October 11, 2012
Column #1,624
Pastors Become Political in
Pulpit
By Mike McManus
“No follower of Jesus Christ is going to want to
vote for a person who violates Biblical principles. Tearing up
babies in the womb, destroying the definition of marriage –
who’d want to vote for somebody who would do that? And for that
reason, I’m voting for Mitt Romney,” asserted Pastor Jim Garlow
on Sunday at Skyline Wesleyan Church near San Diego.
Not your typical sermon, right?
However, Garlow chairs “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” which is
challenging the IRS ban on tax-exempt churches endorsing
candidates. Some 1,586 pastors preached a similar sermon last
Sunday, outlining their Biblical reasoning for voting for either
Obama or Romney. This is the fifth year that a growing number
of pastors preached a political sermon.
What’s more, they taped their sermons and sent them
to the IRS!
On the Steven Colbert Show, Colbert asked Garlow “You have been
trying to poke the hornet’s nest of the IRS. But they’ve never
responded. Why?”
“I assume they know they will lose in court. There
should be no government intrusion in the life of the
church…Whether a pastor is conservative or liberal, there should
be no pulpit police monitoring their speech. There should be
free speech, and it should be absolute.”
Colbert joked, “I don’t think there is enough
religion in our politics or enough politics in our religion. If
a politician you support loses, then you have a loser God.”
However, what’s at stake is extremely serious. Some
2,200 attorneys affiliated with the Alliance Defending Freedom
have offered free defense of any church the IRS challenges.
In the first 166 years of American history, churches frequently
and fervently spoke for and against candidates for office.
There were sermons against Thomas Jefferson for being a deist,
opposing William Howard Taft as a Unitarian and against Al Smith
as a Catholic. Churches were also at the forefront of most of
the significant societal and government changes in our history –
slavery, child labor and civil rights.
This proud history was truncated in 1954 when
then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson persuaded Congress to pass an
amendment stating that tax-exempt entities could not
“participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on
behalf of any candidate for public office.” LBJ was concerned
that two wealthy donors were using a non-profit to support an
opponent. He didn’t want to silence the church; but that was the
result.
For example, the IRS investigated the tax-exempt
status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena over a sermon
arguing that Jesus would not vote for President Bush because of
the Iraq war. After the church refused to cooperate with the
IRS investigation, the IRS closed the examination without
penalizing the church.
Garlow is probably right that the IRS fears it would
lose in court over the First Amendment’s guarantee that
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Therefore,
on the first Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2008 he and 32 other
pastors began to defy the “unconstitutional amendment.” He asks,
“How has it worked out for us over the past 58 years? Are we
more righteous or more Godly? Pulpits have gone silent. Pastors
in fear of the loss of their tax exemption have backed away.
They are afraid they can’t register voters. They have been
muzzled, intimidated and bullied.”
In his sermon Garlow quoted Jeremiah 1:5 on
abortion: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” And
Luke 1:41: “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby lept
in her womb.”
On marriage, he noted “Genesis starts with a wedding
of a male and a female. In Matthew 19, Jesus says “the Creator
made them male and female and said, `For that purpose a man will
leave his parents and cleave to his wife.’ The two complimentary
genders form the full image of God. As we come together in
physical marriage, what God has joined together, let no person
ever redefine, let no person tamper with. So when government
steps in with same-sex marriage, the results are immediate.
Personal freedom, religious rights, personal liberty and
parental rights are threatened.”
Across the country at Hope Christian Church in
Maryland, Bishop Harry Jackson asserted “We have an
out-of-control state legislature that put same-sex marriage into
the law,” on which there will be a referendum. As an
African-American, he challenged his black church: “The black
community has the highest unemployment. You are foolish to vote
against the God who brought you out of slavery, for a man
because his skin is black though he supports an anti-God,
anti-Gospel position on marriage.
“You celebrate your race over grace. No wonder you
can’t get a job.”
It’s time to unshackle the church.
|
|
Since 1981...
2000+ Columns |
|
CURRENT ARTICLE |
|
Febrary 9,
2022: Column 2113: My Farewell Column: Happy Valentine's Week |
|
Recent Columns |
|
Writing Columns About
Marriage |
|
Will Abortion Be Made Illegal? |
|
Restore Voting Rights to Ex-Felons |
|
Progress in Black-White Relations |
|
Marriage Is
Disappearing |
|
Catholic Priest Celibacy Should Be Optional |
|
Blacks Must Consider Marriage |
|
The Need to End Catholic Priest Celibacy |
|
More Lessons For Life |
|
Lessons For Life |
|
Rebuilding Marriage in America |
|
How To Reduce Drunk Driving Deaths |
|
The Value of Couples Praying Together |
|
A Case for Pro-Life
|
|
End
The Death Penalty? |
|
Christian Choices Matter |
|
The Biblical Sexual Standard |
|
The Addictive Nature of Pornography |
|
Protecting Girls from Suicide |
|
The Worst Valentine:
Cohabitation |
|
Pornography: A Public Health Hazard |
|
Sextortion Kills Teens |
|
Cohabitation: A Risky Business |
|
Recent Searches |
|
gun control,
euthanasia,
cohabitation,
sexting,
sextortion,
alcoholism,
prayer,
guns,
same sex marriage,
abortion,
depression,
islam,
divorce,
polygamy,
religious liberty,
health care,
pornography,
teen sex,
abortion and infanticide,
Roe+v+Wade,
supreme court,
marriage,
movies,
violence,
celibacy,
living+together,
cohabitation,
ethics+and+religion,
pornography,
adultery,
divorce,
saving+marriages |
|