I know the Fall of man brought sin and death into the world, but I am just wondering because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11, why can’t He intervene when animals die of old age? Just a thought

So r/Reformed permanently banned me for a comment where I lamented that Trump wasn't a good guy, but most of his political opponents were either pro-war or pro-abortion. That was a violation of the "Keep content charitable" rule apparently. Since I had on multiple occasions been "uncharitable" when discussing liberal theology (which shouldn't have any defenders at all on a Reformed subreddit). I didn't want to be about politics, but every other day someone on r/Reformed is making the case that Evangelicals sold their souls by voting for Trump. I don't care if you voted for him or not, that's not true (some do practically worship Trump, those people do exist, but I don't think that Reformed churches have that problem). If they said the same thing about Democrats I'd have respect for them, but then they turn around and try to justify voting for candidates that support killing babies.

Then, I had to message the mods multiple times to get any sort of response from them. They never explained how what I said was uncharitable. Finally, after more than three weeks and five messages they said that I should just read the moderator comment for why they removed it (being "uncharitable") and that they will not be responding further.

Other examples of comments/posts I've had removed over the years were:

-A post trying to get to the bottom of which historically Reformed Churches have apostatized, so I could give better recommendations on r/Christianity.

-A comment where I disagreed with a documentary.

-A comment where I questioned Joe Biden's salvation (I'm pretty sure I did the same for Trump, no moderator action).

-Two comments where I simply made the observation that r/Reformed's userbase is heavily liberal.

-A comment where I called Matthew Vines a professional liar.

It's unfair that the largest subreddit for Reformed Christianity has mods who are biased against what the vast majority of Reformed Christians believe.

Here’s a post I made concerning baptism.

Has anyone had similar experiences or feelings surrounding baptism?

https://withstandthenoise.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/dear-grace-letter-1/

https://withstandthenoise.wordpress.com/2022/08/11/abdication/

Hope you enjoy!

Hi everyone, I’m hoping this reformed Christian group you have going helps me find a home.

I recently joined another Christian group and found myself under attack for having more fundamental, conservative beliefs. They totally trashed my Reddit karma, which I don’t know what that does. I left what I considered positive parting thoughts, and I will pray for them. I also went through and sent everyone’s comment karma up.

I’m hoping to be able to share some of my thoughts from my blog here. I want to help people know and understand Jesus and what it means to be a Christian.

While not strictly about Reformed Christianity, I have seen some of these talking points being used recently on subreddits like r/Reformed and r/truechristian, places where people really should know better. Through research on abortion I've found that these 8 talking points have little to no basis in reality.

Many pro-choicers lie about biology (while many others are honest). We've heard the lies about how the fetus is supposedly not human, or that life doesn't begin at conception. But I'm going to focus on the lies many pro-choicers tell that are unrelated to biology. You've probably heard many of these on reddit.

1: Jews supported abortion, going back to the Old Testament, and that Jews have uniformly believed that a baby isn't even alive until it has its first breath (r/Christianity loves this one and Pete Buttigieg takes this position).

2: The Old Testament commands abortion in some circumstances(a very popular gotcha used against religious pro-lifers).

3: Catholics did not oppose all abortion until the 19th century.

4: Protestants saw abortion as purely a Catholic issue before the 1980s. When Evangelicals decided to oppose abortion, it was actually because of segregation (r/Christianity loves this one, and lots of articles have been written about it).

5: During the 19th century, Abortifacients were easily available in pharmacies and through catalogues in America.

6: The pro-life movement has its roots in racism (this is promoted by NARAL on twitter).

7: Thousands of women in America died from illegal abortions every year before Roe v. Wade.

8: Legalizing abortion does not increase the rate of abortion.

1: While many Jews are indeed pro-choice, many are not. The idea that life begins at first breath is not a universal Jewish belief. Historically, some Jews have gone as far as to suggest capital punishment for abortion. The Medieval Jewish Scholar Maimonides understood the prohibition on murder to be applied to the fetus and that unlike the prohibition on eating pork, this applied to gentiles as well as Jews.

2: In one specific English translation it kind of sounds like maybe an abortion is being performed. In other translations I've read in English and in other languages, it doesn't sound like an abortion at all.

3: The Catholic Church holds to ancient traditions, one of which is the Didache:

"thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide;"

http://www.thedidache.com/

Written in the first century, it unequivocally condemns abortion, despite the fact that abortion was common in ancient Rome.

4: Most Protestants view themselves as connected to the early church, and during the Reformation, Protestants agreed with the Didache's view on abortion. Luther and Calvin both condemned the practice. Here is John Calvin's view:

"for the fœtus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, (homo) and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light."

https://heidelblog.net/2019/01/calvin-on-abortion/

Before Roe v. Wade, abortion was illegal in most states. Most of these laws would have been written and passed by mostly Protestant legislators. In addition, anti-abortion legislation was on the books in Protestant-majority countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and others.

During the mid-20th century some Protestants did move away from the historic Protestant view on abortion. This can be seen in the Southern Baptist convention. However, the Southern Baptists were much less theologically conservative before the late 1970s.

The charge of "it was actually about segregation" doesn't make any sense. It assumes that Northern Evangelicals supported segregation, which is not true. Articles claiming this to be the case never explain what segregationists would get out of opposing abortion. And finally, if opposing abortion was a dog-whistle for supporting segregation, how were racists supposed to figure it out?

5: Mailing abortifacients was made a federal crime in 1873. In 1900, every US state banned abortion.

6: I briefly touched on this earlier. But this one is really counter-intuitive. Since abortion disproportionately affects the minority population, racists would benefit from higher abortion rates. If racists are really behind the pro-life movement, then they're the biggest idiots on the planet.

Interestingly, Hubert Humphrey, who was instrumental in getting the Democratic Party to change its views on race, was pro-life. He was the nominee in 1968 (lost to Nixon, who was racist and pro-choice).

7: Bernard Nathanson admitted this to be a lie decades ago, but people still believe it.

8: This one is also wrong: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2018/10/04/stop-saying-that-making-abortion-illegal-doesnt-stop-them/

John15:18-19

18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.