Posted on 09/14/2013 4:49:46 AM PDT by IbJensen
A Florida Christian ministry that has been distributing food to the needy for the past 31 years said it will drop all connections with the federal USDA agriculture bureaucracy rather than bow to orders that it must remove Christian symbols from its facility.
Fox News reported that officials from the Christian Service Center of Lake City (CSC), Florida, were told by the state agriculture department that in order to continue to receive food from the USDA they would have to remove portraits of Christ and a 10 Commandments display from their facility and stop giving Bibles to those who came for food.
“They told us they could no longer allow us to have any religious information where the USDA food is going to be,” the group's executive director, Kay Daly, told Fox.
The USDA policy boils down to the “separation of church and state” that secular groups read into the First Amendment. A USDA spokesperson explained to Fox News that “under current law, organizations that receive USDA nutrition assistance can still engage in religious activities so long as the activity is not used to create a barrier to eligible individuals receiving food.” In the minds of USDA bureaucrats, a banner in the CSC that reads “Jesus Is Lord” and pictures representing Jesus equate into a barrier to those coming to the facility for help.
Instead of complying with the ruling, Daly said, the group has decided to simply drop the USDA's help and trust God for His provision. “If God can multiply fish and loaves for 10,000 people, he can certainly bring in food for our food pantry so we can continue to feed the hungry,” said Daly.
Daly told the Christian Post that when a counselor with CSC meets with a person in need, “We ask them if they know Jesus Christ and if we may share with them. If they decline, we don't. If they do want to, we share the gospel with them. Sometimes we lead them to the Lord and sometimes we don't.”
She said that while faith in Christ is not a litmus test for whom the group serves, they are nonetheless a Christian ministry with a mission of sharing the gospel. “Our purpose is to help people in need and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ,” she said. “We are going to pray with them. We are going to offer them a Bible. We are going to counsel them in Christian help. We are going to use our chapel.”
To eliminate the core of their beliefs, as the USDA appears to demand, would be an unacceptable compromise, Daly told the Christian Post. “We would deny what we stand for, which is Jesus Christ, which is why we are,” she said. “The USDA has drawn the line in the sand. If they are going to put stipulations on the use and distribution of the food, we make a choice and our choice is to stand with Christ.”
Daly said that area churches, local Christians, and others have already stepped up to fill the void left by the USDA. She said that above all else “I’m called to do what the Lord tells me to do. I’m not called to worry about it. I pray about it. The Lord answers our prayers and we move forward one day at a time, one person at a time.”
In 2012, an Indiana food pantry faced the loss of its USDA food privileges after its director refused to stop offering to have pantry volunteers pray for needy people coming to his facility for help. Ultimately government bureaucrats backed down from their threats when Paul Brock, founder of Community Provisions of Jackson County, Indiana, agreed to wait until individuals receive their food before volunteers ask them if they would like prayer. “I'm glad this is finally over,” Brock said in response to the end of the annoying federal roadblock that prevented him from helping people. “I need to get back to work.”
No OK at all.
We have a wonderful Food Shelf here in central Minnesota. It is run by Catholic Charities. I think about 25%f the people coming are Somali Muslims.
The Catholic community is so generous to everyone here. I know there are Protestants who help and donate as well. It is all for the love of Christ and his children that Christians perform such charities.
I suppose the USDA will eventually put their nose in this charity also. I say, “Bravo” to the Christians in Florida who are not going to capitulate to atheistic intimidation by our government.
All state agencies need to stop taking the federal dollars and make do with state taxes. Expecially in the Schools.
Which is a good thing, because the USDA doesn't produce any food, it
only consumes taxpayer dollars and then turns around and dictates to the people ~ post 16
When the food pantry was confronted with the question, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve (feed)", they answered, "The poor" instead of "Beast.gov".
I agree with your assessment.
Religious organizations were helping poor folks long before the democrats wanted a piece of the action. If anybody wants to fight I see a place to start one. In many cases it was the GOV’T who approached these groups to use their existing facilities to spread groceries around to needy folks. There needs to be a lawsuit telling the UDSA to STFU about what we do at our facilities as long as we’re getting the food distributed. Or build your own soup kitchens and distribute packies with Obama pictures on them yourself. I remember back in the days of the “Great Cheeze Giveaway”-—gummint trucks brought the cheez to anybody who had a kitchen, church or otherwise, to spread it around. It seems to me it would just take a few church type operators with the nerve to tell a USDAdickhead to go “pound cheez” and the problem would go away. Or at least go to a desk in the back of the office at USDA HQ where a pimple-faced bureaucrat could whimper in his latte about why no one pays attention to his whining. Standing up to these jerkopffs is usually a cure for a non-problem.
of course, the publicly educated citizens still don’t understand the concept of separation of church and state.
that’s why the non Christians can get away with this. if we had an educational system that was actually trying to educate (rather than indoctrinating and purposely dumbing down), they would know that the constitution has one line about religion,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
that’s it. it doesn’t say anything about any branch of government requiring a sanitizing of public places.
makes me want to vomit.
BUMP
It’s a good thing a concerned citizen stood up for civil rights and reported this. Now everything’s ok./sarc
YEP! Message clearly sent; I hope it will be received, but that's optional.
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