As a Christian, a natural-born American citizen, a patriot, a believer in the Constitution, a Vietnam Veteran, and a father and grandfather, I am deeply concerned about the trend of attacking Religious Liberty in America! 

I have asked myself and others, why? Who is behind it?  I ask, what is happening? How is it being facilitated, and what is the methodology being used?  I am more than a little concerned; I am moved enough to sound the alarm as loudly as possible and everywhere possible. 

The directive God gave Ezekiel is relevant for today and resonates with me.  I try not to self-identify as anything other than a child of God and a Christian.  I hope the fruit of that is evident, and I need not belabor the issue.  However, I do feel that God has called me to be a Watchman.  That is not to elevate me, but to indicate His love for humanity and wants us to stand in the gap, seek to salvage lives, and even protect nations for His purposes. 

God told Ezekiel that if he saw the danger, he was to sound the alarm and give a warning.  If he failed to do so, the blood of those who perished would be on his hands.  If he did and they rejected the warning, it was on them, and if they received it, they would be spared.  I believe God is calling many today to stand up and speak up for what is right and good and fight the good fight of faith. 

Some insist that as a preacher and a Christian, I must not be involved in politics, but since politics is life and I am a living being and involved in life, how can I not be involved, invested, and interested?  In our American Constitution, the First Amendment, our Founders sought to ensure that the government would NEVER infringe upon our religious rights and freedoms.

The interpretation of that amendment and expressed view of the Founders has morphed into protecting the government from religion.  That is not the declaration or the purpose of the protection in the Constitution.  It was not to keep all religious views out of government but to keep the meddling hands of government out of the church and religion.  It was to prevent the government from imposing its interpretation of religious thought upon the citizens. 

When we allowed God to be evicted from our public schools, government, and the public square, we invited what we have today.  Without fully embracing the gloom and doom view and scream the sky is falling, I sound the alarm.  Religious Freedom is under attack today in America.  Yet, the reality is that this is not new but has been transpiring historically since our inception as a nation.  It has been happening in the world since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  It is as old as man!  When Lucifer rebelled, it began and has not ceased.

It is verifiable that the number of violent attacks on churches and religious groups is increasing.  Protesters and rioters are either openly being encouraged or via subliminal messaging and suggestions to engage in that type of activity.  That is troubling, and the guilty should be held accountable.

The Biden administration, possibly to a greater extent than any previous, is waging war on our religious freedoms.  Why?  What is the motive?  How are they doing this?   Sadly, with the shift in the view of the courts and many in America regarding the so-called wall of separation between church and state, they are allowed to do so with impunity. 

The Biden administration has recently begun moving toward revocation of the Religious Liberty and Free Inquiry Rule, making it more difficult for campus religious groups to exercise their religious liberties.  Why?  I cannot answer that exhaustively, maybe only exhaustingly, but one reason is that religious thought counters the ideological rhetoric and agenda the Left desires to advance.  It reinforces views of the traditional family, gender, morality, and biblically!

Politicians and the diabolical know they will lose footing and power if they allow biblical, morality, and true science to counter their arguments and agenda.  If people are allowed to think and hear the truth, they will reject the distortions of those following the toxic liberal globalist agenda.  Thinking people are a threat to totalitarianism, globalism, and toxic liberalism.

America’s religious freedoms are under attack more than ever in our history! It has been documented that in 2015 there were 1,285 attacks on religion. That was double what transpired in 2012.  Several groups were targeted, including Christians, Jews, and those of Native American faith. 

Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel of First Liberty, said, “Hostility to religion in America is rising like floodwaters…The flood is engulfing ordinary citizens who simply try to live normal lives according to their faith and conscience.  It is eroding the bedrock on which stand vital American institutions such as government, education, the military, business, house of worship, and charity.”   He continued and warned, “It has the potential to wash away the ground that supports our other rights, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and government by the consent of the people.”  I agree!

If we lose and continue to fail to protect our religious freedom, we will watch the nefarious followers of totalitarianism and globalism fully achieve the fundamental transformation of our republic.  We will discover that our inalienable and previously believed untouchable rights have been infringed and rescinded.  The government will have effectively replaced God (not literally but legally), and we will be forced to comply or face the full brunt of the power of the government to suppress us.  That is not the Republic for which we stand!  That is not the Republic created and established by our Founders.  That is not a biblical view that any believer can embrace.

Religious freedom and living according to one’s core convictions were precious to our Founders.  Let me remind you of something that predates the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  One year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress passed a resolution exempting individuals with pacifist religious convictions from military conscription.

“As there are some people, who, from religious principles, cannot bear arms in any case, this Congress intend no violence to their consciences, but earnestly recommend it to them, to contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren in the several colonies, and to do all other services to their oppressed Country, which they can consistently with their religious principles.”

I cite that to declare that our Founders believed one of the most sacred rights was one’s core convictions or religious beliefs.  They understood and held a deep reverence for our inalienable rights and recognized that there was a Creator, and He gave rights that no human government had the authority to tamper with.  Today, that ship sailed long ago, and those in power believe they and they alone have that power.  They are wrong!

Fearing that I am being too lengthy, I must cite two more references and conclude.  In 1789 George Washington, in a letter to the United Baptists in Virginia, promised that he would fight the efforts of the government to threaten religious liberties.  He wrote:  “If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general Government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution—For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”

Previously in 1785, in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, James Madison wrote: “The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man, and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right…. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society…. [T]he equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us….”

Why are Joe Biden and the Left so hell-bent on destroying our religious freedoms?  I can only speculate, except where they have been open.  I believe it is an admission that they realize that religious freedom, thought, and speech impede their ability to control.  Therefore, it is imperative that we, as Americans, vote out all who hold the views of those who want all religious freedom squashed.  If we lose any of our inalienable rights, we are in danger of losing them all.

God help us to awaken from slumber and apathy and become David’s willing to face the Goliaths of our world.  God bless you, and God bless America!