Trump, Cuomo, Pelosi, and the Bible

The following article, Trump, Cuomo, Pelosi, and the Bible, was first published on The American Vision.

You knew it would happen. Trump stands in front of the historic St. John’s Church, often called the Church of the Presidents, that was just firebombed and holds up a Bible.

The pastors of the very liberal church denounced him even though the sign says, “ALL ARE WELCOME,” unless you’re Donald Trump holding a Bible. I guess this means it’s only the Church of Some Presidents.

“Rioters are welcome. President Trump isn’t. Rioters do not need permission to deface our building. Trump is not allowed to hold up a Bible in front of it.”

It seems that more people were upset that Pres. Trump stood with a Bible than the fact that some of the church buildings had caught on fire from all the “peaceful protestors” who claimed they were honoring the life of George Floyd.

Here’s what most people are not seeing or hearing:

In Richmond, Virginia, Beth Ahabah, a 225-year-old Reform Jewish congregation, had the windows in its grand 116-year-old building smashed by rioters. The building is now covered over with plywood. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, a 175-year-old building, also in Richmond, was defaced with graffiti. Finally, rioters in Richmond broke the windows of the West Broad Church of Christ, an African-American congregation. They left intact the one pane of glass reading, “Welcome.”

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In Los Angeles, Congregation Beth Israel’s walls were defaced with graffiti reading, “F___ Israel” and “Free Palestine.”

Elan Carr, the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, visited the synagogue, and stated, “This graffiti is yet more evidence that anti-Zionism is Antisemitism.” (FrontPageMag)

To demonstrate how out of touch with reality the Left is, consider the following. “The president held up the Bible the other day in Washington, DC,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo began as he held up a copy of the Bible. “Here in New York we actually read the Bible, and there are some passages that I think are especially appropriate today.”

He then quoted, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called Children of God,” from the Gospel of Matthew. If the New York Governor had actually read the Bible, especially the Gospel of Matthew, he would have noted what Jesus said about marriage:

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE [Gen. 1:27; 5:2],  and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? [Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:31]; So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matt. 19:4–6).

Marriage is between a man and a woman and not between two men or two women. These are inconvenient truths to Gov. Cuomo.

If the Governor had read a little further, in Luke’s gospel, he would have found this inconvenient verse:

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby [John] leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit (1:41; 44).

John is said to be a “baby” (βρέφος/brephos) with consciousness, but Gov. Cuomo would deny John’s personhood and would have supported Elizabeth having the right to kill him, making Cuomo like Herod (Matt. 2:16–18). The Greek word βρέφος (brephos) is also used for when Jesus was born (Luke 2:12; also see 18:15; Acts 7:19; 2 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:2). According to the Bible that Cuomo claims to have read, an unborn child is a person deserving the full protection of the law. In New York, a woman can kill her unborn baby anytime she wants if she declares it’s for “health” reasons, and New York law does not define “health.”

The hypocrite and Roman Catholic Nancy Pelosi also read from the Bible she does not believe in.

Then there is this from Bible scholar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “Looking forward to having the religious right uphold their principles + sign my bill [against usury]. Unless of course, they’re only invoking religion to punish women + queer people.” Actually, as has already been pointed out, the Bible clearly condemns abortion and homosexuality but does not condemn interest, even high interest. Usury is not defined as “high interest rates” as she claims. And even if it was, interest rates are at historic lows.

“The Mosaic law prohibited interest on a narrow class of loans: charitable loans to fellow Israelites and resident aliens. It did not prohibit interest on all other loans.” She may want to read “Usury, Interest, and Loans: A Brief Summary of Biblical Teaching, With Bibliography” by someone who has written “9,000 pages of verse by verse exegesis of the passages in the Bible that relate in any way to economics.”

But back to Pres. Trump’s photograph holding the Bible at St. John’s Church where some of the buildings had been damaged by fire from some of the rioters.

Historian Dr. Gary North wrote the following:

On June 2, Donald Trump pulled off one of the great photo ops in American political history.

Somehow, he understood the power of walking across the street, holding up the Bible in front of what is known as the Presidents’ church, and announcing that he was going to bring law and order back to America’s cities, which are being torn by violent thugs, revolutionaries, and thieves.

Crucial to the scenario was his walk to the church. I don’t remember anything like this in American history. It is a time of crisis. Thugs, looters, and arsonists have taken over parts of American cities on a scale never before seen. This dwarfs the riots after Martin Luther King’s assassination. Therefore, what Trump did is exactly the right positioning for the President of the United States to take.

He was standing on a sidewalk. Sidewalks are public places. He held up the Bible. He understands the power of that symbol. So do liberals.

Unlike Cuomo and Pelosi who cherry picked from the Bible, Pres. Trump held up the entire Bible that included the call for the civil magistrate to be a “minister of God … for good” (Rom. 13:4). Of course, that cuts both ways. The Bible makes it clear that the civil magistrate is obligated to follow God’s law (Matt. 22:21), to make distinctions between good and evil (Rom. 13:1–10) including laws against theft, assault, and murder.

What’s true for you and me is also true for the civil magistrates and their agents (police) and politicians who violate their oath of office with every vote they make. It’s this aspect of the Bible that Leftists like Cuomo and Pelosi and their agitprop followers hate and why they reference it sparingly and selectively.

Dr. North again:

[Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde] did not complain about the rioters who, the night before, set a fire in front of the church, painted graffiti on its walls, and threw rocks through windows. No, no, no. That was just a group of liberal Democrats getting together to sing “kumbayah” and “Michael, row the boat ashore.” Somehow, things got out of hand. Arson happens.

The hypocrisy of theological liberals has always been a delight to me. They spend their entire careers calling into question the authority of the Bible, but when it suits their purposes, they quote it, usually out of context.

This impresses the atheists who staff the nation’s media outlets. It doesn’t impress people who believe in the Bible.

Liberals are so transparent in their hypocrisy that they become living symbols of muddled thinking.

There is no neutrality. Someone is always holding up some symbol of authority on how we should then live. For the Marxists it was Das Kapital. For the Nazi’s it was Mein Kampf. For today’s Leftists it’s Rules for Radicals. It all comes down to a single question: By What Standard?

Continue reading Trump, Cuomo, Pelosi, and the Bible …

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