COLORADO SPRINGS, December 11, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Several groups claiming to have a religious agenda are actually wolves in sheep's clothing, according to a new article in Dr. James Dobson's Citizen magazine. This Focus on the Family publication tells of groups who claim to have members among the leaders of main-line Christian churches, and "Christian-sounding" names such as The Balm in Gilead.

The Balm in Gilead group promotes a pro-homosexual, anti-chastity agenda, and uses scripture as a justification for its views. In an outline for "Developing Sermons on HIV/AIDS," The Balm in Gilead paints homosexuality as pleasing to God, "who so loves diversity," as well as subscribing to moral relativism: "God calls us to be authentic in terms of our unique personhood. Homosexual Christians have determined what is authentic for them."

Another example is the group Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), whose president, Debra Haffner, declared that "we cannot allow the far right to define family values," citing Focus on the Family as one of these groups. Founded in 1964, SIECUS was an instigator of the sexual revolution, and was instrumental in the evolution of sex-education curricula. Some of Haffner's ramblings, based on her 1997 SIECUS Report, blatantly quotes Scripture out of context. Her statement "Prostitution is actually encouraged as a healthy outlet for preventing adultery. Proverbs 6:26 'urges men to seek prostitutes . . . rather than be tempted by the wife of another'," is an example of this.

This misrepresentation of the text has been challenged in a Focus on the Family publication called What the Bible Really Says About Sex, in which authors Craig Blomberg and associates say "The Prov. 6:26 reference to prostitution ('for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life') nowhere encourages the practice. It focuses, by itself and in context, on the evil of adultery, which is said to be even worse than prostitution. Yet prostitution is also emphatically condemned throughout the book, as in 7:10, which compares the adulteress precisely to the prostitute. '[Haffner's] flagrant misrepresentation goes far beyond biblical interpretation,' Blomberg and Co. write, 'and instead is an imposition of Haffner's or her professor's views onto the text'."
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/dec/03121106.html
Read the Citizen article at:
http://family.org/cforum/citizenmag/coverstory/a0014428.cfm