Things are worse than you might think. It is not just that the secular left has a lot of really bad ideas, but those bad ideas have really bad consequences. The woke PC culture is not just about people disapproving of your thought and your speech – it so often means they want action taken to shut you up and shut you down. It is cancel culture on steroids, in other words, and it is very dangerous indeed.
We obviously did not learn from the book burnings in Germany last century. We now have the modern day equivalent with the Tech Giants and social media outfits doing their own book burning and censorship. We all know what that is like. And it keeps getting worse.
Some of you would have seen some disturbing headlines earlier this month. One version of it went like this: “Nearly a quarter of young Brits open to banning the Bible”. That write-up said this:
Nearly a quarter of young Brits would ban the Bible if they felt its pages contained ‘hate speech’, according to a poll. Last month, polling group Whitestone Insights asked 2,088 UK adults if they agreed with the following statement: “Unless the offending parts can be edited out, books containing what some perceive as hate speech should be banned from general sale, including if necessary religious texts such as the Bible.”
Young people aged 18 to 34 were the most likely to agree with this statement (23%), followed by 35 to 54 year olds (17%). Over-55s were least likely to agree (13%). Lois McLatchie, of the Alliance Defending Freedom UK, expressed concern about the results in an appearance on GBNews.
She said the UK only needed to look to Finland to see the consequences of “shutting down Christians”. Former Minister of the Interior, Päivi Räsänen, was last month acquitted of hate speech charges for the second time after a four-year legal battle. She was criminally charged after tweeting a Bible verse on marriage and sexuality.
“We may no longer be a majority Christian population here in Britain. That’s even more reason to protect freedom of speech and belief for all,” said McLatchie. She said that worrying steps towards censorship had already been taken under the Conservative government, including the arrest of street preachers for quoting the Bible in public and pro-life campaigners being taken to court for praying silently in their heads near abortion clinics.
“Censoring one type of belief because it fails to fit with the dominant orthodoxy of our day is no better than imposing the illiberal blasphemy laws of the Middle Ages. We need a robust defence of religious freedom from those who craft our legislation and we need to educate the ‘be kind’ generation on the truly hateful consequences of censorship before this type of thinking creeps further into reality.” https://www.christiantoday.com/article/nearly.a.quarter.of.young.brits.open.to.banning.the.bible/141105.htm
Wow, that is scary stuff indeed. The offense industry has certainly ramped up a few notches here: ‘Those lousy Bibles really upset me – so get those bonfires started!’ Today everyone seems offended by everything. In the past you would simply have to grin and bear it. Today you can work to completely shut down the one who has offended you.
A few things stand out from all this. One is just how successful PC culture has become, especially among our young people. Our schools today are now almost perfect centres of indoctrination and propaganda. Gone are the days when we just taught students, including teaching them how to think and carefully assess things. Now we just force-feed them 24/7 secular left ideology, and most turn out just as the adult activists have hoped they would.
We are raising a generation of spoiled brats who are constantly offended, and they expect that whoever offended them must be dealt with – now. That includes being done away with, and even being punished. If the “offenders” cannot be silenced, they will be dealt with: they will be fired or fined or jailed. Whatever it takes to keep those recalcitrants from hurting the feelings of these thin-skinned whiners.
And if they are going to go after the Bible, there is no shortage of things that will offend these folks. Just confining ourselves to the four Gospels, we see that even back then folks were always being offended – by Jesus no less! Consider just a few passages:
Matthew 13:57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
Matthew 15:12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
Matthew 24:9-10 Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Mark 6:3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Luke 6:11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
It was so bad that Jesus had to say this to his disciples: “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matthew 11:6). And simply consider some of the teachings of Jesus: in today’s culture they would be among the most offensive things going:
Matthew 6:24 You cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matthew 10:34-39 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Luke 13:24-27 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’”
John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil.
John 14:6 I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
That sort of stuff is enough to see the Bible banned for life. And there is plenty more where that came from. We even read how his own family members were offended by Jesus! “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mark 3:21).
Jesus was always offending people: back then, throughout history, and certainly today. No wonder these poor wilted pansies and delicate snowflakes want the Bible banned! Their “education” has done them well. And sadly, these uninformed and ignorant young people of course were also never taught history.
Thus they likely know nothing about what happened in 1933 in Nazi Germany. To help them out here, a quick history lesson: On May 10 of that year numerous university students in 34 university towns across the country took part in burning over 25,000 books. University students! Germany at the time was one of the most cultured and highly educated nations on earth.
But because most Western young people today are so poorly educated and unaware of history, they would also never have heard of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), one of Germany’s greatest poets, who was of Jewish origin. He had said this: “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”
Why do I fear some of these young and not so young people today would easily be persuaded to go along with that later action as well?
The cancel culture clowns are cowards. They go for the easy going targets but stay well away from targets that may fight back. A case in point is that they quite happily trumpet ‘BURN THE BIBLE’ but stay well away from ‘BURN THE KOR’AN – WHY? BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE MUSLIMS WOULD NOT TAKE SUCH A THREAT LYING DOWN.
John Abbott
I’m wondering if this hyperthetical ban would be extended to other faiths, thinking particularly of Islam “a banning of the Koran” if so “good luck on that one”
Yes quite right Conway.
Hi Bill, I can see you are well and continuing to add great content.
Thank you so much for that and I look forward to more.
As a fellow Christian, it is so good that everyday we can continue to be guided by the Holy Spirit in what we write, think, say or do.
To some extent it seems that the clergy themselves are teaching against Scripture.
It would be fascinating to know what proportion of young people aged 18 to 34 in the UK would support the statement “Unless the offending parts can be edited out, books containing what some perceive as hate speech should be banned from general sale, including if necessary religious texts such as the Koran”.
Somehow I suspect the pro- book burning crowd would demand radically different treatment when the Koran rather than the Bible is the target.
The cancel culture clowns are cowards. They go for the easy going targets but stay well away from targets that may fight back. A case in point is that they quite happily trumpet ‘BURN THE BIBLE’ but stay well away from ‘BURN THE KOR’AN – WHY? BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THE MUSLIMS WOULD NOT TAKE SUCH A THREAT LYING DOWN.
John Abbott
I’m wondering if this hyperthetical ban would be extended to other faiths, thinking particularly of Islam “a banning of the Koran” if so “good luck on that one”
Yes quite right Conway.
Hi Bill, I can see you are well and continuing to add great content.
Thank you so much for that and I look forward to more.
As a fellow Christian, it is so good that everyday we can continue to be guided by the Holy Spirit in what we write, think, say or do.
To some extent it seems that the clergy themselves are teaching against Scripture.
It would be fascinating to know what proportion of young people aged 18 to 34 in the UK would support the statement “Unless the offending parts can be edited out, books containing what some perceive as hate speech should be banned from general sale, including if necessary religious texts such as the Koran”.
Somehow I suspect the pro- book burning crowd would demand radically different treatment when the Koran rather than the Bible is the target.
Quite so Andrew.