Presidential Press Conference Challenges Church
In a rare Labor Day press conference, held outdoors, the president announced the amazing news that the unemployment rate had fallen to 8.4%—something even the experts had estimated would take up to a year to attain—and the economy gained 1.4 million new jobs in just one month.
The president went on to, for the first time, use the word “decoupling”—breaking trade relations—when referring to China: “So when you mention the word ‘decouple,’ it’s an interesting word—we lose billions of dollars, and if we didn’t do business with them, we wouldn’t lose billions of dollars. It’s called ‘decoupling,’ so you’ll start thinking about it.” Both the president’s good news on the economy and his strong stand on China reemphasize a true challenge for the church.
According to the United States Election Project, nearly half of eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 election, and there are approximately 94 million Christian voters, further narrowing it down to the fact that according to a study by the Barna organization, nearly 40% of—or approximately 37 million—Christians did not vote in 2016.
A new initiative called Our Church Votes is urging those estimated 37 million to register and vote immediately and every believer to work with their families, friends and more and urge them to register and vote as well. Jason Yates, CEO of My Faith Votes says, “We are trying to reach every church. We are trying to call every church in America that follows Christ, that believes the Bible is true. We’re asking each and every church to engage their congregation and to hold at least one voter registration drive before the elections to encourage and equip the attendees, the members of their church, to be a part of this process.”
Part of the reason believers fail to vote can be traced back to the oft-quoted “separation of church and state” argument, which surprisingly has no legal basis and is not in the Constitution or any other legal document. This phrase comes from an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Church in Danbury, Connecticut, in which he wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
This phrase, unfortunately, has been misused for generations by enemies of the church to imply that Christians should not be involved in politics, going so far as to ultimately give birth to the Johnson Amendment of 1954 that prohibited churches from taking public political sides, giving birth to a view that has taken hold in much of the church that there needs to be a separation of church and state.
In fact, Jefferson meant the exact opposite, and shortly after writing the letter, in fact attended church services that were held at that time in the House of Representatives and in direct contradiction of the mistaken concept of “separation of church and state.” In fact, Jefferson’s view was that the church should clearly affect politics, always remaining true to faith.
According to bestselling author of God, Trump and COVID-19 Stephen Strang, “[Trump] promised he would change the so-called Johnson Amendment, which muzzles churches and nonprofits from speaking up when politics is involved, and he issued an executive order to the IRS to not enforce it.”
Paul urges believers to be involved in culture saying, “Therefore I exhort first of all that you make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).
The fact remains that there are only 56 days left until the most important election since the election of Abraham Lincoln, which will transform America either to a Marxist, communist, anti-Christian nation or continue the unlikely miracle that has brought America back to her roots. We have reaped the benefits of a daily expansion, ranging from the appointment of two Supreme Court Justices to 300 judges to the moving of the American Embassy to Jerusalem to the removal of the Johnson Amendment to the protection of churches to the defense of persecuted Christians worldwide and more. With an unprecedented 80 million estimated mail-in votes—open season for massive fraud—unless the 37 million who failed to vote in 2016 do not stand up and help deliver an overwhelming victory to the restoration of the faith of our fathers, all will be lost. {eoa}
Amir George is the author of Liberating Iraq and directs The World Helpline at theworldhelpline.org.
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