How LGBT Activists Infiltrate Christian Institutions | Jojo Ruba

Jonathon interviews Jojo Ruba from Redeeming Conversations to explore how the LGBT movement has influenced Christian institutions. They delve into Jojo's personal story, his undercover work at pro-LGBT Christian conferences, the strategies used by Christian LGBT activists, and offer practical steps for Christians to uphold their beliefs.

Transcript

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Number one, establish a beachhead, claiming that there's a variety of different theological views that are legitimate on same sex sexuality and gender identity. Secondly, convert and evangelize people once you're within the institution, using the phrases "love is love" and being a "welcoming community." And thirdly, once you fire everyone who is resistant or convert people to your position, then you declare your organization or denomination pro LGBT. Okay. We have with us today, Jojo Ruba of Redeeming Conversations. Jojo, maybe just to start off before we get into how the LGBT movement hijacks Christian institutions, tell us a bit about yourself and in particular, what gives you expertise in this topic and some of the undercover journalism you've done. Well, you know, I'm one of those reluctant advocates on this issue. As you know, we, uh, I'm very passionate about pro life, very passionate about apologetics and defending a biblical worldview. Did not really want to talk about LGBT questions. That's not really the area that I wanted to, to talk about. And we've had conversations in the past that for, for many Christians, this is a losing issue politically. And so we don't really want to engage. But when conversion therapy was being banned in Canada, starting in Alberta, where I live now, uh, I had to speak up and that's because conversion therapy was defined so broadly it would include the kind of Christian counseling that would help reduce even unwanted sexual behavior by consenting adults. And that's baked in right in the wording of the legislation. And the problem with that was that's the kind of counseling I received when I was in university. Uh, part of my story was, I was part of a Bible study group and I was leading the Bible study group. And like many university students started to fall in love with one of the members of the Bible study group. But the problem was it was a men's Bible study group. And so I went to the Christian woman who ran the Christian club I was part of and asked her for help. And she gave me and jotted down the phone number of a local Christian counselor where we went to university and that counselor wasn't perfect by any means, but he helped really save my faith. Helped me understand what my life is about and, and really help me understand that sexuality, sexual attractions are things that you have. They are not things that you are. And that was the message I brought to my city council and eventually the parliament of Canada saying, look, you, you can't ban people from behaving the way they want to. And especially if I'm a, as Christians, we have a right to practice our faith. Even those of us who have same sex attractions have a right not to act on those same sex attractions and get the support that we need. And so the legislation passed despite that. But one thing that's important, it's been two and a half years now, Jonathon, your, your listeners and viewers need to understand the legislation that's passed in Canada would put counselors like the one I went to in jail for five years. But not one person has been charged under the law or convicted, which means this law was always meant to be, um, one that causes a deep fear in the Christian community, a chill effect. And so, so many people have now censored themselves. And now people like myself and especially young people who want to, who transition, but who are seeking Christian counsel to maybe not transition. Even as young as seven years old are not allowed to get that kind of support. And we have such draconian legislation it's probably the worst in the world. And I've looked at over 80 definitions around the world. So from a biblical worldview, I think we have to recognize that this debate on sexual identity and gender confusion is probably the defining uh, debate in our generation, and it affects everything from economics to psychology to political world and especially theology. And I think that's where we're heading here, which is why our ministry exists, redeeming conversations, trains Christians to have those kinds of conversations from a biblical worldview that are winsome, that are effective, but also truthful. And, and we can do all three without compromising what the Bible teaches because we truly believe that the message of the gospel, even for the LGBTQ community, is not just relevant, it's lifesaving. And so we have to defend that message for the sake of those identified in the gay community. That's really interesting the way you frame that, because I worked with you in pro life apologetics, uh, years ago. You spent a decade working, um, in pro life apologetics discussing that issue, uh, on university campuses. You also worked, um, in Christian apologetics writ large, sort of on the side, uh, giving talks on the case, the case for the resurrection, the case for Chris, uh, Christmas, all of these different apologetic angles. You helped create a course that looked at all these major worldview issues. And I remember noticing, um, about 10 years ago that all of these apologetics issues that I'd gotten interested in, many of which I'd gotten interested in through, through actually being friends with you, going to a conference you used to host in Calgary, um, every year were not the issues that we thought that actually ended up being the primary cultural battlegrounds. And in university, if you'd asked me, you know, what's, what's the major apologetic battleground, it would have been the historicity of the resurrection or one of these issues. But the reality is that the key battleground turns out not to be to be the apologetics field you worked in for most of your life, but the apologetics field that you're working in now. For those who are kind of caught off guard by this or spent 30 years in apologetics and are now realizing that a lot of the cases they're trained to make aren't as relevant as they thought they would be. How do you explain the shift away from traditional apologetics to cultural apologetics and primarily pelvic issues? I like how you phrased that. It ultimately goes back to the first sin of humanity. Adam and Eve, being told by Satan that they can know good and evil apart from God. And that's exactly what they're doing here. Not only that, today we can say we can define our own biology apart from God, or gender identity apart from God. So, so the elements are still there. It's still foundational worldview issues, Jonathon, in terms of, can we, trust God's design, or can we make our up, make up our own? Do we, we make up our own morality, which many so called Christians are doing when it comes to how they read the Bible on sexuality? Or do we trust that every one of God's commands are good? So to answer your question, I think what's, what's happened is all of these arguments, all of these ideas on apologetics are still there. But it's evolved so much more to, to such an act of rebellion. If I could use that phrase, where we can look at the face of God's good design and say, we know better than you. Which is exactly what's happening here, both theologically, we have, uh, progressive theologians that I'm dealing with, uh, in the Christian school system, in the university, Christian university system, who, who want to be able to redefine what the Bible teaches on this issue and not realize, and this is where it comes back to apologetics. That by doing that on sexuality and gender, you actually can do that, you're empowering yourself to do that on every other issue the Bible teaches, whether it's on salvation or high Christology, or even just trusting whether the Bible is authoritative. And that's, again, the very same lie, it's just manifest through this. And I think the, the culture that we're in was never a culture that rejected truth, even though they claim to be relativistic, which is one of the key arguments we face on the abortion debate. We can decide child is a human being or not based on our subjective personal opinions. Uh, right. But, but now we're actually at a point where we have a, a new moral majority. In the eighties, there was a Christian group that was moral majority that tried to reinforce Christian values - successfully or not- that that's a, that's historical. But they're taking the same kind of methodology now, but from the left's perspective, where the new moral majority says, you must agree with my gender transition. You must agree with any sexual behavior I have, or else you're an evil person. And you can't participate in the democratic process. Like our, our prime minister seems to allude for us as Christians here in Canada. So we have a situation where it's actually maturing is what's happened. That the, the worldview that they have is maturing, uh, to the point where they're in open rebellion against God's design on biology, which means, and which flows to the idea that if you are against their moral majority, you must be evil and must be censored or stopped or banned, which is what a lot of the legislation when it comes to, uh, the internet regulations, when it comes to the conversion therapy, that's where we're headed. So I think a lot of our listeners will be familiar with the totalitarian instincts of the LGBT movement, but one of the things I really wanted to discuss with you that you and I have discussed before is something that a lot of Christians are are grappling to understand, which is the extent to which the LGBT activists have infiltrated Christian institutions. Now, this isn't particularly recent, but it is spreading very, very quickly. So there's a church, you know, 20 minutes from here, that's flying a big pride flag right now. Not particularly surprising. Um, the United churches in Canada have been flying the flag flag for almost as long as it's existed. The same thing would be true for the Episcopalians in the United States. A lot of the mainline Protestant denominations caved on every significant issue of the sexual revolution in a matter of decades. And of course, uh, something similar has happened to a lot of the, the so called Christian schools and Christian colleges. It's more controversial now for a Catholic school in the greater Toronto area, not to fly a pride flag than it is for them to fly one. But now we see a lot of, uh, private Christian schools that are facing enormous battles at the school board level and at the curriculum level on LGBT issues. And a lot of parents took their kids out of public schools and put them in Christian schools to make sure that their children would receive a biblical education and would actually understand, uh, God's good design as you put it. I have quite a number of friends, um, who have spoken to me and said, we sent our kids to a Christian school. And now the fact that the board is debating LGBT ideology is already an enormous moral concession. And that's crazy. And so one of the things that you've been researching, um, as part of your work on this issue and helping Christians have these conversations is you've been looking at how the LGBT movement infiltrates Christian institutions. And this is something I think that's essential for everybody to understand, especially Christians, so that they know how it's unfolding and that there is in fact a plan that's being followed. And so how would you explain how this movement is infiltrating schools with reformed uh, a reformed foundation, uh, conservative small Catholic schools, uh, schools with Evangelical or Pentecostal foundations. How is this happening and how is it happening so quickly? Well, I, I, let me lay out the three steps, but, but I think, and I've, I've just experienced this, you know, I love the reformed community, Jonathon, I'm not just saying that because reformed, but I've never felt such a vitriol from the reformed community as I was when I was at the Edmonton Christian School, uh, recently. And this is, this is going to go up publicly, so I'm not adding anything new here, but they actually voted to disenfranchise 1200 people, uh, because, uh, they voted by absentee ballots and they were conservative. And the majority of the people who were there were progressive, liberal, reformed, Christian people. Some of them called themselves conservative, but they were being used by the LGBTQ community to shut down conservative candidates and vote for progressive reformed candidates, who would argue that one guy has a, on his blog argues that, uh, instead of being right, we should act right. He actually talks like that. And, and no concept of all that believing what is right will help you actually act right. In fact, he, he talked about how Christianity is not about winning. It's not about, um, you know, taking power as he's running as a candidate to take power. Orthopraxy follows orthodoxy. This is one of the, But this is the key. And this is why we cannot give up on good theology. We have to do four critical things. And this is in my new book that's coming out. Hopefully by next year, we can do another interview, uh, on redeeming conversations on LGBTQ conversations. Okay. So that's, that's the theme. There's let me run through those four points clearly. It's first of all, in theology, and then I'll show you how the three steps that those who want to take over an institution are following because these four points are not being followed. Okay, so here's the first thing, and this is the one that always gets Christians caught.

And the first one is: 12:44

"identity is a choice, even though sexuality may not be." And this has been, this is what I said for my own story, that sexual attractions are things that we have. It is not things that we are. And that key truth for me helped me realize I've never had to identify as a gay person. I've never had to identify as a sexual minority. All of those are weird social constructs that were created in the 1840s, 1860s. Anyway, the concept that you could be categorized by a sexual attraction or identity is a modern construct that no one throughout history or very few people throughout history even thought of. Identifying through their sexual attractions. So you have Roman men who are, are particularly wealthy, who would sleep with anyone in their household, male, female, slave or free, but no one would label them gay until the 1860s. And, and the important thing with that is, I mean, it was Freud, it was all those other, other people. But, but the, the whole idea that we now have to pigeonhole people into these immutable categories allows for sexual behavior to now be tolerated because it's part of your identity. And as soon as, you're absolutely right, as soon as Christian institutions start saying, well, how can we welcome our gay community? How can we welcome our lesbian or transgender members? You've now fallen into that trap. And as Christians, we have to say no, instead of asking, how can we love our gay neighbors? The key question we need to ask as Christians is "how do we love our neighbors instead of categorizing people that way? Yes. That means you welcome the trans person in your church. I see reformed churches doing that really well, but here's the point. They come to hear the gospel and not to change the gospel. That that's the key messaging. And that's the same thing with schools. Let's welcome the community, but they have to come and hear the gospel. That's why they're coming here. Not them changing what the school teaches. Second thing, and this is the other problematic tool that they Jonathon. It's "love is love" is a slogan created that has no meaning. But from a biblical perspective, it's Jesus who is love. God is love. And we have to remember that means every way we define love has to match the character of God. And we have to remember God loves us so much that he hates our sin. So the phrase that Augustine, uh, used, uh, uh, Gandhi popularized, to hate the sin, but love the sinner. I think the way we need to live that out as a Christian community is we have to hate the sin because we love the sinner. And hating sin because we love people means we show compassion to the person without having to endorse their bad and harmful behavior, right? And there's all kinds of things we can unpackage with that. But understand this young people today, especially young boys need to understand that they can experience same sex intimacy and friendship with other boys. And it doesn't have to be sexual. It's called filial love. But when you use the phrase, "love is love," what you've actually done is sexualized all loves. And the sad thing about that now, and I catch myself doing it when I see two women walking down the street and they're holding hands or their arms around each other. My first thought is, Oh, are they a lesbian couple? And I have to catch myself. But when I realized, actually, no, it's just an elderly mom walking with her daughter, right? Or two, two really good friends. Why? Because we've sexualized all of those relationships to the point where young people now are struggling. with trying to understand why they, they need this same sex love, but they're being told that the only way to find that same sex love is through sexual relationships. And that's not true. Uh, thirdly, and this is what's so key for young people who are confused with gender, Jonathon, this is, again, what I needed to struggle with, was that masculinity in my case is not a destination that we have to achieve. It is a description God has already given us. And and so whether you're boys or girls what one of the things I teach and encourage Christian Youth groups and pastors and schools to really do is not just have co ed events have single sex events Where every boy and every girl feels welcome, regardless of what their proclivities are. If they're not athletic as a boy, if they're, uh, you know, a tomboy as a girl, right? They can still feel that they're part of that group and encourage that. Have many events like that. Have a godly dad come and speak to the boys to talk about what it's like to be a father, what it's like to be a man, what it's like to love his wife. And then have a godly mom do the same thing for the girls and then switch. Right? Make that something that kids will be protected by and understand that masculinity is something that's already given to them. It's not something they have to search for. And lastly, and this is where it really breaks my heart to see Christians capitulate to this, Jonathon, is that we have to teach the next generation and ourselves that every one of God's commands is good for us. There is not one law, not one command that God in Scripture, uh, has said to His people that wasn't there so that we could be protected, so we could be shielded from sin and evil, so that we could know that God's design is good, not our own design. And once we capitulate that idea, we actually create a situation where we're deciding the morality that's in the Bible, which is what's happening when you have these LGBTQ conversations in churches and schools where they're open to various points of view. They're not trusting God's design. So literally yesterday, I was given information from one of the Christian schools I'm working with, and it's, it's the new curriculum that they're promoting. On LGBTQ questions. And here's the lie that always starts. And this is the first step, by the way, of the three steps of taking over a school. First, they, they argue that there are men, there are many, at least two legitimate Christian perspectives on sexuality. And therefore, we have to take a neutral position and be accommodating because look at all these good denominations that hold these views and they don't agree on sexual, uh, gender identity or gay marriage, same sex marriage. Uh, so we need to have a neutral position as a community because of our multi denominational nature. So this is very, uh, um, much, um, uh, Christian schools that are, are multi denominational that, that makes them vulnerable. But sadly, even in the reformed community, because there are reformed churches here in Calgary that take a pro LGBT position. And and even though they sort of fudge it, they, they, they, uh, say, well, no, we don't, uh, what they're actually doing is they're creating a beachhead for this theology and what's, what's important here. And this is part of the strategy I'll be giving the parents who gave me this information is you have to know your theology. Just like the four points I just mentioned, you have to understand why we believe what we do and why what we believe is actually life-affirming for these kids. So. One of the reasons why they use this strategy is because they don't actually have to examine the quality of the theological debate. So they can say there's good, good scholars like David Gushee, who was a well known scholar in the U. S. who became pro LGBT in his theology. His arguments are still terrible, but because of the cachet of his name and people like him, and I've seen this, they reference these people, they put these in documents that they hand out to parents or to teachers in the community and say, "Look, we have to be respectful of all these views." So let me just say one one step back so people understand here the context of me saying this Well, and the difficulty just to refer to something you just said is a lot of parents are sending their kids to a Christian school because they're not learning it in theology themselves. Right. They're paying a lot of money to send their kids to a private Christian school so that their kids become well-versed in theology. And this is sort of being inverted now where they're being forced to learn theology to instruct the theology instructors, or at least to debate them. Right. And, and, uh, I think what's important here, this strategy that I'm laying out is actually, and has actually been used in churches, denominations, and Christian universities. So it's, it's a well used, uh, play, if I could use a sports term here, uh, that, that, that they've been being, that they've successfully rolled over. Many different denominations from Methodists to Anglicans to Lutherans to Mennonites. And unfortunately, they're eating away at some Reformed churches and denominations too, uh, as well as Baptists and others. So this is not, um, this is not an alien concept. And, and even if they don't do it in a, in a, in a coordinated kind of way, Jonathon, clearly there, there's a game plan that's been laid out. So, uh, about 14 years ago when I just moved to Calgary or so, I actually attended a seminar put on by a group called "Generous Spaciousness" or "Generous Space." And it was run by a woman who had, was from a reformed background who became pro LGBT. This organization used to be called something else when my own friend, uh, uh, Peter was his name, ran the ministry in Ottawa. And at that time, it was radically Christian. It was helping people like myself deal with same sex attractions openly. And it was very, very biblical. When this woman, Wendy took it over, Wendy Gritter is her name. Uh, she made the organization pro LGBT. And she organized a seminar in Calgary that I attended. I still have the notes from this meeting. And if your listeners want those notes, I'd be glad to pass those on. Uh, they can contact me at my, on my ministry. Um, but, but in terms of what happened at that, uh, conference, it was a two day conference. The evening event, they actually, uh, laid out, uh, their, their beliefs, but not their Bible. They didn't want to open up the Bible and open up a Bible debate. She made, she made clear that, again, avoiding the theological quality of the analysis of the quality of the arguments. The next day, which I also attended, was for pastors and church leaders, get this, who wanted to take over their churches or institutions to make them pro LGBTQ. And this, this plan that I'm laying out is exactly the game plan that they laid out at that meeting. Now, Wendy Gritter is also, or at least she was, on the board of the Q Christian Network, the largest gay Christian conference in the United States. I attended one of their conferences with about 2,300 people there. From all over, all kinds of denominations, from the Salvation Army, to the Baptists, to Reformed, to Catholic, and most of them were very young. Most of them wanted to learn these kinds of strategies. And they're implementing these strategies, even if they didn't know it, by pushing the narrative that being same sex attracted means you have, you are now a minority group that needs to be welcomed just like all of the other minority groups, from the disabled, to different racial groups, to men's groups or women's groups or and church has this kind of, um, openness to creating these communities. Again, the problem is having a community based on a sexual attraction is a novice idea and also something that isn't healthy if that sexual attraction is built on a notion that isn't biblical. You shouldn't be creating those kinds of things. If you, if you have a group for people who are visually impaired at church, well, that's not a problem. You're, you're dealing with an issue there, right? But in this case, if you have a group that's supporting same sex sexual activity, you're promoting sinful behavior. So that's a very different thing than having a men's group or women's group. And, and this is why this is key though, because once a church adopts this kind of policy, that, you know, this is a group that we can welcome. We, we begin to ask questions. Well, how do we welcome them? How do we show love to them? And eventually what ends up happening is now you're promoting the sexual behavior as you're promoting the person because the person is the sexual behavior. And that's why this is the very first step we have to nip in the bud as a Christian community. Again, we don't want to be able to have conversations about how we can welcome gay people. We need to have conversations about how we welcome. people. And there's a vast world of difference between the theology of one versus the other. So now though, going back to that first step. There, they come in and they use that word all the time, Jonathon, welcoming. We need to be a welcoming community. We need to be diverse. We need, uh, and another phrase I use, we need theological, do we need to respect the theological diversity on this topic? Well, for goodness sake, there was theological diversity at the time of, uh, slavery, abolition and, and the Klu Klux Klan on whether or not black people were human beings. Does that mean as a Christian community, we have to welcome that theological diversity and teach that theological diversity? Well, no. Racism is sinful.

It's right there in John 3: 25:42

16. It's right there in Jesus' teachings. So there's no way we can tolerate that belief and that behavior in a Christian community, even at the time when it was difficult to take that position. Now, can we welcome racists in the, in the church? Yes, of course. We welcome all kinds of sinners - but it doesn't mean we welcome the sin. And, and that, that's the big, big mistake that schools are making right now, Jonathon, when they're talking about these issues. They've capitulated to sexual identity. Remember my first four points? The first point is they've capitulated to"sexual identity," and they've capitulated the second point, which is "love means love." Love is accepting everyone. Love means tolerating every kind of behavior. It's actually one of the easiest things to fall for if you don't know your theology. Right. So when you're at these conferences, um, are you at all sharing your own perspectives on these issues? Well, I could tell you, the gay Christian conference in 2019, that's the one where I realized Wendy was actually on their board. Uh, it was in Chicago and I would try to attend every seminar on love and every seminar on the strategies that they're laying out. But it turns out most of their seminars, at least it felt like most of their seminars were like dating uh, meetings so you can get to know each other. And I'm like, I'm not here for that. And so they would actually ask at the beginning of each of those sessions when they could, or, uh, you know, what's your story? Why are you here? I didn't want to say I'm here because I'm spying on you. I don't want to show your theological problems. Uh, so I would just talk a little bit about uh, why it's important for us to know the truth on sexuality and gender and why it's important for us to find the biblical, uh, mandate. So at these, at these conferences, is there any of the speakers, uh, who represent an orthodox view on sexuality? Or is every single one of them pitching a very specific view? Oh, it's interesting you ask that because I just, I just last month went to Preston Sprinkles conference in Idaho and, uh, Idaho is close enough to me in Calgary that I thought it was worthwhile. Uh, and now Preston is very much against same sex marriage. But she said that from the stage. And I appreciate that. And I want to be very careful because the criticism I have of him is both practical but also theological. Because there's, he represents a new wave within evangelicalism that is trying to claim that they support traditional marriage, so they don't support same sex marriage. However, because they support traditional marriage, they can get away with saying all kinds of things that are not true. So from the stage, for example, they've discussed, uh, being a gay Christian and, and using that modifier to define who we are. And that's a very dangerous thing. I think that's wrong. I think people coming out of the gay community, uh, who are struggling with that. I understand there's going to be a transition period from using that label and that's fine. Uh, but, but in terms of actually promoting the gay identity. That's what, what they do. And so one of the things that he does from the stage is he gets four speakers to come and speak. They do like 15 minute Ted talks and then they do a panel discussion where he moderates. But because he's the moderator, he doesn't get a chance to correct bad theology, and he brought in all kinds of people who promote same sex marriage, who promote same sex sexual activity and transgender identity. And, and what happens is the audience that he's listening to him, Jonathon, are very young, very confused. I talked to a young man who was selling his books and he said,"oh, I support same sex marriage. Me and my girlfriend were totally on side for that." And when I shared my story with him and said, look, you don't have to make sexuality your identity. He said to me, I've never heard that before. Hmm. And he's at a, and he's at a conference that's supposed to be discussing those issues. Exactly. Exactly. Is this Revoice? Hmm. No, Revoice was there. That's another group that supports same sex identity or sexual identity. Uh, and I was at a, another event that they, they organized at the conference. So this was promoted from the stage, but it happened at a coffee shop after the conference. And, and I was given a chance to speak with four other people and a small group discussion. So we were divided into small groups of how we can promote LGBTQ people in the church. Okay. So again, I'm there to listen. I'm trying to be very careful how I phrase things. Cause you know, I'm, I'm not there in agreement. The woman beside me, uh, is a mom who helped her, I think her 14 year old daughter transitioned to a boy. And was complaining about how she becomes the transgender expert at their church. Well, well, yeah, of course, because that's what happened. The two ladies who are next, they all have the same butch haircut, and I can't tell if they're lesbians or trans, but they promote all kinds of co ed activities and promote the idea that boys and girls really, they should be just treated the same. It seems like at least that's what they're saying. But the one that broke my heart was the last guy, Baptist youth pastor. Baptist youth pastor. Who was, um, has a disabled child, was leading the youth group as well as the youth choir. And he said this, he said, uh, "while I was leading the youth choir in order to encourage the kids to sing, I told them, okay, we need the men to be men and women to be women." And he caught himself and he said,"I didn't realize how dehumanizing my comments were to trans kids." And Jonathon, I just, I almost weep, wept when he said that. Cause I was in choir when I was 13, 14. And I was actually singing alto at that time, which is the lower women's range. And when I was that age, I needed someone to tell me that I could be a man. I did not have to find masculinity. It was already found in me. And that's what helps define us as human. And here he's saying that phrase is actually dehumanizing. I was so upset. And this is, this is, the kind of stuff that's being promoted under the guise. Right, like I said, they establish a beachhead."Don't worry. We support traditional marriage." And by the way, they do this in schools, too."We support traditional marriage. Don't worry. But let's open the floor to other people who are legitimately Christians." The group at Edmonton Christian School did the same thing. They promoted people who called themselves conservative, but they held the view that it's okay for other people to have other views on same sex marriage or same sex gender activity and still be legitimately biblical. The Joe Biden position on abortion, basically."Personally pro-life" Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No that man needs to be, um, uh, kicked out of the Catholic church as soon as possible. I'm not sure what the Pope's thinking. So the whole, sorry, that's a little editorial everyone don't be offended. Uh, but, but, but look, this is, this is first stage one. Okay, now here's what happens. So after that acceptance happens, They've now established a beachhead a So that's step one, establish a beachhead. So they've already done that in Edmonton. And so this is now where they're at in Edmonton. Step two. Now they convert people. To their view. Using the "love is love" language. Using the "welcoming" language because now now before they were doing it from the outside. Now they're doing it from the inside. And once they've established that beachhead, Jonathon, now they can start firing people. Firing teachers, firing, uh, staff, uh, discouraging parents. and intolerant" teachers who make LGBT kids feel unsafe. Exactly or in one situation. I heard there was a a very good math teacher, Christian teacher, who had said something against these kinds of ideologies. And he will, even though he got the top ratings or whatever at his school, he was let go suddenly. And was not allowed to renew his contract. That kind of stuff. So, uh, and this is the other part for Christian schools in particular. And this is again, happening in Edmonton because of that vote where they disenfranchised 1200 people, the conservative parents... for anybody, for anybody who doesn't understand, uh, what do you mean by disenfranchised? So they voted, uh, to elect brand new board members at that school. Right. And they had about 1200 absentee ballots from people who couldn't attend that evening's event. I was there. This is not, again, gossip. I was there. I saw this firsthand. And the people from the floor who, who had a pro LGBT position, and it was really sad, Jonathon, I wish you were there. Most of them were Dutch reformed people who were told that the Dutch reformed community was being attacked. That was what they were selling and that's why the whole community showed up en masse and were basically used to promote a pro LGBT ideology. So they voted from the floor to. fall for that? Well, because they were attacking the board for all of the things that they were doing to try to bring a conservative worldview back to the school. Edmonton Christian School is promoting Pride Month this month as The same, the same thing. This is the same thing that happened at the school in BC where members who were upset with the board tried to get the board replaced and were presented as the ones who were actually causing all of the trouble for attempting to force a return to orthodoxy. Do I have that right? Yes, and that they were being accused of trying to hijack the school even though Edmonton Christian School, and I guess I'm talking this publicly because this is pretty pretty public information Has a reformed Christian background. So the people pushing to orthodoxy at the school were actually the ones who are agreeing with the reformed theology. They were not pushing anything new. They are pushing to return to that reformed theology. Uh, so it was really frustrating. But from the floor, they voted to disenfranchise those 1200 people because they were absentee ballots and because the ballot had changed because they had added new names, despite the fact that nowhere else when you can add new names or nominate from the floor, does that disenfranchise absentee ballots. Okay, uh, so, but this is the kind of stuff that happens once they establish a beachhead. They start now bullying and pushing their weight around. And at Christian schools, the conservative parents leave, ensuring ensuring that the only people left are the revisionists who want to revise what the Bible teaches on sexuality or those who can't leave. That's currently happening at a bunch of schools, both of us know which ones they are that used to be conservative, where the conservative parents are just pulling their kids because they don't have any other choice and they're going to homeschooling or trying to find a different school. Right. But, but now imagine that happening at denominational levels. That's why the Methodists split. That's why the Lutherans split. That's why the Mennonites are on the verge. I think they've already split as well. The Anglicans split. So you just go down the road. This is exactly what happens, uh, as the second step. And what, what I'm, I can't blame the parents for leaving who want to leave. At the same time, I wish more would stay and fight because these institutions are not the revisionist's. This is these are God's institutions. And how dare they define what the Bible teaches or redefine what the Bible teaches and then promote this. But it sounds so I understand what you're saying about wanting the parents to stay, but what you've just described essentially is the LGBT movement's long march to the institutions, but done on an ecclesiastical level, right? Sophisticated conferences with sophisticated speakers, laying out a strategy that's fundamentally political. And you're part of all these conversations like that mom you overheard. Talking about how she was representing the transgender movement in her, in her church, the other moms of 14 year old girls are just thinking about taking their kids to soccer practice and piano lessons and trying to juggle busy lives. Whereas this mom is an activist, right? It was Dennis Prager's old joke. Um, have you ever met a democratic activist with nine kids? And the reason everybody would, it's. Of course, of course you haven't. Right. And so, so, so I agree with you that in many instances, staying and fighting is important, but how, how do ordinary Christian families who, who will literally pay high tuition to send their kids to a Christian school, so they don't have to deal with all the cultural garbage, right? That's why they, that's why they pay for a Christian school in the first place. Like what does fighting back look like? Let's camp out long enough on number two to ask. So we have a beat, we have a beachhead. Step two is the purge. What do, what do, uh, what do, um, conservative Christian parents do instead of self purging? Well, you know, that's a brilliant question. That's that's great. And I love Dennis Prager. That's a great quote. I think the first thing we need to understand is that these people are evangelists. They're not going to compromise on their view. Because they think they're doing the will of God. They're doing, they're loving like Jesus did, right? I've, I've heard that phrase before we see the world through Jesus' lenses and the way that Jesus acts is always loving. Jesus is always, uh, caring for the disenfranchised and the poor. And remember, you've created sexual identity as a new category of human being. And therefore these new category, this new category of people need to be welcomed and loved. And, and, and again, that's why that has to be rejected. But when I provide consulting for parents. And schools, Jonathon, the, the, the step about understanding the gravity of the situation. They already know. So that's already taken. But if that step hasn't been taken yet at your school, you need to be vigilant. And take that step right away. It is not enough to have a statement of faith that says, we believe the Bible. We believe in God. We believe in Jesus. You need to define those words now. now Because the other side has taken the word"Jesus" and redefined it to be a "social gospel warrior" who wants to make sure everyone feels good about themselves. That's their Jesus. And that's not the Bible's Jesus. That's not, that's a different God they're worshiping, as one Christian apologist said. The second thing I would do then is, and I've done this with the groups I'm working with, is you need to know your theology well. And you need to know that what we teach is good. It's not worth compromising on because it will hurt children in the long run. And if you're investing, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in your school, your child's education to send them to a Christian school, it is worth being vigilant about to make sure it remains Christian. Otherwise, what's the use of that? We just look at the Catholic system in Ontario. And it's publicly funded as all these great things. It's people always blame the public funding. And I think there may be some truth to that, but ultimately it's the vigilance of parents to make sure that their institution stays Catholic. And that's the same thing with our institutions in the Christian schools. You know, you have elections for school board trustees or school board members. You have, uh, conversations with your teachers, the teachers of your kids, finding out what's going on. And you join other parents. And one of the key things that really was so disturbing to hear was so many parents were concerned, but they thought they were alone. That they were the only ones. So they needed to band together. And that's what happened. We helped the, we were started working with the Calgary area parents here. We got contacted by the Edmonton area parents, Jonathon, and said, "hey, you guys should need to form a group like the Calgary ones," we connected them to Calgary and now they have their own group. Right. We were helping schools in BC and unfortunately, Jonathon, we were sort of late to the date there, the game. And they, there was a vote at one of the Christian schools to use gender pronouns. And the, the, the, school, again, this is the kind of tactics they use when they're on the second stage, the school lied to the parents and said, the government requires us to use these transgender pronouns. And they had a referendum and the parents, the Christian parents lost. But they lost like 55 to 45. They almost won it. This is the school in the Fraser Valley, right? Correct. That's right. Yeah. And, and so most of those parents now are leaving to start their own school. That, that, and again, I don't blame them. There's no blame in that at all. But, but it goes to the point that they've, they got into the fight too late. Well, there's two, there's, there's two fundamental issues here, right? On one side, there are many Christian parents who desperately would like somebody to give them theological reasons to accept a lot of this stuff. Because it's, it's being pushed at every level. It's being pushed by every major political party, including the federal Conservative party. It's being pushed by all of our major institutions, by our entertainment. And then if your kids have access to social media, they are viewing this kind of content, which means it's probably getting pushed from the grassroots up and you're in your own home. And so a lot of parents welcome somebody coming in saying, guess what, guys, you can be a Christian, you can believe in the Bible, and you can also accept all this stuff. On the other side, a lot of conservative Christian parents have an instinctive trust for institutions. That's why they're conservative. And so they trust their denominational, um, heads. They trust their seminary professors. They trust their school boards and the schools, and not only do they trust them, they rely on them to form not only their children, but themselves theologically. And so it's a very difficult thing for an ordinary conservative Christian parent to become an activist. In many cases, the way you're describing this against the very institutions they not only trusted, but put their faith in to form themselves and the worldviews of their families. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I want to avoid the word activist, but you're right. The, the idea here is this is an internal in house debate now. We can't expect the culture to change when we ourselves don't have our house in order. And it goes back to what we were talking about when we were talking about apologetics 20 years ago, If we don't establish clear biblical guidance and principles of foundational truths from the very beginning, this is the results. And the challenge with Christian schools, even reformed Christian schools is if you're interdenominational. Even if you're a Christian school with many different reformed branches, and we know that the reformed family is large now with all kinds of denominations. And if some of those denominations have gone liberal on this topic, that also gives them that in to say, well, there's different views on this denominationally, and we can't take a stand, That's the debate the debate at Calvin college right now, where major academics like Kristen Cobes Dumez, who wrote Jesus and John Wayne, she became LGBT affirming right on schedule. Anybody who read her book saw that coming, but still it's Calvin college. Yeah, well, and, and this is part of what, what's been going on is the, the people who are pushing this, as I said, 14 years ago, they've already had a strategy laid out on how to overtake conservative institutions like Christian schools. Right. And this is something we didn't anticipate because it's internal. We think it's a safe thing for those of you who are listeners who are Star Trek fans. Uh, Star Trek is this ideal thing in the future, right? There's a future, just a utopia where all these human beings with all these aliens are living in harmony with each other. And, and, and I, I call this in the church, particularly the evangelical church, uh, the, the federation or this utopia mindset that once you become a Christian, everything's going to be perfect. You're going to get along with everybody. There's no problems at all. And just like in that sci fi series, that's not the case. Uh, so we just, we have to be just as vigilant in the church. Just have to be as just as vigilant in a time when we can access on our phones, all kinds of bad theology, all kinds of videos, uh, there's that are sophisticated or well done. So this document I just received from a Christian school about what they're promoting on LGBTQ Jonathon. Um, it's very, very well versed in the arguments. But it starts and this is the problem. If you're not familiar with how to handle this, the very first premise is the problem that sexual identity is what defines you. And we need to welcome sexual minority kids as part of a theologically diverse point of view. And what's interesting is it, it, it couches our point of view as hateful. You know, God hates sin kind of thing, but it couches it in a way where we're ignorant about sexual identity. We're ignorant about gay identity. Uh, whereas they're being sophisticated because even in the Old Testament, even in the New Testament, Paul was not aware about sexual orientation. As if the Holy Spirit somehow doesn't know anything about sexual behavior and can't, can't, uh, provide that guidance to Paul and the others as they're writing scripture. Like, this is the kind of stuff that if you're not aware of how to handle scripture, you're going to get lost in this debate. So ultimately we talked about at the beginning, Jonathon, the, uh, all of those issues we talked in apologetics are still there. This is just, this is just manifested and blown up in this way where it's so harmful because if you hadn't done the due diligence to start properly, you're going to get caught in this. And that's what ends up happening. I've been dealing with board members now at different Christian schools with a variety of different points of view. And what's really sad. And, and, and what, what I've found so heartbreaking is there's good Christian people on those boards who are easily swayed because they haven't done the due diligence to learn their theology on this. They don't know what they're talking about. And so you have these sophisticated people who are chaplains, who are, uh, principals of schools who are hired by the board. But have adopted a pro LGBT theology, and now they're promoting it at the school, uh, in the most covert kind of way at the start, like I said, but at the end, and that's stage three, by the way. Yeah. So stage one is beachhead. Stage two is purge. Stage three is......once they become the majority, they openly declare themselves pro LGBT. Right, so, so run the flag up basically well literally Beachhead, purge, flag. Not just figuratively - literally. There's one Christian school here in Alberta. They have the pride flag up flying right now and they lost half their school because of it. But they claim we have to do this because the government is requiring us to do it. No, it's not! Even that school in BC that said we have to, we're required to use pronouns. No, they're not! Not true. Yep. The Canadian constitution requires us to protect requires provinces to protect protestant and catholic education in every part of this federation confederation. So there's no way that that's the case, but this is what happened at BC christian Schools Association. Okay. Right. And that's, again, a reformed historically or organization. What they've done is they had a leader at one of the local Christian schools in the Lower Mainland get promoted to be the head of the whole association. And now they're on the way to promote and say openly that they're pro LGBT. I was at another Christian school actually through, uh, um, the reformed community as well in northern BC and I, I shared this, we, we, we had meetings. Our friends had meetings with, with this guy. So this is not secondhand information. Again, this is, I'm not sharing something that is not, um, a new, not, um, that I can't back up. Uh, and they encouraged him not to do this and he refused to listen. He actually, they actually promoted an article saying that the Christian counseling I received, the conversion therapy that they called, uh, was evil. That's something we shouldn't do as Christians, right? Like the Bible is very clear that all kinds of sexual behavior can change, including homosexuality. Well, why are you denying that? Uh, Paul writes that in Corinthians. Uh, but here, here's a little anecdote of just how bad it was. So I shared this, that the whole school association, 36 schools are now pro LGBT, and the local school board administrator said, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not promoting that. And it's possible he's actually in his mind telling the truth. But the association has already, uh, is, or is on the way of doing this publicly. And at the end of my presentation, after I refuted this guy, I said, no, actually we have it on good authority that this is happening. Two Christian school teachers of the same school, independently of each other, came to me and said, we actually had a pro LGBT speaker at our school assembly just last week, and the school board member had no idea. This is, this is the kind of stuff that's happening. And oftentimes, because it's a slow change, you have situations where denominational leaders or a local pastor may not be aware of what's happening in other parts of their school or denomination or church body, and, and only when it blows up in their face and they go through stage three, do they realize this has happened and then by that point it's too late. But, but this is ex, this explains the di the, the divisions in the different denominations where this has festered slowly. And the people are trying to push back, push back too late. And then by that point, when they're pushing back, they can't compromise and they split. Let's talk about another point here that relates to these three steps because it's something that I've seen and I wanted to know if you've seen it and if you have any advice on this, especially for those, um, who are listening to this and thinking, well, what do we do to either fight back in, in an institution where fighting back is necessary or protect an institution where the fight hasn't yet begun. Is what we saw in a lot of the public schools that were sort of actually did occupy neutral ground, didn't include a lot of LGBT curriculum is you had teachers that functionally served as sexual evangelicals and that became a teacher. Uh, and got hired specifically because what they wanted to do was to spread, uh, the gospel of queer. And these are the kinds of teachers who got profiles in the CBC, the CBC, you know glowingly profiled this non binary teacher who um in in the article - it's it's it's portrayed as this sort of very encouraging anecdote but talks about how a child in grade five responded to their non binariness by recognizing themselves and now there's these other kids in grade five, identifying as non binary and queer as well. It's heartbreaking. In several instances though, we see that this is true, I think also in Christian schools where you have a teacher who does not subscribe to orthodoxy on sexuality and became a teacher and got hired by a Christian school. With the explicit purpose of essentially being a Trojan horse and changing the institutions with me outside. And so sometimes it's not even necessarily a board member, but a teacher who wishes to force a confrontation that leads to a conversation at the board level that results in the initiation of the three steps you described. Have you encountered anything like that? Well, you know, Alan Shlemon, one of my favorite Christian apologists from "Stand to Reason," he says, every Christian that he's met who embraces a pro LGBT theology or who changes to a pro LGBT theology does so because of a friend or relative who comes out of the closet. There's a personal relationship there and and because their theology isn't strong enough because they don't have a trust that God's Word is good and that God's Word is loving and that we don't have to compromise on it. They end up compromising and then they become evangelists for that view in order to protect their loved one or relative And that's the same thing with schools and churches here. So in terms of what you've laid out, not only has that happened, that's happening regularly and it's being reinforced by culture through these narratives that people are sharing online, on YouTube videos, on Tiktok, where they're sharing their story. They're talking about how they are wonderful people, even though they do all these other things or have these beliefs about themselves. And there's no, no, no. Allowance for questioning or challenging the identity that they choose, to simply say, "are you sure?" Or "could you be wrong about the fact that you are a man, even though you don't have the biology of a man as a seven year old." Right? Like this, this is the kind of craziness that we we're in. And I use that word not as a derogatory word, but as part of the description of what happens when you deny reality. That's what's called crazy. And so in terms of these institutions that I do that too, by the way, our ministry works on that as well. I provide consulting for churches and schools to make sure that their statement of faith, their hiring and firing practices, are written in a way that protects them so that when they're faced with these kinds of situations, they know how to handle it right away. And it's, it's just like any kind of a medication you need to take. If you're going to go as a missionary to a foreign country that has all kinds of diseases, well, you need to take anti malaria pills or you need to take medication for all kinds of diseases that could potentially, uh, be, you'd be exposed to when you're there. That's the same thing when you create these policies. And if you're not preparing for that, as my former colleague, pastor Kevin said, uh, "there's two kinds of churches and schools, one that is planning for this to happen, knowing it's going to happen. And one where it's already happening, but they're not planning for it." Because it's already happening. So, so the, the, the choice that we have is to plan for it or not plan for it. And ultimately, if, if you're not going to plan for it, you're letting the other side dictate the trajectory of your institution. And, you know, here, here's, as we're wrapping up here, I think this is, this, this helps underline the gravity of the situation. We had a man here named Bart Campolo, who is the son of Tony Campolo, a famous, very liberal Baptist pastor. Uh, and he would always speak about social justice issues and things like that and resisted for the longest time supporting same sex marriage. But his wife came out as supporting same sex marriage, went to a church that supported LGBTQ identity. And so just a few years ago, he embraced that as well. Bart Campolo became a Christian evangelist as well until he got into a bicycling accident and renounced his faith, became the first atheist chaplain in Ohio's university system. And he's now an open evangelist for atheism. He actually said from the stage, when we had him here in Calgary, that 40 percent of his progressive, liberal Christian friends end up becoming atheists like him. Why? Because when they looked at the Bible, they realized it wasn't God telling them what to believe morally. It was themselves. And because they decided what's morally right and wrong, then they didn't need God after all. So you're, you're saying that Christianity has a rainbow off ramp. Yes. Oh, I like that. That's a, well, not like that, but I liked the phraseology. I was actually going to say, if that sounds familiar, that's exactly the offer Satan gave Adam and Eve. You can know right and wrong without God. So for those who have been listening and following your initial four points and you're, and you're following three points, summarize your, your, your three point, your three, the three point strategy for the LGBT movement to take over Christian schools in a minute. Okay, so establish a, number one, establish a beachhead, claiming that there's a variety of different theological views that are legitimate on same sex sexuality and gender identity. Secondly, convert and evangelize people once you're within the institution, using the phrases "love is love" and being a "welcoming community." And thirdly, once you fire everyone who is resistant or convert people to your position, then you declare your organization or denomination pro LGBT. Where can people reach you if they want to have these discussions with you in person or by phone? Absolutely. I love that. Redeemingconversations.ca or info@redeemingconversations.ca. Please sign up on the mailing list. Then you'll be able to know when my book is coming out, where I lay out these four key truths in conversation and these three point strategy that our opponents use to overtake an organization. Jojo, thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. If you want to hear other conversations like it, you can subscribe to this YouTube channel to get them delivered. You can also find our content wherever you get your podcasts, or you can head over to thebridgehead.ca where we post both written commentary and video. Thanks so much for joining us.