Kyle Mantyla's blog

Bryan Fischer's undying hatred for Islam is so well established by this point that it hardly even warrants continued coverage. But every once in a while he comes up with a new attack that we just feel obligated to highlight ... like when he says that "Allah is a demon god of darkness, violence, death, and destruction":

It is fascinating to watch all the Religious Right activists who have jumped on the Tim Tebow bandwagon fume that not everyone shares their adoration for him.  It is even more fascinating to watch them try to come up with explanations as to why the Denver Broncos quarterback has become such a polarizing figure.

The question of why so many people dislike Tebow was the topic of Liberty Counsel's "Faith and Freedom" program today where Matt Barber offered up a new explanation that we had not heard before - people hate Tebow because he is saving himself for marriage:

Tim Tebow is proud to acknowledge that he is saving himself, respecting God's design for human sexuality between a man and a woman within the bonds of marriage. He also is an advocate for purity. This young, good looking, strapping, athletic man is defying our pop culture today, so that drives them crazy even further.

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We need to be praying for Tim Tebow because the Scripture also says we fight not flesh and blood but powers and principalities and Tim Tebow's going to be in the enemies cross-hairs right now because he is being salt and light as we're commanded to do, so he's going to be under assault. There's going to be tremendous temptation on him with young women throwing themselves at him and so forth. We need to pray that Tim Tebow will remain strong.

• Kevin Hoffman @ City Pages: Gay community apologizes to Amy Koch for ruining her marriage.
• Good As You: Family Leader clarifies recent, terrible choices.
• Jon Bershad @ Mediaite: Stephen Colbert Is Now Offering $500K To Sponsor South Carolina’s GOP Primary (With A Few Conditions).
• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress LGBT: Report: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Advocates Were Wrong About The Consequences Of Repeal.
• Towleroad: Chicago Cardinal Warns of Gay Pride 'Ku Klux Klan' Against the Catholic Church.
• Ben Dimiero, Rob Savillo, & Jeremy Schulman @ County Fair: Bill O'Reilly Covers The "War On Christmas" More Than Actual Wars.
• Warren Throckmorton: David Barton adds to history and the Bible at the same time.

• The Tea Party, right-wing activists, and corporate interests are positively thrilled with the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback.
• Looks like Ken Ham's Noah's Ark theme park is running into a bit of financial trouble.
• The next Oak Initiative Summit will feature Rick Joyner, Cindy Jacobs, Jerry Boykin, Janet Porter, Lance Wallnau, and others.
• Bill Dononhue says that "secularists cannot survive without parasitically feeding off Christmas [and are] thus giving us Christians a back-handed compliment."
• Finally, the AFA 's Tim Wildmon defends Christmas by asserting that "if Jesus Christ had never been born, there would be no United States of America."

Scott Lively has decided that the best way to celebrate this holiday season is by spreading "the gift of homophobia" by making his book "Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the ’Gay’ Agenda" available for free to everyone:

I’m feeling generous this holiday season, and so I’ve decided to give a gift that is sure to be remembered for years to come. It is the gift of “Homophobia” and, as one of the world’s leading “Homophobes,” I want to share it with the entire world, by giving away free copies of my “Homophobic” textbook “Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the ’Gay’ Agenda.” You can download it in PDF form without charge at http://www.defendthefamily.com/rtr/. The file is small enough to send it on by email to your friends and family.

Of course, I’m being sarcastic about the term “homophobia” since that is defined as an anxiety disorder characterized by hate and fear of homosexuals. Who would want that?

What I’m actually offering is the Gift of Knowledge, grounded in an authentic Biblical world-view, earned in part through 20 years of faithful service to the cause of Christ, received in part through no effort of my own by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit -- all glory to God.

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This is the most important book I have ever written, and I’ve crafted it to be the very best work of which I am capable. It is easy to read and use, but contains no fluff. It contains all of the most important insights and observations I have acquired on this issue during 20 years of front-lines activism.

In other times I might have been more possessive of this book, and more profit-minded. But our situation here in America and throughout Christian civilization is dire. The homosexual agenda must be stopped, and contributing toward that goal is more important to me than financial remuneration.

Please accept this book as my gift. Read it and use it to help advance our pro-family cause.

In our coverage of David Barton, one of the things we have been highlighting in recent years is his insistence that all manner of governmental and social institutions came directly out of the Bible.

In Barton's view, if something has any sort of parallel to anything in the Bible, then the inspiration for that thing could only have come from the Bible, thus Barton routinely asserts that our three branches of government and separation of powers, our free market system, our due process clause, and all manner of other Constitutional provisions were explicitly based on Biblical models.

To this list we can now add the entire concept of elections, as Barton claims that the Founding Fathers specifically cited Exodus 18:21 as the basis for Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution which guarantees to every state a Republican form of government:

• Michael B. Keegan @ Huffington Post: An Open Letter to Kayak CEO Steve Hafner.
• Carlos Maza @ Equality Matters: NOM’s Top Ten Biggest Gaffes Of 2011.
• Nick Sementelli @ Bold Faith Type: Faithful America Asks U.S. Catholic Bishops to Move Their Money From Bank of America.
• Pema Levy @ TPM: Perry’s Wife Heads Up New Campaign Ad.
• Zack Ford @ Think Progress LGBT: Gay Republican Groups Defend Gingrich, Urge Gay Voters Not To Vote On Equality.
• Kristin Rawls @ Good: Meet the Christian Couple Behind the Right’s Most Viral Videos.

• James Dobson will soon be adding "fiction trilogy writer" to his resume.

• Peter LaBarbera says "shame on the pro-family leaders who have publicly supported Mitt Romney, knowing that he was very unprincipled on the issue of homosexual sin."

• On a semi-related note, Pastor Steven Andrew of USA Christian Ministries is demanding that Franklin Graham "repent and to retract his statement that a Christian can vote for a Mormon."

• Looks like Rick Joyner is having a little trouble with the residents of Fort Mill, South Carolina.

• Finally, in his latest bid for attention, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition is vowing to risk arrest in order to sing, pray, and preach in front of the Capitol Christmas Tree.

I think that is has, by now, been pretty well established that David Barton is a Religious Right pseudo-historian with a stunning disregard for the veracity of his statements who is willing to sacrifice truthfulness for the benefit of promoting his right-wing agenda.

We have watched countless hours of Barton's standard presentation over the years; all of them very similar but also regularly including different little nuggest of nonsense that compel us to keep watching because we never know when Barton is going to drop in something new and ridiculous.

Back in 2008, Barton delivered just such a presentation to Pastor Miles McPherson's Rock Church in California and the video was recently uploaded to the church's Vimeo account ... and we are grateful that it was because it contains one of the most absurdly false statements we have ever seen Barton make.

Barton was discussing the importance of Christians voting and voting their values because it is the values of those who vote that are reflected in Congress.  Saying that Christians had stayed home in 2006, Barton said the result was that Congress then felt free to try and pass things like Hate Crimes Legislation that protected gays and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

And then, in typical Barton fashion, he flat-out lied as he asserted that Hate Crimes legislation was designed specifically to imprison pastors for preaching against homosexuality from their pulpits while the purpose of ENDA was to force churches to hire gays:

It should be pointed out that Hate Crimes Legislation was signed into law in October 2009 and not one pastor, priest, or preacher has yet been charged with a hate crime for preaching against homosexuality.

Back in 2007, Cindy Jacobs set about creating the United States Reformation Prayer Network after God told her "about a new prayer movement that would arise to 'Possess the Gates in 2008.'" Since then, USRPN has "been at work building a network in all fifty states" in order to reach "the goal that God has given us ... to join 500,000 intercessors praying for reformation and to see a prayer saturated nation!"

Since we never tire of chronicling how spiritual warfare activists like Jacobs are making inroads and connections to the more "mainstream" Religious Right movement, we felt obligated to highlight this latest USRPN update from Jacobs in which she reveals that she has now started working with Andrea Lafferty and her anti-gay, anti-Islam hate group, the Traditional Values Coalition:

Several months ago, I had the privilege of befriending Andrea Lafferty, President of the Traditional Values Coalition. Just a few weeks ago, we were honored to have had Andrea and her husband Jim serve as guest speakers during the USRPN/HAPN National Leadership Gathering in Oklahoma City.

Jim and Andrea delivered an incredibly eye-opening presentation and call to intercession and action concerning the encroachments of Islam in America.

During their presentation, briefed us concerning her attempts obtain entry into an upcoming closed-door meeting of the US State Department with the Oranization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Washington, DC, and requested that we cover her in prayer.

These meetings focused on “negotiating how American understandings of free speech and religious liberties can be tailored to accommodate the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in an effort to prevent what Imam Feisal Rauf has already claimed as “libel”“. Andrea also disclosed that in previous OIC meetings, Secretary Clinton has discussed using “old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming” to coerce and Talibanize Americans into refraining from statements critical of Islam”.

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Let’s join together to intercede for protection over Jim and Andrea Lafferty and for continued open doors to these very critical meetings, events and other sources of information. We need their eyes and ears to help steer our intercession for the nation.

Please lift up Andrea and Jim Lafferty and the Traditional Values Coalition in your prayer continually, as they are on the front lines of battle to preserve our nation’s Biblical values.

So continues the trend of merging anti-Islam activism with prophetic spiritual warfare that we noted several month ago when Rick Joyner began working with Frank Gaffney.