In a 2015 interview with Real News Network, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matters, said, “We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on sort of ideological theories” (“‘We are trained Marxists,’” The Washington Times, June 25, 2020). Cullors was referring to herself and Alicia Garza. In an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News, Hawk Newsome, president of Greater New York Black Lives Matter, said, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation. I don’t condone nor do I condemn rioting” (Fox News, June 24, 2020). This is nonsense, of course. If you don’t condemn rioting, you condone it. These people cannot call for burning down the system and then stand back while others do exactly, literally that, and claim no guilt. Antifa has been conducting violent demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, for four weeks, vandalizing, looting, and destroying property (@MrAndyNgo, June 26, 2020). They have been trying to establish an occupied area like the one in Seattle, unsuccessfully so far, though police have allowed the crowds to rampage unhindered at times. A large banner reads, “Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground.” They chanted, “No good cops in a racist system!” Graffiti calls for the murder of police. Protesters were allowed to tear down the American flag at the Justice Center, burn it, and replace it with a BLM sign. In 2014, BLM protesters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, chanted, “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now” (“Black Lives Matter,” Snopes.com, Jul. 18, 2016). In 2015, Black Lives Matter activists in Minneapolis chanted, ‘Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon,” referring to the bodies of dead police officers in body bags (Townhall, Sep. 2, 2015). At a BLM protest in Dallas in July 2016, 12 police officers were shot and five died. Black Lives Matters is in open rebellion to the Bible’s teaching about morality. The following is from the BLM website under “What We Believe:” “We make space for transgender … to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift … trans folk, especially … trans women … We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement … We foster a queer‐affirming network … with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”
(Friday Church News Notes, July 3, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)