[For this post I feel I should clarifiy, I am speaking personally, not on behalf of any organization.]
I just saw something on the “Notes” section of Substack that I felt needed an immediate response, so here I am at 6am writing a post. I clicked on the link to the article because it sounded like a good thing. I’ll post a link to the article at the end—before I show it to you guys, I want to point out what had my alarm bells ringing so that you don’t fall for their trick.
I don’t normally post things like this. I don’t want to be attacking other publications. But I feel like I can’t ignore this. I don’t want people who genuinely want to help to be caught up in cults centered around hate-speech.
The title was about arresting pedophiles. Fantastic. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to, regardless of their politics, agrees that pedophiles should be put in jail (although some believe that is the absolute minimum of what we should do to them). We want to protect children. This is a good goal.
And then I read the article. And I realized it isn’t really about stopping pedophilia at all. But I saw the article on Notes because someone I follow bought into their trick and agreed to spread the word, so I know that the language they use has been successful in deceiving people. Let me use some examples in their article to explain what I mean.
First of all, the article opens up with a painting of Jesus holding a child’s hand. So it’s fishing for Christian engagement specifically. If you’re trying to stop pedophiles, why would you only want Christians to aid you? Not necessarily a red flag by itself, but a weird choice to be sure.
“Today is the day that I was supposed to go to Conway, NH to protest at a Drag Queen Story Hour where the man performing had ties to a pedophile organization.”
Okay, great. I read this line and I’m ready. Who is the author talking about? What is the pedophile organization? What evidence can they present?
… Not a single one of those questions is answered through the whole article.
“I called the police and gave them the investigation and they told me that his ties with the pedophile group were protected by the 1st amendment.”
Pedophilia is absolutely not protected by the 1st Amendment, or any other part of the Constitution. So if this is the police’s response to this “investigation”, it tells me that this is a matter of free speech, with no evidence of actual crimes committed by this group the author refuses to name. Why won’t the author show their evidence to us since the police didn’t find it compelling? Wouldn’t it be effective to show us directly what the police were ignoring? Wouldn’t that rally us to their cause? Unless… they don’t have compelling evidence, and they know the public response would be the same as the police response.
“I also emailed the local state representative and never received a reply.”
Okay so the government didn’t even think you had enough evidence to even be worth responding to. Or they just lost the email. We know how inefficient the government can be. But the problem is that the author then calls this a reaction of indifference. They’re accusing the government, the police, and later, other groups, of being indifferent to the victimization of children.
“I couldn’t just go out and kill the pedophile, not without losing any potential that I had to create a larger reach.”
Whoa, we’re talking about killing now. And the only reason the author sees not to kill this person they supposedly have compelling evidence against is that it will lose their reach. Guess what the line directly before this says? “What would Jesus do?” The author is implying that the Jesus thing to do is murder. This isn’t about whether or not pedophiles deserve death. I’ll leave my opinion on that unspoken. This is about skipping the process of justice and casting fatal judgment on someone when even the police do not find your evidence compelling enough for an investigation. Spreading your reach is the only reason you can think of to not kill someone? This is a very alarming revelation on the author’s mentality.
“The justice system is a system of injustice and even though I would be doing a noble thing, they view an killing as murder. You could be defending your home and they would view it as murder. It doesn’t matter that you are trying to defend children, they would still take your life away.”
These are significant claims with no effort to back them up with any real life examples. I am aware that the justice system gets it wrong sometimes. But the core element of “innocent until proven guilty” is something I personally think we should value more. That is what should stay the author’s hand, not “potential…to create a larger reach.”
“I would have to create an organization that not only went after pedophiles but also forced the government to start listening to the cries of all of those abused, molested, and dead children.”
On its own, this line is not so bad. Grouped together with the compelling speech not backed by evidence, the admission of temptation toward vigilantism and murder, the religious appeals in the text… Yeah, it’s starting to sound like that organization is a cult.
“And as if God smiled upon me, I have received powerful intervention.”
This is a line used by just about every cult leader in the history of cults.
“Stripe went after my funding:
On March 24th, I was hit with the reality that my future on Substack was bleak. I had been looking over financial concerns and had come to terms with the fact that I and may others were being targeted by Substack’s only payment processor, Stripe.”
Here’s the summary of the evidence they give for Stripe’s evil:
They were issuing refunds when people bought subscriptions, “without canceling a membership and having to finish the term of our agreement.” Finish the term of our agreement? You have terms of agreement for new paid subscribers? No wonder they were requesting refunds. Which, by the way, Substack does allow within 7 days of making the subscription. If you find that the pay-walled material is not what you thought you were signing up for, you have the ability to get your money back. It’s alarming that this author views that as an attack against them.
There were “missing payments” made to an old bank that the author no longer has access to. The Stripe employees “didn’t know” where the money was going, despite the fact that they directly told the author the money was going toward a bank account that they had no way of knowing had been closed. The author chose to blame Stripe and call it an attack rather than acknowledge that maybe they forgot to update their banking information. This kind of lack of accountability is not what I want to see in charge of an organization dealing with pedophilia.
They link an earlier article for more info! Except the earlier article doesn’t provide any more info. It’s about their decision to leave Substack (which they apparently didn’t follow through on), alternative ways to support them, and calling Substack gay. Yeah. Because that’s what we gay people are known for, withholding money, which was definitely intentional.
Another publication was demonetized by Stripe, so it definitely happens. Of course, we’re just going to ignore the fact that this author was NOT demonetized, the money was just going to the wrong account, and there appear to be no other similarities between these two instances. (And let’s not talk about all the problems with the article “reporting” that other incident; we’ll be here all day.)
“Just the other day I was going through my emails and I saw that I received an email from Stripe about payment confirmation.”
Wait, so, if the issue is solved, why did we waste so much time on this? It served no purpose other than to serve the narrative that the author is under attack for what they do, and that this victory is God showing his support. The author wants us to see them as a victim in order to gain our sympathy, even though the victim talk should be centered around the kids this article was supposedly about protecting.
Next up, the author includes the same picture as earlier of Jesus holding a child’s hand. Because now we’re getting back to the issue at hand. (There’s a literary tool often used in the Bible where a passage is sandwiched—the beginning and end parallel each other as a way of emphasizing what’s in the middle. But there’s definitely no relevance to that tool here.)
“I'm an Orthodox Christian and I think anything less than Matthew 18:6 is too little,”
Ah so we’re taking Jesus’s warning of severity as a command to actually kill this people violently, got it. Taking Bible verses out of context is, as it turns out, a fantastic way to get Christians to support your message.
“however, I understand that our culture has grown too lenient of these predators over the past 100 years.”
I would love to see what actual events lead the author to believe this.
“There seems to be some sort of communication between the prominent groups that effectively lead to arrests and convictions. However, I think that in order to really effect the grassroots movement, we're going to have to start working closer together without dictating to anyone how to do their jobs.”
I had to read this a few times because I felt like I was missing something. The prominent groups are effective at their job, so ours needs to be… different? So efficiency is not your goal? Ah, right, expanding your reach is your goal.
“In the future I want to set up dedicated workshops for decoys and fine tune our methods so that our application of decoying can be as bulletproof as possible. With these dedicated decoys we could take the burden off of smaller groups that don't have the time or resources to effectively decoy predators.”
The lack of detail of how decoying predators works concerns me… I hope they are not putting children at risk in order to save other children. That seems counterproductive.
“I think it would be a good idea in the future to layout the extent that certain groups can (or are willing to) travel.”
Restricting travel. Definitely not a cult tactic. Never.
“There seems to be no concentrated effort to push legislation that would protect our children.”
Such as…? If you haven’t noticed, there is already legislation in place to protect them. It’s illegal to have any sexual interactions with children. I don’t think more legislation will disuade criminals from—
“fighting the gender ideology which is condoning abortion and Drag Queen Story Hour.”
Ohhh you don’t mean legislation protecting children, you mean legislation protecting your political ideology.
“I was removed as a moderator [from an unofficial Predator Poachers server] because I wasn't woke.”
… Because you weren’t woke. Right. Somehow I feel like there’s more to the story than that.
“Many of the people in the other server are actively working against Alex's goals without him actually knowing. And I can't say I blame him for not knowing, he's a busy guy and he's doing the Lord's work.”
Does he not know, or does he not agree that that’s happening?
“Just the other day I was banned from the server I was once a moderator in for posting my interview about a Drag Queen Story Hour performer linked to a pedophile group.”
BUT AGAIN, you refuse to name the pedophile group! If you actually want to stop them, naming them would be the first step! Why aren’t you doing that?
“I was called a transphobic and homophobic Christian nationalist for pointing out something the server owner didn't want to accept.”
Based on the credibility you’ve demonstrated to me, I think you were called a transphobic and homophobic Christian nationalist because you’re a transphobic and homophobic Christian nationalist.
“So imagine one of the predator catching groups streaming online, here’s what Discord offers for that:”
“And finally the ability to screen these catches for the community to watch together, creating a stronger community with deeper ties.”
Excuse me? You’re using Discord to put online the exploitation of children? I support using videos for evidence to be used in court, but streaming it online is doing the exact opposite of protecting children! Why would you even suggest this possibility?
It seems to me that protecting children is not this author’s goal at all. If it was, many of their structural decisions seem counter-intuitive. Putting all the pieces together, this seems to be a way of tricking Christians who care about the well-being of God’s children into joining a hate group targeting transgender people. If this group was actually about protecting children, the author would:
Name the “pedophile group” that this drag queen is supposedly connected to (for the record, they don’t name the drag queen either)
Focus on the mission of protecting children, not defaming any organization they’ve had an issue with
Back up their claims with stories we can fact check
The author is not doing any of these things. It’s almost as if they are against us researching their claims, and would probably withhold that information until you show your commitment to the group. Make no mistake, this is not a charitable organization seeking to help children, this is a cult intended to turn people against the LGBT community. I would like to give you a chance to hear both sides instead of just taking my word for it, so here’s a link to the article:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146031061?r=2sz1ut&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
This “Liberty Magazine” is a hate-based publication, and Samara is, as someone else put, a “transphobic and homophobic Christian nationalist”. (It has been pointed out to me that there are multiple publications called “Liberty Magazine”, so please do not get them confused.) If you’ve read my posts before, you know that I work with children. If anyone hurt these kids, I would probably get hypocritically murderous. There is no crime I find more evil than pedophilia, and I will support any organization truly dedicated to stopping it. But this one has lead me to believe that is not actually their interest.
Please be careful out there. I don’t want people with genuinely good intentions to be taken advantage of like Samara plans to. Always be wary of what you read.
I have often been concerned about the tendency to connect pedophilia with the LGBTQ community. There's no credible evidence that pedophilia is linked any particular sexual preference or gender identity, and many convicted pedophiles are heterosexual. Mischaracterizing the demographics doesn't help curtail the actual problem at all. If anything, if such views were widely adopted, it decrease the likelihood of apprehending heterosexual pedophiles because law enforcement wouldn't be looking for them.
It's also concerning when arguments are made that are illogical, unsupported by evidence, or both. Of course, if such fear mongers did start naming names, they could get hit with defamation lawsuits. But if they fear such lawsuits, it means they know, on some level, that their claims can't be supported by evidence, since truth is a defense in such cases.
Like you, I believe that the best way to deal with big problems is to get the help of as many people as possible. In times of crisis, uniting people of different faiths makes far more sense than trying to divide them.
The community in which I taught was very diverse, both culturally and religiously. The students were predominately Jewish, but there were also fairly large Muslim and Christian populations, as well as Buddhists, Hindus, and even representatives of much rarer faiths, such as Zoroastrianism. Their parents represented more fifty different countries. For the most part, they didn't fight over their different beliefs and traditions, working on the principle of mutual respect instead. Any other course of action would have made it impossible for the school to function.
Anyway, I find efforts to hijack Christianity, turning it into a hate group, to be concerning as well. Though I'm not personally a Biblical literalist, I'd argue that even literalists need not believe that members of the LGBTQ community are sinners.
In my experience, literalism is often applied very selectively. The "literalists" ruthlessly apply that kind of analysis to anything that they agree with but are perfectly willing to treat as figurative anything they disagree with. The very people weaponizing the words of Leviticus and Paul aren't selling all they have and giving the proceeds to the poor, as Jesus suggests a true disciple should do. (Matthew 18) Nor are they putting all they have into a common pool, as the early Jerusalem church is described as doing in Acts (and praised for it a little later in the book). I don't know exactly what economic system a modern nation trying to follow the NT literally might construct, but it wouldn't be capitalism. One might also cite Jesus's pacifism, demonstrated numerous times. A Biblical literalist would seemingly have to assume that the Second Amendment is fundamentally unchristian, though I've yet to see any literalist make that argument.
One must then ask, if it isn't necessary to apply the words of Jesus literally, why is it necessary to apply other biblical texts literally? One would think if there were criteria for making a determination of what was meant to be literal, the words of Jesus would be favored by such criteria over all else. (Spoiler alert: Jesus had absolutely nothing to say about LGBTQ issues and a lot to say about loving your neighbor.)
The truth is that some of the provisions of the Bible are situational, not universal. Every Christian realizes this on some level. If that weren't the case, we'd all still be following the Mosaic law. Instead, many of us eat unclean meats, even though the author of Leviticus denounces that, just like penetrative sex acts between males, as an abomination. Yet the Council of Jerusalem and the writings of Paul uphold the idea that what was once the law is no longer required of Christians.
So why cherry-pick that one condemnation in Leviticus and hold onto it as if our lives depended on it? Because Paul seems to extend that prohibition to Christians. But consider the language in Romans. Paul explicitly says that same-sex relations are a consequence of sin (idolatry in this case) rather than the sin itself. (Romans 1:18-32). Paul is not as clear on this point elsewhere, but unless we want to acknowledge that Paul contradicts himself, we have to assume that in the other references, Paul is talking about such relations as the consequence of sin, using them as a symptom of sin rather than the sin itself.
Keep in mind that, as in so many other cases, there is context to consider. Paul wasn't aware of any same-sex relationships that were loving relationships between equals. The verbs he uses are predatory in nature, and there is certainly evidence that in Roman society, male slaves were sometimes abused by their masters. We all condemn slavery, and we would all condemn rape. If Paul was only aware of such instances, and of the earlier practice of punishing male prisoners of war by raping them in this way, then it's easier to see why Paul would so vigorously condemn such things. It is likewise easy to see why ancient Israelites, surrounded by enemies who often greatly outnumbered them, would have wanted their men procreating as much as possible.
But we live in far different circumstances now. Same-sex relationships exist outside the context of rape and punishment for prisoners (and pagan rituals, probably another reason they were condemned). And if anything, the world is overpopulated. "Be fruitful and multiply," made much more sense a few thousand years ago than it does now.
Paul was no stranger to the idea that contexts make a difference. For instance, compare his absolute statement in Galatians 3:28 ("There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"), an unambiguously egalitarian statement, with the three different formulations of the role of women in I Corinthians. Unless Paul is contradicting himself, we have to assume that the statement in Galatians is a general principle, while the more nuanced statements in I Corinthians are situational in nature.
That, I think, is the key to helping literalists to a better understanding of the role of the LGBTQ community in Christian teaching. We must distinguish general principles from situational exceptions, just as Paul presumably does. For instance, "Love your neighbor," is a general principal, and, as the parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear, everyone is our neighbor. Statements that seem to contradict such general principles, when the context is considered, must be regarded as exceptions, not as rules in and of themselves.
Sorry, I didn't intend to go on so long. As you may have gathered, this issue is one of my pet peeves.
I looked up Liberty Magazine and it appears to be a title used by more than one publication. It may be wise to distinguish that the Liberty Magazine you are referring to was launched 6 mos ago by Samara. The Liberty Magazine launched in 1906 by the Seventh Day Adventists is different.