All Articles For McGeown, Martyn

Rev. Martyn McGeown, pastor of Providence PRC in Hudsonville, MI The Florida bill On March 28, 2022 Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida signed HR-1557 into law, a bill dubbed by the liberal media as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” but whose actual title is “The Parental Rights in Education Bill.” The point of the Florida law, which comes into effect on July 1, 2022, is to give parents more control over their children’s education. This is a hot topic politically in the USA, where the instruction in many public schools includes lessons on critical race theory, gender studies, and the...

The passage of C-4 Canada has just banned conversion therapy with the passage of Bill C-4, which was approved unanimously by Canada’s House of Commons and Senate, and then received Royal Assent on December 8, 2021. Royal Assent means that Canada’s Governor General, Mary Simon, a representative of the Crown, Queen Elizabeth II, signed it into law. The new law took effect on January 7, 2022. Conversion therapy is defined in C-4 as follows: a practice, treatment or service designed to (a) change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual; (b) change a person’s gender identity to cisgender; (c) change a...

Introduction The schism in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) affects life “all around us.” Much more significant than any other issue is the rift that has taken place in our churches, separating very friends and families from one another. While the leaders of the schism call it a “reformation,” I call it what it is: a sinful division in the church of Jesus Christ. The schism is being kept active by ratcheting up rhetoric. Rhetoric is “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.” To ratchet something up is “to increase repeatedly and by small amounts.” Such we have...

Gender dysphoria and its “treatment” Imagine a small child, perhaps as young as ten years old. Imagine a little boy or a little girl, or a young teen—your child—distressed and “unable to function emotionally for at least six months” for some or all of the following reasons: A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender; a strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other gender; a strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play; a strong preference for toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged...

By Rev. Martyn McGeown. Previous article in the series: Fellowshipping in the Light (1): Wonder of Fellowship __________ Not all those who claim to enjoy fellowship with God speak the truth. Fellowship with God and with other believers occurs in a certain sphere. Fellowship is compatible with a certain kind of life. Fellowship, writes John, is in the light, and only in the light. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6). A man who claims fellowship with God while he walks in darkness is a...

I John, who am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira,...

Critical theory beyond postmodernism Christianity is the revelation of the truth. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and He gave a good confession before Pontius Pilate: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37). Our society is increasingly hostile to truth, not only to the truth of God’s Word, but also to the very idea of truth. The modern assault on truth was concentrated for a while in postmodernism....

Religious liberty under Trump President Trump was and is certainly a controversial figure in the USA and across the world. However, what cannot be denied is his promotion of religious liberty. Whatever Trump’s personal religious convictions might be (he grew up in liberal Presbyterianism under the ministry of Norman Vincent Peale, and has among his spiritual advisors prosperity-preacher charlatans such as Paula White), politically he favoured a robust defense of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. One of his most significant Executive Orders was EO 13798, titled, “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” In that order, signed on May 4, 2017,...

“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:6–7 The word “fellowship” appears four times in 1 John 1 and is the key idea in the chapter, perhaps even in the epistle. “That ye also may have fellowship with us” (v. 3). “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”...

John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California is embroiled in a legal battle with the County of Los Angeles (LA County) over the right to worship indoors during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Grace Community Church (GCC) is a nondenominational, evangelical congregation with an average weekly attendance in excess of 8,000 people. On March 4, 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a State of Emergency in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has since issued a number of executive orders to curtail public gatherings in the State of California. An order on March 19, 2020, required almost all...