This man does not deserve to die. For he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God.
- Jeremiah 26:16
Today, I saw the meme above in a tweet from, of all people, Elon Musk. It’s funny, but there’s a serious aspect about it that requires comment. And that’s the connection between the liberties historically enjoyed in the West and the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, I have in mind the relationship between the First Amendment guarantee of free speech in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Protestant Reformation.
Americans rightly believe that the right to free speech is one of the defining characteristics of our nation. It’s our birthright, given by God and guaranteed by our Constitution. But as is often the case, and I include myself here, it becomes easy to take our birthright for granted.
But in the past few years, beginning in 2018 and accelerating with the tyrannical Covid hoax in 2020, the ability of Americans, and of Westerners generally, has increasingly come under pressure.
I mention 2018 because it was in August of that year that the first big strike against free speech on the internet took place with the rapid-fire banning of Alex Jones and his Infowars website from nearly every major social media outlet. It gave every appearance of being a coordinated attack and was extensively covered in the press. I wrote about it myself in this space at that time. Worth noting is that Infowars has as its tagline, “There’s a war on for your mind.” That’s true, and it has always been true. And that war is fought with words and with propositions. If we believe the truth, we live. If we believe the many lies out there in the world, we perish.
In Romans, Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But what if people never hear the truth of the gospel. How can they believe? This was a major problem in the Middle Ages, ruled as it was in Europe by the Roman Church-State. Rome and her innovations such as the real presence of Christ in the mass blinded people to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Antichrist popes enforced the people’s blindness by torturing and murdering those who dared speak out against Rome’s evil system.
One might say it was Antichrist’s version of cancel culture.
Lux Lucet 
Steve, I wonder why Musk is pretending to be a kind of conservative. He’s one of the biggest globalists out there, yet makes soundbites about freedom once in a while. We suspect that in the future he will censor people. The head of the EU has already met with him and expressed that Musk will do what the EU wants him to do with regards to speech, and Musk groveled to the man. Good article! We couldn’t agree more that destroying freedom of speech is the focus of Antichrist and his minions primarily because it prevents the Gospel/Word from being preached. How many of our brothers and sisters in Christ were tortured and murdered for speaking and printing the Truth? We have taken it all for granted I fear. My prayer is that we, as the Lord’s people, have the faith and courage to be as bold as they were.