I was on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday debating Pulpit Freedom Sunday against Barry Lynn from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  You can hear the audio of the debate by clicking here.

For too long, AU has tattled on churches to the IRS.  It has used the IRS as a weapon to silence churches.  Pulpit Freedom Sunday is intended to remove that weapon from the hands of groups like AU who are bent on promoting their own agenda by silencing churches.  No pastor should ever have to fear the IRS or any special interest group when they stand in their pulpit to preach scriptural truth.  Pastors have a right to speak freely from their pulpits and that’s what Pulpit Freedom Sunday is all about – protecting that right.

To find out more about Pulpit Freedom Sunday, click here to visit the website.

Pulpit Freedom Sunday is coming closer.  On October 2, 2011, hundreds of pastors will stand united in their pulpits and preach freely on issues related to candidates and elections.  Most pastors have not been preaching sermons like this since the Johnson Amendment was added to the tax code in 1954, effectively silencing the speech of pastors through intimidation and fear.  Yet a growing nationwide movement of pastors are refusing to be intimidated.  They are willing to stand up and exercise their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion by boldly preaching on Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  These pastors are courageously regaining the freedom of the pulpit.

Many years ago, James Garfield said:

Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . [I]f the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.

The Church has a role to play in upholding morality and exalting righteousness in America.  For the last 57 years, the American pulpit has fallen silent and politics and politicians have gotten a “free pass” from the biblical watchdogs who have been afraid to raise their voice against rampant evil and unrighteousness.

But that is all about to change.  Watch this Sunday, October 2, as hundreds of pastors exercise their prophetic role in this country.  As my good friend Pastor Jim Garlow says, this could be the final ingredient we need for the next Great Awakening in America.  Let’s pray together to that end.

If you want to find out more about Pulpit Freedom Sunday, visit our website.  We encourage every pastor in America to join us in Pulpit Freedom Sunday.  It’s not too early to begin to think about next year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday as well.

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What should the Christian response be to radical hate?  What is the church to do when the security and safety of the sanctuary is attacked by a group whose mission is to instill fear in anyone who opposes their agenda?

This is not an esoteric question.  Unfortunately, it is a question that all churches must consider.  We live in a world where the Christian message is hated.  Christians worldwide are facing persecution because they adhere to the life-giving message of Jesus, and want to share that message with others.  Some face death for aligning with Christ.

In America, the heat is being turned up on Christians, and our sanctuaries are not off-limits.

On Nov. 9, 2008, members of a group called Bash Back!, dressed in militant garb, staged a protest outside Mount Hope Church, near Lansing, Michigan, during a worship service.  These masked protestors blocked the exits and entrances to the parking lot and building.  One witness testified as to how scared he was when the protestors started surrounding his car as he was trying to come to church with his family.

But this outside protest was merely a ruse to distract church security from what their group was planning to do inside the sanctuary.  As security was heading outdoors to see what was going on, other members of the group, who were dressed in plain clothes and had entered the building and sanctuary previously, took over the service.  Some went on the platform.  Many ran up and down the aisles throwing their pro-homosexual propaganda at the congregants.  One female couple began kissing near the stage.

The group started shouting chants and religious slurs, like “it’s ok to be gay! Jesus was a homosexual!”  Members from the group unfurled a sign from the balcony.   Witnesses of the event described how they were immediately scared for their children.  One witness said he realized that he was seeing a strategic, coordinated effort, and was very concerned as to how it might end.

What would you do if your Sunday morning service was hi-jacked?

After the incident, this group bragged about its activities on its Web site and, on a separate page, explained its choice of Mount Hope:  “This church is nothing short of a disease in the community, and in the minds of those who attend.”  The Lansing chapter of the group targeted Mount Hope Church because of the church’s well-known Christian views on marriage and homosexual behavior.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit in federal court on behalf of the church to stop Bash Back! and other activist groups from invading churches in the future.  Federal law imposes penalties upon anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

This type of activity not only disrupts worship by silencing pastors and terrifying adults and children, but it could lead to deadly results.   The Bash Back! Web site, which features a banner photo of members dressed in terrorist-like garb and wielding various objects as weapons, states on one page of the site that the group’s activities include “Riots, Sex Work, Crime, Insurrection, you know the fun stuff we do.”

The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan has now entered judgment against Bash Back!, and the case is now concluded.  The church took a stand against this violent behavior, not out of any kind of retribution, but out of a desire to keep this type of activity from happening again.  If you are a pastor or church leader, you should review your church’s security policies.  You can also contact ADF for any legal concerns you might have.

You never know when you might be forced to answer this question of “what would you do” in real time.

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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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As others have pointed out, the Obama administration’s legal attack on the Defense of Marriage Act, which partially relies on the move to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” lacks controlling legal precedent or persuasive moral reasoning.  That alone is sufficient reason to oppose it.  But the President’s use of DADT repeal to attack DOMA is wrong for two other important reasons.  When President Obama rammed repeal through the lame-duck Congress, he did so while relying heavily on the existence of DOMA to ward off many of the problematic implications of repeal.  Moral concerns about marriage and religious liberty, along with fiscal concerns about benefits and housing, were rejected as irrelevant because DOMA allegedly prevented many of them from materializing.  Effectively, Congress was told to accept DADT repeal based on DOMA’s authority, all while the President was just a month away from launching an unprecedented attack on DOMA as soon as he secured DADT repeal.

But the actual situation now is much worse than a regrettable tale of political shenanigans and hypocrisy.  The military’s attempt to brace service members for repeal—via painfully inadequate PowerPoint training slides—still relies on DOMA’s existence to answer many controversial problems.  Thus, our troops are having a radical change imposed on them during a time of war by a Commander-in-Chief who is training them to rely on a law that his administration is actively trying to subvert.  This is wrong.  Misleading Congress is one thing.  Misleading the men and women in harm’s way who must follow his leadership is a wholly indefensible other thing and should not be tolerated.  Congress should demand that the President explain his duplicity to it and stop his mistreatment of our troops.

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