IS HERITAGE FOUNDATION BEING “REVOICED”?
HOW THE “LGBT CHRISTIANITY” OF REVOICE COULD BRING DOWNCONSERVATIVE DENOMINATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE NATION
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Dr Albert Mohler hands doctorate diploma in Spring 2017 to Revoice CEO Founder Nate Collins after 14 ˝ years under Mohler’s discipleship and teaching the New Testament and online Greek as well as counseling students, grading their papers, and traveling as a SBTS scholar. Al Mohler has never admitted that Collins is an SBTS graduate and instructor.
REVOICE INCUBATION, AFTERMATH, DNA, COMPLICIT ENTITIES, AND FUTURE MOVEMENT.
HOW MANY MAJOR CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTIONS ARE BUYING IN?
The Social Justice mantras of certain leaders of the Southern Baptist and Presbyterian Church of America are pounding the church with fear of the “Stain of Racism” while they ignore the stain of the current “LGBT+ Christian” movement behind Revoice. So from whence was this movement incubated and launched but the seminaries of these same “conservative” institutions — Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (STBS) and Covenant Seminary of the PCA. A decade ago, when these seminaries were incubating Revoice, few conservative Christians would have believed that the Summer of 2018 would reveal the potential demise of two major Evangelical denominations in America. This awareness dawned on Evangelicals only recently with news of the Revoice Conference in St Louis.
Billed as “Promoting LGBT+ flourishing in historic Christian tradition,” Revoice arrived like a stealth bomber to drop its payload of “Queer Christianity” on an unsuspecting Evangelical Church. The conference itself was even worse than many expected. For those who followed this theological train wreck in our reports from early May, the glaring omissions and anemic reporting from entities like The Gospel Coalition, The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission bordered on satire. Denny Burk of CBMW had possession and published a new, less controversial workshop title formerly called “Possibility Models in Queer Theory: An Adventure” at least 24 hours in advance of the Revoice website update with the new title. Burk’s social media even confirmed he had backroom conversations with the Revoice organizers.
Albert Mohler commented and wrote several pieces after Denny Burk’s May 30th article. But it took until August 2 for Dr. Mohler to finally identify the Revoice founder as Nate Collins, after repeatedly omitting his disciple’s name in his various commentaries on Revoice. Although his most recent article does mention Nate Collins 9 times and quotes extensively from Collins’ book, All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality, Dr. Mohler STILL makes no mention of the fact that Collins spent over 14 ˝ years at his Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The fact is that Nate Collins has two degrees from SBTS, was a faculty member who taught on campus and online and traveled as a scholar representing SBTS. Collins also incorporated the non-profit for Revoice and began planning the Revoice Conference during his term as an online instructor of New Testament, and serving as a Garrett Fellow mentoring students and grading papers at SBTS. He also wrote the book which Mohler quotes. He served for 5 previous years on the board of LOVEboldly, an openly “LGBT+ Christian” affirming organization that works with radical gay activists in the Human Rights Campaign and Mathew Vines’ Reformation Project. Why are these disturbing facts skirted by Albert Mohler, who should rather expose and denounce them?
This writer broke the Revoice story on May 10, 2018 and that research has been used by dozens of writers and publications, usually without citing or linking to the source. Although it is an integrity issue for those who made use of research they had not invested in, let it be said with Paul, “nevertheless the (word) went forth,” exposing the false gospel of the “gay Christian” movement. Make no mistake, the Revoice event is over but the much larger movement that birthed it is ongoing and deeply embedded within the conservative Christian community. Major players in trusted institutions besides SBTS and Covenant seminaries have been complicit behind the scenes.
FRESH REVELATIONS: HERITAGE FOUNDATION AND MULTIPLE ERLC TIES TO REVOICE.
WHY ARE OUR “CONSERVATIVE” INSTITUTIONS CONDONING LGBT CHRISTIANITY?
As the storm of protest was gathering against Revoice’s radical new language and mission in the Church, by late June the Christian tabloid, Christianity Today, was attempting to mainstream the founder of Revoice by publishing Collin’s article, “What Transgender People Need from the Church.” The article reviews and promotes two books on Transgenderism, one authored by Heritage Fellow, Ryan T. Anderson, and another by SBCs ERLC staffer and clone of Russell Moore, Andrew Walker. Collins’ review promotes both books as “go to” sources for this “compelling” issue for the Church. Christianity Today subsequently sent out its heavy hitter, editor Mark Galli, to cover the Revoice controversy in an interview with Collins the day before the conference began – yet another attempt to mainstream the conference.
Ryan T. Anderson and Revoice Founder Collins Conference Panel Appearance
Curious to find the depth of the ties between a Heritage Foundation William E. Simon Senior Fellow, Ryan Anderson, and Revoice founder, Nate Collins, one needed look no further than Collins’ Curriculum Vitae at SBTS. According to Collins’ CV, at the same time Revoice was being organized in St Louis and incubated at SBTS and Covenant Seminaries, Ryan T. Anderson and Collins, along with Revoice speaker Laurie Krieg, and Revoice mentor and luminary Preston Sprinkle, were presenting together in the Q Ideas Forum of progressive evangelical and Tim Keller “Good Faith” pal, Gabe Lyons. According to Collins, the presentation was a panel discussion hosted by Sprinkle and covered “LGBT issues.”
How much influence is the radical “LGBT+ Christianity” Revoice message having on the Heritage Foundation, Public Discourse, Witherspoon Institute and other publications and venues where Anderson is respected? Is Ryan Anderson’s mentor, Robert P. George, also buying into the Revoice message? Given the exposure by the LGBT press of the close proximity of Anderson to billionaire “Paul Singer, a Republican mega-donor who’s supported GOP presidential candidates and LGBT rights causes,” the revelations of subsequent LGBT associations of Ryan Anderson with Nate Collins in the timeframe of planning the Revoice Conference give rise to disturbing and lingering questions.
ERLC Ties Ever Deepening
Revoice also had multiple ties to the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission beyond those previously reported (ERLC Fellow Karen Swallow Prior’s endorsement and ERLC’s consultant and Revoice speaker, Branden Polk, who advised Russell Moore on his Christ Centered Parenting Conference among other ERLC projects.) In his personal blog, Revoice founder Collins urged supporters of LGBT causes in the faith community to financially support ERLC, the Gay Christian Network, and Collins’ broader gay-affirming ministry association, LOVEboldly. It is not known when Collins was signaled by leadership of the ERLC that the once firmly conservative SBC entity was now supporting the “LGBT+ Christianity” message of LOVEboldly and Revoice, but we can still see the ERLC connection to Collins through Andrew Walker (whose book Collins reviewed in Christianity Today), who came out with a soft shoe critique of Revoice in the place of his boss at ERLC, Dr. Russell Moore, just days before the conference.
The ERLC’s Russell Moore and PCA champion, Tim Keller, have appeared in the same Q Ideas Forum “The Gay Conversation” with many of the key Revoice speakers and the brain trust behind “Sexual Minority /LBGT+ Christianity,” Mark Yarhouse. This is the same “broader conversation” Q Forum in which Revoice founder Nate Collins and Heritage Foundation Fellow Ryan T. Anderson participated together. Oddly, this conference is also archived and linked on a site entitled “gaychristians.org” which supports “Gay Christianity” in the very broadest sense:
“Perhaps those references in the Bible has been misinterpreted and taken out of context. Besides, are we really supposed to literally take in everything the Bible says to heart? After all, the Bible was not actually written by God, but rather by his followers and their interpretation of his word. Of course there are varying degrees of acceptance amongst Christian groups. There are some that completely accept homosexuality while there are others that have placed idealized conditions upon it.”
Why does the Gay Christian site, which espouses a loose interpretation of the Bible, view the Q Idea podcast of “The Gay Conversation” by Russell Moore, Tim Keller, Nate Collins, Ryan Anderson and Mark Yarhouse as a helpful resource for promoting Gay Christianity? How far has the Stain of Revoice soaked through the conservative Christian community? How many of our leading institutions like Heritage Foundation, SBTS, Covenant, and ERLC have been marked with the deadly ideology of LGBT+ Christianity?
WHERE TO NEXT?
If we allow it to advance, the Revoice movement and message is heading next to our teens in our church youth groups by targeting their youth pastors. It is apparent that the young people in our seminaries have already been tainted by the “LGBT+ Christianity” heresy and the false Social Justice narrative of sexual minorities in our churches and ministries. Are our Washington D.C. Conservative think tanks also being “revoiced” to promote “Queer Christianity”? Has this radical ideology found sympathetic ears and minds in the chosen young spokesperson of Ryan T. Anderson? If so, then Christian Conservatives, beware! The Revoice leaven has leavened the whole lump and it happened under the watchful eyes of some of our most trusted leadership. God forbid that we should sleep through this carefully engineered, quiet revolution.