A new movie called ‘Essential Church’ documents the resistance of some churches to state mandated lockdowns in 2020 and onward. Although the movie is very Christian, it has received very little attention, pro or anti, from any media, as opposed to movies like Sound of Freedom. Why is that? The main premise is whether or not Caesar or God has the ultimate authority of spiritual matters - referencing Romans 13. Mark 12:13-17 is also referenced in the film: “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” But this line refers more to Buddhist philosophy than some political statement that is applicable today. Christians need to learn that quoting the Bible will not win them battles against the state. The whole issue of power is a matter of precedent, legality, lawfulness, and proof. The Sound of Freedom also took Matthew 18:6 out of context to mean only ‘children’ when the verse refers to all of God’s children as “little ones” who should not be led astray by sin: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

School districts in Utah, Colorado, and Florida are also being bombarded with demands from single individuals, usually working for political groups like Freedom from Religion, to ban the Bible if other books are also going to be banned. After all, the Bible is filled with violence and sex. But there is a major difference between the two. Books like Flamer is a graphic pornographic display of homosexual acts between young boys, Gender Queer is an explicit pornographic display of sex, and This Book is Gay literally teaches the ‘ins and outs of gay sex’. Of the 175 books banned in Florida, 87% were pornographic and in violation of statute 847.012, a law which makes it a felony penalty to distribute porn to children. The Bible, on the other hand, is probably not age appropriate for some little ones in the same way that adults take it as the harshest literal gospel. But if the Bible should be banned for vulgarity or sex, then what about Leviticus 20:13, which must be one of the verse of proof: “‘If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.” Christians refer to this as the proof of God’s anger with homosexuals, when in fact ‘mankind’ could reference all people, and instead refer to promiscuous behavior rather than homosexuality. To advocate for banning the Bible on these grounds is also an advocacy for the destruction of a text based on its perverse homosexual content, which makes the whole thing very ironic.