Spiritual Storm Clouds Are Gathering Overhead

Having lived in Florida for the past 15 years, I am quite accustomed to afternoon thunderstorms, especially during the summer months when the heat and humidity build throughout the day until they reach the breaking point.

BOOM!!!

As the saying goes amongst Floridians, if you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes, because these fast-moving storms build quickly and then leave just as rapidly.

Well, my friends, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are some spiritual storm clouds gathering on the horizon and I doubt they will dissipate anytime soon. On the contrary, I think they are about to downpour on the American landscape for generations to come, creating floodwaters that threaten to undermine and eventually sweep away the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our country was founded – unless patriots act swiftly and decisively to prevent that from happening.

For instance, just across our northern border in the Commonwealth of Canada, the political weather is getting a bit threatening for evangelical Christians. The House of Commons recently voted to advance Bill C-9, otherwise known as the federal Combatting Hate Act. Sounds like a good idea on the surface, doesn’t it? After all, everyone should be opposed to hate, right?

Some of the bill’s provisions are actually well-intended, such as prohibiting intimidation near places of worship and curbing the public display of certain hate symbols like swastikas. However, dig a little deeper and you find that Bill C-9 would not just outlaw traditional hate speech such as racism and antisemitism, but also certain biblical teachings.

Romans 1:24-32 is a perfect example. That passage, written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, clearly teaches that homosexuality is a sin. In fact, Paul uses words such as “uncleanness”, “lust”, “dishonor”, “vile passions”, “shameful”, “unrighteousness”, “sexual immorality”, and “wickedness” to describe the practice of “women exchanging the natural use for what is against nature” and “men leaving the natural use of women and burning in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful”.

You certainly can’t accuse Paul of pulling any punches!

However, if Bill C-9 becomes law, anyone – a pastor, priest, professor or layman – caught teaching this text verbatim could be criminally charged and found guilty of hate speech. If convicted, the sentencing guidelines range from two years to life imprisonment.

Pretty blood-chilling, isn’t it?

Lest we only pick on Les Canadiens, the city of Chicago sits just 300 miles south of Windsor, Ontario and is the hometown of the Chicago Bulls basketball team. This week, the Bulls made headlines – not for their stellar play, because with an abysmal 29-47 record they languish in 12th place in the Eastern Conference – but because they released shooting guard Jaden Ivey for comments he made on social media.

Now, Jaden Ivey isn’t just a run-of-the-mill player. He was a consensus second team All-American during his two years at Purdue University and was drafted fifth overall in the first round by the Detroit Pistons in 2022. Ivey followed that up by being named to the NBA’s All- Rookie Second Team in 2023.

Since then, Ivey has suffered a series of leg and knee injuries that have limited his playing time, both for the Pistons and the Bulls, to whom he was traded earlier this year. However, at age 24, he is still young and has his whole career ahead of him.

Or so he thought until he posted some comments and livestreamed a video on Instagram on Monday. Specifically, Ivey took issue with the NBA’s full-throated endorsement of Pride Month in June and its promotion of LGBTQ+ events throughout the season, saying the league was celebrating “unrighteousness”. He also referred to Catholicism as a “false religion”.

My guess is that, despite Chicago being the home to an estimated 2 million Catholics and the birthplace of Pope Leo XIV, Ivey could have gotten away with a slap on the wrist for dissing Roman Catholicism. However, the LGBTQ+ community is the sacred cow of the NBA – as well as Hollywood and some other major sports leagues – and saying something that politically incorrect (but biblically accurate) was apparently too much for the Bulls to swallow.

And so, the axe fell hard on Jared Ivey… the First Amendment be damned.

Folks, if you think Jared Ivey’s situation is an isolated event or Bill C-9 will never work its way south of the St. Lawrence River, you had better get your head out of the sand and start looking around. Better yet, start standing up and speaking out before you live in a totalitarian regime where free speech isn’t free at all; but rather closely monitored and censored by a centralized and autocratic government.

That is exactly what James Madison and the rest of our Founding Fathers feared… and why they insisted on including the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. May we not fail them – or future generations – now.