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Clergy Declare State of Emergency for Churches Over Obama Demands
Faith & Action ^ | 2/22/12 | Faith & Action

Posted on 02/22/2012 4:30:21 PM PST by wagglebee

WASHINGTON, D.C. Feb. 22, 2012 — The National Clergy Council, representing church leaders of Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant church traditions, has declared a State of Emergency for the Churches in response to the order by President Barack Obama for religious organizations to compromise their religious and moral beliefs by complying with a mandate to provide employees with certain forms of insurance coverage.

In recent days, Jewish rabbis have joined all Catholic bishops in the United States in expressing alarm over the president’s “healthcare” mandates and other violations of the Constitution. The National Clergy Council deliberated for the last week on what it would do, consulting pastors, moral theologians, organizational executives and activists from around the U.S. As a result, the Reverend Rob Schenck, president of the Washington, D.C. based group, will begin the holy season of Lent 2012 by appealing to President Obama for answers with a “State of Emergency and Time for Speaking” declaration to be hand-delivered to the White House on Ash Wednesday, February 22.

Speaking for the council, Rev. Schenck says in his communiqué to the president, ”[W]e state to you our unwavering position on the sanctity of our constitutionally protected right to espouse certain principles of conscience; and, we maintain and insist on our God-given, moral rights to act upon these principles of conscience within our respective institutions and in keeping with their attendant prerogatives. Furthermore, while we hope for a resolution to this crisis that includes the rescinding of your directives, we must hold to our convictions and positions and act according to our prerogatives no matter the legal, social, pecuniary, or political consequences.”

As Rev. Schenck explains in the document, the action he and his committee have taken is inspired by the Nazi-era hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “the German pastor and martyr, who is an exemplar of what it means to hold to and to exercise one’s religious, moral, and ethical convictions, even to the surrender of every other right, including the right to one’s life.” Bonhoeffer wrote on the “status confessionis,” a time when churches must speak out. Schenck says in his letter this is such a time, “during which we must take extraordinary action to respectfully resist your decrees, state our deeply held and felt reasons for doing so, and call our coreligionists, and all people of conscience to stand with us.”

On February 2, President Obama was publicly given the biography “BONHOEFFER: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich” by its author, Eric Metaxas, when he and the president shared a podium at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. In the State of Emergency declaration sent to President Obama, Rev. Schenck urges the president to read the book for insights to the National Clergy Council’s declaration.

Rev. Schenck, also president of Faith and Action, is currently writing his doctoral thesis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the Faith Evangelical College and Seminary of Tacoma, Washington. See more about Confronting the President on Rob’s blog.

The spokespersons for the National Clergy Council on this subject are the Reverend Dr. Charles Nestor, senior fellow for Public Policy, available at 863-698-2270 or magrev1@yahoo.com; and the Reverend Norm Lund, Ph.D., Lutheran moral theologian and advisor on the Theology of Church and State, available at 425-402-9624 or NLund@OxfordTutor.org.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: christianity; kenyanbornmuzzie; mittromney; moralabsolutes; newtgingrich; obamacare; prolife; ricksantorum
Schenck says in his letter this is such a time, “during which we must take extraordinary action to respectfully resist your decrees, state our deeply held and felt reasons for doing so, and call our coreligionists, and all people of conscience to stand with us.”

If Zero happens to win in November, things are going to get worse than many of us ever imagined possible in America.

1 posted on 02/22/2012 4:30:34 PM PST by wagglebee
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To: Coleus; cpforlife.org; narses; Salvation; 8mmMauser; NYer; Dr. Brian Kopp; xzins
Ping
2 posted on 02/22/2012 4:32:32 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; AKA Elena; APatientMan; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

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3 posted on 02/22/2012 4:34:24 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Where were they in 2008? More Christians voted for Obama than for McCain. Or where they when Obamacare was winding it’s way through Congress? Silent...


4 posted on 02/22/2012 4:40:15 PM PST by Hotlanta Mike (TeaNami)
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To: wagglebee

“The National Clergy Council, representing church leaders of Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant church traditions, has declared a State of Emergency...”

Is that equivalent to a declaration of war against the racist Buckwheat?


5 posted on 02/22/2012 4:44:49 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: sergeantdave

Ill believe they are serious when I see them taking up arms and forming a crusade force.Untill then its just words and utterly meaningless.Islam is taking up arms and forming armies,we are doing nothing in response.


6 posted on 02/22/2012 5:10:31 PM PST by Craftmore
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To: Hotlanta Mike

Fine. Form a circular firing squad.


7 posted on 02/22/2012 5:24:31 PM PST by Jacquerie (No court will save us from ourselves.)
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To: Jacquerie

Are you familiar with the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Maybe you should be before it is too late.


8 posted on 02/22/2012 5:39:04 PM PST by Hotlanta Mike (TeaNami)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks wagglebee.
9 posted on 02/22/2012 5:39:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv (FReep this FReepathon!)
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To: wagglebee

Is there still sentiment for a march on Washington this summer?


10 posted on 02/22/2012 5:41:28 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: wagglebee

Is there still sentiment for a march on Washington this summer?


11 posted on 02/22/2012 5:41:50 PM PST by Gumdrop
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To: Craftmore

“Ill believe they are serious when I see them taking up arms and forming a crusade force.”

I’ll tell you what I say to every other hot-head here on FR.

It took the founders 25 years to establish an answer to King George III. It takes time to create a political and miltary response to tyranny.

And if you’re all fired up to take up arms, you get your ass down to South Carolina and enlist in our state-sponsored militia. We have two battalions. You’re welcome to join.

If two battalions don’t suit what you want, you are welcome to pledge your fortune and honor to muster a squad, a platoon, a company or whatever you desire and attach it to our militia, much the same way that Col. Moultrie did in 1776.


12 posted on 02/22/2012 6:01:10 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: sergeantdave

I guess Im saying this,because people keep referring to “The Church” as if it was still a force to be reckoned with.But all the church does is talk.No action.Meanwhile Obama and Islam is deadly seriuos.


13 posted on 02/22/2012 6:10:41 PM PST by Craftmore
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To: wagglebee
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14 posted on 02/22/2012 6:26:19 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Craftmore

It takes a lot of thought and prayer to realize that you need to kill your fellow countrymen in order to preserve freedom for yourself and your children. The American colonists agonized over this for years before they finally leveled their muskets and killed their British cousins and American neighbors.

It’s not easy. Buckwheat has no idea of the righteous terror he’s about to unleash against himself, his family and his followers. I think he’s as insane as Hitler in the bunker.


15 posted on 02/22/2012 6:48:02 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: wagglebee

Now they know how we in the TEA Party Movement feel.


16 posted on 02/22/2012 7:40:39 PM PST by jch10
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