South Church and The Imperial Court of Massachusetts emphasizing the United Church of Christ’s acceptance of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Over 100 guests packed into the backroom stage of Club Café in the South End for a drag show hosted by New York-based drag queen Sapphira Cristal.

Um ... no. No, you can't.

The twisted "public service announcement" goes on to say the church will become "Fierce Church Somerville" for two days in October and will see congregants worship, praise and use their God-given musical and artistic talent, creativity and fashion.

"What do drag queens or drag kings have to do with Jesus or the gospel? We at FCS believe 'God don't make no junk,'" Jones writes. "So whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered or still playing hard to get, Jesus loves you and so do we! Amen, baby! So come and get yours at this here church!"

This so-called Drag Gospel event is the brainchild of Adams. According to the First Church Somerville website, Drag Gospel first launched in 2011 and is now an annual event.

"It is our way of demonstrating the radical welcome that we believe Jesus offered to all kinds of people—especially people exiled to the margins just for being the people God made them to be: queer or straight or a little bit of each, male or female or a little bit of each," Adams writes, emerging from his "Serenity" persona.

The Drag Gospel kicks off with a benefit concert and drag show to raise funds for the LGBT Asylum Task Force. Jones himself will perform at Club Cafe, along with other area drag queens and kings.

The main event, though, takes place during Sunday morning worship. Yes, we've moved from the club to the church with this perversion, which features Jones in full drag attire as the liturgist for the day.

Apparently, his "pastors"—sometimes also known to appear in drag—will join him in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with a "distinctly loving message for LGBTQ-add-your-letter-here." An after party promises "kids running around in feather boas, straight men in skirts, people who never thought they'd be in a church basement hollering Hallelujahs!"

In March, I released a prophetic word about a tsunami of perversion rising. This is one wave of the rising tide and it's crashing to shore. Jones is right that God is good. Jones is right that Jesus offered a welcome to all kinds of people—especially people exiled to the margins. But he's wrong that Jesus sanctioned a soulish state that would leave them separated from Father forever. God is love, and love does not condone perversion.

We're seeing the rapid rise of perversion even now but I believe this is just the beginning. We'll see the rise of false prophets who deceive many because, Jesus said, of the increase of wickedness (see Matt. 24:12). The mystery of lawlessness was working in Paul's day (see 2 Thess. 2:7) and that mystery is revealing the depth of its wicked plot in our day.

While this perversion grieves me, with every story about throuples, bestiality, and the like, I know we are getting closer to a Great Awakening. I know this because, as I've written before, the Holy Spirit told me in 2007 that things would grow darker in this nation before His light shines brightly again.

I believe things are on a course to grow very dark very rapidly. But I also believe in the power of prayer and faith-inspired action. I also believe in the power of preaching the gospel. I also believe God wants to bring transforming revival—a Third Great Awakening—to this nation.

It's up to us to stand in the gap. It's up to us to make up the hedge. It's up to us to weep between the porch and the altar. It's up to us to pray without ceasing. It's up to us to decree and declare God's will on the earth. It's up to us to speak the truth in love. It's up to us to take the gospel to our city. Yes, I believe it will grow darker and the perversion will rise, but I believe the glory of the Lord will rise and shine upon us again if we are faithful to obey His commands.

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord shall rise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you. The nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising" (Is. 60:1-3). Amen.

Drag Gospel Festival embraces every identity, supports LGBT refugees

Why Every Church Needs a Drag Queen

By EMMA GREEN

A tattooed, profanity-loving Lutheran pastor believes young people are drawn to Jesus, tradition, and brokenness.

“When Christians really critique me for using salty language, I literally don’t give a shit.”

This is what it’s like to talk to Nadia Bolz-Weber, the tattooed Lutheran pastor, former addict, and head of a Denver church that’s 250 members strong. She’s frank and charming, and yes, she tends to cuss—colorful words pepper her new book, Accidental Saints. But she also doesn’t put a lot of stock in her own schtick.

“Oh, here’s this tattooed pastor who is a recovering alcoholic who used to be a stand-up comic—that’s interesting for like five minutes,” she said. “The fact that people want to hear from me—that, I really feel, has less to do with me and more to do with a Zeitgeist issue.”

America’s church-y “Zeitgeist issues” are many, including the alleged decline of religion; the seeming lacklusterness of mainline Protestantism; and the backlash against religious institutions that have themselves sinned, against children or LGBT folks or those who gave their money to support ministry. But Bolz-Weber was referring to something simpler, and more pervasive—to use her word, “bullshit.”

“I have this hunch that people really find Jesus compelling, and they see what Christianity really could be. But what they see instead, so often, is an institution that tries to protect itself and promote itself,” she said. “I think they want to have a place where they can speak the actual truth about themselves in the world and they don’t have to pretend.”

As a performative pastor, Bolz-Weber might seem New Age, but her ministry is actually focused on something old school: sin. It’s a somewhat surprising bent for a mainline pastor—and a thought-provoking model for churches that have been bleeding young people for more than a decade.

* * *

“Sometimes I can be an asshole, but it’s almost as though I can hear Jesus saying”—here, Bolz-Weber cleared her throat a little and moved her voice one half-step lower, perhaps trying to imitate bro-Jesus—“‘uh, that’s okay, it’s not that I, like, love you and claim you despite that. I love you and claim you because of that.’”

Perfectionism is deeply embedded in American Christianity. The Puritans performed piety in hopes of being part of God’s chosen elect, and their efforts were followed by three centuries of purity balls and pushes for temperance and church culture that revels in polish. At the church she planted in 2008, The House for All Sinners and Saints, Bolz-Weber has upended many stereotypes about Christianity; the church is open to gays and lesbians and atheists alike. But she’s especially committed to defying the assumption that church is for people who have it together.

“We have this socially progressive church, all these queer people, everyone’s welcome,” she said. “And you know what we have in our liturgy every Sunday? Confession and absolution. Let us confess that God is God and we are not.”

The cast of real-life sinners she describes in her book are diverse: the Sandy Hook shooter, kids who committed suicide, a grieving pastor who drank a little too much and accidentally killed a woman with his car. These are the sins of life and death; it’s easy to look at people like this and feel judgmental. But Bolz-Weber counts herself among them; her sins are of a different scale, but she names them with equal parts relish and remorse. In her theology, just as Adam Lanza needs forgiveness, so does she.

“I don’t want to be in bondage to the fact that I can be an asshole,” she said. “So for me, the best path toward some sort of freedom from being absolutely bound to it is to admit that I need grace.”

“If you don’t have a drag queen in your congregation, you should get one.”

In no sense has Bolz-Weber claimed to reinvent Christianity, magically discovering the secret of sin and forgiveness that’s preached endlessly in the Bible. For her, it’s more that this idea is often obscured in delivery.

“There’s a cultural wrapping around a lot of mainline Protestantism where the church has confused the gifts and the wrapping,” she said. “The sort of slight formality and nicey-nice chit-chat and dressing up a little and not going too deep, but just being nice, good people who do some volunteer hours.”

Even though she’s part of a progressive, mainline Lutheran denomination, with this particular jab, Bolz-Weber sounds a lot like many American conservatives and evangelicals. Mainline Protestantism is dying, it’s sometimes said, for exactly this reason: It’s Christian identity, not Christian theology. But both mainline and evangelical traditions have reason to worry about losing Millennials, she said. Young people are “either passively consuming a mediocre rock concert”—as in the amphitheater environs of most American megachurches—“or passively consuming a formal liturgy, instead of being a community of creators.”

Her solution is a combination of new and old. She encourages active member participation in church services and the creation of new rituals, like baking cookies in honor of saints. She’s also deeply invested in tradition, using a liturgy she says is orthodox. It’s an unusual mix: a stated commitment to socially progressive values, and a stated commitment to tradition. But perhaps this misconception—that progressive values and traditional worship can’t mix—is one reason why some Americans have felt like they don’t have a place at church.

“For the population I serve, I sense that there’s a lot of chaos in people’s lives,” Bolz-Weber said. “The liturgy runs so deep, and is so unchanging ... that it’s a comfort to have that one thing that’s regular and predictable every Sunday in their lives. It’s language that generations of the faithful have worn smooth through their own prayer.”

“On the front, it’ll say: ‘This shit ain’t free.’ And on the back, it’ll say: ‘You better tithe, bitches.’”

It may also be that this act of church reinvention is necessary because of the sins of churches past. Bolz-Weber says most of the people she serves are people who have fallen away from Christianity for one reason or another; for example, roughly a third of her congregation is gay, lesbian, or transgender. But there are joys to be found in recovering lost souls.

“If you don’t have a drag queen in your congregation, you should get one,” Bolz-Weber said. One such man in her congregation was working with her on soliciting donations, she said, “And he goes, ‘Well we should make a T-shirt.’ And he goes, ‘On the front, it’ll say: This shit ain’t free. And on the back, it’ll say: You better tithe, bitches.’ Oh my God, it just makes church better.”

Ultimately, that’s what Bolz-Weber is trying to do: make church better, with the caveat that church is a place for humans, and humans are sinful. As the drag queen from Bolz-Weber’s church might say: You better repent, bitches.

_________________________________________________________________________

As the drag queen from Bolz-Weber’s church might say: "Christians Are Leaving Jesus in Droves"

Sources: 

1. http://www.charismanews.com

2: http://www.theatlantic.com

3: Special thanks to Carmen Welker of Refiners Fire Reality Check, Alaska Thunderfuck and Serenity Jones. Happy Halloween Girls

4: http://www.buzzfeed.com/christianzamora/fierce-drag-queen-transformations-thatll-blow-your-wig-of#.wwR7J92WE

Pat Robertson On Transgender: "a refreshing change of pace."

Pat Robertson On Transgender Community: 'I Don't Think There's Any Sin Associated With That'

Pat Robertson has said a lot of shocking things, but his latest comment about the transgender community might be the most surprising yet.

The 83-year-old televangelist sat down on Sunday for the "Bring It Online" advice portion of his Christian Broadcasting Network show, "The 700 Club." A viewer named David wrote in asking how he should refer to two transgender femaleswho work in his office and have legally changed their genders. Instead of criticizing the trans individuals, Robertson approached the situation in a seemingly level-headed manner.

"I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that."

He went on to say he would "question the validity" of someone who just says, "Well I'm really a woman" because you "don't count somebody as female unless they really are, or male unless they really are."

When his co-host said the viewer doesn't know the intentions or medical history of his co-workers, Robertson rebutted, "It's not for you to decide or to judge."

The remarks from Robertson -- who has ranted about gays, Muslims and demons in Goodwill sweaters -- were applauded by various blogs.

ThinkProgress called his statement a "refreshing change of pace." Back 2 Stonewall joked that the comments might push anti-gay American Family Association host Bryan Fischer even "deeper into the end of the insanity pool." America Blog called it a "huge deal."

"Robertson’s statement is, at its core, sympathetic," wrote America Blog's John Aravosis. "And regardless of how flawed the rest of his quote is ... these are the kind of positive statements that help a movement move forward, especially one that is less known to the public than, for example, being gay. Say what you will about Robertson, but this quote is very helpful."

Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme

by  Paul McHugh

The idea that one’s sex is a feeling, not a fact, has permeated our culture and is leaving casualties in its wake. Gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy, not surgery.

For forty years as the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School—twenty-six of which were also spent as Psychiatrist in Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital—I’ve been studying people who claim to be transgender. Over that time, I’ve watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways.

A rare issue of a few men—both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they were erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women—has spread to include women as well as men. Even young boys and girls have begun to present themselves as of the opposite sex. Over the last ten or fifteen years, this phenomenon has increased in prevalence, seemingly exponentially. Now, almost everyone has heard of or met such a person.

Publicity, especially from early examples such as “Christine” Jorgenson, “Jan” Morris, and “Renee” Richards, has promoted the idea that one’s biological sex is a choice, leading to widespread cultural acceptance of the concept. And, that idea, quickly accepted in the 1980s, has since run through the American public like a revelation or “meme” affecting much of our thought about sex.

The champions of this meme, encouraged by their alliance with the broader LGBT movement, claim that whether you are a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, is more of a disposition or feeling about yourself than a fact of nature. And, much like any other feeling, it can change at any time, and for all sorts of reasons. Therefore, no one could predict who would swap this fact of their makeup, nor could one justifiably criticize such a decision.

At Johns Hopkins, after pioneering sex-change surgery, we demonstrated that the practice brought no important benefits. As a result, we stopped offering that form of treatment in the 1970s. Our efforts, though, had little influence on the emergence of this new idea about sex, or upon the expansion of the number of “transgendered” among young and old.

Olympic Athlete Turned "Pin-Up" Girl

This history may clarify some aspects of the latest high-profile transgender claimant. Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion, is turning away from his titular identity as one of the “world’s greatest male athletes.” Jenner announced recently that he “identifies as a woman” and, with medical and surgical help, is busy reconstructing his physique.

I have not met or examined Jenner, but his behavior resembles that of some of the transgender males we have studied over the years. These men wanted to display themselves in sexy ways, wearing provocative female garb. More often than not, while claiming to be a woman in a man’s body, they declared themselves to be “lesbians” (attracted to other women). The photograph of the posed, corseted, breast-boosted Bruce Jenner (a man in his mid-sixties, but flaunting himself as if a “pin-up” girl in her twenties or thirties) on the cover ofVanity Fair suggests that he may fit the behavioral mold that Ray Blanchard has dubbed an expression of “autogynephilia”—from gynephilia (attracted to women) and auto (in the form of oneself).

The Emperor’s New Clothes

But the meme—that your sex is a feeling, not a biological fact, and can change at any time—marches on through our society. In a way, it’s reminiscent of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. In that tale, the Emperor, believing that he wore an outfit of special beauty imperceptible to the rude or uncultured, paraded naked through his town to the huzzahs of courtiers and citizens anxious about their reputations. Many onlookers to the contemporary transgender parade, knowing that a disfavored opinion is worse than bad taste today, similarly fear to identify it as a misapprehension.

I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real. I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims. Think, for example, of the parents whom no one—not doctors, schools, nor even churches—will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald. These youngsters now far outnumber the Bruce Jenner type of transgender. Although they may be encouraged by his public reception, these children generally come to their ideas about their sex not through erotic interests but through a variety of youthful psychosocial conflicts and concerns.

First, though, let us address the basic assumption of the contemporary parade: the idea that exchange of one’s sex is possible. It, like the storied Emperor, is starkly, nakedly false. Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they “identify.” In that lies their problematic future.

When “the tumult and shouting dies,” it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over thirty years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers.

How to Treat Gender Dysphoria

So how should we make sense of this matter today? As with any mental phenomenon, what’s crucial is noting its fundamental characteristic and then identifying the many ways in which that characteristic can manifest itself.

The central issue with all transgender subjects is one of assumption—the assumption that one’s sexual nature is misaligned with one’s biological sex. This problematic assumption comes about in several different ways, and these distinctions in its generation determine how to manage and treat it.

Based on the photographic evidence one might guess Bruce Jenner falls into the group of men who come to their disordered assumption through being sexually aroused by the image of themselves as women. He could have been treated for this misaligned arousal with psychotherapy and medication. Instead, he found his way to surgeons who worked him over as he wished. Others have already commented on his stereotypic caricature of women as decorative “babes” (“I look forward to wearing nail polish until it chips off,” he said to Diane Sawyer)—a view that understandably infuriates feminists—and his odd sense that only feelings, not facts, matter here.

For his sake, however, I do hope that he receives regular, attentive follow-up care, as his psychological serenity in the future is doubtful. Future men with similar feelings and intentions should be treated for those feelings rather than being encouraged to undergo bodily changes. Group therapies are now available for them.

Most young boys and girls who come seeking sex-reassignment are utterly different from Jenner. They have no erotic interest driving their quest. Rather, they come with psychosocial issues—conflicts over the prospects, expectations, and roles that they sense are attached to their given sex—and presume that sex-reassignment will ease or resolve them.

The grim fact is that most of these youngsters do not find therapists willing to assess and guide them in ways that permit them to work out their conflicts and correct their assumptions. Rather, they and their families find only “gender counselors” who encourage them in their sexual misassumptions.

Those with Gender Dysphoria Need Evidence-Based Care

There are several reasons for this absence of coherence in our mental health system. Important among them is the fact that both the state and federal governments are actively seeking to block any treatments that can be construed as challenging the assumptions and choices of transgendered youngsters. “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Obama.

In two states, a doctor who would look into the psychological history of a transgendered boy or girl in search of a resolvable conflict could lose his or her license to practice medicine. By contrast, such a physician would not be penalized if he or she started such a patient on hormones that would block puberty and might stunt growth.

What is needed now is public clamor for coherent science—biological and therapeutic science—examining the real effects of these efforts to “support” transgendering. Although much is made of a rare “intersex” individual, no evidence supports the claim that people such as Bruce Jenner have a biological source for their transgender assumptions. Plenty of evidence demonstrates that with him and most others, transgendering is a psychological rather than a biological matter.

In fact, gender dysphoria—the official psychiatric term for feeling oneself to be of the opposite sex—belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body, such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Its treatment should not be directed at the body as with surgery and hormones any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction. The treatment should strive to correct the false, problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psychosocial conflicts provoking it. With youngsters, this is best done in family therapy.

The larger issue is the meme itself. The idea that one’s sex is fluid and a matter open to choice runs unquestioned through our culture and is reflected everywhere in the media, the theater, the classroom, and in many medical clinics. It has taken on cult-like features: its own special lingo, internet chat rooms providing slick answers to new recruits, and clubs for easy access to dresses and styles supporting the sex change. It is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges.

But gird your loins if you would confront this matter. Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.

Paul McHugh, MD, is University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is the author of The Mind Has Mountains: Reflections on Society and Psychiatry.

Source: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/06/15145/

While we're on the subject of sins (Thanks Pat) care to guess what sins are the worst? 
(You may be surprised if your Christian)

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