(Click to enlarge.) Pro-life evangelists bring the latest Awareness Campaign to the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, Florida where Jenna Tosh, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orlando, and Sarah Sprinkel, a city commissioner who voted to ban free speech in residential neighborhoods, are members. The people dressed in sheets are “guardian angels” who are shielding the church members from pro-life signs (see photo and video below).

WINTER PARK, Florida (www.forerunner.com) – The CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando, Jenna Tosh, has a brother-in-law who is a big name in the trash TV industry. Not only does Daniel Tosh have his own show on Comedy Central, but he is the producer of a new animated series, Brickleberry, which premieres this Tuesday, September 25, 2012 at 10:30 pm.

According to one preview, “the show includes jokes about making fun of a child quadruple amputee, animal abuse, overt racism (against blacks, Mexicans, Colombians and Koreans), jokes about AIDS, jokes about abortions, jokes about alcoholism, making light of the Klu Klux Klan, the implied imminent rape of a bear cub, jokes about rednecks and making fun of war veterans.”

While this is standard fare for Comedy Central, one wonders what is going on with Jenna Tosh’s circle of family and friends. While Tosh is not responsible for her brother-in-law’s behavior, a recent controversy in the city of Winter Park, Florida highlights the irony of banning free speech that is deemed to be offensive.

On August 27th, the associate pastor of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, Reverend Karen Barker-Duncan, where Jenna Tosh is a member, gave the invocation at the City Commission meeting. At the same meeting, an emergency ordinance aimed at singling out and banning a pro-life Awareness Campaign was unanimously voted on.

Not coincidentally, Sarah Sprinkel, also a member of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, is the city commissioner who spearheaded the effort to pass the emergency ordinance. On Monday, September 24, the “no-free-speech” measure will be made permanent if the commission votes to ratify it.

What follows is Duncan’s prayer at the Winter Park City Commission meeting on August 27. After praying to the “God of the Ages to bless the city hall building and use it for the best of all purposes, the exercise of democracy …” she made one of the most presumptuous, arrogant “prayers” I have ever heard.

Personally and for the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, we are grateful for the guidance and presence of our police officers Sunday who advised and supported our members’ efforts to prepare ourselves in case of an unruly protest outside of our church following an editorial published by our conference minister who was preaching. We thank you for free speech and we hold this as a high value. At the same time, we ask you to provide for safety for residents who are harassed and picketed in their homes trampling on their safety and peace as happened last week here in Winter Park.

- Reverend Karen Duncan, Associate Minister, First Congregational Church of Winter Park

Reading this, I can hardly believe that she used a prayer invocation at a public forum to condemn Christians who peacefully and lawfully stand for life even while her denomination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), has supported Planned Parenthood since Margaret Sanger’s day and now supports abortion on demand. The UCC also ordains homosexual and lesbian clergy and “marry” same sex couples. I was grieved by the words of this “pastor” who condones child murder and perversion even while accusing pro-life Christians of being “unruly,” “harassing” and “trampling on safety and peace.”

Another Jenna Tosh news item is equally hard to believe, yet true. She recently teamed up with Florida State Representative Scott Randolph and others to help conduct a week long seminar in which students were taught, among other things, how to feel comfortable about masturbation. It is a sad commentary on the political bent of our culture when defunding federal grant money to Planned Parenthood is resisted so strongly by many.

See a related video in which Florida State Representative Daphne Campbell (D-Miami) asks Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) to apologize for his bullying tactics on the Florida State House floor after she spoke in favor of a pro-life bill.

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel”

In the first century, Jesus Christ named a divisive spirit operating in the apostate and corrupt church of Thyatira as “that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:20). Jesus then told John to communicate this warning to the church at Thyatira, “And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent” (Revelation 2:21).

It is intriguing that this woman pastor announced that she expected pro-lifers to come to protest at her congregation in response to an editorial written by a denominational official condemning pro-life free speech and supporting Planned Parenthood. Reverend Duncan said in her invocation that they were “preparing” for an “unruly protest.” But no one had made any such plans at that point.

Jenna Tosh then testified publicly in the same City Commission meeting that she had information from the FBI that the same Awareness Campaign was coming to her home again the following week. She complained that she had to take her family out of town to avoid that. That is a remarkable statement, because no pro-life group had any such plans.

Is this simply paranoia in full flower or is it a blatant attempt to influence the City Commission? It is apparent that they did not have any such information from the FBI or local law enforcement. The sincerity of their plans and preparations is doubtful. They also may have thought that if they announced publicly that they knew pro-life activists were coming and that law enforcement is watching, that the “protesters” would be afraid and stay away. Or at least it would appear that way.

It ended up having the opposite effect as 17 pro-life evangelists decided to go ahead and stage a pro-life demonstration in an area where free speech is still allowed in the city, the sidewalks surrounding First Congregational Church of Winter Park.

Back in the 1990s, I saw Patricia Baird-Windle – the owner of the now defunct Aware Woman abortion center in Melbourne, Florida – use this tactic too. She would come up with all sorts of wild ideas of what pro-lifers were doing to “harass” and “spy” on her. She would state this to the press and they would print it. She was able to get a similar “no-free-speech” buffer zone injunction through a judge in another district in Florida. Later she wrote a book, Targets of Hatred, which is filled with lies, but reads like a manual of what pro-lifers can do if they really want to upset the death industry. In fact, every pro-life street evangelist should read this book through just to understand how abortion center owners think. Used library copies sell on Amazon.com for a few cents.

The same dynamic is going on today at the First Congregational Church of Winter Park. It is a spirit of lying divination and witchcraft. What is Jesus’ prognosis for this spiritual sickness?

“So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds” (Revelation 2:22,23).

Strong words from our Lord himself. Although widely misunderstood, these verses fall into a category in biblical literature known as imprecatory proclamation. This is a pronouncement of both blessing and cursing — a call to those who repent to be blessed — and to those who refuse to repent to be cursed.

In her full-time position as CEO of Planned Parenthood, Jenna Tosh teaches young people to commit acts of sexual immorality. Her pastor supports her in this.

Division and Reconciliation

To be fair, I must point out that not everyone at this particular church supports abortion rights. The Awareness Campaign on September 23rd exposed some division over the issue. One of the members wrote on the church’s Facebook discussion group:

I think that it is so important right now not to use language that is divisive, or to say that we as a church believe something that has never been voted on by the congregation…. I think of my own church putting me on the other side of those ropes because I believe that in most cases life is more important than choice, and that makes me very sad.

The good news is that Jesus offers love and forgiveness to Jenna Tosh and all at the First Congregational Church of Winter Park who will turn away from their sin, which includes the support of Planned Parenthood’s sin of child murder and teaching their members to commit acts of sexual immorality.

‘These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass: “I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first….

“Now to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations —

‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron;
They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’

as I also have received from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”’ (Revelation 2:18,19,24-29).