Protect and Defend Your Right to the Establishment of a Religion, and the Free Exercise Thereof – Part I

Protect and Defend Your Right to the Establishment of a Religion, and the Free Exercise Thereof – Part I

A few days ago as I started out reading my email, I got my normal tickler from TownHall. TownHall is my kind of place – a gathering place for right wing extreme writers for most of whom Tea Party is, correctly, recognized not as a party but as a movement, and a rather wimpy movement at that. Writers for whom real political parties are the American Nazi Party (no, I do not advocate Nazism, but it is a real and active party and you gotta admit not liberal at all), the Libertarian Party (liberal in its espousement of liberty) and my party, The Constitution Party.

My current TownHall homeboy is Doug Giles. Well, one of my homeboys. So is Chuck Norris, of course, and I like Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas and several others who show up on TownHall. They all have their own column websites in their home papers or publishing, but TownHall aggregates them handily for me. Anyway, back to Doug Giles. Anyone who writes a book about and for his daughters is quite OK by me, especially if that book is Raising Righteous & Rowdy Girls. You need to learn how to drop it, dress it, skin it and butcher it before you learn how to cook it, as Doug and Ted Nugent would point out. Me? Not quite that extreme. But, as I think of extreme I recall one of my most favorite quotes of all time:

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! – Barry Morris Goldwater

One suburb away, in Evanston, I was president of Evanston Teenage Republicans when Hillary Rodham was president of Skokie Teenage Republicans. To my recollection, we never met. We did, I am sure, both work hard for Barry that year. I still have a boxfull of “AuH₂O in ‘64” buttons somewhere in the basement. Why did the extremism thought come to mind? Because Doug had written on

The Current Cowardly Church Needs a Mega Dose of the Rebel Spirit

read it here

In turn, then, I thought of the Armor of God and that we frequently try to go on front-line offensive with minimalist defense in the religion arena of politico-socio-ethnoracial-correctness of the post modern milieu; so, well to remind us of what we really should put on when we get up in the morning and why to do it:

The Message:

Paul Höganmöcher in his letter to the church at Ephesus, Chapter  6:

5 respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ.

6  Don’t just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ’s servants doing what God wants you to do.

7  And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you’re really serving God.

8  Good work will get you good pay from the Master, regardless of whether you are slave or free.

9  Masters, it’s the same with you. No abuse, please, and no threats. You and your servants are both under the same Master in heaven. He makes no distinction between you and them.

10 ¶  And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong.

11  So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way.

12  This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.

13  Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.

14  Truth, righteousness,

15  peace,

16  faith,

17  and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon.

18  In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

Now finally to the meat of what I will be later writing in my blog: Doug is right and we have a LOT of work and probably changing to do!!! And, here is the prayer he expressed to do it:

The Church needs the biblical rebel spirit of our founders injected back into the evangelical mix instead of this squishy, pusillanimous, ignoble and compliant crapola that’s currently cranking through our indolent pulpits and pews. God help the Church to lose its cowardly, effeminate bent in these critical days. Amen.

OK Here is Doug Giles column:

The Current Cowardly Church Needs a Mega Dose of the Rebel Spirit

By Doug Giles

7/8/2012

Whenever the ends of Government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the People may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new Government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. –Declaration of Rights, Maryland
Unlike America’s original rebel Christians who dumped the Brits’ taxed tea into Boston Harbor and told King George that he could kiss their King George, today’s evangelicals, I believe—especially the dandy ministers who love to be loved—would have folded like one-ply toilet paper before British oppression. We’re a timid tufted titmouse compared to our rowdy founding forefathers.
Here are four reasons why I believe today’s evangelicals would have melted like little bon-bons during the American Revolution:
1. Some dainty saints of today think rebellion against tyrants is disobedience to God, when the converse is actually true. Yep, these stooges of the machine believe that Yahweh wants Christians to be the corralled cattle of corrupt politicians and policies. Indeed, a lot of pop evangelicals have become nicer than God. Our current craven “faithful” think it’s sinful to say bad stuff about bad elected leadership. Many somehow think it’s righteous to go in an unrighteous national direction. And we’ve got stacks of do-gooders who are turning the other cheek to political abuse and generational theft so fast that they make Shakira look arthritic.
2. A lot of evangelicals would rather live as government slaves than live and die as free men. Some do it out of sinful slothfulness, completely passive and thus complicit in the face of evil. Others do so because they actually think Christ was a Communist and that government theft and wealth redistribution somehow fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. D’oh.
3. Others, especially in the ministry, won’t say squat about our political squalor because it’ll offend the emotional members of their congregation and thereby jack with their weekly offerings, which, in turn, will cause them to lose their vacation home in Naples where they’re currently banging their mistress. Here we are during one of the most crucial elections of our lifetime, and ministers don’t (or won’t) address these issues or show up at protests. Wow. Good luck at the judgment seat. I’ve been to many, many Tea Parties up and down the east coast of Florida and have only run into a handful of ministers. Where are you, ladies? Your absence and silence during America’s demise is more obvious than Pam Anderson’s recent enhancement. Hello, Judas.
4. Another thing that irks me is this end-of-the-world Rapture mentality that, supposedly, all of this bad stuff we’re currently fielding as a nation is God’s plan for the ages and that there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m sure glad our predecessors didn’t look at the gargantuan junk they were facing during times of oppression and upheaval and say, “Oh, well. The Rapture must be right around the corner.” No, what they did was think, work, pray and fight. And guess what, end-of-the-world Christian? They yielded up this grand experiment in self-governance, that’s what.
The Church needs the biblical rebel spirit of our founders injected back into the evangelical mix instead of this squishy, pusillanimous, ignoble and compliant crapola that’s currently cranking through our indolent pulpits and pews. God help the Church to lose its cowardly, effeminate bent in these critical days. Amen.
Doug Giles is the author of Raising Righteous & Rowdy Girls. Follow him on Twitter @Doug_Giles and on Facebook. You can see and hear Doug’s video blog and talk show at ClashRadio.com.