All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Should secular leftists be prosecuted for hate speech that incites violence against Christians?

So, right now we are living in a time much like 1930s Germany. Back then, the socialist party picked the Jews to be the scapegoat for their problems. Today, socialists in America have picked the Christians to be their scapegoat for their problems. It’s not just violent groups like BLM and Antifa. It’s the left-wing news media. It’s left-wing hate groups like the SPLC.

Trans shooter outside the Children's Ministry
Trans shooter outside the Children’s Ministry

Let’s see the latest news about the diversity, inclusion and equity of the secular left, as reported by The Post Millennial:

Police said during a Monday press conference that the person who killed six including three children at the Covenant Christian school in Nashville was a former student of the academy, Audrey Hale, who identified as transgender and had left a detailed manifesto with plans on how to conduct the attack at the school.

Hale entered the building by shooting through a door on the side, police said. Once inside, Hale reportedly began firing at anyone in sight.

Among the victims were three 9-year-old children, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, as well as custodian Mike Hill, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, and school head Katherine Koonce.

[…]Officers found that Hale was equipped with at least two assault rifles and a handgun, and a search of the family home in Nashville revealed detailed maps and a manifesto of the attack.

We shouldn’t be surprised to find out that a transgender activist was responsible for a mass shooting. Mass shootings in America are almost always committed by people on the secular left. This is not even the first time that there has been a mass shooting committed by a transgender activist.

Do you remember this story, reported by The Post Millennial?

Convicted school shooter Devon Erickson, now 20-years-old, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The former high school student who was charged with opening fire alongside a transgender accomplice on “transphobic” classmates at a Colorado charter school was convicted of all 46 counts, including first-degree murder, back in June.

Erickson partnered with Maya “Alec” McKinney shot one student dead and wounded eight others when the pair executed a plan to kill the movie-watching classmates inside a darkened classroom at STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7, 2019The two mass shooters plotted the fatal shooting just three days before graduation and entered through separate doors to maximize the number of students they’re able to kill, prosecutors said.

You might think that the secular left would want justice for the victims, but you’d be wrong. They want compassion and non-judgment for the criminals:

Social justice activists on social media advocated to #AbolishPrisons for McKinney’s release so he can “thrive as a trans person.” Leftists claimed online that “oppressive society” and “a world designed to kill us” had driven McKinney, who was born female but identifies as male, to violence and were at fault.

On Twitter, other trans activists are expressing support for the murderer, blaming Christians and explaining that Christians deserve to be attacked.

Transgender activists are even planning a “Trans Day of Vengeance” and raising money for firearms training. Firearms training.

Daily Wire reports:

A group of transgender activists is planning a “Day of Vengeance” in Washington, D.C., for March 31-April 2 while raising money for firearms training this week, according to its online materials.

The corporate news media responded to the murder of Christian children like this:

NBC News Benjamin Ryan Inciting Violence

That’s an incitement to violence. Terry Moran, Senior National Correspondent for ABC News also blamed Christians for provoking the transgender activist into murdering their children, including the daughter of the pastor. Here are more reactions to the shooting from the secular left elites, reported by The Federalist.

Although you might expect the Biden administration to focus in on groups that are actually violent, Biden’s law enforcement is more concerned with arresting concerned parents and peaceful pro-life demonstrators. After all, Democrats say, those are the real “domestic terrorists”.

Biden howling hate at Christians for the Human Rights Campaign

This isn’t even the first time that an LGBT activist was involved in domestic terrorism.

Recall this article posted at The Federalist that the Southern Poverty Law Center was the source of the “hate map” which was used by convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins in his attempt to shoot and kill everyone at the Family Research Council. He was stopped by a security guard, and the video above is the footage of the attempted mass murder.

Excerpt:

Corkins would later admit that he had located Family Research Council’s office on a “hate map” produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he planned to shoot people in the building and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches on them.

[…]Much of the ensuing media coverage ignored or downplayed Corkins’ motives, which the Washington Post referred to as “a detail sure to reignite the culture wars.” A year later, Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees was still publicly defending the inclusion of Family Research Council on the organization’s “hate map.”

Just to be clear, this gay activist was convicted of domestic terrorism, and received 25 years in prison.

The SPLC has been linked to Big Tech, and also to the FBI and the armed forces. You’ll recall that the FBI has lots of time for arresting peaceful pro-life activists, and investigating concerned parents for “domestic terrorism”. They didn’t prevent this mass shooting though.

LGBT Trans Antifa Democrat Fascist Militia

So what should Christians do about this? As Christianity declines in our society, we should expect fewer people to act in ways consistent with the Bible. And that spells trouble – not just for Christians, but for society as a whole. Doctrines like “the image of God” “free will” “Heaven and Hell” “repentance” “forgiveness” etc. make a huge difference to our civil society. You can already see what is happening to unborn children in the womb, and children who are being raised by selfish adults who deprive them of their biological mother or biological father or both. We are turning away from defending the rights of the weak and helpless, and favoring adult selfishness.

For the past hundred years of so, we have accepted a version of Christianity that is comfortable for the Disney-lovers. The emotion-based people. People like Russell Moore and David French, whose first priority is to be loved by non-Christians, rather than to persuade non-Christians to love Christ. Groups like The Gospel Coalition, the ERLC and Christianity Today, that just want to get along with the secular left. These are people who accept Christianity because they have feelings about it, and who think that non-Christians reject Christianity just because they don’t have feelings about it. They have no idea whether Christianity is true as a matter of fact, because they’ve never done the work to investigate it. And that’s why they just capitulate to the hurt feelings of people on the secular left. We can’t rely on them to protect us. They stood by passively, while Christianity ceased to be viewed as a live worldview option for non-Christians. Their laziness, cowardice and ignorance put us in this mess.

How can we get back the space to live our lives consistently with our Biblical convictions? Well, we can use reason and evidence to convince non-Christians that Christians are good, moral people, and that our views are reasonable, and that our way of life is a benefit for society. We can no longer turn inward, and focus on what God has planned to entertain us. Now we have to roll up our sleeves and do the real work of the Great Commission, in the style of 1 Peter 3:15 and 2 Cor 10:5. Origin of the universe, cosmic fine-tuning, origin of life, Cambrian explosion, molecular machines, irreducible complexity, gospel authorship, minimal facts case for the resurrection, etc. We need to be able to defend our views on moral issues with reason and evidence. Our marriages should be better and more stable, and we should be raising better kids, too. Even if non-Christians aren’t convinced by our intellects and our loving relationships, they should at least respect us enough to not mass murder us.

Evangelical Christian college fires professor for taking Biblical position on homosexuality

When I was a pretty new Christian in college, I joined Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. While getting to know the other young Christian students, and the progressive feminist IVCF student leader, I suddenly realized that not everyone who called themselves a Christian really believed the Bible. In my case, problems arose over the doctrine of Hell, sexual morality and evidential apologetics.

This was my first exposure to a Christian organization that was not rigorous about the Bible. I would try to get them to bring in apologetics professors to talk about science and history, but they kept insisting on prayer walks and testimonies. This was one of the experiences that let me to do my Christian work using an alias. I began to think “what if these progressive Christians get into power, and they get offended by my conservative views?”

And that’s what happened to this professor, who tweeted out Biblical views under his own name. He must have thought he was safe working for an evangelical Christian college. But he was not.

Premier Christianity UK reports:

I was recently dismissed for misconduct by Cliff College, an evangelical Methodist Bible college where I had worked as a lecturer and programme lead for seven years. The misconduct referred to my now-infamous tweet…

[…]A Twitterstorm quickly ensued. Aggressively pro-LGBT advocates attacked me as homophobic and hateful, pressurising the college to sack me. The college swiftly and publically denounced my tweet as “inappropriate” and “unacceptable”. They later asked me to remove it. When I said I couldn’t do that in good conscience, I was suspended and later dismissed for “bringing the college into disrepute”.

He wrote this, which I found very interesting:

One woman, a Soviet-born émigré now teaching at a US university, said: “You have no idea what completely normal things you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works.”

I came from another country to the United States, and I saw Christians being persecuted by the secular left government for the things they had said and done. That’s why I left.

Cliff College describes their organization this way:

Cliff College provides theological education and training with a particular focus on mission and evangelism.

Cliff College has a long and rich heritage of providing Bible training to people from diverse backgrounds, for mission and evangelism.

Since the beginning, we have sought to provide biblical, evangelical training that is both relevant and forward-thinking, with an emphasis on scriptural holiness.

“Scriptural holiness”. It makes you laugh to read it.

And:

Cliff College is an evangelical learning community which is rooted in God’s Word and Spirit, for the purpose of equipping God’s people for practical ministry and cutting-edge missional engagement.

The education we offer at Cliff is theology for the real world – rooted in practice, forged in community, grounded in the authority of Scripture and consistently prompting us to face outwards. We proclaim the Gospel and invite everyone to experience the life-changing transformation of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

When the authority of Scripture comes up against the secular left culture, Cliff College sides with the culture.

Calvin Robinson
Calvin Robinson

There was another story out of the UK that you might now have heard about – the story of Calvin Robinson.

Here’s the story from Church Times UK:

A CONSERVATIVE media commentator, Calvin Robinson, has said that his ordination in the Church of England was blocked, owing to his political views.

Mr Robinson was due to be ordained deacon in the autumn. Without a title post, ordination cannot take place, and, in an article for the Mail on Sunday, he alleges that the offer of a part-time post as assistant curate of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, in London, was withdrawn, after several bishops had expressed concerns about his outspoken views.

I thought this was interesting – a progressive white woman told the conservative black man what he should think about racism:

In February 2020, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod that the Church was still “deeply institutionally racist” (News, 11 February 2020).

[…]Mr Robinson, who is black, wrote on Sunday that he “fundamentally disagreed with this approach”, and described it as “divisive and offensive”.

“I do not think the claim that either the Church, or wider society, is institutionally racist has ever been supported by robust evidence,” he wrote.

Mr Robinson says that, in a meeting with [the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah] Mullally, she said to him: “Calvin, as a white woman, I can tell you that the Church is institutionally racist.”

What I’d like to see from Christians is seriousness about the need to find a career where your views can be kept secret from nosy progressives like the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally. My goal in life is to never have my Christian activities be subject to the authority of the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally. Or an employer like her. Or a judge like her. Or a pastor like her. One of the reasons why Christians don’t stand up to the secular left is because we make too many friends, and then we conform our speech to these friends, in order to be popular.

What got me started on apologetics? William Lane Craig debate transcripts

Yes, William Lane Craig debate transcripts. In fact, I still read them from time to time to keep up my skills.

Here’s one of my favorites, the Craig-Nielsen debate on grounding morality without God

Summary:

THE CRAIG-NIELSEN DEBATE: GOD, MORALITY, AND EVIL
William Lane Craig and Kai Nielsen
with annotations by William Lane Craig
February 1991, University of Western Ontario

Best part:

Finally, he raises the issue of immortality and says, “Death doesn’t undermine moral values. In fact, things that we value become all the more precious.” Well, in one sense he’s right. It’s the absence of God that undermines the objectivity of moral values, not death. But let’s suppose that there are objective moral values. What would be undermined by the lack of immortality? I think two things.

First, I think there would be no reason to adopt the moral point of view. Since you’re going to die, everyone ends up the same. It doesn’t make any difference whether you live as a Hitler or a Mother Teresa. There is no relationship between your moral living and your ultimate fate. And so in that sense, death undermines the reason for adopting the moral point of view rather that just being an egoist and living for self.

Second, there’s no basis for self-sacrifice on this point of view. Why should an atheist, who knows everything is going to end in death, do things that are morally right that go against self-interest? For example, a few years ago there was a terrible mid-winter air disaster in Washington, DC, as a plane crashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, spilling its passengers into the icy waters. And as the helicopters came to rescue these people, attention focused on one man who again and again passed by the rope ladder rather than be pulled to safety himself. Seven times he did this, and when they came again, he was gone. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the noble act of self-sacrifice that he did. And yet on the atheistic view, that man wasn’t noble. He did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the rope ladder first, pushed others away, if necessary, in order to survive! But to give up all the brief existence he will ever have for others he didn’t even know? Why? It seems to me, then, that it’s not simply the absence of God that undermines objective moral values, but ethical living is also undermined by the atheistic point of view because you then have no reason to adopt the moral point of view and you have no basis for acts of self-sacrifice.

By contrast, on the Christian view, where you have both God and immortality, you have the necessary presuppositions for the affirmation of objective moral values and for consistent living of the ethical life.

And another of my favorites, the Craig-Taylor debate on the ontological grounding of morality.

Summary:

Is The Basis Of Morality Natural Or Supernatural?
Richard Taylor and William Lane Craig
October 1993, Union College, Schenectady, New York

Sample Craig:

(2) I argued that moral accountability also exists under the supernaturalist view, and Professor Taylor didn’t deny the point.

(II) What about my critique, then, of naturalism? I said that naturalism doesn’t provide a sound foundation for morality, and here I made two points:

(1) On the naturalist view, objective right and wrong do not exist. Again, Professor Taylor doesn’t deny this point; he just says, “Well, to say that they’re conventional doesn’t mean they’re contemptible.” Well, granted; but it does mean they’re arbitrary, they’re non–objective. There’s no more difference between moral right and wrong than driving on the right–hand side of the road versus the left–hand side of the road. It’s simply a societal convention. And the modern evolutionist thinks these conventions are just based in socio–biological evolution. According to Michael Ruse, a professor of the philosophy of science,

The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth…. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…. Nevertheless…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and…any deeper meaning is illusory….{26}

This is essentially the same view as Professor Taylor’s. Moral values are simply rooted in socio–biological evolution, that have passed down as certain taboos and certain commands, but they have no objective validity in terms of their moral rightness or wrongness. Professor Taylor says, “But I have a high regard for people who are truly moral and decent.” I don’t deny that. Of course he does! But the point is that in his ethics, in his philosophy, he has no basis for that affirmation. What I bring is not a new set of values—I think we pretty much hold those in common—but I’m offering a secure foundation for those values that we all want to hold dear.

You see, on Professor Taylor’s view, there really isn’t any objective morality. I think every one of us here tonight would agree that it’s wrong to kill babies and that the holocaust was morally wrong. But in his book Professor Taylor says, “The infanticide practiced by the Greeks of antiquity did not violate their customs. If we say it was nevertheless wrong, we are only saying that it is forbidden by our ethical and legal rules. And the abominations practiced by the Nazis…are forbidden by our rules, and not, obviously, by theirs.”{27} I submit that that is simply a patently false view of moral values and that naturalism, therefore, can’t provide any objective basis for right and wrong.

And another of my favorites, the Craig-Tooley debate on the problem of evil.

Summary:

A Classic Debate on the Existence of God
Dr. William Lane Craig & Dr. Michael Tooley
November 1994, University of Colorado at Boulder

Sample Craig:

(2) Christian doctrines increase the probability of the coexistence of God and the evils in the world. Let me just mention a couple of these.

(i) On the Christian view, the purpose of life is not happiness as such in this life. Rather it is the knowledge of God—which will ultimately produce true and everlasting happiness. What that means is that many evils occur in this life which might be utterly pointless with respect to producing human happiness. But they might not be pointless with respect to producing the knowledge of God. Dr. Tooley assumes when he talks about changes that would make this world a better place, that the purpose of life is basically to be happy in this life. And I certainly admit that you could make changes that might appear to make this life a better place, make it happier. But that’s not God’s purpose. So if you understand that the purpose of life is not happiness as such, I think that you can see that the existence of evil doesn’t necessarily cast any improbability upon God’s existence.

(ii) It’s also the Christian view that God’s purpose spills over into eternal life. In the afterlife God will bestow a glory and happiness upon us that is incomparable to what we’ve suffered here on earth. And the longer we spend in eternity with Him, the more the sufferings in this life shrink by comparison to an infinitesimal instant. Dr. Tooley admits in his article that it is possible that immortality could justify such evils. But, he says, it’s “very unlikely” that there is life after death. Well, I have two comments. First, I’d like him to prove that it’s unlikely that there is life after death.{26} Second, I suggest that the resurrection of Jesus gives us grounds for hoping in life after death, and I’ve attempted to justify that historically. So given these Christian doctrines, I think you can see that the existence of God and evil is not so improbable after all.

[…]

(4) Finally, I think that there is actually an argument for God from evil. It would go like this:

(i) If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. If there is no God, moral values are either socio-biological by-products or just expressions of personal preference.

(ii) Evil exists. That’s the premise of the atheist. There is real evil in the world.

(iii) Therefore, objective values do exist. Some things are really wrong.

(iv) Therefore, God exists.

Thus the presence of evil in the world actually demonstrates God’s existence because in the absence of God, there wouldn’t be any distinction objectively between good and evil, between right and wrong. So although evil in one sense calls into question God’s existence, in a much deeper sense, I think, it actually requires God’s existence.

So in the light of these four responses, I think that the argument from evil, as difficult and emotionally pressing as it might be, in the end doesn’t constitute a good argument against the existence of God. So I think the four arguments given against the existence of God by Dr. Tooley are inconclusive. You’ve still got my six arguments for God’s existence, and therefore I still think that on balance the evidence favors theism as the more rational worldview.

There are more debate transcripts on Craig’s Reasonable Faith web site.