Revolutionary Pastors! Pulpit Freedom Sunday
“Satan walks into a lawyer’s office and offers him 10 times his current salary, a long life and victory in all of his cases. In return, Satan asks for his soul and the souls of his wife and children. The lawyer answers, ‘What’s the catch?’”
Lawyers are often the brunt of public derision. On the continuum of American regard, they rank somewhere between kidney stones and serial killers. When the CEO of RJR Nabisco was asked his opinion, F. Ross Johnson replied, “The only thing I expect out of lawyers is that they be back in their coffins by sunup.” Yet, if there is any occupation that breeds even greater contempt, it’s the modern journalist. With an approval rating of 8%, they rank even lower than congress – Lower than Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, and Nurse Ratched herself, Dame Pelosi.
For the first time since Gallup has been asking the question, nearly 60% of the American people answered “Not very much” or “None at all” when asked about their trust level of the national media. And it’s not just Brent Bozell who is recording and resenting the media bias. The incestuous relationship between the main stream media and the Progressive Movement has become so insidious that even lifelong liberals are sounding the alarm. Pat Caddell spoke recently at Accuracy in Media Conference and went as far as to call the modern media, “the enemy of the American People”.
The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse — and this is the danger of the last two weeks — what truth that you may know as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people.
Again, that’s not coming from William F. Buckley Jr.’s nephew; that’s The Democratic Pollster with credentials that reach back through Jerry Brown, Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Jimmy Carter, even the McGovern campaign.
While I’m glad he’s speaking out, and I completely agree with his assessment of the Pravda American Press; I think his conclusion falls a bit short. I don’t believe the founders believed that the Press would be the main watchdog of government corruption and I don’t think that the press is the primary deficiency in the communication of truth. The Reverend Charles Finney gives us the answer, when, in a room full of Pastors, he threw down like Colonel Slade at the Baird School,
If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.
Finney’s exhortation is as fitting today as when he first gave it voice, and his conclusion is seconded by a somewhat unlikely pragmatist – Albert Einstein:
Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks . . . Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. – TIME MAGAZINE
Now here’s the rub; this Sunday is PULPIT FREEDOM SUNDAY. On a page at speakupmovement.org; the Alliance Defending Freedom explains, “In response to more than 50 years of threats and intimidation by activist groups wielding the Johnson Amendment as a sword against the Church, Alliance Defending Freedom began Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2008. The goal of Pulpit Freedom Sunday is simple: have the Johnson Amendment declared unconstitutional – and once and for all remove the ability of the IRS to censor what a pastor says from the pulpit.”
The initiative has grown every year, from a few dozen originally to now over 1,000 pastors who will be participating; but here’s the startling news. There are 350,000 churches in America, and that means that 349,000 of them will not be standing for freedom this Sunday. Startling? I can top it.
There are over 5,000 lawyers who have volunteered to stand for freedom. Do the math. We have five times the amount of courageous lawyers in this country than we do Shepherds. Now, It’s an honor to be among the participating clergy, and I salute the Attorneys who, at their own risk and expense, are willing to stand for Freedom; but how has it come to this among the “Lord’s Faithful”?
In the last ten years, the Christian church in America has lost men like Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy and Adrian Rogers, and what has filled the void in their absence? – A cackling scarecrow with a Joker smile and a guy who isn’t sure if his purpose is to be Oprah or Jillian. Child, Please! If the pulpit “is responsible” and the Confessing church in Germany was responsible; what of your pulpit, Parson? Are you up for the Black Robe regiment or down for the count?
Shepherds, those who have ears to hear, let them hear. There’s a Philistine in the field and he’s mocking your God and your Country. God gave you the rod and the staff for a reason. Get out of the comfy chair; take off your Mr. Rogers sweater, stand on your hind legs and put on the armor of God. We are within days of a moment when freedom may come to a screeching halt. Let’s get about the business of Liberty and do something fine for our country today. And on November the seventh, Lord willing, let us summon the fowls of the air for their princely feast.
Image: John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg; American clergyman, Continental Army soldier during the American Revolutionary War, member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate from Pennsylvania; sculpted by Blanche Nevin; Given by Pennsylvania to the National Statuary Hall Collection. http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/muhlenberg.cfm; User LouI on en.wikipedia; public domain