Deceit and Delusion at American Family Radio (AFR)

American Family Radio (a subsidiary of the American Family Association) recently sent out emails for its spring fund raiser. I call on readers to note the confusion expressed in their statements and evaluate their claims.

The email begins:

Through the years, AFA has developed a broad range of resources, strategies, and media outlets aimed at promoting Christian values in all areas of our public life. Perhaps you are already a listener to our broadcast division called American Family Radio, where, right now, we are engaged in our Spring “Living Water” Share-a-thon. They desire to promote Christian values in all areas of our public life. What 'our' are they referring to when referencing public life? The Church or American society? If they're speaking of American society how can unbelievers live out and express Christian values? The only result can be the application of Cotton Mather's maxim: Better hypocrites than profane. For in the end the best you can hope for is to produce a Christian veneer and a society of Pharisees – all form but no substance. This is at the heart of what Evangelicalism actually is and the destruction it eventually brings. AFR currently has 181 radio stations, and each month, we average over 170,000 listeners on the AFR app and website combined. In 2022 alone, more than 50,000 new listeners downloaded the AFR mobile app. In short, we are growing, expanding, and reaching new people with the gospel of Christ, the truth about what is happening in our country, and how to make a difference! I can say with both confidence and conviction that AFR is guilty of promoting a great deal of disinformation about public affairs, American history, politics, geopolitics, economics, Church history, ethics, and theology. There is no gospel on AFR. Some of the celebrity programmes they run might contain the gospel or elements of it but their programming is dominated by politics and political calculation. The glorious gospel of the New Testament is just as buried and obfuscated as it is when I listen to the Roman Catholic radio station. It also is there, but in a corrupted form. Find your local station here, or download our free app for your smartphone. You can also enjoy listening to AFR live 24/7 here. We receive feedback daily from listeners whose lives have been transformed by the gospel and through our programming that informs, uplifts, inspires, and equips Christians to faithfully fulfill their calling to be salt and light in our culture. In addition, our news team offers hourly news from across the country and around the world from a Christian perspective. Their programming dis-informs, disappoints, oppresses, and ill-equips the Christian community. Clearly they do not understand what Christ meant by being salt and light and in fact the entire bent of the organisation is contrary to the New Testament. Instead all too often they strengthen the hands of those that do evil and represent a dangerous theological hybrid, a syncretism of Enlightenment American thought and rank mammonism all dressed up in a kind of nationalist-therapeutic pseudo-Christian garb – again every bit as confused and false as Roman Catholicism. The organisation is a front for the Beast that is the American Babylon and the false bride of Evangelicalism, the whore-church that still in many ways dominates this society. Please prayerfully consider joining in our mission with a generous gift to our Spring Share-a-thon, so we can continue providing thousands of listeners every day with tools and information on how to restore America back to its biblical foundations. JOIN OUR MISSION – DONATE TO AFR There are several ways that you can give to Share-a-thon: ·  To make an online donation, click here. ·  To make a donation over the phone, call our pledge line at 877-616-2396 and speak to a live person. ·  To mail in a donation, send a check to American Family Radio, P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803. To show our appreciation for a one-time gift of $150 or more, we will send you a DVD of The Battle in Loudoun County, the newest episode in our Impact Series project. For a monthly donation of $30 or more, along with the Impact Series DVD, donors will receive an AFR branded duffel bag. If you are an AFR listener, please stay connected. If not, I hope you will explore our programming and discover our faithfulness to stand boldly for what you value most – the sanctity of life, biblical values, the Constitution, and the traditional family.     Sincerely,   Walker Wildmon, Vice President of Operations American Family Association

 

If you value your soul, do not give to this evil Christ-hating organisation, led by frauds that are front-men for Right-wing and increasingly neo-fascist political forces.

They value and stand for the sanctity of life? What an absurd claim. This organisation labours fervently to promote militarism and war, an economic system that produces violence and exploitation. On the basis of cultural mythology and theological and ethical heresy, they actively promote gun culture and even equate it with Christian piety. They ally with corporate forces determined to block large sections of the public from access to health care and this network has championed the Covid-denial and anti-vaccine campaign that has led to over one million deaths in the United States alone. And worse they continue to actively disseminate disinformation about the disease – including the lie that vast numbers of people (even millions) have died from receiving the jab. There's nothing pro-life about this organisation. It is part of a politically motivated death machine determined to destroy its enemies and seize power over society.

They do not stand for Biblical values and in fact seem startlingly unfamiliar with them. And when confronted by them – they are met with hostility. Were Jesus and the apostles on Earth today, they would undoubtedly be decried as 'woke' – their deceitful catch-all epithet for all who oppose or even dare to question them. They claim to uphold Scripture but more than anything it is the very writings of the apostles that condemn them. There is no love of neighbour, no turning of the cheek, no laying up of treasures in heaven. They seek power in the here and now and are willing to lie, crush, and kill (by proxy) those who oppose them. They live by the sword and the coin. They tout the cross but are hostile to the notion of taking it up.

The claim concerning the Constitution exposes them for what they really are – nationalists and no Christians at all. But what nationalism do they promote? They promote a mythological narrative about Christendom as well as Western and American history. It is a great irony but in fact they do not support the Constitution and like their enemies continually labour to undermine it and redefine its meaning. They are also guilty of gross contradiction and confusion – even lawlessness. Their Christo-American hybrid does not work and seeks to create an amalgam of ideologies and ethics that are in fact incompatible. And in many cases they read American idealism back into the text of Scripture – a model that is corrupt from top to bottom.

It is heresy on a grand scale.

Contrary to their claims they do not stand for the traditional family. They oppose homosexuality which is rightly condemned as an abomination, but even the Muslims and much of the world does that. There's nothing particularly laudable about this stance which even a majority of lost people in the world are able to discern from nature. In truth, the economic system championed by AFR is anti-family. It destroys communities in the name of profits, promotes a destructive consumerism that leads to human misery, debt slavery, and mass manipulation. Chasing after the dollar and enslaved to the expectations of the middle class, this system drove women into the workplace more than a generation ago – which continues to wreak havoc on the family as well as household and marital dynamics. But like Evangelicals today, they champion this and fight feminism with feminism. They claim to be conservative but do so by constantly moving the goalposts in terms of what a traditional family, and gender roles look like. Their stances on issues like feminism, divorce, parenting, and marriage in general would have been decried as progressive and liberal only forty or fifty years ago. They don't make a stand on these issues, they compromise. Keeping an audience and the money flowing are paramount and more than anything it is what drives these organisations. They are frauds and more than ever New Testament Christians need bold and willing voices to call out these people because they are playing a central role in the destruction of the American Church and its slide into apostasy.

The lies in their email appeal are blatant. If one wants to understand what a wolf in sheep's clothing looks like – look no further than AFR and its allies within the American Evangelical movement.