Posted on 08/13/2012 8:45:20 PM PDT by rhema
With the exception of one column previously penned, I pray this becomes my most widely read to date.
The secular left has mastered use of the Internet to further its extremist goals. To that end, I have a strange request. I’m asking each God-fearing, freedom-loving American who reads this column to forward it, post it, tweet it, print it out and give it to every pastor, priest or cleric you know. If you don’t know any, give it to someone who does.
One need only look to the HHS mandate forcing Christian groups – both Catholic and Protestant – to violate, under penalty of law, biblical prohibitions against abortion homicide.
Or consider recent attempts by multiple elected officials to shutdown Chick-fil-A – a private, Christian-owned business – simply because its leadership holds the biblical view of marriage.
Is this George Washington’s America, or Joseph Stalin’s Russia?
It’s definitely not your father’s USA.
Instead, wouldn’t we prefer the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers? A constitutional republic wherein individual liberty – whether economic, First Amendment or Second Amendment-related – is sacrosanct and off limits?
Pastors, you’re it. You’re our front line of defense. It’s up to you to rally the troops. Now begins the second American Revolution and, as with the first, it’s on you – men of the cloth – to take the lead.
That is, if you hope to remain free to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaking of chicken: In recent years there’s been an epidemic of cultural inaction exhibited by far too many ministers of the gospel. It’s fear-based. “Oh, I don’t talk about political issues,” they say. “You know, ‘separation of Church and State’ and all that.”
Baloney.
If this is you – and only you and our Lord know for sure – you’ve been deceived by the enemies of God. You’ve chosen the easy way out – the path of least resistance. This is something Christ, whom all Christians are called to emulate, never did – not once.
So, respectfully, man-up, Padre! Be the “salt and light of the world,” as Christ so admonished.
But you don’t have to go it alone. There are detailed, easily digestible tools available. Civil-rights firm Liberty Counsel, for instance, is distributing more than 100,000 copies of “Silence is Not an Option,” a concise, though comprehensive, DVD and printed material collection informing pastors and churches about what is permissible regarding political activity. Please, get it for your church.
“The church must be empowered to confront the assaults on our culture, our faith, and our freedom,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. ”I don’t want any pastor, church leader or lay person to say, ‘What more could I have done to protect life and liberty?’”
“Silencing people of faith in the public square has always been the goal of those who realize the influence that pastors, churches and people of faith have on elections. I want pastors to remove the muzzle and replace it with a megaphone,” he said. “Pastors and churches have a lot of freedom to address biblical and moral issues, to educate people about the candidates, and to encourage people to vote. Not one church has ever lost its tax-exemption for endorsing or opposing candidates or for supporting or opposing local, state or federal laws.”
Did you get that? Despite hundreds of thousands of threatening letters sent by hard-left groups like the ACLU and Barry Lynn’s Americans United, not a single church has lost tax-exemption for socio-political activity – zip, zero, nada. Not even for endorsing candidates from the pulpit.
Indeed, if these anti-Christian bullies had been around two-and-a-half centuries ago, and our forefathers had paid them any mind, we may never have had the first American Revolution.
Don’t let them halt the second.
We’re on the precipice of the abyss, and, pastors, I think you know it. But know this too: There’s a whole lot relating to both culture and politics you can both say and do, and very little – if anything – you can’t.
Churches can educate about political, moral and biblical issues. These kinds of issues – whether abortion, marriage, feeding the poor or any community issue – are never off limits from the pastor’s pulpit, even if politicians are also talking about them. “Silence is Not an Option” systematically addresses the misrepresentations used to muzzle America’s pastors and Christian leaders.
Leading up to Ronald Reagan’s landslide presidential victory in 1980, Rev. Jerry Falwell captured the crux of the church’s apathy problem: “What is wrong in America today?” he asked. “We preachers – and there are 340,000 of us who pastor churches – we hold the nation in our hand. And I say this to every preacher: We are going to stand accountable before God if we do not stand up and be counted.”
Dr. Falwell’s words ring no less true today.
Imagine the benefit to our culture if thousands of churches across America registered millions of Christians to vote. How about pledge-drives wherein pastors ask tens-of-millions of Christians to simply commit to voting biblical values?
The possibilities are limitless.
Proverbs 4:18 reminds us: “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.”
Shine bright, salt and light. Don’t be choked into dark silence.
Because silence is not an option.
It can’t be.
Church attendance is declining in almost every community; it is NO EXCUSE but many pastors are so desperately trying to hold on to each and every member that they are tolerating all sorts of vices, lest the offend anyone.
When there is no preaching of the Law there can be no Gospel!
bookmark
Ping
As a writer a number of years ago pointed out, Jesus did not say become Salt, nor become Light; He said: “Ye are the salt of the earth........” And He said: “Ye are the light of the world......” (Matthew 5:13a and 5:14a)
Most of us know what “salt” does......
Most os us know what “light”does......
Save
The evangelical churches, like mine, are booming. It’s churches like the Episcopals and the “liberal” or progressive churches that are falling off badly, for the most part. People are looking for something to fill that God-shaped hole in their souls. When they find Him, they fill it. Churches that preach liberation theology or leftie politics can’t provide what folks want.
I dunno about most churches, but the LCMS church that I’ve been a vicar to for the last year has been growing ever since I arrived there. And we make sure that both Law and Gospel are going full blast.
Honestly, from the comments I’ve had after the services, people are responding to that. They’re lapping it up. They WANT to hear the Law, and they WANT to hear the Gospel too, because they’re both the Word of God. You leave either of those out, and you’re not preaching the Word, you’re preaching human ‘wisdom.’
Anyways, I hope this means that churches will wake up soon. Being ‘tolerant’ of sinfulness is just going to make them collapse faster.
And thank God for that.
My father recently left a liberal social justice ELCA church to join a Gospel-based LCMS church. He tells me that he wishes that he did it a long time ago. The liberal church wasn’t even delivering the Gospel; their sermons had become rants against world hunger and spewing bile at conservatives.
The problem is that the people who have attended one church for a long time usually don’t want to try to join another, and so when they don’t get the Gospel any more, they just... leave. I don’t know why.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.