TO HADES WITH THIS CULTURE OF DEATH MINDSET

   TO HADES WITH THIS CULTURE OF DEATH MINDSET

In pursuit of the truth - Feast Day of Pope Saint John Paul II - Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014

This article is thanks to Mark Landsbaum of the Orange County Register, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014 - 'Caesar' horning in on God's turf'

   

 "... Religious liberty, so essential to understanding America's foundational principles, is under assault by none other than the government the Constitution was supposed to restrain.

     Freedom of religion, understood by the founders to be a God-given right, is rapidly being redefined by government as merely "freedom of worship," essentially a government-granted permission.

    Peter Sprigg calls it the "four-walls view of religious freedom." Sprigg is senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council. The "four-walls view" holds that religious liberty may be exercised, as long as it's done within churches or homes.

    "But as soon as you step outside of those four walls, you no longer have any freedom to believe what you want," Sprigg said. "And that was not what our founders had in mind at all. The First Amendment says you have the "free exercise" of your religious beliefs and if you're are just gathering for services but not practicing your faith in your everyday life, how is that religious freedom.

    How similar this is to Asia and ancient Rome. How long before government intrudes even within the four walls to impose secular belief systems on pastors and parishioners? Well it is already happening.

      For years government's uncompromising heavy hand has been felt by cake makers, photographers, and other businesses owned by devout Christians ordered to provide services in ways that violate their religious beliefs, such as making a wedding cake for two lesbians or hosting a same-sex wedding for two homosexual men.

    The Colorado Civil Rights Division ordered Jack Phillips to reverse his Masterpiece Cakeshop's policy, "educate" his employees on serving same-sex customers and file quarterly compliance reports to demonstrate removal of his religious views from his business decisions.

      "I think the state has made it very clear," said the Phillips' attorney, Nicole Martin of Alliance Defending Freedom. "Jack's First Amendment rights, Jack's freedom to express himself, or, more importantly, not express himself, must bow to complainants' message." This is akin to government demanding an Islamic restaurant make bacon burgers....

    Since 1954, when Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson sought to disarm opposition from Christians in his re-election, churches and clergy were silenced by changes to tax law prohibiting them from endorsing or opposing political candidates, or else lose their tax exemption for the first time in the republic's history....

    On Oct. 5, more than 3,500 churches supported Pulpit Freedom Sunday organized by the Alliance Defending Freedom to restore rights of pastors to speak spiritual truth from the pulpit about moral, social and government issues without fear of losing tax-exemptions. Pulpit Freedom Sunday began in 2008 with 33 pastors.

    Momentum is building on the other side, too. The frequency and severity of incidents hostile to religious freedom in America have soared. By 2012 there were twice the number of several previous years combined, according to the annual Survey of Hostility to Religion in America compiled by the Texas-based Liberty Institute and the Washington, D.C. based Family Research Council. In 2013, they continued to increase.

     The assaults have been on religious liberty in the public square, such as on companies opposing funding of abortion, in education, such as banning prayer by football cheerleaders and within the military, such as removal of chaplain-created video troop tributes. And of course, attacks on religious liberty of churches and ministries.

    "Only five years ago, the idea that the federal government would argue before the Supreme Court that it could regulate churches to the extent of determining who a church may choose as its pastor was unthinkable, yet the government made that very argument - effectively arguing that the religious liberty clauses are meaningless - in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC. ... it may regulate churches and determine qualifications for pastors ... discriminating against churches, particularly in local governments' use of zoning laws and granting of permits,""

   
George H. Kubeck 

We need the help and intercession of St. John Paul II who wrote the "Gospel of LIfe."