Posted on 11/15/2008 5:32:16 PM PST by Penn4God
In view of the 2008 election, the Christian churches have been noticeably silent. Is this reluctance due to their fear of losing the tax exempt status?
The recent election highlights this issue quite well. Candidates held moral positions that were in direct opposition to known biblical teachings. Despite the candidates support for issues like abortion, religious leaders allowed these candidates to go unchallenged from their pulpits.
Religious leaders are fearful of losing the tax-exempt status if they speak out strongly regarding moral positions that candidates hold. Religious leaders are not directing their comments from their pulpits to influence decisions about candidates based on biblical truths. The result is the election of a pro-abortion, radical candidate for president that many christians supported.
Is it time to amend the IRS code to allow religious leaders the freedom to speak on current issues that have become politicized? The original intent of this IRS code was to silence churches in Texas who spoke out against Lyndon Johnson. The result has been the muzzling of the church by the goverment. Do we call this a free republic?
>What are some of the Obama-voting Catholics thinking?<
That they may have made a mistake for moralistic reasons because of the abortion issue. Some are starting to realize that the war and the economy should’ve been secondary motives for voting for Obama and that abortion question should’ve been the more important factor in their choice of candidate.
I am not a Catholic, but I heard a lot about Catholic bishops urging right to life voting.
I have also heard that certain “Catholic” politicians have been refused communion over their abortion promotion.
I have also heard that Catholic preachers are forbidding their parishioners communion until they do penance, if they voted for a pro-abort candidate.
The Mormons have been singled out for their support of CA’s Prop 8. Not as well publicized have been the ethnic CA churches, as in the black ones, the Asian, the Filipino, the Pacific Islander churches - very active and vocal.
James Dobson endorsed McCain.
Only 24% of evangelicals voted Demoncratic for President.
Hey, be yourself at the “bad” church, maybe they’ll ask you to leave!!
I’m not saying be obnoxious, I’m just saying, speak out.
Due to my accidental attendance at a “Unitarian” Church, it is quite clear to me that this church does not respect the separation of church and state - the “church” attacks the state at will, with no fairness - no problemo.
Socialism is not a logical extension of the Christian faith.
No where in Scripture is government charged with taxing people to provide social programs or charity.
Great... that’s what it is all about!
The state is to leave the church alone...
The church can attack the state... just as it should be.
“Only 24% of evangelicals voted Demoncratic for President.”
And I’m guessing most of them were black - so excited to have a man who is partly of their race that they ignored the deep flaws in his character.
Some (at least) independent fundamental Baptist churches were not silent in spite of the blanket intimidation they felt. At least one pastor here read the statements, record and plans of The One regarding abortion and some other matters to us, to be sure we all knew. He described “partial birth abortion” in detail. That’s really all that was needed. Oh, he read the threatening letter he got about losing tax-exempt status aloud first. The only “campaign” materials in the church were maps of the voting precincts and numbers so everyone would be sure to know where to go. It can be done. At least it still could a month ago. But this was a small 100% pro-life church, and I wonder how many are any more.
Then he’s one of the few.
Is that the best explanation for Algore?
that post is a good reality check.
Clearly, we all do, dufus!
Where is this requirement in the Constitution regarding the freedom of speech?
Not there at all, dufus!
Why should Pastors and Priests get muzzled because their employing institutions don't pay taxes?
They are not "muzzled" because they have to pay taxes, anymore than us peons - if fair, like most taxpaying citizens, they might be free to speak their minds (within limits, say something bad about Osama, er. Obama), such as it is.
One of the offensive things of the CFR is that it protects an obviously biased, and subjectively identified group of people ("reporters"), to have freer voice (not subject to prosecution if voiced) than the ordinary citizen. Why? Why? I believe to benefit the unscrupulous cruds who have taken over control of the federal offices, of course.
Interesting. At Annunciation Parish in Houston last Sunday the pastor pointed out in his homily that political Leftism was on the march all over the world. He spoke at length about what this means for the Church. The parish is somewhat traditionalist, although not in any schismatic way . Very involved in the pro-life movement.
Well, Jesus did after all instruct that one guy to pray behind closed doors by himself in private, and not make a display of it.
We elders and ministers in our church decided that we should be more concerned for souls than for politics. As a result we made no remarks about politics.
We wanted people of both parties to be in a politics free zone.
I want people to follow Jesus and do not publish my political beliefs in our congregation.
Some will call that cowardice or other such names, but our citizenship is in heaven and we do not want to turn away those who might disagree with our political stand.
God first!
Neither of the major candidates were particularly palatable to the Christian Right, or to Christian organizations. One cannot speak out against one or the other, as they BOTH held anti-Christian, anti-Life, anti-Marriage views.
To speak out against one is to recommend the other, and both were pointedly on the do_not_recommend list.
In my associations, most voted Keyes, wrote in Paul, or did not vote at all. Normal Christian grassroots were almost completely inactive- none of the activists groups I am with did anything this year at all.
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke
Then you are sadly mislead. Conservative Evangelicals are particularly anti-socialist almost militantly so. So are Conservative Catholics.
It is the Church's job to take care of the poor, not the government's. It is socialism's kin (liberalism) which erodes the moral foundations of our Christian nation and causes all of our moral ills. Moral relativism and multi-culturalism are a bane to the Judeo-Christian ethic. The Church (and the Synagogue), in all of it's myriad Conservative forms recognize this perfectly, and oppose it profoundly.
These are indeed troubling times for orthodox Christians of whatever theological flavor - faced with assault by Islam - the Father of the Lie - on their home grounds and wracked by dissention within their own ranks from socialist schismatics, to whom Christ is viewed as some bizarre proto-communist activist instead of the Son of God and Saviour Whose Kingdom was “Not of this earth”.
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