Tag Archives: Bible

News

What adjustments should Christians expect during a Biden / Harris administration?

9 Comments
Enraged Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians
Enraged Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians

One of my male co-workers who is a Christian voted for Biden – Harris on Monday. He was laughing at the notion that Kamala Harris was the most progressive senator in the senate. (His sources of information are Reddit and Star Wars movies) I got into the team chat and mentioned that GovTrack was the source for that, but other groups (e.g. – Heritage) had rated her most liberal, too.

So, I thought I would write a post that explains to Christians what they can expect in a Biden-Harris administration. I found an amazing article on Christian Post written by a woman who did a ton of research on it.

Biden-Harris intends to eliminate all state-level limits on abortion:

Biden has promised, within his first 100 days, legislative and executive actions that will not only target all state restrictions on abortion, but also decimate religious charities at home and abroad.

First, Biden commits that “his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate the constitutional right to an abortion, such as so-called TRAP laws, parental notification requirements, mandatory waiting periods, and ultrasound requirements.”

Biden chose in Kamala Harris a champion of abortion so extreme she supports aborting viable unborn infants up until birth, which the great majority of Americans do not. She even voted against requiring medical care for live babies born in botched abortions.

So, I’m expecting that a Biden-Harris administration overturns every ultrasound and waiting period law in all 50 states.

Biden-Harris is likely to eliminate all faith-based charitable organizations that accept the Bible’s teaching on LGBT issues.

She writes:

Tucked in the weeds of his platform is the statement that “many government-funded foster care and adoption agencies still discriminate against LGBTQ+ families.”  This is followed by the promise to reverse the “broad religious exemptions to existing nondiscrimination laws and policies across federal agencies.”

This is wonk-speak for “if you have views and policies consistent with a biblical or religious understanding of marriage, sexuality and gender, Biden’s administration will shut you down.” The ability of agencies to deliver care is impacted in myriad ways by government regulation, funding and taxation. Thousands of children and families have already been harmed nationwide by politicians who have used these means to put ideology before compassion, solely because they disagreed with a provider’s religious views.

[…]An estimated 8,000 faith-affirming agencies will be affected by this case. Unconscionable numbers of families, children and expectant mothers will be denied homes, adoption, and critical life-giving care if Biden’s agenda passes, cementing into law this intolerance toward religious providers.

Do you remember how in certain Democrat-run states, Christian business owners have been persecuted for refusing to affirm atheist views on LGBT issues? That happens because those states have SOGI laws. SOGI laws make it illegal for Christians to take the Bible seriously as an authority on LGBT issues. I’ve already blogged about the Equality Act, but this will be a top priority of the Biden-Harris administration. Basically, if makes every state a SOGI state.

Here’s more from the article:

Biden promises to “make enactment of the Equality Act during his first 100 days as President a top legislative priority.” This misnamed Act renders punishable by law “discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity…in a wide variety of areas… public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing… to include places or establishments that provide (1) exhibitions, recreation, exercise, amusement, gatherings, or displays; (2) goods, services, or programs; and (3) transportation services.”   Religious organizations nationwide — under religious freedom protections — provide all these services to poor communities nationwide. But not if Biden prevails. He promises to destroy those protections: “[t]he bill prohibits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 from providing a claim, defense, or basis for challenging such protections.”[iii]

The 25-page “Biden Plan to Advance LGBTQ+ Equality in America and Around the World” is masterfully comprehensive.  It includes:

  • bans on counseling minors

  • reinterpretation of Title IX to erase both athletic opportunities and privacy protections for women and girls in locker rooms and restrooms

  • forcing medical insurers and providers to carry out gender transition therapies (including surgery)

  • using federal funds for gender transition therapies

  • forcing homeless shelters, prisons and schools to allow access by opposite sex transgender individuals to women’s housing and restroom facilities.

Indeed, once the Act is signed, “Biden will also direct his Cabinet to ensure immediate and full enforcement of the Equality Act across all federal departments and agencies.“ The word “enforce” occurs four times in this introductory section alone, promising a dictatorial sweep of all personnel, agencies and programs in the name of eradicating “discrimination.”

If you think that Democrats will show any respect for the consciences of Christians, you’re mistaken. You only have to look at how the government went after Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor to force them to cover abortion-causing contraceptives. They have no respect for Bible-believing Christians. On the contrary, they have a sick and perverse delight in forcing Christians to choose between believing the Bible and having a job, so they don’t starve.

Also, your taxpayer dollars will be used to push for abortion and LGBT activism all over the world:

Biden’s Agenda extends around the globe, to be proclaimed his inaugural week in a “Presidential Memorandum prioritizing his administration’s support for LGBTQ+ human rights and development worldwide” followed by:

  • Immediate appointments of “senior leaders across the government,” including at the National Security Council, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of State, and in the judiciary
  • “[P]ublic information campaigns” overseas
  • Prioritizing US foreign assistance to empower LGBTQ+ organizations and activists
  • Ensuring “development assistance will be screened and evaluated” accordingly

This campaign will be waged with “the full range of our diplomatic tools and foreign assistance,” up to and including sanctions on non-compliant countries.

What happens when this far-reaching ideological assault encounters desperate needs for humanitarian assistance in countries with traditional or religious frameworks?  With governments deemed to “foster a climate of intolerance” or engage in violations of LGBTQ+ rights, “the Biden Administration will aggressively use pressure tactics, as appropriate, including sanctions.”

So, if I had the freedom to speak to my young Christian co-worker about what he had just voted for, this is what I would have said. Alas, I did not feel free to say this to him, because young people are intolerant and crazy when you disagree with them. The election is Tuesday, November 3rd. Please make your voice heard.

Related posts

News

What do Democrats like Joe Biden think about the moral teachings of Jesus in the Bible?

2 Comments
Enraged Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians
Enraged Democrat Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians

Joe Biden gave a speech to the largest gay rights organization in the United States, the HRC. The co-founder of the HRC, Terry Bean, was recently charged with sexual abusing a 15-year-old boy. Do you disagree with what Terry Bean is charged with? If so, then I think it’s important to know how far Joe Biden would go to punish you for your refusal to approve and celebrate Terry Bean.

Here’s the report on the speech from PJ Media:

Biden announced at an event in Ohio on Saturday that his number one priority, if elected, will be to enshrine LGBTQ rights into federal law via the Equality Act, a contentious, Orwellian effort by left-wing bullies to silence Christians who believe biblical teachings on marriage and reject the view that boys can be girls and girls can be boys.

During a half-hour speech at the Hum4n R1ghts C4mp4ign’s annual gala in Columbus, Ohio, Biden said, “It’s wrong and it is immoral what [the Trump administration] is doing,” citing efforts to bar transgender troops from the U.S. military and protect medical providers from being forced to violate their consciences.

[…]During his speech Biden portrayed LGBTQ individuals as victims, ignoring the fact that it is people of faith who have been the big losers in this war of ideas. Bakery owners are being sued out of existence, medical professionals are being pressured to embrace transgender ideology, and major corporations are pulling their business out of states that seek to protect religious freedom — which, by the way, is what made Mike Pence Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the cultural revolutionaries.

[…]”The current vice president uses religious freedom as an excuse to license discrimination across broadly [sic] areas and denying LGBTQ Americans their basic rights. It is wrong and it is immoral what they are doing,” he declared.

“Just look at how much damage has been done in the past two weeks,” Biden said. […]The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to allow homeless shelters to turn away transgender people. This is beyond the scope of anything remotely what we’ve seen before.”

To be clear, when he’s talking about homeless shelters, he’s talking about putting biological males in with women who are victims of sexual abuse. But if the HRC pays the piper, then the HRC calls the tune. They’re certainly calling the tune for many of our largest corporations.

When Joe Biden talks about people’s “beliefs”, he means the beliefs of Bible-believing Christians that might cause them to disagree with gay activists like Terry Bean. He’s talking about their right to refuse to participate in, subsidize or celebrate LGBT initiatives, such as same-sex marriage, sex-change surgeries, HRT drug treatments for children, etc. He’s talking about forcing parents to step aside while doctors and educators give hormone blockers to their children. Drugs that can have permanent effects. He basically wants to give gay activists like Terry Bean a veto over the Bible, the church, Christian organizations and Christian parents. A veto backed by the full force of the government.

By the way, the Terry Bean story wasn’t the first time that prominent Democrats have been involved in sex with underage boys. I’ll give just one more example. The Democrat mayor of Seattle – a champion of same-sex marriage in the state of Washington – was also charged, and resigned.

Now, the teaching of the Bible is pretty clear. No sex outside of marriage, and marriage defined as between one woman and one man. The definition of marriage is straight out of the mouth of Jesus. If you deny that, then you don’t accept Jesus as anything other than a normal man. Now, it’s a free country. Non-Christians should be able to vote how they please, and act how they please. But we need to be clear that no Democrat politician accepts the Bible as an authority on moral issues, and that no Democrat politician thinks that Jesus is other than a normal man. No Democrat politician thinks that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he spoke authoritatively about chastity and marriage. Democrat politicians like Joe Biden think Terry Bean knows more these moral issues than Jesus, and that’s why Joe Biden is speaking at the HRC rather than speaking at a Bible-believing organization like Liberty University or the Family Research Council or the Alliance Defending Freedom.

To be clear, I have no problem with people on the other side, like Dave Rubin, who disagree with me on moral issues. Dave lives his life in a way that would not be permissible for a Bible-believing Christian. But Dave accepts and defends my right to disagree with him on moral issues. That is not what we have with Democrat politicians like Joe Biden, who want to use the power of the state to suppress basic human rights, like free speech, freedom of association, parental authority, etc. I don’t want to force other people to act as if they believed what I believe. But I don’t think Bible-believing Christians should vote for someone who wants to use the power of government to force me to act as if I believed what they believe.

News

Does archaeological evidence confirm names, dates and places in the Bible?

3 Comments
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let's take a look at the facts
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let’s take a look at the facts

I spotted this post on Be Thinking by UK apologist Peter S. Williams. (H/T Eric Chabot at Think Apologetics)

So let me pick the ones I liked most for this post.

Here’s a good one:

Jerusalem and The Pool of Bethesda

John 5:1-15 describes a pool in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, called Bethesda, surrounded by five covered colonnades. Until the 19th century, there was no evidence outside of John for the existence of this pool and John’s unusual description “caused bible scholars to doubt the reliability of John’s account, but the pool was duly uncovered in the 1930s – with four colonnades around its edges and one across its middle.”[38] Ian Wilson reports: “Exhaustive excavations by Israeli archaeologist Professor Joachim Jeremias have brought to light precisely such a building, still including two huge, deep-cut cisterns, in the environs of Jerusalem’s Crusader Church of St Anne.”[39]

And this one:

Jerusalem and The Pool of Siloam

In the 400s AD, a church was built above a pool attached to Hezekiah’s water tunnel to commemorate the healing of a blind man reported in John 9:1-7. Until recently, this was considered to be the Pool of Siloam from the time of Christ. However, during sewerage works in June 2004 engineers stumbled upon a 1stcentury ritual pool when they uncovered some ancient steps during pipe maintenance near the mouth of Hezekiah’s tunnel. By the summer of 2005, archaeologists had revealed what was “without doubt the missing pool of Siloam.”[40] Mark D. Roberts reports that: “In the plaster of this pool were found coins that establish the date of the pool to the years before and after Jesus. There is little question that this is in fact the pool of Siloam, to which Jesus sent the blind man in John 9.”[41]

I just read this one because I am working my way through John. In case you haven’t read John, you really should it’s my favorite gospel.

Here’s another one:

Herod the Great

We have a bronze coin minted by Herod the Great. On the obverse side (i.e. the bottom) is a tripod and ceremonial bowl with the inscription ‘Herod king’ and the year the coin was struck, ‘year 3’ (of Herod’s reign), or 37 BC.

In 1996 Israeli Professor of Archaeology Ehud Netzer discovered in Masada a piece of broken pottery with an inscription, called an ostracon. This piece had Herod’s name on it and was part of an amphora used for transportation (probably wine), dated to c. 19 BC. The inscription is in Latin and reads, “Herod the Great King of the Jews (or Judea)”, the first such that mentions the full title of King Herod.

Herodium is a man-made mountain in the Judean wilderness rising over 2,475 feet above sea level. In 23 BC Herod the Great built a palace fortress here on top of a natural hill. Seven stories of living rooms, storage areas, cisterns, a bathhouse, and a courtyard filled with bushes and flowering plants were constructed. The whole complex was surrounded and partly buried by a sloping fill of earth and gravel. Herod’s tomb and sarcophagus were discovered at the base of Herodium by archaeologist Ehud Netzer in 2007.

And one more:

The ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’ Ossuary

James, the brother of Jesus, was martyred in AD 62. A mid-1st century AD chalk ossuary discovered in 2002 bears the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” ( ‘Ya’akov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua’). Historian Paul L. Maier states that“there is strong (though not absolutely conclusive) evidence that, yes, the ossuary and its inscription are not only authentic, but that the inscribed names are the New Testament personalities.“[68] New Testament scholar Ben Witherington states that:“If, as seems probable, the ossuary found in the vicinity of Jerusalem and dated to about AD 63 is indeed the burial box of James, the brother of Jesus, this inscription is the most important extra-biblical evidence of its kind.”[69] According to Hershel Shanks, editor in chief of the Biblical Archaeological Review: “this box is [more] likely the ossuary of James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, than not. In my opinion … it is likely that this inscription does mention the James and Joseph and Jesus of the New Testament.”

And finally one short one:

Tiberius Caesar

The Denarius coin, 14-37 AD, is commonly referred to as the ‘Tribute Penny’ from the Bible. The coin shows a portrait of Tiberius Caesar. Craig L. Blomberg comments: “Jesus’ famous saying about giving to Caesar what was his and to God what his (Mark 12:17 and parallels) makes even more sense when one discovers that most of the Roman coins in use at the time had images of Caesar on them.”[48]

This is a good article to bookmark in case you are ever looking for a quick, searchable reference on archaeology and the Bible. There are many more examples in that post.

Now some people might be wondering why archaeology doesn’t confirm every detail in the New Testament. And here’s what J. Warner Wallace has to say about that:

But what are we to say to those who argue the Biblical archeological record is incomplete? The answer is best delivered by another expert witness in the field, Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, historian and Professor Emeritus at Miami University. Yamauchi wrote a book entitled, The Stones and the Scripture, where he rightly noted that archaeological evidence is a matter of “fractions”:

Only a fraction of the world’s archaeological evidence still survives in the ground.

Only a fraction of the possible archaeological sites have been discovered.

Only a fraction have been excavated, and those only partially.

Only a fraction of those partial excavations have been thoroughly examined and published.

Only a fraction of what has been examined and published has anything to do with the claims of the Bible!

See the problem? In spite of these limits, we still have a robust collection of archaeological evidences confirming the narratives of the New Testament (both in the gospel accounts and in the Book of Acts). We shouldn’t hesitate to use what we do know archaeologically in combination with other lines of evidence. Archaeology may not be able to tell us everything, but it can help us fill in the circumstantial case as we corroborate the gospel record.

I think you can form an opinion about the whole New Testament based on the record of confirmations. The verdict is in: the New Testament should be presumed trustworthy.