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Freeing Pastors to Equip the Body of Christ

Posted on May 15th, 2012 Religious Freedom | No Comments »

When it comes to college basketball, Lexington, Kentucky is “Title Town USA.”   With its precision offense and shot-blocking defense, the home-town University of Kentucky Wildcats won another NCAA national championship a few weeks ago.

But away from the basketball court, some folks in Lexington refuse to acknowledge that religious freedom ranks No. 1 in the Bill of Rights.

Some folks like the local Gay & Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO).  If they get their way, religious freedom will be dealt a huge defeat like those served on so many of the Wildcats’ basketball opponents.

Alleging “discrimination,” GLSO is demanding the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission slap a technical foul on the Christian-owned business Hands On Originals.

Blaine Adamson, co-owner of Hands On Originals shirt shop, declined GLSO’s request to print t-shirts for a “pride” parade celebrating homosexual behavior.  The co-owners of Hands On Originals sincerely believe in the inspired Word of God, and they strive to live by its commands in their personal and public lives.  They disagree with the message served by these “pride” parades, and they exercised their right to be obedient to God.

In retaliation, GLSO is urging large customers of Hands On Originals – including the University of Kentucky – to boycott the shirt shop, which could be forced to lay off employees if business revenue drops substantially.

Blaine Adamson joins a growing list of Christian business owners facing legal attack in the clash between the free exercise of religion – the first liberty affirmed in the U.S. Constitution – and the homosexual legal agenda.  The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and our allies have successfully defended many of them, but other costly legal battles rage on.  In New Mexico, Elaine Huguenin awaits appeal of a similar “discrimination” charge – for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony.”  If convicted, she may have to close her photography business.

This issue brings two vitally important questions into play for believers.  How should the Body of Christ respond to these predatory assaults on religious liberty?  And, are pastors free to scripturally equip their congregations on how to respond to attacks on religious freedom?

It’s crucial for Christians to understand the serious legal risks they face in the public square as they strive to uphold their biblical beliefs.  Pastors also need to understand the attacks against their congregants and how to lead in a time of hostility toward religious freedom.

Pastors can take an important step in leadership by participating in the ADF Pulpit Freedom Sunday October 7th when hundreds of pastors will preach the full counsel of scripture on the issue of candidates and the election to equip their congregations and to counter a challenge to their own free speech.

They do so knowing Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) will bluster and complain.  This radical group is threatening pastors with intimidating letters warning them to refrain from speaking on some of the moral issues which will help their congregations.

This bullying has been happening since Congress hastily approved the “Johnson Amendment” in 1954.  The act modified the Internal Revenue Service tax code and overturned 178 years of free speech for America’s pastors, who now risk loss of tax exemptions for applying scripture or church teaching to the issue of candidates and elections.

For instance, if Blaine Adamson’s pastor urges the congregation to vote for political candidates who will uphold religious liberty, AU will file a “complaint” (really just a tattle-tale letter) with the Internal Revenue Service demanding the church lose its tax exemption.

The Alliance Defense Fund and our allies are protecting churches willing to courageously challenge this unjust tax law.  While we’re not encouraging pastors to become political commentators, we are urging them to determine the content of sermons on their own.  For too long, pastors self-censored their messages and essentially enabled the IRS to determine what can and can’t be said in the pulpits of America.

Pulpit Freedom Sunday pastors are forwarding recordings of their sermons to the IRS in hopes of drawing investigations.  When IRS officials attempt to whistle a church for a flagrant foul, ADF will sue the IRS in an attempt to overturn the Johnson Amendment.  Our goal is to regain complete freedom for America’s churches.

Please pray for victory in the battles for religious freedom in Lexington, in New Mexico, and across America.  Pray for free speech for our pastors

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“Our _____, Who Art In _____ … Nobody Knows Your Name”

Posted on October 5th, 2011 Religious Freedom | 3 Comments »

Have you ever thought about who you pray to? The name. The deity. Jabez cried out to the “God of Israel.” Daniel prayed, “O Lord, the great and awesome God….” Jesus himself, when giving us an example, prayed, “Our Father, who art in Heaven….”

The point is that, when we pray, we are communicating with God, so we call Him by His name. We are reverent. We are sincere.

It is hard to think of a practice more intimate, more to the core of a person’s religious beliefs, than the name in which a person prays. Calling to a deity is a person announcing who he believes in.

So that is why it is so odd that the government is now trying to get in the business of telling people how and to whom to pray.

Let me provide a little context. In Marsh v. Chambers, the United States Supreme Court was presented with a legal challenge to the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of permitting a chaplain to open its sessions with prayer. This chaplain, Rev. Palmer, had been hired by the Nebraska Legislature and, for 16 years, offered prayers before the legislature. According to the plaintiff, these prayers were unconstitutional because they were exclusively in the Judeo-Christian tradition, many were in Jesus’ name, and thus the prayers favored Christianity.

The Supreme Court, after reviewing all of the prayers, and after noting that the practice of legislative prayers has been going on in America since before we became a nation, found that the prayers did not violate the Constitution. The Court said,

“The opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country. From colonial times through the founding of the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom.”

So that should have settled this issue that prayers are permitted to open legislative sessions. But it didn’t. Groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State had lost one fight but were not about to give up.  But since they could not challenge the prayers themselves, they instead attacked the deity to whose name the prayers are offered. These groups want the various town councils, counties, and state legislatures to tell people that they cannot pray to Jesus.

They want the government to tell people how and to whom to pray!

One would think that a group that calls itself “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” would not be advocating for the government to tell people how and to whom to pray.  If anything, one would think that if the town did tell people how to pray, this group would be on our side.  I mean, if “separation of church and state” means anything, it should mean that the government should not be in the business of telling people how or to whom to pray.

But that is exactly what they were asking the Town of Greece to do in the case , a case pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Surely, no federal court would require a government official to tell a private person how to pray. But in Joyner v. Forsyth County, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently ruled that the county’s practice of allowing prayer before its meetings was unconstitutional because it did not instruct the prayer giver on how to pray, or rather, to whom the prayer giver should not pray. According to the court, because the county failed to properly instruct the prayer givers on how to pray, many prayers were given in Jesus’ name, and thus were unconstitutional.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund represent the county in this lawsuit, and we will be asking the Supreme Court to take this case and restore some consistency to the law governing legislative prayers.  We believe that the government should not be in the business of telling private individuals how or to whom to pray. This is a matter best left between the person and God. The question of whether a town council or a legislature can open its session with prayer has already been decided by the Supreme Court:  such deliberative bodies clearly can.

The issue, then, becomes, to whom should that person pray? And at the very least, the Establishment Clause should mean this – the government should not be establishing an official deity to whom it is acceptable to pray. Now that would be an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

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ADF Senior Legal Counsel - Church Project

Churches Still Beneficial, But How?

Posted on August 15th, 2011 Churches and Politics,Culture | 1 Comment »

In case you missed it, Barna published a study a couple of weeks ago that proves most Americans still think churches play an important role in their communities. The study “shows that three-quarters of U.S. adults believe the presence of a church is ‘very’ (53%) or ‘somewhat’ positive (25%) for their community.”  But the study also shows that about 20% of people don’t have any idea what benefits churches actually provide and only 14% believe the church should be instilling moral values in the community.

We’ve lost sight of the vital role churches play in our local communities in our nation as a whole. This is something our Founding Fathers had very specific ideas about.  George Washington said in his Farewell Address:  “And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure–reason & experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Our political system is built upon the idea that people should be able to govern themselves. But that idea presupposes a moral people and any parent of a two year old knows morality isn’t something that just comes naturally.  It must be taught and the church as the Body of Christ has the right and responsibility to do that teaching.

It’s tragic and dangerous that most people don’t see churches as providing a moral compass for communities. Churches and pastors must boldly step into that roll. Otherwise, someone or something else will. We all can see it’s already happening. The miracles of television and the internet put modern day “heroes” in our living rooms (and bed rooms) every night. Unfortunately, those heroes are usually Hollywood socialites or athletes who were never meant to model good morals (and usually don’t, with some notable exceptions).

Encourage your church to be a moral compass in your community today. If you’re worried about the legal ramifications of that, contact us at ADF by visiting our website at speakupmovement.org/church. We’ll provide you with information demonstrating that churches have the right to engage the community on moral issues, and we’ll have your back if that right is ever challenged.

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ADF Senior Counsel - Church Project

Good News! Americans United for Separation of Church and State admits the phrase “separation of church and state” not in Constitution

Posted on July 25th, 2011 Churches and Politics | 3 Comments »

In a recent post on the Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s website, Charles C. Haynes, a scholar in First Amendment issues, was quoted as saying “that the actual words ‘separation of church and state’ aren’t in the Constitution.  But…the principle of separation clearly is.”

The post then tries to pit the Alliance Defense Fund against this view, saying that our own words show that we just don’t get it because we have said that “the ACLU and its allies have twisted history by using the so-called ‘separation of church and state’ as a legal platform to restrict your religious freedom.”

There is no conflict here.  The Jeffersonian view of separation is one wherein the First Amendment shackles the government but keeps the Church free, as is clearly seen in Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists; the kind of separation leftist radicals embrace is one wherein the government is often used to silence public display of faith—a concept that the Founders never embraced or fostered.  Likewise, the Church is not the entity that should be mounting a national defense or handing out speeding tickets.

This is what ADF means when it says the actual words “separation of church and state are not in the Constitution” and that secularist groups have “twisted history” by using their view of separation “to restrict your religious freedom.”

Nonetheless, we are pleased to see AU admit that the actual words “separation of church and state” aren’t in the Constitution. Yet sadly, it doesn’t appear that this admission has dampened their zeal for opposing things like Texas Governor Rick Perry’s calls to prayer or invocations at graduation ceremonies or the public display of the Ten Commandments.

In fact, AU coupled their announcement that the actual words “separation of church and state” aren’t in the Constitution with news that their latest polling numbers show that 67% of respondents agree that “the First Amendment requires a clear separation of church and state.” The problem is that they never quantify how many of those respondents agree with the Jeffersonian view of separation or the kind of separation leftist radicals embrace

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ADF Senior Counsel - Church Project

Does ADF Believe the Constitution Contains a “Separation of Church and State?”

Posted on January 27th, 2011 Religious Freedom | 2 Comments »

I always find it amusing to read the blogs put out by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the radically secularist organization.  The blog posts are so full of cliche and fantasy, that it strains credulity to try and believe them.  The most recent “contribution” to the hyperbolic musings of the AU blog was this little piece that trumpeted that ADF has now “converted” to AU’s position, and now believes that “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution.  AU claims that, “The Alliance Defense Fund has suddenly become an ardent supporter of church-state separation.” Well, let me state in no uncertain terms that AU is dead wrong.

ADF has not suddenly “converted” and is certainly not joining with AU in its march to radically secularize society.  No, ADF does not believe that the phrase “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution.  And anyone with a modicum of reading ability can read the Constitution and know that the phrase does not appear anywhere in the text.  And, lest there be any doubt on the issue, ADF stands in complete opposition to virtually everything espoused by AU and its philosophy.

Let me tell you how this all happened.  ADF filed a lawsuit against the Town of Mission, Kansas, over its driveway tax.  The basic gist of the lawsuit is that the newly-instituted driveway tax is a property tax in disguise and thus churches should be considered exempt.  The City of Mission, however, is calling the tax a “fee” and is charging churches in order to subvert the property tax exemption for churches.

Since the lawsuit was filed, I have given a number of interviews on the case, including the interview cited by AU with Religion News Service where I was quoted as saying, “It makes no sense to tax churches and to limit their ability to provide their services, and it does damage to the constitutional separation between church and state.”  AU seized on this quote to argue that ADF had suddenly converted to believing in the “separation of church and state.”

First, AU never checked to make sure that I was quoted accurately.  And anyone who reads news stories, or has ever been quoted in them, knows that sometimes a correct sense of what the interviewee was trying to convey is not contained in one quote.  That’s certainly the case here where I was definitely not intending to convey that the Constitution contains a “separation of church and state.”

The quote I made was in the context of a larger argument about the fact that there is a proper understanding that church and state should be separate in some ways.  This is a view that ADF has always adhered to and fought for (which is also Jefferson’s view), that the state is prohibited from in any way attempting to control churches.  Jefferson’s “wall” metaphor was intended to protect churches from intrusion and control by the state.  In fact, in the very next paragraph, the article states, “He acknowledges that church-state separation is generally not an argument made by his conservative Christian law firm; but in this instance, he says “there should be a separation here.”

What I was trying to convey (perhaps not as articulately as I could have) is that specifically as it relates to taxation, churches should not be taxed by the state. There should be a separation there that recognizes the sovereignty of the church in matters of religion and that prohibits the state from attempting to exert its sovereignty over the church in a manner that could destroy the free exercise of religion.  The Supreme Court has stated before that the power to tax involves the power to destroy.  Thus, when the government exerts its power to tax churches, it can also exert its power to destroy them.  That’s not the free exercise of religion no matter how you look at it.  It is in this context that the state should remain “separate” from churches.

So there is a proper way to understand that state and church should be separate, but it is not AU’s twisted view of that phrase which seeks to silence pastors and churches, rewrite America’s history, and radically reinterpret the Constitution to remove all religion from the public square.  AU’s construction of the “wall between church and state” is meant to snuff out the voice of faith from the public square.  There are literally scores of cases where AU has demanded that the sword of the state be brought to the necks of people and institutions of faith.  Let’s remember that AU is committed to state-controlled churches, no Ten Commandments in public buildings, no high school graduation ceremonies in church buildings, no prayers before legislative assemblies, and not even allowing students to have a moment of silence before the school day because they “might” choose to pray.   These, and many other things AU is committed to, serve only to usher in a radically secularized America that is completely at odds with our foundational principles and the Constitution itself.

AU’s attempt to paint ADF as converting to its position is pure theatrics without any substance – it serves only to evoke the reaction I had when I read their claim – laughter.

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ADF Senior Legal Counsel - Church Project

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