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Pastor Jeremy Schossau told Tony Perkins yesterday, "People have literally threatened to kill me and my family, to burn our house down, to burn our church down, to assault the people of our church and our staff."
Two state legislators are attempting to pass a law to stop the church's teaching while calling for the Attorney General to launch an investigation of the church.
Why?
The church is sponsoring a workshop for teenage girls on biblical sexuality.
Most of us are aware that Billy Graham went to be with the Lord yesterday. I talked about his life and ministry yesterday on our radio program.
One News Now, a division of American Family Association, has published an excellent article on Billy Graham, his life, and his ministry. I recommend you read it.
At one point, Pastor Jeremy said his church, Metro City Church in the greater Detroit area which has campuses in both Riverview and Taylor, Michigan, was receiving 40 hate messages per minute---"thousands upon thousands of hate filled notes, 24 hours a day."
The News- Herald reported it like this:
State Rep. Darrin Camilleri (D-Brownstown Twp.) is speaking out against what he called a conversion therapy workshop being hosted by a Riverview church and is demanding a state investigation into the legality of it.
The Unashamed Identity Workshop is being hosted by Metro City Church, and provided by FORGE Ministries, for girls ages 12 to 16. The six-week course costs $200.
Camilleri’s colleague, state Rep. Adam Zemke (D-Ann Arbor), has introduced House Bill 5550 to prohibit mental health professionals from engaging in efforts to change the sexual orientation and gender identity of a minor.
“It is wildly inappropriate to offer conversion therapy classes in our communities, and doing so is misrepresentative of our values as a welcoming state,” Zemke said.
And the News-Herald said this: "The Democratic state lawmakers also sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Schuette 'urging him to investigate FORGE Ministries and Metro City Church for a violation of the Michigan Consumer Protection Act. Specifically, whether FORGE Ministries and Metro City Church committed any unfair, unconscionable or deceptive practices'.”
The police told the newspaper they arrested one man who left a voice mail at the church which said in part, "If the church goes through with the gay conversion therapy class in the state of Michigan, I promise every member of the Antifa will 'show up armed and ready'. This is not a joke."
I'm pretty sure the pastor, the members of the church, Tony Perkins, and other pastors and Christian leaders know this "is not a joke."
And that's why they are standing with Pastor Jeremy.
The pastor says it's not a "gay conversion" workshop at all. It's a time for teenage girls to openly discuss their questions about sexuality and get biblical answers.
He says most of the girls who signed up are from church families, but says in today's culture where kids are daily exposed to secular indoctrination, "we find kids wondering not only about sex itself but they're wondering about their own sexual orientation."
"They come to us because they trust us," he says, ---"most of the girls were raised in this church."
And he says, "The government should not be interfering with or investigating churches."
Pastor Jeremy says, "We do not need the government to tell us what we can or cannot say. And we don't need government to tell us what kind of advice to give."
Our Founding Fathers agreed with him. That's why they laid their lives and fortunes on the line for liberty---including religious freedom.
A growing number of pastors across the country also agree---but not all evangelical pastors, unfortunately.
Tony Perkins, head of the evangelical Family Research Council, has joined other pastors in coming alongside this local pastor.
Perkins says, "What was the big deal? All Metro City Church wanted to do was walk families through what the Bible has to say about the issue of gender and sexuality in a workshop...with a safe place for teenage girls to have an open and honest conversation centered around biblical teaching."
He says, "Well that was simply too much for the 'tolerant' LGBT Left as well as for Michigan State Representatives Camilleri (D) and Zemke (D), who demanded that the state Attorney General launch an investigation into the church..." and the "biblical workshop."
Perkins notes, as others are now doing, that it's alarming that elected legislators, who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, have now attacked free speech rights and free exercise of religion by a local church congregation, in direct violation of the First Amendment.
Perkins says, "And for government officials to dictate what a church can and cannot teach is totalitarian in nature and is at the heart of what the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was meant to prevent."
Indeed. Every church has the right to teach what the Bible teaches about human sexuality. And all other biblical teachings as well.
Although the workshop has been temporarily postponed, it will happen.
Pastor Jeremy says, "We're not going anywhere. We will not condemn anybody---but we will not back down from what Jesus tells us."
Ironically, this story reveals why too many churches are never challenged over their message.
And it reveals the enormous hate toward any church that preaches the gospel, and teaches what the Bible teaches on all the current cultural issues.
Perkins has launched a "I Stand with Pastor Jeremy" campaign for pastors. He's asking them to take a stand because this issue is not isolated to one larger church in Michigan---it's coming to a church near you if that church is speaking the Truth to the culture.
Martin Luther said, "You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.”
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.