Posted on 10/18/2010 10:49:12 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
(Oct. 18, 2010) — Vicky Hartzler, the Republican trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, the 17-term Congressman who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, has clearly identified herself as a Christian conservative. She served as spokesman for the successful campaign in 2004 that amended the Missouri state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, and she’s the author of a book entitled “Running God’s Way; Step by Step to a Successful Political Campaign.” So what sorts of sermons does she hear on Sunday mornings in the church in Harrisonville where she’s attended for three decades? Just before leaving on vacation, Hartzler’s pastor at Harrisonville Community Church decided not to start a planned sermon series on marriage but instead preached a nearly hour-long sermon on Christian principles of relating to government. The pastor, Randy Evers, left no doubt in his Sept. 26 sermon about his conservative evangelical convictions and his sympathy for the charismatic movement, relying heavily on the book “Shaping History through Prayer and Fasting” and other writings of Derek Prince, a framer of modern Christian Zionism and support for Israel.
(Excerpt) Read more at pulaskicountydaily.com ...
Good for him...though it is unfortunate that the remark made it into the press.
how about this
eff off pastor
What’s scary it that political operatives are monitoring the sermons their opponant’s Pastors give!
The second time ... in my life?
This is the second stupid post you've made on this thread. How about that?
This would not be a topic of discussion if this was a Black Church.
The pastor at our church had a few disparaging words to say about Glen Beck rally a few weeks ago, and they've gotten their last church donation from us. I wasn't even at that mass, having gone earlier in the day because I had to work later, but my wife and daughter were there and my daughter was mad at my wife for not walking out when he said it.
My wife was pissed off too, but she didn't want to cause a scene by walking out. But she's with me on our weekly donation (and this church never seeing an envelope with our name on it again). Let the liberals contribute, the church must not need our money.
There's another church we like better that's not too much farther to drive. Thats where we're going from now on.
Several people have asked if I would have reported this if the church were predominantly black, or if it were theologically liberal.
Tha answer is absolutely yes, without a shadow of a doubt.
The issue here is that Vicky Hartzler is an identified Christian conservative candidate for Congress, and has been associated with the Christian conservative movement for years. What’s less well known is that she’s a member of what until very recently was known as Harrisonville Mennonite Church, and for some reason has been trying to minimize her Mennonite connections and the fact that when her church left a large mainline Mennonite denomination, it joined a small conservative denomination that until a few years ago was known as the Evangelical Mennonite Church. Given the fact that she’s running against the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, voters in her district need to know **EXACTLY** what she believes about the military, and she’s been pressured extensively on the pacifism issue. She’s made clear she doesn’t agree with pacifism, and that’s fine. So let’s find out what else her church believes.
When people have strong faith commitments it is an entirely legtimiate question to ask what their church believes, because it will very likely affect how they vote. That applies whether the church is conservative or liberal. And that’s why Republicans were entirely correct to dig into Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons to find out what influences then-Sen. Barack Obama had placed himself under for years.
So everybody’s clear on where I stand, I have no problem with pastors conducting voter registration drives in the church or preaching on moral issues from the pulpit even if they have political ramifications.
Neither did the framers of the Constitution.
Obviously not everything lawful is helpful, and a lot of unwise statements have been said from the pulpit over the years that would have been better said by pastors in places other than the pulpit, or which should not have been said at all.
However, to muzzle the pulpit on moral issues that happen to have political implications is inherently to bar pastors from preaching what they believe is taught by the Bible. While political statements from the pulpit should be done carefully and cautiously, to prohibit such statements entirely is to go down the road of Communist China which prohibits pastors from preaching on entire sections of the Bible which have direct political implications contrary to the positions taken by the Chinese government.
Does our First Amendment somehow bar political statements from the pulpit?
Not at all.
No fair student of American history can deny the role of the pulpit in advocating for the American Revolution, for both the North and the South during the Civil War, and for the civil rights movement. While opponents of the American Revolution and opponents of the civil rights movement didn’t typically state their cases in religious language, some Anglicans were quite adamant in their biblical defense of allegience to the King, and the whole Southern Presbyterian “spirituality of the church” theological position of Dabney and Thornwell was discredited — in my view, quite correctly discredited — because it was used to defend the silence of the church on racial segregation.
A number of the framers of the Constitution were pastors who believed as a matter of biblical principle, based on John Knox’s doctrine of the “lesser magistrates” having the right to defend their people against tyranny, that the Revolutionary War was a legitimate Christian conflict against covenant-breakers in the British Parliament. Very similar theology was used to defend the American Revolution that had been used a century earlier to defend the Puritan revolt led by Oliver Cromwell against the King, and that had been used even earlier by the Presbyterian followers of John Knox to encourage a revolt by the Scottish Lords against Mary, Queen of Scots.
If Vicky Hartzler’s pastor believes it is God’s will for Christians to be politically active, that’s a perfectly legitimate subject for preaching and teaching. If he believes it’s God’s will for Christians to support Israel, that’s perfectly legitimate as well. Same for his decision to invite speakers for Ken Ham’s creation ministry into his church, which happened a few years ago, or to fight against gay marriage, which happened within his own church on the denominational level and later in his church’s support for Vicky Hartzler’s successful campaign to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.
It’s also the right of the voters to know those things about what the church attended by Vicky Hartzler believes, since she’s been very clear that she identifies with the conservative Christian movement.
My views are not relevant on this, but since some people think I am somehow attacking Vicky Hartzler’s pastor, I need to say that while I am not in any way, shape or form a charismatic, I have a track record of more than twenty years of defending every one of those four positions I just stated — the legitimacy of Christian political activism, support for Israel, opposition to evolution, and opposition to gay marriage.
When candidates identify themselves as Christian conservatives, voters have a right to know what their pastors and churches believe since those beliefs can and quite likely will influence their votes if elected to office. The same is true, though much less common, of candidates who are strongly committed members of “social gospel” liberal churches.
That’s why a lot of attention was focused during the last election on the sermons of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; similar attention was focused by the media on the preaching of then-Gov. Sarah Palin’s pastor and on the preaching of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, though the digging into the sermons of Huckabee and of Palin’s pastors didn’t dig up much other than typical conservative evangelical positions.
Ref. Post #28: I just felt it bore repeating.
I have no problem with you posting this my friend.
Someone the other day pointed out that if the church is unregistered it wouldn’t matter. The IRS wouldn’t be able to do a thing even if they made the church into a campaign HQ. It would not have lost its freedom of speech.
I found it a very good argument.
Vicky would probably not be on the Armed Services Committee if she wins, freshmen Congresspersons rarely get the assignments they want.
Then again, I have seen nor heard anything that would make me doubt her. Not my district anyways.
Boehner has publicly guaranteed her the seat should she win.
I hadn’t heard that, I guess he is already prepping for the Speaker election?
(Looking)
Well, I'll be dipped. Wrong on both counts.
Guess that's why it attracted the media.
/c:
I agree 100%. Just heard David Barton talking about this this morning. The british hated the churches and the preachers, and burned the churches down to try and stop them from preaching.
GeronL wrote: “Vicky would probably not be on the Armed Services Committee if she wins, freshmen Congresspersons rarely get the assignments they want. Then again, I have seen nor heard anything that would make me doubt her. Not my district anyways.”
Check this out:
Republicans pledge to give Hartzler seat on Armed Services if elected
http://pulaskicountydaily.com/news.php?viewStory=2196
Aparently the Boner is already lining up votes for speaker with his promises.
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