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The Doorpost · Issue 50 · Tuesday, June 16, 2026
The Fruit Tells the Story
“You will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16)
Father, today three stories each ask us to look at the fruit and tell the truth about what we see. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which spent years branding Christian organizations as hate groups, has now been unmasked as an organization that paid neo-Nazis, funded KKK activity, and in one case housed an employee whose live-in partner was collecting over a million dollars of donor money as a white supremacist informant. In the United Kingdom, a Labour MP is pushing to bring back an assisted suicide bill that the House of Lords already rejected, this time threatening to use parliamentary powers to force it through without the consent of the upper house. And Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest Christian foster and adoption agencies in the country, has returned to its founding convictions, requiring that all foster families align with its biblical statement of faith. Lord, give us clear eyes to see what the fruit of these things really is, and the courage to say so plainly. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Today’s issue covers the federal unmasking of the SPLC’s Director of Intelligence and her neo-Nazi-funded relationship, the renewed push to force assisted suicide into law in the United Kingdom, and Bethany Christian Services’ return to a biblical standard for foster and adoptive families. Go well.
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Top Stories
Three Headlines to Watch
1) SPLC’s Director of Intelligence Is Identified as the Employee Who Bankrolled Her Neo-Nazi Lover With Donor Money
A superseding federal indictment has unmasked Heidi Beirich, the former Director of Intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center, as the employee identified in court documents as having a romantic relationship with a paid neo-Nazi informant who received over $1.2 million in SPLC donor funds. The informant, identified in the indictment as “F-9,” was embedded in the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi organization, and shared a bank account with Beirich, through which SPLC money was used to cover the couple’s personal living expenses. Beirich directed the SPLC’s Intelligence Project from 2012 to 2019, overseeing the organization’s hate group designations and its Hatewatch blog. The Department of Justice filed the superseding indictment against the SPLC on 11 counts including wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The broader indictment alleges the SPLC funneled over $4 million in donor money to informants embedded in white supremacist groups, including the KKK, Aryan Nations, and the National Alliance, while telling donors the money was being used to dismantle those same groups. One informant allegedly used SPLC funds to host rallies and recruit new members rather than leave the movement. Another was paid to cover cross-burning supplies. The SPLC has spent years placing Christian ministries, pro-family organizations, and conservative policy groups on its so-called hate map alongside actual violent extremists. The organizations it targeted were labeled hate groups for holding the same biblical convictions on marriage, sexuality, and gender that Christians have held for two thousand years. The indictment is not a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Read the full story at the New York Post →
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Doorpost Reflection
The SPLC did not fight hate. It manufactured it, funded it, and then sold the story of fighting it to donors who had no idea where their money was actually going. For decades, this organization used its hate map to target churches, Christian legal groups, and pro-family ministries. Focus on the Family. Alliance Defending Freedom. The Family Research Council. These organizations were listed alongside the Ku Klux Klan, not because they committed violence, but because they held to what the Bible plainly teaches about marriage and human sexuality. That designation cost some of them donor relationships, speaking invitations, and in at least one case, it preceded a shooting at their offices.
Pray for the Christian organizations that were damaged by the SPLC’s hate map over the years. Pray that every institution, platform, and government agency that used the SPLC’s designations as a reliable guide would reckon honestly with what they were trusting. And pray that this indictment would be the beginning of real accountability, not just a news cycle that fades before any of the people responsible for this are made to answer for what they did.
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Scripture: “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” — Matthew 7:16
2) UK Assisted Suicide Bill Is Back, and Its Supporters Want to Force It Through Without the House of Lords
Labour MP Lauren Edwards has announced she will use her second-place position in the Private Members’ Bill ballot to reintroduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the same assisted suicide legislation that passed the House of Commons last year but ran out of time to clear the House of Lords after peers tabled over 1,200 amendments. Edwards is now discussing invoking the Parliament Act, a constitutional mechanism used only seven times since 1911, which would allow the Commons to bypass the Lords entirely and force the bill into law without the upper house’s consent. Christian voices in Parliament have responded quickly. Labour MP Rachael Maskell said she was hugely disappointed to see the bill return, and Ashley Dalton MP said supporters have debated this deeply divisive bill for over a year and refused to listen or make necessary changes.
Dr. Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, called the original bill deeply flawed and described the decision to bring it back as illogical and ideological. He noted that not a single doctors’ group or disabled people’s group supported the original legislation. A poll of 10,000 people across the UK found that a majority in every constituency, including Edwards’ own, believes the Commons should not bypass the Lords to pass assisted suicide into law. When voters were asked to rank political priorities, legalizing assisted suicide came last. The bill’s supporters say they will not be stopped. The Church should take them at their word and respond accordingly. Read the full story at Premier Christian News →
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Doorpost Reflection
Assisted suicide is not a compassionate solution to suffering. It is the state deciding that some lives are not worth the effort of caring for. The people who will be most harmed by this legislation are not the ones who loudly demand the right to die. They are the elderly, the disabled, the chronically ill, and the poor, who will feel the quiet pressure of a system that has decided dying is cheaper than living. A law that gives doctors permission to end lives does not stay in its lane. Canada’s experience is proof: what begins as a narrow provision for the terminally ill expands, inevitably, to cover the depressed, the disabled, and those who simply feel like a burden to their families.
Pray for the Christians in the UK Parliament who are standing against this bill, that they would have the courage and the votes to stop it. Pray for the doctors, nurses, and hospice workers who are opposed to being asked to participate in ending the lives of their patients. Pray for Care Not Killing and the other organizations fighting this legislation. And pray that the Church in the United Kingdom would speak clearly and loudly on this, because the people who most need someone to speak for them are exactly the ones this bill is most likely to harm.
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Scripture: “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” — Proverbs 24:11
3) Bethany Christian Services Returns to Biblical Standards for Foster and Adoptive Families
Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest Christian foster care and adoption agencies in the country, announced this week that it is returning to its founding convictions, requiring all foster families to align with its updated Statement of Faith and Belief. Beginning June 2027, the organization will only license and re-license families whose faith commitments match its own. The statement defines marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. Families who do not align will be supported through a transition process to other agencies. CEO Keith Cureton said the move was about three things: clarity, conviction, and faith. Bethany serves over 25 states and has more than 1,000 staff members. It served nearly 49,000 people in 2025.
The change reverses a 2021 policy shift in which Bethany began accepting households identified as LGBTQ as foster and adoptive parents. That decision followed pressure from civil liberties groups and came after the city of Philadelphia suspended its contracts with Bethany to force compliance. Board Chair Maegan Schwindling said the organization’s Christian foundation has always been central to its mission and that the board is taking deliberate steps to ensure its culture and practices reflect the biblical principles that have guided Bethany since 1944. The Doorpost commends Bethany for this decision. God’s design for the family is not a preference to be adjusted when the political climate makes it inconvenient. It is the foundation for how children thrive. Every Christian family that is able to foster or adopt should consider whether God is calling them to do exactly that. Read the full story at Fox News →
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Doorpost Reflection
There are hundreds of thousands of children in the foster care system in this country who need stable, loving, permanent homes. Bethany Christian Services has spent 82 years working to place those children with families. This decision to return to a biblical foundation is the right one, and it deserves to be received as good news. God created children to be raised by a mother and a father. That is not cruelty toward anyone. It is faithfulness to the design that produces flourishing.
The best response to this story is not just approval. It is action. If you are a Christian family that has the capacity to foster or adopt, today is a good day to talk to your pastor or a trusted leader in your local church about what the first step looks like. The children waiting for homes are not waiting for a policy statement. They are waiting for a family. Be one.
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Scripture: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” — James 1:27
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Daily Scripture
Verse of the Day
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“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”
Matthew 7:16
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Jesus spoke these words as part of His warning about false prophets. The test He gave was not theological sophistication or institutional credibility or a long track record of public statements. It was fruit. What does this actually produce? The SPLC produced funded white supremacists, cross-burning materials, and a romantic relationship between its Director of Intelligence and a neo-Nazi being paid with donor money. It simultaneously produced a hate map that branded faithful Christian organizations as dangerous extremists, placing ministries like Focus on the Family and Alliance Defending Freedom alongside the Ku Klux Klan. That is what the SPLC actually is. The assisted suicide movement produces a framework in which the weakest and most vulnerable people in a society are nudged, quietly, toward death. Bethany Christian Services has spent 82 years producing families for children who had none.
Matthew 7:16 is not a verse about being judgmental. It is a verse about being honest. Jesus is telling His followers to look at what something actually produces and let that tell them what it is. The SPLC called Christian organizations hate groups while funding actual hate. A government bill dressed in the language of compassion is being pushed through a parliament that its own voters do not want to bypass democratic norms to pass. A Christian agency is returning to the convictions that made it worth trusting in the first place. The fruit is visible. The question is whether we are willing to name what we see.
Father, we pray for the Christian organizations that were targeted by the SPLC’s hate map, that the record would be set straight and that the platforms and institutions that trusted those designations would take stock of what they were relying on. We pray for the United Kingdom, for the Christians in Parliament and in pulpits and in hospice wards who are fighting to protect the vulnerable from a bill that will harm them. We pray for the children in foster care across this country, and we pray that Bethany’s decision would inspire Christian families to step forward. Help us recognize fruit for what it is, and give us the courage to say so plainly and act accordingly. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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