Seize Your Freedom

Toward the end of his sweeping description of the full armor of God in Ephesians 6, Paul encourages believers to stand strong - and speak strong:
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints--
19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

The issue of religious freedom has been important ever since the founding of our great nation. The Pilgrims came to America from Great Britain to pursue that freedom. 

But, with growing hostility toward the practice of faith, especially the Christian faith, we have seen numerous instances of the ability of Christians to express our deeply-held beliefs.

The Christian Post hosted a forum recently at Fellowship Church in Dallas devoted to the idea of religious freedom and the absolute necessity to protect and practice it.  

One of the panelists was someone who has been on The Meeting House multiple times, former U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Bronwback. According to a Christian Post article on the event, Brownback said some Christians are beginning to face financial persecution as major U.S. banks have allegedly started "de-banking" religious organizations such as his National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF). 

It stated that NCRF "made headlines in 2022 when it alleged that JPMorgan Chase shuttered its bank account without explanation after demanding a list of its donors, the candidates they support and potential political donations."  The Christian Post went on to say, "NCRF's situation is not unique, and Bank of America prompted a letter from 15...state attorneys general earlier this year alleging the company 'is responsible for some of the worst-known instances of debanking' while at the same time cooperating with the federal government to provide 'innocuous' private information to paint some conservative customers as 'potential domestic terrorists.'"  The article added:

Brownback said he is personally aware of a woman who heads a crisis pregnancy center and was recently denied Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance because the insurance company told her they did not approve of what she was doing.

Using strong language, he called such instances an "effort to suffocate" religious freedom, stating, "And we've got every right on our side. We've got the Free Exercise Clause, and now we've got a Supreme Court that's defined it and said, 'You have this right to do this.'"

Religious freedom rights were essentially re-defined in a positive way in the Kennedy v. Bremerton case, and the former football coach at the center of the case, Joe Kennedy, was also part of the forum. The article noted, "The court ruled 6-3 in favor of Kennedy and upheld the constitutional right of public school employees to engage in brief, personal private prayer, which effectively overturned the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which had established the three-prong 'Lemon test.'"  The article went on to say, "The Lemon test permitted the government to be involved in religion only if it served a secular purpose, did not inhibit or advance religion and did not result in excessive entanglement of church and state."

Fellow panelist Jeremy Dys of First Liberty provided some analysis at the forum regarding the decision in favor of Coach Kennedy:

"It says that our religious speech is doubly protected, because what Lemon had done was to set up this, this fake battle between the two clauses in the Constitution governing religious expression — the Establishment Clause, which prevents the government from telling you what you should believe and how you should believe it — and the Free Exercise Clause, which guarantees your right to be able to express your religious beliefs."

The Christian Post article said:

Dys said Kennedy's case allowed the Supreme Court to decide that the Lemon test was a misreading of the U.S. Constitution and that the two clauses were intended to complement each other "to maximize your religious freedoms, to restrain the government from telling you what to believe and how to believe it, and to also give you the space to engage your freedom size of religion."

Another topic covered in the forum that night recently was the so-called Equality Act, which has failed to pass Congress, but is a priority for a significant number of lawmakers. The article described this legislation: "The act would codify discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity into federal law." Meg Kilgannon of Family Research Council addressed the problematic nature of the proposed law:

"We see so often it's these questions surrounding human life and human sexuality, where our values as Christians come in direct contrast to what those kinds of proposals would entail and require us to say things that aren't true, to agree with things we don't believe in, and to promote those things and to endorse those things," she said.

"And we simply cannot do that as Christians. We can't do it for ourselves, but we also can't do it because it's not good for anybody, even the people who believe those things are true. And so we really must stand fast against those kinds of pressures."

The article stated:

Dys urged the audience to maintain the confidence of those who possess the truth, the Word of God and the protections of the U.S. Constitution.

"Take that confidence forward and move into the territory that you possess today," he said.

As we look around, we can see that freedom of religion, as well as free speech, are under fire. I've said before that there are distinct efforts to silence the voice of the Church.  We must not let that happen.  We have to start with prayer - that is a step that, appropriately so, Coach Kennedy related at the meeting in Dallas recently. We begin by speaking to God, and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we speak truth to the culture. And, as the Bible tells us, we can depend on the Spirit to give us the words to say. 

But, there are forces pressing against the Church; while we have the unlimited power of God, we face limitations from without and within.  A recent Meeting House guest noted that there are forces that are aligned against the Church that have infiltrated the Church. That dilutes our message and diminishes our effectiveness.  Certainly, we should be unified, but we have to be unified around the truth of Scripture. Tolerance of unbiblical views can be so detrimental, and we have to be willing to speak out.

And, we can continue to exercise boldness and discernment. We know that there are societal pressures that are driven by hostility. But, we cannot allow those pressures to discourage us to the point that we get out of the game and are sidelined. It is time for an active, robust Church to stand strong in a culture that needs to hear our message.