Fightin' Christians

Their god amighty where to start…

Thirty-three pastors in 22 states took to their pulpits and officially endorsed a candidate this past Sunday. Not surprisingly this is highly illegal but I’m expecting the current administration to fully endorse this based on that alone. Plus it seems that all of them endorsed McCain / Palin.

According to the US tax code if a church endorses a candidate for public office they are subject to losing their tax-exempt status. This makes perfect sense for a democracy; it is a safeguard to prevent religion from being blatantly injected into affairs of state giving whichever party that panders to them the most an army of loyal voters.

This entire staged event was choreographed by Arizona based Alliance Defense Fund purposely seeking to challenge the tax law. Their argument is that it is not an issue of church and state separation but one of first amendment rights. It’s not an endorsement but a personal choice.

Also not surprising, this isn’t true, any pastor is free to have personal choices, they are not free to impose that choice thru their religious authority. The challenge is sure to fail, it’s a ridiculous idea in the first place, but as usual there are interesting quotes.

Pastor Luke Emrich of New Life Church in Wisconsin addressed his congregation of about 100 stating “I’m telling you straight up, I would choose life…” before endorsing McCain and Palin following it with “But friends it’s your choice to make, it’s not my choice.”

Very Jesus like, giving followers the choice to take away the right to choose for others… because oppression is what the New Testament was all about.

Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Georgia stated “To say the church can’t deal with moral and societal issues if it enters into the political arena is just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”

No one is saying that, pay attention while the teacher’s mouth is talking okay? You can talk about issues all you want whether or not the issue enters into the political arena is a moot point. What’s being said is that you can’t enter into the political arena. By endorsing a candidate a church would breach that, it would be an official entry into political activism.

Oklahoma’s Fairview Baptist Church pastor Paul Blair stated “It’s absolutely vital to proclaim the truth and not be afraid to proclaim the truth from our pulpits.”

I just love that one; the arrogance, the desperation to be believed, the ignorance of confusing truth with opinion, it has all the stalwarts of great propaganda.

One alarming fact was cited in the article, 52% of adults want churches and other places of worship completely out of politics. That number seems awfully low to me, that should easily be a majority ideal in a democratic, land of the free home of the brave type of government.

In the end this is the same as what all religions of power try, to abuse government to advance their own ideas and make their lands a theocracy. It is up to the people, to us, to keep them from doing that.

Christians talk a lot about tolerance, that they aren’t being heard. But they are being heard all too clearly, the real problem is that Christians don’t listen very well. Christian beliefs are Christian beliefs, and that’s fine, but Christians must let others have their beliefs too, to do that, they must stay out of politics.