Two situations.  In one, people were asked to attend a graduation ceremony in a comfortable church auditorium with air-conditioning and comfortable chairs.  In the other, a person was tortured and killed for holding religious beliefs. 

Which one do you think represents the evil that our first amendment was meant to prohibit?

It was 50 years ago (September 12, 1960) that John F. Kennedy gave his now famous speech to the Houston Ministerial Society.   When JFK was running for President that year, he was facing severe criticism for being a Roman Catholic. And so during this speech, he emphatically declared that his faith would be separate from his duties as President.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute….  I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office…. 

I am not going to opine at length now about how idiotic it is to claim that a politician can separate his or her religious beliefs from civic duty.  A person of faith cannot separate religious beliefs from his or her thoughts and actions any more than you can separate your central nervous system from your body.  Your faith, if genuine, controls your every move, your every thought.  Faith is not something you “put on” when convenient.  Either you are a person of faith, or not. 

But I do want to comment on this perverted misunderstanding of the concept of “separation of church and state.”  Today, groups like the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State laud JFK’s speech for stating that there is an “absolute separation” between church and state.  They have used this misguided phrase to justify a purging of all things religious from the public square. 

Voluntary student prayer in the public schools?  According to the ACLU, this violates the separation of church and state. 

Prayers before Congressional sessions?  The ACLU says no. 

Ten Commandments monuments on display in front of the Courthouse?  The ACLU believes this is offensive and thus violates the separation of church and state. 

A public high school graduation being held in a comfortable church auditorium?  Not if the ACLU has its way!

But really, was the concept of separation of church and state meant to prohibit graduations in comfortable church auditoriums?  Was the genesis of this idea to clean up government lawns from being overcrowded with monuments?

No!  These things are all examples of living everyday life in a society where people have religious beliefs.  Rather, our founders were trying to prohibit the kind of punishment for religious beliefs like what happened to Michael Sattler. 

Michael was a leader of the Anabaptist movement in the 16th Century, and held several beliefs that were not shared by the ruling government of his day.  In America, our Constitution protects the right to hold beliefs that are not shared by the mainstream.  This was not the case in Michael’s day.

And so because of his beliefs concerning baptism, he was arrested as a heretic.  He was tried and convicted.  His sentence for holding these beliefs?  Death.

But he was not sentenced to an ordinary death.  His tongue was cut out to prevent him from giving his testimony during his burning.  Flesh from his body was torn with red hot tongs.  He was drug by a wagon across the town.  And this torture was concluded by being burned at the stake.

All of this – because of his beliefs.  This is why we have religious freedom in America.  We do not have religious freedom so that our religious history can be sandblasted from government buildings. 

The First Amendment was not meant to force graduation ceremonies to be held in crowded gymnasiums rather than a comfortable church auditorium.  Our Constitution was not meant to prohibit politicians, who possess Christian beliefs, from using that moral base to enact sound laws for this nation.

This type of thinking is a mockery to the real harm inflicted on our ancestors because of their religious beliefs.

Groups like the ACLU will argue, “But it’s a slippery slope.  Once you allow graduations to be held in comfortable plush chairs in an air-conditioned auditorium, then you are only one step away from dragging a person through town behind a wagon, tearing his body with fire hot tongs, and burning his body at the stake.”

The lunacy of this comparison is self evident.  But there is a slippery slope involved here.  And that is this – by following the road the ACLU would have us follow, we will end up being a nation whose children know nothing of our religious heritage, and where all things religious are banned from the public square because they might offend someone.

It’s time to remember what religious freedom is really all about.

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently sent a letter to the IRS to encourage the IRS to monitor, censor, and control Pastor Paul Blair’s sermon.  Pastor Blair is pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.  Pastor Blair, along with almost 100 other churches, participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  What did Pastor Blair do that was so egregious that AU would want to turn him in to the IRS?  Well, Pastor Blair preached a sermon that compared the positions of the candidates for office in light of Scripture and then made a recommendation as to how his congregation should vote based on that biblical evaluation.  Pastor Blair preached a sermon very similar to that preached by Timothy Dwight, a minister and President of Yale, who in 1798 urged his congregation not to vote for Thomas Jefferson for President.  And Timothy Dwight is just one historical example of pastors who preached similar sermons opposing or favoring candidates for office.

It’s ironic that a group that has “separation of church and state” in its name would argue and agitate for government-controlled churches.  AU wants pervasive and ongoing monitoring and surveillance of churches by the IRS.  That’s not separation of church and state no matter how you look at it.

If the IRS does audit Pastor Paul Blair, ADF will stand with him and other churches to defend his right to speak biblical truth from the pulpit.

A recent AP article picked up by news outlets across the country describes how Gano Baptist Church in Georgetown, Kentucky is teaching young people about our country’s religious heritage.  Here’s a description of the event in the Church’s own words:

At a Vacation Liberty School your children will be sent on a daily journey back to the founding of our nation and learn the truth about our history and the impact faith had on both the founding fathers and the foundation of our country.

Amazingly, the article quotes Americans United for Separation of Church and State as being concerned about this effort of a church to teach kids our religious heritage and how the Founding Fathers’ faith played an important role in their political decisions.  Let’s be clear – there is absolutely no legal prohibition on churches teaching about the religion of our founders, even if pastors do so from the pulpit. ADF has put together an easy to read summary of the current law governing churches and politics called “Guidelines for Political Activities by Churches and Pastors.” The only current prohibition on church political speech has to do with endorsing and opposing a candidate who is currently running for office (and ADF is doing its best to change that unconstitutional law through the Pulpit Initiative).

Gano Baptist Church’s Vacation Liberty School has nothing to do with particular candidates and is perfectly legal. One wonders why the Left is so afraid of kids learning the truth about our history. As Christ said, “The truth will set you free.” Gano Baptist Church appears to be doing a great job protecting our freedom by telling the truth about our history. I hope they keep it up and ignore the groundless warnings of groups like Americans United.

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Many of us have been there - playing on the school playground when suddenly you find yourself in the cross-hairs of the school bully.  There you are minding your own business when the bully comes up to you and perhaps demands your lunch money or just wants to pick on you to satisfy their own cruelty.  Maybe you stood there with sweaty palms and a racing heart and gave in.  Or maybe you chose to fight back.  But the passage of time gives us a perspective that perhaps many of us lacked in those playground situations.  As we get older and more experienced in life we realized that the bully was really nothing more than a weakling who made up for his own weakness by being loud and obnoxious.  Perhaps that reality dawned on you if you refused to be pushed around by the bully and stood up to him.

Whatever the case, playground bullies still exist today, and one of the organizations that gets a kick out of trying to bully churches is Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  ADF was recently the subject of an AU blog post full of bellicose bullying.  AU basically yells at anyone who listens to them, that ADF’s Pulpit Initiative is a failure and that we should just give up.

Basically, AU’s blog post boils down to threats and intimidation by the “playground bully” of churches.  And bullying churches is something that AU is very good at.  Every election cycle, AU sends letters to churches trying to scare them into not addressing the issues of the day, and breathing threats that any church who crosses AU’s imaginary line in the sand will get reported to the IRS (put another way, “if you don’t do what I say, I’m going to tell…”).  AU also reports churches to the IRS that it believes have violated the IRS rules and regulations.  What AU doesn’t tell you, though, is that the IRS almost never acts on any complaints AU files.  And what they don’t tell you is that the only substance behind AU’s threats against churches is their own say-so, which doesn’t amount to anything and certainly is not in line with constitutional law.

AU says that the Pulpit Initiative is a failure yet they continue to yell and scream about it to anyone who will listen.  This is the classic behavior of a playground bully who knows deep down inside that his only method of control is to scare people and who actually understands a threat to their regime of fear and intimidation. Keep reading… »