Friday, April 1, 2022

New York Mayor Fires One Of His Appointees Because Of Her Biblical Beliefs..BY MICHAEL BROWN/ASKDRBROWN.ORG APRIL 01, 2022 Share this article:

New York Mayor Fires One Of His Appointees Because Of Her Biblical Beliefs

BY MICHAEL BROWN/ASKDRBROWN.ORG APRIL 01, 2022

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Imagine this scenario with me for a moment. The apostle Paul is alive today and living in New York City. He has just been appointed to the mayor's education policy panel when it is discovered that, in some of his writings, he has referred to homosexual practice as sin. As a result, within hours, he is fired by the mayor.

Does this sound impossible? Outrageous?

Well, it happened last week, not to Paul but to a female, black pastor. I kid you not.

To give the background, New York City mayor Eric Adams was already under fire for hiring "three people with histories of homophobic views and statements." (In other words, they were Christians who agreed with the Bible.) The three men were appointed by Adams to his Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, and despite pressure from LGBTQ activists, Adams held his ground.

They were political allies, and, in their words, their beliefs did not stop them from loving all people.

But when Adams learned that Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne, who leads Staten Island's Reach Out and Touch Ministries and was appointed to serve on Adams's education policy panel, had expressed her disagreement with homosexual practice in writing (in other words, she was a Christian who agreed with the Bible), he dismissed her on the spot.

As reported in the New York Daily News, Barrett-Layne is a "Staten Island pastor who once equated homosexuality to pedophilia" with an "anti-gay track record," also referencing her "homophobic screeds."

As reported in the New York Times, she "had written a book that called homosexuality a sin.

"In the book, Ms. Barrett-Layne, a pastor from Staten Island, equated homosexuality to pedophilia, stealing and lying."

Somehow, Mayor Adams explained, his team had failed to discover her transgressions during the vetting process. But as soon as he learned about her writings, he immediately dismissed her.

What, exactly, did Rev. Barrett-Layne do? What did she write that was so terrible and ugly? What was the nature of her "homophobic screeds"?

In her book Challenging Your Disappointments As Appointments With Destiny, she wrote about the challenges facing young people in prison, stating, "They live in the grip of fornicating homosexual lifestyles with the risk of being infected with the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases."

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This, of course, is true. There is much more homosexual activity, both consensual and non-consensual, among males in prison then among males outside of prison. And, in such circumstances, the risk of being infected with AIDS or other STD's is very high.

These may be inconvenient truths, but they are truths nonetheless.

What about equating homosexuality with pedophilia?

Here's what she actually wrote in the same book: Christian leaders struggle with the "same temptations of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pornography, pedophilia, stealing, lying, envy, covetousness, and every other sin that the congregation struggle with."

In other words, whatever your average Christian struggles with - namely, every sin in the book -Christian leaders struggle with them too.

But was she equating homosexuality with pedophilia? Obviously not - that is, no more than she was equating lying with pedophilia, or envy with pedophilia, or "every other sin" with pedophilia.

Her grave transgression was that she simply stated that homosexual practice was a sin. In other words, she agreed with the Bible. She affirmed what Christians have taught for two millennia. She wrote what Paul (and others) wrote in the pages of Scripture.

For this, she was promptly dismissed.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time something like this has happened. Just search for names like Crystal Dixon and Kelvin Cochran and Frank Turek.

This type of anti-Christian discrimination has been taking place for well over a decade now.

"But," you might ask, "isn't there more to Barrett-Layne's story? After all, she's been called a 'hate pastor.' Surely there's something else she did."

Actually, you're right. There's one more instance I didn't share yet.

As reported by the Daily News and various LGBTQ websites, "In her 2004 book When your Mess Becomes the Message, Barrett-Layne said that her child told her 'she was a boy' when the kid was three-years-old after the child was in the same room as a lesbian. She wrote that she and her husband 'began to militantly and violently pray for, with and over our daughter.'

'We prayed against every spirit that was not of God, including the spirit of homosexuality,' she wrote. 'At the end of that prayer, my daughter asked me if she was a girl. When I told her yes, she happily began to sing and rejoice about being mommy and daddy's little girl. To tell you this was one of the most frightening experiences I had with my little girl is an understatement.'"

And for this, Barrett-Layne was fired? This was what makes her a "hate pastor"? Seriously?

When her child became confused about her sex after overhearing a counseling session that Rev. Barrett-Layne had with a lesbian, the concerned parents began to pray fervently for her, coming against "every spirit that was not of God, including the spirit of homosexuality."

After this, the haze of confusion lifted off their daughter, and things went back to normal. Thank God!

The only thing that troubles me in this account is that the little girl overheard the counseling session. Other than that, these parents did what many other Christian parents would do if their child, barely older than a toddler, suddenly questioned her sex. They prayed with real passion and intensity.

All this, however, was too much for Mayor Adams and his team.

God forbid they should allow yet another Bible-believing Christian to darken the doors of their administration. This was a step too far.

For her part, Rev. Barrett-Layne stated that she feels bullied and that she is considering legal action.

Let's hope she decides to take a stand. This anti-Christian discrimination must be confronted head on, without compromise or capitulation.

Rev. Barrett-Layne, we're standing with you.

Originally published at AskDrBrown.org - reposted with permission.

Blinken's Obscene Western Progressive Agenda Puts Israel At Risk...BY MELANIE PHILLIPS/JNS.ORG APRIL 01, 2022 Share this article:

Blinken's Obscene Western Progressive Agenda Puts Israel At Risk

BY MELANIE PHILLIPS/JNS.ORG APRIL 01, 2022

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When an Arab terrorist murdered five Israelis in Bnei Brak this week by opening fire indiscriminately with an M-16 rifle, Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip and the "West Bank" handed out sweets in celebration and held jubilant rallies.

It made no difference to them that one of the five victims, police officer Amir Khoury, was an Israeli Arab who was gunned down as he shot the terrorist dead. Palestinian Arabs celebrate with sweets and fireworks whenever they murder Jews.

This was the third such deadly terrorist attack in eight days, leaving a total of 11 Israelis dead. Once more, Israeli families have been left devastated and grieving after attacks perpetrated against them simply because they are Israelis.

At the Negev Summit held earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the unprecedented peace agreements between Israel and the Arab world that have followed the historic Abraham Accords "are not a substitute for progress between Palestinians and Israelis."

What did Blinken mean by "progress"? Did he perhaps mean that the Palestinian Arabs must stop killing Israelis?

Did he mean they must cast aside the mindset that causes them to celebrate wildly whenever Jews are murdered? Did he mean that the Palestinian Authority must abandon teaching its children to murder Jews and steal Israeli land?

No, Blinken did not mean this. By "progress," he meant Israeli concessions.

Although he issued a condemnation of the Bnei Brak atrocity within hours of its taking place, he made no acknowledgment that the sole reason for such attacks is that the Palestinians, backed by Muslim regimes such as the rulers of Iran, want Israel annihilated.

He omitted to acknowledge that the war against Israel is driven by profound anti-Semitism and religious fanaticism. At a press conference before the Negev Summit began, he failed to acknowledge that the people responsible for the absence of a Palestinian state are not the Israelis, who have repeatedly agreed to it, but the Palestinian Arabs themselves, who have refused such a state alongside Israel for the best part of a century.

Instead, he put most of the blame for the lack of progress on Israel. Peace should be promoted, he said, through "working to prevent actions on all sides that could raise tensions, including settlement expansion, settler violence, incitement to violence, demolitions, payments to individuals convicted of terrorism, evictions of families from homes they've lived in for decades."

Coming in the midst of the past week's atrocities against Israelis, Blinken's remarks were obscene.

"Settlement expansion" only increases tensions because people like Blinken make this so by continuing to perpetuate the lie that Israelis have stolen "Palestinian" land in the disputed territories. The truth is that they are the only people with a legal and historical right to be there.

"Settler violence," although reprehensible, is minuscule compared with the countless, daily and never-ending attacks or attempted attacks on Israelis--the vast majority of which go entirely unreported in America and Britain.

The Arab "evictions" from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shimon HaTzadik (also known as Sheikh Jarrah) were nothing other than a dispute over non-payment of rent, grossly misrepresented by Blinken and his ilk as a form of ethnic cleansing.

By lumping in Palestinian incitement and rewards to terrorist families along with these criticisms of Israel, Blinken erased the distinction between Israeli rights and Palestinian Arab attempts to erase those rights. And by claiming that his distorted and misleading list of alleged Israeli offenses was blocking "progress," he effectively blamed Israel for its own victimization.

This inversion of Arab aggressors and Israeli victims is typical of Western liberal Israel-bashers who resolutely refuse to acknowledge the bigotry, savagery and lies among the "Palestinians" whose cause they promote.

After pressure from Israel's defense minister Benny Gantz, P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas issued a rare condemnation of the Bnei Brak attacks. This gesture was worthless. The terrorist was reportedly affiliated with the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the "military wing" of Abbas's Fatah faction.

Abbas himself persistently glorifies as "martyrs" those who murder Israelis. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, when three Fatah terrorists were killed in confrontations with Israel recently, Abbas himself openly called on Palestinians to murder Israelis--to "dish out to them twice as much as we've received."

The fact that Fatah's Jenin branch repeated Abbas's exact term in its social-media post glorifying the Bnei Brak terrorist made clear that the movement saw the attacks as answering Abbas's call.

Yet Abbas is the individual with whom Blinken is pressuring Israel to make "progress" through concessions.

Israel is currently enduring reportedly the deadliest wave of violence since 2006. With Ramadan coming up, there are concerns that this wave will further accelerate--and the deepest anxiety is that this will involve not just "Palestinian" terrorists but also Israeli Arabs.

The attacks over the past few days in Hadera and Beersheva, in which six Israelis were murdered, were perpetrated by three Israeli Arabs with connections to Islamic State. This week, there were rock attacks on Israelis and a stabbing on a bus, following two previous stabbings in both eastern and west Jerusalem. And the country was severely shaken by Arab riots in hitherto calm mixed communities last May.

Effi Eitam, a retired brigadier-general in the Israel Defense Forces and former housing minister, warned this week that Israel is currently facing a violent, Islamic-nationalist uprising among Arab Israelis, whose ultimate goal is to dismantle the Jewish state.

Speaking on Army Radio about the hundreds of thousands of weapons stolen from IDF bases and police stations over the last decade, he said: "The Arab sector is building a military force against the state. Israeli Arabs are becoming a separatist population."

The main reason is that, while many Israeli Arabs have been steadily becoming more educated, prosperous and assimilated, there have also been systematic attempts to radicalize them by Hamas, the P.A., Isis and Iran.

Even more significant is their belief that final victory over the Jews is now within their grasp. These attacks are being fueled by an exultant fervor that the United States is in retreat and, by its craven submission to Iran, is surrendering to Islam.

This plays into the strand of apocalyptic Islamic messianism promoted by Islamic preachers whipping up expectations that the weakness of America and the resulting likely victory over the Jews means that the end of days is imminent.

Blinken assumes that the "Palestinian" cause is one that needs addressing in order to achieve progress towards peace. On the contrary--since the "Palestinian" cause is nothing other than the extermination of Israel, the only way to achieve peace is to sideline that cause altogether. Insisting on making "progress" with it is tantamount to insisting upon progress in achieving the destruction of Israel.

Contrary to Blinken's words, the Abraham Accords were indeed a crucial substitute for that cause. The alliance makes true progress in ending the war against Israel's existence by abandoning the people who continue to wage that war.

Yet the Biden administration regards the alliance between Israel and its new Arab allies as an impediment to the actual progress it so incomprehensibly desires--to empower Iran.

While Israel and its Arab allies understand that the Iranian regime poses a mortal threat to themselves that must be defeated, Blinken and the rest of the Biden team are desperate for an agreement which will enable Tehran to develop nuclear weapons within a short space of time and which will funnel into its coffers tens of billions of dollars to fund its infernal activities.

What Blinken demonstrated in the Negev was what it currently means to be a Western progressive. It means supporting people who murder Israelis and empowering others who want to wipe out Israel--while spouting liberal pieties out of the other side of their mouths.

Originally published at JNS.org - reposted with permission.

Biden's Anti-Israel Ambassador Wants Jews Out Of Jerusalem The anti-Israel establishment controls the Democrats. Any ambassador to Israel is going to be vetted by them. Nides wasn't picked by Biden, he was picked by anti-Israel hate groups. His job isn't to build relations with Israel, but with its haters.

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New York Mayor Fires One Of His Appointees Because Of Her Biblical Beliefs

Blinken's Obscene Western Progressive Agenda Puts Israel At Risk

Biden's Anti-Israel Ambassador Wants Jews Out Of Jerusalem

The anti-Israel establishment controls the Democrats. Any ambassador to Israel is going to be vetted by them. Nides wasn't picked by Biden, he was picked by anti-Israel hate groups. His job isn't to build relations with Israel, but with its haters. Tom Nides is not the ambassador to Israel. He's the ambassador to the anti-Israel lobby.

With Russia occupied in Ukraine, an invasion of Israel seems like the last thing that could happen anytime soon... or is it? Will the current conflict bring us even closer to a great battle that is described in the book of Ezekiel from over 2,000 years ago? Learn more about this prophesied battle and how it could change our world.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DVD TRAILER AND TO LEARN MORE

Hebrews 11:5-6 (5) By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (6) But without faith it is impossible to please Him,

(5) By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

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Hebrews 11:5-6

(5) By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (6) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
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The author writes, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him." Despite this plain statement, many through the ages have attempted to do so through mere religiosity. Cain is the Bible's first example of this. Nothing in Scripture indicates that he was not religious. Genesis 4:3 shows that he and Abel met with God at a set time, giving the sense of an occasion previously appointed and agreed upon. Cain is a type of the typical worldly religious person. He has God somewhat in mind, but he does not believe God really means all that He says. He chooses what he will believe, revealing the major, unbridgeable gaps in his faith.

Below are fourteen biblical statements on faith's importance. All of them apply during the sanctification period of a Christian's life:

» Romans 5:1-2 says that faith gains a person acceptance before God.
» Romans 4:20 declares that faith glorifies God.
» Hebrews 11:6 reveals that faith pleases God, and He will reward it.
» Isaiah 38:3 states that faith is expressed in humble and loyal sincerity.
» Ephesians 2:8 announces that by grace through faith a convicted and repentant sinner is saved.
» Ephesians 3:17 affirms that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.
» Galatians 2:20 proclaims that we live by faith.
» Romans 11:20 asserts that we stand before God by faith.
» II Corinthians 5:7 confirms that we walk by faith.
» I Peter 5:8-9 shows that we can successfully resist Satan by faith.
» Acts 26:18 establishes that we are experientially sanctified by faith.
» Ephesians 3:11-12 insists that by faith we have boldness to access God.
» I Timothy 6:12 explains that faith sustains us to fight the good fight.
» I John 5:4 demonstrates that we can overcome the world by faith.

The overall lesson of Enoch's life is that, as important as it is, justification is merely a beginning—it is another thing altogether to continue living by faith. The sanctification period and the costs of being a living sacrifice to God drive human nature to devise theological lies like the "Eternal Security" doctrine, also known as "once saved, always saved."

Enoch literally lived a life in which the central issue, its driving force, was his faith in God. Looking at this entirely spiritually, a truth that is important to humility emerges. Just as Enoch's physical translation from one geographical area to another was supernatural, so was his spiritual translation from a carnal, earthy, self-centered person to a God/Christ/Kingdom of God-centered person.

The Bible shows that the heart is the source of our motivations (Matthew 15:17-20). For our hearts to function by faith, we need what God makes possible only through His calling: Our hearts must change. The Bible refers to this as "circumcision made without hands." Living by faith is what pleases God. However, we can have that faith only when God supernaturally translates us into the beginning stages of His realm of living, called in the Bible "eternal life."

— John W. Ritenbaugh

To learn more, see:
The Christian Fight (Part Five)