Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2013, WorldNetDaily -- flush off a campaign of buying billboard space to promote its Obama birther conspiracies -- began a new campaign of buying billboard space to display the Ten Commandments (never mind that his WND regularly violates the commandment against bearing false witness by publishing falsehoods and misinformation). That campaign fizzled out a few months later with WND reduced to promoting billboards placed in tiny rural hamlets.
Well, WND has decided that this needs to be inflicted on Americans again. Apparently inspired by right-wing efforts in Texas to force displays of the Ten Commandments in public schools -- Bob Unruh lovingly wrote about one effort in Texas in an April 22 article -- a new billboard campaign has begun, announced in an anonymously written April 26 article:
In these difficult times for America when so much evil abounds – and where more and more people “call evil good and good evil” (as the Bible puts it) – a new national billboard campaign is being launched, featuring the Ten Commandments. The campaign is intended to help awaken believers and non-believers alike to the wickedness and corruption that abound in America today.
The campaign is a project of WND.com, the pioneering Christian online journalism organization founded in 1997.
The problem is acute, but not just because there are so many atheists, agnostics, non-believers, cults, ideological crazies and sociopathic elites in America. The more fundamental problem America has is with those millions who call themselves Christian believers, yet who act no differently than the worldliest individuals on the planet. You can call these people false converts, or backsliders, or pretenders, or undiscipled nominal believers. But what they all have in common is that they are not living in obedience to God. They are not even trying to follow the most basic moral law, as Jesus and the biblical prophets all instructed.
The article noted WND's 2013 campaign, adding that since then, "we have been “canceled,” attacked, mocked, lied about, suppressed, demonetized and blacklisted by Big Tech and other entities, threatened with extinction because we try to follow God’s ways as a Christian news source." Apparently, WND thinks the "thou shalt not bear false witness" part is an optional commandment.
The new campaign recycles the 2013 billboard design -- WND is slowly going out of business, after all -- and while WND's name does not appear on the billboard itself, the billboard URL of "thetencommandments.com" redirects to the above WND article.
Even though he really should be doing things that keep his website from going out of business, WND editor Joseph Farah touted the campaign in his April 28 column:
America has turned from God and has forgotten right from wrong.
But it's even worse – the Lord is showing us that in no uncertain terms. The same nation that was founded on the Ten Commandments is now experiencing some of its worst divine judgments ever, as a result of falling away so profoundly.
Anyone can see it. It's all around us.
Half the nation is officially marginalized and demonized. Violent criminals are pampered while the innocent are arrested and incarcerated. We wave the rainbow flag, not in celebration of our Creator but as a grotesque insult to Him. We maim and mutilate our children in obeisance to false gods. We sacrifice babies – the unborn and even the born – to "convenience." We demonize and "cancel" good, decent American citizens, and even indict the last president of the United States for no legitimate reason, but only because some people fear he will win election again.
That's why, even in these times that are extremely tough for all, WND is standing up and embarking, on faith, on a new national billboard campaign featuring the Ten Commandments to help awaken believers and non-believers alike to the evil and corruption that abound in our country today.
Since WND doesn't actually have money to spend on this frivolous campaign, Farah followed with a money beg:
The hour is late. Can you give as little as $25 to this cause, which should appeal to all Christians and Jews, all worshipers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to erect the messages on public billboards from coast to coast? If you are able to give more, even much more, that would be wonderful and would ensure our success.
I don't know what the result will be. But I know our country and our people desperately need a reminder of Who guides the universe and the affairs of men and what He requires of us all. Americans need awareness of their sins before they can repent of them. And until we repent of our sins, America's fate has been cast to the wind. America needs the Ten Commandments – and they need to be seen dramatically and boldly throughout this country.
[...]
This isn't about publicity for us. While we are fighting for our very survival as a news organization, these billboards don't even mention WND, as you can see. A small tagline only credits TheTenCommandments.com. That represents all of you who donate – and the heart of our heavenly Father.
Farah hyped the Texas effort to impose religious ideology on public schools in his May 4 column:
Whereas every state once permitted posting the Decalogue in an official capacity, only Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee are among the states that "allow" the Ten Commandments to be displayed as such.
Can you imagine not even permitting the Ten Commandments to be officially displayed in the vast majority of states? That's how low we've fallen. That's how much we have allowed the character of our nation to be defaced. Do you see why we need this revival so badly nationwide?
This is our moment. Let's capture it – before it's too late!
The Scripture reads, in Hosea 4:6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."
Have we not given God license to forget our children by forgetting the law if God [sic]?
Farah used his May 12 column to complain about critics of the proposed Texas law (and, of course, shamelessly promote his billboard campaign):
Take, for instance, state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat from Austin. He calls a bill to place the Ten Commandments in Texas elementary schools "deeply un-Christian." He's a former middle school teacher, a proud progressive and accuses Republicans of "trying to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom."
They are not only hostile to children being exposed to God's laws, they are all for forcing them to see sexually explicit, raunchy, sick books in schools.
[...]
There's no denying it. America is clearly on the verge of descending into a thoroughly lawless society. We can't say whether we will pass the point of no return – if we'll fall into the abyss or find our way back home.
Only God knows for certain. We are literally on the brink of judgment.
That's why we at WND are stepping out in faith with the Ten Commandments campaign.
Farah ashed out at more critics of the Texas plan (and, again plug his billboard campaign) in his May 18 column:
Why is it the greatest set of laws, which the Holy God handed down on Mount Sinai, causing such consternation in 2023?
Is it because they might be taken seriously? The fact they still offer us the greatest supernatural and divine wisdom? That they still offer us truth with a capital T?
That's why they engender abject fear and loathing among the know-it-all press..
And why are the Ten Commandments so controversial today – at a time when our nation is so lawless? Mass shootings of citizens occur every weekend. Children are murdered every day. Our streets are filled with blood.
The Texas Legislature is trying to remind people today of the Ten Commandments. That's all. They are not trying to impose them on anyone.
And neither are we at WND.
In these difficult times for America when so much evil abounds – and where more and more people "call evil good and good evil" – a new national billboard campaign is being launched, featuring the Ten Commandments. The campaign is intended to help awaken believers and non-believers alike to the wickedness and corruption that abound in America today.
Farah used his May 24 column to lamely respond to a reader who pointed out that America is a secular society and one need not be a Christian to have morals and ethics:
That's what we're up against, folks. I want you to know what we're contending with when we operate in this realm – belief in the One True God. But we must persevere.
To remind you, all we want to do is post the Ten Commandments on billboards for God. We don't want to argue. The time for arguing is running out. If you wish to help me, please do so. If you don't, then don't.
Farah didn't mention the fact that he repeatedly violates at least one commandment by publishing false and misleading information on WND.
The ultimate failure of the Texas bill, however, was left only to a May 24 article republished from the Daily Caller. As of this writing, WND has published no articles about any billboards being bought and displayed.
