In my posting “Ireland? This is what I have been talking about!” I warned about Justice Kennedy casting the deciding vote on the future of our country. I explained that we are in this situation because of the failings of church leadership to teach Christians that they really can believe the Bible! Now it has happened. We know what side of the bed that Justice Kennedy woke up on. Justice Kennedy sided with Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kegan (two Obama appointees), Ruth Bader Ginsberg (an ACLU lawyer and a Clinton appointee) and Stephen Breyer (another Clinton appointee). Together, they decided two dudes or two gals could be “married.” Yes, elections do have consequences.

In 2009, I was really troubled when I read about Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy being banned from the very church her father, D. James Kennedy had pastored – Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. D. James Kennedy had a great impact on my life. Her banning was a result of disagreements with the new pastor Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham’s grandson), to include Tchividjian’s decision to not take on cultural issues from the pulpit.

What I loved about Kennedy is he would take on the issues of the time and use the pulpit to educate people on issues such as evolution, abortion, homosexuality, and the history of this country. On Sunday, June 19, Kennedy Classics replayed his message “The Real Thomas Jefferson.”

By contrast, as recently as December 2014, on MSNBC Morning Joe, Tchividjian stated “Over the course of the last 20 or 30 years, evangelicalism, specifically their association with the religious right and conservative politics, has done more damage to the brand of Christianity than just about anything else,” and “That’s not to say that Christian people don’t have opinions on social issues and we shouldn’t speak those opinions, but Sunday morning from behind the pulpit is not the place.”

My question is: If Christians are not to learn about contemporary issues from a biblical perspective from the pulpit, where are they to get all of their information? From CNN? From MSNBC where Tchividjian appeared? Even FOX News does not necessarily have a biblical perspective. Bill O’Reilly is a theistic evolutionist. He talked about how Christians “thump the Bible” on the gay marriage issue. He said conservatives were winning more on the abortion issue because we are using science. What O’Reilly misses is that science is just now catching up to the Bible. In Psalm 139, David described how he was “knit together in my mother’s womb.” But if you listen to Bill O’Reilly, a Catholic, he places church teaching over the Bible – a dangerous thing to do. I describe in my book how the Catholic Church put out a statement in 1943 that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible because the church bought into the line from “scholars” that “These people were illiterate until basically the 8th century BC.” We now know that they did have a written language using symbols for sounds.

So Christians certainly cannot depend on news pundits for their information on current events if we want a biblical perspective. John Peter Muhlenberg was a Lutheran Minister who certainly believed ministers should inform their parishioners on current events. He preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes saying   “There is a time to preach and a time to fight. And now is the time to fight.” He then led 300 men in his church and they began the 8^th Virginia Regiment during the Revolutionary War. His brother, Fredrick Augustus Muhlenberg did not think a preacher should be involved in these things – until the British burned down the church that Fredrick was pastoring. Both Muhlenbergs were elected to the first United States House of Representatives and Fredrick was the first Speaker of the House.

Reverend John Wise’s ideas from the pulpit were foundational to our American Revolution. Pastor Jonas Clark led his parishioners at the Battle of Lexington and preached about it from the pulpit.  Other pastors that spoke out on the issues affecting the colonists include Jonathan Mayhew, and Abraham Keteltas.  Pastors were referred to as the “black robed regiment.”

Before the Civil War, Elijah P. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister, was killed by a mob for printing an anti-slavery newspaper. Another minister who spoke out against the political leadership in his country was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was executed in 1945 for complicity in a plot to assassinate Hitler. His last thesis was What is Meant By Telling the Truth.

Martin Luther King Jr. certainly got involved in the events of his time. He stated “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,” and “It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Church (of which I am a member) finally got around to admitting it was wrong for its pro-slavery roots and then afterwards not taking a stand for civil rights. Sadly Southern Baptists did support slavery on biblical grounds. What they missed was Paul’s letter to Philemon. Also, they missed that according to Genesis, we are all descendants of Noah and part of the same human family. Slavery in the Bible, while tolerated, was not based on “race.” It was more of servitude and the Mosaic Law actually gave rules on how slaves should be treated. The Southern Baptists had gotten it wrong on slavery because they were motivated by self-interest when they interpreted the Bible.

So twenty years after Southern Baptists finally admitted that we got it wrong for not standing up for civil rights; should churches fail to make a stand for life, for a biblical concept of marriage and sexuality, or most importantly for the truth of the Bible which provides the foundation for these positions?

Tullian Tchividjian believes that pastors should avoid talking about political issues from the pulpit and those that do have been destructive. The problem is, as we see today, is that politics do affect Christians and the church. I believe Tchividjian was chosen as the senior pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church because he was young and charismatic, and he was the grandson of Billy Graham. The church leaders forgot how the church got to where it was under the leadership of Kennedy. Now that Tchividjian has resigned because of an extra-marital affair, it might be a good opportunity for the leaders of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church to reflect on whether or not they made the right decision in choosing him. And after today’s disastrous Supreme Court decision, it might be a good time for much of church leadership everywhere to wake up and realize how it has also failed – hence the title of my book Why Should I Believe? Why Should You Believe? – A Wake-Up Call to the Church!

I am really afraid for this country. We look at how God punished ancient Israel for turning away from Him. The kingdom split, then the northern kingdom of Israel was carried away by the Assyrians. And later the Kingdom of Judah was carried away by the Babylonians. Even before today, God has had plenty of reason to punish us (U.S.). Since Roe v. Wade (another un-Constitutional decision), we have killed 58 million unborn babies in this country. Jeremiah 7 and Jeremiah 19 tell of the anger of God because the people of Judah were sacrificing their children.

“They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!  So beware, for the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when that garbage dump will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.” Jeremiah 7:30-32 NLT.

Fortunately God is patient. It was a long time before the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel. It was even longer before the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians. But we really need to look inward. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus stated ^“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.” NLT. Salt is a preservative. What has church leadership and what have Christians done to preserve this society?

Terry Read

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2015/06/billy-grahams-grandson-tullian-tchividjian-resigns-as-coral-ridge-presbyterian-pastor-after-admitting-affair-3174300.html

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http://saintpaulrepublicans.us/blog/2013/12/22/founding-grandfather-rev-john-wise-1652-1725/

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/359/The-Man-Who-Fired-The-Shot-Heard-Round-The-World.aspx

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http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/899