Homo/Transphobic "Pastor" Barry McKeen, Grace Community Church, Grace Christian School. Valrico, Florida

Barry McKeen, Administrator Grace Christian School (Valrico, Florida)

Rebecca McKeen, Director of Institutional Advancement, Grace Christian School (Valrico, Florida)

 

Another embarrassment from Liberty University, Barry McKeen, leads Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida. 

Grace Christian School 3500 N Valrico Rd. Valrico, Florida, 33594 

Founded in 1974 by Bob Gustafson. According to his biography on the school website, Bob played baseball for Rollins College before being drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. Bob also became an assistant coach for Princeton University. During a game, a baseball hit Gustafson below his left eye. According to the story, Bob remembered a passage of scripture ("Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season..." 2 Timothy 4:2) while in the emergency room that night. That is when he decided to become a preacher.

After graduating from seminary in 1970, Bob and his wife Dana founded the Grace Community Church in Brandon, Florida. By 1974, Bob founded Grace Christian School, a K-12 born-again evangelical/baptist hybrid private school. 

In 1991, Bob's oldest daughter, Rebecca, married Barry McKeen. Before Bob Gustafson's death in 2015, Barry McKeen was named leader of both Grace Community Church and Grace Christian School. 

Homophobic Administrator, Segregated Schools

Barry came to our attention after NBCNews posted a story about Grace Christian School. McKeen sent an email to the parent of the students at the school. In his letter, McKeen falsely quoted Biblical Scripture to inform parents that Grace Christian School no longer allowed any member of the LGBTQIA+ community to attend the school. Further, McKeen states that all students will be referred to by "the gender of their birth certificate." It should be noted that the National Institutes of Health defines gender as a biological construct. Sex refers to the biological differences between males and females. 

After the NBC article went viral, Berry decided to double down in a video posted to Facebook.

Interestingly, Barry wasn't as harsh towards terminated fifth-grade teacher Stephen Robb. According to WFLA News,  Robb was charged with six counts of possession of child pornography. 

Grace Christian School Accepts Tax Payer Vouchers

In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expanded the state's educational voucher system. Public schools are funded by both federal and state tax money. In Florida, the state funds schools through property taxes. DeSantis expanded the voucher program to include taxes collected through tobacco and alcohol sales. Vouchers attach a sum of taxpayer money to a student. The child can take this voucher to offset the cost of tuition at a private school. The downside is that the voucher does not cover the full tuition in most cases and takes money away from public schools.

A search of Florida's Department of Education's registry of schools, Grace Christian School, participates in the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) voucher program. 

The Florida Legislature wrote into the statute that schools receiving FTC vouchers must abide by 42. USC s. 2000d (Civil Rights Act of 1963). 

Sadly for Barry McKeen, he forgot about all the subsections of the Civil Rights Act of 1963, including 200d-7, Civil rights remedies equalization.

For anyone living in the Valrico, Florida area that might want to ask questions, if Barry isn't at school or church, you can probably find him here. 

Elijah Schaffer: Podcasting Grifter Extraordinaire

Elijah and Kenzia Shaffer

We came across Elijah while researching Sean Feucht. Feucht is a part of the new wave of anti-LGTBQIA+, transphobic, and often racist, charismatic movement of the Christian church. 

Schaffer leaves a HUGE digital footprint. Information about him is relatively easy to find but raises questions. 

Elijah claims he grew up "in the streets of Los Angeles." He also said that he was brought up in the church by his father, "Pastor" John K Schaffer. His father leads First Love Calvary Church in Whittier, California, a small suburb south of LA.  

It should be noted that the median income of Whittier is around $95,000 a year. Average house prices average around $500,000.

Like most Indepentent Fundamentalist Baptists/Charamastics, First Love Calary played the persecution game during the COVID-19 pandemic. While schools, many business, and government employees moved to working from home, John decided he was too good for that and amassed a few fines for holding services while a lockdown was in place for ALL places of worship. To pay for the fines his father was assessed, Schaffer began a GoFundMe page calling it "unfair government treatment of the church." 

Shortly after, Schaffer invited known Christofascist Sean Feucht to his Blaze Media podcast "Slightly Offensive." In an episode entitled "Messy Christianity: Crushing ANTIFA and The Antichrist with Boldness," Feucht and Shaffer complain about the "persecution" of Christians and begin a discussion...and then Schaffer discusses his rejection from the church in 2018 for "just messing up and getting involved in weird sexual morality."

Later, in an episode titled "NO More Gay Orgies," claimed, wrongfully so, that Monkey Pocs is a "gay disease."  

And who can forget episode 270, "Big Booty Latina (AOC) Threatens to Deck Alex Stein." 

It seems Shaffer is a mysogenist as well as being homophobic and transphobic.

For all of this, Shaffer's podcast only earns approximately $33,000. 

 

Elijah Schaffer married Kezia in his father's church January, 12 2020. His mother, Maureen, invited the entire world to come celebrate their nuptials. 

Sadly,Maureen passed away 6 months later. 

Kezia seems to be no better than Eijah in the grift/hate worlds. Going by the name @krocs_on on Twitter, she is a frequent guest on Elijah's podcast. In this particular episode, Kezia hurled insults and ad hominem attacks as progressive women.

Like her husband, Kezia also believe that COVID-19 was fake. 

 We'll be posting more about Elijah and Kezia Shaffer as more is uncovred. 

Let this serve as a warning. If you are preacher or claim to be a "child of God" and choose to preach hate you will be found. We will expose you.

 

 

Militarized Christian Fascist Matthew Trewhella: Ain't No Hate Like Pastor Trewhella Hate

Matthew and Clara Trewhella

Before we get into this "Pastor," we first must understand the language of these Christofascists. The word "Pre-Born" and "Un-born" are relatively new words that have no purpose but to manipulate and encourage attacks (physical and emotional) on women. Carolina Abboud discusses this in her dissertation A Fetus By Any Other Name: How Words Shaped The Fetal Personhood Movement in U.S. Courts and Society (1884-1973) "The use of certain words nudged courts to grant additional rights to embryos and fetuses. In the 1960s, writers began describing the science of development, using words like "unborn child" and humanizing descriptions to make embryos and fetuses seem like people already born. That helped build an idea of embryos and fetuses as having "life" before birth. When people began asking courts to legalize abortion care in the 1970s, attorneys on the opposite side argued that embryos and fetuses were "human life," and that that "life" began at conception" (Abboud, 2021).

Militia "Pastor" Matthew Trewhella

Matthew Trewhella started his "church," Mercy Seat Christian Chuch, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1989s and has been a constant source of harassment for the women and the LGBTQIA+ communities in the area. In 1990, Trewhella founded the militant anti-abortion group Missionaries to the Unborn. 

By 1992, Missionaries to the Unborn had been sued by the City of Milwaukee for blocking women from entering abortion clinics. In State of Wisconsin v Missionaries to the Unborn (1992), the state asserted that 32 members of the group had engaged in blockades and had harassed and intimidated women seeking medical abortions and the medical providers. The case bounced back and forth between state and federal courthouses. In the end, the case set limits for anti-anti-abortion activists, and Trewhella was sentenced to 14 months in prison for blockading abortion clinics. 

By 1994, Trewhella was making headlines nationwide. During an August 17, 1994 meeting of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, according to the Virginia Pilot, presenters played a tape of Trewhella addressing the U.S. Taxpayers Party's Wisconsin state convention. In the videotape, Trewhella states, "Our government wants to disarm us... What should we do? We should do what thousands of people across this nation are doing; we should form militias." At the time, Trewhella was one of many other anti-abortion activists who were the focus of a federal investigation into whether a conspiracy existed to shut down abortion clinics nationwide.

Later, Mercy Seat Christian Church would lose its building on West Bluemound Rd in Milwaukee.

Mercy Seat Christian Church is currently holding services at the Embassy Suites in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

In his sermon "Warning to America: A Look at the Dobbs Case (July 3, 2022), Trewhella ironically called the U.S. Supreme Court evil and their decision to overturn Roe v Wade "illogical idiocy."

Trewhella Cements His Role as a Christofascist Leader

In August 2013, Trewhella published his book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. Based on the writings of the Lutheran Magdeburg Confession (1550). Confession "argued that the "subordinate powers" in a state, faced with the situation where the "supreme power" is working to destroy true religion, may go further than non-cooperation [violent uprising, etc.] with the supreme power and assist the faithful to resist. This work drew heavily on Luther, including his Beerwolf concept as one of the multiple conditions an evil ruler would need to fulfill before opposition to his rule could be justified. In other words, even though an evil ruler is acting as a private citizen, he may not be resisted unless all other conditions are fulfilled. One of them was that the evil ruler must show himself to be a true Beerwolf and servant of the devil" (Whitford, David, Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition). 

In The Doctrine, Trewhella argues that the federal, state, and local governments are growing too big and too powerful. Further, it argues that the governments are unjust and immoral, having infringed on natural law and "God's law." The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine states that when the superior or "higher civil authority" becomes "tyrannical," it is the right and duty of "lower authorities" to refuse obedience to the higher authority. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, state authorities across the nation imposed mask mandates in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. According to a Fox6 article, Trewhella argued in a Brookfield, WI city council meeting that mask mandates were a step to tyranny. "Tyranny is built plank by plank...  The Jews didn't one day get called to the edge of the railroad and told to get into the boxcar."

Welcome hate preacher and domestic terrorist Matt Shea to the rise of Matthew Trewhella. Shea has a long history of armed standoffs against state and federal law enforcement agencies. He was a participant in the Bundy standoff and another in Las Vegas when a veteran has been red-flagged. Red-flag laws allow law enforcement agencies to remove any guns or knives from persons deemed by psychologists and law enforcement as a danger to themselves or others. 

It seems Matt has discovered The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine. 

Later, Shea invited Trewhella on his podcast introducing him to Shea's tens of thousands of listeners.

While Shea may have introduced Trewhella to his followers, we have more information for our readers. 

Welcome to the sunshine, Matthew Trewhella.