Good News from All Over - July 2024

Worldwide United Methodists have been bleeding members over their acceptance of same-sex marriage and homosexual clergy. In fact, it has now turned into a hemorrhage. A regional body of nearly 1,000,000 members in West Africa recently voted in one block to exit the denomination.

This is in addition to approximately 7500 other congregations who have opted out to join a new organization, called the Global Methodist Church. The GMC has taken a largely biblical stance against the global homosexual steamroller. Other regional UMC bodies in Africa, Europe and Central Asia are also considering whether to exit.

Parts of Africa have governments that have maintained the laws forbidding same-sex marriage. Over 50 countries worldwide still have laws on the books outlawing homosexual behavior. Half of those are in Africa. Some of them carry brutal penalties if the country is ruled by Islamic governments.

Many world leaders have bought the lie that this sin must be accepted and celebrated because the Bible teaches “love.” It is encouraging that there is an increasing number of people that take God’s word for what He says instead of twisting it to say what they want to believe.

• • •

Outraged citizens succeeded in stopping a “pride flag raising ceremony” in their Southern California city. For three years, the ceremony had been the launching of Pride Month in Downey, a suburb of Los Angeles. The citizens contacted MassResistance, an international organization of attorneys and activists that stands ready to back citizens resisting government sponsorship of homosexual perversion.

They knew that their effort would not be easy. The mayor and two of the city council members were open homosexuals. But the citizens started by attending city council meetings and speaking out against the official order to fly the rainbow flag. They urged a resolution to adopt a “neutral flag policy” that would only allow government flags to be flown on city property.

They were ignored by the city council who approved the celebration for June of 2023.

In November of 2023, the city had to hold two special elections to replace council members who had left office early. This gave the citizens an opening. They confronted the new candidates for the open positions and found that many agreed that the Pride flag should not be supported by the city. In fact, one went as far has to suggest that the local pride festival should also be canceled.

In the balloting, one pro-family candidate won. Encouraged, they mounted an e-mail campaign and repeatedly called the city council members to demand a neutral flag policy. When they were ignored, they doubled down until they got a response. MassResistance helped them craft a sample ordinance for the city council.

They continued to hammer away in the city council meetings until a neutral flag policy was placed on the agenda. This triggered alarm in the pro-homosexual “community.” In the May 14 council meeting, homosexual activists showed up along with some officials from LA county and the state.

The Downey homosexual mayor made an angry speech calling MassResistance a hate group. He accused Bible readers as hypocrites who harm their children. He said that the rainbow flag should fly to make homosexuals feel welcome.

But the council members didn’t buy his argument and voted three against two to cancel the order to fly the Pride flag.

MassResistance writes: “The group in Downey has stuck together for years and is willing to do what it takes to get good things done. A lot of activity went on (purposely) behind the scenes, which was part of the plan. And they’re not done in Downey. The group sees this as a springboard to even greater achievements there.”

• • •

For several years, major American companies jumped into “Pride month” with both feet. Not so much this year. When parents began to hear about grown men undressing with their daughters in the gym shower, and outrunning them on the 100-yard dash, stealing their trophies, they no longer felt the love for the rainbow merchandise in Target’s display window.

America’s founding fathers established the political power with the people at the ballot box. That birthed a free market where the people could also vote with their money. When the wimpy “transgender” showed up in the Bud Light commercials, Anheuser Busch quickly found out that beer drinkers would have none of it. Their boycott sank the sales twenty five percent and four billion dollars disappeared from company market value.

Many other companies, like Nike, Disney, and Planet Fitness, began to feel the same heat from their outraged customers.

One radical homosexual promoter, the Human Rights Campaign, rates companies on their promotion of rainbow products. They reported that 297 businesses had backed away from pushing the homosexual agenda, losing their “perfect score.”

John F. Kennedy once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

In America, we still have the opportunity to vote in several ways. But one of the most important ways to vote against evil is by heavily salting the gospel into the culture. Gospel tract users have found this to be a very efficient method of doing this.


Products of Interest: