Bible study apps banned by Apple & Amazon

[Josh]

There is a group called Living Hope Ministries that has made a relatively generic Bible study app. It has resources like Bible audiobooks, study resources, daily devotionals, and so on. You can see it here:

https://subsplash.com/livinghopeministries/app

However, this app had access to some Bible verses, etc. that do not promote the homosexual and liberal agenda. So there has been intense lobbying to remove it from the Apple App Store and Amazon's app store. So far, Google has not pulled it from their Android app store, but they are under intense pressure to do so:

https://news.yahoo.com/google-under-fir ... 41112.html

This is a bit concerning. The Bible contains a lot of anti-LGBT themes, and generally is in opposition to the gay lobby. And the gay lobby, clearly, does not care about freedom of speech, nor does it care about exemptions for religious freedom.

What's the future here? It looks like it will eventually be illegal to even speak of it being possible for LGBT people to not engage in homosexual behaviour. The Bible clearly demands this, however.

[Bootstrap]

So far, neither Apple, Amazon, nor Google have pulled the app?

Looking at the link, it seems this is not just a generic Bible study app, but also advocates conversion therapy and says it is effective? I think the Bible tells us not to have gay sex, but I'm not sure it makes that promise.

[MaxPC]

There is a group called Living Hope Ministries that has made a relatively generic Bible study app. It has resources like Bible audiobooks, study resources, daily devotionals, and so on. You can see it here:

https://subsplash.com/livinghopeministries/app

However, this app had access to some Bible verses, etc. that do not promote the homosexual and liberal agenda. So there has been intense lobbying to remove it from the Apple App Store and Amazon's app store. So far, Google has not pulled it from their Android app store, but they are under intense pressure to do so:

https://news.yahoo.com/google-under-fir ... 41112.html

This is a bit concerning. The Bible contains a lot of anti-LGBT themes, and generally is in opposition to the gay lobby. And the gay lobby, clearly, does not care about freedom of speech, nor does it care about exemptions for religious freedom.

What's the future here? It looks like it will eventually be illegal to even speak of it being possible for LGBT people to not engage in homosexual behaviour. The Bible clearly demands this, however.

Looking at that story I see a lot of biased assumptions that are anti-Christian and pro-homosexual. As far as conversion therapy, conversion from all manner of sin is part of our discipleship, including abominable sins.

There’s also an ad that says the Pope “recognizes LGBT for the first time.” More accurately the Pope recognizes the needs of broken humans to convert from sins and calls them to seek Christ and discipleship, so fake news there too. The whole article is ripe with the whiff of rabble rousing by the pro-homosexual lobby. They don’t want to be reminded that they are called to repent of sin and follow Christ.

[Josh]

So far, neither Apple, Amazon, nor Google have pulled the app?

Looking at the link, it seems this is not just a generic Bible study app, but also advocates conversion therapy and says it is effective? I think the Bible tells us not to have gay sex, but I'm not sure it makes that promise.

Apple and Amazon both pulled the app.

Looking at the app itself, I can’t find much at all promoting conversion therapy. It just has a lot of Bible study resources. The organisation who created the app does promote conversion therapy, but that seems well within their free speech right to do so.

In a free and open society, people should be able to use Bible study apps on their phones, including apps created by people who don’t believe in the liberal homosexual agenda. Obviously, we no longer live in that free, open society.

[Bootstrap]

So far, neither Apple, Amazon, nor Google have pulled the app?

Looking at the link, it seems this is not just a generic Bible study app, but also advocates conversion therapy and says it is effective? I think the Bible tells us not to have gay sex, but I'm not sure it makes that promise.

Apple and Amazon both pulled the app.

You're right. Google hasn't.

In a free and open society, people should be able to use Bible study apps on their phones, including apps created by people who don’t believe in the liberal homosexual agenda. Obviously, we no longer live in that free, open society.

We live in the world, which has a very different understanding of many things than we do. And on this topic, the gap is widening very rapidly.

Apple, Amazon, and Google are not the government, they don't set laws, but they have pretty big monopolies, especially if you add in Facebook. And that puts us in a weird place. They are private moneymaking companies, and the First Amendment does not apply to them because they are not the government. But they have a huge influence on what is acceptable in the culture around us.

As private companies, should we treat them like publishers who are responsible for their content and decide what to publish? If not, how should we treat them? It sounds like you would like some set of laws and regulations that would require them to publish certain kinds of content?

Looking at the app itself, I can’t find much at all promoting conversion therapy. It just has a lot of Bible study resources. The organisation who created the app does promote conversion therapy, but that seems well within their free speech right to do so.

The 1st Amendment applies to the government, not to private companies.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I haven't looked at the app, so I cannot comment on what it contains. The organization and its leader do promote conversion therapy, and the organization's main mission is to reach out to homosexuals. If it's really just a straightforward Bible app, then I agree with you.

But the same First Amendment that protects our speech protects theirs. I wouldn't like to see a law that requires a Christian publisher to publish books promoting gay marriage. I wouldn't like to see a law that requires a non-Christian publisher to publish an app designed to promote conversion therapy.

Then again, I do think some kind of legislation might be needed to protect the marketplace of ideas in a world where a few private companies control so much of our communication and information flow.