Category: Op-Ed

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Conspiracy Evangelical Stuff Heresies Op-Ed

Real-Life Example of How SBC Churches Get Away with Having Female Pastors: Al Mohler Take Note

Back in August, the future president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Albert Mohler, said there are no female pastors within the SBC. He said this multiple times in fact, over and over, as if wishing could make it so, and demonstrating that he’s either lying or he’s just completely oblivious to the facts on the ground of the denomination he’s looking to lead.

He said during his show:

And if you just take the headline at face value, it tells us that the majority of Southern Baptist women, the word of the headline was, “most,” would welcome a woman as pastor of the church. That’s rather stunning when you consider the fact that out of the almost 40,000 churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, not one of them has a woman as pastor. 

Over the course of this segment, he says the same thing over and over again.

The problem with that is not one of those churches has a woman as pastor…We’re talking about 40,000 churches. And at the moment, I don’t believe that a single one of them has a woman as pastor…Again, the math, 40,000 roughly, and the other column zero. That’s not a close call…Again, 40,000 in one column, zero in the other…If Southern Baptists want Southern Baptist churches to have pastors who are women, they can do it, but they don’t do it.

In that same article, we went through 500 of the biggest SBC churches in America, visited every website, and found that nearly 10% of them had women pastrixes on staff. That’s shocking, especially that was only women who had the title of “Pastor.” If you look at all the ones who had titles of “Minister” it would have been closer to 20%.

But we decided to pick just one of those churches to show how this happens. In this case, First Denton Church in Denton, Texas.

We reached out to this church and asked if they were associated with the SBC, and they affirmed that they were. Then we inquired:

“I ask because I saw your church mentioned as an SBC church, and yet while I was checking out your website and it said you had a woman pastor on staff, which is against the Baptist Faith and Message. So I’m a little confused by that. Is your church in good standing with the convention?

The response?

“We are in good standing with the SBC as the BFM 2000 states “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture”. Though our children’s minister serves under the title of Next Gen Pastor, the office of pastor in our church is reserved for our head pastor, Dr. Jeff Williams. Our children’s pastor, myself, and all of our staff are under his God-appointed leadership as our pastor. “

So it’s pretty simple to see how they and a lot of wily Southern Baptist Churches engage in these artful schemes, with the Credentialing Committee not caring even a bit.

Yes we have a woman pastor on staff.
Yes she has the the title of ‘pastor’.
Yes she functions in the role of pastor.
Yes she is recognized by our congregation as a pastor.

But she doesn’t hold the OFFICE of pastor, so therefore she’s good.

The other seven men who comprise the rest of the pastoral team, such as executive pastor, college pastor, worship pastor, young adult pastor, missions pastor, and adult life pastor? They’re in the same boat. They likewise have titles but are not functioning in the ‘office’ of pastor either, with only the head honcho senior pastor assuming that role, letting the womenfolk pastrixes have free reign to normalize their blasphemous existence within the life of the body.

And they’re hiding behind the BFM 2000 as they do it.

Mohler? Do you have a pen? Are you taking notes? I sure hope so.







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Charismatic Nonsense Evangelical Stuff Featured Op-Ed

Beth Moore Preaches About As well As A Dog Can Walk On Its Hind Legs

That is to say, not very well. You want to hear some bad preaching? We have some bad preaching for you.

In a newly unearthed clip, Beth Moore – both the doting perfect princess of Lifeway/SBC proper and the red-headed stepchild of the faithful remnant within, preached a sermon in March 2020 at Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago.

She was introduced by Senior Pastor Charlie Dates in glowing terms as “Auntie Beth,” who commended her to his congregation “I hope you will receive with me with all the honor in the world, the esteemed privilege we have to hear from one of God’s leading women in the world, Beth Moore.”

If the name Charlie Dates sounds familiar, you likely know him from an article we wrote where we relayed that, being an SBC Executive Committee Panel Member, he said the SBC “Don’t Need Black Faces with White Theology/Voices/Ideas Leading the Convention.”

But in the clip below, Moore makes this fascinatingly bizarre and eisegetical connection between Noah getting drunk at some point after becoming a farmer and…Christians getting drunk off their own fruity giftedness? And something about getting lit and being alone? Who are the sons covering Noah’s nakedness? Is that metaphorical too? What in world is going on here?

The historical-grammatical method is far, far away from this one.

She says:

Noah, as a man of the soil, began by planting a vineyard and he drank some of the wine and became drunk.

What a weird thing to find in scripture! Because we know he was a righteous man, and it seems like he literally got off the boat and got lit.

And you know what? I mean who could blame him. Who could blame him? And no wonder he became a man of the soil. Nothing would make you a man or woman of the soil like being tossed around on a boat in nothing but water for weeks on end. Of course, he became a man of the soil.

But the first thing we see is he planted a vineyard, he drinks of the wine, and he gets drunk on it, and here’s this metaphor that I want to suggest to you. This is what happens when people, and I want you to think in spiritual terms, drink alone. On their own fruits. They just get drunk on it.

We got people all over this nation that are boasting in their giftedness, drunk on their own fruit. Nobody else is drinking of it the way they are. They’re not drinking of anybody else, because all they want is the wine coming from their own fruit.

This is not the picture that Scripture gives us. There is a community that works together. There is a community that comes together that can know gladness instead of drunkenness. Let me tell you something, this Christian world and this nation is drinking something. The only way I know to explain some of what we’re seeing is somebody’s slipping something in the water somewhere, and we’re drunk on our own fruit.

The full video can be seen here, but we don’t know why you would punish your ears like that. Don’t be a sadist. But if you ever have friends and family ask you what’s wrong with Beth Moore and her preaching, you’ll always have this.

For a few more of her recent greatest hits:

Beth Moore Doesn’t Want You To Preach or Share The Gospel at The Protests

Beth Moore Openly Affirms Woman Pastrix

Beth Moore Falsely Claims ‘White Supremacy’ is Running Rampant in ‘Much of the Church’

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Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

Big Eva Put on Notice: We Won’t Forget

The day is here. After years of our theological betters with the Evangelical Industrial Complex doing all they can to suppress the vote for the Republicans and elevate and excuse a vote for the Democrats, it all comes down to this.

The Gospel Coalition. The Top Men at the Southern Baptist Convention. The men and women using their black privilege to gain an outsized audience. The Christian Media. The mildly-known cranks at the Christian Colleges and Universities. The pastors who go to all the conferences. All their offshoots and offspring. Everyone.

Herein lies the culmination of the bad argumentation, smug suggestions, earnest ignorance, polished prose, arrogant “well ackshually,” ugly bible twisting, boring blogs and superfluous justifications, all telling us how many personal vices Trump has and why they can’t vote for him, why you shouldn’t either, but why if the Lord leads, you can vote for the Democrats with a clear conscience.

Here is a simple truth: a vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (really, Harris first and then Biden) isn’t merely a vote against Donald Trump’s obstreperous personality and personal failings, of which are numerous. Rather, a vote for Biden is a vote for the platform and policies of the Democrat Party. Voting for the Democrats carries with the simple declaration that you want them to win the House, win the Senate, win the Presidency, and then enact their policies.

Truly. Because elections have consequences.

A vote for the Democrats is a vote for them to lead and enact their vision. It is a declaration that you desire the Democrats to be unconstrained in their power, to have majorities in all three seats of power (more once they stack the courts), and then to use that power to bring about the entirety of their platform and any other little nasty tricks they have the temerity to enact.

A vote for the Democrats is an explicit acknowledgment that one is at peace with what they will do on the abortion front, both domestic and internationally, on the LGBTQQIP2SAA front, and on the curtailment of the constitutional rights front.

By Big Eva doing their damnedest to convince a meaningful amount of Christian to either vote Democrat or come to the conclusion that they cannot biblically vote for Trump, they’ve given the Democrats the matches and gas to light their policy fire, knowing the inner motiovations of their little pyro hearts.

If Biden wins, we prepare for the burn.

Consequently, we will not forget this. We will remember the betrayal by Big Eva and the Top Men and harry them mercilessly. We will be relentless in our critique and pertinacious in our goals. We’ll not forget in two months or ten years. With every sick new policy enacted, we’ll be there telling you why these guys bear the responsibility.

With every new expansion of abortion rights and the further entrenchment into law, we’ll be there to tell who why this pastor or that speaker is up to his elbows in blood.

With every law that shuts Christians up and takes away their religious freedom and prophetic voice, we’ll be there showing screenshots of these guys holding the spool and thread while the government sewed their lips up.

We have long memories, a large audience, and loyal supporters.

You made your bed. Now lie in it, and prepare to have a bad night’s sleep.

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Featured News Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Vote Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

Listen, Christian. Evangelical elites are lying to you. The Marxism-promoting Gospel Coalition and the mostly irrelevant SBC Voices have published articles excusing Bible-believing Christians from voting in this year’s election. The once-respected John Piper, in all his wisdom, can’t figure out what makes the major parties morally different from each other. Ignoring the blessing God has given us in our ability to affect the direction of our government, these ignorant cowards are unwilling to draw the clearest, most obvious moral distinctions between the two major political parties and take a stand. This is purposefully blind and morally repugnant.

Bible-believing Christians understand that the world is fallen. Our nature is fallen. Our worldly systems are fallen. No politician, government, or (gasp!) even pastor can hold up to God’s standard. Our current president is no exception. His current opponent is similarly sinful. So are you, in case you forgot. But you’ve been given a brain to use in weighing the viable options to determine which is morally preferable. Notice, I did not say which is morally perfect or even morally in the ballpark.

Both options in a given election (yes, there are only two viable options) might be distasteful to your delicate sensibilities. Deal with it. This is America, you are the government, and you must be mature enough to govern. Do you think for a moment that if (instead of the small amount of influence you have) you had much more influence it would be morally acceptable to not govern? To take your ball and go home? The same civically-ignorant evangelical elites, convinced the government could close their churches, are now trying to convince you that you are excused from using it to contend for Godliness.

The Pragmatism of Worldly Governance

A national election is the result of a combination of individual moral and ethical determinations. These decisions are mostly made by lost people. We are always forced to compare two imperfect options. We always decide which is the lesser of two evils. Sometimes this decision is extremely difficult as the two options are similar terrible choices. Fortunately in 2020 this is not the case.

Policy, Not Person

A little refresher on our system of governance: American political leaders do not make unilateral decisions. Even the president must work with congress and within the limitations of our system of federalism. Most notably, elected officials must work within the bounds of the law. This gift from our God-fearing founders means that a morally-compromised politician has limited ability to do grave damage. Things move slow, and (generally) move out in the open. Leaders are forced to develop consensus with others in order to exercise their agenda, which has an effect of minimizing the leader’s individual ethical and moral shortcomings, and maximizing the importance of party policy.

The president’s rhetoric and personal moral failings (while numerous) have little effect on the actions of the government since he is unlikely to find political support for policies that reflect these sins, and he can’t (despite media fearmongering) unilaterally rule over you. On the other side of the aisle, the abject immorality being promoted by Joe Biden enjoys the consensus and support of an entire political party. This kind of consensus has the real ability to do harm. Evangelical elites are drawing a functional equivalency between one man’s personal character and the policy positions of an entire political party. This is a false equivalency – a lie. It is unbecoming of any thinking person (much less supposed leaders), and demonstrates either abject ignorance or malice.

Think about the choices.

On one side, the official platform of the party is basically a direct refutation of biblical morality. Whether it is the murder and mutilation of the unborn, the celebration of radical sexual perversion (including the bodily mutilation of children under the lie of “transgenderism”), or the 8th commandment-violating and government-glorifying policies of income redistribution, the Democratic party platform is basically a list of commandments God told you not to break. No matter what you think of Joe Biden personally, these are the values you are voting for, and these are the policies you are helping to implement.

On the other side, you have a personally offensive, brash, rude, and narcissistic man who, despite these things, just so happens to have promoted and enacted many policies that reflect biblical Christianity. Is he a Christian? Probably not, but Donald Trump has proven himself to be a stalwart friend of religious liberty, individual freedom, and the rights of the unborn. He seems to support the LGBTQ agenda at least in words, but this (at worst) simply neutralizes that issue in terms of who becomes the next president. Overall, with Trump you have a set of policies that are largely in agreement with what you claim to believe scripturally.

The Republican party is for stopping baby murder, for individual religious freedom, and supports smaller government (leaving your family and church more resources to use for the kingdom). Regardless of what the man has done in the past, Trump has largely aligned himself with and enacted policies that support a biblical worldview. This is undeniable, which is Piper has to focus on his “deadly” character. But comparing the theoretical consequences of character to the real-world evidence of the last four years is ridiculous. Trump is certifiably pro-life, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-freedom. No matter what you think of Trump personally, these are the values you are voting for, and these are the policies you are helping to implement.

Your responsibilities as a participant in self-governance:

  1. Get your emotions out of it. Don’t make a decision based on your feelings – use your brain. Often, doing the right thing doesn’t feel very good.
  2. Know how your government works. After all, it’s irresponsible for you to be ignorant about something you’re in charge of.
  3. Know what policies are up for debate, and where the major political parties and politicians stand on the issues.
  4. Get out your Bible and find out what God has to say about these policies. This may take time, but the Bible is not silent on any issue we currently face.
  5. Determine which viable candidate or issue is more righteous than the other. It is usually not close. Once you dig into the issues and the scriptures, this determination will become much easier to make.
  6. Vote, speak out, organize, and contend for righteousness. Push the ball the righteous direction.

As an American, you are the government, and you have been given the ability to affect things in many ways, especially by voting. Your vote affects the direction of the country, if only by a little. You’ve been given a brain with which to draw comparisons between political choices and the values and vision for the country promoted by each. Most importantly, you’ve been gifted the ministry of the Holy Spirit to help judge these imperfect political choices by biblical standards and choose which option is most likely to move the country in a righteous direction. By refusing to vote (or vote for candidate with no shot at actually winning), you choose to not stand up for righteousness. You choose to do nothing when you could do something. You choose not to lead in Christ. Instead, be a light in the world. Know what the Bible says, know how our system works, and make a difference for righteousness.

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Featured Op-Ed Religion

The SBC Must Repent for Its Black Privilege

An unfortunate reality has become apparent in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. A once-conservative network of autonomous Baptist churches has caved on almost every single distinctive of their faith. Today’s Southern Baptist Convention is no longer the bulwark of conservative Christianity and has now become yet another mainstream denomination to cave on its core principles in the name of political correctness. And this record-breaking turn of convictions in the SBC is largely due to the systemic Black Privilege that liberal African Americans now enjoy in the once-great denomination.

The Southern Baptist Convention was considered the last, best hope for conservative evangelicalism. Unlike the United Methodist, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the American Baptist Convention, the SBC eschewed worldliness, liberalism, and compromise even in recent memory. But something has now changed.

Denominational leaders led primarily by Albert Mohler have turned a blind eye to the rampant liberalism that has overcome the institution that helps 45 thousand churches and 12 million church members cooperate for a Gospel-centered purpose. The cause for this turn of events is largely due to the carnal and sinful fear of denominational leadership being accused of politically incorrectness, and under the guise of “inclusivity” they have opened the door to virtually any subversive teacher who desires to rip the doctrinal guts out of the denomination…so long as they are black.

If an Anglo preacher helped bus rioters to race protests to assault police officers, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.

If an Anglo preacher espoused hyper-charismaticism of the Pentecostal variety, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.

If an Anglo preacher espoused support for a Democratic candidate whose chief policy proposal is the rip apart babies in their mother’s womb, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.

If an Anglo preacher advocated for female pastors – and if they called their own wife their “co-pastor,” they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.

And all of these things have been done regularly by Dwight McKissic, a hateful, race-baiting, hyper-charismatic, pro-abortion charlatan who spends his time in the pulpit campaigning for Joe Biden.

McKissic is a godless unbeliever who would be far more at home in the Evangelical Lutheran Church Missouri Synod or the Unitarian-Universalist Church than in the Southern Baptist Convention. But as it turns out, McKissic has one (and only one) thing going for him…he’s black.

Because he’s black, he can assault the Sufficiency of Scripture with his charismaticism. Because he’s black, he can assault conservative Southern Baptist values like being pro-life. Because he’s black, he can assault Complementarianism and promote feminism. Because he’s black, Albert Mohler will pick up the phone and coddle him (how many other random Baptist pastors could expect Albert Mohler to answer the phone for their call?).

Being black in the Southern Baptist Convention allows Ron Burns (Thabiti Anyabwile), Eric Mason, Curtis Woods, Jarvis Williams, and Dwight McKissic to terrorize the denomination with their incessant vitue-signaling harassment that always drives the denomination to the left, not the right.

No Ango pastor could remain in good relationship with their local association, state convention, of national denomination and espouse the views and doctrinal compromises as these black men.

So instead of following Scripture and not judging someone by the color of their skin (Galatians 3:28), Southern Baptist leaders have bent over backwards to accommodate the liberalism of black Cominterns who have invade our churches to take it captive with their vain philosophies (Colossians 2:8).

Instead of rebuking those who teach falsely by marking and avoiding them, (Romans 16:17-18), the whitest-of-white SBC leaders (JD Greear, for example) have done everything possible to prove themselves a respecter of people (Acts 10:34) for no other reason than that they have darker skin.

In the Southern Baptist Convention, being black is the surest and quickest way to have your voice heard, to be nominated to boards, to be appointed as trustees, and to be nominated and elected as denominational leadership. Even Matt Chandler was blunt about this reality, promising that his church would happily hire a black man over a more-qualified white man. Almost every single Southern Baptist blog – like SBC Voices – has advocated vigorously for a denominational quota system that would appoint black people over white people, no matter their qualifications.

God hates favoritism (James 2:1-13) and God hates the Southern Baptist Convention’s bequeathing of Black Privilege. And the problem isn’t only that black candidates are clearly favored over their white counter-parts, it’s that – as Burns (Anywabile), McKissic, Wiliams, Strickland, and Mason all show – the Southern Baptist Convention is willing to scrape the very bottom of the barrel to find token negros to promote to the top.

In every single conceivable way, white people are equal with black people. There is one race, and in Christ, there is one chosen people for God’s possession. When the evangelical community forgets that – or buys into the Marxist Critical Theory and the concepts of White Guilt, White Privilege, or White Fragility – we will end up with the least qualified men possible to lead our institutions just because of the color of their skin.

Albert Mohler and the woke Social Justice gang, in the promotion of sub-quality and subversive leftist ideologues only because they are black men, are committing sins even worse than the Convention’s slave-holding founders, Boyce, Manly, and Broadus. At these forbears of our faith weren’t both racist and patronizing at the same time.

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Op-Ed

If Trump Wins…

If Trump wins on November 3, you’re going to see a lot of evangelical leaders recalibrate themselves in a panic because they misjudged the cultural winds.

They will seek to jump back on the conservative bandwagon, and again posture themselves as traditionalists in order to maintain favor with the victors. These are leaders who lead by perceived consensus, and not by principles or convictions of basic right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and evil.

Evangelical leaders who endorsed Biden (or make excuses for those who do) are not brave men. These are not good men. They only know how to lead the church by following the world. Do not let them back on the wagon. Do not let them back in the tent. Ostracize them. Mark them. Avoid them.

To victors go the spoils, and these men don’t deserve so much as a table scrap. Give them no lodging. Provide them no greeting. They are traitors, Quislings, and Benedict Arnolds. And whatever bed they’ve made, let them sleep in it.

And if Trump does not win, may the Lord help us all because they’re coming for us.

It’s a good thing God is sovereign.

~JD Hall

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Featured Op-Ed Politics

Wake Up: Closing Churches For COVID-19 is Democrat Voter Suppression

Some dirty tricks are being pulled on the American electorate this election cycle. Mail-in ballots for Trump are being fished out of dumpsters. Voting machines are going off-line at curious times. Funny business abounds. But as Americans are finally fighting back against our churches being closed by Democrat officials on religious grounds, few are fighting it on political grounds.

Simply put, closing churches or limiting their attendance prior to an election is Democrat voter suppression.

Evangelical Protestants favor Donald Trump at 78%. Non-evangelical Protestants (mainline denominations) favor Donald Trump 52% to 43%, still a sizeable advantage. As almost everyone knows, faithful church-goers will support Donald Trump over any baby-butchering Democratic candidate pit against him.

Democrats know this, and they are working hard to shift the evangelical vote. Almost daily, a new PAC is created by leftist evangelicals (or Democrats posing as evangelicals) trying to convince Christians that Joe Biden is a more ethical choice than Donald Trump. Almost daily a new newspaper ad or op-ed is purchased by Dark Money donors to claim this-evangelical or that one is voting for Biden because their conscience dictates it.

Of course, voting Democrat precludes the claim to having a working conscience, and Christians know it. This is why – at best – these efforts appear to have siphoned off only 2% or so of the evangelical vote and will probably be made up by other demographics growing in their support of the president (blacks and hispanics, in particular).

Nonetheless, Christian evangelicals use their church services to reinforce a Biblical worldview in their church members. They commonly provide voter guides to their membership right before an election, encouraging them to vote for pro-life and pro-family candidates. And then, churches encourage their members to get out in vote in the weeks prior to an election.

It should be sufficient evidence of voter suppression that the bulk of states prohibiting worship or limiting church attendance – almost 9 in 10 – are led by Democrat governors. And the more egregious the leftist – like Gavin Newsom of California or Andrew Cuomo of New York – are especially draconian on churches, limiting them more than bars or casinos. Even in conservative Montana, the Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, has affirmed Yellowstone County in their limits on church attendance that exceed the limits placed upon bars (bars are limited at 75% capacity, churches at 50%).

If Republicans banned attendance at the Sierra Club, Humane Society fundarisers, or the Gay Pride marches just prior to an election, it would be decried as an attempt to stifle the Democratic vote turnout. And yet, Christians are being kept from the place where their civic activism takes shape.

Christians must say no to church closures or limits, and not only because telling Caesar to ‘stick it’ is godly and Biblical, but because it’s a profane political ploy to keep Christians from being organized on November 3.

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News Op-Ed Politics

The Woke Religionists Are All Wrong on Individual Rights

You Cannot “Love Your Neighbor” by Using the Government to Do to Him the Things God Forbids.

(The Christian Intellectual) Leaders of the major world religions seem to agree that individual rights are not absolute.

For instance, consider Pope Francis: “The Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property.”

Consider Timothy Keller: “Property rights are not absolute,” he says in a discussion of the Old Testament law. “The Bible’s vision for interdependent community, in which private property is important but not an absolute, does not give a full support to any conventional political-economic agenda. It sits in critical judgment on them all,” Keller says on Twitter.

Here is Russell Moore on video: Every right that we have in society is never absolute.” (See our earlier analysis here and here.)

Pope Francis, Keller, and Moore Are Badly Mistaken

What follows is an introduction to what the Bible says about individual property rights. Use these concepts in your Sunday school, your writing, or your interactions with Bible-abusers such as the three men above. First, I will overview the Bible’s concept of inviolate, individual rights. Then I will show some of the Scripture passages that demonstrate this concept.

Individually, the verses speak for themselves. But I will ask you to consider them in connection with one another in order to better understand the many ways in which the Bible both teaches and takes for granted the concept of inviolable individual rights.

As a guiding principle when looking at these verses, understand that you cannot “love your neighbor” by using the government to do to him the things God would forbid you from personally doing. This principle requires some explanation.

What God Forbids to the Individual, He Forbids to the Collective of Individuals

The actions that a government may justly take are a small subset of the actions that an individual may rightly take. No kinds of actions that are unjust when committed by an individual become just by virtue of being committed by a group.

God commands us not to steal; therefore, having a group do the stealing for us is out of the question. Or, to state the same idea in a more general and complete form: The Bible teaches that each person has an inviolable right to his own life and property (unless he forfeits that right by committing certain actions against others); therefore, it is out of the question to join with others and use the power of the group to deprive a person of his life or property. In fact, to join together with others to overwhelm and plunder the innocent is a great sin (Prov. 1:10–15).

Some may ask: “Isn’t there some special exception when talking about actions of groups — and especially governments? Couldn’t it be that it would be wrong for me as an individual to take away my neighbor’s property by threat of force, but it is perfectly justifiable in some situations for a government to do so?”

What is at stake when we ask this question? What we are really asking is: Are individual property rights absolute?

It is no surprise that leaders of world religions balk at the idea of individual property rights being absolute, because to do so would be to go against the prevailing assumptions about the nature and powers of government that extend back for millennia. “Surely, the governor has the right to collect tribute and dole it out in the form of bread, circuses, and state-managed healthcare,” such intellectuals comfort themselves — “that’s the way things have always been done.”

But have they really? Is that the system God created for his chosen people under Moses? Is that the system taught by the relevant passages throughout Scripture?

Limited Government

As you consider the selected passages below, notice that many refer not only to the relationship between a man and his neighbor, but also to the relationship between a man and his government. As history (especially the 20th Century) shows, there is great danger if a society is not careful to keep a government’s role limited.

The government does have a God-given role and power: punishing the evildoer. Even this single power is not one that somehow accrues only to the collective (and not to the individuals from which it is constituted).

A forceful response to evildoers is a right that all men naturally have. They merely delegate that right to a governing system in order to make it possible that people may live together in a society. The individuals never lay down even that one right that the state picks up. Even here, in the one area that all agree the government has a special prerogative, the government’s power comes from the consent of the governed, who are each themselves the parties that finally possess the rights.

Punishing the evildoer (specifically, the person who initiates action that harms others) is the Bible’s reason for the government’s existence — and it is the Bible’s limit on its power. The moral use of force is not unique to the government, but it is held by the government in a unique way, in situations in which civil society exists. So no, there is no special exception by which groups have the moral right to take actions that would, naturally, be morally forbidden to the individual. That includes the taking of property by threat of force.

Suppose all of the above is granted. It then becomes obvious what is wrong with the question: “How big should the government be?” or “How much power should the government have?” A government will have different sizes and different “amounts” of power, depending on the size of its population. But “how much” power is the wrong way to ask the question. Instead, ask “which” powers the government should have.

The Bible gives us the answer. It tells us exactly where the respective powers should lie. A man has the power over his own life unless he violates the rights of others. The government’s only role is to punish the evildoer and to praise the righteous man— that is, to judge between the man who has violated the right of another and the man who has not, and to use force to punish the rights-violator.

Thus, the government, the agent of force, should manage the legal system, the police, and the military. That is all it can do, according to the biblical principle of individual rights. And that is exactly what we see the government doing in the passages and principles we are about to explore.

Inviolable Individual Rights in the Bible

You find inviolable individual rights in Ex. 20:13 and Ex. 20:15: “You shall not murder” and “you shall not steal.”

You find inviolable individual rights in the principle of justice in Gen. 9:6: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”

You find inviolable individual rights in the principle of selecting judges in Ex. 18:21: “Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.”

You find inviolable individual rights in the principle of just governance in 1 Peter 2:14, which says governors are sent by God “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”

You find inviolable individual rights in Romans 13:3–4, which gives the governor the same role as 1 Peter: to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

You find inviolable individual rights in the many passages describing the things that people have a right to.

Consider Acts 5:4a: “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?” Ownership means the ability to dispose of a thing as you chose.

Likewise, the master in Matthew 20:15a says: “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?”

Many other passages likewise support the idea that individual people have an inviolable right to their possessions.

For instance, if there were no such right, and if “needs” constituted just claims on others, could Paul have said in 2 Thess. 3:10: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat”?

If the state were designed as a tool to end poverty, could Jesus have said in Matt. 26:11: “The poor you will always have with you”?

If it were God’s will that the state redistribute personal property of individuals in this generation to make up for wrongs committed in prior generations, could God have said in Ez. 18:20: “The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child”?

If God were pleased by the state taxing the people and doing great projects to “help” the nation, could Samuel have had such a distain for what the future kings of Israel would do, saying they would take “the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants”?

Samuel goes on: “He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves.”

Indeed, Solomon made use of forced labor, to the point that the people rebelled against his son in 1 Kings 12:4: “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.”

If individual property rights were not inviolable, why would the Bible speak of the maintenance of such rights as the essence of justice? And why would it speak of the denial of such rights as the essence of oppression or injustice?

Psalm 82:3 cries to us that individual rights should remain inviolable and that governors should uphold them: “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.”

Isaiah 10:1–2 likewise considers the violation of property rights to be a form of wicked plunder and spoil, often committed by the very governors who had been entrusted to protect against such injustice: “Woe to those who enact evil statutes and to those who constantly record unjust decisions, so as to deprive the needy of justice and rob the poor of My people of their rights, so that widows may be their spoil and that they may plunder the orphans.”

Are these passages telling us that God cares more about justice for the poor than for the rich? Not at all. Exodus 23:3 and 23:6 make it clear that God cares about justice in procedure: “… nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.” It continues: “… You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.” Partiality in either direction is thus prohibited.

Possessions matter. The government is in a position to be able to dispossess people, but it must not do so. Ez. 45:9 makes it clear: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Enough, you princes of Israel; put away violence and destruction, and practice justice and righteousness. Stop your expropriations from My people,’ declares the Lord God.”

You cannot “love your neighbor” by using the state to do to him the things God forbids.

I will share a final passage. Lev. 19:13–15 makes God’s standards clear.

“Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

“Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

“Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

“Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”

Why does anyone think he can do better than the standards God has set? Why does anyone think these commands apply to individuals but not to the collective? Why does anyone think these principles can be ignored by a government?

Today, the religious leaders want to ease your conscience as you vote to support policies that take us further and further from the idea of inviolable individual rights. Such men — from Pope Francis, to Timothy Keller, to Russell Moore — are leading people away from Scripture and toward hateful, envious doctrines of demons, suitable only for cowards and thieves.

Editor’s Note. The following article was written by Cody Libolt and published at the New Christian Intellectual

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J.D Hall’s Most Politically Incorrect Post Ever? Harsh Truths for Harsh People

Controversy Newspaper Headlines Dispute Controversial Story Article Topic 3d Illustration

This might be the most politically incorrect post I’ve ever written (I sooo don’t care):

POTUS was absolutely, positively, 100% correct not to make an explicit condemnation of the Proud Boys or “white supremacists” on the command of Chris Wallace and the beck and call of Joe Biden. Here’s why…

First, let it be said – although it does not need to be – that white supremacy is repugnant and sinful. Let’s get that out of the way first.

But secondly, it is also a repugnant offense to *reality* to equate the chaos, burning, looting, and murder being committed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa with the white supremacist boogeyman that Democrats constantly harp about as a rhetorical tool.

As POTUS, Donald Trump has to operate in objective reality. And here is the objective reality; white supremacists are not taking over federal, state, and private property in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not ambushing police officers in Los Angeles. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not burning down business districts in Wisconsin. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not storming private neighborhoods in St. Louis. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not setting dumpsters on fire in Minneapolis and blocking traffic in Ferguson. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not setting fire to America’s national forests in California, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not getting into vans and driving into America’s heartland to cause race riots. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not hitting motorists in the heads with bricks, demanding home-owners burn their American flags, or punching out little old ladies. That’s the Left doing that.

White supremacists are not gunning down inner-city black Americans in Chicago. That’s the Left doing that.

The problem is not the 14 dumb hicks with Confederate and Gadsden flags gawking around at scene of 1400 rioters looting and vandals vandalizing. The problem is the 1400 rioters and vandals.

White supremacists are drunken, ignorant, lazy, stupid hillbillies who show up in numbers of two-dozen to counter-protest rioters, looters, murderers, and rapists at “mostly peaceful protests” of two-thousand felons, arsonists and child molesters (because they like fights; not because they’re altruists).

White supremacists are illiterate, insolent, covetous losers looking for an excuse to blame someone for being illiterate, insolent, covetous losers. They are *not* however, responsible for the behavior and actions that have burned our cities and wildernesses, killed police officers, knocked-out the elderly, car-jacked motorists, and commandeered city blocks on the west coast. That’s the Left doing that.

There are seven days a week and 24 hours a day to condemn white supremacy because it is (as said above) both stupid and sinful. But the time to NOT condemn white supremacy is in the middle of a discussion about why America is currently burning, police are dying, businesses are being looted, and churches torched.

The IRA should be condemned. The PLO should be condemned. Green Peace should be condemned. ISIS should be condemned. PETA should be condemned. Anonymous should be condemned. These are all, in one way or another, terrorists who hurt people because of stupid and sinful ideologies. But NONE of these organizations are currently setting America on fire. That’s the Left doing that.

Why *should* POTUS be forced to condemn an organization or ideology when it is nothing but a shameless tactic to equivocate between one group that is a shameful annoyance and stupidity parade and another group that is setting us aflame? Why should POTUS play their games of deflection, as though America’s Right is somehow equally responsible for the current destruction being caused by America’s Left?

It’s like having your home ransacked by a neighborhood gang, and being asked by a reporter to take the time to condemn the mafia. You might respond, “The mafia is condemnable, but they’re not the ones responsible for our current problem, so no, I will not say impertinent things on cue like a trained talking monkey.”

The outrage you’ll see in the next 48 hours over POTUS “refusing to condemn white supremacy” is manufactured outrage. But the fact is, those idiots aren’t the current problem. The Left is. And the sooner we accept the facts about who is holding the matches in one hand and the gasoline in the other, the sooner we can extinguish our nation’s flames and go back to talking about how dumb white supremacy is.

And frankly, the evil currently being perpetrated by America’s Left makes it all-too-easy to overlook the evil ideology of white supremacy which, for the most part, is just tailgating 2020’s dumpster fire and shotgunning Bud Light like it were a football game they couldn’t afford to get into.

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Op-Ed: Our Current Crisis is Nothing Less than the Democrat Party’s War on America

America’s inner cities are burning. From Ferguson to Kenosha, Los Angeles to Portland, Washington D.C. to Minneapolis, these firebombed urban sprawls all have one thing in common; they are run by Democrat mayors and city councils who are – by far – run by Democrat majorities. These are primarily in states run by Democrat governors. The lawless hordes are going unpunished despite their many crimes of arson, violence, murder, and mayhem being recorded on countless live-streams as indisputable proof of their misdeeds and chronicled proudly on the culprits’ social media in the public record. No doubt, this is because the county attorneys and prosecutors in these areas are overwhelmingly Democrat, and they have stood back to watch America be set on fire without prosecuting crime.

Meanwhile, the Democrat-held cities and blue-emblazoned geographical maps suffering the worst violence are also the ones who continue to place the most draconian rules against Christian church-goers. Placing upon God-fearing worshippers restrictions not equally enforced upon violent mobs, these Democrat-held districts simultaneously promise to prosecute pastors and congregations who meet with disregard for social distancing guidelines and masks, all the while, refusing to prosecute hoodlums setting fire to the churches, businesses, and communities who just want to go about their lives in peace. Every single attempt by President Donald J. Trump to offer federal assistance to ensure law and order has been rejected by local Democrat officials, and the Democrat media has accused Trump of racism for every attempt to bring them peace.

Meanwhile, inner-city riots have been exacerbated and made demonstrably more violent by the release of inmates from jails and prisons under the guise of compassion, so that these murderous rapists and vagabond incendiaries don’t contract a virus that by all accounts is no more lethal than the seasonal flu. And almost without exception, these prisoners have been released into the public by Democrat governors, mayors, and sheriffs while Republicans have consistently protested the decision to release offenders back into the public. And with space freed up in jails and prisons, these same Democrat-led jurisdictions have promised to arrest average and ordinary citizens who refuse to wear a mask or visit a crowded worship center.

Simultaneously, the Democrat-led mainstream media has boycotted, blockaded, blackballed, and censored any scientific opinion or medical professional with a view on COVID-19 that doesn’t produce the worst fears, most irrational responses, or most hysterical overreactions. Big Tech, led by deranged leftists, has called anything approaching an alternative medical opinion a “conspiracy theory,” banned free speech from their platforms, and employed their biased censorship weapons of ‘independent fact-checkers’ to fact-check away the truth wherever it might be told; COVID-19 is about as dangerous as the seasonal flu, and we have ruined our economy and given away our liberties for nothing.

Since Trump first acted to limit travel from COVID-19 hotspots, back when Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi were calling him ‘racist’ for doing so, the tables have turned. When it appeared that COVID-19 was a nation-killer, Democrats resisted every possible effort to mitigate the crisis. But when the data soon began to show that COVID-19 was a paper tiger, Democrats began to use it to fear-monger America into accepting its terms of surrender for our liberty and businesses. Republicans on the other hand, like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, resisted the hysterics and took measured approaches that would ensure both Americans’ safety and liberty. President Trump has promoted hydroxychloroquine as a helpful drug to resist the virus, and was ridiculed and discounted every step of the way; and now that the scientific consensus supports this, Democrats and their friends in the media have refused to publish the research, letting countless Americans suffer without the best available drug for their speedy recovery. The point should be clear; Democrats don’t care about your health…they care about controlling you with fear and intimidation.

It is not Republicans who are insisting you breathe your own facial exhaust for no good reason, but Democrats who are mandating continued mask use despite the fact that physical harms are as proveable as the possible help it could theoretically provide if people used them correctly. The reason should be clear; Democrats want you to live in fear and, without masks, there would be no clear visible reminder that there is a supposed ‘pandemic’ threatening the health of our civilization.

Meanwhile, Democrats have used civil unrest and the arrival of coronavirus to force gun stores to close, while Republican judges, governors, and Trump’s Justice Department have fought to keep gun stores open. Democrat politicians continue to beat the drum of gun control, all the while American cities are under attack by hordes incited to violence by Democrat messaging. The Democrat Party is actively trying to disarm Americans while simultaneously trying to stoke class hatred that leads to violence against them.

It is clear what political party supports domestic terrorists like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. And it is clear what side is fighting to – at the same time – disarm and defund the police. The Democrat Party wants America to be helpless, both in taking our guns and taking away and our police. All the while, they are stoking racial discord and anger that gives us a reason to maintain both our guns and our police like never before.

In Thomas Paine’s America in Crisis, he didn’t take upon himself the task of talking Americans into going to war with the British. His series of articles was poised to explain to Americans that they were already at war with the British. Some colonists just refused to see it.

In 2020, real Americans need the same clarity. We do not want to be at war with the Democrat Party. We are already at war with the Democrat Party. Or, perhaps better phrased, the Democrat Party is already at war with us.

From Federal to local levels, Democrat Party officials are doing everything possible to destroy our businesses while simultaneously taxing us to pay for their constituents who refuse to work. They are keeping us from peacefully assembling in our churches while supporting the violent assembling that is happening in our streets. They are letting out criminals from prison while making room to lock up innocent citizens who break their unconstitutional mask and distancing edicts. Democrats are trying to disarm us while simultaneously giving us the most urgent need to be armed in more than a century. Democrats are calling for more racial and class division by their continued use of identity politics instead of deescalating the violence with calm calls for peace.

And, let us be honest, those who are burning, raping, murdering, and looting are cities will be voting 99 to 1 for Joe Biden this November. He and his party must own the violence, the anger, the mayhem, and the chaos that is swallowing up America in the year 2020.

America is at war. Our enemy is the Democrat Party. We must defeat it.