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Criminalizing Christian beliefs and behavior

As Liberals see it, some people are just more equal than others.

Barronelle Stutzman is a florist and owner of Arlene’s Flowers in the State of Washington who is in peril of losing her business, personal assets, and retirement. Because of her religious beliefs and her faithfulness to those beliefs, she was sued by the State of Washington and the ACLU in 2013. Her crime was telling Rob Ingersoll that she would not provide her services as a florist for his upcoming marriage to his same-sex partner because it was a violation of her belief that marriage was to be between a man and woman. In February 2015, a Washington judge ruled that Ms. Stutzman had broken the law by discriminating against Ingersoll. The court said that while recognizing her religious beliefs are protected by the Constitution, her discriminatory actions were not.[1]

On March 13, 2014 William Jack went to Denver’s Azucar Bakery and requested two Bible-shaped cakes that were to be decorated and inscribed with Bible verses. Marjorie Silva refused to accept his order but agreed to bake the cakes and supply Jack with the necessary icing and decorations so that he could decorate the cake as he pleased. Jack’s requested design offended Ms. Silva because one cake was to have the image of two groomsmen holding hands in front of a cross with a red “X” over them. The cake was to be inscribed with a Bible verse: “God hates sin. Psalm 45:7.” On the second cake, Jack requested the image of the same two groomsmen with the red “X” but inscribed with the verses: “God loves sinners” and “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8.” Following a complaint against Silva for discrimination, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled in March 2015 that Silva did not discriminate against Jack by refusing to make the cakes because the customer’s requests included “derogatory language and imagery.”[2]

Ms. Stutzman and Ms. Silva withheld their personal services because the provision of those services would have been in direct violation of their beliefs. Ms. Stutzman’s beliefs were based on her religious convictions protected by the First Amendment. Ms. Silva’s beliefs were based on her personal opinion as to what constituted “derogatory language and imagery.” The Colorado Civil Rights commission ignored Silva’s overt discrimination against Jack while the Washington State judge convicted Stutzman of exercising her First Amendment freedom of religion.

By judicial and bureaucratic edicts across the nation, the First Amendment protection of religious freedom is being dismantled by separating religious belief from actions in support of those beliefs in order to achieve humanistic definitions of equality and political correctness. Without the ability to exercise one’s religious beliefs, the First Amendment protections of religious freedom are rendered meaningless.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Because of legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic actions that compromised the First Amendment protection of religious freedom, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was unanimously passed by the House, and the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill by a 97-3 vote. On November 16, 1993, President Clinton spoke to those gathered on the south lawn of the White House on the day of the signing of the bill. One particular statement from his speech is significantly applicable to today’s debate on the government’s efforts to curtail religious freedom.

The free exercise of religion has been called the first freedom, that which originally sparked the development of the full range of the Bill of Rights. Our Founders cared a lot about religion…They knew that religion helps to give our people the character without which a democracy cannot survive. They knew that there needed to be a space of freedom between Government and people of faith that otherwise Government might usurp.[3] [emphasis added]

In 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the federal RFRA not because of the “compelling interest test” but because it ruled that Congress could not require the test be used by states in cases involving religious freedom.[4] This was followed by new federal legislation that reinstated protections of religious freedom from governmental interference.

Subsequently, a number of states passed RFRA legislation that closely followed the original federal law and its successors. On March 26, 2015, Governor Mike Pence signed into law a Religious Freedom and Restoration Act passed by the Indiana legislature. The heart of Indiana’s protection of religious freedom act is found in Section 8.

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.[5]

Irrespective of the approval the President and almost universal approval of Congress in 1993, as well as most Americans twenty-two years earlier. These eighty words have created a blistering firestorm of protests, threats, economic blackmail, and character assassination against states, legislators, and other RFRA supporters across America by the homosexual lobby and other supporters of the homosexual agenda. These supporters include the media and cultural elites, CEOs of major corporations, and liberal politicians and bureaucrats.

Is religious freedom decided by the First Amendment or the Chamber of Commerce?

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has called RFRA legislation in the various states as very dangerous and would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Cook lambasted the various RFRA supporters and linked them to segregation and discrimination in the south of the 1960s and 1970s.

America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all forms, is bad for business…These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on…This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human beings.[6] [emphasis added]

In spite of Tim Cook’s assertions to the contrary, restrictions on the practice of one’s religious beliefs is a religious issue and protection of religious freedom is a political issue. Although Cook believes RFRA laws go against the very principles upon which the nation was founded, the real violation of those principles occurs when the full meaning and protections of the First Amendment are ignored and/or violated by a government that forces people to disobey their religious beliefs in order to achieve some arbitrary standard of equality.

Even pop star Miley Cyrus, not known as a paragon of moral virtue or for her intellectual gifts, vilified Indiana’s RFRA supporters while giving an interview to Time magazine about the future of music and youth culture.

They are dinosaurs, and they are dying off. We are the new generation, and with that will come so much…People are trying now to make the Indiana law look like something that it’s not. They’re trying to make it look like it’s not discriminatory. It’s confusing for my fans, so I’m happy to [speak up about it]. They won’t listen to Tim Cook, maybe. But they’ll listen to me, you know? And people are starting to listen, I think.[7]

To help alleviate the confusion of Ms. Cyrus and her fans, RFRA laws are not discriminatory because they apply to everyone.

Interdependence of the Constitution and moral virtue of the people

The primary reason for the loss of religious freedoms in America is not to be found in any supposed defects of the Constitution’s plain wording or the Founders’ clear meaning and intent. Rather, the reason for loss of religious freedom can be discovered in the words of two of America’s most illustrious Founders.

We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[8] [John Adams, signer of the Constitution and second president of the United States] [emphasis added]

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they more need of masters.[9] [Benjamin Franklin, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution] [emphasis added]

The assault on religious freedom is occurring because there is a shortage of virtuous, moral, and religious leadership at the helms of the institutions of American life. Like Esau, Tim Cook and many other Chamber of Commerce types have despised their heritage and sold their birthright of religious freedom for a pot of stew. [Genesis 25:29-34] Ignoring the wishes of the people and the safeguards designed by the Founders, the liberal bullies and their cultural lackeys are now the masters—the new experts at determining what constitutes religious liberty but who are not to be bothered with the First Amendment’s plain language.

Unlike the CEOs of mega-corporations and their humanistic colleagues, the Founders were far more concerned with religious liberty than their bank balances, the egalitarian notions of equality, the humanistic doctrines of French intellectuals, or the ridicule of cultural royalists. The Constitution continues to be unequivocal evidence of the Founders’ strong concern for religious freedom because “… they knew that there needed to be a space of freedom between Government and people of faith that otherwise Government might usurp.”

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Courtney Coren, “Washington Florist: State, ACLU ‘Trying to bully me’,” Newsmax, February 24, 2015. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Washington-state-florist-gay-marriage-ACLU/2015/02/24/id/626583/ (accessed April 6, 2015).
[2] Alan Gathright and Eric Lupher, “Denver’s Azucar Bakery wins right to refuse to make anti-gay cakes,” 7NewsDenver, April 4, 2015. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/denvers-azucar-bakery-wins-right-to-refuse-to-make-anti-gay-cake (accessed April 7, 2015).
[3] “William J. Clinton – Remarks on Signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,” The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=46124 (Accessed April 3, 2015).
[4] “State Religious Freedom Acts,” Home School Legal Defense Association, January 28, 2015.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000083.asp (accessed April 3, 2015).
[5] TEXT: Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act: SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 101, Senate of the State of Indiana ^ | March 27, 2015 | Government of the State of Indiana. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3272850/posts (accessed April 6, 2015).
[6] Tim Cook, “Opposing ‘religious’ bills requires courage,” Tulsa World, April 3, 2015, A-17.
[7] Eliana Dockterman, “Miley Cyrus: Indiana Religious Freedom Law Supporters ‘Are dinosaurs, and they are dying off’,” Time, March 31, 2015. http://time.com/3766436/miley-cyrus-on-indiana-law/ (accessed April 6, 2015).
[8] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 10-11.
[9] Ibid., p. 247.

Humanism’s equality handcuffs freedom and violates the Constitution

Until recently most Americans had never heard of the highly respected Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran. That changed dramatically when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed fired Cochran because of his religious beliefs. The facts behind the firing are straightforward. Cochran self-published a book in 2013 titled Who Told You That You Were Naked? One paragraph in the book labeled homosexuality as “a perversion.” After the mayor learned of the book, he initially placed Cochran on a thirty-day suspension beginning November 24, 2014.[1] The mayor denied knowing that Cochran had written a book prior to his suspension. However, Cochran stated that he had given the mayor a copy of the book in January 2014, and that the mayor promised to read it on an upcoming trip. Cochran also said the director of Atlanta’s ethics office had given him permission to write the book and to mention in his biography that he was the city’s fire chief.[2]

Following the one-month suspension, the mayor fired Cochran just as he was preparing to return as head of the fire department. Defending his decision to fire Cochran the mayor stated, “This is not about religious freedom. This is not about free speech. Judgment is the basis of the problem.” Prior to Cochran’s firing, the mayor publicly condemned the fire chief on his official Facebook page. “I profoundly disagree with and am deeply disturbed by the sentiments expressed in the paperback regarding the LGBT community. I will not tolerate discrimination of any kind within my administration.” Georgia Equality Executive Director Jeff Graham stated that Cochran’s “anti-gay” views could result in a hostile work environment.[3]

Cochran said that the comments regarding homosexuality were contained in less than one-half page of a 160 page book he wrote for a men’s Bible study group at his Baptist church. He stated that the reference to homosexuality was made in the larger context that sexual activity was designed to be between a man and a woman in holy matrimony. Outside of that, any other sexual activity including homosexuality is sin.[4] Further, Cochran defended his beliefs and his right to express himself.

The LGBT members of our community have a right to be able to express their views and convictions about sexuality and deserve to be respected for their position without hate or discrimination. But Christians also have a right to express our belief regarding our faith and be respected for our position without hate and without discrimination. In the United States, no one should be vilified, hated or discriminated against for expressing their beliefs.[5]

In an Opinion Page piece by The New York Times, it was not a surprise to find that the newspaper supported Cochran’s firing. The Times Editorial Board stated that Cochran’s claim of religious discrimination had it backwards.

It is, as Mr. Reed said at a news conference, about ‘making sure that we have an environment in government where everyone, no matter who they love, can come to work from 8 to 5:30 and do their job and then go home without fear of being discriminated against…It should not matter that the investigation found no evidence that Mr. Cochran had mistreated gays or lesbians. His position as a high-level public servant makes his remarks especially problematic, and requires that he be held to a different standard. The First Amendment already protects religious freedom…Nobody can tell Mr. Cochran what he can or cannot believe. If he wants to work as a public official, however, he may not foist his religious views on other city employees who have the right to a boss who does not speak of them as second-class citizens.[6] [emphasis added]

It appears that the Times Editorial Board subordinates religious freedom and the practice thereof to the whims of a hypersensitive workplace environment and totally extinguishes freedom of religion and speech for high-level public servants and governmental officials.

Should the Times Editorial Board have been present with the patriots at Valley Forge on March 10, 1778, their radical egalitarian sensibilities would have experienced great shock perhaps resulting in terminal apoplexy because of a high governmental official’s supposed flagrant discrimination against one Lieutenant Enslin as a result of his attempt at homosexual actions.

Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier; Secondly, For Perjury in swearing to false Accounts, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th Article 18th Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss’d the service with Infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief [George Washington] approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return; The Drummers and Fifers to attend on the Grand parade at Guard mounting for that Purpose.[7]

Should the Editorial Board still be in doubt as to Washington’s Christian beliefs, less than two months after Lieutenant Enslin’s disgrace Washington issued these orders to his troops at Valley Forge.

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.[8]

How did America arrive at such a state of affairs that the extreme egalitarian views of humanistic governmental officials equate one’s Christian beliefs and the sharing of those beliefs with the creation of a hostile work environment? Even though the fire chief was not found guilty of mistreatment of homosexuals in or out of government, Cochran was deemed guilty because of his status as a public official who expressed religious beliefs that were contrary to the beliefs of the homosexual community. It is ludicrous for The New York Times to label Cochran’s firing as anything other than a blatant violation of Cochran’s First Amendment rights which apply to every American including public servants and officials of whatever rank or station.

Equality, rightly applied, is equality before God and the law. However, the humanist understanding of equality is synonymous with a rapacious egalitarianism that imposes regimentation and leveling. This twisted understanding of human equality places special emphasis on social, political, and economic rights and privileges and focuses on the removal of any imagined or invented inequalities among humankind. This focus results in a forced leveling of society which leads to socialism and ultimately loss of freedom.

Driving religious beliefs from the public square does not enhance but destroys religious freedom in order to attain the egalitarian ideal. Because of a growing humanistic worldview among the leadership of the institutions of American life, the nation’s central cultural vision is under assault from humanists’ surgically precise efforts to separate church and state and to sweep away all evidence of our Christian cultural heritage. Even our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of religion and speech are no longer sacrosanct from such assaults. For humanists, religious freedom means only freedom to spread the humanist orthodoxy and worship their god of equality.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “Atlanta Fire Chief fired over controversial statements,” myfoxatlanta.com, January 6, 2015. http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/27772986/mayor-holds-news-conference-on-fire-chiefs-future (accessed January 21, 2015).
[2] Todd Starnes, “Atlanta Fire Chief: I was fired because of my Christian faith,” Fox News, January 7, 2015.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/07/atlanta-fire-chief-was-fired-because-my-christian-faith/ (accessed
January 21, 2015).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] The Editorial Board, “God, Gays, and the Atlanta Fire Department,” The New York Times, January 13, 2015.
[7] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 642.
[8] Ibid., pp. 642-643.

The difference a day makes – Another interpretation

The voters of Oklahoma amended its state constitution in November 2004 to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Following a suit filed in Tulsa County, U.S. District Judge Terrance Kern ruled the ban on same-sex marriage was a violation of the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Because the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal, gay marriage became legal in spite of the wishes of approximately 75% of Oklahoma’s electorate. [1]

Toby Jenkins, head of Oklahomans for Equality, hails the decision as a sunrise on a new day that ended “marriage discrimination” in Oklahoma. He cites four examples of such alleged discrimination: failure to process loan applications by same-sex couples, prohibition of same-sex couples from sharing an apartment in an assisted living center, prohibition from having a vehicle title issued in both names of a same-sex married couple legally married in another state, and prohibition of the right to request cremation of a deceased partner by the other partner in a same-sex relationship. [2]

However, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear challenges to rulings allowing same-sex marriage in some states may be more of a go-slow approach than an endorsement of same-sex marriage. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ November 6th ruling favored those that define marriage as being between one man and one woman and almost guarantees the highest court will take up the issue at some point. The language within the Sixth Circuit’s ruling is significant, “…marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.” [3]

In upholding the traditional view of marriage, the court’s verdict ended with these words. “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.” [4]

For most people in Oklahoma and America, Mr. Jenkins’ sunrise for equality is in reality a sunset for liberty. Ultimately, same-sex marriage is not just about equality, honor, and dignity for the proponents of same-sex marriage but a means to force the majority of Americans to forfeit their religious beliefs, bow to the god of equality, and embrace the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that deny this reality of the LGBT agenda, just ask the president of Gordon, a Christian college that is being threatened with loss of accreditation because of the school’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. [5] Or ask the Lexington, Kentucky, tee-shirt maker who was found to have violated the city’s Human Rights Commission’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. His crime? He refused to make tee-shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. [6] Or ask Jennifer Keeton, a former graduate student in counseling at Augusta State University, who was threatened with expulsion unless she changed her religious beliefs that failed “to conform to professional standards” with regard to LGBT issues. [7]

For millions of others in America who oppose the LGBT same-sex agenda because they adhere to the tenets of their Christian faith, the sun is setting on religious freedom as the nation descends into a dark night of coercion and oppression.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Writ of Certiorari, The Supreme Court of the United States, Sally Howe Smith v. Mary Bishop, et.al., August 6, 2014. http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Oklahoma-Smith-petition-8-6-14.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[2] Toby Jenkins, “The difference a day makes,” Tulsa World, November 9, 2014, G-6.
[3] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 14-1341, Opinion, November 6, 2014. p.7. http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0275p-06.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[4] Ibid., p. 42.
[5] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting- standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[6] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).
[7] Sarah Netter, “Georgia Grad Student Sues University Over Gay Sensitivity Training,” abcNews/US, July 27, 2010, http://abcnews.go. com/US/georgia-student-sues-university-lgbt-sensitivity-training/story?id=11261490 (accessed August 7, 2010).

The synchronization of the American church?

“This court has no jurisdiction over me, I am a German,” insisted Herman Goring as he stood with other Nazi war criminals in 1946 before an international military tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany. But Robert Jackson, chief counsel for the United States, responded that “…there was a ‘law above the law’ that stood in judgment of all men in all countries and societies.”[1] These contrasting views of the source of laws by which men should be judged continue to be at the heart of the cultural conflict in America—is the ultimate source of law to be God or man? Modern America and the American church face the same dilemma as faced by Germany and the German church of the 1930s.

We have previously quoted Eric Metaxas with regard to the dramatic changes in German life following the democratic election of Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933. In less than two months the democratically elected Reichstag (parliament) succumbed to pressure from the Nazi political machine and placed the whole power of the government under Hitler’s control. Thus began a series of radical changes to conform all of German life to Nazi rule. Metaxas’ eloquent assessment of events bears repeating.

With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made “legal.” Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself…In the First months of Nazi rule, the speed and scope of what the Nazis intended and had begun executing throughout German society were staggering. Under what was called the Gleichschaltung (synchronization), the country would be thoroughly reordered along National Socialist lines. No one dreamed how quickly and dramatically things would change.[2] (emphasis added)

Herman Goring, the second most powerful man in Germany and founder of the Gestapo, called this dramatic reordering of society merely an “administrative change.”[3] “Everything must now be synchronized under the Fuhrer’s leadership and under the idea of Gleichschaltung—and the church must lead the way.”[4] The synchronization of the church began with a series of regulations and laws that effectively wed the church to the state and compromised the very biblical principles upon which their faith rested. These laws and regulations initially dealt with the “Jewish question” and included restrictions on Jews from serving in professions such as the law, medicine, teaching, literature, the arts, theater, and film. Christians of Jewish blood were also prohibited from serving in the ministry.[5]

Casting aside two millennia of Christian orthodoxy, the majority of the German churches willingly allowed themselves to be synchronized with the prevailing German political and social goals instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ. They wanted a strong state-oriented church, a “positive Christianity” that was “very aggressive in attacking those who didn’t agree with them and generally caused much confusion and division in the church.”[6] Eventually, the German church of the 1930s separated into three groups: the large apostate German Christian church, the Confessing church which initially opposed Hitler but became the silent church of appeasement, and a small but faithful remnant that became the uncompromising and suffering church. We see much the same divisions between churches in twenty-first century America, only the dividing factor is now centered on humanism which Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had.[7]

Bonhoeffer was a leader in in opposition to the Nazis and the German apostate church. Bonhoeffer preached that the purpose of the state was to make possible law and order as opposed to lawlessness and disorder, and it was the church’s role to “continually ask” whether the state’s actions could be justified as legitimate. But Bonhoeffer also recognized that the state could not only fail by in the provision of law and order but could also harm society with the imposition of “excessive law and order.”[8] Metaxas quotes Bonhoeffer’s indictment of the Nazi regime.

And if on the other hand, the state is creating an atmosphere of “excessive law and order,” it’s the job of the church to draw the state’s attention to that too. If the state is creating “excessive law and order,” then “the state develops its power to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith…of their rights.” Bonhoeffer called this a “grotesque situation.” “The church,” he said, “must reject this encroachment of the order of the state precisely because of its better knowledge of the state and of the limitations of its action. The state which endangers the Christian proclamation negates itself.”[9]

An excess of law and order makes it difficult if not impossible for the church to question the state regarding the legitimacy of its actions. By questioning the state’s excessive laws and order imposed on its citizens, the church may violate the very laws to which it objects. The inability of the church to question the state with regard to its actions is particularly relevant to the twenty-first century American church which finds itself at the same point of decision as faced by the German Church in 1933. Here we return to our initial observation that essence of the modern struggle in America is to determine whether man’s law supersedes God’s law. Put another way, is man’s law above God’s law as implied by Herman Goring and much of the humanistic leadership in American society? Two immediate examples expose the seriousness and immediacy of the challenge to the church.

Annise Parker is the left-leaning and openly gay mayor of Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest City. In May she imposed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance which prohibits businesses from discriminating against gay and transgender residents. The ordinance became known as the “bathroom bill” because one of the provisions allows transgender individuals to use either a male or female public restroom facility. Opposition to the ordinance began growing during the summer as pastors and various religious leaders gathered signatures for a referendum to be placed on the November ballot which would repeal the ordinance if passed. To prevent the referendum, the city attorney subsequently rejected thousands of signatures he believed did not qualify.[10]

Under the guidance of the mayor and city attorney, both still smarting from the significant efforts of the religious community to repeal the human rights ordinance, five pastors were subpoenaed and ordered to turn over to their sermons, text messages, photographs, electronic files, calendars, and emails and virtually all communication with members of their congregations on topics such as homosexuality and gender identity. The pastors face fines and possible incarceration if they fail to do so. The obvious goal of the mayor and city attorney is intimidation. However, one pastor responded, “We’re not intimidated at all. We’re not going to yield our First Amendment rights—even if it ends in fines, confinement, or both.”[11] With opposition growing to the mayor’s effort to silence the church, Houston City Attorney Feldman remained unfazed and warned the pastors that, “The fact that you happen to be a pastor and you happen to be at a church doesn’t provide you with protection.”[12] But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had a different interpretation for Feldman contained in an official letter to the city, “Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment. The people of Houston and their religious leaders must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that their religious affairs are beyond the reach of the government. Nothing short of an immediate reversal by your office will provide that security.”[13] [emphasis added]

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is a lot smaller (about 46,000) and a long way from America’s fourth largest city. But for the liberals and other advocates of the homosexual agenda, no place is too small to be overlooked when rooting out any perceived violation of human rights. Ministers Don and Evelyn Knapp who have been marrying couples for twenty-five years at their Hitching Post Wedding Chapel recently discovered this when the city told them that they would go straight to jail if they refused to “marry” same-sex couples (180 days in jail and fines up to $1,000 per day for every day the ministers refuse to perform the ceremony). Unlike the Colorado cake baker’s business, the Knapp’s chapel is a religious corporation. But this makes little difference to the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender mafia as they trample religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment under the guise of achieving their perverted definition of human rights.[14]

Albert Einstein was exiled from Germany because he was a Jew. Although he did not believe in a personal God, he was not an atheist. He described himself as somewhere between an agnostic and belief in a pantheistic god in which nature is the totality of everything and is identical with divinity. Yet, even though he was not a believer in Christianity, the suffering church had a profound impact on his life.

Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came I looked to the universities to defend it…the universities took refuge in silence. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers…but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few weeks. I then addressed myself to the authors…They are, in turn, very dumb. Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.[15]

As it was for the German church in 1933, it is decision time for the American church of today. We must ask ourselves: At what point do we have to become lawbreakers rather than betray our faith? The Houston pastors have given their answer.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 60-61.
[2] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 149-150.
[3] Ibid., p. 157.
[4] Ibid., p 176.
[5] Ibid., pp. 150-151, 156-157, 160.
[6] Ibid., p. 151.
[7] Ibid., p. 85.
[8] Ibid., pp. 153-154.
[9] Ibid., p. 153.
[10] Josh Sanburn, “Houston Pastors Outraged After City Subpoenas Sermons Over Transgender Bill,” Time, October 17, 2014.
http://time.com/3514166/houston-pastors-sermons-subpoenaed/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[11] Tony Perkins, “Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor’s Sermon Grab,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 15, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/houstunned-pastors-vow-to-fight-mayors-sermon-grab (accessed October 21, 2014).
[12] Tony Perkins, “A Subpoena for Your Thoughts…”, Tony Perkins Washington Update, October 17, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/a-subpoena-for-your-thoughts (accessed October 21, 2014).
[13] Tony Perkins, “Pulpit Friction: Texas Leaders Rally to Pastors’ Defense,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 16, 2014. http://www.frcblog.com/2014/10/pulpit-friction-tx-leaders-rally-pastors-defense/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[14] Tony Perkins, “Natural Marriage in Idaho: Give it Arrest,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 20, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/natural-marriage-in-idaho-give-it-arrest (accessed October 21, 2014).
[15] Lutzer, p. 89-90.

Connecting the dots: The homosexual agenda

For many Americans who have been clueless about the homosexual agenda and its ultimate goal for American culture, the rapidity of recent events has caused their understanding to become clearer as the relevant features of the agenda reveal the big picture. Much like connecting the dots on a child’s line art puzzle, Americans are increasingly able to connect the dots of the homosexual agenda as each event/demand/right is connected with a preceding event/demand/right until what was once a jumble of seemingly unrelated and innocuous platitudes, occurrences, demands, and actions becomes a recognizable and frightening reality.

One of the major tools for winning concessions for the homosexual agenda is the plea/demand/right for tolerance and equality as defined by humanism. The humanists would force all to bend their knees at the altar of tolerance and equality, but that altar requires bowing to the god of humanism and embracing the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that fail to bow, they become the objects of intolerant harassment through restrictions on free speech (speech codes), coercion, intimidation, and loss of religious freedom.

Current examples of the sacrifice of religious freedom upon the altars of humanist tolerance are legion. One of the many is the effort to crush religious freedom at Gordon College, a 125 year old nationally ranked liberal arts Christian college with 1700 students located in Wenham, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. The college’s website states that it “…combines an exceptional education with an informed Christian faith.”[1] However, the college’s effort to fulfill its promise regarding the provision of an informed Christian faith has caused it to run afoul of the New England Association of schools and Colleges‘ Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Gordon is being charged with potentially violating the standards of the accrediting agency because of Gordon’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff, both on and off campus and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. Loss of accreditation typically results in loss of U.S. Department of Education federal financial aid for students which tends to be a death knell for colleges.[2]

Commission director Barbara Brittingham states that the commission has not dealt with a case involving potential sexual orientation-related discrimination but that, “It’s a matter of looking at the information we have and deciding if the institution is meeting our standards.”[3] [emphasis added] One wonders if the commission’s standards include consideration of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

But that is not the end of the story. It seems that the tentacles of humanistic tolerance must reach into all levels of society to choke out perceived discrimination. The City of Salem now refuses to let Gordon use its city-owned Old Town Hall because of the college’s policies violate a municipal ordinance that prohibits Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate. The mayor of Salem was exceptionally sharp in his criticism of the college. “The clear message is that homosexuals are not worthy of employment, or even recognition of their existence, in the Gordon community. It is a slap in the face of every gay and lesbian person, particularly every gay and lesbian Christian, that says you are somehow less of a human being, you do not belong in the embrace of God’s merciful arms.”[4] Apparently, the mayor has never read the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans in which God condemns homosexual behavior.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves… [Romans 1:18, 24. RSV]

A planned White House executive order will bar federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation and include colleges such as Gordon whose students receive federal financial aid. Numerous Christian leaders have requested the President to include a religious exemption.[5] If an exemption is not allowed, Christian colleges and universities across the nation will be forced to accept students and hire teachers whose beliefs contradict the beliefs, mission, and goals of those institutions.

One Gordon graduate and subsequent employee left Gordon because he could not come out as openly gay. He subsequently formed GordonOne, an LGBT organization. He believes that Gordon’s president “has made Gordon a fortress of faith rather than a place where the doors are open to people who want to be part of a conversation about what it means to be a Christian.”[6] [emphasis added] It is apparent from this former student-employee’s comment that we must begin any conversation about what it means to be a Christian with three assumptions: the Bible is not the final authority on what it means to be Christian, the Bible’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality cannot be accepted, and the doors of Christianity are not open to homosexuals. Only after these suppositions and assumptions are accepted can the conversation begin. In other words, Gordon’s goal of providing an “informed Christian faith” is acceptable only after being sanitized by the LGBT community to meet their litmus test of tolerance and equality. To pass that test, Gordon must surrender beliefs in unchanging biblical truth and that it must accept practicing homosexuals as Christians.

Gordon is not the only one in the crosshairs of the homosexual agenda. No organization is too large or too small to be strangled by the tentacles of its intolerant agenda. We’ve heard of the woes of various cake bakers who, based on their religious beliefs, had the effrontery to refuse to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Now we have the case of the Kentucky tee shirt decorator who refused to make tee shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. After two years, Lexington’s Human Rights Commission ruled that the tee shirt maker violated the city’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. The commission’s Executive Director Raymond Sexton believes that Christians in the marketplace must “…leave their religion at home.” Otherwise, he warned, “you can find yourself two years down the road and you’re still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so. We’re not telling somehow how to feel with respect to religion, but the law is pretty clear that if you operate a business to the public, you need to provide your services to people regardless…”[7] [emphasis added] But the Human Rights Commission is telling someone how to feel with respect to their religion. That is the purpose of diversity training…to tell someone how they ought to feel and think.

As the dots are connected on the picture of the homosexual agenda in America, it becomes increasingly evident that it portrays the suppression and consequent eradication of Christianity from the public square in America. The first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Religious beliefs and feelings translate into exercise thereof, and the Constitution protects not only religious feelings and beliefs but free exercise as well. Commissioner Sexton and others promoting the homosexual agenda would prohibit both.

In light of the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, how can the President, the New England Commission on Higher Education, the City of Salem, the City of Lexington, and a legion of others sidestep the Constitution by requiring Christians to abandon the exercise of their most deeply held religious beliefs? They cannot unless we allow them to do so. If we allow the demagogues of humanistic tolerance and equality to prevail, then the free exercise of religion will mean little more than that which can be practiced behind the closed doors of a silent church or in the muzzled confines of one’s heart. This certainly cannot be the intent of the Founders.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Gordon College, http://www.gordon.edu/ (accessed October 8, 2013).
[2] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting-standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Evan Allen, “Gordon College joins request for exemption to hiring rule,” The Boston Globe, July 4, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/03/gordon-college-president-signs-letter-asking-for-religious-exemption-from-order-banning-anti-gay-discrimination/79cgrbFOuUg7lxH2rKXOgO/story.html (accessed
October 13, 2014).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).