Religion: Is it Right? Or is it Blight?

“A school board in Kansas recently adopted a clergy policy that bars pastors from school lunchrooms. Apparently, a local youth pastor was having lunch with students from his youth group in the local school lunchroom. Upon learning of the pastor’s presence at the school, the school board in Fort Scott, Kansas, adopted a new policy restricting the youth pastor’s access to the lunchroom, citing “decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States” as the basis for the new policy. Any future development of such clergy policies would not come as a surprise to us but they should be resisted vigorously.”

In case there are any people out there who still either don’t believe or don’t take seriously that the personal and public rights of religious leaders are in serious constitutional jeopardy today, please consider the aforementioned true story that developed in Kansas in the early weeks of 2009. The fact is, modern American pastors, who care to express themselves without unconstitutional restraint, are in a battle for their own First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion – a battle eerily similar to that which took place in correlation with the Nazi movement in Germany, prior to the outbreak of WWII.

It is a matter of public record, that the Lutheran pastorate, in particular, not only found its pulpits constrained by the fascist creation of “separation of church and state” laws, but by the largesse of German public opinion, who, sadly, approved of Hitler’s doctrine concerning the need to use human law against religious liberty. The result? An overwhelming capitulation among the pastorate, which, according to the same historical records, chose to take the path of personal convenience at the expense of their professional and moral mandate to unwaveringly confront evil. With the exception of a small number of Lutheran pastors, like Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was hanged for resistance against the Nazi movement in his early 30’s, most pastors stood idly by and allowed the German culture to quite literally “go to hell.”

With that said, can you even imagine an openly homosexual man being barred from “fellowshipping” with little boys during lunch break at a public school in Kansas? Absolutely not! The school establishment, filled with teachers’ union cronies who publicly support the radical homosexual movement, wouldn’t dare do such a thing! But what about a pastor who meets a church kid for lunch? Well, in Fort Scott, Kansas, that is, apparently, a different story!  Pastors are more and more often treated as though they are the proverbial “scourge of the earth” by our leftist political culture. If you paid any attention to what happened in Sioux City over the city-hall prayer issue in February of 2008, it isn’t hard to document the virulent hatred expressed by the secular left.

As Jesus said to the women crying behind him on the way to His crucifixion, “Weep for yourselves, if they [Roman authorities] do this [torture and murder] in the green tree [those who are spiritually alive, like Me] what shall be done in the dry [a reference to the spiritually dead Jewish nation]?” Jesus’ warning proved to be very intuitive, to say the least. About forty years later, the Romans decimated the Jewish population of Jerusalem (the very city where Christ was crucified) in barbaric genocidal fashion. With that said, I could say, in a similar way, that if our culture is willing to openly and shamelessly discriminate against pastors and attack churches, what will they be willing to do to their followers? Perhaps parents will be the next demographic banned from public school lunchrooms! Is that our future within the next forty years? Only God knows! Fanatical secularists might be willing to ban all parents, just so they can keep the “Christian parents” from “accidentally exposing” other people’s children to the “disease of faith” – and all without transgressing the painted-on happy face of political correctness!

The marginalization of the people of faith in our culture doesn’t exclusively take place in any one particular political party either. While Senator Chuck Grassley’s history (a Republican) creating accountability through government oversight, has become something of legend since he first began such activities in the early 1980’s, he clearly crossed the line and made mistakes of biblical proportions in 2007 when he publically demoralized high-profile ministers of the gospel. Suggesting that one grand lady, in particular (Joyce Meyer), purchased a “$23,000 gold toilet,” and therefore needed to be investigated by what has become a McCarthy-like, quasi-tribunal, is case in point. (I say “McCarthy-like” tongue-in-cheek, of course, since McCarthy was vehemently opposed to socialism, and Senator Grassley, as a matter of public record, has, on several occasions, encouraged various hybrids of socialist economic policy. With that said, my reference to McCarthy is more one of style than substance.) In a letter written to justify his probe into the personal affairs of the clergy, Grassley said in reference to Joyce Meyer:

“… installing a $23,000 commode, there is obviously money going down the toilet,”

His public comments (later proved to have been exaggerated in very poor taste, damaging her reputation before having his facts straight) have not been adequately and publicly apologized for. The alleged “$23,000 gold toilet” turned out to be an antique chest of drawers (not a toilet) DONATED to Rev. Meyer’s ministry. Not only was it a donated piece of furniture, its actual value turned out to be about $9,000.00 less than what Grassley implied. Naturally, after cooperating fully with his “investigation,” Meyer was exonerated of any wrong doing, yet, her exoneration was scarcely publicized, if at all, by any media outlets. Like they say, “bad news sells.” Too bad for her, right?

So what did the IRS discover about Joyce Meyer Ministries? In the span of only ONE YEAR Rev. Meyer’s ministry provided more than 11 million meals to victims of hunger, built nearly 200 freshwater wells and churches in underdeveloped nations, fully funded and operated more than 50 orphanages around the world, and presented the Gospel message to a potential audience of 3 billion people every day via its television program. No wonder someone gave her an expensive antique! Too bad it wasn’t a gold toilet, because she sure deserves to sit on one more than Saddam ever did! Who in their right mind would begrudge a woman like her of such a small gift? I’d say her charitable record is a scarce bit better than Senator Grassley could ever hope to achieve in a lifetime, much less during a single year. The bottom-line? Rev. Meyer’s ministry used 82% of their financial resources for some form of humanitarian services, and she was “thanked” with slanderous accusations from an elected official.

You might be surprised to know that Senator Grassley’s hawkish and intrusive behavior toward Pentecostal churches, in particular, is a complete reversal from his former views on the appropriate way a government agency should conduct itself during the financial review of a church. In 1983, he sponsored the “Church Audit Procedures Act.” This act, which became law, currently provides for privacy as well as other protections when the federal government, using the vehicle of the IRS, applies federal tax laws to a church. What was the rationale for this act? Mr. Grassley acknowledged through his support and sponsorship of this law that any government inquiries into the business affairs of churches raised serious constitutional issues! He further made remarks about the need to protect religious institutions from government persecution. What a change we’ve witnessed in Mr. Grassley as the justification offered for his bizarre philosophical reversal is, “Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not in a Rolls-Royce.”

Well, while the Senator references the Bible, comparing the value of a donkey to a Rolls Royce, I am reminded of the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” In our desire to address any alleged abuse, with knee jerk reactions that likely find their origins within the Jim Baker scandals of the 80’s, we must all avoid banging the drum of a potential smear campaign wrought in political naiveté.  What’s worse, Grassley’s investigation against particularly successful ministers has been met with the applause of some of the most liberal, religion-hating people in our culture.

All the purest motives in the world aside, there is something terribly wrong when liberal, God and religion-hating people, applaud the actions of a marginally conservative Republican. Even locally in Northwestern Iowa, there were more than enough blog comments posted on the Sioux City Journal web-site (when the story initially broke) praising Mr. Grassley and very eagerly requesting that he turn his investigation toward my own home church “while he was at it.”

Ethically-speaking, no one, beyond a self-governed individual with a conscience, has the moral right to determine how much is too much for other people. This is true, not only in an orthodox biblical sense, but it is also true in the sense of having an authentic free-market society. Biblically-speaking, the only individual who is able to determine the invisible line of “that’s just too much prosperity” is God Himself, and the Bible makes it clear that when mere men attempt to draw that imaginary line, it is a sin called jealousy, envy, or one could call it “reverse-covetousness.” Enter socialism: the economic worldview that exists for the purpose of wealth re-distribution – a system where the public is encouraged to point an envy-filled finger at those who “make too much” and demand that those monies be re-distributed evenly among everyone who didn’t actually earn them.

The point is that there is a growing culture within both the Democrat and Republican parties that is not ashamed to reveal their disdain for particular brands of Christianity, and in some cases, Christianity at large. Ironically, the same ideology that removes God from the public square creates a vacuum for economic socialism; where “Jehovah Jireh” (the God who provides) is replaced by “Jehovah Entitlement” – Almighty Government!

Again, I will repeat my former point…”if they do this in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” At the end of the day, it is not a biblical, much less a constitutional act, for a government official to look at ANY citizen, wag their finger, and say “you are making TOO MUCH money!” That is NOT in line with a free-market system, nor does it gel with the capitalist underpinnings of “tax-exempt” corporations.

Senator Grassley’s actions don’t merely attack “not-for-profits,” they set a precedent for Obama-fashioned attacks against “for-profits” and continue pulling our nation on a slide toward envy-based socialism.