Advocates for Biblical Citizenship

08/25/2024

Order is more necessary for human flourishing than freedom, a lesson often forgotten by those who have always lived under the benefit of stable civilization....
Without order, we cannot have community or understand our role within it. Order is a precondition for community; community is a precondition for virtue; and liberty is the rare and delicate fruit of a society that is virtuous.

Progressives blame capitalism, patriarchy, Christianity, or other abstract enemies for societal misery, failing to see the root cause: a lack of virtue and self-discipline.

06/12/2024

The American College of Pediatricians is urging doctors to cease transformative surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-s*x hormones, saying, “These interventions do not improve the physical or mental well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

“It is time that these American medical institutions follow the science and the lead of our European professional colleagues and cease to promote protocols that harm children, including the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-s*x hormones, and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological s*x,” ACPeds wrote in its “Doctors Protecting Children Declaration.”

https://daily.denvergazette.com/article/281754159479302

03/24/2024

This spirituality of the church has sometimes been misconstrued, by both its detractors and its supporters, to mean that the church may never, as the church, address the state or declare its view on matters that concern both Christians and non-Christians in society, such as abortion, human s*xuality, and slavery. This is not so. Westminster Confession of Faith 31.4, a classic expression of the principle of the spirituality of the church, tells us:

"Synods and councils [of the church] are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate."

The church can address the state in two cases. The first is “cases extraordinary,” cases in which the state is grossly derelict in its God-appointed duties, unnecessarily hindering the mission of the church, or taking for itself authority that belongs to the church or to the family. Remember that God gives the state the job of punishing evil with the sword and protecting physical life. If the state is abandoning these duties by legalizing abortion on demand, for instance, the church must speak against it. Dr. R.C. Sproul frequently reminded us that the proper view of the separation of church and state does not mean the separation of the state and God. The state should not establish an official state church, but it still is responsible to do its God-given duty. The church, as Dr. Sproul noted, is to be the “conscience of the state” in this regard and call the civil magistrate to do its job.

Second, the church should speak up when the state’s policies hinder the church from doing its own job. So the state cannot enact laws that tell us how to preach or that forbid us from worshiping according to God’s Word. It has also erred in enacting laws that affect the church significantly in a more remote way. An example here is the legalization of so-called gender-affirmation surgery for minors. At its 2023 General Assembly, the Presbyterian Church in America voted to call the U.S. government to outlaw this surgery. Why? Because not only does this surgery cause unnecessary harm and mutilate healthy bodies, but it creates undue burdens for Christians who have to worry about losing their jobs or even their children to the state if they resist the continued societal embrace of transgender theory. The state, by legalizing these surgeries, is not fulfilling its duty to protect the innocent, and it is creating a burden on the church and its ministry, so it is appropriate for the church to petition the state to stop the practice.
Finally, the church may respond to the state when the state asks the church for its opinion, as the last point in Westminster Confession 31.4 notes. At times, the magistrate may want to know what the church thinks, and the church may answer...

Christ gave His church one mission: to make disciples of every nation who love Him, trust Him, and endeavor to obey all that He has commanded (Matt. 28:18–20).

02/21/2024

It seems inconceivable that elected officials would signal Colorado as a friendly state for adults to have s*x with children — which is always r**e — who are sold by foreign cartels and domestic sociopathic profiteers. Yet, that’s what Democrats on the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee — the “kill committee” — did last week....

Blame committee members Steven Woodrow, Andrew Besenecker, Said Sharbini, David Ortiz, Elisabeth Epps, Jenny Willford, Kyle Brown, and Naquetta Ricks for dismissing the bill.

Col­or­ado falls in the top 20 states for human s*x traf­fick­ing, often of chil­dren. We could top the list after Col­or­ado legis­lat­ors rolled out a wel­come mat for per­verts. It seems incon­ceiv­able that elec­ted offi­cials would sig­nal...

02/17/2024

"Communism isn’t controversial. It is always and everywhere calamitous."

Des­pite cat­er­waul­ing from the left, Flor­ida would be doing the right thing by requir­ing its schools to estab­lish a fac­tual cur­riculum about the his­tory of com­mun­ism. Other states should emu­late this edu­ca­tional ini­ti­at­ive. The...

02/16/2024

In 1783, Washington proclaimed: "the freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."3

3. "From George Washington to Officers of the Army, 15 March 1783," Founders Online, National Archives.

02/16/2024

01/16/2024

At best, this is unconstitutional bad public policy; at worst, its a direct attack on confused pubescent children, i.e., child abuse....

Col­or­ado pub­lic schools would be required to use a stu­dent’s “pre­ferred name” under a pro­posal that would also label the refusal to do so “dis­crim­in­at­ory.” The bill is among sev­eral meas­ures that deal with iden­tity and gender. Another...

01/14/2024

"Illinois Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker, signed legislation in 2019, his first year in office, to inject gender theory into the state education curriculum and to direct state Medicaid funds toward transgender surgeries. Speaking before an audience of trans activists, he proclaimed:

'[O]ur state government is firmly on your side, on the side of every gay, le***an, bis*xual, transgender, and q***r person in the state of Illinois. . . . Those of you in this room know better than anyone that marriage equality was never the endgame. . . . We’re gonna make sure that all transgender Illinoisans are ensured their basic human rights and that healthcare services are provided to them so that they can thrive.'

Here’s an example of how this combination of well-funded activism and political influence works in practice: Pritzker-funded activists at Lurie Children’s Hospital (the largest children’s hospital in Chicago) provide local schools with training, materials, and personnel who promote gender transitions for children, using the hospital’s reputation to give their ideology a scientific veneer."

This is the great project of the transgender movement: to abolish the distinctions of man and woman, to transcend the limitations established by God and nature, and to connect the personal struggle of trans individuals to the political struggle to transform society in a radical way.

12/04/2023

"[M]uch of our contending for the Christian faith must be negative, or it will fail. We have to tell the world what we Christians are for, but we also have to say what we are against. Of course, Peter says that we must do so “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15), but if we are only positive, we will fail in our mission.... The only completely positive command [of the 10 Commandments] is to honor father and mother...."

For almost two thousand years, the church of Jesus Christ has been summoned to spiritual warfare on behalf of the truth.

06/04/2023

According to the Associated Press, as printed in The Denver Gazette: "Today in 1919, Congress approved the 19th Amendment* to the U.S. Constitution, which said that the right to vote could not be denied or abridged based on gender."

Either the AP is equating gender with s*x, they are attempting to mislead readers in the hopes of advancing the woke agenda, or they were just careless with the English language.

If you have an idea, list it in the comments below.

*Nineteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of s*x.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

04/08/2023

The Resurrection of Jesus: Count on it
By Douglas Groothuis, Professor of Philosophy, Denver Seminary

Christianity is the only religion that worships a divine founder who rose from the dead in space-time, datable history. The founders of all other religions died and stayed dead, nor do their adherents dispute this. Thus Easter commemorates and celebrates a historical event unlike any other: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But what is the significance of the resurrection? Can we know it really happened?

The four Gospels report that Jesus predicted his death, burial, and resurrection. All of his wondrous teachings, healings, exorcisms, and transforming relationships with all manner of people—from fishermen to tax collectors to prostitutes to revolutionaries—would be incomplete without his crucifixion and resurrection. Shortly before his death, “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priest and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Matthew 16:21). Peter resisted this grim fact, but Jesus rebuked him. There was no other way (vs. 22-23). For, as Jesus had taught, he “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28; see also Luke 19:11).

He gave his life on an unspeakably cruel Roman cross—impaled for all to see before two common criminals. We call this day Good Friday because it was good for us; but it was dreadful for Jesus. As Jesus’ disciple Matthew recounts: “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split” (Matthew 27:50-51). When the guards at the crucifixion experienced the earthquake and the other extraordinary phenomena, “they were terrified, and exclaimed, ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’” (v. 54). The dead Messiah was pried off his bloody cross, embalmed, and laid in a cold, dark tomb, guarded to the hilt.

All seemed lost. The one who had boldly claimed to be “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), the prophet who had announced that “God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)—this man now had died. The man who had raised the dead was dead.

On the first day of the week, two women, both named Mary, came to visit the tomb of their master. They had stayed with him as he died. Now they visited his tomb in grief. Yet instead of mourning a death, they celebrated a resurrection. An angel from God, who rolled back the stone sealing the tomb and charged them to look at its empty contents. He then told them to tell Jesus’ disciples of the resurrection and to go to Galilee where they would see him. As they scurried away, Jesus himself met them, greeted them, and received their worship (Matthew 27:8-9). He directed them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (v. 10).

The rest is history, and it changed history forever. The fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection puts the lie to the notion that the idea of Jesus’ resurrection was concocted at a later point to add drama to his life. Women were not taken to be trustworthy witnesses in courts of law at that time, although Jesus always respected them. If someone had wanted to create a pious fraud, they never would have included the two Marys in their story.
Moreover, all four Gospels testify to the factual reality of the resurrection. These accounts were written by eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) or those who consulted eyewitnesses (Luke and Mark); they were people in the know, not writers of myths and legends (see Luke 1:1-4; 1 Peter 1:16). As he began to study the Gospels as an unbeliever, the literary scholar, C.S. Lewis, saw that they were not written in the fashion any literary fiction. They defied all those genres. He had to face facts. He did and became a Christian.

After the resurrection, the gospel of the risen Jesus was quickly proclaimed in the very area where he was crucified. This upstart “cult” would have been easily refuted by someone producing the co**se of Christ, which both the Jewish establishment and the Roman government had a vested interest in doing, since this new movement threatened the religious and political status quo. But we have no historical record of any such thing having occurred. On the contrary, the Jesus movement grew and rapidly spread. Christian Jews changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, in honor of Jesus’ resurrection. Pious Jews would never do such a thing on their own initiative, because it would set them against their own tradition and their countrymen. Nor would they have ceased offering the prescribed sacrifices their Scriptures required had not Jesus proven himself to be the final sacrifice for sin, the lamb of God (see John 1:29 and the Book of Hebrews).

Thus, the resurrection of Jesus best accounts for this change in their day of worship, their manner of worship, and the spiritual transformation at the core of their lives. Moreover, the two key rituals of the earliest church—communion and the baptism—both presuppose the historicity of the resurrection and are very difficult to explain without it. But we have another witness, the Apostle Paul.
Saul was a zealous Jew who at first opposed the Jesus movement.

He consented to the death of the Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Yet Jesus appeared to him and converted him (Acts 9). Paul’s letters to the churches were most probably written earlier than the Gospels. Writing about twenty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, Paul affirmed.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:18-19).

Paul listed many witnesses of the risen Christ, some of whom were still living when he wrote (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). He also proclaimed that Jesus “through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). Since Jesus rose from the dead, he promises that his followers will be raised immortal as well.
Those who deny the resurrection of Christ have to affirm one of two unlikely stories. (1) Either the early disciples knew Jesus remained dead and un-resurrected or (2) they were deceived into thinking he rose from the dead. We will consider each.

If the followers of Jesus knew he was dead, they had no motive to preach him as the Lord of life. He was discredited in the eyes of the world and all but a few followers turned against him. There is no reason why followers of a man they knew was dead would claim he was alive. They would only be persecuted for what they knew was a lie.

But could the early Christians have been deceived about Christ’s resurrection? What could have caused a deception of this proportion? Neither the Romans nor the Jews would do it, since they rejected the Jesus movement. The hallucination theory fails also. Jesus appeared to too many people at too many times—and sometimes to whole groups of people—for these to be explained by a hallucination.

The resurrection is at the core of the Christian faith and the Christian life. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no gospel message, no future hope, and no new life in Christ. With the resurrection, Christianity stands unique in all the world. No other religious movement is based on the resurrection of its divine founder. When Jesus announced, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 10:25), he meant it. He demonstrated it. Let us, then, leave our dead ways and follow him today and into eternity.

[For more on the resurrection of Jesus, see Douglas Groothuis, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” in Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2022).]