Duke Divinity School, a bastion of apostasy, is one of 13 seminaries associated with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1924 with an endowment by tobacco magnate James Duke. The following is excerpted from “Duke Divinity School,” The College Fix, Apr. 20, 2022: “A recent worship service co-hosted by Duke Divinity School and the Duke Divinity Pride student organization invited students to praise the ‘great queer one.’’ ‘We want to affirm everyone to be who they truly are,’ second year Master of Divinity student Caroline Camp began. ‘To step into the holy one’s fire that burns away all that says we are not good enough and refines us by the Pentecostal fire to be who exactly the great queer one calls us to be. Let the spirit move you today, lift your hands and voices and dance in whatever way is most freeing to you.’ The one-hour March 22 ‘service of word’ took place in Goodson Chapel, described as the center of worship life at Duke Divinity School. A video of the event on YouTube shows several dozen in attendance. Camp, in her opening prayer, praised a God she described as ‘strange one, fabulous one, fluid and ever becoming one.’ ‘Do not allow us to make our ideas of you into an idol,’ Camp said. ‘You are as close to us as our own breath, and yet your essence transcends all that we can imagine. You are mother, father, and parent. You are sister, brother, and sibling. You are drag queen and trans man and genderfluid, incapable of limiting your vast expressions of beauty, embodied in us, your creation.’ We recognize our flesh, in all its forms, is made holy in you. With thanksgiving, we celebrate your manifestation in all its glorious forms.’ Third-year Master of Divinity student Tirzah Villegas told the audience that ending her relationship with the ‘white male god’ of her childhood allowed her to begin another ‘with a deliciously queer god who loved in scandalous ways and created us for pleasure and wholeness.’ Event co-sponsor and student group Divinity Pride, which describes its main purpose as affirming the ‘dignity, faithfulness, and strength of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and gender/sexuality non-conforming Christians,’ is part of a broader push that seeks to redefine orthodox Christianity–and to redefine God.” The apostle Peter prophesied of these things: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. … God spared not the angels that sinned … And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness … And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:1-2, 4-6).
(Friday Church News Notes, April 29, 2022, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)