Tactics of false teachers

Pastor DL Foster had an important post on the tactics of clerics in the gay Christian movement.  It highlights the patterns of deceptiveness used to infiltrate a church and manipulate the members before “coming out.”  Sadly, the process is quite effective. 

It applies to heterosexual false teachers as well, of course.  They lie at their ordination vows about essentials of the faith or change their minds later but don’t have the integrity to resign.

Here’s a story on Beth Stroud, a defrocked United Methodist pastor.  Her congregation took the bait and gave her standing ovations when she finally (sort of) told the truth.  Her whole charade was documented and shown on PBS, which give more proof of its premeditation.

I think a more reasoned and orthodox response from the congregation to Ms. Stroud would have gone like this:

Beth, we love you and want the best for you.  But you deliberately and repeatedly lied to us.  You also lied at your ordination vows.  You befriended us and did many “good deeds,” but now it appears that they were done out of deception.

To make matters worse, the manner in which you came out positions you as the victim and us as “bigoted homophobes” and the like.  All we did was live by Biblical principals and the Methodist Book of Discipline.  You knew what we believed when you joined us.  But you lied, over and over.

You should repent of your deception and the harm done to the church and denomination.  You should resign effective immediately and not subject the church and the denominaton to further costs and damage.  Your selfishness has already caused a great deal of harm.  The Christian thing to do now is to stop.

Screwtape lives, and one of his most effective methods is false teachers like this. 

Jude 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.