Religious Free Speech, and the Johnson Amendment

There is the notion that Pastors can't speak of political issues from the pulpit. Up until the mid twentieth century, no such idea existed. Pastors endorsed politicians and legislation all the time. What happened was that in 1954 then senator Lyndon Johnson put into a tax overhaul bill an amendment that would silence his political opposition, which was not from any religious institutions.

It said entities who are exempt from federal income tax cannot:

"Participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of – or in opposition to – any candidate for public office."

It was meant to quash political free speech of 501c non profit organizations, specifically those that were opposing him in his run for Senate. As it turns out, churches are 501's. Secularists and Atheists, Leftists and the Democrat Party have used it since then to shut down free speech from religious speakers. It's applied to the incorrect notion of separation of church and state, of which, no such thing exists in the Constitution.

Here's a short vid of the history of the Johnson Amendment.

http://youtu.be/P1PVMuxUgDg

Earlier this year, Houston Pastor of Grace Community Church, Steve Riggle, spoke from the pulpit about Houston Mayor Parker, a lesbian with a partner that advocates for gay marriage. Riggle pointed out Texas and the county which Houston is in overwhelmingly (over 70%) voted for the amendment stating marriage is between one man and one woman. What the mayor had done was, as a representative of the city, gone to Washington DC and as mayor advocated for gay marriage. Riggle stated this was not representing the will of the people.

He wrote a private email letter to her, which of course she released to the press, and the attack was on. Riggle remained quiet throughout the week, did no interviews and did not respond. He said on the Thursday following his letter to her, he would address the issue in his upcoming Sunday message.

Link to the letter and message:

http://www.grace.tv/pastoral-response-2 

(Just a note, I've seen Pastor Riggle speak, and he's way more dynamic than this. He wanted to make sure his statements were measured and precise. He said it took about 50 hours to prepare this, and ensure it was exactly what he wanted to say.)

It must be understood the State has no authority to silence Pastors or anyone representing a religious institution to speak on political issues and candidates. The State, through the IRS, has tried many times to force pastors to comply, and when a church had to resources to fight back, the State\IRS has lost every time. The reason being they have no authority to do so.

It must be made clear that issues such as marriage and abortion are not political issues, they're moral issues. Atheists, Leftists, Democrat Party, have kept stating these are political issues, the result being, it has become the meme, it's assumed to be true. This lie is the foundation of their attacks to silence free speech from the pulpit. That the Democrat Party is anti religious and anti God was born out during their convention earlier this year when they removed the word "God" from their Party Platform, and that they're anti Israel by refusing to name Jerusalem as Israel's capital.  When these were added back into the platform because of national blowback, it was to a chorus of boos from the convention floor.

The totalitarians of this president's political party and his oligarchy understand, like all totalitarians before them in the past 2000 years, Christianity must be silenced for State rule to be complete and unchallenged.  Applying this unconstitutional amendment, that was part of a power play by one of the most corrupt politicians in US history, is their primary vehicle.

We must encourage our pastors to speak out on moral issues like Pastor Riggle has, and continues to.

Cardinal Dolan on the Obama Administration's Attempts to Further Divide the Catholic Church

http://youtu.be/kDEsTHCFFVs

Medieval Prayer, Reading, and Modern Times

Densitometer

We’re focused on ourselves and have been since the dawn of people. This is both a political and religious observation. The religious part of this is shown by an analysis of medieval books. Most books then were religious, and a device called a densitometer measures dirt density on pages; more dirt, more usage. The process was designed and developed by Scotland’s School of Art History at St Andrews, Professor Dr Kathryn Rudy.

The process shows people were terrified of illness, and prayers for protection and healing were used a lot. Prayers for salvation for others were used much less than prayers for self. Full article here.

I wonder if the same is happening now. Have we improved on that? I look at all the work Christians do helping others. The hundreds of $millions tithed and charities contributed to every year; shelters, food banks, missionary outreach that takes care of material as well as spiritual needs of people. Our prayers, though, still focus primarily on our own needs. Usually when we pray, it’s to meet our own needs. We need to train ourselves to pray to include others. Jesus knew this, which is why he gave us His prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, to guide us. This leads to the ACTS prayer formula - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Adoration, we praise God. Confession, we acknowledge our sins. Thanksgiving, we show gratitude. Supplication, we ask for ourselves. I had to train and discipline myself to go beyond even that, because there’s so much more to prayer.  

Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy Name.  [Adoration]

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. [Confession]

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil. [Supplication]

For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever. [Thanksgiving]

A brief note on the political and self. No matter how many rules, regulations and laws governments pass, people look to their own needs first. Democracy and capitalism allows for this idea, knowing that by taking care of self, family, friends, and community, the greater good for all people are served. Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism, all demand, upon penalty of death and imprisonment, that the government is first, beyond self, and it will decide what needs are to be met, and in what quantity. All must be done for the State. Of course the people at the top of government and those that choose to be subservient to them make sure their selfish needs are met first before addressing the needs of the citizens.

They deny citizens the ability of acting for Self, so they can meet their own needs. This runs against human nature, natural law, and is why centralized governments always fail, and have to murder and imprison people to survive and stay in power.

We pray for less selfish prayer, less selfish, self serving government, politicians that believe in the Scripturally based Constitution. We pray that we look to ourselves to determine how we, regular people, can serve each other, and not a centralized government. By serving each other we serve God, and that is what our government needs to be about.  

Giving Up Liberty

Magna Carta Libertatum is the whole title to the document. It placed restraints on the king. The US Constitution placed restraints on the government, the political class. Both focused on the rights of people. The most recent attack on Christianity, specifically the Catholic Church, by the Obama Administration and the Democrat Party, is beyond just that. It’s an attack on liberty.

“I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans.” Danica Patrick

For those that don’t know, Patrick is a sexy race car driver and model. She has hit here on the mindset of a growing number of citizens that it’s okay to give up individual liberty and submit to the State. It’s severely bothersome and disconcerting to me that for the five thousand years or so of civilization prior to the founding of the republic of America, Man has lived under tyranny. Just look how long and slow progress was; spiritually and physically. Just look at all the cool stuff we’ve got in the last couple hundred years or so. There’s more progress in freedom and goodies than all the history preceding the US Constitution.

The primary reason, arguably the only reason, for this explosion of creativity, innovation, and personal wealth is the power of the State had its wings clipped. People were able to do things for themselves, family and community, and all have benefitted. Now the State’s feathers of oppression have grown back.

The latest, of course, is the attempt to control the Catholic Church and by extension Christians, so Freedom of Religion gets clipped. Even those not tolerant of organized religion should take note because every tyranny begins with the crushing of Christians and Jews (anti-Semitism is on the rise). Freedom of Speech is clipped by “political correctness” and name calling. If you disagree with Obama’s policies you’re a racist, if you don’t approve of homosexuality or gay marriage you’re a bigot, if you don’t think employees or taxpayers should be paying for someone else’s abortions or contraceptives, you're a sexist.

Case in point from Chris Matthews: “There are a number of people who have chosen to convert to the Catholic faith because they don’t like the liberal positions taken by their sectarian groups, that’s a fact, you can write that down. . . .I’m saying that some people who are bigoted against gay people have changed religions, yes.”

Then there’s Obama’s statement: “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” It’s an anathema to these Statists that people actually believe in God because they believe, not because the government isn’t fulfilling some need in their lives. Statists want Religion out of the way because it creates a vacuum for the State to fill. They want all citizens replace their religion with the Religion of the State like they have.

Now the government tells us what light bulbs we can use, even though the one’s we will soon be forced to buy provide worse light and are dangerous and toxic. Some public schools are forcing parents to buy school lunches, deeming home made sack lunches not healthy enough. I read one incident where the school didn’t let a kid eat his lunch meat sandwich from home and eat at the school cafeteria; the replacement meal was “chicken” nuggets. Really? The government is installing “smart meters” on homes to control your house temperature, what and how many appliances you can run. They have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to ban smoking in cars and homes. They tell restaurants how much sugar and salt they can use in their recipes. The tax code is designed to limit your income; they are mandating how much you may earn.  In California parents have to keep their kids in booster seats until they are 57” tall. Some kids will be in them until they’re 10 or 12 years old. This was a safety problem? If the people vote on something, and the government doesn't like the outcome, they just get a judge say it's unconstitutional and overturn the will people and their representatives.

“We are only a few days away from fundamentally transforming America!” Barack Obama, November 2008

Obama’s “accommodation” to the Catholic Church is to have insurance companies pay for contraception and whatever else, so the employees will have these for free. Statists say things are for free, if only we give them more power and money. Power to not obey the laws the rest of us are forced to obey, and money so they can live large with the things we can no longer afford because they took our money.

The cost of all that free stuff? The U.S. government debt is currently $44,215 per person. Obama’s own budget numbers show it will rise over the next ten years to $75,000.

“I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans.” Truly?

A Quiet Attack on Christianity By Our Anti Christian Government

We all aware of the recent attack on Catholics by the Christophobes in the Democrat Party and Obama. That was a rare political mistake by them. They had a notion that this country’s citizens have mostly gone secular. They jumped so far with their arrogant bigotry they can't back peddle far enough. While all eyes are on that issue, the intolerant secular bigots are doing other things to crush Christianity. I'm focusing on Christianity, but anyone paying attention to Obama understands he's also anti-Semitic and pro Islam.

Here's one of the little things that is part of the attack on Christianity, a program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Did you know if you did 10 years of “public service” work, the remainder of that loan would be forgiven?

Here’s how the law read until this year:

“Qualifying employment is any employment with a federal, state, or local government agency, entity, or organization or a non-profit organization that has been designated as tax-exempt by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The type or nature of employment with the organization does not matter for PSLF purposes. Additionally, the type of services that these public service organizations provide does not matter for PSLF purposes.” (Italics mine)

Now the law has an additional paragraph:

“Generally, the type or nature of employment with the organization does not matter for PSLF purposes. However, if you work for a non-profit organization, your employment will not qualify for PSLF if your job duties are related to religious instruction, worship services, or any form of proselytizing.” (Italics mine)

Before Christianity there was no such thing as charity. It wasn’t even a social concept. Groups took care of their own occasionally (not often), but Christians were the first to reach out to help everybody. Governments have taken that concept and have used it to take money from producers, line their pockets with that wealth, and enslave their citizens by keeping them ignorant and impoverished.

Back to the last sentence of that added paragraph to the law, it’s no mistake religious institutions are singled out. If you’re a student that has graduated from seminary or other religious institutions, if you do charity work, “public service”, for a religious organization, you do not qualify for loan forgiveness after ten years. Only if you work for the secularist government will your loans be forgiven. Same work, more cost effective and more effective in changing lives for the better than what government bureaucrats accomplish (which is very little).

I’ve stated many many times in this blog, all totalitarian governments must drive out Christians to be successful. Lenin\Stain, Mao, Castro, Hitler and all the rest, using a central tenants of the Left, Marxism. Fascism, Nazism, to marginalize and criminalize the religious. Europe has marginalized Christianity more benignly but as effectively. Anti-Semitism is on the rise there, approaching pre World War II levels. Christianity as a practice and belief system is for the most part dead; and the European Union is slowly becoming more totalitarian (and Islamic). Driving out Christianity predates the 20^th century; the Romans were the first totalitarian government to prosecute Christians.

Only Christianity teaches equality of each person. Only Christianity teaches individual power and responsibility. Only Christianity teaches charity for everybody. Only Christianity places the State low in the hierarchy of importance; God, Church, family, others in your community (charity), with nary a mention of the State with the exception of giving Caesar what is Caesar’s. Caesar wants it all, and he wants everyone, especially Christians to give him all. Little bits of legislation like this take this particular Caesar (Obama) and his Secularist political party to complete dominance of the citizens of this country.  

Yet More Attacks on Christianity by Our Secularist, Bigoted President & His Party

This President and his political party have made it abundantly clear they are Secularists, and specifically anti-Christian. Here’s a few items to make the point.

I had written earlier that I’m disgusted by the use of Our Savior Jesus Christ being used as a political pawn. The anti-Christian bigot Obama did just that when he attended a prayer breakfast and used the time meant for communing with God to make a Marxist campaign speech, saying Jesus' admonition to help the poor means the government must raise taxes, especially on the rich.

Obama: “When I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe that in a time when many folks are struggling and at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone.”  … “And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense.”

“But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’ teaching that, ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

He added this even more appalling observation:  “…mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others.” Since Christianity came first, and Islam imperfectly picked and chose what it wanted and needed to oppress people, I don’t think so.

http://youtu.be/jRA6l-VCttg

The quote, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” does not mean from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. Obama sees everything through Marxist lenses. It’s his religion.

Part of that religion is to ignore the establishment clause of the Constitution (and the rest of the Constitution too, but I need to stay on point), “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” and the free exercise clause, "... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The latest kerfuffle is his forcing the Catholic Church to adhere to his secular religion, which advocates the killing of babies, i.e., abortion, over the life of babies. Add to that forcing, against the teaching/values/beliefs of the Church requiring them to provide contraception. This Administration ruling forcing the church to provide abortions, sterilizations, and contraceptives as part of their health care programs is a requirement from Health and Human Services Department, not even legislation. They can get away with it because, contrary to what was said to the public by Obama and the Democrats, mandating abortion is in ObamaCare. This doesn’t only apply to the Catholic Church, but to all religious organizations; if the Catholic Church and other organizations stick to their guns on this, many religious funded hospitals, health facilities and companies will be forced to shut down. The Obama administration isn’t entirely insensitive to this issue; all the affiliated organizations have a year before being forced to comply or shut down.

Archbishop Timothy Nolan has published a letter to the president in protest, and there are several with some variations from many Bishops in America. A copy of one is at the bottom of this article.

He's also forbidden Chaplin's in the military to comment on this abuse of power, this ignoring of the Constitution, this forcing of Religion, specifically Christianity, to ignore and reject the teachings of their respective churches. He is Commander in Chief and has the legal right to do so, but not the moral right. 

Recently struck down by the Supreme Court, and not reported or under reported by the re-elect Obama press, was a ruling requiring Churches to adhere to equal opportunity legislation. This requires the Catholic Church to allow female priests, and Jews female rabbis. You may color me wrong on this, but aren’t elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution? If I’m right, the Secularists in power that took that oath are definitely ignoring both the establishment clause and free exercise clause.

Off on a tangent here; the first female ex-Speaker of the House, a professed Catholic, stated about the issue: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.” Say what? She’s one of many Catholic politicians that are pro-abortion and contraception ignoring the teachings of the Church she professes to be a member of. For most of us practicing Christians, God comes first, and informs our beliefs and actions. If one is a politician, and speaks honestly about his\her Faith, they should let it be known and live by it. I think if a Catholic runs for office on a pro-abortion platform, or lives and legislates in opposition to the Church, they should renounce the Church. If not, and I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know how exactly this works, but if they stay in the Church and support the kinds of regulation written about here, they should be excommunicated. It shouldn’t bother these anti-Christian, anti-Catholic Catholics anyway since they apparently don’t believe or practice Church doctrine.  

There’s a whole section of the Bible discussing Spiritual Warfare, mostly in Ephesians 6: 10- 18. This is where it manifests itself in physical world. We have the leader of the free world leading an assault on Christianity (and supporting Islam). Good for the Catholic Church for standing up to these bigots and secularists.

Government's Attack on Christianity

I've pointed out many times government must drive religion, especially Jews and Christians out. The reason being Jesus told us to render to Caesar what is his, and God what is his; the State wants, and must have, everything rendered unto it. It will not tolerate dissent. The history of Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Red China and Cuba are some examples that bear this out.

The campaign against Christianity in this country is getting stronger. What follows are some examples. The simplest start is the idea, even supported by some Christians, is religion is a private thing, and has no place in the public arena. Practicing Christians know being infused with the Holy Spirit means our Faith is the center of everything we say and do. Those Christians thinking that religion, especially Christianity, is exclusively a private thing, need to reevaluate where they are with their Faith. 

The government’s driving Christianity out of the public sphere won’t reach the level of persecution seen in the countries mentioned above, but is just as insidious. Without the traditions and values of Christianity, we will end up reflecting what those states were or are.

Russell Shaw writes:

“Don't think I'm making the wild-eyed claim that this new persecution either is or ever is likely to become a bloody one resembling the purges of the French and Mexican Revolutions or the Communist war on religion—eruptions of violence in which thousands of clergy, religious, and lay faithful were killed. It won't be a repetition of the Spanish civil war, just 75 years ago, when death squads of the anticlerical left executed the incredible total of 12 bishops, 283 religious women, 4,184 priests, 2,365 religious men, and an unknown number of laity whose only crime was being faithful Catholics.
No, the persecution of religion in the United States won't be like that. It will be a tight-lipped campaign of secularist inspiration in which the coercive power of the state is brought to bear on church-related institutions to act against conscience or go out of business.” Full article here.

 The most blatant and egregious example of this is Health and Human Services decision to deny funding to Catholic programs that aid victims of human trafficking.  The programs administered by the Catholic Church are the most effective. The reason for government not helping with funding, is the Church doesn't, and will not, refer abortions. Base on that criteria, Catholic health care programs and hospitals that serve non-Catholics are denied funding. Those institutions must provide “the full range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric care” aka abortions. Given the government advocates for tax payer funded fetal genocide, religious health institutions must necessarily withdraw or be forced to violate all religious values, traditions and beliefs.

In my mind, if you’re not for something, you’re against it. You may say you have no dog in the chase, and that’s fine. We can’t have knowledge and opinions about everything, but when it comes to our attention we need to make a decision. Sitting on the sidelines cannot be an option when the attack on freedom of religion, speech, and the rest are under attack. The government here is for human trafficking if it's willing to cut out the most effective organization and give it to failed or failing organizations dealing with slavery.  

The attack right now is mostly focused on the Catholic Church, but not limited to it. Obama’s EEOC recently argued to the Supreme Court the hiring practices of the Lutheran Church were discriminatory; that religious institutions must be held to the same hiring practices as secular businesses.  That would mean the government would have a say in who a church selects as their pastor or ministerial team. Given this violation of the establishment clause, the government could force a Catholic priest that got married to be rehired if the priest sued to get his job back. Really. Fortunately the Supreme Court rejected this anti-religious, anti-Christian, anti-Constitutional filing.  

Coming up on the Christmas season, we’re braced for the onslaught of anti-traditionalists, anti-Christian bigots, and atheists' annnual attack Christianity; all supported by government. They are so desperate in their hatred and intolerance they even try and take out Santa Claus and Christmas trees, claiming they're religious symbols. They are not. Christians need to stand up and say so.

Uniformed Christians are a problem too. We used to have a Christmas tree in our break room at work, and a “Christian” said it was a pagan religious symbol; he was offended, so we can no longer have a Christmas tree. Even though the knucklehead has left the company, the rule stays. Back when thug rapper Tupac Shakur was alive, a woman had pictures of him around her cube and a Bible on her desk.  I experienced cognitive dissonance.

One last point. The Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, and the laws in the Constitution, are all founded in Scripture. I’ve posted several times Democrats (aka Leftists) stating they’re not held to the Constitution. The document they do hold themselves to is the Communist Manifesto, which rejects God and religion. What they advocate is an earthly utopia based on the rule of men, not the natural laws of God. There can be no earthly utopia, and peace can't reign without God's rule. Understanding God as natural law, that God is Love, and government rejects both, we must ensure more people understand that only by God’s rule and Grace can there be Liberty.