Pastor Paul Blair recently spoke at an ADF event about his participation in ADF’s Pulpit Initiative.  We have posted video of his remarks on our website.  Pastor Blair is pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and was one of the 33 courageous pastors who stood boldly and spoke Biblical truth from his pulpit about the 2008 elections and the candidates running for office during that election.  As Pastor Blair explained about his participation, he and other pastors around the country “all joined together and we stood in our pulpits and we opened the pages of Scripture and we preached about the issues that were at hand that would be affected by the elections of 2008.”  Pastor Blair then took a copy of his sermon and sent it to the IRS.  He has not heard anything from the IRS yet but says he is unafraid because he knows ADF has his back.

Pastor Blair is also unafraid because he knows “we are right constitutionally and we are certainly right Biblically.”  Constitutionally speaking, the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional.  It was when it was passed and it is now.  Read our white paper on why the Johnson Amendment unconstitutionally infringes the rights of pastors and churches.

In his remarks, Pastor Blair issued a call to America’s pastors.  He said, “We need another generation of God-fearing patriot pastors to stand up today if America is going to be saved.”  Will you be one of those pastors?  Take the step, follow Pastor Blair and others like him and sign up for the Pulpit Initiative.

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As we’ve discussed repeatedly here (and I really mean repeatedly), repealing the law against open homosexual behavior in the military will almost certainly harm religious liberty for chaplains and service members, especially since Congress has refused to include an exemption for religious liberty in any of its repeal efforts.

But, as the Catholic Archbishop for the Military Diocese, Timothy Broglio, recently pointed out, other fundamental concerns are also at stake.  Namely, the moral voice of the military is in danger of being silenced at a time when its guidance is most in need to an institution which—because it must daily make life-or-death decisions—requires a trustworthy moral compass.

Shutting the mouths of chaplains—who not only provide religious services and counseling, but also regularly teach courses in ethics to military leaders and are specially tasked to provide ethical gudiance to commanders of their units—sends a message that their guidance isn’t trustworthy in the real world of the military.  As a fighter pilot I was talking to recently pointed out, this will be extremely difficult for young Service members trying to come to grips with the morality of war and their place in it.

Even in a best-case scenario following repeal, where chaplains are allowed some small freedom to, for instance, preach about their beliefs on sexual ethics within the confines of a chapel, reliance on the military’s most-sought moral guide—the chaplaincy—will still be irreparably damaged.  A soldier listening to his spiritual chain of command in chapel services will hear one thing, but outside the chapel will to be ordered by his military chain of command to do the opposite.  This cannot help but to create a deep impression in such a soldier’s mind: religion is a curiousity for non-serious matters, but has no application to how the job is done. 

This bleak best-case scenario would not last long.  The military cannot become divided against itself and remain an effective fighting force.  And there’s no question who will lose the battle between chaplains and military command.  Thus, chaplains who believe in something more permanent than the whims of shifting political majorities will find themselves increasingly marginalized and, ultimately, discharged.

And then a huge swath of Service members will find themselves without chaplains who share their faith to turn to for moral guidance in these war-torn days which try soldiers’ souls. 

Is that a sacrifice worth making for political correctness?

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If you’re a military chaplain, active or retired, and are interested in becoming involved in this issue or signing the Chaplains Letter, please contact us with your information.

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The fictitious wall was not built over night, and it will not be dismantled over night.  This past week, ADF confronted the tangible results of the myth of an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state.  We sent out 151 letters to various governmental entities asking them to stop the discrimination against religious people.  These governmental entities, whose policies control over 750 public meeting rooms across the country, ban religious uses of their public meeting rooms.  So even though these rooms could be used by essentially any group to discuss any topic, they are off limits to Christians to discuss their religious viewpoints.

The most troubling aspect of this is the law in this area is crystal clear, and has been for some time.  In 1993, the Supreme Court ruled in  Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, that a public school cannot prohibit a group from accessing its facilities to talk about Christian views on the family when the school opens its facilities to others to talk about the family from secular perspectives.  Your Christian world view does not disqualify you from being a full citizen in America.  Legally speaking, the matter was settled.  The Supreme Court spoke, and there was no wall!

But just to make sure local governing bodies got it, the Supreme Court reiterated this viewpoint neutrality requirement in 2001 in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98.  In this case, the Court said that even when dealing with a Bible club in an elementary school, governing officials cannot discriminate against Christian views when giving access to its public meeting rooms.

So in light of this clearly established law, why is it that so many unconstitutional policies remain on the books?  I see two primary reasons.  First is ignorance.  So many people have bought into the myth of strict separation of church and state, and have heard this lie for so long, that they have come to believe it is a bedrock constitutional principle.  They are shocked to learn the phrase “separation of church and state” is no where found in our constitution!  When a lawyer tells me that there is an impenetrable wall separating church and state in our constitution, I just hand them a pocket constitution and say, “show me.”  They can’t because it’s not there.

Second, there is a faction out there that despises religious people.  There can be no appeasing this crowd.  They know that there is no wall of separation found in the constitution, but they wish it were there.  So they repeat this erroneous constitutional principle over and over and over in hopes that it will stick in peoples’ mind.  And unfortunately, the fact that so many bad policies are still on the books is evidence that their plan has worked to a degree.

So these governmental agencies have options in how they will respond to ADF’s letter.  Either they can treat this as an opportunity to educate themselves, learn what the constitution really says, and fix their policies.

Or, they can dig in their heels, insist on promoting an anti-religious agenda, and keep on discriminating against Christians.  Let’s hope our governmental officials do the right thing and stop the discrimination.

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My generation (I graduated high school in 1984) seems to get the biblical teaching about mercy and forgiveness. After all, we willingly forgave Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions in the Oval Office with very few questions asked. But we often miss the fact that Christ also taught observance of the law and justice. For instance, He admonished religious leaders to consider their own sin before stoning the woman caught in the very act of adultery, but instructed the woman to go and sin no more.

Perhaps this inability to balance justice and mercy, as Micah 6:8 instructs, explains the failure of many church-going Christians (at least one survey says “most”) to understand why normalizing homosexual behavior in the military is unwise. But even if we put aside the direct effect this rejection of biblical morality will have on our nation’s moral health, the indirect effects on religious freedom are alarming.

In a series of blogs, ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg is doing an excellent job of pointing out how the repeal of the current so called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law (often referred to as “DADT”) is going to muzzle our military chaplains. Forcing the military to condone homosexual behavior will necessarily restrict religious freedom by limiting the ability of military chaplains to preach and provide counsel to service members about the dangers of this sin.

If you think this restraint on religious freedom will be confined to the military, you’re wrong. We’re already seeing the conflict between the radical homosexual agenda and religious freedom in the civilian context. An April 28, 2010 letter from numerous chaplains opposed to repealing the ban on homosexual behavior in the military catalogues numerous examples: prison chaplains disciplined for not permiting homosexuals to lead their services, religious student groups restricted for not allowing homosexual leaders, businesses fined for not participating in same-sex “marriage” ceremonies, and churches penalized for not making their facilities available for a same-sex relationship commitment ceremony. More importantly, giving ground on DADT will make it extremely difficult to hold the line protecting marriage. Repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act will undoubtedly be next.

If we don’t rein in this mad dash for mandated acceptance of homosexual behavior, it’s just a matter of time before government officials come after pastors for disseminating “hate speech,” when all they’re doing is preaching biblical morality. It’s already occurring in Europe and evidence of it heading our way can be seen in Canada.

As Dave Welch recently pointed out in his article, pastors have long had the right and obligation to speak up on things like repeal of DADT. Exercising this right is the best way to avoid a future where protection for it is weakened, or eliminated altogether.

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Many of you know by now that ADF’s Pulpit Initiative is a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment.  I had the pleasure of speaking recently to some West Virginia attorneys at a CLE presentation where I spoke about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC and what impact that case may have on the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment (more to come on that in later posts).  As part of the presentation, I spoke on the history of the Johnson Amendment and how Lyndon Johnson got his amendment to the tax code passed with no legislative analysis, no committee hearings, and no debate.  After the presentation, a professor at a local university told me that in West Virginia, what Johnson did with his amendment to the tax code would have been called a “fat opossum” because it snuck through under cover of darkness.  That’s a perfect tag line for the Johnson Amendment.

James D. Davidson, a professor at Purdue wrote an article in the Review of Religious Research (excerpt here) that should be required reading for all pastors.  In his article, he explores the political realities of the 1954 U.S. Senate election in Texas that led to the adoption of the Johnson Amendment.  After reviewing the legislative and political history of the Johnson Amendment, Davidson concludes:

The ban on electioneering has nothing to do with the First Amendment or Jeffersonian principles of separation of church and state.

Davidson is right.  He details in the article how Johnson was motivated to propose his amendment to the tax code as a means of silencing two powerful secular non-profit organizations (Facts Forum and the Committee for Constitutional Government) that were opposing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate because they believed he was soft on communism.  Davidson states:

The ban on electioneering is not rooted in constitutional provisions for separation of church and state.  It actually goes back to 1954 when Congress was revising the tax code, anti-communism was in full bloom, and elections were taking place in Texas.  In this highly-charged political environment, Lyndon Johnson introduced an amendment banning section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt orgaizations from participating in “any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”  . . .  Johnson was not trying to address any constitutional issue related to separation of curch and state; and he did not offer the amendment because of anything that churches had done.  Churches were not banned from endorsing candidates because they are religious organizations; they were banned because they have the same tax-exempt status as Facts Forum and the Committee for Constitutional Government, the right-wing organizations that Johnson was really after.

The Johnson Amendment is a big fat opposum.  It was a bill that got inserted into the tax code through back-room deals made by a powerful Senator who wanted to be able to seek reelection at any cost and, in the process, trampling freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.  We have grown up with a generation of chuch-goers that believe it is illegal for their pastor to address candidates and elections in light of Scripture or church doctrine when there is no valid justification for believing that.

The Johnson Amendment was unconstutional when it was passed and it is unconstitutional now.  It’s high time that we shined the light of the Constitution on this particular fat opposum.

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