Rick336
06-14-2006, 02:58 PM
I can relate to this article by Brian Elroy McKinley. I almost ended my life in the summer of 1972 because I could not live up to the strict fundamentalists beliefs of the Southern Baptist church I was involved in at the time. I actually sat on the edge of my bed with a pistol in my hand because I was so filled with failure and self-hatred. Yet, here I am, still alive at age 54, saved by prayer and the grace of God from the Southern Baptist demands that contributed to thoughts of suicide at age 20.
Luckily for me I held onto my belief that God still loves me. Unfortunately many young people who go through this same struggle eventually dump Christianity altogether and become non-believers. A few even end up dead.
In his article, Brian Elroy McKinley shows how the organization Focus on the Family can actually destroy Christian beliefs and devalue the self-worth and self-respect of many good people.
Rick Hunter
Why Focus on the Family is of the Devil
By Brian Elroy McKinley
Focus On The Family damages more souls than they save. The Colorado Springs-based religious organization is responsible for destroying the faith of countless believers through their radio programs, videos and books. What's worse, they do it ever so subtly by holding themselves up as defenders of all things good and decent. This gives them the perfect shield behind which to carry on their faith-killing activities unnoticed.
The subtle nature of their crime blinds even themselves. They leave their offices each evening, patting themselves on the back for the great "good" they are doing and never realizing how many souls they have pushed out of the Kingdom of God that day. Through Focus On The Family, the Devil has created the perfect spy, the perfect mole for destroying faith from the inside out.
An in-depth look at how this subversive activity takes place will reveal the evil in the system.
A young man decides to be a Christian. His intentions are good, and he agrees to say the right words to join the Faith. He begins to pray. He attends church. If he didn't know it before, he begins to realize he is flawed and full of sinful thoughts. Where once he didn't care about his own evils, now he is becoming aware of them. He hears it from the pulpit. He hears it from his friends. He hears it from Christian radio. There are many things the rest of the world does that good Christians should avoid, and early in his journey, he becomes painfully aware of what they are.
Our new Christian wants to do the right things however. He tries to change his behavior. Some changes come easily. Some, however, are very difficult. There are some sins, our new Christian finds out, that are nearly impossible to avoid, especially sins that involve thoughts.
Nonetheless, our young man goes to all the right meeting and prays all the right words and wears all the right clothes, and he quickly becomes accepted as a part of the "family." He is accepted into the culture that surrounds American Christians. But this acceptance comes with a price; our new believer won't want to appear weak in his faith for fear he might be rejected. He begins to hide his sinful struggles from his Christian brothers and sisters. He smiles the smiles and sings the songs, but inside he is alone in his fight to avoid his own sinfulness.
Along comes Focus On The Family, an organization dedicated to creating and sustaining strong families based on what they call "traditional" values. They also say the right words and sing the right songs and produce many right books about how to be a better Christian. They are readily accepted among most Christians because of their appearance of doing good and their perception of being Godly.
Our young believer listens, and two subtle evils begin to work in his life. Focus On The Family first admonishes our believer to keep listening, because their programs will help heal the damage in his soul. They don't just come out and say it, but the message is clear. If he wants to learn how to be a better Christian, he need look no further. In other words, they set themselves up as the authority on moral living. This little device hooks our young believer. If he rejects what's being broadcast by Focus On The Family, he is rejecting the information God obviously wants him to hear.
He keeps listening, and over time the second evil takes root and does its damage.
Focus On The Family tells our young Christian what good Christians do. They talk about how to love correctly. They talk about how to talk correctly. They talk about how to believe correctly. They talk about all the evil sins our Christian should avoid. But unfortunately, they inadvertently use themselves, their speakers and their leaders, as examples of what good Christians do. They do this by holding up their own interpretations of Scripture as God's will for our young believer's life. They ask our new believer to join their causes. They ask our new believer to boycott businesses they find questionable. They ask our new believer to accept their positions on issues ranging from women's rights to abortion (which is not mentioned in the Bible) to homosexuality as being directly from God even though many Bible scholars and many Christians do not agree. Rather than hold up the life of Christ as the sole example of good and present themselves as fellow travelers who also struggle and fight and interpret their way through the Faith, they present themselves, and their one-sided personal biblical interpretations, as examples of true faith.
This is inherently dishonest, and it creates a false role model for our new Christian. Rather than idolizing Christ and his ideals of grace and forgiveness, Focus On The Family makes an idol of their personal ideologies and holds it up for all to follow. Of course, their ideals are perceived as good ideals. They stand for righteousness and traditional values. For this reason, our young Christian would never think to question the evil of this kind of idolatry. Instead, he will strive to think like the guest speakers, writers, or Christian leaders that pontificate through the programs. He will listen, and he will mimic.
This is where our Christian's faith begins to falter. He will try to change his behavior and his beliefs to match those of the role models he sees at Focus On The Family. As he begins to act like them, he will "claim" victory over sins that have been plaguing his thoughts. Meanwhile, he will begin espousing the interpretations and political aspirations he's heard on the radio. He will start publicly criticizing those involved in immoral behaviors just like he hears those at Focus on the Family do.
But then he will fail. He will still struggle with his sin and his failure to change. He will feel he is not as good a Christian as he should be. And what will he do to overcome his failures? He will listen to even more Focus On The Family programs and adopt more of their positions. And after being pumped up with more great programming, our young believer will again set out to change his thoughts and the "evil" ways of the world around him.
He will sit in the pews each Sunday and pray with fervor for God to help him. He will do his daily devotions, reading, of course, from Focus On The Family's devotional guides, and he will work hard to stop his sinful nature. And he will proclaim even louder his distaste for the "moral decline" of the nation and the evil in this world, just as he hears the people at Focus on the Family do.
But he will still fail. He will fail, and he will confirm to himself that he is not the good Christian he should be. He can't change himself the way the Christians at Focus On The Family can. With this realization, he will heap great scorn upon himself because of his failure.
Sadly, he cannot go to his fellow Christians about his sins. After making all his proclamations against all the evils he's heard about on Focus on the Family, he does not want others to know of his weakness. Around them he will keep up the facade of the good Christian. But deep in his heart he will begin to despise himself for being a fake.
This can continue for a long time. It's hard to admit defeat. And it's even harder to give up when there is this righteous group out there that claims we can live a great Christian life if only we have enough faith.
So our young Christian will continue to push himself, trying again and again to be the good Christian he is expected to be. And he will continue to publicly condemn those who practice what Focus on the Family proclaims as being evil, as if by saying it he can convince himself to stop his own evil thoughts. And everyday he will continue to fail and be less than perfect. And everyday the struggles in his heart will take him further away from the phony outside appearance he is projecting.
Ultimately our young believer can never become the ideal Christian he hears about from Focus On The Family. He cannot become it, because no such Christian exists.
Focus On The Family, in its zeal to promote righteous living, exacerbates the struggles of being a believer by presenting an unreal and sometimes unbiblical ideal of what it is to be a Christian. Everyone who works at Focus On The Family has some struggle of his or her own, including James Dobson, its founder. But our young Christian won't hear about those on the radio. He may hear speakers say they have struggled with certain sins that Christ helped them overcome, and he may hear them talk about "generic" sins such as getting angry at their kids, but he won't hear them come out and confess that they still have doubts or that they are still fighting with the very sins Focus on the Family is publicly condemning. He won't hear Focus on the Family's speakers confess the kinds of internal struggles that he has in his heart. And he will never hear James Dobson confess those kinds of sins publicly, or in his books, or on his radio programs. What's worse, our new believer won't hear Focus on the Family admit that Dobson's interpretations of what God thinks is evil are not universally accepted by Bible scholars and other Christians. What our Christian will get from Focus On The Family is that he does not measure up to being a good Christian.
His self-worth will be devalued. His self-respect with be destroyed. And, ultimately, his belief that God can save him will falter. He will doubt that God loves him as much as other Christians. In fact, if God has chosen not to rescue him from his sins, perhaps God doesn't love him at all. And this, more than any pornography, or violent TV shows, or even the "liberal media," will destroy his faith. It will destroy his belief faster than any temptation the "Devil" can produce.
So while the staff of Focus On The Family pat themselves on the back for preserving good Christian values, while they so proudly take visitors on tours of their five-star-hotel quality facilities and tout themselves as a voice of help in a world of problems, they are really killing off the souls of needy people. They are deluded by their own image as defenders of family values and shielded from criticism by the "righteousness" of their cause. They are the perfect Trojan Horse for evil to do its damage in the lives of Christian believers. Truly, then, we can see how Focus On The Family is of the Devil.
Luckily for me I held onto my belief that God still loves me. Unfortunately many young people who go through this same struggle eventually dump Christianity altogether and become non-believers. A few even end up dead.
In his article, Brian Elroy McKinley shows how the organization Focus on the Family can actually destroy Christian beliefs and devalue the self-worth and self-respect of many good people.
Rick Hunter
Why Focus on the Family is of the Devil
By Brian Elroy McKinley
Focus On The Family damages more souls than they save. The Colorado Springs-based religious organization is responsible for destroying the faith of countless believers through their radio programs, videos and books. What's worse, they do it ever so subtly by holding themselves up as defenders of all things good and decent. This gives them the perfect shield behind which to carry on their faith-killing activities unnoticed.
The subtle nature of their crime blinds even themselves. They leave their offices each evening, patting themselves on the back for the great "good" they are doing and never realizing how many souls they have pushed out of the Kingdom of God that day. Through Focus On The Family, the Devil has created the perfect spy, the perfect mole for destroying faith from the inside out.
An in-depth look at how this subversive activity takes place will reveal the evil in the system.
A young man decides to be a Christian. His intentions are good, and he agrees to say the right words to join the Faith. He begins to pray. He attends church. If he didn't know it before, he begins to realize he is flawed and full of sinful thoughts. Where once he didn't care about his own evils, now he is becoming aware of them. He hears it from the pulpit. He hears it from his friends. He hears it from Christian radio. There are many things the rest of the world does that good Christians should avoid, and early in his journey, he becomes painfully aware of what they are.
Our new Christian wants to do the right things however. He tries to change his behavior. Some changes come easily. Some, however, are very difficult. There are some sins, our new Christian finds out, that are nearly impossible to avoid, especially sins that involve thoughts.
Nonetheless, our young man goes to all the right meeting and prays all the right words and wears all the right clothes, and he quickly becomes accepted as a part of the "family." He is accepted into the culture that surrounds American Christians. But this acceptance comes with a price; our new believer won't want to appear weak in his faith for fear he might be rejected. He begins to hide his sinful struggles from his Christian brothers and sisters. He smiles the smiles and sings the songs, but inside he is alone in his fight to avoid his own sinfulness.
Along comes Focus On The Family, an organization dedicated to creating and sustaining strong families based on what they call "traditional" values. They also say the right words and sing the right songs and produce many right books about how to be a better Christian. They are readily accepted among most Christians because of their appearance of doing good and their perception of being Godly.
Our young believer listens, and two subtle evils begin to work in his life. Focus On The Family first admonishes our believer to keep listening, because their programs will help heal the damage in his soul. They don't just come out and say it, but the message is clear. If he wants to learn how to be a better Christian, he need look no further. In other words, they set themselves up as the authority on moral living. This little device hooks our young believer. If he rejects what's being broadcast by Focus On The Family, he is rejecting the information God obviously wants him to hear.
He keeps listening, and over time the second evil takes root and does its damage.
Focus On The Family tells our young Christian what good Christians do. They talk about how to love correctly. They talk about how to talk correctly. They talk about how to believe correctly. They talk about all the evil sins our Christian should avoid. But unfortunately, they inadvertently use themselves, their speakers and their leaders, as examples of what good Christians do. They do this by holding up their own interpretations of Scripture as God's will for our young believer's life. They ask our new believer to join their causes. They ask our new believer to boycott businesses they find questionable. They ask our new believer to accept their positions on issues ranging from women's rights to abortion (which is not mentioned in the Bible) to homosexuality as being directly from God even though many Bible scholars and many Christians do not agree. Rather than hold up the life of Christ as the sole example of good and present themselves as fellow travelers who also struggle and fight and interpret their way through the Faith, they present themselves, and their one-sided personal biblical interpretations, as examples of true faith.
This is inherently dishonest, and it creates a false role model for our new Christian. Rather than idolizing Christ and his ideals of grace and forgiveness, Focus On The Family makes an idol of their personal ideologies and holds it up for all to follow. Of course, their ideals are perceived as good ideals. They stand for righteousness and traditional values. For this reason, our young Christian would never think to question the evil of this kind of idolatry. Instead, he will strive to think like the guest speakers, writers, or Christian leaders that pontificate through the programs. He will listen, and he will mimic.
This is where our Christian's faith begins to falter. He will try to change his behavior and his beliefs to match those of the role models he sees at Focus On The Family. As he begins to act like them, he will "claim" victory over sins that have been plaguing his thoughts. Meanwhile, he will begin espousing the interpretations and political aspirations he's heard on the radio. He will start publicly criticizing those involved in immoral behaviors just like he hears those at Focus on the Family do.
But then he will fail. He will still struggle with his sin and his failure to change. He will feel he is not as good a Christian as he should be. And what will he do to overcome his failures? He will listen to even more Focus On The Family programs and adopt more of their positions. And after being pumped up with more great programming, our young believer will again set out to change his thoughts and the "evil" ways of the world around him.
He will sit in the pews each Sunday and pray with fervor for God to help him. He will do his daily devotions, reading, of course, from Focus On The Family's devotional guides, and he will work hard to stop his sinful nature. And he will proclaim even louder his distaste for the "moral decline" of the nation and the evil in this world, just as he hears the people at Focus on the Family do.
But he will still fail. He will fail, and he will confirm to himself that he is not the good Christian he should be. He can't change himself the way the Christians at Focus On The Family can. With this realization, he will heap great scorn upon himself because of his failure.
Sadly, he cannot go to his fellow Christians about his sins. After making all his proclamations against all the evils he's heard about on Focus on the Family, he does not want others to know of his weakness. Around them he will keep up the facade of the good Christian. But deep in his heart he will begin to despise himself for being a fake.
This can continue for a long time. It's hard to admit defeat. And it's even harder to give up when there is this righteous group out there that claims we can live a great Christian life if only we have enough faith.
So our young Christian will continue to push himself, trying again and again to be the good Christian he is expected to be. And he will continue to publicly condemn those who practice what Focus on the Family proclaims as being evil, as if by saying it he can convince himself to stop his own evil thoughts. And everyday he will continue to fail and be less than perfect. And everyday the struggles in his heart will take him further away from the phony outside appearance he is projecting.
Ultimately our young believer can never become the ideal Christian he hears about from Focus On The Family. He cannot become it, because no such Christian exists.
Focus On The Family, in its zeal to promote righteous living, exacerbates the struggles of being a believer by presenting an unreal and sometimes unbiblical ideal of what it is to be a Christian. Everyone who works at Focus On The Family has some struggle of his or her own, including James Dobson, its founder. But our young Christian won't hear about those on the radio. He may hear speakers say they have struggled with certain sins that Christ helped them overcome, and he may hear them talk about "generic" sins such as getting angry at their kids, but he won't hear them come out and confess that they still have doubts or that they are still fighting with the very sins Focus on the Family is publicly condemning. He won't hear Focus on the Family's speakers confess the kinds of internal struggles that he has in his heart. And he will never hear James Dobson confess those kinds of sins publicly, or in his books, or on his radio programs. What's worse, our new believer won't hear Focus on the Family admit that Dobson's interpretations of what God thinks is evil are not universally accepted by Bible scholars and other Christians. What our Christian will get from Focus On The Family is that he does not measure up to being a good Christian.
His self-worth will be devalued. His self-respect with be destroyed. And, ultimately, his belief that God can save him will falter. He will doubt that God loves him as much as other Christians. In fact, if God has chosen not to rescue him from his sins, perhaps God doesn't love him at all. And this, more than any pornography, or violent TV shows, or even the "liberal media," will destroy his faith. It will destroy his belief faster than any temptation the "Devil" can produce.
So while the staff of Focus On The Family pat themselves on the back for preserving good Christian values, while they so proudly take visitors on tours of their five-star-hotel quality facilities and tout themselves as a voice of help in a world of problems, they are really killing off the souls of needy people. They are deluded by their own image as defenders of family values and shielded from criticism by the "righteousness" of their cause. They are the perfect Trojan Horse for evil to do its damage in the lives of Christian believers. Truly, then, we can see how Focus On The Family is of the Devil.