Max Hastings, in an article for Mail Online, writes:  “Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalized youngsters.” He goes on to observe that a lack of moral training has resulted in children that

“are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong. They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others. Their behavior on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it.”

Mr. Hastings is speaking in biblical terms. 2 Peter 2:10-14 says people who despise authority “blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!”

Accordingly, church leaders in England are reported to have roundly condemned the rioting, but is anyone listening? Not many. Only 15% of people in the UK attend church at least once per month.  That’s down about 35% since 1980, and this downward trend which began in the UK in the 1950s is expected to continue.

Max Hastings is correct that this lack of morality is a result of lack of training, but he never identifies who or what should be doing the training.  He laments that schools aren’t capable of completing this great task because they lack the support of parents or the government to force students to do anything. Unfortunately, he never takes the final step of identifying that institution that is best suited to instill moral values in the population:  the church.

As I often point out, the church’s role as the moral compass of society was recognized in the USA from the very beginning. George Washington  said in his Farewell Address that only a moral people can govern themselves and our religious institutions are charged with teaching that morality. Unlike the UK, our churches are still in a position to do that.  A 2010 Gallup poll shows about 43% of Americans attend church weekly, and 54% do so monthly (if I am reading the statistics correctly). More importantly, most pastors are willing to preach about controversial moral issues such as abortion and homosexual behavior. A 2008 a survey indicates only 23% don’t preach on the issue of homosexual behavior, 18% won’t preach on abortion, and 17% avoid the same-sex marriage issue.  That means 77% of pastors do address homosexual behavior, 82% will preach on abortion, and 83% teach about the biblical view of marriage.  Interestingly, the topic the highest percentage of pastors say they will not address is politics (38%).  As the debate regarding abortion and homosexual behavior becomes more political, one wonders if these pastors will stop teaching about these important issues.

ADF’s Pulpit Initiative is designed to encourage pastors to speak up on all moral issues – even if they are political.  People in the pew need to know whether their political leaders have the proper biblical perspective on topics like homosexual behavior and abortion. but many pastors fear their tax exempt status may be jeopardized if they speak out on moral issues that happen to be political because of the Johnson Amendment. For example, this law prohibits churches from criticizing a presidential candidate because he supports same-sex marriage. To learn more about the Pulpit Initiative and participate in ADF’s plan to challenge the Johnson Amendment in court, visit PulpitFreedom.org.

It certainly is encouraging that the majority of  Americans still attend church where most pastors are still willing to teach biblical morality. We must be diligent to protect this right and fulfill this responsibility. ADF is committed to doing its part of legally defending pastors when they do speak out on political issues. Please contact use at speakupmovement.org/church or 1-800- TellADF, if you or your pastor are ever challenged for speaking biblical truth. And encourage every pastor you know to keep up the good work. The alternative is unacceptable. A silent church leads to the amoral anarchy that’s plaguing the UK today.

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Nearly 100 pastors from almost 30 different states participated in ADF’s third annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  Click here for a link to the list of participating churches.  These pastors spoke freely from their pulpits and applied Scripture’s teachings directly and specifically to the issue of candidates and elections. The goal of Pulpit Freedom Sunday is to protect a pastor’s right to speak freely from his pulpit without fearing government censorship or control and  to challenge the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment.

By all accounts, Pulpit Freedom Sunday was a great success.  Pastors participating reported that their messages were well-received by the congregations.  One pastor reported that his message drew a standing ovation from the congregation that was the largest standing ovation he had received in over 40 years of ministry.  All of this is, of course, anecdotal, but I believe it is also powerful evidence that when pastors are free to speak Scriptural truth from their pulpits without fear, then the Church and society at large benefits.

I will have more to say about Pulpit Freedom Sunday in future blog posts (and especially will have more to say about some of the criticisms), but for now wanted to highlight that Pulpit Freedom Sunday was a success and that we are excited about the days to come as we stand together with pastors across the country to protect the right of a pastor to speak freely from the pulpit.

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One of my colleagues was reading a law review article the other day from former Judge Mike McConnell and ran across an interesting notation about pastors speaking in favor of candidates from their pulpits even during the days immediately following the ratification of the United States Constitution.  James Madison, who is known as one of the architects of the Constitution, was seeking a seat in the very first House of Representatives in 1789.  Madison was initially opposed to an amendment to the Constitution protecting the rights of religious freedom and conscience but, as Judge McConnell wrote in his law review article:

[W]hen he [Madison] initiated his candidacy for Congress, he discovered that his Baptist constituents were prepared to throw their support to his opponent, James Monroe. On advice of his political adviser, George Nicholas, Madison contacted Baptist leaders and proclaimed his support for “the most satisfactory provisions for all essential rights, particularly the rights of Conscience in the fullest latitude.” He then championed a constitutional provision for religious liberty as a campaign issue. The Baptist leaders responded by giving him their electoral support, which contributed to his narrow margin of victory. A letter to Madison contains an interesting eyewitness account of a gathering at the Blue Run Baptist Church, at which the minister, the Reverend George Eve, “took a very Spirited and decided Part in your favour” and “Spoke Long” on the subject of Madison’s contributions to religious freedom. (McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harvard Law Review 1409, 1477 (1990)).

You can read Mr. Johnson’s actual letter to James Madison online here.  I have a couple of thoughts in response to this.  First, I find it interesting to note that it was pastors who provided the impetus, at least in part, for the First Amendment, and specifically the protection of religious freedom.  Pastors have always been at the forefront of the great social and moral issues facing America and this is just one more example.

Second, as McConnell notes, it was only after pastors pressured Madison that he switched his position to support a provision that would later become the First Amendment.  This little vignette from American history demonstrates just how much of an impact pastors can have on American life.  And this is just one story in a mountain of historical evidence of the positive impact pastors have had on American history.

Finally, it seems to me that this story illustrates a powerful rebuttal to those who oppose the ADF Pulpit Initiative by arguing that allowing pastors to participate in politics will result in corruption of the church.  The Johnson Amendment was enacted in 1954.  There is at least a 166 year track record from the time of the ratification of the Constitution to the adoption of the Johnson Amendment.  The weight of history demonstrates that the clergy ably handled their important role in American electoral politics for those 166 years.  With this historical record, the charge that allowing pastors to speak freely from their pulpits would corrupt the church rings hollow.

Pastors have had an enormous influence on American history.  That influence has been unjustly removed by an unconstitutional law that had nothing to do with pastors in the first place.  It’s time to right the ship and restore the pastors’ rightful place in American life.  That’s what the Pulpit Initiative is all about.

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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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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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