VA Chaplain penalized for preaching Romans
Rusty Trubey, a chaplain at the Coatesville, PA VA Medical Center, found himself in hot water after a sermon he preached last June at the VA chapel.
Trubey, who served as an Army Reserve Chaplain and missionary, has been serving as a chaplain at the Coatesville VA Medical Center in Pennsylvania for nearly ten years. In June 2024, as part of his normal duties, Trubey led a worship service in the hospital’s chapel, where he preached a sermon from the first chapter of Romans.
Smith explained that the theme of the sermon was what happens when culture excludes God, in which he read from Romans 1 and explained, in accordance with his religious beliefs and in accordance with the teaching of his endorsing body, the Assemblies of God, what the Bible chapters is interpreted to mean. Fox News
Here are the offending verses. I’d bet that verse 26 is what tripped someone’s trigger.
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Bible Gateway
His lawyer, Erin Smith at the First Liberty Institute, had this to say:
Smith explained that the theme of the sermon was what happens when culture excludes God, in which he read from Romans 1 and explained, in accordance with his religious beliefs and in accordance with the teaching of his endorsing body, the Assemblies of God, what the Bible chapters is interpreted to mean.
“The specific text that he was reading was Romans 1 verses 23 through 32, so before he gave the sermon, he did explain that what he was going to say was going to be hard to hear or uncomfortable for people,” Smith said.
Sounds like a trigger warning to me. Despite that, some of the folks attending walked out of the sermon, and after the service Trubey was approached by the VA police who told him they had received complaints. Subsequently Trubey was suspended, “investigated” for several months, moved to a menial restocker’s position (aka “nurse jail”) and has been told his sermons now have to be pre-approved, by his supervisor, Chaplain Brynn White at VA. At least she has given up on his letter of reprimand.
“What’s more, the changes to the SOP allow Chaplain White and other supervisors to continue to discriminate against chaplains on the basis of their religious viewpoints simply because they find the viewpoint ‘divisive, cultural, or political,'” the lawyers state in their letter to Secretary Collins.
“‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,’” the letter said, quoting the Supreme Court case, United States v. Eichman. “Indeed, the Bible and other religious texts comment extensively on what some people could deem ‘divisive, cultural, or political,’ and chaplains would be hard-pressed to preach a sermon avoiding these topics and giving the viewpoint espoused by their religious text. Fox News
Info on Ms. White is a bit sketchy – she has apparently worked a whole 6 years in two jobs. Her profile on the Society for Shamanic Practice has been pulled but what can be seen says:”Brynn, an ordained minister, is a board-certified (mental health) chaplain who works professionally with veterans.” so I suspect is the same one. Her signature is on a letter about why Christian Nationalism is not Christianity due to its white nationalistic past. Pennsylvania Capital-Star Somehow she just doesn’t come across as very conservative.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Religion, Veterans in the news
Gosh, lots to unpack here.
Yes, reading the Bible to people who sin is definitely triggering. That is part of the point. The other part is to try to get them to stop hurting themselves and others. That is what happens at church services. If you don’t want to hear it you shouldn’t go.
Christianity is by its very nature non-national. The Bible clearly states that all governments by their vary nature, being led by fallible and corruptible men, are corrupt. Leftist don’t understand this. Christian Nationalism is a term made up by the left in an attempt to diminish and insult people who are both religious and patriotic but it is mostly just their willful ignorance.
The only government that will not be corrupt is the one that will be led by Christ when he returns. I’d hate to be in the wrong side of that equation when the time comes.
Even though our government is far less than perfect, our country fails at something every day and is often wrong, right or wrong it is still my country. Love it or leave say I, no one is making you stay.
Would Paul have spoken those words had they been untrue? The book is titled Romans. D’uh? He was speaking directly to heathens or to those who were seeking to avoid heathen.
Being convicted of the Holy Spirit should be a life changing experience. Obama did this to the military and government.
Valerie Jarrett is a living witness to Satan and Hussein Obama is her hand servant.
In Romans, Paul primary addressed the congregations who were in Rome. As with the other letters, titled after the locations of the respective congregations, he was providing instruction, and “biblical exposition” to people who already had been exposed to Christian/Jewish teachings.
Back then, as today, there were church leaders and congregations who “missed the point” and went by what they thought was proper practice. It didn’t help that there were a lot of “false teachers” and “false prophets” who were driven by selfish, personal ambitions rather than spiritual and servitude ambitions.
One example involved a case where the first people to arrive for services drank up the wine intended to be served in conjunction with communion, and ate up the associated bread intended for communion, leaving nothing for the rest of the congregation. Based on Paul’s description of what happened to these people later, it sounded like these folks were alcoholics and gluttons.
“I’d hate to be in the wrong side of that equation when the time comes.” Yep…there’s a reason that the term “…The Wrath of God…came about. The Rev, Ordained Mental Minister White may just find herself on the wrong side when Judgement is handed down…Bless her heart.
Soooo…we get to add another thing that is RAAYYYCISSS. Being a whyte Christian. Got it.
Believe or not believe in a Supreme Being, that is one’s own choice. As for me, I choose to believe that there IS a God and that someday I will be judged by my actions…and so will everyone else. What would you rather do…believe that there is a God, then find out there isn’t? Or not believe and find out that there is? Oooops….too late.
In your own words, what does it mean to believe in God?
“…what does it mean to believe in God?” Which God(s)? Different cultures have a different God(s). I, personally, having been raised in the (Southern) Baptist Faith, believe in The God that is taught in The (KJV) Bible, Old and New Testament. It’s how I was raised and my faith in it being true is pretty consistent. I believe that a Supreme Spiritual Being is keeping an eye on things and we will answer for our sins. And that we have “…all have sinned and come short…” of how we should live. A firm belief in that whole “Vengeance is Mine saith The Lord” thing has helped keep me out of prison when I wanted to break some of His Commandments because I felt that someone had done something to me or mine that deserved having me break said Commandments. I also believe that my asking for forgiveness of my sins will allow my spirit to attain a higher plane of existence when I depart from this plane. I have read (and studied) The KJV several times, read thru the Koran, and the Torrah several times, along with works on Hindu/Asian Faiths. I’m not going to tell anyone that their Religion is wrong, per se, or to push mine on them. I also have no issues with people that choose not to believe. And as pointed out by others, if you don’t like the message, either don’t go or get up and leave, quietly.
If this Rev Minister Ms Thang had issues with The Chaplains words, she wouldn’t want to attend on Old School, Down Home, Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show Religious Revival in the South. She WOULD hear some sho’ ’nuff Hell Fire and Brimstone Preaching. I think she is just an Attention Whore that will answer to Someone Higher up than me.
In context of Scripture, belief has an action element. Both belief and faith entail action, as in embedding God’s commandments in our actions. A person could say that they “believe in God,” but if their actions are inconsistent with God’s commandments one of the terms assigned to them is “ungodly”.
This goes back to the covenant. The 12 Hebrew tribes committed to abide by God’s commandments. In return, God blessed them. However, if the people did not abide by God’s commandments, they would get God’s curse. Christians enter this covenant, or renew it, when they declare Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus embodied the 10 Commandments in his actions. Demonstrating faith in Jesus entails following Jesus’s commandments. A person could say that they believe in Jesus, but if they’re carrying out actions inconsistent with Jesus’s commandments, then they’re what the letters of the Apostles describe as an “anti Christ.”
People carry out God’s commandments having faith that God would reward them, even if that reward would come further down the road and not immediately. A part of being “God fearing” involves fearing the blessings that wouldn’t be received as well as fearing the curse that could come down for not abiding by God’s commandments.
Ah, Pascal’s Wager comes up!
“let me just say this, about that”
Satan believes in God. Belief in God will not restore him as Lucifer Morningstar. When Satan tried to tempt Jesus he blasphemed against God by disaffirming the Holy Spirit, Emmanuel, in the person of Jesus.
The ONLY way that any of us can petition the Lord, directly, is through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. This is God’s requirement.
The entire notion of “being born again” is to be born unto the Holy Spirit, by faith.
As the First Commandment Says, “I am the Lord your God, you shall not have other gods beside me”.
I guess that Satan still has not come to that understanding. Even if he does, that ONE SIN is not forgivable.
As a literary study, the Bible is loaded with metaphors and styles of languages spanning thousands of years. In all of that time, Satan and his adherents have done what they could to change the Truth. Nonetheless, Truth remains the truth.
If anyone wants to hedge on the side of life after death… believe in Jesus Christ, He will take of the rest.
“If anyone wants to hedge on the side of life after death… believe in Jesus Christ, He will take of the rest.”
Amen!
This goes back to what I mentioned in the other post. When God told Satan that he’d be crawling on his belly eating dust all his days, he was tasking Satan with testing humanity. I provide the details on how this interaction goes in the other post. We see this process at work in the beginning of the Book of Job. God has a meeting with his angels. Satan is among them. God asks Satan for a status update. Satan provided that update. God’s response? He tasked Satan to test Job. The interaction goes back to the metaphor of someone making a product, and then a product tester comes around and tests the product for flaws. Towards the end of Job, we see God “fixing the flaw” with Job and his friend when God’s angel goes into one of the most epic mansplains in the Bible. Jesus was the perfect product, and passed the test when Satan was sent to test him in the wilderness… The wilderness uses the furnace/fire metaphor, which ties into the work smith metaphor. As for petitioning God. Many Christians think that they have to say, “In the name of Jesus Christ” before they say, “Amen.” But Jesus meant something else. “In the name of Jesus Christ” was meant to be done. Jesus was essentially telling his disciples that as long as they were embedding his commandments in their actions, what they asked of God would be granted to them. The Book of Ezekiel goes into detail. The angel interacting with Ezekiel complained about how the people had turned their faces away from God… They did not abide by God’s commandments, yet they petitioned God to answer their prayers. God’s response was that since they turned their faces away from God (not follow his commandments), God would turn his face away from them. Moses actually explained that this would happen when he detailed God’s blessings and curses. “In my name” is akin to “carrying God’s name”, both indicating action rather than just claims not met by action. As long as they carried Jesus’s name in them… Read more »
There are people who are completely dismissive of the Bible, and see it similar to how Commissar see’s our arguments. Just as we reject his arguments as completely asinine, many on the left, skeptics, atheists, “muh science”, etc., completely dismiss the Bible as “imaginary”, fake, etc. Commissar would have better luck getting us to believe his nonsense than we would getting people to take Scripture seriously.
I’ve argued against a lot of these folks in Quora and elsewhere, who think the Bible, religion, etc., is “complete BS”. Many of these folks were “Commissar on steroids”.
It’s understandable. The first things that you have to accept if you become a believer are very difficult for leftists to accept as truth:
There are things greater than yourself and things that you don’t have the capacity to understand
That “being a good person” with a humanist moral code is not enough
You are responsible for your own actions and choices
Forgiveness isn’t merely a good thing, it is a command from God
Evil is real, visceral, unreasoning and loose on the world
Sadly, Commissar and many other leftists can’t accept these things as truth and therefore have to fight all aspects of Christianity.
One main, golden, theme runs throughout the length of the Bible. This theme recognizes the fact that although we are flesh and blood, given to flesh and blood tendencies like the animals in the wild, we are also spirits. These two parts of us are in constant conflict. The scene at the Garden of Eden, where Satan convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit highlights this. The trees from which Adam (humanity) is to eat from are symbolic of learning, doing, and teaching others God’s law. These trees, along with the light created in the beginning, are symbolic of God’s divine law. This is the law of the Spirit. This is what is meant by “life”, e.g., “there is only one life.” This is what is meant by “eternal life.”
When Adam (humanity) is told that he would “die” after eating the forbidden fruit, it was meant to be “dying spiritually” and “being as the beasts.” What Satan tells Eve what would happen, instead, describes what drives people to sin… Ego. “Sin” simply means “falling short” of God’s commandments. The tendency to sin exists within each and every one of us, as we are flesh and blood. However, our spirits embody in flesh to fulfill God’s intent. God’s laws regarding how we are to treat each other provides us with the “operators manual” on how we could accomplish God’s purpose for our incarnating into a physical being.
It is when we abide by God’s law, allowing ourselves to be spirits rather than animals, that we step into the kingdom, return to Eden, gain eternal life, etc. Those who would rather be as the beasts remain outside the kingdom, “in Hell”, where God works to try to bring them back into the fold.
That’s quite well said, you have done some studying!
I really like this part “he would “die” after eating the forbidden fruit, it was meant to be “dying spiritually” and “being as the beasts.”
Exactly. There were not flesh, they were created spirits, created in His own image, perfectly.
There was no DNA in Eden.
Satan was still a spirit being when he defiled Eden. He remains a spirit being to this very hour and will so until God is finished with him.
For that matter, Satan can still appear to God, Jesus, angels and just about anywhere–as far as I have understood, so far.
After being expelled into the world, even their DNA was nearly perfect as witness to so many stories of men living to be hundreds of years old.
I’ve read the entire Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation more than once. I’m rather skeptical about literature related to the Bible, especially if the authors themselves have not read the entire Bible. It also helps to have a good understanding of both history and current events. History, as the metaphors, allegories, symbols, etc., are relevant to what the ancients understood. E.g., fire is actually described as an asset in Scripture, and is associated with God rather than with Satan (God as a work-smith working a furnace). The Bible was written for an ancient audience, so we have to do “detective work” to get to the bottom of what the writers were saying. Adam and Eve, both symbolizing humanity, were flesh and blood. This is indicated in the part where God is described as breathing the breath of life into Adam. The breath of life is God’s spirit, God infused his spirit into flesh and blood… The spirit within us is actually an inseparable part of God. Our spirits have to deal with the flesh and blood that is our physical, which wants to follow animal instincts (e.g., 7 deadly sins). To be in God’s image entails the spirit part of us. Dust is used in the creation of Humanity; dust is symbolic of humbleness in this situation. Together with Genesis 1:28, it tells us the purpose for which we were created… Service to humanity. Since God’s spirit is in us, service to humanity is service to God. This is how God wants us to worship. This also helps make sense Jesus’s statement about how we treat the least of Jesus’s brothers is how we treat Jesus. Eden is a metaphor for the state we would be in if we abide by God’s commandments and overrule the beast in us. Eden is interchangeable with “Kingdom of Heaven”, “God’s temple”, “Mountain of God,” Etc. Likewise, being “locked out” is interchangeable with “burning”, with “being in the netherworld”, “yoked to the beast”, “death”, etc. It’s a metaphorical state that we get into when we do not abide… Read more »
I have not gotten through the entirety of the Bible even once. Some of it just does not connect. Some of it, to my reading, is not relevant to gentiles.
Understanding the New Testament does compel reading many sections of the Old Testament.
What is for sure is that anyone can get through Genesis and enjoy a fundamental exposition about the beginning(s).
Without some direction, merely opening the Bible to any random page will not likely provide much impetus to keep on reading.
Haha, I’m old enough to have listened to J. Vernon McGee and have listened to hours of his teaching. There are lots of other places to obtain learning and context.
When I NEEDED to make sense of scripture I was lucky enough to stumble upon The Berean Call. Highly recommend them. If anyone is interested try:
thebereancall.org
Thank goodness for Rusty Trubey and his sermon on a few verses from Romans.
Concur.
Romans 1:29 is definitely Hunter Biden and many other Democrats.
Y’all had church and I wasn’t there!
Hallelujah! Y’all bless my old-time Southern Baptist preacher-heart abundantly!
To toss in my two bits on a couple of topics:
Biblically speaking, the New Testament Greek term translated “to believe” is the verb form of “faith”.
Throughout Scripture, when God calls upon a people to believe/trust Him, He always provides evidence for belief. “Blind faith” is alien and abhorrent to Scripture.
Furthermore, it is a fundamental claim of Christianity that what the Bible teaches is both true and reasonable. In other words, it is what both fits our experiences in this world and makes sense of it all.
Just looking at what types of grief we cause ourselves when we disregard God’s Instruction Manual should cause a rational person to pause and reflect.
Biblically, we are all broken from what God created us to be, by our own sin. We are so broken, we cannot fix ourselves to please God – only Jesus Christ can do that by providing the atonement sacrifice once for all for us.
It is received by rational faith, and nothing else but that will suffice.
OK – I’ll step down from the pulpit for now.
God bless you all.
WOKENESS is strong, in MY opinion, in the upper echelons of the military.
Bless her craven ways: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brynnwhite
Here, in her Shmanic rol, she looks surprisingly similar to Valerie Jarrett:
I believe that is a wig and it’s on backwards.
No, that’s Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.
She looks….exactly how I’d expect a “Brynn White” to look…
Just add hyphenated-last-name.
Interesting.
Apparently, the supervisor has her own skeletons.
And visions.
I deployed the Fu of Google, and this comes up on top.
I clicked to see her “shamanic” website bio, and
POOF, it’s not there.
https://shamanicpractice.org/member-directory/brynn29693/
In the first picture: she looks like a dude, acting like another dude pretending to be a different dude.
She’s got a decent rack on her, almost like Susan Sarandon. But, yeah, it’s not her most feminine statement.
It is very telling that some individuals can’t just walk from something they feel offensive… they went straight to security and said he was preaching stuff that was offensive (even though he told them ahead of time) and needed to be removed.
Agreed.
But on the other hand, just preach something els and save that particular sermon for a rainy day.
So, if Hack Stone is walking through the parking lot and some Escalade with illegally tinted windows is cruising by blasting music tossing out the N Word and F-Bombs, Hack Stone can complain to the Pokice and they will immediately take action?
Yes and no.
In the greatest county of Maryland that is due East of the Nation’s Capitol and named after a certain Prince George the police will make them turn it up louder if they show at all.
In my adopted State of Alabama the subjects will turn the volume down as soon as they espy a serve and protect servant who otherwise is likely to use the occasion to explore the source of odor that is not quite a skunk emitting from the said vehicle and then assist the yutes by giving them a ride to their nearest police station and impounding the vehicle to keep it safe.
Depends on which county you’re in.
I am willing to bet that they knew what was going to be preached in advance, then showed up so they could be “offended” so they could then file a complaint.
Sort of like ordering a wedding cake from a Christian baker.
You’d think Chaplain Trubey had just preached a never-before heard verse. I’m willing to bet that in true government fashion, chaplains will be banned from all VA facilities. Except for liberal approved sects such as Islam and Planned Parenthood.
Seems to me that Chaplain Trubey should kick this upstairs and complain that his 1st amendment rights are being restricted due to woke policies. Also that the idea that something is “offensive” is a criminal matter needs to be examined. I would say that a new policy should indicate that the offended party be told to go elsewhere to be unoffended and that it is a personal problem.
Let the man preach!!!
History doesn’t repeat word for word, but it often rhymes. Supposed “faithful” of a land that abandoned God taking offense to the Truth is nothing new. It happened in Israel in the days of Augustus. Nowadays, those taking severe offense to scripture is the woke and in their gnashing of teeth they sought to inject their ideology into our faith. There is no mistake: woke churches are not Christian. They are heretics.
The first words out of Moses’s mouth when he stood atop Mt Sinai was,, “Ya know, this would be a great place for a hospital”…
Just before he received the 15 commandments?
I’m not a Christian, but I certainly am not offended by Christianity. I try to base my daily actions on a lot of what is in the Bible (taught Sunday school to junior high kids for a couple years), and if I go to a service where the Word is taught and (somehow) get offended by what I hear, that just means I need to look at myself to see what needs to change WITHIN ME. I won’t complain about it to The Authoritahs! When anything gets perverted, it makes an easy inroad to pervert it further, and I believe that is the goal with the Woke crowd. I don’t know why, but they seem to desire removing basic decency from this human experience. Golden rule, anyone?
Tldr; if you don’t like it, don’t go. If you DO go, knowing you may be triggered, STFU!
YMMV
Sounds mainly to me that the moonbat flower monkey wanted to make a stink over “being offended” and make it a publicity stunt!
I have to wonder if the Good Chaplain had been an Imam preaching from the Quoran about lying to Infidels, would anyone have complained to the Authoritahs, and would the Authoritahs have approached the Good Imam with nothing but respect (or cowardice)?
If one of the three Muslim chaplains in the Army went that way I guess we would find out.
A Christian Chaplain reading the bible? Oh my Gosh!
I’m surprised he didn’t get hung for that.
I’m betting that other chaplain wants to make out with Bishop Butte, especially after what she said in church with Trump.