Everyone has been moved by the remarkable story of forgiveness and mercy of <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/jury-deciding-sentence-police-officer-amber-guyger-wrong/story?id=66002182">Brandt Jean</a>, brother of Botham Jean — who was tragically killed last year by a Dallas police officer in his own apartment. A day later, it is impossible to scroll through any social media platform today and miss Brandt’s statement and the hug heard round the world.
Many have also taken note of <a href="https://youtu.be/y_qpdyAuLu4?t=125">Judge Tammy Kemp’s actions</a>. Not only did the presiding judge allow the transformational hug to occur; when sentencing was complete, Judge Kemp descended from the bench, grabbed her personal Bible, and presented it to the newly sentenced felon, Amber Guyger.
Sadly, not everyone sees the beauty of yesterday’s moment of reconciliation. Ignoring the example of humanity, healing, and mercy demonstrated by Brandt Jean and Judge Kemp, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) stepped in to ruin the moment, dividing with complaints rather than uniting with understanding.
This afternoon, the foundation of atheists, secularists, and “free-thinkers” filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC). The CJC hears ethical concerns of the state’s judiciary: justices of the peace, judges, and justices. This isn’t the first time the Foundation has complained to the CJC.
The Foundation now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/10/03/us/ap-us-dallas-officer-mistaken-apartment-judge.html">accuses</a> Judge Tammy Kemp of judicial misconduct for handing Guyger her personal Bible. They <a href="https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/35774-amber-guyger-judge-s-proselytization-an-abuse-of-power-ffrf-charges">accuse</a> the judge — clearly moved by the example of mercy and kindness shown by the brother of the man slain by Guyger — of “abuse of power” and of using the “privilege of [her office] to preach [her] personal religious beliefs.”
Their complaint to the CJC demands that the commission “investigate these actions and educate Kemp on her obligation to remain neutral on matters of religion to prevent future misconduct.”
We at <a href="http://firstliberty.org/">First Liberty Institute</a> would be only too pleased to represent Judge Kemp, should she require a legal defense. Judge Kemp should be permitted to be human, including the parts of her humanity informed by her religious beliefs. Indeed, any judge that hands any holy writ to anyone in an effort to encourage the improvement of his or her life is worth legally defending.
Earlier today, my boss, Hiram Sasser, <a href="https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Judge-Kemps-Hug-Not-Embraced-by-All-After-Guygers-Trial-562089651.html">said</a>: “FFRF is protesting Judge Kemp rather than joining the rest of the nation celebrating the compassion and mercy Judge Kemp demonstrated. We should all be thankful the law allows Judge Kemp’s actions and we stand with her and will gladly lead the charge in defending her noble and legal actions.”
I can only add that what Brandt Jean and Judge Kemp have done for the community in demonstrating forgiveness, mercy, and grace has done more to restore hope, healing, and humanity for Dallas — and, let’s be honest, civility for the nation at-large — than any life sentence could have brought.
And, if you’re wondering about whether by the technical point of the law, the Foundation may have a point — please don’t. Our country has a longstanding tradition of understanding that our leaders have a professional, official role and yet may also retain their personal humanity. History is replete with examples of judges balancing their official duties, yet their faith also informing all aspects of their lives After <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf">The American Legion v. AHA</a>, such longstanding, religiously expressive activities ought to be presumed constitutional.
This is not the first attack on the personal faith of public officials — not even this week. Earlier this week, the Foundation intimidated a sheriff from Alabama from taking part in a candlelight vigil over the increase of crime that is devastating his community. They recently forced a school district in Missouri to stop a team chaplain from praying with his football players after the game.
If the Foundation had its druthers, it would have the kind of government Justice Alito warned against in The American Legion: “A government that roams the land, tearing down monuments with religious symbolism and scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion.”
Likewise, the Foundation would condemn, prosecute, and drive from office compassionate humans like Judge Tammy Kemp. Thankfully, the U.S. Constitution rejects demands that government commissions become, as Justice Alito wrote, “evocative, disturbing, and divisive” toward the religious beliefs of anyone — including judges.
Judge Kemp, if you’re reading this, thank you for being human. And call us if we can help.
&nbsp;
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

Courtroom And Gavel

DYS: Judge Tammy Kemp Is A Model For Us All

Atheism

Bible

Dallas

First Amendment

Police

Religion

It seems that the business of governing is always testy — fractious, even. When a legislative body of any sort acts with unanimity, it is notable.
As reported by the <a href="https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/prayer-will-stay-at-nashua-school-board-meetings/article_30673c73-aa8a-55fc-ab27-eaec67df867a.html">New Hampshire Union Leader</a>, the Nashua, New Hampshire Board of Education (“Nashua BOE”) recently voted 7-0 to retain the practice of offering a prayer prior to its publicly meetings. The unanimous vote is remarkable for an age in which division rules the day.
More remarkable, the Nashua BOE faced stiff opposition from an out-of-state group that routinely complains about the presence of any sort of religion in public. This time, according to the Union Leader, the group sent not one, not two, but multiple letters — “once every six months for the past two years” — in an attempt to bully the Nashua BOE into ending the tradition of praying before a public meeting.
In all likelihood, the members of the Nashua BOE spent not a little time debating the topic. Whether in an open meeting or in the cloakroom, it is quite common to debate a topic — especially a topic as potentially divisive as prayer before public meetings. Regardless, the board members emerged unanimous. They are in good company.
This a common, almost daily practice across the country, and the U.S. Supreme Court has twice legally examined the practice of prayer before public meetings. In 1983, the justices explained in Marsh v. Chambers that the practice of the Nebraska Legislature of paying a chaplain to open its meetings with prayer presented no constitutional issues. Indeed, the Court explained that “the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment” and, therefore, neither should any of us.
Several decades later, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court’s majority, explained that the practice of having volunteers open public meetings in prayer also comports with the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, Justice Kennedy showed an understandable concern for the tone of such prayers. “Prayer that is solemn and respectful in tone, that invites lawmakers to reflect upon shared ideals and common ends before they embark on the fractious business of governing,” he explained, befits the function of such prayers: “[T]o lend gravity to the occasion and reflect values long part of the Nation’s heritage.”
And quite the tradition it is. One would be hard-pressed to find a more longstanding and treasured tradition of our republic. Indeed, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, concurring with a 2017 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that upheld the practice of the Jackson County (MI) Commission’s commissioners themselves offering prayer, noted that such prayers are no recent phenomena:
<blockquote>“For all of American history, such prayers have been allowed, whether invoking Jesus, God, or something else, whether by government-paid chaplains or by the elected officials themselves. And for all of American history, the United States Supreme Court has authorized such prayers. No one doubted the practice for most of our history.”</blockquote>
And no one should doubt it now. Indeed, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in last month’s Fields v. Speaker of the Pa. House of Representatives decision, “the longstanding practice of theistic prayer in the United States” is entitled to a “presumption of constitutionality.”
In other words, the U.S. Supreme Court and its lower courts have repeatedly affirmed the constitutionality of prayer before public meetings — and have even gone so far as to establish a presumption that such practices are constitutional. While some may suggest that a fabled “wall separating church and state” forbids such a practice, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court think otherwise. Not only is the practice of legislative prayer constitutional, but those who would challenge the practice of prayer before public meetings bear the nearly insurmountable burden of disproving the presumptive constitutionality of such a longstanding practice.
Hopefully, the letter-writing gadflies will now leave the Nashua BOE alone. But should those letters turn into a lawsuit, we at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">First Liberty Institute</a> would happily defend the Nashua BOE.
There is a time and place for us to be divided. Matters of policy, questions of bond rates, and decisions over curricula will find vocal division throughout a community and even among the members of the Nashua BOE. Pausing to offer a prayer prior to such discussions need not be one of them.
The Nashua BOE is, therefore, deserving of commendation. They join a long line of legislative bodies, both large and small, that have sought to set a solemn tone before turning to the public’s business.
Well done, Nashua. May others follow your example of civility.
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communication to First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

praying with Bible.jpg

DYS: Yes, Local School Boards Can Pray Before Meetings

Constitution

Education

Prayer

Supreme Court

Democratic presidential nominee and wannabe theologian Pete Buttigieg <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87HsXwo_imQ">appeared</a> on a radio show last week to spread his version of the Gospel. When asked about the &#8220;reckoning between the GOP and Christianity&#8221; (whatever that means), Buttigieg first complained about Vice President Mike Pence and then argued that the Bible says babies aren&#8217;t alive until they&#8217;re born. Both of these things warrant closer examination.
Here&#8217;s what Mayor Pete had to say about Pence: &#8220;I mean if you&#8217;re in Mike Pence&#8217;s world, where being Christian has to do with, you know, a kind of rigid sexual ethics &#8230; And he thinks that this president ought to be the moral as well as political leader of this country.&#8221;
If I were advising Mike Pence, I&#8217;d recommend that he think about getting a restraining order, just in case. Buttigieg&#8217;s obsession has crossed from merely bizarre to pathological. He seems to rope Pence into every discussion, no matter how far he must stretch to make the connection. Meanwhile, Pence has only ever said nice things about Buttigieg, although mostly he says nothing about him either way. Perhaps this is why Buttigieg&#8217;s obsession grows more and more frantic by the day. He is not the sort of man who can tolerate being ignored.
Now, here are Buttigieg&#8217;s thoughts on abortion and the Bible: &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. And so even that is something that we can interpret differently &#8230; Most Americans can get on the board with the idea of, alright, I might draw the line here, you might draw the line there, but the most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision.&#8221;
There are so many logical and theological problems here that it&#8217;s hard to know where to begin. First of all, does the supposedly devout Buttigieg really think that women are the sole authorities who decide where to &#8220;draw the line&#8221;? If so, he has placed their word above God&#8217;s. Any believing Christian must acknowledge that God is the author, and thus definer, of life. One cannot develop a coherent conception of the Christian God that does not exclusively grant Him that power.
Buttigieg must know this because he quotes — rather, mangles — the Bible in an effort to justify his position. Where are these &#8220;a lot of parts&#8221; that allegedly disqualify the unborn as humans? I am not aware of any parts that even hint at this possibility. The only passage in Scripture that gets within 100 miles of Buttigieg&#8217;s claim is Genesis 2:7, which states: &#8220;Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.&#8221;
What does this have to do with the abortion debate? Precisely nothing. &#8220;Breath of life&#8221; is poetic language. We are not meant to imagine God literally leaning down from the clouds to deliver CPR to Adam. And even if we did imagine it that way, the creation of every successive human does not equate to the creation of Adam. Adam was formed from the dust of the ground. You and I were not. Eve was formed from Adam&#8217;s rib. Your mother was not. The process of creation for a child in 2019 is not the same as the process for Adam and Eve. Does Buttigieg even know where babies comes from?
That said, the Bible does indeed contain many verses that bear on the abortion issue. But every single one of them affirms the dignity and value of unborn life. Some examples:
&#8220;Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nation.&#8221; (Jeremiah 1:5)
&#8220;For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother&#8217;s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows well.&#8221; (Psalm 139:13)
&#8220;Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.&#8221; (Psalm 100:3).
&#8220;When Elizabeth heard Mary&#8217;s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit … &#8216;As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.'&#8221; (Luke 1:41, 44).
And this is to say nothing of the &#8220;you shall not murder&#8221; stipulation in the Ten Commandments.
Of course, for a Christian, the most definitive biblical statement on abortion cannot be reduced to one particular verse. Christians believe that God Himself came to Earth as a &#8220;fetus&#8221; in the womb of His mother. God Himself was once unborn. If the unborn are subhuman, then that would mean that God was once subhuman. Such a claim is heretical and blasphemous in the extreme. There have long been heresies claiming that Jesus was man but not God, or that Jesus was God but not man. Buttigieg is going even further afield, claiming that Jesus was less than man while still God.
Of course, there is no reason to have the abortion discussion on Christological terms. We know from science that unborn children are both alive and human. There is no question about this fact. It is not up for debate and no credible scientist on Earth would debate it. It is Buttigieg, not Mike Pence, who wants to turn this into a religious discussion. And, as it turns out, he knows about as much about the Bible as he does about biology. Which is to say, he&#8217;s completely clueless on both counts.

WALSH: Pete Buttigieg Tried To Use The Bible To Argue For Abortion Up To Birth. He’s Wildly Wrong, As Usual.

Abortion

Pete Buttigieg

&#8220;What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.&#8221; – Ecclesiastes 1:9
Last week, Sandinista-loving, Soviet Union-honeymooning <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43796/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">communist loonbag</a> Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) decided to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51413/walsh-bernie-sanders-wants-exterminate-surplus-matt-walsh">proffer</a> mass genocidal child sacrifice as a means by which to alleviate the purported coming ills of global warming &#8220;climate change.&#8221; The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51397/bernie-suggests-funding-abortions-poor-countries-ryan-saavedra">reported</a> on the underlying exchange on CNN:
<blockquote>&#8220;Empowering women, and educating everyone on the need to curb population growth seems a reasonable campaign to enact,&#8221; [CNN&#8217;s Martha] Readyoff [said]. &#8220;Would you be courageous enough to discuss this issue and make it a key feature of a plan to address climate catastrophe?&#8221;
&#8220;The answer&#8217;s &#8216;yes,'&#8221; Bernie responded. &#8230; &#8220;So I think, especially in poor countries around the world where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to control the number of kids they have, it&#8217;s something I very strongly support.&#8221;</blockquote>
Bernie Sanders, a nominal ethnic Jew who has imbibed like mother&#8217;s milk the catastrophic nostrums posited by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43388/hammer-anti-semites-ilhan-omar-and-rashida-tlaib-josh-hammer">world&#8217;s preeminent self-hating Jew</a> of the past two centuries, <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/289002-sanders-i-am-not-an-atheist">claims</a> to &#8220;not [be] an atheist.&#8221; But Sanders has also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-for-us-to-have-an-unapologetic-atheist-in-the-oval-office/2019/05/08/0f3e0020-6c27-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html?noredirect=on">conceded</a> that he is &#8220;not actively involved in organized religion,&#8221; and it would be genuinely shocking if Bernie Sanders were not the kind of &#8220;spiritual but not religious&#8221; Jew who enjoys a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich on Yom Kippur. For Sanders, as for so many adherents of Reform Judaism and other politically obsessed leftist Jews in America, the notion of tikkun olam — &#8220;repair the world&#8221; — distorts, overwhelms, and conquers anything that might otherwise be recognized as authentic, halakhic Judaism. Consider Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s blurb for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Heal-World-Corrupts-Judaism-Endangers/dp/1250160871">Jonathan Neumann&#8217;s 2018 book</a>, &#8220;To Heal the World? How the Jewish Left Corrupts Judaism and Endangers Israel&#8221;:
<blockquote>&#8220;For too long, Jewish leftists have used Jewish sloganeering to serve their leftism, claiming that &#8216;tikkun olam&#8217; dictates their politics. Neumann shows that the linkage between Judaism and leftism isn&#8217;t merely false, but fatally damaging to Jewishness itself, and that those who claim they are healing the world on God&#8217;s behalf are in fact ripping out the roots of Judeo-Christian civilization while cynically flying the Biblical flag.&#8221;</blockquote>
For many on the tikkun olam-obsessed, halakhically unmoored, biblically defiant Jewish Left, progressive politics becomes a de facto &#8220;religion.&#8221; The trend is widespread among non-God-fearing secularists in America today: When one excises God and religion from his or her life, that void is so often filled by the temptations of hedonistic, self-indulgent, politically leftist paganism. Whether it is the pagan &#8220;sacrament&#8221; of &#8220;abortion on demand and without apology&#8221; or the pagan cult of enviro-statist command-and-control economic radicalism, large swaths of the contemporary Left have reached a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51538/shapiro-pastor-pete-offers-indulgences-supporters-daily-wire">far greater effective level of religious zeal</a> than the &#8220;Religious Right&#8221; rubes and yokels they so contemptuously mock. They have merely replaced God with the Earth — and have replaced dutiful obedience to God&#8217;s commandments with the pagan sacrifice of the unborn.
As Erick Erickson of The Resurgent has long been <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/08/19/president-trump-scores-massive-pro-life-victory-planned-parenthood-defunded/">fond of saying</a>, the modern-day leftist/secularist abortion movement bears no small resemblance to the pagan child sacrifices to Moloch dating back millennia. As Erick <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/09/06/i-dont-care-about-climate-change-it-is-a-religious-doctrine-of-progressive-secularists/">wrote last week</a>: &#8220;[P]rogressives have replaced true religion with a new religion — a secular variety. They worship creation and sacrifice to Moloch just as tribes did thousands of years ago. Babies must be slaughtered to save the world now, just as then. People must sacrifice now, just as then.&#8221;
Indeed.
Bernie Sanders, with his acceptance of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/larahoffmans/2011/10/31/7-billion-reasons-malthus-was-wrong/">thoroughly discredited</a> Malthusianism and promotion of the sacrifice of an entire class of children to help save the Mother Earth idol, has merely provided Americans with an unusually clear lens into the modern pagan worldview. Sanders&#8217; harrowing and affirmatively evil proposal directly mirrors the Canaanite offerings to Moloch that hail from the biblical era. There truly is, as the Book of Ecclesiastes tell us, nothing new under the sun.

HAMMER: Bernie’s Pagan Support For Child Sacrifice Proves Ecclesiastes: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

2020 Election

Bernie Sanders

Children

Climate Change

Democratic Party

Global Warming

Leftism

Progressivism

Evangelical pastor Rhyan Glezman ripped into brother-in-law presidential contender Pete Buttigieg over his viral commentary regarding abortion. Last week, the young Democratic mayor invoked biblical scripture to seemingly excuse support for murdering an unborn child before that born child&#8217;s first breath.
During an interview with <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/a-modern-day-pharisee-buttigiegs-evangelical-brother-in-law-urges-him-to-repent-of-abortion-views">The Washington Examiner</a> on Friday, Glezman called on Buttigieg, whom he blasted as a &#8220;hypocrite&#8221; and a &#8220;modern day pharisee,&#8221; to repent.
&#8220;If we&#8217;re going to say we&#8217;re for all people and we love all people, but we don&#8217;t value human life in the womb, that&#8217;s being a hypocrite. You&#8217;re hypocritical if you don&#8217;t stand up for all life. So that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m speaking out,&#8221; said Glezman, who is the older brother of Buttigieg&#8217;s husband, Chasten Buttigieg.
&#8220;This isn&#8217;t a little issue, especially when we&#8217;re talking about life,&#8221; the pastor continued. &#8220;This is not just a political conversation. We&#8217;re talking about human life. These are human beings.&#8221;
&#8220;Glezman maintains that his brother-in-law has &#8216;manipulated&#8217; and &#8216;weaponized&#8217; the Bible to appeal to a wider demographic of liberal Democrats, which makes him &#8216;a false teacher,&#8217; as far [Glezman is] concerned,&#8221; the Examiner reported.
&#8220;What we see is a modern-day Pharisee,&#8221; Glezman blasted. &#8220;Buttigieg is a person who&#8217;s making up their own rules and regulations and, basically, if we don&#8217;t celebrate and endorse their interpretation of Scripture, our religion is fallible. And that&#8217;s just not true.&#8221;
During a recent interview with the radio program &#8220;The Breakfast Club,&#8221; Buttigieg turned heads when he seemed to excuse or justify abortion up until a baby&#8217;s first breath — while quoting the Bible as alleged support.
&#8220;Right now, [conservatives] hold everybody in line with this one, kind of, piece of doctrine about abortion, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally. Then again, there&#8217;s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. So even that is something we can interpret differently,&#8221; said the South Bend, Indiana mayor, adding proudly that he is &#8220;pro-choice.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Buttigieg suggests we determine life when the baby draws its first breath.
A 2020 presidential candidate is suggesting babies can be killed up UNTIL a baby draws its first breath.
<a href="https://t.co/1VSYHyjRsv">pic.twitter.com/1VSYHyjRsv</a>
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/1170023805722472449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Glezman noted that he loves his brother and Buttigieg, but will not change his beliefs concerning same-sex marriage or abortion.
&#8220;I can love someone who disagrees with me. I love my brother, I love Pete, I love all people, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that I&#8217;m going to change my beliefs. In their eyes, if we don&#8217;t celebrate or endorse their marriage views or their abortion views, then all of a sudden we become the homophobic bigots, which is just not true. You can love people and have a disagreement,&#8221; he told the Examiner. Glezman emphasized that his issues are not &#8220;personal&#8221; with Buttigieg. &#8220;He&#8217;s treated me fairly, he&#8217;s been nice to me,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;And that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m seeing with this false religion,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s why I compared them to the Pharisees of today, with their new laws that they&#8217;re trying to instill. And they&#8217;re saying, &#8216;If you don&#8217;t believe the way I do, then you&#8217;re a hateful, bigoted person; you&#8217;re homophobic, you&#8217;re anti-woman.&#8217; It becomes this hostile division.&#8221;
Glezman added that he hopes Buttigieg will &#8220;repent from teaching these false claims of Christianity; that he would just have an absolute encounter with God.&#8221;
&#8220;Anyone who makes those claims, anyone who&#8217;s going to weaponize the [Bible] in that way, I would say to anyone that you need to repent. This is leading people astray and it&#8217;s very, very dangerous,&#8221; Glezman said.
RELATED: Here is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48705/where-does-pete-buttigieg-stand-issues-heres-josh-hammer">where Pete Buttigieg stands on the key issues</a>.

Pastor Brother-In-Law RIPS Buttigieg For Using Bible To Excuse Abortion Until Baby Breathes

Christianity

On Wednesday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show,&#8221; Klavan discusses a recent admission by &#8220;Sex in the City&#8221; author Candace Bushnell that she regretes choosing her career over having children. Video and partial transcript below:
This is a story about Candace Bushnell. She&#8217;s now 60. But back in the &#8217;80s, I guess it was &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s, she wrote &#8220;Sex in the City,&#8221; a column that later became the famous TV star series starring Sarah Jessica Parker. And the TV series &#8212; which I only saw once or twice, I kind of sampled it because it was such a big deal; it wasn&#8217;t something that I was interested in. But a lot of people [have] said, and I actually think this is true, that it was written by gay guys and it was actually not about four women. It was about four women fronting for the opinions of these gay guys. And some of the conversations about sex really did sound like gay guys and not like women talking about sex. But the point of this was the idea of really enjoying yourself, having sex, and being free to have the kind of sex you want. There was a romantic strain in it. People were looking for love. But there was this continual idea of sex not having a moral component. That in other words, if you had sex promiscuously, you were not violating any kind of a moral code.
This is an idea that was being sold to people for a long time. Anyway, the story here is that Candace Bushnell now says she regrets choosing a career over having children. As she is now at 60 [and] truly alone. She divorced her husband, a ballet dancer, in 2012 and said it made her realize the importance of starting a family. She&#8217;s worth around £18 million. This is a British paper reporting this. And she says, &#8220;When I was in my 30s and 40s, I didn&#8217;t think about it then. When I got divorced and I was in my 50s, I started to see the impact of not having children and of truly being alone. I do see that people with children have an anchor in a way that people don&#8217;t, who have no kids.&#8221; And she goes on to talk about the fact that there is no one to care of you in your old age. She has to rely on girlfriends instead of the children to take care of her.
I couldn&#8217;t help but notice, and I don&#8217;t mean this as an attack on her because we&#8217;re all guilty of this to some degree. I couldn&#8217;t help but notice that even now, the same reasons that she followed the promiscuity path, which were selfish reasons, are the reasons she wants to have had a child. The selfish reason is she&#8217;s alone. She wants someone to take care of her. And it points out to me the essential materialism of leftism which I&#8217;ve talked about before.
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Leftism is a materialist creed. It is a creed that says I can fix this. If two people have unequal amounts of money, I can take money away from one and give it to the other, and then they will be equal. And of course, the flaw in that is it doesn&#8217;t look into the idea of why one person has more money than the other. Why taking the money away and giving it to this other person might hurt that person. As if that person were not just a material entity, who when he gave them more money, had more money. But was also a spiritual entity, who was going to behave in certain ways that might hurt him, whether he had the money or not? This is central [to the] materialism of leftism, and the essential selfishness of materialism.
Under materialism there&#8217;s really no reason to do anything for anybody else. Truly there&#8217;s not, except [when it&#8217;s] to your own advantage. You have kids because they&#8217;ll take care of you in your old age and you won&#8217;t be truly alone. But the thing is, if you have a spiritual idea of life. If you have an idea that we&#8217;re not just physical entities, we&#8217;re not just meat puppets, who can be controlled with drugs, who can be satiated with food and sex, [and] who can be made equal with money.
If you don&#8217;t look at it that way, as you look at us, as entire entities, entities who are &#8220;selves,&#8221; you start to think about other things. The religious point of view, the spiritual point of view, is that things have a purpose. Things are whole and have a purpose. Sex has a purpose. It has a lot of purposes, it has varying purposes, but it does have a purpose. Your profession has a purpose. Life has a purpose…
One of the purposes of life is to create life. To give the gift that you&#8217;ve been given, to someone else. That is one of the reasons that you have children. It&#8217;s not, you know, people who say, &#8220;Well parents with young children are not among the happiest people.&#8221; That&#8217;s true, but that doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;re not among the most fulfilled people. Having children opens up a wall that you didn&#8217;t even know was there — turns your two-dimensional life that you thought was a three-dimensional life into a truly three-dimensional life. It deepens your sadness and it deepens your joy. It deepens everything about your life because it is the purpose of your body. The purpose of your body and its life is to create more life. And when you do things for their purpose, you suddenly find they&#8217;re harder. The world may not be as kind to you as it would be if you do it for the world, but you&#8217;ll find you are much more richly fulfilled and happier.
I don&#8217;t sit down and write to make money. I don&#8217;t sit down and write so that people will applaud me. I sit down and write because I think there&#8217;s something inside me that is trying to communicate itself — that I was given, it was given to me, to do this. And I try to do it with that spirit. I really do every day. I like making money off it. I like the fact that I can make a profession out of it. I like the fact that sometimes it wins me praise. Writers want to be read, and writers want to be praised. I&#8217;m not denying any of that, but I know that the purpose of it is something other than that.
The purpose of life is to make life. And I think it&#8217;s something that we have been talked out of — especially women — by feminists, who are idiots. They have been talked out of their own purpose, their central purpose. It is the central purpose of your physical being. And I thought when I read that about Candace Bushnell, the first thing that occurred to me is: you know what, there&#8217;s no going back. There&#8217;s no going back, that&#8217;s a mistake you cannot correct, and it is an essential mistake. And I think that everybody should be thinking about it and breaking out of the chains that the Left has surrounded us [in] — the material chains, which are also chains of selfishness.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/andrew-klavan-show">Watch more of The Andrew Klavan Show here.</a>
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-andrew-klavan-show/id1045171376?mt=2">Listen to more of The Andrew Klavan Show on iTunes here.</a>

KLAVAN: ‘Sex In The City’ Author Regrets Not Having Children, But For Wrong Reasons

Andrew Klavan

After an atheist group complained, a Ten Commandments plaque that had been displayed at an Ohio middle school for almost 100 years was removed.
<a href="https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/july/atheist-group-forces-removal-of-ten-commandments-plaque-from-ohio-middle-school">CBN</a> notes that the complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) was triggered by a disgruntled parent of a child at Welty Middle School in New Philadelphia. FFRF’s April 12 letter stated that the plaque was a &#8220;flagrant violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment,” adding, &#8220;The district&#8217;s promotion of the Judeo-Christian bible and religion over nonreligion impermissibly turns any non-Christian or non-believing student into an outsider. Schoolchildren already feel significant pressure to conform to their peers. They must not be subjected to similar pressure from their schools, especially on religious questions.&#8221;
As the <a href="https://www.timesreporter.com/news/20190625/ten-commandments-plaque-removed-from-welty-middle-school">Times-Reporter</a> noted, New Philadelphia Schools Superintendent David Brand issued a statement explaining why the district complied with the demand for the plaque’s removal and argued that the district simply could not afford to challenge FFRF:
<blockquote>Rather than meeting with the District to begin a dialogue, FFRF sent a letter from its office in Wisconsin and then used the local media to further the issue. Since receiving the letter, the District has gathered more information, listened to interested community members, and reviewed its options. As background, the plaque was a gift from the Class of 1926 to the District in 1927. To the best of its knowledge, the District believes the plaque has been displayed in the District ever since. With over 90 years on display, the plaque is recognized as part of the tradition and history of New Philadelphia City Schools.
While the plaque is a well-established and historic piece of New Philadelphia City Schools history, the laws of the United States are pretty clear regarding the display of the Ten Commandments in a school setting. To preserve the plaque, the District would need to overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1980. Additionally, the District would need to become the first public school to successfully defend a Ten Commandments display in a school setting.
Despite offers from local law professionals to help the district, the ‘costs’ of defending are substantial. In addition to funding multi-year litigation, the District will divert staff, time, and energy from the District’s true purpose — student learning. Even more troubling, if the District’s case is unsuccessful as all other school cases have been, FFRF can seek for the District to pay FFRF’s legal fees, which have in at least one instance, exceeded $900,000.00. Clearly, challenging the issue legally would be an enormous risk and burden to the local taxpayers.
The District will review the process to donate the plaque to preserve the history of the 92-year-old Ten Commandments plaque. Furthermore, rather than engaging FFRF in an action where the community’s resources are at stake, the District will consider filing an amicus brief in a forthcoming case on the matter. While members of the District do not agree with FFRF’s conduct, the District believes acting on its own terms is the most effective way to oppose FFRF and to continue to serve its students.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/school-district-rolls-atheist-group-1-letter-removes-historic-plaque-installed-1927/">The Western Journal</a> noted regarding FFRF:
<blockquote>What the group does is descend upon a school district. After usually just a single complaint from an individual, they wage a media war against the entity in question. They turn their lawyers loose and — if the entity isn’t inclined toward a protracted court case — get what they want.
The case that Brand is referencing, by the by, is Stone v. Graham. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court declared that a Kentucky law that posted a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom was in violation of the establishment clause.</blockquote>
The plague was a gift from the class of 1926.

Ohio School Removes Ten Commandments Plaque Displayed For Almost 100 Years After Atheist Group Objects

Ohio

At PragerU, we have released about 400 videos on virtually every subject outside of the natural sciences and math. Along with 2 billion views, the videos have garnered tens of thousands of comments. So we have a pretty good handle on what people most love and most hate. For example, any video defending America or Israel inevitably receives many negative responses. But no videos elicit the amount of contempt and mockery that videos defending religion, explaining the Bible or arguing for God do.
Why is that?
There is a good reason. The Bible and the left (not liberalism, leftism) are as opposed as any two worldviews can be. While there are people who claim to hold both a Bible-based worldview and left-wing views, these people are few in number. Moreover, what they do is take left-wing positions and wrap them in a few Bible verses. But on virtually every important value in life, the left and the Bible are diametrically opposed.
Here are a few examples:
The biblical view is that people are not basically good. Evil therefore comes from within human nature. For the left, human nature is not the source of evil. Capitalism, patriarchy, poverty, religion, nationalism or some other external cause is the source of evil.
The biblical view is that nature was created for man. The left-wing view is that man is just another part of nature.
The biblical view is that man is created in the image of God and, therefore, formed with a transcendent, immaterial soul. The left-wing view &#8212; indeed, the view of all secular ideologies &#8212; is that man is purely material, another assemblage of stellar dust.
The biblical view is that the human being has free will. The left-wing view &#8212; again, the view of all secular outlooks &#8212; is that human beings have no free will. Everything we do is determined by environment, genes and the matter of which we are composed. Firing neurons, not free will, explain both murders and kindness.
The biblical view is that while reason alone can lead a person to conclude murder is wrong, murder is ultimately and objectively wrong only because there is a transcendent source of right and wrong &#8212; God &#8212; who deems murder evil.
The biblical view is that God made order out of chaos. Order is defined by distinctions. One such example is male and female &#8212; the only inherent human distinction that matters to God. There are no racial or ethnic distinctions in God&#8217;s order; there is only the human sex distinction. The left loathes this concept of a divine order. That is the primary driver of its current attempt to obliterate the male-female distinction.
The biblical view is that the nuclear family is the basic unit of society &#8212; a married father and mother and their children. This is the biblical ideal. All good people of faith recognize that the reality of this world is such that many people do not or cannot live that ideal. And such people often merit our support. But that does not change the fact that the nuclear family is the one best-suited to create thriving individuals and a healthy society, and we who take the Bible seriously must continue to advocate the ideal family structure as the Bible defines it. And for that, perhaps more than anything, we are mocked.
The biblical view holds that wisdom begins with acknowledging God. The secular view is that is that God is unnecessary for wisdom, and the left-wing view is that God is destructive to wisdom. But if you want to know which view is more accurate, look at the most godless and Bible-less institution in our society: the universities. They are, without competition, the most foolish institutions in our society.
For nearly all of American history, the Bible was the most important book in America. It is no longer. This is a moral and intellectual catastrophe. If you want to understand why, consider reading &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; my commentary on the first five books of the Bible. The second volume of &#8220;The Rational Bible,&#8221; &#8220;Genesis,&#8221; is published today.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His second volume of Bible commentary, &#8220;The Rational Bible &#8212; Genesis: God, Creation, Destruction,&#8221; is published by Regnery. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

PRAGER: Why The Left Mocks The Bible

Yesterday, Harvard University&#8217;s Faculty of Arts &amp; Sciences (FAS) <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fas-diversity-conference-a-decade-of-dialogue-tickets-59724027173#">hosted an event</a> entitled, &#8220;FAS Diversity Conference: A Decade of Dialogue.&#8221; The event <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fas-diversity-conference-a-decade-of-dialogue-tickets-59724027173#">description</a> highlighted that &#8220;anti-racism&#8221; activist Tim Wise would be the featured keynote speaker:
<blockquote>
Over the last ten years, the FAS Diversity Dialogue Series has sparked conversation about diversity, equality and inclusion in the FAS community and beyond. Join us for a retrospective look at diversity and inclusion, a discussion of current issues, and practical guidance on how we can move toward greater inclusion and belonging at Harvard.
We are pleased to announce that our keynote speaker will be Tim Wise, prominent anti-racism writer, educator, and activist. A moderated discussion with Tim will be led by Renee Graham, an associate editor and columnist at the Boston Globe.
</blockquote>
Hold aside for a second why Harvard would invite a white, reportedly heterosexual man to lead its ten-year commemoration conference on a diversity initiative. Because as conservative campus watchdog site The College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/keynote-speaker-at-harvard-diversity-conference-says-christians-should-be-locked-up">reports</a>, this &#8220;anti-racism&#8221; activist has a rather colorful online history of grotesquely bigoted statements against religious Jews and Christians. Most specifically, Wise has publicly called for those who actually believe in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to be &#8220;locked up.&#8221;
Per <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/keynote-speaker-at-harvard-diversity-conference-says-christians-should-be-locked-up">The College Fix</a>:
<blockquote>
Tim Wise, an &#8220;anti-racism writer, educator and activist,&#8221; has denigrated Christians as &#8220;Jeezoids and fascists and called Pope Francis evil. He has tweeted that &#8220;people who believe in a God of hell/damnation deserve to be mocked viciously and run out of the public square.&#8221;
Those who base their morality on the Hebrew Scriptures &#8220;deserve to be locked up,&#8221; he said in 2015, claiming to be &#8220;sorta kidding but not by much.&#8221;
The Diversity Dialogue Series provides a &#8220;retrospective look at diversity and inclusion, a discussion of current issues, and practical guidance on how we can move toward greater inclusion and belonging at Harvard,&#8221; according to the event description.
</blockquote>
Here is the full underlying Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/timjwise/posts/10152994403075670">post</a> from 2015, which features Wise commenting derogatorily about former U.S. congresswoman Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and which he set to a public viewership:
<blockquote>
This is America&#8230;people basing their beliefs on the fable of Noah and Ark, or their interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah&#8230;rather than science or logic&#8230;If you are basing your morality on a fairy tale written thousands of years ago, you deserve to be locked up&#8230;detained for your utter inability to deal with reality&#8230;NO, we are not obligated to indulge your irrationality in the name of your religious freedom&#8230;but we will provide you a very comfortable room, against which walls you may hurl yourself hourly if your choose. Knock yourself out&#8230;.seriously, knock yourself out, completely, for weeks at a time&#8230;I&#8217;m sorta kidding but not by much&#8230;I don&#8217;t believe lunatics like this should be locked up, but I do think they have to be politically destroyed, utterly rendered helpless to the cause of pluralism and democracy &#8230;the world is not theirs. They have no right to impose their bullshit on others. They can either change, or shut the hell up, or practice their special brand of crazy in their homes&#8230;or go away. Their choice. And this argument applies to any fundamentalist religionist of any faith who thinks they have a right to impose their beliefs on a secular, pluralistic society. Go away.
</blockquote>
In Wise&#8217;s extremely limited defense, The College Fix notes that the noted &#8220;anti-racism&#8221; activist avoided any bigoted anti-Jewish/anti-Christian language during his Harvard appearance yesterday.

A Harvard Conference Keynote Speaker Has Written That Religious Jews And Christians ‘Deserve To Be Locked Up’

Anti-Semitism

Diversity

Harvard

Judaism

The editors of the Associated Press consider it newsworthy to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/tourist-mecca-notre-dame-revered-063134725.html">report</a> that the &#8220;tourist mecca Notre Dame&#8221; is &#8220;also revered as [a] place of worship.&#8221; Imagine their surprise when they learn the <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/mecca">origins</a> of the word &#8220;mecca.&#8221;
At least the Associated Press reported a religious reality, albeit an obvious one. The New York Times was forced to issue a correction yesterday when it bungled a report on a basic elements of Christian doctrine. Fr. Jean-Marc Fournier ran inside the burning Cathedral of Notre Dame to save the &#8220;body of Christ&#8221; from the flames, which reporter Elian Peltier imagined entailed the hero priest&#8217;s hauling out &#8220;a statue of Jesus&#8221; rather than the Blessed Sacrament. In today&#8217;s New York Post, Mark Hemingway <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/04/19/new-york-times-hits-new-low-with-mortifying-notre-dame-correction/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&amp;utm_medium=site%20buttons&amp;utm_campaign=site%20buttons">recounts</a> several other embarrassing occasions of religious ignorance on the part of the Times.
In 2013, the Gray Lady reported that Easter commemorates Jesus&#8217; &#8220;resurrection into heaven&#8221; rather than his resurrection from the dead. The following year, it <a href="https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2014/9/22/revenge-of-getreligion-mz-concerning-the-nytimes-effort-to-bury-jesus">described</a> the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as &#8220;marking the site where many Christians believe Jesus is buried.&#8221; That reporter holds a masters degree from Cambridge University, which he appears to have earned despite never having read the New Testament. If he peruse the Gospel, he missed the point of the story.
This embarrassingly ignorant reporting reveals a crisis of religious education throughout the West. Such widespread ignorance imperils not merely the future of the faith but the very civilization that Christianity crafted. How can we expect students to appreciate Hamlet if they do not first understand the story of <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.3.3.html">Cain and Abel</a>, <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.5.html">Purgatory</a>, or the theological debates at the heart of the <a href="http://shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/H12.html">Protestant Revolution</a>? How much meaning can the Gettysburg Address convey, with its peculiar diction and repeated references to &#8216;dedication,&#8217; &#8216;consecration,&#8217; and &#8220;devotion,&#8221; without the context of the King James Bible? Why did John Adams warn the Massachusetts militia that &#8220;our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people&#8221; and that &#8220;it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other&#8221;?
Three months ago, President Trump endorsed elective Bible literacy classes for public schools. At least six states have proposed laws that would permit such classes. &#8220;The Bible is an integral part of our society and deserves a place in the classroom,&#8221; explained North Dakota State Representative Aaron McWilliams. He&#8217;s right, though he downplays the Good Book&#8217;s significance. Not only is the Bible integral to our society, it constitutes our society&#8217;s literary bedrock.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089876055224184833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
In 1962, the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in Engel v. Vitale outlawed prayer in public schools. The following year, the Court decided in Abington School District v. Schempp also to ban Bible study, which had formed the basis of American education since the Puritan era, from public schools. The ensuing decades have witnessed the dumbing down of several generations, each more ignorant than the next. Now the highly &#8220;educated&#8221; writers at the New York Times can&#8217;t tell a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/world/europe/a-public-end-for-an-extraordinary-papacy.html">crow&#8217;s ear</a> from a crosier.
We laugh at the religiously illiterate journalists, but far more foolish were their forebears in the 1960s who imagined they could educate students without teaching them the most important book in the history of the world.

KNOWLES: The MSM Proves It&#8217;s Time To Teach The Bible In Schools

High School

Notre Dame Cathedral

Andrew Klavan answers a question in the mailbag about whether Christians should engage with stories and art, like &#8220;Game of Thrones,&#8221; that heavily feature sinful actions on Wednesday&#8217;s episode of &#8220;The Andrew Klavan Show.&#8221; Transcript and video below.
From Sara: &#8220;Hi Andrew Klavan with no E&#8217;s, longtime listener. I&#8217;m struggling to raise my children to be Christians in a very fallen world. And your willingness to embrace expressions of the most vile sin while creating Christian movies with pornography struck me dumb.&#8221; Little bit of kidding around there Sara but still I did say that. &#8220;I&#8217;m not saying that Christian movies are terrific in their acting, direction, and production.&#8221; Which by the way is what makes movies terrific. Plus, the writing. &#8220;But how do you square your perspective with Philippians 4-8. Colossians&#8212;&#8221;. The number of the Bible verses I&#8217;ll get to those in a minute. &#8220;You have often said that anger is the devil&#8217;s cocaine. I have always thought that guilty laughter is the devil&#8217;s cocaine. If the devil can get you to laugh at sin, he&#8217;s got you comfortable with it and you&#8217;re moved incrementally away from God and towards sin.&#8221;
So basically, she&#8217;s saying, &#8220;I can&#8217;t watch many shows or movies without a deep sense of disturbance; I have to wonder the wisdom in allowing myself to grow accustomed to depravity. How can you immerse yourself in filth and stay clean in Christ? Love, soon to be Dr. Sarah.&#8221;
Well first of all this Philippians quote, I won&#8217;t quote all the verses, the Philippians quote people are always throwing this at me when they see that my characters curse, when they see that I watch &#8220;Game of Thrones,&#8221; when they see that I have sex scenes in my books. They always throw Philippians at me, and it is &#8220;whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things.&#8221;
So what would a work of art be like that only had people doing noble, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy things? It would not be a work of art. It would be a work of trash and dishonesty. Philippians begins with whatever is true. I think all those things nobility, loveliness, admirableness in the arts are about representing the truth. That is what the arts do. They tell the truth. And if you can&#8217;t tell the truth, if you don&#8217;t want to hear the truth, if you think that somehow your life is better by reading you know namby-pamby Christian stuff &#8212; where everybody does the right thing and all the bad people are punished and all the good people win praise &#8212; if that&#8217;s what you want, don&#8217;t go to the arts, go to that. I mean that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s what you do. But that&#8217;s not what I do. I&#8217;m an artist.
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The fact that you have children doesn&#8217;t enter into this because we can&#8217;t live in a world where everything is geared toward children, where every movie is made so that only children can watch it. I&#8217;ve written books for children. They are squeaky clean, they have no bad words in them, they have no sex in them. Those are books for younger people. When I write for adults, I write about adult things, I write about the world as it is because I believe you can only find God in the world as it is, you can&#8217;t find God in namby-pamby silliness.
And as for laughing, I give a whole speech about this at Hillsdale. As for laughing at sin it really depends why you&#8217;re laughing. If you&#8217;re laughing because you don&#8217;t understand the pain that sin causes or the twistedness that it causes or the physical destruction that it causes. Well yeah, then you&#8217;re being depraved. But if you&#8217;re laughing as I laugh at sin and I do laugh at sin there&#8217;s no question about it I find some sin very funny. If you are laughing at corruption and sin because it&#8217;s absurd, it&#8217;s because you have an understanding of human nature in keeping with original sin. You understand that humans are made to be better than they are. And that&#8217;s funny. It&#8217;s funny when a guy in a tuxedo falls in a mud puddle. It&#8217;s funny when a society woman is hit in the face with a pie. It is funny when a group of people who were made to walk with God in the Garden of Paradise instead spend their time cheating and lying and hurting each other. There&#8217;s something absurd and funny about that. Obviously, when people start to suffer physical destruction it stops being funny, but until then when you&#8217;re dealing with things like the parents who cheated their kids&#8217; ways into school, there is something absurd and funny about it. If you understand that they were supposed to be something so much better than they are.
So again the arts do a thing just like a car does a thing right. A car takes you someplace, the arts take you someplace. You cannot take people to those places without telling the truth. Not all truth has to be in every art. Some good art like &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; can also be exploitive. In the opening episode of this new season, there was a nude scene in it that had absolutely no point and purpose, it was just to put naked ladies on screen. I enjoyed it very much, but it was absolutely nothing to do with advancing the story. But some scenes that show horrible horrible things can, in fact, part of getting at the truth. I always referenced &#8220;The Sopranos,&#8221; one of my favorite TV shows, which was filled with depravity and yet was uplifting because it showed the moral world. That&#8217;s the way the arts work. If you don&#8217;t like the arts don&#8217;t use them, but if you do like them be prepared for uncomfortable truths.
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KLAVAN: Should Christians Watch &#8216;Game Of Thrones&#8217;?

Hollywood

An Ohio high school girl was suspended for posting verses from the Bible around her school, reacting to gay pride flags hung up by students from an LGBTQ group.
Gabby Helsinger says she was taken out of class and issued ISS (in-school suspension) for her actions. According to a document from the administration, Helsinger was accused of &#8220;targeting&#8221; the school&#8217;s Gay-Straight Alliance and exhibiting &#8220;abuse of others, disrespect, [and] rudeness&#8221; for merely posting the Bible versus.
After the incident, the teenager took to Facebook to explain why she felt the need to post the verses in the first place and why the school&#8217;s punishment of her is unjust. The video, which was posted to Tina Helsinger&#8217;s (Gabby&#8217;s mother) Facebook page, has racked up nearly 80,000 views since it was posted last week.
&#8220;So, on Thursday when I got to school, I see that there were pride flags, posters around my school,&#8221; said Gabby. &#8220;And I felt the need to write down some Bible verses so I could put them around my school. And I wrote them down and I put them around [the] lockers, the walls. And I was coming back from lunch, because I got sent back to lunch, and I [saw] the teachers taking them down.&#8221;
&#8220;The next day, I got called to the office and there is a letter that says that I have an ISS, which is an in-school suspension, and the reason why I have it is because &#8216;abuse of others, disrespect, rudeness&#8217; because I put Bible verses up &#8216;targeting the &#8216;GSA&#8217; (Gay-Straight Alliance] organization,&#8221; she continued.
Gabby said she felt compelled to post the versus because &#8220;God is the only way&#8221; and those struggling with identity or sexuality &#8220;can be healed.&#8221;
&#8220;Seeing that there [were] people in my school that needed help &#8230; they don&#8217;t need to be living in the confusion of wondering if they should be gay, bi, lesbian, trans, anything like that. And I know that God is the only way that they can be healed by that, and that&#8217;s why I did it,&#8221; she said, emphasizing that she was in no way maliciously &#8220;targeting&#8221; the LGBTQ group.
Gabby said she told her principal that she wanted to &#8220;spread the word of God&#8221; when pressed about posting the messages and noted that others post things around the school all the time without permission.
&#8220;I said, &#8216;Because I wanted to spread the word of God,'&#8221; she explained. &#8220;And then he goes, &#8216;Well, did you have permission?&#8217; And I said, &#8216;No.&#8217; I didn&#8217;t know you had to have permission because people do it a lot &#8212; putting Post-It notes on people&#8217;s lockers, so I just did it.&#8221;
&#8220;I asked him why every time Jesus or God or anything like that gets brought up in school, it gets taken down straight away,&#8221; she added. &#8220;But we can put gay and pride stuff all over the school, and not have to take it down, and people can talk about it. But when you talk about God or Jesus, you just get put down and you&#8217;re not allowed to talk about it.&#8221;
A caption to the Facebook video says that Lebanon High School &#8220;celebrates evil and punishes righteousness!!&#8221;
&#8220;Parents &#8211; if this was happening to your child &#8211; what would you do?&#8221; the caption on Tina&#8217;s post continues.
The girl&#8217;s mother added that she has appealed the punishment: &#8220;I appealed the punishment stating &#8216;Posting a Bible verse is not abuse of others, disrespect/insolence/rudeness and in no way was it targeting GSA&#8217; but the school principal, Scott Butler, says &#8216;Gabby was targeting the GSA organization&#8217; and therefore must report to ISS Wednesday 3/13/19.&#8221;
The post, which is signed by &#8220;Tina and Gabby,&#8221; adds a Bible verse from the book of Mark: &#8220;And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.&#8221;
Faithwire <a href="https://www.faithwire.com/2019/03/12/i-wanted-to-spread-the-word-of-god-high-school-student-suspended-after-posting-bible-verses-in-response-to-rainbow-flags/">reported</a> that Lebanon City School Superintendent Todd Yohey said that though he was not permitted to discuss specifics, &#8220;Yohey confirmed that the school&#8217;s Student Code of Conduct does not prohibit the sharing or posting of religious text or imagery on school grounds. He also confirmed that like the GSA, religious clubs are allowed to meet and advertise during school hours.&#8221;
&#8220;The question that remains, then, is why Gabby received the suspension to begin with,&#8221; asked Faithwire&#8217;s Carly Hoilman. &#8220;If the student&#8217;s testimony stands, and she was not &#8216;targeting the GSA organization&#8217; as Principal Scott Butler allegedly claimed, then it appears her only offense was not receiving prior approval to post the verses, which is a far cry from the accusations of &#8216;abuse&#8217; toward other students.&#8221;
WATCH:
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WATCH: Teen Girl Suspended For Posting Bible Verses In Response To Pride Flags Explains Herself In Viral Video

LGBT

For Christians in America, the Bible is their most important book. So when the President of the United States visited Alabama last week after massive tornadoes killed 23 people, some residents who came out for his stop brought theirs along.
At one point during President Trump&#8217;s tour, a 12-year-old boy approached and asked him to sign his Bible. Another young boy followed suit, then more followed.
The Left predictably went nuts.
&#8220;He signed Bibles with the same hand he used &#8212; as president &#8212; to sign hush money checks to an adult film star,&#8221; Joe Biden&#8217;s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, wrote on Twitter.
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He signed bibles with the same hand he used &#8212; as President &#8212; to sign hush money checks to an adult film star. <a href="https://t.co/ecQH8ooJaf">https://t.co/ecQH8ooJaf</a>
&#8212; Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) <a href="https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1104115291351670785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Donald J. Trump is signing Bibles,&#8221; Peter Daou, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, wrote. &#8220;The man whose vicious and inhumane border policy violates the fundamental teachings of Jesus is signing Bibles.&#8221;
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Donald J. Trump is signing Bibles. The man whose vicious and inhumane border policy violates the fundamental teachings of Jesus is signing Bibles.
&#8212; Peter Daou (@peterdaou) <a href="https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1104106184850706436?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Donald Trump traveled to AL this past Friday to comfort those who had been devastated by a recent tornado that killed 23 people. During the trip, Trump was asked to sign some Bibles&#8230;I suggest that he takes some time to READ the Bible,&#8221; Al Sharpton said.
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Donald Trump traveled to AL this past Friday to comfort those who had been devastated by a recent tornado that killed 23 people. During the trip, Trump was asked to sign some Bibles&#8230;I suggest that he takes some time to READ the Bible. Pt 1 of my <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PoliticsNation?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PoliticsNation</a> closing thoughts <a href="https://t.co/mYaUNcDOGT">pic.twitter.com/mYaUNcDOGT</a>
&#8212; Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRevAl/status/1104867118389096450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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George Takei&#8207;, who played Chekov in the original &#8220;Star Trek&#8221; series, jumped in, too. &#8220;Tell you what. If you own &#8216;Art of the Deal,&#8217; I&#8217;ll sign George H. Takei on the cover. Just like Trump signing the Bible, it makes absolutely no sense in any context. But at least I can cover up his face with it.&#8221;
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Tell you what. If you own &#8220;Art of the Deal,&#8221; I&#8217;ll sign George H. Takei on the cover. Just like Trump signing the Bible, it makes absolutely no sense in any context. But at least I can cover up his face with it.
&#8212; George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) <a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeTakei/status/1104373128409608192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Others on Twitter piled on.
&#8220;Imagine being a Christian and having Trump of all people sign your bible. NOBODY should be signing the word of God&#8230;. Is this the end times?&#8221; one wrote.
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Imagine being a Christian and having Trump of all people sign your bible. NOBODY should be signing the word of God&#8230;.
Is this the end times? lol
&#8212; Fearless/Lessfear (@Quotemeorelse) <a href="https://twitter.com/Quotemeorelse/status/1104170528791703552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Why did Trump sign Bibles for Christians?! He is not the author of the Bible. Matter of fact, he is what the Bible tells you not to be. Notice how he signed them on the cover. Trump still has never opened one. #Trump autographing bibles is like Hannibal Lecter signing cookbooks,&#8221; Andrew Padovano wrote on Twitter.
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Why did Trump sign Bibles for Christians?! He is not the author of the Bible. Matter of fact, he is what the Bible tells you not to be. Notice how he signed them on the cover. Trump still has never opened one. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Trump</a> autographing bibles is like Hannibal Lecter signing cookbooks. <a href="https://t.co/fcmnYwnfKU">pic.twitter.com/fcmnYwnfKU</a>
&#8212; Andrew Padovano (@Ap_mecca93) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ap_mecca93/status/1104604755672870912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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But then it turned out that other presidents have signed bibles, too &#8212; even the mainstream media&#8217;s darling, The Chosen One, Barack Obama.
&#8220;Note to all the people ridiculing evangelicals for asking Trump to sign their bibles: Martin Luther King&#8217;s family asked President Obama to sign MLK&#8217;s bible. And Obama did,&#8221; Matthew Schmitz wrote.
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Note to all the people ridiculing evangelicals for asking Trump to sign their bibles: Martin Luther King&#8217;s family asked President Obama to sign MLK&#8217;s bible. And Obama did.<a href="https://t.co/bSyz7aJ0ji">https://t.co/bSyz7aJ0ji</a>
&#8212; Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewschmitz/status/1104170861261717511?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Said The Washington Post:
<blockquote>
Peter Manseau, the Smithsonian&#8217;s curator of religion, said past presidents have signed Bibles, including George W. Bush and President Ronald Reagan. President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts reportedly signed a Bible owned by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the request of his family.
&#8220;If this was an organized effort where the president was giving out stacks of signed Bibles, that would strike me as odd, to say the least, but from what I can tell the event today wasn&#8217;t outside the norm,&#8221; Manseau said. &#8220;Presidents seem to sign a lot of random things put in front of them.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Presidents Truman and Carter and Clinton, along with Vice President Al Gore, have signed Bibles, too. All which prompted &#8220;Students For Trump&#8221; to post on Twitter, winning the day.
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Truman signs a Bible: *crickets* 
Carter signs a Bible: *crickets* 
Clinton signs a Bible: *crickets* 
Gore signs a Bible: *crickets* 
Trump signs a Bible: *HYSTERIA*
&#8212; Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpStudents/status/1104206959098642432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Trump Slammed For Signing Bibles For Tornado Survivors; Uh, Lots Of Presidents Have Done That

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Pro-abortion Nancy Pelosi loves to quote the Bible. Well, sort of.
During <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?457379-3/speaker-pelosi-addresses-christian-colleges-universities-conference&amp;fbclid=IwAR3pdliYVVvZf5oyjNw2_MdUmZUGWEe8g3naa4wa3H80YgOBynKi8Lq9dy8&amp;start=202">a recent gathering</a> of Christian college presidents in Washington, D.C., House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) quoted from the Bible:
&#8220;To minister to the needs of God&#8217;s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us,&#8221; she said in her opening statement.
The only problem? This isn&#8217;t from the Bible.
Pelosi addressed this issue by saying she &#8220;can&#8217;t find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time.&#8221;
&#8220;I keep reading and reading the Bible &#8212; I know it&#8217;s there someplace. It&#8217;s supposed to be in Isaiah. I heard a bishop say, &#8216;To minister to the needs of God&#8217;s creation &#8230; ,&#8217;&#8221; she added.
But as Slate reports, the &#8220;quote&#8221; is not &#8220;there someplace.&#8221; It&#8217;s not in the Bible at all.
Will Kynes, an associate professor of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Whitworth University, told Slate, &#8220;The Pelosi passage is not in the Bible,&#8221; and suggested Proverbs 14:31 was the closest example.
&#8220;Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him,&#8221; the passage states.
Greg MaGee, an associate professor of biblical studies at Taylor University, gave Slate the same verse as the potential origin for whatever Pelosi is quoting.
Slate reporter Ruth Graham goes on to document the history of Pelosi using this alleged Bible verse, beginning in 2002 at a speech honoring a Catholic priest in San Francisco, CA, who had died.
&#8220;Between 2002 and 2018, the quote appears 12 times in the Congressional Record, with Pelosi responsible for all but one of the entries. (The other time, Texas Republican Louie Gohmert was quoting Pelosi,)&#8221; Graham wrote. &#8220;She has deployed it in speeches to recognize genocide in Darfur (&#8216;to ignore God&#8217;s creation, which are these children, is to dishonor the God who made them&#8217;), to strengthen the Endangered Species Act (&#8216;to minister to the needs of God&#8217;s creation, and that includes our beautiful environment&#8217;), twice to honor Catholic schools (&#8216;my Catholic education taught me that to minister to the needs of God&#8217;s creation&#8217;), and to express condolences after the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia (&#8216;it is appropriate on many occasions, but I thought of it the minute I saw the tsunami&#8217;).&#8221;
Pelosi uses this alleged Bible verse to bring religion into policy discussions, and make it seem as though Christians should support whatever policy she&#8217;s promoting at the time because God would want them to. She conveniently didn&#8217;t use this quote to speak about abortion, most recently the law passed in New York allowing an abortion up to the minute of birth, or the proposed law in Virginia that would do the same, which led to Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42839/watch-democratic-va-governor-endorses-murder-born-ben-shapiro">defending infanticide</a> if a mother so desires.
Pelosi was recently asked about the extreme abortion bills (which offer broad definitions of &#8220;health&#8221; that wouldn&#8217;t limit the abortions to what conservatives generally favor as an exception) and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42900/watch-pelosi-dodges-question-virginia-governor-ryan-saavedra">dodged the question</a>. A reporter asked Pelosi: &#8220;Considering the comments from Governor Northam yesterday, how does that make it harder for pro-life Democrats in the party and does that cause problems?&#8221;
Pelosi claimed she didn&#8217;t know &#8220;what [Northam] said&#8221; and quickly called on another reporter.

Nancy Pelosi Regularly Quotes Her Favorite Bible Verse. There’s Just One Problem.

Nancy Pelosi

For a change of pace, President Trump caused a controversy today. He got the media and the Left hot and bothered this time around by lending his endorsement to Bible literacy classes. In a tweet this morning, he <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089876055224184833">said</a>: &#8220;Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!&#8221;
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The &#8220;<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/28/donald-trump-bible-classes-school-1128702">controversial</a>&#8221; laws Trump is referring to, which are being advanced in a few states including Kentucky, would introduce elective Bible classes in school. The classes would teach the Bible in terms of history and literature. Students, obviously, would not be required to affirm the doctrine of Biblical infallibility, nor would they be taught, or forced to accept, any moral prescription or supernatural claim made in the text. The Bible would be presented as a literary work, and its historical context and impact would be examined from that perspective.
Why is this idea controversial? Well, because we live in an aggressively stupid culture filled with nincompoops who think &#8220;Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion&#8221; means that schools have to ignore the very existence of religion. The problem is that a well-rounded education divorced entirely from the Bible is impossible.
No matter what you believe or what God, if any, you worship, the simple fact is this: the Bible is the most influential and important book ever composed. It is the most translated, best selling, most widely read, most quoted, most debated, most cherished, most loved, most reviled collection of writings ever compiled in history. This book, more than any other, has molded the world in which we live, especially in the West. If you rip it out of education, it will leave a Bible-shaped hole behind.
You cannot begin to appreciate Shakespeare if you don&#8217;t understand the Biblical themes in his work. Same goes for Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Dickens or Dante or pretty much any great novel or play or poem written by any Western hand anytime between the first and twentieth centuries. You will have an equally difficult time comprehending or appreciating Renaissance art, Western philosophy, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, and so on. And good luck getting a handle on men like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Abraham Lincoln or Magellan or Columbus or even Gandhi (who read the Sermon on the Mount every day), if you don&#8217;t have a handle on the Bible.
I&#8217;m fully aware, of course, that many of these topics are increasingly ignored in our public schools anyway. If we have simply given up on offering kids a real education, if we are unconcerned with silly subjects like history and literature and philosophy, then I suppose the whole &#8220;Bible literacy&#8221; concept is irrelevant. Bible literacy is necessary for general literacy in many important subjects, but if we are throwing out those subjects in any case, then it&#8217;s a moot point. But if our educational facilities ever did decide to actually, you know, educate, then the Bible must necessarily be one of the bedrocks of that effort.
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-matt-walsh-show/id1367210511?mt=2">Listen</a> to Matt&#8217;s latest podcast.

WALSH: Trump Says Bible Literacy Classes In School Are A &#8216;Great&#8217; Idea. He&#8217;s Absolutely Right. Here&#8217;s Why.

Trump Administration

The American Psychological Association <a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf">released new &#8220;guidelines&#8221;</a> for psychology practice that determined &#8220;traditional masculinity&#8221; to be &#8220;harmful.&#8221; There have been several <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/traditional-masculinity-backlash-against-new-apa-guidelines/">well-written pushbacks</a> against this absurd declaration, but what is being lost in the discussion is the difference between &#8220;traditional masculinity&#8221; and biblical masculinity.
In Genesis 1:27, the Bible says that God created us male and female, and that this difference is good. Regardless of what the progressive left is trying to impose on society by deconstructing gender distinctions, there are empirical biological and chemical differences between men and women. We can observe this not just physically but also on a molecular level. There&#8217;s a reason that transgender hormone therapy is a billion-dollar pharmaceutical industry. It is a biological fact that testosterone has a different effect than estrogen and progesterone in the body.
But these biological differences are just the beginning. The progressive left would tell you that gender roles are a social construct, and that &#8220;traditional masculine traits&#8221; are toxic. Now, the APA is engaging in over-generalizing and stereotyping when it suggests that &#8220;traditional masculinity is &#8220;harmful.&#8221; Every culture throughout world history has recognized the essential differences between men and women.
While some men may be overly competitive, aggressive, or domineering this can also be true of some women. These are not properly defining traits of &#8220;masculinity.&#8221;
Bible-believing Christians hold that not only are the biological differences observable between male and female obvious, but these differences extend to soul and spirit. The differences between men and women in all these areas are part of God&#8217;s intended complementarity of design in creating us &#8220;male and female.&#8221; Because God intended us to be male and female, these differences are designed to be good.
Masculinity and femininity are not simply a matter of tradition and social construct, but are matters of biblical morality. Biblical masculinity has characteristics of protectiveness (1 Peter 3:7), servant-leadership (Matthew 23:11; Eph. 5:25-29), sacrificial love (Eph. 5:25), strength, the male husband of a female wife (marriage; Genesis 2:24), fatherhood (Eph. 6:4), strength and headship (Eph. 5:21-23; 1 Peter 5:3), which are not in any sense toxic or harmful. Masculinity also includes kindness, compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience (Col. 3:12).
Biblical masculinity is one of the greatest blessings to women and compliments to femininity. The APA and progressive left isn&#8217;t really trying to get rid of biblical masculinity &#8212; they&#8217;re over-correcting a flawed cultural bravado of so-called &#8220;masculinity&#8221; that is not based on God&#8217;s design.
We should not allow politically-motivated transformationalists to obfuscate these facts. When God created us male and female, He (yes &#8212; the Bible refers to God as masculine and a He) gave men and women specific, different, and complementary attributes, roles, and responsibilities. What defines good masculinity is this objective standard for men clearly laid out in scripture &#8212; not just what a particular culture may view as &#8220;traditional&#8221; for men.
Cultures that allow men to be harmful to women can be called out as morally wrong because we have an objective moral standard. The problem is when laws and customs do not conform to biblical truth. The problem is not with masculinity. Biblical truth is timeless and pre-political and pre-cultural. Men should desire to be biblically masculine and demonstrate those traits that make them men. Women should cherish femininity and the innate characteristics and outward design given by God, and women should also stand up firmly to defend biblical masculinity in men.
We need more real men. Real men embrace and exhibit biblical masculinity. And it isn&#8217;t toxic. It is essential.

ELLIS: We Need To Stand Up For Biblical Masculinity

A Christmas miracle occurred for a Texas man last Friday when a fire burned down his entire home leaving only his Holy Bible.
According to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/mans-bible-untouched-after-fire-destroys-his-home">Fox News</a>, &#8220;Charles House, of Tyler, was awakened by the smell of smoke and immediately ran out of his small home &#8212; a storage unit that he had converted into a living space. Everything was lost, but House&#8217;s Bible somehow survived the blaze.&#8221;
&#8220;I looked up and my whole bedroom was on fire,&#8221; House said. &#8220;All I could do was just jump up and run out the house. It&#8217;s fortunate I got myself out of there.&#8221;
House told local news that his Bible&#8217;s safety was a sign from God that His word will not perish. &#8220;He said His word would not perish, and the Bible did not burn,&#8221; House said. &#8220;It was scorched, but it did not burn.&#8221;
House added, &#8220;You can take it away, but you can never stop His word. I&#8217;m a witness to that right now. Seeing that Bible, in the middle of that fire &#8230; it didn&#8217;t burn that Bible.&#8221;
A <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/84vgww-house-burn-down">GoFundMe page</a> has since been set up to aid House with the loss of his home. The fire marshal has since concluded that hazardous wiring in the building caused the fire. House is thankful to God he survived.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a blessing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t stop saying that because it&#8217;s a blessing. Thank God.&#8221;
The GoFundMe page has raised more than half of the $5,000 goal.
&#8220;I was living in a storage building while looking for me a house,&#8221; says the page. &#8220;Unfortunately, the building caught on fire with all of mt things in it. I&#8217;m a diable man trying to find me a place to stay &amp; recover the important things I loss.&#8221;
House&#8217;s miraculous Bible story recalls that which happened to bus driver Ricky Wagoner in Dayton, Ohio, who <a href="http://www.today.com/news/bible-bus-drivers-pocket-stops-two-bullets-saves-his-life-2D12164419">survived two gunshots thanks to his pocket-sized Bible</a>.
In 2014, Wagoner was approached by three men while repairing his broken down bus. &#8220;He heard suspects say that it was &#8216;time to kill a polar bear to get into a club,&#8221; Dayton Sgt. Michael Pauley told reporters at the time.
The suspects then began assaulting Wagoner, shooting him in the leg and stabbing him in the arm. Luckily, Wagoner managed to fight back by stabbing one of his assailants with a pen, scaring them off.
In a conversation about his injuries with a 911 dispatcher, Wagoner said, &#8220;I just looked at the chest. It just feels like I&#8217;ve been hit with a sledgehammer. I&#8217;ve got a book in my pocket, and I don&#8217;t think they made it through this book.&#8221;
Sure enough, when police arrived, investigators found two bullets lodged in a pocket-sized copy of &#8220;The Message,&#8221; a contemporary translation of the New Testament that he just started carrying a week prior to the event.
&#8220;There was obviously some kind of intervention involved in this incident because he probably should not be here,&#8221; Sgt. Pauley said.
Wagoner later received treatment at a local hospital for his injuries. One of the suspects saying &#8220;kill a polar bear to get into a club&#8221; hints this might have been a racially-motivated gang initiation killing.
When the Woosley Fire in California ravaged Paramount Ranch, a western-style town used for movies and TV shows, all structures in the area <a href="https://winteriscoming.net/2018/11/14/iconic-church-westworld-set-survived-woolsey-fire/">burned down except the church</a>.

Miracle? Texas Man’s Bible Survives After Fire Destroys Home

All politics, all the time.
In an article dripping with condescension, the Associated Press decided to include a bit of politics in a story about fake Dead Sea Scrolls fooling Christians.
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. opened its doors in November 2017. The centerpiece of the museum was a collection of 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Unfortunately for the museum, at least five of those scrolls were discovered to have been forgeries.
Make no mistake, this appears to be &#8220;<a href="https://apnews.com/b5cfe168fb004f229634ebe6f3fe57ac?utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow">a massive case of archaeological fraud</a>,&#8221; the AP reports.
&#8220;The scrolls are a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts first discovered in the mid-1940s in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea in what is now Israel,&#8221; AP explains. &#8220;The massive cache of Hebrew documents is believed to date back to the days of Jesus. With more than 9,000 documents and 50,000 fragments, the entire collection took decades to fully excavate.&#8221;
But in 2002, new scroll fragments suddenly went up for sale, and evangelical Christians have apparently paid millions of dollars for what are likely fakes.
Some of those who appear to have purchased forged scrolls are the billionaire Green family, which founded Hobby Lobby. And here&#8217;s where the AP gets really nasty. The author couldn&#8217;t just leave it at Hobby Lobby, they had to include a dig at the family over its religious opposition to Obamacare&#8217;s contraceptive mandate.
&#8220;Also eagerly buying up fragments was the Green family &#8212; evangelical Oklahoma billionaires who run the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores and who famously sued the Obama administration on religious grounds, saying they didn&#8217;t want to pay to provide their employees access to the morning-after pill or intrauterine devices.&#8220; (Emphasis added.)
The Greens readily provided their employees with access to most of the popular forms of birth control, but did not want to pay for insurance that allowed for the morning-after pill or intrauterine devices without a copay, because the employers see those as abortion-inducing drugs. They never banned their employees from seeking these options, or threatened to fire anyone who did &#8211; they just didn&#8217;t want to pay for them.
None of this even matters in a story about the Dead Sea Scrolls. The AP goes on to mention another controversy related to the Green family, who are the primary backers of the Bible Museum. The family had previously purchased Iraqi artifacts from dealers over warnings that the artifacts may have been looted. The family returned the artifacts and paid a $3 million fine after being ordered to by the Department of Justice.
That&#8217;s relevant to the story. The Greens had another misstep when it comes to artifacts. But including the part about Obamacare just makes the story petty and shows the author&#8217;s &#8211; and the outlet&#8217;s &#8211; Left-leaning bias.
In a statement to the AP, the chief curator for the Bible Museum, Jeffrey Kloha, said the discovery of the fake Dead Sea Scrolls was &#8220;an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency.&#8221;

SERIOUSLY? AP Inserts Politics Into Article About Dead Sea Scrolls

Associated Press

Scoffers beware: the Biblical tale of David and Goliath just got more real than ever, thanks to an archaeological discovery that fits the Biblical description of Goliath&#8217;s armor.
In the Biblical tale, roughly 3,000 years ago, David, when he was still a young shepherd and not yet the immortal king, engaged in single combat on behalf of the Jews against Goliath, the huge champion of the Jews&#8217; arch-enemies: the Philistines. The story read like this:
<blockquote>
A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver&#8217;s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, &#8220;Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.&#8221;
</blockquote>
After David volunteered to fight Goliath, David confronted him: &#8220;As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine&#8217;s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-huge-if-true-the-archaeological-case-for-goliath-1.6568421">Haaretz</a> reports, in 2017 archaeologists found shards of pottery in <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-gath-excavation-shows-philistines-weren-t-enemy-1.5424012">Philistine Gath</a> that were inscribed with names similar to Goliath&#8217;s. In the first book of Samuel, it states, &#8220;He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze &#8230; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.&#8221;
Haaretz notes, &#8220;Now, if the story had been 7th or 6th century B.C.E. fiction, written hundreds of years after the event, the author would have had no idea how warriors had been garbed in the earlier Bronze Age. &#8230; To sum up, Goliath seems to have worn contemporary Bronze Age gear, scribes did exist shortly after his time and possibly within it, and the biblical descriptions suit other ancient texts referring to armies led by champions, rather than as the impersonal institutions of later texts. &#8230; The accurate description of a Bronze Age warrior&#8217;s equipment opens up the possibility that a memory was handed down over several centuries, embellished to be sure, but with a core of truth.&#8221;

The Story Of David And Goliath Gets Archaeological Evidence Backing It Up

A statement from evangelicals that challenges those who believe &#8220;social justice&#8221; is compatible with Christian teaching has been <a href="https://statementonsocialjustice.com/#introduction">signed by over 4,500 evangelical Christians and organizations</a>.
The <a href="http://effectualgrace.com/2018/09/05/statement-on-social-justice-and-the-gospel/">statement</a>&#8217;s introduction avers:
<blockquote>
Specifically, we are deeply concerned that values borrowed from secular culture are currently undermining Scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality. The Bible&#8217;s teaching on each of these subjects is being challenged under the broad and somewhat nebulous rubric of concern for &#8220;social justice.&#8221; If the doctrines of God&#8217;s Word are not uncompromisingly reasserted and defended at these points, there is every reason to anticipate that these dangerous ideas and corrupted moral values will spread their influence into other realms of biblical doctrines and principles.
</blockquote>
The statement references copious numbers of statements from Scripture as it takes on the inroads it feels secular culture has made into the evangelical church. It begins with the simple statement: &#8220;WE AFFIRM that the Bible is God&#8217;s Word, breathed out by him. It is inerrant, infallible, and the final authority for determining what is true (what we must believe) and what is right (how we must live). All truth claims and ethical standards must be tested by God&#8217;s final Word, which is Scripture alone.&#8221;
Then, a direct attack on the values promulgated by secular culture: &#8220;WE DENY that Christian belief, character, or conduct can be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory are consistent with biblical teaching. We further deny that competency to teach on any biblical issue comes from any qualification for spiritual people other than clear understanding and simple communication of what is revealed in Scripture.&#8221;
The statement affirms the value of each individual: &#8220;WE DENY that God-given roles, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, sex or physical condition or any other property of a person either negates or contributes to that individual&#8217;s worth as an image-bearer of God. WE AFFIRM that since he is holy, righteous, and just, God requires those who bear his image to live justly in the world. This includes showing appropriate respect to every person and giving to each one what he or she is due.&#8221;
The document tacitly argues against the leftist concept of &#8220;white guilt,&#8221; writing, &#8220;WE DENY that, other than the previously stated connection to Adam, any person is morally culpable for another person&#8217;s sin. Although families, groups, and nations can sin collectively, and cultures can be predisposed to particular sins, subsequent generations share the collective guilt of their ancestors only if they approve and embrace (or attempt to justify) those sins.&#8221;
The statement reaffirms a commitment to traditional marriage: &#8220;We further affirm that God&#8217;s design for marriage is that one woman and one man live in a one-flesh, covenantal, sexual relationship until separated by death. Those who lack the desire or opportunity for marriage are called to serve God in singleness and chastity. This is as noble a calling as marriage.&#8221;
The statement also challenges the idea that human sexuality &#8220;is a socially constructed concept,&#8221; adding, &#8220;We also deny that one&#8217;s sex can be fluid. We reject &#8216;gay Christian&#8217; as a legitimate biblical category. We further deny that any kind of partnership or union can properly be called marriage other than one man and one woman in lifelong covenant together. We further deny that people should be identified as &#8216;sexual minorities&#8217;&#8212;which serves as a cultural classification rather than one that honors the image-bearing character of human sexuality as created by God.&#8221;
Ryan Burton King, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in the United Kingdom, attacked the statement in a <a href="http://ryanburtonking.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-i-cannot-and-will-not-sign-social.html?view=classic">blog post</a>, writing, &#8220;Purporting to address an alleged shift in evangelical circles away from the biblical gospel towards a false social gospel, the new Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel is driven by people I would like to believe are well-meaning but frankly not at all &#8216;getting&#8217; what those whom it primarily addresses are saying. That is at best. At worst, it represents a toxic agenda to discredit and undermine godly men and women crying out for biblical social justice, national and ecclesiastical repentance, and meaningful reconciliation.&#8221;
King&#8217;s statement ignores groups such as The Evangelical Network, founded in 1988, which has as part of its <a href="https://www.ten.lgbt/?page=StatementOfFaith">statement of faith</a>, &#8221;That all who seek to live faithfully regardless of ability, age, class, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, race or sexual orientation are full participants in the Body of Christ.&#8221;

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