Politics
Got Your Permit to Study the Bible?
I’m in Southern California right now with my family which really brought the seriousness of this story to mind. Do Bible-believing Christians understand that a season of persecution could be right around the corner in this nation? Actually, not around the corner: Recently, it showed up at the front door in San Diego county. 
The following story of suppression of faith will be even more likely if homosexual behavior and marriage are legitimatized by law–one more reason for you to fight the good cultural fight in your state and nation and stay on fire for liberty of conscience. RB
Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris is an American martial artist, action star and television and film actor who also writes a weekly column for Human Events. This article appeared on 6-2-09.
by Chuck Norris
Recently a California pastor and his wife were required by San Diego County officials to obtain a permit to hold a Bible study in their home.
“What?! Is this a joke?” I wondered as I heard the news for the first time. It was no joke. Rather, it’s a First Amendment nightmare and possibly a foreshadowing of what’s to come.
Are you prepared for a future in which you hear, “Got your permit to study the Bible?”
On April 10 (Good Friday), a county code enforcement officer visited the home of David and Mary Jones after receiving a complaint about their Christian gatherings. The Jones’ attorney, Dean Broyles, president of The Western Center for Law & Policy, conveyed in disbelief, “The county asked (Mrs. Jones), ‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say “amen”?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say “praise the Lord”?’ ‘Yes.'”
The officer then warned the family to “cease and desist” the “religious gathering” or they would face weekly fines. A few days later, the county delivered a citation claiming that the Joneses were guilty of “unlawful use of land” and mandating them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit.”
At first, I thought, “They must have a large congregation meeting in their home to warrant this type of citation and prompt this type of commotion, right?” Actually, according to their lawyer, the Joneses have been hosting weekly Bible studies in their home for about five years, with an average attendance of only about 15 people.
Broyles appropriately responded, “If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?”
Well, this past weekend, barraged by hundreds of complaints after WorldNetDaily broke the news to the international community, San Diego County officials informed the world that they’d backed down from requiring the Joneses to obtain a permit. Despite their retraction (based solely upon public pressure, I might add), however, I am appalled at how far the county’s enforcement and encroachment crossed the constitutional line and became a flagrant disregard for Americans’ right to exercise their religious faiths. And I’m concerned that we will see far more of these overreaching governmental actions in years to come.
As Mary Jones shared with Fox News: “The implications are great because it’s not only us that’s involved. There are thousands and thousands of Bible studies that are held all across the country. What we’re interested in is setting a precedent here — before it goes any further — and that we have it settled for the future.”
I’m not expecting county officials to be constitutional lawyers, but they should be aware of these basic precepts of America’s makeup. For example, prior to the San Diego officials’ recanting their position regarding the Joneses’ Bible study, Chandra Waller, the general manager of the county’s Land Use and Environment Group, declared, “The Bible studies are one that’s probably in a very gray area.”
“Very gray area”? Is there anything “very gray” about the First Amendment?
I agree again with Broyles, who explained further to Fox News: “The government may not prohibit the free exercise of religion. I believe that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their grave if they saw that here in the year 2009, a pastor and his wife are being told that they cannot hold a simple Bible study in their own home.”
Part of the genius of America’s Founding Fathers was to provide and secure a foundation for our freedom of religious belief. The First Amendment simply reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Could it be any clearer that government may not prohibit “the free exercise thereof”?
Now more than ever, we need to be like the Joneses! Fight for the First Amendment and your freedom to exercise your religion.
Obama Nation’s Low View of Christianity
I don’t usually pass on an article like this under the Fresh Fire banner, but this is so important that I’m compelled to break precedent. We need to get “fired up” over the deliberate attempt by the current Administration to downplay or rid America of its founding faith. America without Christ is like Earth without oxygen–it will die. May this insightful article put a fire within you to pray, share your faith, and help rebuild our glorious foundations. RB
By Robert Knight, June 8, 2009 in townhall.com
Robert Knight, a senior writer for Coral Ridge Ministries and a Senior Fellow with the American Civil Rights Union
President Obama’s comment to French television on June 1 that the United States is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” plus his Islam-praising speech in Cairo, Egypt on June 4, raise anew questions about his own faith and how he views America.
Questions can also be asked about his math. The CIA Factbook estimates America’s Muslim population at 0.6 percent, or about 1.8 million, which puts it in 58th place among nations’ total Muslim populations. Even if you take the Islamic Information Center’s high estimate of 8 million, that still puts the U.S. at 29th out of 60 nations.
In Cairo, Obama quoted from the Koran, used his middle name of Hussein, and indicated that the United States and Muslim nations have the same commitment to tolerance and freedom. To fathom the absurdity, think about the possibility of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution springing from the pens of Islamic scholars Thomas al-Jefferson and James al-Madison.
Over the past three years, Obama has made it his business to insist that “we are no longer a Christian nation.” He has said it in many places, here and abroad. In 2006, in Washington, D.C., he said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. At least, not just.” He posted the same sentiment on his campaign website.
At the Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania on April 13, 2008, he said, “We are not just a Christian nation. We are a Jewish nation; we are a Buddhist nation; we are a Muslim nation; Hindu nation; and we are a nation of atheists and nonbelievers.”
In Turkey, at a press conference on April 10, he said: “Although we have a large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. I think modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of values.”
During the presidential campaign, the media pounced on anyone who inquired into Obama’s Muslim upbringing in Indonesia, his two Muslim fathers or his later 20-year attendance at radical pastor Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Now, his Muslim roots are touted as an asset.
No one can say for sure what Obama actually believes, since only God can know the human heart. So we are left examining his words and actions.
The media-enforced line for the past three years has been that he is a self-described mainstream Christian, end of story. Even when Obama badly distorted Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount into a clarion call to accept homosexuality, the press yawned. They yawned (or cheered) when he mocked the Bible’s relevance for politics in that 2006 Washington, D.C. speech:
“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith, or should we just stick with the Sermon on the Mount, a passage which is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application. Folks haven’t been reading the Bible.”
More cheers came when he spoke the language of unity while taking a shot at his political opponents during a speech at the United Church of Christ convention in 2007:
“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.
“We can recognize the truth that’s at the heart of the UCC: that the conversation is not over [God needs an editor]; that our roles are not defined [men in dresses, unite]; that through ancient texts and modern voices, God is still speaking [yes, we’re ripping out pages of the Bible daily to suit our appetites], challenging us to change not just our own lives, but the world around us …hate has no place in the hearts of believers.”
Is it not hateful to suggest that people who disagree with you are full of “hate?” Is it unifying to accuse opponents of inventing fights that they didn’t start?
More odd things have been happening since Obama’s election that should give pause to even the most cynical observers.
On the Saturday before Obama’s swearing-in, V. Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, gave an invocation at a pre-inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial. The New York Times interviewed him beforehand:
“Bishop Robinson said he had been rereading inaugural prayers through history and was ‘horrified’ at how ‘specifically and aggressively Christian they were.’ Bishop Robinson said, ‘I am very clear that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.’”
As one of his first judicial appointments, Obama named Indiana federal judge David Hamilton to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton, who had ruled that a pastor could not invoke the name of Jesus in an opening prayer for the Indiana legislature, said that, on the other hand, invoking Allah at a public event is fine.
In April, it was reported that Obama appointed Harry Knox, a Catholic-bashing homosexual activist, to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Knox, who directs the religion program at the largest gay pressure group, the Human Rights Campaign, described Pope Benedict and other Catholic clergy as “discredited leaders” because of their stand for traditional marriage, and called the Knights of Columbus “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” because of their support of California’s Proposition 8 marriage amendment.
On April 14, 2009, the Obama team had Georgetown University cover up the Greek letters IHS, which stand for Jesus, so they would not show up when he spoke in front of them.
On May 7, Obama declined to hold any White House event to mark the National Day of Prayer, a decision hailed by Barry Lynn’s hard left Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
In his eloquent commencement speech at Notre Dame on May 17, Obama sounded a conciliatory note, lamented, sort of, the abortions that he wants taxpayers to fund, and gave more clues that Christianity will move over and shrink before a universalist moral relativism:
“The size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake [not “reform” or “restore,” but “remake”] our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age.
“Your generation must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it….. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity — diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.”
If diversity in and of itself is god, where does that leave Jesus Christ – the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Alpha and the Omega, the Way, the Truth and the Life, through Whom all things were created?
Well, the Obama Nation might just ask Him to change his name to … Allah.
A Disastrous First Hundred Days
“You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16)
On September 8, 2008 I shared with you one hundred reasons I would not vote for Barack Obama. That article brought wide-spread response from around the world–some of it very critical of my views.
I had studied the career of then Senator Obama for nearly two years and and concluded he was a radical, ambitious far left politician who would lead America away from its Christian moorings. I warned you to look past the warm smile, soaring eloquence, and big crowds and take a measure of the man’s true worldview, values and beliefs.
In my heart, I hoped and prayed that I was wrong. Though Barack Obama appeared to be a committed secular liberal (with a smile), I hoped at the least, that he would be somewhat restrained like Bill Clinton and govern from the center-left. Because he was our first elected African American president, I wanted him to succeed by doing what is right for our nation.
Now his first one hundred days are history–and they have been disastrous. Yes, disaster , meaning “an unforeseen mischance bringing with it destruction of life or property or utter defeat” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). Barack Obama’s leadership has been far worse than even I imagined–denigrating faith and our Christian heritage, undermining the family values we hold dear, devastating the economy with Big Government centralized control, weakening and slashing our military forces, and cozying up to tyrants and terrorists–all at a warp speed pace that has been astonishing to behold. He has certainly not let a “good crisis go to waste.”
There’s no more need to wonder about Barack Obama. It was Jesus who said “You will know them by their fruits.” The fruits of his first one hundred days in office reveal that Barack Obama is the most anti-Christian president in the history of the United States. If you voted for him, it’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses, repent of your lack of judgment, and join the cause of real American restoration. We have sinned–put our trust in wrong things and poor leaders–and could face a disastrous or terminal societal judgment if we proceed down our current path.
When I ran for public office in 2006, I based my campaign on the three biblical and historically American values that brought incredible blessing to our nation for the past two-hundred and thirty-three years. They are faith, family and freedom. How can I honestly say that Barack Obama is an anti-Christ leader? Because in these three vital areas, the vast majority of the bills he’s signed and policies he’s promoted since January 20th have been strongly anti-faith, anti-family, and anti-freedom. Here’s the record.
Anti-Faith
Our new president calls himself a Christian and knows how to use religious language in certain settings. I will not profess to judge his heart. Only God knows whether he has saving faith or not. But as Jimmy Carter before him, Barack Obama does not possess a Christian worldview that guides his decision-making and governmental policies. In worldview, Obama is a secularist. That is why he has stated that “we are not a Christian nation.” He does not want us to be a Christian-based society. He believes we are bigoted, narrow, intolerant and backward. He wants us to be a secular nation with secular values. His demand to cover up the Christian symbols at Notre Dame University before giving the commencement address was the clearest evidence of his disrespect for our faith foundations.
Barack Obama does not want us to be one nation under God. He wants us to become a secular and spiritually diverse nation under men (Big Government). Under his watch, Christianity will shrink and be persecuted, and atheism will grow. That’s the “real change” he offers. Is that what you want?
Anti-Family
On April 28, 2009, Focus on the Family chronicled for us just a few of the Obama Administration anti-family policies of the first one hundred days. Barack Obama has:
- Signed an executive order allowing taxpayer funding to go to international groups that promote or provide abortions. The “Mexico City Policy,” as it’s known, also was rescinded by President Bill Clinton and then reinstated by President George W. Bush.
- Opened the door for more human embryos to be destroyed for unethical stem-cell research despite science showing that adult stem cells provide cures; to date, embryonic stem cells have not.
- Begun the process of rescinding the Bush health care provider conscience regulations. This move comes at a time when the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of practicing physicians, a drop one senator described as reaching “crisis proportions.” Making it easier for hospitals and medical schools to discriminate against physicians based on their moral or religious beliefs will only drive more of them out of the profession.
- Lifted a seven-year ban on taxpayer funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is linked to forced abortion programs.
- Nominated Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. Clinton is an ardent pro-abortion politician who recently accepted Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award. During her acceptance speech, Clinton praised the eugenicist Sanger as a great Americans.
- Nominated Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services. She has accepted campaign contributions from notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller and welcomed him into the governor’s mansion. Sebelius is one of the most pro-abortion governors in the country.
- Nominated Dawn Johnsen, former legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Johnsen has called motherhood “involuntary servitude” and has said that restrictions on abortion make women nothing more than “fetal containers.”
- Attacked charitable giving by proposing a reduced tax deduction for gifts to nonprofits. If it becomes law, it will have a major impact on faith-based ministry giving and other nonprofits.
- Signed a bill that kills the District of Columbia’s successful school-choice program. The program benefits low-income families by providing private-school scholarships. Approximately 3,500 students have benefited from this program.
- Nominated David Hamilton to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton has been a board member for the ACLU and a fundraiser for ACORN. He has ordered the Indiana legislature to end its historic practice of beginning each session with a prayer, and has written an opinion in opposition to abortion clinics providing information to women about alternatives.
- Appointed Ellen Moran to a major communications post at the White House. Moran is the former executive director of the pro-abortion EMILY’s List.
- Nominated David Ogden, Tom Perrelli, Elena Kagan and Harold Koh to top Department of Justice and State Department posts. Ogden has been a legal advocate for pornography producers; Perelli helped lead the legal fight to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo; Kagan supported denying military recruiters access to law schools; and Koh strongly advocates mixing foreign law into important U.S. constitutional debates.
- Expressed support for hate-crimes legislation and will sign if it reaches his desk. The House will vote on the measure April 29. The legislation creates a special class of crime based on the victim’s sexual orientation. Those accused of “inducing” a federal hate crime could be held responsible for the actions of another person. For example, pastors preaching against homosexuality could be charged with a crime if someone listening committed a “hate crime” against a gay individual.
- Ordered a legal review of hiring-and-firing standards instituted by faith-based groups that receive federal funding.
- Released a Department of Homeland Security “watch list” that included pro-life Americans.
Barack Obama is the most anti-life president in history. He even favors infanticide. Think about that. He doesn’t mind medical professionals killing eight-month old “accidentally born” babies as a result of botched abortions. That type of thinking is Nazi-like. He is also stridently pro-homosexual and trans-sexual rights. When homosexual marriage is legal in enough states, the open persecution of pastors and Bible-believing churches could begin under this president. It would be cloaked in the language of tolerance and being anti-discriminatory–but it would send parents who object in the schools and pastors who condemn homosexuality from the pulpits to jail. This is the next wave of anti-Christ persecution.
Anti-Freedom
The biblical concept of freedom is greatly under attack by the current administration. For hundreds of years, true liberty has meant freedom from sin, strong moral foundations, self-government, limited civil government, low taxation, good stewardship of resources, and little debt (which is slavery). Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). As Barack Obama speeds up the purging of Christianity from our culture, freedom is evaporating on every side.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gives this sober assessment of the Barack Obama’s assault on freedom in a recent Newt Gingrich Letter:
“At home, in everything from his economic policy to his energy policy to his just-announced science policy, President Obama has successfully moved the country from a traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to a European model of regulation and government control. Abroad, he has succeeded in his apparent goal to be the un-George W. Bush; replacing aggressive, if sometimes flawed, American leadership with a humbled, weakened America on the world stage.”
“The Obama record in the first 100 days includes three instances of spectacular political impunity:
Under the guise of “economic stimulus” he was able to pass a $787 billion gift for his liberal special interest base. And he did it so quickly that no member of Congress was able to read it before they voted.After campaigning on a pledge to end earmarks, he signed an appropriations bill loaded with 8,000 earmarks – and paid no political penalty.President Obama has kept congressional Democrats marching with him in lockstep. House Democrats tow the party line an amazing 94 percent of the time and Senate Democrats vote Democratic 91 percent of the time.”
“In these first 100 days, the Obama Administration has achieved two historic bureaucratic power grabs:
President Obama has transformed the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) into giant engines of unsupervised spending. Together, they’ve spent the equivalent of the entire federal budget for 2007, without having to disclose where the money went.”
“Just two weeks ago, the President presided over an unprecedented bureaucratic power grab when his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. This seemingly innocuous decision opens the door to wholesale regulation of American life by government. The threat is so great that politicians and activists are using the specter of an out-of-control EPA to force Congress to pass a $1 trillion to $2 trillion energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade legislation.”
“The Obama 100 days record also includes remarkable weakness and self-delusion overseas:
In an attempt to overcome anti-Americanism abroad by agreeing with it, President Obama has gone on a global apology tour, labeling America as “arrogant, dismissive and derisive” in front of foreign audiences. President Obama has unleashed a domestic war over the meaning of guilt by caving in to the anti-American left and leaving the door open to prosecuting Bush Administration officials over the interrogation of terrorists who plotted to kill Americans.”
“But all these successful expansions of government at home and retractions of American leadership abroad are merely a prelude to President Obama’s looming crowning achievement: His 2010 budget which remakes our health care system, remakes our energy system, raises taxes and forecasts an amazing $9 trillion increase in the national debt. As I write this, Democrats in Congress are fashioning a deal to pass the budget’s provisions on health care by preventing Republicans and moderate Democrats from having a voice in the debate.”
“Think about that. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi political machine is going to pass legislation that fundamentally affects every single American – as well as 17 percent of our economy – by cutting the elected representatives of half of all Americans out of the process. If they succeed, the budget will be President Obama’s most enduring – and devastating – accomplishment.”
Faith, family & freedom are now under the greatest attack since the founding of the United States. A fearful one-day hundred day anti-Christ, anti-morality, anti-free enterprise tidal wave has been unleashed on America through the presidency of Barack Obama.
In the 1940s Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to awaken the German Church out of its slumber and vigorously oppose the policies of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. He gave his life fighting for the freedom of Germany and the entire world. Many German Christians never saw the forest for the trees.
I pray that your eyes will be opened. A disastrous first one hundred days of the Obama Administration threatens the future of our children, grandchildren, and the world as a whole. We need to pray, fast, get involved, work for revival in the Church and reformation in our culture, and vote for a desperately needed change of direction in 2010 and 2012.
May God turn disaster into deliverance.
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).