Blog

‘For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, til her righteousness shines forth like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.’ (Is. 62:1, 2) It is too easy to dismiss the Church as inadequate to convey the whole Gospel to LGBT+ persons: she appears to slalom from rigorous truth—a fortress inaccessible–to grace that can only be described as flabby in failing to recognize what ails us, to faith-filled but gnostic in promising spir

By Pastor Andrew Franklin, Living Waters leader and author of ‘Created for Love: Reclaiming Jesus’ Vision for Sexuality, Gender, and Relationships.’ Jesus created every tribe, tongue, and nation to express His glory in unique but equally meaningful ways. That means standing in colorful ethnic diversity and in the unique glory of our bodies made male and female in His image. Through racism, the inherent dignity of the human person is compromised. Racism, whether overt (violen

June ends with unabated clamoring for justice. Pent up by social isolation, an army of protesters vents in streets and squares. Equality, NOW! Lit by the murder of George Floyd, we face African Americans entrenched in attitudes and structures that are at best oppressive. The steely gaze illumines our complicity. Behind banners of Black Lives Matter fly rainbow flags. Straining to draw parallels between empowering an ethnic group enslaved once and still by myriad tyrants, LGBT

‘Protecting our neighbors from unjust discrimination does not require redefining human nature.’ Archbishop Jose Gomez, President of US Bishops Congress. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of America violated the meaning of sexual identity by broadening it to include persons who LGBT+ identify. Our highest Court did so by amending a 1964 Civil Rights Act designed to protect workers of all races, religions and both men and women, namely the latter due to misogynistic policies, from j

The full stature of our humanity is always just outside our grasp. Someone truer, stronger, more tender-in-love awaits his or her true revelation. As God made us in us His very image, He has wired us to represent Him more nearly, more authentically. For this we must reach. Joseph Pieper describes such inspired aspiration as magnanimity, our ‘yes’ to realizing the greatness He stamped upon every cell of our being. He is faithful. We have all experienced leaders who have witnes

By Marco Casanova “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). Usually trademarked by LGBT parading throughout the globe, June makes for an interesting month. The shameless gender bending movements have a way of releasing a seductive cloud over cities. We must fight for those who still “limp between two opinions” (1 Kings 18:21). May we be “unashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16) that calls us out of sexy

As the DSM staff gathered throughout Easter to pray for the coming (more Lord!) of the Holy Spirit, we entered Jesus’ merciful heart. Pandemic noise invited us to flee into the folds of His compassion. His wound is love, bleeding yet unimpaired, fiercely beating as to send oxygen-rich Blood throughout His Body so that all might live. As His Blood enriched ours, we discovered impaired passageways—some blocked—in ourselves and in our ministry. How can we best become merciful me

Pete Buttigieg is an impressive guy. This former presidential candidate (and potential running mate) gave us the best sound bites of the Democrat debates—smart, savvy, memorable. Yet his life is a tragic reflection of a nation hell-bent on denying its Creator. How else can you make sense of the silence that surrounded his faux marriage to a dude? The fact that we no longer flinch when a man kisses his male ‘spouse’ on the global stage means we no longer take seriously the Cre

‘Each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.’ (Neh.4:18) Fighting for wholeness is at once a personal and corporate battle. We help others refuse daily the lure of familiar gods while we strategize to stop the advance of enemy armies. Like the rebuilders of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time, we heal with one hand and lance demons with the other. Poland understands this well. The most powerful Catholic nation in Europe, she refuses to bow the knee to the LGBT+ jug

‘Shine like lights in the universe, as you hold out the Word of life’ (Phil. 2: 15, 16). A season of silence ends: now back to airports, bills, staff management, and decisions, big and small. 2020 marks our 40th year as a ministry. I shall covet quiet around the edges to reflect on where we’ve been, where next. It helps to trust the Word has been sown deeply in our hearts and will bring forth fruit—His will deepening, growing, breaking forth as He sees fit. We position oursel

‘Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice’ (Lk. 18:5). Prayer and fasting are not sexy. As this 40-day ‘Becoming Good News’ ends, I am hungry and ornery, more inclined to fantasy donuts than holy apparitions. We as a staff have chosen weakness, a downward mobility, a reduction. We have gone without and prayed a lot. We are sensitized to the foul air of a clueless culture and worldly Church. And we have positioned ourselves near the Source, the o

We blaze with expectancy in this last week of our Becoming Good News fast. What a gift to burn with you: for mercy, for truth, for the grace to flare up as the Spirit leads and shed warmth and light on the untouched. We on the Desert Stream staff are praying to become torches that light up the integrity of God’s image in humanity. A fire has blazed among us, incinerating our excesses and reducing us to something radiant for Jesus. More than ever, I am convinced that Christian

We met in front of City Hall next to the Lincoln statue, featuring Abe and his son Tad. Fitting. Here we were, Christians of all stripes, diverse yet united in the love of our Father who listens and stoops down to make us great. Buttoned down Catholics, earthy Jesus people, young Latinos with sassy Pentecostal authority, clear-eyed Baptists who advocate on their knees for His-Kingdom-come, agreed together: ‘Be glorified in our witness of change, a choice every teen deserves…’

‘And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness’ (Is. 35:8). Most efforts to pursue sexual wholeness are blocked by the media today. Gone are the days when some journalists honestly explored Christians who claimed to have found a way out of gender confusion through Jesus-centered community. Instead, the press obscures our pathway to chastity with laughable debris—fake charges that we abuse and manipulate, accrue millions, and prayerfully electroshock the ‘

It can be tough to burn with hope for some LGBT+ persons; allergic to chastity, alive to sensational new ‘sexualities’, they frame us as ‘haters’ and our fire dims. As we prayerfully ‘Become Good News’ (starting Oct. 16th), it may help us to recall that God is igniting a global army of persons—each one divinely commissioned to do his or her part to liberate loved ones from enslaving ‘freedoms’. Like a station in a relay, every one of us can help a vulnerable pilgrim take the

‘Do not give in to the feelings of guilt that assail you because you are not living up to the ideal you have set for yourself. I do not ask you to be faithful to an ideal. I ask you only to be My friend and to live at very moment in the grace of My divine friendship.’ In Sinu Jesu Aging isn’t making me better. I naturally feel more outrage and less mercy for the moral atrocities that surround me. And that proliferate every June, LGBT+ Pride Month. Some are silly, like the ad

‘When Jesus saw the crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd’ (MK 6:34). If the wise-men are any example, then Epiphany is about the worship of Jesus manifesting itself in loving people most in need of it. Our new neighborhood is full of possibilities, including a rainbow house full of gender-benders, sweet and clueless as to the purpose of their sexuality. I ask Jesus to help me show them His love. He is faithful. The other day I help

First, ‘conversion therapy’ is the current lightning rod of contempt for anyone who refuses LGBT+ identity and destiny. And anyone who supports that decision: friends and family, churches, therapists. While celebrating every person’s right to change partners or genders, our culture demonizes those who choose to align their bodies with their obvious purpose of generating new life. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the entertainment industry. 2018 began with ‘Miseducation o

While waiting in line at the market, I observed two young Latina women in matching jean jackets emblazoned with rainbows and crosses. They could barely keep their hands off each other and gave into a long messy kiss just outside the store. Shame? Intolerance? No signs of it. Fellow shoppers smiled and walked by as if pleased with this celebration of young ‘gay’ love. Truth 1: The majority of young adults consider LGBT+ persons victims of injustice rather than violators of cha

Jesuit priest James Martin—close friend of Pope Francis and the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication—is bright and just and merciful. He is also committed to normalizing LGBT realities in the Catholic Church. Martin was chosen as the featured Catholic to address LGBT issues at the World Meeting of Families in Dublin last month and contributed to the Youth Synod document that Bishops from around the world will study together next month. That document employs LGBT language,