Democrats may boo God at their national party convention, but they breathlessly cite scripture out of context when it suits their political purposes. Jim Acosta, a CNN television “reporter” who has curiously never been spotted in the same place at the same time as Will Ferrell, accused the Trump administration of un-Christian behavior Thursday at a White House Press conference. Acosta pontificated, “The Attorney General earlier today said somewhere there’s a justification for this in the Bible. Where does it say in the Bible that it’s moral to take children away from their mothers?”
Acosta was referring to a federal policy that temporarily separates illegal alien children from their parents upon apprehension. Ironically, as Ben Shapiro points out, the policy only exists in the first place because Democrats and leftist judges have insisted that authorities cannot detain children, meaning that they must temporarily separate children from parents in order to prosecute illegal immigration at all. White House Press Secretary and Evangelical Christian Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to Acosta’s sophistry simply: “It is very biblical to enforce the law.”
She’s right, of course. Christ instructs in Matthew 22:21, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” St. Paul explains to the Romans, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Acosta asked a biblical question; he got a biblical answer.
Scores of other left-wing pundits jumped on the scripture-quoting bandwagon, from abortion enthusiasts to CNN correspondents to Muslim terrorist apologists who explicitly deny the truth of the New Testament. It may seem strange for these insta-exegetes suddenly to cite the authority of a book so many of them dismiss as fantasy until one realizes that their purpose is not illumination but entrapment.
The Devil tried the same strategy on Christ in the wilderness. Satan expertly quoted Psalms as he tempted Christ to jump from the roof and fly: “He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” The Devil knows the Bible better than almost anybody — certainly better than you or I or any CNN commentator desperate to score points at a press conference or on Twitter. Only when Christ quoted his Father in Deuteronomy, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test,” did the absurdity of Satan’s citations become clear.
Con artists have long twisted scripture to distort moral reality and distract from clear moral questions, such as the issue at hand yesterday: does a nation have the right to decide who can enter its territory, enjoy its taxpayer-funded services, and participate in its politics? The answer is clear, and so left-wing activists who wish to undermine federal law and erase national borders resort to outright deception. They go out as wolves among sheep, innocent as serpents though mercifully wise as doves. We must do the opposite.