"Born Gay" (?)-- Exposing the Urban Legend

It's a true saying that if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes widely taken as being the truth. We've been consistently fed the propaganda that homosexuality is genetic, and thus is fixed and unchangeable. Traditionalvalues.org has an excellent article showing that such an argument is specious at best. indeed, the argument is not only fallacious, but is one of the most damaging lies being foisted upon society, especially the impressionable youth of America.

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From the article:

"One of the most persistent and culturally damaging Homosexual Urban Legends is the erroneous claim by homosexual activists that they are "born gay" or that their sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence and is fixed and unchangeable.

One or both of these urban legends has been perpetuated not only by homosexual activist groups but by prestigious organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association."

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"...the most credible research to date on homosexuality-and research conducted years ago-demonstrates that no one is "born gay." The homosexual is suffering from a developmental problem, which frequently starts out in childhood as gender confusion, family dysfunction, or molestation.

From a Christian perspective, homosexual behavior is also labeled a sin and a sexual perversion. It is a behavior that must be repented of. The sin is akin to allowing oneself to become addicted to pornography or to drugs. These behaviors can be overcome-but the person must want to change!

The Bible-both the Old and New Testaments-clearly condemn homosexuality as a sin and a sexual perversion. Dr. Robert Gagnon, assistant professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has written a definitive text on how God views homosexuality. In The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, Gagnon proves beyond doubt that the Bible consistently condemns homosexual behavior but calls the homosexual-and other sinners-to repentance and salvation. Gagnon urges Christians to resist the homosexual agenda but to love the sinner by "befriending the homosexual while withholding approval of homosexual behavior."

Full article here.

UPDATE:

The orginal article is not a the above link any more, so I 'm posting the article here for those who might be still interested in reading it in its entirety:

One of the most persistent and culturally damaging Homosexual Urban Legends is the erroneous claim by homosexual activists that they are "born gay" or that their sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence and is fixed and unchangeable.

One or both of these urban legends has been perpetuated not only by homosexual activist groups but by prestigious organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

The American Psychological Association, for example, features a Q&A section on its web site that deals with sexual orientation. To the question, "Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?" the APA answers: "No, human beings can not choose to be either gay or straight. Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed."

In a follow up question, "Can Therapy Change Sexual Orientation?" the APA answers: "No. � The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable."

Current research from professional organizations like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) dispute the APA's pro-homosexual position.

Regrettably, however, homosexuals have used this particular urban legend to fight for anti-discrimination laws and for "hate crime" laws that provide special legal protections for homosexuals not accorded to heterosexuals. They have also used this fraudulent claim to push for homosexual recruitment programs in public schools under the guise of providing "safe schools" for "homosexual" teenagers. Homosexuals have also demanded sensitivity training for those who are repelled by homosexual behavior. Currently, transgendered individuals (those who cross-dress or are undergoing sex change operations), are also now claiming to be "born transgender." Transgenders are demanding federal laws to protect them from societal disapproval. (See TVC's Special Report on this: "A Gender Identity Goes Mainstream.")

Great cultural and legal changes have taken place in our society because of this Homosexual Urban Legend-but it is slowly but surely being debunked. This is being done not only by conservative psychologists and psychiatrists, but by the admissions of homosexual researchers themselves.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, a NARTH associate, was one of the main forces behind the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality as a mental illness from the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

Dr. Spitzer is now convinced that men and women who have a homosexual orientation can change through therapy. His most recent findings were published in Archives of Sexual Behavior (Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417).

NARTH summarized his findings on its web site. Dr. Spitzer interviewed some 200 men and women who reported changes from homosexual to heterosexual orientation that lasted five years or longer. According to Spitzer, his findings show that "the mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has, as a goal, a change in sexual orientation."

One of the most compelling articles to dispel the notion that homosexuality is genetically determined, fixed, and unchangeable is: "The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science: In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak About Science, Morality, Philosophy," by Drs. A. Dean Byrd, Shirley Cox, and Jeffrey W. Robinson. This essay is published on the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality web site.

The authors of this study carefully quote a number of homosexual researchers who have worked for years to locate a "gay gene" or some other genetic basis for homosexuality. They have failed and are now admitting that such evidence may never be found.

Homosexual researcher Dean Hamer, for example, attempted to link male homosexuality to a bit of DNA located at the tip of the X chromosome. He has written: "Homosexuality is not purely genetic�environmental factors play a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay. . . . I don't think we will ever be able to predict who will be gay."

Homosexual researcher Simon LeVay, who studied the hypothalamic differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men noted: "It's important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain."

Homosexual researchers Bailey and Pillard conducted the famous "twins study" quoted by homosexual activist groups to promote the idea that being "gay" is genetic. The study found that among those twins studied, the researchers found a rate of homosexuality of 52% (both twins homosexuals); 22% among non-identical twins; and a 9.2% rate among non-twins.

This was hailed by homosexual activists groups and by the media as supposedly proving that homosexuality is genetic. The study actually proved the opposite. As Byrd, et al, note: "This study actually provides support for environmental factors. If homosexuality were in the genetic code, all of the identical twins would have been homosexual."

In short, the three most famous studies in recent years that homosexual activists use to claim that homosexuality is genetic prove no such thing. In fact, two of the authors of these studies admit their research has not proven a genetic basis to homosexuality.
Catholic Psychiatrists Offer Insights

In June, 2002, Catholic psychiatrists with the Catholic Medical Association in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, sent a letter of concern to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and offered to help the Catholic Church deal with its scandals over priests with same-sex attractions. Many of these priests are not pedophiles in the clinical sense or the legal sense of the word. These are pederasts or homosexuals who are attracted to teenage boys or young adults.

The letter of concern notes: "There is no verifiable evidence that same-sex attraction is genetically determined. If same-sex attraction were genetically determined, identical twins would always have the same sexual attraction pattern. Numerous studies of twins have shown that this is not the case. And there are numerous studies documenting change of sexual attraction pattern (see 'Homosexuality and Hope,' available at www.cathmed.org). This entire statement is available on the Catholic Medical Association web site. This association is helping to debunk the notion that individuals are "born gay."
If Not Genes,
Then What Causes Homosexuality?

Regent University's Law Review for Spring, 2002, is entirely devoted to a discussion of various aspects of homosexuality, including the origins and causes of homosexual behaviors. The Law Review includes a study, " Homosexuality: Innate and Immutable?" by Dr. A. Dean Byrd and Stony Olsen.

After discussing the lack of evidence on the genetic origins of homosexuality, Dr. Byrd and his associate detail the various environmental factors that can lead a person into a homosexual lifestyle.

Gender Confusion: Dr. George Rekers, an expert on Gender Identity Disorders, is author of dozens of scholarly research papers on homosexuality and wrote Growing Up Straight: What Every Family Should Know About Homosexuality in 1982. He is also editor of Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, published in 1995. Dr. Rekers stated in 1995, that "Gender nonconformity in childhood may be the single common observable factor associated with homosexuality. Some of the typical childhood factors leading to homosexuality are: feeling of being different from other children; perception of father as being distant, uninvolved and unapproving; perception of mother being too close, too involved; diminished or distorted masculinity or femininity; premature introduction to sexuality; and gender confusion.

Failure To Internalize Maleness: Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality has written: "Homosexuality is a developmental problem that is almost always the result of problems in family relationships, particularly between father and son. As a result of failure with father, the boy does not fully internalize male gender identity, and develops homosexuality. This is the most commonly seen clinical model."

Dr. George Rekers, writing in Growing Up Straight, observes: "Many studies of homosexual patients as well as of nonpatient homosexuals have established a classic pattern of background family relations. The most frequent family pattern reported from the male homosexuals includes a binding, intimate mother in combination with a hostile, detached father."

Sexual Abuse By Same-Sex Predator: In studies conducted by Diana Shrier and Robert Johnson in 1985 and 1988, males who had been sexually abused as children were almost seven times as likely as non-molested boys to become homosexuals.

Dr. Gregory Dickson recently completed a doctoral dissertation on the pattern of relationships between mothers and their male homosexual sons. His paper is entitled: "An Empirical Study of the Mother/Son Dyad in Relation to the Development of Adult Male Homosexuality: An Object Relations Perspective."

Dr. Dickson's study is reviewed on the NARTH web site. His study sheds new light on the relationship between early childhood sexual abuse and a child's later involvement in homosexual behaviors. According to Dickson, an alarming 49% of homosexuals surveyed had been molested compared to less than 2% of heterosexuals.

His study affirms previous findings of Dr. David Finkelhor (1984), which found that boys victimized by older men were four times more likely to be currently involved in homosexual behaviors than were non-victims. As Finkelhor observed: "It may be common for a boy who has been involved in an experience with an older man to label himself as homosexual (1) because he has had a homosexual experience and (2) because he was found to be sexually attractive by a man. Once he labels himself homosexual, the boy may begin to behave consistently with the role and gravitate toward homosexual activity." (Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research, New York: The Free Press, 1984).

Dr. Dickson's study suggests that sexual abuse should be considered in evaluating the factors that contribute to the development of adult homosexual behaviors. Dickson writes: "An experience of sexual abuse could possibly contribute to the sexualizing of the unmet needs for male affection, attention, and connection."

Dr. Dickson continues: "Given the relational deficits [with his mother] experienced by the male child, it is also possible that the molestation, as devastating as it may have been emotionally, simultaneously may be experienced by some of the boys as their first form of adult male affection, as well as something relational that is not shared in common with his mother."

Counselor Dr. Robert Hicks, author of The Masculine Journey, has written: "�In counseling gay men for twenty years, I have not had one yet whom I would say had a normative childhood or normative adolescent development in the sexual arena. More often than not I have found stories of abusive, alcoholic, or absent (physically and emotionally) fathers: stories of incest or first experiences of sex forced upon them by older brothers, neighborhood men, or even friends. I sometimes find these men have had early exposure to pornography�."
Homosexuals Are Made, Not Born

In summary, the most credible research to date on homosexuality-and research conducted years ago-demonstrates that no one is "born gay." The homosexual is suffering from a developmental problem, which frequently starts out in childhood as gender confusion, family dysfunction, or molestation.

From a Christian perspective, homosexual behavior is also labeled a sin and a sexual perversion. It is a behavior that must be repented of. The sin is akin to allowing oneself to become addicted to pornography or to drugs. These behaviors can be overcome-but the person must want to change!

The Bible-both the Old and New Testaments-clearly condemn homosexuality as a sin and a sexual perversion. Dr. Robert Gagnon, assistant professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has written a definitive text on how God views homosexuality. In The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, Gagnon proves beyond doubt that the Bible consistently condemns homosexual behavior but calls the homosexual-and other sinners-to repentance and salvation. Gagnon urges Christians to resist the homosexual agenda but to love the sinner by "befriending the homosexual while withholding approval of homosexual behavior."

There is hope for homosexuals through developing a relationship with Jesus Christ, through both religious and secular counseling programs, and through support groups that provide accountability for those struggling with same-sex attractions and self-destructive behaviors.

Organizations like Exodus International, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, NARTH, Reality Resources, and others can provide the resources that homosexuals need to be set free from these self-destructive sexual behaviors. Freedom is possible for those who wish to be free!

An Empire at Risk - The Looming Collapse Of America As We Know It

In one of the most sobering and disturbing articles I've read recently, Newsweek magazine has a rather detailed article making the case that the American Empire is facing an almost inevitable collapse, perhaps sooner rather than later -- and one not caused by any foreign enemy, but by its own decades-long fiscal irresponsibility.

From the article:

An Empire at Risk

We won the cold war and weathered 9/11. But now economic weakness is endangering our global power.

Excerpt:

"Already, the federal government's interest payments are forecast by the CBO to rise from 8 percent of revenues in 2009 to 17 percent by 2019, even if rates stay low and growth resumes. If rates rise even slightly and the economy flatlines, we'll get to 20 percent much sooner. And history suggests that once you are spending as much as a fifth of your revenues on debt service, you have a problem. It's all too easy to find yourself in a vicious circle of diminishing credibility. The investors don't believe you can afford your debts, so they charge higher interest, which makes your position even worse.

This matters more for a superpower than for a small Atlantic island for one very simple reason. As interest payments eat into the budget, something has to give—and that something is nearly always defense expenditure. According to the CBO, a significant decline in the relative share of national security in the federal budget is already baked into the cake. On the Pentagon's present plan, defense spending is set to fall from above 4 percent now to 3.2 percent of GDP in 2015 and to 2.6 percent of GDP by 2028.

Over the longer run, to my own estimated departure date of 2039, spending on health care rises from 16 percent to 33 percent of GDP (some of the money presumably is going to keep me from expiring even sooner). But spending on everything other than health, Social Security, and interest payments drops from 12 percent to 8.4 percent.

This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Which is why voters are right to worry about America's debt crisis. According to a recent Rasmussen report, 42 percent of Americans now say that cutting the deficit in half by the end of the president's first term should be the administration's most important task—significantly more than the 24 percent who see health-care reform as the No. 1 priority. But cutting the deficit in half is simply not enough. If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power."

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Essentially, our nation (our government, in particular) is committing slow-motion suicide with it's continual accumulation of debt, which is on the way to becoming simply unmanageable. There is good reason to believe, from a Biblical and prophetic standpoint, that the American Empire is destined to fall anyway, to make way for the coming New World order, and a united Europe as the world's preeminent superpower.

However, even for those who disagree with this view, the fact is almost undeniable at this point-- America is headed for an economic shipwreck, and there's nothing to indicate that our nation's leaders are inclined to do anything to stop it.

New Book: The Devils's Delusion

I'd like to take a moment to promote a recently released book dealing with the fallacy of the theory of evolution.
The book: The Devil's Delusion, by Dr. David Berlinksi
More info below.
About the Book

The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
(Paperback edition, Basic Books, September 2009)


“Berlinski’s book is everything desirable: it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him.” —William F. Buckley Jr.

Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community.

“The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.”

A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions:

Website: DevilsDelusion.com
Related:

Videos: Dr. David Berlinski on the flaws of Darwinian Evolution, Part 1.


Dr. David Berlinski on the flaws of Darwinian Evolution, Part 2

The Real Reason Iran Can't Be Trusted

It seems like it's not a question of in Iran will get a nuclear weapon, but simply a question of when. While the world community plays this cat-and-mouse game with Iran, the Iranians are plowing full speed ahead with their nuclear research and development.

The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent article you'd never seen in the so-called mainstream media. The fact is, the Iranians not only have political reasons to lie about their nuclear ambitions, but they also have deeply held religious reasons for doing so.

Below are two excerpts from the article:
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The real reason Iran can't be trusted

London - In the run-up to talks with Iran last month, many in Europe and the United States asked whether Iran would, or even could, come clean on its nuclear activities.

Should the West trust Iranian promises? The short answer is "no." But the underlying question is "Why not?"

The answer lies in Iranian belief systems – notably the doctrine of taqiyya, a difficult concept for many non-Muslims to grasp. Taqiyya is the Shiite religious rationale for concealment or dissimulation in political or worldly affairs. At one level it means that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime can tell themselves that they are obliged by their faith not to tell the truth.

This doctrine has not been discussed much in the West, but it should be. How should the world deal with taqiyya in Shiite Islam in the context of Iran's nuclear file?

Can Iran be trusted?

In Iran, the teachings of Shiite Islam govern all aspects of society. And taqiyya – dissimulation and concealment – is one of the key elements of the Shiite faith. While many outsiders are surprised by Iran's concealment of its nuclear installations, those who study the Shiite faith and recognize the signs of taqiyya are not. "

AND

"The teachings of Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth Shiite imam, emphasise taqiyya as a political tool. "Befriend people on the surface, and keep your grudges and intentions hidden," he advised. He also defined the relationship between the Shiite and other Muslims: "[B]eing double-faced with one's own takes one outside the bounds of faith, but with others [with non-Shiites] is a form of worship."

The words of Shiite imams are viewed as having the authority of the prophet Muhammad, and they entail obligations. Taqiyya is one component of the faith, and the Shiites are instructed to practice it until the time the Mahdi returns. The Mahdi is the figure who, like the Messiah in Christianity, will return and spread justice on earth.

Until that moment occurs, the Shiite faithful are obliged to practice taqiyya in their dealings with other Muslims, as well as with non-Muslims."

Full article here.

Swiss Ban Mosque Minarets

GENEVA — Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.

Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. Business groups said the decision hurt Switzerland's international standing and could damage relations with Muslim nations and wealthy investors who bank, travel and shop there.

"The Swiss have failed to give a clear signal for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights," said Omar Al-Rawi, integration representative of the Islamic Denomination in Austria, which said its reaction was "grief and deep disappointment."

Full article here.
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Are these people kidding? Muslims, complaining about a lack of diversity, freedom of religion, and human rights??!!! Please.

Let's strip away all the foolish politically-correct junk we always hear in the media about the so-called "religion of peace". The simple fact is, Muslims should be the last one complaining about "freedom of religion", "religious diversity", etc. Islam is simply the most intolerant religion on the planet. Christians and other non-Muslims are killed in Muslim countries at an alarming rate in numerous countries around the world. Muslims cannot claim the same thing regarding followers of their religion. In fact, Many Muslims go to various parts of the world and expect (or demand) religious freedoms that they know are not available in the Muslim countries they came from.

In fact, former Muslims who convert to another religion in a Muslim country often do so at risk of their very lives (especially if they convert to Christianity). And we haven't even begun to talk about the genocide in Sudan, perpetrated by Muslims against non-Muslims in areas such Darfur, which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives. Of course, the Muslim world is silent about that, but if 20 Palestinians were to be killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, the Arab/Muslim world would be howling about the "injustice". Oh, the hypocrisy.

Let Muslims worldwide show concern for human rights and freedom of religion for those who don't believe as they do... and then maybe they'll be in a position to grumble when others oppose them trying to spread their religion wherever they go. In the meantime -- sorry, no sympathy here.
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The photos below are from a Muslim protest in London in March 2006. This should give us all an idea of why so many Europeans are alarmed about the spread of Islam on their continent.

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

The recent "Climategate" scandal, is finally beginning to pull the mask off the bogus "Global Warming" movement led by Al Gore and others. Al Gore himself, some of us may remember, is the one who stated that the U.S. Climate Change bill could help drive change through "global governance.

Article from Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph:
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Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Full article here.

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Glenn Beck did an interesting piece demonstrating that the "Global Warming" movement is little more than a modern day scientific scam, anyway. (see video below)

Fewer dollars, greater need at churches

Churches nationwide are definitely feeling the pinch during this economic downturn. If ever there was a time for Christians to be faithful in their giving, it's now. 
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Article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Mike and Susan Sowers are eking out a tough economic year. They have faced serious family illnesses that kept them away from their jobs, and Susan’s father died.

Still, despite the lost income and extra expenses, the first check they write every month goes to Hamilton Mill United Methodist Church.

“We have full confidence that with God’s guidance we will have what we need and will be blessed for doing so,” Susan Sowers said. “And so far the needs have been met. My old car just keeps going and going. I thought I would buy a new car at the beginning of this year, but we did not. It has done OK.”

While churchgoers across the nation are facing hardships similar to those of the Sowerses, they all haven’t followed the Gwinnett couple’s example.

Many churches are facing the most severe drop in donations in a generation as the economy sputters.

Job loss is driving the decline, according to a recent survey coordinated by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. As congregants’ donations dwindle, churches are looking for ways to cut costs. At the same time, they also are seeing a growing need for their services.


Full article here:

Megachurch Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty Dies at 57

From: Charisma News Online
Monday, 23 November 2009 12:47 PM EST
Adrienne S. Gaines

Megachurch pastor Billy Joe Daugherty died early Sunday morning after a brief battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 57.

A memorial service will be held Nov. 30.

Daugherty, founder of 17,000-member Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Okla., announced last month that he had been diagnosed with cancer, spawning a global prayer chain for his healing.

In a statement released Sunday, church leaders said Daugherty "experienced his ultimate healing by entering into the presence of God." They said the pastor passed away peacefully at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, surrounded by his family.

Full article here.