28 "Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!"
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among themselves.
30 Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him,
31 preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.
We are blessed in this nation to have a First Amendment that protects our right to speak in public places, and to protect our freedom of religion. Many have given their lives throughout the years to protect these freedoms.
But, in a country that has been founded on religious principles, specifically the principles of the Bible, there are those who misunderstand what it truly means to be free and seem to be devoted to take away these freedoms.
It saddens me to see people who actually aspired to the highest political position in the land who have spoken out recently against free speech. An article at FoxNews.com states:
John Kerry called the First Amendment a "major block" to combating misinformation and fighting climate change.
The former Secretary of State took part in a World Economic Forum panel on Green Energy on Wednesday. Near the end of the panel, a member of the audience asked what can be done to push back against disinformation surrounding climate change online.
"You know there's a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you're going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence," Kerry said.
Kerry went on to decry a lack of "referees," stating:
"The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing. It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It's really hard to govern today. The referees we used to have to determine what is a fact and what isn't a fact have kind of been eviscerated, to a certain degree. And people go and self-select where they go for their news, for their information. And then you get into a vicious cycle..."
And, you have attorney Jonathan Turley calling out a trend to silence Americans who hold disfavored views. In a FoxNews.com interview, he is quoted as saying, regarding another former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton:
Her views on free speech are quite chilling. What's interesting is that for years, the left has been trying to get people to embrace censorship, but it's hard to get a free people to give up freedom, and it's not working. And so now they're going old school with Clinton and with countries like Brazil. They're just going to straight state action prosecutions threatening people with arrest if you have opposing views. This is part of a movement that's been growing worldwide, and that wave has now reached our shores. That's why I wrote this book.
Turley goes on to say...
...what we're seeing here with people like Hillary Clinton, with the EU, with a thing called the Digital Services Act, is an effort to force companies to censor. It's notable when Musk bought Twitter, the first thing that Hillary Clinton seemed to do was to go to Europe and ask the Europeans to use the DSA to censor Americans, to force Musk to silence opposing views in the United States. That's a former presidential candidate in the United States asking Europeans to apply their censorship laws to silence other Americans.
Factor in attempts by government officials to use social media to censor disfavored speech, the principle in the Murthy v. Missouri case, another case from the previous term of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the high court whiffed with a non-decision, saying the plaintiffs did not have standing, according to the SCOTUS Blog. In that case, lower courts found that government officials acted improperly in censoring certain types of speech. And, we have heard throughout the years of posts by Christians that have been removed and even some accounts suspended.
And, consider this from The Washington Examiner:
The records show the Soros-backed Foundation to Promote Open Society, a major grantmaking organization, sent $250,000 in 2023 to Disinformation Index, Inc., the American outpost of the Global Disinformation Index. That British group, which previously received $150,000 from Soros along with funding from the State Department, has faced “censorship” scrutiny from Congress ever since a series of Washington Examiner reports shed light on its efforts to defund news outlets in the U.S.
The article goes on to say:
News of the Soros-backed check comes as the GDI returns to the spotlight after the 2023 Washington Examiner stories, which prompted congressional oversight, lawsuits against the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, and a new Defense Department law banning certain funding to the GDI. A provision through the annual State Department funding bill, which passed the House this summer and is being negotiated in the Senate, seeks to ban future funding to the GEC.It adds, "Meanwhile, the New York Post reported...on internal documents that, according to the outlet, were used by the State Department to discredit the Washington Examiner, 'Twitter Files' journalist Matt Taibbi, and Rep. Jim Banks...regarding apparent censorship reporting."
Fact is, and Christian believers must recognize this, that there are people who are all too ready to label speech that is consistent with the Bible as "hate speech." Who wish to erase the truth claims of Scripture because they do not fit with a progressive agenda; they are not "favored." While our stands on Scripture may not be universally accepted, as Americans, Christians have a right to be heard. And, we have a duty to speak. We have to stand against tyranny and authoritarianism at every turn.
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