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An untapped resource to turn America around is found in the tens of thousands of churches in America. Many Christians don\u2019t vote and their pastors encourage them to avoid politics. Then there are other churches where pastors are fearful of government reprisals, mostly from the IRS at the prompting of groups like the ACLU.<\/p>\n
Keeping Christians from being involved beyond the church building and Sunday worship hour is becoming more common. But ever since Christians become politically active in the mid 1970s, secularists have gotten more vocal and strident. \u201cThat [Christians] may rant and rave against humanism and feminism and any other \u2018ism\u2019 on Sunday, but come Monday the children belong in school.\u201d[1<\/a>]<\/p>\n Tyrannical regimes are most fearful of organizations that don\u2019t easily acquiesce to authority. We\u2019re seeing this take place in China<\/a>. \u201cOn the first Sunday of 2012, nearly 50 members of Shouwang Church in Beijing were detained following the church\u2019s decision to continue its outdoor worship services that began in April, ChinaAid has learned.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest attempt in the United States at intimidation is Pastor Charles Patrick<\/a> of the Sunago Christian Fellowship Church who applied for the right to open a charter school. The application was denied because the applicant was a pastor.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t that long ago in a nation not that far away that Christianity was seen as a threat to the governing authorities. Over time, churches in Nazi German were \u201cconfined as far as possible to the performance of narrowly religious functions, and even within this narrow sphere were subjected to as many hindrances as the Nazis dared to impose.\u201d This is the evaluation of a 1945 report published by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA. It was called The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches<\/em> and was prepared for the War Crimes Staff. It offered the following summary: \u201cThis study describes, with illustrative factual evidence, Nazi purposes, policies and methods of persecuting the Christian Churches in Germany and occupied Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n Where did the strategic plan begin? \u201cImplementation of this objective started with the curtailment of religious instruction in the primary and secondary schools with the squeezing of the religious periods into inconvenient hours, with Nazi propaganda among the teachers in order to induce them to refuse the teaching of religion, with vetoing of . . . religious text books, and finally with substituting [a] Nazi Weltanschauung<\/em> [worldview] and \u2018German faith\u2019 for Christian religious denominational instruction. . . . At the time of the outbreak of the war . . . religious instruction had practically disappeared from Germany\u2019s primary schools.\u201d Does any of this sound familiar? This is a perfect description of our nation\u2019s education system with the only difference being that a materialistic worldview and \u201csecular\u201d faith have replaced the once Christian worldview that served as the foundation of education in America.<\/p>\n The next step was to neutralize the impact that churches would have on politics. \u201cUnder the pretext that the Churches themselves were interfering in political and state matters, [the Nazis] would deprive the Churches, step by step, of all opportunity to affect German public life.\u201d How often do we hear that the \u201cseparation between church and state\u201d means that churches must remain silent on social and political issues, that pastors cannot use their pulpits (unless they\u2019re liberal) to influence legislation?<\/p>\n When Martin Niemoeller used his pulpit to expose Adolf Hitler\u2019s radical politics, \u201cHe knew every word spoken was reported by Nazi spies and secret agents.\u201d[2<\/a>] Leo Stein describes in his book I Was in Hell with Niemoeller<\/em> how the Gestapo gathered evidence against Niemoeller:<\/p>\n Now, the charge against Niemoeller was based entirely on his sermons, which the Gestapo agents had taken down stenographically. But in none of his sermons did Pastor Niemoeller exhort his congregation to overthrow the Nazi regime. He merely raised his voice against some of the Nazi policies, particularly the policy directed against the Church. He had even refrained from criticizing the Nazi government itself or any of its personnel. Under the former government his sermons would have been construed only as an exercise of the right of free speech. Now, however, written laws, no matter how explicitly they were worded, were subjected to the interpretation of the judges.[3<\/a>]<\/p>\n In a June 27, 1937 sermon, Niemoeller made it clear to those in attendance had a sacred duty to speak out on the evils of the Nazi regime no matter what the consequences: \u201cWe have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of the authorities than had the Apostles of old. No more are we ready to keep silent at man\u2019s behest when God commands us to speak. For it is, and must remain, the case that we must obey God rather than man.\u201d[4<\/a>] A few days later, he was arrested. His crime? \u201cAbuse of the pulpit.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cSpecial Courts\u201d set up by the Nazis made claims against pastors who spoke out against Hitler\u2019s policies. Niemoeller was not the only one singled out by the Gestapo. \u201cSome 807 other pastors and leading laymen of the \u2018Confessional Church\u2019 were arrested in 1937, and hundreds more in the next couple of years.\u201d[5<\/a>]<\/p>\n A group of Confessional Churches in Germany, founded by Pastor Niemoeller and other Protestant ministers, drew up a proclamation to confront the political changes taking place in Germany that threatened the people \u201cwith a deadly danger. The danger lies in a new religion,\u201d the proclamation declared. \u201cThe church has by order of its Master to see to it that in our people Christ is given the honor that is proper to the Judge of the world. . . . The First Commandment says \u2018Thou shalt have no other gods before me.\u2019 The new religion is a rejection of the First Commandment.\u201d[6<\/a>] Five hundred pastors who read the proclamation from their pulpits were arrested.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not this bad in America \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n Neutralizing the Impact that Churches Could Have on Politics An untapped resource to turn America around is found in the tens of thousands of churches in America. Many Christians don\u2019t vote and their pastors encourage them to avoid politics. Then there are other churches where pastors are fearful of government reprisals, mostly from the IRS…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1686,18,507,7,1361,1822,1344,3100,599,256,344,555,252,435,1331,1367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment-rights","category-18","category-aclu","category-america","category-anti-christian-bias","category-atheists","category-attacks-from-the-left-on-the-righteous","category-big-brother-is-here","category-big-government","category-brainwashing","category-bullying","category-china","category-christian","category-communism","category-conservative","category-deceptions-and-lies"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
Source:\u00a0 Why are Pastors Afraid to Speak about Politics?\u00a0|\u00a0Godfather Politics<\/a> http:\/\/godfatherpolitics.com\/2953\/why-are-pastors-afraid-to-speak-about-politics\/#ixzz1ickXXtqA<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"